I laughed out loud.
‘Men have such crap memories when it comes to things like this! We were standing apart like this and desperately wanting to just touch one another. You put your hand on my shoulder to pretend to point something out and I slid my hand into the small of your back like… so. We didn’t say anything but when we held each other it was like… like electricity!’
We did. It was. The shivers went all the way to my feet, bounced back, returned in a spiral up my body and exited my neck as a light sweat.
‘Well,’ replied Landen in a quiet voice a few minutes later, ‘I think I prefer your version. So if we kissed here then the night in the minefield was—’
‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘yes, yes, it was.’
And there we were, sitting outside an armoured personnel carrier in the dead of night two weeks later, marooned in the middle of probably the best-signposted minefield in the area.
‘People will think you did this on purpose,’ I told him as unseen bombers droned overhead, off on a mission to bomb someone to pulp.
‘I got away only with a reprimand as I recall,’ he replied. ‘And anyway, who’s to say that I didn’t?’
‘You drove deliberately into a minefield just for a leg-over?’ I asked, laughing.
‘Not any old leg-over,’ he replied. ‘Besides, there was no risk involved.’
He pulled a hastily drawn map out of his battledress pocket.
‘Captain Bird drew this for me.’
‘You scheming little shitbag!’ I told him, throwing an empty K-ration tin at him. ‘I was terrified!’
‘Ah!’ replied Landen with a grin. ‘So it was terror and not passion that drove you into my arms?’
I shrugged. ‘Well, maybe a bit of both.’
Landen leaned forward, but I had a thought and pressed a fingertip to his mouth.
‘But this wasn’t the best, was it?’
He stopped, smiled and whispered in my ear:
‘At the furniture store?’
‘In your dreams, Land. I’ll give you a clue. You still had a leg and we both had a week’s leave—by lucky coincidence at the same time.’
‘No coincidence,’ said Landen with a smile.
‘Captain Bird again?’
‘Two hundred bars of chocolate but worth every one.’
‘You’re a bit of a rake, y’know, Land—but in the nicest kind of way. Anyhow,’ I continued, ‘we elected to go cycling in the Republic of Wales.’
As I spoke the APC vanished, the night rolled back and we were walking hand in hand through a small wood by the side of a stream. It was summer and the water babbled excitedly among the rocks, the springy moss a warm carpet to our bare feet. The blue sky was devoid of clouds and the sunlight trickled in among the verdant foliage above our heads. We pushed aside low branches and followed the sound of a waterfall. We came across two bicycles leaning up against a tree, the panniers open and the tent half pegged out on the ground. My heart quickened as the memories of that particular summer’s day flooded back. We had started to put the tent up but stopped for a moment, the passion overcoming us both on the warm ground. I squeezed Landen’s hand and he put his arm round my waist. He smiled at me with his funny half-smile.
‘When I was alive I came to this memory a lot,’ he confided to me. ‘It’s one of my favourites, and amazingly your memory seems to have got most things correct.’
‘Is that a fact?’ I asked him as he kissed me gently on my neck. I shivered slightly and ran my fingers down his naked back.
‘Most—plock—definitely.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing—plock-plock—why?’
‘Oh, no! Not now of all times!’
‘What?’ asked Landen.
‘I think I’m about to—’
‘—wake up.’
But I was talking to myself. I was back in my bedroom in Swindon, my memory excursion annoyingly cut short by Pickwick, who was staring at me from the rug, leash in beak and making quiet plock-plock noises. I gave her a baleful stare.
‘Pickers, you are such a pest. Just when I was getting to the good bit.’
She stared at me, little comprehending what she had done.
‘I’m going to drop you round at Mum’s,’ I told her as I sat up and stretched. ‘I’m going to Osaka for a couple of days.’
She cocked her head on one side and stared at me curiously.
‘You and Junior will be in good hands, I promise.’
I got out of bed and trod on something hard and whiskery. I looked at the object and smiled. It was a good sign. Lying on the carpet was an old coconut husk—and better than that, there was still some sand stuck to my feet. My reading of Robinson Crusoe hadn’t been a total failure after all.
14. The Gravitube
‘By the time this decade is out, we aim to construct a transport system that can take a man or a woman from New York to Tokyo and back again in two hours…’
US President John F. Kennedy
‘For mass transport over the globe there were primarily the railroads and the airship. Rail was fast and convenient but stopped short of crossing the oceans. Airships could cover greater distances—but were slow and fraught with delays due to weather. In the fifties the journey time to Australia or New Zealand was typically ten days. In 1960, a new form of transportation system was begun—the Gravitube. It promised delay-free travel to anywhere on the planet. Any destination, whether Auckland, Rome or Los Angeles, would take exactly the same time: a little over forty minutes. It was, quite possibly, the greatest feat of engineering that mankind would ever undertake.’
VINCENT DOTT. The Gravitube—Tenth Wonder of the World
Pickwick insisted on sitting on her egg all the way to Mum’s house and plocked nervously whenever I went over twenty miles per hour. I made her a nest in the airing cupboard and left her fussing over her egg while the other dodos strained at the window, trying to figure out what was going on. I rang Bowden while Mum fixed me a sandwich.
‘Are you okay?’ he enquired. ‘Your phone’s been off the hook!’
‘I’m okay, Bowd. What’s happening at the office?’
‘The news is out.’
‘About Landen?’
‘About Cardenio. Someone blabbed to the press. Vole Towers is besieged by news channels as we speak. Lord Volescamper has been yelling at Victor about one of us talking.’
‘Wasn’t me.’
‘Nor me. Volescamper has turned down fifty million quid for it already—every impresario on the planet wants to buy the rights for first performance. And get this—you’ve been cleared by SO-1 of any wrongdoing. They thought that since Kaylieu was shot by SO-14 marksmen yesterday morning then you might have been right after all.’
‘Big of them. Does this mean my leave is over?’
‘Victor wants to see you as soon as possible.’
‘Tell him I’m ill, would you? I have to go to Osaka.’
‘Why?’
‘Best not to know. I’ll call you.’
I replaced the receiver and Mum gave me some cheese on toast and a cup of tea. She sat down at the other side of the table and flicked through a well-thumbed copy of last month’s Femole—the one with me in it.
‘Any news from Mycroft and Polly, Mum?’
‘I got a card from London saying they were fit and well,’ she replied, ‘but they said they needed a jar of piccalilli and a torque wrench. I left them in Mycroft’s study and they’d vanished by the afternoon.’
‘Mum?’
‘Yes?’
‘How often do you see Dad?’
She smiled. ‘Most mornings. He drops by to say hello. Sometimes I even make him a packed lunch—’
She was interrupted by a roar that sounded like a thousand tubas in unison. The sound reverberated through the house and set the teacups in the corner cupboard rattling.
‘Oh, Lordy!’ she exclaimed. ‘Not mammoths again!’ And she was out of the door in a flash.
; And a mammoth it was, in name and stature. Shaggy and as big as a tank, it had walked through the garden wall and was now sniffing suspiciously at the wisteria.
‘Get away from there!’ yelled my mother, searching around for a weapon of some sort. Wisely, the dodos had all run away and hidden behind the potting shed. Rejecting the wisteria, the mammoth delicately pulled up the vegetables in the vegetable plot one by one, stuffed them into its mouth and munched slowly and deliberately. My mother was almost apoplectic.
‘Second time this has happened!’ she yelled defiantly. ‘Get off my hydrangeas, you… you… thing!’ The mammoth ignored her, emptied the entire contents of the ornamental pond in one go and clumsily trampled the garden furniture to matchwood.
‘A weapon,’ announced my mother, ‘I need a weapon. I’ve sweated blood over this garden and no reactivated herbivore is going to have it for dinner!’
She disappeared into the shed and reappeared a moment later brandishing a yard broom. But the mammoth had little to fear, even from my mother. It did, after all, weigh almost five tons. It was used to doing exactly what it pleased. The only good news about the invasion was that it wasn’t the whole herd.
‘Giddout!’ yelled my mother, raising the broom to whack the mammoth on its hindquarters.
‘Hold it right there!’ said a loud voice. We turned. A SpecOps officer had hopped over the wall and was running towards us.
‘Agent Durrell, SO-13,’ he announced breathlessly, showing my mother his ID. ‘Spank the mammoth and you’re under arrest.’
My mother’s fury switched to the SpecOps agent.
‘So he eats my garden and I do nothing?’
‘Her name is Buttercup,’ corrected Durrell. ‘The rest of the herd went to the west of Swindon as planned but Buttercup here is a bit of a dreamer. And yes, you do nothing. Mammoths are a protected species.’
‘Well!’ said my mother indignantly. ‘If you did your job properly then ordinary law-abiding citizens like me would still have gardens!’
We looked around at the garden, which looked as though it had been the target of an artillery bombardment. Buttercup, her voluminous tum now full of Mum’s vegetable patch, stepped over the wall and scratched herself against an iron streetlamp, snapping it like a twig. The lamp standard dropped heavily on the roof of a car and popped the windscreen. Buttercup let out another almighty trumpeting, which set off a few car alarms, and in the distance there was an answer. She stopped, listened for a bit and then happily lumbered off down the road.
‘I’ve got to go!’ said Durrell, handing Mum a card ‘Compensation can be claimed if you call this number. You might like to ask for our free leaflet: “How to make your garden unpalatable to Proboscidea”. Good morning!’
He tipped his hat and jumped over the wall to where his partner had pulled up in an SO-13 Land Rover. Buttercup gave out another call and the Land Rover screeched off, leaving my mother and me staring at her wrecked garden. The dodos, sensing the danger had passed, crept out from behind the potting shed and plock-plocked quietly to themselves as they pecked and scratched at the scoured earth.
‘Perhaps it’s time for a Japanese garden,’ sighed my mother, throwing down the broom handle. ‘Reverse engineering! Where will it all end? They say there’s a Diatryma living wild in the New Forest?’
‘Urban legend,’ I assured her as she started to tidy up the garden. I looked at my watch. I would have to run if I was to get to Osaka that evening.
I took the train to the busy Saknussum International Gravitube Terminus, located just to the west of London. I made my way into the departures terminal and studied the board. The next DeepDrop to Sydney would be in an hour. I bought a ticket, hurried to the check-in and spent ten minutes listening to a litany of pointless anti-terrorist questions.
‘I don’t have a bag,’ I explained The woman looked at me oddly so I added. ‘Well, I did but you lost it the last time I travelled. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had a bag returned to me after tubing.’
She thought about this for a moment and then said:
‘If you had a bag and if you had packed it yourself, and if you had not left it unattended, might it contain any of the following?’
She showed me a list of prohibited items and I shook my head.
‘Would you like an in-drop meal?’
‘What are my choices?’
‘Yes or no.’
‘No.’
She looked at the next question on her sheet.
‘Who would you prefer to sit next to?’
‘A nun or a knitting granny, if that’s possible.’
‘Hmm,’ mused the check-in girl, studying the passenger manifest carefully. ‘All the nuns, grannies and intelligent non-amorous males are taken. It’s technobore, lawyer, self-pitying drunk or copiously vomiting baby, I’m afraid.’
‘Technobore and lawyer, then.’
She marked me down on the seating plan and then announced:
‘There will be a slight delay in receiving the excuse for the lateness of the DeepDrop to Sydney, Miss Next. The reason for the delay in the excuse has yet to be established.’
Another check-in girl whispered something in her ear.
‘I’ve just been informed that the reason for the excuse for the delay has been delayed itself. As soon as we find out why the reason for the excuse has been delayed we will tell you—in line with government guidelines. If you are at all unhappy with the speed with which the excuse has been delivered, you might be eligible for a one per cent refund. Have a nice drop.’
I was handed my boarding card and told to go to the gate when the drop was announced. I thanked her, bought some coffee and biscuits and sat down to wait. The Gravitube seemed to be plagued with delays. There were a lot of travellers sitting around looking bored as they waited for their trip. In theory every drop took under an hour irrespective of destination; but even if they developed a twenty-minute accelerated DeepDrop to the other side of the planet, you’d still spend four hours at either end waiting for baggage or customs or something.
The PA barked into life.
‘Attention, please. Passengers for the 11.04 DeepDrop to Sydney will be glad to know that the delay was due to too many excuses being created by the Gravitube’s Excuse Manufacturing Facility. Consequently we are happy to announce that since the excess excuses have now been used, the 11.04 DeepDrop to Sydney is ready for boarding at Gate Six.’
I finished my coffee and made my way with the throng to where the shuttle was waiting to receive us. I had ridden on the Gravitube several times before, but never the DeepDrop. My recent tour of the world had all been Overmantles, which is more like a train. I carried on through passport control, boarded the shuttle and was shown to my seat by a stewardess whose fixed smile reminded me of a synchronised swimmer. I sat next to a man with a shock of untidy black hair who was reading a copy of Astounding Tales.
‘Hello,’ he said in a subdued monotone. ‘Ever DeepDropped before?’
‘Never,’ I replied.
‘Better than any rollercoaster,’ he announced with finality, and returned to his magazine.
I strapped myself in as a tall man in a large-check suit sat down next to me. He was about forty, had a luxunant red moustache and wore a carnation in his buttonhole.
‘Good morning, Miss Next!’ he said in a friendly voice as he proffered his hand. ‘Allow me to introduce myself—Akrid Snell.’
I stared at him in surprise and he laughed.
‘We needed some time to talk and I’ve never been on one of these before. How does it work?’
‘The Gravitube? It’s a tunnel running through the centre of the earth. We freefall all the way to Sydney. But… but… how on earth did you find me?’
‘Jurisfiction has eyes and ears everywhere, Miss Next.’
‘Plain English, Snell—or I could turn out to be the most difficult client you’ve ever had.’
Snell looked at me with interest for a few moments as a stewardess gave a monoton
ous safety announcement, culminating with the warning that there were no toilet facilities until gravity returned to 40 per cent.
‘You work in SpecOps, don’t you?’ asked Snell as soon as we were comfortable and all loose possessions had been placed in zippered bags.
I nodded.
‘Jurisfiction is the service we run inside novels to maintain the integrity of popular fiction. The printed word might look solid to you, but where I come from movable type has a much deeper meaning.’
‘The ending of Jane Eyre,’ I murmured, suddenly realising what all the fuss was about. ‘I changed it, didn’t I?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ agreed Snell, ‘but don’t admit that to anyone but me. It was the biggest Fiction Infraction to a major work since someone futzed so badly with Thackeray’s Giant Despair we had to delete it completely.’
‘Drop is D minus two minutes,’ said the announcer. ‘Would all passengers please take their seats, check their straps and make sure all infants are secured.’
‘So what’s happening now?’ asked Snell.
‘Do you really not know anything about the Gravitube?’
Snell looked around and lowered his voice.
‘All of your world is a bit strange to me, Next. I come from a land of trench coats and deep shadows, complex plot lines, frightened witnesses, underground bosses, gangsters’ molls, seedy bars and startling six-page-from-the-end denouements.’
I must have looked confused for he lowered his voice farther and hissed:
‘I’m fictional, Miss Next. Co-lead in the Perkins & Snell series of crime books. I expect you’ve read me?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ I admitted.
‘Limited print run.’ Snell sighed. ‘But we had a good review in Crime Books Digest. I was described as “a well-rounded and amusing character… with quite a few memorable lines”. The Mole placed us on their Read of the Week list but The Toad were less enthusiastic—but listen, who takes any notice of the critics?’
‘You’re fictional? I said at last.
‘Keep it to yourself, though, won’t you?’ he urged. ‘Now, about the Gravitube?’
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