Sputnik Caledonia

by Andrew Crumey

  ‘Wait please, Brigadier.’ The voice came from the back of the room. All the volunteers turned to see the balding Party observer, his black fur-collared coat still tightly buttoned despite the room’s warmth, and his expired pipe propped in his hand, awaiting relighting. ‘I have a few words to say.’ A small man, he rose from between the armed guards flanking him and walked to the front, displacing the brigadier, who moved deferentially to one side.

  ‘My name is Commissioner Davis,’ he announced. ‘I am your Party representative. I’m here to help.’ He took a box of matches from an inside pocket and slowly lit his pipe. Robert searched with his nostrils for a last hint of Rosalind’s perfume before Davis shook the match to extinguish it, and woody smoke began to rise around his bare head. ‘I’m hardly more of a scientist than any of you,’ he said. ‘Physics, chemistry, biology – those are the divisions and that’s about the limit of my knowledge. In other words I’m on your side, one of the rank and file.’

  As with Kaupff, Robert almost felt as if he might have seen Davis in another life, but knew he couldn’t have. There could have been no forgetting that pipe smoke.

  ‘We are, as you all appreciate, at war. It’s not being fought with tanks on battlefields, but the capitalist-imperialist aggressors are constantly seeking to disrupt our way of life – they want to turn back history, destroy the prosperity we enjoy, undermine the freedoms we cherish. Penetrating the Installation is one of their highest priorities, and don’t think all our security measures can render everything safe. There are spies here. We shot one only last month. It is entirely possible that you will encounter an infiltrator – you could even be sitting next to one right now. Keep that in mind as you do your patriotic duty.’ He took another puff of his pipe. ‘There’s something else I have to tell you, and this comes straight from the top. I know all about the duties you will be undertaking here and I can assure you that they are of the utmost strategic, political and ideological importance. Success will be appropriately rewarded. So will failure. You understand what I mean.’

  The creaking radiator on the wall could do nothing to avert the chill that ran round the room. Davis marched out, followed by the guards, signalling that the meeting was adjourned.

  ‘Well then,’ said the brigadier, toying nervously with his baton. ‘Now we’ve all heard it. This one’s as big as the Bomb, maybe bigger. Just as well we’ve got Kaupff.’ He looked at the men with the pleading eyes of a spaniel. ‘Don’t let me down, lads.’ He expressed what all felt: chance and fate had fallen together across their lives like searchlight beams, selecting them out of obscurity into a position of the most perilous responsibility. Robert ought to have been terrified, yet instead he was buoyed by the carefree elation this new world, by means of some unknown secret ingredient, had somehow instilled within him, while it was the wrong-footed brigadier who blinked with apprehension. ‘Your quarters,’ he reminded himself hesitantly. ‘You need to be taken to the places where you’re staying … I wonder who has the list?’

  ‘I do,’ said the woman who came in from the rear door where Davis and the guards had just gone. It was Rosalind again, materializing like an all-pervading spirit, holding a clipboard. It struck Robert that she must be the source of his new valour: for her he would walk through fire. ‘Gentlemen,’ she said, ‘if you will all now follow me, I shall escort you to the bus.’ They sat waiting for the brigadier to dismiss them but quickly realized that his renouncing of authority was complete, for he gave only a slight rolling of his sorrowful eyes and a wistful craning of his neck as indication that they should do Rosalind’s bidding; so they all rose and filed out past her, and when Robert reached the doorway she gently pulled on his arm. ‘You are invited to dine with Professor Kaupff at eight o’clock tonight.’

  He was taken aback. ‘Thank you, ma’am. But where, ma’am?’

  ‘You will be collected at seven thirty. And stop calling me ma’am.’ She released him so that he could walk on with the others, and he wondered what he should call her instead.

  2

  The six volunteers became more relaxed as they crossed the icy tarmac, Davis having left them in the more pleasant care of Rosalind, who walked behind them to the waiting vehicle, its motor idling.

  ‘Make sure you don’t slip this time,’ said one of Robert’s companions – the fellow who had helped him up earlier. He extended a hand to shake and introduced himself while they walked side by side. ‘John Harvey, Third Armoured.’

  ‘Robert Coyle, Ninth Infantry.’

  Others were chatting too, and when they all climbed onto the bus they arranged themselves in pairs near the front, leaving the seat closest to the driver for Rosalind, who looked round at her charges with the air of a school-mistress. ‘Gentlemen,’ she said, adding sardonically, ‘or if you prefer, lads. We’re going to drop you one by one at your billets, and it will give you an opportunity to see the general layout of the Installation. There are of course no maps here, no street names, no signs. We navigate this place by memory, so it’s quite likely you’ll get lost a few times initially. But believe me, you’ll soon get to know every inch.’ There was a hint of weariness in her voice. She turned and nodded to the driver, who clunked into gear and steered the vehicle around, then headed into the heart of the Installation. Robert wondered how long it was since Rosalind had been outside, beyond the pine-forested perimeter. And what about the bus driver? Would he be going home to his wife in the real world tonight?

  ‘Here’s the main street,’ Rosalind announced, and from the trundling bus the men saw a dull and chilly vista little different from the centre of any small town in the Republic. The buildings were all of equal and recent age, in the plain and functional reconstructivist style that had been the blueprint for countless communities devastated in the final stages of the Patriotic War then subsequently rebuilt. It was all about quality and quantity, Robert reminded himself, and about how each is really a version of the other; though when he thought of his essay at Cromwell, and his lamentable failure in it, he could only laugh with the same distant fondness he already felt for his silly comment in the briefing room. Condensing in his mind like a crystal was the conviction that no matter what happened to him, all would ultimately be well, because wise architects controlled his destiny.

  There were shops along the main street, Robert noticed, though they didn’t bear the signs you would find in the world outside. Instead of ‘Fashion’ – the ubiquitous red-on-yellow design above clothes-shop windows – there was only a blank wooden board surmounting a display of outfits much like Rosalind’s. No doubt this exaggerated anonymity was a security measure; though any spy would easily be able to deduce the nature of each shop, even from frontages so sparse and austere as these. A few pedestrians, women mostly, several pushing prams, were pausing before the shops, and one of the doorways had attracted a substantial queue. The moving bus was the only vehicle on the road, yet no one turned to examine it.

  ‘The cinema,’ Rosalind drawled, nodding towards a squat, flat-roofed brick building whose peeling whitewash made it look older than it probably was. ‘A different programme every night.’ Then, as the bus crawled onwards, she indicated other highlights: the swimming baths, two pubs, a fish-and-chip shop. ‘Oh, and there’s the lending library – though you probably won’t be needing it. Professor Kaupff will give you whatever is necessary.’

  As she turned in her seat towards the window, shielding her eyes with one hand against the glass, Rosalind’s flat-shoed foot and stockinged ankle jutted into the passageway and into the view of Robert and the other volunteers, all of whom studied it with the same immediate and instinctive interest. For a blissful moment Robert imagined the unpeeling of that foot, ankle and leg.

  She turned again, pointing towards the opposite window. ‘The bowling alley,’ she said. ‘You see, lads, the Installation has everything.’ That sly smile again, and now a better view of her legs. ‘Everything you could want.’

  Her commentary finished, she faced primly towar
ds the front and studied the typed list on her clipboard. She murmured something to the driver, who took a left turn past a terrace of identical pebble-dashed dwellings just like any scheme you’d find elsewhere. The bus pulled up in front of one of the houses, whose lace curtain twitched in response. ‘Volunteer Forsyth,’ she said, looking round and scanning the group until she saw the one she wanted: a gangly, horse-faced man grinning in response to the familiar syllables of his name. ‘You may alight.’

  Forsyth got out, followed by the driver, who left the vehicle running while he went round the side of the bus and wheezily opened the hold so that the recruit could retrieve the kitbag which had been stowed there for him. A plump grey-haired woman had emerged from the house, evidently destined to be Forsyth’s landlady. The others watched silently as he shook hands with her and followed her inside. The driver having already taken his seat again, they moved on to the next destination in Rosalind’s list.

  ‘Volunteer Harvey,’ she instructed.

  ‘See you later,’ Robert’s companion said, getting up and offering another handshake before dismounting to be met by an elderly couple. Those two must have spent most of their working lives here, Robert thought, and now their retirement too. The next drop-off points were not far away, and once three more human deliveries had been made it transpired that Robert was the sole remaining recruit.

  ‘Last but not least,’ Rosalind said to him from her seat at the front when the bus embarked on the final stage of its tour. Already the streets were beginning to assume an air of repetition as trivial landmarks that had somehow fixed themselves in Robert’s mind began popping once more into view. ‘We’re going to the Franks,’ Rosalind instructed the driver, speaking loudly enough for Robert to hear now that there were no other passengers. She looked round at him again. ‘I’m sure you’ll have a lot in common with the Franks’ daughter, Miriam. She’s about your age.’ Her eyes narrowed mischievously. ‘Nineteen, I mean, not twelve.’

  ‘It was a foolish mistake, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes, but an interesting one. And I told you already to stop calling me ma’am, or have you forgotten that too?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know your second name.’

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘I mean as a matter of respect.’

  ‘In this place women are usually called by their first names,’ she told him. ‘Surnames, Coyle, are not how we show respect.’ He felt humbled and chastised, and saw on her face the satisfied mark of some minor victory in a larger campaign beyond his ken. ‘You could take her out to the pictures.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Miriam.’ The bus halted, having reached its destination. ‘But don’t forget you’ve got a date tonight with Professor Kaupff – you’ll be collected from here.’

  He got out and saw a house just like all the others they had visited. The front door was opened by a jovial middle-aged woman.

  ‘Goodbye now, Volunteer Coyle,’ Rosalind called to him from the bus. ‘See you later.’ The driver, returning to his seat after handing Robert his bag, closed the automatic door and drove off as Robert’s new landlady came down the path to greet him.

  ‘Well, look at you, Mr Volunteer,’ she said with blunt cordiality. ‘I’m Dorothy Frank.’ She extended a welcoming hand, but Robert was using both of his to clutch his green canvas kit bag, which he was holding upright in his arms like a heavy roll of carpet, obscuring most of his face from the kindly lady to whom he could only stretch the fingers of his occupied right while introducing himself. ‘I expect we’d better volunteer ourselves inside,’ she said cheerfully, leading the way into the house, where Robert dropped his bag on the hallway floor and hung up his coat. The decor made him feel at home – the garish flowered wallpaper, the small framed pictures hanging on the walls.

  ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable here.’

  ‘I will, Mrs Frank.’

  ‘Cuppa?’

  ‘Please, I’m parched.’ He followed her to the kitchen where she switched on the electric kettle and spooned tea leaves from an enamel caddy into a glossy brown earthen-ware pot.

  ‘Hungry too, I expect. They’re in the tin there.’ It was marked ‘biscuits’, and she gave him a small plate on which to put some. ‘You go and sit yourself in the lounge and I’ll bring this in. Then once we’re sorted I’ll show you your room.’

  He did as he was told, settling himself in an easy chair which sagged receptively beneath his weight. A heavy glass ashtray rested on the arm, clean and empty in anticipation of visitors such as himself.

  ‘Here, get some of this down you,’ said Mrs Frank, coming through with a tray and placing it on the coffee table. ‘Did you have any lunch?’

  ‘Sandwiches,’ said Robert.

  ‘Nice, were they?’

  ‘Standard service issue. I really need this tea, though. We sat through a whole long briefing and they never offered us anything …’ He realized he was saying too much. Mrs Frank noticed too.

  ‘My husband Arthur comes home at half-past five and we usually dine at six.’

  ‘I’ll be eating out tonight. I’m being collected at seven thirty.’

  ‘Oh well,’ she said, holding out the plate so that he could help himself to another biscuit. ‘You could always have a nibble with us first if your stomach can’t hold out. I’ve made a coq au vin, you know.’ She announced it with evident pride, going on to explain exactly what coq au vin was, since she was sure her guest wouldn’t know. ‘We don’t get chicken here all that often,’ she added. ‘Or wine. So it’d be a shame to miss out.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can manage,’ Robert said diplomatically. Dorothy had gone to great lengths to make sure his first evening here would be pleasant.

  ‘And I expect you’ll be late,’ she said with an involuntary hint of self-pity. ‘If you’re eating out, I mean. I’ll give you the key and you can let yourself in.’ He drained his teacup with a tip of his head, gritting his teeth against the final wash of unstrained leaves. ‘Now let’s get you organized,’ she said. ‘Your room’s ready if you want to come upstairs.’

  They went back to the hallway and then up the carpeted steps to the landing, where a photograph on the wall showed a recognizable but much younger-looking Mrs Frank holding a baby.

  ‘Is that your daughter?’ Robert asked.

  ‘That was my son James,’ she said. ‘He’s with the angels now.’ Immediately changing the subject, she pointed to the open door at the end of the landing and said, ‘There you are – go on in and set your things down.’

  Doing as she said, Robert found himself in a room that was small and neat, decorated with a feminine touch. The narrow bed was plumped high and topped with a quilted eiderdown. ‘It does get chilly at nights,’ Dorothy explained, watching him prod the bedding’s ample convexity. ‘My husband reckons they didn’t insulate the walls properly when the place got built, but this lot should keep you warm. I can give you a hot-water bottle if need be.’

  ‘It all looks perfect,’ said Robert. The few simple furnishings were luxurious compared to what he had been accustomed to in the regiment. A shelf bore some books and a pretty vase; there was a small table which he could use as a desk. A large old Bakelite radio stood in one corner, the kind whose tuning panel would light up when switched on. The panel was dark, but the pointer could be seen indicating London. ‘Does it still work?’ Robert asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Frank. ‘But it’s pre-war, mind. We’re allowed them here, you know, but …’

  ‘I understand,’ said Robert. Radios made since the Liberation were restricted in the frequencies they could receive – this antique would be forbidden outside the Installation, its use punishable by a prison sentence. Different rules evidently applied within the closed town’s forested perimeter, though Dorothy’s unspoken instruction told Robert that if he were to use the radio he should restrict his tuning to the authorized wavebands.

  ‘And if you should want to use it,’ she added, ‘bes
t not do it after ten o’clock at night when we go to bed. You can hear it all over the house, even when it’s turned quiet.’ This sounded like another subtle message, reminding Robert that nothing in the Installation, lawful or otherwise, was ever completely private.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Frank. If you don’t mind I’ll have a wee bit rest, then freshen up.’

  ‘That’s a good idea – you saw where the bathroom was, didn’t you? I’ll leave you to yourself, then.’

  Robert closed the door and heard her pad away along the landing and downstairs. He pulled off his boots, tunic and trousers, and lay down on the bed in his underwear, soon feeling the draughty accuracy of Mrs Frank’s comment about the chill, though remaining reluctant to climb beneath any of the immaculately arranged and densely packed layers of bedding.

  Nevertheless he dozed, until a noise downstairs startled him. Someone was coming in the front door – he heard Mrs Frank greet the newcomer, and after briefly supposing it to be her husband, realized it must instead be her daughter, Miriam, returning home from wherever she worked in the Installation. Robert got up and pulled on his trousers, then went quickly to the bathroom, carrying his tunic and the towel that had been left for him. From behind the locked door he heard Miriam ascend the stairs. ‘He might be asleep,’ Mrs Frank called up to her in a solicitous stage whisper.