by Unknown
Fran let out a ragged sigh. Even made of fog, he was unmistakable.
‘His name’s Gordon Wren. We were at college together. Art. A foundation course. Just a year, you know, so you can try out lots of things like painting and sculpture and photography, work out what really lights your fire. We were just kids.’
She almost laughed. Here she was at the grand old age of twenty, gazing back through the mists of time to when she’d been just eighteen while here before her was a man of, what, seventy? Eighty? Two hundred and ten? Whichever number she picked seemed entirely possible.
‘And what was it that lit your fire?’
‘I never found out. We started going out together, me and Gordon. He was quiet, thoughtful. I’d never had a boyfriend like that before. I always thought I’d end up a footballer’s wife. For a while it was great, but then he started not turning up to dates, not returning my calls. When I saw him at college he was still sweet, always apologising, telling me he wanted to make it work. But he just didn’t know how. I ... well, I dumped him, I suppose. It wasn’t going anywhere.’
‘You are a person who wants to go somewhere?’
An odd question. Fran ignored it. ‘I should have let him down gently. He didn’t handle it well. We argued. I said some cruel things. Afterwards he started, I don’t know, is “stalking” too strong a word?’
‘I don’t know. Is it?’
For the first time since the attack, Fran gave the matter serious thought. ‘Actually ... it is. I’d see Gordon walking past my apartment but he had to go that way to college. I’d catch a bus and he’d be on it already but ... oh, I don’t know. It was little things. At the time they freaked me out a little. But now I look back...’
‘Coincidences?’
‘Probably. Then again, given what he did to me, maybe not.’
‘What exactly did he do?’
Fran took in a deep, shuddering breath. The dense fog moved into her lungs and out again. She retreated from the fog-Gordon, repelled by the idea she might be inhaling him.
‘The liquid in the bottle was nitric acid. He was aiming for my face. If I hadn’t got my hands up in time I’d have been blinded.’
‘And lost your prettiness.’
Fran held up her hands. ‘I lost that anyway. These might not be front and centre but they’re still ugly.’
‘Hmm. And Gordon?’
‘They found the stuff in his room – the hat and scarf, the bottle. They sent him down. Grievous bodily harm. Three years. It should have been six but he pleaded guilty, showed remorse. It destroyed him, I think. Sometimes I even feel sorry for him. Doesn’t stop me hating what he did. He’s due out after Christmas. Good behaviour. I’m...’ She didn’t finish. She didn’t know how she felt about Gordon being on the loose again. That was how she thought of it: not free but on the loose.
‘And you? Did you finish art college?’
Fran shook her head. ‘I dropped out. Gordon’s brother – Robbie – was good to me, helped me cope. I think he wanted to make up for what Gordon had done. He got me a job washing dishes at the hotel where he worked.’
‘Was that what you wanted?’
‘It was the only job I could find where I got to wear rubber gloves.’
She couldn’t take her eyes off her fog-twin. This was what she saw every night in her dreams, this same scene replayed over and over like a hated song on infinite repeat.
‘I can’t forget it.’ Tears stung her eyes. The sudden surge of sadness took her unawares. ‘I wish I could but I can’t.’
‘Why do you want to forget it?’
‘Are you kidding? I want to forget about what happened that night. Wipe it out as if it never happened. If I could do that then I could ... I could...’ She was dangerously close to sobbing. This wasn’t sadness. It was grief. Grief for two lost years and two lost hands. Grief for everything she now wasn’t. Grief for her life like a death.
The old man gasped. He bent forward, dropping his hands to his knees to support himself. Fran seized his arm.
‘Are you all right? You should sit down.’
His breath buzzed like a mechanical saw. He was shivering with the cold. Behind him, the two fog-people winked out of existence with a pair of faintly audible pops. ‘Give me just a little more time. Just a little.’
It was if he was speaking to somebody else. But there was nobody else there. The oddness of this – all of it – washed through her.
‘Who are you?’ She was sniffling, but that overwhelming sense of grief had ebbed like a fast tide. It would return though.
‘I need to rest.’
The old man’s shivers became tiny earthquakes. His entire body seemed on the verge of some catastrophic collapse.
‘There’s somewhere,’ said Fran. ‘You could probably stay there all night if you wanted.’
He waited while she retrieved his staff. It was heavier than she’d imagined, its pale wood as smooth as glass. She dipped her fingers into the slot near the end, wondering what used to fit there. Not an axe.
A scythe.
She gave him the staff and picked up her frying pan; she was damned if she was leaving it behind. They set off down the zigzag path. Soon they were halfway down the steep cliff face. A wall of sandstone towered above them, its heights lost in the fog and the night. Piercing the rock was a ragged hole, like a broken eye socket. A few metres into the cavity, a metal grille barred access.
‘A cave,’ said the old man. He swayed. Fran had no idea how she’d got him down here without calamity.
She took Robbie’s big keying from her pocket. The cold air made her scarred hands ache; she ignored the pain.
‘It runs all the way up to the hotel.’ The icy metal chimed as she fumbled the keys through her fingers. ‘Comes out in the cellar. It used to be a wrecker’s tunnel. They do guided tours. Anyone can book tickets but there’s a discount for guests. It’s a unique selling point. They call this whole shoreline the Jurassic Coast, you know. Because it’s so old.’
She stopped the sales pitch. As if the old man would care about a dying hotel’s doomed attempts to claw in cash from gullible tourists. As if she cared herself.
‘There are seats just inside,’ she said. ‘Nobody comes down here. It’s unstable.’
‘That knowledge will surely help me relax.’ He tapped the end of his staff against the grille. The sound it made was without echo, entirely dead.
What kind of person carried a scythe around?
She tried a couple of keys before finding the one that opened the padlock. The grille swung open with a rusty squeal. She went to take the old man’s arm, but he was already stepping inside. He seemed a little steadier on his feet. The promise of a resting place, Fran supposed.
It was several degrees warmer inside the tunnel. The walls were grooved deep with the marks of the pickaxes that had cut this place out. There was a row of wooden benches and a rack on the wall holding yellow and red hard hats. A few tools leaned against the rack: a rusty shovel, a couple of coarse-bristled brooms. The uneven floor sloped up towards a black hole. Water trickled down the incline in rivulets, dark as blood.
‘You’ll be okay in here,’ said Fran, knowing she was trying to convince herself. ‘I’ll leave the padlock loose and you can snap it shut when you leave in the morning.’
Assuming the old man woke up still able to walk. Assuming he woke up at all. For the first time, Fran wondered if she should get him to a hospital.
Instead of settling himself on one of the benches, the old man limped towards the back of the cave. Passing the rack, he took a hard hat and settled it on his head, squeezing it tight over his mane of white hair.
‘I wouldn’t wander about,’ called Fran. ‘It’s a bit of a rabbit warren. Anyway, the power’s off; you won’t be able to see where...’
The tunnel lit up.
Fran gasped. An aura of light surrounded the old man: green, yellow, red. It came from the tunnel walls, patterns springing from the rock, intricate swirls an
d filigrees pulsing with energy. The light breathed. It washed the old man; an ethereal shower. It turned his damp fur coat to a glistening pelt, cleansing him.
‘Who are you?’ she said for the third time.
The old man caressed the blazing wall. The light twitched at his touch. He moved his trembling fingertip in a spiral and the light followed, bright and obedient.
‘You say this tunnel was used by wreckers,’ he said. Fran nodded, struck dumb by the spectacle. ‘So it was. Men took lanterns to the beach and lured ships on to the rocks. They plundered the wreckage and carried the cargo up through the tunnel to the house that stood on these cliffs before your hotel was even imagined. The cargo – ah, but it was heavy.’
He brushed his fingers down the seam of his coat. The fur opened. Fran saw no buttons, no clasps; it just peeled apart like the skin of a fruit. Beneath it, the old man was swaddled in leather wraps of many colours: brown, red, green, grey, even silver.
‘Victoria,’ he said. ‘And Albert. Years after the wreckers were gone they came. They brought the railway, opened the spa, named for themselves the clever little cars that scuttled up and down the cliffs. Everything ran on wheels then: the steam locomotives, the striped carts they undressed in before rolling them into the sea, ever bashful, ever careful to protect their precious dignity.’
‘Bathing machines.’ Fran was transfixed. ‘You’re talking about Queen Victoria, aren’t you? And Prince Albert.’
‘The mines were worked out by then. Iron doggers. Red metal boulders. They dug them out, took them away. They stripped the land of its backbone. The sea has been eating it ever since.’
Fran had heard of this. In the years before the railway had brought Victorian tourists to the coast, this whole area had been one big open cast mine. What was this: a history lesson?
‘Iron men too,’ said the old man. He’d started unwrapping the leather from his body, one coloured belt at a time. The red, the green. Christmas colours, thought Fran. But he was no Santa. With each movement he grimaced, clearly in pain. ‘There was a port. The men of Rome took it, as they took everything else. The men of stone had not foreseen this.’
He continued to undress in silence. When he got down to a loose cloth tunic he stopped. The simple white garment made Fran think first of baptism, then sacrifice. As far as she could tell, he wore nothing beneath it. She hoped he was going to keep it on.
‘An old coast,’ he said. ‘If you only knew.’
From the tunnel entrance came the crunch of footsteps. A figure appeared, framed by the grey night outside.
‘Robbie?’
There was a sharp click and the beam of a torch cut through the misty air. ‘Fran?’
He hurried into the cave and embraced her, an awkward gesture. He aimed the torch beam into the old man’s face. ‘Who’s this? What’s going on? What are you doing in here?’
‘Robbie...’ Fran began.
‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ Robbie started forward. ‘The down-and-out. Hey, you – you shouldn’t be in here.’ He hesitated. ‘Why did you let him in, Fran? And what are you doing with that frying pan?’
‘He needs somewhere to rest.’
Robbie’s arm was around her shoulder. She didn’t mind. She hadn’t realised how afraid she felt, how out of her depth. But thrilled too. She wanted to share what she’d experienced: the revelation that there was colour in the world after all, not just infinite shades of grey. She wondered if Robbie, with his black-and-white mind, would understand.
Robbie sighed. ‘This is trespassing, Fran. If we’re caught in here...’
‘We’ve got keys.’
‘That’s not the point. Look,’ he went on, addressing the old man again, ‘let’s get you to a shelter. You look worn out. Wouldn’t you like a proper bed for the night?’
‘Time’s short.’ The old man’s face was pale like the moon. His eyes were tiny stars.
‘Come on, old fella,’ said Robbie.
The moon waned. The stars went out. The torch too. They were in total darkness.
‘What the hell is this?’ said Robbie.
‘Come on,’ said Fran, extricating herself from his grip. ‘We have to find him.’
Ignoring his protestations, she moved cautiously forwards, arms outstretched. The floor was a hard hillside lifting her into a black void.
The palm of her right hand scraped against coarse rock. She hissed in pain but maintained the contact. Feeling her way along the wall, she advanced. From behind her came a thud and a curse: Robbie, following.
The tunnel ascended steadily. Water streamed over the toes of Fran’s trainers. Ahead was a faint green glow. It made Fran think of the deep ocean. She slowed and Robbie blundered into her. ‘Sorry,’ he said. They moved on.
The glow became brighter. The chatter of running water grew louder. It was splashing against Fran’s heels, as if the stream had suddenly started running uphill. But that was impossible.
‘How did you know I was here?’ Fran aimed the question back over her shoulder.
‘I drove back past your flat. I saw you. You’d just crossed the road. I drove on but then I had second thoughts and came back again. Something wasn’t right. I parked up and came down the cliff path.’
‘You don’t normally drive back this way after dropping me off.’
‘The road’s bad at the other end. Subsidence.’ Robbie laughed. ‘My car may be a wreck but I like to keep the tyres in one piece.’
They emerged into a cave so different from the tunnel they’d been walking through that Fran almost cried out. It was like stepping from a coal mine into a cathedral. The walls were a complex weave of glossy rock, smooth stone tubes squirming like the pipes of some vast brass instrument. Stalactites stabbed from the ceiling. Everything glistened.
In the middle of the floor was a bubbling spring: the source of the water they’d been wading through. Except the water wasn’t emerging from the spring; it was draining into it. The water was glowing green.
‘I never knew this was here,’ said Robbie. His arm had stolen round Fran’s shoulder again. She shrugged it off, suddenly intolerant of his touch.
The old man stood beside the spring. One side of his face sagged. A stroke? His fingers twined like the stone knots on the walls.
‘It’s been a long time,’ he croaked. ‘A long journey. It always is. Thank you for bringing me back.’
‘Back?’ Fran’s gaze roamed the cave. She kept spotting new things: a giant stalagmite shaped like a hunched woman; a series of hunting scenes painted on the far wall; beside it a single blue handprint. The pictures looked ancient. She shivered.
‘I think we should get out of here.’ Again Robbie’s hand came to her shoulder; again she rejected it.
‘You asked who I am,’ said the old man.
‘Are you Death?’ Fran wondered how she could be so bold. The old man chuckled.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the one thing I can never remember is my name. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I remember everything else. Everything. Do you understand?’
Fran shook her head. The old man limped over to the cave paintings. He pressed his palm against the handprint. It fitted perfectly.
‘I don’t count the years. Four thousand might be a good guess. It varies. This time round so much has happened, so much.’
‘He’s crazy,’ said Robbie. He started edging back towards the tunnel. ‘Fran, let’s go.’
Fran ignored him. She took a step forward. ‘Four thousand years? Is that how old you are?’
The old man limped back to the spring. Something like a smile turned his lop-sided face into a wrinkled mess. ‘Oh no, dear girl. I am much older than that.’
‘How old?’
‘The numbers are in me. But they’re buried now. That’s the thing, you see. It’s why I’m here.’
‘Please explain. I don’t understand any of this.’
‘I walk.’ The old man raised his staff and spread his arms so that his tuni
c opened like wings. ‘Where I walk, I see. Where I see, I remember. I walk a long way, and see a great many things, and I remember them all.’
‘You remember?’
‘If I don’t do it, who will? The things men do are water. They drain away. If nobody is around to remember them, it’s as if they never existed. Memory alone is what makes them real. So I walk. I see. I remember.’
‘And you’ve been doing all that for four thousand years?’
‘This time around.’
Fran shook her head. ‘What does that even mean?’
‘I am only one man, and one man can remember only so much. I’m full up, dear girl. The time has come for me to let go of what has been. How else can I make room for what is to come? If I don’t, I’ll never be able to remember it. And if I don’t do that...’ His time-torn face collapsed still further.
‘What?’ Fran’s breath was like little thorns in her throat. ‘What happens if you’re not there to remember?’
He didn’t answer. In his silence she saw who he was at last: the old man with the white beard and the white hair, leaning on a staff that had once been a scythe. ‘You’re not Death. You’re Old Father Time.’
Twenty thousand wrinkles doubled to forty. ‘As I said, I can never remember my name. Now, please, enough questions.’
Like a conductor in a concert hall, he raised his free arm and stroked it through the air. His gnarled fingers danced. His head tilted first this way, then that, as if responding to music only he could hear.
Green water gushed up and out of the spring. It gelled in the air, forming a familiar figure. Water-Gordon, his face still obscured by the hat and scarf, was frozen in the act of running, one foot on the ground, the other in mid-air.
Fran heard Robbie gasp.
The old man waved his hand. Water-Gordon filled up with sparkling, darting shapes. The word nymphs sprang into Fran’s head. Then the liquid man was in motion, returned from pause to play. The camera – Fran still thought of the illusion as some kind of virtual cinema experience – followed him.