‘Thank you,’ I grunted. I managed to pull my head back and it was a great deal more comfortable. I felt a slight swaying as well as the immense increase in weight, but somehow the fact that all my fellow passengers were so calm was very reassuring.
I took a deep breath and tried to relax. It was then I noticed a decrease in the feeling of being crushed. It was slow, but I could sense the weight coming off, my neck felt more relaxed and I stretched by moving my head from side to side. Not long after that I felt a small wave of nausea and a rush of adrenalin that made me start.
‘You are okay,’ I heard Baahir say beside me. ‘The feelings will pass soon. Be calm.’
I pushed my head forward again in order to thank him, but I felt myself go a little dizzy so I left it where it was. I took another deep breath and this did seem to calm me. Although I was very restricted by the stretchy material holding me in my cavity it was also very reassuring. A great feeling of calmness came over me and I felt very relaxed, tingling all over my body.
I smiled to myself. Whatever else had happened to me since I had arrived in this world, this was the most intense and unusual experience I’d had. I wriggled the ends of my fingers and then my toes. It was only when I did that I realised there was no weight on my feet. My feet were floating inside my shoes. If I pushed down, stretched my feet, I could feel the floor but there was no pressure.
‘Oh blimey, are we weightless?’ I said, not really to anyone, maybe just to myself, but Baahir obviously heard.
‘Yes, you are now weightless. Nice, isn’t it?’
‘It’s bloody amazing, fuck me.’
I could hear a chuckle come from the cavity next to me. It sounded different. I then realised that this was Baahir’s actual voice I was hearing, not a computer voice.
‘I imagine the translator had a little trouble with what you just said, but I’m glad you are enjoying it,’ he said.
My head was now flopping around like a nodding dog in the back of a car on a bumpy road; it was as if my neck muscles didn’t know what to do. I felt another slight judder in the pod, and after a couple of moments the door opened through which Kirsty had slid before we left the ground. This time she slid out and floated in mid air down the space between the passengers. She was smiling and checked small monitors beside every cavity. When she got to me she stopped; her face was almost upside down to mine and although I found this mildly distressing it clearly didn’t matter to her. With a deft flick of one of her legs she turned until she was the right way up.
‘Hi Gavin, how is it going?’
‘It’s just, it’s just incredible,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe I’m actually here. I’ve never been, you know, I’ve never been off the planet. Well, not like this.’
It was clearly taking Kirsty a bit of effort to remain stationary in front of me; she was constantly adjusting her position by holding small hand grips set into the walls of the pod.
‘I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I can explain the procedure if you like. I don’t want to bore you.’
‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘if you spoke about it for a year you wouldn’t bore me.’
Kirsty laughed and allowed herself to float away a little – she did a full 360-degree turn looking like some kind of exquisite mermaid in deep clear water; it made my eyes roll as I watched her graceful body slide about.
‘Okay,’ she said when she finally lined up with me again. ‘So we are presently 110 kilometres above the earth’s surface, we have just unhitched from the Heathrow Tether and we will shortly attach to the JFK tether.’
‘That is amazing,’ I said. ‘I’ve got so many questions, I don’t know where to start.’
‘Well,’ said Kirsty, ‘seeing as we are travelling through daylight, the view of earth from here is pretty spectacular if you haven’t seen it before. If you think you won’t be alarmed I can move you to the view port in the front.’
‘Oh yes please, Kirsty,’ I said. I was almost dribbling with excitement.
‘Some people prefer not to look out which is why we don’t have any ports in here,’ said Kirsty as she pressed something on the pod wall beside my cavity. She put a hand gently on my shoulder and I moved towards her. There was no sense of movement in my body – it was only my eyes that told me this. What surprised me was that my body stayed firmly ensconced in the material that had been holding me in place. I was effectively mummified, a floating chrysalis being guided by a beautiful mermaid.
‘We keep people safety draped because we don’t want you to hurt yourself. We only have a few moments now – we‘ll soon be docking again.’
She gently launched me along the corridor between the other passengers, and as we moved forward I heard a gentle hiss and a small door slid open in front of me. Dazzling light came in through this doorway and I could sense something blue and immense beyond that. It was much lighter in the small space I was entering and before I could speak I could see the reason. Directly in front of me was a meter-wide viewing port and there, glowing with staggering beauty, was the Earth.
I felt a lump in my throat. I actually wanted to cry. Never, anywhere, at any time, have I seen anything so beautiful. I just stared in rapt silence. I could clearly see the coast of North America to my left and a breath-taking view of the Atlantic ocean directly in front of me. Below me, above me? I have no idea but it was there. The intensity of the colours, the formation of clouds, the thin, delicate, life-giving atmosphere were all clearly visible.
I felt a small tug on my shoulder and I moved away from the viewing port and back into the main cabin. Without speech, Kirsty manoeuvred me back into my cavity and I was held back in place. She smiled at me and floated off.
‘How was that?’ asked Baahir.
‘I will never forget that moment,’ I said.
Again, I heard a real human chuckle from beside me. I was so elated I couldn’t even think. I wanted to stare at that vision all day, for ever.
18
My landing in Manhattan took place exactly twenty-one minutes after I left the ground in Heathrow. The actual journey across the Atlantic took four minutes; the rest of the time was spent either climbing or descending the tethers at either end. I only know this because Baahir explained it to me as we slowly got heavier and heavier.
‘We are now sliding down the Manhattan tether,’ Baahir told me in perfect, accentless English. ‘At present we are travelling very fast. I don’t know how fast – many hundreds of kilometres an hour, but you will feel we are starting to get heavy. The last minute is quite uncomfortable as we will be two times heavier than our actual weight as the pod slows down. Try not to be alarmed and put your head back against the headrest.’
‘Thank you, Baahir,’ I said. ‘I love you, man.’
‘That is most kind, sir,’ said Baahir.
When I eventually emerged from the pod I discovered that the tether station was right in the middle of what I had known as Grand Central Station. I recognised it immediately; I could see the familiar central concourse through the impressive glass structure of the pod arrivals lobby.
Kirsty the wonderful attendant – or maybe pilot, who knows? – helped me out of the pod and into a small seating area. I sat down and watched my fellow passengers walk straight out of the lobby and off into the station concourse. A man wearing an interesting long coat with a belt around it bent down to speak to me; he said something in Farsi and shook my hand. I smiled.
‘Hey, Baahir, thank you, man,’ I said. He smiled and pointed to his ear and shrugged. He waved kindly and walked off.
I stared after him, feeling a little confused, until Kirsty handed me my bag and said, ‘Welcome to Manhattan, Gavin.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. I felt all gooey and tingly and for some time I had no idea where I was. All I knew was this incredible woman had guided me through space with such charm and beauty and it o
bviously had an enormous effect on me.
‘I think I love you,’ I said, genuinely feeling that I did.
‘That’s very sweet,’ she said, not in the least offended and, more to the point not in the least impressed or affected by what I’d just said. ‘Now, you’re only staying a few hours so please don’t go too far.’ She checked her book. ‘Your next pod leaves from here and I won’t be on it, and believe me, Gavin, the pod will not wait.’
She then suggested I sit for a while and drink some of the juice I had in the metal bottle.
‘But not all of it,’ she warned with a cutely raised finger. ‘It’s very powerful stuff; you just need a couple of little sips. Save some for your other journeys.’
I thanked her and took two discreet sips. It was hard not to gulp it all down as it was truly delicious stuff and it worked wonders. Very rapidly I felt a lot more grounded.
When I walked out of the Grand Central building a few minutes later, I stared at what had once been East 42nd street but was now what appeared to be a steep bank covered in woodland, more or less a huge park. I stood still as my brain tried to take in all before me. As far as I could see, New York had gone. I saw trees and a few small two-storey, modern-looking buildings on top of a hill in the distance. There was no street. Right outside Grand Central Station was a small stone path and a grass bank. The one thing I did know about New York was that Grand Central Station wasn’t at the bottom of a hill. I stared around me; it truly did seem to be in a dip. Then something caught my eye, and I suddenly saw that the city I once visited two hundred and two years earlier had not entirely disappeared.
Above the line of trees directly in front of me was the top of a structure I instantly recognised: the Empire State Building. It looked so incongruous, an enormous tower standing alone in the forest. Then to my left I saw the shiny spire of the Chrysler building emerging above more dense woodland.
As for steam coming out of the sidewalk, the noise, the bustle, the yellow cabs, the glaring advertising hoardings and the crush of a twenty first century city: all gone. I walked towards the trees and turned to look back at Grand Central; the huge façade was still recognisable, although the addition of two tethers going up through the blue early-morning sky was a dizzying sight, all the more so because I had just come down those same puny threads.
I wandered along the path and climbed the steep slope. When I came over the lip of the hill all I saw at first was a white picket fence. Beyond it several people were working on a garden that stood in front of a row of wooden houses. Not old houses, modern-looking buildings with clearly some kind of solar collector gubbins on the roof. I stood staring – I must have looked like a right nutter but I just could not believe my eyes. No massive hotels, department stores and corner diners, just a long row of two-storey wooden houses with huge and very intensely cultivated gardens in front of them.
It’s not as if the whole place was deserted – there were people about. At that point someone sped past me on a kind of electric bicycle; I wanted to have a closer look but the machine was moving too fast.
I stood glued to the spot when another person passed me, a woman in weird, slightly punk clothing with some kind of callipers on her exceptionally long legs. She was running, but the speed she was running at was enhanced considerably. I wouldn’t want to guess how fast she was going but it had to be well over twenty-five miles an hour. She smiled at me as she passed and I think she said ‘Hi.’
I stood watching her run in a slow arc around me; she was slowing down and I could hear a faint hiss from the contraption she was running in.
She came to a halt in front of me – the leg callipers were clearly acutely tuned as they seemed to flex and push her body constantly.
‘Gavin Meckler,’ she said, a big grin across her broad, tanned face.
‘Yes, that’s me,’ I said, trying to hide my immense surprise.
‘Oh jeepers, I glad to see you. I only just got message, I run here like crazy, you been waiting long?’
I laughed as I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I have literally just landed.’
‘Jeepers I so sorry, Gavin. You must think us rude, expecting you wander around on your own, find Mike. You must think this crazy town.’
There was something about the way she spoke that sounded odd. She had what I recognised as an American accent, but she was speaking in a stilted way, sort of Chinese English, Chinglish I think people call it.
‘You hungry?’ asked the woman. Then she put her hands over her face. Her hands were enormous; I couldn’t tell how tall she was as the leg contraptions gave her some extra height, but she had to be in the six foot six region.
‘So sorry, I not introduce myself. I’m Chan.’
She held her hand out to shake mine, I did so and was alarmed to be reminded what it was like to be a child when shaking an adult male hand.
‘Hello Chan, no, I’m fine thanks,’ I said. ‘This is all very different looking. For me. I mean, what’s happened to New York?’
‘What happen?’
‘Yes, where has it gone?’
‘This Manhattan,’ said Chan, gesturing around her.
‘Yes, but, well, New York. Manhattan. Here, I came here before, a long, long time ago.’
‘How old you?’ said Chan. I didn’t understand.
‘Sorry?’
‘How old you?’
‘Oh, right, um, well, more or less thirty-seven.’
Chan laughed. ‘More or less, me like that.’
She actually said, ‘me like that’ but in a perfectly unaffected way. It wasn’t as if she was making fun of Chinglish, she was just speaking Chinglish.
‘But you mentioned Mike, who is Mike?’ I asked.
Again she put her hands over her mouth coquettishly but it looked so odd. Her hands were so big they almost completely covered her whole head.
‘I so sorry,’ she squeaked. ‘I get message, very simple, Gavin arrive on Pod, can you take him to see old Mike. That all I know.’
‘Who was the message from?’ I asked, feeling a little alarmed.
‘From William at Goldacre Hall,’ she said in a way that implied I was a bit stupid not to know. ‘You know him.’
I nodded slowly, things were becoming clearer, but why had William sent me here to see some bloke called Mike? Then it hit me; this time I put my hands over my mouth. This had to be the Mike I told Grace about. This had to be Beth’s great, great, whatever amount of greats, grandson. I was suddenly aware that a lot of conversations must have taken place in Goldacre Hall while I was busy re-building a digging machine. I was at the same time charmed and slightly stunned.
‘Oh Mike!’ I said. ‘Yes, please take me to see Mike, is he far away?’
Chan looked at me. ‘Not far but you run slow. I carry you.’
She turned her back, a supporting pad dropped down level with the small of her back, it seemed to be part of the incredibly intricate legging calliper things she was wearing. She squatted down in front of me. ‘You jump on, I take you there fast.’
I stood motionless – was this slim young woman really going to carry me, was I really going to jump on and get a piggy back?
‘Are you sure?’ I asked.
She didn’t respond, so I slipped my bag over my shoulders and hopped on.
‘Hold tight to straps on shoulder,’ she said. I saw that the top she was wearing had sturdy straps attached to her shoulders for her passengers to grip, so clearly this wasn’t a one-off idea.
Suddenly we lurched upwards. The smoothness and force of the way she lifted me up was clearly enhanced by the calliper things on her legs, it was so powerful I don’t even think a pumped-up muscle man could have done it faster.
Now, I haven’t ridden a horse since I was a kid, but I don’t think this was like riding a horse. For a start, her ru
nning gait was very smooth so it wasn’t hard to grip on, she accelerated at great speed and thundered down the track. At the start I was just clinging on for dear life but it wasn’t long before I realised I could relax a bit and allow her to support me with her long arms around my legs.
I glanced around as we sped along what could have been Broadway. There were more houses and buildings than I’d ever seen in Gardenia, but nothing like the old New York.
I noticed there were a lot of wooden buildings dotted along the way, not quite in the serried blocks that had once made up the streets of Manhattan. The air was tinged with the smell of the sea, something I’d never noticed when I’d been to New York in the old days. The trees were everywhere but there were more signs of intensive agriculture between the neatly planted rows of aspen.
After a while I noticed something blue through the shrubbery. I wondered for a moment if it was the East River but it wasn’t the right colour blue for water, too bright. As we got closer I established that it was a kind of blue tent. I couldn’t tell what it was made of, but it didn’t look like a wood or stone structure. It looked like some kind of cloth but it was also solid, not like a flappy tent. Chan did the same circular run in front of this blue tent, hopping over a bush as she did so but gradually slowing down. Again the little hiss as the machinery on her legs reduced pressure in some way. As soon as we stopped she squatted back down and I stepped off.
‘Thank you so much, Chan. That was amazing. Are you okay?’
She stood up again and towered over me. ‘It’s no problem, I like to run, my legstras help me,’ she said patting the delicately made framework around her long thighs.
‘Is that what they’re called, Legstras?’
Chan nodded. ‘Yeah, like extra legs, I run very fast, long way, no problem. This Mike’s house,’ she said pointing an incredibly long finger at the blue structure we were standing next to.
‘You go talk to Mike, I wait over there, take you back to Grand Central in a bit, you catch Beijing pod soon.’
News from Gardenia Page 18