by Beech, Mark
The meal that David had cooked wasn’t interrupted by anyone’s phone. Sam had explained that Steve was due the next day, and tried to make it clear—he hoped convincingly—that his partner’s absence was due to pressure of work, rather than anything else coming between them. “Except that bloody Tune,” Sam muttered.
“Martin and I have just got new smartphones,” James said. “The Tune is the default ringtone. We like it, don’t we, Martin? We like to have what everyone else has. You’re just old-fashioned, Sam! Since the Prince’s wedding”—James and Martin simultaneously raised their eyes to the ceiling—“when her phone went off like that, when the archbishop or whoever he was, was droning on, well, I ask you, for a start, where could it have been, that dress didn’t leave much room, did it? Anyway, it goes to show that everyone’s just got to accept it.”
Sam looked imploringly at David and Paul. He still wasn’t reconciled to the beard that David had grown since they had last seen each other. David shook his head. “Don’t look at me. I’ve got nothing to say. With Paul, now—that’s different. I gave him the new phone he wanted for his birthday.”
“Which version of the Tune has Steve got?” Paul asked.
Sam shook his head and poured himself another glass of wine. He had been going to explain how the Tune had driven him to despair on the journey from Birmingham. Because Steve had taken the car, Sam had to make the journey by train, changing twice and getting a taxi from the station nearest the house. At his local station Sam had heard the Tune leaking from the headphones worn by at least three people. In the train it had rung out in many different arrangements as passengers answered their phones. At New Street Station it had been adopted as the chime to herald and conclude announcements, and someone on the platform had been whistling it. On the journey to Shrewsbury and on the local train from there it had been the same. And there no longer seemed to be ‘quiet’ carriages on any of the trains... The Tune was playing on the radio in the taxi. Sam hadn’t wanted to ask the driver to switch it off or to change to a different station. He’d consoled himself that it would have been pointless to ask, since the Tune was certain to be on all networks. But at least it had stopped the driver from talking to him: the man had driven as if hypnotised.
After dinner they watched a television programme which tried to demonstrate links between the Tune and an upsurge in disasters and catastrophic accidents. Being on his own in the presence of two couples did nothing for Sam’s mood. After a while he pleaded tiredness and went to his room. His head was beginning to ache: a subdued throbbing had taken root behind his forehead. As he washed, he could hear the Tune, although he wasn’t sure whether it was coming from the television downstairs or his mind.
Sam switched off the light on the table by the side of the bed he had claimed, and padded over to the window. The wooden floor was cool under his bare feet, but he welcomed the sensation. He wondered what Steve was doing. He knew what Steve would usually be doing at this time, if they had been at home together. Sam’s eyes watered as, for a moment, he wished that he and Steve were with each other, no matter where that was. He pulled the curtains back and opened the window. In the cold night air Sam blinked away the half-formed tears and leaned out, looking up as he awaited the sharp clarity of the stars.
The next morning after breakfast Sam decided to go for a walk. It was bright and chilly: the sky had remained clear throughout the night.
“I expect Steve will be here when you get back,” David said. He patted Sam’s shoulder. “You both need to get away.”
“Too right—and from everything. Just some genuinely quiet time together would do.” Sam opened the front door and stepped out into the crisp air.
An hour or so later Sam stood at the highest point of one of the rounded hills. He shaded his eyes from the brilliant sunshine. The first frost of autumn retreated as the remaining patches of shadow shifted and contracted. Relaxing, he told himself that he couldn’t see any evidence of humanity—hastily disregarding the collage of the landscape itself its layers of fields and woods, its networks of lanes and paths. At that moment no car windscreen glinted in the sun and no smoke rose into the blue heights of air. He saw no roofs, no buildings at all. Sam smiled as he imagined himself as the last man on earth—or the first. No sounds filtered up from the rumpled quilt of countryside thrown out below him. He stood perfectly still, ready—
Gradually the joyful illusion thinned out somewhat as reality filtered back. Sam looked out over the same panorama, but it bodied-out as he watched, like a photograph developing into being. Now cars on the distant main road caught the sun, and a cluster of red roofs now nestled by a clump of almost bare trees. He sighed. The air had warmed enough so that he no longer saw his breath. Now threads of smoke drifted from hidden chimneys; now the muted whirring of a motorbike floated up to him. A train gathered speed and its horn blared. There seemed to be too many notes, but as they were swallowed by the air Sam couldn’t be sure exactly what he had heard. The Tune was back in his head. And he was back in the world again.
When Sam got back to the house he could tell that Steve had still not arrived. Only the one car was still parked outside, and it wasn’t theirs. Sam had switched on his phone as he tramped up the drive from the lane, but it had not responded to his touches. There was no way for him to check for missed calls or text messages.
Paul tried to reassure him. “I’m sure everything’s OK,” he said. “The phone networks are all down, but Steve must be on his way by now. He always does what he says.”
Martin and James were in the sitting room, hunched over a laptop. “Phones are down, and so is my internet provider,” James said. He slapped the screen, making it quiver. “The whole thing’s just seized up. It played the Tune and went blank. It’s frozen up. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as if the entire capacity of the world has been overwhelmed all at once. Probably there’s some crappy new video just out and every kid from Greenland to Tasmania is trying to watch it at once.”
“Adults are just as bad,” Sam said, as he slumped down on a sofa. An image popped up in his head: a wide expanse of ice, a waste punctured by jagged black rocks and framed by glittering white cliffs; a sinuous aurora wailing and undulating in front of a powdering of unmoving stars.
Then Sam realised Martin was talking to him. “That’s not funny. When the internet goes, the world goes with it. We’d be—”
“We’d be quiet for a few days,” David said, walking into the room. “No Tune, no nothing. Sam will be happy then.”
After lunch they decided to take Paul’s car and drive to Leominster. David opted to stay behind to welcome Steve when he arrived. But the car wouldn’t start. They stood outside the garage. “The software’s dead as a dodo,” Paul muttered. “The engine can’t respond. Bloody new cars.” The other two cars could not be started either.
“We can’t even phone the garage,” David said. “Not with the networks down. I knew we should’ve kept the landline.”
Paul decided to walk to their neighbours’ house a mile or so away. When he’d last been there he’d seen a landline phone in the hall, and he knew they still had an analogue radio. An hour or so later he was back.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table. “Their old phone looked OK, but as soon as they picked it up... The dialling tone had changed. It was the Tune.” He whistled the notes, as if doing so would clear it from his mind, even as it was released into the house to invade everyone else’s minds. “No TV, of course, now it’s all digital. And the radio stopped working even as we listened. There was a news programme telling us what we’d worked out for ourselves, but saying it was worldwide. Networks down everywhere, anything with software malfunctioning, like a virus had taken over. The conspiracy people are going to love it. They said world leaders are going to get together, but then the radio faded out. All the stations are dead.”
Sam could barely take in what Paul said. It all seemed so unlikely, so wrong, as familiar sunshine
poured in and washed over the pale scrubbed table, its wood warm to the touch. “I’m getting very worried about Steve,” he said. “Perhaps I should go out and look for him. Maybe the car’s broken down and he’s stuck on the main road somewhere.”
“That’s very likely it,” David said. “But I think it’d be best if you stayed here. Steve knows where to come. He knows where you’ll be. Chances are if you go out you’ll be wandering around and get lost when it’s dark. Nothing seems the same at night. And you wouldn’t be here when Steve does finally make it.” He looked at Paul. “I think we all need a cup of tea.”
Paul filled the kettle and switched it on. Then he swore. “It’s not working,” he said. He tried the light switch and nothing happened. “Oh, brilliant. No power. Just what we need.” He went to a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. He sloshed some into glasses. “This’ll have to do instead.”
Sam ignored the glass Paul had pushed towards him and got up. “I need to be doing something. I’m going out for another walk. I’ll just walk to the main road and the level crossing. It’s not too far.” He took out his phone and flung it on the table. It bounced, falling to the floor. The phone sprang apart, its components clattering across the tiles.
The sun had reached the meridian. The chill of the morning had evaporated, and the sunlight was warm on Sam’s face. He squinted. A light breeze ruffled his hair, and he pushed it back from his eyes. At the end of the drive he stopped, to see if any cars were coming along the lane. He listened intently, but could hear nothing except for birdsong. He realised he hadn’t heard a tractor or aeroplane since he’d arrived.
The main road was empty of traffic. The ribbon of tarmac rolled away on either side of him. Sam began to walk in the direction of the level crossing with its knot of houses clinging to the edge of the road. He knew the railway station wasn’t staffed, but he remembered there was a small café nearby. Several years ago—before he had met Steve—he had been driving to Hereford and had stopped at the café for a cup of coffee. Perhaps the people there would have some news.
Slowly, a throaty roaring sound began to intrude into Sam’s reverie. Instinctively he edged closer in to the grass verge. It was definitely a vehicle: a car or motorcycle whose engine couldn’t have been tuned for years. It grew louder, coming towards him. Then, bursting into sight out of a shallow bend, the car flew at him. Sam tried to wave it down, but the old monster roared on past as if something even more terrible were in pursuit. The cloud of exhaust fumes, silver-grey against the yellow and gold of the hedge, slowly dispersed. Sam coughed until he breathed fresh air once more.
The gates of the level crossing were smashed. A few fragments were scattered across the road, but most of the wreckage was spread along the railway track. The gates must have been closed across the railway and a train had struck them. There was no sign of the locomotive or carriages: clearly the gates had not been substantial enough to derail it or cause any serious damage. There was nobody about. The road was as deserted here as it had been near the house. The café was closed. Now Sam felt that nothing else could surprise him—except for Steve’s arrival. Then something gave way and he started to cry, and for a few moments he wanted to sit down and abandon himself to tears. But he also wanted to keep moving, and the tears ended up doing no more chan dampening his eyes. Grimacing, Sam knew it was just as well. There seemed to be no possibility of comfort.
As Sam trudged back, he knew for sure that the world had changed decisively. All around him it had happened, with no reference to him or anyone or anything he loved or counted as important. Outwardly, the change was not in the westering sun or the crouching hills. Red and gold leaves fluttered down from the trees and already the air was sharpening with the approach of dusk. “It’s later than you think,” Sam said out loud. He tried to whistle the tune he knew fitted the words, but it was the Tune that emerged from his lips. A torrent of birdsong took up and repeated the Tune until it disintegrated into orphaned notes before silence. As he walked, Sam felt for the first time in his life that there was no place of retreat for him, that he had nowhere—at all—to go. He was not welcome in the world anymore. Perhaps nobody was.
Back at the house Sam told his friends what he had seen and heard. Paul had opened a bottle of wine, but Sam asked for a cup of coffee.
David said, “We’ve got no gas now, either. I thought we could build a fire, in the sitting room. That’ll be the only way to heat water and cook food. It’s closest to the well, too. I never thought we’d want to use that! There’s a lot of food in the freezer, so we’d better cook as much of it as we can before it goes bad. The power could be off for quite a while. Luckily we kept that big old fireplace, and wood isn’t in short supply. And we’ve got a decent stock of candles.”
“Steve would’ve liked to have had a go at building a fire,” Sam said. “I’ll do it, if you like. I want something to do. The sun will be behind the trees sooner than we think.” He looked around the kitchen. The room seemed to grow dimmer as he glanced at each of his friends. Their faces were ready to fade into grey.
“There’s kindling and newspapers, and some dry logs,” David said. “Better go easy on those. We can get more wood tomorrow and put it in the garage. Just as well it’s not yet getting very cold at night.”
Paul snorted. “David’s got plenty of books we could burn,” he said. “And we could all cuddle up together if we feel cold. It’s times like this when I wish we hadn’t moved out to this place. It’s in the middle of nowhere, nothing’s working, there’s no-one around, and it’s getting dark!”
“We’ve still got plenty of booze, too,” James said quietly. “Come on, Sam, I’ll help you.”
They sat around the fire. Between them they had been able to cook some rapidly defrosting cuts of meat, and boil potatoes. Together with melting ice-cream and three bottles of wine, they had made a good meal for themselves under the circumstances.
James licked his fingers. “I could do this more often,” he said, sitting back as the firelight played over his unshaven face.
“You might have to,” Martin said. “David tried the power just now and it’s still off. It’s totally black outside. It must’ve been like this in ancient times. Or not so ancient times, actually.”
Sam finished his glass of wine and got up. “It won’t be totally black outside,” he said. “There’ll be stars. And the Milky Way. I’m going outside to look.” He pulled on his coat.
“I might be gone for some time,” Martin said. “Or something like that.” They laughed dutifully.
“Better be careful,” Paul said. “There’s one hell of a lot of nature out there. Pagans or whatever they call themselves must be loving this. Maybe it’s time to get into a bit of nature worship, eh, Sam?”
Sam thought about what Paul had said. Outside in the dark, under the stars and the broken river of the Milky Way, the idea of worship didn’t seem at all ridiculous. He remembered school assemblies, and flinched inwardly. But out here, and now... Some sort of worship, adoration, contemplation, recognition of being in some sort of presence... However he considered it, it would be the right thing to do. Then Sam had the idea that it would also be the safe thing to do. He continued to stand in the middle of the lawn, keeping himself as motionless as he could. Except for the stars there was no light. He could have been standing in a black sphere. At length he was able to make out the line of trees, but that was due more to what the shapes obscured rather than sight of the trees themselves. The wider horizon delineated itself in the same way, bodying itself out of the night and becoming distinguishable—barely—from the sky.
Not a thing moved. There was nothing between him and the stars. Sam dropped to his knees. There was the crunch of frosty grass, the jolt of cold hard ground, and then he felt the dampness soaking through his jeans. He leaned forward, pressing his palms to the grass and inhaling the piercing scents of earth and growth. He wanted to bathe his face in the frost and the dew, to drink it down. He knew that in any other time
and place than now and here he would have been highly embarrassed. If he’d seen someone else do it he wouldn’t have known where to look. Sam had never much cared for seeing people—whether friends or strangers—displaying enthusiasm or being demonstrative towards each other; that was one trait his being with Steve had begun to change. It was the same with obviously sincere and well-meaning acts such as public worship. But this was not that outward and merely pious sort of worship, and he would not have wished to refer to his act as being worship, despite its appearance and his motivation.
Sam stood up and wiped his face with the cold palms of his hands. He licked the remaining dew from them. Then he gazed up again. The constellations spread out across the heavens. He quickly located Polaris. Then he bowed once to it, and then once to the west, south, and east. Why he did so in that order, he didn’t know: it just happened that way, and was right. Once again Sam imagined someone—like him—watching and making no sense of what he saw. It still didn’t matter. Sam thought that perhaps this was how people felt when they found religion: nothing else mattered, and what anybody else thought didn’t matter, just as long as they had been noticed and embraced. And then he was sure that it was so.
Yes, it was so, it was so. The stars regarded him, looking down at him, blinking and flickering as they stooped to notice him. Sam stared back. He felt the earth turning under his feet, its headlong course around the sun and through space. For a moment he felt giddy and nauseous, as if he’d been spinning himself around and around, something that only a child would do. Maybe that was also right, under the sky, under the scattered diamonds of stars.
Now Sam knew there was a test for him to undergo. It was his task to walk back indoors, to return to his friends, to pick up where he had left off before he’d come outside—and still to keep alive in his heart what had been revealed to him.