Tales From Beyond Tomorrow: Volume One

by Catton John Paul

  "I've read that, and it didn't seem like a love song to me."

  "How about James Joyce? This is his latest work."

  Frankie leafed through a copy of Finnegans Wake and sniggered. "I think she'd prefer something written in English."

  George put it back and turned round to look at the Art section. "How about a nice bit of Wyndham Lewis, sir? Not just Modernism, but also Vorticism."

  Frankie glanced though the thick folio called BLAST! that George handed him, and frowned. "This all looks a bit too masculine to me."

  "You're right, sir, Wyndham Lewis is an acquired taste." He peered at the other books on the shelves, tut-tutting, until he pulled out something with a classically plain gray cover. "She probably hasn't read all of E.M. Forster's works, has she, sir? What about short stories? Quite a few good ones in here. It includes the classic, The Machine Stops – one of my personal favorites, sir."

  "Well, she told me which of Forster's novels she's read, so…hmm. The Eternal Moment, and other stories – that's a nice title. Yes, good idea, isn't it? She can dip into them whenever she's got time. Sitting in the café. On the bus."

  "Reading by candlelight in the Anderson shelter."

  Frankie looked at the shopkeeper quizzically.

  "Just a joke, sir. Just my sense of humor."

  Having found the present he'd been looking for, Frankie thought he'd treat himself with a bit more browsing before the blackout. He soon found himself in the History section, amidst the Classic Civilizations, on the small but always intriguing shelf of Egyptology.

  "Excuse me," Frankie said after a while, "could you tell me about this?"

  He pulled a thick volume from the shelf and held it up. George peered at it through his spectacles; a sly smile crept over his face.

  "Ah, yes. Liber AL vel Legis sub Figura CCXX. Aleister Crowley's Book of the Law. A most interesting choice."

  "I've heard of Crowley," Frankie said, puzzled. "Isn't he that bounder they go on about in the papers? He worships the Devil, or something?"

  "Oh no, sir. Crowley founded his own school of belief, called Thelema, which has nothing to do with Satanism."

  "So what's the connection with Egypt?" Frankie thumbed through the book and stopped at a picture of an ancient stele."Why the translated hieroglyphics?"

  "Well you see, sir, it all goes back to 1904. Crowley and his wife spent the night in the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza…"

  "Good Lord! How on earth did they wangle that?"

  "I don't know, sir, they must have bribed someone in authority. Anyway, after performing certain magic rituals, Crowley's wife went into a trance, and she claimed to have contacted some kind of…supernatural intelligence. A few days later, in their residence in Cairo, they were able to communicate with this intelligence again. It named itself as 'Aiwaz' and dictated the Book of the Law to Crowley. This book."

  Frankie felt his eyes getting larger and larger and tried not to let his shock show though on his face. "That's…extraordinary."

  He turned to the back cover to check the price, delicately penciled in at the top left corner. "But I can't really…"

  "How about I do you a deal, sir? Seeing you're a regular customer, and you're looking for a present, and it is Christmas…three shillings for both this and the Forster."

  Frankie was blushing freely now, despite his efforts to control himself. "Mr…George – I don't know what to say." Hurry up and buy them, you idiot, before he tells you he made a mistake! "Thank you. Thank you so much."

  That night, Frankie pulled the blackout curtains, pinned them shut and began to read the Book of the Law by the light of his bedside lamp. The air raid sirens began their mournful wailing, and soon he heard the throbbing engines of the bombers flying in from the coast, and the crump and roar as the night's detonations began. As he read he felt the building around him shake, and the plaster cracked and shifted uncomfortably in the walls. There was a shelter in the basement; Frankie and a couple of the other lodgers refused to use it.

  When his eyes grew tired, he closed the book and swung himself onto the bed, switched off the lamp and settled down into the thin bedsheets under the blanket.

  I can't make head nor tail of it, he thought sadly. Nut? Geb? Harp-Or-Kruat? The names and the arcane phrasing of the liturgy were a meaningless jumble to him, and his mind kept drifting back to Liz, her face and her dazzling smile, and the question he had planned for her.

  Kiss me goodnight Sergeant Major,

  Tuck me in my little wooden bed,

  We all love you, Sergeant Major,

  When we hear you bawling, "Show a leg!"

  FOUR

  In his dream, Frankie ran across the desert in his effortless, slow motion gait, the setting blood-red sun behind him and his shadow stretching across the dunes. The outline of a huge pyramid stood etched against the blood-red sky. As he came closer, he saw that the pyramid was constructed from enormous blocks of red stone, with many hieroglyphs and relief sculptures carved into its surface. At the main entrance to the pyramid were two giant seated figures in stone, one male, one female. The male held a lotus staff in one hand, the female held an Ankh. The male statue's head was human, a reddish-brown visage radiating power and authority; the female figure bore the head of a hawk upon its shoulders.

  Frankie slowed to a halt and stood before the two statues. He heard a male voice in his head; – – In whose name do you come?

  Frankie did not hesitate. – Osiris.

  The goddess turned her colossal hawk-head toward him. – In the winds of Chaos, she said, arises the turbulence of War.

  – It breaks, whispered the male voice. Down shower the barren seeds.

  Light glimmered in the black interior of the pyramid and Frankie loped inside at a steady pace.

  He came to a large hall with the familiar black and white tiled floor. Torches burnt in alcoves lining the walls, and before him, a dark triangular portal stood framed by two pillars, tapering upwards from their base and marked with three rings around their middle.

  – This desert is the Abyss wherein is the Universe, said the male voice. – The Stars are but shrapnel in that waste.

  Fire ignited deep within the portal. Waves of flame undulated, licking at the walls and illuminating the portal's interior.

  – Yet this desert is but one spot accursed in a world of bliss, said the female voice inside his head. Travelers cross the desert; they come from the Great Sea, and to the Great Sea they go.

  Frankie walked forward into the portal. The flames caught at his robes and wrapped themselves around him like a mantle, and yet he felt no fear, and almost no heat. He began to rise upward, like smoke, as his body was burnt away by the fire.

  – As they go they spill water; they shall irrigate the desert, until it flower.

  The All-Clear. Frankie jerked upright in his bed, his eyes blinking, his forehead covered in sweat as if from the fire in his dream.

  Recently, he felt as if his dreams were like bombs exploding in reverse – shrapnel fragments of imagery, shards of memory, all collapsing back into his mind to form a single, mysterious idea, that he could not understand, or forget. The blackout curtain reduced his flat to the gloom of a cave, but he knew it was morning.

  Christmas Morning.

  Christmas dinner, 1940.

  The canteen of the main building was full of patients who were well enough to leave their beds, and the on-duty nurses were taking plates of turkey and veg to those who weren't.

  Before the feast, they listened to the King's Speech on the wireless at three o'clock. Frankie – along with everyone else in the country, he was sure – felt tears gather as King George commended every British person on their courage and fortitude, and asked them to bear more horrors to come.

  The speech was concluded with the national anthem and a rousing burst of applause from everyone in the room.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, staff and patients of St. Bartholomew's Hospital…"

  Dr. Wheeler st
ood and raised his glass, and everyone followed suit.

  "Merry Christmas!"

  "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!"

  As the patients sat around the table, smiling, cheering and clapping, the staff brought out the steaming plates from the kitchen.

  "Two slices of turkey, each…"

  "Now the stuffing…"

  "On goes the gravy…"

  "No, Mr. Perry, we don't have any cranberry sauce, I'm sorry…"

  "Here's ham, and here's tongue…"

  "Here's carrots, and here's turnips…"

  "Is there any more of that tongue?"

  "More gravy, Miss Follett?"

  "Why, thank you…"

  "Shall I cut up the turkey? You can't use your other hand with it all bandaged up like that…"

  "Oh, you are kind…"

  Frankie kept winking at Liz as they passed each other, carrying plates back and forth.

  "D'you want stuffing, Mr. Deary?"

  "Oi! I'll have none of your sauce."

  "No, but you'll have some of the gravy, I bet…"

  More bottles of wine were opened, Wheeler's private bottles of Port were uncorked, and the gravy, turkey and roast vegetables were gratefully consumed. The War continued to be a subject of conversation but everyone in the room seemed to be a little dazed, intoxicated not on the wine but on the simple fact that they were still alive, that they had made it through the year.

  "Thank you." Frankie set down a dish of pudding in front of Mr. Ridley, who looked up and smiled grimly with his glittering face. Mr. Ridley's face was peppered with glass fragments that could only be removed when they surfaced on the skin. He'd told Frankie before that he kept the pieces of glass in a tin box by the side of the bed, and at the last count he'd collected over thirty of them.

  "Oh no, thank you," said Mrs. Wills, as Frankie tried to lay the soggy dessert in front of her. "I'm full to bursting."

  "Oh go on, Mrs. Wills! Just a taste. We've got enough to go around."

  "You can't force her to have pudding if she doesn't want any, young man." Mr. Ridley looked sternly at Frankie and tapped his walking stick on the floor. "That's how Nazi Germany started, you know."

  "And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Cheeky Chappie, St. Bart's very own…Max Miller!"

  Frankie had collected a rag-bag jumble of clothing from staff, and strolled out from behind a set of screens in straw hat, kipper tie and a jacket two sizes too big for him.

  "Miller's the name, ladies, Miller's the name…now here's a funny thing! A friend of mine just got married recently…"

  "And now ladies and gentlemen, staff and patients…would you all join Dr. Evans, in his rendition of Nellie Dean!"

  The bearded Dr. Evans, head of Pathology and Frankie's immediate supervisor, sang in a stirring baritone while Matron played the piano.

  "There's an old mill by the stream,

  Nellie Dean…

  Where we used to sit and dream,

  Nellie Dean…"

  The washing-up was a huge task which involved a great deal of running about and giving orders as well as washing and drying dishes, and when it was finished, most of the staff went out to the courtyard with their ciggies and pipes, and Frankie quietly asked Liz if she would go for a walk before the blackout started.

  "It makes you feel quite proud, really," Liz was saying. "I mean, you look at the patients, and they seem quite determined. Determined that they're going to get better, and get back to normal, and the Nazis are not going to come here and take their homes away."

  They were walking along Giltspur street. The dusk was falling, and every household was preparing for the blackout, just in case the Germans broke their agreement. Liz had opened the presents Frankie gave her; she was intrigued with the book of short stories, not to mention pleased with the chocolate.

  "Liz, there's something else I want to give you."

  "Not another present! Frank, you'll use up all your coupons!"

  He gave her the small box without a word. She opened it, and looked down at the gold and silver ring that rested on the small velvet cushion. She stopped walking and stared down at it for a long time.

  "Liz, will you marry me?"

  She looked up, and he could see the tears glittering on her cheeks as she reached up to brush them away. "Frank Cooper, you've been reading too many romance novels, you have."

  "Liz, it's Christmas, and we're in the middle of a war. I just thought that if there was ever a time when I could tell you how I really feel…it would have to be now."

  She took a deep breath. She avoided his gaze, looking everywhere around the bomb-damaged street but at his face, and Frankie felt his heart accelerate in panic.

  "Thank you," she said finally.

  "There's no need to thank me."

  "Yes, there is. Nobody's done anything like this to me before and I don't know what to say."

  "You could say yes!"

  She laughed at that, and Frankie felt his panic fade, and turn to elation.

  "Yes, I could, couldn't I?"

  "So was that yes a yes?"

  "Yes. That yes was a yes, I suppose."

  Frankie also started to cry, and they kissed, accompanied by a wolf whistle and a cheer from the ARP warden passing on the other side of the street.

  "Bunga Bunga!" Frankie yelled back.

  And the waters as they flow,

  Seem to murmur soft and low,

  You're my heart's desire,

  I love you, Nellie Dean…

  FIVE

  There were no trains running on Boxing Day, so Frankie went to Norwich to see his family on Dec 27th. Only a one-night stay; he couldn't be away from his national duty for too long.

  His dad picked him up from the station and as they drove through the suburbs, Frankie observed how Norwich had changed. There were huge craters in the parks, roads closed because of bomb damage, and cottages reduced to piles of rubble. Barrage balloons hung on the horizon like great floating elephants. The terraced houses were covered in brown paper, wood and tarpaulin to protect or replace the windows.

  "I'm getting married," Frankie announced at teatime.

  His parents stared at him from across the salmon paste and cucumber sandwiches.

  "Who is she?" Dad asked.

  "You know who she is," Mum fussed. "It's that district nurse."

  "Oh, I might have guessed. Anything for a girl in uniform. Well…congratulations, son!"

  "A wartime romance, eh?"

  Frankie sat quiet as his father drove him back towards the station. He knew he should have felt happy, but he was trying hard to avoid bursting into tears. His parents looked older beyond their years. The corrugated iron of the Anderson shelter in their back garden looked hopelessly inadequate.

  Frankie solemnly shook hands with his father on the cold, drafty platform of Norwich station, as the train came in with a thin haze of smoke.

  "We'll get through this," Frankie said. "We all will."

  Dad stared at him. His lips twitched, but no words came out.

  "Take care of yourself," he said eventually, "and take care of that young Liz."

  Joe brought his concertina,

  Nobby brought the beer,

  And all the little nippers

  Swung upon the chandelier,

  Oh! Knees up, Mother Brown…

  "We've had a quiet day," Wheeler had said, "but I don't think it'll be a quiet night."

  December 29th.

  The sunlight, clear and cold, had surrendered to dusk around four in the afternoon, and at five Frankie climbed up the steep narrow staircase leading on to the roof of St. Bart's for his turn on Fire Watch.

  He lit up a woodbine and watched the lights go out all over London. The blackout was taking hold and the ARP wardens walked up and down streets, shouting at the people inside the houses. Families were picking up their bags, stuffed with toiletries and essentials, and hurrying to the Anderson shelter or the nearest underground station. Below were the extinguished cages
of the lampposts, as cars drove slowly through the streets with hooded lights. The mournful hoot of a tug came from the river.

  Above him, he could see the stars glittering in a cruelly clear night sky, and the moon, casting down pure silver on every target in the city. Bomber's Moon.

  Some time after six.

  A deep, fear-inducing wail struck the air. The air raid siren began on a bass note, almost like an animal roar, rising into a hysterical shriek, reaching full-throated panic at its height, then falling, only to climb again, infecting the ears with its message of run or die.

  Along with the blood-chilling call of the siren, Frankie felt a cold, queasy stirring in his bowels. His stomach and chest thrummed with a vibration sweeping across the land. The throbbing of incoming aircraft. From down below came the whistles of the ARP men – short, piercing blasts.

  Something at the corner of his eye made him turn toward the river.

  Points of light floating above the horizon. Surely that couldn't be right? The blackout – everyone had covered their windows…

  Even so, something moved across the rooftops, lights fading like dying candles. Something on the river. The dark silhouette of a boat, moving silently across the water, and standing on its prow…a giant. A huge figure that towered over the buildings.

  A giant with the head of a jackal.

  Frankie blinked, and the vision had gone, as if the ship and its passenger had slipped across the border from day into night.

  He turned his head, looking from east to west, and saw the first bombers, their silver-winged specks gleaming through the clouds. Behind them…no, wait. He was daydreaming again. There, on the horizon…a swirling spiral of storm cloud. The clouds shifted and folded, hardening into a moving mountain so vast it dwarfed the whole of London…an ever-lengthening darkness in the unmistakable shape of a cowled figure…

  He jumped as the door behind him opened and a figure in white stepped onto the roof, illuminated by the weak light from the stairs. "Oi! Frankie! What the hell are you doing still up here? They said the bombers are targeting the East End and the docks – get down to the basement sharpish!"