Ben smiled. ‘We’ll see.’ Then he pointed up the slope. ‘I think they’ve almost finished. That’s the third of the isolation skins.’
Shepherd turned and looked back up the slope. The cottage was fully encased now, its cosy shape disguised by the huge, white insulating layers. Only at the front, where the door to the garden was, was its smooth, perfectly geometric shape broken. There they had put the seal-unit; a big cylinder containing the air-pump and the emergency generator.
A dozen suited men were fastening the edges of the insulator to the brace of the frame. The brace was permanently embedded in the earth surrounding the cottage; a crude, heavy piece of metal a foot wide and three inches thick with a second, smaller ‘collar’ fixed by old-fashioned wing-screws to the base.
The whole strange apparatus had been devised by Ben’s great-great-greatgrandfather, Amos – the first of the Shepherds to live here – as a precaution against nuclear fallout. But when the Great Third War – ‘The War To End It All’ as the old man had written in his journal – had failed to materialize, the whole cumbersome isolation unit had been folded up and stored away, only the metal brace remaining, for the amusement of each new generation of Shepherd children.
‘Gift-wrapped!’ Shepherd joked, beginning to climb the slope.
Ben, following a few paces behind, gave a small laugh, but it was unrelated to his father’s comment. He had had an insight. It had been Amos who had designed City Earth. His preliminary architectural sketches hung in a long glass frame on the passage wall inside the cottage, alongside a framed cover of the best-selling PC game, World Domination, he’d created.
Nearer the cottage the soldiers had set up an infestation grid, the dull mauve light attracting anything small and winged from the surrounding meadows. Ben stood and watched as a moth, its wings like the dull gauze of an old and faded dress, its body thick and stubby like a miniature cigar, fluttered towards the grid. For a moment it danced in the blue-pink light, mesmerized by the brightness, its translucent wings suffused with purple. Then its wing-tip brushed against the tilted surface. With a spark and a hiss the moth fell, senseless, into the grid, where it flamed momentarily, its wings curling, vanishing in an instant, its body cooking to a dark cinder.
Ben watched a moment, conscious of his own fascination; his ears filled with the brutal music of the grid – the crack and pop and sizzle of the dying creatures, his eyes drawn to each brief, sudden incandescence. And in his mind he formed a pattern of their vivid after-images against the dull mauve light.
‘Come, Ben. Come inside.’
He turned. His mother was standing in the doorway, beckoning to him. He smiled then sniffed the air. It was filled with the tart, sweet scent of ozone and burnt insects.
‘I was watching.’
‘I know.’ She came across to him and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s horrible, isn’t it? But necessary, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’
But he meant something other by the word: something more than simple agreement. It was both horrible and necessary, if only to prevent the spread of the disease throughout the Domain; but it was just that – the horrible necessity of death – that gave it its fascination. Is all of life just that? he asked himself, looking away from the grid, out across the dark, moonlit water of the bay. Is it all merely one brief erratic flight into the burning light? And then nothing?
Ben shivered, not from fear or cold, but from some deeper, more complex response, then turned and looked up at his mother, smiling. ‘Okay. Let’s go inside.’
The captain of the work party watched the woman and her son go in, then signalled to his men to complete the sealing-off of the cottage. It was nothing to him, of course – orders were orders – yet it had occurred to him several times that it would have been far simpler to evacuate the Shepherds than go through with all this nonsense. He could not for the life of him understand why they should wish to remain inside the cottage while the Domain was dusted with poisons. Still, he had to admit, it was a neat job. Old man Amos had known what he was up to.
He walked across and inspected the work thoroughly. Then, satisfied that the seal was airtight, he pulled the lip-mike up from under his chin. ‘Okay. We’re finished here. You can start the sweep.’
Six miles away, at the mouth of the estuary, the four big transporters, converted specially for the task, lifted one by one from the pad and began to form up in a line across the river. Then, at a signal, they began, moving slowly down the estuary, a thin cloud – colourless, like fine powdered snow – drifting down behind them.
Chapter 37
AUGUSTUS
It was just after ten in the morning, yet the sun already blazed down from a vast, deep blue sky that seemed washed clean of all impurities. Sunlight burnished the surface of the grey-green water, making it seem dense and yet clear, like melted glass. The tide was high but on the turn, lapping sluggishly against the rocks at the river’s edge.
In midstream Meg let Ben take the oars from her, changing seats with him nimbly as the boat drifted slowly about. Then she sat back, watching him as he strove to right their course, his face a mask of patient determination, the muscles of his bare, tanned arms tensing and untensing. Ben clenched his teeth then pulled hard on the right-hand oar, turning the prow slowly towards the distant house, the dark, slick-edged blade biting deep into the glaucous, muscular flow as he hauled the boat about in a tight arc.
‘Are you sure it’s all right?’
Ben grimaced, concentrating, inwardly weighing the feel of the boat against the strong pull of the current. ‘She’ll never know,’ he answered. ‘Who’ll tell her?’
It wasn’t a threat. He knew he could trust her to say nothing to their mother. Meg looked down briefly, smiling, pleased that he trusted her. Then she sat there, quiet, content to watch him, to see the broad river stretching away beyond him, the white-painted cottages of the village dotted against the broad green flank of the hill, while at her back the house grew slowly nearer.
Solitary, long abandoned, it awaited them.
The foreshore was overgrown. Weeds grew waist-high in the spaces between the rocks. Beyond, the land was level for thirty yards or so then climbed, slowly at first, then steeply. The house wasn’t visible from where they stood, in the cool beneath the branches, and even further along, where the path turned, following the contours of the shoreline, they could see only a small part of it, jutting up, white between the intense green of the surrounding trees.
The land was strangely, unnaturally silent. Meg looked down through the trees. Below them, to their right, was the cove, the dark mouth of the cave almost totally submerged, the branches of the overhanging trees only inches above the surface of the water. It made her feel odd. Not quite herself.
‘Come on,’ said Ben, looking back at her. ‘We’ve not long. Mother will be back by two.’
They went up. A path had been cut from the rock. Rough-hewn steps led up steeply, hugging an almost sheer cliff face. They had to force their way through a tangle of bushes and branches. At the top they came out into a kind of clearing. There was concrete underfoot, cracked but reasonably clear of vegetation. It was a road. To their left it led up into the trees. To their right it ended abruptly, only yards from where they stood, at an ornate cast-iron gate set into a wall.
They went across and stood there, before the gate, looking in.
The house lay beyond the gate; a big, square, three-storey building of white stone, with a steeply pitched roof of grey slate. They could see patches of it through the overrun front garden. Here, more noticeably than elsewhere, nature had run amok. A stone fountain lay in two huge grey pieces, split asunder by an ash that had taken seed long ago in the disused fissure at its centre. Elsewhere the regular pattern of a once elaborate garden could be vaguely sensed, underlying the chaotic sprawl of new growth.
‘Well?’ she said, looking up at him. ‘What now?’
The wall was too high to climb. The gate seemed strong and solid, wit
h four big hinges set into the stone. A big, thick-linked steel chain was wrapped tightly over the keyhole, secured by a fist-sized padlock.
Ben smiled. ‘Watch.’
Taking a firm hold of two of the upright bars, he shook the gate vigorously, then gave it one last sharp forward thrust. With a crash it fell inward, then swung sideways, twisting against the restraining chain.
Ben stepped over it, then reached back for her. ‘The iron was rotten,’ he said, pointing to the four places in the stone where the hinges had snapped sheer off.
She nodded, understanding at once what he was really saying to her. Be careful here. Judge nothing by its appearance.
He turned from her.
She followed, more cautious now, making her way through the thick sprawl of greenery towards the house.
A verandah ran the length of the front of the house. At one end it had collapsed. One of the four mock-doric pillars had fallen and now lay, like the broken leg of a stone giant, half-buried in the window frame behind where it had previously stood. The glass-framed roof of the verandah was cracked in several places where branches of nearby trees had pushed against it, and the whole of the wooden frame – the elaborately carved side pieces, the stanchions, rails and planking-was visibly rotten. Ben stood before the shallow flight of steps that led up to the main entrance, his head tilted back as he studied the frontage.
‘It’s not what I expected,’ he said as she came alongside him. ‘It seems a lot grander from the river. And bigger. A real fortress of a place.’
She took his arm. ‘I don’t know. I think it is rather grand. Or was.’
He turned and looked at her. ‘Did you bring the lamp?’
She nodded.
‘Good. Though I doubt there’ll be much to see. The house has been boarded up more than eighty years now.’
She was silent a moment, thoughtful, and knew he was thinking the same thing. Augustus. The mystery of this house had something to do with their great-uncle, Augustus.
‘Well?’ she prompted after a moment. ‘Shall we go inside?’
‘Yes. But not this way. There’s another door round the side. We’ll get in there, through the kitchens.’
She stared at him a moment, then understood. He had already studied plans of the old house. Which meant he had planned this visit for some while. But why this morning? Was it something to do with the soldiers’ deaths? Or was it something else? She knew they had had a visitor last night, but no one had told her who it was or why they’d come. Whatever, Ben had seemed disturbed first thing when she had gone to wake him. He had been up already. She had found him sitting there, hunched up on his bed, his arms wrapped about his knees, staring out through the open window at the bay. That same mood was on him even now as he stood there looking up at the house.
‘What exactly are we looking for?’
‘Clues…’
She studied his face a moment longer but it gave nothing away. His answer was unlike him. He was always so specific, so certain. But today he was different. It was as if he was looking for something so ill defined, so vaguely comprehended that even he could not say what it was.
‘Come on, then,’ he said suddenly. ‘Let’s see what ghosts we’ll find.’
She laughed quietly, that same feeling she had had staring down at the cove through the trees – that sense of being not quite herself – returning to her. It was not fear, for she was never afraid when she was with Ben, but something else. Something to do with this side of the water. With the wildness here. As if it reflected something in herself. Some deeper, hidden thing.
‘What do you think we’ll find?’ she called out to him as she followed him, pushing through the dense tangle of bushes and branches. ‘Have you any idea at all?’
‘None,’ he yelled back. ‘Maybe there’s nothing at all. Maybe it’s an empty shell. But then why would they board it up? Why bother if it’s empty? Why notjustleaveittorot?’
She caught up with him. ‘From the look of it it’s rotted anyway.’
Ben glanced at her. ‘It’ll be different inside.’
A broad shaft of daylight breached the darkness. She watched Ben fold the shutter into its recess, then move along to release and fold back another, then another, until all four were open. Now the room was filled with light. A big room. Much bigger than she’d imagined it in the dark. A long wooden worksurface filled most of the left-hand wall, its broad top cleared. Above it, on the wall itself, were great tea-chest-sized oak cupboards. At the far end four big ovens occupied the space, huge pipes leading up from them into the ceiling overhead. Against the right-hand wall, beneath the windows, was a row of old machines and, beside the door, a big enamel sink.
She watched Ben bend down and examine the pipes beneath the sink. They were green with moss, red with rust. He rubbed his finger against the surface of one of them, then put the finger gingerly to his lips. She saw him frown then sniff the finger, his eyes intense, taking it all in.
He turned, then, surprisingly, he laughed. ‘Look.’
There, in the middle of the white-tiled floor, was a beetle. A rounded, black-shelled thing the size of a brooch.
‘Is it alive?’ she asked, expecting it to move at any moment.
He shrugged, then went across and picked it up. But it was only a husk, the shell of a beetle. ‘It’s been dead years,’ he said.
Yes, she thought, maybe since the house was sealed.
There was another door behind them, next to an old, faded print that was rotten with damp beneath its mould-spattered glass. Beyond the door was a narrow corridor that led off to the right. They went through, moving slowly, cautiously, side by side, using their lamps to light the way ahead.
They explored, throwing open the shutters in each of the big rooms, but there was nothing. The rooms were empty, their dusty floorboards bare, only the dark outlines of long-absent pictures interrupting the blankness of the walls.
No sign of life. Only the husk, the empty shell of what they’d come for.
Augustus. Not Amos’s son, Augustus, but his namesake. His grandson. No one talked of that Augustus. Yet it was that very absence that made him so large in their imaginations. Ever since Ben had first found that single mention of him in the journals. But what had he been? What had he done that he could not be talked of?
She shivered and looked at Ben. He was watching her, as if he knew what she was thinking.
‘Shall we go up?’
She nodded.
Upstairs it was different. There the rooms were filled with ancient furniture, preserved under white sheets, as if the house had been closed up for the summer, while its occupant was absent.
In one of the big rooms at the front of the house, Meg stood beside one of the huge, open shutters, staring out through the trees at the river. Light glimmered on the water through gaps in the heavy foliage. Behind her she could hear Ben, pulling covers off chairs and tables, searching, restlessly searching for something.
‘What happened here?’
Ben stopped and looked up from what he was doing. ‘I’m not sure. But it’s the key to things. I know it is.’
She turned and met his eyes. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because it’s the one thing they won’t talk about. Gaps. Always look for the gaps, Meg. That’s where the truth is. That’s where they hide all the important stuff.’
‘Like what?’
His face hardened momentarily, then he looked away.
She looked down, realizing just how keyed up he was; how close he had come to snapping at her.
‘There’s nothing here,’ he said. ‘Let’s go up again.’
She nodded, then followed, knowing there would be nothing. The house was empty. Or as good as. But she was wrong.
Ben laughed, delighted, then stepped inside the room, shining his lamp about the walls. It was a library. Or a study maybe. Whichever, the walls were filled with shelves, and the shelves with books. Old books, of paper and card and leather. Ben hurried to the shutters
and threw them open, then turned and stared back into the room. There was a door, two windows and a full-length mirror on the wall to his left. Apart from that there were only shelves. Books and more books, filling every inch of the wall-space.
‘Whose were they?’ she asked, coming alongside him; sharing his delight.
He pulled a book down at random, then another. The bookplates were all the same. He showed her one.
She read the words aloud. ‘This book is the property of Augustus Raedwald Shepherd.’ She laughed, then looked up into Ben’s face. ‘Then he lived here. But I thought…’
Ben shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he used this house to work in.’
She turned, looking about her. There were books scattered all about their cottage, but not a tenth as many as were here. There must have been five, maybe ten thousand of them. She laughed, astonished. There were probably more books here – real books – than there were in the rest of Chung Kuo.
Ben was walking slowly up and down the room, looking about him curiously. ‘It’s close,’ he said softly. ‘It’s very close now.’
What’s close? she wanted to ask. But the question would only anger him. He knew no better than she.
Then, suddenly, he stopped and turned and almost ran outside into the corridor again. ‘There!’ he said, exultant, and she watched him pace out the distance from the end of the corridor to the doorway. Fifteen paces. He went inside and did the same. Twelve. Only twelve!
She saw at once. The mirror. The mirror was a door. A way through.
He went to it at once, looking for a catch, a way of releasing it, but there was nothing. Frustrated, he pulled books down from the shelf and knocked at the wall behind them. It was brick, solid brick.
For a moment he stood before the mirror, staring into it. Then he laughed. ‘Of course!’
He turned and pointed it out to her. ‘Level with the top of the mirror. That row of books opposite. Look, Meg. Tell me what you see.’
Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series Page 6