The Disestablishment of Paradise

by Phillip Mann

  Hera heard his words and knew what he meant, as well as those things that could not be said. Mack was right, ‘Payback time’. And wasn’t this really what she wanted? She hurried down the ladder and into the SAS.

  Mack came down after her. From the back of the SAS he brought ropes, a light chain ladder and a large multi-spanner. He sat in the back of the SAS and fastened his boots, lacing them tight. Then he attached a pair of the light crampons demolition men use when working on wet timber or in icy conditions. Lastly, with a long auxiliary strap, he wrapped his tool belt tight round his waist. Two big breaths and a flexing of the hands and he was ready. He climbed back up onto the Dendron and dragged the extension ladder up after him.

  At the base of the strongest of the twin trees he rammed the ladder down hard so that the feet bedded into the turf of the Dendron. Then he pulled the ladder up to maximum. Its top was still far short of the first branch of the cherries, but at least at that height the trunk was smaller and he could get his arms round it to climb. He now draped one of the long ropes round his shoulders so that it couldn’t drop but would cushion his head against the tree. He a ached the folded coils of the chain ladder to the back of his belt. It hung down like a tail. He made one last check to see that he had everything he might need: spare cords, knife, ring head cleats, hammer, eye pulleys and the wrench – he touched each piece as he said its name. Satisfied, he set off up the ladder, fast and agile – the balanced climb of a man who knows ladders and their tricks well.

  Behind him, on the roof of the SAS, the small tri-vid camera turned and tracked him. It was good that Mack did not know that all the members of his team were now packed into the small tri-vid studio watching, or that, beyond the fractal limit, millions of others observed as he climbed high above the Dendron. Professor Kenneth de Kingson described every precaution and every danger in glowing prose.

  At the top of the ladder Mack wrapped his arms round the trunk and, using the crampons for purchase, began to climb. Push, lift, grip. Push, lift, grip. It was painfully slow progress, but it was progress nevertheless and eventually he was able to reach with one hand and take hold of the lowest of the cherry branches. With one big effort he heaved himself up. His arms were aching, and he sat for a minute in the fork of the tree to recover. Not getting any younger, he thought. This might be my last big adventure, whatever granny says.

  Sitting astride the branch and with his back to the trunk, Mack lashed the chain ladder to the branch and then let its length go snaking down. It banged against the top of the extension ladder, which it overlapped slightly. To test it, he took a firm grip on the tree and stepped gingerly onto the top rung. It didn’t give. Feeling more confident he jogged up and down lightly. All was well.

  Lighter now, and with good footholds and places to grip, he climbed quickly from cherry branch to cherry branch. There were only three levels of branches, but at each level were four or five separate limbs sticking out. The Venus tears tinkled against one another as he climbed past.

  Perched on the last of the cherry branches, Mack loosened his webbing belt, passed the strap round the tree and buckled it again. Then he leaned back, stiff-legged, and let his weight hold him safe against the tree. He could now use his hands. He uncoiled the rope from his shoulders, located an end and tied a large loop. He then leaned out from the tree and cast the loop so that it fell entirely over the crook on the opposite tree where one of the cherry branches sprouted out. The distance between the two trees was not great.

  Dickinson, watching closely from the shuttle studio, guessed what Mack was about to attempt. ‘Ladies and gentlemen in the studio, and you viewers at home. What Mack is attempting is one of the hardest manoeuvres we ever have to perform when we are working alone at the top of a high building – often in a high wind and with freezing temperatures. We call it hangman, for obvious reasons. You can see how Mack has attached himself, like a man on a telegraph pole. Now he has tied a noose to one end of his rope. What he is attempting to do is establish a rope bridge between the two trunks. We emphasize that none of you viewing this at home must ever try to do this manoeuvre alone. One slip is all it takes. There, he’s reaching out now . . . ready to throw . . . and steady, steady, steady . . . and there it goes . . . And he’s got it the first time!’ The team jammed in the small studio, as well as a few of the off-duty shuttle workers and some of the bemused children, burst into spontaneous applause and cheering.

  ‘You can hear the reaction of the people up here on the shuttle platform over Paradise. Mack will now draw the noose tight. There it goes. He’s pulling the rope to make sure it’s tight . . . And it is. The treetops are linked, ladies and gentlemen. A double bridge will now be made between the two trunks, one rope above the other. I’ll explain its purpose later. For the moment I am now going to hand over to my colleague Dr Kowalski. She has news of the state of the Dendron. Titania . . .’

  Tania’s voice took over. ‘Thank you, Professor. The former head of the recently abolished ORBE project, Dr Hera Melhuish, is now ready below . . .’

  Tania had just been talking to Hera and knew what she was going to be doing.

  Mack, oblivious to all this, tied off the rope ends to the tree. He had his two-rope bridge in place. Now all that remained was to test it. He climbed back up to the top rope, selected one of the pulleys with a steel dog clip and gripped it in his teeth. Then he took hold of the upper bridge rope and swung out between the trees. As he did so, his shoulders bumped the clustered cherries, one of which detached and fell.

  Between the two trees he hung by one arm while he anchored the dog clip over the bridge rope. And then he swung back. That manoeuvre took its toll. His arms felt as though they had come out of their sockets. Big men are not meant to swing in trees.

  ‘Mack. Mack, what are you doing?’ It was Hera of course, standing on the riverbank beside the Dendron. ‘You’ve got the ladder. I can’t get back up.’

  ‘I’m making it safe for you up here. I’ll be down in a minute.’ His last task was to fit the rope through the pulley. He realized that if he had been thinking properly, he could have threaded it before attaching the pulley. Next time I’ll know better, he thought and swung out again.

  To Hera, watching from below, it looked terrifying. What if he falls? What will I do then?

  But Mack didn’t fall. He got the rope through the pulley and, gripping it in his teeth, swung back to the tree. There he tied a bowline loop round his chest and under his arms. ‘Coming down,’ he called and swung out between the trees. Elbows clenched against his body, he began to lower himself down, paying out the rope as he went. He stepped off at the bottom. ‘I’m not showing off,’ he called down to Hera. ‘I just wanted to show you that it’s safe. OK? Now, you’re going to need a seat of some kind.’

  He removed the extension ladder and set it up against the side of the Dendron as before and climbed down. While Hera climbed up the ladder, she could hear Mack inside the SAS. He was thumping about, and then she heard a tearing sound. Minutes later he emerged holding one of the moulded foam seats from the mess area. The advantage of this was that not only was it comfortable, but it had moulded holes in it and these he could use to tie it securely. He carried the chair in one hand while he climbed back up onto the back of the Dendron. Quickly he tied the rope to the chair so that it hung free. Then he lifted Hera up and sat her in the chair. ‘That comfortable?’

  ‘Fine. I think.’ She gripped the arms of the chair. ‘But what if I . . .’

  ‘OK. I’m tying you in so there’s no way you can fall out.’ Mack passed the rest of the rope round her waist and then round her legs and through the holes under the chair. He pulled it tight and then hoisted her until she was swinging a couple of metres above the Dendron. ‘OK. Try and fall out of that.’

  Hera twisted a couple of times. ‘OK. I believe you.’

  ‘Hold tight. I’m going to hoist you up a bit.’ He pulled on the long pulley and Hera’s chair rose. She sat quite stiff and the chair spun on the
rope. ‘I could fix that,’ he said, ‘but when you get up there, all you have to do is hold one of the cherries or one of the bridge ropes and you’ll be able to stop it spinning yourself. Do you feel OK?’ Hera nodded.

  She didn’t feel OK. She was terrified, but she wasn’t going to say so.

  ‘It’ll feel pretty strange at first, but you’ll soon get used to it. In fact, you might start to like it once you’re up there. Anyway, it’s the best I could do given the time and I guarantee you’re safe. So. Good luck, Hera. Remember what I said. I’ll be down here if you need me. Here goes.’ He pulled on the rope and Hera rose. She spun one way and then the other. Several more pulls and she was level with the bottom of the chain ladder. She was now not spinning so much. The first of the cherries was not far away. A few more pulls and she could almost touch them. One more pull and she was in the midst of them and she could reach out and grasp them. The chair jerked a couple of times as Mack tied it off. And there she was. She could not touch all the cherries, for some were on the far side of the trunks, but she could reach a lot of them and she also found that she could almost stand up in the chair. She forgot about being high off the ground. She concentrated on the black and red balls that clustered about her and the pale discs of Venus tears that she could make ring just by brushing them with her finger. She tried to concentrate on her memories of the Dendron, but those memories would not settle. She caught herself remembering the way her shirt had rolled up and the surprised look on Mack’s face when he saw her bare breasts and how nice it had been to brush against his body and the crinkly tickle of his hair.

  ‘You started all this, you know,’ she said to the Dendron. ‘Oh, but I want you to get well and to grow big and strong, like Mack down there, and then go wandering all over your lovely planet and crush Tattersall weeds under your feet and stamp where you want and send your thoughts out into space. They aren’t thoughts, are they? They are your sense of being. Of life and energy and . . . love. No wonder we all respond to you. We wish we could all be as wild and carefree and lusty as you.’ She reached out. ‘That’s what you’ve got waiting for you – a lifetime of sea and moonlight and sunlight and of rivers and tumbling streams, and then, at day’s end, you will want to surrender and give all of it back to the sky and the sea and the shore and the earth and be ripped apart in one last, long, carefree rending. You see how well I know you? I know your tides, both your coming in and your flowing out. You are what we all want to be, in our deepest, deepest, deepest core – and we are that – but we forget sometimes. I’m going to do something silly.’ She loosened the upper part of her coat. She had, as Mack had advised, dressed warmly. But she drew her clothes aside and, with her arms spread, embraced the warm cherries of the tree, touching them to her breasts and holding them in her arms and yes . . . yes . . . she held one of the lower cherries against her womb.

  What the poor, sick, close-to-dying twin Dendron thought of this we will never know. Perhaps they paled like the poor husband of Israel Shapiro’s sister when faced with another demand to deliver.7 But I think not. Perhaps for a brief few moments she did manage to speak their language – or enough of it for them to understand – and they knew they were loved and not alone crying out in their solitude. For Hera sang to them too, as she suckled them. And touched them and rocked them and kissed them. The music was from Kossoff. The inspiration from Yeats. And the sound was of the sea.

  Winter and summer, and all the day long,

  My love was in singing, no matter the song

  But the best songs of all, are those from the heart,

  The secret dark place where love’s ladders start.

  Mack worked all the rest of the afternoon, digging and cutting close to the hump between the two trunks. When he finished, he had worked his way down to the great wishbone which linked together the whole of the front of the Dendron. He had observed a thin purple line which knitted across the wishbone: it was a natural line of cleavage. It was here he would tomorrow sever the two young trees.

  But for the moment Mack had worked himself to standstill. He needed to rest, and he thought the Dendron might like a rest too.

  As the sun set, Mack stood at the foot of the ladder and called to Hera, ‘Can I get you anything? A drink? Something to eat? Would you like to come down for a while?’

  ‘I’m very comfortable,’ called Hera, her voice dreamy. ‘This was a good idea of yours, Mack. I’m very warm and comfortable. I’ll stay for a while longer. Don’t worry about me. We’re very comfortable.’

  Mack pondered this. She sounded a bit drunk. That might not be a bad thing. He called again: ‘Well, just as you like. I’ll be sleeping outside again, so if you change your mind I’ll be here to let you down. OK?’

  There was no answer.

  Mack got himself some supper and then made his bed outside.

  He lay back as the moon rose and could see the little chair dangling between the horns of the Dendron. How lonely the tree seemed. And the small human figure, now its only defence, hunched against the darkness. A brave lady. Mack realized that he had offered up the woman he loved to satisfy the needs of this world. He wondered what she would be like when she came down. Would she be different? Would she have changed? Would she even know him? Would she care?

  At some point when the moon was high he woke up. He walked over the silver grass and climbed up onto the Dendron. ‘Hera,’ he called softly. ‘Hera. It’s me, Mack.’

  A few moments later a voice answered: ‘Where are you, Mack? I’m so cold and empty. Take me down, please. Make me warm.’

  He lowered the chair and lifted her out. She was cold. Her clothes were all undone. He’d told her to wrap up warm. He covered her as well as he could and carried her down the ladder and up the hill to the place where he had set up his bed. There he laid her under the covers, and then he crawled in beside her and put his arms round her and felt her turn like a little animal as she snuggled close, accepting his warmth.

  All this was of course recorded – but not transmitted.

  25

  Sirius

  It was about an hour before dawn that Hera woke up. She was immediately aware of Mack’s arm around her, warm and protective, of the gentle regular grumble of his breathing and of the pressure of his thigh. She felt no inclination to move, but she turned her head slightly so that she could see the stars. Neither Gin nor Tonic now being present, the stars shone out boldly. One was prominent for its brightness, and this she knew was Sirius, the same Sirius that we can see from our solar system, the Sirius that was studied by the ancient Egyptians in the time before the pharaohs and which they associated with their great goddess Isis.

  Of course the constellations were different, there being no jewelled belt for Orion or pointers from the Plough, but it gave her a feeling of security to know that at least that one, important, brilliant star was visible to her at this moment, and that it was, in the poetic way of such things, looking down on her too.

  She turned gently, not wanting to disturb the sleeping man, but her hands, following a will of their own, sought out his warmth. Then it was the work of a moment for her to slip out of the clothes and covers that he had used to keep her warm but which now seemed too hot. She pushed them right out of the bed. She turned in his arms, raising herself on one elbow so that she could just see his face in the starlight, and her hand stroked his cheek, and his neck, and his heavy arm with its strong muscles, so unlike her own. He stirred then – who would not? – and, stretching, his hand slipped naturally up to her breasts and thence to her hair and back to her breasts. His eyes opened at the moment she kissed him.

  Thus, in the next several minutes, was accomplished something which they both had thought about, both had feared, both had made too complicated, and which, when it happened, was natural, easy and normal, and full of surprise, strangeness, delight and fire. At its peak, Hera twisted beneath him and buried her head in his neck and kissed him as she had once before and cried out fiercely and whispered, so softly that he might
almost have imagined it, ‘I love you . . . Mack.’

  Mack, that man of iron if ever there was one, in that moment turned to water.

  Down the slope, where the SAS stood beside the sleeping Dendron, the all-seeing tri-vid camera was still recording, but it was pointed up at the stars, and at Sirius, which it studied to the exclusion of all else.

  26

  Third and Final Encounter

  It was Mack’s turn to lie awake.

  The turmoil he was feeling made him happy, and had that been his only problem he would either have slept like a lion or simply lain awake anticipating the next time he could turn his drowsy lady. But he had heard something in the outside world, a sound that did not fit, even though this was Paradise and the unexpected was becoming the norm. The sound was grinding and rough, like something heavy being dragged, and it came from the hills which surrounded them. At first he had suspected a storm might be approaching, and so was alert for the stirring of trees and the sound of rain sweeping down the valley, but yet the sky remained clear, the stars bright and there was no hint of lightning. Everything was wonderful, except . . .