The Fall

19

Zita parked the car in the centre of town. The summer day had brought out enough shoppers to thicken the flow along the pavements.

‘Good heavens to Murgatroyd,’ Zita said in something between wonder and disgust. ‘Will you just look at those fashions? Did we ever wear anything as drab as that?’

‘So this is what passes for ’70s chic?’ Sam said, wrinkling his nose. ‘There’s every shade of brown and grey you could possibly think of.’

In the back of the Range Rover, Jud eagerly wound down the window. Sam saw the man’s head was turning left and right so much it was a wonder he didn’t sustain friction burns on his neck from his shirt collar. ‘Heavens above,’ he said again and again in tones of sheer amazement. ‘Look. The Crescent’s still a cinema. What’s it showing? Damn, old-man eyes I’m getting. I can’t see what’s on.’

‘Jaws.’ Sam said in a low voice. ‘What we might describe as Jaws One, still well away from the cruddy sequels.’

‘Heavens above… Heavens above. You know, I can’t believe Casterton’s changed so much in 20 years. Look at the shop-fronts! All that drab plastic. Old Harker’s the ironmongers. Look, they’ve still got buckets tied up on strings and you can see… Oh, there’s Woolworth’s. See the old sign? Who’s betting they still sell loose biscuits by the pound?’

Sam glanced back at Jud Campbell. The man was like a kid who’d been treated to a day at the fair; one who’d excitedly look this way and that, naming every ride, and to whom even a humdrum candy-floss stall was suddenly a thing of magic and wonder.

Meanwhile Zita stared in that fascinated way at the clothes the people wore. Sam, too, couldn’t help but marvel that the pavements were full of people in clothes that were either dark brown, coffee-coloured or a lighter brown that was the same tone as a used tea bag. For all the world he could have been looking at a stream of water that had been churned up into a muddy brown. The nearest thing he saw to colourful clothing was a girl’s pullover that was a kind of washed-out powder blue.

These were the fashions that taste forgot. In the space of 20 seconds he saw half a dozen middle-aged men who fancied themselves as Elvis Presley lookalikes (that is to say, the sad Elvis from his bloated middle years); they had the same blow-dried quiff stiffened with hairspray, the same sideburns and steel-framed sunglasses, while their shirts were unbuttoned as far as swelling midriffs to reveal gold medallions nestling in dark thickets of chest hair. On the other hand, much of the younger generation looked like refugees from the cast of Saturday Night Fever, with clunking platform shoes, huge wing-tip collars and flared trousers. Most striking of all was their tightly-permed hair. This did give them an Afro look, but the effect was marred by so many spotty, dough-pale faces that peeked from beneath these magnificent dandelion locks of hair.

Hell, he thought, we’ve only rolled back 20 years and already the world looks different. Not just a bit different, but strikingly different. The muddy brown clothes, the ugly plastic shop-fronts; the cars were different too, although he could have named only a handful, because most were of British or European make, not American. Even so, he recognised the odd VW Beetle, boxy Volvo or occasional Datsun.

Meanwhile, in the back, Jud was in a kind of ecstasy and speaking in tongues as far as Sam was concerned. The man was clearly recognising cars that had long since vanished from the British roads.

‘Singer Gazelle. I bought one of those. Cost me £75 and had an engine like a mule; only thing was, the bottom rotted out of it… Hillman Imp. Christ, look at that, a Ford Cortina. A Mark 1 Ford Cortina in metallic paint. My God, that was the car that used to turn heads. Metallic paint was virtually unheard of then… And mopeds. I’ve never seen so many mopeds. Not a satellite dish to be seen. And there’s Dirty Harry – there, the tramp, lying on the bench with a bottle of cider in his hand. Hell, I think he’s the only one who’s never changed. Still wearing the filthy boiler suit and Wellington boots! There’s Hillards supermarket. They were taken over by Tesco in – Oh my God,’ he pushed his head out of the window. ‘The man on the bike! The man on the bike! It’s Tony Newell. He was sports editor of the Casterton Gazette. Oh, my dear God. He died in 1991. I was at the funeral. Dear God, I was actually there when they lowered the coffin into the… Good grief… good grief…’ Jud suddenly leaned back into the seat, looking as if someone had just planted their knee in his stomach. He looked winded. His breath was coming in hard tugs. His blue eyes watered. ‘My God… Oh, my God… This is really quite incredible. I didn’t realise it would be such a shock. I’m seeing – actually seeing – people who have been dead for years.’

Zita looked back, her brown eyes showing concern. ‘Are you okay?’

‘A bit overwhelmed, that’s all.’ He placed both hands on his ribcage and breathed deeply. ‘I don’t think this heat’s helping much.’

‘Can I get you a cold drink?’ Sam said, opening the door.

‘That would be very welcome, thank you.’

Zita looked back at Jud and said gently, ‘Best close the window. I’ll turn up the air-conditioning. You’ll soon feel better.’

‘Air-conditioning? The wonders of modern technology.’ He leaned back and gave a smile that seemed suddenly weary, tremendously weary. ‘Air-conditioning. If we travel any farther back you will be able to take a patent out on it and become millionaires.’ He closed his eyes and chuckled. ‘But somehow I don’t think money will do any of us much good in the long run.’

Sam was in the process of opening the door when he paused and asked. ‘Money won’t do us any good? What makes you say that?’

Jud had closed his eyes and rested his head back on the seat so his face was tilted up at the car’s ceiling. ‘Already you have notes and coins in your pocket that are no longer legal tender. You should check coins carefully before you pay for anything.’ He opened his eyes and gave a little smile. ‘After all, how are you going to explain carrying a 1990s coin in 1978?’ The smile widened as he closed his eyes. ‘And, Sam, if you should meet someone who looks a little like me, only with darker hair and more of it, be nice to him. I was going through a rough patch in 1978. In fact, I spent most of August that year in plaster of Paris up to my crotch.’

Sam grinned. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘You will. You’ll do your best.’ Jud opened his eyes again. ‘By the by, if you’ve developed a taste for English beer, you’ll find they do a very nice glass of mild in the Gryphon Hotel. And be sure to go into the public bar, not the lounge.’

Jud closed his eyes again as if he was ready for a nap. Sam looked at Zita; she looked back and raised her eyebrows. To Sam, what Jud had just said all seemed pretty enigmatic – as if there was far more meaning loaded into those few words than met the eye – or rather, in this case, than met the ear.

Sam gave a little shrug at Zita’s questioning expression. Maybe Jud had just got himself a little over-warm and overwrought. This was probably a bigger shock for him. After all, he knew the town; they didn’t.

Sam said, ‘I’ll see you both in five minutes.’

‘Don’t forget the beer in the Gryphon Hotel, Sam. And take care.’

Sam shut the door, then crossed the road to join the stream of people in their muddy brown clothes.

Ryan Keith was a man on the run.

On the run in a town he didn’t know. And in a time that was unfamiliar to him.

As he’d run from the supermarket, carrying the bottles of vodka, he’d heard a shout. Glancing back, he saw two men chasing him. They wore burgundy-coloured nylon smocks with the name of the supermarket written on the breast pocket.

They looked young, physically fit.

Ryan knew they were far fitter than him. When he ran, his plump face wobbled like jelly, his stomach heaved against his white shirt. The Oliver Hardy bowler hat stayed on his head by luck rather than design.

No way could he outrun them.

‘Oh, Christ, oh, Christ… oh, no,’ he sobbed under his breath as he ran along the street. He didn’t like this world he’d fallen into. He was terrified of what would happen when the two supermarket workers caught him.

He was sure they’d knock him around before they handed him over to the police. They did that, didn’t they? Shoplifters received rough justice.

He sobbed louder as he ran; tears filled his eyes; he imagined only too vividly that first kick to his softly-rounded belly.

‘Oh, why does everything have to happen to me?’ he panted under his breath as he ran.

‘This is another fine mess…’ he began to tell himself before suddenly snapping, ‘Shut up, you idiot, shut up… Don’t let them catch you. Christ, I don’t want to get hurt… I don’t want…’ That was when he turned a corner and ran into his old friend Lee Burton.

Nicole Wagner looked down from the tree at the man.

He lay flat on his back in the grass and stared back at her. A Red Admiral butterfly sat on a dock leaf by his head, warming its wings in the sunlight. Doves called softly to each other in the woods above the lip of the quarry.

To all intents and purposes the man, Bostock, was her jailer now.

She knew that the moment she climbed down from the tree he would pounce on her and beat her head to the colour of raw mutton.

The quarry was deserted. Even the rabbits had fled the commotion when she had leapt from the top of the rock face and into the tree. Nevertheless, every few minutes she carefully stood up on the branch to look out across the quarry towards the river in the hope someone would be strolling by. She saw no-one. She was certain no-one would hear if she shouted.

The man below her (who was probably deranged, she told herself) smiled benignly, as his wife’s blood and brains slowly dried on his otherwise white polo shirt. She found it hard to look away from those brown stains because, she realised, if she wasn’t very careful her own blood would contribute additional patterning to the shirt.

So she sat there in her big black shaggy ape suit and watched the sun sink slowly towards the horizon.

And she wondered what he would do when darkness at last fell.