The Fall

39

Ryan Keith’s wedding day was a day to remember.

The bride, daughter of the wealthiest baker in Casterton, wore white, with a veil and a bouquet of peach-coloured flowers. Most of the refugees from 1999 were there, along with the bride’s family, and everyone was in perfect Victorian dress, the men folk in top hats and frock coats.

With the exception of the Reverend Thomas Hather, none of the local people knew that Sam Baker and the rest of the newcomers hailed not from some other part of the country but from, in fact, some other century – which must surely have been the best-kept secret in Casterton.

After the wedding banquet in the baker’s house Sam escaped the noise and exuberance of the party games to walk through the orchard and breathe the cool evening air. Stars had begun to prick their way through the deepening blue.

The apples on the trees were fully ripe, reminding him of Ryan Keith’s face duplicated over and over again. Ryan had grown plumper still, looking even more like Oliver Hardy. His cheeks were a rosy apple-red, and just as rounded.

He found Jud Campbell standing with his hand resting against a pear tree. Thoughtful-looking, he smoked a pipe as he gazed out over fields that sloped down to a railway line. A train rattled along the tracks, puffing out smoke balls.

Steam hissed from the gleaming side-rods as they turned the wheels against the rails with a pleasantly rhythmic clickety-clack sound.

‘Good party,’ Sam said. ‘I think they’re going to make a grand couple.’

Jud pulled on the pipe. ‘Grand, Sam? You’re picking up the local lingo?’

‘Oh, just the odd word.’ Sam smiled. ‘This place works its way through your skin after a while.’

‘So you’re turning native? But you’ll be none the worse for it. It’s a good place. Good people, too.’ He glanced back at the house where lamps filled the windows with a golden light. There was a chanted counting coming from the big parlour as another game got under way, followed by a whooooow! that rose in pitch until it disintegrated into everyone laughing.

‘Aye, they’ll make a good couple. Champion, as they’d say hereabouts.’ Jud gave a small smile. ‘But you have to remember all this could end just like…’ He clicked his fingers.

‘The Bluebeards? I’ve seen nothing of them, have you?’

‘Not a sign. Of course, they could be away ransacking some other period in time – 1066? 1776? 2001? Who knows? No, if anything, I was referring to the time-slips. Any second we might open our eyes and find ourselves back in the amphitheatre, you sitting there alongside Zita, the reps in their fancy dress, me slipping the pin back inside my collar. Sam, all this could go. This life we’re building for ourselves could vanish in a flash.’

‘I guess it’s possible.’

‘Would you regret it if it did, Sam?’

‘Yes, I would. I’ve grown to like it here. I like the food, the beer… and, as you say, this is a good town filled with good people. I don’t want to lose it.’

Jud sighed. ‘You might have to do just that, so don’t invest all your emotions in it, will you?’

‘You mean like Ryan?’

‘He’s in love with the girl. And have you ever seen anyone so happy in your life? But if the time-slip comes again he’ll lose his wife.’

‘Maybe it won’t come to that.’

‘Hmm… Have you noticed that with every time-slip we have all our personal possessions restored to us just as they were? But we’ve not been able to bring back souvenirs from 1978 or 1946. They just vanish into thin air.’

‘Perhaps this mechanism, whatever it is, that pulled us back through time has simply gone kaput.’

‘Maybe.’

‘But you doubt it? Even though we’ve been marooned here for, let’s see, six months?’

‘So you think this is for keeps?’ Jud pulled on the pipe. ‘We’re staying in 1865 for good?’

‘Well, I figure we’ve rejoined the normal flow of time; we’ll just go forward with it along with the rest of the world. If we live to a good age we’ll see the new century, 1900. Not long after that we’ll be reading about the first flight at Kitty Hawk, the invention of the electric light bulb, cinemas, radio.’

‘You might be right,’ Jud allowed in a relaxed, almost sleepy voice. The wine was working its magic. ‘Still, I can’t help but remember Rolle’s warnings, that time was coming apart at the seams.’

‘That there were barbarian hordes ready to ride out and pillage the modern world?’

‘That’s what the man believed.’

‘Maybe he was right, but with every day that goes by it seems more and more unlikely. Unless they’re raiding other time zones, as you’ve just mentioned.’

‘In which case it’s out of our hands.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Ah, but I wonder, Sam… Call me a superstitious nut but I do still wonder if we’ve been put here, in 1865, for a reason.’

‘Possibly. But we’ve had no celestial messages written in the sky; no-one saying “Beware the ides of March” or the equivalent. So I guess we carry on with life as it’s lived now.’

‘And not worry about tomorrow?’

‘Got it in one, Jud. Now, I think I’m going to find Zita and ask her for a dance.’

Jud’s smile was warm. ‘Ah, you two. Is the word on the grapevine right?’

‘It depends what you’ve heard.’

‘That I might have to wear this big top hat again before long.’

Sam grinned. ‘You might have heard right there after all, Jud, old buddy.’

Jud slapped Sam on his broad back. ‘I’ve also heard on the grapevine that our Mr Gainsbrough, the baker, keeps a fine bottle of port or two. I’m going to find out if that’s true as well.’

‘Then lead the way, Mr Campbell. Lead the way.’

‘Have you tried the Madeira?’

‘No, I stuck to red wine.’

‘You must try it. It’s not as sweet as I expected it would be… has a musty raisin flavour…’

They strolled back through the darkening orchard. The stars shone clear, bright as silver dust. There was singing coming from the house now; all boozy and happy, veering off every now and again into good-natured laughter. So much for misinformation about staid Victorians. In the back yard a dog barked in a rough-and-ready harmony with the music.

As they turned the corner of the house and headed for the door, Sam heard the sudden shrill whistle of a policeman. It came in short urgent blasts.

Some new drama was unfolding out there in the street.

Sam knew within two minutes that it would be a day to remember.

And not just because of Ryan’s wedding day and all the happiness that had gone hand in glove with it.

At the sound of the whistle Sam knew instinctively that something unsavoury was hitting the fan. Stomach muscles snapping suddenly tense, he ran through the front garden to the gate. There was shouting, dogs barking.

In the street a man sat on the cobbles nursing his hand. A policeman blew his whistle. Meanwhile another couple of men were trying to steady horses jittering about in the shafts of a mail coach. One horse kicked back, striking the coach timbers with a God-Almighty thump.

‘What’s happened?’ Jud called as he ran up.

The policeman stopped blowing his whistle. ‘Some vagrant tried to make off with the mail coach.’ He blew the whistle again while glaring down the street. ‘But we’ll have him… we’ll have him good and proper.’

Sam bent down to look at the man who was nursing his hand. ‘Bloody feller, knocked me one,’ the mail-coach driver grunted. ‘What a fucking crack. Stick or sommat. Look at that.’ He held up his left hand for Sam to see. Blood gushed from a cut across the knuckles. ‘Damn bastard.’

Sam looked up as a hefty man came panting along the road from the direction in which the policeman was staring. The man held two massive bulldogs by their leashes. The dogs slobbered and panted.

‘Good job you were passing, Harry,’ the policeman said. ‘He were an evil character. I reckon your dogs put the wind up him.’

‘Good pair of brawlers, these,’ the big man grunted. ‘If Jug and Apollo get their teeth into yer they’ll never let you go. There’s the lads.’ He patted the bulldogs on their huge heads.

‘Did you see where the devil went?’

‘Somewhere over the fields in the direction of Danby Wood.’

‘He’s probably got himself a camp out there.’ The policeman slipped his whistle back into his pocket. ‘He can’t get far. I’ll get some men out tomorrow. If you aren’t over-busy, Harry, you’ll be more than welcome with those two dogs.’

‘Oh aye, Ben, they love a bit of sport, these do.’

‘Right, we’ll set off from the station at seven.’

‘I’ll be there, Ben.’ With that the man allowed the dogs to pull him away down the street, their heads swinging from side to side, tongues hanging out, dripping saliva onto the cobbles.

‘You all right there, coachie?’ the policeman asked, shining a lamp down onto the man’s bleeding hand.

‘I’ll mend… Just get us up onto me feet.’

Jud and the policeman took an arm each and helped the coachman up. As they did, Sam noticed something lying by the kerb. He picked it up. ‘Is this yours?’ he asked the coachman.

‘Is it sod. That’s what he must have clobbered me with.’

‘What is it?’ Jud asked as the policeman held up his lamp to shine the light onto it.

‘Oh…’ Jud breathed. ‘I’ll be damned…’

‘Funny-looking thing.’ The policeman scratched his chin. ‘What do you make of it?’

‘It’s an axe,’ Jud said. ‘Only it has a bronze head. See how yellow it is?’

‘An axe with a bronze head? It won’t be much cop. Thing’ll be soft as putty.’

‘But it’s still sharp enough to take your head clean off.’

Sam looked at Jud. ‘A Bronze Age axe?’

Jud nodded, his face serious. ‘That’s exactly what it is.’ He fixed his eyes on Sam. ‘So we’ve a pretty good idea where it came from.’

Sam looked down at the blade that was slick with blood. ‘And we know just who would have been carrying it.’

A fortnight later Sam Baker was working the ferry, bringing people back and forth across the river. He and Jud had little doubt that the attack on the coachman on the night of Ryan’s wedding had been the work of a Bluebeard. The man with the bulldogs had surprised him into dropping his axe as he ran.

This might have been a scouting party in advance of the main attack.

But it all went quiet again. The Bluebeard wasn’t found. And pretty soon life’s steady routine had regained its comfortable rhythm. Ryan had returned from a honeymoon in Brighton with his new wife and moved into the Gainsbrough family home, sharing it with the baker, his wife, her widowed sister and a clutch of children whose names Sam could never remember.

At the same moment that Sam was rowing across the river with a man and his baskets of mushrooms, Lee Burton was gathering mushrooms of his own in the fields at the back of the farmhouse. It was there that he saw the figure watching him from the woods.

Lee Burton stopped dead. With the figure deep in shadow he didn’t recognise who it was, but the way they stared at him was enough to make him look twice.

Carrying the wicker basket by the handle, he shielded his eyes against the bright October sun.

The figure remained there, watching him, apparently reluctant to leave the shadows of the forest.

He walked towards the trees, curious.

Sometimes one of the lads from the music hall would come out to play one of their carefully-worked-out practical jokes. (He’d already fallen for going to the hardware shop for a long weight, only to find it was really a long wait – hardy ha, ha, boys. And he’d even almost – but not quite – been suckered in with the one about buying a jar of elbow grease.) Jokes could be elaborate, with fellow actors raiding the costume store for disguises. Just last week he and another actor dressed as policemen had had the stage manager believing he was being arrested for bigamy. The rest of the cast had laughed until tears had run down their faces. Stage manager Stan hadn’t seen the funny side of it. After he’d twigged, he’d chased them around backstage with a length of planking, shouting so loud his face had turned blue.

Now, was the furtive stranger another practical joke? This time one targeted at one Lee Burton?

Lee walked cautiously forward, his head tilting this way and that, trying to get a better view.

He walked faster as the figure moved backwards, deeper into the wood.

In the fringes of the wood, with the carpet of fallen red leaves crisp beneath his feet, Lee paused. He remembered what had happened to Sam Baker well enough. How he’d confronted the axe-wielding barbarian in 1944.

He glanced back towards the farmhouse. It seemed too far away now. If someone should rush at him from the shadows he wouldn’t stand a chance.

He gritted his teeth, imagining an axe crashing down against the top of his head, the pain ringing all the way down to the tips of his toes as if he were a bell.

Far enough, he told himself with a shiver. Don’t go deeper into the wood.

Besides, the figure had disappeared now.

Cautiously, he edged backwards, not wanting to present his own back to those shadowed depths of the wood.

His feet rustled through the leaves.

Nice and easy does it.

Don’t stay here.

Suddenly danger beat from the depths of the wood in near-palpable waves. He shivered more deeply; his skin tingled. He clenched his jaw as—

‘Don’t turn round.’

Jesus Christ.

‘Lee, please. Don’t turn round.’

Shocked, he was going to protest. ‘Why on Earth—?’

‘Lee. Just listen.’

‘Nicole?’ he asked in wonder. ‘Nicole? Good God, I thought you were dead! Are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ she said in such a tight, strained way that a shiver ran down his back like a cascade of icy leeches.

‘Nicole—’ He turned round in time to see a blonde-haired figure duck back behind a tree just a dozen paces from him. ‘Nicole, what’s wrong?’

‘Lee, I asked you not to turn round.’

All he could see was a strand or two of hair being pulled by the light breeze from behind the tree where she hid, as coyly as if she were naked.

‘Nicole. Tell me what’s wrong.’

‘Listen. I just came to tell you something.’

‘Come down to the farmhouse… Wait! You don’t know about the farmhouse, do you?’ He spoke in an excited rush. ‘It’s all different now. Look at the clothes I’m wearing. Genuine 1865. I’m working at the music hall. Ryan got married. Married! Can you believe that? He’s working for his wife’s father who’s got—’

‘Lee. Lee,’ she spoke anxiously from behind the tree. ‘Lee, please listen, there isn’t much time.’

‘Nicole? What’s the matter? Why are you hiding behind the tree?’ He took a step forward. It was as if she was afraid of being seen with him. Why? ‘Can’t you tell me what—?’

‘Lee! Don’t come any closer.’

‘But—’

‘Please don’t ask why. Just do as I ask, for my sake. Do you promise?’

‘Sure. If that’s what you want. But where have you been? We thought—’

‘Lee. All I want you to do is please listen to me. I can’t stay here long. Okay?’

‘Okay, Nicole.’

He found himself watching the tree as she spoke, remembering the beautiful blonde-haired girl whose ambition it was to become a lawyer.

‘You’re too close to the amphitheatre here.’

‘But we—’

‘Too close. In fact, you need to get away from this whole area. Away from Casterton. If you can, get out of the county.’

‘Why?’

‘There’s a storm about to break. A big one. There’s not going to be much standing after it hits, believe me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You don’t have to understand, not entirely. Just trust me, okay?’

‘But we can’t uproot just like that.’

‘Yes, you can. Uproot and get away from here. Look, Lee… You remember when Sam Baker was attacked by that man – a Bluebeard, they called him – remember?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, there’s thousands of men like him. Tens of thousands. They’re vicious barbarians, and we know they’re on the move.’

‘We? Who’s this we?’

‘The people I live with now.’

‘Nicole, can’t you spare a few minutes to tell—?’

‘No. I’ve got to go now. I took a risk coming here.’

‘Risk?’

‘Yes, they – the bad ones – could have followed me across the boundary. For crying out loud, I might have even led them here. They’re just waiting for such a break so they can cross over from Limbo. Once they do, whatever they can’t carry away with them they’ll smash or burn. No-one’s safe. No-one can protect themself.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean. What boundary are you talking about? And what’s this Limbo?’

At that moment he saw Nicole run away from him. She didn’t look back. She just put her head down as if a heavy downpour had started and ran.

He followed, caught her by the arm, then pulled to stop her.

The momentum whipped her whole body round.

‘No, Lee! You promised you wouldn’t try and look at me!’

He stared into her face. It was the Nicole Wagner he knew, but her eyes were big and frightened-looking; maybe they were a little older and wiser, too.

‘Why did you hide from me? You can trust me to… Uh, Nicole?’ His eyes widened in shock. ‘Wait. You’ve got something on your neck… Ugh, what is it?’

She looked up at him, her eyes not flinching from his. As if he’d suddenly found her in the nude and she was challenging him not to stare down at her body.

‘Don’t move, Nicole. Here… let me knock it off.’

Her next movement was defiant. Chin held high, still meeting his eye, she put her hand over the side of her neck and gave a little shake of her head.

Then, still maintaining eye contact, she backed off into the shadows where the trees grew closer together. ‘Goodbye, Lee.’ A second later she turned to run lightly away into the heart of the wood.

He stood there for a moment, his arm out as if she’d left behind some phantom image of herself that he could still hold onto.

He couldn’t shift from his mind what he’d seen on her neck.

It stayed there, biting deep into his memory. It shouldn’t have been possible. But he’d seen something very similar before.

Nausea suddenly gripped him. He fought it for a while. Then the struggle became too much.

He dropped to his knees and vomited onto the ground.

Ten minutes later he walked down to the river bank with the intention of finding Sam Baker. He had to tell him about his meeting in the wood with Nicole.

Poor Nicole… Once she’d been so incredibly beautiful… The image was still locked firmly there inside his head. He wanted it out, but it would take a long time to fade.

When he’d grabbed her and she’d swung to face him he’d looked into her face. Where her jaw-line reached her ear there’d been a fuzz of brown fur. It wasn’t large. He could easily have covered it with the ball of his thumb. But it had been enough to make him look more closely.

At that instant he knew he would wish he hadn’t.

With his eyes widening, he found himself staring at the fold of skin where the bottom of her ear joined the neck.

From a series of small puckered lumps in the skin something as long and as thin as matchsticks jutted straight out.

He’d found himself staring as they stretched out stiff, then relaxed. Then they began twitching sharply.

He thought for a moment some large (disgustingly large at that) insect with scurrying legs had landed on her neck.

But those legs that emerged from the puckered mounds of skin on her neck were, he realised, the legs of a mouse.

Delicate, grey-brown, sprinkled with fine white hairs, they each possessed tiny prehensile claws that opened and shut, sometimes catching her lovely blonde hair and holding onto it.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

That queasy sensation was rising again, filling his mouth with a bile taste.

For one mad moment he could even feel those scurrying mouse legs across his tongue.

At last he made it to the ferry crossing without vomiting again.

Sam Baker had just tied up the rowboat. His passengers, a smartly-dressed family of eight, were walking along the jetty to the banking.

With one last effort to squeeze down the hot bile rising in his throat he went down to Sam and told him everything that had happened.