Timescape

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

MARJORIE HOPED JOHN WOULD BE HOME SOON. HE had worked past midnight every night this week. She ran a hand through her hair, eyed her empty glass. Better not. She’d had three already. Was this how one became an alcoholic? She got up suddenly, turned on the radio and the stereo at high volume. A cacophony of sound blared through the room, a jazz band clashing against a trio of Latin singers, bringing a kind of life. She went through the ground floor again, turning on all the lights. Conservation be damned. Her nerves were jumping and she was having a little difficulty focusing her eyes. After all, what was there to stay sober for? She picked up her glass and headed for the sideboard.

Halfway across the room she stopped, catching some half-heard sound. Lottie was barking furiously, shut up in the laundry room. She hesitated, then turned down the radio and stereo. This time it was unmistakably the front doorbell. She stood in the middle of the room. Who would… ? The bell rang again. Then a knock. How silly of her! As if a prowler would knock at the door. It was probably a friend. Yes, thank God, someone to talk to, spend the evening with. She hurried to the hall, turned on the porch light. Through the stained glass window to the left of the door she saw the silhouette of a man. Panic seized her again. Distant thunder growled. She took a deep breath, then leaned against the door and called out as calmly as she could manage, “Who is it?”

“Ian Peterson.”

She stared blankly at the door for a moment, mind a blur. She slowly slid back the chain and the two bolts and opened the door a crack. His hair was ruffled. His jacket showed wrinkles and he wore no tie. A wave of embarrassment ran over her as she realized what a sight she must present, too, with her hair awry, clutching an empty glass in one hand and dressed, for God’s sake, in a tatty old sundress because it was so hot. She smoothed her dress with one sticky hand and tried to hide the glass behind her with the other.

“Oh, Mr. Peterson. Um, I’m afraid John isn’t here. He’s, um, working at the lab this evening.”

“Oh? I was hoping to catch him here.”

“Well, I’m sure you could go round—”

A sudden wind howled across the yard, blowing leaves over Peterson’s shoulders. “Oh!” Marjorie exclaimed. Peterson automatically stepped inside. She slammed the door. “My word, what a gust,” she said.

“Storm coming.”

“How was it on the road?”

“Difficult. I’ve been laid up, actually, in a hotel south of here for several days. After I recovered I decided to take a run by here to see if John has anything new.”

“Well, I think not, Mr. Peterson. He—”

“Ian. Please.”

“Well, Ian, John’s been scrounging fuel for the power supply the laboratory has. He says he can’t rely on commercial service any longer. That’s been taking his time. He is continuing to transmit, I can tell you that.”

Peterson nodded. “Good. I suppose that is all anyone can expect. It was an interesting experiment.” He smiled. “I suppose I half-believed it could be done, you know.”

“But can’t it still? I mean…”

“I think there’s something we don’t understand about the process. I must admit I was for the most part interested in the work simply because it was a good bit of science in its own right. A last indulgence of mine, I suppose. Playing cards on the Titantic. I’ve had a chance to think this over the last few days. I left London, thinking I was all right, and then the illness hit me again. I tried to get into a hospital and was rejected. No room. So I stayed in a hotel, riding out the last side effects. Take no food, that’s the cure. So I thought about the experiment to distract myself.”

“My word. Do come and sit.” Marjorie saw as he moved into the light that Peterson was pale and thinner. There was a sunken, hollow look about his eyes. “This illness, was it…”

“Yes, the cloud-carried thing. Even after they clear it from your system, there are residual metabolic irregularities.”

“We’ve been eating tinned food. The radio says that’s best.”

Peterson grimaced. “Yes, they would say that. It means they haven’t the treating fluids they need to save the present crop. I telephoned my Sek today and learned quite a few little gems I suppose they haven’t told the public.”

“Is it bad?”

“Bad? No, disastrous.” He sank wearily onto the sofa. “No matter how much you plan for it, the real thing seems curiously, well, unreal.”

“I thought we hadn’t planned for this.”

He blinked, as if orienting himself. “Well, no, I meant… the endless projections… so mathematical… not this way…” He shook his head and went on. “I’d advise you to eat as little as possible. I have a suspicion—and so do the experts, sod them for all they know—the effects of this will change our lives utterly. There’s a shortage of the system-flushing drugs we need, and… some think the biosphere’s going to be permanently altered.”

“Well, yes,” she said worriedly, feeling a strange sensation wash through her. “If you fellows can’t…”

Peterson seemed to pull himself back from the mood that had struck him. “Let’s not dwell on it, shall we, Marjorie? I may call you Marjorie?”

“Of course.”

“And how are you feeling?”

“To tell you the truth, I’m just a bit squiffy. I was nervous here on my own and I had a couple of drinks. I’m afraid they go to my head rather.”

“Well, that’s probably the best way to be. May I get myself a drink and catch up a bit.”

“Please do. Can you help yourself? I hardly even know what we’ve got. I’m drinking Pernod.”

She watched him cross the room. While his back was turned, she felt free to stare at him. He squatted lightly before the sideboard, tilting the bottles to read their labels. She leaned her head in her hand. She was aware of him coming back across the room, stopping by her, crouching.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Marjorie?”

She could not meet his eyes. She knew she was blushing. His hand rested on the arm of her chair. She looked at his gold watch, the slender wrist, the dark hair on the back of his pale hand. She felt unable to move. She stared at the hand.

“Marjorie?”

“I’m sorry. I feel terribly hot, Ian.”

“Let me open a window. It is very stuffy in here.”

The hand disappeared from view and presently she felt air cooling her damp forehead.

“Oh, that’s better. Thank you.”

She leaned back, was able to look at him. After all, he was not so very special. Goodlooking, but not strikingly so. She smiled back at him.

“I’m sorry. I’m a bit weird this evening. There’s been this cloud thing, and then Greg Markham, and… well, things can seem pointless. And yet one is… glad to be alive… I’m sorry, I’m not making much sense, am I? It’s just that we’re so powerless. I keep wanting to do something.”

“You’re making a lot of sense, Marjorie.”

Thunder crashed suddenly, shaking the house.

“Christ, that was close!” she exclaimed, and then was taken aback at herself. She mustn’t be so excitable. A prickly wave rushed over her skin. “I wonder if more of those cloud organisms are coming down in this rain.”

“Probably.”

“There was a local woman, I heard, who kept a home for cats. She gave all her own tinned food to the cats, thinking the boxed food she had for them had been contaminated. I expect she’ll starve.”

“Mad.” He took a substantial pull on his drink.

“Did you hear about the Coronation? They’ve canceled preparations.”

Peterson said sarcastically, “My, I expect the country will be in an uproar over that.”

Marjorie smiled. A flash, then a booming crash of thunder. Marjorie leaped up in fright. They looked at each other and abruptly burst out laughing.

“As long as you can hear it, you’re safe,” he said. “By that time the lightning’s passed.”

Suddenly she felt very good. She was glad to have him there, keeping loneliness and fear at bay.

“Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?”

“No, I’m not. Relax. Don’t play the hostess. If I want anything, I’ll get it.”

He smiled wanly at her. Was there a double entendre in his words? He must be used to getting anything he wanted. Tonight, though, he was less certain, more… “It’s good to see you,” she said. “It’s been pretty lonely here recently with the children away and John working late.”

“Yes, I imagine—” He didn’t finish the sentence. The lights went out, dramatically accompanied by a roll of thunder.

“Now I’m really glad you’re here. I’d be scared stiff on my own, thinking someone had cut the lines to the house or something.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s just a power failure. Lines blown down by the wind, probably.”

“That’s been happening a lot recently. I’ve got some candles in the kitchen.”

She crossed the room, skirting the furniture in the dark from long familiarity. In the kitchen she felt in the cupboard for candles and matches. Automatically she lit three and set them in candlesticks.

The mechanical clock on a shelf went tick, followed by a clacking as gears moved. She turned and found Ian in the doorway. He stepped inside. The clock made a sound like a rachet sticking. “Oh, I fetched that out of the garage, whilst straightening up,” she said. “With the power always oft, an old windup is better…” Tick.

“Makes that odd sound, though, doesn’t it?”

“Perhaps if you oiled it…”

“But I did, you see. There’s something needs mending. It stays pretty near right, though.”

He leaned against the counter and watched her put away the matches. She noticed that the pine shelving loomed up in the shadows cast by the candles. Things in the room waved and rippled, except for the straight shelves. Tick.

“Interesting,” Ian murmured, “how we keep on wanting to know the time, in the midst of all that’s going on.”

“Yes.”

“As if we still had appointments to keep.”

“Yes.”

A silence stretched between them, a chasm. She searched for something to say. Tick. The shelves seemed more substantial now than the walls. The clock nested in the middle of them, surrounded by preserves.

She looked at Ian. In this dim light his eyes were very dark. She leaned against the cupboard, less nervous now. She should take the candles into the living room, but for the moment it felt right to stay here, not hurry.

Ian moved across the small kitchen. Distantly she wondered if he was going to take a candle. Tick.

He reached up and touched her cheek.

Neither of them moved. She felt warm. She took a shallow breath. She breathed in and it seemed to take a long time to fill her lungs.

Very slowly he bent and kissed her. It was a light, almost casual touch.

She sagged against the cupboard. Tick. She breathed out. In the silence she wondered if he could hear the air flowing in and out of her. She watched as he picked up a candle. A hand touched her shoulder. He steered her out, away from the kitchen and shelves and clock, toward the living room.