Out of Time (16 page)

‘So you have them in your world?’

‘This is a story, not reality. The scheme is that the potion induces a deathlike trance and she will appear to be dead, but she won’t be, merely asleep. Romeo is to be told and to be ready to run away with her once she has woken but…’

‘Another but…’

‘Romeo hears that Juliet is dead. He is distraught with grief and vows to end his life. He gets a poisonous drink and finds what he thinks is her corpse lying by the family tomb, waiting for burial. The man Juliet’s father wanted her to marry is also there. Romeo fights and kills him and then he swallows the poison and lies down beside her. Juliet regains consciousness and, seeing Romeo dead, kills herself with his dagger.’

‘How sad! But all your stories are.’

‘Only some - but yours are no different.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

She paused.

‘I hope nothing like that ever happens to us.’

‘We’re not star-crossed lovers,’ he said.

Spring slowly announced itself and the danger of attack receded. The snow melted, crystals to water, leaving the earth sodden; but by early April wind and sun had done their work. The winter corn lost its bedraggled look and threw up fresh green shoots. Meredith and Randolph turned furrows of glistening soil and sowed spring oats. The surviving animals, scraggy, weak and underfed, were let out. The pungent scent of renewal went to their heads and sent them running round the fields as though the winter had never been. Day watches were discontinued. It seemed to Joe and Kathryn that their cup of happiness was full. They danced their ecstasy to the music of the fresh spring wind.

Joe had resumed his reading during the winter months. Volume Two of The History of My People painted a very different picture from the first, one that Joe recognised, for its depiction of brutality and lust for power echoed the history of his own world. He was not surprised to learn that the peaceful idyll that had been so long maintained by the village states erupted with terrifying speed, the passive acceptance of the status quo blown apart. Its catalyst was a rumour that spread from village to village concerning a herbal potion concocted by two wise men living in the mountains to the west - Wales. Wise men were important members of each community. Doctors, herbalists and spiritualists, they held a position similar to that of the Celtic Druids but acted with greater benevolence. Their most important skill lay in their knowledge of the healing power of plants. They were able to ease pain and cure certain maladies but were unable to prolong life. A natural equilibrium was thus maintained. Birth and death balanced each other in equal measure.

But now these wise men claimed that they had made a herbal mixture from rare plants which arrested the process of ageing for an indefinite period from the moment the drug was taken though it did not confer immortality. Death from disease or by another’s hand was still possible. The ingredients of this potent mix they had kept secret for one hundred and fifty years, the age they said they now were, still fit and young and with no sign of the years they carried. It was difficult to believe. People scoffed, asking for proof. Anyone, they said, could pretend to be any age they liked. Some adventurous souls made the long journey to Wales to see for themselves. They returned convinced. Old people who had known the wise men all their lives, who had been told about them by their fathers and their grandfathers, attested to the wise men’s age.

Joe shared the scepticism of the villagers. It was inconceivable that a society as primitive as the one described should have arrived at a stage more advanced in prolonging the human life span than his own.

He read on.

Rumour of the drug’s efficacy spread, particularly among the young who, with this new wave of possibility, saw their lives take a different shape from that of their forefathers. The drug’s potency was exaggerated with every telling. It was now believed that it made those who took it immortal, that nothing could kill them. This caught the popular imagination like a fever. The populace grew restive. Everyone wanted to take the drug while others, more enterprising, sought to learn how to mix it and hold its power in their hands. A stampede began. All over England groups of young people defied their village elders and travelled west to benefit from this miracle.

With this Joe could identify. The older generation seemed always to want to maintain the old order, could never be convinced that innovation was not synonymous with decadence; but the young were anxious to forge ahead. In this case, though, the results were rather different. Long held traditions were cast aside but there was no new radical movement to take their place. Instead, the younger generation moved west in search of the drug. Villages were depleted, harvests lost and livestock neglected. In the south, a village chief killed two boys in an attempt to prevent them leaving.

Such wholesale desertion had never happened before. An outraged populace, clinging to the old ways, rose in rebellion and fought the young vanguards of change. Within a short time stable communities had disintegrated. The young fought the old, family fought against family. Anarchy reigned and civil war escalated with frightening speed. After generations of peaceful living, the society was in turmoil. The two wise men were horrified at the disintegration they had unleashed but powerless to halt it. They went into hiding and, after many days’ deliberation, agreed that the only hope of restoring order was to destroy the drug and all knowledge of it. As they were the only people who knew what its ingredients were, they would have to put themselves beyond reach. They made a suicide pact and withdrew in the hope that, after their deaths, life would eventually resume its normal pattern.

One of the wise men was the writer of the chronicle.

On the last page of Volume Two he had written:

‘I Julian, attest to the truth of all I have written which was experienced by me. These are my last words. Tomorrow is the day of our death.’

That was all.

Joe put the volume back in its place beside the carved mantelpiece and pondered. Civil war was not an unfamiliar phenomenon, it was similar to the history of his own world but the context here was the stuff of legend and mythology. He found it hard to credit as literal history.

Randolph however clearly considered it important, for he had urged him to read it. Did this mean that the history had an immediate bearing on the present situation, that it was something he needed to know? He speculated on connections and assumed that this community was the remnant of a fleeing populace.

The time sequence was difficult to disentangle. Otto, the repository of all knowledge, could probably tell him more.

He found him slumped by the kitchen stove, head bent. Thinking he was asleep, Joe tiptoed by but Otto raised his head. Joe was shocked by what he saw. Otto’s face had lost its youthful look. His eyes were sunken and his skin grey and wrinkled. He looked like an old man. Joe crept out and found Randolph repairing an implement.

‘Otto is ill.’

He described what he had seen.

‘He’s not ill,’ Randolph said. ‘He’s showing his real age. It happens sometimes.’

‘What do you mean?’

Randolph gave him a long hard look.

‘Tonight. We’ll have a meeting tonight.’

*

Although severely debilitated, Susie and Ian have succeeded in surviving the winter, partly by supporting each other, partly because now and then a more kindly guard smuggles them extra blankets and food. There are more of such guards than they could have anticipated and it makes them hopeful that one day the populace will rise against the tyrant. Nevertheless, many have died and the two friends have watched with sadness the bodies being carted away and new children pushed into the dungeon.

Susie’s parents are still in prison but barely alive. Each is alone in a cold empty cell without contact with other people, a cruel punishment, designed to dehumanise the prisoners. At first they find the strength to rebel against their isolation and fight the despair it causes but cold and hunger soon take over. They can think of little else except the next thin meal, the next glimpse of a guard. Hope that their child has survived keeps them doggedly alive. Like many another prisoner, they have devised small stratagems for survival. Signals through the walls keep them in contact with the people in the neighbouring cells. There is a network of communication that goes right through the prison and everyone is kept abreast of events.

The prisoners are, like the children, sometimes fortunate enough to have guards on duty who try to ease their lot whenever they can. And as the weather improves they are allowed out into a yard for limited exercise.

They assume this is allowed because they will be useful for work. In this they are not mistaken.

*

They sat round the table once their meal was over, the windows open to the invigorating scent of the spring air. To Joe’s relief, Otto had recovered, his features once again normal.

Joe pressed Kathryn’s hand but she, looking both apprehensive and defiant, removed it.

‘What’s’ wrong?’ he asked her quietly, but she deliberately turned to Belinda. She too seemed ill at ease.

Kathryn’s rejection was unexpected and, as far as Joe could make out, without foundation. No quarrel had taken place, no cross word passed between them, not at any time; nor could he think of anything in his behaviour that could have offended her. Angry and hurt, he looked round the table and was astonished at the unease on every face. He was clearly once again in the dock and waited apprehensively for whatever storm was about to break over his head, remembering how the last time such a gathering had taken place the same heavy air of expectancy had preceded the Star Chamber interrogation. Once again, the unpredictability of these young people had taken him by surprise and brought hurtling back his previous sense of alienation. With it came the bitter knowledge that when the chips were down he was still alone, without Kathryn’s support. This tasted of betrayal and plunged him into an abyss of despair.

The meeting proceeded and Joe felt relieved that the community appeared to have nothing more dramatic in mind than to continue explaining their history at the point it had left off in Volume Two. What then was wrong with Kathryn? He tried to concentrate on the matter in hand.

‘If the two wise men died and knowledge of the drug with them, did the rebellions cease and the villagers return to their homes?’ he now asked.

‘Far from it. And the two wise men didn’t die. Only one. My grandfather, the author of the history.’

‘That,’ Joe thought, ‘explains a lot about this strange young man.’

‘When did all this happen?’ he asked.

‘Over three hundred years ago.’

He saw a look exchanged between the two girls but, too preoccupied with the conclusion that he was beginning to formulate, took little notice. If the events described had occurred three hundred years ago, Otto’s grandfather could not have taken part in the related history for there would have to be several generations between then and now; the so-called ‘grandfather’ would be several ‘greats’. The mathematics did not add up.

He asked them.

‘No, that’s correct. Otto’s grandfather.’

‘Three hundred years ago?’

No one replied.

The other possibility was that the drug had worked and the normal span of one generation been stretched to unimaginable lengths; but history was a fairy tale, concocted in times past by unsophisticated people. He must not be drawn into a whirlpool of ancient superstitions. He said so.

‘But it’s true. The drug exists and it works. It prolongs life if not forever, almost indefinitely.’

Looking at their intelligent faces, Joe reminded himself that these were people without the advantages of a scientific education, that one could not expect sophistication equivalent to his own. He could not help a slight lift of superiority but was immediately ashamed. People in his world were no different, fought and died for outmoded beliefs, divided into warring sects, worshipped primitive symbols that, on a rational basis, were unsustainable.

‘Helmuth, my grandfather’s partner,’ Otto continued, ‘saw his opportunity for absolute power. He pretended to go along with the planned suicide but did not take his own life. He watched my grandfather die and announced that he had suddenly fallen ill. He ordered a ceremonious burial and pretended to be deeply grieved.’

As soon it was over and the traditional period of mourning observed, Helmuth put carefully laid plans into action. Together with other conspirators he formed an army with rigorous admission rules, creating a top class of chiefs who had to be between thirty and forty years old. These were allowed to take the drug. They were all-powerful and, roaming the countryside with their armies, subjugated each community as they came to it. Many of their chiefs fell in the battlefield against groups of strong young men who opposed them but these, year by year, were eliminated and thousands of people assassinated until Helmuth and his junta reigned supreme over a decimated population.

‘No young people escaped?’

Otto paused.

‘Some did and went into hiding.’

‘You,’ Joe said.

Otto nodded.

‘All of you here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Helmuth is still in charge?’

The portrait in Fairfax Road. Joe recalled it with terrifying clarity.

‘Yes. He and his chiefs separated into smaller townships, like the one in Bantage, though we think it’s now the only one that survives.

‘What happened to the others?’

‘No one really knows. Perhaps the chiefs weren’t strong enough without Helmuth. He wields a terrifying power. The junta he gathered round him imposes a strict regime. One of the laws forbids people to have children.’

Joe looked incredulous.

‘For those who have taken the drug, children get in the way. Immortal, or at least such long lived parents don’t need to continue the family. They are the family. Some killed their children. Youth became an unnecessary burden and a threat.’

‘Does no one die?’

‘Yes, disease has not been eradicated but it is rare. And accidents occur, and murders; and at some point old age takes over but it takes a long, long time. Citizens are replaced only when numbers are dwindling. This is done by designated families who are given permission to have children. These are taken away at three months and brought up by the state, indoctrinated and taught to obey orders. At the required age, forty or so, they are given the drug. You can imagine the kind of people they become, servants who perpetuate the tyrant state. That way Helmuth and his cronies stay in power forever. Some parents have been known to hide their children and bring them up secretly but they are usually caught and used as slave labour until they die of exhaustion - which is not long. Certainly none have reached here.’