And no tourists.
Maddy had expected Piccadilly Circus to look a bit like Times Square: clusters of faces of all colours, people taking pictures of each other posing in front of Eros. But this was very different. It was certainly busy, though — busy with cars, bicycles and electric trams. A network of wires spun like a spider’s web above the hectic thoroughfare. The trams, running along rails in the roads, all had connector arms that reached up to wires, and here and there sparks flickered and fizzed.
The cars all appeared to be the same, albeit in a variety of unexciting colours: maroons, browns and greys. Small bubble-like cars with oval windscreens that puffed thick dark clouds of exhaust fumes. And as many people on bicycles as there were clogging the pavements on foot; they wove round the trams like a school of pilot fish around a whale.
On the side of one towering building overlooking Piccadilly Circus was a giant television screen. Huge. Bigger even than the one in Times Square. But the image was blocky and primitive. Two-tone ‘pixels’ of just black and white. Looking more closely, Maddy saw it wasn’t even a light-based display, but each ‘pixel’ was a disc about the size of a dinner plate, that flipped on a spindle. One side black, one side white.
‘Now this is different to how it’s meant to be.’ Liam looked at her. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Very.’
It felt like a London that belonged to a Britain stuck in 1945. Perhaps the early fifties. She wasn’t sure.
‘Well now,’ said Liam, ‘we know for sure the Jack-the-Ripper thing has caused a change.’
Maddy looked at her watch. ‘We’ve got fifty-six minutes left. Let’s split up. Get what you can, any newspapers, magazines, books you can lay your hands on. Back here in fifty minutes, OK?’
Chapter 64
2001, Piccadilly Circus, London
Liam decided the plaque above the grand building in front of him looked promising enough: INFORMATION RESOURCES CENTRE (DEPT OF INFORMATION DISSEMINATION).
He took the dozen steps up and pushed his way through a heavy wooden revolving door and stepped into a cavernous foyer beyond. He saw several concentric circles of benches round a cluster of newspaper stands in the middle. Most of the seats were already occupied with men and women, even some children, flipping through rustling broadsheet newspapers.
He spotted long tables beyond, glowing reading lamps evenly spaced along them; they were mostly occupied by people reading newspapers or books. To his left was a counter and a young woman busily filing index cards in an organizer.
He wandered over and stood in front of the counter for a moment, before finally coughing into his balled fist for her attention.
She looked up. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’
Liam offered her his best lopsided smile. ‘Ah, that’s all right.’
‘How can I help you?’
‘Well now, I’d like to have some information.’
‘Information?’
‘Aye.’
‘Well…’ Bemused exasperation on her face, she laced her fingers and leaned forward. ‘How about we try and narrow that down just a little bit?’
Liam laughed softly. ‘Aye, might help. I’m after history books, recent history, that is.’
‘All right…’ She nodded. ‘Wonderful start! How recent?’
‘Hmmm… last century or so.’
‘Or so?’
‘Last century, then. Nothing too specific, you know… general history, world history.’
She looked at him through a drooping tress of mouse-brown hair. ‘Just arrived from another planet in another galaxy, have you, sir?’
‘Aye. Who knows… I might even choose to stay.’
Her turn to laugh. ‘Well, I have academic reference texts or general information texts.’ She glanced at his puzzled face and decided to clarify that. ‘With nice pretty pictures or without?’
‘Oh, pictures! Please.’
‘Pictures you can colour in?’
‘Uh?’
She chuckled, raised a hand to cover her mouth. He noticed she had braces on her teeth. ‘Just teasing you, sorry. Let me quickly check my info-veedee for some suitable lend-outs.’
He noticed a pale blue glow lighting her face from below and her fingers began to tap at a typewriter keyboard. He leaned forward over the counter and noted a small cabinet the size of a cigar box; one glass side glowed blue, like a small television set. Two metal brackets held a large oblong magnifying glass screen between the young woman and the mini ‘television’. She adjusted its hinges slightly; the tiny screen loomed large in the lens, glowing blue with white text.
‘That’s a veedee, is it?’
She looked at him. ‘Veedee? You know, visual display?’
‘Ahh, that’s a computer down there, I suppose?’
She looked at him quizzically. ‘ Compute-er? What an odd word.’ She cocked her head. ‘You really are from another planet, aren’t you?’
‘That’s what me mother used to say about me.’
She looked back at the magnified screen. ‘We have The Revolutionary Century: A History of Socialist Britain. That’s a bit heavy-going, I think. How about Two Worlds: The Free Man and the Profit Slave? That’s quite a good read.’ She looked up at him. ‘And it’s got lots of pictures too.’
‘Aye, that one sounds good.’
She tapped a key. ‘There, requested it.’ He noticed her sneak a furtive glance up at him, then her eyes darted awkwardly back to the lens screen. ‘Now, umm… let me see… what other works can I recommend for you?’
‘Good to see a library so well used,’ said Liam, looking back at the rows of eager readers, the gentle whispering rustle of pages being turned.
‘It’s the news-sheets,’ she replied. ‘Everyone wants to know the latest on what’s happening.’ The teasing smile at the edge of her lips dropped for a moment. Very suddenly she looked drawn and worried. ‘It’s all so terrifying, though, isn’t it?’
‘Terrifying?’
‘The blockade! The Americans shipping in all those atomics for their French friends?’ She pressed her lips together. ‘You can’t help wondering how this is going to end up, can you?’
Liam decided to play along. ‘Aye, it’s pretty bad, there’s no doubting that.’
‘My mum says,’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘my mum says if the French get those missile bits and pieces and decide to put them together, it could end up leading to an atomic war.’
‘War?’
She nodded. ‘ Atomic.’ She mouthed the word as if it was a curse not to be spoken out loud. As if merely saying the word would open the gates of Hell for Satan and his hordes to pour through.
‘It’s so frightening. Mum says we could all end up dying if that happened.’
Liam shrugged that off. ‘Ah, now I’m sure something like that won’t happen. What’s in it for the big fellas at the top if they let something daft like that happen? Hmmm?’
She fiddled absently with the index folder in front of her. ‘No, I suppose not. I suppose it all looks more frightening than it really is. It’ll all turn out all right in the end, won’t it?’
‘Of course.’ He nodded. ‘Always does. Everyone sees sense in the end.’ He smiled. ‘They always do.’
She raised that teasing, flickering smile again, and continued browsing through catalogue pages on the lens screen. ‘Anyway… so do you, uh… you live in London? Only you sound Irish or is it Scottish?’
