Manchester Ship Canal,’ said Martin.
‘Oh, now I feel a lot better!’ the other man retorted.
‘Are we going to stay here all day prattling?’ asked Tom, slyly concealing the parasol once more, in the hope the others would forget it. ‘Let me remind you that the present awaits us outside.’
You’re right, Tom.’ Jeff laughed. ‘Let’s get back to our own time!’
‘Without having to cross the fourth dimension!’ echoed Martin, roaring with laughter.
The fifteen men made their way through the ruins, walking almost as if in a procession out of respect for those wearing the automatons’ heavy garb. As they advanced, Jeff noticed a little uneasily how absent-minded Captain Shackleton looked. (From now on, as I no longer have to keep any secrets, I will refer to him by his real name, Tom Blunt.)
‘I still don’t understand how people are taken in by this fake rubble,’ Jeff remarked, trying to draw his friend out of his brooding silence.
‘Remember, they’re seeing it from the other side,’ Tom responded distractedly.
Jeff feigned incomprehension, determined to keep him talking so that he would forget whatever was bothering him.
‘It’s like when we go to see a conjuror,’ Tom felt obliged to add, although he had never seen one himself. The closest he had come to the world of magic had been when he lodged in the same boarding-house as an amateur magician. Perhaps that was what gave him the authority to go on: ‘Conjuring tricks dazzle us, they even make us think magic might exist, but if we only saw how they did it, we’d ask ourselves how we could have been so easily fooled. None of the passengers see through Mr Murray’s trickery’ he said, pointing with the parasol at the machine they were walking past, which was responsible for producing enough smoke to hide the roof and beams of the vast shed that housed the set. ‘In fact, they’re not even suspicious. They only see the end result. They see what they want to see. You’d also believe this pile of ruins was London in the year 2000 if what you wanted to see was London in the year 2000.’
Exactly as Claire Haggerty had believed, he thought, with bitter regret, remembering how the girl had offered to help him rebuild the world.
‘Yes, you must admit, the boss has arranged it brilliantly’ his companion acknowledged, following the flight of a crow with his eyes. ‘If people found out this was only a set, he’d end up in jail – if they didn’t string him up first.’
‘That’s why it’s so important no one sees our faces, right, Tom?’ said Bradley.
Tom nodded, trying to suppress a shudder.
‘Yes, Bradley’ Jeff reiterated, given his companion’s terse response. ‘We’re obliged to wear these uncomfortable helmets so the passengers won’t recognise us if they bump into us somewhere in London. It’s another of Murray’s safely measures. Have you forgotten what he said to us on our first day?’
‘Not likely!’ Bradley declared. Then, mimicking his boss’s melodious, educated voice, he added: ‘“Your helmet is your safe-conduct, gentlemen. Anyone who takes it off during the show will live to regret it, believe me.’”
Yes, and I’m not going to be the one to run the risk. Remember what happened to poor Perkins.’
Bradley whistled with fear at the thought, and Tom shuddered again. The group came to a halt in front of a fragmented skyline of burning rooftops. Jeff stepped forward, found the handle hidden in the mural, and opened a door among the clouds. As though plunging into their fluffy interior, the procession left the set, and walked down a passageway to a cramped dressing room. Upon entering, they were surprised by the sound of furious clapping. Gilliam Murray was sprawled on a chair applauding with theatrical enthusiasm.
The group was speechless. Gilliam stood up and walked towards them with open arms. ‘Congratulations on a wonderful job, gentlemen. Our customers were so thrilled by your performance that some of them even want to come back.’
After acknowledging his clap on the back, Tom moved discreetly away from the others. In the munitions store he left the piece of painted wood covered with bolts and knobs, which, with the aid of the blank charges under the automatons’ armour, Murray was able to pass off as a lethal weapon of the future, and started to get changed. He needed to leave there as soon as possible, he told himself, thinking of Claire Haggerty and the problem caused by his blasted bladder. He took off Captain Shackleton’s armour, hung it on its hanger and pulled his own clothes out of a box marked ‘Tom’. He rolled the parasol up in his jacket, and glanced round to make sure no one had seen him. Murray was giving orders to a couple of waitresses who had entered wheeling trolleys laden with steak and kidney pie, grilled sausages and tankards of beer, while the rest of his fellow workers had also begun to change.
He gazed warmly at the men with whom chance had obliged him to work: Jeff, lean but strong, cheerful and talkative; young Bradley, still an adolescent, whose youthful face gave the S-shaped scar on his cheek an even more disturbing air; burly Mike, with his look of perpetual bewilderment; and Martin, the joker, a strapping redhead of uncertain age, whose leathery skin reflected the ravages of a life spent working out in all weathers. It felt strange to Tom that, while in Murray’s fictional world they would all have laid down their lives for him, in the real world they might slit his throat for a promise of food or money. After all, what did he know about them except that, like him, they were penniless?
They had gone out drinking together several times; first to celebrate their more than satisfactory debut performance, then to mark the success of the one given in honour of Her Majesty the Queen, for which they had received double wages. Last, they had caroused to celebrate their third triumphant performance in advance. That riotous spree had ended like the others in Mrs Dawson’s bawdy-house. But, if anything, the revelry had made Tom realise he should avoid keeping company with these fellows or they would land him in trouble.
With the exception of Martin Tucker – who, despite his fondness for pranks, seemed the most decent – he saw them as a bunch of untrustworthy delinquents. Like him, they lived from hand to mouth, doing odd jobs – although it was clear they were not above breaking the law if there was money to be earned. Only a few days before, Jeff Wayne and Bradley Holloway had asked him to play a part in one of their shady dealings – a house in Kensington Gore that looked easy to break into. He had refused to go along, not so much because he had promised himself to make every effort to earn an honest living, but because when it came to breaking the law he preferred to act alone: he knew from experience that he had more chance of survival if he watched his own back. If you depended only on yourself, no one could betray you.
He had slipped into his shirt and was doing up the buttons when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gilliam
