Chapter 17
Lawrence tailed the litter up a wide boulevard between smoking, thumping industry. Gruesome noises emerged from the sheds to both sides, smoke rolled from two impressive octagonal brick chimneys on the right. A massive load emerged from the ornate cast-iron archway of that factory, some sort of long steel pole or pipe supported at each end on a wagon. Its train of Night and Fog haulers keeled forward as if fighting a gale-force wind, struggling to win every pace until their load gained momentum. Even Kalchelik’s litter had to stop while the train completed a ponderous turn and crawled on its way. Lawrence guessed it was the boom of a large schooner, although it seemed bizarre to produce such a thing here, miles from Woolwich. He grabbed the chance to get beside Kalchelik whilst the litter rested on its legs.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. Kalchelik’s eyes flashed and scanned him up and down.
“How can I help you, young sir?” he asked. Lawrence caught a whiff of after-shave and mint mouthwash.
“May I ask you to cast your mind back ten years to your latter days as a section leader?”
Now Kalchelik’s eyes hardened. He frowned at Lawrence.
“You may indeed—but why?”
“I served in your section. You may recall Wee Larry Aldingford.”
Kalchelik stared at him. It was impossible to judge his mood. In the ten years since they had worked together, his face had lost its animation. Now, whatever went on behind those black pupils was a hidden world.
“You transferred up to Peterborough to hunt fenland bandits.”
“That’s correct.”
“Ah well…” He sounded relieved. “That’s just fine. You look—and I might add, you smell—down on your luck. Come along with me, it’s only another hundred yards.”
The bearers hefted the litter and it floated on, through a set of cast iron gates into a factory premises. To begin with, they proceeded up a brick-paved roadway between warehouses. In each warehouse was an apparent rabble of families pulling apart, carrying, heaping things that were metal, other things wooden, lumps of sodden paper and dirty shapeless things. A smell of rottenness hung over all. Kalchelik looked back and beckoned Lawrence.
“Let me briefly explain our family business. We’re miners—do you know what that is?”
“Extracting coal?”
“Not quite. We mine for rubbish buried by the Public Era. The Fatted Masses were devoted to waste, as you know, so we make our living today from their middens. You would never believe how vast the resource is. I’ll tell you all about it. My point is that you don’t need to worry about having a place here if you want one. We old friends must stick together.”
Lawrence appeared enthusiastic, whilst inwardly growing alarmed. Such largesse to a stranger of the past was not the behaviour of an honest man. A sick feeling took root in Lawrence’s guts, the feeling of having taken a gamble he could not afford to lose, and lost. The litter passed through an arch in a thick hedge of Leyland cypress to emerge in a different world. They were in a long garden at the front of a row of attractive terraced houses preserved from the Public Era. The garden flourished with winter flowers, white, red and purple, infusing the air with scent to relieve the reek of mining. The family and its business occupied the row of terraces. Kalchelik dismounted at the porch of a house near the middle, thanked his carriers and told them they were free. He took Lawrence by the arm and led him inside.
“Times have changed a great deal since we served together, I’m revelling in just how fast the National Party are driving reform. It has become my whole world. Solidarity, unity, nation and all that. I must give you fair warning I’m a true believer, Lawrence! I have forced swingeing reforms in our conditions of work. Our staff only do a fifty-hour week now, with two weeks’ paid holiday, sick pay and assistance in medical expenses. We’ve a long way to go to match the glory trusts of course—there’s no way we can afford to offer schooling and pensions—but then, we don’t have sovereign customers filling our pockets with gold. Ah, may I at this point tactfully suggest a shower and a change of clothes?”
Lawrence had no urge to expose himself to the total vulnerability of standing naked in a locked shower. However, he could not retreat now. He just had to smile and say how kind and get on with it.
He knew it was going to be a shock to look in a mirror. Even having braced for it, the gaunt face that stared back fixed him rapt for long seconds. Mechanically, he washed his face and shaved off the blond stubble. The stubble was dangerous, as few men were blond—it made him memorable. While shaving, he had time to get used to something unexpected, something unwelcome. He looked old. Lines cut his forehead and clustered around his eyes. He was already middle-aged. The Night and Fog had burned years from his life in just a few months.
Half an hour later, Lawrence relaxed with a pork sandwich and glass of beer, in woollen trousers and a corduroy shirt borrowed from one of Kalchelik’s cousins. Despite the luxuries of the first hot shower in five months, a clean body and fresh clothes, sombreness haunted him. That forty-year-old face kept staring back from his mind’s eye.
Kalchelik sat opposite, talking and talking. He always had been the centre of attention, entertaining his section with smutty jokes and yarns. As Lawrence was munching through the sandwich, Kalchelik sustained a monologue about the family business. They had close ties to gangster clans miles out on the Great North Drain, so far out that the area had never been built over even in the Public Era. The slaves of the gangsters excavated the vast middens left
