and do your bit in the crisis.”
“Thank you.”
“Like the orchestra on the
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” The door closed, and George thought for a moment. In the background the music played, but the only effect it had on George was to inspire the reflection that the “Unfinished Symphony” would be used to it by now, and he could safely take it off in a moment to read the news flash. What could he think of for an impromptu programme with interruptions?
From a purely aesthetic point of view, it would be appropriate at this stage to describe the interior of the power station in which Vanderdecker, Montalban, the crew of the
“What,” Vanderdecker asked as he opened a curtain door leading to a certain room in a building, “did you have to bring that cat for?”
“Guinea-pig,” replied Montalban through the charred wisps of fabric that had once been a handkerchief held in front of his nose. The first mate frowned.
“What, to catch one, you mean?”
Montalban stopped in his tracks and turned round. “To catch one of what?” he asked.
“A guinea-pig,” replied the first mate. “Is that why you brought the cat?”
Montalban smiled. “No, no, you don’t quite seem to follow,” he said. “The cat is a guinea-pig.”
“No it’s not,” the first mate replied, “it’s a cat.”
“That’s right,” Vanderdecker said hastily, “it’s a cat, isn’t it, Montalban? Are you still wearing your reading glasses?”
“The cat,” said Montalban slowly, “is here to perform the function of a guinea-pig.”
The first mate’s frown remained as constant as the Northern Star. “You mean, running round inside a little wheel or something?”
“Yes,” replied the Professor; he was a quick learner. “If necessary.”
“I see,” said the first mate, and added, “Why?”
“Because,” explained the Professor, and reached into his pocket for another handkerchief. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one. Nor was there a pocket. There wasn’t, in fact, a fibre of cloth among the whole party; just hot but invulnerable flesh.
“Stuffy in here, isn’t it?” said Wilhelmus. “Can’t we open a window?”
“Not really,” Vanderdecker said. “A bit counterproductive, that would be. Look, isn’t it about time we started doing something, instead of just wandering about like this?”
“If you’ll just bear with me a little longer,” the Professor said, “I hope to be in a position to make a final assessment of the extent of the problem facing us.”
A large and jagged slab of masonry dislodged itself from the roof and fell heavily onto the precise spot Sebastian would have been standing on if Vanderdecker hadn’t rather unceremoniously moved him. Sebastian scowled and muttered something under his breath.
“Right, then,” said the Flying Dutchman positively. Deep inside he could feel himself starting to get angry. The last time he had been angry was many years ago, when, thanks to a series of accidents and coincidences, he had wandered into the middle of the Battle of Trafalgar just as the French were on the point of victory, and a cannonball from a French ship of the line had smashed a hole in the
“Where are you going?” Montalban asked.
“Never you mind,” Vanderdecker replied. “Just lend me that cat for a moment, will you, and then you can go away and have a nice cup of tea or something. Cornelius, Sebastian, you follow me. The rest of you stay here.”
Montalban handed over the cat, which was growling slightly, and watched helplessly as the Flying Dutchman stalked off through a door whose existence is not explicitly acknowledged. The door closed, and a moment later flew open again as the room beyond it blew up.
“Now
“Oh dear,” Montalban said. “I really don’t think he should have gone in there.”
The other members of the crew tried to peer through the cloud of smoke, flame and debris, but it was impervious to sight. They could, however, hear loud banging noises.
“Antonius, Johannes, Wilhelmus, Pieter, Dirk, Jan Christian! Over here, quick as you like!” came a thunderous command. “Cornelius, grab the cat!”
Montalban was left standing alone in the middle of a burning room. He didn’t like it much. It was unnerving, what with the falling masonry and everything, and he hadn’t had a rock cake in five hours.
“Wait for me,” he said.
Jane had always hated Ceefax. It wasn’t just the way the blasted thing played “That’s Entertainment” on the electronic organ at you while listing the latest casualties in the Mexican earthquake; it wasn’t even the mule-like persistence with which it kept giving you a recipe for chicken la king when you wanted the weather forecast. It was the little numbers at the top of the screen that really made Jane want to scream. She was alone in the house, and there were no neighbours close enough to be disturbed. She screamed.
Then she pulled herself together again and pressed some buttons on the remote control. Back to the index. Yes. Fine. Stay with it. News Update—
Try the other channel, said a little voice inside Jane’s head. It’ll be just as bad, but the recipe may be different. She tried the other channel and found the index number for News Update. She pressed the necessary buttons. She got the Australian Football results.
A person could make a fortune, she decided, reinventing the carrier pigeon. Or smoke signals. Craftily, she went back to the main index and keyed in the code for the recipe. There was a flicker of coloured light, the television sang “I Did It My Way” and she got the Australian Football results. Melbourne, it seemed, was having a good run this season. Come on, you reds.
Perhaps, Jane reflected, it won’t be on the news at all. What if Harvey and his colleagues have organised a total news blackout? Was that why he had driven away in such a hurry just after the helicopters took off? Jane was a child of the media age, and there lurked in the back of her mind the instinctive belief that if a thing wasn’t on the news, it couldn’t really have happened after all. So if Harvey could keep it off the air, perhaps the whole thing could unhappen, like a film projector with the film in backwards. No. Unlikely.
Jane put down the remote control and wandered over to the window. Outside it was raining, that slow, gentle, extremely wet Cotswold rain that once used to turn watermills and was somehow or other connected with the rise of the wool trade. History had never been her best subject at school, and the wool trade had been the armpit of History as far as she was concerned, and so she found it hard to remember the details. What could rain possibly have to do with wool? Did it make the ground so soggy that you couldn’t keep cows because of foot-rot, so you had to keep sheep instead? Was rain connected with the wool trade at all? Had there ever been a wool trade? Yes, because she had met someone who had been involved in it. The Wool Trade, the Hanseatic League, the Spanish Netherlands, all that bit between Richard the Lion-Heart and Charles I, in the margins of which she had drawn little racing-cars. Strange, to think that one man could have seen all that.
There was that song, she remembered. We joined the Navy to see the world, and what did we see? We saw the sea. And the Atlantic isn’t romantic and the Pacific isn’t terrific and the Black Sea isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. The poor man. It must have been awful for him.
One thing in history that had registered with her was Robert the Bruce and the spider, because she was terrified of spiders. Back to the Ceefax, then, and let’s have one more go. Carefully, Jane selected the required index numbers for the Australian Football results and keyed them in. She got the Australian Football results, while the unseen orchestra played “They Call The Wind Maria”.
Like St Paul on the road to Damascus, Jane suddenly understood. Nobody else did, but she understood.
