The Eyre Affair, Page 7

  “Would you like me to read it for you?” said a kindly voice close at hand. It was the Japanese tourist. She smiled at me and I thanked her for her trouble.

  She checked that no one was around, unfolded her reading glasses and started to speak. She spoke excellent English and had a fine reading voice; the words peeled off the page into my imagination as she spoke.

  . . . In those days I was young and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind; the memories of nursery stories were there among other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigor and vividness beyond what childhood could give . . .

  I closed my eyes and a thin chill suddenly filled the air around me. The tourist’s voice was clear now, as though speaking in the open air, and when I opened my eyes the museum had gone. In its place was a country lane of another place entirely. It was a fine winter’s evening and the sun was just dipping below the horizon. The air was perfectly still, the color washed from the scene. Apart from a few birds that stirred occasionally in the hedge, no movement punctuated the starkly beautiful landscape. I shivered as I saw my own breath in the crisp air, zipped up my jacket and regretted that I had left my hat and mittens on the peg downstairs. As I looked about I could see that I was not alone. Barely ten feet away a young woman, dressed in a cloak and bonnet, was sitting on a stile watching the moon that had just risen behind us. When she turned I could see that her face was plain and outwardly unremarkable, yet possessed of a bearing that showed inner strength and resolve. I stared at her intently with a mixture of feelings. I had realized not long ago that I myself was no beauty, and even at the age of nine had seen how the more attractive children gained favor more easily. But here in that young woman I could see how those principles could be inverted. I felt myself stand more upright and clench my jaw in subconscious mimicry of her pose.

  I was just thinking about asking her where the museum had gone when a sound in the lane made us both turn. It was an approaching horse, and the young woman seemed startled for a moment. The lane was narrow, and I stepped back to give the horse room to pass. As I waited, a large black-and-white dog rushed along the hedge, nosing the ground for anything of interest. The dog ignored the figure on the stile but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. His tail wagged enthusiastically and he bounded over, sniffing me inquisitively, his hot breath covering me in a warm cloak and his whiskers tickling my cheek. I giggled and the dog wagged his tail even harder. He had sniffed along this hedge during every single reading of the book for over 130 years, but had never come across anything that smelled so, well . . . real. He licked me several times with great affection. I giggled again and pushed him away, so he ran off to find a stick.

  From subsequent readings of the book I was later to realize that the dog Pilot had never had the opportunity to fetch a stick, his appearances in the book being all too few, so he was obviously keen to take the opportunity when it presented itself. He must have known, almost instinctively, that the little girl who had momentarily appeared at the bottom of page eighty-one was unfettered by the rigidity of the narrative. He knew that he could stretch the boundaries of the story a small amount, sniffing along one side of the lane or the other since it wasn’t specified; but if the text stated that he had to bark or run around or jump up, then he was obliged to comply. It was a long and repetitive existence, which made the rare appearances of people like me that much more enjoyable.

  I looked up and noticed that the horse and rider had just passed the young woman. The rider was a tall man with distinguished features and a careworn face, bent into a frown by some musings that seemed to envelop him in thoughtful detachment. He had not seen my small form and the safe route down the lane led right through where I was standing; opposite me was a treacherous slab of ice. Within a few moments the horse was upon me, the heavy hooves thumping the hard ground, the hot breath from its velvety nose blowing on my face. Suddenly, the rider, perceiving the small girl in his path for the first time, uttered: “What the deuce—” and reined his horse rapidly to the left, away from me but onto the slippery ice. The horse lost its footing and went crashing to the ground. I took a step back, mortified at the accident I had caused. The horse struggled to gain a footing and the dog, hearing the commotion, returned to the scene, presented me with a stick and then barked at the fallen group excitedly, his deep growl echoing in the still evening. The young woman approached the fallen man with grave concern on her face. She was eager to be of assistance and spoke for the first time.

  “Are you injured, sir?”

  The rider muttered something incomprehensible and ignored her completely.

  “Can I do anything?” she asked again.

  “You must just stand on one side,” answered the rider in a gruff tone as he rose shakily to his feet. The young woman stepped back as the rider helped his horse recover with a clattering and stamping of hooves. He silenced the dog with a shout and then stopped to feel his leg; it was obvious that he had hurt it quite badly. I felt sure that a man of such dour demeanor must surely be very angry with me, yet when he espied me again he smiled kindly and gave me a broad wink, placing a finger to his lips to ensure my silence. I smiled back, and the rider turned to face the young woman, his brow furrowing once more into a grimace as he fell back into character.

  High in the evening sky I could hear a distant voice calling my name. The voice grew louder and the sky darkened. The cold air warmed on my face as the lane evaporated, the horse, rider, young woman and the dog returning to the pages of the book whence they had sprung. The room in the museum faded in about me and the images and smells transformed back into the spoken word as the woman finished the sentence.

  . . . for he halted to the stile whence I had just risen and sat down . . .

  “Thursday!” cried my Aunt Polly crossly. “Do try to keep up. I’ll be asking questions later!”

  She took me by the hand and led me away. I turned and waved my thanks to the Japanese tourist, who smiled genially back at me.

  I returned to the museum a few times after that but the magic never worked again. My mind had closed too much by the time I was twelve, already a young woman. I only ever spoke of it to my uncle, who nodded sagely and believed every word. I never told anyone else. Ordinary adults don’t like children to speak of things that are denied them by their own gray minds.

  As I got older I started to doubt the validity of my own memory, until by my eighteenth birthday I had written it off as the product of an overactive imagination. Rochester’s reappearance outside Styx’s apartment that night served only to confuse. Reality, to be sure, was beginning to bend.

  7.

  The Goliath Corporation

  . . . No one would argue that we owe a debt of gratitude to the Goliath Corporation. They helped us to rebuild after the Second War and it should not be forgotten. Of late, however, it seems as though the Goliath Corporation is falling far short of its promises of fairness and altruism. We are finding ourselves now in the unfortunate position of continuing to pay back a debt that has long since been paid—with interest . . .

  Speech to Parliament by English Goliathsceptic

  SAMUEL PRING

  I was in the SpecOps Memorial Cemetery in Highgate looking at Snood’s headstone. It read:

  Filbert R. Snood

  A fine operative who gave his

  years in the line of duty.

  Time waits for no man

  SO-12 & SO-5

  1953–1985

  They say the job ages you—and it had aged Filbert a lot. Perhaps it had been for the best when he didn’t call after the accident. It couldn’t have worked and the breakup when it came—as it surely would—might have been too painful. I placed a small stone atop his headstone and bid him adieu.

  “You were lucky,” said a voice. I turned and saw a short man in an expensive suit sitting on the bench opposite.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked, taken aback by the intrusion into my thoughts. The small man smiled and stared a
t me intently.

  “I’d like to speak to you about Acheron, Miss Next.”

  “It’s one of the rivers that flow to the underworld,” I told him. “Try the local library under Greek mythology.”

  “I was referring to the person.”

  I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out who he was. He wore a small porkpie hat balanced on top of a rounded head that had been crew cut like a tennis ball. His features were sharp, his lips thin, and he was not what you’d call an attractive-looking human being. He sported heavy gold jewelery and a diamond tiepin that twinkled like a star. His patent-leather brogues were covered in white spats and a gold watch chain dangled from his waistcoat pocket. He was not alone. A young man also in a dark suit with a bulge where a pistol should be was standing next to him. I had been so wrapped up in my own thoughts I hadn’t noticed them approach. I figured they were SpecOps Internal Affairs or something; I guessed that Flanker and Co. weren’t finished with me yet.

  “Hades is dead,” I replied simply, unwilling to get embroiled.

  “You don’t seem to think so.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been given six months off due to work-related stress. The shrink reckons I’m suffering from false memory syndrome and hallucinations. I shouldn’t believe anything I say, if I were you—and that includes what I just told you.”

  The small man smiled again, displaying a large gold tooth.

  “I don’t believe you’re suffering from stress at all, Miss Next. I think you’re as sane as I am. If someone who survived the Crimea, the police and then eight years of tricky LiteraTec work came to me and told me that Hades was still alive, I’d listen to them.”

  “And who might you be?”

  He handed me a gold-edged card with the dark blue Goliath Corporation logo embossed on it.

  “The name’s Schitt,” he replied. “Jack Schitt.”

  I shrugged. The card told me he was head of Goliath’s internal security service, a shadowy organization that was well outside government; by constitutional decree they were answerable to no one. The Goliath Corporation had honorary members in both houses and financial advisers at the Treasury. The judiciary was well represented with Goliath people on the selection panel for High Court judges, and most major universities had a Goliath overseer living within the faculty. No one ever noticed how much they influenced the running of the country, which perhaps shows how good at it they were. Yet, for all Goliath’s outward benevolence, there were murmurs of dissent over the Corporation’s continued privilege. Their public servants were unelected by the people or the government and their activities enshrined in statute. It was a brave politician who dared to voice disquiet.

  I sat next to him on the bench. He dismissed his henchman.

  “So what’s your interest in Hades, Mr. Schitt?”

  “I want to know if he’s alive or dead.”

  “You read the coroner’s report, didn’t you?”

  “It only told me that a man of Hades’ height, stature and teeth was incinerated in a car. Hades has got out of worse scrapes than that. I read your report; much more interesting. Quite why those clowns in SO-1 dismissed it out of hand I have no idea. With Tamworth dead you’re the only operative who knows anything about him. I’m not really concerned about whose fault it was that night. What I want to know is this: What was Acheron going to do with the manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit?”

  “Extortion, perhaps?” I ventured.

  “Possibly. Where is it now?”

  “Wasn’t it with him?”

  “No,” replied Schitt evenly. “In your testimony you said he took it with him in a leather case. No trace was found of it in the burned-out car. If he did survive, so did the manuscript.”

  I looked at him blankly, wondering where all this was going.

  “He must have passed it to an accomplice, then.”

  “Possibly. The manuscript could be worth up to five million on the black market, Miss Next. A lot of money, don’t you think?”

  “What are you suggesting?” I asked sharply, my temper rising.

  “Nothing at all; but your testimony and Acheron’s corpse don’t really add up, do they? You said that you shot him after he killed the young officer.”

  “His name was Snood,” I said pointedly.

  “Whoever. But the burned corpse had no gunshot wounds despite the many times you shot him when he was disguised as Buckett or the old woman.”

  “Her name was Mrs. Grimswold.”

  I stared at him. Schitt continued.

  “I saw the flattened slugs. You would have got the same effect if you had fired them into a wall.”

  “If you have a point, why don’t you get to it?”

  Schitt unscrewed the cap of a Thermos flask and offered it to me. I refused; he poured himself a drink and continued:

  “I think you know more than you say you do. We only have your word for the events of that night. Tell me, Miss Next, what was Hades planning to use the manuscript for?”

  “I told you: I have no idea.”

  “Then why are you going to work as a Litera Tec in Swindon?”

  “It was all I could get.”

  “That’s not true. Your work has been consistently assessed above average and your record states that you haven’t been back to Swindon in ten years despite your family living there. A note appended to your file speaks of ‘romantic tensions’. Man trouble in Swindon?”

  “None of your business.”

  “In my line of work I find there is very little that isn’t my business. There are a host of other things a woman with your talents could do, but to go back to Swindon? Something tells me you have another motive.”

  “Does it really say all that in my file?”

  “It does.”

  “What color are my eyes?”

  Schitt ignored me and took a sip of coffee.

  “Colombian. The best. You think Hades is alive, Next. I think you have an idea where he is and I’m willing to guess that he is in Swindon and that’s why you’re going there. Am I correct?”

  I looked him straight in the eye.

  “No. I’m just going home to sort myself out.”

  Jack Schitt remained unconvinced.

  “I don’t believe there is such a thing as stress, Next. Just weak people and strong people. Only strong people survive men like Hades. You’re a strong person.”

  He paused.

  “If you change your mind, you can call me. But be warned. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you.”

  “Do as you will, Mr. Schitt, but I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s your interest in Hades?”

  Jack Schitt smiled again.

  “I’m afraid that’s classified, Miss Next. Good-day.”

  He tipped his hat, rose and left. A black Ford with smoked-glass windows pulled up outside the cemetery and drove him quickly away.

  I sat and thought. I had lied to the police psychiatrist in saying I was fit for work and lied to Jack Schitt in saying that I wasn’t. If Goliath was interested in Hades and the Chuzzlewit manuscript, it could only be for financial gain. The Goliath Corporation was to altruism what Genghis Khan was to soft furnishings. Money came first to Goliath and nobody trusted them farther than they could throw them. They may have rebuilt England after the Second War, they may have reestablished the economy. But sooner or later the renewed nation had to stand on its own and Goliath was seen now as less of a benevolent uncle than a despotic stepfather.

  8.

  Airship to Swindon

  . . . There is no point in expending good money on the pursuit of an engine that can power aircraft without propellers. What is wrong with airships anyway? They have borne mankind aloft for over a hundred relatively accident-free years and I see no reason to impugn their popularity . . .

  Congresswoman Kelly, arguing against parliamentary

  funds for the development of a new form of propulsion,

  August 1972

/>   I TOOK a small twenty-seater airship to Swindon. It was only half-full and a brisk tailwind allowed us to make good time. The train would have been cheaper, but like many people I love to fly by gasbag. I had, when I was a little girl, been taken on an immense clipper-class airship to Africa by my parents. We had flown slowly across France, over the Eiffel Tower, past Lyon, stopped at Nice, then traveled across the sparkling Mediterranean, waving at fishermen and passengers in ocean liners who waved back. We had stopped at Cairo after circling the Pyramids with infinite grace, the captain expertly maneuvering the leviathan with the skillful use of the twelve fully orientable propellers. We had continued up the Nile three days later to Luxor, where we joined a cruise ship for the return to the coast. Here we boarded the Ruritania for the return to England, by way of the Straits of Gibraltar and the Bay of Biscay. Little wonder that I tried to return to the fond memories of my childhood as often as I could.

  “Magazine, ma’am?” asked a steward.

  I declined. In-flight airship magazines were always dull, and I was quite happy just to watch the English landscape slide past beneath me. It was a glorious sunny day, and the airship droned past the small puffy clouds that punctuated the sky like a flock of aerial sheep. The Chilterns had risen to meet us and then dropped away as we swept past Wallingford, Didcot and Wantage. The Uffington White Horse drifted below me, bringing back memories of picnics and courting. Landen and I had often been there.

  “Corporal Next?—” inquired a familiar voice. I turned to find a middle-aged man standing in the aisle, a half-smile on his face. I knew instantly who it was, even though we had not met for twelve years.

  “Major!—” I responded, stiffening slightly in the presence of someone who had once been my superior officer. His name was Phelps, and I had been under his command the day the Light Armored Brigade had advanced into the Russian guns in error as they sought to repulse an attack on Balaclava. I had been the driver of the armored personnel carrier under Phelps; it had not been a happy time.