Boneland (13 page)

He came to the Hill, and went about its flanks to where the spirit colours lay in bands among the rocks. He took the red earth, the blue earth, the green earth and painted his face to sing strong. Then he climbed to the Point of Storms and looked across the curve between the two spurs of the Hill. The smoke rose by the Great Rock, but he could not see or hear what made it.

So he went around the curve, keeping to the scrub of birch. On one side the Hill smoothed away into the Flatlands to where the sun reached its highest, and on the other the land dropped sheer to a mire that, after winter, glimmered death.

He went quietly, pausing, listening, so as not to frighten her. He stopped. There was noise. The sound of a hammer on flint. Then silence. Then more blows, but now with bone. She had brought flint with her from wherever she had come. There was no flint on the Hill, nor any in the world, except flakes in Ludcruck from when the spirits had first struck blades. If the woman was a spirit there could be no child. He worked the red earth across his brow for better strength, and went on.

He listened. The flint sang, but now he could tell that it was not one but three. Three hands were working together; living or spirit hands. He could not tell.

Are you people or ghosts?

There was no answer.

He came to the Great Rock. The smoke rose from the other side. He lay and crawled. Something laughed. Again. It was a woman, not a spirit. Another laugh. Then mouths made sounds. They were not words but chopped noise. And then a cry that was a voice. It was a cry for milk, as he had heard in Ludcruck before the ice fell.

Fear sat upon his neck. He moved forward and sideways to look past the Great Rock. And the fear went onto his tongue for what he saw, and made him rise.

They were women. One was putting a child to a breast. They were women, but they were not people. They were three but they were only one. He could not make them more. The nose of each was in the middle of the face. They had two eyes, level and the same on either side of the nose. Each mouth was straight, under the nose; the chin the same beneath. There was no difference. The feeding woman had bared her hands. Each had four fingers and one thumb.

What are you?

They could not hear. He spoke with open voice.

‘What are you?’

They looked, and screamed and made more noise. They were by a fire before a shelter in a sloping cliff, with hides hanging at the front and weighted with stones. One of the women lifted a spear. Its point was none he knew, and it had small blades along its shaft, but it would kill. Another took a brand from the fire and held it towards him. They screamed again.

‘I am no harm,’ he said. ‘I sang for a woman to make a child to learn to sing and dance and cut to free the life in Ludcruck. You have come. But what are you?’

He moved forward on the holly.

They huddled and screamed again. He stopped.

‘I am no harm.’

There was a crashing in the scrub beyond, and five men came running. They were men because of their beards, but all their faces, as the women, were one. Each had a wolf, and only by them could he tell each from another apart.

The wolves snarled towards him, but when he looked into their eyes he saw that their spirits were broken. And they saw his eye and its power, and turned and went to the men.

The men too made noise, and one drew back a spear to throw.

‘I am no harm.’

But they could not hear. He held out the blade that had cut the veil in Ludcruck.

‘I brought you with this.’

The man lowered his spear and moved forward slowly. He took the blade, then showed it to the others. They made noise, and the women were still.

The man came, and he put a hand on the hand that held the holly. The weight was too much. His strength had kept the journey. Now it was gone, and he fell. The world was ended. The dream was done. With his last force he lifted the Stone and showed it for the man.

The man took the Stone and looked close at the blackness and at the working. Behind him there was a spirit face, new in the Rock.

‘Hi, Colin,’ said Owen. ‘How’s your mother’s rag arm?’

‘Is R.T. in?’

‘If he’s not out.’

‘Anyone with him?’

‘Don’t think so.’

Colin picked up the telephone.

‘R.T.? Colin here. Would it be possible to have a word with you? Now. Thanks. Thank you very much.’

‘What’s to do?’ said Owen.

‘Nothing.’

‘Buck up, youth. It might never happen.’

‘It already has,’ said Colin.

He left the control room and went to the Director’s door and knocked.

‘Yes, Whisterfield.’

Colin opened the door. The Director was at his desk.

‘Come in, my boy. What may I do for you?’

Colin shut the door and stayed by it.

‘Come in. Come in. Take a seat.’

‘I’d rather stand. R.T., I want to apologise.’

‘Apologise for what?’

‘Everything. I’ve wasted your time. I’ve wasted the budget, the telescope. Everything. I thought I was right. I was wrong. Completely wrong. I didn’t need them to find the solution. All it took was a pocket calculator and a map. I’m sorry.’

‘You are describing research,’ said the Director. ‘No one is right at once. You may see the answer in an instant, but finding and then clarifying the question can be another matter entirely. You speak as though you are on the edge of discovery. Trust me. I have heard this before. I have said it myself. I know how you feel.’

Colin shook his head and stepped forward. He took an envelope out of his pocket and put it on the desk.

‘I want you to accept my resignation. With immediate effect. My desk will be cleared by the end of today. I am so very sorry.’

‘Your behaviour is impractical and ridiculous,’ said the Director. ‘Sit down.’

‘There’s nothing more to be said. My work is pointless.’

‘Look here, Whisterfield,’ said the Director. ‘It is you that are wrong, not your work. Your work, until you became ill, and that will surely pass, has been the most promising I have known in my lifetime. My dear boy, you have it in you to go beyond the Singularity. Your vision could take us to our next understanding.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Colin. ‘Forgive me. I must.’ He turned and left the room and closed the door. He went to his office and sat. He pulled open the drawers of his desk and stared at them. He felt an empty cold and heard silence.

The air moved behind him and a hand put the envelope, unopened, by his elbow and laid something on it and withdrew.

Colin looked. The envelope was under the Director’s black stone paperweight. Colin looked at the curve and the scars of the stone that swept to make a sharp edge of one side and the narrow flaking that drew the end to a point.

He took the stone in his hand, which fitted on the smoothness so that the edge was between fingers and thumb and the point below. He felt; and he saw. Colin stood, kicked the chair aside, and ran.

‘R.T.! Where did you get this? Where?’

‘I found it.’

‘Don’t you know what it is?’ Colin was shouting quietly.

‘It is a comforting object to hold,’ said the Director, ‘and I think you may benefit from it now more than I. Beyond that, it is a stone. A tactile stone. But a stone nonetheless.’

‘It’s Abbevillian! Or Acheulian! Non-derived! Pre-Anglian! MIS 13!’

‘You must help me there, I’m afraid.’

‘
Homo erectus
, or
heidelbergensis
!’

‘I still do not understand your excitement, Whisterfield. What is the matter?’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Strange that you should ask that. When I decided, younger than you, to proceed with my “contraption”, as you call it, after the survey had defined the mid point under the dish I took a divot out with a spade to mark the moment, and the stone was lying on the sand beneath. I picked it up and have kept it out of sentiment.’

‘But it shouldn’t be here!’

‘And why not?’

‘It couldn’t have survived the climatic conditions! The sands are recent: Holocene: post-glacial. This is an artefact: five ice ages and half a million years old!’

He woke. The sky was above and the world swayed under him. He was lying on thongs lashed between poles, and four men were carrying him on their shoulders. He heard their breath. The holly was along his body and his arms crossed over it. In one hand he held the white blade and in the other the Stone. He did not have the strength to move or to look. He lay lulled in the rhythm of the breathing and the thongs, moving in and out of sleep, weary beyond fear.

The men stopped and set him down. He could not see the sky, but there was warmth and smoke. He turned his head. There was a man sitting over him, his face no different from the others, but painted green, red and blue; and in his eyes there was a light theirs did not have, and the smoke was sweet.

What are you? The man spoke straight, without sound.

I dream in Ludcruck.

What is Ludcruck? said the other.

It is the cave of the world.

The other looked down and into him.

I see it. Why are you here?

To fetch the woman I cut from the veil of the rock.

Why did you cut?

To send her spirit out so that she would come to make the child for me to teach to dance and sing and dream to free the beasts within the rock to fill the world.

Have you found her?

She is not here. There are only people horrible to see.

Where are your Stories? said the other.

I cannot tell them. My head is a cloud.

A hand lifted him, and another put something hard between his teeth and dripped water from it. Then a mouth, with no beard, came and a tongue fed him warm meat that he did not need to chew, and the hand came again for him to drink; and the mouth again; and the water. And he slept.

‘The wind, the wind, the wind blows high.

The rain comes pattering down the sky.

She is handsome, she is pretty,

She is the girl of the windy city.

She has lovers, one, two, three;

Pray will you tell me who is she?

Pray will you tell me who is she?

Pray will you tell me who is she?

Pray will you tell me who is she?

Pray will you tell me who is she?

Who is she?

Who is she?

Who is she?’

Colin turned in his bunk. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Pray will you tell me?

Pray will you tell me?

Pray will you tell me?’

‘I can’t hear you.’

‘Pray will you tell?

Pray will you tell?

Pray will you?’

‘Meg.’

‘Pray.’

Where are your Stories?

The man with light in his eyes sat over him, and the smoke was sweet. The cloud moved from his head.

Here is my Story.

In the Beginning was Crane. It opened its wings. And that above it called Sky, and that below it called Earth. The wings lifted Sky from Earth and flew between to hold them apart. And Crane laid a black Egg and made it with its beak to be a Stone. And when the Stone was made Crane breathed on the flakes that it had shed and said: Be spirits. Take the Stone and with it shape the world. Give mountains and rivers and waters.

And Crane laid another Egg and opened it and said to the yolk: Be Sun, and give light. And it said to the water about the yolk: Be Moon, so that when Sun sleeps you will give light. And because you held Sun inside the Egg you are its mother and will live for ever; but you will remember how you gave birth, and each month you will grow big and then small and then rest for three nights before you grow again. And so that there will be no dark, I shall take the shell and make it into pieces and call them stars and give them spirits and shapes to light the world. And from the skin of the Egg I shall make a mighty Spirit to send out eagles from its head to feed the stars. And I shall put people to walk the earth, and make beasts that they may hunt. And so that they may have spears to hunt with and blades to cut, I shall shape a Mother of rock from a bone of Moon and set it in the hills. And the people shall come and sing and dance and tell stories of the Beginning and dream, so that she will let them take of the bone, and live.

Then Crane came down to the world and broke the loud crag with its beak and opened it to the waters below and called it Ludcruck. And in the lowmost cavern it put the Stone and the spirits around it to take the Stone and make all that would be.

Then Crane went back to fly for ever so that Earth and Sky should stand apart and life could live.

That is my Story.

It is a true Story, said the other.

Colin rang the doorbell.

‘Good morning, Professor Whisterfield. Is Doctor Massey expecting you?’

‘No, she isn’t. It’s a social call. A very important social call. Very.’

‘Please come in, Professor. Would you excuse me a moment, please? I’ll see if the Doctor’s available.’

‘She’s got to be. Tell her who it is. Tell her. Now. Tell her it’s urgent. It’s me. Tell her.’

Colin paced the room. He counted the knots on the fringe of the carpet. He counted the colours. He counted the right angles in the design. He counted the wear.

‘What do you want, Colin?’ said Meg. She was in the library doorway.

‘Amazing. Meg. Amazing.’

‘So, because you decide to be amazing, the rest of the world has to stop and listen to you.’

‘You’ll be astonished.’

‘It can’t wait, can it? It may be the most critical moment of the year, two patients have topped themselves, the cat’s got fleas, the house is on fire, the samovar is empty and the old pig has died; but tomorrow won’t do. The little boy has to have attention now.’

‘Yes. Now. It’s incredible.’

‘If it can’t be believed, then what’s the point?’ said Meg. ‘Oh, come on in. But you are more than a tad manic, you know that?’

Colin went to the low table by the hearth, threw the box of tissues into the chair and skewed the table to the chaise longue. He put a cushion on the table.

‘Sit down, here, Meg. Sit down. Sit down! Sit!’

Meg sat on the chaise longue and Colin sat beside her. He reached into his pocket and took out a folded handkerchief, laid it on the cushion, and opened it.