Empty World (6 page)

He drove on through the morning, and was in the outer London suburbs before he halted. It was a shopping centre, transfixed in a Sunday morning that would never end. The blank fronts showed fading signs—Four Hour Cleaning . . . This Week's Special Offer . . . Frying Tonight. . . .

That one was a fish-and-chip shop, and out of curiosity, Neil went inside. Someone had gone through a familiar routine of preparations, before crawling away to die. There was oil in the vats, a tray
containing a dried-up pulp that still smelt fishy, a bucket full of the withered remains of chipped potatoes. He prowled on, and in a back room found sacks of potatoes, somewhat soft and wrinkled, but apparently edible. He could not work the burners in the shop, but he should be able to find an open hearth somewhere and make a wood fire. He stuffed potatoes into his anorak pockets, and filled an empty milk ­bottle with oil; but after sniffing poured it back. It smelt rancid, and there would be no difficulty in finding more. This was a land of plenty, after all.

• • •

He made his fire in the back parlour of a shop nearby, where he also found a frying pan, an unopened bottle of corn oil, and a tin of sausages which he fried up with the potatoes. The result was greasy and not particularly nice, but it filled his belly.

When he went out again he looked over to where he had parked the Jaguar, not very neatly, in the road opposite. It had rained while he was making the meal, and the windscreen was covered with raindrops which dazzled in the renewed sunlight. He could see the interior only indistinctly, but he had a crazy impression of someone sitting behind the wheel.

It would vanish as he approached, he thought; but it didn't. A figure, hunched and motionless. . . . He felt a hot prickle in his scalp, and the even crazier thought that it was the owner, come back from death to reproach him for the dented wing. He hesitated; then walked forward.

The figure was real. The window, which he had left closed, was wound down. When he was within a couple of yards, a voice spoke.

“Nice wheels you've got here.”

6

T
HE SOUND OF A HUMAN
voice was even stranger and more startling than the music from the cassette player had been. As though in comment on that, the figure leaned forward and switched the player on. He listened briefly, before turning it off.

“Dullsville,” he said. “But you expect that with Jags. Either Beethoven or Frank Sinatra. I picked up a load of really great stuff last week—Oscar Peterson, Mugsy Spanier, Art Tatum. But that was from an Aston-Martin.”

Neil stared, trying to take it in. He said hesitantly:

“I thought. . . .”

“You were the only one left?” The other looked up, grinning. “So did I, to begin with. And there aren't many. I've been around, and I can tell you.”

He was about Neil's age; within a year or eighteen months, anyway. He was smaller, but looked older. He had a thin pale face, very black hair sleeked back, and heavy gold spectacles which had, Neil realized with surprise, no lenses. He wore expensive-­looking clothes—pale blue slacks and a white polo neck silk shirt, and had a gold chain round his neck. He went on:

“Saw the smoke from a fire, and then this little number sitting waiting. She wasn't here the last time I came through, couple of days since. So I thought I'd hang about. OK?”

He clicked open the door and stepped out. He was a couple of inches shorter than Neil, and looked frail. He put out a hand, and Neil saw that every finger carried at least one ring, some as many as three. Diamonds winked in the sunlight.

“Clive D'Arcy,” he said. “Viscount D'Arcy, that is. My old man was the Earl of Blenheim. But call me Clive.”

The hand was warm, under the rings. This was what it felt like, Neil remembered, to touch human flesh. He said:

“I'm Neil. Neil Miller.”

Clive put a friendly hand on his arm. “Great, Neil. Come and let me show you my heap. I'm parked just round the corner.”

He chatted as they walked—something about a castle, ancestral estates, horses. He'd had to let them out, to run loose. Prize bloodstock, every one an Arab . . . but what could you do without grooms? Neil listened in silence, dazed. What was momentous to him seemed to mean little or nothing to the boy at his side. But he had said there were others; it was not a first meeting for him. He was on the point of asking him about that, when Clive stopped, grasping his arm again.

“There she is. What do you think?”

Neil saw the caravan first, a long luxurious ­vehicle with curtained windows, gleaming white except for its silvery chrome. His gaze went to the car to which it was attached. It gleamed as brightly, but black instead of white—unmistakeably a Rolls.

• • •

Clive produced a key-ring and unlocked the door of the caravan. He went in, beckoning Neil to follow.

“Come aboard. Rest the feet. Feel like a cup of tea? Orange Pekoe, Lapsang-Souchong, or Tetley teabags? Or how about coffee? Just renewed my Rombouts yesterday.”

They were in a compact kitchen, with a Calor gas cooker and refrigerator, and stainless steel sink. Clive opened a cupboard and took out a tin of ground coffee.

“Or would you sooner have Blue Mountain beans.” He gestured to a gadget beside the cooker. “That's the grinder. No power problems. She carries a nice little generator. So does Bessie, of course.”

“Bessie?” Neil asked helplessly.

“The Rolls. Bonny Black Bess. No, I think we'll have the Rombouts—it's quicker.”

He poured water from the tap into a percolator, added coffee, lit one of the rings with a gas-lighter, and set the percolator on it. Neil was looking around. Although it was so evidently a kitchen there were puzzling additions: a stand-up mirror with a heavy silver surround that looked antique, an old-fashioned goblet on the draining board with the
soft sheen of gold, a cross on the wall, outlined with what seemed like rubies.

The black eyes, deep-set in the pale face, missed nothing. Clive said:

“Pretty, aren't they? But wait till you see the real stuff.” He opened another cupboard. “We'll use the Royal Doulton. I've got proper coffee cups—Sèvres—but they're not big enough for a decent drink.”

Neil asked: “Where did you get it all?”

Clive shrugged. “Just bits and pieces, salvaged from the ancestral home. They weren't kept in a cara­van in the old days, of course. Let me show you round, while the coffee's brewing.”

There was a shower next to the kitchen, and a toilet beyond. The water tank was in the roof, Clive explained. He kept a couple of spare Calor gas cylinders for the heating, and knew where to get as many more as he wanted.

Opposite the toilet units were cupboards. Clive carelessly pulled open a door, to reveal a large quantity of clothes, among which Neil saw two evening suits and a camel-hair overcoat with a fur collar. A drawer which he opened held a pile of silk shirts. In a smaller compartment to one side were several sets
of cuff-links, all of gold, some jewelled as well. A rack at the bottom held shoes—black, brown and suede—and a pair of long riding boots. Another rack at the top had dozens of silk ties.

“My wardrobe,” Clive said in explanation. “And this is the salon.”

A door slid to one side, showing a room partitioned about a third of the way along. The smaller section, as Clive demonstrated, had a pull-out table of polished oak.

“There was a set of stackable stools, as well,” he said, “but I threw them out.” He indicated a pair of upright chairs against the facing wall. “Chippendale, those.”

The main section had pull-out beds on either side, but because of the furniture only one lot could be used. There was a black and gilt writing desk with swelling gilt legs ending in claw-and-ball feet, a small table, intricately inlaid with marquetry, carrying a large portable cassette recorder, and a very big club armchair in green leather. A carpet on the floor glowed dully in reds and blues and amber.

“Persian,” Clive explained.

That was far from being all. Built-in shelves were
crammed with all kinds of treasures. Neil saw various silver and gold vessels, a set of gold and silver chessmen, an ostrich egg mounted on a golden base, a gold and ivory carving of three Chinamen fishing beside a silver pool. . . . On one wall was hung a curved sword in a gilded scabbard, and on another an ornately decorated shot-gun with a chased-silver butt. There were paintings, too: very little blank space showed at all. Clive pointed to one.

“Rembrandt. I could only bring the smaller canvases, of course.”

Neil said, with a feeling of inadequacy:

“It's amazing.”

“Not bad.” Clive nodded with approval. “I think that's the sound of the coffee percolating.”

The coffee, with Coffeemate in place of cream, was very good. As they drank it, Neil tried to find out about Clive's recent experiences but did not get far. The answers to the questions he put were vague. He had been travelling around—here and there. One place was like another. Survivors? Yes, he'd seen three or four. What ages, Neil asked? Clive shrugged: different ages. Any adults? He shook his head: they'd all been younger than himself. But hadn't he thought
of joining up with them? Clive looked surprised. He was all right on his own, he said. The caravan didn't have room for more than one—not for comfortable living, at any rate.

He was rather more forthcoming when asked about supplies. He had all that very well organized, he claimed. He had found a place that had been the main supply depot for a chain of supermarkets: everything you could possibly want, and enough to last a lifetime. He only smiled knowingly, though, when Neil asked him where.

He had good access to petrol, too. He kept the boot of the Rolls full of cans, which gave him a range of seven or eight hundred miles, even at twelve miles to the gallon. He had two spare sets of tyres put by, and chains for the winter.

Although he was obviously proud of his personal provisions for the future, when Neil started talking in more general terms of what things might be like in a world stripped of all but a handful of people, Clive's interest slackened again. He was similarly uninterested when Neil talked about the Plague. Neil pointed out that the resistance-factor, whatever it was, that had been responsible for their
survival was obviously age-dependent. The younger you were, the more chance you had. On the other hand, below a certain age the survivor would not have been able to cope with the basic problems of living. You needed to be young, but old enough to look after yourself.

Clive nodded indifferently. “I saw one kid about three or four.”

“What happened to him?” Clive shrugged. “You didn't bring him with you?”

Clive took off the lensless gold spectacles and twirled them. Instead of replying, he said:

“Something I forgot to show you. Come see.”

He led the way back to the smaller living room. There was a wooden box in one corner, something like an Armada chest, secured with an iron clasp and a heavy lock. Clive produced a key, unlocked it and lifted the lid.

“What do you think of this little lot?”

It was like something out of a corny pirate film. The chest was heaped with jewels: necklaces, armbands, tiaras, brooches, with all kinds of precious stones in elaborate gold settings. A snowy heap in one corner must have comprised a dozen strings of
pearls at least. Clive picked up a black cloth bag and undid a string at the top. He held it open for Neil to look in. There were at least a hundred rings there, each with one or more big diamonds.

Comment was clearly required. Neil said:

“You brought the family jewels with you, then?”

Clive gave him a quick look; then nodded.

“That's right.” He retied the bag and put it away carefully. “You bring any?”

“Only a ring of my mother's.”

“Can I see it?”

Neil fished out the opal ring from his anorak pocket, and Clive looked at it.

“Pretty,” he said condescendingly as he handed it back. He shut and locked his chest, and stowed away the key.

• • •

The charitable explanation was that he was mad; though whether he had been like that originally or recent events had unhinged him there was no way of knowing. His present life, certainly, owed more to fantasy than reality. The trace of cockney accent, increasingly noticeable as time passed, did not fit with being Viscount D'Arcy. For that matter, could there
have been an Earl of Blenheim? It had been the name of a house, surely—the Duke of Marlborough's?

All the things here, like the caravan itself and the Rolls, were items he had acquired, jackdaw-like, in his travels. Neil had been surprised that he showed such slight interest in other survivors, and shocked that he had left a four-year-old to fend for himself. But he realized that as far as Clive was concerned other people scarcely existed. His own role was merely to be shown the treasures—to serve as a mirror for greed and vanity.

That being so, there was no point, even if they were the only two people left, in attempting to extend the acquaintanceship. The slight distaste which he had felt for Clive from the start hardened into antipathy. The sooner they separated and he went his own way, the better. And the fact that there might be others still alive added weight to that.

Clive, he reckoned, ought to be equally glad to see him go. He had performed the function required; and with the appetite for display satisfied, other considerations were likely to come to the fore. He doubted if Clive could be at ease with a stranger in such close proximity to his possessions. His mania
for locking things up was testimony to that.

But, again to his surprise, Clive demurred when he thanked him for the coffee and talked of moving on. He put a hand on Neil's arm, and said warmly:

“You can't go just yet. I want you to stay and have supper with me. I've got a tin of pheasant in Burgundy sauce. And a château-bottled claret to go with it.”

Neil had conflicting impulses, the main one being to insist on leaving. On the other hand, this was the first human being he had seen in what seemed like an age. And though mad, he appeared harmless. It was even possible that having someone to talk to might start him back on the road to sanity. He nodded.

“All right. Thanks.”

• • •

There were moments during the remainder of the day when Neil thought his guess about Clive's mental state, and the possibility of it improving, had been right. A lot of what he said was obvious ­nonsense—he talked of hunt balls, riding to hounds, holidays in the West Indies and Africa and the United States, even of going to dinner with the Queen—but there were saner passages.

One came after he had asked Neil about his family—had he had brothers and sisters? Neil said yes, and gave their names when asked, but said nothing of their being killed before the Plague started. Clive said:

“I had three sisters. They were older than me. Jenny, Caroline and Paula. Jenny was a secretary, in a bank.” He paused. “She was going to leave this summer, to get married.”

Not Lady Jenny, Lady Caroline, Lady Paula, Neil noticed. And although it was not impossible for an Earl's eldest daughter to be a secretary in a bank, he would have expected Clive to invent some more elevated occupation for her. This was genuine.

He asked about them, and Clive talked at some length. Neil got the impression of a little brother indulged, spoiled in fact, by three adoring elder sisters. The parents were shadowy creatures, who seemed to have had much less importance in his life. He said:

“It got Caroline first, then Paula. I thought maybe it had missed Jenny. Then I watched it happen to her.” There was a tremor in his voice. “I saw it all, from beginning to end.”

He stopped abruptly, and Neil saw the dark eyes glisten. He said:

“It's over now.”

He realized the inadequacy of that, but could think of nothing else to say. Clive did not speak for a moment or two; then said with exaggerated cheerfulness: