Cloud Cuckoo Land Read online

  Up ahead, a man in a dark jacket stood in front of a wooden bench. He looked eccentric, a bit ‘navvy’ in the lived-in blazer, glossy chip-fat hair, string belt and heavy shoes. Leonard watched him; he was just standing there, minding his own business. That was another thing about parks. It was not a place where you could mind your own business because all the other poor bastards in the neighbourhood gathered there to mind theirs too. And then there was that fairly accurate rumour, that people who hung out in parks were most often, well, almost certainly certifiable and at the very least, up to no good. Mostly though, they were just cases of almost catatonic boredom who’d just popped over the park to get out of the house for a while.

  But there he was, this man. His hands were in his pockets so his jacket was flaring out over his hands, and the vent in the back of the jacket, open wide. He shifted his weight from time to time, one foot to the other, and beside his feet, there was earth rolling out from his trouser legs and collecting in piles.

  He stamped his feet a couple of times, then looked up at a copy of the 1957 bylaws stuck to a metal pole, and like he’d decided not to wait any longer, he walked off. He didn’t walk far because he stopped to put bicycle clips around his ankles, then he picked up a ladder and threaded his arm through the middle rung so that it balanced. He settled his arse onto a hard old leather saddle and peddled off amazingly slowly, so that the piece of window cleaner’s scrim tied to the back of the ladder hardly flapped at all in the wind.

  Leonard walked across to the bench and picked up a handful of soil from the pile. He rubbed it through his fingers and smelt it, it was the same stuff he’d found in the Mirabelle. What was this bloke doing, trailing soil from his trousers? He must have drawstrings in his pockets that worked the open ends of long, thin bags strapped to his legs. Leonard had seen this sort of thing before, he’d seen the movies about the prisoners of war, hiding tunnel dust from prison guards, scattering it in the camp grounds.

  ◊

  Raymond was standing about a hundred yards away, looking through his binoculars, sweeping Leonard’s position and following as the man in the dark suit walked away. It looked like a classic ‘drop’. The dark suit had left something and Leonard was now picking it up. It had all been very out in the open, though, and not the sort of technique he would ever recommend. Raymond was nicely hidden by the thick trunk of a Plane tree; parks were usually very good places to work because the perimeter trees gave excellent cover and good visibility over an open central area. It was good to be on Leonard’s trail again. Although he’d evaded capture and gone on a jaunt in the prohibited area, he was back now and Raymond was on his tail, taking notes and reporting back. It was only a matter of time before Warden asked Raymond to kill Mr Gopaul, he was a security risk now, and although things that used to matter were being increasingly overlooked, people like Gopaul were not.

  The target was on the move again, walking faster (as you would expect after a pick up) heading for the nearest exit.

  ◊

  Birdsong has a ‘hurry up’ quality to it because they streak across the sky with no time to spare. It makes you think that you should be doing the same. Thing is, they were probably right; even with their walnut-sized brains, they knew better than Leonard. And Leonard now had to think about his route back up to the Spanish district because he was disorientated by the detour through the park. This tends to happen, because the alternative exits throw you out into new and unknown neighbourhoods which are actually just the same old neighbourhoods seen from a new angle.

  He was standing in a side-street he hadn’t seen before, a street of very old fashioned houses, square and flat roofed, made of blackened bricks, with white plasterwork borders around the windows. There were a couple of throttled, rusting cars dumped in the street and lots of taxis, like it was somewhere they used to repair taxis.

  Each house in the row had a metal rubbish bin and eight polished steps up to panelled doors with sombre, lion-headed knockers. Short runs of arrow topped railings neatened off and squared up the front gardens. Through the front windows, Leonard could make out a grand piano lid and rows of photo frames placed onto a polished table-top. Each frame had a thin, beige rudder of cardboard at the back, to hold the loved ones upright.

  Leonard made his way along the street, which led into a crescent and once out of the crescent, the familiar landmarks started to re-present themselves.

  Raymond followed, making sure that he was just rounding the street corners as Gopaul left his sightline. You could lose someone like this, but they were certainly not going to realise they were being followed, and this was the most important thing. Gopaul was cutting back towards the centre of town, and Raymond settled into the best part of his job. He liked surveillance because when he was following people, he pretty much vanished, he forgot who he was and blended in with the surroundings. The city lost its hard edges and became an architect’s plan and he was just an incidental figure, a line drawing walking beside the buildings or between the alleys of sketched trees. A man who entered at the entrances and waited at the pedestrian crossings.

  Gopaul was an interesting subject; he hesitated here and there and seemed unsure of himself, and when he reached the Spanish district, he hung around the baker’s shop. He bought a meringue and ate half of it out on the street, then licked his lips, brushed his hair back and went into a bar.

  ◊

  Tony was serving, and he looked tired but it was more than that, he had black eyes, those prize-fighting eyes, both ringed with blue-green bruises. He looked a bit sheepish, sorry for himself, so he stayed focused on what his hands were doing. He pulled at the lager pump, picked up glasses, lemon slices and ice cubes. Leonard couldn’t help but ask the obvious question, it would have been rude not to.

  ‘What happened?’

  Tony finished topping up the pint glass he was filling and set it down on the bar top, then lifted his battered face.

  ‘Allergy.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘To stupid questions. Do you want a drink?’

  ‘Ah, no thanks, I don’t have any credit.’

  ‘Who the hell does these days? The system’s breaking down, the brewery keeps delivering the beer so we’re just writing up slates for any poor bastard that comes in. Can’t last for long though, can it?’

  Tony moved along the bar wiping beer spill as he went. He got to the tape deck, ejected the thing and turned it over.

  ‘I wondered if I could see Adeline?’

  ‘She’s upstairs.’

  A deliberately minimal reply, a statement that was also a dare; she’s up there, but from here on it’s up to you, on your head be it!

  ‘I’ll just go and say hello, then.’

  Leonard felt a bit of a jerk heading for the stairs, but once he’d turned the corner out of sight and climbed up above ground level, the hard bit was done. When he reached the landing he could see clear through to the living room, he could see Adeline balancing on top of a stepladder in her work clothes. She was holding equilibrium over the centre of gravity but she didn’t look at all stable. She was reaching up for boxes on top of a wardrobe, trying to see what was inside. Leonard walked through, but way before he got to her, she turned.

  ‘Leonard!’

  She looked younger with her hair tied back off her face, wearing a paint splashed sweatshirt and ten-year-old jeans.

  ‘You’re back and still in one piece. How did it go?’

  The ladder wobbled and creaked as she turned and started to climb back down.

  ‘You could say that I found out what I needed to know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, yeah what?’

  ‘There is a survival project and a vessel of sorts. But it’s a dangerous place, ruthless and corrupt. It’s a bloody free-for-all up there.’

  ‘Are you surprised?’

  ‘Not anymore I’m not, no.’

  ‘Not a nice spectacle, is it, the human race clambering over one an
other for advantage.’

  ‘I’m not like them.’

  ‘Yes you are, Leonard. Don’t kid yourself about that.’

  Adeline was leaning on the ladder, wiping her hands on her jeans. She lifted the bottom of her sweatshirt and wiped her face with it. Leonard looked at her exposed stomach, her soft, pale skin with one mole above and one below her navel.

  ‘How have you been, Adeline? You look shattered.’

  ‘I’ve been scared. I’m always scared, like everybody else. I just don’t know anymore. I try to control myself; I don’t want to lose control. I make my hands into fists before I leave the house. Tony and I are just trying to hang on to our routine. We carry on like we always have. The bar fills up, so we keep on opening. Nobody really talks about what’s going to happen anymore.’

  Adeline stepped away and Leonard followed, noticing her height, how the top of her head was level with his jaw-line.

  ‘I wanted to see you. I can’t say for sure, but if you want, maybe I can help you get a place on the vessel.’

  Adeline turned.

  ‘You can?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ve got to do some running around first, but I think I can get my hands on what I need.’

  ‘You know something, Leonard?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You look a bit knackered yourself!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Your eyes are troubled, you need a shave and your hair’s a greasy mop.’

  Leonard smiled and dropped his head.

  ‘Why don’t you have a shower, and get out of those mail order clothes?’

  ‘OK.’

  ◊

  Leonard took his shower. He soaped up and washed down, then he just stood there with the running water splitting over the top of his head. He felt like he didn’t matter much, like he was just another hungry, panicked soul spread way too thin. If only he had the resolve of his own heart, the way it continued to beat, whatever was going on in the outside world.

  He tilted his head back, let the water flood into his mouth and overflow. Six weeks now, that was all the time he had left. He could leave the city, go at any time he liked and sit it out at the construction site with a very probable chance of survival. But that wasn’t good enough. He hated the idea that the arseholes were going to win, that they were going to be in charge. If he made an effort now, he had a slim chance of doing something about all the bullshit.

  He reached out for the dangling light switch, a length of string, grubby near the bottom but clean above Tony and Adeline’s reach. He cut the bright yellow light that was flooding the bathroom, in favour of semi-darkness. He couldn’t see very clearly but the very last of the daylight coming in through the window was easier on the eye than electricity. Through the half-opened window, he caught sight of the sky; it was a gentle, minimal palette of silver blue, with tall trees on the hill, half-orange in the lowering light.

  The door opened and closed, he turned and looked at Adeline. Hers was a frank face, a kind of Canadian face, with long flattened eyebrows and a straight nose, a shallow vertical scoop between her nose and her upper lip.

  She locked the door and started to remove her clothes. Leonard watched her, letting the fact of it play out as she dragged her shirt off, not bothering with the buttons. This was no striptease; it was a practical act like before a dive into a swimming pool. She was ready now, she just stood still opposite Leonard, and he looked at her through a thickening fog of arousal.

  He kissed her dry lips, which tightened into a smile and then softened as she became serious again. He dropped to kiss her shoulders and down along her arms, across her stomach. He noticed temperature differences as he brushed his lips over her body. As he kissed her, he imagined a thermal image of her body, the skin a cool blue over her hips and along her shinbones, orange around her neck and between her breasts, fierce red when she opened her mouth.

  She was whispering, trying to say something, undefined, involuntary. There were long pauses and he hadn’t noticed before, but maybe you had to be this close, with her mouth at his ear, it had a sudden beauty to it. She spoke in half tone, barely pronouncing the explosive consonants, softening them. When she said ‘stop’, ‘back’ or ‘not’ the P, K and the T were muted, elongated like a softly hit drum. Leonard held her close, feeling a kind of perfect calm in her arms, a rare calm that she was loaning him; he knew this would pass quickly, like the eye of the storm.

  Adeline took hold of his hand, opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the hall. The bar noise from downstairs was a loud and familiar sound effect. Adeline crossed to the opposite side of the hall, opened the bedroom door and moved into the darkness. Leonard followed, moved around the door and closed it behind him. Low lamp-light from the bedside blinked on, lighting her left side; her outline looked retouched, especially at her waist, a long and gradual curve which flared around her hips. Her breasts were small, the nipples pale, and the red whip marks of her clothes had not yet faded.

  Leonard hesitated but too many switches had been thrown now, the analytical faculties of the brain were choked off and he let go, gave over control to unknown forces. Leonard did as he was told, did what he wanted. Adeline touched herself, stroked her own shining skin; she used her pale fingers, opening a kind of ring-pull opening.

  The fluid in Leonard’s inner ear slopped around the spirals as he fell forward onto the bed. He had stopped processing any more information; what they were doing now was locked off, stolen from misery. They were catalysing enzymes now, and the sounds came from the gut and off the top of the head. Leonard felt like he was running very fast up to the edge of death and then he discovered something more hopeful than he had ever expected.

  He felt a subliminal reduction of the constant need, a loss of atmospheric fear. As Adeline pulled him close and held his head in her hands, there was a temporary cessation of a life’s pitiful objectivity.

  ◊

  When Leonard woke, the room was black and quiet, and he didn’t want to move, he wanted to leave it alone, to leave it for now, as it was. A sweet breath of cool, fresh air made the curtain billow and sway. They had been sleeping back to back with the soles of their feet touching. Adeline moved. She put her arms around him and squeezed, Leonard could hear her teeth grinding as their heads touched. Her fingers absentmindedly pressed into his back, tapping out stanzas against his spine!

  He was very hungry; he fancied fried chicken with pickles and potato salad and corn on the cob. Adeline lifted her head off the pillow and propped herself on her elbow.

  ‘Do you want something to eat?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m starved.’

  ‘I’ll have a look downstairs.’

  ‘What about Tony?’

  ‘He’s gone out.’

  She leant across Leonard, smiled and whispered in his ear.

  ‘I’m exhausted.’

  She sat on the edge of the bed, then stood and walked to the door, went through silently except for the cracking of her ankle bones.

  Leonard rolled across the bed into the space she had left; he stretched out his arms and legs and felt relatively calm. There was a nagging doubt, though, sparked off by the fact that he was alone in the other man’s room. He felt a chill and wondered what this would cost? These were weird times and Tony was an unreadable man.

  Adeline called up the stairs but what she was saying was muffled and mopped up by the carpets and paintwork. Leonard opened the door and her voice was clearer.

  ‘What about a bacon sandwich and a glass of Sambuca?’

  Leonard made his way down the stairs before he answered, he didn’t want to shout through Tony’s house.

  Adeline was still naked, she was sitting on a barstool sipping from a shot glass, and her right leg was crossed over the left, twitching very slightly in time with her pulse.

  ‘I love being up when it’s dark, see I never want to go to bed when it’s night time.’

  ‘I know what you mean.
’

  ‘Bacon sandwich and a glass of Sambuca?’

  ‘Yeah, go on then.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Daylight entered from above, shining down through glass cubes which had been cemented into the pavement up at street level. The light brightened one wall of the boiler room, the far wall behind the printing press. In one of the alcoves behind the press and beneath the glass cubes, Lena had placed her bed. Lying flat out, it was possible to look up at the glass and watch the footsteps of pedestrians as they walked across the skylight. It was quite noisy during the morning and evening rush, but it was always interesting to watch the way the people moved. Lena could get an idea of who they were from below, because after all, everything we do is intricately linked to who we are, even a snap-shot of three footsteps can reveal something.

  ‘Don’t you want me to help you, grandma? Isn’t that what grand-daughters do?’

  ‘Don’t say grandma, I know you’re saying it because you know I hate it.’

  ‘I feel lazy watching you work.’

  ‘I want to do this myself, work at my own pace. I haven’t got time to answer lots of questions from a silly young girl.’

  ‘But aren’t you supposed to be passing on the benefit of your experience, handing down your wisdom?’

  ‘You’re doing fine, believe me.’

  ‘But I’m wasting my time.’

  ‘That’s not true, and you should know because I have told you often enough, that a full and indifferent immobility is one of the secret weapons.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t be afraid to waste your time, Lena. Use it up doing nothing sometimes, that way you’ll notice it passing, you’ll know its value. That’s better than rushing around and scoffing it up like a greedy pig.’

  Beryl was inking up a new plate, you couldn’t read it back to front, you had to wait until it was reversed. She finished wiping off and clamped down the drum, then had to load another roll of paper.