Cloud Cuckoo Land Read online

  But letting off that first shot felt good, he had struck a blow, a countermeasure that no one would be able to reverse.

  He was grinning but his head was aching; the rain, the running and just the constant stress of knowing what he had to do, was wearing him down. He hadn’t eaten much lately and he wouldn’t be able to get back out to the farm without the Merc, he’d have to find somewhere new, somewhere safe to spend the night.

  The sky was a damped down orange-grey, grilled from underneath by the radiating city lights. He doubled back onto familiar streets and tried to stay alert. He hugged in close to the doorways for cover.

  In all honesty, he had become a sort of outlaw now, a fugitive, wet through to the bone and desperate to carry out some kind of half-cocked vengeance. Adeline, though? When he thought of her, he softened and when he rolled up outside the bar, he tried to tidy himself up for her sake. When you don’t have a mirror though, all you can do is imagine how bad you look. You run your hands through your hair and straighten your clothes. You can only hope that will do.

  As soon as Tony saw Leonard in the bar, his body stiffened and his jaw dropped. He stopped the downward pressure on the pump handle and rocked back to the cutting board, upsetting the cherries and the cocktail sticks.

  ‘What the bloody hell d’you think you’re doing here?’

  Then Tony stepped into the wings and picked up the telephone.

  Leonard moved through the crowd and took the stairs. When he got to the landing, he shouted out.

  ‘Adeline?’

  He jogged along the hall and as the noise from the bar faded, Leonard recognised the humming tones of a television set gabbing off in the living room. He pushed open the door and walked in; the lights were switched off and only the big TV tube brightened the darkness. It was throwing pale blue out into the room because the picture was of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. A tracking camera poolside followed the leaders and cut to the underwater angle for the racing turns.

  Adeline was asleep on the sofa, curled up with her head on a cushion. A half-eaten sandwich lay on a plate on the floor and a full cup of cold tea beside it.

  ‘What the fuck’s going on!’

  The room lights came on and Tony stood there with a nine-iron raised up above his head. Leonard pulled the tagging pistol and levelled it at Tony’s head.

  ‘Stay where you are, Tony.’

  Adeline lifted her head and followed Leonard’s aim to where Tony stood.

  ‘Wait! Leonard, stop it!’

  Tony stepped forward. He was holding up the certificate of debt with all the scribbled details, and pointing at Leonard with the golf club.

  ‘You’ve got to pick up the tab, Leonard, honour our agreement! That was the deal, don’t you remember? The police are on their way, and they’ll enforce the terms! If I were you, I’d just turn around and piss off out of here!’

  ‘Don’t shoot him, Leonard.’

  ‘I’m not going to shoot him, I’m here to help! I think I can get both of you onto the survival project!’

  Loud pumping music arrived in the street outside and a car screeched to a halt. The passenger doors opened, the heavy muffled bass of the stereo grew louder, then cut to silence when the ignition was switched off. Leonard moved to the window and looked down.

  ‘It’s a police car.’

  Adeline got to her feet.

  Leonard ran to the bathroom and locked the door, then opened the window and clambered out. He had to lower himself, full stretch, onto the brick wall below, but from there he was able to jump down onto the pavement.

  Tony broke the bathroom door down and ran to the window, Adeline following right behind him.

  ‘You idiot, Tony, he came here to help us.’

  ‘Well I didn’t know, did I? It’s not my bloody fault!’

  ◊

  Leonard cut across traffic and had a look back from the other side of the street. There were a couple of little heads at the bathroom window, looking up and down, but nobody seemed geed up enough to give chase.

  Three military vehicles arrived at the scene, pulling up without fuss, without a skid, and a dozen big men were quickly deployed. A mix of men, some in khaki uniform, some suited up with flak-jackets over the top. Leonard recognised Warden’s secretary among them. He was holding a mobile phone to his head, standing in the middle of the road to talk.

  Leonard had seen enough; this was a lynch mob so he didn’t wait around, he eased away along a wall, staying low and using the shadows for cover.

  As he ran, he felt his guts heaving up and down with each stride. His lungs ached and the back of his throat hurt. He had to keep spitting stringy, thickened saliva. At least, though, he was running downhill and he did still have the tagging pistol.

  He had to stop sometimes, wait for cars to pass; he couldn’t just carry on across the main roads, the traffic was heavy and it was raining again. He was two blocks from the Mirabelle and getting nervous. What if they’d already raided the hotel?

  ◊

  You don’t realise, you just think maybe they are standing or walking a little too close. You don’t figure out until it’s too late, that you are the target, that it’s you they’re after.

  Two men had dropped a sack over Leonard’s head, his legs came off the ground and he seemed to be rolling forward, attached to some kind of wheeled trolley. The only good thing about this kind of capture was not being able to see. You had to realise early on, that without your vision, you just had to let whatever was happening, happen. You couldn’t make a run for it or fight back; you’d only hurt yourself. The people stealing your body, whoever they were, they had the eyes and it was up to them to look out for you, to duck your head into cars, steer you away from danger, or guide you off the edge of a cliff.

  The trolley stopped and he was pushed forward from behind, his head making contact with a sheet of plywood at something like table-height, but he was outside in the street. How could a table be out in the street? They pushed him along the hard surface and then there was a banging, a rattling and a metallic clatter behind. He was lying awkwardly and dust from the sack was tickling his throat. He wasn’t tied up but he preferred to just lie there and wait to be given permission to move. The floor rolled first one way, then the other, then there was a clattering, closing door sound.

  As soon as the engine fired into life, Leonard figured out that he was in the back of a lorry. As it took a left-hand turn, his blood shifted, his head ached and the lorry bounced, probably the back wheel clipping the kerb.

  ‘I hope that’s you, Leonard?’

  Leonard knew the voice.

  ‘Beryl?’

  ‘Help him out of that, will you, dear?’

  Lena took hold of the corners of the sack and started to pull it off.

  The lorry picked up speed as the driver gunned the accelerator and crunched up through the gears. Leonard held his breath as the sack was rolled up over his shoulders and off his head. Lena stood over him with her legs planted to keep her balance, grinning because this wasn’t too bad a game at all. Beryl was a few feet away, sitting on a cushion with her back against a net made of seatbelt strapping. Leonard could feel his hair weaving about above his head, matted and electrified by the removal of the sack. He felt like a fool, but somehow he knew this reassured Beryl, it was what she expected of him. It even redoubled her trust in him.

  She bounced more than he did because she was sitting over one of the back wheels. When the lorry slowed down to a stop, she stood up cautiously and looped her hand through a piece of the webbing.

  ‘It’s been a funny old day, hasn’t it, Leonard?’

  Leonard rested on his knees.

  ‘It’s had its moments, yeah.’

  ‘I must say, I’m very angry with you, Leonard, because I found out what you asked Lena to do. You’ve put her in a great deal of danger!’

  ‘I had to get the pistol.’

  ‘That is debatable. Now, don’t get me wrong, lad. I understand what you‘re tryi
ng to do but now Lena is in a lot of trouble. It’s not safe for her to stay in the city.’

  ‘I’m sorry, really I am. But I’ll take care of her.’

  ‘Bloody right you will! That’s why you’re here. The lorry will take you across the border and on to a safe house. You’ll wait it out there until it’s time to get to the project site.’

  The lorry was climbing now and Beryl shifted her feet and took a better grip of the strap. She pointed at the cab end of the lorry.

  ‘I’ve asked Pete and Danny to drive you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’ll be staying with a good friend of mine in the south-east. You’ll be alright there for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Why don’t you come with us?’

  ‘I don’t have the heart for all that gallivanting. I’m staying here, where I can make a nuisance of myself.’

  ‘Lena?’

  ‘Yes, Nan?’

  ‘Get the driver’s attention, will you?’

  Lena moved along the floor on all fours trying to avoid getting splinters in her fingers. She giggled because the road was bumpy and when the lorry dipped and bounced, she experienced split seconds of weightlessness. She banged on the cab wall and the truck pulled up hard.

  Beryl smiled.

  ‘Pete and Danny are keen lads, sharp as tacks and eager to please. I trust them.’

  Beryl let go of her hand strap and adjusted her glasses. Lena ran down and stood by her. Lena was serious now, not so confident that the adults knew what they were getting her into. Beryl tried to lift the tailgate, but it was too heavy.

  ‘Give me a hand here will you, Leonard?’

  Leonard stood and walked over. He got hold of the rolling metal shutter and lifted it. He jumped down onto the road and held a hand out for Beryl, who stepped down and looked back up at Lena.

  ‘I’ll see you safe and sound in a couple of weeks, and I want to hear good things about your conduct from Leonard.’

  ‘Yes, Nan.’

  ‘Take care of her, Leonard.’

  ‘I promise you that I will.’

  Leonard slipped the tagging pistol from his jacket. He took hold of Beryl’s ample shoulders and in the confusion managed to snap a tag into her lip. She shouted out in pain and moved away from the back of the lorry as the flashing orange hazards and the brake lights lit her face. She looked accusingly at him.

  ‘You silly sod!’

  Leonard jumped back up into the lorry. Beryl looked embarrassed, self-conscious, she was not used to being included. She was flattered but unsure how all this would end. She said nothing more, but waved and licked her lip as Leonard pulled down on the metal roller.

  He walked the six or so steps to the cab end and banged on the aluminium partition. He felt the handbrake coming off and the lorry pulled away. Lena was standing in the middle of the empty space, trying not to lose her balance. For a moment she felt like she was wearing waterwings, but this was the pressure of Leonard’s fingers around her upper arms, keeping her upright as the lorry rocked away from the kerb.

  ‘Will Nan be alright on her own?’

  ‘She knows what she’s doing.’

  They flattened themselves against the side of the lorry, and hung on to the horizontal tie-bars. A dim strip-light screwed to the ceiling barely lit the floor space. Leonard looked around at the simple tools of the removals trade: bits of worn nylon rope, grey cord, sacks, blankets, bubble wrap and an ‘L’ shaped trolley on rubber wheels.

  Lena had dropped to the floor and was trying to get comfortable by sitting on a folded blanket. Leonard went to look for more bedding, moving forward until he reached the cab. To the left-hand side, there was a ladder that led up to a door cut into a rectangular cupboard. He waited for the lorry to steady out on a straight stretch of road and he climbed up. He pulled the door open and looked in: it was dark but carpeted and an empty coke bottle rolled into view. Leonard eased himself through the door onto a sleeping platform that ran horizontally across the width of the lorry.

  Lena thought she could hear her name. She looked up and saw Leonard’s head sticking out of the door above the cab. It made her laugh. What was he doing messing around, climbing up there? She stood and walked forward on her hands and knees, then climbed up the stepladder into the tiny nook.

  She thought it was fantastic because they were right above the drivers, in the forehead of the lorry, speeding forward at double-decker height. Leonard tucked her into the bunk; she closed her eyes, grinning, loving the way the lorry rocked her body back and forth.

  When she laid her head down, she could hear the men’s voices coming up through the floor. Mostly one man’s voice: one talking, one listening. She began to fall asleep, into an excited, contented sleep.

  There were windows each side of the bunk and the glass gave some forward, but mostly sideways visibility. Leonard opened the short, pleated curtains and took a look outside.

  They were still in the suburbs. It was probably too dangerous to cross the border in the city so they were driving east to cross at a quieter point. He lay down beside the viewing window, and the height of the ride meant that he could look straight out at the passing houses, straight into the first-floor bedrooms and dingy bedsits. The rooms flashed by and Leonard began to edit together the brief glimpses of the way people lived. He saw the televisions and the cups of tea, half-eaten dinners and booze bottles standing upright. Almost subliminal flashes of people in standing, seated or reclining positions. As the lorry picked up speed the rooms blurred together, like a strip of movie film. Scattered lives, all different but basically all the same, they would cut together nicely, into a hard-hitting documentary on the world’s last days.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It didn’t matter anymore, nothing did and to be blunt about it, Ian was beginning to realise that nothing much ever had. So what now, then?

  The hospital could no longer provide the drugs Ian needed to keep his body from rejecting his own heart. The immuno-suppressants came from America and could no longer be sourced. They had told him (two of them, half-smirking) that, though they were sorry, there was really nothing more they could do for him.

  Ian was very pissed off by their attitude and gave the only honest reaction he could think of: he inflicted heavy, blood-letting blows, one for each consultant, splitting their academic eyes and noses quite nice and sweetly. He felt a bit better to see them with their own, much more immediate health problems. He had taken a kind of on-the-spot revenge and equality had been restored. Vengeance is mine, that was the thing, nothing else was quite as sweet and that’s why the Lord had tried to keep it all for himself. But Ian being a robust basket-case, didn’t believe in all that.

  On the way out of the hospital, he climbed into an empty ambulance and drove it off the emergency stand. He stamped heavily onto the accelerator and tipped the thing into the roundabouts at sixty miles an hour. He looked happy enough behind the wheel, capable, professional. A loose gas bottle was bouncing around in the back and when it rolled close enough, Ian grabbed it. He held the mask up over his face and drank down some deep gulps of pure oxygen. Light-headed and red-faced, Ian sang out loud into the windscreen.

  ‘Hey ho, hey ho, it’s off to work we go!’

  He laughed and sucked down some more oxygen, then for a moment his face lost all its animation. A thought had occurred to him and the idea was, just how much he wanted to go to sleep and wake up as someone else.

  ◊

  In the woods, Tony picked his way along the overgrown paths. Hawthorn bushes scratched at his coat as he walked and he lost his footing in the soft ground. As he moved deeper into the gloom, the road noise dropped to a faint, intermittent hum. The acoustic buffer of foliage thickened until he felt quite alone and hidden enough to start acting like a madman. He ducked under a wet branch; he liked being here. There was the sweet scent of musk in the air and a humble colour scheme. In amongst the bare trees were evergreens and when he kicked at the ground, the composted leaves from th
e previous autumn showed a rich, reddish brown top-soil. He had that feeling too, as he walked over the humped ground, that there were hollows below, rabbit warrens or badger sets.

  Tony could see the tree and when it came into view, he was impressed with his own handiwork. Adeline’s mother would be very proud, the tree was exactly as she had specified. It had four well-spaced branches which arched upward at a similar angle and each branch with the circumference, roughly, of a man’s thigh. Over the past days, he had completed a frame of vertical hazel sticks criss-crossed between the branches. And onto the hazel stick frame he had started to weave willow branches. He’d plaited each length into place, working in circles from the base upward. He’d already finished the floor and now he was up to knee height with the walls of the shelter. He’d cut plenty of willow and he was keeping it stored vertically so that it wouldn’t rot.

  He found the stepladder where he’d hidden it, picked it out of the bushes and clambered up into the tree. The structure was like a great big bowl now, a well-woven basket about the size you need for a hot-air balloon. Tony picked up a small, sharp axe and cut through a length of willow, then bent down and began to work in earnest. It was a good feeling, to be up off the forest floor, and when the wind blew, the tree swayed gently, its full crown caught in the south-easterly. Tony imagined how odd his behaviour might seem to the average ploughman or mill owner, how they might drum up a mob to punish him for taking part in such an occult ceremony. It troubled him that only a few weeks ago, he might well have been part of such a crowd, cursing and calling for a lynching, too. He picked up another stick of willow; it was green and supple and bent easily around and in front of the hazel frame. He began to work methodically, bringing the spiral weave up to waist height. Of course this was a very particular kind of behaviour and in these matters there was no justice. If he were to be discovered, there would be no live and let live. Those who revelled in rooting out all evil were convincing leaders and they were never very far away.