Cloud Cuckoo Land Read online

  ‘Why don’t we stay with them?’

  ‘We’ve got to get back.’

  ‘It’s all your fault.’

  Leonard looked at her in the rear view mirror.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Adeline is going to have a baby, isn’t she?’

  ‘That’s enough chit-chat for now, get some rest.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It was the first Friday night in five years that the place had been empty. Tony and Adeline sat at the bar, contemplating three newly invented cocktails. Tony went from glass to glass sampling each, trying to decide which one would be the ‘Ice Moon’. Tony clapped his hands together.

  ‘Tell me what you think, then.’

  ‘I told you. The first is too sharp, you’ve got gin, bitters and lime juice. It made the glands under my ears hurt. The second one, Bourbon, apricot juice, tonic water and Vodka, well it’s just nondescript. I like number three, it’s the right colour, has the right amount of alcohol and the right punch.

  ‘Alright then, number three it is.’

  Tony licked the end of a piece of chalk and scribbled the winner up on the bar slate:

  ‘Ice Moon Cocktail’: Take a tall, half-pint flute, add a double measure of white rum, a tablespoon of pomegranate nectar, one teaspoon of maple syrup: top-up with equal parts papaya juice and single cream and then shake. Decorate with one, just toasted, marshmallow.

  There was a knock at the door so Adeline jumped down from her stool. She hesitated before opening and shouted out.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Postman, I need a signature.’

  She unlocked and opened but it wasn’t post, it was Ian Marble and he didn’t quite look himself.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What you got?’

  ‘It’s a bar remember, what d’you think we’ve got?’

  ‘Beer and a chat then?’

  He pushed her out of the way and staggered across the room. He knocked a couple of chairs over and propped himself up against the bar.

  ‘Service!’

  ‘We are closed, Ian. Now sod off!’

  ‘And it’s so very nice to see you too, Tony.’

  Ian banged his fists on the bar and hollered.

  ‘Service!’

  Tony ducked round the back of the bar.

  ‘What’ll it be, then?’

  ‘The usual.’

  Tony pulled Ian a pint.

  ‘Have one yourself.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Ian raised his voice all the way up to a scream.

  ‘Have a sodding drink!’

  ‘I said no, thank you.’

  ‘Sod you then!’

  Ian made a great show of slapping a piece of paper down onto the counter.

  ‘There, what do you think of that, then?’

  Adeline picked it up and started to read. It was a C.O.D for a dance; she was in debt and Ian was collecting. It was her signature and she remembered that a few months back she’d given these out all over town to pay for this and that.

  ‘Where’d you get that?’

  ‘I’ve had it for weeks, been saving it up for a rainy day just like today.’

  Ian reached up to the radio and switched on. The music was that smooching, slow stuff which allowed close contact. Ian clapped his hands together and shuffled across the bar. He grabbed her waist and slapped her flank like he was testing horseflesh.

  ‘Let’s dance, then!’

  Tony came out from behind the bar but Ian had thought of that.

  ‘Stay where you are, Tony, there’ll be murders here if you don’t!’

  He got hold of her so that her cheek met his. He was clammy and cold, and he was clowning it up, acting the hip-thrusting jerk. He dragged her through the bar knocking back chairs and tables with his flailing legs. He had no idea what kind of dance to do, he just grabbed her neck and kept turning and turning. Adeline felt ill, sick in her stomach. He kept on spinning her around and she caught glimpses of her face in the mirrors behind the bar. It was a face that showed what all women think of men like this. It was a sort of infinitely patient disgust.

  He looked terrible up this close; his skin was grey and swollen, broken open at the corners of his mouth. He was sweating and shivering at the same time.

  ‘Let go of me, Ian, you smell terrible.’

  ‘Of course I do, I’ve been sleeping in the cowshed. I’m obliged to do the milking these days, what with Reggie throwing in the towel.’

  ‘What?’

  Tony had made his way across the bar in Ian’s blind spot. He was carrying a fire extinguisher up above his head, but just as he made to bring it down on the back of Ian’s neck, Ian turned and threw a huge punch into Tony’s face. Adeline screamed as Tony fell, the extinguisher bounced on its nose and began to spit a narrow jet of foam.

  Ian grabbed Adeline again and resumed the twirling.

  She thought she might at least try to roll him down onto the ground and run for the door. He looked weak enough but he was also as mad as hell and madmen always held something in reserve.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  They’d driven all day and it was hot, too hot to keep the windows up so they were rolled right down, letting the wind blow through.

  They were driving fast, heading north-east, but they were both uncomfortable. They’d used up their water supply and they were hot and bothered, dehydrated.

  Half recognising the landmarks as they drove towards the city made them both nervous. Lena managed to find a radio station still transmitting, but it was a low-grade signal that faded in and out of the long wave. Leonard suffered the hissing noise for half an hour before he switched the thing off.

  They were back on better roads with hardly any traffic; straight, tree-lined roads with badges of reflective red glass and warning stripes painted around the bark. Leonard was getting tired; the sun flickering through the trees was hard on the eyes. He tried to stay sharp, hitting a tree at speed would be like hitting a brick wall.

  They drove into a small village and slowed to take a roundabout. Lena pointed.

  ‘Look!’

  Leonard went round again and took the exit, which opened out into a pedestrian square with tables and chairs laid out in the centre.

  The main road passed down one side of the square and then onto a cobbled, central area. A good border of broad-leafed trees lined the streets and shaded the café tables. There was a circular fountain with tumbling water in the centre, which moistened and cooled the air. Leonard parked the car and they walked across the square and sat down at one of the tables. It looked like the kind of café where nineteenth century artists were supposed to have wasted time. Viennoise and café crème were on the menu along with fine, almond-filled pastries. Now things were different, the decadence was morbid and there was a heightened sense of mass anticipation in the air.

  They expected a waiter to dawdle over to them, but nothing happened. They waited fifteen minutes before Leonard ran out of patience and went to get some service. Inside, five or six people sat at one long table, smoking, playing cards and not saying much. There was music playing, choral stuff, a requiem mass or something from Gounod. Leonard realised that these were the waiters. One was sobbing, lying on his folded arms, with one of the others giving him support. Leonard found himself thinking, ‘Who waits on the waiters? Who brings them what they want?’

  He backed out of the café, waved across to Lena and pulled an empty bottle out of a stacked-up beer crate. They wandered over to the fountain and filled it. Leonard splashed his face and the back of his neck. Lena did the same.

  ◊

  At night the motorway was treacherous, Leonard had to use his headlights to see where he was going, but that meant that the car was visible from a long way off. See, or be seen, which was the safest?

  Lena was lying fast asleep, across the back seat, wrapped up in a sleeping bag.

  Every so often they passed a harmless, abandoned car, but up ahea
d there was something more difficult to negotiate: a checkpoint. Leonard switched the headlights off, slowed and pulled in behind a burned-out camper van. He knew that if anyone had been watching, they would be able to figure out what he’d done, but what else could he do?

  There was a rustle of nylon as Lena sat up, then the loud unzipping of the sleeping bag.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m just being cautious. Looks like some sort of checkpoint up ahead.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘About fifteen miles from the border, I think.’

  ‘Should we turn back?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t think so.’

  Leonard stepped out of the car and looked into the darkness each side of the motorway. Not a clue, no lights, no slip-lane leading to a B-road. That’s the trouble with motorways, once you’re committed, you’re a sitting duck.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s coming from over there.’

  Leonard looked up at where she was pointing. The sky was black but there was something. An engine was disturbing the air, the vibration producing the tell-tale drone of an approaching helicopter.

  ‘Come on, Lena, we’ve got to move away from the car.’

  Leonard picked up the shotgun and led the way down the banked side of the motorway. He climbed over a low fence and lifted the wires so Lena could pass underneath, then they started to run across early crops, the thin blades of maize plants.

  The sound was closer, it tickled Lena’s eardrums but it scared her too. She couldn’t really keep up with Leonard and a gap was opening between them. She could just make out his light trousers, bending and twisting forward as he ran.

  The sound of the rotor blades was getting louder. Leonard could almost count the revolutions, and above that sound was the high-pitched whistle of the engine. Small orange lights blinking underneath the aircraft showed that it was crabbing sideways in the crosswind. They couldn’t out-run a helicopter; their only hope was to find somewhere to hide.

  ‘Lena?’

  She wasn’t with him anymore, it was too dark and then a downdraft whipped around his body. A blinding white light hit the crown of his head and threw a short shadow. He stopped running and watched the thing land. It was an old, coastguard sea-king. A pug-nosed machine painted high-visibility yellow and stuck all over with identifying labels.

  Leonard dropped the shotgun because he realised that he was standing in the centre of a square with an armed soldier at each corner. They pointed assault rifles at his body, so he lifted his hands up above his head.

  The soldiers came in from the corners and one of them held up a piece of equipment Leonard had seen before. It was the scanner with the ultra-violet light, which he’d heard them call the ‘Murcator’. The soldier carried out the same procedure he’d seen at the vessel site. He waved the light over Leonard’s jaw until it picked up the microchip.

  ‘OK, he’s tagged.’

  The squad relaxed and led him back towards the helicopter. One of the aircrew gave him a lift up through a loading door. There was too much noise to ask what was going on or where was Lena. But to his great relief, as soon as he climbed in, there she was, quite happily strapped into her seat with a criss-cross harness. Leonard sat beside her.

  The winch-man exchanged hand signals with the soldiers, it looked like they were going to stay on the ground and sweep the area.

  Then the winch-man turned to Leonard and gave him an OK signal.

  Leonard wouldn’t confirm that he was OK. He shook his head and shouted out.

  ‘I can’t go yet. I’ve got to get back to the city. I’ve got unfinished business!’

  The rotor noise picked up and Leonard’s stomach lurched as the helicopter lifted off the ground and tipped forward. It picked up speed and stayed low, but it didn’t take a straight line either; instead they weaved through the air, to the left and right of their heading.

  The winch-man handed Leonard a headset and as soon as he was connected, he started to explain.

  ‘Good evening, sir. As regards your unfinished business, that’s a negative. There’s no more ”business” to attend to, sir; everything has been cancelled. My job’s to deliver you come-what-may. Dead or alive, as it were.’

  Leonard gave him a reluctant nod and the winch-man went on with his brief.

  ‘So, welcome aboard. We are going to transport you to the survival site, for familiarisation with escape pod procedures. We’ve been ordered to pick up tagged individuals from all over because it’s getting pretty cut-throat down there. We’re having to stay low because the bastards on the ground are letting off surface-to-air missiles. God knows how they got hold of them but they are disrupting our routes. Just sit back and take it easy, stay strapped in at all times. The flight takes about an hour and a half, OK!’

  Leonard nodded soberly.

  ‘OK, I understand.’

  ‘If we have to take evasive action, just sit tight and listen for instructions.’

  Leonard gave him a ‘thumbs-up’ and the winch-man turned and sat with his legs hanging out into the night.

  Lena looked concerned; she was quiet and withdrawn in her corner. Every so often she put her hands over her ears to cut the noise.

  Leonard bent down to her and shouted.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She shrugged her shoulders; she knew the problem and she shouted back.

  ‘How are we going to get back into the city?’

  Leonard couldn’t say; he leaned forward in his harness and looked out of the open cargo door. A black night, a few stars were visible and about half a moon. Without warning the helicopter lurched violently to the left. Leonard’s harness bit into his neck and a brilliant white flash tore down the right-hand side of the aircraft. They levelled out and the winch-man’s voice came through loud and clear.

  ‘Alright then, as you can see we have a problem. Sit tight, I am waiting to be advised.’

  The helicopter came out of its forward lean and tipped back, the rotor noise dropping to a lower note as they lost speed.

  Leonard unlocked his harness so he could see out. The winch-man turned and waved at him to sit back down.

  ‘Stay where you are, we’re close to some electricity pylons. We can’t go higher, the surface-to-air radar will pick us up again.’

  The winch-man went forward through a door that led to the cockpit.

  Leonard looked out into the night; he turned to Lena and shouted in her ear.

  ‘Look, Lena, you’ve got to help me. I have to get down to the ground. You’ll have to stay here but you’ll be OK, these people will take care of you, believe me.’

  Lena looked doubly scared now, her mouth tightened and she was ready to cry.

  Leonard pointed at the winch.

  ‘See this machine?’

  Lena nodded.

  ‘It’s the winch.’

  Leonard stepped over to the unit, leaned out of the open door and tried to get his bearings. The moonlight picked out the web of electricity cables and pylons ahead. He waved at Lena to come over, then detached a steel rod from the rack beside him. He closed the door that separated the loading bay from the cockpit, then rammed the rod down into the cockpit handle, which jammed it shut.

  Lena was crying but not sobbing, her tears ran freely. She put her hands around Leonard’s waist and hung on. Leonard clipped himself to the winch cable, then hooked Lena’s harness to a safety line.

  ‘Please, Lena, I’ve got to get down and use the pistol. We’ll meet up again at the vessel!’

  ‘But wait, Leonard, I should go with you.’

  ‘No, now listen to me. When you get to the site, look for a woman called Vicky, tell her who you are and she’ll look after you.’

  There was no reply from Lena but he knew that she’d taken it all in.

  Leonard watched the steel rod bend as the winch-man tried to bash the door open. He grabbed the winch control that was on a long, curly lead like a
telephone cable. He switched on and ran some cable out. A set of illuminated figures started to give a reading.

  ‘Look, Lena, this is the cable payout indicator. We’re going slow now so I’ll be alright. You’ve got to lower me down, stop it when I get to the ground, then you have to remember to wind the cable up by pressing this button.’

  Leonard took hold of her shoulders and kissed her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t fret, Lena, well see each other again soon.’

  He stepped out of the helicopter and dangled in mid-air, where he started to spin slowly, anti-clockwise.

  He smiled at her and she hit the button. It was OK to begin with, he was dropping slowly without too much movement, but as the cable lengthened, the pendulum effect kicked in and the swing became disorientating.

  Lena looked down as he descended; he was twisting and bicycling in the air, trying to keep himself facing forward so he could see what was coming. The countryside was open enough for a stunt like this but the electricity pylons were getting closer. The winch-man was hitting the door hard now and the frame edge was opening up. The cable indicator was saying twenty-five metres but it suddenly went dead.

  The pilot had cut the power to the winch and the winch-man was shouting at Lena through the gap in the door.

  ‘Open the fucking door! Now! If you don’t, we’ll drop your mate onto the wires and fry him to a crisp!’

  She didn’t know what to do. The helicopter kept moving forward, heading straight for the pylons.

  Leonard was spinning like a top, he felt sick but what was worrying him the most, was that every time he faced forward, the power lines were closer. They were going to try his nerve, that was clear. They wouldn’t set the aircraft down on the ground because then he would be able to make a run for it. They were obviously very pissed off and now he was in a very difficult situation.

  The gap in the door had opened up enough for the barrel of a gun to be poked through and pointed at Lena. This was an empty enough threat though, because she’d already reckoned that the winch-man didn’t have it in him. And all she had to do was move to the left or right and he lost his aim anyway. He’d tried being angry with her, now he was reasoning.