Cloud Cuckoo Land Read online

  Ian moved forward and hit Leonard again, in the same place as before but this time with greater force.

  ‘There now, no more stalling.’

  Leonard was laid out on his back, a numbing throb had started up, a stabbing pain in time with his pulse.

  He ripped the Velcro tag and took the pistol out of his trouser pocket. Ian settled his own knees into the mud, held the shotgun against Leonard’s chest and presented his face to be tagged.

  Leonard resisted placing the pistol in position.

  ‘Look at me, Leonard. They say you must confront your killer. You must look into his or her eyes. That way you have a value, you become someone and you are more likely to hang on to your life. If you avoid my eyes, you are nobody and it will be easy for me to shoot you.’

  Ian hit Leonard with the gun barrel, then took the pistol, placed it against his own top lip and snapped a tag into his flesh. He groaned and clenched his fists, then looked down as Leonard looked up. He then managed a glorious, a winning smile. Leonard rolled over in disgust and found himself lying face down, at Ian’s feet. He reached forward and took Ian’s shoe laces in his hands. He untied the neat bows and knotted them together with a half-hitch. He felt sure this was too cheap a trick to work but that’s all he could do with his nose down in the dirt.

  Ian grabbed a fistful of Leonard’s hair and yanked his head round to face him. Leonard rolled away, breaking Ian’s grip. He got to his feet and started to run across the field. Ian laughed and took one step forward to aim the shotgun. That was all it took. Leonard watched Ian’s face as he tumbled forward and he was sure that Ian had the time to register the half-hitch, the cheapest knot in the catalogue. The butt end of the shotgun seated itself into the mud and the barrel exploded into Ian’s face. He slumped to the ground and lay there, an immobile, dead weight.

  Leonard crawled back to Ian. He rolled the body over and saw that his face had taken the full force of the blast.

  ◊

  The knife sliced through the ropes and Adeline dropped into Leonard’s arms. She was exhausted and found it difficult to wrap her stiff arms around his neck. He carried her to the farmhouse and lowered her into an armchair. It was warm, but she was shivering with exhaustion. She held on to her own legs, tucked them under her body. Leonard took the throw from the sofa and wrapped it around her. She hid her face in her hands and sat there for a while rocking gently without saying a word.

  He went through to the kitchen and opened up the fridge. He leant on the door frame and studied the shelves. There was nothing much, apart from a jug of milk. He poured out a glass and went back to Adeline, touched her head lightly because she was half asleep. She looked up at Leonard and took the glass.

  ‘I’m so hungry.’

  ‘OK, I’ll see what we’ve got.’

  ‘I’ll eat anything.’

  He’d started to walk away then remembered. He tipped his pockets inside out, and although the meringues were smashed to bits Adeline smiled. He handed the pieces to her, picking out fluff and pasta twists, and she crunched them greedily. She licked the last of the sugar from her fingers and swallowed down the milk in short sips. Leonard sat down opposite her, and as she lifted her glass to drink, a bright hoop of reflected light spilled off the rim, a kind of halo which shone across the floor and lifted up around the room, like a lasso around her.

  ‘I never meant to actually feel anything for you, Leonard. But my plan, well I didn’t have a plan anymore, I wasn’t prepared.’

  She smiled and stood up.

  ‘Where are you going, Adeline?’

  ‘There must be a bedroom here somewhere.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but…’

  Leonard got to his feet. He tried to hold on to her but she didn’t want to be touched. She held up her arms, opened her fists and twisted away. She went out through the door and started to climb the stairs. He called after her, too late and with an inappropriate sentiment.

  ‘You mustn’t let life break your heart, Adeline, no matter what!’

  He was exhausted, too tired to think straight anymore, but too fired up to actually sleep. He walked through into the room Reggie kept for his radio. Reggie had been one of those ‘hams’, he had a boosted receiver which could pick up even the faintest signals. Leonard wound the dial all the way to the left and then started to peel slowly back to the right. He settled into the tilting, easy chair and dialled through the news squawk. He stopped on a foreign broadcast where they were counting down in Italian, one hundred and something hours. The voice was female, a woman in her sixties maybe, he wondered when she would stop for refreshments and who would take over when she did?

  ◊

  Her face wore that extra year or so of morning, she was puffy around the eyes and red cheeked. She rolled off the bed and tried to find the bathroom. Her movements were slow and unsure, like she was taking cues from back-stage. She stopped at the sink and lifted her eyes to the mirror. Wouldn’t it be better to live without mirrors? Her lips were dry and her heart? She wondered about her heart and her own motivation. She suspected that behind all her longings she was a simple creature. She moved from seduction to seduction, looking for anyone or anything which might make her heart beat faster.

  Leonard pushed his hand through the waistband and placed his flat palm against the small of her back. Adeline’s heart accelerated from a standing start to a full sprint. She turned and he looked like a thief caught without his stocking, he’d stolen up on her. She’d been thrown off-balance and she was breathing heavily, trying hard to catch up with how much she needed him. Leonard planted kisses far and wide but without that dull ring of text-book technique.

  He carried her back into the bedroom. She closed her eyes, she didn’t need to be a spectator in this, she just wanted to feel what was happening through her skin. Maybe it was the constant melancholy in the background that made him so tender, made the shortening future fade.

  ◊

  A block of sunlight the shape of the window frame fell onto the rose patterned bedclothes. She loved this rose pattern and the smell of lavender which came from the chest of drawers next to the bed. Leonard had been rummaging through because the big bottom drawer was hanging open. He’d found something. He turned to her, looking very pleased with himself, holding a pipe out in front of his chest and stuffing tobacco down its neck. He lit the thing and puffed some smoke, spat some loose leaves and settled the pipe into the corner of his mouth. The bowl burned red when he sucked, it was hot in his mouth and made him feel light-headed.

  Adeline watched Leonard pace the room; he looked like some badly dressed Sherlock. Simply watching him made her happy, she thought about the way the best of life happens like this, despite and even against the rotation of the world.

  Leonard removed his pipe, like he’d suddenly solved it! He bent down and kissed her below the navel.

  ‘Adeline?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This might sound ridiculous but I am very happy about the baby.’

  Adeline felt there should be an audience for this. He had offered her such an uncommon show of support, that a kind of surprise reason for being, suddenly dawned on her. She didn’t want to dwell on it, though; she didn’t want to water down this moment.

  ‘I got this concession for being pregnant. I had to present myself at an office downtown but…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘There was nobody there, just an empty shop-front with a pile of letters scattered across the coconut mat.’

  She stopped the story there, just shut up about it, just like that. Leonard liked that, he liked that she knew when to leave a conversation, where and why and how to back out gracefully.

  She sat up and crossed her arms over her breasts.

  ‘What happened to Ian?’

  ‘He had quite a serious accident.’

  ‘He’d been ranting on for days about some sort of pistol. He said you had this tagging pistol.’

  ‘Yes, I do have it. It will provide the ID tag
you need to get onto the survival programme.’

  At the same time as he’d explained all this he’d walked over to his coat and taken out the pistol.

  ‘Now, just tilt your head back and open your mouth.’

  ‘Is this going to hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Leonard adjusted the firing position then pulled on the trigger. Nothing happened.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No, that’s not it. There’s something wrong.’

  He checked the pistol, lined it up again and fired a second time.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s empty!’

  ◊

  They hadn’t spoken since they’d left the farm. That was an hour ago and they’d travelled exactly sixty miles in that time. All Leonard could think about was the elementary maths of it, the certainty of their speed, their sixty miles an hour. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead. He knew, and he knew that Adeline knew, that they had to get some driving over and done with before they could bear to talk about what had gone wrong.

  The road narrowed and became high-walled. They took a sharp bend and forded a stream, then climbed and reached a fork in the road. Leonard stopped the car and Adeline looked across at him.

  ‘So, Leonard, just what in the hell are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They got out and paced around on the clean tarmac. Leonard put his hand on Adeline’s shoulder and made a mess of trying to massage her back.

  ‘It’ll be OK.’

  Leonard’s promise had that ring of emptiness about it.

  ‘Do we have any options? What are our options?’

  ‘Well, listen. We either head up to the survival project, take our chances there and I try to smuggle you in.’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘There is an alternative. I met this character, he’s built a shelter in the south and it’s a pretty good idea. It’s a DIY project, though. I mean, they didn’t have a structural engineer on board or an architect or even a qualified construction team. There’d be no guarantee we’d get through the impact. But we could take our chances there.’

  ‘You’re saying it’s dangerous?’

  ‘No, it’s just that I’m not sure I know how well the shelter will stand up to what’s going to happen.’

  ‘So really there are no options?’

  ‘Listen to me. Alright, the chances of staying alive are higher in the escape pods but they are ruthless people and it’s an unstable place. I have my reservations about how they plan to carry on. They are clinical survivors and they have some dangerous ideas about the future.’

  ‘You’ve got to get me to the projectt site, Leonard. I’ve got to take my chances there.’

  ‘OK, but Adeline, just so’s you know: it’s not going to be easy to get in. In fact it’s going to be nearly impossible. And they don’t mess around up there, they shoot on sight if they suspect anything’s wrong.’

  They got back in, Leonard dropped the handbrake and they pulled away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The impact coordinates of the Ice Moon had been revised, and as the primary shockwave would be travelling from the east, the positioning of the pods had also been revised. The survival pods had been rolled out of the hangars and transported by truck to a valley a few miles from the construction site. The new site was a deep valley which ran north-south; the pods would be positioned on the valley floor and therefore in the lee of the prevailing blast forces.

  The whole area looked like some kind of Formula One race day. Men in fire retardant suits dragged leads across to the pods – they hooked up water, oxygen supply and battery charging cables.

  The spheres were in different states of readiness, some were open and empty, while others were already sealed and stood ominously quiet.

  Lena was sitting on the bus, leaning up against Beryl’s shoulder, trying to work out what all this meant. She stood up every now and then and walked up and down the aisle just to see if she could recognise anyone. It would be difficult, though, with everyone wearing overalls and their heads covered with close fitting hoods. The bus was parked on a flat piece of road halfway up the side of the valley, so she had a good view of the whole area. It was like being on the deck of an aircraft carrier, with swinging gantries lifting and lowering the last of the pods into place.

  She stood blocking the aisle, one elbow resting on the left hand head-rest, the other on the right.

  ‘There’s no sign of him, Nan.’

  Beryl looked up at her.

  ‘He’s here somewhere, mark my words.’

  Beryl was uncomfortable in her suit; it was very close-fitting, like a one-piece leotard, but made of brilliant white spandex. In short, it was not a flattering get-up. Lena liked hers, it was laced with thermostatic wiring. It fitted her perfectly and made her feel like she was part of a science fiction epic and about to travel into deep space.

  There was a sound of compressed air escaping and the door at the front of the bus swung open. The man who’d stepped on was taking a microphone from the driver. ‘OK everybody?’

  There were some mumbled replies.

  ‘Now then, first thing to say is that we are in a secured area but there are some military police on hand should there be any last minute problems. So I’ll introduce myself: I’m Patrick and I am the overall coordinator of this stage of the survival programme. I don’t have any last minute technical information. That will be given to you when you are placed into the survival pods. I am merely touring the buses to wish you all well and to say good luck. We’ve thought long and hard about how best to make it through this emergency, so trust me, you are in good hands. I hope to see you all as soon as possible after impact. Then we will regroup and go on to the next stage of the programme, in which I hope you will all be very willing participants. We will shortly be proceeding to a secured area where each of you will be secured into the survival pods. Thank you, and goodbye for now.’

  There was a ripple of applause from the back of the bus. It is funny how the gut reaction always comes from the back of the bus.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A full day’s driving was finally rewarded with an encouraging sign: a helicopter. It passed to the left of the road, flying fast and low, with its flashing, red tail-light blinking evenly. Leonard wound down his window to change the air in the cab. He heard some shouts and then a rifle shot rang out followed by a slow echo winding itself around the night sky. Leonard switched off the headlights.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘We can’t keep driving with our lights on with shots being fired, we’re too easy to spot.’

  A red flare ripped a straight line up into the sky; it burst and started to burn brightly as it fell back to earth.

  Leonard stamped on the brakes; three soldiers were standing in the middle of the road in front of them. They raised their rifles and fired warning shots into the air. Leonard slammed the Land Rover into reverse and started to go back the way they’d come. The windscreen shattered as shots peppered the bodywork. Adeline screamed. She had a lapful of safety glass.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Leonard?’

  He took her in his arms and locked his hands behind her back. She looked close to collapse and Leonard didn’t feel good either; he felt suddenly drained, felt that life had brought him to one of its turning points. He was trying to think through Adeline, to plot with her and the half of his self that now existed in her womb; doubling and redoubling in silence, oblivious to the world it was heading toward.

  ‘Take my tag, Adeline.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The tag! There’s no time to argue, just do as I ask. Please, before they arrive.’

  Adeline broke away but Leonard pulled her back. He kissed her, held her top lip between his teeth and bit her lightly so that she would understand what she had to do.

  She pulled away.

  ‘Please, Adeline, we don’t have any time, just do it
!’

  Leonard felt her tongue run underneath his lip and over the square ridge there. She held the tag between her teeth and waited. He shook her shoulders and she bit through and twisted her head away.

  Intense pain flared out around Leonard’s jaw and up to the top of his head. Adeline’s face became ill-defined and blurred. Leonard had forgotten how red blood was; there was now a thick smear across her face. He felt his mouth start to fill with the stuff; he swallowed and felt for the damage with his own tongue. A ragged cut, mostly on the inside of his mouth. He wanted this, it seemed a fair price, the right price. It was an end to putting himself first, a letting go of one in favour of the other.

  Leonard managed to gag his moans. He focused on soaking up the blood with his coat-sleeve.

  The soldiers had reached the car and were shouting.

  ‘Get out!’

  Adeline held on to Leonard’s arm.

  ‘Leonard?’

  ‘Just do as they say.’

  They yanked the doors open and pulled them both out. Adeline fell to the floor, then was dragged away and scanned.

  Leonard was ordered to sit on the ground and keep his hands on his head.

  ‘OK, she’s tagged.’

  The soldier with the scanner paced over to Leonard. He passed the machine over Leonard’s face.

  ‘Negative here, Sarge!’

  The sergeant turned away and spoke into his radio.

  ‘Zone thirty four reporting one live pick-up, over.’

  Adeline looked completely terrified and for the moment, Leonard didn’t have a clue what to do. The sergeant listened to his instruction and shook his head.

  ‘No, the male isn’t tagged. Affirmative, just one female pick-up, out!’

  The sergeant turned to Adeline.

  ‘OK, you’re coming with us. Load yourself up into our vehicle. Say goodbye to lover boy.’

  ‘But we can’t leave him here!’

  ‘Shut up and do as you’re told. He’s not tagged, so he stays exactly where we found him, those are my orders.’

  ‘I’m not going without him.’