The One Who Is Two (Book 1 of White Rabbit)

Chapter 11

  Loofah stepped out into the afternoon with the warm sun on his face and the fresh air of freedom in his lungs. A man passed him on the pavement, being towed by a black and white mongrel on a braided leather lead, and they exchanged smiles and muttered politenesses about the weather while a pig-tailed schoolgirl ran by in the other direction, her satchel bouncing on her hip with each step.

  Following the desk sergeant's directions he found his way back to the high street and took a right, heading for the station. Truscott and Meadows had already left, rushing to the scene of the reported sighting, and Loofah was to catch the train to the next town where the two policemen would meet him. Miss Leggett would have driven him there, but she had had to get back to the Office urgently – there'd been 'developments', whatever that meant. Even so, it was strange that she was sending him unaccompanied; the Under Manager must realise that, with the appalling charge sheet being held against him (however unjustly) coupled with his knowledge of the creature's existence and ongoing depredations, he had no real choice but to co-operate. No, she could be sure that this time he was going to obey orders – he shuddered as a cold hand clutched as his bowels – however loathsome this was going to be for him.

  Just as the shudder was fading, a shop window caught the full brightness of the sun and beamed it over him as he passed, momentarily bathing him in warmth and golden light. Despite the horrors to come hanging over him, he felt the brightness flood his soul – however illusory his freedom might be, it was infinitely preferable to the endless nightmare of the police cell.

  The high street was less busy than before. As he strode up the half-empty pavement, past shops and parked cars that glowed luminously in the sunshine, shoppers passed him with friendly smiles, one young mother even encouraging him to stop and tickle her baby under its chubby little chin. Irrespective of any police charge sheet, she must have sensed his innocence (well, relatively speaking), she must have known that it was safe to let him near her child. After the last shop, there was a bridge over a vast wooded gulf in which, miles below, the twin lines of a railway track glittered. The great abyss yawned and tried to suck him down into its dizzying depths, but Loofah's vertigo broke like a wave against the solid brick parapet of the bridge and he passed calmly over, with only the tiniest frisson fluttering in his abdomen.

  At the end of the bridge he turned into a small road that sloped steeply down towards the railway and the station. As soon as he was on the incline, he began to slide down the flowing tarmac, picking up speed with each long skating step, and for a split second he saw himself being sucked into another vortex of uncontrolled speed. This time, however, he strangled his panic before it had drawn its first breath; holding control with consummate ease, he slalomed smoothly down the hill, an Alpine skier with the warm sun of his face and the wind in his hair.

  Loofah swept elegantly to a halt in front of the station, an ancient building of red brick with green woodwork, built at the dawn of time and designed to last until nightfall. The stone floored foyer was cool and dark, with in one wall an arched glass hatch, the shape of a church window. But instead of a stained-glass angel, this framed a lank booking clerk, drooping with boredom and sorrow, who peered out at the world from sunken eyes in a sunken face, his blue shirt a shroud draped around his collapsed chest, his tie a hangman's noose.

  'One for Synge Green?' drawled the clerk, his voice dripping with misery. A lock of greasy hair had fallen across his forehead, giving him the look of a defeated dictator denied the Luger, now sealed for eternity in his final bunker.

  'I'm going to the next town, actually. A single, please.'

  'Synge Green is very nice at this time of year. The Garden of Remembrance is not to be missed.'

  'I'm sure it's lovely. But I have to go the town. I've got some business there, very urgent business.'

  'As grand a display of herbaceous borders you're ever likely to see,' said the clerk, as if announcing a death, 'First planted in nineteen fifty-one – been winning awards ever since.'

  The clerk reached towards the ticket machine by his side. But in mid-flight his arm seemed to become too heavy, gradually slowing in its trajectory and starting to fall back to the counter.

  'It's obviously worth a visit,' said Loofah, following the gentle decline of the clerk's arm, 'but not today.'

  The clerk reached across and grasped the falling arm by the elbow. This, however, seemed to bend in the middle, drooping like a wilting plant, and the hand continued its inexorable descent towards the counter.

  'And a fine set of public lavatories,' he said, staring mournfully at his pliable limb, 'Always clean. Usually got soap and paper as well.'

  'I'll certainly remember that if I'm ever passing through.'

  The clerk now held up his other hand, examining first the knuckles and then the palm.

  'Not that you always need the full monty, of course,' he said, as his fingers began to bend slowly backwards, 'But it's nice to know it's there if you need it.'

  The whole hand was now drooping and the fingers were elongating, dripping slowly towards the counter like hot wax. As the clerk followed this process this with sorrowful fascination, his face began to slip downwards into his shirt-front.

  'I wonder if I could have my ticket,' said Loofah, concerned that the rapidly melting transport official would soon be unable to press the buttons on his machine.

  'The war memorial's worth a look, too,' said the clerk, speaking slowly now, and with obvious difficulty, 'In the centre of the village, right near the green. They're all on it, every single one. More from the first than the second, mind you.'

  As he finished the sentence his jaw swayed uneasily from side to side, before falling open onto his tie. At the same time his right ear slipped down the side of his face onto his collar and his whole head tilted to the right. One arm had now melted over into an elegant arch, the liquid fingers pooling and mixing on the counter.

  'My ticket, if you don't mind,' said Loofah. The Under Manager would not thank him for missing the train.

  'Burgh – eargh,' slurred the clerk, his tongue lolling uselessly out of his mouth as his head fell sideways onto his shoulder and his eyes and nose began to flow across his face.

  'Please! I mustn't miss the train!' cried Loofah, gripping the counter, watching helplessly as the clerk slumped forward, his head lolling off his shoulder and running down his shirt front.

  'You'll have to use the machine,' said a voice behind him. The speaker was a middle-aged woman in a violet suit, clutching a bouffant Pekinese to her bosom. With a polite smile she indicated a ticket machine at the other side of the foyer.

  'Oh, thank goodness!' Loofah sighed with relief. 'But what about…?' he added, glancing back at the ticket window; the transport official was now a shapeless molten mass flowing across the counter, with strands of lank hair and teeth decorating his waxy surface. The woman peered through the glass and sniffed with distaste, holding the dog to her face as if to ward off evil.

  'I blame the government,' she said then turned away and stalked elegantly out towards the platforms.

  The ticket machine was a daunting cliff face of buttons, display panels, flashing lights, and slots. Loofah checked the main display panel for guidance, but it was blank. Then he began examining the various printed hieroglyphics scattered over the metal frontage of the machine, but these swam in front of his eyes, indecipherable.

  A low noise like distant thunder rumbled through the stone floor announced the imminent approach of the train. Loofah shivered, recognising the first green shoot of a newly germinated seed of panic. As he stared at the machine, defying comprehension in front of him, the rumble got a little louder, now echoing gently around the foyer. A still small yet promising young plant pushing upwards into the greenhouse of his consciousness, the panic grew.

  Finally, in desperation, he pressed a button at random and letters flashed instantly on the main display panel: 'One for Synge Green?'

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; 'I'm going to the next town, actually,' he said out loud, 'A single, please.'

  'Synge Green is very nice at this time of year,' flashed the panel, 'The Garden of Remembrance is not to be missed.'

  The rumble became a roar, vibrating through the soles of his shoes, while vigorous tendrils of anxiety coiled around his intestines.

  'I'm sure it's lovely. But I have to go the town,' said Loofah, the lines coming out of his mouth in their own accord, 'I've got some business there, very urgent business.'

  'As grand a display of herbaceous borders you're ever likely to see,' flashed the panel. Metal squealed like fingernails on glass as the train braked. 'First planted in nineteen fifty-one – been winning awards ever since.'

  With one last dying shriek the braking stopped – the train was in the platform.

  'It's obviously worth a visit,' Loofah recited, speaking like an automaton, 'but not today.'

  'And a fine set of public lavatories,' flashed the panel, 'Always clean. Usually got soap and paper as well.'

  'I'll certainly remember that if I'm ever passing through.'

  A tannoy announced destinations. A different voice in Loofah's head screamed but he remained immobile, fixed to the panel.

  'Not that you always need the full monty, of course. But it's nice to know it's there if you need it.'

  'I wonder if I could have my ticket.' While Loofah spoke calmly and slowly to the machine, his skull threatened to burst. The foyer door swung open as the first alighting passengers pushed through to the exit.

  'The war memorial's worth a look, too,' flashed the panel, 'In the centre of the village, right near the green. They're all on it, every single one. More from the first than the second, mind you.'

  'My ticket, if you don't mind.'

  The guard's whistle echoed up from the platform and people filed past him, heading for the car park.

  'Burgh – eargh,' flashed the panel, spelling out each word with phonetic accuracy.

  'Please,' recited Loofah, 'I mustn't miss the train.'

  But the panel was now blank. The foyer throbbed as the engine revved, and then, without any warning, the machine chuntered quietly to itself and a small rectangle of card emerged from one of its numerous slots.

  For a split nanosecond Loofah just stared at the proffered ticket – and then the spell broke.

  The engine noise slowed as the driver engaged his gears. Smashing through the foyer doors, he barged past a businessman, cannoned into a gaggle of school boys, before launching himself down the wooden stairs to the platform, aware that his feet were not touching the steps. Fellow travellers dived out his way, cursing him as he sailed past.

  As Loofah swung out onto the platform the train was already moving out of the station. With a cry of dismay, he charged after it, chasing the last carriage as it rattled along the platform. It gained on him, accelerating inexorably away, but with the manic energy of desperation he pumped his legs faster, hurling himself over the asphalt.

  He was closing on it, but the end of the platform now loomed ahead, rushing to meet him like a long lost friend. With a last push of screaming effort he drew level to the rear set of doors and reached out for the handle – but there was none; the double automatic doors were sealed against him, impregnable. The end of the platform was now upon him, but just as he was about to give up, he noticed the electronic press-buttons beside the door and in mad desperation lunged at the side of the train – and went hurtling into space with the weed-strewn hard-core of the tracks far below.

  But he didn't fall – a sudden gust seized him its arms and for a few moments he was suspended in nothing, flying beside the train, carried by its slipstream. Then the doors swished open and he was scooped up like a trawled fish and dropped, flapping and gasping for breath, onto the hard floor of the carriage.

  The doors slid closed behind him, shutting out the swirling roar. Still panting hard, Loofah pushed himself up. A businessman in a dark suit was glaring down at him from the nearest seat, the pages off his pink newspaper blown in folds over his lap. With a sigh of profound irritation, he brushed the paper straight and returned to the serried columns of figures that covered the page he was reading.

  A muffled rattle of the wheels speeding over the rails and a slight swaying of the carriage was all that disturbed the hermetically sealed stillness and steep scrub covered banks of the cutting slipped quietly passed the carriage windows like pictures on a cinema screen. Loofah climbed to his feet and brushed the dust off his jeans.

  The irritated businessman was not alone – in fact the carriage was filled with them, all in dark suits, all staring avidly at their pink newspapers, never looking up and moving only to turn the pages. As Loofah moved down the aisle to find a suitable seat, it was like passing through a colony of sea creatures – polyps or sea-anemones – with pin-striped bodies and pink petal gills, each in its own rock cranny. All was quiet and still, with just an occasional flurry of pink as an individual opened and closed its gills.

  Loofah chose a bench with three places, with a single polyp by the window, his well polished black leather executive case on the seat beside him. Loofah went to sit of the on aisle seat, but as he did so, the pink newspaper dropped suddenly and he was met by a cold territorial stare. With a sheepish grin he moved on – and the paper flicked back into place. He noticed now how evenly the creatures were spaced throughout the carriage, each surrounded by a ring of free seats and empty air space, presumably essential for adequate oxygen supply.

  He tried another three seater, this time with no executive case, but again as he was about to sit down, the paper screen fell and he was face to face with the threatening gaze of an angry polyp. This time he considered braving the glare and asserting his ticket holder's right to a seat. But then he conscious that he was the alien in this colony, his jeans and leather jacket contrasting awkwardly with the stylish pin-stripe. Also, whilst there was no apparent connection between individuals, there was always the chance that the colony would unite against him if he threatened the life space of one of their number. And so, with valorous discretion, he decided against the challenge and passed on.

  At the end of the compartment an electric door slid open and with a rush of coldness and a manic scream of metal wheels and rails he was sucked briefly into the airlock between carriages before another door open and closed, sealing him into the next speeding capsule.

  This carriage, however, was not silent. For it was awash with small children of every size and shape, running in the aisle, clambering over the seats, or banging vigorously on the small tables in front of their places while throwing food and plastic drink cartons onto the floor. And almost all were shouting, yelling at the tops of their not so little voices with manic urgency for reasons that, although obscure to the outside world, were presumably apparent to themselves.

  In actual fact there were some who were not shouting – these were crying, howling out their souls in anguish, their faces twisted in blank agony. The few adults among this jagged chaos were patiently doling out food and toys, keeping the maelstrom fuelled, although apparently oblivious to it.

  Loofah moved quickly up the aisle, slipping on dropped fruit and dodging hurled toys and drink cans. A ten year old boy veered up in front of him and shouted into his face, and a small girl threw orange juice on his legs and then held out her polystyrene cup to a man beside her, screaming for a refill. No free seats, Loofah noted without regret, and stepped quickly into the airlock at the end of the carriage.

  The next compartment was full of young executives, Sutton analogues and their shoulder-padded female equivalents, all barking incessantly into mobile phones, glancing indifferently at Loofah as he drifted past.

  'Tell Jason it's no go on the Anderson deal…'

  'I've got to get back to Simon by three at the latest…'

  'I've been on to Frankfurt this morning…'

  'The figures just don't add up…'

  'Unrealistic targets…'
br />   'Sales results…'

  'Bottom line…'

  'Do lunch…'

  'PDQ…'

  It was a kennel of dogs, with each animal trying out-bark the others, all struggling to raise the cackle of their own jargon above the general cacophony. Loofah moved on to the next compartment.

  Here old ladies with fluffy white hair and silly but kindly grins sat beside old men with shining pates and tufts of grey above their ears; the seats were littered with thermos flasks, plastic sandwich boxes and library books. Loofah perched briefly next to the aisle being showed photographs of grandchildren and listening to stories about operations, radium cream, and home help. He thumbed through a spare copy of 'People's Friend' and then, as the next hospital story gathered momentum, made his excuses and left.

  The next carriage was dimly lit, with just a gentle murmur of voices and the rustle of clothes disturbing the tumescent silence. Couples lay sprawled across the seats, their mouths locked together in endless union, their limbs entwined while feverish hands groped under rumpled blouses. Shirt collars were smeared with lipstick, hair was ruffled by wandering fingers, and the occasional dislodged stiletto lay forgotten in the aisle. Loofah passed swiftly through, disquieted by an intimacy he did not share.

  His ears were battered by teenagers with ghetto blasters and then torn by football cheers as he dodged switch-blade thrusts and hurled beer bottles. There were dog of lovers, nursing mothers, and train spotters in matching blue anoraks. He was tempted to dally in a carriage full of secretary-clones with generous chests and frugal skirts, but he remembered the Office line-up with an uncomfortable shudder, and hurried on through soldiers on furlough, holidaymakers in lurid beach clothes, and exhibitionists who leered at him as he passed, disappointed by his gender but displaying their wares anyway.

  And then the airlock sealed behind him as he faced row upon row of… empty seats. At first Loofah didn't trust what he saw and hovered tentatively in aisle, expecting to be assaulted by gangs of toddlers creeping out from under the seats, or by trapeze artists hiding in the luggage racks. But nothing materialised, he was really alone. And so, choosing a window seat near the centre of the carriage, he at last sat down.

  The train had left the cutting – emerald green fields and dark green copses like heads of broccoli now floated past the window by as if carried by some unseen river. Although the outside world seemed so close, in reality it was all so far, far away. Loofah relaxed into his seat and pressed a palm against the triple thick, hyper-reinforced glass. The hermetic silence of the carriage was a self-contained world, completely severed from that which was sliding past his face. There were dangers out there, he knew that – the treacherous woods, the telephone, the policemen and the Under Manager – but in here he was safe and secure, a deep space astronaut sealed within his capsule.

  The train moved smoothly now, as if gliding on a cushion of air, with not even the slightest vibration of wheel on rail. It crossed fields and slipped through hedges, meandering among the uninterested farm animals and the unseeing trees. Loofah noted, without undue concern, that the train was apparently no longer bound by tracks, but was cruising at will through the landscape on a route of its own choice. It glided over a small river then across a road and into a housing estate, passing so close between the houses that he was able to see a family at their dining table enjoying slices of chicken and roast potatoes, oblivious to the train floating over their front lawn.

  Moving freely and easily, the train slipped through the world without touching it and Loofah, passing untouched through the painful chaos of life in his hermetic capsule of safety, smiled to himself with carefree contentment. Gradually, his bones and flesh dissolved into his vision then this itself flowed out to blend into the sliding landscape; gradually, he ceased to be anything more than what he saw. The fields and woods slipping past were now him, and he was the endlessly unrolling panorama of houses and roads, people, farm animals and cars.