CHAPTER SEVEN
THE walls shook with a jolt. Strang awakened from his slumber. The carriage was empty. The bulk of the merchants, message boys and holidaymakers had whittled away at previous stops. The remaining few travelling to the terminus had already alighted. The growling engine whirred and pulsed before falling silent. Strang was hit square on the face by a wave of cold air as he scrambled onto the platform. His city coat was made from the finest wool yet the chill cut right through to his bones.
Two carriage drivers were at the entrance, talking in thick accents as they tended to their animals, charging the batteries of their cabs from the railway’s power leads. Green and hazy purple mountains dominated the skyline in all direction and the air was clean of the city’s sooty tang. But the streets were dreary and deserted compared with Edinburgh’s busy hustle. A handful of housewives carried grocery bags, one or two teashops had boards placed outside but the majority of businesses on what clearly was the main street were shuttered, either due to weather or the lack of trade. The grey town seemed at odds with the dramatic hillscape which surrounded it.
At the front of the station stood a guard in a smart great coat, hands shoved firmly into the pockets, and pipe wedged just underneath his well-trimmed moustache. A small number of hotels and other establishments remained open at this time of year; he answered, and suggested one nearby named after a local landmark.
Minutes later, Strang marched into grim multi-storeyed block with unwelcoming small windows. He explained that he was travelling on business and needed to say in the town overnight but his bracelet appeared to be broken. Could he pay through some other means?
A young receptionist, barely out of school, gave an unpractised bow and said she would have to check with the manager. Moments later she returned, could she see the broken bracelet, it may just have been a faulty reading before. It dawned on Strang that he was really asking the impossible He had brought nothing else with him. He had no commodities, nothing to barter with.
But there was nothing to lose by playing their game.
The girl came back; her lifeless features now shaped surprise and curiosity. “The machine isn’t accepting your bracelet, sir.”
“Yes, as I explained it’s broken.”
“But we’ve managed to wire a message to your bank and they’ve cleared you for… well for a lot of credit. But there’s something else. They say they are very concerned about your welfare. They’d like to send someone up from Edinburgh to assist you.”
He was now in trouble. He should never have tried to use his identification. It was just as he had been warned. The wire message would tie him to this location.
Brown’s men were efficient – and he knew they were – and would be closely watching his transactions. An airship could be dispatched within hours to collect them.
Bowing, he thanked the girl, saying he had made a mistake and had to press on with urgent business. The bracelets had been one of the first measures to control the unrest of the energy shock. They were supposed to make life easier. But without one – well, nothing was possible. Strang now had few options without his identity or access to credit. Hiring a carriage was out of the question. Could he steal one? He hadn’t the faintest clue how to ride or direct a horse. Willie, his own driver had always been on hand.
Walking purposelessly, he stumbled with his canvas suitcase through the town. His clothes and his accent marking him out as a stranger. There was a worn uniformity to the townspeople’s faces, the same, shared shade of wind beaten to their complexions. He followed the uninspiring parade of shops and cheerless pubs, towards a vast body of water where a few fishing and pleasure boats were resting in the harbour. Although independence and new pockets of gasfuel had brought temporary wealth to the country –little of it had trickled to this small town.
He realised that the cramp in his stomach was the result of hunger; he had not eaten for some time. Even the smell of stale fat drifting from the dingy harbour pubs seemed tempting. But his priority was finding shelter. If luck was against him then his hunters would soon reach the town. He scanned along the harbour. There were small villages, houses and factories, on the other side of the water.
Strang scrabbled down to the landing bays, each craft looked to be key-operated and, in some cases, were secured to the dock with hefty locks. Eventually he found a small rowing boat, upturned and sitting on a trailer. He would re-pay the owner when – well, if he resolved the problem. He looked around again. Deserted. No-one to bother about a missing vessel.
With some difficulty he managed to push it down the concrete ramp into the water. Feet and trousers were soaked in sea water, as he half-jumped into the stern and pushed away with the oars. Though there were no tides, the water and was strong and the vessel seemed frozen on the surface. But eventually after several thrashing strokes of the oars, it began slowly to plough from the shore. The sea air was even colder than the land. Droplets splashed on his coat and his arms but the action of rowing gave some protection against the chill.
The exertion following the terror of his flight were almost exhilarating. He had stolen this boat. It was like childhood trips to the lakes. Despite the passing years, his veined hands remembered the correct way to hold the paddles. His back and legs weren’t as strong but by the time he reached the other side; he was managing longer and smoother strokes.
There was no harbour by the village. Just a pebbled beech with a few buoys and lobster nets tied to a mooring. Already wet, he jumped into the shallows, pulling the vessel with him towards the shore. His fine breeches were now almost entirely, darkened with wet.
There was no police bell sounding, nor fishermen giving pursuit. His theft had been undetected so far. Now he needed somewhere to hide, somewhere away from human contact. A spire stood out among the single-storey cottages, a tiny stone church. In such a remote community, each village in the area would not be regularly visited.
He tried the door. Locked. Walking around the building, there was a padlocked sidedoor. Adjacent to it, and at waist height, was a window. The glass had been removed and it was covered with a flimsy wooden board. Strang seized the opportunity and easily pushed away the hoarding and climbed inside.
The interior of the church was no cosier than the bleak exterior. He could tell the stone carvings had been elaborate in their conception but were left half-finished, abandoned possibly to cost. Dark wooden pews empty were bare, apart from hand-crocheted cushions bearing the names and faces of Christian saints. Hungry, exhausted and wet, Strang’s glance fell to the three side doors from the main hall. He had only been in a church a few times in his life, mostly funerals. Two doors led to small cubicles adjoined by a metal grille, which he recognised as a confessional. The third door led into a second room which appeared part study, part-store room. A brief examination of the space yielded a pair of paint-splattered trousers and a cardigan. Both were ill-fitting but he felt an immediate surge of warmth after exchanging them for his own soaked garments. Further investigation uncovered a packet of boiled sweets and a half-eaten tube of biscuits.
His relief was matched by a pang of guilt as he ravenously tore into the rations. Was it sacrilegious to be here? Or was he seeking sanctuary in the old sense of the word? Although his mother attended the little synagogue in Ravelston every Friday, she had stopped insisting he came with her coming into adulthood. God, on the rare occasions he was mentioned, was presented as an elderly neighbour one had to be polite to. His had been an old religion – not like the water worshippers. The blackouts and shortages had shaken the deeply held beliefs, creating space for new cults, their spirituality enhanced by a new wave of mind-shifting drugs.
Strang wasn’t even sure what the water cultists believed. They could be seen in every city and town – their heads aimed towards heaven during rainfall, allowing the droplets to trigger new sensations. He had heard rumours some of them even worshiped hydro-cell tech
nology as part of their worship. Who knows whether they were even encouraged in this by UisgeCorp’s truth department? Although the believers in this new faith spent days to their own private worlds, in many ways they embraced the rules of groupthink more closely than anyone else. Their chants and dances were repeated across the re-connected world.
Strang had finished the food but it did not kill the gnawing beast inside his stomach. Sitting himself at a busy desk, he recognised a device from his childhood. An old heater powered by pressurised butane gas. He toyed with the controls for a few moments, the battered blue canister hissed and spat faintly. Empty. Give it a few more million years and there might be some new gas fields to help fill it.
Dispirited and depressed, he looked around the jumbled room hoping to find a target for his anger. In an odd way it reminded him of his own house. Not the lifeless city townhouse where he had earlier made his flight but his old house – where his wife had lived, where Brown’s son had joined them, spending his first few years of life in their house. His study had been like this priest’s room – sets of tools, books on theoretical physics, plates both dirty and clean, all battling for position.
As Strang wondered if he should attempt a more comprehensive search of his surrounds, the wind blasted the frail glass behind him. Perhaps it was the silence that followed or the creeping echo of cold, but it seemed more sensible to move to a smaller space. He remembered the soft covered seat in the confessional outside and removed himself to the cubicle. I am building a tomb for myself, he said to himself despondently. Although still cold, the door was left slightly ajar allowing a wedge of light to fall into the darkness.