As the Tar Man strolled around the nave, a white marble statue caught his eye. I swear I know that man, he thought, but he could not recall where he had seen him. He glanced at the inscription underneath, but as he could barely read, and as the inscription was in Latin, the Tar Man was none the wiser. It was a statue of an elderly man in a toga and it was carved in the classical manner. He had a broad, noble brow and chiseled muscles, clearly a prince among men…. An American couple walked past, clutching guidebooks.
“Hey, what do you know!” exclaimed the woman. “It’s Samuel Johnson!”
“Cute toga!” commented her husband, and they walked on.
The Tar Man started to laugh heartily.
“Why, I scarcely recognized you, good Dr. Johnson! The last time I caught sight of you rolling out of the Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street, you did not cut such a fine figure as this! Ha! I say ’tis well they remembered your way with words and not your way with fashion and deportment, else they should not dare display you in such fine company!”
The Tar Man moved away, his attention focused on the wealthy tourists milling around the cathedral rather than on Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece. A queue of people had formed in front of the stairs that led to the viewing galleries high above. At the end of the queue stood an elderly lady, in a well-cut coat and elegant shoes. As she pulled off a leather glove in order to extract her ticket from her purse, something glittered. The Tar Man drew nearer and stood behind her in the queue. He saw two rings: one emerald, the other diamond. Both were set in gold. When she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, a fine pearl earring was revealed and a waft of expensive perfume met the Tar Man’s nostrils. He had found his victim and, satisfied, stood back and watched the old lady step into the stairwell and start the long climb up inside the dome….
One among many, Dr. Pirretti was climbing the broad spiral staircase. It was made of wood and the steps were curiously shallow. People climbing up walked next to the center of the spiral; people coming down kept to the outer edges. Dr. Pirretti was a fit woman and started off at a brisk pace, eager to get to the top, but before long her heart started to pound in her chest and she was forced to slow down. She felt a touch giddy from walking around in circles, and when a group of children flew past her, charging down four steps at a time, shouting, “It’s quicker on the way down!”, she came to a halt, putting the flat of both hands on the inner wall to steady herself. After a few more steps she arrived at a kind of alcove with a stone bench carved into the wall. An elderly lady, her bejewelled fingers massaging her aching knees, sat at one side of the bench. She invited the breathless Dr. Pirretti to join her.
“This better be worth it!” panted Dr. Pirretti with a smile.
The elderly lady spoke with a strong Italian accent. “Believe me, it is! I always come here. So beautiful. And you must listen to the whispers—it is astonishing!”
“I will,” Dr. Pirretti replied, “if my heart doesn’t give out first!”
“You’re still a child! Enjoy!”
Dr. Pirretti continued up the wooden stairs and a few minutes later stepped through a narrow door into the Whispering Gallery. She walked across the narrow, uneven walkway, worn down by centuries of visitors, and held on to the stone balustrade. A hundred feet below lay the cathedral floor, while seventy feet above, the curve of the immense dome began and completely filled her vision like the sky. A full two hundred and fifty feet above where Dr. Pirretti stood, the golden ball and cross at the summit of the cathedral pushed upward toward the heavens as they had done for three centuries.
She sat down on the stone bench that encircled the Whispering Gallery and watched the dozens of visitors walking around its circumference. She rested her head against the wall and when she closed her eyes for a moment she became suddenly conscious of the strange, unearthly quality of the sounds she could hear.
“Can’t you hear me?” she heard. It was a man’s voice, deep and echoey.
Overlapping this voice, there was another, a tired mother’s voice. “Why must you always do that?” she scolded. She sounded a long way away but the sound was too loud—it was as if she was eavesdropping.
Then an Australian voice: “Well, that would explain a lot! Her father owned the airline!”
It was, she realized, the structure of the dome itself which was acting as a mysterious conduit for all these sounds. She let them wash over her. Whispers and calls and fragments of sentences rose and fell and disappeared into the vibrating air. It was an intriguing yet soothing soundscape. How could she be hearing all these conversations? “Joyce! Look at me!” a voice called, near and yet far away. “I’m waving! Can you hear me?”
“Yes! Yes, I can!” a woman’s voice responded right next to her. Dr. Pirretti’s eyes snapped open and far away, on the opposite side of the gallery, she saw a man waving at her neighbor.
Wow! This is amazing! said Dr. Pirretti to herself. His voice has traveled halfway around the circumference of the dome and yet it’s as clear as a bell!
She tuned into the soundscape, letting the voices go in and out of focus. One second she could recognize intelligible words, the next she heard sounds whose significance escaped her…. Abruptly she sat up, a euphoric expression on her face.
The sounds in my head, she thought, they’re voices! I haven’t got tinnitus! Someone is trying to speak to me! I just haven’t been listening! A second later the smile disappeared from her lips as the thought came to her that this could, instead, be the first sign of madness….
All at once a scream reached the Whispering Gallery, traces of the terrified cry traveling over the surface of its walls like a pebble skims the surface of a pond. Dr. Pirretti was torn abruptly from her reverie and, along with the rest of the visitors, looked wildly around her, searching for the cause of such distress. It was impossible to determine with any certainty the source of the scream.
All eyes latched on to the Tar Man as he strode nonchalantly into the Whispering Gallery and started to move along the walkway, leaning over the balustrade and admiring the view one could get of the cathedral floor. He seemed relaxed and easy and after a few seconds no one paid him any more notice. Dr. Pirretti, however, found herself staring at him, and a pinprick of emotion stirred inside her. She could not have explained it, nor could she have identified the precise emotion she was experiencing. It was just that there was something about this man which made her want to … pay attention. As he walked toward her she fancied that he was breathing slow and deep, as if trying to get his breath back. A bead of sweat trickled down his cheek. There was nothing unusual in this, she thought, remembering how she had felt after the long climb up. Then she noticed his buckled shoes, dusty and hand-sewn from soft leather. They were strange, they looked almost antique. When she looked up, their eyes met and the Tar Man smiled at her. His gaze was steady and confident. Forgetting momentarily that he was no longer wearing his three-cornered hat—indeed, he felt naked without it—he lifted his hand to raise it. Realizing his mistake at the last minute, he inclined his head instead. Unsettled, Dr. Pirretti looked down, unsure how to react, but not before she had noticed the snakelike scar. The stranger disappeared through the doorway that led to the Stone Gallery and, after that, to the Golden Gallery at the top of the dome. Nothing had passed between them, and yet this brief encounter stayed with her for many days afterward.
Concerned voices rose up from the spiral staircase that led to the gallery. Dr. Pirretti hurried down it, partly out of curiosity and partly to see if there was anything she could do to help. She hoped someone had not lost their footing and taken a fall. About a third of the way down she came across a cluster of people gathered around the stone bench where she had rested for a while. An agitated guard was speaking hurriedly into his walkie-talkie. As she drew nearer she could discern, through the huddle of bodies, a female guard comforting the elderly Italian lady whom she had spoken to not ten minutes before. The poor woman was hysterical, her soft, carefully arranged hair all awry. She stare
d at the back of her hands, which were now devoid of all jewelry. The joints of her fingers were bleeding where the rings had been torn roughly off. The guard dabbed at them with a tissue.
“My rings! My rings!” she wailed, inconsolable. “Even my wedding ring!”
“Did you get a look at him?” asked the guard.
“No … it happened so quickly … he pushed me over….”
“Did he go up or down?”
“I think he went up … yes, up … Dio mio! What monster would do such a thing in this holy place?”
Dr. Pirretti passed a hand over her face. She felt sick. How horrible! she thought. She felt deeply sorry for the Italian lady, but could not also help thinking that she had had a narrow escape. It could have been her. She wondered if the man she had encountered in the Whispering Gallery could have had anything to do with it but decided that having a scar and wearing strange shoes was not reason enough to accuse someone of robbery.
The Tar Man ran up the steep and narrow spiral staircase toward the Stone Gallery. By the time he was nearing the top his lungs were close to bursting—even with his exceptional stamina he could run no more. He was heading for a secret chamber, barely big enough to accommodate two standing men. He had used it on several occasions and it had been shown to him, as repayment for a favor, by the grandson of the mason who had worked on it. But he could go no farther and the Tar Man stopped, slumped against the cold wall, and rested his forehead on clenched fists while his rib cage rose and fell and he took in huge gulps of air. Through half-closed eyes he saw a date cut deeply into the stone wall. He was slow to decipher letters but figures were easier for him. There was a name, T. MOHUN, which he spelled out painfully, one letter at a time.
“Greetings, Master Mohun,” he said out loud. “I’ll warrant you were not in such a predicament as I when you took a fancy to carving your name and announcing your presence to the future….”
Underneath was a date: 1724. The Tar Man smiled to himself. I must be the oldest man in London, but you were born before me—and you are long gone now.
The sound of raised voices and people running up the stairs drew him back to his senses with a jolt, and the fear of capture gave him the strength to move his legs, still trembling with overexertion. He flew up the last few steps and dived to the right where he knew the chamber was located. To his horror he was confronted with a kind of office, with windows and an ugly modern door. At least it was empty, but the secret chamber was no more, converted into a bare guard’s room with a desk and a chair. Fear clutched at his heart: fear of capture, fear of incarceration. It had only happened once in his life, all those years ago at the age of fourteen, and they had not shown him an ounce of mercy. He hated the men who had unjustly put him away with a black hatred, and he still picked at the wound which the experience had inflicted upon him, refusing to let it heal, so that it would keep him strong. Being innocent was no protection, so you might as well be bad, as bad as you dared….
So the Tar Man sprang across the corridor, past the stairwell, where he could hear his pursuers close on his heels, and on through a small door that opened out onto the Stone Gallery. The gallery was open to the skies and encircled the base of the dome. It was here that visitors would poke their heads through the stone balustrades and marvel at the magnificent views of the capital. The gallery was almost deserted. Dusk was approaching and an icy blast of wind struck the Tar Man as he hastened around the gallery in search of the stairs which led down to the lower levels. When he found them, he flung open the door and charged down the stairs several steps at a time until, heading toward him, he heard voices and feet thundering up the stairs. He froze. How had they managed to go down and across and up again so quickly? Confound these talking devices! he thought. Now he was trapped. He had but one choice: to go up. Up to the Golden Gallery at the top of the dome. This was not good….
The Tar Man retraced his steps and pulled open a door leading to a series of steep spiral staircases, this time made of iron. Grabbing hold of the thin handrails, he used his arms as well as his legs to climb to the top, alternately pulling himself up and taking giant strides, covering several steps at once. With each step the freestanding metal staircase clanged and vibrated; the noise he was making would instantly give him away as soon as his pursuers entered the stairwell. But better this than to move slowly. He was beginning to feel giddy climbing round and round and round, and started to see spiral shapes in his mind’s eye, nauseating, luminous spirals. Just as he was beginning to fear that his legs would no longer support him, he arrived at a narrow stone corridor. He squeezed through and stepped out through a small doorway onto the Golden Gallery.
He was alone. A strong, glacial wind slapped his cheeks, and through eyes that watered with the intense cold he was fleetingly aware of London stretching to the horizon on all sides. Wasting no time, he unbuckled his belt and tied it firmly around the bottom of one of the metal railings that encircled the gallery. Then he climbed over, hanging on to the railings with one hand and grabbing hold of the belt with the other. His feet were wedged painfully between the metal bars. Screwing up all his courage, he dislodged his feet, let go of the rail, and caught hold of the leather belt with his other hand as gravity caused him to drop sickeningly toward the ground. He clung on. As he dangled there, buffeted by the wind and swinging this way and that, like a carcass on butcher’s hook, he could just make out the sound of approaching voices. His hands were so numb with cold he could scarcely feel them. He was beginning to lose his grip. The Tar Man closed his eyes and gritted his teeth and willed his fingers to hold firm.
For a moment his head swam and strange shapes floated before his eyes. And then he realized that the wind had suddenly dropped and that it was much lighter; in fact, hot sunshine was pouring down on him. He opened his eyes and squinted in the glare. This was not the same London. What miracle had transported him here? Before his last ounce of strength failed him, he heaved himself up and onto the handrail, and threw one leg over so that he was balanced half on and half off, three hundred and fifty feet above the ground. He looked to see if he was alone and saw that there was a kind of dark border on the edges of his vision and that he could make out three or four guards walking around the Golden Gallery who soon gave up their search for him. He heard a shout as if from a great distance:
“He’s not here, mate!”
Then the guards disappeared.
The Tar Man dropped down from the rail, leaned against the wall of the cathedral and fell to his knees in thanks. He looked out over an altered landscape. It was summer. He saw green hills in the distance and a river with sailing boats and a thicket of church spires and wood smoke rising up from chimneys. He did not need to be told the date. This was August 1763. He tipped back his head and laughed.
“I have faded!” he cried. “I have the secret!”
And as abruptly as he had returned to his own time, he was catapulted back to the twenty-first century and he stood, alone, above the dark and windswept city. The Tar Man looked down at Fleet Street, running like a steep ravine through the buildings that lined it; he looked to the west and glimpsed the Millennium Wheel and the Houses of Parliament; he looked to the east and saw great skyscrapers rising up in front of him, and further east still, he saw the towers of Canary Wharf winking in the twilight.
He shouted into the wind:
“Never will I be brought low again! Now shall I make my mark on the world and no man will know how to stop me!”
SIX
VEGA RIAZA
In which Hannah speaks her mind, the Tar Man gets a new name, and Kate gives Augusta a fright
They did not come back for me. They came back for my twelve-year-old self.
Exhausted and overwrought, this one thought went around and around the adult Peter Schock’s head. That morning, in the coffeehouse, all he had wanted to do was to get to Middle Harpenden as quickly as humanly possible. Now his sole desire was to be at home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields with the sheets thrown over
his head, dead to the world and all conscious thought.
Little light remained. Nevertheless, Peter still urged the tired horse to gallop through the warm, still night. He stopped when St. Albans came into view. The moon was three-quarters full and he could see moonlight reflected off slate rooftops. He decided to walk the last hundred yards to the coaching inn, dragging the weary and complaining horse behind him. He was thirsty, and the knowledge that the can of Coca-Cola was in the saddlebag played on his mind like an itch he could not scratch. This precious object was the only concrete evidence he possessed which confirmed the existence of his future—or was it his past? He came to a halt and reached into the saddlebag. He grasped the can and drew it out. It was cold to the touch, smooth and heavy. Nothing in the eighteenth century felt precisely like this. I shall keep it forever, he thought. He peered at it by the light of the moon. How strange that a fizzy drink, which his mother used to strictly ration for fear of tooth decay, had suddenly been transformed into a symbol of a whole civilization that had been lost to him…. I cannot drink it! I must not drink it!
The horse grew impatient and Peter, wondering how his mother would have reacted to some of the sets of teeth he had seen, pulled on the reins more roughly than he had intended. The horse trod on his big toe and Peter yelped in pain, hopping on one leg. And then, despite his best intentions, and without quite understanding why he did it, Peter found himself tearing at the ring pull. The Coca-Cola had been shaken up in the saddlebag and frothy sweet liquid spattered over his waistcoat. It was too late now. He drank. And as that long-forgotten flavor exploded on his taste buds, the night and his loneliness and his sadness all disappeared, and instead he was back in Richmond, at his childhood home, surrounded by his friends singing “Happy Birthday”; and then the picture changed and he was sitting outside the pub on Richmond Green on a sunny afternoon while his dad watched the cricket; and then he was in the cinema, sitting between his parents, eating popcorn and watching an animated film on the big screen, eyes wide with pleasure, and he was laughing, laughing fit to burst…. When Peter consciously tried to remember his past life, somehow the images his mind dredged up were fleeting and two-dimensional, and more often than not the memories he selected were of difficult moments—missing his mother and arguing with his father. But now, vivid and wonderful and alive, it was as if all his long-lost childhood and the century that had given him birth rose up, like a genie, out of that cheap aluminum can, and the grown-up Peter Schock allowed himself to sit in the dirt of the road and weep tears of sadness and of joy.