Pastworld Page 4

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ the beggar replied, baring his yellow teeth as he gave a shifty little laugh.

  ‘No, I’m serious,’ said the blind man. ‘You can see well, I have no doubt, sir, so please try and help me. She’s my only daughter, you see, and she’s gone and run away, the silly girl. She’s seventeen, and a very slender girl, and bright-eyed. Have you perhaps seen her?’

  ‘I wish I had, I really do,’ said the ragged man. The cheeky cockney laugh was absent now, replaced with a sense of threat. He moved closer so that for a moment the blind man and the ragged man stood facing one another in the middle of the still busy pavement.

  ‘Tell you what, spare me a copper coin,’ the beggar said, ‘and I’ll help you find her.’

  The blind man peered at him closely and then reached his free hand forward and felt for the beggar’s arm. He felt ragged clothes, he felt the texture of coarse and tattered greasy fabric. Then the blind man sniffed, and even through the cold air, he picked up a stale and unwashed smell.

  ‘Oh,’ said the blind man quietly, ‘you’re one of them,’ and he backed off fearfully, his black boots slipping a little on the icy cobbles. ‘I have no coins,’ he said matter of factly, ‘nothing to give you today, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Tight-fisted like the rest of your type,’ the ragged man said, his voice now a knife in the air. ‘I hope for your sake you find that girl.’

  ‘I hope to God you don’t,’ the blind man muttered under his breath.

  The ragged man stood in the shelter of a shop doorway. He pulled a packet of cigarette papers and a little rough leather pouch of tobacco out of an inner pocket. He rolled himself a cigarette. He struck a match against the brickwork and lit up, his face rosy in its sudden flare. He breathed in the warm smoke, coughed a little and rubbed his bony hands together. He settled to wait, smoking and watching the steps that led to the blind man’s lodgings.

  Within an hour the blind man let himself out of the door. Turning awkwardly, he stumbled down the steps once again supporting himself on his cane. The ragged man stepped out of the doorway. The blind man held a white envelope in his free hand, held it free of his flapping coat, his chin tucked down to hold his scarf in place. He made his way slowly, warily, towards the postbox. The ragged man moved quickly into place a few yards from the postbox. The blind man drew nearer. The ragged man walked forward directly into his path and bumped against him just enough, nudging at the arm that held the envelope – just enough to dislodge it from the blind man’s nervous grip so that it fluttered down to the ground and sat on the snow, white on white. The blind man called out in anguish. The ragged man picked up the envelope at once. It had an address written across it in large childish-looking writing.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ the ragged man said, smoothing his voice, ‘you seem to have dropped this. Here, allow me to post it for you, sir.’ The ragged man quickly tapped the iron mouth of the postbox with the edge of the envelope to make it sound as if he had dropped it in.

  ‘There! It’s away now for you, and just in time for the last post too,’ he said, slipping the envelope into his own pocket.

  ‘Did you post that for me?’ said the blind man. ‘Well, thank you, sir, that’s very kind, I’m sure.’ The blind man stood still and stared after the retreating stranger. He could make out only a dark shape against the white like an upside-down exclamation mark. He sniffed the air suspiciously, but this time he smelled only the lingering smoke of the man’s cigarettes. He made his way carefully back to his lodgings, tapping his way with the cane across the skim of snow as fast as he dared. He had posted the letter, the alarm had been sounded.

  .

  Chapter 6

  FROM EVE’S JOURNAL

  .

  Jago opened the canvas flap at the back of the wagon and held it for me.

  I climbed back in among the dusty props.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Jago said. ‘Goodnight, Eve.’

  ‘Yes, goodnight, Jago,’ I said. ‘Thank you for saving me.’ I burrowed back under the soft dusty cloth; I curled up as small as I could. As I lay listening to the wind among the trees, I couldn’t help thinking of poor Jack, who was out there somewhere and would certainly be missing me by now.

  Finally I drifted off feeling entirely unreal, alone, cut off from everything I had ever known. Airships throbbed overhead at regular intervals and the familiar drone of their engines as they passed over the park finally sent me to sleep.

  .

  I woke suddenly to complete darkness and the sound of dogs barking, and the clanging sounds of metal on metal.

  I pulled myself up through the warm covers; the canvas back flap was tied tight with rope from the outside. I felt a jolt. ‘What’s happening? What is it?’ I called out into the darkness. The sound of dogs yapping and snarling was all very close to the wagon. My heart pounded fast in my chest. The wagon gave a lurch and I was thrown back among the striped poles, hitting my head. I yelled out. The lurch developed into a fast forward movement, bumpy at first as if we were travelling at speed over hummocks of grass, but then it was suddenly smooth – a pathway perhaps – and then came the clatter of hooves and the judder of riding over cobbles. I waited for a while, crouched in pain among all the ropes and poles. I held on tight to the edge of the canvas. The snaps and howls of the dogs gradually faded. I pulled myself up on to the driving board of the wagon beside Jago. He was holding the reins and concentrating on the forward rush.

  ‘What is it?’ I said breathlessly to Jago, who leaned forward, reins in hand. ‘Wild dogs?’

  ‘Oh, dogs, of course, but not wild – trained to attack,’ he said. ‘Nasty dogs, sniffer dogs, Corporation dogs. Something must be up. They only bring them out at night and never anywhere near any paying Gawkers either. That kind of dog is very useful for scaring the poor and the unprotected. That was a Buckland Corp. security patrol, unless I miss my guess. We would always rather keep away from them. It was time to move, and fast.’

  We clattered on through the dark streets.

  I shivered, held my hand to my head and gripped the board with the other. Finally the horse slowed to an amble. ‘What were they looking for?’ I asked Jago, still in fear, thinking of the horde of fierce dogs, the ragged man who meant me harm, the alarm bells clanging.

  ‘Oh it could be anything. They don’t like travellers and illicits being here at all. They don’t like them sleeping in the parks and so on. They take every opportunity to harass the unofficial poor. What could be easier or more satisfying than scaring the defenceless? Mummers and players, poor gypsies, illegal immigrants or circus folk – whoever they want to scare with a pack of dogs and vile men with sticks, they can. I’ve no doubt that there are some sick Gawkers in this place who will pay good money to see poor people attacked with a dog and a lead-tipped cudgel.’

  It seemed odd to hear Jago talk about such horrors among all the calmly sleeping houses that surrounded us. He said such mysterious things too, it was as if he were living in an entirely different world to me.

  ‘Shall I tell you something, Jago,’ I said. ‘Today was the first time I have been out on my own ever, as far as I can remember, which is not very far at all.’

  ‘What about your status here?’ he asked me. ‘Are you on a pass or are you a permanent resident, or do you work for the Corporation officially?’

  ‘I am a resident,’ I said.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I can tell you that the Corporation almost tolerate me and the rest of our circus. They just about put up with us,’ said Jago. ‘We are neither official nor unofficial. We come and go as we please from the forest camps north of here using hidden routes. All visitors of course usually come in on the airships. We are tolerated mainly because the Gawkers like what we do, and we do look so very scummy and and so very authentic, that’s the big word in here.’ He plucked at his tattered sleeve. ‘Authentic. The Buckland Corporation could never train us as well as we’ve trained ourselves, and we don’t thieve. Even though we could do it real
ly well, it’s not worth the risk, what with the police and the Corporation cadet corps in here, and the old Victorian laws applying.’

  ‘You say such strange things,’ I said.

  ‘Such as?’ said Jago.

  ‘You keep mentioning the Corporation, and yesterday you said something about cast natives, whatever they are.’

  He turned and looked at me. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Of course! I’m afraid that much of what you say is a riddle to me.’

  ‘Where do you live, Eve?’

  ‘Why here in London,’ I said puzzled, ‘in rooms above a shop until yesterday.’

  ‘That is partly true,’ he said.

  ‘Partly true? What can the full truth be?’ I asked.

  ‘The full truth is, Eve, that while you and I are here in London, in the old city of London, this London of ours is no longer a real place, is it?’

  ‘Isn’t it? How can that be? What do you mean?’ I said, mystified.

  ‘Because some years ago it was made into a museum of itself, a “theme park” it is called. The whole city and everything in it, right up to the furthest boundaries, is a rebuilt, restored, recreation of its own past. It’s really only an illusion now – the memory of a city that once was. People like us live our lives here, and we live them in the manner of the past, and other people pay to come in to see us all living our lives here in the manner of the past, to experience the past for themselves as if thay had travelled in a time machine. You’ve seen the name Buckland stencilled along the side of the airships?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said uneasily, feeling giddy at what I was hearing.

  ‘The Buckland Corporation owns and runs this whole place, and organises all the paying “guests” as they are called, the ones we call Gawkers, the visitors that come in on the airships.’

  My head was really spinning now. I was living in an historical anachronism? I had been living in something called a “theme park”?

  ‘This whole city here is known as Pastworld,’ he said, ‘Pastworld London, and people pay a great deal of money to come in here to experience the beauty and the squalor, the dirt, the danger, the reality of Victorian life exactly as it was lived then.’

  My head was still spinning. ‘You mean we are not really Victorians?’

  ‘No, Eve, we are living in an era far beyond the 1880s. Outside of Pastworld, beyond this place, outside of the skydome that encloses it, it is 2048, and that world looks and is very, very, different from this one.’

  ‘I really don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why did all this happen?’

  ‘If it’s any comfort to you, Eve, it’s not the first time. There are many others like you in this place, people who have been born in here, born into poverty and ignorance. They too were unaware that this is not the real world. Although in many ways for them, and for us too, it is a real world, of a kind.’

  ‘I am not a child,’ I said. ‘Why did my guardian tell me absolutely nothing about all of this? Why?’

  ‘I have no idea. I expect he had his reasons, Eve. Perhaps he wanted to protect you for some reason from the truth.’

  We trotted on across the cobbles and I sat feeling faint, trying to come to terms with what I had just heard. In an odd way it all made sense. The strangeness of my life, my lack of memories . . . I was an empty person, like an exhibit, a waxwork, with no life of its own, on show in a museum. Why had Jack never told me the truth? What was he scared of?

  After a while the fog faded out, simply drifted away, and bright stars were suddenly visible above us, sharp and clear. Jago, to distract me, pointed out the constellations.

  ‘That’s Orion, the hunter.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Those three stars in a line represent his belt, the stars on the outer edge are the tips of his bow, and there you can see Betelgeuse, one of the brightest things you would ever see in the night sky.’

  ‘You know your stars all right,’ Jago said. ‘If only that was the real night sky, eh?’

  ‘You mean the sky isn’t real either?’

  ‘Projections on a huge dome,’ he said quietly.

  I suddenly realised something strange and troubling.

  ‘So I have never seen the real sky,’ I said, ‘day or night.’

  We watched as the stars appeared and disappeared between all the buildings and the jaggy pointed rooflines. It was cold now and my breath misted.

  We passed a sweeper at work, brushing away at the thin snow with a besom broom, but otherwise the neat cobbled streets had an empty haunted look about them, something like the blank empty theatre set that they really were. I shivered.

  I had so many questions to ask Jago, but could think of nothing to say as my mind raced, trying to make sense of everything.

  Jago said, ‘Those dogs back in the park – it could mean that a crime’s been committed, I mean a real one, a big one, a Fantom killing, someone found with their insides spread out, and their head missing. Something like that might set them off all right.’

  ‘A phantom killing,’ I said. ‘Is that an illusion, a piece of theatre like all the rest?’

  ‘Of course not, the Fantom is . . . wait, you’ve never heard of the Fantom?’

  .

  Chapter 7

  The Fantom pushed aside the rags that hung over the low doorway. He bent his head and made his way into a dingy room. He shone his carbide police lantern around the edges of the space. Suddenly it was as if an urgent dance had started up among a group of shadows on the walls. He pulled off his black silk mask and his eyes burned bright behind his clear eyeglasses.

  ‘God,’ he said, ‘it stinks in here. I had a message, an urgent message. Come on out with it. I’m risking everything even just being here in this room.’

  ‘I saw her,’ said one of the ragged men. He stepped forward with some confidence. He walked straight into the bright beam of light while the shadows behind him muttered and stood about, nervously shifting their weight from foot to foot. ‘I’m sure it was her. I am one hundred per cent sure it was her,’ he added. ‘She was just as you said she would be. I couldn’t get the message to you at first and in any case I wanted to be certain. She gave me a coin from her purse, you know. I looked up and she smiled at me, so nicely. And then I saw them – her eyes. I saw those eyes, and I knew it was her because those eyes were just exactly as you said they would be, exactly like . . .’

  ‘Go on,’ said the Fantom, placing the police lantern down slowly and deliberately on a messy table in the far corner of the room so that its beam continued to shine directly at the ragged man’s face.

  ‘Nothing. I followed her. She went to the big market near my pitch. I managed to grab hold of her, I actually got a grip.’ Here the ragged man pulled his jacket from his own shoulder, turned and exposed it directly into the lamp beam. ‘Right here on her tender little shoulder.’ He paused and cast his eyes down at his feet.

  ‘Go on,’ said the Fantom. ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then I’m afraid she was spirited away,’ he said, ‘by a show magician, a dark-skinned man, an Indian. They drove off with her. He did some strange magic which I still can’t explain. And then I lost them.’

  ‘How?’ said the Fantom, his voice quiet and restrained but dammed up as if with violent anger, waiting for just the right moment to explode.

  ‘I fell over.’ The beggar stopped speaking. One or two of the shadows behind him laughed but they soon stopped. The Fantom turned his gaze towards them, and he looked in that instant suddenly as supernatural as his reputation.

  ‘Where are they now, and which group of performers were they? There are dozens of them plying their trade in this forsaken place,’ the Fantom asked, his voice still quiet but bordering on a possible shout or scream, the pressure of restraint now like the low whistling of the steam in the rattling kettle.

  ‘Don’t know, I didn’t take it in. I could only see her and those eyes.’ The beggar raised himself up, taller suddenly, confident. ‘There’s more though,’ he said
.

  ‘Is there?’ the Fantom said. He was toying with the ragged man like a cat with a mouse.

  The ragged man spoke up, a smile clear in his voice, and in his eyes. Now he was the cat. ‘I saw the one you said had charge of her.’

  ‘He was more or less blind, with burn-scarred skin across his hands?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, go on.’

  ‘I went back to where I had first seen her. When she gave me the coin, the sixpence.’

  ‘Sixpence, the lovely, generous girl! Go on.’

  ‘Her hands touched mine for a moment and they were warm, she hadn’t been out in the cold for long.’

  ‘Well reasoned. Go on,’ said the Fantom.

  ‘Anyhow, he was looking for her. He was desperate, I could tell. He was asking anyone he could find.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Then he went off but I waited. I waited in the cold in case she came back. Then he came out to post a letter.’

  ‘A letter?’

  ‘A letter,’ the ragged man said, and barely suppressing his own glee he pulled the blind man’s letter from his pocket with a flourish. ‘I haven’t opened it, you see. I’ve kept it for you alone. I’ve been waiting here for you since,’ he said.

  The Fantom closed his eyes for a moment. He took the letter and he held it in his hands carefully and with his eyes still closed he brought it up to his face. The room was silent apart from the low rattle and thin whistle of the kettle.

  The Fantom opened his eyes and looked down at the address. It was written out in large scrawling childish-looking letters. ‘How quaint,’ the Fantom said. He read it out slowly.

  When he had finished reading, he yelped like a dog. The ragged man grinned and turned to the shadows behind him as if to say, ‘See, now I’m immune.’

  ‘You haven’t opened it, and I should hope not too,’ the Fantom said. ‘A letter should only be opened by the person it is addressed to.’ He walked over to the range and held the envelope in the steam from the wheezing kettle. When the seal had loosened, he gingerly prised open the flap, and unfolded the letter it contained. There was just a single sheet, and one word was scrawled across it in the same big, clumsy letters,