Terry Bisson - Bears Discover Fire

“Not just Brighton, man,” the African said. For the first time, Mr. Fox could hear a faint Caribbean lilt in his voice. “England herself is underway.”

England underway? How extraordinary. Mr. Fox could see what he supposed was excitement in the faces of the other strollers on the Boardwalk all that day. The wind smelled somehow saltier as he went to take his tea. He almost told Mrs. Oldenshield the news when she brought him his pot and platter; but the affairs of the day, which had never intruded far into her tearoom, receded entirely when he took down his book and began to read. This was (as it turned out) the very day that Lizzie finally read the letter from Mr. Camperdown, the Eustace family lawyer, which she had carried unopened for three days. As Mr. Fox had expected, it demanded that the diamonds be returned to her late husband’s family. In response, Lizzie bought a strongbox. That evening, England’s peregrinations were all the news on the BBC. The kingdom was heading south into the Atlantic at 1.8 knots, according to the newsmen on the telly over the bar at the Pig & Thistle, where Mr. Fox was accustomed to taking a glass of whisky with Harrison, the barkeep, before retiring. In the sixteen hours since the phenomenon had first been detected, England had gone some thirty-five miles, beginning a long turn around Ireland which would carry it into the open sea.

“Ireland is not going?” asked Mr. Fox.

“Ireland has been independent since 19 and 21,” said Harrison, who often hinted darkly at having relatives with the IRA. “Ireland is hardly about to be chasing England around the seven seas.”

“Well, what about, you know…?”

“The Six Counties? The Six Counties have always been a part of Ireland and always will be,” said Harrison. Mr. Fox nodded politely and finished his whisky. It was not his custom to argue politics, particularly not with barkeeps, and certainly not with the Irish.

“So I suppose you’ll be going home?”

“And lose me job?”

For the next several days, the wave got no higher but it seemed steadier. It was not a chop but a continual smooth wake, streaming across the shore to the east as England began its turn to the west. The cricket ground grew deserted as the boys laid aside their kites and joined the rest of the town at the shore, watching the waves. There was such a crowd on the Boardwalk that several of the shops, which had closed for the season, reopened. Mrs. Oldenshield’s was no busier than usual, however, and Mr. Fox was able to forge ahead as steadily in his reading as Mr. Trollope had in his writing. It was not long before Lord Fawn, with something almost of dignity in his gesture and demeanor, declared himself to the young widow Eustace and asked for her hand. Mr. Fox knew Lizzie’s diamonds would be trouble, though. He knew something of heirlooms himself. His tiny attic room in the Pig & Thisde had been left to him in perpetuity by the innkeeper, whose life had been saved by Mr. Fox’s father during an air raid. A life saved (said the innkeeper, an East Indian, but a Christian, not a Hindu) was a debt never fully paid. Mr. Fox had often wondered where he would have lived if he’d been forced to go out and find a place, like so many in novels did. Indeed, in real life as well. That evening on the telly there was panic in Belfast as the headlands of Scotland slid by, south. Were the Loyalists to be left behind? Everyone was waiting to hear from the King, who was closeted with his advisors.

The next morning, there was a letter on the little table in the downstairs hallway at the Pig & Thistle. Mr. Fox knew as soon as he saw the letter that it was the fifth of the month. His niece, Emily, always mailed her letters from America on the first, and they always arrived on the morning of the fifth.

Mr. Fox opened it, as always, just after tea at Mrs. Oldenshield’s. He read the ending first, as always, to make sure there were no surprises. “Wish you could see your great-niece before she’s grown,” Emily wrote; she wrote the same thing every month. When her mother, Mr. Fox’s sister, Clare, had visited after moving to America, it had been his niece she had wanted him to meet. Emily had taken up the same refrain since her mother’s death. “Your great-niece will be a young lady soon,” she wrote, as if this were somehow Mr. Fox’s doing. His only regret was that Emily, in asking him to come to America when her mother died, had asked him to do the one thing he couldn’t even contemplate; and so he had been unable to grant her even the courtesy of a refusal. He read all the way back to the opening (“Dear Uncle Anthony”) then folded the letter very small; and put it into the box with the others when he got back to his room that evening.

The bar seemed crowded when he came downstairs at nine. The King, in a brown suit with a green and gold tie, was on the telly, sitting in front of a clock in a BBC studio. Even Harrison, never one for royalty, set aside the glasses he was polishing and listened while Charles confirmed that England was, indeed, underway. His words made it official, and there was a polite “hip, hip, hooray” from the three men (two of them strangers) at the end of the bar. The King and his advisors weren’t exactly sure when England would arrive, nor, for that matter, where it was going.

Scotland and Wales were, of course, coming right along. Parliament would announce time-zone adjustments as necessary. While His Majesty was aware that there was cause for concern about Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, there was as yet no cause for alarm .

His Majesty, King Charles, spoke for almost half an hour, but Mr. Fox missed much of what he said. His eye had been caught by the date under the clock on the wall behind the King’s head. It was the fourth of the month, not the fifth; his niece’s letter had arrived a day early! This, even more than the funny waves or the King’s speech, seemed to announce that the world was changing. Mr. Fox had a sudden, but not unpleasant, feeling almost of dizziness. After it had passed, and the bar had cleared out, he suggested to Harrison, as he always did at closing time: “Perhaps you’ll join me in a whisky”; and as always, Harrison replied, “Don’t mind if I do.”

He poured two Bells’. Mr. Fox had noticed that when other patrons “bought” Harrison a drink, and the barkeep passed his hand across the bottle and pocketed the tab, the whisky was Bushmills. It was only with Mr. Fox, at closing, that he actually took a drink, and then it was always scotch.

“To your King,” said Harrison. “And to plate tectonics.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Plate tectonics, Fox. Weren’t you listening when your precious Charles explained why all this was happening?

All having to do with movement of the Earth’s crust, and such.”

“To plate tectonics,” said Mr. Fox. He raised his glass to hide his embarrassment. He had in fact heard the words, but had assumed they had to do with plans to protect the household treasures at Buckingham Palace.

Mr. Fox never bought the papers, but the next morning he slowed down to read the headlines as he passed the news stalls. King Charles’s picture was on all the front pages, looking confidently into the future.

read the Daily Alarm. The Economist took a less sanguine view:

Although Northern Ireland was legally and without question part of the United Kingdom, the BBC explained that night, it was for some inexplicable reason apparently remaining with Ireland. The King urged his subjects in Belfast and Londonderry not to panic; arrangements were being made for the evacuation of all who wished it.