Iain Pears - Arcadia

‘Goodness.’

‘And I had to preside over a trial to decide who killed Thenald.’

‘Who did you decide had done it?’

‘I didn’t. I didn’t have the faintest idea. Henary figured it out. It was Chang. He is some sort of associate of Angela’s. At least, that’s what he says. Oh, and Angela is a time traveller from the future.’

‘I know that,’ she said, as though it were not so very interesting. ‘How am I? The other me, I mean?’

‘Until Chang intervened you were blossoming, my dear. Healthy, self-confident and rather forceful. You seem quite decided to marry Pamarchon, and he seems suitably enamoured of you, so I’m sure you’ll live happily ever after.’

‘Oh. That’s nice.’

‘Pamarchon is the spitting image of an old student of mine. If he has his character, you will get on very well.’

‘So I don’t want to come back?’

‘No. You and I parted on rather bad terms because of it, I’m afraid. That’s what I need to talk to Angela about.’

‘Henary looks like you, you know.’

‘Yes. I feel a little embarrassed about that. Jay looks remarkably like another student of mine. Gontal is clearly based on an unpleasant chemistry teacher who gave my cat his name. Antros was a corporal in the army during the war. In fact, nearly everybody seems to have been dredged up from my memory. It was very peculiar. Just as well I never met Hitler. I really do think you should go home, by the way.’

‘After all this? Not forgetting the spies, the people being arrested, the blood on the cellar floor? You think I can just go home and do my prep?’

She had a point.

‘Very well. You can sit over the road from the police station and wait, if you really want to.’

It wasn’t hard for Lytten to see Angela at the police station; after a long conversation with Maltby and a phone call or two to London, all objections were waived. In the end, Lytten promised to write a letter of commendation praising Maltby for his intelligence and diligence, Maltby promised to make sure nobody asked too many questions about Chang, and finally Angela was let out. She looked a little tired.

‘Henry! How lovely,’ she said distractedly when the cell door opened.

‘I’m sure. Can we get straight down to business, please?’

‘The Volkov business?’

‘No. The cellar business.’

‘Ah. That.’

‘I’ve just spent nearly six hours in that invention of yours.’

‘Oh, dear. Rosie should not have done that. That was really rash of her. Where is she, by the way?’

‘One is over the road, the other is still in Anterwold. I did my best to persuade her, and Chang tried to use more forceful methods. But she stayed. I gather that may cause you problems.’

‘Potentially, but it doesn’t surprise me. What about Chang?’

‘In hospital. One of my more dramatic literary creations shot him with an arrow when he attacked Rosie.’

‘That fits as well. He is having a difficult time, poor man. He’s not made for an active life.’

‘Nor am I any more.’

‘He was meant to find out where Anterwold came from. Did he manage that?’

‘He did,’ Henry said. ‘He came to the conclusion that Anterwold is our future, or will be once a nuclear war intervenes. Humanity has to be nearly wiped out to prepare the ground for this paradise of mine. A dark age, lasting centuries, with only a few survivors holding on in the furthest reaches, preserving what little knowledge they can by weaving it into stories that are transmitted by word of mouth, then written down as the Story.’

‘I see,’ she said. ‘I was afraid of something like that.’ She looked up at him. ‘Is it what you had in mind?’

‘I didn’t have anything in mind. It was just a few jottings in a notebook until you got involved.’ They stared at each other for a few seconds. ‘Well?’ he prompted. ‘What are you going to do now? Are you just going to sit there?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, her face clearing suddenly. ‘I am going to try and save the universe, or rather, see if it can be saved. If that sounds a little ambitious, then I am going to visit your aunt. Oh, by the way, Sam Wind was here. He thinks you are a Soviet agent. I hope that’s all right.’

It took some time to persuade Rosie to stay behind; she was very upset and wanted to be around the only people who understood why. But Angela was adamant. There was nothing she could do. If she wanted to be useful, then she should go back to Lytten’s house and stay there. Make sure nobody came in, and allow no one, under any circumstances, to go into the cellar. Shoot them, if necessary. If she wanted to clear up the blood, though, that would be most helpful.

Rosie most certainly did not, but she agreed to the rest and went off, although not very happily. Angela then led Henry to her car and they drove to Tudmore Court, near Devizes, Wiltshire.

‘How did you get me out?’

‘Surprisingly easy. I can be very persuasive when I have the head of MI6 on the phone to back me up.’

‘Isn’t that just grand of you.’

They didn’t talk much; Angela was working and driving at the same time, while Henry was lost in thought. Only after an hour, her calculations finished, did Angela say:

‘What did you think of Anterwold?’

‘Oh, it was... astonishing. It works quite well. But I don’t know how it will behave when its horizons expand. I knew I’d imagined it as a variety of England, but I suppose there are other people scattered over the world. Are they at the same technological level? I didn’t bother with any of that. How does that work?’

‘Those elements will be produced by logical inference from the basic information in your notebooks. For example, I remember you state that no one has troubled the place greatly for a long time and that the occasional coastal raid is easily dealt with by a militia. That supposes low population and a matching technological level elsewhere. It doesn’t sound as though you’re suddenly going to get Panzer tanks landing in the south.’

‘I wish more things survived. Of us.’

‘You’d be surprised what they will find if they look. Think how much survived the dark ages. It’s probably there, if they only search in the right places. Lord only knows what they’d find in that Story of yours if they read it properly. And, of course, a Rosie is there to help them. She’ll be instructing them in Shakespeare and Julius Caesar soon enough.’

‘I made Catherine look like you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. She surprised me. I scarcely sketched her at all, but she took on the appearance of a major figure in my real life.’

‘I’m flattered. How closely does she resemble me?’

‘Not identical; a long way from that, but you can see the relationship. Everything that happened in there was because of her, and I didn’t think of any of it. It was odd.’

Angela took a corner at an alarming speed, then said, ‘Interesting. I don’t think you should go back into Anterwold, you know.’

‘I don’t want to. Besides, I thought you were going to close it down?’

‘I don’t know that I can. All I can hope to do is modify conditions to prevent the original machine being used. If I get that right, then preceding events will change. With luck either I will not create Anterwold or Rosie will not go into it. If that happens we will never know about it, of course, because none of this will have happened. This trip is to find out if that is possible.’

‘How?’

‘I want to see if it is possible to destroy the Devil’s Handwriting. If I can’t, then I’ll have to think again.’

‘Do you know what’s really strange?’ Henry said, once he had decided not to query her on that remark.