Simon Clark - The Fall

‘How do you know the date?’

‘I’ve just listened to the radio. The pop music is definitely late ’70s.’

‘So? It might be a station playing golden oldies.’

‘And, Mr Baker, the DJ just announced he was playing a newly-released single that turned out to be a rendition of “My Way” by none other than the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious.’

‘You sure that was released in 1978?’

‘It was. In the July of 1978 to be precise – the original summer of hate. Although you’d never find me engaging in such a pastime, I could beat you hollow in a pop-music trivia quiz.’ He tapped his blond temple. ‘I retain information. Dates, places, names, even what people say down to every nuance of speech. Not bad for a Cockney boy, is it?’

‘Okay. I believe you.’

‘I don’t care whether you do or you don’t. By the way, your mobile phones won’t work. That particular communications system won’t be introduced to this country for several more years yet.’ The eyes, still cold and beady-looking, swivelled towards the cabin steps. Again that expression of barely-contained rage flared into his face. He went to the cabin door and snarled down the steps. ‘Is that meal going to take all day, or what?’ He drained the glass. ‘I’m going to change, then eat. See yourselves off my boat, won’t you?’

With that he went down the stairs.

Zita looked at Sam and rolled her eyes. ‘Charming as ever.’

Sam sighed. ‘Come on, we might as well find Jud.’

‘Do you think Carswell’s right about the year?’

Sam nodded. ‘Though I hate to admit it, Carswell’s probably always right.’

‘And insufferably arrogant with it, too.’

‘I’d back you to the hilt on that one.’

‘After we talk to Jud, what then?’

‘Another trip into town, I guess. I think it’s time we tried to find someone who can help us.’

‘Who?’

‘Search me, but we’ll never find anyone unless we start looking now.’

Lee Burton was finally free of the Dracula cape. He’d stood in the hot sun in the amphitheatre car park and fought the button until his fingertips stung, but at last he’d prised the damn thing through the loop of cord.

‘And good riddance to you,’ he told the cape as he stuffed it into a concrete waste-bin. After that he went to the toilet block, where he scrubbed the deathly white make-up and fake blood from his face.

Just minutes earlier he’d come to in the amphitheatre as if he was waking from a dream. Ryan Keith had sat beside him in the Oliver Hardy costume, his plump face running with sweat and staring in a kind of horrified fascination at the people in the amphitheatre, as if they’d sprouted bright green lizard heads from their faces or something. Nicole and Sue were talking to each other in low, worried voices.

But Lee’d had enough, God damn it.

He’d done his best. He’d tackled the robbers. He’d been shot, he’d broken bones in the car crash, his arm had been severed by the train wheels.

Now he was whole again.

Had he passed the test?

If the sun was the eye of God glaring unwaveringly down at him, then the Almighty had seen everything.

But had he passed the test?

Shit. He didn’t care anymore.

He was going to go into town and get well and truly rat-arsed.

After drying his face and hands on paper towels he left the toilet block, then headed off along the access track to the main road, where he knew he’d find a bus stop.

Behind him, the man who sold ice creams was sitting on the ground, his back to the van, his head in his hands. People were milling around the car park. The bus driver was trying – and failing miserably – to start the bus: the starter motor cranked away uselessly.

Lee walked faster.

It was a beautiful summer’s day.

The white church shone bright in the sunlight.

Bees buzzed among the wild flowers in the meadows. And right now, God knew, Lee Burton was going to enjoy life to the hilt. Even if it killed him.

‘It’s 1978… it’s 1978. I heard those people talking down by the river. We’re back in 1978. The month’s July.’ The middle-aged woman walked up the amphitheatre steps. She was smiling with sheer happiness and telling everyone she met: ‘1978. My Frank must be still alive. Isn’t that wonderful? I lost him in 1991. He’d only gone to the bathroom when I heard this bang. He’d fallen back against the door and…’ She went on up the steps, beaming so happily her cheeks looked as tight as balloons.

‘At least someone’s cheerful,’ Sue said. ‘Want one?’ From the packet of her Stan Laurel jacket she’d pulled a packet of cigarettes. ‘Oh, damn. I’ve just realised. If it’s 1978, somewhere I’ll still be in nappies.’

Nicole took a cigarette. Inside the hairy black gorilla suit it felt like a furnace. She threw the gorilla head onto the stone floor. ‘Yeah, and Freddie Mercury’s still alive.’

‘And Cary Grant.’

‘And Peter Sellers.’

‘I never cared for him much.’

‘Didn’t you? I thought he was brilliant in Being There .’

There was a pause, then Nicole blew a jet of smoke through her lips. ‘My God, we nearly had a normal conversation about normal things, didn’t we?’

‘So what happens now?’

Nicole merely shrugged.

They smoked in silence for a moment. Part of the audience had already streamed out of the amphitheatre. The rest sat and talked or stared mutely into space. They all knew now that they’d been dragged back here from whatever they had been doing. Like dolls on a long piece of elastic. They could go only so far before being snapped back into their seats.

Nicole pushed back her long blonde hair. She felt peculiarly calm. She guessed the real description of her condition was that she was resigned to what had happened.

It seemed only a few minutes earlier that she was on a burning quest to save the life of old Mr Thorpe who lived next door. She’d jumped off the bus in York and had run through the streets in her stupid gorilla suit, all the way back to Invicta Parade. She’d pounded on the door until Mrs Thorpe had opened it. She’d been surprised to see Nicole standing on the step in her gorilla suit, but that surprise had turned into something close to shock when Nicole had dramatically demanded to see Mr Thorpe. In any event, it turned out he’d just walked down to the local supermarket for a loaf of bread.

Nicole had been running down the street, drawing honks from passing drivers and shouts from school kids, when suddenly she wasn’t running anymore.

She was sitting in the amphitheatre again.

Cooking in that damned ape suit.

What do you do in a situation like this? she asked herself. Do you sit and wait and hope that whatever’s clogged the arteries of time frees itself?

Do you go out and make the most of it? Drink, laugh and love until the cows come home? Or do you find some professor – the loony kind with the wild and woolly hairstyle – who can straighten all this out for you?

Or do you throw a rope over a tree branch and end it all? Suicide. It seemed such a simple and elegant solution to everything.

Suicide.

There was a rope, she knew, in the luggage hold of the tour bus.

Why it was there she wasn’t sure. To tie more luggage onto a roof-rack? Or maybe it was supplied by the National Euthanasia Society of Great Britain for just such a crisis as this. When your boyfriend leaves you pregnant and penniless. Or you’re fired from your job, maybe. Or if the universe turns all contrary on you and flicks you back through time like a child flicking a tiddlywink button.

She found herself grinning. Yes, that’s it. The answer to all my problems.