Simon Clark - The Fall

‘Careful what you tell the natives, Sam, old boy,’ Carswell said, smiling and acknowledging the crowd with a regal wave. ‘In 1946, one hundred thousand dollars is an unfeasibly large amount for any kind of car. Even a circus car that squirts water and falls apart every night.’

‘Phew,’ Sam said with feeling. ‘I call that a stroke of luck, don’t you?’

‘Well, if he thinks we are with the circus, you should turn round and at least head in that direction.’

‘Jud,’ Sam said glancing back. ‘Have you seen any sign of Rolle?’

‘None.’

‘Well, I suggest we look long and hard, gentlemen.’ Carswell examined his fingernails. ‘As far as I can see, Mr Rolle is our only hope of extricating ourselves from our predicament.’

‘But the antiseptic cream—’ Jud began.

‘Sod the cream. If we go through many more of these time-slips there’s going to be no-one left alive to use the bloody stuff.’

Again Sam heard the sound of ice and steel in Carswell’s voice. He was a man used to getting his own way. ‘Turn left here,’ Carswell ordered. ‘We can park the car down near the Big Top where, hopefully, it won’t attract too much notice, especially now these hillbillies think we’re part of the fucking circus. Jud, take off that gold waistcoat. We don’t want to draw more attention to us than we need.’

As Sam pulled into the field where the circus had parked its trailers and trucks he noticed Carswell slip something from his jacket pocket.

‘Hell, Carswell. A gun? What the hell have you brought that for?’

‘Why do you think?’ Carswell slipped the cartridge clip from the butt of the automatic. ‘Hardly to show it the sights of 1946. This, dear boy…’ He clicked the clip back into the automatic. ‘This is our insurance cover. Unlike you, I don’t intend to stand arguing the bloody toss with these peasants.’

Sam exchanged looks with Jud as he climbed out of the car. Carswell was going to be big trouble. The only question was, would it be sooner or later?

The three of them walked back into the town centre. Even though Sam didn’t know the town particularly well, he was already noticing that the Casterton of 1946 was very different from the Casterton of 1999 and 1978.

It looked a good deal smaller, for one thing. Huddled in backstreets were cramped-looking rows of terraced houses, which Jud told him would be demolished in the 1960s to make way for a supermarket and car park. Children played in the streets with wooden spinning tops, iron hoops, skipping ropes. Three girls had chalked out a hopscotch pattern on the pavement and were skipping along it – at least hopscotch hadn’t changed that much down through the years.

The buildings were a grimy black, whereas in 1999 the stonework had been sandblasted clean to its original golden honey tones.

The reason for the grime became apparent when Sam noticed a cloud of black smoke and steam appear above the rooftops with a whooshing sound.

‘Ah, the age of steam,’ Carswell said. ‘You’d think it impossible for people to get so sentimental over such filthy machines.’

Sam usually found himself bristling at most of Carswell’s remarks, but when he saw the steam-powered loco puffing noisily out from behind the station buildings he had to agree. The engine was black from the encrusted soot; only the silvery piston rods driving the wheels looked remotely clean.

As it passed by along its track, unburnt coal dust drizzled down from the sky onto them. Carswell clicked his tongue as he brushed black specks from the shoulders of his linen jacket. ‘As I said, filthy machines. Now, shall we try and find our mysterious Mr Rolle?’

He strolled on ahead, looking like a tourist, part curious, part disgusted by what he saw in a foreign town.

Sam saw Jud shake his head after the man.

The commercial areas of town were an ants’ nest of activity. This was an age when muscle power was the main way to move materials around the factory yards. And with labour still comparatively cheap, the places swarmed with men. The sounds of the town were pretty much the same as in any modern town: voices, car motors, a dog barking, even music from a car radio. The main difference, Sam noticed, was the whistling. The entire male population, from boys to old men, whistled furiously wherever they went, whatever they did. All seemed to be in competition with each other to whistle the most cheerful-sounding tune the loudest.

By the time they reached the shops in the High Street, Sam’s ears were ringing. Judd paused by an evening-newspaper vendor shouting the name of his paper on a street corner. It came out as ‘ Ee-poe! ’ but Sam saw the name on the board was Evening Post . Jud smiled, and Sam noticed a spark of excitement flare in his eye. ‘22 ndMay 1946. So the paper that wrapped those fish and chips wasn’t too far out.’

The excitement in Jud’s eye grew more intense. He stopped on the pavement, rubbing his jaw and looking up at the town hall clock.

‘Five past five.’ He continued to rub his jaw as if working out some mental equation that fascinated and yet somehow scared him too. ‘You know, I could make it. I really could.’

‘Make what?’ Sam asked bemused.

‘Yes, what are you talking about?’ Carswell snapped. ‘Are we supposed to be finding this Rolle chap, or what?’

‘Yes… yes, of course.’ Jud sounded distracted. ‘But there’s somewhere I need to go first.’

‘Uh.’ Carswell closed his eyes and took a deep breath as if trying to master an anger that raged inside him. ‘You do what you have to do. I’ll look for Rolle.’

Sam said, ‘If you find him, ask him to come back to the car. We’ll meet you there if we don’t see you before.’

‘I’ll bring him back.’ Carswell smiled and patted the gun in his pocket. ‘I can be very persuasive.’

‘Dear God,’ Jud said, shocked. ‘Don’t pull that thing on him. He might be the only chance we have.’

Carswell sniffed dismissively. ‘If we don’t meet before, we’ll rendezvous back at the car at seven.’ With that he sauntered away among the people on the pavement.

‘Damn him,’ Jud said under his breath. ‘Damn and blast him.’

‘Well, let’s hope we run into Rolle before he does. That is, if he is here.’

‘I think all we can do is hope to God he is.’

Sam noticed that Jud glanced repeatedly up at the town hall clock.

‘There was something you wanted to do,’ Sam prompted.

‘If there’s time.’

‘There’s plenty of time. The problem is that it seems to be all pretty much cockeyed at the moment.’

‘True…’ Jud paused, as if reaching a difficult decision. ‘Sam, my mother lived in this town in 1946. In fact, she’d lived here all her life until 1947 when she married my father.’

‘Uh-oh, Jud.’ Sam guessed what the man would say next. ‘Is it wise to go find your mother? I take it you weren’t even born by 1946 if your parents didn’t marry until the next year?’

‘I bowed in during 1948.’

‘But what on Earth will you say to her? You can hardly march up to the house and say: “Good afternoon. I’m your unborn son. I’ve just popped back from the future to say hi.”’

‘No, Sam, I can’t. But, you see, my father died of a stroke in 1990. That was quick. He went out like a light when he was mowing the lawn. But my mother died by inches after that. She just sat in her living room and waited to join him. Within 12 months of his death she’d developed cancer in the – you know, down below… I just watched her shrivel away to nothing over the next couple of years.’ He looked searchingly up at the clock again. ‘She died on Christmas day in 1993.’