Dark Ages. John Pritchard
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She swallowed. ‘I’m not sure if we should. Behind Lyn’s back, I mean …’
‘I can wait for as long as you want, you know.’ His voice was slightly hoarse, but she believed him.
‘Can we … just sit for a bit?’
‘Sure.’
‘Sorry …’
‘Shh. No problem.’
Curling up, she let herself be cuddled. This was enough: to feel him there beside her. She couldn’t take it further, not right now.
They watched the room turn greyer as the dusk came creeping in. As if each mote of dust had multiplied a million times. From time to time he kissed her, very softly. She nuzzled him back, feeling cosseted and safe. No worries in the world, so long as they were here together.
At last she let him go, and straightened up. ‘Would you like a glass of wine, at least? Lyn’s got some in the fridge.’
‘Sure. I’d like that.’ She heard him settling back again as she went into the kitchen. A paranoid twinge made her wonder what expression he was wearing. Exasperation, maybe? Or resentment? She flicked the radio on, as if that would tame the situation. Make the place more like a flat just being visited by a friend.
Lyn usually had it tuned to Classic FM – but maybe she’d brushed the dial while she’d been dusting. All that came out was the empty, crackling ether. Fran thought she heard a burbling in the distance; but the voice, if voice it was, was too distorted to make sense. Ignoring it, she opened the fridge, letting yellow light spill out into the dimness. The wine-box was on the bottom shelf. She brought it out, and shut the glow away.
The tuned-out radio fizzed and crackled sharply. She guessed that meant a thunderstorm was close. Turning towards the cupboard where the glasses were kept, she glanced out of the window. Heavy cloud had crept across the city – but a stripe of crimson twilight formed a backdrop to the spires.
A corrupted voice behind her said: ‘… they’re coming …’
Her head snapped round. The words had come from the radio, suddenly clear; but now it was just hissing to itself. The noise jogged her memory – then jolted it. She could smell the stuffy confines of Paul’s car; feel the air of tense expectancy that filled it. Hear the CB radio hissing like a snake.
‘I see their lights …’ the kitchen radio said.
Then silence for a minute – maybe two. Fran stood there like a statue, her spine against the hard edge of the sink. Listening with her hand over her mouth. Her heart had started beating very fast.
Just isolated crackles, now; the sharper pops of static made her jump. She was just about to cross the room, and switch the damn thing off, when the voice, now more contorted, came again.
‘Elderflower, to Watchers at Gore Cross. First Dodge is now approaching the vedette …’
Oh no, Fran thought. Oh please.
She knew the words, she’d heard them all before. They dragged her back four years, to a night on the Plain. The scene was there before her; she could feel the winter chill. An unlit country crossroads, at the exit to the range. She was waiting with the others: the protestors, the police. Under a cloud-fogged moon.
One of the cars had driven up as far as the vedette. He was out of their sight up there, cut off – but still in touch by radio. How must it feel, she’d wondered, to be sitting there alone? As the snake of lights came creeping up towards him …
She remembered every detail, as fresh as if she’d been there yesterday. The convoy’s escort, parked along the farm-track: dim shapes of transit vans with engines running. Two Land-Rovers were sitting on their sidelights, up the hill. But the road to Imber village was still dark.
‘All vehicles now on the vedette …’
Fran felt herself go cold and faint. She slumped onto her haunches, sliding down. Still staring at the radio; but her eyes saw other things.
‘Eight launchers, four controls, two Rams, two wreckers. They’re coming through. They’re coming.’
And over the hill they came, in a serpent of slow headlights. From the black heart of the Plain; the ghostly wreck of Imber village. Fran cringed against the cupboard – gripped her head between her hands. The voice had fallen silent, but her mind filled in the rest. The whistles and shouts as the convoy came off, its escorts slotting in between the flights; then the scramble for the cars, and the pursuit into the night. The terrifying chase to Greenham Common …
She was still huddled there when Craig came through to see where she had got to. Jerkily she raised her face; he saw her tears glistening in the gloom. He knelt beside her, hugged her: held her close. Fran hung on tight for dear life – and sanity as well. But she couldn’t shake off that eerie voice. Those sombre words.
They’re coming.
1
They sat in silence, round the kitchen table. Fran was halfway through another cigarette, eyes fixed on its smouldering tip. Lyn wasn’t a smoker, and clearly didn’t like it in the flat, but had made allowances tonight. Fran sensed her watching anxiously, hands clasped beneath her chin. A lukewarm pulse of sympathy went through her, just tingeing her self-pity. Poor Lyn had come in late, and looking knackered (not a word she’d use) – to find Fran on the sofa, as white as a sheet, and Craig with his arm around her. And now here they were, much later, with the second round of coffees still half-drunk. Just like bloody student days again.
‘I still think you’d be crazy to go back,’ Craig told her quietly.
Fran looked at him with narrowed eyes. The bright glare of the strip-light didn’t do him many favours: lining his face, and picking out grey hairs. What was he, thirty-five? Weathered and worn by the gap of years between them. His earnest, grim expression didn’t help; but those pale blue eyes of his were clean and sharp.
She hadn’t believed he’d wanted to pursue her. Too challenging; too risky. Waiting to be charged at West Down camp, she’d realized that he didn’t know her surname. Well, there was a test of his commitment – and he’d passed it. Made a few discreet enquiries of the MDP who’d nicked her …
‘I have to,’ she said flatly – taking a drag as if to set her seal on the matter. The ash flared: hot, defiant. She got a glimpse of Lyn’s discomfort from the corner of her eye, and turned her head aside to breathe the smoke.
‘Look at the effect it’s having,’ he persisted. ‘Even now. You go back there again, you’re gonna screw yourself up, Fran. Back into therapy. Is that what you want?’
‘Of course I bloody don’t. And I’m not going to. I had a real shock down there: it screwed me up for years. I need to get my head round it. I’ll be all right then.’
‘So what about what happened here tonight?’ Lyn said – jumping quickly in between them, but the question was pertinent enough. ‘Was that just in your head?’
Fran sat back, glowering at Craig. ‘Of course it was.’
‘You were hearing voices again.’
Fran turned her head, and saw how pale Lyn looked. Not just from fatigue; her eyes were big with worry. With her hair tied back, not her usual style, she seemed younger and more vulnerable somehow.
Fran swallowed. ‘Not like before. No, really. This was just a memory. A flashback.’
Lyn moistened her lips. ‘Oh, Fran. Don’t you think it might be better if you saw someone?’
‘No,