A Dream of Wessex (3 page)

Dr Trowbridge, who was Eliot’s chief assistant, came over to them from where he had been working at the far end of the hall.

‘Is there anything wrong, Dr Eliot?’

‘No ... Miss Stretton is familiarizing herself with Harkman’s appearance.’

Trowbridge looked down at the face of the man in the drawer. ‘Would photographs not give a more accurate impression? Harkman has put on so much weight.’

Julia said, still staring at the unconscious man: ‘I suppose he could have wilfully changed his appearance.’

‘Have any of the others?’ Eliot said.

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘It’s not consistent with his profile,’ Eliot said. ‘Everything we know about him underlines an inherent stability. There are no lapses. Harkman’s personality is ideal for projection.’

‘Perhaps too ideal,’ Julia said, remembering his forceful arguments. She looked intently at the pale face, trying to imprint it on her memory, at the same time remembering how he had talked and acted before the projection began. This body was too like a dummy to imagine it alive and thinking. She said: ‘I wonder if he was repressing some resentment against the others? Perhaps he felt we were somehow intruding, and on projecting he willed himself away from the rest of us.’

‘It still isn’t likely,’ Eliot said. ‘There’s nothing in his pre-projection notes to indicate that. It has to be a case of unconscious programming. We’ve had several minor cases of that.’

‘And one major one, perhaps,’ Julia said. She nodded to Trowbridge and the technician. ‘You can put him back. I think I’m ready.’

They slid the drawer, and it closed with a sound of heavy, cushioned metal.

Eliot said to Trowbridge: ‘I think we should cut back on his intravenous feeding. I’ll talk to you later.’

He took Julia’s arm, and they went back through the side- tunnel to his surgery. As she followed him into the room, and he closed the door behind her, Julia thought momentarily of Paul. She remembered the row, and his letter, but she thought of them as unpleasant incidents in her experience, not as intrusions into her life. She felt a certain satisfaction that she had the strength at last to file him away into a cubby-hole of her conscious mind.

She went to sit in the deep chair in front of Eliot’s littered desk, ready to accept his will.

Later, as she listened to Eliot speak to her of the Wessex projection, she wanted to look away, to see him with her peripheral vision, but she was unable to. Sitting before her, Eliot spoke calmly, repetitively, quietly, and soon she fell into a trance.

It was late afternoon in Dorchester, and the open-air cafes along Marine Boulevard were enjoying a busy trade as the tourists returned from the beaches. Inside the harbour, the whole extent of which could be seen by the people strolling along the Boulevard, the private yachts were marooned on the pebbles and mud of low tide, held upright by ropes and pontoons. A few men and women from the hired crews were on some of the boats, but most of the owners and their guests were ashore. When the tide was in, the private section of the harbour was a bustle of yachts coming and going, with visitors sitting on the decks enjoying the view and the sunshine, but for the moment those visitors still aboard their boats were concealed from public gaze beneath their gaily coloured canopies and festoons.

Outside the harbour, a small fleet of fishing boats was waiting for the tide.

Along the walls and quays that surrounded the harbour, and for the length of Marine Boulevard, hundreds of people milled about with an air of pleasurable languor. Beggar-musicians moved amongst them, collecting-bags swinging from the necks of their guitars, and along the part of the Boulevard overlooking the harbour were the licensed stalls and entertainers, the book and magazine stands, Sekker’s Bar, and the store where tide- skimmers could be bought or hired and where the fashionable were always to be seen. It was in this part of town, at this time of day, that the visitors gathered.

The building of the English Regional Commission was situated in one of the sidestreets leading into Marine Boulevard, and it was from this that Donald Mander and Frederick Cro emerged. They walked slowly through the crowd towards the harbour, Cro still wearing his jacket, but Mander carrying his over his arm.’

They walked as far as the end of the quay, where they stopped to buy two
citrons pressés
at the soft-drinks bar.

From this position it became possible to see under the canopy of one of the yachts, and there, otherwise invisible from the harbour walls, were two young men and a woman. Although the men were dressed in beach-shorts and shirts, the young woman was naked. She sat quietly in a canvas chair, flipping through a magazine.

The Commission men both noticed her at the same time, but neither of them remarked on her. They were habitually guarded in what they said to each other, and by nature discreet with their reactions. Both men were bachelors in their fifties, and although they had worked in adjacent offices at the Regional Commission for more than twenty years they were still not on first-name terms.

When they had finished their drinks they walked slowly back down the quay.

Mander pointed towards the waiting fishing boats, most of which were grouped together in the deeper water about fifty metres from the harbour entrance. Several of the boats were lying low in the water, while their crews sat lazily in the warm sunlight on deck.

‘There’s been a good catch,’ Mander said.

Cro nodded, and Mander smiled to himself. He knew that the other man detested sea-food, and rarely ate in the local restaurants. One of the few facts Mander knew about Cro was that he lived on parcels of provisions, sent over by his parents, who were still alive and lived in relative affluence on the English mainland.

On the far side of the harbour, where the commercial work of the port was done, a steam crane emitted a loud hissing noise accompanied by a white jet of vapour. In a moment it trundled slowly along its rails to the regular berth of the hydrofoil service from the mainland. The boat was late this evening, and the carts of several tradesmen from the town stood waiting by.

Beyond, the bay was calm and blue.

The two men left the quay and walked into the crowd on Marine Boulevard, heading for Sekker’s Bar. They looked out of place in this leisurely part of town, more for their watchful manner than their clothes. The tourists stared as they sauntered in the warm air, caring only to notice and be noticed; Mander and Cro, though, glanced uneasily about them, minor public servants constantly on watch for minor details.

As they came near to the multi-coloured umbrellas over the tables of Sekker’s Bar, Cro pointed towards one of the stalls of merchandise.

‘The people from Maiden Castle,’ he said. ‘They’re still here. I thought you were going to check their licence.’

‘I did. There’s nothing irregular.’

‘Then it must be revoked. How did they get hold of one?’

‘In the usual way,’ Mander said. ‘It was bought in the office.’ ‘We could find an ideological objection ...’

Mander shook his head, but not so the other would see. ‘It’s never as easy as that.’

The stall Cro had indicated would have seemed innocuous enough to eyes less instantly hostile. It was no larger than any of the others, and constructed along the same lines. Even the goods on offer were similar, at first sight, to those peddled from stalls all along the Boulevard. The wooden surface of the counter had been covered with a green woollen cloth, and spread out across this was a selection of hand-crafted goods: wooden bowls and candlesticks, ornamented chess-sets, brooches and armbands set with polished semi-precious stones, unglazed pottery; each item seemed well made and substantial, but with an appealing roughness to the finish that served only to emphasize the essential craft.

In this way the goods differed from those offered at the other stalls, for they sold inexpensive but uniform wares, mass-produced in cooperatives on the mainland. This individual quality was not lost on the tourists, for the stall was attracting more customers than most of the others.

Cro glanced disparagingly at the goods, and at the people selling them.

There were two women and a man behind the simple counter. One of the women sat upright on a stool at the back, but she was at ease and with her eyes closed. She wore the clothes that the Commission men had immediately recognized, the plain, dull-brown hand woven garments that were worn by the entire community at Maiden Castle. The man and the other woman were both younger, although the man - who was thin and pale, and had prematurely balding hair-was moving slowly, as if tired.

Mander and Cro lingered by the stall for a few moments, and although the young woman serving noticed their approach she gave no sign of recognition. Mander, who had often remarked to himself on her pretty face and attractive figure, was hoping she might look his way again so that he could give her a secret reassuring smile, but she seemed determined to ignore them.

At last they walked on, and went up the steps to the patio of Sekker’s Bar.

As they sat down at a vacant table, a distant explosion sounded across the bay, echoing from Purbeck Island in the south. This was the cannon mounted above Blandford Passage, which was fired twice a day to warn shipping and swimmers of the flood tide. At this hour of the day few people would be swimming, and apart from the fishing boats outside the harbour there were only one or two private yachts in sight. As usual, many people moved to the sea wall at the sound of the cannon, for a first sight of the tidal bore, but it would not be visible for several more minutes.

Cro said: ‘How much do you know about the new man?’

‘Harkman? As much as you.’

‘I thought he’d been appointed to your department.’

Mander shook his head, but vaguely; an evasion, not a denial. ‘He’s working on some kind of research.’

‘Is he English?’

‘No, British. His mother defected from Scotland.’ Mander looked across the Boulevard, and out to sea. ‘I gather he’s visited the States.’

Cro nodded as if he knew this already, but said: ‘West or East?’

‘Both, so far as I know. Look, I think that must be Nadja Morovin.’

A man and a young woman were strolling past Sekker’s, arm in arm. The woman whom Mander had indicated, wore a wide-brimmed hat low over her face, but her sleeves were rolled up and her skirt was short, provocatively revealing the pallor of her plump limbs. The glamorous couple were affecting not to notice the fact that she was instantly recognizable, and as they walked slowly through the crowd they seemed not to realize that the people approaching them were stepping unobtrusively to one side. Behind them, people stared openly, and a short way away a young man - apparently a tourist from the States - was taking one photograph after another, using a powerful telephoto lens.

A few moments later, Mander and Cro lost sight of them as they went into the tide-skimmer shop.

‘Isn’t that the hydrofoil?’ Mander said.

Cro looked out to sea again, then stood up for a better view, even though the patio at Sekker’s gave one of the best panoramas in town. Several hundred people were now standing by the sea wall, waiting to see the tidal bore as it burst through Blandford Passage. From this distance, more than thirty kilometres, only the white crest of the wave could be seen with the naked eye, but recent tides had been high and the telescope renters along the front had been illegally increasing their prices.

Mander was pointing to the south of the Passage. From that direction, skimming along past Lawrence Island, came the hydrofoil. On the deepening blue of the presently calm waters of the bay it was the only sign of movement.

‘The tide will be through any minute now,’ Cro said. ‘Do you suppose the pilot realizes?’

‘He’ll know,’ Mander said.

A few seconds later, the people who had hired telescopes bent to their instruments, and the tidal wave appeared. Several of the tourists pointed seawards, pointing excitedly, and children were held aloft on the shoulders of their parents.

The waiter arrived to take their order, and Cro sat down.

‘Is this ... Mr Harkman on the hydrofoil?’ he said, when two beers had been brought.

‘I can’t think why else it should be late,’ Mander said, watching the other man for his reaction.

‘I heard he wasn’t rated above Regional Adviser. Would the boat be held for you or me?’

‘It would depend on the circumstances.’

Well pleased with Cro’s reaction, Mander sipped his beer. Earlier in the day he had heard that the low-water berth at Poundbury was going to be busy all day, obliging the hydrofoil to wait for the tide. He assumed Cro hadn’t heard this, but decided against mentioning it because he liked Cro to have a few mysteries.

Cro took a mouthful of beer. He wiped his lips with his handkerchief, then stood up again.

Out in the bay the hydrofoil had slowed down, so that its hull had entered the water again. The boat had turned to face the flooding tide, and as Cro stepped down from Sekker’s patio and crossed the Boulevard to the sea wall the first turbulence reached it. The boat yawed and pitched dramatically, but as soon as the first large waves were past it turned again towards Dorchester, and accelerated through the choppy water in the wake of the bore.

Still seated at the table, Mander looked at Cro with irritation. The arrival of any high-level appointee brought inevitable conflicts within the office, as the hierarchy unwillingly accommodated the newcomer, but Harkman’s appointment to Dorchester threatened the recent smooth state of office politics as surely as the twice-daily tides disrupted the calm waters of the bay.

It was the vagueness of Harkman’s position at the Regional Commission that was the main problem. Mander had been told that Harkman was to be given access to whatever files or records he requested, and that Commissioner Borovitin’s authorization would be channelled through his own office. As Mander’s area of responsibility was Administration, this made sense, but he was still unsure of the nature of Harkman’s intended research. Cro was displaying an unnatural amount of interest in the new man, so Mander suspected that he knew more than he was letting on. His questioning of Mander was probably less for his own information than to try to discover how much Mander knew.