‘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.
‘In comparison to...?’
‘I’ve been reading a manuscript by a colleague of mine, Persimmon. He lays out what he thinks is the perfect technocratic society. Hell on earth.’
‘So?’
‘He is quite stupid, you know, but he has forecast the future remarkably well. The nightmare he conjures up is extraordinarily like the one you and Chang describe.’
Angela fell silent for a long time.
‘Now,’ she said eventually, ‘you’re just trying to give me a headache.’
63
It was the pigeons in the great entrance hall which convinced Angela that Henry was telling the truth when he said that his great-aunt’s house was semi-derelict. The ‘semi’ bit was the only part she disputed. His aunt Gertie matched the place perfectly as well, more a character out of a Gothick novel than somebody real. She was dressed in ragged velvet, carried a huge candelabrum about with her and smelled as though she had not had a bath for months. Her hair was thin and unkempt and her conversation bizarre.
Henry, though, was delighted to see her. He gave her a big hug and she examined Angela closely by thrusting the candlesticks into her face and squinting up at her. ‘A pretty one, eh?’ she cackled. ‘That makes a change. Are you here to fix the plumbing?’
‘No, Auntie. Just to collect a few papers,’ Henry bellowed into her ear.
‘They’ve stopped delivering. Say I don’t pay the bills.’
‘Manuscripts, darling. Not newspapers.’
‘You can read it over breakfast, like your uncle Joseph. Have you seen him?’
‘He died in 1928.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. He drove his car off a cliff, remember?’
She shook her head. ‘Tell him to be more careful when you see him.’
‘I will. Now, you go and sit down and pour yourself a nice gin. I just want to go upstairs and collect this thing I’m after. Then, I’m afraid, we’ll have to run off. Angela and I are in a bit of a hurry.’
‘Angela?’
‘This is Angela.’
She peered again. ‘A pretty one, eh? That makes a change.’
‘Blimey,’ Angela said as she followed Henry to the door.
‘She’s very sweet, and I love her dearly, but my head starts to spin after half an hour with her.’
‘She’s right about Uncle Joseph, you know.’
‘Don’t you start.’
Henry left me to deal with his aunt and disappeared up the stairs to go to the family archive. It would, he said, only take a few minutes.
Oddly, I have always found the company of the ancient relaxing. What is condemned in this brutal age as dementia, senility and worse is, in fact, a substantial step forward which aligns the mind rather more accurately with reality than our normal state.