“If Jim Nicklin was a hard case his money would still be in his own bank—not yours.”
“I know that, I know that!” Montane realised he was beginning to sound irritable. “I’m sorry, Milly—it’s just that things are… We’re going to have to move to Beachhead and stay there, you know. Life’s been too much of a holiday for us—cruising around the countryside—and there just isn’t enough money in that. Neither of us likes living in a big city. In fact, we hate it. Things won’t be easy for us.”
“God didn’t say things would be easy.” His wife’s voice now contained a hint of admonition, of the corrective forcefulness he so badly needed. “You’ve never had the future of mankind riding on your shoulders before.”
“I… I suppose you’re right, Milly—as always. Thank you.” Montane closed his eyes, and within a very short time had drifted away into peaceful estuaries of sleep.
Chapter 9
When Nicklin squeezed into his bunk, shortly after the changeover at four, he did so with no expectations of sleep. Even had he been in the right frame of mind the conditions in the camper would not have been conducive to proper rest. All his life he had been accustomed to a spacious and comfortable bed in a room all to himself. He had surrendered those prerequisites of civilised existence for the privilege of lying down with Danea, the two of them nested like spoons, and holding her in his arms the whole night through. The contrast between that deferred bliss and what he had to put up with in the meantime was almost too great to contemplate.
Henty, the man due to take over the driving, had done a lot of resentful mumbling while getting ready, as though Nicklin had been in charge of the rota and had marked him down for the worst shift out of personal spite. The six other men had been disturbed to varying degrees by Henty’s griping, and were making restless sounds and movements as the vehicle got back on the road. Seen in the patchy dimness, the twinned rows of double-decker bunks more than ever resembled the interior of a submarine, and Nicklin began to feel claustrophobic. To make matters worse, Henty—isolated in the separate driving cabin up front—seemed to be working off his bad temper by steering with unnecessary roughness.
All things considered, Nicklin’s prospects of sleep were very poor, but in a remarkably short time he had entered the world of the dream.
The setting was in sunlit open air, and featured a small rounded hill whose slopes had been fashioned into a beautiful alpine garden. It was obvious that a great deal of loving and painstaking work had been poured into the construction of the garden. The rocky banks, underpinning for shoals of blossoms, contrived to look natural while at the same time their symmetry betrayed the handiwork of a master architect. Paths of meticulously fitted stone wound their way around the hill, beneath small archways and past numerous sculpted benches.
Apart from Nicklin himself, there were two characters in the dream. One was his mother, who in reality had died when he was seven; the other was the terrifying figure of a fox who walked upright on his hind legs and was as tall as a man. The fox wore antique clothing—a shabby frocked coat, a winged collar and a greasy cravat secured by a horseshoe pin—and for some reason Mrs Nicklin was blind to the fact that he was not another human being.
She was laughing with him, treating him like a close member of the family. Nicklin was a small boy cowering behind his mother’s skirts, appalled by her inability to notice the fox’s pointed yellow teeth, his Disney-animal nose—like a shiny black olive standing upright on the end of his snout, and his red-brown coloration, the essence of all that was fox.
For his part, the fox was playing up to Mrs Nicklin. He was grinning, nudging, telling little jokes, and every now and again his red-veined eyes glanced appreciatively and knowingly at little Jim. Isn’t this the best laugh ever? the eyes seemed to gloat. Your mother doesn’t know I’m a fox. And—best of all—she doesn’t know I’m going to eat you up!
Little Jim’s fear increased as he heard the fox proposing that it should take him for a walk through the alpine garden. There were many secluded corners in the garden, places where a fox could kill and devour a small boy without being disturbed in its work. And his fear became pure terror when he heard his mother welcoming the suggestion because she needed time to go shopping.
“It’s not a man—it’s a fox,” he screamed, clinging to her thighs. “Can’t you see it’s a fox?”
His mother and the fox laughed together at the childish absurdity. Saliva dripped from the beast’s yellow teeth.
“Don’t be such a silly boy,” his mother said, thrusting him forward with an adult’s irresistible force. “Go along with your nice uncle and have a lovely time.”
Betrayed, weeping, doomed—Jim was propelled into the fox’s grasp. Its hand was hard and strong, covered with hairs which looked and felt like strands from a brown doormat. Jim’s mother was already turning away, uncaring, as the fox dragged him towards the hill. In just a few seconds the fox and he were alone in one of the quiet places, where stone walls hid them from the rest of the world.
The fox wasted no time. It turned on him, its mouth yawning widely enough to engulf his head, so widely that he could see the pink uvula doing a funny little dance at the entrance to its throat.
That was what gave the game away—one Disney touch too many!
Jim had seen the fox before, or creatures rather like it, in dozens of half-remembered cartoons, and he knew it was only a drawing on a sheet of transparent plastic. He knew it had no ability to hurt him—and with that abrupt realisation the dream became a lucid one, giving him control over the course of events. Suddenly he was safe, and had power, enormous power which he could enjoy—just like Alice in the last chapter of the Wonderland book.
Taking a deep breath he bellowed, “Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a cartoon!”
The force of the shout sent the fox reeling backwards, his face comically aghast and his hair blown into receding red-brown points. Giggling with glee, little Jim turned and sprinted away along the stone path. He had taken only a few bounding steps when the solid-seeming pavement opened up in front of him, forming a gaping black pit. As Jim went helplessly over the edge and began the downward plunge he realised that the beautiful little hill, so plentifully encrusted with stone, was hollow.
And the things waiting for him inside it had no place in children’s cartoons…
Nicklin opened his eyes wide and stared at the underside of the bunk above. His first thought was: What the hell was all that about? The dream had not exactly been a nightmare—it had been too preposterous to ram the icy dagger of terror all the way through his guts—but it had been a disturbing one nevertheless. He had little or no time for historic Freudian theory, yet he had an uncomfortable feeling that the odd dream had been laden with symbolism. And it was quite remarkable how, after more than three centuries, the Disney style—his particular brand of anthropomorphism, which hinted at an underlying fear of all wild creatures—could still exercise such a powerful influence over the unconscious minds of children and adults alike.
It suddenly came to Nicklin that he was seeing the base of the bunk above in the meagre daylight which seeped through a tiny circular window. Furthermore, the camper had stopped moving and there were sounds of activity from outside. He put an eye to the window and saw that the caravan had come to a halt in what appeared to be a sports field. There was little in the way of facilities—just some forsaken goalposts, a scoreboard and a small pavilion. The roofs of a few dwellings could be seen above the somewhat scrawny hedge which marked the field’s perimeter. In the distance the tops of several tall buildings projected up from layers of morning mist, slim pastel streaks against the sky. A star-like point of light glowed on one of them, trembling in the moist air, evidence that a photocast station was in operation.