'What sort of language, you old fool?'
'You said "fucking", James,' said Uncle Sidney, straight-faced.
'Of course I didn't. I don't believe in... A man has to have a very limited vocabulary if he needs to resort to swearing like that.
What are you trying to prove, Sidney?'
Again the look of vague astonishment crept into Uncle Sidney's eyes. 'Forget it,' he said at length.
'Are you trying to start something?'
'I don't want to start anything more, no,' said Uncle Sidney.
The television screen jumped from one scene to another. Fires and riots. Riots and fires.
James Henry turned to his wives. 'Did I say anything objectionable?'
In unison they shook their heads.
He glared again at Uncle Sidney. 'There you are!'
'Okay. All right.' Uncle Sidney looked away.
'I proved I didn't say anything,' said James Henry insistently.
'Fair enough.'
They're my witnesses!' He pointed back at his wives. They told you.'
'Sure.'
'What do you mean—"sure"?'
'I meant I believe you. I'm sorry. I must have misheard you.'
James Henry relaxed and smiled. 'You might apologise, then.
To all of us, I should have thought.'
'I apologise to all of you,' Uncle Sidney said. 'All of you.'
Ryan watched from the doorway and he was frowning. He looked at Uncle Sidney. He looked at James Henry. He looked at Ida and Felicity. He looked at Fred Masterson. Then he looked at the television screen.
It was not so different. It was frightening. Nothing seemed real.
Or perhaps it was that nothing seemed any more real than anything else.
He went towards the television with the intention of switching it off. Then he paused. He was overwhelmed with the feeling that if he turned the switch not just the television picture would fade, but also the scene in the room. He shuddered.
Mr Ryan shuddered, full of fear and hopelessness. Full of depression. Full of doubt.
It had been a bad day.
The day was really something of an historic day, he thought.
Today marked the turning point in his country's history—perhaps the world's history.
Perhaps it was the beginning of a new Dark Age.
He came to a decision and reached forward to switch off...
CHAPTER SIX
Seated in his little cabin, the television flickering gently in front of him, the foreign voices speaking their lines, Ryan falls, against his will, into a doze.
Surely he knew, when he sat down, when he selected a film in an alien language, that this would be the result. Perhaps he did but would not acknowledge the thought.
Ryan, a man tormented by nightmares during his official hours of sleep, who rises every morning with the indefinable despair of a man who has dreamed of horrors he cannot even remember— Ryan is desperate for rest.
Through the caverns of his brain pound the sounds of heart and blood, the drums of life. He hears them dimly at first.
*
Ryan is standing in the ballroom.
The dance floor has a dull shine.
The lights in the candelabra are low.
They give off a bluish light.
Black streamers decorate the walls.
There are masks suspended at eye level on them.
The masks show human faces.
K
E
E
P
GOING
P
E
E
K
The spaceship is on course for Munich. Travelling at just below the speed of light.
The spaceship is on course for Munich.
I KNOW THAT I DES...
... DES SCIENCES—HISTOIRE DES SCIENCES—HISTOIRE DES SCIENCES...
IT IS TRUE, HOWEVER
I AM WILLING TO TELL
WHOEVER WISHES TO KNOW
(there is no need to tell—there is no one to tell—it does not matter...)
K
E
E
P
GOING
P
E
E
K
WHICH WAY?
*
In the ballroom the masks show human faces. Faces distorted by anger, lust and greed.
Suddenly one of the masks shows his wife Josephine, her face ferociously distorted. There is his youngest child, Alexander. His mouth is open, his eyes are blank. Alexander—a drooling idiot.
The couples are circling to the chanting music. It grows slower and slower and they revolve slower and slower. They are dressed in dark clothes. They have the firm and well-defined faces of the practical, self-interested, well-fed middle classes. They are people of substance.
Their eyes are masked by the round sun-glasses. The long closed windows at the end of the room look out into blackness. The music gets slower, the men and women revolve more slowly, so slowly they barely move at all.
The music almost stops.
There is a slow beating of a drum.
The music is heard more loudly. It is like a psalm sung by a chorus of monks. It is a funeral dirge, the song sung when a man is about to be buried.
The drums beat louder, the music quickens.
A high screaming note comes in and holds steady through the dirge.
The drum beats faster, the music quickens.
The high screams grow louder.
The dancers bunch in the middle of the room, staring towards the window through their round, black, covered eyes. They begin to talk quietly among themselves. They are discussing something and looking at the window.
*
ON THE NIGHT OF THE FAIR THERE WAS AN ACCIDENT.
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
ON THE NIGHT OF THE MARINOS AN ACCIDENT
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
ON A NIGHT IN MAY AN ACCIDENT
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
ON AND ON MAY ACCIDENT
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
ONE MAY ACCIDENT
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
ONE MAY ACCEPT
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
ONE MACE IT
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
ONE ACED
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
ONE A
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
ONE
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?
WON
Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?