“Best wait till after dark,” Michael agreed, trying to make it sound as if that had been his idea. Jennifer nodded and looked carefully out again. Everything there seemed normal. She went back to rummaging through a desk drawer. Though deficient in most of its listed contents, the medical box she eventually found had bandages and antiseptic enough to keep up their pretence that Michael needed medical attention for his arm. Once he’d gone through the motions of wincing—perhaps more than motions—he was back to a lordly pretence of reading the Health and Safety at Work notice, every so often crunching another Extra Strong Mint.
It was as the light was beginning to fade, and the local factories were changing shift, that the electricity came on, and the telescreen bolted to the station wall crackled into life. “The dead from last night’s terrorist attack have now reached fifty seven,” the newsreader woman said gravely. Jennifer couldn’t see the picture, but the crowd of tired shift workers outside raised a few growls of outrage as the woman fell silent, and the BBC began showing one of the “No Commentary” pieces it favoured whenever there were too many lies to be made up in too short a time.
But the pattern of lights on the assembled faces became gradually less chaotic, and the sound started again for interviews with alleged eye-witnesses. Except they had to be lying their heads off about the selfless courage of the authorities, they sounded tear-jerkingly truthful. These were followed by an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who gushed on for ten minutes about the essential oneness of every religion that agreed with the promotion of gay lifestyles. Once she was done, there were word-for-word endorsements read out by spokesmen for the Chief Rabbi and the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. There was even a thirty second slot for someone with an accent who spoke in the name of Allah, the “Mother and Father of all,” and who denounced the suicide bombers as “Enemies of God.” Next came the stern voice of Abigail Hooper, promising tough new laws against the “enemy within.” She spoke on, to a murmur of approval from the crowd, about a set of decrees, to be announced within days, that would finally bring peace to a troubled land. She finished to the sound of the National Anthem, and this gave way to a speech from the King himself. He relayed a promise from the Scientific Committee, that there would be a return to normality “within the year.” Then, he went on in a tone of utter conviction, all those outside the country at the time of The Break would be restored to their loved ones—and what a story those who had seen it through would have to tell of how they’d had pulled together in “the Spirit of the Blitz!” With further repetitions and variation, he droned on for another twenty minutes, until he was cut off by a repeat of the National Anthem. Finally, to a ragged cheer from the crowd, someone announced a repeat of the Christmas Special of Eastenders from 2013—this in honour of the fallen.
Too depressed to ask for a translation, Michael had listened without understanding. Now, as loud, twanging music was followed by a screamed argument at deafening volume, and then by the smashing of crockery, he watched Jennifer stand up in the gathering darkness and walk from the room. “Come on,” she urged. “We can risk a light through here if we pull the blind down.”
He sniffed at the contents of the metal container that Jennifer had cut open. It was fish of some kind in oil—possibly sardine. He was glad of the hot shower she’d got working. He was gladder still of the cleanish clothes she’d found that nearly fitted him if he pulled the belt tight.
It was time, Jennifer, decided, to ask her question. “Will your agents be expecting you so late at night?”
Michael put his fork down and looked at a waxed paper box of orange juice. As he opened his mouth to speak, there was a noise in the street. He saw the scared look on Jennifer’s face, and was on his feet. He looked about and picked up a small knife. It had a flexible blade, and the handle was made of a red substance best described as somewhere between horn and wood. Whether it would be any good for defence was another matter. He waited for the girl to turn out the light, and led the way back into the front room.
Still twitchy from the night before, Michael had been expecting a few dozen police officers with their glass visors pulled down. Instead, the crowd watching the performance on the big picture machine had been joined by a man with an illuminated cart. He’d got a picture machine of his own going. This played a jingly music not loud enough to compete with the main performance, and showed a swift succession of very clean and very happy people of every age and sex and colour. Every so often, the word RTProt would flash above a table laid with a banquet that he supposed was exactly to the English taste.
“It’s a kind of artificial meat,” Jennifer explained. She looked behind her, to see if any light could be seen through the kitchen door. She looked again through the window glass, and pointed at the queue. “The Mayor of London has given money to the men who own these wagons. In honour of the dead, they are selling their food at half price.” In silence, they watched as, dressed in the ragged finery that had marked their positions in life before The Break, the industrial proles of London tucked in to their sausages and patties. Unless queuing for their ration, everyone was still absorbed in the performance. Whenever the lights flashing from the screen managed to remain still, and in the right combination of colours, it was possible to see the grease splashed over lean and dirty faces—and even to see it dribbling off chins, to vanish into dark clothing.
Jennifer stood back from the window. “It’s horrible!” she breathed.
Michael shrugged. “For ye have the poor always with you,” he quoted in Greek. “And, so long as their bodies remain fit for work, the poor must be fed,” he said in Latin. He stretched. “Now, unless you can find some coffee next door—and, yes, we do know about coffee in the Empire—have you any more of that sweet bubbling drink? I think it’s called Coca Cola, if you’ll forgive the pronunciation. It has, I find, a subtly invigorating effect on the senses.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
Michael stabbed again at a piece of disintegrating fish. This time, he managed to get it into his mouth. It had been preserved in spiced olive oil, and was a change from the sweet things he’d eaten. He took another sip of the disgusting coffee Jennifer had made from stirring powder into boiled water, and stared at the bright lamp that hung overhead. “Jennifer,” he asked in a conversational tone he’d been rehearsing to himself, “because you speak Latin so well, I suppose your History is also very good. I know that, in your world, the Empire has long since disappeared. I know that its terminal decline begins not far into the future of my world. But can you set me right on events and dates? The current Emperor, by the way, is Constantine Ducas.”
“Oh, I really don’t know that much about the Byzantine Emperors,” she said, giving more attention to the white powder she was dithering about adding to her coffee. “There were so many of them, and they follow each other in a blur of centuries.” She stopped and looked harder at the numbers printed small on the powder tin. Michael waited. He let her change the subject and run on about something else. Gradually, he moved her back to the main subject. She spoke for a while about a writer called Gibbon, and another called Finlay. “Well, if this is 1065,” she said at last, “there will be a battle in six years at a place called Manzikert.” She stopped again and smiled. “But does any of this matter? Because of The Break, your world’s future is now different from my world’s past.” Michael smiled back and waited. “Well, if you must know,” she went on, “your army was obliterated, and you lost Asia Minor.”