He made a beckoning gesture at Masters. “Come on, then, I know you’re dying to tell someone about your talk tomorrow. What have you got planned for these poor students?”
“I thought I’d talk about how fact and fiction have switched places since the war.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you have to look at the history of storytelling. For me, one of the most important dates in the last century was the 28th of December, eighteen hundred and eighty-one.”
Summerfield gave a shrug. “Why?”
“On that day the first public building was illuminated with electricity for the first time ever, at the Savoy Theatre.” Masters leaned forward conspiratorially. “Just think of it. With the click of a switch, twelve hundred electric lamps cast darkness from the room. The myths and mysteries of the past were thrown aside by the bright, cold light of scientific reason. No more shadows. No more hidden fears. No more cautionary tales of bogeymen and ghouls. And in the week of the winter solstice! As if man was determined to prove the dominance of light over darkness!
“Fiction once involved the telling of tales by candlelight. With electricity to help us separate fact from fiction, everything was clearly designated. Before the advent of television life was simpler. You went to work, you came home, you listened to the radio, you read a book; it was hard to mix your home life with your fantasy life. Now, through, the lines are blurred. People have phoney job titles and meaningless career descriptions. They spend their days lying to each other about what they do for a living, trying to make their work sound more interesting than it is, then they go home and watch gritty, realistic soap operas on TV. No wonder their kids are confused about what’s real and what isn’t. People write to soap stars as if they were real characters. And with so many companies spoon-feeding us entertainment, no wonder we’re losing the power to create our own fantasies. No wonder that we’re not believed even when we’ve achieved the fantastic. Inexplicable mysteries occur every day, in every life. It’s how we choose to read them that defines us as individuals.”
“Oh please,” Summerfield exploded, “you might as well ask me to believe in Roswell, Area 51, crop circles, Nessie and all that Fortean stuff. You want to believe in the paranormal because you secretly think there has to be something more to the world than just this.” He pointed out of the window. It had grown dark outside. They had already left the suburbs. A glimmer of buttery light showed above the brow of a passing hill.
“Perhaps I do, but that’s not the point. It’s important to keep an open mind.”
“Then you’ll never make any decisions in your life. You’ll be like a child forever.”
“Wait a minute, let’s simmer down a little.” Jane Masters held up her hand for peace. The table was becoming rowdy earlier than usual. A pair of diners in black plastic witch-hats were staring at them. “Where are we?”
“I’m not sure. It’s too dark to see.”
“Besides,” Summerfield ploughed on, “getting someone to believe in something is simply a matter of theatricality and good presentation. If I wanted you to believe a strange story, I could easily make you do it. Especially on a night like tonight, of all nights.” He emptied the wine bottle. At this rate, thought Masters, we’ll be crocked before we reach the coast. The air pressure in the carriage altered as they entered a tunnel, sucking out the flame from the little orange pumpkin-candle the waiter had placed on their table.
Summerfield turned to the others, his command of the table absolute, and raised his hands. For the next few minutes he told a tale, the odd affair of a businessman who became imprisoned within an ancient London building. At the conclusion he sat back and drained his glass. He looked from Jane to Harold Masters and permitted himself a satisfied smile.
“Well?” he asked. “You do believe me, don’t you? I hope you do, because Jonathan Laine is an old friend of mine, and the story came from his own lips. He couldn’t live with the guilt of his secret, and subsequently killed himself. They found him at the bottom of the Thames, somewhere down at the Dartford estuary. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.”
They broke the conversation as their starters arrived. The train seemed to be travelling at an unusually laborious pace, and was lumbering through the flat open countryside toward the lights of a distant town. Heavy rain began to thrash the sides of the carriage. It was as if they had entered a car wash. Toward the end of the meal, Masters raised his glass. “I’d like to propose a toast, seeing as it’s Hallowe’en and the perfect time for creepy stories. Jane, perhaps you’d like to tell one.”
“Oh no, Harold, I’d rather not,” begged Jane, throwing a desperate glance at Summerfield.
“Don’t tell me all these years of hearing my stories hasn’t rubbed off on you just a little bit.” Masters gave a pantomime wink.
“I can’t help you, Jane,” said Summerfield. “Go on, join in the spirit of the thing. Show us what being with Harold has taught you.”
Jane shot him a look of betrayal that had the force to knock over a large piece of furniture.
“All right, then,” she conceded, “I’ll tell you a story I first heard many years ago. I was a young girl, impatient to become an adult. It taught me something about the nature of time.”
As the train crept on through the rain she began her story, about a powerful sultan and the winding of a thousand clocks. By the time she had finished, she looked close to tears. “I always liked exotic stories,” she explained, blowing her nose. “They let you forget mundane things for a while.” Harold had already lost interest, and was looking over at the next table. She followed his eyeline and saw three students, a pale-faced girl and two boys, staring at them as if they were mad. “Godby, is that you? And Saunders?” asked Masters.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good God, lad, am I to have no privacy? As if I don’t see enough of you during term. How many more of you are there?”
The first of the group spoke up. His accent was American. “Just me and Kallie, sir. And this is Claire.” A bony, whey-faced girl seated between them gave an awkward smile.
That’s all we needed, thought Jane with a sinking heart, to be stuck with Harold’s students for the rest of the journey. They were doomed never to have time to themselves. These days it seemed that there were always other people in the room all talking at once, colleagues from the museum, hyperactive pupils, aged academics, never any of her friends, never any special private moments together, no wonder she -
“Are you going to tell any more stories?”
“I can’t believe it,” Masters announced to the rest of the group, “surely we’re not in the presence of students displaying an interest? They don’t noticeably do so in any of my lectures. Yes, we may well tell more stories,” he replied, “but you can only join in if you bring a tale of your own to the table.”
“Preferably a true one,” added Summerfield, just being awkward. He did not enjoy the company of the young; they tired him with their fatuous observations, and made him feel fat and old and unattractive. “And you must present it in the form of a proper story, with voices and acting and everything. And most important of all, you have to bring your own wine.”
Outside, sheet lightning illuminated the fields, like someone momentarily flicking on a light. “We’re drinking cider,” the first student replied, holding out his hand. “I’m Ben. From Colorado originally, but I’m studying here now.” The introductions continued around the table. “I’ve got a story from my creative writing course. It’s based on something I read in an old newspaper.” Ben dug into his backpack and pulled out a folder filled with scissored articles. “Here’s the original clipping.” He held it up for everyone to see. “ ‘Human civilisation, it seems, has flourished during a 10,000 year climactic ceasefire. Hostilities may be about to resume. - Independent On Sunday, 18th February 1996.’ We had to develop a story from a factual starting point, and this is what I came up with.”