Boneland. Part 16

'On a motorway? That is odd. Especially when you're awake.'

'Sorry. Messier enumeration. The Pleiades. I saw her ride into the Pleiades. I saw.'

'You're an astronomer, honeybundle, not a b.l.o.o.d.y poet. Then again, come to think of it, I suppose you're both.'

'I am what I am,' said Colin. 'We think we understand. But we don't. Out there everything's possible. It's not "either or". The more we look the more we find. What did I say about the carving on Castle Rock?'

'But constellations are subjective patterns of random stars. Aren't they?'

'The Pleiades are a discrete asterism. It's all one. I saw her ride.'

'Did you see her face?'

'-No. But it was her.'

'How far off are the Pleiades?' said Meg.

'About four hundred and forty light years.'

'Then she can't be there yet.'

'When time is linear only,' said Colin. 'But when it isn't ...'

'Hang about,' said Meg. 'I'm not used to playing in your backyard. You'll have to be patient.'

'I am the patient,' said Colin.

'It's not funny, my lad. Don't muck around with this.'

'You have to understand,' said Colin. 'There can be more than one answer. There could be an infinity of answers. Truth isn't fixed. Consider the Ex Africa hypothesis.'

'I'm considering it, my heart.'

'Allowing for cultural change, wherever we go in the world people tend to see the same things in the sky, even though they seldom look like what they're called. Orion is a hunter. Ursa Major is a predator, most often a bear. Taurus is a bull. Cygnus is a bird, usually one of the anseriformes; or Grus grus, a crane. And the Pleiades are a band of women, typically, or maidens, escaping pursuit. Did h.o.m.o sapiens sapiens see all this and take it with him out of the Rift Valley? If so, the urgency must have been strong, even of evolutionary significance, at the global dispersal.'

'So what's your point?' said Meg. 'Slow down. You are distinctly high today.'

'Both systems can be real, but both are models. You can't, or shouldn't, confuse them. I did.'

'Hey now, kiddo,' said Meg. 'Are you, an astrophysicist, saying that mythology and science have equal validity?'

'I'm saying they could have. There may be truth in fairy tales. My mistake was to mix them.'

'Too right,' said Meg. '"Always believe the fairy tales. What were the fairy tales, they will come true." That's what they say in Russia.'

'Oh, thank goodness. At least you understand,' said Colin. 'I thought you wouldn't. I've been using the telescope to find a myth, an object to trace a metaphor. They may both be real, but if so they occupy different dimensions.'

'Chasing love with a scalpel?'

'Yes.'

'And metaphor, not simile?'

'Yes.'

'OK. I'll buy metaphor, but simile's a cop-out used by scaredycats who won't commit to anything. Simile's for cowards. So where's your reality?'

'Faith is the only truth. Belief the reality. Until you're inconsistent.'

'Ever thought of having my job?' said Meg. 'You'd go down a storm.'

'You've decided I'm mad,' said Colin.

'Oh my giddy aunt! I'll tell you when you are.'

'Promise truly scout's honour?'

'Promise truly scout's honour.'

'I'm depending on you, Meg.'

'Unwise. Only you can get you back on track. How often must I say that?'

'I need your word.'

'You've got it. That's the easy bit.'

'But I can't stay at the telescope. I've abused my contract. I've let everyone down.'

'Stop being such a wazzock,' said Meg. 'And don't play the martyr with me, my lad. You're needed, Colin. You may be off the wall, but you're creatively off it, and we don't get many of your kind to the pound.'

When at last he came to the lodge he blew a fire heap and he lay for one day. He lay for two days. He lay for three. He unlooped a fox from a snare and ate. Then he lay by the fire heap until there was no more wood to feed it. He took a blade and cut holly from the cliffs in strands that grew along the rocks; and he wove a ladder. The branches flexed, but each bend and twist used all his will, and each day he worked less, and curled with his fingers bent into him for warmth to work the next.

It was enough.

He linked the holly to his foot and went by the nooks of the dead. The holly followed. The seam of grit clenched his neck. The clamour of the beasts was stilled, and he saw that their lines were dying because he had not cut them fresh. He came to the brink of the great cave and hung the holly on a spur and let it down. He held the lamp and began to climb. The leaf spikes counted the rungs to the last step and the rock floor above the s.h.i.+ning waters.

His feet trod the chippings of the Stone. The shards bit through to his feet and his knees would not bear the dance. The Stone lay black. He eased himself to lodge on the edges of the flakes and set the lamp apart so that it did not slight the Stone. He could not dance, but he could sing. He rested on his arms, and looked down into the Stone. The Stone took him and gave him songs that he had not learnt, and the dark was all that he could see. It filled his eyes. He sang. And with each song the dark that was all grew darker still. It had no depth, but he moved into it, pulled by the singing into nothingness that turned about him as it drew him on.

He rushed at the night; but the singing held him. If this was death, he had no fear. He came to where it could not be more black. Yet still he sank into the Stone.

The dark was spent, and below him he saw a point. He lay in Ludcruck above the Stone and of it, and beyond the spinning dark he entered light. He saw the blackness break, and on the other side was sky, still night, but flecked with stars.

He sang.

The light was stars and more than stars. There were pools that swirled, and in them suns. The pools and stars had no end. They fled for ever and there were no songs to fetch them. But he had seen.

The whole Stone blazed. Ludcruck was every light. He shut his eyes against the pain, and when he opened them the Stone was small, lit by the lamp.

He put out a hand and lifted the Stone. It fitted his palm and his fingers closed around. The smooth side told his fingers where to sit, and where it had been shaped a hard sharp edge sat ready to be used for the work it had to do to make the world. He took it, the little thing that held the stars, and climbed past the beasts, along the seam of grit, by the nooks of the dead, into the day.

'Hi, Colin. Come in. Sit down. Have some water. But please try not to smash the gla.s.s this time.'

'Why? What's the matter?'

'I've been keeping something back,' said Meg, 'in the hope it wouldn't be necessary and you'd work it out for yourself.'

'What? You're frightening me.'

'Don't be scared. I want to help. But I need your help, too. It may hurt.'

'What is it?'

'As soon as you said your sister was your twin I had a firm date, so I went to the Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Did you ever do that?'

'No. There wasn't any need to. I knew.'

'You "knew". But wasn't it you told me what a waste of a fart it is to think you "know"?'

Colin was silent.

'So I went to the Register,' said Meg. 'And there she was, without any doubt. You can drop the Missing syndrome. You had a twin. She was real.'

'I told you,' said Colin. 'Where is she?'

'I said "had".'

'But I have! She's real! I said!'

'She was,' said Meg. 'Do you want me to go on?'

'Don't keep putting her into the past! She talks to me!'

'I know she does, love.'

'You're saying I'm mad. You are.'

'Not yet. Now do you want to hear me, or do you not want to hear me?'

'I want to hear you.'

'OK. But no clever stuff, please, Colin. No tachywhatsits, thank you. Let's keep to pen and paper. All right?'

'All right.'

'Right.'

'I need the lavatory,' said Colin.

'You know where it is.'

He came back and sat on the front edge of the chair. Meg opened a file.

'You, Colin Whisterfield, male, together with your female twin-'

'No!'

'What's the matter?'

'Not her name!'

'Why?' said Meg.

'You don't need to tell me her name!'

'You said you couldn't remember.'

'I lied! You don't need to tell me!'

'Why not?'

'It's private!'

'Not on this certificate, it isn't. Colin. It's in the public domain.'

'I don't care! We're private!'

'That just about wraps it up, then,' said Meg. 'You're showing patent hysteria. Or do you want to know what happened, if you don't know already?'

'"Happened"?' said Colin. 'What do you mean?'

'I'm trying to work through your isolated retrograde amnesia. If it's too much pain, leave it for now. We can have a go another day.'

'No. Sorry. Now. I'll try.'

'No "sorries",' said Meg. 'But if you can try, it may help.'

'What do you want?'

'A few questions and answers.'

'I'll try.'

'Good lad. First. Did the Mossocks have a horse?'

'Oh, yes,' said Colin. 'He was a grey s.h.i.+re. Called Prince. He pulled the cart on Fridays. The Mossocks used to go to the village, selling eggs and poultry and vegetables. There were regular customers. Prince didn't need telling. He knew which houses to stop at. And he'd wait. That was when it was a genuine village, with people and real shops. No black cars.'

'What happened to Prince?'