“Bathroom and toilet are just along the landing,” Werry said helpfully. “As soon as you get yourself sorted out come down to lunch. Theo is getting out of school early today, and he’ll want to meet you too.”
“I’ll be right down,” Hasson replied, willing the other man to leave. As soon as he was alone he lay down on the bed, coaxing his body into relaxation, staring at the shifting twig patterns on the ceiling. Where are they? he thought Where are the inner strengths and reserves that Dr Colebrook promised me? He pressed the back of a hand to his lips and closed his eyes to shut out the merciless white radiance which surrounded him like a besieging army on all sides.
three
His first meal in the Werry domicile was even more of an ordeal than Hasson had anticipated. Four places had been set at a circular table in the kitchen, Hasson’s distinguished from the others by the presence of a brimming tumbler of neat whisky which produced a queasy feeling in his stomach each time he looked at it. He sat down with Werry and May Carpenter while her mother, with a black cigarette clinging to her upper lip, orchestrated the meal from a standing position at the cooker. She filled each plate in person from various pans, like an army cook, paying scant heed to stated preferences. Hasson, who liked his steak well done, was given a wedge-shaped slab which had been seared black on the outside but was oozing pinkly from several fissures.
“No sauce for me,” he said as Ginny reached for an outsized ladle.
“Needs sauce,” she replied, dousing everything on his plate with a silty fluid and placing it before him. Hasson glanced at Werry, hoping he would fulfil his obligations as host and come to the rescue, but Werry was busy grimacing happily at May and trying to snatch a ribbon from her hair. He was still wearing his full uniform except for the cap, and looked like a garrison soldier flirting wish a new girl. May responded by frowning at him, tossing her head and continually smoothing her hair down with both hands, an action which might have been designed to show off the voluptuousness of her breasts. Hasson was fascinated against his will, and kept being discomfited by the discovery that at the moment of maximum uplift May’s gaze was always fixed innocently on his face. In desperation, while waiting for Ginny to sit down, he distracted himself with the whisky, taking minute sips and which were barely enough to wet his lips. The months ahead suddenly seemed unbearable, an endurance test he was bound to fail unless his defences were shored up without delay. “Al,” he said, keeping his voice casual, “are there any shops, stores, nearby where I could buy or rent a portable television set?”
Werry raised his eyebrows. “There’s a nutty idea for you! We’ve got a new solid-image job right there in the front room. Two-mete stage. May and Ginny are always watching it, and you can sit with them any time you want. Isn’t that right, May?”
May nodded. “The Nabisco Club is on tonight.”
Hasson tried to smile, unable to reveal that he planned so lock himself in his room and turn it into an outpost of his homeland by taking nothing but British shows from the satellite system. “Ah . … I’m a pretty poor sleeper these days. These nights, I should say. I need a set in my bedroom for when I can’t sleep.”
“Other people need to sleep,” Ginny Carpenter put in as she joined them at the table with a loaded plate.
“I’d be using the ear pieces. There’d be no…”
“Seems a waste of money when there’s a new solid-image set with a two-metre stage right there in the front room,” Werry said carelessly. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, though — I’ll take you into town with me on Tuesday morning and introduce you so my buddy, Bill Raszin. He’ll fix you up at the right price.”
Hasson did a mental calculation and decided he could not wait four days. “Thanks, but if you don’t mind I’d like to…”
“Good food going to waste here,” Ginny reprimanded.
Hasson lowered his head and began to eat. The moose steak was more edible than he had feared, but the flavour which got through the coating of sauce reminded him strongly of rabbit and after a few small mouthfuls he was unable to continue with it. He began marking time by eating thin slices of carrot which had been liberally glazed with brown sugar and which to him tasted like sweets. Werry was the first to notice his lack of appetite and began to chivvy him loudly, only subsiding when Ginny explained that people who were accustomed to a low standard of living were often unable to cope with rich food. Hasson managed to think of several apt replies, but each time he considered putting them into words he saw his father’s panic-stricken eyes and heard the well-remembered voice saying, “Everybody will look at you.” May Carpenter kept giving him sympathetic smiles and making overtly tactful efforts to discuss his journey, but only succeeded in making him feel more gauche and inept than before. He devoted all his mind to ensuring that no particle of food found its way into one of the painful mouth ulcers, and prayed for the meal to come to an end.
“Great stuff,” Werry announced as soon as he had finished his coffee. “I’m going into the office for an hour — just to make sure I’ve still got an office — then I’ll pick Theo up coming out of school and run him home.”
Seizing his chance, Hasson followed Werry out to the hall. “Listen, Al, I might as well admit it — I’ve turned into a real TV fanatic since they brought in these solid-image jobs. Can I ride into town with you and pick myself up a set this afternoon?”
“If that’s what you want to do.” Werry looked puzzled. “Get your coat.”
When he got outside Hasson saw at once that the weather had changed. A shutter of low cloud had been drawn across the sky and the air had a chill metallic smell which promised more snow. Against the leaden backdrop, the light-sculpted aerial highways of the city’s traffic control system glowed vividly and were as solid looking as neon tubes. The gloominess of the overcast re minded Hasson of winter afternoons in Britain and had the effect of improving his spirits a little. In a grey world his bedroom would be a cocoon of safety and warmth, with its door locked and the curtains drawn, and a television set and a bottle to keep him company and absolve him from any need to think or live a life of his own.
On the way into town he gazed about him with something approaching contentment, picking out one Christmas card scene after another. The car was cruising on the main road into town when the radio hissed loudly and a call came through.
“Al, this is Henry Corzyn,” a man’s voice said. “I know you didn’t want any calls this afternoon, with your cousin being here and all that, but we’ve got a serious AC here and I think you’d better come over.”
“An aerial collision?” Werry sounded interested, but not particularly worried. “Somebody taking a short cut? Flying outside the beams?”
“No. Some kids were bombing the east approach, and one of them misjudged it and hit some guy square on. They might both be dead. You’d better get over here, Al.”
Werry swore fervently as he took directions from the police- man and slowed the car into a street leading east. He switched on emergency lights and a siren, and the already sparse surface traffic melted away into the greyness before him.
“Sorry about this, Rob,” he said. “I’ll get it over with as quickly as I can.”
“It’s all right.” Hasson said, his feeling of insularity shattered. He had seen the results of bombing accidents many times during his career and knew the sort of situation into which Werry was now being precipitated. With the advent of the automobile, man had been transformed into the swiftest creature on the face of the earth, given a new dimension of freedom. That freedom had been too much for many people to handle, and the outcome had been a death toll in the same grisly league as those produced by more ancient scourges such as war, famine and disease. Then man had learned to put a judo hold on gravity, turning its strength back on itself, and had become the swiftest creature in the air, and with his new freedom — to soar with the lark and outstrip the eagle, to straddle the rainbow and follow the sunset around the red rim of the world — the Fifth Horseman, the one who rode a winged steed, had come fully into being.