The Night Clock Page 22

  Then he straightened up and reached into the pocket of his coat and took out his Compass and Levers, his Instruments. He opened the Compass and watched as the needle settled on Northeast. He would go there, to where they were all gathering.

  There was a square of dry earth in the concrete by the side of the road, and a slender tree growing from it. He lifted his Egress Lever and plunged it into the dirt and compressed the handle.

  A line of light, like a slot in the air, opened, and he went through it.

  TREVENA STOPPED SINGING the moment the truck started careering down the dune. He gritted his teeth and held onto the wheel with all his strength, the muscles in his forearms standing out like cords, as the bonnet rose and fell, the truck bouncing on its large tyres, sliding and kicking up clouds of sand. The offside headlight blew and something beneath the chassis came loose, battering against the sand until it dropped off completely. Trevena hoped it was part of the exhaust and not the drive shaft.

  The remaining headlight lit up the beach as it flew towards him and he braced himself as the front of the truck hit the level sand and the wheels tried to bite, bald tyres spinning like belts. Momentum carried it down the beach and Trevena coaxed the accelerator, trying not to over rev, trying not to stall the bastard, allowing the weight of the truck and the paddling tyres to do the work for him.

  The truck got as far as the campfire and slid to a halt, wheels turning without any traction, sinking lower into the damp sand. The engine whined and Trevena switched it off.

  The Toyceivers were clearly visible now, their Uproar Contraptions aglow, putting a sick glaze of reflected light onto the water that looked like blooms of contaminated algae adrift just beneath the surface.

  Index waved to Trevena to stay in the cab. Then he and Daniel, Steve and Mick, lifted Claire with great tenderness and carried her around to the back of the truck and lifted her onto the flatbed. Index whistled and Anna, Bronze John and Bix raced down the beach and climbed up with them. Index secured the back of the truck and walked around to the passenger door. The single beam of the remaining headlight shone a diffuse cone of light against the sand.

  “Full beam, Phil.” Index said.

  Trevena fumbled with the steering column and clicked a lever. The windscreen wipers scraped an arc across the glass sweeping two thick bars of sand into the gutter at the side of the bonnet.

  “Sorry.” He tried a lever on the other side and engaged full beam.

  Alex and Sandy were spotlit on the shoreline.

  THE NIGHT CLOCK is calling its numbers to its face and a man and his son stand together on the stony earth in the middle of a disused and abandoned reclamation yard. They have come here before, in happy times and in troubled times. They won time for themselves on this very spot not so long ago.

  Earlier that night they had both had the same dream and had met, in comical disarray, on the upstairs landing outside their bedrooms, knowing it was the hour.

  They had taken a few moments to dress and had left the farmhouse to go to the reclamation yard, their dream vivid in their still-sleepy heads.

  It was cold and they were glad of their boots and coats. The man stood with his arm about his son’s shoulder. They were looking towards the fields and the forest that lay beyond them.

  “There,” said the boy, pointing over the turned earth.

  His father looked and saw it too.

  There was a light rising out of the forest. It fluttered and abruptly brightened. It glowed a sparkling green and then settled to a hard blue flame. Even from where they stood, they could hear the burner roar.

  They waited in nervous anticipation as the hot air balloon drifted over the fields towards them.

  Eliot and his father, David, waved.

  Doctor Mocking waved back.

  THE TOYCEIVERS BROUGHT a cold wind with them.

  Alex was shivering. His hands looked small and white like rarefied orchids as they pressed against the sides of his uncle’s head.

  “Are you ready, Alex?” Sandy said, his words muffled around the end of the pipe.

  “Yes,” Alex said, trusting his uncle.

  “Don’t let go, whatever happens.”

  Suddenly their shadows sharpened and raced away from them. The truck was aiming its headlights down the beach. It lit the water’s edge and the things that were advancing towards it.

  Sandy took an enormous breath, his shoulders bunching, set his mouth around the pipe, twisted it so that it dug further into the sand, and blew.

  His cheeks bulged. Alex felt the strain go through his uncle’s body, the muscles in his neck and across the flesh of his head. Alex gripped hard, his own young muscles tensing in concord with his uncle’s.

  Sandy’s cheeks began to glow.

  Alex felt the heat through his palms and nearly let go in reflex but he held on as his uncle’s face lit up and shone like a bulb. The pipe glowed, too, a blazing filament connecting the man with the earth, the Glassblower and his medium.

  The sand around the end of the pipe began to heat up and the heat radiated out from it. The sand bubbled and softened and the entire beach along the shore began to incorporate the energy Sandy was imparting, rippling along its width, growing supple, turning to glass. It steamed like magma as the slow waves slid over it.

  Sandy was shaking. Alex dared not speak, but clung on, his ability operational through his uncle, letting Sandy work his glass.

  Shapes formed along the shore. They lifted huge sagging heads and elastic limbs from the vitreous swamp. They grew quickly into vast, translucent sauropods. As the air hit them and the waves foamed over their extruding bodies, they hardened. They wrenched themselves from the lava and waded into the sea. Their eyes were dark, unformed. Their mouths hung open and their throats blazed, funnels of radiant heat where they remained pliant and blistering.

  Sandy collapsed and fell backwards. Alex dodged out of the way as his uncle keeled over. Sandy lay on his back staring at the sky. The skin around his mouth and the tip of his nose was red as sunburn and his lips were blistered and split, but he was grinning. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down the beach. He watched his vitreosaurs ploughing through the waves. Their necks swung and lashed at the first wave of flying machines, baking mouths crushing them like insects. Wings and rotors shattered and burned as they dropped from the sky onto the machines beneath them. The vitreosaurs trod through a churning mass of wreckage.

  The glass was hardening, and as the first Contraptions struggled from the waves, their frames and wheels sank into the solidifying mire and became stuck, and smouldered. Those that baled out fell victim to the same fate; they sank, screaming, their limbs blackening. The lucky ones fell face-first.

  Alex helped Sandy to his feet and they backed away, still enrapt by the carnage at the shore. A flying Contraption had lowered chains and was attempting to snare and drag over one of the vitreosaurs. Three smaller Contraptions bobbed in the water between its stamping legs. They fired serrated harpoons from racks of cannons bolted to their sides. The harpoons hit the belly of the beast and it shattered, great panes of thick, blackened glass falling from beneath it like windows from a burning cathedral. The vitreosaur butted the Contraption out of the air with a blow from its massive head; it span out of control, its rotors buckled, and scored a smoking arc through the air. It hit the beach and rolled like a car wreck. A deluge of molten glass poured from the hole in the vitreosaur’s belly and smothered the Contraptions paddling beneath it. They disappeared under the water beneath the boiling blanket of glass. The vitreosaur sank to its knees and slid below the oily, steaming sea.

  Alex and Sandy ran towards the truck. Index waved them on, pointing to the flatbed. They climbed up and Index joined them in the back of the truck. He banged on the roof of the cab.

  “Engine on, Phil,” he said.

  Trevena was numb. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open. He was watching a battle waging between glass dinosaurs and steaming machines less than a hundred yards a
way through a windscreen. Part of his mind hoped that maybe he was at the pictures watching a Guillermo Del Toro blockbuster.

  He reached out slowly and found the keys beneath the steering column. He started the engine, still staring straight ahead. A herd of vitreosaurs had separated from the rest and were treading through the water towards Quay-Endula. Trevena could see more lights on the horizon further across the bay. A second wave of Toyceivers. Maybe when this was over what glass dinosaurs remained would stand in the parks and gardens of Quay-Endula as a permanent installation commemorating this conflict. Trevena liked the idea, and the image of those proud, craning beasts pearlescent in the glare of spotlights.

  He heard Index say, “Daniel, take us out of here.”

  Trevena took one last look at the scene on the beach, following the passage of Sandy’s super-sculptures as they rounded the headland.

  Then he closed his eyes.

  TREVENA AWOKE IN the middle of a house party. He sat bolt upright, all effects of sleep gone, and looked around. One hot afternoon a few years ago he had fallen asleep in a ward round somewhere halfway through his divorce, when he was drinking too much and not sleeping, and he’d snorted himself awake to find the whole room sitting quietly, watching him. The consultant, a cocky young locum in a linen suit, had regarded him with the contempt usually reserved for a cleaner trying to have a chat with him about darts. Trevena had wondered whether he’d broken wind.

  But nobody was looking at him now. He relaxed and rubbed his eyes. He was sitting on Elizabeth’s sofa and the sun was up. Trevena looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock. He had been asleep for about half an hour.

  He recalled the events in the Quays with the same surreal elation one experiences on waking from a particularly vivid and exciting dream. He remembered what Elizabeth had said before he’d gone to sleep on her sofa, about the intensity of emotions being tempered by the unconscious. He felt no mental trauma despite what he had seen, no overload. In fact he felt more refreshed than he had in ages.

  Index came and sat next to him. He had a cup of tea. The fine china looked like something from a child’s tea set in his hand.

  “How are you doing, Phil?”

  “Good. Yourself?”

  Index had a sip of tea. “Well, we made it back. Claire’s upstairs with Elizabeth and Steve. She’s doing better now she’s getting some proper attention. She’ll give birth soon.”

  Trevena listened. He could hear movement upstairs and an occasional cry of pain that he assumed were contractions.

  Alex was sitting at the dining table playing cards with his uncle Sandy and Mick Reeks. Anna was sitting on the floor by the gas fire playing with a small toy tiger made of plastic.

  “Is that...?”

  “That’s how he is in the waking world,” Index said.

  “Wow,” Trevena said. He noticed a collection of dolls on the sideboard and a number of stuffed toys: a teddy bear, a leopard that looked like it had been a free gift from the World Wildlife Fund, and a fluffy dog. Trevena blinked.

  “Oh no, is that...?”

  Index nodded, his face serious.

  And then Trevena heard a bark and turned to see Bix come trotting out of the kitchen. He came over and Trevena grabbed him and gave him a fuss.

  “You little bugger,” he said, and felt closer to tears than he had at any other time throughout this entire ordeal.

  Bix licked his face.

  “You can’t talk can you?” Trevena said.

  Bix put his head on one side, tongue lolling.

  “Never mind,” Trevena said, laughing. He wiped his eyes. “At least you’re real.”

  “I wouldn’t let Bronze John hear you say that,” Index said. He was smiling. He put a hand on Trevena’s shoulder. Anna was holding the toy tiger and waggling it in Trevena’s direction. Its painted grin looked like it could take a finger off.

  “My apologies, big fella,” Trevena said.

  Then he said, “Where’s Daniel?”

  DANIEL HAD STAYED behind. He watched the truck disappear into the Gantry and then turned and trudged back up the beach. Behind him the great glass beasts had destroyed the first wave of Toyceivers and were wading through the smoking wreckage to meet the second wave that were on their way to Quay-Endula.

  At the top of the dunes was a railway line. Daniel stopped. He looked at the lines for a moment. He measured his breathing, and then he stepped onto the line between the rails. His boots crunched on the gravel between the sleepers. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering that day he had gone to the seaside intending to die.

  And when he opened his eyes again, he saw the back end of the locomotive, Railgrinder, still and patient a hundred yards up the line. Daniel frowned, recognition dawning on him. He took slow steps along the line until he reached the engine.

  He went around it and stood looking up at its blunt, swarf-scarred grill. He reached out and touched it, stroked his fingers down the iron.

  “It was you,” he said in a hushed voice. He remembered the smell, and the noise, that overwhelming chthonic roar he had heard in his nightmares as a child and which had terrified him. Somehow he had personified it into the image of his mother, and her wails of need. But it had been Railgrinder, rumbling on its Dark Time loop, always coming to save him, and Daniel stood on the rails there beneath the moon over Quay-Endula, and wept.

  THERE WAS A signal post telephone at the side of the line. It was housed in a weatherproof box with a circle painted on it and a number inside the circle. The number was 10. When it rang, Daniel went over and answered it.

  “Is she safe?” Les asked. His voice was faint and the line crackled and hissed.

  “Yes,” Daniel said. “They all are.”

  “Are you coming home?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need you, Daniel. It’s on its way. Can you hear it?”

  Daniel closed his eyes and listened. Out there, on its way to the village, a wave of pressure was forcing a screaming wind towards them. The devil-in-dreams was casting out death and despair one final time as it fought for control of The Night Clock.

  “I’m coming,” he said.

  “Daniel.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are the others ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Daniel replaced the phone and walked over to Railgrinder. He climbed into the cab and opened the firebox. Heat baked out at him. He closed the iron door and released the brake. Railgrinder shuddered and jolted. Daniel put the engine in reverse and, leaning an elbow on the back of the cab, he used the throttle to take Railgrinder on its final journey.

  He reached into his coat pocket and took out a matchbox. He opened it with his thumb and looked at the tiny hermit crab on its bed of cotton wool. He remembered the man who had given it to him. Gordon. A good man. He had known what Daniel was. Some people just did. His father had, too, but his dread, and the devil-in-dreams, had broken him and had used that calamity to break Daniel in turn. Daniel replaced the threadbare cardboard drawer, put the matchbox back in his pocket. He sighed. Melancholy and joy sluiced through him. It was a rare combination, like an alloy trying to form out of antagonistic elements, never able to settle into anything stable, but it was oddly sweet. Daniel had suffered a lot worse.

  He closed his eyes and took Railgrinder through the slot for the final time.

  TREVENA STOOD UP. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and were looking towards the foot of the stairs, even Anna, who was sitting cross-legged on the rug holding Bronze John loosely in her lap. Her eyes were wide and expectant.

  They had heard a sound from upstairs. An unmistakeable sound.

  A cry.

  A baby’s first almighty lungful of air.

  “We go now,” Index said. He was heading for the front door. Mick was close behind. Alex and Sandy stood more warily but followed, their eyes still on the stairs. Anna came over to the sofa and put out her hand. Trevena took it. She smiled up at him.

  “You don’t have to co
me,” she said. She put Bronze John in Trevena’s hand.

  Trevena shook his head and pressed the tiger back into Anna’s hand.

  “We’ve done our business together,” he said. “He’s yours. I’m coming with you.”

  Anna nodded, suddenly grave.

  “Thank you,” she said and walked out of the lounge. Trevena stood for a moment looking around.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  AT THE BOTTOM of the stairs Index shouted up, “How is she?”

  Steve appeared on the landing. His eyes were red and he stood on unsteady legs.

  “She’s beautiful,” he said.

  “And Claire?”

  “Sleeping,” said Steve. “Peaceful now.”

  “Congratulations, Steve,” he said.

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Take care of them.”

  Steve lifted a hand, made the peace sign.

  Index opened the front door and they went out.

  TREVENA WAS SURPRISED to see the old truck there, parked at the side of the road. It looked like it had just crossed a desert.

  “We’re going to Lakenheath,” Index said.

  Trevena nodded. It’s not too far. It’s right at the edge of my patch as it happens. I’ve got a patient out there.”

  “I know,” Index said.

  “That sounds ominous,” Trevena said with a watery laugh.

  “Will you drive?” Index asked.

  “It’s the least I can do,” Trevena said.

  He got in the driver’s side and Index lifted Anna in between them. Bix jumped up beside Index and was squashed against the door when he slammed it shut. Mick got up onto the flatbed with Sandy and Alex.

  Trevena switched on the ignition and the old truck fired into life. It blatted like a novice’s drum solo beneath the chassis where most of the exhaust had fallen off but it pulled away in first without conking out and Trevena accelerated it gently through the gears until they were barrelling along the main drag through the estate heading for the A10.