Arms and the Women

COMFORT BLANKET

Arms and the Men they sang, who played at Troy

Until they broke it like a spoiled child’s Toy

Then sailed away, the Winners heading home,

The Losers to a new Play-pen called Rome.

Behind, like Garbage from their vessels flung,

– Submiss, submerged, but certainly not sung –

A wake of Women trailed in long Parade,

The reft, the raped, the slaughtered, the betrayed.

Oh, Shame! that so few sagas celebrate

Their Pain, their Perils, their no less moving Fate!

But mine won’t either, for why should it when

The proper Study of Mendacity is MEN?

BOOK ONE

‘Your pretty daughter,’ she said, ‘starts to hear of such things. Yet,’ looking full upon her, ‘you may be sure that there are men and women already on their road, who have their business to do with you, and who will do it. Of a certainty they will do it. They may be coming hundreds, thousands, of miles over the sea there; they may be close at hand now; they may be coming, for anything you know, or anything you can do to prevent it, from the vilest sweepings of this very town.’

CHARLES DICKENS: Little Dorrit

i
spelt from Sibyl’s leaves

Eleanor Soper…

The little patch of blue I can see through the high round window is probably the sky, but it could just as well be a piece of blue backcloth or a painted flat.

licks up the blood from the square where a riot has been…

Distantly I hear a clatter of hooves. They’re changing guard at… I’ve heard them do it thousands of times. But hearing’s as far as it goes. They could be mere sound effects, played on tape. You don’t take anything on trust in this business. Not even your friends. Especially not them.

I who know everything knew nothing till I knew that.

what does it mean?…

The only unquestionable reality lies in the machine.

But while reality hardly changes at all, the machine has changed a lot. It grows young as I grow old.

Shall I like my namesake grow old forever?

My namesake, I say. After so long usage, am I beginning to believe as so many of the young ones clearly believe that my name really is Sibyl? Strange that the name my parents gave me also labelled me as a woman of magic, but an enchantress as well as a seer. Morgan. Morgan Meredith. Morgan le Fay, as Gaw used to call me in the days of his enchantment.

But now my enchanting days are over. And it was Gaw who rechristened me when he saw that I had no magic to counter the sickness in my blood.

A wise man hides his mistakes in plain sight, then over long time slowly corrects them.

My dear old friend Gawain Clovis Sempernel is a wise man. No one would deny it. Not if they’ve any sense.

Aroynt thee, hag. Ripeness is all. And I have work to do.

When I first took on my sacred office, the machine loomed monumentally, like a Victorian family tomb. Thirty years on, it’s smaller than an infant’s casket, leaving plenty of room on the narrow tabletop for my flask and mug, and also my inhaler and pill dispenser, though generally I keep these hidden. Sounds silly when you’re in a wheelchair, but I was brought up to believe you don’t advertise your frailties.

That’s a lesson a lot of folk never learn, which is why so many of them end up frozen in my electronic casket where there’s always room for plenty more.

If I wanted I could ask it to tell me exactly how many people had passed through my hands, or rather my fingertips, for that’s the closest I get to actually handling people. But I don’t bother. This isn’t about statistics, this is about individuals.

Eleanor Soper…

My casket is also an incubator. Here they make their first appearance, often looking completely helpless and harmless. But, oh, how quickly they grow, and I oversee their progress with an almost parental pride as their details accumulate and their files fatten out.

Some live up to their promise. (By which I mean threat!)

Others, apparently, change direction completely. Such converts I always regard with grave suspicion, even if – especially if – they make it to the very top. They’re either faking it, in which case we’re ready for them. Or they’re genuine, which means the contents of these files could be a serious embarrassment.

It’s always nice to know you can embarrass your masters.

But the great majority merely fade away, become ghosts of their vibrant young selves.

married a cop, had a kid, didn’t march any more…

what was it for?

Let’s take a look at your protesting career, Eleanor Pascoe née Soper.

Amnesty – member, non-active; Anti-Fascist Action – lapsed; Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – lapsed; Gay Rights – lapsed; Graduates Against God – lapsed; Greenpeace – member, non-active; Labour Party –member, non-active; Liberata Trust –member, active; Quis Custodiet? – lapsed; Third World United – lapsed; Women’s Rights Action Group – lapsed; World Socialist Alliance – lapsed.

Once you squawked so loud in your incubator, Eleanor, now you rest so quiet.

Gaw Sempernel (let no dog bark) says there is nothing so suspicious as silence. Must have watched a lot of cowboy films in his youth. It’s quiet out there, Gaw… too damn quiet!

Certainly neither sound nor silence gets you out of my casket. Once inside, there you stay forever. And if your presence is ever needed, you can be conjured up in a trice, like the wraiths of the classical underworld, which, as my classically educated Gawain likes to remind me, were summoned to appear and to speak by the smell and the taste of fresh blood.

For machines may change, and fashions change, and human flesh, God help us, changes most inevitably of all.

But some people, my people, have at their hearts something which refuses to change, despite all that life shows them by way of contra-evidence. Perhaps it is a genetic weakness. Certainly, once established, like the common cold, no one has yet found a way of eradicating it.

Which is why I, practising what I preach, have demonstrated to the world (or that section of it which shares this remote and lonely building in the heart of this populous city), that there is life after death by staying in gainful employment all these years, Sibyl the Sibyl, sitting here in my solitary cell, hung high in my lonely cage, laying the bodies out neatly in my electronic casket, and, when necessary, conjuring them back to life.

My poor benighted ghosts scenting blood once more…

Like Eleanor Soper.

All these looney people, where do they all come from?

All these looney people, where do they all belong?

ii
who’s that knocking at my door?

…why should it, when

The proper study of mendacity is MEN?

Chapter 1

It was a dark and stormy night.

Now, why has that gone down in the annals as the archetype of the rotten opening? she wondered. It’s not much different from It was a bright cold day in April, though, fair do’s, the bit about the clocks striking thirteen grabs the attention. Or how about There was no possibility of taking a walk that day, with all the stuff about the weather that follows? And even Homer’s jam-packed with meteorology. OK, so what follows in every case is a lot better book than Paul Clifford, but even if we stick to the same author, surely the dark and stormy stuff isn’t in the same league as the opening of The Last Days of Pompeii (which, interestingly, I found on Andy Dalziel’s bedside table when I used a search for the loo as an excuse to do a bit of nebbing! Riddle me that, my Trinity scholar!).

How does it go? ‘Ho, Diomed, well met! Do you sup with Glaucus tonight?’ said a young man of small stature, who wore his tunic in the loose and effeminate folds which proved him to be a gentleman and a coxcomb. Now that is positively risible, while the dark and stormy night is simply a cliché which, like all clichés, was at its creation bright new coin.

So up yours, all you superior bastards who get on the media chat shows. I’m sticking with it!

It was a dark and stormy night. The wind was blowing off the sea and the guard commander bowed into it with his cloak wrapped around his face as he left the shelter of the grove and began to clamber up to the headland.

The darkness was deep but not total. There was salt and spume in the wind giving it a ghostly visibility, and now a huge flock of white sea birds riding the blast went screeching by only a few feet over his head.

The superstitious fools huddled round their fires in the camp below would probably take them as an omen and argue over which god was telling them what and pour out enough libations to get the whole of Olympus pissed. But the commander didn’t even flinch.

As he neared the crest of the headland, he screwed up his eyes and peered ahead, looking for a darker outline against the black sky which should show where the wind wrapped itself around the sentry. There’d been grumblings among the weary crewmen when he’d insisted on posting a full contingent of perimeter guards. In the forty-eight hours since they made landfall, they’d found no sign of human habitation, and with the storm which had made them run for shelter blowing as hard as ever, the threat of a seaborne attack seemed negligible. With the democracy of shared hardship, they’d even appealed over his head to the Prince.

‘So you feel safe?’ he’d said. ‘Is that more safe or less safe than when you saw the Greek ships sail away?’

That had shut them up. But the commander had resolved to make the rounds himself to check that none of the posted sentries, feeling secure in the pseudo-isolation of the storm, had opted for comfort rather than watch.

And it seemed his distrust was justified. His keen gaze found no sign of any human figure on the skyline. Then a small movement at ground level caught his straining eyes. Cautiously he advanced. The movement again. And now he could make out the figure of a man stretched out on his stomach right at the cliff’s edge.

Silently he drew his sword and moved closer. If the idle bastard had fallen asleep he was in for a painful reveille. But when he was only a pace away, his foot kicked a stone and the sentry’s head turned and their eyes met.

Far from showing alarm, the man looked relieved. He laid a finger over his lips, then motioned to the commander to join him prostrate.

When they were side by side, the sentry put his mouth to his ear and said, ‘I think there’s someone down there, Commander.’

It didn’t seem likely, but this was a battle-scarred veteran who’d spent ten years patrolling the Wall, not some fresh-faced kid who saw a bear in every bush.

Cautiously he wriggled forward till his head was over the edge and looked down.

He knew from memory that the rocky cliff fell sheer for at least eighty feet down to a tiny shingly cove, but now it was like looking into hellmouth, where Pyriphlegethon’s burning waves drive their phosphorescent crests deep into the darkness of woeful Acheron.

Nothing could live down there, nothing that still had dependence on light and air anyway, and he was moving back to give the sentry a tongue-lashing when suddenly the wind tore a huge hole in the cloud cover and a full moon lit up the scene like a thousand lanterns.

Now he saw, though he could hardly believe what he saw.

The waves had momentarily retreated to reveal the figure of a man crawling out of the sea. Then the gale sent its next wall of water rushing forward and the figure was buried beneath it. Impossible to survive, he thought. But when the sea receded, it was still there, hands and feet dug deep into the shingle. And in the few seconds of respite given by the withdrawing waters, the man scrambled forward another couple of feet before sinking his anchors once again.

Sometimes the suction of the retreating waves was too strong, or his anchorage was too shallow, and the recumbent body was drawn back the full length of its advance. But always when it seemed certain that the ocean must have driven deep into his lungs, or the razor-edged shingle must have ripped his naked chest wide open, the figure pushed itself forward once more.

‘He’ll never make it,’ said the sentry with utter assurance.

The guard commander watched a little while longer then said, ‘Six to four he does. In gold.’

The veteran looked down at the sea which now seemed to be clutching at the body on the beach with a supernatural fury. It looked like a sure-fire bet, but he had a lot of respect for the commander’s judgement.

‘Silver,’ he compromised.

They settled to watch.

It took another half-hour for the commander to win his bet, but finally the crawling man had dragged himself right up to the foot of the cliff where a couple of huge boulders resting on the beach formed a protective wall against which the sea dashed its mountainous missiles in vain. For a while he lay there, still immersed in water from time to time, but no longer at risk of being either beaten flat or dragged back into the depths. Then, just when the sentry was hoping he might claim victory in the bet by reason of the man’s death, he sat upright.

‘That sod must be made of bronze and bear hide,’ said the sentry with reluctant admiration. ‘What the fuck’s he doing now?’

For the figure on the beach had pushed himself to his feet, and as the waters drew back, he emerged from his rocky refuge and, to the observers’ amazement, began a kind of lumbering dance, following the receding waves, then backpedalling like mad as they drove forward once more. And all the while he was gesticulating, sometimes putting his left hand in the crook of his right elbow and thrusting his right fist into the air, sometimes putting both his thumbs into his mouth, then pulling them out with great force and stabbing his forefingers seawards, and shouting.

‘I’ve seen that before,’ said the sentry. ‘That’s what them bastards used to do under the Wall.’

‘Hush! I’m trying to hear what he’s saying,’ said the commander.

As if in response, the wind fell for a moment and the sea drew back to its furthest point yet, still pursued by the dancing man whose shouts now drifted clearly up the cliff face.

‘Up yours, old man!’ he yelled. ‘Call yourself earthshaker? You couldn’t shake your dick at a pisspot! So what are you going to do now, you watery old git? Ha ha! Right up yours!’

‘You’re right. He’s a Greek,’ said the commander.

‘Better still, he’s a dead Greek,’ said the veteran with some satisfaction.

For in his growing boldness, the dancing man had allowed himself to be lured far away from his protective wall by this moment of comparative calm, so when the ocean suddenly exploded before him, he had no hope of getting back to safety. An avalanche of water far greater than anything before descended on him, driving him to the ground, then burying him deep. And at the same time the renewed fury of the wind sewed up the rent in the cloud and darkness fell.

‘If he was talking to who I think he was talking to, he was a right idiot,’ said the sentry piously. ‘You gotta give the gods respect else they’ll chew you up and spit you out.’

The commander smiled.

‘Let’s see,’ he said.

They didn’t have long to wait. As though the storm also wanted to look at the results of its latest onslaught, it tore aside the clouds once more.

‘Well, bull my bollocks and call me Zeus!’ exclaimed the sentry, his recent piety completely forgotten.

There he was again, almost back where he’d started but still alive. Once more he started to struggle back over the beach. Only now as the waves retreated, they didn’t leave any area of visible shingle but a foot or so of water. This made the anchoring process much more difficult, but at the same time, by permitting the man to take a couple of swimming strokes with his muscular arms, it speeded his return to the safety of the boulders. Here he squatted, his head slumped on his broad chest which rose and fell as he drew in great breaths of damp air.

‘He’s game,’ said the sentry grudgingly. ‘Got to give him that. But he’s not out of trouble yet. How high do you reckon the tide comes in here, Commander?’

‘Normally? I think it would just about reach the bottom of the cliff, a foot up at its highest. But this isn’t normal. I don’t know whether it’s a very angry god or just very bad weather, but I’d say the way this wind’s blowing the sea in, it will be thirty feet up the cliff face in an hour.’

‘So that really is it,’ said the sentry with some satisfaction.

‘Not necessarily. He can climb.’

‘Up that rock face? Get on! It’s smooth and it’s sheer and there’s an overhang at the top. I wouldn’t fancy my chances there at my peak on a fine day, and that old bugger must be completely knackered.’

‘Double or quits on what you owe?’ said the commander casually.

The sentry turned his head to look at the officer’s profile, but it was as blank and unreadable as the cliff face, and not a lot more attractive either.

Then he looked down. The man was up to his knees in water already.

‘Done,’ said the sentry.

Below, the Greek was examining the cliff face. His features were undiscernible through a heavy tangle of beard, but even at this distance they could see the eyes shining brightly in the reflection of the moonlight. He rubbed his hands vigorously against the remnants of his robe in what had to be a vain attempt to get them dry, then he reached up and began to climb.

He got about three feet above the water level before he lost his grip and slithered back down. Three more times he tried, three more times he fell. And each time he hit the water, it was higher than before.

‘Looks like we’re quits, Commander,’ said the sentry.

‘Maybe.’

‘What’s the silly old sod doing now?’

The silly old sod was ripping the sleeves off his tattered robe, and tying them to form a rough sack which he hung on a jag of rock protruding from one of his protective boulders. Next he knelt down in the water facing the boulder, took a deep breath, and plunged his head beneath the surface. When he emerged, he tossed what looked like a stone into the dangling sack. Again and again he did this.

‘I know,’ said the sentry. ‘He’s digging a tunnel.’

He laughed raucously at his own wit till the guard commander said coldly, ‘Shut up. You might learn something.’

The sentry stopped laughing. Shared hardship might relax the bonds of discipline slightly, but he and his comrades knew just how far they could go.

Finally the Greek stood upright once more, slung the sack around his neck, put both hands into it, then reached up the cliff face. He seemed to lean against it for a long moment, almost as if he were praying. Then he began to climb again.

The sentry waited for him to fall. But he didn’t. From time to time he dipped into his sack, then reached up again in search of another handhold. As on the beach, progress was painfully slow, and occasionally one of his holds failed and he’d slip back a little, but still he kept coming.

‘How in the name of Zeus is he doing that?’ said the sentry. ‘It’s just not possible!’

‘Molluscs,’ said the commander.

‘No need to be like that, sir,’ said the sentry resentfully. ‘I was only asking.’

‘I said, molluscs. Clams, mussels, oysters, anything he could find. He’s holding them against the wall till their suckers take a hold. Then he uses them as a ladder.’

‘Clams, you say? Them things couldn’t hold a man, surely?’

‘Three might. He only moves one foot or hand at a time. And he’s using any holds he can find in the rock face too. He’s a truly ingenious fellow.’

The sentry shook his head in reluctant admiration. As if taking this as confirmation that their prey was close to escaping them, the waves hurled themselves with renewed force against the cliff, breaking over the climbing man and spraying flakes of spume over the watchers above.

A harsh grating noise reached them also.

‘The bugger’s laughing!’ said the sentry.

‘Of course he’s laughing. He wants the cliff face to be as wet as possible. That’s the way the molluscs like it. The wetter the surface, the tighter their grip.’

The wind closed the gap in the clouds once more. This, coupled with the fact that the climber was now approaching the overhang, took him out of the watchers’ sight. The sentry pushed himself back from the edge, squatted to his haunches and drew his sword.

‘Let’s see if he’s still laughing when he sticks his head over the top and I cut his throat,’ he said, testing the metal’s edge with his thumb.

The guard commander said nothing but squatted beside him. They had to lean into the wind to avoid being blown backwards and from time to time their faces were lashed with salt water as the ocean rose to new heights of fury in its efforts to wash the climber free.

Minutes passed. The watchers didn’t move. They had had years to learn that patience too is one of the great military arts.

Finally the sentry’s face began to show his suspicion that the sea must after all have won its battle against the climbing Greek. He glanced at the guard commander. But his was a face as jagged and pocked as a city wall after long siege, and quite unreadable at the best of times, so the sentry didn’t risk speaking and returned to his watch.

A few moments later he was glad of his self-restraint. A new sound drifted up the cliff face amidst the lash of water and howl of wind. It was the noise of laboured breathing, getting closer.

The sentry began to smile in happy anticipation. He decided not just to slit the throat but to have a go at taking the whole head off. It would be fun to go back into the camp and toss it down among his half-waking comrades and say negligently, ‘Got myself another Greek while you idle sods were sleeping.’

The breathing was loud now. The sentry moved his position so that he was right above it. An arm like a small tree trunk was swung up to rest on the edge of the cliff, and then a shag of salt-caked hair appeared, and finally the man’s head came fully into view and a pair of deep-sunk, intensely blue eyes took in the waiting men.

‘How do, chuck,’ said the Greek.

The sentry rocked forward on his toes and shot out his left hand to grab the grizzled hair. But quick as he moved, the Greek was quicker. His other hand came into view, grasping a large jagged clamshell. It snaked out almost faster than the eye could follow, and the next moment the sentry’s left wrist was slit through to the bone.

He fell backward, shrieking. His right hand released his sword as he grasped the gaping wound to staunch the spurting blood. The Greek dropped the shell and reached out to pick up the fallen weapon. Then a heavy-shod foot crashed down on his forearm and pinned it to the ground.

He looked up at the unreadably rugged face of the guard commander and smiled through his tangle of beard.

‘Thanks, chuck,’ he said. ‘Saved me from a nasty fall.’

‘Kill the bastard, Commander,’ urged the ashen-faced sentry. ‘Chop his fucking arm right off!’

The commander was aware of the blue eyes fixed quizzically on his face as he debated the matter.

‘Not yet,’ he said finally. ‘Not till we know if there are any more of his kind about. Besides, the men need cheering up after what’s happened recently, and I reckon a clever old Greek like this will take a long time dying.’

‘Long as you like, Captain,’ said the Greek. ‘I’m in no hurry whatsoever. I’ll

‘Shit,’ said Ellie Pascoe.

Through the open window of the boxroom which she refused to dignify with the name study she had heard a car turning into their short drive.

She finished reading, take as long as ever you like.’, pressed Save to preserve her corrections and went to the window.

A man and a woman were getting out of the car and heading for the front door.

‘Hello,’ called Ellie.

This voice from above made them start like guilty things surprised, and the woman dropped her car keys.

Perhaps they think it’s the voice of God, thought Ellie.

Or perhaps (one thought leading to another) they think they are the voice of God.

‘If you’re Witnesses,’ she called, ‘I think I should tell you we’re all communist satanists here. I’ll be happy to send you some of our literature.’

‘Mrs Pascoe?’ said the woman. ‘Mrs Ellie Pascoe?’

She didn’t look like a Witness. And Witnesses didn’t drive big BMWs.

A pair of assertions as unsupported as a Hottentot’s tits (she plucked the phrase from her collection of Andy Dalziel memorabilia), but evidence is what we look for when intuition fails (one of her constabulary-baiting own).

‘Hang on. I’ll come down,’ she said.

By the time she got downstairs and opened the front door, the couple had recovered their composure. Now they just looked concerned.

‘Mrs Pascoe?’ said the man, who was slim, thirtyish, not bad-looking and wearing a rather nice Prince of Wales check suit which looked like it had been cut in Savile Row. Would look even nicer on Peter. ‘You are Mrs Pascoe?’

‘I thought we’d established that.’

‘My name’s Jim Westcombe. I’m with the council’s Education Welfare Department. It’s about your daughter, Rose. She’s at Edengrove Junior, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, but not today. I mean, it’s their end-of-term trip to Tegley Hall Theme Park… look, what’s this about?’ Ellie demanded.

The man and woman looked at each other, then the man went on, ‘Honestly, there’s nothing to worry about, she’s fine, you’re not to worry, really…’

‘What?’

There are few things more worrying to a mother than being told not to worry, especially a mother who a few short weeks ago was sitting by a hospital bed, not knowing if her child was going to recover from meningitis or not.

The woman gave her a look which combined empathy of her feelings and exasperation at her companion’s heavy-handedness.

‘Jim, shut up,’ she said. ‘Mrs Pascoe, the coach taking the children to Tegley has broken down. There’s a replacement coach on the way, but it seems your little girl wasn’t feeling too well and the head teacher thought it best to make arrangements to get her home, only when he tried to ring you he couldn’t get through…’

Ellie turned and grabbed the hall phone. It was dead. In the mirror hanging above the phone, she saw an unrecognizably pale face whose pallor shone through her summer tan like a corpse-light through muslin. This was it. This was the punishment she deserved. She had brought it on herself… worse… on Rosie… on Peter…

‘… so he tried your husband but he wasn’t available, so then he rang into the Education office and as Jim and I were coming out this way and would be passing your road end, we said we’d call and check if you were in.’

‘Oh God,’ said Ellie.

I’m confused, she thought. I’m not hearing properly.

She leaned against the door frame to steady herself and the woman reached forward to rest her hand on Ellie’s arm and said, ‘Really, it’s OK, Mrs Pascoe. You know how it is, end of term, kids getting excited, rushing around like mad. I’ve got two myself, I know how they can keep us frightened, believe me. It’s just a matter of getting out there to pick the little girl up. Have you got your car here? Jim can go with you, he knows where the breakdown happened. I can’t come myself, I’m afraid. I’ve got an urgent appointment, but Jim can spare a couple of hours, can’t you, Jim? He’ll even drive if you don’t feel up to it.’

‘Surely,’ said the man. ‘No problem at all. Let’s get started, shall we? Sooner we’re on the way, sooner you can get your little girl home.’

Ellie took a deep breath. It wasn’t enough. She took another. It was like squirting oil onto a piece of rusty machinery. She could almost hear the gears of her mind starting to grate against each other as she reviewed everything that had been said to her.

She said, ‘Sorry. This has knocked me out. I’m not usually so slow. It was just a bit of a shock. I thought you were trying to tell me there’s been an accident…’

‘Nothing like that,’ said the woman. ‘Really.’

‘And did you talk to Mr Johnson, the head, yourself? You’re sure he said it was nothing to worry about?’

‘Yes, I spoke direct with Mr Johnson,’ said the woman firmly. ‘Just a tummy bug, he reckoned. But she really wants to be home rather than bumping around on a bus all day.’

‘And if it was anything more serious, the sooner we get out there, the better, eh?’ said the man heartily.

‘Jim, please!’ said the woman reprimandingly.

‘No, it’s OK,’ said Ellie, stepping forward and smiling at the man. ‘It’s always best to be ready for the worst. Are you ready, Mr Westcombe?’

Then she brought her knee up as hard as she could between his legs.

It was good to see his face drain pale as her own.

Now she swung her right arm round hard at the woman’s neck. The blow would probably have felled her, but she was quick and ducked low, though not low enough to avoid all contact. Ellie’s hand caught her on the temple just above the right eye with enough force to send her reeling back into the Climbing Pompon de Paris growing up the pillar to the left of the front porch.

When Ellie had bought it, Peter had grumbled that nowadays it was surely possible to get a less prickly, more user-friendly rose, but she’d been unrepentant. The tiny pink pompom blossoms had been her father’s favourite before Alzheimer’s robbed him of even that. And now, as she heard the woman scream, Ellie knew she’d always love the thorns too.