Chapter Two

My Castillo Street flat was situated half-way up the steep hill behind Arco de las Conquistadoras, or Arch of the Conquerors, in the High Street. It was also opposite the ruined Spanish-built Castillo de Capistrano with its high mound and moat. There were lots of Spanish names still floating about from the old port town’s mixed and violent history when the Spanish Armada chose to land its advance party at the natural harbour in July 1588, a precursor to its aborted invasion attempt. I was certainly lucky to live in such a picturesque location, although the three-storey terrace house itself had seen better days. I rented the attic room with a narrow staircase tethering it to the larger ones below. Despite it’s cramped mustiness and sloping ceiling it gave me a panoramic view of the River-way estuary stretching out below into the distance. Sometimes I would just sit at the window with a glass of red wine and idly watch the sun set behind the Keep’s jagged walls. As dusk grew darker and the lights of the ancient white-stuccoed casa’s and rancho’s along the waterside blinked between the branches of the Cedars and Maples I would feel a sense of calm as if drifting off into another world. I’d fallen asleep quite a few times in that position, awaking cramped and disorientated to find the wine spilt and my half-formed dreams lingering.

I had actually read the outline of the teleportation device in the letter from Trans-Port but theory and action are two different things. Carver had been right to make the point that I’d been lucky to witness it but how on earth could I be of any practical use to him?

He’d framed that exact question when we returned to his office after the demo.

“I expect you’ve been wondering how you’d fit into our operation here Peter. I presume James has gone over some of the details already?”

I’d shifted uncomfortably. “Not really. I’m no scientist, Professor.”

Carver had abruptly laughed as if I’d made a joke. “Of course you’re not, we know who you are. We don’t need any more scientists. We want you for something else, a witness.”

“A witness to what?” I hadn’t liked the sound of that.

“Well okay then not witness, observer. We’d like you on board with us anyway; I mean we’d like the successful applicant whoever they may be. Could well be you though; we like what we’ve seen so far.”

‘Who likes what who’s seen?’ I’d wondered. Carver hadn’t, as far I could see, conferred with any other member of his team whilst I was in their presence. I decided to ask James in the Druid that evening what the deal was. I should have pumped him for far more information but I’ve always trusted his advice in the past. James had been a rock for me to cling to at university and I honestly don’t know where I’d have been without his friendship.

I took a shower in the cramped en-suite bathroom then laid out a change of clothes on the bed. I lay down and stared through the window at the Keep’s ruins shimmering in the late afternoon sun. I’d had to take a day’s leave from my library duties for the interview and Friday was always a busy day for stock checking. What could I have done with that precious time instead?

A boat trip along River-way would have been nice, or a stiff hike along the top of Espalda de Cerdo, or Hog’s Back, hill then down into Farnham Village. I’d read about an art gallery there with an amazing collection of mini portraiture. Or I could have sunk an ice-cold lager in one of the pubs along the River-way and idly observed the riverboats and barges of the ancient cinque-port pick their way through its narrow locks on their slow journey down to the sea. I could have done any of those things, yet apart from the River-way I somehow never did. It was strange when I thought about it. This Sunday I decided to definitely go somewhere different. Overcome with sudden lethargy after my busy morning I closed the window blinds and lay down in a warm cocoon of semi-darkness.

I was around ten years old, standing on some steep hillside steps in sandals, shorts and T-shirt. A woman stood a few steps above me with her back turned, staring up at a massive building. It was early evening. The building had high brick walls and long dark windows embedded with jagged images. In its centre a large square tower rose into gloom. There was something shining on top of it. My younger self strained his eyes and saw the figure of an angel pointing at something. He/I turned to see and found the town of Capistrano laid out at our feet with its lights fighting their way through the dusk. The mystery woman moved a small black box up to her eye and backed a few steps down towards me so we were almost level. She pushed something and there was a brief flash of light then she waited patiently until a square of white plastic slid out of a slot in the box’s side. She turned it over, waved it in the air and studied it. Then she turned to face me. Her features were hard to make out in the gloom although she was younger than I’d thought her. I felt a bit scared of her.

“Hi honey.” She pointed the box at me and pushed a little red button on top of it. There was another flash. Again she waited, smiling encouragingly at me, then stepped down a little more to show me the new picture. I saw the descending steps leading to gates below and a blur of the town beyond them, to the right of which I could see the dark hump of the downs. But where I should be, staring up at her. there was nothing. Just an empty space. I’d vanished in the picture but was still there, could still see her and hear her voice.

She said, “You don’t belong here, Peter. One day you’ll understand. One day we’ll meet again.” Her accent was American.

I awoke and blinked, momentarily unsure of my surroundings. I stared around the room then placed my flat and the sound of the gently fluttering blind. It had been a dream of course; oblique yet unsettling. Obviously I didn’t know who the woman was; perhaps it was some vague reference to Amelia, maybe some deep psychological insight into our failed ‘relationship’. Hopefully not though as I’d been ten years old in the mini drama. Unlike the kaleidoscopic nature of most dreams this one had been short and detailed, like recaptured memory. The swimming pool thing had been similar.

It was now twilight. I went to the window. A faint moon-glow stole across the lawns of the Keep. My eyes picked out an old man sat hunched on one of its benches. It was rather late for the grounds to still be open. He sat half hidden amongst the rose bushes. All at once I realised he was staring directly up at me although I couldn’t have been visible in the gloom. He wore an old coat, old as in style rather than condition, and had silvery locks glinting off his balding head. His hands rested in his lap.

The phone rang and I turned to pick up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Pete my boy!” It was Mike’s familiar voice. “You sound a bit knackered mate, tough interview? You said you’d give Joanne and me a ring straight afterwards.”

“Hi Mike, I meant to, but...” A huge yawn overtook me. “God, I’m more tired than I realised, didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Worried about today?”

“No, the swimming pool thing again.” I felt slightly pathetic for admitting it.

“Not that old rubbish, I thought we’d kicked all that years ago. You don’t even like the water.”

He seemed dismissive but that dream still gave him me chills. I was a little older than the other one and trapped at the bottom of a pool, struggling against phantom hands trying to hold me down. Worse, I sensed something else in there with me, a monstrous scaly creature. Then a brilliant light rippled above my head and with a last desperate lunge I pushed the hands away and struggled upwards. As my head broke the surface noise erupted in my ears and Mike’s strong hairy arms gripped me to him. Then I was lying on the pool’s cold tiles shaking and spewing up the chlorinated water. It was scary and disgusting. Perhaps I should get some treatment?

 “Anyway,” Mike shook me from my thoughts; “Joanne says come round for dinner tomorrow night at seven and we can toast your success. Just try not to fall off your scooter on the way home.”

I hesitated. Saturday night was usually concert night, the Capistrano Symphony Orchestra were doing a Mahler programme at the Civic Hall, but I didn’t want to sound unappreciative if Joanne had already gone to a lot of trouble. I’d always liked Joanne. I even liked Mike sometimes despite his clumsy attempts at one-upmanship and strained man-to-man humour. He’d always called me ‘Pete’ rather than Peter, as if it were our private joke. I didn’t get it but let him do so anyway. They’d never attempted to replace my real parents and I was grateful for that small mercy.

He noticed my hesitation. “Pete... how does that sound?”

“No problem Mike, I’ll bring a bottle.”

“Good man!”

I glanced at the time. “Got to go, I’m meeting James in the Druid.”

“Have one for me kid, see you tomorrow night.”

I replaced the phone and went back to the window. The old man’s seat was empty.

The Druid had claims on being the oldest pub in Capistrano, some feat as the town went back to the middle ages. Apparently Alfred the Great had even referred to the hamlet in his will. I’d read all the other historical trivia on the framed prints hung around the walls, most of which concerned the Spanish forces invasion and its aftermath. One of the latter showed a rather fey-looking blonde-haired girl in an Edwardian pinafore dress. The blue eyes stared straight out of the coloured etching as if taking in the whole bar and anyone looking back at them. I found the naïve yet somehow suggestive expression quite creepy.

I took my pint to my usual table in the corner. The pub’s pit prop style wooden beams made it seem a little like being inside a mine. A huge central stone fireplace hosted a roaring blaze during winter. I liked the intimacy of the candles on the tables, dancing their occupant’s shadows around the mottled walls in the same way they’d done for centuries. It was within stumbling distance of the flat and I could even get a pizza on my way home. At least it made life tolerable whilst keeping the inherent loneliness at bay. Maybe that was a little too insightful for a Friday night.

I took a deep gulp of my beer. Despite the day’s odd distractions nothing I ever did was going to be life changing and perhaps that was for the best. My thoughts had inevitably slipped back to Amelia when James appeared, scraping a chair along the stone floor as he clunked an empty glass down in front of me.

“Sorry Peter didn’t see you there. Get ‘em in plus a couple of dry roast while you’re up there and don’t whine about it always being your round. By the way, congrats.” He winked.

“What?”

“Got the job you lucky sod. I’m not meant to tell you that yet. No need for thanks although I am getting a trifle thirsty.”

“Hang on a sec, how do you know I got it?” Surprise made my voice go up an octave. “I only finished with what’s-his-name...”

“…Professor Carver, world-renowned scientific genius…”

“…this morning. They said it could be weeks before I’d know.” Although they hadn’t actually said that precisely. In fact I wasn’t really sure about anything told to me at Trans-Port and had begun to question the inherent wrongness of the whole procedure. There had been no timescale mentioned, no Q and A, no actual ‘procedure’ at all. I gathered my wits. “How do you know so much about this? I mean I’m grateful of course.” I was sounding extremely un-grateful but perplexity carried me on. “I don’t understand...”

“I’ve told you already.” James cut me off with, I thought, a harsh tone. I continued to stare at him dumbly. He sighed, as if having to explain something simple to a particularly thick child. “Carver came to the University to give some geeky science lecture a few weeks ago. I was introduced to him, I’m student liaison on the board as you know, and we got chatting. He told me they needed someone quickly to compile results, write reports and other such guff but didn’t want to go through the rigmoral of interviews, especially with all the secrecy around the place. I told him you were his man: dependable, hard working (I lied about that bit) and an extremely good security risk, i.e. you’ve got no mates to spill anything to, apart from me. You went, you saw, you conquered. I’m telling you now only as far as you’re concerned I’m not. Now get the beers.”

“Right.” I nodded meekly. “Glad to have got all that cleared up. Same again?”

Halfway to the bar I realised Amelia was standing there. She saw me before I could take evasive action. This was going to be awkward, what the hell was she doing in here? We’d actually split up (read she’d dumped me) after that last time in the Druid. Then there had been that pathetic scene of her penis-shrivelling attempt at charity sex. The mental scar had just about grown a flimsy scab and now here we were again. Of all the pubs in Capistrano she had to walk into mine.

“Hello Peter, how’s things?”

“Hi Amelia, things are great thanks, how’s it going with you?” I managed to get in the first return in without stumbling.

“Fine; well not fine really. I miss you.”

“Oh, well...” I hadn’t expected that. Perhaps she was pissed; I wished I was right then.

“Sorry,” she continued, somewhat unsteadily, “know this is your local; obviously know that ‘cause you used to take me here. Just felt like seeing you again. No big deal rilly...” She was pissed. Amelia took a few faltering steps towards me, inadvertently brushing against a girl on a barstool and spilling wine onto the sleeve of her dress and her own blouse. The girl turned and scowled.

“Oh, sooo sorry, let me buy you ‘nother.” Amelia slurred at her. The girl rolled her eyes and turned away to talk to her two male friends, both of whom managed surreptitious glances down the now semi-transparent blouse.

“Amelia, are you okay? Do you want to sit down for a minute; I’m with James over there.” I pointed to a perplexed-looking James.

“James? Is he here with you?” Her voiced sharpened. “It’s alright Peter, I think maybe I should be going home. I’ve had a few too many... as you can probably tell.” She appeared to be caught in two minds, both fuzzy.

“Come and join us, please. It’ll be like old times.”

“No! I mean, I’m sorry Peter, but I shouldn’t have come here tonight. I don’t know what I was thinking. Sorry... lovely to see you again... oh sod it!” She took a last glance at James who avoided her eyes. Something in her expression changed and she turned and half-ran up the stairs towards the roof garden.

“Amelia?” I looked over at James and saw him screw up his eyes in a WTF expression. “That was Amelia... I’m just going to... back in a minute.”

I pushed past an excitable young crowd who’d decided to descend the same stairs Amelia had just gone up. When I finally got to the roof garden terrace it seemed empty. Then as my eyes adjusted I saw a silhouette at its end, framed against the powerful spot-lamp thrown up the wall of the Keep directly behind her.

“Amelia, is that you?”

“How the hell do I get down from here?” Her voice trembled.

“There’s some stairs over here, remember? Look hang on, I’ll show you.” I walked gingerly over to her between the tables as if approaching a startled deer. “It’s okay.”

She reached out hesitantly then was clinging to me. “I didn’t want to do it, they made me.” The words were muffled into my chest. “You’ve got to know that, got to believe it.” She looked up, tears glistening on her cheeks like the tiny pinpoints of light caught in the Projection beam.

“Who made you do what? What are you saying?”

She seemed to catch herself and let me go. She raised her head, wiped her cheek and gave a fractured smile. “It’s nothing, I’m just a bit pissed and talking gibberish. I’m sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice evening.” She walked past, steady on her feet as if quickly sober and I let her go, unable to think of a reply. At the end of the terrace she paused. “Be careful Peter.” Then she turned and ran quickly down the steps into the street below.