The slots in the turfy ground which had been pa.s.sed off by the Authorities as stretched-mouth golf-holes gave some substance to the theory that history is bunk. But also gave substance to the possibility that under-flights took place from this erstwhile airport. At least, for me, they did.

I often saw with my own eyes grey shapes skimming above my head, leaving for the other side of the city. But I also saw similar shapes entering the ground as if taking advantage of inverse vents.

Those days are now long over. I'm not sure even if I exist any more, let alone the two of us that were once the 'me' I can now only vaguely recall, if at all.

The Drill's corporate lounge windows-like the other windows where Beth, Edith and Clare had been left to have their mud baths and generally to while away the journey in feminine yellow-wallpapered cabins-revealed at first only just the same boring panoplies of pa.s.sing slabs of earth, glistening with the suppurations of oil from the Drill's gills. However, eventually, at the leading-edge of the Drill, where the lounge windows were situated, the vista became clearer as if the vanes were now managing better in clearing the forward (downward) thrust's waste further back towards the tail-fins.

There is no description that can do justice to what wonderful, awe-inspiring and sometimes scary sights they saw-but the inference is that the words of the Captain conjured more than he actually said.

Captain Nemo: Now what do you think of that?

Greg: Wow!

CN: Follow my finger-there are some of the things that exist down here. They are not what they seem-they are modelled on aircraft you've seen before, but these are their equivalents, better to call them earthcraft. They are crewed by some who've never been to the surface.

G: It's just like a real sky. There's even a sun.

CN: That's the Core itself, of course. You must have guessed that. But there's no real heat coming from it-as some have believed for centuries. That's simply its colour you can see, not a symptom of a heat source. Scatter-orange I call it. And that, my friend, is the brightest scatter-orange you are ever likely to see. That's why I made you wear those gla.s.ses. They've got a tint that makes the scatter-orange just about bearable. Makes it look more yellow or even beige, than orange doesn't it?

G: Well, it looks just like the real sun when you use smoked gla.s.s to look at an eclipse coming up.

CN: Yup yup. The gla.s.ses also protect you from its jagged iciness, although that iciness is in fact an optical illusion, but one can't be too careful.

G: The earthcraft seem to be wheeling around each other-oh, look, I'm sure they're using the blazing Corelight as a means of cover... sort of hiding from each other...

CN: Yup yup. Not exactly friendly with each other, it has to be said. They sometimes fight or feint a fight more like and we have to be careful ourselves but up to now they've left us alone on each trip. But that won't last forever, I fear.

G: It's all gone again. Back to the slabs.

CN: That often happens when our vanes get clogged up with our off-detritus. We'll probably see more later. You haven't seen half of it yet! (Laughs.) Greg sipped at his c.o.c.ktail thoughtfully. This was turning out to be a wonderful holiday. But, like all holidays, it had its moments of stress, no doubt.

Dognahnyi gasped when he saw who was behind the veil.

Apparently, his new recruit had turned out to be none other than Amy herself, the woman who regularly cleaned his flat.

Dognahnyi: I thought you were with your brother on holiday... and those others from the pub you use.

Amy: How do you know Arthur is my brother? Everyone a.s.sumes that. I thought you were Beth's husband...

D: I am!

A: I've been pretending to be a domestic cleaner and Arthur's brother. I am really what you call a 'brainwright'. Heard of that? Anyway, one of the reasons was to get closer to you and clinch an interview. I've managed to shoot the rapids. I'm here .... and I'm there. (Laughs.) D: You can't be in two places at once.

A: Can't I?

D: Well, if anybody can, you can, I suppose. I was very impressed how you just conducted the interview with me. You must be someone very special. Beautiful, too, if I may say so. Never realised before-in your cleaning overalls-quite how beautiful!

A: Thank you. I bet, before tonight, you wouldn't have been able to describe me at all. You always seemed to ignore me. Now this context, this setting, only proves what I am capable of. I am sick to the teeth of that Sudra taking the s.e.xy role in all this. I am going to show how a real female ticks. Just let me show you what I can do. We'll have all Angel Wine going through your processors and no other processors. Just trust me.

D: You don't like Sudra?

A: (Chuckles.) I've got her favourite shoes. She's not missed them yet.

D: Well, enough of that. I do trust you. But how do we deal with the Megazanthus?

A: Well, when I arrive at the Core, along with Mike & Co.... oh yes, he thinks he's going to be the hawler (laughs)-they'll all be like putty in my hands. It's easier now that the genealogical strictures are in place. It was all rather gimmicky when everyone wanted to trace their family trees. But it put a lot of spanners in the works, when folk realised they weren't who they thought they were! Now that sort of thing's gone out the window, it leaves so many loopholes for someone like me to exploit. And what's that? The Megazanthus? It is only an a.s.sumption that there is any Corekeeper at all, even if that is its name. Let's address problems as they arise. Amy will be able to deal with them. Rest a.s.sured.

D: I'm impressed.

Dognahnyi opened the curtains upon their silent runners and watched the gulls flopping from the sky like body snow.

It is difficult to imagine the world being better or worse than it actually is. However, without humanity to stain its pages, who knows what will then become imaginable or even real? There is a theory-to which I subscribe-that humanity "strobes" in and out of existence, selective collective-memory then forcing the 'alight' stage to forget the previous 'switched-off' one... time and time again. Ma.s.s consciousness flickering in and out of existence like a faulty lighthouse... or, indeed, a fully working lighthouse.

The Drill's corporate lounge is empty and silent, except for the odd eerie shaking of the wall maps as its relentless path-through the ribbons of reality that is Inner Earth-continues towards the Core. There is now n.o.body, even Nemo, to watch the vista through the windows, as the vanes once more struggle to clear the Drill's off-detritus to the rear from the leading-edge. There is what seems to be an old-style caravan stuck on a crag-above a deceptively real sea-and (in the Core's scatter-orange light), a sign can just be discerned saying 'The Angerfin Public House' planted clumsily on its roof-but then it is gone. Must be a crazy dream. But whose?

The jolt has finally finished, if one can actually imagine a jolt (by definition) that endures for more than just a few seconds. The rearward cabin is empty-as can be seen when the light slowly wells back into it. The window still simply shows the pa.s.sing crazy-paved slabs of earth. So, at least, that vista was not just the inhabitant's imagination. A tortoisesh.e.l.l hairbrush falls to the carpet, having sat as an object ill-becalmed for a while on the edge of the dressing-table following the initial jolt. Then silence again. And a mirror merely reflecting yellow wallpaper.

The city pub was empty. Merely that. The optics of the shorts gleamed as time threatened to begin another diurnal round with unforgiving dawnlight. The city started to thrum, but thrummed with what? It may never be known. A barstool clattered to the pub carpet (clattered, despite the carpet) and remained there, unlifted and artistically sacrosanct like a Turner prize. What caused it to topple was a short sharp jolt that n.o.body felt.

The top flat still retained its open curtain policy on silent runners. The empty Dry Dock could be seen, even in the dark. A tall tower-block in the distance winked like a gigantically based but underwhelming lighthouse light. A computer screen in the room blinked blankly in curious yellow. An empty veil fluttered on the carpet like a b.u.t.terfly.

The covered market was at rest, no commuters changing for even the wrong routes, let alone the right ones. A route exchange, a root filling... and the container lorries neatly parked alongside-perhaps forever, until they dropped an inch or two upon tired wheels.

In the service tunnel-where the hawler and his party (now unknown, unnamed, forgotten or even nemonymous people) had been training for further encroachment towards the Core itself-there was still the rattle of buckets as if in automatic fire-drill climbing towards the surface on pulleys. There were a few discarded carpet coats and yellow clogs. One pair of clogs had spurs and silver toecaps, the spurs still slightly jingle-jangling as if someone had just taken them off in a pique of feminine tantrum.

The city zoo echoed with snorting squawks. After all, it was only humanity gone missing for the nonce. And a few (very few) residual clockwork toys in the insect enclosure were still pitifully trying to bury themselves.

"Dreams leak, books leak..."

Rachel Mildeyes.

(from MY CULINARY AFFAIR WITH BIRDS WHITE SAUCE).

NEMONYMOUS NIGHT.

Perhaps the carpet was not quite so ordinary, after all.

I shall remain nameless, as is fitting. And at that time, n.o.body, not even me, was around to act as an expert on carpets, so, now in hindsight, all that could be said about it was some reference to ordinariness. Yet, had we all known, we would have indeed known that the stains were signs of some incipient endgame. They were stains worthy of the word stains, not just years of wine and grime or mishandled vacuuming or the once careless knees of Amy and her brother's friends as they scorched their shameful toys through the rough of tufts. And the less said about the odd tread of strangers, the better.

One could hardly tell that the carpet had once been yellow. Only Amy knew that.

The carpet's companion accoutrements were rather down-market sticks of furniture in spite of the dusting and polishing by Amy who rather enjoyed the varnished gleam of knotted wood more than the clean lines of a carpet's cleanliness. She needed dusting herself, even at her moderately young age.

"How are you today?" I ask.

Amy (who spent her childhood in this room) follows me about, as far as she can follow anyone in such a small room. Not surprisingly, she appears as if owned or, rather, controlled by the room while-with rather more panache than the situation demands-she keeps adjusting ornaments... also brushing dust into a pan.

"Not so bad," she answers.

"News on the radio is bad again."

"You mean about the...?"

"Yes. We're not allowed to eat anything that comes from eggs. Not even..."

"I know, I heard it from Beth this morning."

Amy has a pretty face, but when she speaks-even lightly, thoughtlessly-there's a frown that appears and a deep divot within the frown's area. Hair a fashionable matted brown, so very 'her' it's only noticeable if it suddenly isn't there. Ap.r.o.n fails to hide her s.e.xuality and high-heels seem out of kilter with the dustpan.

"Best not to think of it," I say. "How's...?"

"Dognahnyi?"

"No, not him. I mean the girl... you... you know... you kick about with. You've been very happy I know with... what's her name?"

I am delicately pretending to forget her name.

"You mean Sudra? No, that's gone a bit sour. We had an argument... something very trivial... but she was so petty... I couldn't handle it any more."

"Sorry to hear that, Amy. What was it about?"

"Oh, something or nothing. A pair of shoes. See! You're laughing!"

"Life turns on trivialities," I say, knowing already about Sudra's side of the story.

I am a comfortable pair of ears, I guess, although some may have different words and put capital letters where only small ones belong, laced with swearing! What's the word? Counsellor, hmmm, Interferer, Meddler... someone who drags things from your soul to let it breathe more easily. I haul on your guy-ropes and see your tent rise again. I have some silly concepts about it but I'm sure my radio phone-ins do achieve quite a lot of good.

I've come a long way since my ancestors worked in the coal-mines. I've just discovered that one of them was a 'hawler'. In the old days, he would have been involved in moving coal from the coalface, coal that had already been worked by others. I think the 'w' is a misprint in the 1901 census records I got off the Internet. Anyway, hawling is an art form in itself and one fraught with many logistical problems. Today, however, there are no coal-mines and therefore haulers have died out. Now, with the plagues, I reckon that butchering of meat may be within a hawler's brief. Just a whimsical thought on my part. But I try to keep my mind busy, as there is so much to worry about otherwise. Perhaps, in fact, thinking about it, a brief for meat and poultry, especially as-G.o.d forbid!-the two seem to be blending in a very disturbing fashion. Cutting prime complex cuts from now badly understood novelties of meat that combine all sorts of animal and bird in one. But I hope it's not what I fear. I love pure beefsteak so much-isn't there a saying, almost a proverb, that everyone once knew but I never understood-that I, and others like me, are "so voracious we eat beef till it's raw"?

A far cry from radio counselling! Then, I need to be precise and careful. No brainstorming allowed. I still have to think quickly on the hoof, however.

Today, I intend to visit John Ogdon in his pub but I doubt if anyone I know will be there and I hate drinking alone. John will be too busy to talk to me. The park is second best: a good place for thinking. Susan's on my mind and Susan may indeed be in the park with her grown-up daughter Sudra. I still can't believe in the coincidence that Amy has been close, if not intimate, friends with Sudra. I only knew Amy because, well, I was a sort of Uncle figure to her in the old days. Still am, I guess. I originally knew her mum before she gave birth to Amy. But that's a long story. I met Susan (Sudra's mum) quite independently, and Sudra already knew Amy quite well even at that stage. A sort of secret between me and Sudra that we both separately knew Amy.

I have usually steered clear of married women, but life's never simple. I didn't admit to myself then that I really fancied Sudra (more than fancying her mother probably), but that's taking us into an even longer story. I thought both of them were a case for a hawler... and I even began to use that terminology on my local radio counselling programme. It even caught on as a name for a sort of modern-day shrink. It was worth a few shillings too in the bank account. Still is.

Much is inexplicable, yet it will become explicable when put into practice and seen for what it is. I suspect that there is more to Sudra than meets the eye. She often tells me about her dreams and they are CRAZEE!

I now gingerly walk across the park ground. I wonder what stage of the housework Amy will by now have reached in her top flat. Amy is always doing housework, these days, as if it takes her mind off other things. Ewbanking the 'yellow' carpet is only attempted by Amy once in a while. I glimpse Susan and Sudra. Neither of them are particularly friendly to anyone, but I guess they have a soft spot for me. Fame opens doors, in many way.

I am a hawler, after all, and most people instinctively treat hawlers with respect even if I haven't any real qualifications for this line of business. I feel tears p.r.i.c.k out at the thought of Amy. I wish I had been kinder to her when she was a girl. Her Mum Edith always turned a blind eye.

I imagine a plate of sizzling beef. My stomach tells me something that words can never explain. An empty nagging pain. I look up into the sky. Not even a flying pig! But, no, I am wrong. There is a flying pig, of sorts, that day. And a hot air balloon with people on board who surely have an enduring love for flying, even with any mechanical aircraft whatsoever now grounded (perhaps meaninglessly grounded-and do keep listening to the news on the radio and all may be explained). As ever these days, there are a few outlandish kites (including the flying pig) that citizens have taken to flying from the ground in some subconscious grief, no doubt, at the disappearance of anything else in the sky. But, first, I need to pluck up enough courage to approach Susan and Sudra, leaving any residual thought of Amy to the vacuum.

Amy talked to herself. She imagined knives and saws and axes, with blood along the tips of their edges. But that was part of herself she had ignored or not even known so as to be able to ignore it. The talking revealed more. She expected a role that she hadn't yet been given. The as yet missing part of herself meanwhile visualised me carving joints of unrecognisable meat. The ribbing thicker than most poultry but with a vague appearance of a fish's backbone, whilst with the floppy feel of sirloin as it slid too easily off the T-spine.

"What to do," she asked or stated. The vacuum churned noisily, cutting out such thoughts before they hit the fuse with a deafening spark of the earth wire failing. Her missing part viewed a vista of a dull pinky yellow sun smoked over with clouds of birdlife as seen from a distance. A craggy sea and a giant submarine with rotors just nosing into view from the creamy waves. A cruise liner was halfway up the steep side of a cliff, dry-berthed if not literally shipwrecked. This was a concoction of several dreams, if she had but realised or known she was effectively (at some unconscious level) sharing in a vast communal vision just below the threshold of knowledge or even belief.

Her actual conscious self meanwhile brooded on the real past. I had not quite come into her life as yet. She was still living as a child at home with her mother and brother. Her brother Arthur had always been a bit of a loner, non-expressive and wild. He concocted experiments with household goods, mixing them into a chemical syrup by means of adding garden mud to substances like washing-powder, disinfectant, flyspray. Symbolic, in hindsight, of mixing dreams, too, just like those to which we have all needed to grow accustomed in recent years because of the world's difficulties. Fixing dreams, too.

These misalchemies were alive-at least in her brother's eyes-and Amy laughed as she remembered their mother's remonstrations of despair while she tried to talk sense into her son but merely ended up communicating with the "cowpats" of mixture he had left in his wake. At least he did the experiments outside. And indoor fireworks only came out of Christmas Crackers in those days, so they were not an all-year problem: those sizzling wormcasts on the seasonal carpet. That was a G.o.dsend. One day, they'd invent daylight fireworks for the outside! She laughed to herself. Why had n.o.body thought of daylight fireworks before, so potentially au fait with the way the world was now going, with street riots meaning there was always a strict curfew during any dark hours.

Amy was scared to recall the past because, by dragging it onward through time, trawling it through the coa.r.s.e-grained muslin of memory's filter, she could too easily tug or tussle through into the present's more dangerous element of the past, undoing, in the process, everything I had since done up for her. Untying the nemonymous knot would release a b.o.o.by-trap-and she continued sc.r.a.ping the lower surface of the vacuum across the grit in the carpet that had collected there like any dust collects there... from wherever dust and grit and, indeed, stains come from-a mysterious source only hawlers are able to fathom.

Dreams came from below, not above. She shrugged, turning over the vacuum and emptying it of what it had collected. Her missing part now viewed a scene in a park, a park so cultivated its gra.s.s was more like a plush lawn for the toes of effete royalty or fairies. She saw it in her mind's eye, but failed to recognise the fey walkers that positively languished in its heady Proustian delights. A man she knew instinctively (yet still unconsciously) was named Swann walked past with a girl, her sleek fin de siecle dress b.u.t.tonholed with cattleyas.

In the past, Amy's mother, Edith, having finished with adjusting the oven, reached the apartment window again and eagerly scanned the inner square between the walls of the four blocks that formed it. There was a solitary fountain at its centre-and a few all-weather seats surrounding. Not much for children to do in the square but it was certainly better than the city streets amid which this square was a relatively safe oasis. She saw a huddled figure on one of the seats: a man writing. She grew suspicious.

Clare, a schoolteacher, had just announced her visit by the officious knock on the apartment door. She'd come up in the lift. No doubt there was some problem with Amy or Arthur. Or even both... at once.

"What can I do for you? Would you like a cup of tea?"