Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

cloth.
    Tm looking for Menial,’ I said, boldly enough; in the
silence my voice sounded as startling and thin as a
curlew’s in a field.
    ‘Aye, we know that,’ said a young man. ‘But
you’ll not find her here.’
    ‘And I know that,’ I retorted. ‘So where can
I find her?’
    He shrugged. Somebody tittered. Finally, and as though with
sympathy, an older man added, ‘That’s for her to say.
If she disna want you to find her, it’s no for us to help
you do it. If she does, you’ll find her soon
enough.’
    ‘So you do know where she is?’ I sounded, evento
myself, pathetically hopeful. The only response was more shrugs
and a giggle.
    ‘There’s someone else I want to see,’ I
said. ‘Fer-gal.’
    ‘Oh,’ said the older man, with a pretence at
puzzlement, ‘there are a lot of men by that name. You
wouldn’t happen to know his surname, would you?’
    You know damn well who I mean,’ I said. ‘Let him
know I want to see him.’
    Everyone took a step closer. The semi-circle became a
close-packed horseshoe of people who began to move so that the
open end was in the direction of the road. I had never thought of
the tinkers as intimidating to one of the settled folk -more
usually it’s the other way round – but I felt
intimidated at that moment, possibly because of their greater
numbers. I decided to give way with as good a grace as I could,
rather than make them make good on the implied – or perhaps
imagined -threat. So I kept my distance as they continued to move
forward.
    ‘Ah, you’d best be off,’ said the young
man.
    ‘I reckon so,’ I said. ‘Good night to you
all.’
    I turned on my heel and stalked off with as much dignity as I
could muster. A stone bounced on the paved road as I reached it,
but I didn’t look back, or quicken my pace. Inwardly I was
boiling with shame at having been, twice in one evening, faced
down by tinkers. I was determined, however, that no one among my
friends and acquaintances should know about this – not
because of the embarrassment to myself, but because they might
feel obliged to engage in some collective counter-intimidation of
their own.
    It was not a busy night on the square, and I didn’t feel
like meeting people and talking. In fact I feltlike doing some
solitary drinking. I bought a bottle of whisky in The Carronade,
for a mark, and ducked out without greeting anyone with more than
a wave.
     
    Back at my room I found an envelope pushed under the door. It
contained a telegram, which I unfolded and read in the ruddy
sunset light by the window.
    ‘CLOVIS C/O CATHERINE FARFARER MAIN ST CARRON STOP AM V
CONCERNED RE MISSING FILES REQUEST RETURN BY SEALED POST TOMORROW
TUESDAY OTHERWISE HANDS TIED RE POSS DISCIPLINARY ACTION ALSO
INVESTIGATION IMMINENT STOP YOURS AYE GANTRY.’
    On my walk along the shore I had concluded that I was a fool
to walk out on Menial, whatever the provocation; and now I felt
this even more bitterly. She had warned me at the beginning that
loving her would not always make me happy, and she had been right
about that. Learning that she could be a member of a secret
society made her refusal of confidence more understandable, even
as the basis of that society filled me with dismay. My historical
erudition had not disabused me of the vulgar view: that the
communists had, in their blundering, bloody way, done much to
fight the Possession, but that the final victory had not been
theirs, and we could thank Providence that there was not a
communist left on Earth. I could not bring myself to believe that
Menial really, in her heart, espoused that evil creed.
    Any more than the Deliverer had. Perhaps Mer-rial, and even
the other tinkers in the society, used its rituals and phrases
for their own purposes, just as the Deliverer had exploited it to
found her republic.
    On that happier thought I drank a dram or two and fell asleep
on the bed.
     
    The following morning Catherine Farfarer, the landlady, handed
me two telegrams. One was from the Disciplinary Sub-Committee of
the University Senate, suspending me from membership of the
University sine die, withdrawing all rights and privileges
other than representation at a University court, just before the
beginning of the academic year. The other was from Gantry,
expressing his sympathy and saying that he would APPL THIS OUTRGS
DECN.
    And it was outrageous – in effect I was being punished
before trial, because my