Tremor of Intent

'Ikota ikota.' Hillier kept his face averted from Roper as they entered the light.

'Ten minutes,' agreed the man, and went off.

'Now,' said Hillier in English. 'How do you feel now, Roper?' He looked full on him and was appalled by the ageing of the face. The tow hair was patchily grey; there was a twitch near the right eye. Roper looked up and stopped hiccuping. He said: 'Fu

'Strange you should remember that.'

'Oh, I've been remembering a lot of things lately.'

'Strange you should remember the names. I'd completely forgotten them. Where does that door lead to?' There was a door at the back of the hut. Hillier opened it and looked out. There was faint light now, the moon rising. He saw a high stone wall, full of cra

'I read the Bible a lot,' said Roper. 'The Douay Version. It's not so good as the Authorised. The bloody Protestants have always had the best of everything.' He closed his eyes. 'Oh God. It's the bloody mixture that does it. They've all got iron stomachs, this lot.'

'I've come to take you home, Roper.'

'Home? To Kalinin?' He opened his eyes. 'I see you're in the police now. Fu

'Don't be a fool, Roper. Wake up. You may have gone over to the Russians, but I haven't. Wake up, you bloody idiot. I'm still in the same game. I'm taking you back to England.'

Roper opened his eyes and began to shake. 'England. Filthy England. Kidnapping me, is that it? Taking me back to prison and making me stand trial and then hanging me. You're a traitor, whatever-your-name-is, I can't-remember-your-name, you're in the bloody conspiracy, it's been going on for four hundred years and more. Get out of my sight, I'll scream for help, you bastard.'

'Hillier. Remember? Denis Hillier. If you even attempt to scream I'll-Never mind. Look, Roper, there's no question of kidnapping. I've brought letters with me. Nobody's going to do anything to you. You're needed back in England, it's as simple as that. There's a quite fantastic offer here in my pocket. The trouble is, I haven't time for nice l5l cosy easy gentle persuasion. I've got to get you out of here now.'

Roper opened his mouth as to scream but then started retching and coughing. 'That bloody huh huh cigar of yours. I could smell it all over the huh huh huh house when I went home that day. And after huh huh that she left. Poor little huh huh huh girl.' He started to sweat. 'I think I want to be-' Hillier surveyed him without favour: a middle-aged man with an acquired Russian dumpiness, dressed in a dark blue shiny Russian suit, bagged and stained, its tailoring evoking an earlier age, a nonentity to whom was strapped a large mad talent. He pointed a gargoyling mouth to the concrete floor. Nothing came up, or down.

'Take deep breaths,' said Hillier gently. 'Nobody's going to make you do anything you don't want. Tell me what you've been doing all these years. Tell me what they've done to you.'

Roper breathed deep and rackingly, coughing up strings of spittle. 'I've been on fuel,' he said. 'Rockets. Cosmonauts. They've not done anything to me. They've left me alone.'

'No indoctrination?'

'Bloody nonsense. The scientific premises of Marxism are out of date. I told them that. They agreed.'

'Agreed, did they?'

'Of course they agreed. Self-evident. Look, I think I feel a bit better. Did that chap say something about coffee?'

'It's coming. But if you've seen through Marxism why the hell do you want to stay here? What's wrong with coming back to the West?'

'I spoke too soon. I feel awful again.'

'Oh, for Christ's sake snap out of it, man. Listen. They'll welcome you with brass bands when you get home. Can't you see, it'll be a marvellous bit of propaganda, apart from everything else. It's only a matter of getting over that wall. I've got a fake passport for you and a false beard-'

'A false beard? Oh, that's – that's-' He started to cough again.

'There's a British ship in the harbour. The _Polyolbion__. We'll be in Istanbul tomorrow. Come on, man. That wall looks easy.'

'Hillier,' said Roper soberly. 'Hillier, listen to me. I wouldn't go back to England not even if they paid me a hundred thousand pounds a year.' He paused as though he expected Hillier to say that it was roughly about that sum that was proposed in the letters he carried. Then he said: 'It's nothing to do with the government, believe me. It's to do with history.'

'Oh God, Roper, don't be so damned frivolous.'

'Frivolous you call it, frivolous? What's the name of that ship you've got out there?'

'The _Polyolbion__. But I don't see what that's-'

'It's the Perfidious _Polyolbion__ it ought to be called. There are some very good historians here, let me tell you, and they take history seriously, not like your lot back in Perfidious _Polyolbion__. They went into that business of my ancestor who was killed for his faith. They've told me never to forget, and by God they're right. That bloody flowery tepid country where bygones are always bygones. I can see him now, flesh of my flesh, screaming in agony as the flames licked him, and everybody laughing and joking. And I'm supposed to forget about that and say it was all a big mistake and no hard feelings and let's shake hands and go and have a pint of tepid creamy English bitter in the local.'

'But it's true, Roper. We've got to forget history. It's a burden we've got to shed. We can't get anything done if we carry all that dead weight on our backs.'

'Martyrs stand outside history,' said Roper. 'Edward Roper's clock stopped at two minutes to four. Fifteen fifty-eight. Martyrs are witnesses for the light, even though their lights are put out and their clocks stopped. That poor burned man may have been on the wrong track, but at least he had the right dream. The dream of a world society with man redeemed from sin. He saw Europe breaking up into little mean squabbling nations, and then usury creeping in and capitalism and wasteful wars. He had a vision of wide plains.'

'The Russian Steppes?'

'Laugh if you like. You always were one for laughing. You've never had a serious thought in your life. You've gone over lock stock and barrel to the bloody English.'

'I am bloody English. So are you.' Hillier started. 'What's that noise?'

'Rain, that's all, just rain. Not the piddling little rain of England and the measly little bit of English sun. It's not like that here. Here it's all big stuff.'

Big stuff. Rain beat on the roof like the fists of a people's revolution. 'This rain is perfect,' said Hillier. 'This is just the weather for a get-away.'

'That's right,' said Roper. 'Capitalist intrigues and ambushes and spyings and wars. Guns and get-away cars. Disguises. If I went back to the West they wouldn't use me for the conquest of space. Oh, no. Has England ever tried to put a man into space? Don't make me laugh,' he said grimly.

'We can't afford it,' shouted Hillier. The rain was near-deafening.

'No,' shouted Roper back. He was looking a lot better, as if all he'd needed was rain. 'But you can afford to be in bloody NATO and have spies and ICBMs and-Here.' He fumbled in an i