The End of All Songs

The lips curved now, perhaps a touch self-consciously, but the eyes continued to study the sand which she stirred with the sharp toe of her partly unbuttoned boot. "Wheldrake doesn't say. It's a rhetorical question…"

"A very sober poem, is it not?"

A sense of superiority mingled with her modesty, causing the lashes to rise and fall rapidly for a moment. "Most good poems are sober, Mr. Carnelian, if they are to convey — significance. It speaks of death, of course. Wheldrake wrote much of death — and died, himself, prematurely. My cousin gave me the Posthumous Poems for my twentieth birthday. Shortly afterwards, she was taken from us, also, by consumption."

"Is all good literature, then, about death?"

"Serious literature."

"Death is serious?"

"It is final, at any rate." But she shocked herself, judging this cynical, and recovered with: "Although really, it is only the begi

She turned to regard the sun, already higher and less splendid.

"You mean, at the End of Time? In our own little home?"

"Never mind." She faltered, speaking in a higher, less natural tone. "It is my punishment, I suppose, to be denied, in my final hours, the company of a fellow Christian." But there was some insincerity to all this. The food she had consumed during the past two days had mellowed her. She had almost welcomed the simpler terrors of starvation to the more complex dangers of giving herself up to this clown, this i

"I interrupted you." He leaned back against his rock. "Forgive me. It was so delicious, to wake to the sound of your voice. Won't you go on?"

She cleared her throat and faced the sea again.

What will you say to me, child of the moon,

When by the bright river we stand?

When forest leaves breathe harmonies to the night wind's croon.

Will you give me your hand, child of the moon?

Will you give me your hand?

But her performance lacked the appropriate resonance, certainly to her own ears, and she delivered the next verse with even less conviction.

Will you present your pyre to me, spawn of the sun,

While the sky is in full flame?

While the day's heat the brain deceives, and the drugged bees hum.

Will you grant me your name, spawn of the sun?

Will you grant me your name?

Jherek blinked. "You have lost me entirely, I fear…" The sun was fully risen, the scene fled, though pale gold light touched sky and sea still, and the day was calm and sultry. "Oh, what things I could create with such inspiration, if only my power rings were active. Vision upon vision, and all for you, Amelia!"

"Have you no literature, at the End of Time?" she asked. "Are your arts only visual?"

"We converse," he said. "You have heard us."

"Conversation has been called an art, yet…"

"We do not write it down," he said, "if that is what you mean. Why should we? Similar conversations often arise — similar observations are made afresh. Does one discover more through the act of making the marks I have seen you make? If so, perhaps I should…"

"It will pass the time," she said, "if I teach you to write and read."

"Certainly," he agreed.

She knew the questions he had asked had been i

He was content not to judge her mood to but to share it. He laughed with her, springing up. He advanced. She awaited him. He stopped, when a few steps separated them. He was serious now, and smiling.

She fingered her neck. "There is more to literature than conversation, however. There are stories."

"We make our own lives into stories, at the End of Time. We have the means. Would you not do the same, if you could?"

"Society demands that we do not."

"Why so?"

"Perhaps because the stories would conflict, one with the other. There are so many of us — there."

"Here," he said, "there are but two."

"Our tenancy in this — this Eden — is tentative. Who knows when…?"

"Logically, if we are torn away, then we shall be borne to the End of Time, not to 1896. And what is there, waiting, but Eden, too?"

"No, I should not call it that."

They stared, now, eye to eye. The sea whispered. It was louder than their words.

He could not move, though he sought to go forward. Her stance held him off; it was the set of her chin, the slight lift of one shoulder.

"We could be alone, if we wished it."

"There should be no choice, in Eden."

"Then, here, at least…" His look was charged, it demanded; it implored.

"And take sin with us, out of Eden?"

"No sin, if by that you mean that which give your fellows pain. What of me?"

"We suffer. Both." The sea seemed very loud, the voice faint as a wind through ferns. "Love is cruel."

"No!" His shout broke the silence. He laughed. "That is nonsense! Fear is cruel! Fear alone!"

"Oh, I have so much of that!" She called out, lifting her face to the sky, and she began to laugh, even as he seized her, taking her hands in his, bending to kiss that cheek.

Tears striped her; she wiped them clear with her sleeve, and the kiss was forestalled. Instead she began to hum a tune, and she placed a hand on his shoulder, leaving her other hand in his. She dipped and led him in a step or two. "Perhaps my fate is sealed," she said. She smiled at him, a conspiracy of love and pain and some self-pity. "Oh, come, Mr. Carnelian, I shall teach you to dance. If this is Eden, let us enjoy it while we may!"

Brightening considerably, Jherek allowed her to lead him in the steps.

Soon he was laughing, a child in love and, for the moment, not the mature individual, the man whose command could conquer.

Disaster (if it was disaster) delayed, they pranced, beside the Palaeozoic seaside, an improvised polka.

But it was only delayed. Both were expectant, fulfilment, consummation, hovered. And Jherek sang a wordless song; within moments she would be his bride, his pride, his celebration.

The song was soon to die on his lips. They rounded a clump of flimsy vegetation, a pavement of yellow rock, and came to a sudden and astounded stop. Both glared, both felt vitality flow from them to be replaced by taut rage. Mrs. Underwood, sighing, withdrew into the stiff velvet of her dress.

"We are fated," she murmured. "We are !"

They continued to glare at the unwitting back of the one who had frustrated their idyll. He remained unaware of their wrath, their presence.

The shirtsleeves and trousers rolled up to elbow and knee respectively, the bowler hat fixed firmly on the heavy head, the briar pipe between the lips, the newcomer was paddling contentedly in the amniotic ocean.

As they watched, he took a large white handkerchief from the pocket of his dark, serge trousers (waistcoat and jacket, shoes and socks, lay neat and incongruous on the beach behind), shook it out, tied a small knot at each corner, removed his hat and spread the handkerchief over his cropped and balding scalp. This accomplished, he began to hum — "Pom te pom, pom pom pom, te pom pom" — wading a little further through the shallow water, pausing to raise a red and goose-pimpled foot and to brush at two or three wheat-coloured trilobites which had begun to climb his leg.

"Fu

Mrs. Underwood was pale. "How is it possible?" A vicious whisper. "He has pursued us through Time!" With one hand, she unclenched the other. "My respect for Scotland Yard, I suppose, increases…"