A Captain Scarlet story for
Halloween
By Marion Woods.
Halloween had always been the worst time of year for Paul Metcalfe
– at least, it had ever since that fateful day in 2068, when the Mysterons had
murdered him and retrometabolised him as their slave.
Through a
combination of events and – he had concluded over the years – sheer good
fortune, he had broken free of their control and had subsequently devoted his
new life to defeating them. Fighting
side-by-side with his fellow Spectrum officers, he had used the Mysterons’
cursed gift of retrometabolism to risk his life time and again, as much in an
effort to shield his companions as to defend his world from the aliens’
malevolence. He had not always been
able to save them – many brave men and women had been lost – and the passing
years found him feeling more and more isolated from his colleagues in
Spectrum.
In addition to this, it seemed he had become a magnet for
whatever supernatural forces did exist, and on Halloween they seemed to target
him. The last couple of years had been
fairly quiet; nothing too outrageous had happened, but some sixth sense was
warning him that this year he might be in for a blinder, so he put in his usual
request for leave over Halloween, determined that whatever the supernatural had
to throw at him, he’d tackle it beyond the confines of Cloudbase, and attempt
to ensure no one but himself was put in any danger.
General Smalt granted his request with a sympathetic smile. She’d been in Spectrum long enough to have
absorbed the ‘mythology’ that had grown up around the Indestructible Captain
Scarlet, and she respected his infrequent demands for leave. Scarlet had been a little disconcerted when
a woman had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, but he had to admit
she was making a good job of it, and things had been less ‘uncertain’ around
the place for some time now. Of course,
after the cataclysmic events that had resulted in the death of World President
Boukari, ten years ago, the political pendulum had swung back in their favour
again, and no–one was threatening to cut Spectrum down to size… which helped.
So, on the morning of October 31st, Colonel Scarlet
threw a few things into his battered holdall and glanced around his
quarters. On one wall there was a
veritable gallery of photographs going back over the seventy-odd years of his
life. Photographs of the people he loved:
his wife, his parents, his kids, his best friend, and the Spectrum officers who
had played such a significant part in his life: his first commander, the
formidable Colonel White, the long-dead Captain Magenta, the irrepressibly
roguish Captain Ochre, and his good friend Seymour Griffiths, the previous
Commander-in-Chief, who was now retired and living in the Caribbean with his
second wife, the genial Audrey Geffen – formerly Captain Flaxen.
Scarlet smiled ruefully.
He’d probably been the last to know that Captain Flaxen and General
Green had been having ‘a thing’ for years, and it had come as a shock when
Seymour had asked him to be the best man at their wedding. It had been a great day – joyous and happy –
although it had turned out to be the
last outing for his venerable tuxedo as well; there had just been no way to get
that barbecue sauce stain out of the jacket .
He’d turned down the Griffiths’s offer to pay for a new one; you could
hardly ask the bride to pay for damages caused by you tripping over the
oversized train of her wedding dress onto a table of food, after all.
He smiled ‘farewell’ to the familiar faces, and wandered down to
the hangar deck, where the daily shuttles were getting ready to leave.
The second embodiment of the codename ‘Captain Magenta’ waved a
salute as he saw Colonel Scarlet approaching and loped over to meet him, with a
broad smile on his face. Richard Fraser
Topping was the image of his father, even to the extent of carrying his
advancing years with the same ease. He
had the same chestnut-coloured hair and bright brown eyes as the former Captain
Ochre - hair that was generally down to his collar and which flopped roguishly
across his brow. General Smalt wasn’t
as insistent on regulation haircuts as previous commanders had been, and
besides, Scarlet knew she had a soft spot for this engaging American, whom
she’d first met as a teenager, when he’d accidentally become involved in a
Spectrum mission in his home town of Chicago.
But she wasn’t the only one who’d watched his progress through
Spectrum’s recruitment and training programme with interest; Scarlet smiled
reflectively as he watched Magenta approach: there was definitely something
about these Fraser men that elicited affectionate tolerance from the women they
encountered, and invariably charmed.
Still, on the whole, Scarlet was glad they’d assigned Ricky
Topping the codename ‘Magenta’ when he’d been promoted from the terrestrial
base of Spectrum: Toronto, rather than his father’s old codename of Ochre – that
would have been far too close to déjà vu for comfort.
“Let me take that for you, Colonel,” Magenta said, reaching for
the holdall.
“I’m perfectly capable of carrying it myself, Ricky,” Scarlet
replied, but he relinquished the bag anyway.
As time went on the youngsters, as he thought of them, tended to accept
him for the age he appeared to be – and he was, physically, a younger man than
his companion – yet it was an almost instinctive reaction on his part, to
reject what appeared to be reverence for his actual age. So much so, that he sometimes had to remind
himself much of their deference was due to his rank, and nothing more.
“How’s the family?” he asked.
Magenta had just returned from a week’s leave, taking his wife and kids
to Disneyland.
“Fine, thanks. My Dad
sends his… well, he would have sent his love, but that’s not quite his style, I
guess.” He grinned. “So, he sent his ‘hello’ instead.”
Scarlet gave a chuckle.
“How is the old reprobate?”
“Still going strong.
Mind you, Mary-Sue keeps him under control now.”
“I’m glad to hear it.
Rick will do himself a mischief one of these days, if he doesn’t slow
down. Are those two ever going to get
married, do you think?”
Magenta shook his head.
“Dad says he never wanted to get married, so he’s not going to do it
now, when he’s in his dotage. He says,
this way Mary-Sue can leave whenever she wants to, and it won’t cost him a
dime. He claims to have a theory that
she’s waiting for him to marry her, just so she can leave and take half his
money….”
Scarlet laughed and shook his head. “Your father always was incorrigible. Why she puts up with him, I
can’t imagine – she always struck me as such a sensible woman.”
Magenta laughed. “I’m
just glad she does. It was getting
embarrassing when my father was dating women younger than me.”
Scarlet glanced at Ricky Topping, and saw the tell-tale gleam of
amusement in his eyes.
Just like his
father, he thought again, and aloud he retorted, “I’d say that
was pure jealousy on your part, Ricky, nothing more.”
Magenta laughed. “You are so
right, Colonel.”
“How’s Alicia?”
“Splendid, thanks. I
suppose you know she’s been offered a terrestrial post in Ottawa, so we might
be moving.”
Alicia Lyle had spent a few years on Cloudbase as an Angel
pilot, before she’d been sent on a mission to Toronto and met the Captain in
charge of the base. Captain Topping’s
promotion to Colour Captain had led to some clandestine romancing aboard
Cloudbase, and then the couple had married, Alicia only resigning her Cloudbase
posting when she became pregnant with their first child.
Scarlet couldn’t remember how many kids they had now… he tried
not to dwell on the passing generations too much.
The shuttle landed at London on time, for once, and he collected
his luggage, before hiring himself a car from an airport desk.
Scarlet reckoned that the traffic had got better over the years,
some roads now seemed empty most of the time.
He picked up the M4 and headed for the M3. He’d done the drive to his Winchester home innumerable times, and
even though after his wife died, he’d gifted the property to his son, he loved
the place and every mile that drew him back to it. When he finally turned into the drive and saw the ancient house,
with its familiar outline and warm-coloured stones, he felt his spirits
lift.
If I have any
home at all in this world, it is here, he thought
with a rush of affection for what he’d always called ‘the old heap of stones’.
Dianne had loved the place too, preferring it to either of the
houses her family owned, and their children had grown up with Longwood Abbey as
their home. Now Susannah was living in
the Simms’s London house with her financier husband, Alistair, and baby
daughter, Scarlett, whilst Adam and Freya were in Boston, with their
children.
He smiled at the thought of his ‘American’ grandchildren. Once Freya Saville Svenson had agreed to
marry Adam Metcalfe, they’d decided to set up home in Boston, where Adam was
happily, and very successfully, working in the SvenCorp finance company, which
belonged to Freya’s father’s family – and, indeed, it had been Adam Svenson
who’d got his British godson a job there in the first place.
Just before the wedding, Freya had resigned her commission in
Spectrum and, with her usual determination, set about becoming a ‘wife and
mother’. Two sets of twins later,
Scarlet rather hoped she’d give it a rest, although Adam was forever teasing
her about breeding their own football team.
Adam junior and Paul, the seven-year-old identical twins, had
recently started at the boarding school their Svenson grandfather had attended,
and were, apparently, showing great promise, while Robert and Dianne were
four-year-old tearaways, destined, if their affectionate father was to be
believed, to end up in gaol.
Scarlet adored all of his grandchildren and they adored
him. Both of his children were adamant
that they wanted him to be as much a part of their children’s lives as he chose
to be, but they all knew that the on-going problem of accounting for Paul
Metcalfe’s perennial youthfulness remained a stumbling block to a normal family
life. Over the past twelve months or so, Scarlet had increasingly sensed that
the time was fast approaching when he would either have to explain to the
children what had happened to him - his perceptive and inquisitive grandsons
were already beginning to question why he was not like other grandfathers - or
cut himself out of their lives completely.
Susannah had always treated the problem as she did everything
she didn’t like – by refusing to accept that it existed. The trauma of losing her mother and, at the
same time, being confronted with the reality of her father’s retrometabolism,
had caused her considerable psychological anguish. It had been several years before she’d felt comfortable in his
presence again, and she’d only managed that by suppressing the truth from
herself. Consequently, Scarlet saw far
less of his daughter than he’d have liked and when he did, he made a conscious
effort to age his appearance and play down his vigour. Her husband was unaware of the ‘Metcalfe
Secret’ and although breaking contact with Susannah would be hard, in a way
he’d already started distancing himself from her family. He knew in his heart of hearts that his
dearly beloved daughter would probably register his departure with unalloyed
relief.
It was different with his son’s family.
Adam Simms Metcalfe was now thirty-four, older than his father
had been at the time of his Mysteronisation.
Even-tempered and pragmatic, he had long since come to terms with the
fact that his father would out-live him; far more successfully than his father
had come to terms with the prospect of outliving his children, in fact. In this he was helped by the fact that his
wife knew all there was to know about what had happened to Paul Metcalfe,
almost a decade before either of them were born, because Freya Saville Svenson
was the daughter of Scarlet’s closest friend and Spectrum Field Partner – the
late Adam Svenson, codenamed Captain Blue – and had herself served on Cloudbase
for several years, as Lieutenant Teal.
Father and son had
always had a good relationship, even if Scarlet occasionally wondered just how
he – the scion of a long-established, successful military family - had managed
to father an accountant; but Ace, as he was known by the family, had never
wavered in his determination not to be in the Forces, and his father had
respected that decision, however much it had disappointed him.
On the other hand, Freya had demonstrated herself to be her father’s daughter in a variety of
ways: her experiences as a Spectrum
Agent had left her resilient and strong, she was intelligent and perceptive
and, above all, she provided an endless supply of emotional stability and
support for her extended family.
Right now,
Scarlet thought, I could do with some of
that.
As he garaged the car and walked towards the dark house, he
wished fervently that the kids were at home.
The house was cold, but that didn’t bother Scarlet, he was, by
and large, impervious to ambient temperatures.
He unpacked the groceries he’d bought at the out-of-town supermarket,
and wandered through the great hall, from the kitchen to the living room. While the family was abroad the place was
looked after by a small, dedicated staff from the village, who came in once or
twice a month to ensure everything was okay.
In the living room there
were dust sheets over the furniture and the coal bucket by the fireplace was
empty. He threw a couple of sheets off
and rolled them up into a heap. Then he
set about fetching firewood and coal from the well-stocked outhouses by the
garages, and set a fire in the large, open grate.
The years rolled back in his memory as he encouraged the feeble,
blue flame to catch on the kindling, and fed it with twigs and branches, until
it flared orange and red and hungrily caught at the sturdier branches and coal
nuggets he placed with exaggerated care on the hearth. He remembered his father teaching him how to
lay a fire, and winter evenings when his mother relented enough to let them toast
bread, or crumpets, at the grate, on the long, twisted-brass toasting forks she
kept in the kitchen pantry.
There’s
nothing to beat the taste of hot toast, or crumpets, dripping with butter and
eaten beside a roaring fire. Maybe
I’ll get some tomorrow as a treat… this could well be the last chance I have to
indulge myself.
Satisfied that he’d got the fire going, he ambled back to the
kitchen to shove a couple of pork chops into the oven, and got the microwave
ready for the cook-chill rice he selected from the supermarket. Over the years he had become adept at
providing himself with edible, hot food when he felt he needed it, but he would
never be ‘a cook’ – so it was just as well he didn’t need to eat that often. The only time he was ravenous was immediately
after his retrometabolism had kicked in to cure any injuries, or bring him back
from the dead. Then he’d eat anything
he could get his hands on – even Cloudbase canteen food, which had definitely
got worse over the decades.
Then, unable to settle to anything, he roamed through the house,
revisiting familiar rooms and the memories they held; of his caring, supportive
parents, his happy, conventional childhood, and largely untroubled
adolescence. There were long-forgotten
nooks and crannies where he’d curled up with a favourite book on stormy winter
days. He studied the well-remembered
views from the upper windows, out over the old stable-block and outhouses and
over the somnolent rose garden, where only one rose tree still bloomed in
defiance of the approaching winter.
That triggered poignant memories of last summer, when Freya had
brought the kids over for a few weeks and he’d spent time with the boys,
proudly showing them his home – their home
now– and getting to know and love the precocious pair, with their boyish
enthusiasms, boundless energy and vivid imaginations. There had been bitter-sweet shock when the sudden turn of their
heads brought to mind their Svenson ancestry, or their impish smiles resurrected
fleeting visions of their late grandmother.
For two glorious weeks he had thrown aside the burden of being Colonel
Scarlet, and indulged his inner child with adventures around the house and
gardens, picnics by the old mill race and long walks across the valley, while
his grandsons hung on to every word of his tales of their Metcalfe forebears.
By the end of the holiday, Freya was accusing him of being as
much a ringleader in the mischief, as the boys themselves. He cherished their rapport all the more
because when his own children had been growing up, he’d been a rare visitor to
the family home, worried that his presence might put the family at risk, and in
so doing he’d missed out on a great deal of their formative years.
Beyond the garden, he could see towards the small village that
nestled in the bowl of the gently-sloped valley: it was there that he’d played
village cricket on balmy summer days, or run his heart out in local football
derbies against the neighbouring villages.
Then there were the ill-lit, dusty attics, with their narrow
windows affording views across Longwood’s sweeping roofscape and elaborate
chimneys. There was the attic room where the extensive model railway was laid
out, and where generations of young Metcalfes had played; he with his father
and then with his son, and, most recently, with his son’s sons.
He walked through each room, touching the walls, breathing in
the familiar smells of polish and faint camphor, before leaving each one with a
quiet ‘farewell’.
He’d automatically taken his meagre luggage to the single
bedroom he’d used as a child, rather than the master bedroom he’d shared with
Dianne, but now he went in there and sat for some time, recalling the nights of
passion they’d shared, the tender nights of companionship, the nights of
sadness and the terrible nights of loneliness after she’d gone. Even though the room had been used by
generations of his family, and was now the preserve of his son and
daughter-in-law, for Scarlet the overpowering personality in the room remained
Dianne Simms – his beloved Rhapsody Angel, his lover, his wife - his soul’s
mate.
With a deepening sense of sadness he touched the solid oak
posters that supported the canopy over the bed, and swallowed the misery that welled
up into his throat, even as he blinked away the tears and turned from that room
too, with a mental valediction.
Back in his childhood room, he removed some of the twins’
forgotten teddy bears from the bed, made it up with clean sheets from the cupboard
and unpacked his personal belongings.
He was used to travelling light and living simply, so there wasn’t much
he needed.
From the distance he heard the beeping of the kitchen timer and
wandered back to shove the rice in the microwave and rescue his pork chops from
the oven. The meal was basic, but warm and filling, especially after he’d
chosen a decent bottle from the ill-lit and dusty family wine cellar and
consumed most of it.
Once he’d eaten, he went back to sit by the fire and called
Susannah on the video-phone. She was
happy to speak to him, although their long chat consisted largely of him
listening to her excited stories of just what baby Scarlett had been up to
lately.
Then, as the hours stole past, he called Boston.
“Hello?” Freya’s
beautiful face filled the video screen. “Oh,
Paul! How nice to hear from you!”
she exclaimed before he could speak.
“Hello, Flicka.” Without thinking, he used the old nickname her
father had given her. “How’s everyone?”
“We’re all fine. Ace is due back from the office at any
minute – he got delayed by some meeting or other.” She gave a poignant smile and lowered her
voice slightly, “I was thinking about
you, Paul; are you okay? I know how you
hate Halloween. I was going to call
Cloudbase once I’d packed the demon twins off to bed.”
“That’s nice
of you, Flicka, but I’m not there; I came to Winchester. I didn’t think you’d mind me using the
house.”
“Of course we don’t! It’s as much your home as ours – you know
that, Paul. Actually, I said to Ace
yesterday, we ought to spend Christmas there this year – before the boys forget
they are Englishmen… well, three-quarters Englishmen.” She laughed.
“How’re they liking their new school?”
“They hate it. Little Paul
says they’re making him do ‘boring stuff’ he’s done at home ‘years’ ago – and
my, how that boy does exaggerate! - oh, and of course, nobody spells anything
properly either.” She chuckled. “He’s so like my father sometimes, it’s
uncanny. AJ, on the other hand,
complains that no one plays proper
football, much less cricket; and he’s in trouble for saying that American
Football is for ‘nancy-boys’, because the players are all kitted out like samurai before they even
touch a ball.” She looked at her
father-in-law with a suspicious raised eye-brow. “I can’t imagine who he got
those particular phrases and opinions from, can you?”
Scarlet laughed. “I
should remember pitchers have ears, and mind what I say when the boys are
about, but all I can do now is offer my apologies, Freya!”
She smiled, and her resemblance to her late father caught at
Scarlet’s heart.
“Hmm. Anyway, they’re plotting to abscond before
the next summer term begins, and hope to be accepted as political refugees by
Linbury Court. You’ve told them so much
about your old Prep School, they’ve decided they want to go there and nowhere
else.”
Scarlet chuckled. “Well,
they’re nothing if not ambitious. I don’t think I’d got as far as planning to
run away across the Atlantic by the time I was seven; although I do remember
declaring U.D.I. for the stable-block, one summer when I was supposed to be
going to stay with my maiden aunts for a week.
I think I held out for several hours before hunger drove me in for tea.”
Freya was laughing and shaking her fair head at him. He smiled, pleased to see her so happy.
When she stopped he asked her, “Have you seriously considered
letting them be educated over here?”
She nodded, a little warily. “I’d like it. To be honest,
Paul, now they’re that much older, I have a hankering to come home. Oh, Boston is a fine place to live, and I
can understand why my father loved it so, but… well, I’m more than a little
homesick. Still, it’ll depend on
whether Ace can get transferred to the London office, but I don’t suppose Uncle
David will stand in his way. However,
it might put Alistair’s nose out of joint – or if not his, then Susannah’s. I
wouldn’t want Ace and his sister to be at daggers drawn over the fact that he
outranks her husband in the company.”
“Don’t let that worry you, Flicka. Suzie’ll complain whatever you do.”
There was a piercing yowl of anger and a despairing sob. Freya darted away and returned to the screen
with her daughter in her arms. Dianne
was sporting a witch’s hat and green face paint. She grinned cheerfully at the screen and blew ‘Gran’pa’ a
kiss.
Scarlet returned the salute with a smile.
“They went ‘trick or
treating’ with the local playgroup earlier;
I’m expecting a night of tummy aches and over-tiredness,” his
daughter-in-law explained, as she put the squirming child down and then quickly
disappeared again, this time to stop a fight between the toddlers.
She had barely returned
to the screen when she heard a noise and announced joyfully: “Ace is home!”
After some minutes’ delay, during which time young Robert
clambered onto a stool and greeted his grandfather with a shy, mischievous
smile, Scarlet saw his son approaching.
He swept the youngster away and sat down at the screen, a beaming smile
on his face.
“Hi, Dad! I’m sure glad I caught you!”
As usual Scarlet was amused by the amalgam of aristocratic
English and Boston Brahmin-speak that coloured his son’s accent.
“Hello, son; I’m glad to see you too. Flicka told me you were working late, so I thought I’d miss
you.” He lowered his voice and said
conspiratorially, “I hope you’re not letting the Svensons work you too
hard? The whole family are natural-born
slave-drivers, you know.”
He smiled at Ace’s burst of laughter.
However tenuous his son’s relationship by marriage to the
Svenson family was, they’d been good to him over the years, and he genuinely
liked them – even the grumpy Peter Svenson, who, until he had handed over to
his younger brother, had been the Chairman of the company.
Scarlet was sure the fact that Ace had inherited an aristocratic
title from his maternal grandfather, impressed his employers much more than it
would have done even in an English-run company, but if he hadn’t been up the
job, he didn’t doubt the hard-headed Svensons would have eased him out of the
firm.
The last time he’d had his annual interview with David Svenson
to review the deployment of his personal funds - with the hope of keeping
himself financially independent over what might be a long lifetime, whilst
doing what he could to provide a secure financial base for his family - he’d
asked him about his son.
The American had said that he felt Ace could very well end up as
Chief Executive of SvenCorp, if he wanted the job. None of Peter’s four daughters showed any aptitude for the work,
and Katherine Svenson’s son – Marcus Griffiths - was currently pursuing a
fairly successful career as a musician; Scarlet had heard his latest world-wide
hit on the radio, several times, on the drive down to Winchester. David Svenson had no children, and although
he was certainly not totally averse to women, he had chosen to live his life
with his boyfriend, entering into a civil partnership with him after his
parents died. So, there was no one in
the next generation of the immediate Svenson family – except for the husband of
the eldest brother’s illegitimate daughter – to take up the reins.
Scarlet had been pleased at the prospect, which would certainly
guarantee his son and his grandchildren a financially secure future. At one point the Svensons had been rather
less than welcoming towards Freya, but he felt sure her late father would have
welcomed this turn of events.
Now he quizzed his son, “Freya tells me you’re thinking of
coming back here for Christmas? Would
you have room for one old man at your dinner table?” He had decided to allow himself one last Christmas with the
people he loved – surely there couldn’t be any harm in doing that? - just a few
more days with the youngsters, and one last chance to recharge his batteries
basking in the affection of Adam and Freya.
“If you’re planning to
spend Christmas in Winchester, Dad – we’ll definitely be there!” Ace
vowed. “I’m thinking of bringing the family back home anyway, and the boys want
to change schools-”
“So I understand. I
never thought you’d get AJ to forgo his football and cricket, you know. I can still remember when we took him to the
baseball game at Fenway Park, and he announced that it was silly watching
grown-ups playing rounders. I thought
we were going to get lynched.”
“Yeah, he has all of your
tact and diplomacy skills, Dad.
Luckily, he also has his mother’s charm…”
Scarlet grinned. “So,
will you try to get them into Linbury?
You never liked it much there, did you?”
“It wasn’t so bad… I just
had a lot to live up to. Every speech
day it was pointed out to me that ‘Metcalfe, Paul Charles’, was on every
sporting roll of honour board, and all I ever won was the Mathematics Award.”
“You were born an accountant,” his father teased.
“I’m a
financier, Dad! It
says so on my passport.”
Scarlet chuckled. “Sure it does – and you’re a damn good one
too.” He paused and added, “You know I
never interfere, Adam-”
“Uh-huh,” his
son responded in a way that quite manifestly meant he doubted that statement
profoundly.
Scarlet ignored him. “I
just want to say that you need to give moving back here serious thought. You don’t want to blight your chances in
SvenCorp by leaving the centre of operations.”
To his father’s surprise, Adam Metcalfe showed no surprise – or
perplexity – at the underlying hint in this piece of advice. “Dad, David Svenson wants me to take over
after him; he’s told me so himself. If
we want SvenCorp to continue to expand –and the family are united in that,
whatever else they choose to bicker about -
it needs to conquer new overseas markets, and the London office is the
ideal launch pad for that… besides, I need more international experience before
I take over...”
“Ah, now I see what you’re doing. You’re getting devious, Ace.
Good for you, it’s been a long time coming!”
The young man laughed. “Hey – I’m Paul Metcalfe’s son – there ain’t
nothing I can’t do - just like my old dad!”
“Flatterer. But, I’m
pleased to see that you’ve carved yourself a good career in SvenCorp – and by
your own hard work too.”
“Well, being
Adam Svenson’s godson did me no harm, but I know they value me for what I can
do and who I am, and not just because nepotism says they should promote me.”
Scarlet bridled at the suggestion his son’s achievements were
anything less than well-deserved.
“Listen: don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re not the best at what you
do. SvenCorp’s no charity and the
Svensons are not philanthropists – well, not in that way. You’re a damned good man, Ace, and what
you’ve got, you’ve earned.”
“Sure, Dad.” Adam gave him a concerned glance. “Is
there something wrong? Something you’re
not telling me?”
“Don’t be silly, Adam.
What could possibly be wrong?”
Scarlet cursed his son’s insight; he’d inherited his mother’s
perspicacity along with her even temper. “Listen, I can hear Freya setting the
table. I’ll let you go and get
something to eat. I’ll give you a call
tomorrow, if you’re going to be around?”
“Please do –
but, if not tomorrow, make it soon, Dad – and … well, I wish we were there
right now. Be careful tonight, won’t
you?”
Scarlet had intended to be in bed well before midnight, but
after his telephone conversations he finished his tour of the house, under the
guise of checking everything was battened down for the night. Outside he could hear gusting wind and
driving rain. When he finally banked up the fire for the
night and went upstairs, it was later than he’d wanted.
He used the bathroom, brushed his teeth and changed into his
pyjamas, snuggling into the familiar bed with a sigh. He’d chosen a book at random from the library, but on discovering
he’d picked up a history of steam trains in Hampshire, he wasn’t inclined to
read it; instead he stared up at the ceiling and drank in the comforting
ambience of his old home.
Whatever ghosts lurked in the confines of Longwood, they were
Metcalfe ghosts – and somehow that made them less un-nerving.
The bedroom was chilly - he’d not bothered to turn on the
central heating - and outside the wind was now blowing a gale, rain splattering
fitfully against the window.
Fast asleep in
bed is the very best place to be tonight, he
thought.
He yawned.
With Doctor Fawn’s help, he’d taught himself how to fall asleep
at will over the decades since his retrometabolism had robbed him of the need to sleep, and now he closed his
eyes and regulated his breathing, feeling his mind slipping into the blissful
release of slumber.
Craaaaack!
Scarlet sprang up in bed, wide-awake.
Slightly disorientated, he glanced at the clock on the bedside
table. It was midnight. Hardly any time since he’d dozed off,
although he felt as if he’d slept for hours.
He got out of bed and drew the curtain back to peer outside.
There were no street lights in this part of the valley, and the ambient glow of
distant Winchester was missing from the horizon – so he guessed there was a
power cut.
Maybe the
storm has brought the lines down?
He couldn’t see anything wrong, so he threw open the window and
perilously leaned out into the rain.
Then, as a vivid flash of lightning scarred the night sky, he saw, at
the far end of the garden, that an old apple tree had been split in two. Across the valley, lightning jagged across
the sky and the low rumble of thunder grew to a deafening crescendo.
He sighed. Wonderful.
It’ll take me ages to get back to sleep now.
He tried to turn on the bedside light, but there was no
response.
Power cut.
He fished an emergency torch out of the top drawer of the
dresser – where one had been kept since time immemorial – and got back into
bed. Picking up the book, he slithered
down the bed again, and balanced the torch on his chest to try to read.
“Boy, can I pick ‘em,”
he complained to himself, as he made slow progress through the pages of black
and white pictures of train engines from the heyday of steam travel. “This should be guaranteed to cure
insomnia…I hope.”
As the torch rolled from his chest again and he made a grab for
it, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced across the room
to the armchair by the window. As his
eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he could just make out the outline of a
figure.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked the apparition sitting watching
him.
“I have been sent to make you a once in a lifetime offer, Paul
Metcalfe.”
Scarlet sighed. Is nowhere sacred from being pestered by spooks
on Halloween? “How did you get in
here?”
“You let me in.”
“And did you split the tree too, just so I’d open the window?”
“No; that was merely fortuitous. If you had not opened the window, I would not have been able to
speak to you. The time was when we could move anywhere we wished, now we may
only go where Humans are open to our presence.
There are so many closed hearts and minds amongst your kind these days,
Paul Metcalfe; it is a pleasure to meet a receptive individual, like you.”
Scarlet gave a resigned sigh. “Yeah, I’m so broad-minded I can’t
get my head through doorways any more.”
The apparition gave no reaction.
He’d experienced so many paranormal events that this one was not
unduly alarming – yet. He sat upright
and said, “Okay, I’ll play along. What
‘offer of a lifetime’ are you here to offer?”
“We have watched you for decades, seen your struggle with your
immortality. The time was when immortality was seen as the gift of the Gods,
not the curse, but times change – as we, of all kinds, know only too well. In your terms, it is many years since you
lost both your wife and your closest friend, and, we believe that your heart
has not really been in continuing living since then, has it?”
“If you’ve watched me, you’ve seen that I’ve done my duty and I
will continue to do so.”
The apparition didn’t seem impressed by this response. “We see the shadow that lies across your
heart, Paul Metcalfe; we know how much you fear what you must do: leave your
children and their children, before they become enmeshed in your
predicament. We have great pity for
you; for you alone of the men alive today, carry the burden of longevity.”
“Thanks very much. I’m
sure I appreciate your concern.”
The apparition ignored his facetious response. “We have a
mission for you. If you are brave
enough to undertake it, your reward will last your life long.”
“I don’t understand.”
The figure rose, and Scarlet could tell by his graceful carriage
that it was a young man. He was wrapped
in an ankle-length dark robe and a helmet of some kind, over long, wavy hair.
“Come with me.”
He didn’t know why he obeyed, except that there was an
unmistakable tone of command in the apparition’s voice, so he climbed from the
bed and took the outstretched hand.
For one agonising heart’s beat Scarlet struggled for breath, his
chest felt as if it were being crushed by an enormous weight. Sweat broke out on his brow and he felt
himself start to black-out. Then as he
finally managed to draw in a lungful of air, there was a sudden swirl of wind,
warm and sweet-smelling. It swirled
around his legs, and spiralled up his body, like a small tornado. Scarlet glanced at the window and realised
it was fastened shut, and as he did so, the wind increased in strength, until
it was an over-powering gust. It lifted
him from the floor, spinning both of them round towards the ceiling. He raised a hand to protect his head, but
felt himself glide through the solid structures with as little resistance as if
they were mirages.
He looked down and saw
that his body had fallen back across the bed, his lips parted and his blue eyes
staring in wide-eyed astonishment. The
room was untouched by the force of the gale.
“Am I dead?” he asked his companion.
“No more than usual; I have merely stopped your heart. But you
have made this journey many times since the Mysterons recreated you; it is
simply that this time you are aware of what’s happening.”
They rose through the attics and roof of the house, high, high
into the dark storm-tossed clouds and, with a speed that compared with the
fastest plane he’d ever flown, they moved out across the dark landscape, borne
along on the maelstrom that surrounded them.
Fields, towns, cliffs and ocean sped past in an ever-increasing whirl. Scarlet knew they were moving south, but he
couldn’t be more precise than that. He
concentrated on keeping hold of the apparition’s hand as they started to
descend.
Breathless and bewildered, Scarlet found himself standing at the
mouth of a huge, dark cavern. The sky above him was still dark with clouds,
their outlines faintly defined by the meagre glimmer of moonlight shining above
them. The wind had dropped.
He surveyed his surroundings, which resembled nowhere on earth
he had ever been. The few trees that
dotted the strange wilderness appeared to be dead, their gnarled and distorted
branches covered in dry scabs of sulphurous-yellow lichen. Heavy carpets of dark mosses covered the
sparse topsoil between the scattered boulders and muddy pools.
Away in the distance he saw the pale moonlight dancing on the
rills of a trickling stream, from which rose a curtain of steam. He became aware that the ground beneath his
feet was hot and one sniff confirmed the faintly malodorous stench of sulphur
in the air.
He looked at his guide.
“Where is this place?”
“Avernos.”
Scarlet frowned in concentration as the germ of a memory
stirred. He remembered a lazy summer
day at Linbury Court with the Classics Master trying to drum information into
unwilling pre-pubescent minds. He’d
have been pleased to know that some of it had stuck.
Scarlet looked with horror at the apparition, unwilling to
accept what he’d heard. “The entrance to Hades.”
His guide nodded. “I
cannot go with you beyond here, Paul Metcalfe, you must make this journey alone, but if you chose to
go forward, you will journey many miles until you eventually reach the Fields
of Asphodel. It is there that all souls
await the judgement that will free them to journey to the Elysian Fields – or
condemn them to Tartarus, if their souls are judged unworthy.”
“You haven’t told me
why I’m here,” Scarlet complained. “And
I certainly don’t fancy going in there without a good reason. I’m indestructible, not insane.”
This time there was a hint of a smile on the apparition’s strong-featured face, which Scarlet could
see far more clearly in this ethereal twilight than he had back in
Winchester.
“Over the millennia, humans have come to this place when their
allotted span is completed. They have
given it many names; but I chose to call it by these.”
Scarlet nodded. “Very
well, you can call it what you like; but I still don’t see why I should go in
there.”
“Many of your friends have gone within, and in the fullness of
time, all of them will. Every one of
them spends the time of mourning in the Fields of Asphodel, and then moves on
to their rewards or punishments. This
has happened for all time and will happen for all time. The length of that mourning will vary – the
more greatly loved the individual, the longer they are mourned and their shade
must wait until released to find their eternal rest.”
“Sounds a bit harsh, but I guess it’s been tried and tested for
long enough, so it must work.”
The apparition inclined his head and continued, “Two are fated
to remain in Asphodel – perhaps for all eternity – unless you help them.”
“Me? How can I help
anyone, in there?” Scarlet gestured towards the yawning mouth
of the cave.
“Their loved one will not let them find rest. They are held back by prolonged mourning,
their memories kept alive and their spirits washed with continual outpourings
of grief and regret. The dead cannot
move on until the mourning ceases, for they are tied to the living by their
tears.”
“What’s it to do with me?” Scarlet asked. Despair flickered in his heart as he
recalled the numerous friends he had lost to the Mysterons, or merely to the
advancing years. He shivered,
despite the clammy heat of Avernos, at the thought of a journey amongst the
dead, anguish and pity equally mixed in his mind.
“If you travel to them, and willingly make a libation of your
own blood, they will be freed from an eternity of endless nothingness, to move
to their rewards in the Elysian Fields.”
“Who are these friends?”
“You need to ask me
that?” the apparition replied, shaking his head.
“Okay – you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to; but tell
me this - as much as I hate to appear mercenary – what’s in it for me? You said
my reward would last my life long.”
“Indeed, I did, and I did not lie, Paul Metcalfe. If you choose it to be so, we offer you this
reward, in mitigation of your sorrow: on this one night, one of them can come
back with you – to spend your lifetime as your companion. They will not age;
they will not die, until you do.”
“What? You mean another Mysteronised person?”
“No; we cannot recreate what used to exist. The chosen one would be an extension of
yourself, existing on the abundant life-force that flows from you. As real as yourself – save only unknown by
any except yourself.”
“Some kind of – ghost?” Scarlet hazarded.
The apparition shook his head. “As real as any human, save that
they will have no identity beyond that you endow them with. No one shall know them as their former self,
save you. We cannot recreate that which
was, merely extend that which is.”
Scarlet frowned. Years
ago, when Captain Blue had been cloned, there had been some sort of symbiotic
relationship between the clones. That,
he believed, had been due to the power of the Mysterons. He looked directly at
his guide and asked:
“Who are the ‘we’ you keep talking about? I don’t know you – or what you represent.”
“For aeons we have watched this planet, and for many millennia
mankind worshipped us. They grew away
from us, but the belief they had sustains us still, although we are less
powerful than we used to be. If it
helps, Paul Metcalfe, you may call me by one of the names they gave me:
Hermes.”
With a dramatic flourish, he threw off the dark robe and
revealed himself as a beautiful young man, dressed in a tunic and winged sandals. A brilliant white light radiated from his
body.
Scarlet shielded his eyes. “Okay, I believe you.
Turn your charisma down a notch or two, would you?”
Hermes gestured with his hand and the radiance faded, although
there remained a shimmering light around him.
“You are a brave man, Paul Metcalfe.
I believe you will make the journey and free the spirits of your
friends.”
Scarlet sighed; his innate sense of duty and service was making
it hard for him to continue with his decision to refuse. “How do I get home when this is finished?”
he asked in resignation.
“Return here to Avernos, and I will come for you – and your
chosen companion. But remember the fate
of Orpheus, Paul Metcalfe; do not look back once you have taken the first step
towards the light.” Hermes held out his
hand and dropped something into Paul’s outstretched palm. “You will need these for the journey.”
Scarlet glanced down at his hand, and saw three small coins
lying there. When he looked up, Hermes
was gone.
He dropped the coins into his pyjama jacket pocket and sighed.
“Why does this sort of thing always happen to me on Halloween?”
he asked rhetorically. The idea of
himself as some sort of hero, venturing into an underworld in his Marks and
Spencer’s pyjamas, was enough to make a cat laugh.
However, Hermes had vanished,
and he had no way of getting home. He
could sit here until dawn, and just go home, assuming Hermes returned for him,
of course; or he could go into the cavern and see what was in there. He was sceptical that it really was the gate
to Hades, but his innate curiosity wouldn’t let him pass up the opportunity to
investigate.
“I shall probably just get covered in bat shit,” he remarked to
the empty silence.
Sighing, he scouted around and finally found himself a hefty
branch, which was sound enough to make a decent club and bracing himself, he
stepped into the cave mouth.
An intense shock jolted him and the muscles in his hand went
into spasm, causing him to drop the branch.
He bent to pick it up but his hand wouldn’t close on the wood. Finally, he stood up and remarked into the
darkness: “’You can’t take nothing with you but your soul’, as the song says,
right? And the pennies for the ferryman, of course,” he added, patting the
pocket where the three coins lay.
He stepped forwards gingerly and encountered no further
resistance.
The cave went straight on for some way and only then began to
slope downwards. Scarlet walked on
until the entrance was a mere pinprick of light in the distance and the air had
grown as cold as the grave.
Despite the darkness, he found that he could still see well
enough to follow the well-trodden path.
Occasionally he shivered, as an icy-cold draught passed him, and on the
edge of his hearing he caught the despairing sighs of many voices. He refused to give in to the imaginative
speculations as to just what these were,
yet the idea that they were ‘souls’ took hold of his mind, and before
long he had convinced himself that it was so.
“If I do this every time I die, it’s no wonder I come back
feeling cold and hungry,” he reflected aloud, hearing his voice echoing around
him:
Hungry…. hungry….
hungry…
Suddenly the slope increased until it was almost a vertical incline
and away in the impenetrable darkness Scarlet could see a dull glimmer,
meandering across the distant floor of the cave. As he slithered downwards, he could see it was a slow-moving
river; it looked immeasurably wide and fathomlessly deep. On this side of the bank, a metal gong hung
from the thick branch of a dead tree.
He rapped it with his knuckles, rather than touch the desiccated bone
that hung from the gong by what looked like sinew, to act as a hammer.
He felt the vibrations rather than heard the ultra-low note that
sounded. He waited for what seemed an
eternity, and then saw a shallow-drafted boat being punted across the river by
a tall, spare man, in a shapeless, black cape that covered him from head to
toe.
As the boat reached his shore, Scarlet stepped forward and the
man extended a near-skeletal hand.
Scarlet was ready to drop a coin into it. The hand beckoned him aboard and without a word, Chiron, the ferryman
of the dead, poled his way back across the lethargically flowing water.
“Thank you very much,” Scarlet said, as he disembarked. “I don’t suppose it is worth asking you the
way?”
Chiron pointed a long, bony finger westwards.
“Might have guessed really,” Scarlet responded, and strode along
the cinder path that led in that direction.
The place was lit by a fiery glow from what appeared to be a
distant volcano, that gave rise to a smoky sort of twilight, yet he found he
could see well enough to avoid the various indistinct shapes of boulders and
shingle banks that loomed out of the gloom as he walked along the winding path.
The air seemed to grow denser as he walked, and a strange mist
blanketed the ground, like the fog that lay in the hollows around his home on
autumn mornings. He found he was
having to exert himself to move through the grey mist, which curled around him,
making him cough and clear his throat.
He grew tired, and had to stop periodically to rest and brush
the small chips of cinder from between his toes. It was on one of these pauses that his acutely sensitive hearing
caught a low growl, and he sniffed, recognising a decidedly doggy odour.
“Oh, please - you have to be joking,” he muttered, pushing
through the heavy air that now formed an invisible barrier, rather as he would
have walked against a stiff wind.
Miraculously, as he began to climb a gentle incline, the
resistant mist parted, as if it was deliberately moving out of his way.
Spooky… he
thought, trying to lift his spirits.
He stopped again and took what bearings he could in the largely
featureless landscape. He rather wished
the barrier would prove insurmountable, for in the distance, at the top of the
slope, he could now see the unmistakable shape of the giant three-headed guard
dog of the underworld: Cerberus. The
dog was as big as any mastiff Scarlet had ever seen, and its fearsomeness was
compounded by the fact that the three heads were all snarling and slavering at
the hovering mist, which seemed to advance, only to retreat as Cerberus snarled
at it, rather like waves on a
beach. Sometimes a fortunate eddy of
the mist swirled past and over the ridge – although it was hard to say if the
dog allowed it past, or was merely wrong-footed.
“I should have brought a dog biscuit,” Scarlet muttered, and
then added, “Well, three dog biscuits, to be fair.”
He advanced and looked at the animal, which had focused all six
beady eyes on him and was sniffing, its slavering chops curling in a menacing
threat. He remembered what Hermes had
said: You have done this many times since
the Mysterons recreated you – if that was true, then somehow he’d got past
Cerberus before. He edged forwards.
“Hello, you mangy mutt,” he said as if he’d been talking to the
family pets back in his youth in Winchester.
“It’s only me – you might say I’m a season ticket holder. You’re not going to create a fuss now, are
you? You know I’m forever popping in
and out of here… I hope.”
One head snarled.
Scarlet remembered his father’s instructions about training
dogs, and said authoritatively, “Bad dog!
Naughty dog! Sit!”
Rather to his surprise, Cerberus did sit, and his enormous tail
beat a thumping welcome on the cinder path.
Scarlet advanced and patted the closest head as he walked past.
“Good dog! Good boy!” he
said, and walked on with as much speed as he could without losing his
nonchalance.
Safe beyond Cerberus’s reach, he exhaled a huge breath and wiped
his sweating brow. I’m glad I don’t usually remember any of
this, he thought.
The path wound on across a landscape which had changed to vast
pits of molten lava, pumice stones and cinders and, as he walked along, the
soles of his bare feet blistered from the scorching heat. I
generally die with my boots on, he thought, wistfully recalling the
insulated soles of his uniform boots. He
crossed two more rivers, no less formidable than the one Chiron had ferried him
over. One raced down the side of a dark
mountain, steam and spray crashing from it as it tumbled into the plain; it
barely had time to lose any momentum before it roared into a dark and
immeasurable chasm. It was crossed by a
series of ancient and worn boulders, pitted with erosion and the passage of
time, and it took courage and strength to negotiate their slippery surfaces. The second river was sluggish in comparison,
and spanned by a wooden bridge, constructed from enormous, decaying tree
trunks. Despite the pain in his
bleeding, scorched and aching feet, Scarlet was not tempted to stop by either
bank, in fact, the second river had sulphurous steam rising from it, as it
slithered over the barren landscape.
From the centre of the
wooden bridge, where he stopped to take his bearings once more, Scarlet saw a
distant patch of light, or what passed for light in this world of unending
gloom and darkness. He hastened on towards
it, anxious to do what he needed to and get out again into the fresh air of the
clear night skies.
He’d been giving some thought to the possible identity of the
spirits Hermes wanted him to help. He
had partly convinced himself that one would be Conrad Turner - the former
Spectrum Agent, Captain Black – and if that was the case he was in two minds
whether to help or not. Spectrum had never discovered if their former agent had
died on Mars and been retrometabolised, as he himself had been, or whether the
Mysterons simply controlled the living man.
Whatever the truth of the case, Scarlet couldn’t ascribe his reluctance
to any logical cause; if Black was sent for judgement, he would surely end up
in Tartarus, facing a well-deserved eternity of torture for the evil he had
done as a Mysteron agent. But, some
small voice of pity reminded Paul that Turner was in the thrall of the
Mysterons and, perhaps, if he freed the spirit of his arch-enemy from limbo,
the Mysterons would lose their control over the man who still walked the Earth,
causing such misery and terror amongst the poor unfortunates he
encountered.
What he did not doubt was that, but for fate and Captain Blue’s
strong sense of duty, he could have ended up like Black.
Eventually the conundrum irritated him so much he refused to
think about it any more and marched stoically on, trying to ignore his painful
feet and the growing sense of unease he was developing as he neared his
destination. He became aware that the mist had grown thick and heavy again,
until he could see no further than the length of his arm as he pushed through
the murk. Once more, it parted as he
moved through it, closing up behind him to form an opaque barrier to his escape
route.
Suddenly the mist evaporated away and he emerged into the patch
of glimmering twilight he had seen from the tree bridge. Nervous and alert for any sign of danger,
he looked around for anything recognisably human, and gasped in astonishment as
he saw two well-remembered and much-loved figures approaching from the darkness
of the other side. They were as young
and healthy as the first day he’d met them, and dressed in their Spectrum
uniforms.
“Paul!” they both called.
He hastened towards them, sweeping Rhapsody Angel into his arms
and laughing up into Captain Blue’s face.
He brushed Dianne’s long, red hair back from her beautiful face
and pressed his lips to hers. His
excitement ebbed slightly as he felt her cold flesh against his, but he could
feel her arms around him, and even as she breathed in his breath, he felt
warmth flow into her.
As they parted, he grasped Adam’s outstretched hand and shook
it, punching his dearest friend’s arm playfully.
“I can’t believe it – why you two are here? Hermes told me two friends were condemned
to remain here – but surely, if I remember right, the virtuous and the brave
move on to the Elysian Fields – the Isles of the Blessed. So?
What are you doing here?”
He looked to Adam for an
answer, as Dianne nestled against his broad chest.
Even if the American’s voice lacked the vibrancy that had
characterised it in life and seemed to come from a distance, it was undoubtedly
Adam’s voice that replied, “Dianne and I have not been called for judgment, and
until then we cannot leave here.”
“Why not?”
His wife answered from the comfort of his arms. “It seems Adam and I are something of an
anomaly, Paul. Didn’t Hermes explain
it to you?”
“Not exactly. Like every other spook it’s been my
misfortune to meet, he wrapped everything up in mysterious ramblings and
obscure warnings. Is there anyone else
around here? It’d be nice to see some
of the old gang again…”
“Magenta has moved on,” Blue reported. “And Colonel White…”
“Your parents have passed through,” Rhapsody informed him. “So have mine and Adam’s.”
“You drop by, every so often,” Blue added, with a wry smile at
his friend. His pale-blue eyes grew sad
as he added, “But you don’t often remember us.”
Rhapsody hugged him tighter.
“You are so eager to get back to Cloudbase,” she told him.
“I don’t remember anything about all of this – and I don’t
understand why this time is different.”
Rhapsody explained, “It is All Souls Night. It’s the one time we
have a chance to affect events, in the hours from midnight to dawn. We called you here, Paul.” She turned to look at Blue, who nodded
encouragingly. “We need your help.”
Scarlet ran his fingers through his dark hair – a habit he had
copied from his best friend and partner, Captain Blue. “You know I would do
anything – for either of you - but I don’t know what I can do…”
“What did Hermes say to you?” Blue prompted him. “Concentrate,
Paul, it is so easy to forget here.”
Scarlet frowned; it was true his memory wasn’t as clear as it
had been and his sense of mission was fading.
“He said, I had to make a libation to free some spirits from limbo.” He
glanced at them, a darkening suspicion forming in his mind. “He said these spirits were condemned to
wait here for eternity, because the mourning for them was continuously
preventing their rest.”
Blue was smiling and nodding encouragingly.
“Adam, do you mean one of the spirits is you? That Karen is
preventing you from moving on?”
“Not Karen, Paul, you.”
“Me?” Scarlet felt a wave of anguish sweep through him. He looked down into Dianne’s face and shook
his head. “I came to terms with it – I
mean, it wasn’t easy… but I got on with my life… didn’t I?”
She shook her head compassionately. “We are held here by your grief, Paul. Barely a day goes by when you do not think of us and regret the
manner of our passing. My darling, we
love you for it – but it is time we were free to move from here. The shadows we live with are numberless, the
hours interminable and empty of meaning.
You must not mourn any longer, for we are glad to go.”
Scarlet shook his dark head.
“I do regret it – I do miss you both,” he admitted. “But I never thought… I wouldn’t – I mean…”
Dianne pressed her chill fingers to his lips. “We know, we understand. There are occasions when you are here for a
while and you do remember us, and promise you will make the break, you will let
us go. But, just as you remember none
of these visits, you forget the promise.
This time, Hermes has promised us, you will remember.”
“I’m sorry – I’m so sorry.”
He looked in confusion from one to the other, sweeping Blue into a bear
hug and then embracing Dianne again.
“It’s just that, well – there’s never been anyone to take the place of
you two in my life. The kids do their
best, and the guys in Spectrum, but they don’t really understand what it’s like! Not the way you two did.”
“Hermes understood that, which is why he offered you something
else – something that might help fill the gap,” Dianne reminded him.
With some effort, Scarlet concentrated and finally recalled the
rest of the instructions. “He said one
of you could come back with me – sharing my life force until I die.”
The two most important people in his adult life shared a glance,
and Rhapsody moved away from his embrace.
“Then now you must
decide if you want one of us to go with you,” she said gently, adding with a
sympathetic shake of her head, “and which one of us it will be.”
Scarlet glanced at her and then at Blue standing beside
her. “I can’t do that. I can’t decide between you two.”
“We can’t help you with this decision, Paul,” Blue said. “We can
only accept whatever you decide to do.”
Scarlet looked in anguish from one to the other.
The beautiful woman who had given him such happiness, proving to
him that he was, in some part, still human.
Their lives together had not been without problems, but their love had
never faltered, even when she had begun to doubt his ability to continue to
love her, as she aged and he did not.
He still dreamt of her almost every night, and frequently woke to find
his cheeks wet with tears, as his hands reached for her in the emptiness of his
bed.
He had slept with other women even before her death, and she’d
known it and forgiven him, because she understood his need for her was greater
than any sexual attraction he might feel for any other woman, and that he would
always came back to her.
Beside her was the man who had been his staunchest friend and
ally, the one person who had never doubted his humanity, and who had willingly
risked his own life innumerable times as they had fought side-by-side against
the Mysterons. Scarlet missed that
sense of camaraderie, missed the security of knowing someone was watching his
back for him. He’d worked with other
partners – of both sexes – but they all fell short of the exacting standard set
by Captain Blue.
Moreover, Adam Svenson probably understood him better than any
other human being, even, quite possibly, Dianne.
It was an impossible choice, and one he did not want to
make. If he chose either, the other
would fade into the vastness of eternity and he feared the dimming of the
memories that sustained him through the long, empty days and nights. The one he did choose would be with him,
but in the guise of some other entity – unable to interact with the other
people they loved and had lost – displaced and dependent on him alone. Could he ask anyone to face that?
As the silence dragged on, a flush seeped into Rhapsody’s pale
cheeks. “Paul, make your decision on
what you need to be happy. Never fear that I – or Adam – will think the
less of you for choosing the other,” she murmured, a sad smile forming on her
lips.
“Don’t come with that!”
Scarlet cried, raising his hands to his head.
“I love you like I have never loved another woman – and never will, if I
survive until the sun burns itself out!
But,” he looked at Blue, “there is so much I owe Adam… he was the
brother I always wanted, the friend I never thought I deserved… I miss
that. Since I lost you both, my life
revolves around nothing so much as my duty to Spectrum. So much has changed, so much remains the
same – I mean, the Mysterons don’t change, their malevolence and their
determination to wipe us all out hasn’t faltered. And, as the fight drags on,
it is so hard standing alone.”
He studied their faces as he stopped speaking, searching for
some indication, some advice, as to what the right decision should be. But, since Dianne had spoken, they had both
remained silent and gave no sign of their wishes in the matter. He reached out his hands towards them, but neither
moved or made any attempt to sway his decision.
“Adam-”
Finally, he turned to his friend. The pale-blue eyes that met his were filled with compassion and
sympathy, so that his heart ached as he reached to take Dianne’s hand and
lifted his pain-filled, shame-filled, eyes to the older man’s again, whispering, “You understand, don’t
you?”
Blue laid a hand on his
friend’s shoulder. “Don’t concern
yourself, Paul. There will be other
friends in your long life; other men – and women – who will mean as much to you
as ever I did. Besides, I don’t want to
go back with you. I would rather stay
here, than walk the Earth for an eternity that did not include Karen.”
Overcome with emotion, Scarlet dropped his wife’s hand and
enfolded the taller man in his embrace once more. He should have known that however much Adam cared for him, his
greatest love had always been reserved for the wilful, temperamental Angel
Pilot from Iowa. He hoped that one day Karen Wainwright Svenson would know and
appreciate that fact.
She was still living in the house Blue had bought for them in
England, but her health, physical and mental, had deteriorated to such an
extent that she rarely left the grounds now, and hardly ever accepted visitors,
except Paul Metcalfe. Once, he’d taken
his grandsons to see her – Paul and Adam junior, the blond, blue-eyed,
long-limbed children of Blue’s illegitimate daughter – but he’d seen easily
enough how much that pained her, and he’d not repeated the experiment.
He wondered if Adam
knew.
Convention took hold soon enough and Scarlet cleared his throat
and shuffled away, embarrassed by his own outburst.
Blue took Rhapsody’s hand and smiled down at her. “I wish you a return of all the happiness
you knew, Dianne.”
She reached up to touch his cheek. “One day, Adam, your happiness will match mine, here and now, as
I stand with my beloved husband and my dearest friend. I’m sure that when Karen comes to join you,
everything will be perfect for you both.”
Blue smiled, his eyes bright with a yearning hope. “Perhaps, one day we’ll all meet again –
when Paul and you make your way to the Elysian Fields. Then
everything will be perfect.”
Scarlet tapped Blue on the shoulder, and asked, business-like
once more, “How do I make this libation thing?”
“You must spill your blood onto the ground,” Blue told him.
Scarlet looked at the soles of his feet, still suppurating from
their scorching. “I don’t suppose all
those bloody footprints would count?” he asked.
Blue shook his head. “It
must be intentionally shed, as an offering, and declared as such.”
“Right… I thought it might be something like that. I’ve got nothing to cut myself with…I wasn’t
allowed to bring anything with me.”
He looked around and then reached across to snap one electronic
epaulette off Rhapsody’s uniform. He
used the jagged metal to slice into his left hand, grimacing with pain. The cut was long and deep, and Scarlet
clenched his fist as the blood flowed freely, dripping onto the rocky
ground.
“For Adam Svenson,” he intoned, not knowing if there was any
other ritual involved. He shook his
hand, and flexed his fingers, waiting for the onset of the pins and needles
that told him his retrometabolism was working to repair the damage. When he felt nothing, he shrugged and used
the metal to score the other way across his palm.
“For Dianne Simms Metcalfe.”
He had half-expected a roll of thunder or a bolt of lightning to
accompany the act, but there was nothing but a silence, and the soft murmuring
of misty voices, floating in from beyond their circle of light.
Nothing seemed any different.
He gave Blue a concerned glance, shook his painful hand, and
asked, “Did it work?”
“Oh yes, it worked,” Blue replied.
Relieved, Scarlet tore a strip off his pyjama jacket and bound it
around his hand to absorb the blood until it healed. The fact that his retrometabolism hadn’t repaired the cuts yet
didn’t concern him – the time taken for injuries to heal varied depending on
the circumstances, and over the decades he’d become used to the odd situation
where it took longer than expected.
When he looked towards Blue, he saw that his friend already looked less
solid than he had, and, when he reached out his healthy hand towards him, it
passed through Adam’s arm, with only a sensation of icy chill.
Having made his farewells, Captain Blue walked slowly towards
the far side of the circle of light.
Scarlet imagined he saw some reluctance on his friend’s face, as if he
was unsure what would happen to him now.
But when he paused, and turned back to where his friends stood
hand-in-hand, there was nothing but serene acceptance on his face.
Blue’s voice barely carried across the distance, as he said,
“Thank you, Paul, I owe you more than I can adequately repay. I wish you, both, every happiness.” He stepped forward into the twilight dark
and Scarlet saw him stoop, cupping his hands to fill them with the water from a
small fountain that bubbled out of a nearby rock. He stood erect and drank the liquid, allowing the final drops to
drip from his fingers. Then he looked
into the bleak darkness beyond the circle and straightened up.
“I am ready,” he said, to unseen forces and, as Scarlet watched,
Blue vanished from his sight, melting away into the ether.
“Goodbye, Adam,” Scarlet murmured. “Rest in peace, my friend.”
He turned to Dianne, who was clinging to his arm. Her face showed sadness as she stared after
the departed spirit.
“Will he be all right?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Adam will reach the Elysian Fields; I have never
doubted that.” She gave an affectionate
smile, adding, “Although he did, at times.
He was always his own harshest critic.”
Scarlet nodded in agreement.
“That he was.” He drew a deep breath and moved on to happier
topics. “We can go now? We can go together?”
She nodded, returning his excited smile with one of her
own. “You’ve reclaimed me, and as long
as you live, so shall I.”
“As you are now?”
“Yes, although…” She frowned slightly. “You must understand that although other people will see me, they
will not know me for who I am. They
will see an individual; perhaps even see me as I am, but they will not recognise me. And, Paul, it would not be wise for the children to be told who I
am. You must be prepared to accept that
they may resent me, they may not accept me, or your attachment to me – for in
their eyes I will have replaced their
mother - but you cannot explain it to them.”
“It would be difficult explaining
this to them, although, mind you, they’ve accepted my situation happily enough,
and that’s not exactly normal, is it?”
“They‘ve grown up knowing about you, Paul. They might not be so sanguine about the
sudden resurrection of their long-dead mother.” She hugged his arm. “I
think I would be happier if they did not know about me.”
“Whatever you want, my love, is fine with me. I’ll pay any price to have you with me
through all the long days and nights of my life.”
“Even estrangement from your children?”
He sighed and gave a rueful shrug. “That was going to have to come anyway, Di.”
“Then lead me back into your life, Paul. Lead me home.”
He took her hand and started across the circle, pushing through
into the misty darkness, where the souls of the departed crowded around the
light. The press seemed thicker as they
passed by another spring, and remembering Blue’s departure, he asked her,
“What was that water Adam drank? He seemed to consider it important. Was it something to do with the ritual?”
“It is the water of Mnemosyne,” she replied. “Anyone who drinks
from that fountain will understand the mysteries of all this.” Her hand moved across the landscape. “They will also retain their memories of
their past life. Adam long ago decided
to drink from there, rather than from Lethe – the other fountain.” She pointed across the circle, “which
eradicates all memory and all knowledge of self. This way, he will know Karen when she arrives…”
“Which would you have drunk, Dianne?”
She shook her head. “I
could never decide. To wait an
eternity, knowing you might never come to me, would be hard.”
He smiled. “Now we shall spend that eternity together.”
They walked slowly back along the cinder path, Scarlet leading
the way, Rhapsody followed closely in
his footsteps, as if she was afraid of losing her way otherwise. Scarlet strode on, his mind preoccupied with
the challenges of how they were going to negotiate the difficult terrain and
the unknown reaction of Cerberus to two people trying to leave, where only one
had entered.
As if she could read his thoughts, Rhapsody reassured him, “I
can tread anywhere you tread, Paul.
Don’t worry about me.
Concentrate on the way forward, on finding the best path. I am here.”
They crossed the boiling river of steam on the rickety tree
bridge, and although it was hard, he walked on, trusting with all his heart
that she could indeed follow his footsteps in safety. The stone bridge was
another hazard that brought Scarlet’s heart into his mouth, but Rhapsody kept
up a soft, reassuring conversation as they negotiated the slippery
boulders. Once beyond the rivers, they
walked along the cinder pathway, the mist thinning as they passed and closing
behind them. Every step was closer to
safety, closer to the open air of Avernos, closer to a return to Winchester and
a life blessed with the companionship he had missed, and his mood lightened as
they overcame each barrier.
In the distance Scarlet could see the incline that led to
Cerberus’s vantage point. He approached
it cautiously, although the dog remained facing the other way, guarding against
unauthorised access.
When they arrived, the watchdog hardly seemed surprised to see
Scarlet again. His tail wagged and one
head sniffed at Rhapsody, but Cerberus let them both pass, before he resumed
his snarling defence of the path to Asphodel.
Scarlet quickened his pace now, in response to Rhapsody’s
urging. They were making good time, and
he could now hear her footsteps crunching along the cinder-path behind him, as
if with every step she grew more alive, and more real.
To entertain her on the walk, he described how things were; who
was who in Spectrum, what had happened to the friends they’d known. Rhapsody responded with interest, her
delight in the prospect of returning to the world she had known obvious.
They approached the river and could see the Ferryman waiting on
this side of the bank. Scarlet felt a
twinge of concern, for Chiron seemed more substantial than before, but maybe
that was just a trick of the gloom and the fact that he’d been here for several
hours already. He was aware that his
perceptions had changed even in that short time.
Chiron stretched out his palm, and Scarlet dropped the two
remaining coins into it.
He clambered into the punt, moving to the front, and felt the
boat wobble as Rhapsody climbed in to sit behind him. She placed her hand reassuringly on his shoulder.
“Nearly there, Paul.”
The boat, probably more heavily laden than was usual, was low in
the water, and wavelets of the dark river splashed over the sides, soaking into
Scarlet’s pyjamas, it was freezing cold, and he could feel his feet going numb,
but there was no way to hurry the ferryman, and he was only too glad that both
Cerberus and Chiron had made no quibble about them leaving.
Scarlet leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the boat,
watching the prow slide through the water.
In the smooth blackness, he could make out his distorted reflection; his
naturally pale complexion shimmered and broke apart as the boat
progressed.
His spirits lifted, and he
started to anticipate the happiness to come.
Soon; we’ll be out of here soon. Hermes will take us home and I’ll take
Dianne to bed. I have a decade of
longing to satisfy. Next time I reach
out for her, she will be there…. And every time afterwards, for all time!
The punt lunged forwards suddenly, scraped the riverbed and ran
aground with a jolt that tipped him forwards, head first onto the bank. He struggled to his feet, slipping on the
clammy mud.
Laughing, he turned to Dianne -
She screamed, a sound of incomparable sadness and fear, and fell
back in the punt, shielding her eyes.
Confused and alarmed, Scarlet cried, “Dianne!” and lurched
towards her.
As he reached for her hand, he was struck in the chest by the
ferryman’s staff. He felt his
breast-bone break under the impact and fell back, gasping with the shock and agony. Moments later, driven on by a desperate
anguish, he scrambled to his feet realising the boat was already starting to
move back out into the dark water.
Calling his wife’s name, he started to wade out into the
icy-cold flow.
Dianne was now crouched in the prow of the skiff, tears
streaming down her cheeks, her red hair was tangled and knotted as her hands
twisted the shining locks.
“Paul!” she cried, “Oh, Paul!
You turned back! Why? Why did you turn back?”
Scarlet felt the undertow of a current that was as strong as it
was unexpected trying to suck him down into the treacherous depths. He struck out for the boat and, despite the
agony of his chest, swam as hard as he’d ever had to swim against the surprisingly
powerful swirl of the water as it sought to sweep him downstream.
He came alongside as they reached the middle of the river and
reached to grab the side, struggling to haul himself aboard. Dianne was cowering in the prow, afraid to
approach the menacing figure of the ferryman, even though she was calling out
to her husband.
Unable to drag himself from the water, Paul tried to wrestle the
staff from Chiron’s grasp and stop the boat’s momentum that way, but the
ferryman had a strong grip on the staff and it was a hopeless task. He glanced up, looking for some new way to
attack and as he did so he saw, beneath the cowl of the black robe, the
unmistakable, pallid features of Conrad Turner.
Becoming aware of the scrutiny, Captain Black turned his dark
eyes onto his mortal enemy and stamped his foot down on Scarlet’s hand,
splitting the barely healed cuts across his palm.
The pain was agonising and instinctively Scarlet let go and sank
into the icy blackness. Fighting his way back to the surface he saw the boat
had moved on, and he struck after it once more and had to expend precious
energy to recover his handhold on the prow.
This time, Dianne grabbed his hand, but her fingers slipped through his,
as he sank below the water once more.
Surfacing again, he saw Black threaten Dianne with the staff, so
that she cowered away from him once more.
For a third time Scarlet gained a hand-hold on the boat, and struggled
against the agony in his chest to draw in breath and recover the strength to
fight for his wife again.
“YOU HAVE LOST, SCARLET,” Captain Black said, sounding the death
knell of all Scarlet’s hopes.
His hand was slippery with his own blood and he was losing his
grip again. When Black drove the staff
into the water and the boat sped forward once more, Scarlet’s hand slipped off the
side and he hadn’t the strength left to chase them.
His last sight was of Dianne, weeping and stretching her hands
towards him, as the boat carried her back to Asphodel.
Desolation washed over him as the water chilled his blood and
hyperthermia began to take hold. He
floated downstream for some distance, uncaring and unaware of anything except
the dead weight of his loss, and then he began to sink, as a whirlpool spun him
around in ever faster circles over what appeared to be a chasm similar to the one
he’d seen the other river disappear into. It wasn’t until his feet slammed
against the slimy edge of the riverbed that the shock brought him back to his
senses.
He thrust with his legs and struck out for the surface. It took almost all the strength his alien
body was capable of to break free of the whirlpool, and even then he swam for
hours against the almost conscious malevolence of the river, desperate to cross
and return to the Fields of Asphodel, but finally, he had to admit defeat and
heave himself out onto the barren cinders of the path on the wrong side of the
river, gasping for breath and sobbing out his misery.
He rolled over onto his back, and lifting his face to the
darkness, he howled out his curses, against Conrad Turner, the Mysterons, Fate
and the injustice of the universe.
Then weariness took him and he knew no more.
When he finally regained consciousness, he managed to get to his
feet and stumbled and crawled back towards the morning light.
As he staggered from the cavern’s mouth into the dawn at
Avernos, he felt a hand support his arm as he slipped to his knees.
“They took her,” he sobbed.
“The Mysterons took her from me!”
Hermes laid a compassionate hand on Scarlet’s filthy hair and a
renewed strength flowed into the Englishman’s exhausted body.
He spoke in a voice that was kind, yet resigned, “I warned you, Paul Metcalfe. I warned you to remember Orpheus. He too lost his lover because he looked back
at her as she followed him from Hades.
The Mysterons could not have stopped you, if you had walked straight
from the boat, and Dianne Metcalfe would have followed you – but once you
transgressed, they took the opportunity to make your punishment part of their
persecution.”
“What will happen to Dianne now?” he asked.
“She is free from Asphodel; she may go to judgment and on to the
Elysian Fields, if she wishes.”
“She must drink one of the waters? Memory or forgetfulness?”
Hermes nodded. “Everyone must make that choice.”
“And do you know what she will choose?”
Hermes inclined his head.
“We can see everything, Paul Metcalfe.”
“And which does she choose?”
Hermes shook his head.
“I cannot tell you that.”
“You’d leave me to fret for eternity over her?”
“Ask yourself what she would do. You loved her enough to attempt her rescue.”
“I just hope Adam will able to help her… he chose to remember.”
“So he did. And so he will.”
Scarlet wiped a filthy hand across his face, smearing the tears
across the grime that covered his skin.
“What happens now?”
“I take you home, Paul Metcalfe.”
“That’s it? I can’t go
back?”
“No. Never again can you
reclaim her.”
There was a gust of wind, and Scarlet felt himself lifted
upwards, but he took no interest in his journey back to Winchester.
The morning sun was shining through the iron-grey clouds, edging
them with a pale gold.
Paul Metcalfe opened his eyes and frowned.
His bed was a mess, the sheets tangled around his legs, his
pillows on the floor. His mouth felt
like the bottom of a bird’s cage…
He grimaced. That sodding wine must’ve been off…
He coughed and sat up in the bed, knocking the book he’d been
reading last night onto the floor. He
winced at the sudden throbbing ache when his feet hit the floor and his back
twinged as he bent to retrieve the book.
But that was nothing to the sharp pain that made him gasp in shocked
surprise as his left hand closed around the spine.
He threw the book onto the bed and examined his palm. Two jagged and puffy scars ran diagonally
across his hand, right across from his fingers to the base of his palm.
“How the hell….” he began, and then the memories flooded
back.
Vicious, brutal, tormenting memories. Images of Dianne, reaching out to him, begging him to save her…
and the doom-laden words of his guide ‘never
again can you reclaim her’.
He made a fist of his scarred hand and bit into it, as the
memory grew unbearable.
Oh Adam, how
could you choose to spend eternity remembering all the evil the Mysterons are
capable of? What wouldn’t I give for a
mouthful of that Lethe water, right now?
For as long as I live I’ll remember that lost look in her eyes…
Fighting against the urge to collapse into madness, he looked
again at his left hand; slowly the wounds were healing, the puffiness had subsided,
yet the pale-hued, smooth skin of the scars did not disappear. Scarlet frowned, he had no scars – anywhere
- retrometabolism removed every sign of injury. But, he felt instinctively that it wasn’t going to remove this
one. There was no sign that the hand
would ever be free of these scars.
He spent most of the day staring out of the window and across
the garden to where the old apple tree lay in ruins, while he relived and
evaluated the events of Halloween. It
was with a strange mixture of elation and fear that he came to the conclusion
that while he was in Asphodel he was vulnerable and that, should this
interminable existence ever grow too much to bear, he might have a way of
ensuring he did not have to return to a world grown wearisome and cold.
But for the moment, he consoled himself with the thought that
every time he died he would see Dianne, and - from now on - he would remember. He didn’t doubt that she would wait for him
in Asphodel, and that eventually they would both choose to drink from
Mnemosyne. He understood, now, why
Adam had chosen to remember for all eternity the good friends who’d made his
tragic life bearable, and his love for Karen, which mirrored the undying love
he and Dianne shared.
One day they would all be reunited in the Elysian Fields.
The anticipation that beyond death lay the companionship and
love he craved was enough for now – because he had a job to do and a debt to
collect.
As the sun set over the valley, and in the distance he heard the
persistent ringing of the video-phone, he turned from the window and the
contemplation of his own mortality, with a simple vow:
“I swear, Conrad Turner, one day you will pay for this.”
Author’s Notes:
Yes, I know Orpheus did it first…
Linbury
Court Preparatory school is the invention of Anthony Buckeridge, the author of
the ‘Jennings and Darbishire’ stories. I enjoyed them as much as I
enjoyed watching Captain Scarlet – and there really is no other school I can
imagine the young Paul Metcalfe attending.
Many thanks to Hazel Köhler for her expert beta-reading; she’s
an absolute glutton for punishment.
Any mistakes in the story are mine, and there is the usual
caveat that Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons™ belongs to Carlton
International, although they were originally created by Gerry and Sylvia
Anderson, who inspired a generation of children with their wonderful shows back
in the 1960s.
Thanks to Chris Bishop for the website, and too many other things to mention!
Let’s hope Captain Scarlet and the website dedicated to him
continue to go from strength to strength.
Happy Halloween.
Marion Woods
September 2007.
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