The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August(22)

Harry





I put the address of a friend on the envelope in case her mail was being monitored. The second letter was addressed to Dr S. Ballad, neurologist, occasional academic rival, sometime drinking partner and, in a way which neither of us had ever really felt a need to express, a reliable friend. It said:

Dear Simon,



You will have heard things about me in recent months which will have led you to doubt and question. This letter will only deepen those doubts and questions, and for that I must apologise. I cannot here go into my situation, nor even the details of what I now need, for this is nothing if not a letter requesting a favour. Forgive me asking you to do this with so little to go on, but for our friendship, for the respect that is between us and for the hope of better times yet to come, please indulge my request. Below is a notice which I need posted in the personal section of the major newspapers. The posts must be on the same day, at the same time. The day itself is immaterial, save that it must be soon. If I get the chance, I will refund you the cost and do whatever it is I can to repay you for your courtesy and time.

Looking at this letter you will doubt if you can do this. You will question my motives and your own responsibility towards me. I do not think that I can, with these few words, persuade you of a position you do not already hold. I can only hope, therefore, that the mutual bond which exists between us, and the guarantee I put in this letter of my good intentions and the entirely positive outcome of this deed, will be enough. If they are not, then I do not know what will come of me, and so I can only beg you, as I have never asked any such thing before, to honour this request.

Give my love to your family, and best wishes to yourself, and know I remain,

Your friend,

Harry





Beneath the letter was the text of the notice itself:

Cronus Club.

I am Harry August.

On 26 April 1986 reactor four went into meltdown.

Help me.

The notice was printed in the personal columns of the Guardian and The Times on 28 September 1973 and expunged from all records three days later.





Chapter 20


Phearson broke me.

Back again, back to my fourth life, and always we seem to return here, even when I try not to, back to kneeling at his feet, sobbing into his hand, begging him to make it stop, please, please God, make it stop.

He broke me.

I was broken, and it was a relief.

I became an automaton, reciting newspaper headlines and stories I had seen, word by word, day by day, reaching back across the lives which had gone before. Sometimes I’d drift into the languages of my travels, mixing reports of massacres and rulers overthrown with the sayings of the Buddha or little pieces of Shinto dogma. Phearson never stopped or corrected me, but sat back while the tape recorder clicked on, two great fat wheels spinning, which seemed to require changing every twenty minutes. He had mastered carrot and stick: always he stood by me for the carrot and was never there at the stick, so that in my mind, though I knew this was precisely what he aimed to achieve, Phearson became something of a golden angel, bringing with him warmth and relief from pain. I told him everything: my perfect memory now become a perfect curse until, three days later, she came.

I sensed, somewhere through the drugs and the exhaustion, her arrival as a commotion in the hall. Then an imperious voice rang out, “For goodness’ sake!”

I was in the smaller of the two lounges, sitting hunched by the tape recorder as I always was, intoning dull recollections of the assassination attempt on President Reagan. She burst into the room in a flurry of long, almost medieval sleeves, her curly grey hair bouncing on her head like a creature living unto its own laws, the rouge on her face pressed deep into the canyons of her skin, her heavily ringed fingers flashing as she twisted them in the air. “You!” she barked at Phearson, who instinctively switched off the record. “Out!”

“Who the hell are—”

She cut him off with a single imperious gesture of her wrist, snapping, “Call your control, you ghastly little man. Dear me, what have you been doing? Don’t you realise how useless this all is now?” He opened his mouth to speak and again was stopped short. “Buzz buzz buzz, trot off, make your telephone calls!”

Perhaps seeing that reasonable communication was not a likely outcome here, a scowl spread across his face and he strode from the room, slamming the door petulantly behind him. The woman sat down opposite me, and rather distractedly prodded a few buttons on the tape machine, chuckling at its size and response. I kept my eyes down on the floor, the fixed hunch of all frightened men awaiting retribution, unable to hope.

“Well, what a terrible little pickle,” she said at last. “You look quite the state. I’m Virginia, if you’re wondering–which I can see you are. Yes you are, aren’t you?”

She addressed me as one might speak to a frightened kitten, and the surprise more than anything else made me glance up towards her, taking in a brief impression of beaded bracelets and giant necklace that hung down almost to her navel. She leaned forward on her cupped hands, looked me in the eye and held the gaze. “Cronus Club,” she said at last. “I am Harry August. On 26 April 1986 reactor four went into meltdown. Help me.”

I caught my breath. She had seen my ad–but so could Phearson if he’d bothered to look. So could anyone who read the personal pages of whichever newspaper Simon had printed my message in. Help or retribution? Salvation or a trap?