Eric Brown - Ferryman

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Ferryman

By Eric Brown.

Richard Lincoln sat in the darkened living room and half-listened to the radio news. More unrest

in the East; riots and protests against the implantation process in India and Malaysia. The

President of France had taken his life, another suicide statistic to add to the growing list...

The news finished and was followed by a weather report: more snow was forecast for that night and

the following day. Lincoln was hoping for quiet shift when the bracelet around his wrist began to

warm. He pushed himself from his armchair, crossed to the computer on the desk, and touched the

bracelet to the screen.

The name and address of the deceased glowed in the darkness.

Despite the weather and the inconvenience of the late hour, as ever he felt the visceral thrill of

embarkation, the anticipation of what was to come.

He memorised the address as he stepped into the hall and found his coat, already planning the

route twenty miles over the moors to the dead man's town.

He was checking his pocket for the Range Rover's keys when he heard the muffled grumble, amplified

by the snow, of a car's engine. His cottage was a mile from the nearest road, serviced by a pot-

holed cart track. No-one ever turned down the track by mistake, and he'd had no visitors in years.

He waited, as if half-expecting the noise to go away - but the vehicle's irritable whine increased

as it fought through the snow and ice towards the cottage. Lincoln switched on the outside light

and returned to the living room, pulling aside the curtain and peering out.

A white Fiat Panda lurched from pot-hole to pot-hole, headlights bouncing. It came to a stop

outside the cottage, the sudden silence profound, and a second later someone climbed out.

Lincoln watched his daughter slam the door and pick her way carefully through the snow.

The door-bell chimed.

For a second he envisaged the tense confrontation that would follow, but the warm glow at his

wrist gave him an excuse to reduce his contact with Susanne to a minimum.

He pulled open the door. She stood tall in an expensive white mackintosh, collar turned up around

her long, dark, snow-specked hair.

Her implant showed as a slight bulge at her temple.

She could hardly bring herself to look him in the eye. Which, he thought, was hardly surprising.

She gave a timid half-smile. "It's cold out here, Richard."

"Ah... Come in. This is a surprise. Why didn't you ring?"

"I couldn't talk over the phone. I needed to see you in person."

To explain herself, he thought; to excuse her recent conduct.

She swept past him, shaking the melted snow from her hair. She hung her coat in the hall and

walked into the living room.

Lincoln paused behind her, his throat constricted with an emotion he found hard to identify. He

knew he should have felt angry, but all he did feel was the desire for Susanne to leave.

"I'm sorry. I should have come sooner. I've been busy."

She was thirty, tall and good-looking and - damn them - treacherous genes had bequeathed her the

unsettling appearance of her mother.

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As he stared at her, Lincoln realised that he no longer knew the woman who was his daughter.

"But I'm here now," she said. "I've come about-"

He interrupted, his pulse racing. "I don't want to talk about your mother."

"Well I do," Susanne said. "This is important."

He recalled his excuse. "As a matter of fact it's impossible right now..." He held up his right

hand, showing Susanne the band around his wrist.

"You've been called."

"It's quite a way - over the Pennines. Hebden Bridge. I should really be setting off. Look... make

yourself at home. You know where the spare room is. We can... we'll talk in the morning, okay?"

He caught the flash of impatience on her face, soon doused by the realisation that nothing came

between him and his calling.

She sighed. "Fine. See you in the morning."

Relief lifting from his shoulders like a weight, Lincoln nodded and hurried outside. Seconds later

he was revving the Range Rover up the uneven track, into the darkness.

The road through the Pennines had been gritted earlier that night, and the snow that had fallen

since had turned into a thin grey mush. Lincoln drove cautiously, his the only vehicle out this

late. Insulated from the cold outside, he tried to forget about the presence of Susanne back at

the cottage. He half-listened to a discussion programme on Radio Four. He imagined half a dozen

dusty academics huddled in a tiny studio in Bush House. Cockburn, the Cambridge philosopher, had

the microphone: "It is indeed possible that individuals will experience a certain disaffection,

even apathy, which is the result of knowing that there is more to existence than this life..."

Lincoln wondered if this might explain the alienation he had felt for a year, since accepting his

present position. But then he'd always had difficulty in showing his emotions, and consequently

accepting that anyone else had emotions to show.

This life is a prelude, he thought, a farce I've endured for fifty-five years - the end of which I

look forward to with anticipation.

It took him almost two and a half hours to reach Hebden Bridge. The small town, occupying the

depths of a steep valley, was dank and quiet in the continuing snowfall. Streetlights sparkled

through the darkness.

He drove through the town and up a steep hill, then turned right up an even steeper minor road.

Hillcrest Farm occupied a bluff overlooking the acute incision of the valley. Coachlights burned

orange around the front porch. A police car was parked outside.

Lincoln climbed from the Range Rover and hurried across to the porch. He stood for a second before

pressing the door-bell, composing himself. He always found it best to adopt a neutral attitude

until he could assess the mood of the bereaved family: more often than not the mood in the homes

of the dead was one of excitement and anticipation.

Infrequently, especially if the bereaved were religious, a more formal grief prevailed.

He pressed the bell and seconds later a ruddy-faced local constable opened the door. "There you

are. We've been wondering if you'd make it, weather like it is."

"Nice night for it," Lincoln said, stepping into the hall.

The constable gestured up a narrow flight of stairs. "The dead man's a farmer - silly bugger went

out looking for a lost ewe. Heart attack. His daughter was out with him - but he was dead by the

time she fetched help. He's in the front bedroom."

Lincoln followed the constable up the stairs and along a corridor. The entrance to the bedroom was

impossibly low; both men had to stoop as if entering a cave.

He saw the bereaved family first, half a dozen men and women in their twenties and thirties,

seated around the bed on dining chairs. An old woman, presumably the farmer's widow, sat on the

bed itself, her husband's lifeless blue hand clutched in hers.

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Lincoln registered the looks he received as he entered the room: the light of hope and gratitude

burned in the eyes of the family, as if he, Lincoln himself, was responsible for what would happen

over the course of the next six months.

The farmer lay fully-dressed on the bed, rugged and grey like the carving of a knight on a

sarcophagus.

An actor assuming a role, Lincoln nodded with suitable gravity to each of the family in turn.

"If anyone has any questions, anything at all, I'll be glad to answer them." It was a line he came

out with every time to break the ice, but he was rarely questioned these days.

He stepped forward and touched his bracelet to the dead man's temple, where his implant raised a

veined, weather-worn rectangle beneath the skin. The nanomeks would now begin the next stage of

the process, the preparation of the body for its onward journey.

"I'll fetch the container," he said - he never called it a coffin - and nodded to the constable.

Together they carried the polycarbon container from the back of the Range Rover, easing it around

the bends in the stairs. The family formed a silent huddle outside the bedroom door. Lincoln and

the constable passed inside and closed the door behind them.

They lifted the corpse into the container and Lincoln sealed the sliding lid. The job of carrying

the container down the stairs - attempting to maintain dignity in the face of impossible angles

and improbable bends - was made all the more difficult by the presence of the family, watching

from the stair landing.

Five minutes of gentle coaxing and patient lifting and turning, and the container was in the back

of the Range Rover.

The constable handed over a sheaf of papers, which Lincoln duly signed and passed back. "I'll be

on my way, Mr Lincoln," the constable said. "See you later." He waved and climbed into his squad

car.

One of the farmer's daughters hurried from the house. "You'll stay for a cup of tea?"

Lincoln was about to refuse, then realised how cold he was. "Yes, that'd be nice. Thanks."

He followed her into a big, stone-flagged kitchen, an Aga stove filling the room with warmth.

He could tell that she had been crying. She was a plain woman in her mid-thirties, with the

stolid, resigned appearance of the unfortunate sibling left at home to help with the farm work.

He saw the crucifix on a gold chain around her neck, and then noticed that her temple was without

an implant. He began to regret accepting the offer of tea.

He sat at the big wooden table and wrapped his hands around the steaming mug. The woman sat down

across from him, nervously meeting his eyes.

"It happened so quickly. I can hardly believe it. He had a weak heart - we knew that. We told him

to slow down. But he didn't listen."

Lincoln gestured. "He was implanted," he said gently.

She nodded, eyes regarding her mug. "They all are, my mother, brothers and sisters." She glanced

up at him, something like mute appeal in her eyes. "It seems that all the country is, these days."

When she looked away, Lincoln found his fingers straying to the outline of his own implant.

"But..." she whispered, "I'm sure things were... I don't know - better before. I mean, look at all

the suicides - thousands of people every month take their lives..." She shook her head, confused.

"Don't you think that people are less... less concerned now, less caring?"

"I've heard Cockburn's speeches. He says something along the same lines."

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Eric Brown - Ferryman

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