Vertigo

eleven

Al Werry and Henry Corzyn were buried in neighbouring graves on the sunlit, south-facing slope of a cemetery close to Tripletree.

Hasson, native of an island where cremation had long been compulsory, had never witnessed a traditional interment. The burial ceremonies he had seen portrayed in televised holoplays had prepared him for a surfeit of sombre emotion, but the actuality was strangely tranquil. There was a sense of rightness about the return to the earth which left him, if not comforted, in some measure reconciled to the facts of life and death.

Throughout the ceremony he remained apart from the main body of mourners, not wishing to make any statement about his relationship with Werry by joining any particular group. Sybil Werry, who had flown in from Vancouver, stood close to her son. She was a small dark woman, whose slightness of build made the fourteen year old beside her appear tall and unexpectedly mature. Theo Werry kept his head erect, making no attempt to hide his tears, following with slight movements of his sensor cane the final lowering of his father’s coffin. Looking at the boy, Hasson could see clearly on his face the imprinted features of the man he was to become.

May Carpenter and her mother, discreetly veiled, formed part of a separate element containing Dr Drew Collins and others who were strangers to Hasson. May and Ginny had moved out of the house a few hours before Sybil Werry’s arrival and were staying in another part of Tripletree. Not far away from them stood the disparate figures of Victor Quigg and Oliver Fan, both scarcely recognisable when attired in formal black. Behind the knots of individuals, placing them in a common frame of reference, the city sparkled cleanly and uncaringly in the distance beneath the pastel traceries of its aerial highways. Hasson saw everything with an intensely detailed clarity which told him it was a scene he would revisit many times in memory.

As soon as he got back to the house he went to his room, which the sun on the drawn blinds had filled with parchment-coloured radiance. He laid out his belongings and, working with calm concentration, began packing them into a new set of flight panniers. There was insufficient room for everything that had been in his cases, but he had no hesitation in selecting the items he required and placing the others in a sprawling heap on the bed. He had been busy for about five minutes when he heard footsteps on the landing and Theo Werry entered the room. The boy stood for a moment, turning and tilting his sensor cane, then moved closer to Hasson.

“Are you really going, Rob?” he said, his face alert. “I mean now, this afternoon.”

Hasson continued packing. “If I go now I can be on the west coast before dark.”

“What about the trial? Aren’t you supposed to wait around for that?”

“I’ve lost interest in trials,” Hasson said. “I’m supposed to attend another one in England, and I’ve lost interest in that as well.” .’They’ll go looking for you.”

“The world’s a big place, Theo, and I’m going to gallop off in all directions.” Hasson paused to make a proper acknowledgement of the boy’s presence. “That’s another line from Stephen Leacock.”

Theo nodded and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ll get around to reading him some day.”

“Sure you will.” A sudden renewal of sympathy made Hasson wonder if he was being too self-centred. “Are you positive about not having those cataracts removed? Nobody would stop you having the operation done on one eye, anyway.”

“I’m positive, thanks.” Theo spoke with the voice of an adult. “I can wait a couple of years.”

“If I thought you needed…”

“It’s the least I can do.” Theo smiled and stood up, releasing Hasson from self-imposed obligations. “I’m going away myself, you know. I talked it over with Mum last night and she says she has plenty of room for me in Vancouver.” “That’s great,” Hasson said awkwardly. “Listen, Theo. I’ll go out there some time and see you. Okay?”

“It’s fine with me.” The boy smiled again, too polite to show his disbelief, shook hands with Hasson and left the room.

Hasson watched him depart, then returned to the task of loading his panniers with the essentials for a protracted solo flight. He had no fixed destination in mind — only an instinctive need to travel south and west, to begin his new life by pitting himself against the ancient curving vastness of the Pacific Ocean, to atone for the years he had wasted in parochialism and conformity by losing himself in domains where time and history had established no beachheads. A few minutes later — all preparations completed, all regrets put aside — he took off into the still blue air above Tripletree, and went for a long walk in the sky.