the machine stops - part 7

“These are some of the oldest trees anywhere, Kath. Big trees are coast redwood – Sequoia sempervirens. The tallest tree exceed 100m in height and 1800 year old. Stout Memorial Grove was established by the Save the Redwoods League in 1929 on land donate by…”

“Switch that thing off!”

“She’s very educational, Daddy!”

“And take that thing out of your ears too, Dan!”

Dan looked around, vaguely aware of his Dad talking to him. A faint buzz from the earphones seemed lost among the giants.

“I came here to show you the silence… the beauty. Listen!”

Dan took the earphones out and killed the sound. Sullenly.

“Listen.”

“But…”

“Listen!”

They listened for a few seconds. Then: “Actually not silence, Mr Beckinsale. Bird song is varied thrush – Ixoreus naevius. Water sound most likely Smith River: it is 110 metres north-east of here. Buzzing…”

“Shut up, Tiger Lily!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Listen!”

Another short pause, then: “Dad? What’s wrong with you today, anyways?”

“What’s wrong with me? I bring you out here to this beautiful place. This is our heritage, dammit. Look at it. The shafting light, the amazing trees, the, the…” He trailed off. “And the word is ‘anyway’”. He realized he was getting irritable. This wasn’t what he had in mind at all.

“Daddy’s right, guys.” Bett took him by the arm and gave it a reassuring pat. Because she agreed with him or to calm him down? “Remember when we first came up here? How you loved it. Maybe you’re too young, Kath. When we went camping? Remember, Dan?”

“Sure. It was fun. But we come up here every year.”

“You like it don’t you?”

“Sure. But…” He’d rather be playing Alien Invasion.

“Daddy just wants you to connect with the real world, guys.”

“To experience it. That’s what I mean. To feel it.”

“Sure, but Tiger Lily helps me to…”

“It’s a machine, Kath. I’m talking about feelings, emotions…”

Kath broke in with a little strop. “She’s not a machine. She’s my best friend!”

“Kath; Kath! Darling.” He tried to take her arm but he shrugged her off.

“She’s not a machine. She’s not human but she’s… she’s virtual!”

Then Dan chipped in. “When are we going home?” With a practised hand he slid the earphones back in place.

Alfie looked at Bett. She just raised her eyebrows. This wasn’t going well.

*          *          *          *          *

“You want me to fix you another G and T?”

“Oh Bett – would you?”

“There’s Hendricks.”

They sat on the screened verandah, as mosquitos and bigger bugs made kamikaze sorties towards the porch light. The kids were finally asleep. They were having that same conversation again. How she used to be the one that worried and now it was him.

She brought the chinking glass back to him. “Well, anyway, they seem to have calmed down. Kath left her tablet behind this afternoon when she went drawing.”

“Dan was in his room all afternoon with that bloody gadget on his head. I wish I’d never thought of it.”

“If you didn’t, someone else would have.”

He felt a tingle against his thigh. His phone vibrator always made him jump. It was Greg. Ethan wanted him back pronto.

“You’re probably right, as always, Bett.”

“You’re just as bad: look at you.” He was thumbing a text back.

He looked up at her and laughed. “Sometimes I wish…” He let it trail off and looked out into the blackness beyond the house lights.

“Go on…”

“Sometimes I wish… I don’t know.”

“O, I think you do, Alfred Beckinsale. How much money have you got in the bank now?”

“In the bank? Which one? Half of all the money deposited in the British Virgin Islands for starters!”

They both laughed.

“Then do it, for god’s sake!”

“Really?”

“It’s time, Alfie. Admit it. You haven’t been happy for some time, have you?”

He looked over at her. He put his drink down and spread his arms wide. She came over and hugged him, sitting on his knee, like in the JCR at King’s. There were tears in his eyes. You know me better than I know myself, old girl. Always have. That’s why I love you.

“Do a Bill Gates?”

“More than that. Make a complete break. What’s stopping you? Just walk away from it.”

“And put up with me around the house all day?”

“Nothing would be finer.” She paused, then grinned: “And there’s always here if I can’t stand you any more.”

“O no, I’d be here all the time.”

“Then I would too.” She kissed him on the cheek. Then, seriously: “Do it, Alfie.”

He was full out crying now: tears of joy, tears of relief.

*          *          *          *          *

At dawn he goes out into the forest, tracking back the line of the service duct that supplies the cabin, visible here and there in the disturbed ground.

Misty. Almost silent. Just that wretched thrush of Tiger bloody Lily’s. The trees loom, like the legs of grey giants, the colour washed out in this early light, fading to a lighter shade of pale as they recede.

He carries a spade, and an axe. At some obscure point, he digs down, quite a large hole, exposing the cable. He swings the axe and chops clean through it in a few strokes. He fills up the trench again, and carefully covers the area with fallen leaves and dead vegetation.

He goes and sits on the edge of Stout Grove, looking up at the vast trunks disappearing into the heavens, straight and true.

*          *          *          *          *

Hours later, Kath and Dan find him.

“It’s gone, completely.”

“Even our phones.”

They look panicked.

“That’s all right, kids. The signal’s down. It may be for some while. Get used to it.”

“But what are we gonna do?”

“Do? Look around you my dears.”

“At what? It’s just trees.”

“You can’t talk to trees,” Kath threw in, sitting herself down next to him.

Dan picked up a small rock and, tentatively threw it, bouncing it off the nearest trunk.

“O but they can talk to you,” said Alfie. “Listen.”

They listened.