The Wall Story

The Wall 4

"That's a photo of Bristol, England," said Harry Fields the proprietor of 'Fields Family - Aging Service.' "An aerial shot of the suspension bridge over the gorge. It's a wee nice photo, but I've got better 'uns. Older lookin' 'uns. The colour hasn't a faded much on this beggar, you see. Nay enough brown tones."

"Bristol?" said Patrick. "The name rings a bell. I might have visited there. So long ago now I confuse memory with dreams."

Harry Fields washed his hands in the soap of an expected sale. He was a small man with gleaming eyes and hunched shoulders. "Oh, aye, Sir. I know what ye mean. Tis a tenuous thing, memory, it is, Sir. A terrible thing for people like us, I mean. Och such doom. I have seen so many people who are lost, Sir. Lost like the barnacled clippers of nautical myth. But could I reach them with a wee memento before their tragic affliction did strike? Could I nay. Yet you have time, Sir, but not at all much."

Patrick grunted and took his eyes from the artificially aged photograph and swept his attention across the other artefacts in the shop. Paintings, walking sticks, books and...

"Lots of photos."

Harry Fields head bobbed. "Aye. Lot's of Photos, Sir. Grand photos, wee photos and jess about aught in between. Ay've git more photos than beggar other. A photo, it brings back wee memories yess see. Ya've gotta keep a hold O' them precious memories or the emptiness'll get ya. Photographs is the way, if in you please, Sir. Photographs that have had the ageing done upon them good and proper."

"Why?" Patrick inspected a painting. The colours were dark and patches showed on the gilded frame.

"Aren't yee a knowing the answer to that, Sir? You being bin here a while and all."

Patrick ran a finger along the frame and felt the edge of the flaked gold leaf. "Remind me."

Harry Field's tone became tinged with annoyance, as if he sensed the chance of a sale ebbed. "We wee beggars run like demented clocks, Sir. Och, no denying it, is there? It's all around us, man. I've lived here ages and it's still Spring. Bloody spring I tell ya and ta think that used to be followed by summer, autumn and winter. Me tartan great godfathers be damned!

"And the aging?"

Harry Field's pseud-features darkened as one does if felt trifled with.

"Taint it obvious, mon? With us so fast, everything else is so slow. Och, yer trying me patience with these daft questions, that yer bonny nonce knows full well. Nothing ages, nothing at all. The world barely moves. An ancient memento is grand, even if the aging of it be false.

Patrick agreed with this man. Yes, the natural world did seem slow and cumbersome here, and most objects so new. Having something old, even if the oldness was fake, might give comfort to some. A thread to connect them with the past...

...Patrick Holt watched the English boys from the thicket of willow high above the riverbank. He'd been able to sneak up on them this way now for a whole week, since the school holidays had arrived.

The fields of willows began at the tower block which held the one-bedroom flat he and his family lived in, and extended for some way to the river. People said that there were too many houses nowadays and too many people and no green land; but, the willow was green for part of the year and his pa said the such people talked crap. His pa said that all the little birds and insects and field-mice and so on hadn't had it so good for years, and that for them it was a good thing the oil wells had run dry and plants like willow were grown as bio-fuel.

Patrick didn't really understand what his pa was on about, after all willow branches weren't anything like oil. To think his pa were a schoolteacher too. It just went to show that even teachers didn't know it all.

The English boys were up to something. They were using abandoned shopping trolleys to climb into the river to fetch something. Patrick edged forward, out of the willow, to get a better look. He had to be careful. He was new to town, and they'd kick him black and blue if they caught him.

The gobby little one, what was his name? Dave, perhaps. Well, he balanced on the non-submerged parts of a trolley and tried to hook something metallic with a crowbar.

Patrick cursed and slid forward on his belly for an even better view. Dave managed to get a hand to the object he wanted and dragged it from the water. Lucky git, thought Patrick, seeing the emerging robot head dripping with dark mud. A Mark 7. No real intelligence, but good balance and movement skills. If the boys could get it working it'd carry their gear around at school, which'd be pretty cool as only rich kids had their own robots.

Maybe if they couldn't get the thing right out of the water now, they'd go off and I could lift it from under their noses, he thought. At that moment his vid-phone chirped loudly causing the boys to turn. Seeing Patrick clearly exposed on the riverbank, their expressions darkened.

"Get him!" screamed the one called Dave...

...the recollection was brief; but, it left the same clammy hand of fear on Patrick. Harry Fields expression turned to puzzlement as he saw emotions pass across Patrick's face.

Patrick sought to bury the memories again.

"What have you got in the way of things not pictorial?" he asked.

Harry Fields pursed his lips. "Not much. Tis a more expensive thing to create arti-mementos having the three dimensions. On occasion we'll engineer a 'special' for the Hartmanns, though. Here, take a wee gander at these. No offence, son, but I'd say they're to rich for yer pocket."

Fields led Patrick to a glass cabinet in the most secure corner of the shop. Antiquated pen-knives, dilapidated volumes of the classic 'Jack Brown' novel 'Infidels and Heretics' and personalised vid-phone designs dating back at least a hundred years lay upon the cabinet's shelves. He saw no sign of what had brought him to the shop: the Aldman bowl and tapper.

"I'm looking for something more aboriginal."

Fields took a handkerchief from his pocket and took away a smudge from the glass cabinet. "Aboriginal, eh? Nay much demand for aught like that. Ya got ta remember the nature of this after-life settlement, laddie. It's government sponsored. It's meant for us beggars that couldn'ae rub enough coppers to together ta flick in a fountain. T'ain't much of a call for yer aboriginal."

Patrick took his eyes from the cabinet and faced Harry Fields square on.

"But if a citizen wanted something really unusual, could you make and age the object to order?"

"Och, if the right money were offered, maybe. What yee after exactly?"

"A wooden bowl and tapper."

Harry Fields eyebrows furrowed. "And what'll that be when it is at home?"

Patrick formed his hands into a circle and said: "A wooden bowl this size with aboriginal designs on it. Plus an ivory tapered stick about the length of your forearm. I'd need them to both look old, real old. Millennia."

Harry Fields stared at Patrick as if he'd grown a tail and horns.

"Anthropology," said Patrick casually, "It's a hobby of mine."

Harry Fields expression snapped into professionalism. "Yer not needing ta explain aught to me, sir. The face, maybe went a bit funny cus I tried to imagine the object a bit too much. It were no reflection on yer request. Wooden bowl and tapper, sounds like a bonny project for someone with an interest.

Patrick found the little Scotsman annoying. The objects in this shop didn't appeal to him one jot, they were like dummies for babies. He'd be glad when he'd left this hoard of emotional props behind and its grasping proprietor.

Harry Fields rubbed his hands as he thought out loud. "It'll not be easy. Cost more than a few bob, for sure. The aura of genuinely old articles ain't no easy thing to come a hold of. The shapes, they're easy, it's the oldness that gets ya. Millenia you said didn't ya, yes? Well, we cannae go that far. Hell, lad, no-one can go that far. A couple of hundred years'll do you fine, believe me. Jess when will yee be wanting this aboriginal article?"

"I've changed my mind. Thanks anyway," said Patrick, and headed for the door.

end of part 4