Land Beyond the Map

“He mentioned that he’d heard a funny story from friends and they’d picked it up from overhearing an Admiral talking in his club.” She shot him an oblique inquiring look, as though weighing him afresh. “The story was so odd that it was worth repeating.”

Crane nodded. “You can spare me the story. I know.”

Polly Gould put down her cup and stared directly at Crane. “I don’t know it all, not the details. But I want you to tell me. It is very important that you do so, Mr. Crane.”

Crane scowled at the fire. “I can’t see how this very funny story — to quote your friends — can have any bearing on your visit. It merely explains how you know I am interested in a map that has been torn down the center.”

“I guessed you would say that.” The fire leaped up, throwing a lurid flickering glow across their faces, picking out the silver glitter of the crossed rapiers on the wall, flinging back a blinding reflection from the broken map case. “I can tell you that Allan had that map—”

“He had it!”

“Yes. He had it. He used it. Just as you did.”

“My God!” Crane sat in a cold sweat. That someone he had once known, an old army friend, had actually possessed the map — his map! — and he hadn’t known — it struck shrewdly. And Allan had actually used it. Incredible.

Polly said: “You’d never told Allan the story. I didn’t know until Tom told me. Perhaps, if you had—”

“You think he disappeared — there?”

“I don’t know what I think. Perhaps, if you tell me the story and fill in details, I might have something more to go on than a fifth-hand account told with all the boring club-jargon thrown in. Well?”

“I can hardly refuse.” Crane sat back in his chair. His voice sank, so that Polly leaned forward, hands under chin and elbows on knees, to hear him. The firelight caught her face, limned it cameo-like against the shadows of the study.

“I must have been five or six at the time. We were touring — father, mother, Adele and myself — but touring where I cannot remember. The experience was so strange that none of us mentioned it afterwards, and now that my parents are dead and Adele is — well” — he swallowed and went on — “that doesn’t matter in this context. She cannot tell me. Finding out just what did happen is what matters.”

“I know about your sister,” Polly said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, they look after her well. She plays with her dolls and her pretty ribbons and lets them wash her face and dress and undress her. She’ll be thirty-four next birthday.”

Polly remained silent.

After a moment Crane said: “We had a big red car. I remember that because all cars were black in those days. A big tourer and I loved to sit up front with the hood down and let the slipstream whip into my face. I can feel it now.” He put one hand to his cheek and rubbed, thoughtfully. “We were going from one town to another — naturally, I don’t know where — and I was anxious to get there for an ice cream. I remember bits and pieces, flashes of memory, elusive patterns; not the whole thing in a nicely ordered sequence. To remember anything at all from that age means it must have impressed me very forcibly. This did.”

“Yes?”

“Just as we were leaving the outskirts father realized he didn’t have a map. I believe it was my fault; I’d used his map to make a paper hat. Anyway. There was a junk shop, you know, old stuff people toss out and that lies in windows gathering dust for years on end. Then a rich American happens by and pays enough to keep the owner living for another five years. There was a book tray outside. Twopence each. Nothing much under a shilling these days. Father asked the man if he had a map. He had. He had a map all right.”

“The map.”

“Yes. The map. It was folded into the back of a guide book. Father just tossed the book onto my lap and we set off. The next flash that comes is of father using words I didn’t understand and of mother shushing him. There was only half the map there. Someone had torn half of it off.”

“Wasn’t a remark passed…”

“My mother, I think. She had a whacky sense of humor. It may have been father; it doesn’t matter. They said: ‘I suppose when we reach the torn part of the map we’ll all fall off the edge.’ It made me laugh.” Crane fiddled with the teacups, thinking back, feeling the sun and air and the way the big old red tourer rolled around corners. He could see the map spread out on the seat between him and his father, his father, upright behind the wheel, leather gauntleted hands so firm on the wheel, so gentle with the old paper of the map.

“We drove on in the sunshine through green fields, not a house or a soul in sight. The telegraph posts were all leaning at crazy angles and the road was very white and dusty. Then father said: ‘Well, hold on, folks. This is where we all fall off.’ And we all laughed. We were still laughing when the gray mist closed down dankly from nowhere.”

He shivered.