11. A Light in the Darkness

THROUGH THE GATES OF TIME - Part 11

The words for things like No and don’t go yet, and see my Magga were, to Roger, almost identical undecipherable grunts as Uggah frantically tried to communicate a mixture of gratitude and the need to reward the stranger who had brought his child Siddah back from the jaws of death.

But there was no way he could understand the man still sporting an old pair of his underpants nor comprehend his verbal outpouring. Frodo, however, probably because he was still young enough to have one toe in the language of a long dead past, did seem to get part of the message.

“He wants us to stay awhile, dad,” he said, “he wants his wife to say thanks to you for what you’ve done to his little boy.”

“There’s no need for that,” said Roger, smiling to show that he might have a friendly side to his nature, and taking Uggah by one hand and tentatively shaking it. “We need to get back to our Christmas,” he added, speaking slowly in the hope that totally unfamiliar words to the other might make sense if articulated at snail’s pace, and as if to push the point home he started moving back in the direction of the cave that they’d found themselves leaving as they marvelled at a totally different world from its primitive entrance, and unintentionally left their Christmas on Portland Crescent behind. But his progress was slowed down by the tugging by Uggah in his attempt at getting him to stay while he prepared to offer him his most valuable gift.

“She’s there, dad,” pointed Apple as a figure still dressed incongruously in one of her mother’s old nighties appeared at the bottom of the slope, with a second child scampering along beside her. There could be no mistaking who it was, and he could only guess at what she wanted.

“Drat it,” hissed Roger, still managing a smile, “I guess I’d best say hello. After all we offered them our hospitality last night. It was last night, wasn’t it?”

“I hope so dad,” replied Apple, “because if it wasn’t Christmas will be over and done with before you’ve even carved the turkey!”

“We won’t be long, will we, Roger?” asked May pointedly. “After all, I’ve got the Christmas veg to prepare and cook before it’s too late.”

Meanwhile, Uggah had run to the light of his life and was explaining what Roger had done in order to give their little Siddah back his life, and as if to prove the point Siddah had been squirming in his arms when he saw his mother, clearly wanted to be put down so that he could run to her. He had made a truly remarkable recovery from the near-death piece of meat he’d seemed to be only minutes earlier.

“Remarkable,” murmured Roger when he saw how much life` had returned to the child, I wasn’t expecting him to be running about like that just yet.”

Maggah listened to what her man said to her, his grunts and occasional squeaks seeming to mean a lot to her. And when he had finished she ran up to Roger, flung her arms round him, and kissed him full on the lips. The smell of her breath was both unfamiliar and bordering on the unpleasant, but he understood that a people who seemed to know nothing of clothing were probably equally uninformed about oral hygiene and tooth brushing.

A small group of other naked people had gathered round before long, anxious to hear the tale of the magician who had given life back to the apparently dead child. They cheered Uggah on when he thanked Roger in his own language, and said that before he left he must be given a present as a reward for saving the life of his little one.

“We’ll have to make a getaway pronto,” he hissed at May, “I never did like crowds of strangers staring at me.”

“Come on, then,” she replied, and the twenty-first century family, hand in hand, managed to scramble towards the entrance to what the locals called the Hellhole.

A tug-of-war began, with Uggah tugging one way and Roger in the opposite direction. Then Uggah was assisted by his lovely Magga whilst May pulled on Roger’s free arm and slowly they remained virtually stationary on a patch of earth only yards from the cave entrance.

In the end the Drinkworths had to give in. The combined strength of Uggah and Maggah was more than enough to see them slowly slide back, and the antics of the two little children, Siddah and his sister who was laughing as if everything was a huge joke, told him he was fighting a war he could never win.

“What the hell do you want?” he shouted at Uggah, who grinned back amiably at him.

“They want to take you to their house,” explained Frodo, who seemed to have an almost unearthly understanding of the primitive ways of Uggah and his people.

“But we need to get back home, Roger,” protested May, “don’t forget what day it is, for goodness’ sake!”.

“We should never have put a foot in that damned closet to start with,” he grumbled, “we should have a darned sight more common sense than we showed. After all, the appearance of the shadow people should have been warning enough.”

“It won’t take long, Dad, and I’d like to see a caveman’s home,” suggested Apple, “and you never know, we might see a mammoth!”

“What’s a mammoth?” asked Frodo.

“Like a giant elephant,” May told him, “with long hair. Or so my teacher says, and she should know, she’s old enough to have met one.”

In the end the foursome, still linked by their hands, found themselves being cheered on by a crowd of a dozen naked people as they stumbled along towards a pile of rocks, boulders and smaller stones.

As they walked along they saw that the valley sides had openings in them, hollows that looked like caves, though Roger was sure that most of them had been created by human toil the laborious hacking at solid stone until a shelter was formed. But it wasn’t only caves. Some families had erected crude shelters from whatever they could find around them, where the creation of artificial caves was likely to be impossible, and they were led to one of those.

There was an entrance that was as shapeless as any entrance could be and inside it was dark, gloomy and smelt faintly of a mixture of old rotting meat, sweat and other possibly more disgusting things.

As their eyes became accustomed to the little light that the doorway permitted in, Roger noticed something in the half-light, protruding from a gap between two huge boulders that made one side of the cave-like construction.

“Look at that, Apple,” he said, pointing.

“What is it, dad?” she asked.

“Unless I’m much mistaken, and I don’t think that I am, it looks very much like a gigantic tusk, the sort that the mammoths you’re so fond of might have,” he replied.

Uggah nodded as if he understood.

“Locked,” he said, quite clearly, and he reached up and grabbed hold of the tusk. “Locked,” he added, and he swung on it.

“It’s for exercises, dad,” said a grinning Frodo, “to keep him fit! It’s so cool. So very cool.”

Then Uggah disappeared to a kind of alcove at the back of the cave-like area he had built, and returned with a second huge tusk. It was obviouslty heavy and almost impossible for him to carry.

“Locked,” he said gravely.

“Take it, dad,” encouraged Apple, “it’s your reward for saving the little boy and he’ll be most upset if you don’t.”

“Then I know what I’ll do,” replied Roger, “I’ll swap you.”

And he took a small torch out of his pocket, a tiny thing that he used at night to find the keyhole when he returned home late, and handed it to Uggah.

“By the time you work out what do with this it’ll probably be long flat,” he said, smiling, “but you never know: it might come in handy one dark night, if you look after it! Come on, kids, it’s time for Christmas lunch. I’ll carry the tusk.”

© Peter Rogerson 30.11.20