| |
As Mordred’s Cessna 172 took off from Henley, he suppressed a yawn. Yawning was supposed to wake you up – at least that’s what they used to say. He’d read lately that it was about keeping your brain at the right temperature. Either way, trying to suppress one was pointless. The value of a good upbringing. Zilch.
Brian: Edna’s new name is Gabrielle Duchamp. You met just over eighteen months ago during a conference in Paris. At that time, she was studying design at the Ecole Superieuredes Arts et Techniques de la Mode – ESMOD, for short. Now she’s working for a charity, Aider L’Impuissance. We’ve built it a website, just in case. She’ll find you, by the way. You don’t have to find her.
As the plane took to the air, the ground stopped being real. Fields and buildings became toy versions. That was what stopped you having vertigo, probably. Your mind couldn’t really take it in.
You’re staying at the Hotel Alfonso in Saint Helier, near the Saint Clements Golf and Sports Centre. Do you play golf? Pity. Jeremy Pownall does. Bond did. Remember Goldfinger?
A few moments later they hit a bank of cloud and things got wobbly, then they ascended and it was like hovering over a duvet. Even less real. When, a short time later, the clouds parted a little, all he could see beneath was grey. It took him a moment to realise he was looking at the sea.
Jersey’s Chief Minister, Jeremy Pownall, Eton, blah, blah, Oxford, then the City. The continual drone of the plane’s engine. Another yawn, as his brain overheated again.
He didn’t really want to work with Annabel. Not till a long time had elapsed since the incident in the gents. Of course, he knew how she’d be now: oblivious. She could do off-the-wall things and act like they’d never happened. In his universe, though, once something had happened, that was it: it had. And it usually led to awkwardness.
Perhaps if he put it out of his mind. Think of something more important. Keep an eye out for Peter Decristoforo, that should do it.
But that thought was instantly shoved out by his cover story. He imagined himself in the dining room of the Alfonso, sitting at a table on his own, everyone looking at him. Yes, they all thought, he’s the sales rep, probably lives out of a suitcase, poor man. Meanwhile, a million miles below him, on the dinner table itself, ten croutons were soaking up his asparagus soup. To avert an expansionary disaster, he had to shovel them into his mouth pronto. Then Fenella Decristoforo-Salvaterra arrived and –
No, that was another thing not to think about. The plane was descending now, thank God. He needed to get away from his own head. Was that why people in his profession took to drink? So they wouldn’t think about Fenella?
Bloody hell, he was pathetic. In any decent spy novel, she’d be the one that was enthralled, not him. But it was always the same with him. He always ended up pining like a lovelorn adolescent. Even when he wasn’t even in love, because the truth was, he only thought about women like Fenella – particular women he’d met, never women in general - because he had too much time on his hands, and probably because it was expected of a man his age. Deep down, he probably felt nothing at all, unless boredom was a feeling.
When he stopped and thought about it, he was probably bored most of the time. Let’s see, he’d got out of bed this morning. Probably bored while he was getting ready to go to work. Okay, yes, there’d been parts of the news where he wasn’t bored, but then the analyst started going round in circles and he’d lost interest. Bored for most of the journey in. Not-bored during the meeting. Semi-bored with Brian. Not-bored when he read the file for the first time, semi-bored when he read it again, three-quarters-bored on the third reading. After that – the fourth, fifth and sixth readings - just bored, at least for all statistical purposes. Bored in the evening, save for about twenty minutes during The Simpsons. Then bed. You only went to sleep because you were bored. A quick calculation suggested he was bored for about 75% of his day, and by extension, his life. And he was a secret agent. God knows what being an accountant or a solicitor was like.
As usual, after the acknowledgement of the pathological boredom came the guilt. What the hell right did he have to feel bored? Who did he think he was? At least do something useful, something like Aider L’Impuissance – although not exactly that, because it was 100% phoney. Bloody typical.
He had to snap out of it. Maybe visit Jersey’s Gerald Durrell zoo – if there was time. He loved animals, even slugs and flies and worms, although they all made him want to cry when he thought about them long enough, the things they had to put up with. But hey, that was the universe.
The plane landed. He hoped Annabel hadn’t come to meet him. Where have you been, John? I’ve been having an awful time, Tariq say’s you’re entirely to blame, and by the way, I love you. He scanned the airport. No one he could see. But the car was there, a black Mercedes. She might be sitting inside, plotting.
Drizzle fell in waves. He ran from the plane to the car and got onto the back seat. Apart from the driver, it was empty. The upholstery smelt new. They drove to the Hotel Alfonso at a leisurely speed. So far he hadn’t seen any protesters, not one. Mind you, the plane had approached the island at low altitude from the northwest, so he’d got no sort of view of anything much Jersey-related at all. Maybe later today.
The hotel was a four storey pre-war building with hulking bay windows, pilasters and a gabled roof. Like all such, the interior was based on a suburban lounge circa 1956. There were aspidistras, chandeliers, and low teak tables with local-attraction brochures on. After signing the register, he went straight upstairs to his single bedroom, where a chair and a chest of drawers and a view of the sea awaited him with dour expressions. Then the sun burst through the clouds, a rainbow appeared, and he had the unexpected feeling this mission was going to be a success.
He tried to look inside himself, discern his feelings. Was he bored now?
He didn’t know. He noticed the red light flashing on the hotel phone next to his bed. Beside the handset, a card said, ‘To access your messages, dial 745, then enter the password, 555.’
“This is Tina,” a young woman’s voice said. “I’m the Chief Minister’s secretary. Welcome to the island, Mr Mordred. The Minister hopes you had a very pleasant flight, and that you enjoy your stay. He has reserved a time slot for you this evening at five. Assuming you get this message soon after you get in, it should be around two-thirty pm now. If for any reason you cannot attend, or you need anything, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We look forward to seeing you.”
He deleted it. Two and a half hours, lots of time. Maybe this would be a good time to make an excursion. See if he could find any actual protesters.
He rang down to reception and asked them to call him a taxi. Ten minutes later, he climbed onto the back seat of a Cassidy Cabs saloon with an old man in sunglasses and a cloth cap behind the wheel.
“Where to?” the old man asked, in an American accent. “Sorry, they wouldn’t tell me on the phone.”
“I’d like you to drop me at the protest.”
He looked hard into his rear view and pulled out into the traffic going eastwards. “You’re a reporter,” he said neutrally.
“No, a salesman. I’m just interested. Once in a lifetime experience to see something a bit unusual. Something beyond the everyday.”
“Sure, ‘beyond the everyday’. It’s that all right.”
“Is it affecting business?”
“In a good way, yes. All those extra people. The supermarkets are having to race to renew their stock. They’re doubling their orders at the wholesalers’. Mind you, once the violence kicks off, it’ll be a whole other matter.”
“What violence?”
“It’s inevitable, that many people, no proper johns. Sooner or later, they’re going to get tired and grubby. Then they’ll get irritable. I give them a week at the outside. After that, there’ll be looting.”
“From what I’ve heard, they’re mostly middle-class discontents with jobs to go home to. Looting’s probably not their thing.”
“No disrespect, but that’s not how these things work. It’s never the majority. It’s the small number of hangers-on with nothing to lose. You always get them. And they’re nearly always out of control. Look at Altamont, sixty-nine.”
“Before my time.”
“Big rock concert. Started off cool, ended up a kid got killed.”
“Well, let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself.”
The driver laughed. “That’s all history ever does. First time as tragedy, then as farce. Haven’t you heard?”
“What do you think of the protests? I mean, personally?”
“Love ’em. But then, I’m an unreformed hippie. Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain, Monterey, The Stones in the Park, Woodstock, Altamont, Vancouver, you name it. If it was worth going to, I was there. And out of my head, mostly.” He laughed. “I’m a walking, talking, cab-driving piece of goddamn history.” He peeped the horn twice and stuck his fist out of the open window. “Viva la revolución,” he said, and laughed again. He saw an old lady at a bus stop. “Hey, baby, I said, Viva la revolución!” he shouted at her. She smiled and waved in a way that suggested this was a regular occurrence.
They drove in silence the rest of the way, down deep country lanes, up gentle inclines and down into shallow valleys. Above, the sun and a clear blue sky. Mordred was surprised by just how big the island was. He’d never really thought about Jersey before, but he had it down in his mind as somewhere so small you could see one side from the other. Even the size of Saint Helier struck him as larger than expected.
After a few moments, he heard something outside, and rolled the window down. A rock band. He still hadn’t seen a single protester. Maybe there weren’t any. Perhaps it was some deranged publicity stunt by the Jersey Tourist Board. Designed to stop visitors? Or encourage them? He didn’t know.
The car pulled to a stop. As far as Mordred could tell, they were in the middle of the countryside. What was going on?
“This is as far as I go,” the driver said. “Climb to the top of the hill in front of you, and you’ll see it. I’ll stick around if you’re only going to be five minutes. Otherwise, you’ll have to excuse.”
Mordred paid. “I’ll ring you when I need picking up. I’ll wait here.”
“It may not be me who returns, but I’ll tell them where to find you.”
“Is it big? The demonstration?”
“Hey, big, small, in between, it’s all relative. You judge. I’m from Texas originally. Nothing’s big in my world except Lone Star State stuff.”
“Have a good day.”
“Viva la revolución.”
The band was much louder now, although he still couldn’t hear what they were playing. Something folksy. He hoped this wasn’t going to be too much of a disappointment. The more people there were, the greater Hannah’s chances of coming out unscathed when the violence kicked off – assuming the taxi driver was right and it was inevitable. Knowing Hannah, it would be two hundred or so pop stars and music execs – all friends of hers – and a man named Aubrey with long hair and a ‘way’ with a twelve-string acoustic guitar. They were probably hiding out here, in the middle of nowhere in order to keep a lid on how few of them there really were. The words, ‘ten thousand’, where Chinese Whispers were in play, might translate as anything. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but he might even be able to persuade the lot of them to get on the next boat out of here. For their own safety. I don’t disagree with your message, that’s how he’d begin. World War O; bloody hell, what a farce.
The music got louder the higher he climbed. After a minute and a half, he reached the summit and looked over into ... something he couldn’t believe.
The whole landscape, right up to the horizon, was covered with people and tents. Hundreds of multi-coloured Jolly Rogers mingled with hundreds of scarlet Real Alternative flags, all at different heights and flapping proudly together in the afternoon breeze. To the right, the sea was dotted with surfers and flotillas of boats. In the distance – so far away as to be almost invisible – a band stood on a stage singing Hard Times of Old England. There must be close to a million people here, maybe more.
Suddenly, for the first time, he understood what World War O meant. That it wasn’t hyperbole. It was real. It was here, now, right in front of him.
His head span. How the hell was he meant to find his sister in this? let alone someone like Peter Decristoforo, whom he’d only seen in photos? It reminded him not so much of a rock concert, but of Kumbh Mela, a gargantuan Hindu festival-cum-pilgrimage once every three years. Obviously, it couldn’t be anywhere near that big, nothing could, but it was spectacular.
No point in staying. He wished he’d asked the driver to wait now. He had to be at Jeremy Pownall’s at five. There wasn’t even time to walk halfway across here before then.
Maybe there was no point in remaining on the island, full stop. How could he go between his sister and the Chief Minister if he couldn’t even find his sister? And of course, it seemed unlikely she was in charge of this. The very notion of anyone being ‘in charge’ of it didn’t seem to make sense. It was too big. She’d probably made one or two inspiring speeches at the beginning and the media had hailed her as head honcho. If so, they’d have done it as much for their sake as hers. They needed someone to go to, and if she was willing and able, why not?
Maybe he was being ungenerous.
No one seemed to have noticed him arrive, and he didn’t suppose anyone would see him leave. New people turning up then departing was probably so commonplace you didn’t even register it once you’d been here any length of time. Of course, once you got to the other side of the hillock – the side he’d scaled – you lost sight of the others, which would explain why everyone was over here.
He took out his phone and called Cassidy Cabs. A woman answered. He was about to explain who he was – he hadn’t taken the driver’s name or given his own – when he noticed what looked like a massive disturbance in the crowd, about two hundred yards downhill to his left. People were running away, screaming. They were being chased by bulky men in leather jackets wielding baseball bats. One of those fleeing – a man - tripped. A pursuer grabbed him, pinned him to the ground and began punching him. It was like watching a pack of wolves charge at sheep. Everyone trying to get away. No one resisting. Terror swept backwards like a Mexican wave, and so quickly that those on the receiving end, deep within the crowd and therefore safe for the time being, probably had no idea what they were terrified of.
Suddenly, Mordred was running. He grabbed the baseball bat from the man who was pummelling his victim, and so deftly that he didn’t appear to realise he was no longer holding it till it swung round and smacked him unconscious. Four others were pushing into the crowd, trying to get space and leverage for a wide-arc swing. Mordred grabbed some men from the crowd and put them to service pushing the culprits from behind, so that they fell over under their own weight. He hit them hard as they tried to get up, and passed their weapons into the crowd. For a moment, the tide looked as if it was turning, but the men in the assault’s forefront saw what was going on. They regrouped and turned on Mordred. One protester tried to defend him, but he was too slow. Then, it was a great basketful of punches and kicks and head butts. To begin with, Mordred didn’t feel pain. He just felt angry.
Then he didn’t feel anything at all.
