Page 5 of Three Cheers for Base

Bobbin & Weaving

  ‘Bloody typical,’ thought Drade, glancing over his shoulder for about the tenth time that hour. ‘When you don’t want to see the man, you find him attached to you like an umbilical cord; but the one time you actually need him, he completely disappears.’

  Drade had been staking out Kenneth Bobbin’s apartment in the block of Thames-side council houses for almost two hours, having been reassured by Barney that the target was a creature of habit and would be making his way to a local cafe at around ten o’clock, pausing only to pick up a newspaper on the way.

  Drade had positioned himself on the opposite side the Embankment and had taken a bench overlooking the river. This had the advantage of his not being too obvious to Bobbin, but the distinct disadvantage of forcing Drade to peer around at frequent intervals to make sure that Bobbin did not get away.

  It was approaching ten thirty and nothing – not even a false alarm. Drade’s thighs started to absorb the coldness of the wrought-iron bench. He crossed his legs to stimulate the circulation and impatiently exhaled. He wondered what he would say to the man, if and when he appeared, and reflected on how strange it was that, whilst the two had spent considerable time in conversation on account of the Bobbin’s leeching ways, nonetheless, Drade could recall nothing about him except that he had taken a liking to an old, red sixties Jaguar which had belonged to Drade’s father. Drade had taken the car for a spin down to Richmond one morning when Bobbin, who had spent the day in the park taking photographs of the deer, had caught sight of it and struck up a conversation.

  During that initial encounter, Drade had had no idea that Bobbin lived so locally, and had prided himself on being an affable, approachable sort of chap so had been quite happy to natter away with the photographer cum-motoring-enthusiast-type who had been so taken with his Jag.

  ‘Really floored her this morning along the M3, smooth as you like, hardly heard a thing with the overdrive,’ he had muttered to himself. ‘Amazing to think that the beast is almost fifty years old.’

  Bobbin had nodded. ‘Gearing and torque, goes back to Achimedes, doesn’t it?’

  Drade knew what a gear was but had no idea why talking should make a difference. He did know that Aristotle was Greek, however.

  ‘Yup, good ol’ Greeks,’ he said with a knowing chuckle, ‘all those years ago.’

  Bobbin had seemed satisfied, and Drade had smiled to himself at the ease with which he had managed to dodge the flying spanner, as it were, and persuade a perfect stranger – an expert mechanic to boot – that he, Hamish de Buxton Drade, was not some clot who had simply inherited a nice car and had no idea how it actually worked.

  ‘Being an expert in the old practicals is all very well, but real talent is about being able to don any costume and wear any mask,’ he had thought to himself.

  Mysteriously (or at least for reasons which Drade had never been able to fathom) Bobbin had let his natural curiosity get the better of his obvious satisfaction: ‘When did Jaguar start using a straight-port cylinder head? Sixty-seven, or was it before they rebadged the Mark 2?’ he had asked casually.

  Very slowly and thoughtfully Drade’s head had inclined skywards and he studied the heavens. affecting such severe absent-mindedness that one be might forgiven for concluding that he had not heard the question. Yet his mind was racing, torquing like a jaguar with verbal diarrhoea, one might say. This was a tricky one. If he simply said ‘yes’, as was his habit when presented with this type of diabolical conundrum, then he ran a double risk of firstly, not being right about the year of this straight-port thingie, and secondly, being wrong about the order of their introduction. On the other hand, saying ‘no’ was even riskier, as not only did he run the same risks in reverse, but he would have seemed to be mounting an open challenge to Bobbin’s knowledge of matters mechanical.

  How he hated the kind of complex question which did not allow of a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. If he were running the world, Drade would have had them banned, or at least considered highly impolite to pose to all but the closest of friends.

  ‘Complex conversation puts the kibosh on a person’s thinking time by forcing him to concentrate on someone else,’ he reflected. His mind returned to Bobbin: what should he do in the present situation? Firstly, he needed to stop studying the sky – there wasn’t a cloud in it and he had already had enough time to admire its blueness. And secondly, he needed to defend himself. The words of Patton sprang to his mind: ‘When in doubt, give the enemy a sound thrashing.’

  He drew his head down to his opponent’s level and, eyebrow raised with more than a hint of condescension, glared at him without blinking.

  ‘Nineteen sixty-eight,’ he said, ‘you’re confusing this model with the Mark 1.’

  Drade was stunned with his own temerity and he felt his eyebrow drop a touch. He steeled himself: this was not a time for weakness. Bobbin opened his mouth as if to say something, and then closed it, spotting Drade’s eyebrow which had pepped up again to uncomfortable heights, and sensing from the aggressive sideways cock of the man’s face that Drade was not one to be argued with.

  Beaten, Bobbin looked down and stammered out a face-saving excuse.

  ‘Yes, yes, you’re right off course. They look similar, don’t they?’

  Drade raised his other eyebrow. He had parried the other’s clumsy advances and would now go in for the kill.

  ‘From a distance, perhaps,’ he answered, trying to seem as though he was doing his best, but not succeeding, in keeping a sarcastic lilt out of his voice. He had been going to add, ‘fifty or sixty miles,’ but had thought better of it. That was the great thing about old Hamish, he thought: there was not a drop of vindictive blood coursing through his veins. He would give another a slapping if he really merited it, but only to inform, never – repeat never to punish.

  Back on the stakeout, Drade looked around again, and, to his joy, spotted the man carefully locking his front door. Drade jumped up and then, remembering to try to be as subtle as possible, affected an amiable stroll along the Embankment. He glanced across the road. Bobbin was proceeding at some speed in the direction of Battersea Bridge. Drade picked up his own pace, subtlety certainly had its place, but at this point he did not want to lose him, and he would rather have sprinted though the moving traffic and rugger-tackled Bobbin to the ground to get his attention, than have spent another morning freezing to death on that bench.

  As predicted by Barney, Bobbin turned right; Drade followed. The cafe was at the bottom of the street, and now Bobbin was now approaching the newsagent. The plan was that, whilst Bobbin went and got himself his paper, Drade would slip by and casually take up a position in the café, whereinwhich after five minutes Bobbin would discover him.

  ‘So the deer would seem to be stalking the hunter rather than the other way round,’ Drade had remarked Belter a few days earlier when the plan was conceived.

  ‘Exactly so,’ Belter had murmured

  ‘Like so many things in life which seem one way, but are in fact another,’ said Drade.

  Belter, who did not have a philosophical bone in his body, had managed an ‘indeed’ by way of not appearing rude, and then busied himself with other matters.

  But Drade was not finished, for one could have created two Platos – and probably a Socrates too from the number of philosophical bones he had been endowed with.

  ‘But, er...hang on a mo’, if the hunter wasn’t actually stalking the deer, then what would he be doing in the woods?’ he asked.

  Belter had paused for a second before replying, but this time he didn’t look up, ‘If the deer were really stalking the hunter, that would make the hunter the deer, in which case, would one really expect to find him anywhere else?’

  It had taken Drade a couple of seconds to understand the unflinching logic of Belter’s argument, but once he did, he had thanked his friend for clearing up the matter. ‘Very damn smart,’ thought Drade, ‘and just like Belter.’

 
Bobbin was nearing the newsagent. Drade readied himself for a sudden dash to the cafe, but to his immense dismay, Bobbin passed the newsagent without giving it a glance.

  ‘Now what,’ thought Drade. ‘Quick, a plan!’ He scoured his capacious brain for all the plans he knew, but none of them seemed applicable.

  Bobbin turned back towards the newsagent evidently; he had changed his mind.

  Drade dropped like a stone and began to fumble with his shoelace. Presently, he glanced up; he had not been spotted, and Bobbin had gone into the newsagent.

  ‘He must have forgotten,’ thought Drade. Thanking God for Bobbin’s absentmindedness, he whipped past the newsagent, making sure he was facing the opposite side of the street as he did so, and entered the cafe.

  ‘Large coffee and some buttered toast,’ he said to the barman, picking up a magazine from the rack, and leaning on the bar. Having secured his position, he started to leaf through the pages as casually as he could.

  Right on cue, in walked Bobbin.

  Drade glanced up, down, then up again, as if taken by surprise. He beamed at Bobbin.

  ‘Kenneth,’ he said, ‘what a surprise!’

  ‘Hello Hamish. It was you, yes. I saw you earlier, actually. You were sitting on the Embankment, weren’t you?’

  ‘Er...yes, I think I was. actually,’ said Drade, slightly taken aback.

  ‘Must have taken a shortcut to beat me here,’ said Bobbin.

  ‘Ha, ha, well, you know, just watching the seasons change,…ha, ha. And then when they had, I felt like a coffee.’ Drade tried to keep the guilt from infecting his voice.

  ‘Yes, well...’ said an affable Kenneth nodding at Drade. He turned to the barman, ‘Coffee to go, please.’

  ‘Disaster!’ thought Drade, ‘he’s about to leave.’ He mastered his instinct simply to blurt out the reason for their meeting, and scrambled around frantically for something to talk about.

  ‘Er, done any more of your fascinating photography hobby recently?’ he asked, trying not to stammer, which was a failing of his when under pressure.

  Bobbin seemed slightly surprised. Hamish had always had such a busy schedule, that whenever their paths had crossed before, Hamish had barely been able to spare him more than a few seconds; yet here he was, taking it easy, having a coffee, and wanting to talk about photography.

  ‘Actually, yes,’ Bobbin said, pulling closer to Drade.

  ‘Gotcha!’ thought Drade, ‘the hunter dressed as a deer, bags the deer dressed as a hunter.’

  ‘I had no idea you were a fellow snapper,’ said Bobbin.

  ‘Oh yes!’ exclaimed Drade, ‘all the time. Me…my camera virtually inseparable…’

  ‘What’s your speciality?’ asked Bobbin.

  ‘It varies,’ said Drade, ‘seasonally…you know…’ Finding himself quite unable to pad this out, he looked around for a free table.

  A familiar glint appeared in Bobbin’s eye. Drade sighed: he knew that look.

  The two sat down, but Gaol-time was slow for Drade encapsulated, as he soon was, in an endless discussion about different kinds of lenses, batteries, flash arrangements, shutter speeds, and film types. The advantages and disadvantages of digital versus traditional SLR were debated, along with which formats where best for which type of photography, and then, just as they were about to enter the minefield of colour development and pantones, Drade had an epiphany.

  ‘Of course, my thing is ducks,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ said Bobbin.

  ‘Oh yes, didn’t I tell you? Yes, you’ll often find me of a morning – most mornings, actually – down there by the river taking piccies of the little things.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ said Bobbin.

  ‘Yes...the way the waddle along, and their funny looking beaks…looks like they’re always smiling...wonderful, wonderful to see.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Bobbin. ‘Here’s an idea, why don’t we take a few photos together, make a day of it. What sort of hide do you use?’

  ‘Er...a normal one, normally. And sometimes a big one. And at other times, a ...a smaller one. Depends on so many factors. Very complicated.’

  ‘Well, I look forward to it,’ said Bobbin, getting up, intimating his imminent departure.

  Drade jumped up, half blocking Bobbin’s way to the door, half dragging and half guiding the man back to the table.

  ‘Of course, there won’t be ducks there for much longer,’ he voice cracking in affected regret.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Bobbin, with a note of concern.

  ‘Well, it’s this new hotel, or port, or whatever they’re building there. Going to destroy the place apparently. River’s going to dry up, weeds are going to grow, and the ducks will leave.’

  ‘Very sad,’ agreed Bobbin. But then he cheered up a little: ‘Still, there’s always the Serpentine, and it’s closer to you, actually. We can go there.’

  Drade’s face dropped as he watched Bobbin leave the cafe. He answered his parting wave with a nod and became lost in thought.

  ‘All in all, not a perfect outcome,’ he reflected. What was worse, he had somehow arranged to meet the most boring man in the world to do the most boring thing - early some morning. And he had promised to bring ‘the hide’ – whatever that might be.’

  Fishin’ for Favours

  ‘I’m calling it “RiverKidz”,’ Barney had announced to Belter a couple of weeks before.

  ‘Got a contemporary feel about it,’ muttered Belter, thumbing through a pile of receipts. ‘Would that be “kids” with a z or an s or a p?’

  ‘A z and it would be two words in one, with a great big capital K in the middle.’

  ‘And what is “RiverKidz”?’ asked Belter.

  ‘We get some schools kids down to the river bank – just where they are going to build the port – get them busy will all sorts of things, and then get the Councillor down to have a look.’

  ‘What sorts of things?’

  ‘Well, I thought mainly fishy things,’ said Barney. ‘The kids catch a few fish, they study them, they learn about them, they might even eat a few.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Belter.

  ‘And then, of course you’ve got Tage, Tasil…the Tamagean herb, you know?’

  ‘Riverweed?’

  ‘Yes, same formula. You get the kids to find some, to study it, perhaps even to nibble a bit of it.’

  ‘You are joking!’

  ‘No. What’s funny about that?’

  ‘I thought you were joking about them eating the fish. They’re all totally polluted, not good to eat, if you start serving up fish with some disgusting riverweed everybody will die. All the kids’ll die in a big heap – dead – and it will be your fault, Barney,’ said Belter.

  ‘Fair enough. No eating, but fishing – fine, studying them – fine, generally get close to the little blighters – fine.’

  ‘Right, so the kids are all busy with the fish, and Suzzie the Liberal rolls up – then what?

  ‘Well then, we’ll give her a glimpse of the old Riverbanker’s life,’ said Barney.

  ‘She is a Liberal, Barney, but she’s not stupid. Don’t try and bamboozle her; she’ll see through it. She likes to make up her own mind, or at least to think she does. Her main weakness is she’s so bloody naïve. So, what you need to do is persuade her to persuade herself that playing down by the river is like playing in the street for Londoners of a certain class, and let her do the rest.’

  ‘I think you can leave this one to me, Belter,’ said Barney. ‘We’ll start by getting a few eco-traps down there.’

  Unluckily, not being a Riverbanker himself, Barney’s prepared ‘traps’ had been installed back to front, which meant that the entrances, though which the fish were supposed to pass, faced the riverbank. So in spite of their being full all kinds of baits, designed to appeal to every fish-palette imaginable, the only way for a hungry fish to get itself trapped would have been for it to jump out of the water, flap its way up the bank and the
n flop itself obligingly through the entrance of the cage to feast upon the delights that lay therein.

  ‘We’ll have to turn them round the proper way and fill them with live fish from the market,’ said Barney earlier that day, where they had discovered their mistake. ‘What a shag!’

  ‘I read somewhere that Tamagean fish are not known for their brains,’ observed Drade, bringing to mind yet another of his uncle’s articles. ‘Something to do with mercury pollution. So, what you could do, is leave the traps as they are, fill them with live fish, and then, if anyone wonders whether a fish would be that stupid to get itself trapped in that way, we can just say that Thames fishes are not known for their intellect, and that only the stupid ones ended up in the traps.’

  ‘I reckon you’ve got to be pretty smart, fish-wise, to figure out that the way to get to get hold of the bait was to go cross-country,’ remarked Belter drily. ‘Turn the traps around, Barney. I know where to get fish from.’

  The evening started successfully: the children – around fifty of them – arrived on cue, screaming and shouting so loudly that one might have thought Hannibal’s army to have taken a wrong turn and crossed the Thames rather than the Po. But this aside, they had been a well-behaved bunch, who had been divided into five groups of ten, or so, and who had immediately started to tackle the activities which had been laid on for them.

  Ms Templer had been due at half past six, and Barney had arranged for both Drade and his new-found companion, the eminent Kenneth Bobbin, to be there doing a little wildlife photography; and Belter posed with a couple of his pals, as some of those fishermen one invariably finds stuck in the mud somewhere on every fine British riverbank. Barney had even managed to persuade a group of those queer, shabby types, who lived on the river boats nearby, to float a barge and a couple of rowboats round to where the main events were taking place, so that, all in all, by the time the effervescent councillor had appeared on the scene, there was quite a crowd in position, and there was something of a carnival atmosphere in the air, which was compounded by the sudden appearance of an ice-cream van, as well as a mob of completely unconnected onlookers.

  ‘Rubbernecking blighters,’ thought Barney. ‘They probably think someone’s drowned, and are just waiting for the police divers to start dragging the Thames.’

  ‘Hello, hello,’ said Ms Templer, the moment she caught sight of young Barney bounding towards her.

  She had an unusual kind of voice: high pitched but not piercing; loud but not ear battering; a voice which carried, no matter where she was; and she spoke with an accent that could cut glass. She was a tall and mighty lady, whose dress managed to combine representative pieces from almost every tribe and ethnicity in existence.

  Her top half sported an Indian Kameez-and-shawl combination, very brightly coloured and much-favoured by her on account of the general looseness of fit. She wore two different types of leg attire: the left leg accommodated a Cypriot version of a golfing plus-four; the right was garnished with something which might have originated in the Alps. One was left wondering how these two pieces were attached together at the midriff, but unless one specialised in this kind of thing, one would not be wondering too long. Her shoes were all-English, however, but interestingly Mediaeval – soleless wraps of leather and pointy toes, which would not have looked out of place on the feet of Thomas à Beckett. Her jewellery was broadly South American – an eclectic assortment of beads, bangles, straps and rings. And on her head was a queer item which looked like a beefed-up astrakhan with a Glengarry’s torrie, stuck, like a cherry on top. If one did not know better, one might have supposed that she had walked from one end of Camden market to the other, stealing an item from each cart. But the effect was colourful and strangely beautiful amidst the Gullen greys of the banks of the River Thames.

  Barney grabbed her hand and shook it with enthusiasm.

  ‘So pleased you could make it to our little evening, our, er, special evening for the little ones.’ he smiled and looked around benignly at the children.

  Ms Templer, who was old enough to be Barney’s mother, looked down at him with some admiration. She did like a man with a firm handshake – regrettably in her line of work, the kind of men she usually met were either limp-wristed ambiguous political types or sweaty-palmed bureaucrats. This Barney-the-Hoof was much more her cup of tea.

  ‘So what have you got for me here, Hoofsdew?’ she said snapped.

  ‘Well, quite a lot actually. We just thought you’d be interested in coming down to this part of the Borough, and, er…have a gander at the sorts of things that go on here. I mean, it’s not quite as busy as this every night, but there are a lots of on-going projects.’

  ‘Right, well lay on MacDew’ decided Ms Templer.

  Barney Hoofsdew led Suzzie Templer to the first group of children, who were busy pulling fish out of the special traps and Barney and the councillor watched a somewhat rakish young man, who had probably been cajoled into extracting the catch, reach so deeply into one of the cages that there seemed a real possibility of his being sucked inside by whatever he was groping for. He felt around, his face wrung with concentration, as though trying to sense what his fingers were struggling to see.

  ‘Got anything?’ asked another lad of more sobering proportions – doubtless the class cajoler-in-chief – who would, one suspected, have had some difficulty bending down and grabbing anything, but no difficulty at all consuming whatever he might have grabbed.

  The skinny lad said nothing.

  ‘Maybe this trap’s empty?’ wondered a third boy presently.

  ‘Maybe,’ echoed Barney, trying his best to sound sincere and as he glanced at Ms Templer innocently.

  At length the skinny lad jumped back, as though he had been shocked, or bitten, or tickled – or all three at once – by whatever it was he had clutched in his hand.

  ‘Amazing,’ staggered Barney as he and his ward studied a rather lethargic fish which one might have found flapping about uselessly at the bottom of a child’s bucket.

  Ms Templer seemed equally surprised; she studied the fish curiously.

  Standing just behind her, Barney smiled to himself. ‘Normally it’s the fish who are hooked, but now it’s the honourable Ms Templer.’

  ‘But it’s a mackerel – a juvenile blue,’ she noted.

  ‘Is it? Is it really?’ asked Barney. ‘Amazing!’

  ‘Certainly is,’ said Ms. Templer. ‘Blue mackerel is a saltwater fish! No wonder it looks half dead. One of those awful boat people must have bought it at the local market and tossed it overboard.’ She looked up and frowned at a barge full of swampy types.

  ‘Damn,’ thought Barney, ‘what were the odds of Belter choosing a saltwater fish?’

  ‘Amazing.’ he said again, ‘those resourceful boat-people – what lives they lead. Fascinating!’ He looked up desperately up toward Drade.

  ‘There’s your problem,’ said Ms Templer to Barney, ‘idle, polluting barge-dwellers, and their kids don’t go to school, so when they get older they all turn to crime. We really need to get to grips with ‘em.’

  ‘Yes, yes, quite alternative…amazing.’ said Barney. Things were not going as planned. ‘…Decent people,’ he emolliated.

  ‘They don’t wash, you know, and they’re all on the social; then, in order to avoid taxes, they don’t vote, and then they complain that nothing is done for them.’ Ms Templer’s fiery reputation was turning out to be well deserved.

  ‘Well, the mark of a civilized society…’ began Barney, trying to placate her, yet at the same time motioning to Belter, who even though he was fifty yards away had sensed that all was not well, and had already started to unplug himself from the muds, and saunter in their direction as well as any a fully booted-up fisherman could.

  ‘What they need is a dose of civilizing,’ stormed the councillor.

  ‘…is how well it treats it minorities,’ continued Barney, his voice trailing off a little. He was amazed by just how
un-liberal Suzzie-the-Liberal was turning out to be.

  The councillor remained to stare waterward.

  ‘It’s the mercury,’ piped up Drade, suddenly inspired.

  ‘What?’ hissed Ms Templer.

  ‘The mercury in the water,’ Drade went on, ‘it makes them stupid.’

  Both Barney and Ms Templer stared at Drade for a moment.

  ‘This particular chap probably drank some mercury out there in the Channel, went a bit squiffy, and swam all the way up the river, which is why he looks so knackered.’

  Doubtfully, Ms Templer looked down at the fish.

  ‘Amazing!’ a rejuvenated Barney cried.

  By this time, Belter had joined them, complete with bucket, rod, various nets and other tackle. ‘Done much?’ he said, his regionless accent totally at odds with the vernacular.

  The larger of the boys held up the withered looking mackerel.

  ‘Nice,’ commented Belter. ‘A mackerel, by the looks of it. Bit on the small side.’

  ‘A juvenile…’ clarified Barney

  ‘Quite a swimmer, apparently,’ said the still doubtful councillor.

  ‘You’ll never guess what I caught,’ said Belter reaching into his bucket. ‘Bloody great lobster! Never seen one that big.’ He grinned, and his eyes sparkled from behind the mud he had smeared over his face earlier, to give him that ‘authentic’ look.

  Again Ms Temple studied the catch. ‘You found this here?’

  ‘Yes, ˋbout twenty minutes ago,’ said Belter.

  ‘But this is an American lobster – look it’s smooth here at the front. These come from the east coast of Canada. How the deuce did it get here?’

  Belter went silent and even Drade looked flummoxed. A few spots of rain started to spatter down. Ever the optimist, Barney, sprang into action.

  ‘Er...er…have you had a chance to visit the enchanted castle?’ asked Barney, gently but firmly taking the councillor by the arm, and steering her away from the fish and back towards the bank.

  ‘The enchanted castle?’ queried the councillor.

  ‘Well, we call…that is to say, the kids call it that…er…enchanted. It isn’t really enchanted. It’s just a place which is enchanting. It enchants,’ he added lest there be any doubt.

  Suzzie, Belter and Barney picked their way through reedy ground, and at length arrived at what might have been mistaken at a glance for a large mud barrier, on the top of which some scrubwood had washed up. A closer inspection revealed an element of design to it: an entrance, some rough openings, which might have served as windows, and even the impression of a chimney or flue in the roof. Four nearby muddy children constructed a channel of some kind to direct the waters around the mud house; whilst others were busy decorating one of its outside walls with a mosaic of pebbles and stones.

  ‘Er…traditional..er..mud and brick, clays et cetera…mud house that a traditional Riverbanker would have lived in, and, er, some still do, I understand.’

  The three of them stared at it. Suzzie-the-Liberal had a horrified look upon her face. Barney noticed it and decided that he needed to be more proactive in directing her attentions: ‘Oh look, you can see where the old fishing rods would poke out. See, here and here,’ he indicated with a long reed two holes about as wide as a finger. ‘So, they’d stick their rods in here, and that way, they didn’t need to hold them…amazing!’

  He gazed in feigned wonder at the holes. But Suzzie’s attentions were distracted by the channels, which the children were busily digging out – or more especially by what was flowing through them. She turned away and, in exasperation, Barney jabbed his piece of reed into one of the holes.

  ‘Of course, nowadays, they are used as hides for wildlife photographers,’ said Barney, becoming a little concerned by the councillor’s behaviour as she seemed to be bending down to sniff at the mud. ‘Yes, it takes a little getting used to doesn’t it?’ We live in such a sanitized world that we forget what nature smells like sometimes.’ He paused. ‘Did you notice anything in the mudhouse at all?’

  Drade, who had somehow managed to overtake his pals and the councillor, half emerged from the makeshift hide. Barney shoved Drade’s head back inside, before scampering after the councillor, who had started to wander further inland, following the channel the children had constructed.

  Out of breath, he persisted, ‘You probably didn’t notice anything, which is why they prove such effective tools for the hordes of photographers who wend their way to this picture-book location.’

  The councillor procured a long spade and was excavating the river bank.

  Barney peered over her shoulder and struggled on, ‘Some of them…er…come from as far away as Scotland, I’m told.’

  Presently, the councillor drew herself to her full height, which, in conjunction with the slope of the bank, meant that she now towered over Barney.

  ‘Sewage!’ she exclaimed, ‘raw sewage!’

  ‘What?’ puffed Barney.

  ‘These kids are playing in sewage: excrement, human faeces, poo!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Belter.

  ‘The water flowing though the kids channel comes from this tube here. And that comes straight out of people’s lavatories!’

  ‘Amazing, ’ said a beaten Barney.

  A couple of teachers, who had overheard the councillor, immediately turned to gather up the children and head them speedily back into waiting minibuses. The councillor swept away and within five minutes the entire place was deserted. Barney joined Belter and leant against the walls of the mud house.

  At moment that Drade chose to spring out of his hide with camera and various lenses and light metres slung over his shoulder. ‘It’s Mercury-Man!’ he exclaimed with a laugh, stretching out his arms, as if to embrace the world. Then noticing that the three of them were alone he said, ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘They’ve buggered off,’ said Belter with a sigh.

  ‘Not good boys, not good at all,’ said Barney.

  Dead Wood

  Later that evening, back in the broom cupboard at Base, the three, having washed and changed, warmed themselves on the electric stove which they had procured from The Governor. Without a word, they sipped cocoa and listened to the patter of drizzle upon the windows.

  Drade cast his mind back about ten years, to his first year at Durham. He and a pal – Hugh Duggan, with whom, of late, he seemed to have lost touch – had got it into their heads to reverse the glass of two convex mirrors which had been hung high upon the walls in one of the libraries. It was to have been doubly sweet, for not only was it something of a challenge, given their physical proximity; but also the librarian, a dour, chain-smoking spinster, whom everyone called ‘Hogger’, used these mirrors to watch, spy upon, and control all who dared enter her domain. In fact, during the library’s opening hours, the woman did nothing else but stare at her patrons; and only when the library was entirely empty did she catch up on her administrative work.

  Many a time a student had been roughly shaken awake with the words, ‘This is a library, not a bedroom, my dear.’ And just as often been chastised for writing too noisily, or for opening the window unnecessarily, or for some other triviality. ‘This is a library, not a bar, my dear,’ Hogger had once said to Drade, when he had had the temerity to bring in a cup of coffee.

  The librarian’s vigilance ensured that getting up to flip the mirrors during the day was out of the question; a fly would have had difficulty moving in the library with Hogger in position. And, as she was never ill, never went to the lavatory, never ate, and never did anything that distracted her from her calling, she always was in position. During the night, the library was locked, as was the building in which it was housed, as was the street which contained the building; so, even then, it was going to be difficult.

  But Duggan and Drade had found a rather ingenious solution.

  About an hour before closing one afternoon, Drade had placed himself at one of the
remoter tables, and Duggan, after approaching Hogger with a couple of books, had placed them rather insolently upon her desk. Without waiting, he had then strolled back towards a nearby shelf to glance at another book which had apparently caught his eye. Hogger had been incensed; in the thirty years she had been a librarian, no-one had ever dared do that; as the library was her domain, the desk was her person, and people who wanted to borrow her books had better hand them to her one by one, while she checked them out. To add insult to injury, this wretched student had not so much placed the books on her desk, but more, left them there for her to sort out, whilst he considered whether to take another! Duggan had then sauntered back with another book in hand, and this time he had half flung it upon the other two, throwing Hogger the kind of easy smile one might throw toss a waiter as one left a restaurant, before thrusting his hands into his pockets and showing her his back as he had looked up to admire the wood carvings on the ceiling. Although boiling inside, Hogger, remained outwardly stoical and had continued her watch, staring through Duggan at the other students whilst her bony fingers sought out the Rule – a heavily varnished, metre-long enforcer fashioned of unyielding black walnut, which she kept always unsheathed.

  The Rule had then reached out to give Duggan’s kidneys a single, sharp jab.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Duggan had parried with good-nature, ‘have you done them?’

  ‘Done what?’ had asked Hogger with restrained malice.

  ‘Checked out my books.’

  ‘Which books?’

  ‘These books,’ Duggan, had motioned towards the little pile.

  ‘I see no books’

  ‘These three here,’ had said Duggan picking the first one up.

  ‘I’m afraid those books are being held for someone else. I’m sorry, they shall have to be put them aside.’ In triumph the Rule had relaxed and Hogger’s head inclined to meet Duggans gaze; and that was the split second Drade had been waiting for. He had ducked down below the table and slid along the floor towards the very end of the most dimly lit row of shelves in the library.

  And there he had stayed for four full hours, until at length, the librarian, having shooed away the other students, bullied the cleaners, bickered with the janitor, and caught up on the day’s other tasks herself parted, leaving Drade alone in an oddly Hoggerless library. Only then had he crept over to the one window which did not face the inner street of the University, and had opened it. A few minutes later, Duggan was in, having climbed up an extendable ladder. The two were ready to commit an audacious crime of such comedic timbre that tales of it would echo for generations through the Durham’s hallowed halls.

  In every life there are those moments which one brings frequently to mind, and which are never forgotten. The moment in which Duggan and Drade had realised that the mirror had not actually been hung, but had been stuck with impossibly resilient epoxy to the wall was one such.

  In an instant their elation had turned to chalk upon their tongues, and they had been transformed from daring leprechauns to blundering dunderheads, who now needed to get out of a locked library in a locked building in a closed street as soon as possible.

  They had managed it, of course, but the moment had remained with Drade forever, as had the knowledge of the thinness of the line twixt success and failure.

  Recuperating at back at Base, Belter looked up from his iPad.

  ‘So it turns out that Suzzie-the-Liberal has three degrees, including a PhD in marine biology,’ said Belter. ‘How were we to know?’

  ‘Yup, you can forget getting her support,’ said Barney. ‘As far as she’s concerned, the whole of that stretch of the riverbank needs sorting out and regularising. She’s not so much a liberal as a neo-socialist type; if you give someone like her access to firearms, she would have shot the boat people on the spot and us a few seconds later.’

  ‘Yes,’ said a pensive Belter, ‘Funny how often that sort of thing happens: the illiberal Liberal, the elitist Socialist, the totalitarian Democrat. Sort of reverse psychology… like people who are really in charge having modest-sounding titles – private secretaries and civil servants. Whereas those who sound as though they run things – like Dukes and Earls – don’t count at all.’

  ‘You can forget about Bobbin too,’ said Drade. ‘He overheard our little conversation as we were cleaning up the traps yesterday after everyone had gone.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t see him anywhere,’ said Barney.

  ‘He was hidden in one of his photographer tents he uses,’ said Drade. ‘You know that reedy knoll just up from the traps?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Barney.

  ‘Well that was his hide and he was in it. Apparently that’s what a hide is.’

  ‘So, he’s gone?’

  ‘Yup,’

  ‘Not going brilliantly, is it?’ said Barney gloomily, ‘and the whole Alfie-charade thing is proving more and more difficult to keep up. For a start he keeps getting invited to conferences and there’s only so many times he can say no.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve had quite a few audience requests myself including several book-signings,’ said Belter. ‘If we don’t watch it, we’re going to start losing support.’

  Where would they go from here? Drade sank deeply into thought, his great mind relentlessly turning the problem round and round.

  Then Barney spoke: ‘We could kill him off before he actually had to put in an appearance. Not literally of course,’ he added at once noticing the look of shock on Drade’s face.

  Drade relaxed: of course, Alfie wasn’t a real person – he knew that – good for him.

  ‘So, he meets with an accident, and all that’s left is the memory of him,’ said Belter. ‘Like a martyr?’

  ‘Even more powerful in death than he was in life,’ added Barney.

  ‘But isn’t that a bit risky, Barney?’ said Drade. ‘I mean, if he dies questions might be asked, or worse, there might be an investigation, and we might get into trouble.’

  ‘Kill him off in another country,’ suggested Belter.

  ‘Of course, in South America!’ said Barney. ‘He was there visiting his sick mother and had an accident.’

  ‘Got tangled up in the bedclothes while he was tucking her up, and accidentally tripped out of the window?’ said Belter, eyebrow raised.

  Drade closed his eyes, trying to picture the mechanics of the old boy tripping out of a window. The first problem would have been that unless he was mightily tall he would have had to be something of an acrobat. And secondly, why would a tangle of bedclothes act in such a manner? The professor might have panicked, of course – a touch of cloakaphobia. Quite a touch – more like a clout! Drade pictured the sequence of events: The man bends down to tuck the bedcovers in for his poor mother, who had been tossing and turning all night. Being one of those awkward, strong-willed octogenarians she objects to being ‘tucked in’ like a two year old, and throws the bedcover angrily away blanketing her good son. Panic sets in, and he begins to act irrationally, staggering here and there, hither and thither, becoming more and more cloakaphobic, his heart pounding, his head racing. In this fearful state he starts to jump up and down and make diving, lunging movements to free himself from the blanket, which due to his wool allergy is also causing him to sneeze, making it difficult for him to breath. In his struggles, he bangs his head against a wall and, slightly concussed, bangs it a second time against a cupboard. Then, in confusion, he tilts this time against thin air, and, with nothing to arrest his movement, goes head first through the open window and down to a grizzly death.

  Drade shivered at the thought of it.

  Barney was speaking, ‘So if we’re are going to kill him off, we should fix his date of death and make sure that all requests for public appearances are postponed until after that time. That way, it looks as though he’s fine with appearing in public, but just very busy, and just when everybody is gearing up to meeting him, he dies.’

  ‘Great,’ said Belter, ‘and we also
need to make sure that by the time of his death he is heavily involved in opposing the Lots Road development, so that when he does go, it is us who are left to fight for his legacy.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Barney, ‘so today it’s June the twenty first, and the final decision is to be made on Friday the twenty fifth of October; so, if we could kill off Alfie some time in August, that would give us plenty of time to build up a campaign after his death.’

  ‘Early September would give us more time to formulate his opposition to Lots Road; otherwise it’ll look as though Lots Road were something of an afterthought.’

  ‘September first it is, then,’ concluded Barney.

  ‘Right, and tomorrow I‘ll nip off and see if I can’t persuade Councillor Carpet in some way,’ ended Belter.

  Cobwebs out of the Carpet

  ‘Same haunches as her father,’ said Belter, motioning towards a large black racing horse penned up in its stall. He noted the classic proportions of a thoroughbred like the lines of a formula one car – unmistakable.

  ‘She breathes well, too,’ he added. ‘Just taken her for a run?’

  A tall swarthy man, who had been leaning on a post, watching the stable staff brush down his pride and joy down, turned to face Belter. He had a fine head of black swept-back hair and eyes of the darkest brown, which seemed all the deeper on account of his long luscious lashes. His lips were full, his chin square, and cheekbones high. He was well turned out, too; tweeds and leather patches, with knee-high riding boots, and sharp riding crop which he held like a conductor’s baton, made up the ensemble.

  ‘Wealth really can smooth away many a defect, and yet…’ considered Belter, ‘rub too hard, and faults start to show.’

  As for all that he exuded class, there was a certain gauntness in his face, a certain something in his sloping gait, a certain gameyness to his accent, and a certain shiftiness in his composure, which combined to rob the man of membership of a particular class, and simultaneously to brand him as belonging to another.

  Nevertheless, as he approached Belter, the man, had an unmistakable, almost military, authority about him.

  ‘And you are?’ he asked haughtily.

  ‘Just passing by,’ Belter offered and proffered a hand. ‘Belter Trelawney, from the Cabot foundation in Chelsea. Delighted to meet you – it’s Councillor Carpet, isn’t it?’

  The councillor seemed a little surprised to have been sought out at such distance from his constituency and hesitated to take Belter’s hand. ‘Yes, yes it is. The Cabot foundation? Sorry, I don’t think I’ve heard of you.’

  ‘Professor Cabot – Alfie Cabot,’ insisted Belter.

  Clarity broke upon the councillor, ‘Oh yes, of course. Yes, a great man. Well, what can I do for you?’

  Belter decided it was time to start to crack the whip.

  ‘Well, it’s more a question of what we can do for you. You see, I work on the fundraising side of the foundation – we are entirely funded through private donations – and, er, well, we have been offered a rather surprising opportunity.’

  ‘Really?’ said the councillor, moving nearer to Belter. He had always had a tendency to compartmentalise separate facets of his life, and he did not want the stable hands to see the lord of the manor reduced to discussing petty council business with someone from a charity. On the other hand, he knew of Professor Alfie Cabot – who did not – and realised he could not simply dismiss the visitor. He put an arm around Belter’s shoulders and gently guided him towards the doors of the barn.

  They walked out into the yard and together strolled into the open grounds of Hillbrew Farm in Surrey, which served as Councillor Carpet’s country seat.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Belter, ‘a few weeks ago we were approached by an entrepreneur of some repute.’ He glanced at Carpet who met his eyes with understanding – ‘how very Chelsea,’ thought Belter – ‘who,’ he continued, ‘wanted to invest a substantial sum of money in the foundation and the work we do on behalf of the environment.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ said Carpet.

  ‘Indeed, well, yes and no. The main project he was going to finance was actually your own “One Green” initiative, which made us at the Cabot Foundation extremely happy, I can tell you, because we all think what you are doing is absolutely great!’ Belter beamed at Mr. Carpet.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Carpet, bowing his head. ‘Modestly forbids.’

  The two laughed together, and from a distance, they might have been father and son ambling through their garden talking about their shared passion for sailboats.

  How impenetrable is the shroud that time and distance weave around the truth; for the two of them were about to be joined in battle. But only Belter knew this, and was coldly relishing the other’s ignorance, whilst Carpet overcame his initial unease, and was beginning to wonder what all this had to do with him.

  ‘Well, things were proceeding apace, when our angel suddenly pulled out, saying only that certain incompatibilities had come to light.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Carpet with a hint of concern.

  ‘Er…with you,’ continued Belter.

  ‘Me!’ Carpet was genuinely astonished.

  ‘Yes you. Of course, our investor was pretty cagey and didn’t go into details, but then after some, er.. .he… er...he did.’

  Their strolling stopped and Carpet half turned, blocking Belter’s progress; their eyes met and locked, expressions frozen for an instant.

  Belter spoke first. ‘Apparently, he’d been shown stuff by somebody else – I don’t know who – about you – about your past, which well…you know…I mean, I said it was rubbish, and that from everything I had heard, you were the very best of fellows.’ Belter paused. At this point he wanted to emphasise that he was on the councillor’s side. He gave the impression of searching for the right words. ‘Totally, I mean, utterly honest and dedicated to helping your constituents.’ Belter shrugged his shoulders as if to say that, even though he had defended the good councillor’s honour as best he could, he failed to assuage the businessman’s doubts.

  ‘But you know what these people are like – slightest whiff of scandal…’ Belter made a gesture with his hand as if to imply escape or sudden flight.

  Heads bowed, both men walked slowly on. Belter sensed a realisation slowly dawning upon Councillor Carpet.

  Presently, the Councillor stopped, turned to Belter and spoke, his voice weaker and faded as though his lungs lacked air. ‘Why did you come here?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, just to put you in the picture, and to assure ourselves that there is nothing in it’ said Belter with a disarming cheeriness.

  ‘You said there was something you might be able to do for me?’ insisted Carpet with slightly more vigour. He had started to collect himself.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, there is,’ said Belter. ‘You see, our angel is a shy sort of fellow and doesn’t really want to go public with what he says he knows, but he is keen that to get the truth out, as he says he feels he has been somewhat misled.’

  ‘And?’ said Carpet, almost spitting the word out.

  ‘Well, what the man did was give us an entire dossier full of what he thinks is evidence – great big thick thing like an encyclopaedia.’

  There was another long pause.

  ‘So, what is it you can do for me?’ asked Carpet, trying his best to sound convincing. But by this time, was fairly sure he knew the answer.

  ‘Well, we can make it disappear,’ said Belter abruptly.

  This was not the first time that Belter had blackmailed someone, but Carpet was a councillor – he was really racing with the thoroughbreds now.

  ‘Are you blackmailing me?’ asked the councillor.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Belter, ‘and I’ll have you know that I’m a lawyer, and find your insinuation offensive.’

  The two returned to their slow, almost nonchalant, ambling through the grounds. At length, Carpet stopped and wheeled towards Belter. He was a different man fro
m the one who had faced Belter five minutes before. He was still tall, but now stooped so much so that he seemed to be the same height as his adversary; his hair was still black, but lay in a lifeless swath upon his head; the blood had drained from his lips, and whilst his skin was still dark, there was now a certain greyness to it.

  ‘I’ve done nothing illegal. In those days insider dealing was fine, provided that there was full disclosure – and there was.’ He entreated, ‘you have to believe me.’

  This was news to Belter. He didn’t know anything about Chris Carpet being involved with insider dealing. His face betrayed nothing.

  ‘I suppose you have the tapes?’ said Carpet, looking at Belter, who again gave nothing away. But the poor unfortunate did not wait for an answer, but nodded to himself, as if his worst fears had been realised. ‘Yes, yes. Again I say, having er…meetings with those colleagues in those places. Nothing untoward happened. We were all consenting adults, and it was all very discrete – no public displays of vulgarity, I can assure you.’

  Belter found Carpet’s pleadings almost touching.

  The miserable councillor started to shake his head slowly. ‘You have the photos, too, don’t you? And the letters?’ Again Carpet did not wait for confirmation. ‘Yup, yup, of course. They gave you everything, didn’t they?’ He paused.

  Belter was scrambling to piece this all together, his mind whirring like a dynamo, but externally his face remained impassive and cool.

  Carpet wandered off to be on his own. He needed space. He took several deep gulps of air and breathed out slowly. Within a few short moments, his life had been turned upside down. He certainly could not deny his chequered past; yes, he had lied; yes, he had stolen; and yes, he had cheated – no doubt – but he had had to, to get to where he wanted to be. Had he played it straight, he would have been lying face down in a gutter somewhere. As it was, he had pulled himself up, and now finally he was in a position to start giving back. After all those years of bullying and blagging, he was ready to make amends. And suddenly – wham! – this comes out of the blue. Imagine if Ginny, his good wife, the Lady T’raid of Guildford, heard about this. She had always admired him greatly, and he had never told her about his past – not to deceive her, but to shield her from the terrible world. If she found out, she would desert him at once, and everything would come tumbling down.

  At length he turned to Belter, who had stopped some yards away. Carpet was the very picture of a broken man, tears welling up in his eyes, his lip quivering. When he spoke, his voice was cracked and torn. ‘What can I do?’ he pleaded. ‘Command me Mr Trelawney!’

  ‘One bit of good news,’ said Barney upon hearing an update on Belter’s progress with Councillor Carpet.

  ‘Yup, he’s very much on-side,’ said Belter, ‘absolutely petrified. I wonder what he did exactly? Anyway, it doesn’t matter; I didn’t need to go into details.’

  ‘And I hear Drade’s got a bit of news, too,’ said Barney.

  The two friends shifted their attentions to Drade, who was leaning back somewhat perilously in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, with his hands behind his head, staring through the little window over the Thames, a biro sticking out of the corner of his mouth, upon which he chewed in the contented manner of a gate-leaning farmer on a piece of straw.

  ‘Bobbin’s been in touch,’ he said presently, ‘and we’ve had a bit of a chat; you know, kicked things backwards and forwards, found common ground, overcame our differences, and er…well.’

  ‘You’ve agreed to give him your Jag, haven’t you?’ interrupted Belter.

  ‘Hours of exhaustive negotiation, some arguing, haggling, biggling and baggling, but in the end I managed to persuade him that opposing the port was the responsible course of action.’

  ‘Will he get the Jaguar out of it, or not?’ asked Belter.

  ‘Who knows what the future will bring?’ a whimsical Drade replied. He paused, but sensing that he would have to say more, conceded, ‘He will get his paws on my Jag at some point.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Belter. ‘Great, well doesn’t matter. It was a pile of junk anyway. Two down. We’re never going to get Liberal Suzzie to help us, so the planning application might well go through. It’s time to wheel out the big guns!’

  Toeing the Line

  Professor Alfonso Cabot choose a small, local paper to kick off his campaign.

  ‘A very local paper,’ grumbled Belter as he dialled the number, ‘as far as I can see, it has a circulation of about ten, two of whom died years ago and haven’t yet been removed from its mailing list.’

  The editor, however, was duly impressed after the phone call from Mr Trelawney of the Cabot Foundation. He turned to his deputy. ‘That was Professor Cabot’s offices,’ he said. ‘He would like to send us an open letter in time for tomorrow’s paper.’

  ‘What’ll it be about?’

  ‘Coming to the Kensington Whisperer first, when he could have gone to any number of other papers, now that’s what I call class.’ The editor, removed his spectacles, shone their lenses on his tie and then replaced them, which was something he was inclined to do whenever he had a success.

  ‘But what is the letter to be about?’ persisted the deputy.

  ‘Do you know, I heard Anders Brotzlovic talking on the radio only yesterday saying that he planned to co-write a book with Professor Cabot some time later this year.’

  ‘So the letter will be about architecture, will it?’

  ‘Anders Brotzlovic! Wish he’d send us an open letter. But Professor Cabot’s the next best thing,’ The Editor returned to his work and then looked up. ‘I’ve absolutely no idea. This Trelawney character simply said he wanted to send in an open letter in Professor Cabot’s name, so I said yes please!’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ agreed the deputy.

  Back at Base, Barney was beginning to put something together. Presently, he started reading aloud:

  ‘Dear Sir,

  I write this letter to you, not simply in my professorial capacity as one who has studied fluid mechanics and fluvial dead spots for many years, and has thereby, dare I say it, acquired a certain knowledge of these matters; nor simply as one who has been humbled by a seemingly endless list of generous tributes. Mainly I write as myself, Alfonso Cabot, a concerned citizen of Planet Earth, one of six billion people bound indelibly together by the common bond of our shared humanity and collective responsibility.’

  ‘Nicely put!’ said Drade, ‘exudes modesty, but with just enough arrogance at the edges to scare anyone who questions the modesty.’

  ‘Yes, it is nice, isn’t it,’ said Barney, ‘I thought I’d go on to say ...um something like:

  ‘Thus it is that I feel qualified to opine on the matters which I turn to below, but it does not explain why I have chosen to express myself openly.’

  ‘Don’t like the word “opine” much,’ said Belter, ‘a bit OTT.’

  ‘Plus rhymes with whine,’ added Drade.

  ‘Yeah, bit whiney,’ agreed Belter.

  ‘Ok, how about:

  ‘So I feel qualified to express myself…’

  ‘Better,’ said Belter.

  ‘…on the matters below, and indeed as one who has been blessed with abilities not shared by all, and fortune shared by but a few, I feel a certain obligation to make my opinions clear.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Belter.

  ‘Now, I was going to add,’ said Barney, ’er…

  ‘For whilst others, through no fault of their own, may not see when errors are committed, I do see; and whilst others may ignore what they see, feeling impotent in the face of seemingly overwhelming opposition, I cannot ignore what I see, knowing that I do have the capacity to overturn those odds; and whilst others again may take no action, having greater preoccupations to hand, I must take action, having been, might I tentatively suggest, selected from the many for just such a purpose.’

  Belter shook his head, ‘No, no, no. Firstly, I don’t u
nderstand you one hundred per cent, and in any case, it’s far too high-handed – absolutely not. All this chosen one stuff is completely off pitch.’

  Drade could not have put it better himself. What a God-given knack Belter had for whacking the proverbial nail. And he was quite right about the high-handedness; all very well when the high-handedness was obvious and clear for all to see, but, if even slightly obscured by difficult words or complicated grammar, it invariably came across as somewhat low-handed, or even back-handed, which was even worse.

  ‘No, I know, fine, so let’s forget that bit,’ said Barney, ‘er, so it continue:

  ‘So I write this letter to you, compelled by an inner sense of need, and at the behest of many of my dearest friends and colleagues who share my opinions concerning the proposal to build a new port in Lots Road.’

  ‘Good,’ said Drade.

  Barney went on:

  ‘I have given the matter both measured and temperate consideration for many months now, and you have my assurance, that I entered this study with no pre-conceived opinions and no axe to grind in respect to one side or the other.’

  ‘Why would you?’ murmured Belter with a smile.

  ‘And with that in mind, I was persuaded that the port would provide some measure of employment for the local area, and further, that the companies involved had every intention of behaving in a responsible manner with respect to the environment. I also accepted that, at present, that part of the Thames is something of a dead spot (if I may), abandoned as it has been for many years, and that some measure of development could be desirous.’

  ‘Clever,’ thought Drade, ‘set them up, and then tear them down!’

  ‘But even this I am aware of, and I have taken on board many of the arguments in its favour. I do wonder whether building yet another port on the banks of our glorious river Thames would really be in the best interest of the people of this Royal Borough. Turning first to the matter of the creation of some local employment, I notice that many of the positions that will be made available will call for certain people with specialised abilities and knowledge, which Chelsea, not having an especial porting tradition, does not possess. Further, I would bring to the attention of your readers the example of the port at Tower Bridge which is staffed almost exclusively by foreigners.’

  Thus the professor dipped his toe, so to speak, into the water of local debate, but even he was not prepared for the tsunami that followed.

  It was three days later that Belter, Barney and Drade met again at Base. Being early August, Barney had taken the opportunity to do a little cycling up in the Lakes, as was his habit when he needed to relax; Drade had gone off to Bristol to attend a formal at his cousin Claire’s; and Belter had gone to a cottage he kept in Normandy, where he spent most of his time consuming Brie, wine and bread and recuperating from the stringent diet he had been following for almost three months.

  As usual Belter was the first into the office in the morning, and he was astonished to find that, instead of the usual pack of 100 letters or so, his way to the broom cupboard was blocked by almost four black bags full to the brim.

  The Governor greeted him,

  ‘Morning, Mr Trelawney,’ he said, ‘somebody’s birthday?’

  Belter grinned and picked his way through the jam of letters. A few minutes later, Barney bounded in, shortly followed by Drade.

  ‘Have you seen that lot?!’ said Barney, trembling with excitement.

  ‘Yes, very encouraging,’ said Belter. ‘We really need to sort through it, and start grouping our supporters, get them organised and ready for the big push.’

  It was late into the evening when the three had finally started to get a grip on matters. Essentially their supporters could be broken down into a number of distinct groups. There were small, local, often single-issue environmental groups, very similar to their own, except that they lacked a figurehead of heft, like Cabot. They found what was quickly becoming known as the Cause – an attractive standard to gravitate towards; and they were doubtless that they might gain from its reflected glory. Then there were concerns like The Clef itself, which would find themselves at a considerable disadvantage, should the port go ahead. Then there were the places of learning, from primary schools, all the way up to colleges of further education; the professor’s characterisation of the jackal-like nature of the private enterprises which were behind the plans had played very well here. Then there were those who, representing labour, worried about ‘just how regulated this port’s working practices would be’; and those from land, who saw any kind of construction as a threat to what was theirs. There were revolutionaries, who detested any kind of change; and anarchists, who detested everything. Feminists, animal-rightists, libertarians, agnostics, religious fundamentalists, religious interpretists, Taoists, religious non-believers, non-religious believers, fattists, Thamesists, naturalists, and everyone and anyone, who had little to do and much time to do it, flocked to the Cause.

  Within a week, the issue had caught the eye of the national newspapers. Initially, news of the campaign was run on quiet news days, but then as momentum grew and the days became quieter towards the end of July and into August, not a day seemed to go by without a sympathetic news report: a family’s houseboat stranded upon a mudbank in a stagnant river, which, it was observed, was less than twenty miles from a large foreign-owned beer factory; or an octogenarian swimmer who needed to be rescued when, after diving at his favourite spot, he found himself plunging head first javelin-like into half a metre of mud – he blamed four new jetties which had been built to accommodate the tourists.

  Invitations poured in for the Professor to attend and speak at summits, conferences, sit-ins, sit-outs, demonstrations and debates; and, most unusually for a man as shy as he had been of late, Professor Cabot agreed to attend them all – even when the events overlapped – such was the man’s enthusiasm. It was so great in fact, that Professor Cabot had selflessly cancelled all of his prior appointments and engagements, so that upon his return from a brief visit to Venezuela the following week, he determined to devote his entire life to the cause of blocking the port project.

  The week after that Barney came bounding into the broom cupboard full of excitement. ‘Got an interview, got an interview!’ he wheezed.

  ‘When?’ asked Belter.

  ‘Now, right now. They’re supposed to be ringing through!’ And right on cue the telephone sprang to life.

  ‘Answer it, Hamish,’ said Barney. ‘I’ll be Alfie; put ‘em on hold and then pass ‘em through to me.’

  Drade picked up the phone. ‘Good Morning, Cabot Foundation, how may I help you?’

  And so it was, moments later, that the world first heard the voice of the great Professor Alfonso Cabot.

  ‘Professor,’ said the interviewer in that deep, stayed, non-judicious voice which British presenters always possess, ‘very good of you to join us,’

  ‘It’s my pleasure, Antony,’ answered Barney, ‘and can I say, that back at home you , sir, are a superstar – very, very famous.’

  ‘Well, that’s always nice to hear,’ said the Antony, who could not help being slightly flattered. He continued, ‘Professor, you are here today to put the case for a review of the Lots Road port, and many people, I think, would find that a little confusing.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Well, we Brits know who you are…’

  ‘I am Alfonso,’ interrupted the Professor.

  ‘You are indeed Alfonso, Professor Alfonso Cabot,’ confirmed the interviewer, ‘Polemicist, philanthropist, intellectual and critic; and we know that, and we know where you are from; the son of poor parents, we…’

  ‘Poor, with the money yes, but rich in spirit – my father, he was a romancing navvy, who loved to sing, and my mother, she loved to listen, so they got on very well.’

  ‘Yes, but the point is: you are of humble origins…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘…and many of the projects which you get invo
lved with are about helping people, born into, er, disadvantage, to better their circumstances.’

  ‘Well yes, that is very true. But it is more, er…general than that. I like to help people for to improve the justice for everyone.’

  ‘Well quite,’ said the Antony, ‘so why the interest in Lots Road?’

  Barney looked feverously around for inspiration, but received nothing but blank looks from Drade and Belter. He continued regardless, ‘It’s like this, when I was a little boy, I was every day playing in the fields back home.’

  ‘In the Pampas?’ suggested the interviewer helpfully.

  Barney grinned. ‘Yes, just so. Anyway, I remember there was once I saw these little ants who are always working, going here and there, caring a little sand or perhaps a small leaf for to build their houses.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘This is right, no? They work very hard and so they can live. I see this many times and I watch curiously always…’

  ‘They are incredible.’

  ‘They are. anyway, one day while I, er…was…studying the little ants, there was a strong wind and a big piece of wood fall down from the house and arrive on the head of this ant.’

  ‘Very unlucky’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alfonso, ‘unlucky, but life is like that.’

  ‘We are all slaves to fate,’

  ‘Just so,’ said Alfonso, ‘Anyway, the ant is not dead. By chance he live and he push his way out from the wood.’

  ‘Very lucky,’ said the interviewer.

  ‘Yes, well, er…perhaps,’ continued the Professor, ‘but, unfortunately, one leg it is stuck under the wood, and even if he push and push very hard, still he cannot be free.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So, I have a choice, or I do, er, nothing, or just a little bit I help.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I decide to help a little bit and, I er, move the wood a just little bit.’

  ‘So the ant was free and could continue to go about his business?’

  ‘Just so,’ said Alfonso, ‘well, because his leg is really stuck, it come off and in fact he just move around and around for a few moments, and, er, then, er, he a lie very still, I think maybe he, er, dead. But at that moment I learn that for to make the life fair, sometimes we must help just little bit.’

  ‘So you have got involved with this, er… the Cause for this reason?’

  ‘Yes. I have decided to help just little bit for the next eh few months. I, er, think is right.’

  ‘And what sort of things are you going to do on behalf of the Cause?’ asked the interviewer.

  ‘Well, it’s not really me who is organising all the things, but there is a petition very big is sent to the Council, and we hold many meetings in the area, with important people. Next week, I have to go back home to visit my mother – she is very ill – but when I come back, I hope to spend the full time to help a little in this.’

  ‘Well,’ said the interviewer, ‘I’m sure we all wish you the best of luck and trust you will be back to keep our listeners updated.’ Barney replaced the headset with a gleam and turned to his co-conspirators. ‘Highly unlikely,’ he said with a sigh.

  Fishy business

  Argentina a can be a dangerous place, especially for those of idealistic bent, prepared to put their beliefs ahead of their safety. Professor Cabot was one such, and within days of his arrival in the country came news of his departure from the planet. Initially it was thought that the great man died quietly and alone, trying to rescue some endangered infant iguanas; as it happened, he had effected the rescue successfully, but was then mistaken for an interfering naturalist by the iguanas’ mother, who immediately gave chase, causing the good Professor to trip and fall down a crevice so deep and so very unknown that there was absolutely no chance of finding his body.

  ‘What a stroke of luck that his died alone,’ mused Drade to himself moments after Barney had related the bad news. He realised in an instant that luck had played no part in the matter; and he thanked his lucky stars that his musings had been to himself.

  ‘But if he died alone, and they never found the body, how do they know he died at all?’ asked Belter.

  Barney stopped typing and looked up.

  ‘His clothes were discovered with iguana tooth-marks on them right by the unknown crevice, so the locals assumed the worst.’ Barney paused. ‘I think that’s reasonable.’

  ‘So who interviewed the locals?’ persisted Belter.

  ‘Nobody interviewed them per se,’ said Barney slowly, ‘but word gets around.’

  ‘Not that convincing,’ doubted Belter. ‘I think you need witnesses.’

  ‘If we had witnesses, then there’s a trail which someone might conceivably follow,’ said Barney.

  ‘Well in that case, I think you’d be better off with a few locals who saw him fall in – the type who don’t like outsiders much. They relate their tale to the family and then disappear into the Pampas.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Barney a touch of irritation.

  A message splashed across his website first alerted his many admirers, and was followed by a heartfelt pleading from his family not to send flowers. Instead, well-wishers should contribute to the late Professor’s most recent and all-consuming passion: namely, the blocking of the port at Lots Road, Chelsea.

  ‘Which family?’ asked Belter.

  ‘His family; his mother.’

  ‘Too ill,’ said Belter, ‘and his father’s dead.’

  ‘What about one of his seven siblings?’ posited Drade.

  ‘Well, I think you’ll find most of those have disappeared into the Pampas, too,’ said Barney, ‘except perhaps one: a crazy one, who is kept apart from the world in a special home. It’s all precautionary, in any case; when you read something like, “the family said..” nobody bothers to dig about and find out who precisely said it. It’s just something which is accepted.’

  Barney updated the many sites where Alfie had made his mark, with the terrible news.

  Immediately, even in death, Alfie found himself bombarded with messages from well-wishers from all sections of society. Some expressed regret that a great standard bearer for the cause was gone, but swore nonetheless to carry on the standard as he would have wished. Others mourned Cabot the man, a humanist who suffered when others suffered, and was joyous when others felt joy.

  ‘Prof. Cabot had a heart so big that no cause was too small for his consideration,’ reflected one who seemed to straddle both of these camps.

  A few even recalled with fondness the first time they had met the great man at some conference or other, or how he had taught them when he was a visiting lecturer to wherever, or when by sheer chance they had both bumped into each other in a bookshop or some such in the most unlikely of places.

  ‘Here’s one guy who claims to have been his room-mate back in pampas-land,’ said Barney.

  ‘He had a few,’ said Belter.

  ‘Will he get over it?’ asked Barney.

  ‘All very sad,’ mused Belter, as he put the finishing touches to an obituary he would send into The Times anonymously ‘from a friend’ – he would make sure that he posted it from somewhere near the Houses of Parliament, so it would be clear that the friend was someone of import, and not merely one of the late academic’s army of drone followers.

  The immediate effect of Alfonso’s death was to cause a flurry of activity at Cabot central; all those impending projects and interviews, which the Professor had generously put his name to before his death, needed to be cancelled, which left a lot of disappointed publicists and producers. This, however, presented opportunities to the Cause: they were only too happy to help ‘fill in the blanks’ with yet other publications and productions. And on the other hand, Alfonso’s death brought a great deal more publicity to the Cause itself and their objections to the Lots Road development project – something heightened by a curious rumour, which started doing the rounds, that the academic’s demise was a professio
nal hit paid for by the development company.

  It was Barney who proposed the ‘Day of Oneness’ to commemorate the great man.

  ‘What on earth is a day of oneness?’ asked Belter.

  ‘The oneness that is when scientist and man, man and neighbour, neighbour and community, community and people, people and planet come together,’ replied Barney reading aloud from a draft of a flyer he had been preparing.

  ‘That’s absolute bollocks!’ said Belter.

  ‘It is, it is,’ agreed Barney, ‘but better the bollocks that be, then the bollocks that bain’t – especially if you are a horse,’ he said whimsically.

  ‘Surely nobody will buy into that,’ said Belter. ‘What do you think, Drade?’

  Drade took a judicious pause, then picked up the draft flyer and studied it. He had not been following the discussion, distracted as he was by a couple of ducks who had somehow made it in from the Thames and were waddling along the path towards Base. He did his best to catch up with the conversation. ‘Difficult to say,’ he said presently, ‘on the one hand, Earth Day has already been done with some success, and on the other hand, people will buy anything. So...’ he paused again to give himself time to assess how his contribution had been received, moving his head from side to side, as if weighing the arguments carefully.

  Belter and Barney ignored him. Resuming their discussion, Barney said, ‘What I’m saying is rather than wait a couple of years to do a memorial service, by which time everybody will have forgotten who Alfie was and what he stood for, we should strike whilst the iron is hot – call everybody, make this a huge deal, the big push to get planning rejected, or at least delayed.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Belter, ‘we should do something now, but why the “day of oneness”?’

  ‘Well, it needs to be a day of something. If you say a week or a month, people will lose interest. A day gives them something to focus on.’

  ‘What about an hour, or a minute?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose it could be something shorter. The shorter the better in the sense that the shorter it is, the less people will think they actually have to sacrifice to take part, and thus the more appealing it becomes. But if it is simply a “moment of oneness”, we won’t have enough time to do stuff – light candles, toll bells, reflect sombrely and so on. There might even be the suggestion that we are a little un-ambitious. I mean, after all, a “moment of oneness” – what is that? A day is more solid without being too much of a commitment.’

  ‘Umm…but what about all this oneness stuff.’

  ‘Oneness sounds vague, and can mean anything to anybody. It’s like, er, “yes we can” or “peace out “. In fact, these things mean nothing at all, but they are generally positive and optimistic in tone, and therefore very difficult to argue with. I suppose oneness suggests togetherness, agreement, harmony, and the like, but at the same time, it doesn’t get into the difficult business of explaining how to achieve any of those things. Environmentalists will see the appeal to oneness as an attempt to live in harmony with nature; socialists will see the equality in unity; capitalists will imagine simplified government and the primacy of the individual, and so on.’

  ‘It does also sound slightly spiritual and godly.’ Belter seemed to be coming round.

  ‘It does, it does...and it is,’ said Barney.

  ‘Fine. A “Day of Oneness” it is,’ said Belter deciding. ‘And let’s hold it outside the Council’s offices in Patriot Square.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Barney, ‘but what we need is a mascot, a point of focus for everybody.’

  ‘Some water from the Thames – in a bucket?’ said Drade.

  ‘Umm…’ said Belter.

  ‘It’s just that this is the whole point of the Cause, that the development is going to cause the river to dry up. Having a bucket of water as our mascot underlines our commitment to the Thames,’ said Drade.

  ‘Umm...everybody carrying a bucket might look like they were protesting about buckets, or rehearsing for Singing in the Rain, or collecting for rag week or something. People would focus on the bucket, rather than what’s inside it,’ said Belter.

  ‘How about a fish?’ suggested Barney.

  ‘Yes that’s it!’ said Belter, ‘a great big dead fish. Everyone in Patriot Square should be issued with a fish, and at a certain point toss them at the front door of the council offices.’

  ‘In desperation,’ said Barney with a theatrical flourish.

  ‘Rather than toss them, which might look a bit disrespectful, they should lay them out like corpses by the entrance and around the side of the building,’ suggested Drade re-entering the conversation. ‘All those silvery scales, would look very striking.’

  ‘You’re not ‘erring us’ said Barney indicating that this could be a newspaper headline.

  ‘A Carp-et of death’ added Drade with a grin.

  ‘So okay, the fish are in position – what then?’ asked Belter.

  ‘Then the vigil begins...’ said Barney, ‘we all wait together, holding hands, singing songs and looking sad.’

  ‘Just imagine how much those old fish will start to smell – especially if it’s a long day,’ reflected Drade. ‘I don’t know if I will be able to bear it.’

  ‘Oh well,’ replied Barney, ‘we can always nip back to Base if it starts getting a bit much.’

  ‘Why, of course we can, have a spot of supper –you never know, it might be one of the last times,’ said Drade.

  ‘Now,’ said Belter, keen to move things along, ‘objections to the granting of planning permission will need to be dealt with by five o’clock on October the first at the central offices of the Kensington & Chelsea Council in Patriot’s Square, so we need to make sure that there is plenty of time to be able to conduct the laying of the fish with dignity.’

  Barney agreed, ‘Nothing so undignified as a rushed funeral.’

  Drade nodded, and the planning for the big day began.

  By this stage, the Cause had any number of volunteers to call upon, and it was decided that they be divided into three teams: Team Lots led by Barney; Team Patriot led by Drade; with Belter heading up Team Cabot. Teams Lots and Patriot has responsibilities for the rally and vigil which were to occur on Barney’s Day of Oneness.

  Being more of a people person, Barney was responsible for turnout. He did this by first selected a number of his best volunteers to be ‘Street Leaders’, whose job it was focus the interest that the Cause had generated these past months into ‘feet on the ground’. Having done this, the Street Leaders coordinated with each other to ensure that, on the day itself, everybody would be marching in step. In principle, Drade was responsible for the vigil: making sure that the PA systems, stage, big screens and lighting were functional; that there was a plentiful supply of signs and placards, fireworks and smoke bombs, and all the usual paraphernalia of a modern-day protest; that entertainment and refreshments were laid on to stop people from getting bored, and that the relevant authorities were informed. In reality, Barney did most of the leg work here as well, working feverishly to make sure that everything hung together properly; although Drade, who could barely keep up, did his best to be helpful where he could.

  Team Cabot was responsible for handling media and public relations, with one or two trusted members seconded to ‘Dark Ops.’ of which, the less said, the better…The television stations were only too happy to comply – this was going to be huge, for as well as the mind-boggling numbers of people that were planning to attend, an astonishing number of well-known celebrities had also promised to come.

  ‘I can’t actually confirm any names,’ said Belter, speaking on the telephone to a TV person. ‘These people are coming as private individuals, and not as film stars.’ He stuck out his tongue and made a face as if he had just stepped in a large cowpat.

  ‘All I can say, is that everybody’s coming.’ He paused and then added pointedly, ‘And I mean everybody.’

  ‘NB?’ asked the voice a
t the other end.

  ‘I’m not going to confirm that,’ said Belter.

  ‘Cannot or will not?’ insisted the voice.

  ‘I could confirm that, but I’m not going to,’ said Belter.

  ‘Thanks,’ said the voice, ‘What about AB?’

  ‘Which AB?’ said Belter, ‘AB on her own, or AB and the whole of her family, including DM and the whole of his?’

  ‘Really?!’said the voice, ‘so I suppose that would include SE?’

  ‘I suppose if DM were coming, then so would SE, yes,’ said Belter. ‘But again, these are just suppositions. I am confirming nothing.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I know, don’t worry, we’ll triple source it. Thanks Mr Trelawney,’ ended the voice.

  Belter placed the received down and looked to his pals.

  ‘Good news,’ commented Barney, ‘that’s one of the big channels in, what about the others?’

  ‘They’re all in,’ said Belter. ‘I’ve have promised them the biggest turnout since the Royal Wedding, and what makes it even fruitier is that they are all expecting different people.’

  ‘Why does that matter?’ asked Drade.

  ‘It increases the likelihood of them turning out, and ensures no conferring between different channels,’ said Belter.

  ‘Plus, the weight of expectation on these celebrity chappies will be lower which will mean they are more likely to forget the whole incident afterwards,’ added Barney.

  ‘What about all that triple sourcing business?’ asked Drade.

  ‘Oh, they won’t bother,’ said Belter, ‘just isn’t the time, and anyway why would they? To tell the truth, by the time word gets out that these people are going to appear, there will be so much hype, they probably will turn up.’

  Belter made another call. ‘I realise that you have no direct interest in what happens to the Thames, but this event is something which you really want to be a part of…’ He covered the telephone and whispered to Barney, ‘Care for Cats East Cheem.’ Barney nodded as Belter continued ‘Battersea Dog’s Home’s in,’ he paused, ‘thank you very much, you won’t regret it. We’ll mail you the details.’

  He put the receiver down.

  ‘Another one bagged up and ready to go, Barney. Email address is on the site.’ Belter turned back to a little project he was working on with that much more carefully selected group of volunteers …

  The Big Day

  The day began ordinarily enough. It was raining of course, with deep grey skies, and the damp air was charged with a clingy mixture of warm traffic fumes and puddle spray. The red towers of the World’s End estate frowned down upon the steel and glass insta-builds of Lots Road. Gulls hovered and parried the airs above the Thames with clumsy grace and desolate cries. What scant summer there had been was already starting to take its leave of the metropolis, heading south and carrying great flocks of birds, staring ahead, intent upon warmer climes. In its stead, and emboldened as each day passed, autumn’s withering presence could be seen amongst the trees, and heard funnelling its way though gullies and passageways, and blustering about the open spaces like an invisible dervish army whipping up dust and grit and leaves and litter all around. As unavoidable as the sound of the city breathing, ten million souls squeezed together, fighting for every chink of space. The traffic: the scratching and screeching of breaks, the groans of creaky red buses starting and stopping, the breaking of lorries heaving and blocking, and cars and vans and cabs and all shuffling painfully forward inch by inch, with streaky lines of bikers weaving impossibly through it all. There were other sounds too: the grinding and girding of cranes, the rumble of heavy machines and cement mixers, pneumatic drills and diggers all going about their passionless business, scaffolding crashing down in one place, loading up being done in another, dogs arguing with cats and children laughing and jostling as they shoved and cajoled their way to school.

  ‘Standard, Standard!’ yelled the newspaper seller, as though his very life depended on it; and then immediately he confided a quiet, ‘thank you sir,’ to a customer, who had made a purchase without pausing his stride for an instant.

  The pavements of the King’s Road teamed with people streaming into work that Friday morning – hurrying, scurrying and worrying. And though resolutely glum to a one, they had still a certain cheerfulness about them which only the English could muster at such times. Perhaps it was the optimistic manner of their dress – leggy women in skimpy skirts, young men in stripy shorts – as if to say that the winds, which were all around, were not quite nippy enough. Perhaps it was the ubiquitous brolly, carried, but rarely opened, as if to say that the rain, that splashed down remorselessly, was not really wet enough. And though they trudged, they did so lightly, as though this daily, grinding traipse to work was little more than a stroll around the block. And whilst they moved at a pretty pace, their progress was smooth, without pushing or colliding, as if there was no great urgency about their business.

  And in Lots Road, too, there was life: the rouges and roughs began to gather at Bonhams for a banter and light fencing, the Lots Road cafe was crammed, windows dewed-out by perspiration and the expectation of plates of grease-laden-bacon, frizzley sausages, margarined toasts and innumerable cups of tea. The newsagent’s entrance tinkled and clanged so much that it might have been the revolving door of a first class hotel; and next door, the petrol station became a pit stop once more. Boom! An aluminium barrel crashed out of the lorry and rolled along the road, plopping through the open cellar doors. Slam! The door of a refrigerated delivery van was shut, and another delivery was made.

  In the reading room at Base, however, it was as quiet as always. The calm before the storm. Drade stood before the bay windows, which opened onto the terrace, and gazed outward over the garden wall and towards the river, a cup of hot, black coffee steaming in his hand. ‘Funny how when it rains, the Thames always seems wetter than normal,’ he said out loud, glancing back towards Belter, who was casually leafing through a copy of The Times.

  Belter threw Drade a perplexed look, and, saying nothing, returned to his paper.

  Downstairs a door slammed. Drade half turned.

  ‘It’s Barney,’ said Belter having had just seen him flying on his bicycle down Lots Road.

  Barney strode in with such vigour that he appeared to drag half of London in his wake. He was flushed with excitement and, rubbed his hands in order both to warm them and to burn off some energy.

  ‘Bright and early, I see. Good news, good news...’ said Barney. Turning to Harry, he ordered ‘White coffee please, two sugars.’

  He did a twirl in front of Belter and Drade, then asked, ‘What do you think of my new look?’

  ‘You look a complete mess,’ said Belter. ‘Why are your trousers falling down, and where did you get that rubbishy jacket?’

  ‘It’s my street look,’ said Barney, ‘rustic, working class with an insouciance of soul.’

  ‘But nothing fits!’ said Belter, ‘you look like a homeless person who’s mugged another homeless person and stolen his clothes.’

  ‘It’s part of Gabar’s “Of the People” campaign. I saw it in a magazine at the barbershop. It’s very in’

  ‘So these vestments ennoble you, do they? The street-weasel look.’

  ‘Fitting doesn’t necessarily mean that same as contain, you know,’ countered Barney.

  The three clustered together by the window. ‘So are we ready to do this thing?’ asked Belter in a low voice, which was shade deeper than normal, and had a more serious edge to it.

  Drade felt a tingle run up his spine. ‘I think so. Yes, yes I think so,’ he said, glancing with gleaming eyes at Barney. Drade looked back at Belter, who fixed him with a stern look. ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’ He let out a short nervous laugh.

  ‘Not a day to drop the ball, Hamish,’ said a still stern Belter.

  ‘I’m not going to drop the ball,’ replied Drade on the defensive.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ said Barne
y to Belter.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Drade, more than slightly miffed that the idea of his being the weak link seemed to be generally accepted. In their excitement, they had obviously forgotten what a solid old war-horse he was. Had he dropped the ball when he managed to persuade the honourable Bobbin to come on side? No! Course not. What about Professor Delaney, or those reporters from The Evening Standard? To suggest that he Hamish ‘Bostic-Paws’ Drade, was anything less than a safe pair of hands was laughable.

  Harry approached with Barney’s coffee. The three became silent. Harry too said nothing, but put the tray on a nearby table. Drade watched with appreciation. There was someone you could rely on,’ he thought.

  Officially, nobody at Base, except the Governor, had any idea what had been going on in the broom cupboard these last months; but, of course, in reality, everyone knew precisely. Even if no-one had noticed the unusual comings and goings, special deliveries and quiet conversations, the sheer volume of mail that arrived, and was thrown out by the sack-full every day, would have given them a clue. Nonetheless, the official position was the official position, and, officially, today was the day when lawyers for the Trust, would present to the councillors meeting in Patriot Square, a petition, signed by the trustees, against the development of Lots Road. Of course, officially, they were aware that there was some kind of public protest planned, but the Governor had been careful to distance Base and The Clef from these happenings, and nobody at Base was intending to put in an appearance – officially.

  ‘Will you be taking lunch here today?’ asked Harry, as thought it was a real possibility, as the three were preparing to leave.

  ‘Well, you never know,’ said Barney with a wink. ‘Might have to take cover here at some point.’

  ‘I see,’ said Harry, returning to his labours betraying nothing.

  The three wished one another the very best of luck, and parted ways at the old wicker gate. Drade headed towards Sloane Square; Barney towards Redcliff Square, where there was to be informal gathering of ‘street leaders’; and, rather mysteriously with a quick wave, Belter about-turned and disappeared upstairs into the broom cupboard.

  Normally, the Patriot Square area was immune to the endless colic of the Embankment traffic, sitting as an island between bridges, a little way back from the river. But today, it was hectic, even here, because the transport infrastructure of West London seemed to have gone completely haywire. Some young drunks had, the night before, decided to tamper with hundreds of the signposts in Kensington, Chelsea, and even in Westminster itself. Arrows were turned to point in exactly the opposite direction to the correct one; others were simply removed, covered or reversed, so that they served no purpose whatever.

  ‘Well prepared these rascals were,’ mumbled Sergeant Hamblin, looking with curiosity at the neat manner in which the nut and bolt fittings had been removed from a sign for Trafalgar Square. He rubbed the end of one of the bolts with this thumb, noticing how smooth it was. ‘They must have brought their own tools. Now, why would a bunch of hooligans go out on a Tuesday night armed with a load of tools? ’ he pondered. ‘And there must have been a fair group of them – dozens of them. Who would have that sort of time on their hands?’

  Sergeant Hamblin knew the answer before he had posed himself the question. His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. ‘Students!’ he rasped. There was nothing quite like of a bunch of lazy, good-for-very-damn-little, over-opinionated, arrogant, little, know-nothing students to get the sergeant’s blood churning. Again and again in his long career he had run up against them, either as drunkards being a menace to public order, as protesters threatening violence to all around, or as druggies smoking cannabis, as if it was tobacco. And they were always so litigious and barrack-room lawyer-like and precious about their human rights. They should get themselves real jobs, instead of going out and pranking about the town, inconveniencing everybody. The sergeant busied himself with finding the evidence to support his instincts.

  Speaking of pranksters, another issue, which floated into Sergeant Hamblin’s in-tray first thing in the morning, was reports of several fake tour guides, who had gathered large groups of unsuspecting tourists, and marched them to a couple of different locations, promising some kind of free rock concert, where various important and famous people were pledged to be. The sergeant could not figure out for the life of him what the scam was; but years of experience told him there was something fishy going on.

  Meanwhile, traffic-wise, things went from worse to terrible, as both Battersea and Putney Bridges had to be closed: the former, because the barrier which regulated traffic appeared to be welded shut; and the latter, because a large water pipe which had unexpectedly burst, and the water board was losing about a thousand gallons a second, to say nothing of the hazard to traffic.

  ‘Odd that that both problems should have occurred at the same time,’ said one of the engineers from the local water company.

  ‘It’s always the way,’ replied his colleague, munching upon a sausage sandwich. ‘You have no problems for years and years, and then suddenly it all goes wrong at the same time. Look at those fire hydrants this morning in Chelsea. Had to close off most of the King’s Road and Sloane Square too, ‘cos some burkes let them off.’

  ‘Yes, but that was caused by some burkes, whereas this... Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’

  His friend swallowed the last of his sandwich and stared thoughtfully over the Thames. He pitied the poor buggers travelling into work this morning – it was going to be a nightmare.

  Things were not helped by local radio stations and traffic organisations getting dozens of calls, texts and mails from drivers, alerting others of jams and accidents, which had never happened but had had the effect of driving traffic down roads, where by rights, traffic had no business to be, and where cars invariably broke down and had to be abandoned. The police counted eighteen such cars in Chelsea alone – mostly hire cars, presumably belonging to tourists – which had simply been left in the middle of the roads, blocking both directions of traffic.

  If that was not enough, no fewer than four underground stations – Victoria, South Kensington, Knightsbridge and Hyde Park Corner – needed to be shut down all morning due to multiple bomb scares. They turned out to be false alarms, but were pretty scary nonetheless, with the usual chaotic scenes: blue lights of all descriptions, and reporters all over the place.

  ‘You never can be too careful,’ Belter was heard to mutter upon receiving the news from his broom-cupboard-bunker at Base. He picked up the phone for the umpteenth time that morning, and made another well-placed call.

  Unsurprisingly, the result of all these shenanigans was curiously helpful to the Cause, as they seemed to drive traffic and people to the very place where the vigil against the port was taking place. The result was total confusion, chaos and a great magnification of the numbers involved.

  Centre Stage

  In Patriot Square Hamish de Buxton Drade was grappling with complexities of his own. As was his way, he had not dithered, following the great parting of ways earlier that day in the garden of Base, and had immediately mounted his steed and galloped, as well as any cyclist could, towards what had become known as Centre Stage, stopping only at The Chelsea Bun to pick up some light sustenance.

  ‘No General ever made a mistake so great as to march his men on an empty stomach,’ had advised his geography master. And he surely knew. Although it did occur to Drade that it had been the same master who cautioned, ‘Not to be hungry while cooking,’ and also ‘Not to eat between meals,’ which, when taken together, implied the use of some clever piece of mental trickery, the likes of which were quite beyond Drade. Nevertheless, old Stan had been a thin man, and had lived to a great age; so whatever he had meant, it had worked.

  Arriving at Patriot Square, Drade was surprised to find quite a number of people already there – about fifty of them, in fact – buzzing about in every direction, like bees in a florist’s. At
this, he was, to tell the truth, a tad disappointed, as he had intended to be the first on the scene, leading, as it were, from the front. But, as he gazed at the frightening hive of activity which seemed to be all around him, he quickly overcame his nobler instincts, and decided that he could be equally as effective leading from the back, rucking and pushing the wave of human interest ahead of him, and making sure there were no slackers in the ranks (or, for that matter, deserters to the flanks). What was more, being known for his generosity of spirit, the last thing he wanted to do was steal focus. Far better that he be the silent partner, the prime mover, the hidden hand, the one whom one does not see – unless, that is, one happened to be at the back of the crowd.

  Drade studied the scene, the gaze of the creator unknown: a couple here, enlarging the platform with scaffolding boards; another few there, making sure the hoardings were attached properly to the girders, which formed a skeleton around the stage; chairs in a line; tables two by two; souvenir salesmen moving into position; and a large screen and projector bursting into life. Behind the stage, portable lavatories were being delivered, and on the opposite side, an inevitable kebab seller was setting up. There was a loud crackle as a bearded man tested the microphone with the hoarse voice of one who spoke little.

  ‘One two, one two!’ he croaked.

  ‘Loud and clear!’ yelled another with jolly sarcasm.

  All around the square the aged lime trees were tethered together with red and white tape, forming an enclosure of chained colossi, which fluttering in the morning breeze. Orange-vested orderlies arranged mini-stands filled with leaflets and brochures and whistles and hats and florescent items, torches, bangles and just about everything else that could conceivably be used to get attention, whilst friends took photos, made phone calls, engaged sleepy-eyed passers-by with excitedly jabbered information about…

  All that planning and preparation, the long nights and early mornings, quick teas and gulped down luncheons, the perspiration, the self-denial, the covert brilliance, the heroes unsung; all that and more coming together to a single point, smoothly like marshmallows drenched in honey, thought Drade with satisfaction. He inspected the swarm, hoping to pick out someone he recognised, someone he might appoint as his adjutant – at least as his acting adjutant until his the real one made his presence known to him. He saw no-one who looked even vaguely familiar, the problem being, that much of the marshmallow-making had been done online, or in some virtual way, and that the few actual people whom he had met had been part of Barney’s Street Gangs.

  Drade thus found himself in the surprising situation of his being in charge, but with nobody knowing it. He was a general without his baton, as it were, and whilst he surveyed the scene, he pondered how best to recover it. The merest frown flickered across his handsome brow and then was gone, as he noticed a skirmish of sorts starting to develop around the main platform.

  From the peripheries, he couldn’t quite make out what the people were saying, their words cloaked in an unholy mixture of home-county accents and traffic roar, although there was no doubt that the voices were becoming loud and animated, and that there appeared to be the beginnings of a scuffle. This was just the sort of happenstance which warranted a spot of that authoritative buff, of which those of a certain class were genetically endowed. He approached the huddle, and even as he did so, from its midst came the dull thud of a thrown punch finding its mark.

  Drade paused. The last thing he wanted to do was to steal focus, yet on the other hand he did want to find his baton. Steeling himself once more, he sauntered towards the ruckus, as inoffensively as he could, wheeling his bicycle in one hand, his bag containing a couple of sandwiches in the other, his lips pursed as though whistling quietly to himself (a comforting feint he had often found handy when confronting rabid dogs upon his travels in the wilds of the West Country).

  He approached the rabble, which was now a score, or so strong, using the front wheel of his trusty bicycle as a makeshift bragging stick to part the throng. The throng parted not, but instead, closed ranks against him. The arguments grew more heated, and Drade fancied he caught the whiff of the odd obscenity being hurled …and was that another punch?

  It seemed that the space underneath the platform had become the subject of a turf war between two tramps, which had raged, at times violently, all night, calming down at first light, with the arrival of some donated food, but, which was now being pursued more vigorously than before.

  This was just the sort of difficult situation which Drade revelled in. The type of conundrum where arguments on both sides were so finely balanced that the slightest of cat’s whiskers would send the scales of judgement crashing down on one side or the other: an assay which would have tried a Solomon in his prime, reflected Drade.

  He pushed forward with his bicycle more eagerly but to no avail. The turmoil continued, and the surrounding gaggle, which initially had tried half-heartedly, to pull the warring vagrants apart, now began to take sides and openly cheer on their respective combatants on. Still at the rear, Drade side-stepped his way along the wall of broad-backed youths, like a crab in a grotto, intermittently probing for vulnerability with his bicycle, till at last, he sensed a weak point and attempted with his sandwich bag to gouge out a gap between two teenage girls. The effect was instantaneous; as one they turned upon him, shrieking like banshees at the sight of an exorcizing priest – the first, claws outstretched, going for his throat; the other aiming a kick at his shins.

  How strange it is that so often accident and chance should come together to shape a path for fate to follow. How right for Drade; for, by luck, the effect of these two breaking ranks caused others to tumble out, propelled by the two protagonists who, in turn, locked together, came barrelling through at some speed, hitting Drade’s front tyre, and separating upon impact, like a coconut cracking apart, as it hit the ground. Both picked themselves in an instant though, and, like wild cats, hissed and snarled foully at one another, but the tightness of the crowd that now surrounded them, and the presence of Drade and his bicycle in its centre, prevented further engagement.

  Thus it was that Drade, having inadvertently succeeded where the multitude had failed, found himself the unwilling arbiter between these two grizzled champions of the great outdoors. An uncomfortable situation to be sure, for whilst he had been born to lead, and it was his duty to be at the centre of things, was this new bear-fancying role really for what he had been born?

  ‘Hamish!’ shouted one of the many. ‘It’s Hamish Drade, guys, from the Cabot foundation!’

  Drade, who was still struggling to come to terms with his new situation, and at the same time trying to parry the fists and spittle that passed between the two tramps as well as admonish them in firm, yet non-provocative tones, barely heard his name passed around, or the overtures that followed. But within moments he had been borne away by five or six of the fluorescent-vested types towards a table at the side of the podium.

  ‘Hamish,’ said one of the glowers, who Drade later found out was called Paul, ‘firstly, really good to finally meet you, mate.’ He put his arm round Drade and hugged him in that suspiciously informal way in which today’s footballers celebrate goals. Without wishing to, Drade found himself returning Paul’s embrace; a little less eagerly, it must be admitted, but no less suspiciously.

  ‘Thanks, old...er...mate,’ he spluttered.

  From the other side of the stage a youth shouted over, ‘Yeah, Hamish, it’s me, m_d42, from InoX.’

  ‘Hello!’ said Drade, ‘nice to finally meet you.’ Naturally he had no idea what m_d42 or InoX might stand for, but he felt this phrase ‘nice to finally meet you’ might be used a lot today.

  ‘Later,’ said the youth.

  ‘Indeed,’ rejoined Drade.

  Another enthusiastic sort hailed a greeting from afar, something about an ‘out’ and then a ‘good deedman’; and when yet a third ‘winged him a shout-out’, and a fourth presented him with a fist to shake, Drade
began to get the same sort of sensation he had experienced with the YB at that strange gathering in Yorkshire, in which everybody knew, him but he knew nobody.

  ‘Now,’ said Paul, ‘we need your input.’ He paused, and led Drade out, away from the stage, towards the centre of the square. He had a decisive, military air about him, pausing at strategic moments when he spoke, and spitting the words out.

  Drade found his concision most welcome in the circumstances.

  ‘The big screen’s there,’ Paul pointed towards the screen which was now showing a rolling news channel, ‘and the people are here.’ He motioned with his hands, ‘So, if you are going to be talking into the microphone, there,’ Paul pointed towards the stage, ‘then the people here will only be able to see the you in front of them or via the big screen, over there, but not from the council offices, which are over there.’ He turned and pointed to the Borough Council’s administrative headquarters, which, if Patriot Square were a large dining table, lay at its head.

  This was news to Drade. He knew of no talking. ‘Talking?’ he queried.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Paul, ‘been a bit of a change of plan.’

  ‘Change of plan?’

  ‘Well, Barney Hoofsdew’s just rang me and said he’ll have to leg it to Tilbury, or somewhere like that, for the fish sometime this pm.’

  ‘I see,’ hesitated Drade, ‘and by “talking” you mean, “talk in his stead”.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Paul looking at him in a curious way, ‘in his...”stead”.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Drade, his head still grappling with this piece of news, ‘I think I’ll let you call that.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Paul, his instincts that Hamish was a natural leader confirmed. ‘Well, in that case, it would be best if you were to make your speech up there, and then wander down through the assembled people, up to the front door of the offices over there, where you can make your final presentation.’

  The final presentation? thought Drade, supposing that there was no way of wrapping the two up together. ‘No chance of someone steading in my place, is there?’ hoped Drade. ‘Just my old vocal chords are a little weary this morning, after some heavy presenting last night.’

  ‘Know what you mean, had a skinfull myself,’ said the earnest Paul. ‘Don’t worry, mate you’ll have a mic…good one too. When I was using it earlier, it picked up my stomach rumbling.’

  ‘Great!’ said Drade to the retreating Paul, ‘I was wondering whether I’d have a microphone…mate.’

  ‘Damn,’ he thought when Paul had gone, ‘there was no getting out of this one; he would have to speak.’ Public speaking was something he dreaded. ‘And damn Barney, too! Where the hell was he, anyway? So like him to leave his best chum in the lurch.’

  Drade rested his weary limbs upon a handy bench, put his head back and, allowing his mind to wander a little, tried to figure out what on earth he was going to say as he ‘wandered through the assembled people’. Wandering down an aisle of people wasn’t natural for a chap, he reflected; it was the sort of thing brides did at weddings, whereas the groom, nervous, afraid, sullen in some cases, hung-over in most cases, was already in position at the foot of the bar. The only time that a man moved through an aisle was at his funeral, and that was hardly through choice.

  ‘I suppose I could tell a couple of anecdotes,’ thought Drade. ‘Nothing too racy, nothing offensive, perhaps the one about the two tortoises who go for a picnic and forget the bottle opener.’ He brightened at the idea, and pursued it further, ‘Then move on to draw parallels between the tortoise forgetting the bottle opener and us as a society forgetting about the things that are important to us.’

  He pondered the possibility a while longer, and then decided against it. ‘Bit complicated for the man in the street,’ he thought.

  He was still chewing on this, when his attentions were caught by a familiar face grinning at him from the other side of a pelican crossing at the far end of the square. At first he did not recognise him, and it took several moments for it to click. It was Harris from Base, in the most bazaar get-up imaginable: gone were his customary tweeds and cloth ties, and instead, he sported a ghastly off-yellow blazer, under which lurked a pair of shiny pink braces and a red bow tie. On his head sat a bowler hat, so large it almost enveloped his face; and in his hand he held one of those large green umbrellas favoured by the sort who play golf. Drade wandered over to him. ‘What on earth are you doing, Harris?’ he asked.

  ‘Shush!’ said Harris, looking around, fearful that someone might have heard, ‘my name’s not Harris, it’s Ponsonby, Clive Ponsomby.’

  ‘Sorry, was that Ponsonby, or Ponsomby?’ asked Drade.

  ‘Not sure,’ said Harris, ‘which sounds best. I’m pretending to be an Englishman, you see.’

  ‘You are an Englishman – well, more or less,’ said Drade.

  ‘Yes, I know, but I’m pretending to be the type of Englishman that the foreigners think we are. Therefore the umbrella,’ he said, lifting the item into the air.

  ‘And the hat?’ asked Drade.

  ‘Yes, that too. All part of my disguise,’ said Harris.

  ‘Why do you need a disguise?’ asked Drade.

  Harris lowered his voice still further. ‘I’m part of team Cabot,’ he whispered. ‘Belter asked me to help out…I’m bringing you people!’

  At that moment a coach drew up and honked its horn several times. Harris started and turned around and with a cheerful wave said, ‘Here they are now, see you later old son!’ He rushed over, umbrella aloft, to greet the tourists who exited the coach.

  They were from Asia, possibly from China, reflected Drade.

  ‘This way for Bono and friends,’ shouted Harris, ‘just follow the umbrella. That’s the way, madam. Bono, the pop star from Hollywood, this way. The Beatles, this way. Elvis no way!’ he glanced over at Drade, who was staring at him with some incredulity.

  ‘Absolute maniac!’ thought Drade, ‘why people believing him?’

  And yet they did. Obediently trooping after the umbrella, excitedly chattering amongst themselves, and taking photos at every opportunity. Harris took them on a tour of the square first, pausing every so often to impart a gem of local knowledge to his willing hostages, before moving on, and finally gathering them around the podium, where he posed for pictures with several of the girls who had taken a liking to him.

  ‘Incredible,’ thought Drade.

  A loud, screeching moan interrupted his thoughts. Drade turned again. Another coach drew up and, there to meet it, appearing out of nowhere, was kilt-wearing Arthur McFaddon, blowing for all he was worth into a set of pipes slung over his shoulder. A cheer went up from the passengers as they tottered out into the square. Arthur threw a broad smile to Drade before commencing the tour of Robert ‘Sloany’ Braveheart the Bruce’s birthplace.

  Drade shook his head in disbelief and tried once more to return to the problem of wandering the aisles – ‘lonely as a cloud’ without doubt. But again he was robbed of the solution by the approach of Barney, his posse of Street Leaders and the massed ranks the Cause’s foot soldiers. Drade was stunned by the multitudes which put in an appearance – there must surely have been five thousand. All that was needed was a loaf or two of bread and, well, the fish was on its way.

  ‘Hello!’ hailed Barney from afar; he really needed to bellow over the noise of the whistles and the shouting and tooting of exasperated drivers’ horns, ‘what do you think?’

  ‘Not billy bad!’ yelled back Drade.

  The two drew closer to one another.

  ‘So how many have you got?’ asked Drade.

  ‘About six hundred,’ said Barney, ‘and the numbers will grow throughout the day,’ he paused, ‘I’m getting a thousand fish!’

  ‘A thousand!’ said Drade, ‘Where you going to find those?’

  ‘Think of the impact,’ said Barney, ‘Got a deal with a docker. They might be a little on the old side.’

  ‘
Right you are,’ said Drade. ‘One thing Barney, I was talking with that man over there – Paul, I think his name is – and he said that I would have to sub for you on the old platform this afternoon.’

  ‘Yes, sorry, didn’t get a chance to let you know,’ replied Barney.

  ‘Ah, yes, well, that’s okay, I know now,’ said Drade, ‘the thing is that public speaking is one of my weaknesses, or rather, should I say, not one of my strengths?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Barney, ‘Well not to worry, keep it short and sweet, tell a joke or something.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Drade. ‘I was thinking about the one with the tortoises and the bottle opener.’

  ‘Umm, maybe…umm. Hang on a mo, just got to check on that lot over there.’ And with that Barney he was off to help a group of confused volunteers with the poster arrangements.

  ‘Mr Drade?’ a voice said from behind.

  Drade spun round and found himself confronted by a three man news crew with a camera shoved into his face.

  ‘Hello!’ he said, slightly startled and taking a step back.

  ‘Quick interview?’ said the shorter of the three.

  ‘With me?’ asked Drade, looking desperately around for Barney again. ‘I’m not sure I’m quite the person you’re looking for, but eh ...fine, fire away.’

  Drade addressed himself to the interviewer, and then to the cameraman, and then looked directly into the camera itself, finally deciding to look at each alternately to the extent that he felt himself slightly dizzy.

  ‘This way,’directed the third newsman.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Drade, ‘that’s better.’

  The shorter man spoke first. ‘We’ve just spoken with some of the councillors who support the Lots Road development project, and they tell us that every study they have conducted shows that it will bring trade, commerce, jobs and prosperity to an otherwise desolate part of London. What could your foundation possibly have against it?’

  This was not the kind of question Drade had been expecting, and he felt as if he had been bashed in the stomach by a very angry oarsman. He stared at the interviewer for a second and then at his two accomplices, hoping to divine some clue from their faces as to how he should respond. But he saw nothing. This was an obvious trap. ‘Are you sure? Are you quite sure?’ he queried, trying his best to sound sincere. ‘Have you checked the small print?’

  ‘The small print?’ asked the interviewer.

  ‘The devil is always in the detail, sir; loitering amidst the small print, skulking amongst the notes. You should always check them. In fact, whenever I read a study, I make it a habit to start there, and only if I find it devil-less, so to speak, do I bother with the rest of it.’

  The interviewer looked flummoxed.

  ‘I think you’ll find,’ continued Drade with growing confidence, ‘that most experts would agree that the port will be a total waste of money and ruin a beautiful part of Chelsea and the Thames.’

  ‘We’ve been told that the Lots Road Development Agency has been at pains to observe, and indeed supersede every guideline for environmental responsibility.’

  Drade effected a flabbergasted expression, ‘Who told you that?’ he asked, ‘and did you triple source it?’

  The interviewer seemed taken aback by Drade’s sheer aggression.

  ‘Er, well, for a start, Sir Richard Lyons is the chairman of the Agency’s board…’

  ‘Sugar!’ said Drade, ‘they make sugar don’t they?’

  ‘Who?’ asked the interviewer.

  ‘Lyons,’ said Drade, ‘Sugar people – unreliable – plus he’s on the board.’

  ‘And…’ said the interviewer.

  ‘So, he’s unsound. One of them,’ said Drade.

  His adversaries appeared confused. ‘No, no, I think the point is this,’ interjected the third man, ‘Sir Richard Lyons is a well-known champion of the environment, great friend of the Duke of Cornwall, expert on conservation, written several books, and he wouldn’t have joined the board if he in any way thought that the agency was unsound.’

  Drade felt trapped. ‘Sir Richard is a good man,’ he said. ‘He probably joined the Lots Road Development Agency to rein them in.’ He looked over the interviewer’s shoulder, and pretended his eye had be caught by someone beckoning him over.

  ‘Two seconds,’ he mouthed to the phantom someone.

  ‘…to rein them in?’ said the shorter man.

  ‘Absolutely, that’s what they do.’ said Drade. ‘And now if you’ll excuse me, we have work to do’

  And with that Drade turned, approached one of the helpers, and feigned an enormous interest in the contents of a box under the stage. The news crew slank away almost immediately, as they have a tendency to do, having found bigger fish to fry. But it was several minutes before Drade dared look up.

  The Off!

  Drade stood up, weary, head bowed, and with all the relish of a condemned man invited to ‘do breakkie’ with the hangman. He climbed the few steps to the podium, where Paul was making last minute adjustments to the position of the microphone. Paul flicked its foam head a couple of times with his finger.

  ‘Can you hear me at the back?’ he asked.

  A general murmur of agreement went up and Paul, having patted Drade on the back, hurried off the stage, leaving the Master alone at its centre.

  Drade looked down upon the multitude. And the multitude looked up, innocent and blank, with no idea of what to expect, which was hardly surprising, as Drade had no idea what to deliver. He clutched the podium and swallowed his throat dry, his heart pounding inside his chest, and perspiration seeping from his forehead. The hush was all around; the sound of the traffic receded swiftly to a very far place; birds stopped singing in the trees; leaves stopped rustling in the breeze, which, too, died a silent death; the drizzle itself hovered motionless in mid-fall, refusing to break up the freeze below and around; and no one, no soul, no creature, no being moved except the cameras, which rolled on silently. Seconds dragged by like eternities, each increasing the pressing urgency of now.

  The hour, the minute, the second, the very split of the second was upon him. This was his moment. He must deliver.

  But he did not. Drade spoke no word, uttered no sound, said nothing. And as the moment came and went, he breathed more easily, his skin became dry, and his mind, dazzled by the sheer weight of their expectations, became clear. A profound calm descended upon him and his animal instincts rose mightily to the fore. Now he began to hear the murmur of the people, the will of the chosen few. He sensed their needs, he knew their desires, and when he spoke, he did so slowly and solemnly to each and every mind directly.

  ‘Two tortoises go for a picnic,’ he began, ‘and when they get to the top of the hill, they open up their picnic basket, only to find that they had left the bottle opener at home…’

  It was a long joke, and when done, Drade paused to assess how his words had been received. He had known that this had been a risky gambit, and was always going to go one of two ways: either the crowd would fall about laughing being composed of relaxed, wide-awake, good-for-laugh types, who one wouldn’t mind at all spending an evening with; or they would be serious, humourless, sombre log-like-green junkies, who would simply not get it, and remain as silent as tombstones.

  The multitude stared at him in silence. This appeared, however, to be going a third way. Perhaps they were getting it, but they just didn’t think it was funny. Their reaction made him wonder whether, perhaps, he had imagined that he had started speaking at all, and, that in fact, he had yet to say anything. The thought even crossed his mind to say nothing more and to see what happened. But he resisted the temptation and pushed on.

  Mercifully, at that point, and from nowhere, Barney bounded onto the boards. Barney was a natural extravert and loved to work a crowd. Clapping and clacking, laughing and roaring he leapt at the microphone, whipping it off its stand and, in the same movement, put his arm around Drade thanking him profusel
y with his first breath for that excellent introduction. Turning to the crowd, with his second breath, he thanked it for turning up, and assured all that this was going to be a day they would tell their grandchildren about; a day when they had stood up for the planet, stood up to be counted, stood up to those who would have them stand down.

  ‘This is going to be a day when the good people of Kensington and Chelsea would not do nothing! And now, good people, our man in Westminster: I give you the one, the only, and thank the lord there’s only one of them, Mister Simon Kutt MP. Simon, this way if you please.’

  The representative for the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, the Rt. Hon. Simon Kutt MP, strutted onto the stage and took his place at the podium. He was tall man, in any case standing well over six feet, but with his heels and the stage, to say nothing of his own sense of self-importance, which he graciously carried around with him like a brass band, he seemed to tower over his constituents, whom he humbled with his presence.

  He thanked Mr Barney Hoofsdew of the Cabot Foundation for his kind words of introduction, and threw Drade a nod. Then he placed and replaced his thick glasses upon the bridge of his nose, heightening the sense of anticipation, and commenced in a loud, rather horse-like bellow.

  ‘Thank you, people of Chelsea for attending this rally in such numbers,’ he began, looking around benignly, ‘and I have to say, it is particularly heartening for me to see so many young people here today; for this proposed development will be around in your future, in this is your town and your neighbourhood...’ The emphasis on the word ‘your’ had the unintended effect of awakened a suspicion in the minds of his listeners.

  There were a few indecisive cheers. Barney, who was perched to the side of the stage, found his mind wandering.

  The MP continued. ‘I remember the first time I really came to understand the meaning of environmental responsibility.’ The man reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a wedge of papers. He placed them upon the podium and thumbed through the first couple of pages. An inaudible groan went up from the crowd, for the representative had a well-deserved reputation for making exceedingly boring speeches; although, given the occasion, there was some hope that this one would be a little more exciting than those delivered within the still, dark, echoing halls of Westminster.

  It was not. In fact, the MP managed to drone on for almost half an hour, mainly about himself and the formative experiences of his life; and just when those still awake were beginning to wonder what this had to do with the Lots Road building project, the cunning politician began to weave these disparate strands into a piece of self-aggrandizing propaganda. ‘...and so that is why I went into politics,’ he intoned. ‘As you know, we Conservatives have always been, and are, and always will be,’ he added with a promptness which quelled any dubiety, ‘great believers in enterprise, unwavering friends of business, and advocates for the mercantile class.’ Again one could not help having suspicions that the man harboured a certain, cultivated distain for that particular ‘class’ of people.

  He took a brief pause, as if expecting at least a smattering of applause for the courageous position he was taking. None, not even the merest suggestion of a flutter, was forthcoming.

  ‘But why?’ he asked – the rhetoric was no bad thing, as, by stage in the lecture, the audience was sleeping so soundly, that there was a greater chance of getting an answer from Professor Cabot. ‘Because,’ he continued, ‘we Conservatives believe that a good government is one that spreads contentment and happiness throughout the nation, and we alone realise that it is only through trade and commerce that this can come about. But whilst trade and commerce are very important, they will always remain a means to the end and not ends in themselves. In this case, I feel there is a clear conflict of interest, and as your representative, I cannot, in all good conscience, but come down on the side of the people.

  Of course,’ the MP rounded upon the local council and their impotence in the face of demands by their friends in big business, ‘that might make for a few awkward silences at those grand dinners one gets invited to.’ A smile crept onto his face, ‘Perhaps nice, plump directorships might be a little harder to come by.’ His smile grew broader, ‘And it’s always risky to take on the rich and the powerful – especially if you are the rich and powerful – look at our local councillors,’ he allowed himself a chuckle. ‘But I want to be able to sleep at night.’

  ‘No problem there,’ reflected a few insomniacs.

  And so it went on: the dilettante local councillors, paralyzed by their indifference to the ordinary voter, unable to differentiate between self-interest and those of society, doubtless lining their own pockets (he implied on more than one occasion), or, at best, demonstrating the kind of incompetence with which only the left of the political spectrum was acquainted.

  After what seemed like an era, the honest public servant turned to the matter in hand: ‘So finally, I turn to the matter in hand,’ he said. ‘There is, as I am sure you are aware, a meeting later today at the Offices of the Borough Council behind you. It will be ten o’clock in thirty seconds, which will give our councillors exactly seven hours to make the right decision, and I have the honour of starting the countdown clock right here behind me.’

  The MP reached for a hammer from under the podium, and struck a large bell behind him. There was a loud clang, at which Drade, who was leaning against the stage, inches away from the dinning brass, almost fainted. By good fortune he was revived by a series of loud fireworks behind him, let off by Barney with the assistance of Paul, as the countdown got underway.

  Next it was the turn of the Archbishop of Westminster to take the stand. A hugely paunched man with large square thick-rimmed glasses, he had the curious ability to look without seeing, and to make everyone in front of him feel that he was talking to them personally. At the same time, the sheer extent of him made everyone behind him feel completely left out, as if they had arrived at the concert only to find that the venue was full and the doors closed.

  The man was no po-faced parson either, judging without emotion and chastising from behind the lectern. This bishop was a crusader, an evangelist charged by God – and perhaps a tot of something to change the wicked ways of man.

  Manoeuvring his great bulk about the stage, with a surprising adroitness, he railed against big business, and how it was destroying lives and communities. How it turned people into consumers, how it extinguished our humanity, and how, in the end, those at their helm would pay the price – if not here, then there, in the eternal and unforgiving fires of hell.

  The rhythm of his oratory alternated between calm, repetitious and endlessly unpunctuated word flows, during which time his body seemed to sway like a snake charmer; and periods of great excitability, during which he would wave his arms about like a Gully Gully appealing to heaven and hell at the same time. His voice stiffened the sinews and summoned the blood, only to crack with emotion at its climax.

  The preacher left the stage to a foot-stamping roar of approval, which was a huge contrast to the honourable member’s exit, which was itself memorable only because he had so very nearly tripped on some rather ungodly wires.

  At half past ten, children of a local primary school took stage. They held hands and sang about loving, sharing, caring, healing, hugging, feeling and then rather bizarrely they sang about how irrelevant the colour of one’s skin was. Shameless though he was, even Barney could not prevent a smirk shooting across his rapt-in-wonder-at-the-wisdom-of-these-young-kids face. A quarter hour later, some environmental rappers jumped upon the boards to assure everyone – in rhyme – that all was not lost, as long as we believed. At midday, there was a band, The Left Footers, who also sang – very loudly – and at the same time, there was an announcement that food was being served, with all proceeds going to the Cause.

  The audience stampeded towards the stalls, which must have been rather disconcerting for The Left Footers who played on bravely. But indeed, all was righted when, h
alf an hour later, the audience began to dribble back, only to find that the band were still there. At two, there arrived some Indian dancers – generously giving their time; at two thirty, performed a group of mimes who also juggled – a silent affair; and twenty minutes after them, there was a yoga demonstration, in which a yogi twisted himself into the most unnatural of shapes, and remained motionlessly thus for a good five minutes. During this display, there was much shifting about in the audience and pawing at the ground; and one young person asked whether, perhaps, the yogi had died, an observation which profited the boy a clip round the lughole. But this did set right tone for the more serious address by Professor Deleany formally of UPD, which followed.

  ‘I didn’t know the late Professor Cabot personally,’ began Delaney, ‘but I have been assured by some acquaintances, that he was one of the best.’ His head motioned vaguely in the direction of Barney and Drade, who both looked away and around.

  There was a ripple of agreement from around the stage.

  ‘Neither have I had a chance to assess much of his work, although I understand it is very through, precise and well-reviewed, and further, that he and I were essentially walking in the same direction. It is indeed a great pity that our paths didn’t actually cross.’

  Barney gazed towards the heavens, as though from out of the gloom of the grey, grey clouds, he could, perhaps, make out the face of his dear, recently departed mentor, who also lamented an opportunity lost.

  The professor looked down at his notes, his lecturing instincts of his coming to the fore once again, and continued.

  Back-scratching & Arm-bending

  Councillor Kenneth Bobbin tweaked the lace curtain and looked with caution out of the window at the growling crowd. He turned to face the room.

  He was in the large meeting room of the council’s offices in Patriot Square, housed in a building which had been built in an age when the future portended great expectations, but which in this these defeatist times seemed pretentious at best. There were four large windows on one side, which faced Patriot Square. Yet inside, it was dim, partly on account of the heavy drapes and thick lace curtains, which hung like shrouds and cobwebs around the windows; in part because the thick, embossed wallpaper was stale yellow from years of smoke and neglect; and in part because the sombre darkness of the wooden furnishings seemed to trap and hold the light into a functional void, dismissing hope and banishing sentiment. The walls were naturally bare, except for the usual joyless signage, which buildings of a statist stamp have a tendency to be littered with, and a solitary notice board, upon which hung some miserable missives from on high. And everything, from the contradictory and duplicative array of bolts and spigots upon the door, to the brutish lockets which guarded every little cupboard, spoke to the great confusion of mind, from which those who had dominion over these little outposts had a tendency to suffer from.

  In the centre of the room lay a large, highly decorated, oblong table struck from good oak, doubtless pilfered in some way from the houses of the mighty in times past. Much too large for the room, much too high for serious use, much too grand for what use it was put to, and much too finely crafted for those who used it, it underscored the pitiful state of its surroundings. And around this altar to keptocratic ineptitude sat the eight who presided over the affairs of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.

  ‘I’m not changing my mind at all…no…not at all,’ spluttered Councillor Bobbin.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Suzzie Templer, who was seated at the foot of the table, ‘there are three names on this proposal: yours, Chris’s, and mine; and now suddenly you say we should listen to the people. In what way is that not a change of heart?’

  In fact, Kenneth Bobbin had changed his mind, and he knew it. His new friend, Hamish de Buxton Drade had as much as promised him the Jag at an almost unbelievably competitive price, on the proviso that he withdraw his support from the planning application. One might have thought that this exchange would, in some way, offend the Councillor’s honour, but the truth was that opportunity, to Bobbin, was as a dead carcass to a jackal, and he stuck to his guns.

  ‘There’s no change,’ said Bobbin, approaching the table, ‘I still believe in the port, I still support it and think it would be a great idea in many ways; but I also think that…er…you know…we are here to represent the people, and if they don’t want it then in all good conscience…’

  Templer interrupted him, brandishing a copy of the original proposal. ‘You said here that you supported the application for planning permission, and would vote for it, and now you’re saying you won’t.’

  ‘And I will support the application, as I…’ He glanced at the other councillors around the table, ‘…as I said I would.’

  ‘I just don’t understand,’ said Templer.

  And she truly did not. Suzzie Templer was a rare find in the world of local government; being born into substantial privilege, she had never really experienced first-hand the courser side of life. Perhaps because of this, or perhaps despite, she was determined to do right by as many people as possible, and was the only person at the table who had entered the dirty world of the professional politics for no other purpose. This made here dangerous to her enemies, and even more so to here allies. She glared over at Bobbin finding offence in everything about him, from his weak lopsided gait, to the saliva that had started to trickle out of his closed lips and down towards his non-existent chin. It was clear, this weakling had found the sight of the mob of moaning do-nothings in the square too much for him. She had an almost overwhelming urge to jump up, biff him round the face, and command him to stay the course.

  ‘So, you will vote for it?’ asked Templer testily.

  ‘So, I…er…yes, I will vote for it, unless…but I think that we should at least listen to the objections that are being, er...’ He motioned towards the window, wiping his mouth with his hand as he did so.

  The noise from outside grew as the multitude seemed to near the building, and strangely a whiff of rotten fish passed through the dead airs of the room and were quickly absorbed by them. One of the councillors scribbled something on a piece of notepaper and passed it to his colleague, who studied it, then scribbled something back, at which the first councillor smirked, stopping the instant he caught a look from Council Leader Major Strawley, who glared at him from above his bushy black moustache.

  A strategic two seats down from Suzzie Templer, sat Councillor Chris Carpet, who until now, had been completely silent. He had known that today would be a difficult, because, although he supported the Port, not least because he had received assurances on more than one occasion that he would asked to join its board when an appropriate amount of time, had passed he knew that that blasted bullying Belter ‘scumbag!’ had him over a barrel, and there was nothing he could do. So desperate had he been to avoid scandal, that not only had he promised not to support the planning permission, but that he would do everything in his power to make sure it did not go through by voicing aggressive opposition to it.

  Carpet squinted over at the spinsterish stenographer, typing away in the corner. She looked very alert, and he doubted that she would miss a trick. At that precise moment, there being a lull in the conversation, she glanced up and met his eyes.

  ‘Damn,’ thought Carpet, who had a tendency to paranoia, ‘she knows, too!’

  He switched his gaze to Suzzie Templer, who was fuming like a boiler about to explode, and texting furiously away on her Blackberry. The blood had risen to her neck, but remarkably seemed to have stopped there.

  ‘Or was it,’ wondered Carpet, ‘that she was wearing so much foundation on her face that one simply couldn’t see her pallor change?’

  He reflected on the irony that the woman should also be wearing blusher. Either way, her neck was now so dark, that in the half-light, he could barely make out the Mexican ruby necklace she was wearing against her skin.

  He decided that now was as good a time to act a
s any, but he had to be subtle.

  ‘Ken,’ he pleaded, ‘I agree with Suzzie; this kind of thing is really not on; you make a deal, you have to stick to it.’

  ‘Have you looked out there?’ questioned Bobbin, once more at the window.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know about them,’ said Carpet, ‘but you see we are here, not just to respond to those who shout loudest, we are here, because in an election, in which everyone in the Borough had a say, we were chosen to represent their views.’

  ‘Exactly!’ cried Suzzie Templer, ‘that’s democracy.’ The colour in her neck faded a shade.

  ‘But everyone in the borough is out there!’ said Bobbin. ‘How much of a mandate do you need?’

  Carpet stood up, with a deep sigh, and walked over to Kenneth Bobbin, taking his arm like an old friend, ‘Ken.’ he sopped with a casual glance out of the window. He paused, and feigned surprise. ‘My God, the man’s right! and they’ve all got fish in their hands.’

  The other councillors jumped up and peered through the lace curtains.

  Down below was a long line of people stretching from the farthest reaches of Patriot Square, right up to the front door of the council offices itself. Each person carried a dead fish, either by its tail, so that it dangled forlornly, or above their heads like Zulus with little silver spears. Some, especially children, carried the fish in twos; others in threes; and some carried two fish, one in each hand; and one person, who had obviously brought his own fish, carried a half dozen of the things slung over his shoulder in a sort of brace. The line made a slow and sombre shuffle towards the office entrance, and at its head were five or six volunteers, who took the slithery little offerings, and put them in their correct place. Already, the little patch of ground, which passed for a garden, was covered in an ever-spreading, silvery-scaled carpet. Such was the funebral mood, that if knew no better, one might suspect the building to be a mausoleum, housing the lying-in-state of some dictator – perhaps one of the great fishes, for whom, in their grief, all the other fishes had laid down their lives.

  ‘Right, right okay,’ said the council leader, turning towards the table, ‘let’s be rational about this; let’s calm down.’

  Templer, with reluctance had joined her colleagues at the windows and was staring down in horror; she had never seen anything quite like this before. The only other place where she could recall seeing this kind of sincerity had been at a football match. ‘Quite astonishing!’ she thought, ‘could they be right?’

  She turned away and joined her colleagues at the table. All that is except Kenneth Bobbin, who seemed to be the most affected. ‘There’s television crews out there, –two of them, no three, or bloody hell, they’ve put a picture of these windows up on the big screen.’ He ducked down and crawled back to the table, even though there was no real possibility of the cameras picking him up.

  ‘Kenneth, Kenneth,’ said the leader, ’Kenneth, my boy sit down, let’s see if we can sort this out.’

  Kenneth complied.

  Carpet looked up again at the stenographer. He needed to show support for Templer, whilst at the same time, push everybody against her. ‘I think we need to be calm and not rush to conclusions, just because of one well-organised demonstration. Suzzie would you agree?’

  Suzzie did not look up; she was becoming less sure of her ground, but she nodded anyway.

  ‘This port is a good thing,’ continued Carpet, ‘good for jobs, good for the borough, and as for them out there, I mean, it’s not as if a bunch of hooligans and a few reporters are going to have any real effect on the opinion of the people is it?’ A predator by nature, Carpet noticed a slight flinching from a couple of the other councillors when he used the word ‘reporters’. Perhaps this was a nerve he could tweak a little. ‘I vote we go out now, and confront them down there in the square. Show them that we’re not going to be intimidated by a few silly TV cameras.’ A groan went round the table, and Carpet tasted speckles of blood in the air.

  The dissent was not lost upon the major. One thing he had learnt in politics was that, with the exception of being booted out of office, the very last thing representatives wanted to happen was to be forced to account for the decisions they had made. In that sense, they could not really win; for if, as councillors, they truly advocated for their constituents, and opinion turned against them, it was they, and not the voters, who would be made to carry the can. On the other hand, if they ignored their constituents, and did whatever they liked, and opinion turned against them, the same thing would happen.

  In this case, the major had no particular views on the proposed development, and had long ago decided to remain neutral; until, that is, a definite consensus emerged. At that point, he had determined to spring upon it like a ninja, skin the bugger, and present it to the people as yet another marvellous coup for Major Jack Strawley, the people’s champion.

  As a junior officer, he had found the only sure way of getting round some shoe-shining captain, or bag-carrying major was to use stalking horses to hide behind, and proxies to do his bidding. But today it would be more complicated, as unluckily two of the councillors, both stalwarts of his, were oddly absent: one had had to deal with a demolition crew, which had turned up at his house out of the blue; and the other couldn’t get out of his house, because his door handle had fallen off or something. So negotiating an agreement would require a certain delicacy. If he came down on Bobbin’s side he risked the ire of the lady councillor, which could be terrible indeed. (He had been on the receiving end of it some while back, and it was an experience not easily forgotten.) On the other hand, as much as he hated to admit it, what that creep Bobbin was suggesting was not altogether unreasonable. He stroked his moustache, deep in thought, and looked from one councillor to the other. On his right sat Chris Carpet, who had supported the port in the past, but who knew where he stood now? (Slippery fish that one.) On the other hand, Carpet was a careerist, and the thing about careerists was that they were like sharks: they had to keep moving forwards, otherwise they would die, or worse still, feel like they were going backwards. Perhaps this could be used to his advantage? Immediately to the major’s left was Peter Sucket, one of the quietest people he knew, who, in the past seven years or so, had been heard only twice. Sucket was an ex-shop-steward in one of the local hospitals, who had effectively been grandfathered into the council on the backs of the unions. He was naturally Anti-business so ‘talking to the people’ would be fine with him – provided he did not have to answer them, that is. Next to the unionist was the eminent Kenneth Bobbin, who was still darting backwards and forwards like a rat trapped in no-man’s land, (odious creature). Then there sat Adrian Hermes, another quiet one – private school, Young Conservative, skipped university, joined a local accountancy firm, they pulled strings and got him the nomination. He had indicated that he would vote in favour of the port – but not really a fighter – the major calculated that he could work around him. At the foot of the table sat the formidable Suzzie Templer. And to her left there was Marcus Rudd, a local businessman, somewhat over qualified for this sort of hod-work and doubtless using the council as a stepping stone to Westminster. A classless oik whose favourite wine was probably ‘French’, reflected the major. He supported the port in the past, and was pushy and aggressive to boot; all in all he would not be a walkover. Finally, sandwiched between Rudd and Carpet, was the only other woman in the Cabinet: Angie Halliwell, just nineteen years old and very clever and very opinionated. The major didn’t care for her a great deal, but she had opposed the port in past, so could prove useful.

  ‘Now they’re lighting candles,’ observed Bobbin, popping his head around the curtain, ‘and sitting down around the fish.’ His colleagues, with the exception of the major and Suzzie Templer, who remained glumly at the table, leapt to the windows, taking up positions either side of the window frames.

  And so they were. Barney had arranged it with the local constabulary that traffic pass to either side of t
his section of the square, which enabled the, by now, over a thousand people to take up seated positions around the cordon of fish. Each participant had been issued with a candle, which emitted a fragile but insistent glow in the breeze.

  ‘Looks like they’re planning to make a night of it,’ said Marcus Rudd.

  ‘How on earth are we going to get home, then, through that lot?’ asked Adrian Hermes.

  ‘I say we go out now, while it’s still light, and have it out with them,’ said Carpet in bullish mood.

  ‘I agree,’ rejoined Rudd, ‘little monsters!’

  Major Strawley now turned his gaze to Suzzie Templer. She was the key, but how to get round her? He looked at her thoughtfully, and reflected on how the modern woman was so unlike the mothers, girlfriends or wives of yesteryear. In those days if one needed to get a female onside, one simply complemented them on their hair (They had almost always just ‘had it done’, and were convinced it made a huge difference.) Then again the bashful presentation of a bunch of flowers; or the simple act of standing up, when they entered, or left, a room, had worked wonders. And if he had come across any thinkers, he would have invariably sought their advice on which clothes to wear to a wedding, or which curtains might suit his rooms and the like. But these simple tricks did not really seem appropriate here.

  He continued to twirl his moustache thoughtfully. ‘How to go about it?’

  Suzie Templer’s father had also been a greatly moustachioed military man; cold, distant and critical, he had been prone to furious tempersome outbursts, which were often preceded by nothing more than a tightening of the lip and a curious glint in the eye. Perhaps it was the sight of the major apparently glowering at her from above his bushy lip gear; perhaps it was the smell of rotten fish, which put the councillor in mind of a long-forgotten, teenage dalliance in the university’s fish store; or perhaps the earlier sighting in Patriot Square of the thrashing mixture of dead fish and passion had reminded her of the unfortunate death of her own beloved professor – presumed to have been eaten by piranhas in an Amazonian tributary and who was by coincidence also called Alfie.

  Who can say with certainty how small currents come together to make large waves? but at length Suzzie-the-Liberal looked up.

  ‘Fine,’ she snarled, ‘let’s call the brutes in.’

  Base forever!

  The airs at Base were different that night. Banished forever were the forbidding shadows of an uncertain future which had cosseted every nook and cranny, and found their way into every heart that cared these last six months; and back with solid permanence was found in all places a joyful sweetness, languid and full of light indifference, as of old.

  A full house, with Belter at its head, greeted Drade and Barney, as they entered into the reading room late that night; and upon their entrance, a deafening roar and a stamping went up, which would have brought tears to the eye of any patriot who watched, as young men poured forth to defend the flag. They fell upon the two like hungry puppies, and slapped and hugged and kissed and tickled and bore them both aloft; and, ignoring their laughter-laced objections, carried them protesting towards the bar. Gone was the blind-eyed reserve and oblique intimations that had secreted their purpose for so long; and in their place were sheer, unadulterated congratulations and thanks. Even old Harry, behind the bar, managed a broad smile, and took it upon himself to second-guess what would be their tipple be. And when he had poured, he poured again, and then another, until all were served, and then swug fine well himself, ‘to polish the bottle’; and with a practised flip, he wristed it empty into a bin some ten yards down the bar.

  ‘Speech!’ cried a raucous someone and others agreed. There was a tinkling of glasses.

  ‘Hamish, they’re calling for you,’ said a mischievous Barney, preparing himself to charge to the rescue once more.

  But this time Drade, having dismissed a folly of inquisitive reporters for a duck, and having stared down that the unruly mob in Patriot Square, as well as being the most adaptive of fellows in any case, was more than equal to the task.

  Jumping up upon a chair, glass in one hand, and Harris’s umbrella in the other, he addressed his audience.

  ‘Friends…’ he began.

  ‘Romans, countrymen,’ cracked one from the back.

  ‘Er…if you wish. Why not, well, countryman, certainly…er, except for you, Biffa, you old Welshmen you…er…I bring good news!’

  There was a whooping and a chattering that would have done a brace of baboons in heat proud.

  ‘Due to the very good works of our very good friends…er, Barney there, whiffing a bit over by the bar; Belter who is…’ Drade looked around, but Belter has slipped into an anti-room, not really being one for crowds or speeches, ‘...Er, somewhere, probably poking his head in through the serving hatch to catch any stray slops…er, Harris,’ Drade raised his umbrella a shade.

  A cheer went up as Arthur came in, staggering under the combined weight of his wretched bag-pipes and the liberious evening temptations of The King’s Head and Eight Bells.

  ‘And, of course old Nobblie here, …and others…’

  With a knowing look, he raised his voice to quash the rising anticipatory merriment and continued: ‘I can confirm what everyone seems to know already, which is that the council in their wisdom, have changed their minds, and that Base is now not going to get knocked down! So, good news for everyone, I think, and three cheers for Base!’

  A roar went up anew, followed by various impromptu speeches, calls for yet more drinking, glass banging, and singing of the first verses of the National Anthem and Jerusalem; and if one had been inclined to tally the precise number of cheers that went up that night, most would have given up after a thousand, and yet the cheering continued until well into the morning.

  Eventually calm returned to Base, but lightness remained; little gatherings played cards here or discussed sports with feverish enthusiasm there. A couple of philosophers in one corner bickered about pointless minutiae; a group of art critics in another debated the merits of a work of great mystery, presently being exhibited in a private gallery nearby. Some sat alone, reading, or perhaps, awaiting others, or, having met them, departing together to begin a night elsewhere.

  Belter, Barney and Drade, having managed to shake off even the most insistent well-wisher, retired to an anti-room; and Harry, having recovered his composure, but looking flushed of face nonetheless, attended to their needs, as the friends slumped back into the welcoming arms of spring and leather, shattered after what had been a tumultuous day. Silence reigned amongst them, as they reflected upon what they had done.

  Drade took a sip of cognac and let it slowly evaporate down his tongue. Thoughtfully, as was his way, he held his glass up a touch and gazed through it, noticing how glass and liquid conspired together to colour and curve and ripple and crease the paintings on the walls, finding it strange that this effect occurred whether he swilled the liquid or not.

  For a moment he wondered what it would be like to be a grape. Being one little fellow on a bunch, stuck to a vine, halfway down an endless line of other similar vines, which were themselves but one row in a vast army of plants surrounded by countless other vineyards upon the sides of gentle slopes somewhere in France. The solitary grape, which had risen from the dying embers of a springtime blossom, could know little of the world around him, but that it brought him light and dark, rains and winds, and sunshine and chill. And, all things considered, this little fellow would have had a somewhat dreary existence, given that his window upon the world was restricted to the sight of hundreds of other grapes, each of similar appearance, and only being broken occasionally by a passing farmer, a flying insect or an imperious spider. And yet, and despite, and perhaps because of, those circumstances, which would have driven many to despair and depression, this courageous little grape grew and ripened; and whilst others around him may have been gobbled as they slept by gangs of wild boar, and others plucked by the pin-precise bills of passing
birds, and still others were stuck down by disease and pestilence, yet did our little hero cling to life and sweeten upon the vine.

  ‘To think,’ thought Drade, ‘that when crushed, fermented and suitably matured, that little fellow makes quite a treat upon the tongue. The world is truly a wonderful place!’

  And Belter, too, was deep in thought, but at length spoke up, once more overwhelmed by his ubiquitous need to know. ‘So, what did you offer her Barney?’ he asked later that evening at Base.

  ‘Didn’t offer her anything,’ said Barney stoutly, ‘she simply had to respect public opinion.’

  ‘Barney?’ asked Drade.

  ‘I reasoned with her,’

  ‘And very reasonably you offered her….umm?’ prompted Belter.

  ‘A gentleman does not kiss and tell,’ said Barney.

  ‘You kissed her!’ said Drade, shocked to his core. ‘I say, Barney, that’s a bit steep. I mean, obviously extreme circumstances, times of war, and so on…but you actually…’

  ‘No, course not,’ said Barney, ‘I mean, a gentleman does not…actually, I’m not sure what I did mean. But I definitely didn’t kiss her.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said Belter, ‘I was just polishing up one of Alfie’s medals of honour to pin on your chest.’

  ‘No, no, no need. In point of fact, a gentleman would never kiss her. No, she was actually very aggressive at first, started talking about how she didn’t like being held to ransom by a small mob of layabouts, blah, blah, blah…’

  ‘I see,’ said Belter.

  ‘And then, when I’d calmed her down, she got quite chatty, and I explained that for us this was a very real issue. The port would destroy countless lives and livelihoods down there, and that’s why there was such grass-roots support of the Cause in the borough.’

  ‘And that won her over did it?’ said Drade.

  ‘No it didn’t, but it calmed her down. And then I started to confide in her.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ said Belter.

  ‘No, I didn’t, but I pretended to. I started talking about my work with the Cause, and how I had begun to think of life after it.’

  ‘You proposed to her didn’t you?’ asked Belter.

  ‘Will you shut up Belter!’ said Barney. ‘I told her that the last few months have been very wearing for me, and that I was considering disbanding the structure of the Cause, and this was making me very upset because, there was still so much good to do in other areas.’

  Belter and Drade were silent.

  ‘And…well, to cut a long story short, I asked her to take the reins.’

  ‘And she bought it?’ said Belter.

  ‘Yes,’ said Barney, ‘told her that the Cause should become more than a one-issue movement, that it should devote itself to fighting other battles for the people.’

  ‘The Causes,’ said Belter with a hint of sarcasm.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Barney. ‘It needed someone with vision and energy, and I told her that she would have no problem maintaining the momentum we had built, as her statesman-like decision to publically change her mind had given her great cache with its members.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Belter.

  ‘Then I went to Paul, informed him of the situation, and the last thing I saw was Paul and Suzzie Templer up on stage with the Left Footers dancing the night away, with all the other people below.’

  ‘And I suppose the other councillors just fell into line?’ said Belter.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Barney, ‘except for that low-life Marcus Rudd, unmovable. But he was out-voted.’

  ‘And the fish?’

  ‘Ah well…’ said Barney.

  ‘It’s a funny thing,’ reflected Drade out loud, ‘that our MPs and local councillors are supposed to be the best of the best, and in reality they are such an awful bunch.’

  ‘Most of them,’ agreed Barney, ‘greedy, ambitious spiffs by and large. Shame really.’

  There was murmured agreement.

  ‘You know my great, great grandfather owned half of the City?’ said Belter. He didn’t pause to see if they did know, but went on. ‘Well my father told me once that a few hundred years ago, around the time of the revolutions in France and America, the wealthiest people in Britain got together to work out how to make sure that the same things didn’t happen here, and the solution they came up with was to give more people the vote.’

  ‘How so?’ asked Drade.

  ‘Well,’ continued Belter, ‘The idea was that rather than have these agitators running round the countryside creating trouble, they would be allowed to win themselves a seat in Parliament . That way they could have them all locked up in one place, where they couldn’t do any harm.’

  ‘Really?’ said Drade. ‘Well I suppose that makes sense, and it’s easier to keep an eye on them if you know where they are.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Barney. ‘Well that was what the rotten boroughs were for.’

  ‘The rotton whats?’ asked Drade.

  ‘They called them “rotton boroughs”,’ said Belter, ‘seats in remote places which could virtually be given to the right sort of people.’

  ‘The Rotters,’ added Barney.

  ‘A smart move, actually. You see, the more awful they were, the safer the seat they were given, so that come election time the real troublemakers didn’t need to campaign at all, which meant that they never came into contact with the public until they retired.’

  ‘Ingenious,’ said Drade.

  ‘Of course, now that we’re all living longer,’ continued Belter, ‘they are dangerous even in old age, which is why more and more of them are getting stuffed into the Lords. I shouldn’t be surprised if, in another twenty years or so, all their lordships will be entirely elected.’

  The clock chimed the hour – four times.

  ‘Fancy a trip to France this weekend?’ asked Belter at length.

  ‘Can’t,’ said Barney, ‘going to Salisbury tomorrow night, bit of a do going on and then got to be back first thing Monday for meetings.’

  ‘Meetings?’ asked Belter.

  ‘Meetings,’ said Barney firmly. ‘With friends.’

  ‘Other friends?’ said Belter.

  ‘Old friends,’ said Barney remaining tight-lipped.

  ‘I see,’ said Belter. ‘What about you, Hamish?’

  ‘Got a formal,’ said Drade, ‘Christening in Scotland.’

  ‘Fine, well in that case, I might as well stay away for the week,’ said Belter.

  The groups of happy fellows in other rooms thinned away, some stopping to wish the three a ‘good night’ and a ‘well done’, whilst others merely nodded and left. Quite recovered, Harry set about putting the place in order, and, at length, the Governor appeared at the door to drop off the papers, his two spaniels in hand, ready for their morning constitutional.

  The glimmer of greys grew at the bay windows, and distantly came and went the rumble of a morning bus, which set the birds a-whistling in the trees.

  END

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