Vail Page 18

  After a couple of drinks Vail begins to loosen up. He had debated with himself whether or not to take a Temporal capsule, to get him through the evening, and had decided, he’s now glad to say, not to. He might even begin to enjoy himself later.

  Wire-frame spectacles winking, thin neck writhing with blue veins above his ruffled shirt and velvet bow tie, Bryce Ransom makes a little speech. Vail listens dumbly to the spill of words, nodding when the others nod, smiling when they do, throwing back his head and laughing along with the rest. It is only when the speech is over and the others look towards him expectantly that Vail realises he was the object of Bryce Ransom’s gibberish and is expected to respond. What had been said about him? Was it a eulogy? Had he been praised, congratulated? Was he being thanked for his part in making Bootstraps such a resounding success?

  Vail shrugs modestly and stares at his shuffling feet. ‘Well. I don’t know what to say. What can I say? All I can say is that it was a team effort and that we all deserve, collectively, whatever’s coming to us. That’s all I have to say.’

  Virgie Hance squints at him greedily and slips him a slow lingering lascivious wink through the wraith of cigarette smoke curling up from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘........ A noble sentiment succinctly expressed,’ drawls Laine Vere Jumper in his out-of-sync fashion. He is exquisitely attired in a brocade tuxedo with midnight blue velvet lapels and trousers with a shiny stripe down the sides.

  ‘Unilever and Rowntree Mackintosh are going to go bananas for endorsement rights after this,’ chortles the neatly diminutive Ed Flesh, a happy smile wrapped round a fat cigar. ‘Hell, Jack, the lobes of your ears alone could be worth ten grand apiece! Watch out Steve Davis, stand aside Jimmy Saville, make way Bob Monkhouse!’

  Everyone laughs delightedly, even Laine Vere Jumper, who has never heard of these people; his tastes run to Mozart, Proust and Cardinal Newman, though he did once see a television programme, many moons ago.

  All along Vail has been wondering when the PM will put in an appearance. The award is to be presented personally, he has been told, an Opportunity he has looked forward to ever since he stood on the pavement outside the electrical retailer’s these many weeks past. The events beyond the wire are now a murky racial memory residing in the base of his brain, though the desire they gave rise to remains.

  As for Angie, he is undecided; will she encourage him in the act, indeed insist that he carry it out, or balk his attempt and report him to the UCP? Where, if anywhere, does she stand?

  There is an explosion of flashlights and everyone turns to see what the commotion is all about. At first Vail thinks it is the PM, but it is in fact Selina Southorn making her entrance in a sequinned flesh coloured body stocking artfully torn in the most alluring places. Literally taken aback, Vail steps on the toe of Laine Vere Jumper, who utters a debonair oath. The reason for Vail’s reaction is that hitherto he has only seen Selina Southorn in video pornlets and TV commercials and has assumed, not unnaturally, that she is a full-grown woman. But this creature, standing nipples akimbo in an admiring circle, is no more than four feet high! Beautifully proportioned it is true, but a midget nonetheless. No wonder the studs who serviced her on screen appeared as prime specimens of hulking manhood with dongs like bazookas, – any ordinary man would seem stupendously equipped alongside this child-woman, the height if not the build of a nine-year-old.

  Soon she is lost to view in a scrum of Cabinet Ministers and the hall resumes its conversational buzz; the air of anticipation is growing.

  The highlight of the evening is to be a ‘choir’ made up of showbiz celebrities and media personalities who are to sing a specially-composed song in the PM’s honour. To assemble such an array of talent on a commercial stage would cost millions, yet here they all are, offering their services free, gratis and for nothing.

  There is much friendly badinage, joshing and backslapping as they line up, and these genial, benevolent spirits infect the rest of the gathering like nerve gas. It’s a wonderful life down here in the bunker.

  Angie gasps and nudges Vail excitedly, thrilled to the core at having recognised Jimmy Saville, Bob Monkhouse, Kenny Everett, Jimmy Tarbuck, Sharon Davis, Vince Hill, Lyndsey de Paul, Steve Davis and Anthony Quayle, amongst many others. A collective halo or aura seems to surround these exalted personages, as if drab mundanity had been banished, if only temporarily, and replaced by real vibrant life. The dusty shadows in which most people live out their lives are dispelled and for a brief dizzy moment everyone basks in the penumbra of sensational immediacy blazing from the stage like radioactivity: ‘We are living in the actual here and now,’ they tell themselves, ‘an instant of momentous history in which it is better to be here than anywhere else’, – a rare condition for human beings to find themselves in.

  The PM has arrived, serenaded by the celebrity choir backed by The Pox. The tension and excitement are pretty well unbearable, not only because the PM is here in the flesh but also because rumour has swept the bunker that the INLA, aided and abetted by the Libyans, are all set to detonate the Bomb in central London. After all these weeks of waiting it is almost a relief.

  A liveried flunkey touches Vail’s arm and inquires in a sibilant whisper if he would care for another drink. The face between the lace cravat and the powdered wig is none other than that of the boy or youth, otherwise known as Tex Rivett.

  ‘You must be crazy,’ Vail says through clenched jaws. ‘The place is crawling with security, not to mention gwiches.’

  ‘Keeping a friendly eye on you, sport.’

  ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘Don’t trust nobody, sunshine. Just don’t forget we’re here.’ He sidles away with a crooked leer and Vail beckons him back. ‘What?’

  ‘Is Angie working for us or them?’

  ‘What makes you ask?’

  ‘I’ve been told she’s really on their side. Could be a UCP plant.’

  ‘Relax,’ Tex Rivett grins greenly. ‘We know all about that; she’s a double agent, working for us while pretending to work for them.’

  ‘So the UCP don’t know what we’re up to?’

  ‘How could they? Unless somebody’s told them.’

  Vail struggles to remember if he told them anything during the interrogation in Harrods’ basement; but if he did the memory evades him. He feels scared. Is he losing his mind?

  The party really is in full swing. It transpires that Selina Southorn is a frenetic sensation-seeking psychotic, taking the centre of the floor and twisting and gyrating her lovely tiny body to the sound of The Pox. She dances in a world of her own making, oblivious to the crowd and yet at the same time (Vail observes) occasionally catching the eye of the lead guitarist whose expressionless eyes never leave her cavorting figure in the criss-cross of spotlights.

  Why does she dance alone? Vail wonders. Is it simply for the sake of exhibitionism? Her feet attack the floor, her eyes bore into nothingness, her body sways and dips and grinds with erotic abandon. For this child-woman the music is nothing more than an excuse for a public display of orgasmic fury.

  Then it occurs to Vail that perhaps she is seeking her revenge. Like him she has a score to settle, – but against whom?

  Knowing everyone of any importance, Laine Vere Jumper introduces Vail to several Cabinet Ministers and Under-Secretaries. They comment enthusiastically on Bootstraps and praise his convincing portrayal of someone who has wrenched himself free from the common herd and made good solely by his own efforts. ‘A smashing example,’ murmurs one, and ‘Jolly fine show,’ smiles another.

  ‘In my opinion you deserve nothing less than a bloody Oscar,’ the Minister for Deformed Imbeciles tells him fervently. ‘Tell me, have you always been an actor?’

  Vail glances uncertainly at Laine Vere Jumper. ‘Not always. Only very recently.’

  ‘Even more commendable. You’re damn’ convincing, I will say that.’

  The talk moves on to other things: the success the Americans have had with the de
velopment of AIDS, which has drastically reduced the male homosexual population; and on this side of the Atlantic the importing of heroin from Pakistan to keep the kids docile, and in particular the U.M.P.S. Programme.

  The Minister for Environmental Pollution waves aside the effusive compliments with a fleshy manicured hand. ‘It was nothing, nothing,’ he insists deprecatingly. ‘A simple equation. On the one side, several thousand tonnes of toxic and radioactive waste to be disposed of; on the other, large urban populations that had outlived their usefulness and quite frankly were a pain in the arse. Bring the two together and, – hey presto! Both problems solved at a stroke.’

  ‘Damn brilliant, Henry; a masterstroke.’

  ‘Nice of you to say so, Cecil. I do think it worked rather well myself.’

  ‘No chance of the beastly stuff spreading down here, I suppose?’ someone inquires with a twinge of unease.

  The Minister smiles and shakes his head. ‘Trust Forte.’

  ‘Only there are rumours floating about that a number of Illegal Aliens have broached the wire. Don’t like the sound of that.’

  ‘You mean breached the wire, surely?’

  ‘Broached or breached, is it true?’

  ‘Perhaps the odd one. But I shouldn’t worry about it.’

  ‘I do worry about it, Henry. I don’t view the prospect of getting a dose of dioxin poisoning with sanguinity. Does the PM know about it?’

  ‘The PM never misses a trick, you know that.’ The Minister downs his drink with a flourish. ‘Let’s stop all this morbid speculation. We’re here to enjoy ourselves, – but I say, that Selina’s a bit of a sexy tart, isn’t she though?’

  For a while Vail watches Selina Southorn in her frenetic lonely dance, overlooked by the louring dead gaze of the lead guitarist. Something will happen there before the night’s out, given half a chance.

  He goes to the toilet, relieves himself at the galvanised trough (as with everything else in the place, he is reminded of a farm) and washes his hands and face. There is perfume on the air; sandalwood. The harsh strip lighting makes him appear gaunt and skull-like with sunken eyes. Not at all like Jack Nicholson.

  The washroom attendant deferentially proffers a soft snowy-white towel and as Vail sinks his face into it mutters, ‘So far so good, Jack. Keep it up.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Just keeping a friendly eye on you,’ Pete Rarity says, hands clasped servilely in front of the gleaming lapels of his crisp white jacket. ‘Said I would. Don’t disappoint us, will you?’

  ‘I shouldn’t like to disappoint anyone, least of all the UCP.’ Vail hands the towel back and walks to the door, where he pauses. Something is troubling him. ‘You did say that Angie works for you? I mean, she doesn’t work for anyone else as far as you know?’

  ‘They think she does,’ says Pete Rarity, ritually going through the motions of a washroom attendant, folding the used towel and dropping it into a plastic bin with a swing lid.

  ‘‘They’ think she does?’

  ‘An underground terrorist cell.’

  ‘So you know about that?’

  ‘We’re not fools, John.’ He takes a fresh towel from the pile and drapes it over his forearm and arranges the edges neatly. ‘They know she works for us but are under the impression that she really works for them when all the time she really works for us.’

  ‘She couldn’t really really be working for them could she?’

  ‘You mean working for them but working for us but working for them but working for us but really working for them?’

  Vail nods.

  ‘If she was we’d know about it.’

  ‘Not if they knew you knew about it.’

  ‘But then we’d know they knew we knew about it.’

  Vail is prepared to concede this; besides, the conversation is making his head spin. He tips Pete Rarity and returns to the barnlike hall whose curved walls and ceiling, streaming with condensation and nicotine, reverberate to the thumping beat of The Pox. Better not have anything else to drink. There are things to be done and he’ll need all his wits about him.

  What time is the presentation ceremony?

  ‘What time is the presentation ceremony?’

  ‘You’re sweating. Are you nervous?’ Angie says.

  ‘No. Impatient. Why don’t they just get on with it?’

  Angie dimples in a smile. ‘Your turn will come. The preliminaries are as important as the event itself don’t forget.’

  ‘Fuck the preliminaries.’

  ‘You’ve never been this nervous before.’

  ‘I am not nervous.’

  Angie doesn’t look convinced. She says:

  ‘You just have to be careful what you do, that’s all.’

  What does she mean? ‘What does that mean?’

  Is she tacitly giving him her approval or sounding a warning? Whose bloody side is she on?

  ‘I’ve been told to say that and no more. The rest is up to you.’

  ‘That’s all very well but where does it leave me?’

  ‘I can’t make the decision for you,’ Angie rebukes him.

  ‘What is this, some heavy moral message or other? Every person responsible for his own destiny? Is this the answer to the famous meaning-of-life riddle you’ve been torturing yourself with?’

  ‘That crap,’ Angie says, amused, shaking her head. ‘You really were taken in by it, weren’t you? Just as you’ve been taken in by everything else. You’re pretty dumb, Jack Vail.’

  Vail searches for a smart reply but can’t think of one. He feels crushed and small. Perhaps the meaning of life boils down to this: you can never think of a smart reply when you need one.

  [16]

  Someone, – a Cabinet Minister most likely, or a Lord, – had planned it with the utmost meticulousness. As later reported, the DIs were led and carried and dragged in to a steady clapping chant and a uniform stamping of feet on the concrete floor. There were even a few cheers.

  Stewards and security men arranged them like sacks of flour in a semi-circle round the dais on which the PM was to speak, in front of the throng so that the TV cameras had a clear, uninterrupted view. By this time the smell in the bunker was becoming quite foul, and together with the suppurating sores and rotting bodies of the dioxin victims caused several of the bystanders to faint clean away.

  The VIPs and officials on the platform, however, all wore brave smiles, though one or two did take the occasional whiff from scented handkerchiefs concealed in their cuffs.

  Not so the PM of course, whose beatific smile sprayed these unfortunate wretches with tolerance, understanding and forgiveness, duly caught and captured by the lenses and preserved on tape for the archives.

  As was the limbless trunk of the little red-haired girl with pigtails which squirmed up the steps and flopped onto the dais and rolled to a stop at the feet of the PM holding a bouquet of Freesias in its teeth. Tremors of emotion permeated the hall; tears leaked unashamedly and trickled down cheeks; the sorrowing heartfelt pity was palpable.

  Graciously stooping to take the bouquet from the jaw of the child, the PM patted the pigtailed head and then, very gently, pushed the trunk with a polished toe so that it rolled off the platform and bumped down the steps where it was retrieved by a steward and set upright back in line. This incident was subsequently to be made famous by the media-managers who dubbed it ‘PM’s Helping Toe for Heartbreak Imbecile’.

  Then came the PM’s speech. A stirring performance that was to remain engravened on the hearts of all those present on that memorable and historic occasion. It began:

  ‘Suffer little children to come unto me,’ – provoking such a storm of applause even before the final syllable had rung out that it was several minutes before the PM was able to continue.

  ‘Never let it be said,’ the speech resumed, ‘that we cannot find it in our hearts to be generous to those unfortunate imbeciles and mental defectives who, through no fault of their own, find themselves at the bott
om of the heap of life. How can they be blamed for parental sloth, stupidity and ineptitude? Fathers too lazy to give a decent day’s work for a decent day’s pay. Mothers who smoke, watch television in the afternoons and patronise bingo establishments when they ought to be making the tea. Older brothers and sisters who get pregnant and stab old ladies in the eye, or vice versa, instead of caring and sharing and setting an example for their armless, legless and brainless siblings.

  ‘These, the older ones, who ought to know better, – and I will not mince my words, – are the scum of the earth. Personally I’ve neither time or patience for them, and I fail to see how any decent, God-fearing, hard-working person can have time or patience for them either. You might say they’re beyond hope, to which I would reply, ‘Yes, I agree, – and the best place for people beyond hope is beyond the wire!’’

  The PM sipped a glass of mineral water while the applause gathered itself and rose in a huge wave from the body of the hall and cascaded over the platform, drenching everyone in approving honey dew smiles.

  The PM, however, remained stiff-necked and stern.

  ‘Let us not forget also, that in some places which it would be invidious to mention, such as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and certain countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America and North Africa, peopled by mixed parentage races of a dusky hue, such unfortunates as these displayed before us tonight would not be acknowledged even to exist. Official secrets acts and juggling with Govt statistics would successfully disbar us from ever knowing about them in the first place. But in a democracy this can never happen. We know and we care.

  ‘This alone makes our democratic freedoms all the more worth fighting for. What price democracy if we have to knuckle under and kow-tow to subversive terrorist groups and shiftless gangs of workshy layabouts and foreigners whose sole purpose is to impose their own brand of totalitarian ideology on the freedom-loving peoples of these islands? On this sceptred isle set in an azure sea? I for one will resist such encroachments with every breath in my body. I say this to them: Drop the Bomb, see if I care. When the dust has cleared you will find me still standing there in the rubble, bloody but unbowed, chin held high, fists raised in defiance. You may wipe us out but you will never defeat us. We are made of sterner stuff. We will fight, and continue to fight, in what is left of the streets, in the ruins of the supermarkets, in the debris of the video shops and software centres. We will never give in.’