Vail Page 19

  The deformed imbeciles round the dais were growing restless. Some were lying in the product of their own incontinence, dabbling in it with their stubby feelers. Movement for most of them was difficult, so they could only flop and squirm about in the spreading watery brown pool seeping from the elasticated sides of their plastic drawers. The more able and lively amongst them threw feeble handfuls of solid matter at one another, gurgling and mewling with glee, as malformed cretins are wont to do.

  The crowd retreated to a respectable distance as the stench began to rise in dense torpid swathes.

  Apparently oblivious to this, the PM went blithely on:

  ‘I have heard it said that in these days of economic stringency we cannot afford moral standards. Nonsense. Hand in hand with sensible fiscal housekeeping must go the sternest and most rigorous moral strictures, set by those of us who know better as an example and guiding principle for the weak, the gullible, and the foolish. I put it to you: how can they live their lives usefully and fruitfully, and be of benefit to society, unless we have taken care to give them a framework of sound moral values within which to operate?

  ‘Your glue-sniffer of today is your welfare state sponger of tomorrow. Wife-swapping may seem a harmless pastime to the uninitiated but it leads to moral degeneracy and a breakdown in family life. The child who doesn’t attend Sunday school may well turn out to be another Yorkshire Ripper, or failing that a backstreet mugger who will stab a seventy-three year old lady in the eye for the few pence in her purse or rape and ravish a young innocent schoolgirl. Children who watch and revel in video nasties are income tax dodgers in the making.

  ‘These are but a few examples I could cite of the danger areas, – and where our duty, as guardians of the nation’s moral health, lies. It isn’t enough to teach them geography and the three Rs. We must also teach them to respect other people’s property. We must instil in them a suitable deference to their elders and betters. We must impress upon them that it is preferable to be seen rather than heard. Above all we must inculcate in the young those sterling qualities of politeness, docility, acquiescence, and not least of all to refrain from asking those silly questions which waste everyone’s time and cause unnecessary fuss.

  ‘It’s all very well asking questions, I’m forever asking them; but there is a proper time and place for asking questions, and a correct manner, which older people recognise and accept and are perfectly happy to go along with. The young should learn from them.

  ‘Of course an inquiring mind is all to the good, and I would be the last person to discourage it. But at the risk of repeating myself I would just say this: people with inquiring minds very often find out things they would rather they hadn’t learnt, and would be far better off remaining in ignorance of. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, as the poet says. Much more sensible to leave decisions to experts, those of us who have studied the various social, economic and moral problems in depth and have arrived at a balanced and informed opinion in the best interests of all our people.’

  Blue-uniformed stewards with mops and buckets were now swabbing the lumpy brown mess in which the imbeciles were squatting and squirming. Sandbags had been brought in and placed at strategic points in an attempt to contain its creeping spread; – indeed, unbeknown to the guests, their neat footwear had been spoiled by the lapping tide of bodily product, so intent were they on listening to the PM’s speech and drinking in every word. Several found themselves stuck to the floor and had to be levered free.

  ‘Which brings me to the highlight of the evening, the reason we’re all down here in the first place, surrounded by these adorable little deformed bodies and grotesque faces, and that is to pay tribute to a television programme that has won all our hearts with its deft mixture of compassion, social concern, self-sufficiency, – the absolute imperative of standing on our own two feet, or stumps, as the case may be, – and not least that great rollicking good humour which is one of the shining merits of the British people: our ability to poke fun at ourselves and laugh at our own misfortunes.

  ‘I refer, of course, to Bootstraps, which tonight is to be honoured with a special award for its outstanding contribution to current affairs entertainment.

  ‘Its consummate triumph, I believe, is in demonstrating our very real concern for the more unfortunate members of society, – these wretched abnormalities you see displayed before you, – while at the same time administering a short sharp shock to the consciences, so-called, of the shirkers and spongers and backsliders, providing the timely reminder that no one gets a free ride any more, and shaming them (if such creatures can be shamed) into hauling themselves out of the pit of sloth and sickening self-pity into making a genuine effort to contribute positively to society instead of being a dead weight and a drain on its resources.

  ‘This brilliant concept was the brainchild of producer Bryce Ransom and his associate producer Mzzz Virgie Hance. Together they identified a need in mass televisual entertainment and set about filling that need with quite remarkable instinct, flair and professional skill. It is an object lesson to us all; the principle of freedom-loving competitive democracy in action, made flesh so to speak.

  ‘I needn’t add that such a programme would not find favour, much less receive the breath of life, in certain other regions of the globe it would be churlish to mention, except to remark in passing that one of them lies roughly above latitude 43 degrees north and covers 8,649,489 square miles, the eastern portion of which is snow-covered for much of the year.

  ‘However, this isn’t the moment to point the finger at non-democratic totalitarian slave states where the secret police rule the roost and pull you out of bed at two o’clock in the morning; rather we should rejoice in our own self-enlightenment, in our unflinching honesty and bravery in allowing this programme to be made and shown to a primetime mass audience. Where else in the world, we might legitimately ask ourselves, could this happen? I think we know the answer.

  ‘Not least in this wonderful success story was the inspired choice as presenter of a man who rose from total obscurity to become a megamedia star in his own right. A true ‘man of the people’. A man after my own heart.

  ‘From humble beginnings, by dogged perseverance, unstinting application and the sweat of his brow, Jack Vail carved out a career for himself in the dynamic and highly competitive world of television. Not for him the moping miseries of the fainthearts and the whingeing fringers; no, here was a man determined to claw his way from the bottom of the social slag-heap come hell or high water.

  ‘Without the benefits of a privileged background and university education, Jack Vail proved to one and all that upward mobility is no empty myth. Given the right kind of stuff, which he has in ample abundance, he showed how an ignorant and uncouth swmbwl a onetime manual worker and ex-union member no less, can throw off the shackles of the underclass into which he was born, rejecting the spurious ‘values’ of apathy and morbid defeatism of that same class, and overcome all obstacles to emerge triumphant, a credit to himself and to society at large.’

  The stewards and security men were becoming desperate, as was the Cabinet Minister, or perhaps it was a Lord, who had planned the evening’s itinerary with stopwatch precision. By this time the deformed imbeciles should have sung their song and been long gone from the bunker, whereas the PM’s prolix and discursive peroration, – already overrunning its allotted span by several minutes, – had long exceeded their capacity to remain quietly seated, composed, and continent. Indeed, there was some doubt now as to whether they would even remember the words they had been taught parrot-fashion so painstakingly over recent weeks.

  As if this weren’t bad enough, the smell was making a number of people physically ill. Several had been supported or bodily carried to the rest rooms, while others had moved as far away from the dais as the confines of the hall would allow.

  Rumblings of unrest and disgruntlement if not actual outrage were heard: whoever was responsible for staging this farce quite evidently could
n’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.

  ‘Therefore it is with great pride and pleasure’ (visible signs and audible sighs of relief) ‘that I call upon Jack Vail to receive, on behalf of the entire production team, this award for Bootstraps, in recognition of outstanding contribution to the cultural lifeblood of this nation, –’

  Vail buttons up his tuxedo, straightens his black tie, and starts forward.

  ‘– a heritage which has coursed through the veins of Englishmen and women since the time of Shakespeare and even before. While we possess such riches we shall want for nothing. Let the hordes of barbarians come: they cannot withstand a nation united in blood and tradition, a nation that has scorned the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and shrugged off the scourge of the swastika as even now it spits defiance at the godless philistines of the red star war machine.’

  Having skirted the sticky brown pool, Vail has paused uncertainly with one foot on the bottom step. People in the crowd are urging and shooing him on, frantic to get the bloody thing over and done with, though still Vail hesitates, waiting to be given the signal to proceed.

  ‘It does the soul good to know that in these troubled times of ours, beset as we are by so many problems, there still beats in the heart of this great nation that indomitable spirit, –’

  Vail cautiously slides his foot onto the next step but then pauses, suspended, halfway up and halfway down the short flight of steps. Voices urge him on. He receives a savage push in the small of the back, staggers forward, recovers, holds his ground.

  ‘– which over the centuries has kept us whole, pure and inviolate, indifferent to the fickle sway of opposing ideological tyrannies which afflict much of this planet. Thank God that in such an uncertain ever-changing world we remain steadfast and firm, rooted like an aged oak in the nourishing loam of our native land. Let them try and shift us if they can and if they dare; as a great man once said: ‘We will take some shifting!’.’

  Unaware, too weary and despondent to entertain the faint hope that the speech has ended, the audience is silent in the vast shuffling bunker with its curved roof and walls pimpled with condensation. Someone hisses at Vail, who breaks from his paralysed trance and stumbles the last few steps onto the dais.

  As the trophy, – a replica of a rebuilt and refurbished Harrods in pristine bronze, – is presented to Vail, the deformed imbeciles break raggedly into the song of praise in honour of the PM, a moment for which they have waited with such patience and fortitude, their innocent little hearts overflowing with gratitude and joy, – gratitude and joy, it needs be said, they feel with total sincerity and yet haven’t the slightest conception why they ought to feel these sentiments nor to whom they should be properly addressed.

  No matter; it is enough for the television cameras that they are seen to express them.

  Their song sounds to Vail like the wails and agonised bellows of a colony of sea-cows in labour. Added to the smell it is well-nigh intolerable, and there is a surreptitious yet steady stream of movement to the exits. Patriotism has its limits, Bomb or no Bomb.

  Vail’s party at the bar is flushed and all aglow with triumph and alcohol. Bryce Ransom’s blue temples are throbbing fit to burst and Virgie Hance has five cigarettes going all at once, one for each orifice. Mrs Stretcher, one of Vail’s keenest fans, is swollen with pride, bosom pounding madly and on the verge of orgasm, as if he were her own son.

  In his pocket Ed Flesh fingers the touch-sensitive buttons on a slim stainless steel calculator, boosting percentages, carrying decimal points and adding noughts in a delirium of ecstasy, while Laine Vere Jumper is chin-wagging with an old chum from Balliol, the Honourable Guy Naecological, he hasn’t clapped eyes on in a donkey’s age.

  Now with the moment to hand and destiny within his grasp Vail finds himself encumbered with the Harrods trophy, which is stupendously heavy, pulling his arms to the floor. The PM is smiling into his face, one hand raised in acknowledgement of the ragged wailing song, the applause and cheers from the body of the hall.

  From the corner of his eye he sees an aide slip a familiar pink and black capsule into the PM’s hand, which undercover of that same hand smothering a cough vanishes in a trice and is washed down with a sip of mineral water.

  Vail still hasn’t solved the problem of what to do with the trophy, whose weight is tearing his arms from their sockets. In desperation he looks over his shoulder for assistance and a burly security man steps forward and relieves him of his burden.

  Vail’s arms are numb and his funnybones are tingling, but at least his hands are free. He flexes his fingers experimentally.

  The bunker shudders, dust sifts through cracks in the ceiling, the lighting blinks, dims, fails, goes out.

  Blackness.

  Feet stamp and slither over the deformed imbeciles in the headlong rush. The owners of the feet have no idea where they’re rushing to; after all this is supposed to be the safest spot within Greater London.

  [Vail doesn’t know, and is never to know, that the tremor felt in the bunker was caused by ten pounds of gelignite in the emergency generator room, placed there by Fully Olbin’s terrorist cell, who have at last managed to do something right.]

  At that moment he doesn’t care, has other things on his mind, his hands closed and locked round a warm throat.

  Vail increases the pressure voluptuously, thinking of Mira and Bev and all the others. It won’t bring them back and it probably won’t alter or improve matters one jot, but it feels so good. His anger (an emotion!) gives him hands of iron.

  He increases the pressure further, hardly noticing the feeble flailing of limbs underneath him. He can feel the corded muscles and ligatures in the neck swelling and writhing under his hands like a bundle of live snakes.

  Vail keeps on increasing the pressure, squeezing tighter and tighter until his fingers interlock round the back of the neck and his thumbs sink up to the second joint in the slack flesh of the throat.

  Vail keeps up the pressure, not relenting, not relinquishing his iron grip on the pipeline, now constricted and closed shut, tight, nary the eye of a needle’s worth of squinting gap inside his crushing hands.

  Years pass, decades, and his hold never breaks, never wearies. The limbs have ceased to flail, and Vail is kneeling on the chest of a dead lifeless weight, holding the throttled neck in both hands like a wrung chicken.

  A pencil beam illuminates the black-lipped mask and staring bloodshot eyes in a coin of light and a voice murmurs in his ear: ‘That should be enough.’

  ‘Enough,’ Vail replies

  with a smile,

  ‘is never

  enough.’

  They have to break his grip.

  MOTORWAY (II)

  In some respects it was similar to my sojourn in the United Dairies tanker except that I was crossing the wire in the opposite direction and the leaking liquidy cargo in which I wallowed up to my armpits consisted of embryonic humans heaped on top of one another in a squelchy mass: the victims of toxic poisoning and radioactive decay who had so recently wailed their cretinous dirge in the PM’s honour being returned by military transport whence they came.

  From the little I can remember all was darkness and confusion in the bunker, everyone running several different ways at once and slipping and sliding on the deformed imbeciles whose faint mewing cries of terror and muffled squeaks of pain were lost in the general mad scrambling panic.

  I do know that I was roughly, – brutally you might say, – manhandled off the dais and tossed from hand to unseen hand like a rag doll. At the time I thought This is it. This is where you get yours. It’s the Tower for you m’lad. Instead of which I was thrown headfirst into the type of large metal skip builders use to dispose of their rubbish and landed in a morass of small bodies with stubby extensors, some of which appeared to be lifeless although still warm and twitching.

  The skip was then hoisted by hydraulic means between davits and locked fast and we set off, rocking and swaying, the contents sloshing t
o and fro, in the dead of night. Though it was cold, this being Decemberish, I was kept warm as toast by being immersed armpit-deep in the lumpy mire of human flesh and waste product.

  It was a long journey. I dozed. The stars rocked overhead. One of the creatures nearby, whose rudimentary features I could just discern, started to sing. Other voices joined in. It was the song they had been taught by an official from the Ministry of DIs, the last song, indeed the very last words, to be heard by the PM.

  Thank you for the food we eat

  Thank you for the world so sweet

  Thank you for the birds that sing

  Thank you God for everything.

  Towards dawn we were a fair distance up the M1, near to Watford Gap I guessed. It had to be a guess because I couldn’t see over the side of the skip.

  I was still puzzling over my predicament and how it was, under the circumstances, I had come to be in it. Why was I here and not in police custody? The voice murmuring in my ear, the one that said ‘That should be enough,’ hadn’t belonged to Fully Olbin, Urban Brown or Tex Rivett; in fact, as I only now realised, it hadn’t been an English voice at all, or Australian, but American, –

  This was such an odd revelation that I mused over it until we came off the motorway at Leicester (it was now daylight and I could read the overhead signs) and were heading east on the A607. The PM was fervently, indeed passionately, pro-American, had even abdicated certain sovereign rights in order to appease them and curry political favour. I couldn’t understand it. But then international diplomacy never has been my strong point.