by Mayo, Simon
‘Full mount,’ she said.
‘Submission,’ he said.
Today the car radio was off – the woman said she preferred silence. The windows were closed – the woman said she found open windows distracting. The student was sweating copiously. The woman had her eyes shut. He took the inside lane of the M6 and stayed at seventy miles an hour until the service station signs appeared.
‘We’re here,’ he said.
She opened her eyes, checked the buttons on her shirt. She picked at a thread, checked herself in the car mirror, retied the laces of her trainers.
She’s as nervous as me, he thought. And she doesn’t have poison in her pocket.
The slip road took them off the motorway and he swung the car into a space three lines of parking away from the main entrance. It was a wide space, but he made sure to park tight against a white van on his side, allowing the woman plenty of space to get out on hers. They both had clear lines of vision to the building’s large sliding doors. He breathed deeply.
‘Ready?’ he said.
‘Let’s watch,’ she said. ‘We’re early.’
He couldn’t sit in the car another moment. ‘I’ll clean the windows,’ he said.
He eased himself from the car, taking a cloth and a bottle of water from the driver’s door as he stepped out. It was another day of oppressive heat but it was a relief to breathe whatever it was that passed for fresh air here. Diesel fumes and a Cornish pasty stall competed for dominance. He dripped some water on the back window and started to rub. His eyes jumped everywhere. An ancient Ford Cortina rattled past, a grey Volvo estate parked opposite, a shouty family with the remains of a burger breakfast in their hands wandered in front of him. He thought it unlikely they were the forces of oppression that the leader had warned them about. Or members of another cell. But he watched them closely anyway. A beggar approached him, a filthy coat wrapped around nothing much. He held up a hand-painted piece of cardboard: ‘Very hungry. Homeless. God bless you.’ The student waved him away.
The woman was staring straight ahead. The concrete rubbish bin a few metres from the entrance had been the drop point last time. He assumed they were sticking to the routine. The bin, they had established before, was emptied approximately every half hour. The emptying at 10.30 was the trigger. A deliberately messed-up envelope would be dropped inside the bin by one cell. Ninety seconds later it would be retrieved by another. His cell. The woman’s cell. The leader’s cell.
The back window was clean but the student continued to rub.
A red Mondeo, a black Mercedes, a black VW Golf. A delivery man, a girl in a tracksuit, a wide woman in a business suit.
The student felt for the foxglove bloom. He wasn’t sure how long it would take before the poison worked but figured if he swallowed it as the woman completed the dead drop, he should just make it back to the house. Nausea, sweating, fitting and heart tremors were all likely. He hoped the flower and leaves were small enough.
It was the delivery man. Twenty-something, average height, average build, white. Unremarkable in every way. Brown cap, brown jacket and invisible. He hesitated as he walked past the bin, then as if with an afterthought produced a brown envelope from an inside pocket and placed it in there. He then drained a can of drink, dropped that on top.
The student tapped the car roof. The door opened. The woman got out. For twenty metres she would have her back to him. He had to do it now. Heart racing, he palmed the foxglove. Ten metres. His hand to his mouth. The petals smelt of nothing in particular. Two metres. They tasted of nothing in particular either but stuck to the roof of his mouth. A swig of water and they were gone. He uttered a silent mantra and dropped back into the car.
The woman got in, holding the stained envelope in her hands. He glanced at it. Apart from the sauce marks and damp patches, it was blank. No writing of any kind. The dashboard clock said 10.40. They’d be home by 11.30, assuming he was still capable of driving.
He had never expected to be ill before. His speed dropped in anticipation of what he thought was coming. The woman noticed.
‘Leader wants this as soon as possible.’ She tapped the envelope. ‘Speed it up.’
He felt fine.
31
THE STUDENT AND the woman arrived back at 11.35. She got out first, he glanced at himself in the mirror. He had messed up. Not enough leaves? The wrong leaves? He got out and walked to number 26 a few paces behind the woman. He had failed.
Boxer Street was narrow, shabby, unremarkable. The terraced houses were built in the 1930s; far enough from Coventry city centre to have avoided the Blitz of 1940 but close enough to the university to have been hit by students since 1968. Most of the entrances sported multiple doorbells. Bikes, overflowing bins and recycling tubs were scattered by front doors and along scrubby, broken paths. The smell of rotting vegetation was unmissable. Loud music pulsed from a high window opposite. Two women in denim shorts and sun tops smoked roll-ups on their front doorstep, an overflowing ashtray between them. They didn’t look up.
Inside 26 the leader was waiting for them in the hallway. Khaki shirt, baggy black cotton trousers. He held out both hands, as if in supplication. The woman placed the envelope on his upturned palms. He seemed pleased. ‘Today is a good day,’ he said, then turned and walked to the kitchen. The student and the woman waited in the lounge. She took the two-seater sofa, he leant on the wall by the door. He still felt fine.
After a few minutes of silence the leader strode in, followed by the sweating man, his head ringed with bandages. The leader stood by the empty bookshelves, a sheet of lined paper in his hand. The student could make out the indents of five lines of type, twelve maybe fifteen words a line. A long message this time. The leader waited for the sweating man to ease his way on to the sofa, then smiled. ‘A good day today, a better day tomorrow.’
Tomorrow? thought the student. Tomorrow?
He still felt fine.
The leader waved the paper. ‘We are about to jump-start the revolution. We cannot leave it any longer and our citizen friends in the London cell have offered us the next target. We will strike at the bankers, priests and the Jews of the oppressor class. The other leftists who side with the bureaucrats and the status quo will be shamed. They have learnt nothing. Arguing with us is pointless. Negotiating is pointless. They will be reviled.’
The student had heard all this before, but his delivery was more urgent now, more desperate.
‘When you marched against the war, did it stop? No. It stopped nothing. When you voted, in election after election, what did it change? Anything? No, it changed nothing. This is how we bring emancipation.’ He produced his wooden-handled knife, pointed at his audience in turn. ‘If you could at last change the world, would you step up and do it? Wade in filth. Embrace the butcher. Change the world.’
And in the space of a few seconds the student felt a sweat break, first on his forehead, then down his arms and legs, then throughout his body. His heart slowed. His eyes lost focus. As the leader folded his paper, the student slid his back down the wall.
Well this is it then, he thought.
The nausea enveloped him. He pushed himself on to his hands and knees. He knew it was coming. His insides turned to water. His body was expelling a poison. The last thing he heard before he passed out was the leader’s shouts and a torrent of clicks from the Geiger counter.
32
THE STUDENT DRIFTED in and out of consciousness. He knew he was in an ambulance. His stomach was still on fire, his clothes soaked through. The lights were fierce, the suspension on the vehicle non-existent; every pothole and ramp sent spasms of pain through his body. He vomited continually. Careful latexed hands wiped him clean. Two voices, he thought, one male, one female. A conversation he couldn’t reach. He thought he caught his name being repeated somewhere but through the fog of siren, engine and clatter he wasn’t sure.
A crashing of doors, new raised voices. He screwed his eyes shut. He was strapped, jolted, and on a trolle
y. Propelled at speed, he found a handle to grab. Every bump, every turn made his head throb, his stomach heave. The light acquired shadows, the shouts gained echoes. He was inside. The acid burn in his throat and nose didn’t stop the familiar sweet disinfectant smell filling his lungs. He’d made it to hospital but was weaker than he’d ever felt, sicker than he’d ever imagined. He needed to explain why he was here but not until he was safe. He tried to open his eyes, tried to form words, and failed at both. His eyelids were too heavy, his lips stuck together.
The leader had said tomorrow. It was getting darker.
The noise of the room elongated and twisted into a deep pulsing sound that throbbed around his head. It filled his chest. Voices, then whistling, then a crackling electric current.
Then it went black.
33
HE WAS SITTING at a large, crowded table. The noise was extraordinary. He knew everyone was family, it was just he couldn’t name anyone. He would have to guess.
There was an old woman at the head of the table, her white hair drawn back in a black tie, gold wire-frame glasses over large, amused eyes, green and red embroidered sari. His grandmother, presumably.
Next to her was a white man reading a book. Black receding hair, hunched shoulders. The man held up the book for someone to see: Bob Dylan Lyrics 1962–1985. The man gave a thumbs-up and returned to its pages. He’d guess that was his father. The one who walked out when he was three and caused his mother a lifetime of doubt and low self-esteem. He remembered that.
Identical girls sat on either side, talking through him. As though he wasn’t there. Straight black hair cut to a bob, red T-shirts with an embroidered elephant on each. Green and turquoise sequins down the trunks. He had twin sisters, these must be them. He tried to listen to what they were saying but their words were blurred. Out of focus. He tried to join in but they carried right on. As though he wasn’t there. He tried to remember their names but nothing came.
Beyond the sister on his right were three women of similar ages – he guessed maybe fifty years old. Two were animated, one sat quietly, hooded eyes on her plate. The quiet one would be his mother.
Round the far side were men sharing a near-empty bottle of whisky, their shouting and name-calling suggesting they had consumed most of it. One flourished a book called The Wrong Heaven. Uncles? Brothers? Neighbours? He recognized none of them. He took a dislike to all of them. Empty clanging vessels.
Then came the two IPS women, the dead one and the new one. They were deep in conversation with each other, oblivious to the drunks on their left.
In the far corner, underneath a framed black and white photograph of an old man in a cream shirt and traditional white dhoti, sat a man he guessed was his grandfather who had died before he was born. He was dressed identically to the man in the photo. Maybe he was the man in the photo.
The student knew all of this was strange, wrong even, but felt he had to stay as long as he could. He was sure he would have to leave soon. It was the end of a meal, the plates contained only scraps; rice, chapatti, some fish curry. In the centre of the table, a large serving bowl had only a few spoonfuls of a yellow lentil dish left; an ornate stainless-steel platter contained what was left of the rice. He seemed to have no place setting.
His family, without him. His family, moved on.
The woman he assumed was his grandmother was on her feet, explaining something, and suddenly the room was quiet. All eyes were on the old woman, who held both hands in the air. The material of her sari had fallen back to reveal arms ringed with many gold bracelets, a dozen or so thin bands that had slid back to her elbow. Her forearms were deeply scarred; long, pale, jagged lines of pink skin ran like a maze from her wrist. When she spoke, everyone listened. So did he. These words he could hear.
‘We will be jailed, you know. All of us.’ Her voice trembled slightly. ‘We are CPI-M.’ She emphasized each letter, the M receiving the heaviest inflection. ‘And they hate us. They are revisionists and class traitors so they will put us away. Cut us, yes, denounce us, yes, but we stay. The stinking Indian bourgeoisie in league with imperialists.’
And as though a spell had been broken, everyone in the room turned away from the old woman and resumed their conversations. The cacophony returned. His sisters talked through him. His father read his book. The whisky drinkers finished the bottle. His grandmother slumped to her seat.
It was getting darker.
The dead IPS woman pointed a finger at him.
Then it went black.
He was back at the station. The train arrived and the dead IPS woman with the red scarf stepped off. She said she didn’t have long. She explained that she had kept his letter. That it had won her over. She didn’t get many letters. He explained that it had been an act of drunken ambition. That he had wanted to be a journalist and thought she could make it happen. She said that she could.
He was nervous and anxious to please. She was effusive, engaging, and wanted coffee and cake. She suggested going somewhere nicer to talk but he said there wasn’t anywhere, so they sat opposite each other in the station’s ferociously lit café. Other shapeless, faceless people walked past; he didn’t waste his time on them. He and the IPS woman were the story here.
Recently, she explained, she had been struggling with a story and realized she needed help. Remembering his neat, well-written, slightly desperate letter, she’d called his number. She had a startling proposition. She explained what she was looking for and how he might find it. She offered him a thousand pounds towards his university fees and an internship at IPS when he graduated. He accepted before the cake was finished.
Then it went black.
34
3.40 p.m.
MILLIE AND AMARA. His sisters were Millie and Amara. He knew that now. How shameful to have forgotten. Without effort he could recall their teasing, flashing eyes, their relentless, tuneless singing and their combined weight on his shoulders as he gave them rides around the garden. His mother was Misha, his father Sam, his grandmother Nyta, but his sisters were Millie and Amara. He had to keep them safe. He had to keep them all safe.
Very slowly he became aware that he had a visitor. Sounds first. The shuffling, the rustle of fabric, the plastic-on-lino sound of a chair being repositioned. The lights were coming back too. It was like a system reboot. Wherever he’d been, he was back. In hospital, with a visitor. He could hear the electrical buzz of the lights and the occasional beeps and clicks of whatever they had plugged him into. He could feel a needle in his left arm – a drip, presumably. His fever had gone, the nausea too. Only a soreness in his throat and pain in his stomach muscles remained. He remembered the poison, remembered why he had taken it. He hoped he was in an isolation ward. Except that he had a visitor.
He kept his eyes shut. The last image to fade was that of the two IPS women. Huddled together, deep in conversation. Had they known each other? Salvation past and present.
He heard the sound of a page turning. His visitor was reading. Someone who wasn’t medical staff. Someone who was prepared to wait.
The page turning was regular, every two minutes he guessed. The pages sounded light and small. A book reader for certain. Only the student’s cell knew he was here so his visitor’s identity wasn’t really a mystery. The systematic cracking of knuckles confirmed it. The man in the chair by his bed was the man he was trying to escape from. The leader.
The student’s heart sank. The leaves had worked, the Geiger counter had worked. Yet here he was, in hospital with a crazed and angry revolutionary for company. If the leader had discovered that the Geiger’s clicks had been generated by the hidden radioactive smoke alarm core in his pocket, the one that started life on his ceiling in Boxer Street, then retribution would have been swift. The wooden-handled blade would be in the leader’s pocket for certain.
‘Can you hear me, citizen?’ The tone was urgent, conspiratorial.
The student decided that he couldn’t hear him. He lay motionless. His breathing was steady.
He would just wait until the leader got bored and left.
‘Can you hear me, citizen?’ A slight change in tone and emphasis. He sounded almost panicky. ‘Your breathing has changed. I hope you’re better.’ His voice was closer now, the book cast to one side.
The student kept his eyes closed. Tried a few words. ‘That was close,’ he said, his voice a painful rasp. His mouth felt stale and sticky. He licked his lips.
‘Water?’ offered the leader.
The student nodded. ‘But not their water,’ he whispered.
The sound of a plastic bottle being unscrewed.
‘It’s fresh. From the machine,’ said the leader.
The student raised his head, smelt the tang of the plastic then sipped gratefully.
He slumped back to the pillow, eyes still closed.
‘They say you are safe,’ said the leader. ‘I am not so sure.’ He spoke quickly, softly. ‘I believe you were poisoned on the drop. I spoke with her. She told me about the homeless man who approached you. It must have been him. You were sick. My Geiger counter speaks the truth. Now it says you’re OK.’
The student cracked his eyes open. He was in a private room, one bed, two chairs; one chair next to him, the other by the closed door. A single window allowed bright sunshine into the room. The leader was a metre away, leaning forward in the chair. His glasses had slid down his nose, his face remained impassive. The student closed his eyes again.
‘What time is it?’
‘Quarter to four.’
I’ve been out a while, he thought.
‘So I’m not radioactive?’
The leader found the Geiger counter, stuck it close to the student’s face and pressed the trigger. Silence. A few clicks then more silence.