by Lex Lander
As the drums tailed off to a mutter the crowd began to break up, chattering excitedly. I forced a passage through to the Convent porch. The policemen were still in evidence, at ease now that the potential threat to Crown property had receded.
I singled out a young police sergeant, whose swarthy features were out of place under his bobby’s helmet.
‘Somebody told me they were going to present a petition,’ I said. ‘What happened to it?’
He looked me up and down, frowning, but his reply when it came was respectful enough.
‘They will be presenting it at the end of the march, sir.’ His English was precisely enunciated, almost accent-free.
‘So they’re coming back here.’
‘Yes. They will walk down Main Street as far as Cooperage Lane and back here via Irish Town. The Governor has agreed to receive the petition at one o’clock.’ His expression became searching. ‘You’re a visitor to Gibraltar?’
‘Just a day tripper,’ I said with a grin and moved away. I didn’t want to become familiar with or to the Law. Not until my exact function here was spelled out.
Those among the crowd who were in the know were still hanging around. They had formed little knots and were engaged in quiet discussion. The drumbeat floated over the rooftops, a reminder that normality was not yet restored. Within a minute it began to swell again and now, though the tempo had not obviously quickened, it seemed somehow more ebullient, more defiant. As if the final run-up to the delivery of the petition had injected new vigour into the drummers.
As if they were expecting something to happen.
Or planning to make something happen.
Without conscious effort on my part my feet were on the move, transporting me towards the throbbing drums. Beginning with a walk, becoming a trot, building to a lope. I came to a square, remembered from my yesterday’s saunter.
‘Which way to Irish Town?’ I demanded breathlessly of a young guy, propped against the wall of the Tourist Information Office, nursing a beer glass.
In wordless reply he indicated the next turn left. I rushed off through the animated throngs, performing bodily contortions to avoid collision.
Irish Town was not a town but a street. A police constable on the corner bestowed a baleful stare on me. I had arrived alone in the middle of the road; the sidewalks on both sides were packed with folk. The drums were louder here, booming down between the buildings, the procession less than a hundred metres away and heading straight for me.
‘Get off the road, sir,’ the constable ordered, stepping off the curb in case I needed encouragement.
‘Sorry, officer,’ I nipped past him and burrowed into a section of spectators lining the front of a synagogue. Opposite was a police station, fronted by a row of arches. As you’d expect, the law had concentrated its strength here. Policemen were also spaced along the marchers’ route. Not nearly enough of them if things turned nasty.
As before, the various factions trooped past: the three policemen, the big man with the sword, the drummers… The main body of uniformed GIBESTÁ supporters was just coming into sight between the bobbing heads on my right when the stone was thrown.
It might have come from the crowd, it might equally have been projected from an open window overlooking the road. It struck the black-haired girl, the standard bearer, a glancing blow on the cheek and was deflected on to land in the gutter, causing some people there to leap back in alarm.
The girl herself had given a short, sharp cry at the moment of impact. Letting the standard fall she clutched at the injured spot. Her hand came away, smeared scarlet. Yet anger, not hysteria was in her stance. She was shaken but not intimidated.
‘Cowards!’ she railed at the silent ranks. ‘If you want to fight, come and do it in the open!’
The rest of the procession had stopped. Several of them were running toward the girl. Another stone flew, knocking the beret from the first GIBESTÁ marcher to arrive at the girl’s side. He stumbled, more in surprise than through injury. Shouts were exchanged. Up ahead the drumming lost cohesion. The front rank of drummers had reached the next corner and were halted there, turning rearwards awkwardly, restricted by their ungainly instruments.
From within the main mass of the uniformed GIBESTÁ-ites came a ripple of movement. A section of the crowd had broken away and was in amongst them. Berets flew. I heard breaking glass, a fusion of shouting and cheering. The police went into action, converging on the mêlée, some with riot sticks already drawn. Now there was a flurry of missiles, including what looked like half-bricks. A half-brick struck the gutsy black-haired girl as she stooped in the road to recover her fallen standard. It caught her at the back of the skull, just above the neck, and the impact sounded like a sledge hammer hitting concrete. She didn’t cry out. One second she was crouching in the road, the next she was spread-eagled face down. If anyone else in the vicinity noticed, they were either too preoccupied with their own problems or too shit-scared to care. The girl lay motionless, stepped over, walked around, ignored by police and protagonists alike. Her hair was a black glossy fantail, her beret lay just beyond the reach of one outstretched hand, was trampled on even as I watched. A scarlet tentacle pushed out from under the splay of hair, formed a ribbon that wound lazily towards the roadside. And still she lay unattended.
The last thing I needed was the glare of publicity. I was about to be sent here on Her Majesty’s Government’s Business – undercover business. To play the Samaritan was to put my secret status in jeopardy. Toby had drilled into me the need for discretion, to the extent that I almost turned my back, almost left her there. Then, in a rush of shame, instincts deeper rooted than devotion to Queen and Country and wallet, took over. Pushing aside a pair of nattering, excitable women, I plunged into the fray. A GIBESTÁ drummer swiped at me in passing but while he was off-balance I shoved him backwards and he was absorbed into the crowd. Then a policeman’s riot stick, flailing indiscriminately, thumped into my kidneys and propelled me forwards so that I tripped over the fallen girl’s spread legs.
No flicker of life issued from her. I pressed my ear to her back, strained for a heartbeat, but if it was there, it was drowned by the pandemonium all around.
The medical profession wouldn’t have approved, but I rolled her onto her back. Her body was a dead weight, her limbs slack and floppy like a marionette’s. Blood from the wound at the back of her skull soaked into my sleeve, dark as a Bordeaux red. She was very young – seventeen, eighteen maybe. Quite plain, except for her eyes: they were huge, incredibly dark, with long eyelashes. They seemed to be staring into mine; staring in surprise and fear of the unknown. I cradled her, held her to me to protect her from the many feet that scurried here and there, miraculously missing us.
But there was really nothing to protect. She was somewhere else, not here in my arms. Somewhere far away, in a place from which there was no coming back.
It was in this eye of calm in the hurricane of violence that the big man, the GIBESTÁ leader, came and knelt beside me. He bore the scars of battle: a button torn from his tunic, his head now bare and his silver hair in disarray. A gash just below the hairline was weeping blood.
His hand rested on my shoulder. His grip was hard, conveying his apprehension, his dread.
‘My name is Michael Vella,’ he said, quite calmly, as if we were meeting at a cocktail party. ‘This is my daughter, Adriana. Is she … badly hurt?’
I looked at him and felt the prickle of tears glazing my vision.
He seemed to deflate, as if an essential part of him had been excised. His arms reached out, as if in supplication, to take his dead girl from me. A wandering knee jarred my shoulder. I scarcely felt it. Dumbly, I loosened my hold. The man called Vella drew his daughter from me so gently I was hardly aware of the transfer. A uniformed GIBESTÁ-ite came blundering up, chest heaving, sweat glossing his face.
‘Michael!’ he gasped. ‘Michael! Is she all right?’
No answer was forthcoming, nor needed. The GIBEST
Á leader cradled his daughter to him. Her hair swung, a broken black wing, covering his knee.
A passing policeman witnessed the little drama, pivoted on his heel.
‘Señor …!’ He sheathed his riot stick and bent to look closely at the girl. ‘I will send for an ambulance,’ he announced, and was gone. Nobody told him not to hurry.
The commotion was dying around me as the police gained the upper hand. My place was elsewhere, far from the demand for witnesses and statements that would inevitably ensue. The GIBESTÁ-ite was already puzzling over my presence. It showed in his questioning glances, from me to the dead girl and back.
I squeezed Michael Vella’s shoulder in sympathy but failed to penetrate his grief. So I left him with it and melted away into the dispersing crowds.
* * * * *
It was as though I had been living a dream for the last thirty hours. Only when I pulled up before the dusty forecourt of The Golden Palm did I waken, to look back and marvel the tragic event that had marred my brief stay in Gibraltar.
The death of the girl had made a deep impression on me. She was a stranger, meant zilch to me, and death itself was commonplace in my world of violence. Yet, I had been touched by this particular death, maybe because it had been so unnecessary, so sudden. Or maybe because of her youth, her defiant courage, her pouring of scorn on hostility.
During my absence The Golden Palm had continued to function as normal, i.e. at negligible profit level. No matter, I wasn’t in it for the money I kept reminding myself. The good news was that, based on the experience of the last few days, the business wouldn’t fall apart when I wasn’t around. This left me free to wing north on Thursday morning.
Back to dreary, over-populated London. Back to breathe a million exhaust emissions. Back, well and truly, in the yoke.
Chapter Eight
From where I sprawled in an over-stuffed ministry chair, the vista through Toby’s office windows was of sky – a blue, crisp, early March sky. The sunshine had helped compensate for the relocation to northerly latitudes and so far the VIP treatment the Government was meting out – a plush room at the Park Lane Hotel, chauffeur driven transportation – was keeping me sweet. Unlikely it would continue after I had signed on the dotted line.
‘Well,’ Toby said, speaking from his desk. ‘You’re here and I’m now authorised to tell you what’s going on and where you fit in.’
I fingered the knot of the tie I was unaccustomed to wearing. It was warm in Toby’s office and the sun, encouraged by the high windows that were the kind that don’t open, was slowly roasting me.
‘Not before time.’
‘Hmm. Be that as it may, talks between the governments of the UK and Spain on the future of Gibraltar will begin on 8th May in Madrid.’ He paused, perhaps expecting me to react with awe and reverence. When I didn’t oblige, he resumed sniffily, ‘Our position has always been that no transfer or sharing of sovereignty will be entertained until and unless a majority of the people of Gibraltar expresses a desire by plebiscite in favour of such a transfer.’
‘In plain English, that means they have to vote for it, right?’
Like Queen Victoria, he was not amused.
‘Keep your sarcasm to yourself, André.’
‘That wasn’t sarcasm, it was plain English.’
‘We don’t expect such a plebiscite to produce such a result, therefore the chief purpose of the talks will be to keep faith with certain interested parties, notably the United States, NATO, United Nations, and the EU.’
‘Not Spain, then.’
‘Ostensibly, yes.’ Even that was said reluctantly.
He sipped from his dainty cup – Royal Doulton bone china or of that ilk, nothing less would suffice.
‘A secondary purpose will be to leave Spain in no doubt as to the prerequisites for a transfer of sovereignty –’
‘But you said transfer of sovereignty isn’t going to happen.’
‘Don’t interrupt,’ he said, severe as a schoolmaster. ‘It is to be made clear that those prerequisites are non-negotiable.’
He was losing me. ‘What fucking prerequisites?’
He expelled an exasperated sigh. ‘That information is privileged. You don’t need to know.’ Again the glower, before continuing. ‘A further secondary purpose will be to reinforce our commitment in the eyes of the world to the continuation of Gibraltar’s present status. In other words, to preserve the status quo.’
‘Congratulations,’ I murmured. ‘Is that all the purposes?’
‘The final purpose is to maintain equable relations with Spain, as fellow members of NATO.’
A silence fell upon us. Toby sipped more tea. I had never liked the stuff so I left mine alone.
‘Any questions?’ he asked.
‘If it’s all a big, fat sham, no, I have no questions.’
He stood up and paced the obviously expensive carpet as far as the window and back, to loom over me.
‘Some sops will be offered to Spain, such as adjustments to rates of duty inside and outside Gibraltar, investment facilities, easing of conditions for Spanish workers, and so on.’
‘I guess that’ll satisfy them. Thank God I won’t be on our negotiating team. They could get lynched.’
Toby lit a cigar and to hell with the no smoking rules.
‘Any questions, dear boy?’
‘Only a million or so.’ I gave him a disarming grin. ‘But you wouldn’t answer a one of ’em.’
He effected affront. ‘Try me.’
I regarded him, trying to penetrate the bland exterior. And failing.
‘If you insist,’ I said, and threw in a yawn just to show I was convinced it was a waste of effort. ‘Just between us friends, is the Government prepared to make any concessions at all on sovereignty?’
‘Trust you,’ he said tetchily, ‘to ask the wrong question.’ A pause for puffing. ‘Pass.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Officially,’ Toby did say, a furtive note creeping into his voice, ‘I shouldn’t have told you as much as I have. You’re still officially an outsider.’
‘Thank Christ for that. I still don’t quite see what the talks have to do with my particular project.’
‘Directly, nothing. I’ve taken the liberty of giving you an insight into the likely course the talks will take, to illustrate how the rise of this independence movement will weaken the position of our negotiators.’
‘You said that without pausing for breath. What about the need to know? I don’t actually need to know, do I? Just wind me up and give me a push in the right direction.’
Toby gave an impatient grunt. ‘We can do without your flashes of so-called humour,’ he said stiffly.
I tugged the carefully arranged damask handkerchief from my breast pocket and patted my forehead with it.
‘Is the aircon broken?’
‘It’s centrally controlled and not switched on until May.’
‘The Government being frugal with taxpayers’ money for once. I approve, but how about something cool to drink before I sweat right through my suit.’
He looked pained. ‘Must you? Oh, all right, but only mineral water.’
He organised it by telephone.
‘You’re so kind,’ I said, picking up a folder from a pile on his desk and fanning myself with it. He snatched it back with a glare. ‘Returning to your point about GIBESTÁ, I don’t agree that they’ll weaken our position with the Spanish. The whole movement’s an irrelevancy.’
‘Now you’re being obtuse. If the Spanish perceive a crack in the colonial fortress they’ll move heaven and the Iberian peninsula to exploit it. It matters not a whit that these GIBESTÁ people are more anti-Spain than they are anti-UK. With the right kind of hype and a dash of distortion the Spanish press will have us Brits looking like a bunch of Nazi bully boys and the Gibraltarians like a poverty-stricken slave race before you can say “front page story.”’
‘If that’s what you really think you must be paranoid.’
>
Toby’s expression hardened.
‘Not you personally,’ I said, making soothing motions with my hand. ‘I was speaking collectively.’
He subsided somewhat, sucked genteelly at his cigar. Said nothing.
‘But paranoid or not …’ A tap at the door had Toby silencing me with a finger over his lips. Two bottles of Perrier on a tray entered, conveyed by a sturdy middle-aged woman, drably dressed, and with one of those permed hair-dos that became extinct along with Picture Post magazine.
‘Don’t you even trust your own people?’ I said when we were on our own again. ‘You take it too seriously, Toby. It’s just a great big game, you should know that better than I.’
I unscrewed the cap from one of the bottles, poured into the Government crystal.
Toby laid his cigar in an ashtray made from the base of a shell case and followed my example with the other bottle.
‘Let’s come to your specific role, shall we?’
‘Let’s. Put an end to the suspense.’
He sniffed. ‘The Government feels that the existence of GIBESTÁ is prejudicial to stability within Gibraltar, and even more so to the outcome of the Madrid talks. Consequently, we aim to curtail their activities and bring about the dissolution of the movement. A meeting is to be held later today, in these very premises, to settle on the methods.’ His gaze centred on me. ‘You are required to attend. In fact, in some ways, you’ll be the guest of honour.’
It sounded mildly threatening. As if ‘guest of honour’ were synonymous with facing a firing squad.
‘My, oh my. Guest of honour. Don’t you think we should agree terms first?’
‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘Let’s hear what the policy wonks have to say and your views too – your constructive views, I mean – before we talk contracts.’
‘Right, teacher. Can I go now?’
‘No, you cannot. You and I are having a working lunch together. While you’re here and as long as we’re paying your expenses, you’re going to put in a full day’s work every day.’