The Liberators

by Philip Womack

  ‘I’ll always think of it as a sun-cutter,’ he said quietly, and watched as the helicopter juddered away into the distance.

  Ivo was about to continue, when he noticed a figure moving towards them, swaying from side to side, mumbling and wailing. As the figure approached, its features became more defined. What had seemed to be a mass of dark, bearish hair showed itself as a wrinkled face, bounded by black matted locks and a beard which looked capable of supporting several life forms. The man was almost circular, he was wearing so many coats. He carried a black plastic bag, and he shuffled towards them.

  The man was muttering and sputtering to himself; as he came nearer, words became distinguishable. ‘Mr Bumblebee . . . hello . . . what have you done with my clock?’

  Ivo realised the question was being addressed to them. Without speaking, they all got off the swings and backed away. The tramp came nearer to them. A dense stink of alcohol and dirt came off him. His skin was broken and red veins stood out on his cheeks, his nose was as purple as a bunch of grapes.

  ‘What have you done with my clock?’ His voice was deep and gravelly.

  Ivo, Miranda and Felix continued to walk backwards, and when they were several metres from him, Ivo said, ‘OK, now run,’ and they sped away, up a slight rise until they had enough distance between them and the tramp to stop. They were now on the southern side of Holland Park, near to Kensington High Street, in the quiet, hidden groves of trees and shrubs. They concealed themselves behind a clump of bushes.

  ‘Does it look like he’s following us?’ asked Miranda, panting.

  ‘No.’ Ivo watched as the vagabond spiralled away. He caught his breath, unnerved.

  ‘Shall we call Hunter then?’ said Felix.

  ‘All right. Do you think it will work?’

  Ivo shrugged. ‘I’ll have a go.’

  Ivo felt in his pocket for the Koptor, and pulled it out. He held it rather self-consciously.

  ‘Remember – you have to think very hard of her, and the quantum particles will be activated,’ Felix reminded him.

  Ivo did, trying to bring up in his mind a picture of Alice Hunter; but she kept being overlayed by other people, by his parents, by Julius, by Strawbones with the snake hissing out of his mouth, and Ivo knew he hadn’t done it.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible. I can’t concentrate on her. It’s like when you say don’t think of orange dogs and then all you can think of is orange dogs.’ Despondent, he drew away from the others. Felix bounced up and down on his feet.

  Miranda, who had been thinking carefully, uncreased her forehead and said,‘Wait! What if we all do it? If we all join forces. Maybe we can do it then.’

  ‘Might as well.’ Ivo came back to them, and Felix and Miranda grabbed hold of the Koptor, and all three closed their eyes in concentration.

  ‘Just picture her as we saw her when she opened the door,’ Miranda said. ‘Think only of her. Only of Alice Hunter. There, can you see her? I can see her, standing there, with her cardigan on. She’s here, standing in front of us, now.’

  Nothing happened. They could hear the calling of birds, the whisper of the wind in the trees; a dog barked far in the distance; a jogger pounded past, music blaring from his headphones. Once more Ivo felt the weight of the future upon him, feeling that these ordinary things were somehow massing together to spell out some truth. He shook his head and looked at Miranda. He was about to speak, when there was a subtle change in the quality of the air, and Hunter appeared.

  She was wearing a brown mackintosh and a dress with red polka dots on it, as well as what looked to Ivo rather like bedroom slippers; from her left hand dangled a ladle, smeared with soup.

  ‘Phew! That really takes you apart. Hah!’ Following Ivo’s quizzical glance, she said, ‘I was making my lunch.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Ivo. ‘It’s just . . . you know, it’s quite hard to believe that you’ve just . . .’ He tailed off.

  ‘So,’ she said, ignoring him, ‘what have you got to tell me?’ She was agitated, looking around, her eyes shifting quickly over them. They told her about Strawbones’s plans for the National Gallery. Her eyes became more and more alarmed. ‘This is it,’ she muttered. ‘Liberation. The moment when the Eleutheroi will rule the earth, when all conscience will be gone.’ She lifted the hand holding the ladle to her forehead; thick red tomato soup dripped on to the ground.

  ‘What will you do?’ asked Miranda.

  ‘We must go to Julius’s flat and find the Thyrsos. We’ll have to go by normal ways,’ she replied, striding off, the three friends scampering behind her to keep up. ‘You can only materialise like that with the Koptor, and it isn’t nice. I’m not, unfortunately, like the Liberators. They can move quickly – very quickly – like the gods coming down from Mount Olympus. That’s why,’ she said, ‘no one saw Strawbones on the tube. He was too fast for them.’ She was breathing very heavily, her face grey and drawn, and she looked to Ivo almost insubstantial.

  They were coming to the playground where they had been earlier, and Ivo was discomfited to see that the tramp had not left, but was now sitting on one of the swings, gently rocking to and fro, his feet just touching the ground, the tips of his toes poking through his rotting boots, showing his disgusting nails. He felt the tramp’s eyes upon them as they sailed past him, and as they reached a safe distance Ivo was filled with relief. The creaking of the swing stopped, and Ivo heard the tramp getting off. He consciously sped up, and motioned to the others that they should do so too. They made towards the car park that spread its grey tarmac nearby, Hunter powering on ahead of them.

  ‘What? What is it, Ivo?’ asked Felix, noticing the anxiety in Ivo.

  ‘Just . . . I don’t know, come on, quickly!’

  A voice cracked the air. ‘Hunter! Hunter! I have seen you. Come back here!’

  Hunter reacted quickly, leaping round like a kangaroo and facing the sound. It was the tramp. ‘Hide!’

  she whispered urgently. ‘Quick, behind that car. And listen – to stop them, you have to become like them. Remember that.’

  ‘Hunter! What is the point of resisting! You know you’re powerless!’ The tramp’s voice was unfeasibly loud, rolling and cannoning around them.

  Ivo, Miranda and Felix hurried behind the car, peering awkwardly through the windows. They saw that another car was drawing up, and in it were two men. One of them was Perkins. The engine’s throbbing filled their ears; the car came to a slow, menacing halt. The radio was on and music spilled out into the air. The doors opened, and Perkins got out followed by another Acolyte.

  ‘Hunter,’ he shouted, as Alice began to back away from him. ‘I could make a joke here,’ he continued. ‘What does it feel like to be hunted?’ He guffawed.

  Alice turned and began to run, away from Ivo and the Rocksavages.

  ‘It’s no use,’ shouted Perkins, pushing his glasses back on his nose, his eyes magnified threefold.

  The Acolyte advanced upon Hunter, a grin on his face, as Perkins stood by, laughing. The tramp, meanwhile, had discarded his overcoats and ripped off his beard; now he looked lean and tall, heading directly to Hunter.

  ‘She’s toast,’ Felix whispered to Ivo.

  There was the sound of a fist connecting with flesh, and Ivo was surprised to see that Hunter had taken on one of the Acolytes. He stumbled back, putting his hands up in a defensive position. The other Acolyte wheeled round to the back of Hunter. Her skirts flapped in the wind. She swung the soup ladle round and round and struck him on the head with it; he retreated. The first came forwards again and tried to rugby tackle her, but she evaded him, kicking him in the stomach with her slippered feet; one of the tartan slippers came off and she nearly fell. ‘Dammit!’ she said; but she’d winded him, and he was bent double, and she took the opportunity to kick him again, and then brought the ladle down on his neck. T
he other Acolyte advanced once more, and Hunter turned round, and appeared to collect herself; then in a whirlwind of speed she spun on her heels and karate-chopped him in the shoulder.

  Perkins all the while stood by the side, a smirk on his face; Hunter advanced upon him and he held his hands up, in a slightly mocking gesture.

  ‘Hunter. Where is it?’

  One of the men raised himself up from the ground and lunged at Hunter, but without looking she kicked him in the face and he fell again.

  ‘I will never give it up,’ she said. She crossed her arms.

  ‘But you’re the only one left, Hunter. You might as well give up now.’ Perkins’ voice was wheedling; he glared. Hunter backed away as he began to approach, and then turned and ran.

  A jogger appeared over the brow of a hill, headphones on, focused on his running. Perkins stopped, seeming to calculate, and then called to his Acolytes, ‘In the car, quick,’ and, staggering, the two followed him, one holding his shoulder, the other pressing both hands to his ears; they tumbled into the car and drove off.

  After a few moments, Hunter reappeared over the rise, panting, her cardigan flapping open. The jogger, when he reached her, saw only a mad old bag lady muttering to herself. She picked up her slipper and put it on ruefully.

  She went round to the side of the car where Ivo and the others were hiding. ‘Get home, as quickly as you can,’ she said. ‘Go on, home. We’ll meet again soon. Home!’ She shooed them away, and, startled, they ran off back to the bus stop. Ivo turned back to see her running away in the opposite direction, head bent, cardigan clutched tightly round her, her breath making little clouds as she went.

  .

  Chapter Twelve

  Ivo, Miranda and Felix jumped on a bus on Holland Park Road, taking them eastwards in the direction of Marble Arch and Oxford Circus. Soon they were going past Lancaster Gate. Felix was twisting his hands together, twitching and jittering, Miranda was staring blankly out of the window, Ivo sat with his knees pressed close, chin down on his chest. Even for Christmas the streets were unusually thronged. There seemed to be hardly an inch of space on the pavements; people were bustling and knocking each other off into the road, where motorists crawled slowly by. A couple started an angry argument, causing the stream of pedestrians to break around them; some boys in tracksuits ran, laughing, in the opposite direction to the flow; a policeman muttered into his walkie-talkie. The bus lurched onwards, and then stopped at a traffic light for what seemed like ages. Ivo tapped his knees, Felix and Miranda fidgeted; eventually Ivo said, ‘Shall we just jump out here?’ and they all scampered down, pleaded with the driver to open the doors, which he did (somewhat grumpily), and spilled out just in front of the cinema. The white bulk of Marble Arch squatted on their right.

  ‘Do you think we’ve been followed?’ Miranda asked, her voice trembling a little.

  Ivo nodded. ‘Almost certainly.’

  He looked around at the crowds of people. A prickling sense of fear began to tickle his throat. ‘I think we should just try to get home, as soon as we can. I think that’s where we’re safest. Come on!’ He led the way, dodging through a crowd of Spanish tourists dawdling outside the tube station. Felix dug his hands into his jacket pockets, and Miranda, shaking her head slightly, trotted after him.

  There was a much louder background level of noise than usual; there were more shouts, more laughter, more buses honking. Outside Selfridges it was almost impossible to move in the crush. The three slowed down to a walk. Ivo kept a careful eye behind him, but it was impossible to tell who was an Acolyte and who wasn’t. His frustration was building up. He wanted to release it all in a huge burst of rage. But he repressed the feeling. Felix put the collar of his jacket up. Miranda, perplexed, trudged just next to him.

  A group of girls ran past them, shouting with glee, almost knocking Ivo over. He was getting frustrated. They weren’t making much headway against the streams of shoppers. They crept down Oxford Street towards Oxford Circus. The shops were pulsing with light and music, each doorway disgorging crowds of people, massing together like ants.

  Ivo hopped on to the road, checking on the others behind him. Felix was looking distinctly grumpy, thought Ivo. Distracted, Ivo almost walked straight into a lampost; he righted himself, and carried on.

  ‘Let’s try and go up a side street,’ came Miranda’s voice from behind. But there was a tumultuous horde to their left; it was impossible to break through them. Ivo was swept on ahead, towards Oxford Circus, past the road they should have gone down. He was helpless; he tried to turn but couldn’t. He was now separated from the others. Frightened, he scanned the crowds, but could not see either of their faces.

  He was pushed on ahead, to the junction of Oxford Street and Regent Street. Traffic lights held the buses in check; they groaned like dragons. People spilled across the roads, ignoring the system, dodging in between cars, risking their lives. Ivo jumped on to the pavement and held on to the black iron barrier just next to the entrance to the tube station. The surge of bodies around him was disorientating; he closed his eyes, and tried to calm himself. The air was cold and piercing; a flurry of sleet passed over them.

  He pulled out his phone and tried both Miranda and Felix’s numbers; but a network busy signal came on. He saw a man walk out into the middle of the street, seemingly unaware of the commotion around him, or of the traffic. A bus was approaching, its horn sounding long and loud; the man stood still in the centre of the junction, and lifted his arms wide. He had long black hair. The sky darkened, the clouds taking on a black, wine-like tinge. The man threw his head back and let out a scream: it thrilled Ivo to the very core. Then the man threw off his overcoat. Underneath he was wearing a long fur; was he also wearing a swordbelt? Ivo couldn’t quite see. Ivo held on to the cold railings as some people pushed past him. Traffic had stopped. A policeman was making his way across to the man. People paused and looked.

  The man, as the policeman approached, paid no attention to him, but instead started to yell, two syllables, ‘Ee-yoh, ee-yoh,’ which held in them the vibrancy of madness. There was such power in those sounds that Ivo felt his marrow burning with desire. He recognised the call of the Liberators. Ivo began, despite the cold, to sweat. He climbed up on to the railing, holding on to it as if he were drowning.

  He surveyed the scene. The policeman had stopped in his tracks, and Ivo could see the look of puzzlement on his face changing, first into joy, and then into wildness; the policeman threw down his notebook, ripped off his walkie-talkie and flung it away. There was a loud smash behind Ivo, and he turned to see that somebody had thrown a brick into the window of a nearby shop; some other people joined in, kicking the hole until the whole window smashed, fragments of glass falling and clattering to the ground, and then they poured in; alarms went off, shrieking above the din, but nobody took any notice. There were more smashing sounds. Ivo felt his heart thrum; he desperately wanted to join in. But he held the Koptor and struggled to keep his mind clear.

  Now the rain was black, and Ivo let a drop fall on his tongue, and it tasted like wine. A surge of people poured out of the stationary buses and there was a melee in the middle of Oxford Circus. There were Christmas hampers, and food was being thrown out to everybody; Ivo saw two women fighting over a turkey, a man stuffing himself with mince pies; brandy bottles, champagne bottles were being passed round. A thousand people, abandoning themselves, foaming and surging like the sea upon the shore, and standing in the middle was the tall man with the long black hair. His skin looked parched to Ivo, yellow and old, his eyes were green – wholly green – the green of leaves, of deep grass in summer. Ivo was reminded of the strange apparition he had seen sitting in the armchair in Lydia’s studio. Julius had been downstairs . . . so this was Strawbones.

  Ivo could feel the pure pleasure of release – girls running out of a clothes shop, bedecked in jewellery and new fashion, a mother,
swathed in bed linen, bursting through the crowds, mouth gaping open, a boy howling like a wolf, men tearing off their ties – and now, as he watched, were there cracks in the pavement? A snake of ivy was growing out of the tarmac, and creeping its way over a bus, its green shocking against the metallic red. The black clouds above shifted, and split apart, revealing the cold blue of a winter sky, through which a pale yellow sun shot its rays. Helicopters swarmed overhead; sirens sounded; but nothing could get through to the centre.

  And now the ivy was growing up everything: it turned the railings into living masses of greenery; Ivo felt it sneaking its tendrils up his body and tore them off. The rioting people were ripping up the vegetation, placing crowns of leaves upon their heads. The ivy grew with such speed that soon barely an inch of concrete, tarmac or shopfront could be seen. Ivo saw a man heading towards him, a knife in his hand; Ivo, quicker than he thought he’d be able to, leaped up on to a bin, and then scrabbled on top of a telephone box; there he stood, feet entwined amongst ivy, immune and terrified. Where were Felix and Miranda? He could see no sign of them. He wondered if this time they too were taken up by this frenzy. A rock sailed past his ear; somebody on the ground screamed. There were more screams now, of pain and fear; fights had broken out and people were ferociously scrapping over what they had looted.

  Ivo saw, slowly, moving northwards up Regent Street, a phalanx of riot police, shields held out in front of them, truncheons bristling. People were trying to clamber up the telephone box now; not sure what to do, Ivo tore off the ivy to give them less purchase. He felt the phone box rocking, and held on.

  Looking back to the centre of the riot, Ivo saw the man in the fur coat turn round to face the advancing riot force. He spread his arms out wide, as if to greet them, laughing; and then he vanished. One moment, he was there, the next he was not; although Ivo thought he could see a blur of movement, as of something moving very fast. The ivy receded, as suddenly as if it were water and a plug had been torn out of the bath.