England, England

by Julian Barnes

  Was that the end of the argument, or was she just a wretched un-idea’d girl? If the system collapsed, if the Archbishop of Canterbury could become less known and less credible than, say, Dr Max, could belief float free? And if it did, would that make it any the truer, yes or no? What brought her here? She knew the negative answers: disappointment, age, a discontent with the thinness of life, or at least life as she had known it, or chosen it. There was something else as well, though: a quiet curiosity bordering on envy. What did they know, these future companions of hers, Anne Potter, Timothy Pettigrew, James Thorogood, and William Petty, Guilliamus Trentinus and Christina Margaret Benson? More than she knew, or less? Nothing? Something? Everything?

  When she got home, Paul’s manner was affectedly casual. As they ate and drank, she felt him getting tenser and more self-righteous. Well, she was good at waiting. She watched him swerve away from whatever he wanted to say on three occasions. Finally, as he laid a cup of coffee in front of her, he said quietly, ‘By the way, are you having an affair?’

  ‘No.’ Martha laughed with relief, which irritated him into pedantry. ‘Well, are you perhaps in love with someone else and contemplating an affair?’ No, not that either. She’d been in a disused church. No, that’s where she’d been before, on other occasions of suspicious absence. No, she didn’t meet anyone there. No, she wasn’t getting religion. No, she went there to be alone.

  He seemed almost disappointed. It might have been easier, and more tactful, to say, Yes, I am seeing someone else. That would justify the dullness and the distance that had grown between them. Dr Johnson had put it better, of course: they had lost that tenderness of look, and that benevolence of mind. Yes, she could have said, blame me. Other women used this subterfuge; other men too. ‘I’m falling in love with someone else’ was always easier on the vanity than ‘I’m falling out of love with you.’

  Later, in the dark, eyes closed, she looked up at fat buttons, a white stock, and a broad, tormented face. It’s true, Paul, she could have said, it’s true there’s someone I’m drawn to. An older man at long last. Someone I can imagine falling in love with. I won’t tell you his name, you’d laugh. It’s ridiculous in a way, but no more ridiculous than some of the men I’ve tried to love. The problem is, you see, that he doesn’t exist. Or he did, but he died a couple of centuries ago.

  Would that have made it any easier for Paul?

  TED WAGSTAFF stood in front of Martha’s desk like a weather forecaster preparing to spoil a public holiday.

  ‘Something unusual?’ she prompted.

  ‘Afraid so, Miss Cochrane.’

  ‘But something you’re going to tell me about. Now, preferably.’

  ‘It’s Mr Hood and his Band, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh no.’

  The Band … Those other incidents could be dismissed as hiccups: pampered employees getting uppity, the criminal gene quietly reasserting itself, unforeseen personality slippage. Little more than what the King would resentfully term a bit of fun. Easily quenched by executive justice. But the Band was central to the Project, as Visitor Feedback confirmed. It was a primal myth, repositioned after considerable debate. Band personnel had been realigned with great sensitivity; offensive elements in the scenario – old-fashioned attitudes to wildlife, over-consumption of red meat – had been expunged or attenuated. All through the year Promotions had given the Band top headlining. If they had been no. 7 on Jeff’s list of Quintessences, they were no. 3 in Visitor Appeal, and pre-booked solid for the next six months.

  Only a couple of days ago Martha had checked the Cave onscreen, and everything was seeming honest. The ovoid rock-finished tumulus looked properly medieval; the repatriated Saudi oaks were flourishing; the man in the bear-suit entirely plausible. On either side of the Cave there were peaceful queues for the viewing windows. Through them Visitors could scrutinize the Band’s domestic lifestyle: Much the Miller’s Son baking ten-grain bread; Will Scarlet rubbing camomile lotion into his enflamed skin; Little John and others of his size making merrie in their miniaturized quarters. The tour continued with archery practice (participation encouraged) and a visit to the Barbecue Pit, where Friar Tuck would be found basting his ‘Ox’ (moulded vegetable matter oozing with cranberry juice, if anyone asked). Finally, Visitors were led to the grandstands, where an English Fool in cap and bells would warm them up with some cross-epoch satire before the climactic event: the battle – or rather, moral pageant – between the libertarian, free-market Hoodites and the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham, backed by his corrupt bureaucrats and hi-tech army.

  The Band was not just central to the Island’s self-presentation; it was paid top whack. Recruiters had trawled high up in the theatrical profession; several Band members had negotiated a percentage on the merchandising. They had luxury apartments and a fan-club with branches from Stockholm to Seoul. What could they possibly have to complain about?

  ‘Tell.’

  ‘Started about a month ago. Just a little curl of the pig’s tail, we thought. Nothing a good thrashing couldn’t sort out.’

  Was she becoming more impatient, or was Ted Wagstaff’s personality slippage getting worse?

  ‘The point, Ted.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss Cochrane. The Band said they didn’t like the ox. They said it tasted filthy. We said we’d see what we could do. We tasted it ourselves. Not great, but not too bad. We said, Look, the scene where you carve chunks off it and smack your lips in appreciation isn’t that long, couldn’t you just pretend, either that or keep it in your mouths and spit it out later? We said we’d work on the problem. We were working on it, Miss Cochrane. We had a two-pronged attack. Number One, fly in a top French chef from Rouen to see if he could make it taste a bit more like meat. Number Two, fall-back position, rewrite the scenario so that Friar Tuck is a lousy cook and so it’s OK for the Band to spit it out.’

  He looked at Martha, as if expecting applause for enterprise. Martha wanted to get to the point. ‘But?’

  ‘But the next thing we know, the smell from the Pit is quite different, the Band is stuffing its faces and not spitting anything out, and Dingle the Woolly Steer is missing from the Animal Heritage Park.’

  ‘But that’s on the other side of the Island.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Aren’t all those animals electronically tagged?’

  ‘We found the tag, and the ear, in Dingle’s pen.’

  ‘So they got their ox. What else?’

  ‘They took a Devon Longwool, a couple of Gloucester Old Spots, and three swans. Then last week they cleared all the ducks off the Stacpoole Memorial Pool. The fact is, they’ve started putting our deliveries straight in the dustbins. They’re hunting their own food.’

  ‘In our heritage parks.’

  ‘And in our old-English farmyards. And in our woods and forests. The bastards seem to be killing anything they can hit with those arrows. Not to mention snitching vegetables from the back gardens of Bungalow Valley.’

  ‘Are we just talking diet?’

  ‘No way, Miss Cochrane. That Robin’s got a list of complaints as long as your arm. He says that having certain members of the differently-abled in his Band slows up both their hunting and their fighting capacities. He wants them replaced with what he calls hundred-percent warriors. He says the Band insist on more privacy and are going to curtain off the viewing windows to stop everybody looking in. Yes, I know what you’re going to say. He also claims that having homosexuals in the Band is detrimental to good military discipline. He says the staged fights are hopeless and wouldn’t it be more realistic if the Sheriff’s men were given an extra financial inducement to capture the Band, and if they, the Band, were allowed to ambush the Sheriff’s men anywhere. And his final complaint, well, you’ll have to pardon my language, Miss Cochrane.’

  ‘It’s pardoned, Ted.’

  ‘Well, he said his todger was dropping off for lack of use, and what the eff did you think you were doing fixing him up with a dyke?’

  Martha
stared disbelievingly at Ted. She wasn’t sure she could get her head round this one. ‘But … Ted … I mean, for a start, Maid Marian, what’s her name, Vanessa, just to be basic about it all, she’s only playing a dyke, as Robin puts it.’

  ‘That’s as far as our information goes. I suppose she could be getting inside the skin of her role. More likely she’s just using it as an excuse. To ward off his advances, as it were.’

  ‘But … I mean, apart from anything else, from what I remember of Dr Max’s historical report, Maid Marian wasn’t sleeping with Robin anyway.’

  ‘Well, that’s as it may be, Miss Cochrane. The present state of play is that Robin’s complaining that it’s unfair and unjust and a crime against his manhood that he hasn’t, if you’ll pardon my language but it’s his, he hasn’t had a shag in months.’

  Martha briefly wanted to call Dr Max and tell him about the behaviour of pastoral communities in the modern world. Instead, she addressed the problem. ‘Right. He’s contractually in breach by a long way. They all are. But that’s not really the main point. He’s in rebellion, isn’t he? Against the Project, against our repositioning of the myth, against every single Visitor who comes to see him. He’s … he’s –’

  ‘A bloody outlaw, Miss?’

  Martha smiled. ‘Thank you, Ted.’

  The Band in revolt? It was unthinkable. It was central. It played in so many other directions. What if they all took it into their heads to behave like that? What if the King decided he really wanted to reign; or, for that matter, if Queen Boadicea decided he was an upstart from some johnny-come-lately continental dynasty? What if the Germans decided they should have won the Battle of Britain? The consequences were unimaginable. What if robins decided they didn’t like the snow?

  ‘WE’VE GOT THINGS TO DISCUSS,’ said Martha, and saw Paul’s cheeks tighten. The resentful face of a man called upon to discuss a relationship. Martha wanted to reassure him. It’s all right, we’re through with that now, the talking and the not talking. There are various things I’m unable to say, and since in any case you don’t want to hear them, we can just let it go.

  ‘It’s the Band.’

  She saw Paul’s mood ease. It lifted even more as they discussed executive action, Visitor confidence, and fast-track retraining. They agreed about the fundamental threat to the Project. They agreed it wasn’t a job for Customs and Excise. It was Paul who suggested the SAS, Paul who advised a forty-eight-hour deadline, Paul who offered to liaise with the Band as technical coordinator, Paul who would see her later, perhaps a lot later, and who left in a state of relieved excitement.

  They could manage this harmonious shorthand at work; at home they subsisted on a grunted routine full of polite suppressions. Once he had said that she made him feel real. Did she weep now for past flattery, or for past truth?

  These were some of the things she was unable to say:

  —that none of it was his fault;

  —that despite Dr Max’s historical scepticism, she believed in happiness;

  —that when she said she ‘believed in’ it, she meant that she thought such a state existed and was worth trying to attain;

  —that seekers after happiness tended to divide into two groups, those who sought it by fulfilling criteria laid down by others, and those who sought it by fulfilling their own criteria;

  —that neither means of search was morally superior to the other;

  —but that for her, happiness depended on being true to yourself;

  —true to your nature;

  —that is, true to your heart;

  —but the main problem, life’s central predicament, was, how did you know your own heart?;

  —and the surrounding problem was, how did you know what your nature was?;

  —that most people located their nature in childhood: so their entranced self-reminiscences, the photographs they displayed of themselves when young, were ways of defining that nature;

  —here was a photo of herself when young, frowning against the sun and sticking out her lower lip: was this her nature or only her mother’s poor photography?;

  —but what if this nature was no more natural than the nature Sir Jack had satirically delineated after a walk in the country?;

  —because if you were unable to locate your nature, your chance of happiness was surely diminished;

  —or what if locating your nature was like locating a patch of wetland, whose layout remained mysterious, and whose workings indecipherable?;

  —that despite favourable conditions, and lack of encumbrances, and despite the fact that she thought she might love Paul, she had not felt happy;

  —that at first she thought this might be because he bored her;

  —or his love bored her;

  —or even that her love bored her;

  —but she wasn’t sure (and not knowing her nature, how could she be?) that this was the case;

  —so perhaps it was that love was not the answer for her;

  —which was, after all, not an entirely eccentric position, as Dr Max would have reassured her;

  —or perhaps it was the case that love had come too late for her, too late to make her lose her solitude (if that was how you tested love), too late to make her happy;

  —that when Dr Max explained that in medieval times people had sought salvation rather than love, the two concepts weren’t necessarily in opposition;

  —it was just that later centuries had lower ambitions;

  —and when we seek happiness, perhaps we are pursuing some lower form of salvation, though we don’t dare call it by such a name;

  —that perhaps her own life had been what Dr Johnson had called his, a barren waste of time;

  —that she had made so little progress towards even the lowest form of salvation;

  —that none of it was his fault.

  . . .

  THE RAID on Robin’s Cave was quietly listed as a one-off cross-epoch extravaganza, limited to Premier Visitors on payment of a double supplement. By 6.oo the U-shaped grandstand was full and the setting sun made a natural floodlight on the Cave’s mouth.

  Martha and the executive board sat high up at the back of the stand. This was a major crisis, and a challenge to the very philosophy of the Project; yet at the same time, if things went pleasingly, it might throw up some useful Development ideas. Leisure Theory never stood still. She and Paul had already theorized about interfacing other non-synchronous episodes of the nation’s history. Where was he, incidentally? No doubt still backstage, refining the Band’s choreography.

  Martha was irritated to discover Sir Jack sitting next to her. This wasn’t a ceremonial event; far from it. Whose arm had he twisted to get Dr Max’s seat? And was that another row of medals he’d awarded himself on his Governor’s tunic? As he turned to her with his Jolly Jack grin and a waggish shake of the head, she noticed that the grey strands in his eyebrows had finally turned black. ‘Wouldn’t miss the fun for anything,’ he said. ‘Not that I’d like to be in your shoes.’

  She ignored him. Once she might have bridled; now it didn’t matter. Executive control was what counted. And if he wanted to play games … Well, she could halve the horse-power of his landau, rescind the armagnac clause in his contract, or tag him like Dingle the Woolly Steer. Sir Jack was an anachronism. Martha leaned forward to watch the action.

  Colonel Michael ‘Mad Mike’ Michaelson had been a private fitness trainer with stuntman experience before being recruited to lead the Island SAS. The rest of his unit included gymnasts, security guards, bouncers, athletes, and ballet dancers. Their shared lack of military experience was no hindrance in their biweekly restaging of the Iranian Embassy Siege of 1980, which demanded agility, eye, and rope technique, plus a capacity to emote roughly as the stun grenades went off. But this was a new test, and as Mad Mike briefed his men in a hastily-bulldozed piece of dead ground just in front of row AA, he had authentic professional anxieties. Not about the outcome: the Merrie Men would cooperate just as the occupants of the Ir
anian Embassy regularly did. What worried him was that without rehearsals, the show might not have a true enough look to it.

  Even he knew that in military terms a daylight assault on the mouth of a cave was absurd. The best way to take out Hood and the Band – that is, if they were really giving aggravation – would be to go in through the service entrance at dead of night with ramrods and searchlights. But provided everyone played along, he thought he could make it all quite pretty.

  As at the Siege, an induction loop allowed the audience to eavesdrop by headset. Mad Mike explained his plan, backing his words with expansive gestures. The two combat groups, in full blackface, listened histrionically while continuing their preparations: one sharpening a large Bowie knife, another easing the pin on a stun-grenade, two more checking the resilience of nylon cable. The Colonel finished his briefing with terse exhortations to discipline and control, from which all military expletives had been deleted; then with an outflung arm and a cry of ‘Go, go, GO!’ despatched the sextet known as A-Group.

  The grandstand watched contentedly and with a sense of familiarity bordering on actual knowledge as A-Group split into two, disappeared into the woods, then swung down on an instantly plausible pulley system from treetops to the roof of the Cave. Listening devices were attached to the rock surface, a microphone lowered into the Cave’s mouth, and two SAS men began abseiling down each side of the Hood condo.

  A-Group had just confirmed its position when a chuckle spread across the bleachers. Friar Tuck had emerged from the Cave carrying a pair of long-handled pruning shears. After much gagging, he snipped through the dangling cord, picked it up, and tossed it towards the spectators. Ignoring this gross and unscripted piece of scene-stealing, Mad Mike led members of B-Group in an elbows-and-knees monkey-crawl across the open ground. In the best traditions of military thespianry, they wore leafy branches attached to their woollen balaclavas.