Kingdom Come: A Novel

by Ballard, J. G.

  When I reached the kiosk he was lying on the ground and being viciously kicked by the marshals. Blood poured from his nose and left ear. I recognized Duncan Christie, striking the marble floor with his chin as if in an epileptic fit. Carradine was stamping on Christie’s hands, and pointing frantically at the microphone that swung from its cord, almost mesmerized by this threat to the Metro-Centre. He had lost his peaked cap, but a small boy in a sailor suit found it among the swirl of feet and handed it back to him. Carradine placed it defiantly on his head, momentarily disoriented.

  ‘Tom, take it easy . . .’ I held his shoulders, trying to calm the confused manager, then waved the marshals away from Christie. ‘It’s a prank—no one’s hurt.’

  The marching bands filled the air, and the crowd pressed through the doors, Christie’s slogan already forgotten. Winded and bruised, the blood from his nose pooling on the marble floor, Christie lifted himself onto his knees. He looked up at me and nodded warningly, as if willing me to turn back from the Metro-Centre.

  One of the marshals leaned down and bellowed into his face. Christie raised a hand to quieten him, then twisted away and lunged towards me, arms outstretched to seize my shoulders.

  Carradine and the marshals threw themselves on him, struggling to control his long, violent body, skin and ragged clothes slippery with dirt and grease. They kicked his feet from under him, but as fists jarred his forehead an arm reached out to me. He seized my left hand and pressed a hot stone into my palm.

  As Christie was dragged through the crowd I opened my hand, shielding it from any curious gaze.

  Lying in my palm was a live round of ammunition.

  WEIGHING THE ROUND in my hand, I moved through the entrance hall and mounted the travelator to the central atrium. After the moments of ugly violence, the air in the Metro-Centre was pleasantly cool and scented. The ambient sound system played a pleasant melody of marching songs, a sweetened reworking in the Mantovani idiom of the Horst Wessel song and the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves. The music was distant and unobtrusive, but almost everyone was in step.

  Still shaken by the brutal attack on Christie, I held the bullet up to the light. I tried to read the symbols stamped on the base of the cartridge. Christie had fought to press the round into my hand, but his message was of the rather oblique kind that he favoured. I doubted if he was threatening me. At the same time this gift of a bullet, probably of the same type that had killed my father, carried a clear signal from Christie, and not one that I wanted to hear . . .

  IN THE CENTRE of the atrium the three giant bears stood on their podium, paws beating time to the music, an amiable trio whose button eyes saw nothing and everything. In their toylike way they displayed a touching serenity. At their feet were more offerings of honey and treacle, and several ‘diaries’ penned by admirers which detailed their imaginary lives. In a light-hearted moment David Cruise had suggested a commercial in which he attacked the bears and chopped off their heads, but I had vetoed this. For one thing, the bears reminded me of all the toys never given to me during my childhood.

  I climbed the stairs to the mezzanine studio where Cruise was conducting his afternoon discussion programme. The open deck was filled with visitors, as close to Cruise as the tighter security allowed. I found a chair in the exhibition area and watched a monitor screen relaying the last exchanges of the programme.

  Cruise was tieless, dressed in the shabby black suit and tired white shirt that was now his trademark, an ensemble I had based on the costume worn by the doomed heroes of gangster films, desperate men on the verge of madness. Cruise had lost weight, and his signature tan was whitened down by the make-up department, giving him a hungry and martyred gaze, the fugitive messiah of the shopping malls.

  Cruise was holding forth to his circle of docile and obedient housewives.

  ‘. . . “community”, Angela? That’s a word I hate. It’s the kind of word used by snobby, upper-class folk who want to put ordinary people in their place. Community means living in a little box, driving a little car, going on little holidays. It means obeying the rules that “they” tell you to obey. Sheila, you don’t agree? Frankly, the hell with you. Go back to your little box and polish your little dinette. Community? I know what an Asian community is. I know what a Muslim community is. We all know, don’t we? Yes . . . I hate community. For me, the only real community is the one we’ve built here at the Metro-Centre. That’s what I believe in. The sports teams, the supporters’ clubs, the gold-card loyalty nights. Sheila? Just shut up. I want to say something that’s going to shock you. Ready? When I leave here and go home, how do I feel? Betty, I’ll tell you. I feel lonely. Maybe I drink too much and feel too sorry for myself. I miss you girls. Sheila, Angela, Doreen, and everyone watching. I miss your mad questions and your crazy, beautiful dreams. I have these odd ideas—yes, Sheila, those too—I want to tear down the old world and build a new order, something like the one we’re building together inside the Metro-Centre. I know I’m right, I know we can bring a new world to life. It’s started here inside the Metro-Centre, but it’s spreading all over the real England. If you can smell the motorway you’re in the real England. You can feel it, can’t you, Cathy? Deep inside you. No, not there, Sheila. Come and see me later and we’ll find it. Yes, I’m lonely, I don’t sleep well, part of me, frankly, is a little bit bonkers. But I’m right, I’ve seen the future and I believe. I want to do things even I can’t mention. I need you all, and I need you here . . .’

  The peroration wound to its climax, as the key camera closed in on Cruise’s haggardly handsome face. The producer made his windup signal, the housewives sank back, looking stunned, and Cruise disconnected his microphone and dashed for his dressing room.

  Within seconds, phone calls, emails and text messages would arrive from viewers desperate to help Cruise assuage his demons. There would be invitations to barbecues, honorary memberships of sports clubs, heartfelt ‘please, please’ calls. More recruits would pour in, drawn towards the Metro-Centre. This was a political movement, but one without any supporting bureaucracy of placemen and jobsworths. The will to power came from the bottom up, from a thousand checkouts and consumer aisles. The promises were visible and within arm’s reach in the displays of merchandise. Cruise’s obsessions and sexual hang-ups were the compass-dance of a demented king bee, guiding the hive to a destination it had already chosen. His chat-show act, based on scripts I tailored around him, might be a performance, but it validated the hunger and restlessness of his audience. The housewives mailing their photographs to him were performing rituals of assent, expressing their longing for a faith beyond politics.

  I walked between the cameras as the crew shut down their equipment, complimented the producer and his assistant on another superb effort, then let myself into Cruise’s dressing room.

  He lay back in front of the picture window that overlooked the central atrium, generously saluting any concourse visitors who waved to him.

  ‘Richard! Did you see the show?’

  ‘You were great. Lonely, lost, angry. More than a hint of the mentally deranged. I almost believed you.’

  ‘It’s all true. I wasn’t acting.’ He sat up and grasped my hands. ‘I’m finding myself out there. I’m laying myself bare, tearing shreds off my flesh, letting the blood trickle over the mike. Things I didn’t know about myself. God, the stuff waiting to come out. All the psychic shit backed up for years.’

  ‘Don’t hold it in. People need that stuff. It’s pure gold.’

  ‘You think so? Really?’ He waited until I nodded vigorously. ‘I’m going mad so they can stay sane.’

  ‘The show’s over. Try to take it easy.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He lay back and raised his hand, waiting for me to pass him his glass of vodka and tonic. ‘It takes me a while to land. I have to fly so high, there’s some strange weather up there. I spent years humiliating my guests and got nowhere. Now I humiliate myself and I’m a huge success. What do you make of that?’

  ‘It
’s the air we breathe.’

  ‘You’re right.’ He pointed to a reproduction on his dressing table of one of Francis Bacon’s screaming popes, as if recognizing himself in this demented pontiff who had glimpsed the void hidden within the concept of God. On a bizarre impulse I had given the reproduction to Cruise, and he had taken a keen interest in it. ‘Richard, tell me again—what exactly is he screaming at?’

  ‘Existence. He’s realized there is no God and mankind is free. Whatever free means. Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine. I know the feeling. Sometimes . . .’

  Still holding the glass of vodka, ready to place it in Cruise’s limply hanging paw, I sat in the armchair next to the sofa, the position of an analyst listening to a disturbed patient. These chat-show performances were changing Cruise. He had begun to resemble the distraught heroes he played in the commercials. His face was thinner and more angular, and he had the ashy pallor of a hostage released after years of captivity.

  ‘So, Richard. Sold your flat? Goodbye Chelsea, goodbye all those nancy dinner parties. You’re part of Brooklands now, you’re committed to the Metro-Centre. We’ll put you on salary.’

  ‘Well, not a good idea.’

  ‘I won’t order you around. Anyway, you’ve earned it. Sales and viewing figures are up, and that’s not just the Metro-Centre. It’s all along the M25. There’s something new out there, and I’m giving it to them.’

  ‘Something violent. That frightens me a little.’

  ‘I feel for you, Richard. Sitting for years behind a big desk in Berkeley Square, you still believe in the human race. People like violence. It stirs the blood, speeds the pulse. Violence is the best way of controlling them, making sure that things don’t get really out of hand.’

  ‘They have already. These attacks on Asians and asylum seekers, the fiery crosses in front gardens. You didn’t want all that, David. Some of these supporters are using the sports rallies as a cover for racist attacks. Setting fire to streets of houses. It’s ethnic cleansing.’

  ‘Street theatre, Richard. Just street theatre. Maybe I wind them up a little, but the crowds want blood. They believe in the Metro-Centre, and the Asians don’t come here. They have a parallel economy. They’ve excluded themselves, and they’re paying the price.’

  ‘Even so. Can you talk to the chief marshals? Try to calm things down?’

  ‘Right. I’ll see what I can do.’ Bored by this talk and my wheedling voice, Cruise sat up and waved away the glass of vodka. ‘Think of them as skid marks, Richard. Roadkill. But we have to keep driving. Remember—“Mad is bad. Bad is good”?’

  ‘I meant it. I still do.’

  ‘Good. Maybe we need to go further, engine up the product a little. I could talk more about my alcoholism and drug use.’

  ‘You’re not an alcoholic. You’re not a drug user.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’ Cruise watched me patiently. ‘Alcoholism, drug addiction. They’re today’s equivalent of military service. They give you a kind of . . .’

  ‘Man-to-man authenticity?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Cruise raised a forefinger, calling me to attention. ‘Take sex compulsion. I’ve been looking at that book you gave me.’

  ‘Krafft-Ebing?’

  ‘That’s the one. It’s full of ideas. We could slip one or two into the programme, see how the sofa ladies react.’

  ‘They’d have a heart attack.’ Trying to reassert my control, I stood up and turned my back to the picture window and the shoppers waving from the floor of the atrium. ‘Be careful people don’t start to pity you. It’s far better if they fear you. Don’t give too much away. Be more punitive, more demanding.’

  ‘The stick, not the carrot?’

  ‘Be more mysterious. Get rid of the Lincoln. It’s too American, too show business.’

  ‘Hey! I love that car.’

  ‘Swap it for a black Mercedes. A black stretch Merc with tinted windows. Aggressive but paranoid. At the same time make it clear you’re manipulating their emotions. Make shopping an emotionally insecure experience. Forget value for money, good buys, all that liberal middle-class rubbish. We want bad buys. Try to touch their unease, their dislike of all those people who look down on consumerism.’

  ‘The old-style county set? I like that.’

  ‘Another point.’ I circled the sofa, apparently deep in thought. ‘You need your audience, but now and then deride them. You despise them, but you need them. Play the unpredictable parent. Invent some new enemies. Tell people to join a consumer club at the Metro-Centre if they want to be part of their real family. Defend the mall is the message.’

  ‘Defend the mall.’ Cruise nodded solemnly. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Tell people to join the gold-card evenings, the discount shopping nights when they can go on TV. Keep them on their toes with the threat of withholding affection. Treat them like children—it’s what they really want.’

  ‘They are children!’ Cruise threw his hands in the air, then gave a middle-finger salute to the picture window. ‘I love it, Richard. I’m glad we talked this through. You can feel it happening—MPs are phoning up to help, they say they want to be part of the organization. I tell them there is no organization! Even the BBC offered me a show.’

  ‘You declined?’

  ‘Of course. People here would cut off my balls.’

  ‘We don’t want that . . . What would Cory and Imelda think?’

  Laughing at this reference to his Filipina maids, Cruise stood up and patted me on the back. A red star pulsed on his control panel, and he saluted smartly. ‘Right. Rehearsal for the evening show. Stay to watch?’

  ‘I’ll get home and catch it there. I’m still settling in.’

  ‘Take your time.’ Cruise followed me to the door, an arm around my shoulders. ‘Someone told me you were off to London again.’

  ‘News to me. When?’

  ‘This Home Office delegation. Julia Goodwin, Maxted, Sangster. They want more police involved in our lives.’

  ‘That’s the middle-class way.’

  ‘You’re not going?’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘Good. The Metro-Centre is your real home, Richard. Your father would have understood that.’

  I LEFT THE dome by one of the side exits and joined the late-afternoon crowd that filled the plaza outside the Metro-Centre. Three separate rallies were taking place. Marching bands stamped and wheeled, supporters’ clubs cheered the high-stepping majorettes. The motorway towns were out for the day, small children on their fathers’ shoulders, teenage girls in saucy gangs. Families glowed with health and optimism, cheering and clapping in rhythm. I still assumed that I was part of a merchandising operation that was ringing all the tills in the Thames Valley, but something far larger was under way, a new kind of England that was disciplined, proud and content. The burning Asian houses belonged to another country.

  26

  A BULLET IN THE HAND

  I DROVE BACK to my father’s flat, ready to shower and wash away the cloying scent of the dome’s sterilized atmosphere. A fire engine blocked the access lane, reversing slowly towards the avenue. I shouted to one of the firemen, but he was intent on manoeuvring the huge vehicle. A tang of seared paint and charred plastic filled the air, seeping into the privet hedges and touched by a third ingredient that reminded me of a butcher’s shop.

  I waited until the fire engine reached the avenue, and drove down the exhaust-filled lane, followed by an ambulance with its lights flashing in my rear-view mirror. Two police cars and a breakdown truck were parked in front of the flats. The building was intact, residents watching from their windows as a group of my neighbours were questioned by a woman police officer.

  I parked by the refuse bins, letting the ambulance drive up to the entrance. Crime-scene tapes surrounded a small Fiat, which sat on flattened tyres, retardant foam deliquescing on the gravel like crab spawn on a beach. Police engineers shackled a steel cable to the car, ready to winch it onto the loader.
r />   I walked towards the entrance, waving to my neighbours, who as usual failed to respond. The glass door was starred by a bullet hole, and a pool of blood covered the tiles. Above my head a window closed sharply, and an elderly couple speaking to the police officer fell silent when I approached. Frowning at me, they stepped back, as if I were returning a little too early to the scene of my crime.

  ‘Keep back. Mr Pearson, can you hear me?’

  I turned to find Sergeant Mary Falconer warning me away from the blood-soaked tiles. She stood so close to me that I could smell the powder on her face. She scrutinized me warily, as if searching for a pointer to the violent crime that had reached the doors of this once peaceful enclave.

  ‘Sergeant? I didn’t see you. This car . . . ?’

  ‘It’s all over. There’s no danger of fire. Can I ask what you’re doing here?’

  Her chin was raised, eyes narrowed as she looked down her nose at me. I could tell that she had changed sides since the Metro-Centre bomb. I remembered how she had almost fainted after hearing that Geoffrey Fairfax had been killed. She had been closely involved with Fairfax and Tony Maxted, but her crisp manner made it clear that this belonged to the past. The faction in the Brooklands police who had allied themselves to this odd clique had gone to ground, and I assumed that Superintendent Leighton was climbing a different corner of the cat’s cradle of local politics, and had taken Sergeant Falconer with him. Had she once had an affair with Geoffrey Fairfax? I doubted it, though this rather frozen woman with her always immaculate make-up probably needed to feel subservient to a powerful man.

  ‘Mr Pearson!’

  ‘What am I doing here? This is where I live. I’ve moved into my father’s flat.’

  ‘I know that.’ She was more aggressive than I recalled, shoulders squared and head canted to one side as if ready to push me into the flowerbed. ‘Why are you here now?’