Troublemakers

by Catherine Barter

  I’m wondering if I have ever been in that Tesco’s. I am imagining smashed vegetables and tins of soup and bodies on the floor. Wondering if there was a bomb just lying in the middle of aisle five or if it was behind the cereal boxes or what. Wondering if this will go on for ever and we will all be always just waiting for the next one.

  Chris Mahoney says, ‘Obviously, Sophie, we can’t get any closer than this but I can tell you that I have seen a number of superficial injuries and – but obviously at this stage we are just waiting for more information—’

  Danny has stopped watching. He gets his phone from his jacket pocket and goes back into the hall with it. I follow him.

  ‘Are you calling Nick?’ I say. He nods, phone pressed to his ear.

  ‘Nick would never shop in Tesco’s,’ I tell him, and then someone obviously answers and Danny says, voice flat with relief, ‘Hey, it’s me – I was just making sure – Have you seen the – yeah. I know. OK.’

  ‘Can I talk to him?’ I say, holding out my hand. Danny shakes his head.

  ‘Yeah. That’s Lena. She’s here, she’s – no, she wouldn’t answer, I’ve still got her phone.’

  ‘Please,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says to Nick. ‘I know. OK. All right.’

  ‘Danny.’

  ‘No, that’s all.’

  ‘Danny, please—’

  ‘Fine. Here.’ He hands me the phone and goes back to the office.

  ‘Alena,’ says Nick, sounding far away. ‘Before you say anything, I know all about your little Clapham adventure and I’m just as angry as Danny so don’t even try—’

  He doesn’t sound angry. He just sounds tired. ‘Are you watching the news?’ I say.

  ‘I’ve just switched it off. You shouldn’t watch it either.’

  ‘Danny made me come to work with him.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Can you come and get me?’

  He goes silent, so I say, ‘Are you at the shop?’

  ‘No, I’m at home.’

  ‘At home?’

  ‘I mean at Adam’s. Sorry. Not at home.’

  I bite my lip. There’s a red light blinking on the photocopier to say that there’s a paper jam. ‘Nick, this isn’t fair.’

  More silence, and I hear him sigh. ‘Do you want me to come and get you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me speak to Danny again.’

  ‘He’s not here. He’s gone back to work.’

  ‘Well, I need to talk to him before I—’

  ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘You know what, never mind. I’ll stay here.’

  ‘Lena.’

  I hang up the phone and immediately feel like a brat, want to call him back and say sorry and tell him not to go to any supermarkets today but I don’t.

  Like that time I smashed a glass on the kitchen floor, I feel strange and absent, vaguely out of control.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The meeting with the bus drivers is cancelled. Everybody makes a lot of phone calls. I stand in front of the office window and press my forehead against the glass. The street outside is quiet – no cars or dogs or anything – and the row of beautiful white terraces opposite all look like they’re empty. Dark, curtainless windows and no movement.

  Here’s what I am thinking about. I am thinking about my mum at nineteen. Only four years older than me and she had a baby. Imagine that. I think of her with her curly hair and a baby in a sling, imagine her in dungarees and a bandanna, her and her friends with a rainbow banner saying Women Against the Bomb, shouting at the police. I’ve made this picture up. What else can I do. I have a twenty-second video and a torn-up postcard. But I can imagine: wet grass and mud, sleeping in a tent and sharing their food. The baby crying. She is brave. Wild and very strong. Determined. She doesn’t watch television helplessly, turning if off when things are too bad. The world is a thing that she thinks she can change. She sleeps with men and forgets their names. She loves her friends most of all. She has a best friend, like I do. They are inseparable. She is nineteen. She has a baby. She is never lonely. She is not interested in being safe. She is part of something. She’s alive: wet grass between her toes, heart beating and neurons firing, breath clouding the morning air, baby crying for her. She is needed. She is doing something. That’s what I’m thinking.

  I’m spacing out. Danny is talking to me. ‘Lena. Alena. Are you listening to me?’

  ‘What?’ I turn round. He’s standing with his arms folded, tie loosened.

  ‘I don’t want you to go anywhere. All right? You’re staying here.’ He looks at Leila. ‘I don’t want her to go out.’

  ‘Lockdown,’ says Leila. ‘Got it.’

  ‘We’ll be an hour. Two hours, maybe. That’s it.’

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Do you listen to anything I say?’ says Danny.

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘We’re going to go and meet with Jake. He’s on the other side of town. There’s a taxi on its way.’

  ‘Can’t he come here?’

  ‘He needs to stay where the cameras are,’ says Will. He appears behind Danny wearing a black wool coat that looks expensive.

  The whole office is overheated and my eyes feel dry and tired, my skin prickly. There is black ink from the photocopier smeared on my jeans and Will in his super-smart office clothes makes me feel uncomfortable. I ignore him and look at Danny.

  ‘Is it, like.’ I start and then I stop. ‘Is anybody worried there’ll be another one?’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ says Danny.

  ‘No, they’ll catch him,’ says Leila. She’s at her desk. She looks up at me and smiles. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll catch him now.’

  ‘Right,’ says Danny. ‘No, that’s right. They probably will catch him now.’

  ‘I need my phone back. In case there’s an emergency.’

  Danny considers this and then says, ‘Yeah, all right.’

  He has never been very good at punishment. He always loses the heart for it too quickly. He takes it out of his bag and hands it over. I have six messages, all from Teagan, and a missed call from Nick, earlier this morning.

  ‘Would you like something to do?’ Will glances at his watch, and turns to Danny. ‘Would she like something to do?’

  Neither of us answer but Will doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He crosses the room and logs in to one of the computers, swivels the screen round to face me.

  ‘We had a volunteer doing our press clippings for us but he hasn’t shown up all week. We like to keep track of all the mentions Jake’s getting in the press. Good, bad, indifferent, whatever.’

  I stay where I am for a few moments and then I realise I’m supposed to be shown something, so I have to drag another chair over to the computer.

  ‘We’ve got news alerts set up for his name,’ Will says, ‘and for a few other things we think are relevant. A news alert is—’

  ‘I know what a news alert is.’

  ‘Oh. Well. Good.’

  His smile is a bit stiff, then. The job he gives me is finding and printing out every mention of Jacob Carlisle in the London media for the last week, and filing them in date order. This sounds like a colossal waste of time and paper to me, and it takes me a huge effort to say, ‘OK. All right. Thanks.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother, if I were you,’ says Leila when they’re gone. ‘No one reads our press clippings. Will shouldn’t be giving you work, anyway. It’s a little exploitative.’

  ‘I don’t really have anything else to do.’

  ‘Here.’ Leila takes a copy of Cosmopolitan out of her desk drawer and throws it to me. ‘Read something trivial. Don’t think about bombs.’

  I print out two Jacob Carlisle articles just so it looks like I’ve made some kind of effort. Then I check the news. It says there are four people confirmed injured.

  I read an article in Cosmopolitan about face contouring which is apparently a thing.

  A little later, I’m checking the new
s again and I realise I’m still working on Will’s computer log-in when a little alert pops up in the corner of the screen: You have a new message. Without really meaning to, I click it, and his email client opens up. I jump back a little bit, like the time me and Teagan accidentally found porn on a computer at school – but you can’t not look at something when it’s right in front of you, so, after glancing over at Leila who is on the phone again, I read the message. It’s from Jacob Carlisle. It says: Have to agree – thanks for your work today. JC.

  I guess Will and Danny must be on their way back to the office. I scroll idly down to see what the message is replying to. Will’s original email is underneath.

  Jake,

  Confirming 8.30 meeting with Shannon Lees on Monday. Leila – cc’d – please put in diary.

  After today we can expect another busy week ahead. The ee-bomber is clearly on our side – 1st explosion was great timing, so is this one. Maybe you should thank him in your victory speech?!!

  Will

  I stare at this for a few minutes, feeling my headache starting to creep back. Leila is talking on the phone, peeling another orange. ‘He’d be very happy to talk to you,’ she’s saying. ‘Can we do that early next week?’

  I read it again. Maybe you should thank him in your victory speech.

  In one of the articles I’ve just printed out, a columnist is saying how Jacob Carlisle is the only politician who seems to truly understand the mood of shock and fear. A widower himself, it says, he speaks to a frightened electorate with compassion. There was a picture of him. Blue eyes, serious face. I thought about that, while I was reading it. Whether he spoke to people with compassion. I thought, well, maybe he does.

  Underneath there was the lovely smiling photo of Eduardo Capello and his baby daughter, which they still print all the time, any chance they can, like they know how upsetting it is.

  His baby daughter, I think. His pet fish.

  It feels like my blood is rising, thumping in my ears. I imagine Jacob Carlisle talking to people – right now, tomorrow, all week – saying how devastating it all is and if people vote for him he’ll make them safe. Him and Will laughing together at the end of the day, looking at poll results in their expensive coats. It’s not just that they don’t care that somebody died: they’re happy about it. Because it gets them attention. It gets them power. They’re probably hoping that it happens again.

  The next thing I do is click forward. Then I enter Mike’s email address.

  Dear Mike, I write at the top. I saw this accidentally.

  I look at the screen. This could be faked, I think. It wouldn’t be hard to fake a forwarded email. But there’s nothing I can do about that.

  I stop for a long time thinking what else I want to say and in the end I just write: You should put it in the paper. Don’t tell Danny. Love, Alena.

  I click, send.

  Then I go into the sent mail folder and delete it. Then I mark Jake’s reply as unread. Then I shut down his email client and shut down the whole computer and wipe my hands on my jeans and nearly jump out of my skin when Leila touches my shoulder and says, ‘God, are you OK? You were miles away. You’ve gone white as a sheet, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I think I need some fresh air,’ I say, faintly, and she pulls me out of the chair saying, ‘Fresh air, got it. White as a sheet, Alena, you’re not going to pass out, are you? What’s your brother going to say to me? It’s the heating, isn’t it, for some reason it’s permanently set to keep us all roasting—’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  Outside, Leila says, ‘I used to pass out all the time when I was your age. I went to a girls’ school and we used to drop like flies. I think it was contagious. Are you feeling better?’

  We are on the steps outside the office and the air is cool and damp. I hug my knees against my chest and look at the ragged laces on my Converse. When I don’t answer, Leila says, ‘Do you want me to call your brother? I’m sure he’ll be back any minute.’

  It’s hard to concentrate on what she’s saying. I’m thinking: If Mike is like everybody else in the world, then he checks his email every five minutes, and he will have already read it.

  ‘Alena?’

  ‘No. Don’t call him. I’m fine. I’m sorry. I’m totally fine.’

  She pauses. Then nods. ‘I’ll make some tea in a minute. Or I could go on a coffee run. There’s a Starbucks around the corner. You probably don’t drink coffee. Do you drink coffee?’

  ‘I like chai lattes,’ I say. My voice has disappeared and it comes out almost a whisper.

  ‘Chai lattes. Got it. I’ll go in a minute.’ She still looks concerned. ‘You know,’ she says. ‘He talks about you all the time. How bright you are and everything. It’s really sweet.’

  There’s a watery afternoon sun casting long shadows down the road and I turn and squint at her. ‘Danny does?’

  ‘Of course he does. Alena this, Alena that. I’m sure you’d be embarrassed.’

  I don’t know what to say to this.

  She smiles at me. ‘Alena’s such a pretty name.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Thanks. It’s OK. People pronounce it wrong.’

  ‘I love it. It really suits you. Did it come from anywhere special?’

  ‘I don’t know. No one’s ever told me.’

  ‘It’s not a family name or something?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I look down at my shoes again. ‘My mum’s dead,’ I say. Which is a stupid thing to say. I don’t know why I say it. It sounds stupid and overdramatic, like it just happened yesterday.

  ‘I know,’ says Leila. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I nod. I try to say thanks, but my mouth is really dry and instead I just sit there nodding like an idiot, thinking about what it’s supposed to mean when people say I’m sorry.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  When Danny gets back he knows something’s wrong with me straight away. He thinks I’m upset about the bombing. Which I am, I guess, and he keeps telling me that it’s OK and no one was really hurt this time, which is apparently true, and they’ll definitely get the guy because they’ve got more CCTV footage, and it’s clearly all taking him this huge effort because being optimistic and reassuring is really more Nick’s style, and in fact I think Danny would just like for us all to go home and lock the doors and stay inside for ever.

  He stands outside the office on the steps for a while, talking on the phone. I watch him through the window and I can tell he’s talking to Nick. I can just tell from his expression, from the way the phone is tucked between his ear and his shoulder.

  They are no good at being apart. They are like Danny trying to give out punishment. No staying power.

  When he comes back in, he says, ‘Do you still want to stay over at Teagan’s this evening?’

  ‘I thought I wasn’t allowed,’ I say.

  ‘You’re allowed now,’ he says, and I look at him and think, If you knew what I’ve just done.

  When Danny drops me at her house it’s evening, and getting dark, and Ollie is standing outside her door looking at his phone.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I say, walking up the drive towards him.

  ‘Teagan invited me over.’

  ‘So why are you standing outside?’

  ‘I was just texting her.’

  ‘Why don’t you just knock on the door?’

  ‘I dunno,’ he says. ‘In case her parents answer.’

  ‘Who cares if—’

  ‘I don’t know what they’re like.’

  ‘They’re fine,’ I say. ‘They’re like normal people.’ Although actually I think they probably would make Ollie nervous if he was alone with them. They’re always very present when people are at their house: asking a lot of questions and offering snacks like sliced carrots and mineral water.

  ‘Have you been watching the news?’ says Ollie. ‘Pretty fucked up, right? Can you believe they still haven’t—’

 
Teagan flings open her front door, then, and stands looking at us. She’s wearing purple socks and cut-off jeans. ‘Why are you two just standing out here?’ she says, frowning. ‘Are you coming in?’ Almost immediately her dad appears in the hall behind her, holding a bowl of olives. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Welcome!’

  There’s supposed to be a meteor shower that one of our teachers has told us to watch, so after Ollie gets awkwardly introduced to Teagan’s parents, we all go and sit out in the garden and look at the sky. As usual you can’t see a thing because of the city lights. Ollie has to borrow Teagan’s dad’s coat because it gets cold, and when her mum and dad go out somewhere Teagan steals some whiskey from their drinks cabinet, pouring it into three plastic cups, and we drink it looking up at the bright burned-out sky.

  I tell them what I did. When I look at them Ollie is staring at me with his eyes slightly wide, an expression that I choose to interpret as respect or possibly awe, and for a moment I feel good, proud of myself. But Teagan is looking alarmed.

  ‘Not that this Will person doesn’t sound like a creep,’ she says, ‘but aren’t you worried you’re going to get Danny into trouble?’

  I stare at her. ‘Danny had nothing to do with it,’ I say.

  ‘But won’t people think that he—’

  ‘If anybody gets in trouble it’s going to be me. If Mike tells him—’

  ‘Yeah, but Lena, that’s where Danny works, won’t people think—’

  ‘Why do you care so much about Danny?’ I say irritably. ‘I thought it was Nick you had a crush on.’

  Teagan looks confused for a second, then hurt, then gets up to go and get snacks from inside, saying, ‘All right, never mind then.’

  I feel bad. The whiskey is making me feel sick.

  Ollie is staring in to his plastic cup with his shoulders hunched up.

  ‘Ollie,’ I say. ‘What’s your first memory?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘What’s the first thing you can remember? Can you remember being really little?’

  ‘I dunno,’ says Ollie, and then, ‘My dad took me to the beach once and we got lost in the fog. I remember that.’