The Freedom Building

by Martin Kendall

  Pete raised his manicured eyebrows and looked down at the table: ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea. I’ll make sure your name is included properly in the interview.’

  On the way back to his office – a distance of just a few metres – the colours and textures of the white drawing boards, the young faces of his employees and the cheap brown carpet seemed unreal, even malevolent. The air, too, seemed vaguely poisonous. He wondered what they all thought of him, coming into the office and not working on the building directly. In future, John would have to involve himself more with the building in innovative ways, because he needed to feel more connected to this world as the Zenith architect.

  Protestors didn’t get in John’s way as he parked next to luxurious cars at the Zenith temporary offices. Cordoned off by security guards, they chanted:

  ‘Down with Zenith!’

  ‘Sack Wilkinson Junior!’

  ‘The Palestinians have a right to their land!’

  Some were of Middle Eastern complexion, and others were white. There were reporters and television cameras, too. John neglected to look into the faces of any of them, not through fear but lack of interest or, rather, a distracted mind. Arrangements for the anniversary would be made today between him, Pete and Zenith. As things stood, Pete would be doing the television interview whereas John would be at City Square for the Memorial Service.

  A tall security man escorted John alongside the curved mirrored building that gleamed in the evening light, and he held the central glass door open. In the reception area, the dingy light and eerie silence, after hearing the shouts outside, reminded him of last time: of how he had feared the newspaper interview. Now, he feared meeting Wilkinson for the first time: a man he knew exclusively from the amnesiac period. He’d seen him at a couple of Chamber of Commerce meetings before the amnesia and, more recently, from television interviews and newspaper photographs, though that was hardly a consolation.

  The lift felt unreal. The grey metallic doors seemed to lose a kind of focus, so did time, itself, and he suddenly wondered how long he’d been inside. The door opened at floor number nine, and he stepped quickly across the threshold into the reception area. To his right, the same young, blond man as before sat behind the desk.

  ‘Are you alright, Mr Gowan?’

  ‘Of course, why do you ask?’

  ‘I thought I heard shouting, coming from the lift. It has been known to get stuck between floors from time to time.’

  ‘No,’ John said, ‘there was no shouting.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The corridor loomed into the distance as he began his trek. Like before, there was a feeling of unjustified space in relation to the size of the building outside as the corridor curved around the bend. The regal red carpet felt buoyant and out of keeping with the cheap white doors and greyish walls either side that had the cork notice-boards and bland pictures of vegetation. The darkly varnished door that he expected to see eventually appeared in the middle distance as before. As he approached and touched the golden handle, muffled voices emanated from inside.

  ‘Gowan!’ cried Mann, who stood in the centre of the room, holding a sherry glass and grinning broadly.

  ‘Hi, John,’ Pete said, standing next to Mann. His deep, nasal voice was, in fact, the opposite of Mann’s powerful and relatively high-pitched voice.

  John instantly felt indignant that Pete had arrived first as if he were the true representative of Gowan Partnerships. It was true that Pete did, naturally, liaise a lot more with Zenith and that he was the resident architect at the site signing stage inspection reports and what have you but, in truth, it should be John’s job.

  ‘Mr Gowan,’ an American voice said, smooth as silk.

  John turned with fright.

  A small man with silver hair, blue eyes and an immaculate grey suit walked from the window that faced the city, around the large oak desk and held out his hand: ‘It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’

  John recognised him to be Mr Wilkinson and shook his hand with a smile: ‘Yes, it has.’

  ‘About a year ago in this very room, wasn’t it?’

  John pretended to search his memory for a moment, then nodded: ‘I think it was, yes.’

  ‘Or was it at the restaurant with Mann?’

  John felt anxious and pretended to try to remember again. The other two men were silent and, in this short moment of quietness, he feared that Mann and Pete suspected his amnesia and had told Wilkinson who was now testing him, but Wilkinson then shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said, pausing and sipping his sherry, ‘I think you’re right. I think it was here.’ He exuded a calm, understated presence, but there was an inherent control in his demeanour which demanded courtesy and respect. ‘Did you get mobbed by the protesters downstairs? I’ve been watching them from up here.’

  ‘No, I managed to get through them okay.’ John’s throat was dry, and he gulped: ‘How long have they been there?’

  ‘Only today. I think they decided to begin demonstrating today, because it’s exactly a week until the Memorial.’

  Since waking in hospital six months ago, John had learnt that the annual Memorial Service, held in City Square outside the Zenith site for the 179 people who died, exacerbated tension in Blanworth. It was seen by some as a publicity stunt by Zenith to promote itself as a company representing the British people: a company that still refused to sack Wilkinson Junior and supplied equipment to the Israeli military. This had led to the terrorist attack which protestors, nevertheless, deplored.

  John, himself, hardly gave the issue much thought, because he’d been too embroiled with his own problems since waking in hospital: ‘Can’t the police move them on?’

  ‘Of course. This is private property,’ Wilkinson said, ‘although it’s not Zenith’s property, of course. We’ve been in contact with the owners, and we all feel that it would be best to let protestors do what they want for a couple of days. The owners like the publicity, because they have other floors to let. Even bad publicity is good publicity, and we want to appear tolerant. Shall we sit down?’

  The men gravitated towards the four leather Queen Anne armchairs situated in the centre of the room – a similar arrangement to last time. Although, instead of water and tea on the glass coffee table in the middle there was a decanter of sherry and finely cut glasses.

  As John sat with the rest of them, he noticed the room appeared distorted and odd, like the last time, as if the regal red walls leaned inwards. On them were equestrian paintings of famous races and military charges, and at each end of the room were broad windows: one, behind Wilkinson’s desk, facing the city, and the other facing the distant countryside where fields demonstrated the flatness of the surrounding area.

  Mann poured John a drink, then picked up a sheet of paper from the table: ‘Okay, gentleman. On the evening of the anniversary, there will be an event at City Square with hundreds of people, as has happened in previous years. On a constructed stage, on chairs arranged in a line will be the Mayor, the local MP, the Bishop of Blanworth, Gowan, a small selection of family members of the deceased, and whomever else, each having a turn to walk to the microphone in the middle of the stage to say a few words. Throughout it, there will be a huge TV screen to the side showing pictures of the deceased. Then, a short service by the Bishop will be followed by a minute’s silence.’

  ‘Gross, isn’t it,’ Wilkinson said, ‘this outpouring of grief once a year. I know we’re partly responsible for the publicity, but every year the Council makes this Memorial bigger and more political.’

  ‘It’ll be a logistics nightmare for the police, as usual,’ Mann said, ‘but they seem to know what they’re doing.’

  John had looked at Mann’s profile on the Internet several months ago to make sure his title of Captain was correct. He had served 25 years in the navy, before retiring. His skills as an organiser and tactician had presumably attracted Wilkinson, in addition to his marriage to a family member.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mann con
tinued, after a slight pause, ‘John will be with me at this event whilst Pete will be doing the television interview.’

  Wilkinson smiled and looked at Pete, evidently pleased with the decision that Pete was doing the interview: ‘You will be talking to the television producer tomorrow. He will give you an idea of the questions you’ll be asked, but I talked to him today, and here’s a brief summary of the interview. You will be questioned first about the building, including its design. Then after a television report about Blanworth, I, the Mayor and the Imam of the Mosque will be introduced into the discussion, during which you will have nothing to say, except answering one or two technical points about the building that may arise. We will make it clear that you are not affiliated with the politics in any way. The producer knows this and understands your concern.’

  John’s unease grew with the way things seemed in the room. He was losing a sense of familiarity with everything, including the people present, as if he didn’t belong here. The elaborate furniture and equestrian paintings appeared threatening, almost as if the horses were intent on running over him, and the photographs of children on Wilkinson’s desk appeared demonic with their wide-faced smiles.

  ‘Will Dianne Fielding be the interviewer?’ Pete asked.

  ‘Yes, just like normal on television. She won’t grill you, though, as she usually does with her guests. She understands you have no political agenda, and you will simply be explaining your building.’

  Pete smiled: ‘Okay, so 43rfv…’

  Pete’s words were becoming indecipherable, and John stopped trying to listen. Otherwise, he would be sucked into an alternative truth: the truth of not belonging here in this present time as architect of the Zenith building. But, as far as John could understand, Pete wasn’t talking about the building, itself, simply the format of the interview.

  ‘… then we will go into the studio,’ Wilkinson said, ‘and tthgse e56gtre %£… you should wear a suit, similar to the one you’re wearing now, although I don’t think fgryt ert… you’ll have to ask them when $3rfv…’

  John perceived that the cause of his affliction now was his not doing the television interview. Pete’s status as joint architect may have helped John in the interview with the reporter and over the subsequent few months, relieving media pressure and responsibility for the building, but now it was exacerbating his problems. Pete’s status had been a temporary solution for avoiding the darkness that lay beneath John’s problems, but avoiding responsibilities for the building and, therefore, not even trying to be his true self ultimately could not win.

  As he pondered this, the room grew more oppressive in form, like a colour television switching to black and white, and he knew he couldn’t continue life in this way, even if it meant risking exposure of his problems to the world. John would either get through the interview and succeed, thus making his just claim to be the Zenith architect a stronger truth, or he would fail and return to wherever the darkness wanted to take him.

  All three men, he realised, were looking at him, as if waiting for him to speak, and he ascertained that one of them must have asked him a question.

  ‘Are you okay, Gowan?’ Mann asked.

  He had to do this interview – impossible, though it might be. His mouth opened, but no words exited.

  ‘Gowan?’ Wilkinson said.

  ‘I’ve been a little worried about him over the past few weeks and months,’ Pete said.

  ‘I’m fine!’ John spurted, gaining excitement and confidence. ‘I just realised, with no disrespect to Pete at all, that, really, I must be the man to do this interview. I know that Pete has had experience doing interviews and has been working as resident architect at the site, but I really must do it.’

  John paused and held out his hands in a welcoming gesture, inviting them to his own understanding: ‘This interview would mean a lot to me because, so far, Pete has been giving interviews on radio, and I think it’s time that I remind people that I am the joint designer. I’d like to tell them my story of how I conceived it.’

  John stopped and hoped he hadn’t sounded too passionate or weird about this television interview, risking exposure of his desperate need to do it. There was silence. Pete appeared shocked and dismayed with his mouth half-open and his eyes, perfectly still, focussed on John.

  Finally, Wilkinson sipped his sherry and then put it on the table: ‘If you feel up to it, well, then you should do it, of course. But it’s between you and Pete, surely.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ John said, ‘I should have talked to Pete earlier, but I hadn’t yet realised how much I wanted to do it. You understand, Pete,’ John said, looking at him, ‘that I’d just like the public to know about me, too, because you’ve been on radio before and had a lot of press.’

  Pete still appeared dumbfounded: ‘Well, er, I…’ He shrugged his shoulders and blinked a couple of times: ‘As the junior partner of Gowan Partnerships, I don’t appear to have any say in the matter.’

  An hour later, after further, detailed discussions about the anniversary, both John and Pete left Wilkinson’s room and walked the curved corridor to the lift in silence. They entered the lift, Pete pressed the silver button, and they began their descent. The plain, grey metal sides seemed utterly different from when John entered hours before. Instead of being claustrophobic and unreal, they appeared bright and exotic, gleaming with an intensity comparable to the sun’s reflection on a hot summer’s day.

  Outside, the protestors were a lot quieter than before. A few were smoking cigarettes, others sitting. One woman shouted, ‘Idiots!’ as they walked alongside the car park. They got into their cars without saying a word to each other and drove away.

  Despite Pete’s obvious anger at John for changing his mind about the television interview, and perhaps also for the insinuation that Pete hadn’t essentially designed the building – when John had said how he, himself, had conceived the building’s design – John knew he had done the right thing. He knew he couldn’t go on with life this way. Either, he would dramatically succeed or dramatically fail, but at least he was now willing to fight. As John drove away, he got a phone call from Mann, asking him if he wanted a chat.

  ‘I hope I didn’t step on your toes,’ Mann said, sitting back with his pint in his hand and surveying the pub.

  They were both sitting at a table next to a window that looked out onto the same road that passed the temporary Zenith offices, just a few buildings away.

  ‘I only phoned Pete first, because I assumed he would be the natural person to do it,’ Mann said, ‘seeing as you haven’t done any interviews on radio and have generally taken a step back from Pete, on matters regarding the building, since construction began. But, of course, I’m happy you’re doing it.’

  John sipped his beer, his second already; he would have to be careful not to drink too much and reveal his amnesia in any part of this conversation.

  ‘I talked to the television producer on the phone, just before I got here,’ Mann said, ‘telling him you will be doing it. As you know, you’ll be answering simple questions that you’ll recognise like the back of your hand, such as why you chose to design the building in the way that you did, and how the initial conception came about in your mind. For instance, how will you answer when the interviewer asks, where on the building eher hhdi 34run…?’

  John began feeling light-headed and stopped listening. The brave enthusiasm of his decision to do the interview had now, predictably, turned to fear. How would he respond to a question in the television interview that may contain information about the building which he couldn’t even hear? It was the same problem he had had with the newspaper interview. Only this time, it would be on live television, and he wouldn’t have Pete to save him. Eventually, Mann’s mouth stopped, indicating John’s turn to speak.

  ‘I think that’s pretty easy. I know how I would answer that.’

  Mann nodded, slowly: ‘Are you sure you’ll be alright for it?’

  ‘Of course. As you say, I haven’t
involved myself much with publicity so far, but that’s only because I haven’t felt the need, what with Pete doing it. But now, I think it’s time to show myself a bit. The last time I was in the news was when I had concussion, and that was hardly a positive story.’

  John remembered what Janice had told him the other night: of him being a different person and free during the amnesiac period. He wondered whether Mann knew anything about him from that time. They would have met during the design development stage: a time when the architect, after his designs are accepted by the client, periodically meets with the client or his representatives to discuss revisions, according to the client’s vision.

  ‘We liaised a lot before construction began, didn’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mann said.

  ‘Did I seem different then?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know, different to now.’

  Mann grinned and lowered his bushy eyebrows: ‘What are you talking about, Gowan? You seemed like you.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Mann laughed: ‘You ask as if you don’t remember that time. You seemed like you, but we didn’t meet socially, like this, away from work, did we?’

  John realised it was futile to ask any more questions about that time. Janice had intimated that only somebody who knew him well could have seen the extraordinary change in him. Mann knew nothing about who he was then or, indeed, who he was now: a person with massive amnesia and an inability to see the building. If he knew, would he – and the television audience – see him as the architect, a man of genius? Or would they see him as a person incapable of designing such a thing?

  Mann’s facial features seemed to become strange and distorted; his moustache lay ominously beneath his nose, as if waiting to slide off his face like a slug and wriggle across the table into John’s skin. The atmosphere of the pub seemed somehow strange, malevolent and unwelcoming. The long, shiny wooden bar, which had seemed solid and substantial when he first walked in, now seemed hollow, empty and fake, lacking any real substance. The ornamental fixtures on the walls, the hunting pictures, the barman, talking to somebody at the bar, and Mann’s facial features all seemed to ally against him in an insidious way, as if each object offered an objection to John’s superficial existence. What was happening to this place? Was it changing, or was John? Was John losing belief in himself as architect? Did he deserve to be here with Mann as architect of the Zenith building?