John had to leave, get away: ‘I’ve suddenly remembered. I’ve got to be somewhere now.’
‘Right now?’
‘Right now,’ he said, dropping his glass on the table, striding directly to the door and out onto the path.
The evening was turning dark, and the bright headlights of cars made sharp impressions upon the road, like a knife cutting through butter. John began walking towards the City Centre. Buildings grew in stature, and windows were lighted at random intervals. A few new stars shone in cloudless gaps, like glimpses of lost kingdoms. Peculiar eggy smells emanated from roadside drains, and all images and smells seemed to fuse together as one malicious embodiment.
He paused at the beginning of the High Street and looked towards the building site. Janice had made him realise the other night that the darkness, which lurked a hundred meters up the High Street, had been with him throughout his life, returning with a vengeance after he briefly overcame it to design the building. With this new knowledge, might he see the building? Might he see the freedom beyond?
Doubtful and desperate, he began walking up towards the site, passing the Town Hall and continuing until the line of buildings that was connected to the shopping centre to his right was broken by City Square. It was fully night-time now, and the open Square was lit by street lights: the way it had been when he came here the night he took measurements. Except now, the Square was overshadowed by a black, skeletal presence.
A figure was sitting on the black iron seat, facing the building: a gatekeeper to another world perhaps, to the world John couldn’t remember. The tramp had been with him the night from when John had lost his memory and the night he fell at the site – both sides of the amnesia. The last time John had seen him, the tramp had said something that, seemingly, conveyed understanding of John’s problems and had made John practically run away, but John was desperate now to rid himself of his problems so approached the tramp and sat down. The stench of old sweat was horrendous.
‘Do you remember when I was here about six months ago? It was raining, and I thanked you for calling the ambulance after I hit my head.’
The tramp grunted, without looking at him.
‘I then told you I was looking for a time behind the darkness, and I asked whether you knew what I was talking about. You said, “I do” with considerable ferocity, and it caused me to fall backwards. I then left you. But now, I’m asking the question again. Do you really know about my lost time behind the darkness? How could that be?’
The tramp remained still.
‘Maybe you don’t know, and you’re just a lonely old man.’
A soft breeze passed through the Square, disturbing a trail of steam which rose from the ground a few metres away. Blurred noises glided behind them.
‘But if you can’t help me, I feel the only way to understand the problem of my building is to face it directly. With my friend Janice’s words the other night, I feel I can confront the darkness. I feel the truth of existing during that time, of designing the building, can defeat its truth of me having not existed during that time, of not designing the building. It would defeat me if the world knew of my problems. That is certainly the threat I have felt whenever people start to suspect my amnesia, but if I get to the truth first, before the television interview, then I may be able to do something.
‘Janice told me I was free during the design process: a freedom she had never before encountered in anybody else. Perhaps we all have this darkness inside ourselves, stopping us from reaching our true potential. I have become particularly aware of it because, for some reason, I overcame it briefly, for three and a half years, and designed a work of genius that I can no longer see. Now I must overcome this darkness again. So instead of turning away from it, as I have done the past few months, I’m going to stare at it and lose consciousness again. That is why I need you here – for you to wake me up after five minutes. Can you do that?’
The tramp looked at the bottle which John shook in his hand.
‘You can have the rest of this if you wake me in five minutes when my mobile phone starts making a noise. If you cannot wake me, then I will have lost, or perhaps none of this world will exist any longer, anyway, and I will be transported back to the time I crashed my car.’
The tramp moved his head with dubious strokes.
‘And please, don’t start drinking my whisky until all this is over. Understand?’
The tramp’s left eye moved left to right, then settled on John. He grunted an acknowledgement.
‘That’s all I need – for you to understand what to do.’
John set the countdown timer for five minutes, then looked up at the building and stared at it. At first he noticed the yellow light from the streetlamps on the shadowy skeleton. There were metal girders criss-crossing vertical girders at odd and complicated angles, and large plastic sheets covered parts of the middle. He tried viewing the building as a whole to see if he could truly see it, even at this early, undeveloped stage. As soon as he did this, his consciousness started to ebb, and he lost a sense of where he was. His heart began to beat faster and harder, and he realised that a great danger was threatening him. The building’s skeletal parts began to circle into a whirlpool of debris and flooded his eyes with confusion.
Fear overcame him, and he tried looking away, but the confused configuration of parts streamed through his eyes and filled his mind. He did not know whether, in reality, he was still staring at the building or lying back on the bench with his eyes closed, but the building was now in his head, and he could not escape. It was inside him and invading his consciousness, deeper and deeper.
Words appeared to him amongst the maelstrom of steel and debris: freedom… freedom from the terrorist attack… The words began to separate and the letters within the words, too. Soon they floated away behind the debris, and everything began to get darker, until he saw only blackness ...
A violent force pulled his arm, and he opened his eyes with a start. Yellow light blinded him for a moment – a streetlamp – and he realised he was lying on the ground. A grubby hand was tugging his arm, and he remembered where he was and what he was doing. He must have fallen off the bench.
‘How long was I out?’
‘Five minutes, like you wanted.’
John tried to remember what had happened, but his heart suddenly beat extraordinarily fast, and he could no longer think properly. He lifted himself up and saw the tramp, already swigging the whisky: ‘Give me some of that.’
10
The television studios were located not far from the city centre on the west side of the city, just outside the inner ring road. A road broadly circled the acre of land where, in the middle, a large square, white building loomed. On the front green, next to a small car park, a huge satellite dish pointed threateningly towards the sky, like an anti-aircraft gun. John stood next to it, smoking incessantly.
‘Mr Gowan?’ a soft voice whispered behind him.
John jumped and turned. A smartly dressed Wilkinson, with finely combed hair above his ears and piercing blue eyes, stood before him. Next to him was a tall, broad man with an earpiece.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ Wilkinson said. ‘Shall we go in?’
They walked through the electronic doors, and Wilkinson gave their names at reception. A short, fat man, who introduced himself as Rick and whom John realised was the producer he had spoken with on the phone, led them upstairs and into a room with seats.
‘I hope you’re not too nervous,’ Rick said to both John and Wilkinson. ‘Mrs Fielding will be coming in shortly and should make you feel at ease. Are there any questions you might like to ask at this stage?’
John wasn’t really listening, and the rest of the afternoon went rather quickly. They met the interviewer, Fielding – a black woman who seemed taller in person than on television – and ate tea in the refectory. Wilkinson made a few comments about the interview, and John responded as best he could, but he could not stop thinking how ea
sy it would be for his ignorance to be exposed by some awkward, direct question from Fielding, especially if John could not hear parts of the question. John had had a pretty good idea of the type of questions since the telephone conversation with Rick, and he’d prepared answers that he hoped would satisfy Fielding’s direct questions which he wouldn’t be able to hear, but Fielding was notorious for not letting her interviewees go until she got the answer she was seeking. Fielding would be using a picture of the future building as a point of reference, too: something which John would not be able to see.
The frightening prospect of defeat, of losing to the darkness and being transported away from this world, churned around his fearful head into the early evening. He could be living his final few hours. But he felt angry and stubborn, too: being threatened by something that had always stolen his talent and was now trying to take away his claim to being designer of the Zenith building. Being pampered by an attractive make-up artist was a welcome distraction, and both he and Wilkinson laughed a little nervously at trivial things. Wilkinson had his own problems: taking the risk today of defending his decisions on live television to keep his son in his employment while also maintaining Zenith’s contract with the Israeli military.
As John looked at himself in the mirror, he noticed how much he’d aged over the past few months, but then he remembered the years he had lost due to the amnesia and realised he was comparing himself to several years ago. White hairs on the side of his head, a receding hairline and deep lines on his forehead all seemed foreign to him. He relaxed his face to lessen the cracks.
In the studio, black cameras faced the stage with wires leading out of their backs; big, chunky lights hung from a latticework of scaffolding above; and television people stood close by. On Stage 4, leather chairs surrounded a round glass table that reflected the blues and purples of the elegant backdrop. Fielding sat centrally behind the table, and John was to her left. John would be interviewed on his own at first, answering the questions without Wilkinson or anybody else there to offer a chance of diversion. Behind Fielding, to her right, was a large television.
As the make-up lady gave John some finishing touches, Fielding gave some final words of encouragement, smiling reassuringly at John – an expression she rarely used on camera and which did nothing to calm his fears. She knew nothing about his problems and would undoubtedly love to expose them, as any newsperson would if they suspected the truth. She had a long neck and a lengthy rectangular head that resembled a robot; John tried to amuse himself with this observation to ease his fears, imagining Fielding self-destructing on stage to his evasive answers.
The distinctive music of trumpets and timpani sounded from speakers somewhere in the studio as the opening theme to the programme began, and then Fielding started talking to the camera in her loud, authoritative voice:
‘Four years ago today, the nation was shocked by the terrorist attack on the Zenith building where scores of people died. Police soon learnt that it was the work of British terrorists and, over the following months, an international manhunt was conducted.
‘Three years later, those responsible were brought back to England and tried in court where they were found guilty and given life sentences.
‘This evening, we will discuss the mood of Blanworth today, and our reporter Johnny Walker will also be reporting on the city’s four-year anniversary of that horrible attack. In the studio, joining us later, will be Mr Wilkinson, the C.E.O. of Zenith, and Abdul Hassim, the Imam from Blanworth Mosque, discussing Zenith’s controversial business practises, but first, joining me now, is John Gowan, the joint architect of the new Zenith building. Good evening, Mr Gowan.’
‘Good evening.’
‘Your building has been unofficially dubbed “The Freedom Building” by the media and the public in response to the terrorist attack, and its design aptly appears “free”. Was this your intention?’
‘Yes, the idea of freedom influenced the way I designed the building as a result of the terrorist attack.’
‘And what does freedom mean to you?’
John remembered staring at the building in City Square a few nights ago. He had looked into it and witnessed a secret before the tramp had saved him from the enveloping darkness. The secret had something to do with freedom: perhaps the freedom he experienced when he designed the building. He couldn’t remember. Whenever he tried remembering, his heart beat rapidly and his head clouded in confusion, akin to a panic attack.
‘Freedom means democracy. It means the right to live in a fair and just society. It means the ability to live a lawful life without the fear of attack. On the day of the attack, our freedom was briefly shattered. I will never forget the terror, the sorrow on people’s faces when I went to the Zenith site a day later and saw them gathered around a huge mound of rubble. Even then, I wanted to give something to Blanworth, to the people, to me and to everybody else. I wanted to design a building that stood up to terrorism in the name of freedom. I wanted to design a building that visually encapsulated the idea of freedom.’
She smiled and sat back into her chair: ‘And you certainly did that! I would like to show our viewers a picture of the completed building.’
The television screen behind Fielding’s right side suddenly lit up and, for a moment, John tried looking at it, but an image of bright colours and diagonal lines appeared which immediately became incomprehensible. He looked away and quickly recovered.
Fielding was staring at him with her eyebrows raised, and John realised she must have said something: ‘I’m sorry, could you repeat your question?’
‘Could you describe to us what we’re looking at?’
John tried to remember the little he was able to know about the building: the abstract knowledge which revealed nothing of the building’s actual appearance.
‘My building’, he said smiling, ‘is something which I’m very proud of. As you can see, it is a big building, complicated, intricate and yet simplistic in its overall appearance. You see, the floors are arranged in a particular way to get the maximum use out of the materials, and –’
‘What materials were used?’
‘I would like to ask you – and the viewers watching – the same question. What materials do you think were used?’
‘Well, looking at it, given that the colours are 765vfrt%£…’
John watched her mouth move and, for a brief moment, he tried to listen, but his consciousness, consequently, became dizzier, unable to understand what Fielding was saying. In the midst of light-headedness, he remained aware of what was happening to him and concertedly detached himself from Fielding’s hypnotic sounds so that his thoughts would return clearly to him again.
‘Mr Gowan?’ Fielding said, suddenly.
John recovered instantly and smiled: ‘I’m sorry, I’m feeling the effects of nerves on television!’
Fielding smiled, too: ‘That’s okay, television can be a daunting experience if you’re not used to it. I asked whether I was right about the materials.’
‘I’m getting used to it, though, I think!’ he said, trying to keep the conversation on the subject of his anxiety, rather than the building, for as long as possible. ‘It just takes a little getting used to.’ He paused and gulped, wasting a little more time. ‘Anyway, in response to your question, you may well be right, you may be wrong, and there are some people out there who will know whether you are right or wrong, but I’d like the viewers who don’t know to gain a natural curiosity for the building and discover for themselves what it is made of. There is plenty of information on the Internet. I’m speaking especially to those younger viewers who might have aspirations to be an architect one day.’
He turned to one of the television cameras, breaking protocol: ‘Is Dianne Fielding right? Look at its colours, textures and size. Perhaps teachers at school might be inspired to do a project – not just of my building but of buildings in their environment.’
Fielding stared at him, clearly unimpressed with his answer, and John s
uddenly felt a terrifying loss of connection with his surroundings. The television studio became odd, almost disjointed. The black television cameras, with their transparent lenses, changed form in an illogical way: a way that he couldn’t account for – as if they were replaced by identical cameras.
‘You clearly don’t want to explain the materials used,’ Fielding said incredulously, ‘but can you tell me what safety provisions are in place against another car bomb in the car park? Presumably, the materials will be stronger this time?’
The possibility of a car bomb, in Fielding’s question, indicated that the new Zenith building had a car park, too. John had guessed the new building would also house a car park because, as with the previous building, Zenith required car space close to town. This knowledge, John believed, enabled him to hear Fielding’s question without his problems stopping him.
‘The public can be assured that this building will be a lot stronger and sturdier than the last. If the same were to happen again, which would be highly unlikely because of the new security provisions that will be in place, the building would not collapse, and all people elsewhere in the building would remain safe. The new building is designed in such a way that, if the worst were to happen again, its fundamental structure would not be affected.’
‘What about a bomb going off in the shops on the ground floor? Couldn’t somebody walk in with a bomb and blow up the building?’
The Freedom Building Page 11