He felt embarrassed, like a schoolboy who had been acting too arrogantly and was suddenly reprimanded by a teacher. He’d overcome a psychological barrier, but now that a gate had been opened, enabling him to know that it was the freedom from the attack that had empowered him to design the building, he realised there were still things to understand before he had a chance of overcoming the darkness. For instance, why did it return on the night before construction began?
Pete adjusted his glasses with his forefinger between the eyes: ‘Are you drunk?’
John brushed his trousers with the back of his hand and stood: ‘No, I’m not. I just tripped.’
‘Again?’
‘Yes, and I didn’t feel like getting up. I should never have done that interview.’
He was lying: he was glad he had told the world the truth.
‘You think! You know you’ve just created a shitstorm for us, don’t you?’
‘I wanted to tell the truth.’
Pete raised his manicured eyebrows: ‘By saying you were inspired to design the new building by the freedom you felt from the attack on the old one?’
‘I was telling them the truth of how I came to design the building.’
‘Well, there are two of us, as if you didn’t remember. And why did you say I didn’t design the building?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘By implication, you did. You said everything was essentially your design and that you went to the office, after a week of designing it at home, to let me and the team work on the finer details. That doesn’t sound like I jointly designed the building.’
‘Well, isn’t that the way it happened?’
‘If you’re going to name somebody joint architect, John, then stick to it, right?’ He paused and stared at John: ‘I’ve just been to the cathedral with Mann. He’s praying. Praying! I never took him for a religious soul. We both watched a repeat of the interview on his laptop and, frankly, the words that came out of his mouth were not complimentary of you. He told me to tell you – he didn’t want to phone you himself – to go to Wilkinson’s office tomorrow for a meeting at 10 a.m. Okay? I will be going too.’
John comprehended the need to help Zenith the best he could: ‘I know I need to make amends. I’ve talked tonight to Janice who said she’s going to write me a letter of apology to Zenith.’
He sighed: ‘That’s a start.’
‘But, of course, I can’t go back on what I’ve said – not after such a passionate revelation on television.’
Pete looked at him incredulously.
‘Anyway, I’m tired, and I need to get home.’
The two men walked quietly through the shopping centre and into the multi-storey car park. After a long silence in Pete’s car, John got out at the station and bought a ticket to Toxon. On the train, as he stared through the windows into the black night, he wondered about the nature of his freedom during the amnesiac period, also the other freedom – the freedom of society – and how the two were opposed. He had felt free after the attack on society’s purported freedom. He pondered this for several minutes, until the lights of Toxon rushed by the window in a sudden whoosh and people began to stand in preparation to get off. He followed them through the station, out into the night, and decided to go to the office before going to his car: his laptop was there, and he wanted to watch a repeat of the interview in preparation for the meeting with Zenith tomorrow.
In the lobby, a familiar Syrian cleaner was hunched over a bucket of water: ‘Shame on you, Mr Gowan, for saying the things you did.’
‘What do you mean?’
She stared at him with pained eyes: ‘For telling people you felt free from the terrorist attack which inspired you to design the new building.’
‘It was the truth.’
‘Truth or not, I came to this country from war. I value its freedoms. What do you value?’
He didn’t know how to answer her and walked into the lift. As it rose, a growing sense of guilt overcame him. What had he done tonight? What had he done to the people of Blanworth, Toxon and beyond who looked to the new Zenith building as a symbol of hope?
Toxon lights illuminated the main office with yellowy white rays, glinting off computer screens. In the shadows, he passed desks and unlocked the door to his private office. On the Internet he went to tonight’s entire interview:
‘…but first, joining me here 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?’
‘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.’
His laptop showed a full screen image of the building, and he looked away immediately but, later in the interview, he would remember the words that appeared to him when he stared at the building: Freedom… Freedom from the terrorist attack…
He forwarded the recording to near the end of the interview. On the screen he looked animated – almost mad – with wide eyes gleaming and arms spread wide:
‘Many people see the design qualities of the building as an expression of the free society in which we live, but the great irony of the building – a building seen as a defence and glorification of our society – is that it was creatively inspired by the attack on our freedom!’
It felt right to say this at the time – he knew it in his bones – but what did he really mean by it? What, exactly, did he not like about the freedom of this society? He continued to talk on the screen:
‘Something real had happened, away from the contrivances of normal living. And with this freedom available to me, I designed the building.’
And why, on the night before construction, did he lose this freedom and confront the darkness of life once more? What sickness, what untruth facilitated the conditions for the re-emergence of the darkness?
He suddenly remembered something: on the day he awoke in hospital, he learnt that on the previous night at the site he had been holding a newspaper with a picture of the future building and the headline ‘The Freedom Building’. The article praised the design of the building: a design that it said reflected the ‘freedom of society’. The design of the building, however, had been inspired by the attack on society when its ‘freedom’ had been briefly obliterated. Had the irony of the article become too much when he saw how the expression of his freedom would be used to advertise the opposite?
12
John opened his eyes. The room was light – daytime already. It had to be eight or nine. There were faint voices from inside the main office. He placed his hands on his desk, heaved himself up and walked around his desk to the door. But, just as he was about to open it, he heard his name angrily mentioned, so he pressed his ear to the wood.
‘But how could he say such a thing! On national television!’ a male voice asked.
‘Why would he? What was the purpose of it?’ Another male voice said.
‘I don’t know.’
John put his hand to his head, remembering the truth about the building and t
elling it on television. What were people now saying? He put his ear back to the door. Both voices were vaguely recognisable.
‘Pete should have done it,’ said voice A.
‘He would have done a lot better job. That’s for sure.’
‘John was embarrassing. I felt embarrassed in front of my kids.’
‘Must have been nerves.’
‘Maybe.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said voice A. ‘All that stuff he said about how freedom from the terrorist attack enabled him to design the building. It sounded like he was praising the terrorists and – I don’t care how nervous he was – he wouldn’t have said something like that if he didn’t mean it.’
‘But didn’t he explain he wasn’t praising the terrorist attack?’
‘Well, whatever he was trying to say, it seriously embarrassed us and Zenith, not to mention the government.’
‘Sure, but it was rooted in some kind of truth, because he did design it, after all.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ asked A.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he’s never really been involved in the building, has he? I mean, he’s supposed to have designed it, but did you notice how, last night, he never really answered anything specific about the building, itself, almost as if he couldn’t? And he hardly ever goes to the site, not since construction began anyway, like he’s not interested.’
‘But that’s because Pete began the job on day one of construction when John was in hospital, and the two didn’t want to get in each other’s way later, so Pete kept the responsibility.’
‘That’s the official explanation, and that may be true, but I always thought it was weird how he announced that Pete jointly designed the building a few days into construction,’ said A.
‘How so?’
‘Well, why hadn’t he and Pete both said that they were joint architects up until that point? Why hadn’t Pete said something until then?’
‘Perhaps John was being kind when he named Pete joint architect – as a thank you for taking over duties on construction when he was in hospital, and for simply being partner in his firm.’
‘Or perhaps John had been exploiting his position – as Senior Partner in the firm –over Pete until then, and Pete had finally had enough, forcing him to tell the world the truth.’
‘But John conceived the initial idea of the building at home and then brought the design to the office.’
‘Did you see the design at that stage?’ said A.
‘No.’
‘So how do you know the final design was anything like the original? He supposedly brought the plans here for Pete to see. Then we all worked together on the finer details before sending them to Zenith. But, after John initially brought the plans to the office, Pete worked on his own for a while before we saw anything.’
‘That’s true.’
‘So maybe the design was basically Pete’s, influenced only by John’s initial enthusiasm to design a new Zenith building, and it was this design which we all then, first saw and worked on.’
‘Well, whoever designed it was a fucking genius,’ said B.
‘Yep.’
‘Hi, guys,’ Janice said.
John backed away from the door. Many things had been said in that short conversation. The television interview had certainly provoked them into sharing their derogatory views about him, and he understood why they might not believe that he had designed the building: Pete having looked at John’s plans on his own for several days before they were shown to the rest of the office, and Pete working as the resident architect at the site since construction began.
John’s mobile started ringing, and he darted further away from the door, hoping the two voices didn’t hear it: the idea of him being an eavesdropper, in addition to the disreputable things they were saying about him, wasn’t pleasant. Janice’s name flashed on the screen of his phone.
‘Hello, Janice.’
‘Are you in your office?’ she said, confused.
‘Yes, I’m here.’
There was a pause with muffled talking in the background.
‘The others didn’t know you were here,’ she said. ‘Have you been here all night?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Your blinds are shut.’
‘Would you get me a cup of coffee, please?’
‘I thought that would never be part of my job description?’
John smirked: ‘Just this one time?’
She ended the call, and John walked back to the door, waited a few seconds and opened it. He rubbed his eyes to show his employees that he had just woken up and noticed the fearful faces of voices A and B. He barely recognised them but stared at them with a disdainful expression, knowing it wouldn’t be a bad thing if they suspected he had heard their conversation: fear of losing their jobs would prevent further gossip about him. They quickly looked away and walked to their desks. Janice brought coffees from the machine, picked up a piece of folded paper from her desk and followed John into his office.
‘This is the letter,’ she said, standing beside him at his desk.
John slurped his coffee and opened it:
‘Dear Mr Wilkinson
I deeply regret any offence that may have been caused during the television interview of [date].
I can only attribute any indiscretion to nerves: it being my first time on television.
Please accept my apologies and any reasonable help in rectifying problems that may have been caused as a result.
Yours sincerely
John Gowan’
‘Short and sweet,’ John said.
‘I had written a longer letter, but I thought it best not to say much until we see what Zenith want to do.’
‘I like the word “reasonable”. I’m willing to help them, but I won’t publicly change my mind about the inspiration for the building’s design.’
Janice nodded slowly: ‘You have to be careful, though. Zenith is a wounded beast, and the government will be behind them.’
His mobile began ringing: ‘Hello, Captain.’
‘Gowan, there’s a meeting today at 10 a.m. – Wilkinson’s office.’
‘Pete told me last night. I’m sorry about the interview. I was nervous.’
‘Yes. Well, we have to discuss how best to rectify the situation. We’ll have our public relations woman with us.’
‘I’ll do my best to help. How’s Wilkinson today?’
‘He’s calming down, in his own way. Anyway, see you then.’ The call ended abruptly.
‘That was Mann. There’s a meeting this morning. There will be a PR person, apparently.’
‘For what it’s worth, you shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of what you said on television. They asked you to do the interview, and they should never have put you in that position if they weren’t prepared for you to answer in a truthful manner. This whole thing is political.’
‘Thanks. To be honest, I’m glad things have turned out this way. I needed to tell the public the truth.’
She nodded with a smile: ‘Good then.’
A few days ago in the restaurant, she had said that he was ‘free’ during the amnesiac period, and his explanation last night of where his freedom came from must have interested her. He suddenly felt inclined to tell her that he had amnesia and an inability to see the building. She might understand that all this was a problem connected to the conception of his building and that all he had to do was convince the world of where the building’s inspiration originated.
But, for this reason, the darkness was still a threat. Until the world knew the truth – until it believed John – the darkness still had a claim to that truth and could easily have devoured him last night when he looked at the building, were it not for Pete yanking his arm. Who knows what it would have done with him?
‘Time’s moving on,’ she said. ‘You’d better go to this meeting now.’
John signed her letter, put it ins
ide an envelope, which he marked ‘Mr Wilkinson’, and walked into the main office. Voices A and B were guiltily silent at their desks and pretended not to notice him.
‘Is Pete in?’
They shook their heads sheepishly.
He tried Pete’s mobile, but there was no answer. He and Pete needed to deliberate some kind of strategy together before going into the meeting. Pete needed to understand, in absolute terms, that John wouldn’t refute anything he had said on television. John strode through the office like a wildcat marking its territory, pushing the door noisily into the corridor with a slap of his hand.
When John got to Blanworth Station, Pete answered his mobile.
‘We should meet before we go into Zenith,’ John said.
‘Well, actually, I’m already in Wilkinson’s office with the others.’
‘What?’
‘I was at the building site and wasn’t needed there, so I drove here early, and they let me in. Where are you?’
‘I wish you’d talked to me before you went in.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we need to work out a common strategy.’
‘I’ve told them you want to amend the situation as best you can.’
‘Yes, but I can’t go back on what I said, either.’
There was a pause.
‘Well, we can hear what they want to do, then we can talk privately before coming to a decision,’ Pete said.
John sighed: ‘What’s being said now?’
‘They’re just going over a few ideas.’
John quickly got a cab. He was angry Pete was there without him and feared them denigrating him behind his back. But Pete was angry with John, not just for embarrassing Zenith and Gowan Partnerships but for implying on television that Pete didn’t design the building. Perhaps this was Pete’s way of getting back at him.
He arrived at the semi-circular, mirrored building and rushed across the car park where protestors were camped next to the main entrance. Inside, a security guard, wearing a suit and an earpiece, allowed him through. The lift seemed to take a very long time, during which John’s facial muscles stiffened uncontrollably. When the door finally opened, he walked straight through the initial reception area and down the long corridor that, as on both other occasions, seemed overly long, disappearing around a distant corner. The words ‘Go ahead, Mr Gowan’ were said by someone at reception, possibly the blond man who was there last time.
The Freedom Building Page 14