The Freedom Building

by Martin Kendall

  A minute later, or so it seemed, the darkly-stained wooden door appeared in the distance and, when he got there, after what seemed an eternity, he pushed it open by way of the golden knob. In the middle of the room, four leather armchairs were arranged around the coffee table like last time, but in-between two of them was an additional, small grey plastic chair. Mann looked up from one of the leather chairs and stood, as if to attention. John felt like he had entered a military court and was about to be court-martialled.

  ‘Gowan,’ Mann said smiling.

  John walked between the empty, grey plastic chair and a leather chair that was occupied by Pete. The other two were occupied by Wilkinson and an unfamiliar woman with a frizzy hairstyle, wearing a grey suit.

  ‘May I introduce Stacey Turner, our PR lady,’ Mann said, gesturing towards her.

  Stacey stood and shook John’s hand whilst giving a condescending grin, whereby the mouth stretched outwards but the eyes relaxed deeply into their sockets. Wilkinson remained seated, looking calmly up at John.

  John felt very uncomfortable. He remembered the letter Janice had drafted for him and fumbled about inside his pocket: ‘Hello, sir. Here is a letter of apology which you may like to release to the press.’

  John immediately regretted calling him ‘sir’ and felt like a schoolboy.

  ‘I thought of that,’ Stacey said, ‘and drafted one, myself, from you to Zenith, which could be shown to the media, but we won’t be needing it now if you are willing to agree to our new strategy on how to deal with this problem.’

  John nodded, and Stacey and Mann sat back down. Pete watched John with the faintest of smiles as John sat down on the grey plastic chair. Wilkinson remained quiet.

  ‘Well,’ John said, looking at Wilkinson whose silver-grey hair shone radioactively beneath the ceiling light, ‘I am truly sorry for what happened last night. I didn’t mean to cause any problems.’

  Wilkinson lifted his hands and nodded: ‘I know how you must feel, and I’m sure you wish you hadn’t said it. Apology accepted.’

  John did, actually, feel a little better, although he feared how they would react, once he told them he couldn’t refute anything he had said: ‘Thank you.’

  ‘We’ve come to the conclusion, with the help of Stacey, that a radio interview, here in Blanworth, would be best to remedy the situation,’ Mann said. ‘We’ve been in contact with Radio Blanworth, and they are very willing to get their woman Rachael Haas from London to interview you tonight at 8 p.m.’

  John felt panic and fear but tried to keep his composure: ‘Presumably, you want me to downplay what I said last night, attributing my explanation as to how I designed the building to nerves?’

  ‘Yes, you can certainly say nerves played a role in your behaviour, but it would be unwise to change your statement about how you found inspiration to design the building, because it would appear that we coerced you into saying it.’

  A sudden wave of relief overcame John. His fears this morning of having to refuse their wishes were abated. The world would listen to his fuller explanation on the radio without any conflict with Zenith. But what did Zenith hope to achieve?

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’ John said.

  Pete looked at John with a sympathetic expression: ‘I will counterbalance the importance of your words last night by reminding the audience that I designed the building, too.’

  ‘You’re going to be at the interview, too?’ John asked.

  ‘Pete will emphasize how he helped to design the building,’ Stacey said, ‘enabling the listener to realise that half the inspiration came from him. Of course, you will explain how it wasn’t your intention to seem to side with terrorists in any way – because some newspapers today are interpreting your words as being sympathetic to terrorist attacks – but, in addition to that, Pete will help, too.’

  ‘But will Pete explain how he found inspiration for the building the same as I did – from the destruction of the previous building?’ John said.

  ‘Certainly not!’ Stacey exclaimed, and all the men shook their heads in unison. ‘Pete will tell his side of the truth and explain how he found inspiration from the ‘free society’ in which he lives.’

  The environment seemed malevolent as John felt the sensation of the walls beginning to close around him, but the darkness had been detectable since last night when he had looked directly at the building and then awoken to see Pete staring at him. The environment, the people’s voices, the ache in his neck, when he awoke this morning, and the petrol fumes of the cars on the way here had all seemed like an ill-defined nightmare. Now that John understood it better, though not precisely, he knew the darkness was stronger when the truth of the building was concealed, which meant that Pete, effectively, was doing its bidding. If it couldn’t erase John completely from this world, then it would at the very least discredit him.

  Pete would scupper his chances of convincing the world of the truth about the building, because Pete was seen as equally important to the building’s design. John’s problems would continue, and there would be nothing he could do about it – not even legally, with his authority as Senior Partner in the firm, after having announced Pete as joint architect. Pete had obviously confirmed this with Zenith before John got here, because they had all already decided on the course of action, and John wouldn’t be able to convince them otherwise. Pete would want to redeem his prestige and importance as joint architect of the building, regardless of the truth. John tried to think of a way to do this interview another day so that he could at least have twenty-four hours to consider. He glanced at Pete who was smiling contentedly.

  ‘But do we have enough time to prepare?’ John said.

  ‘I feel it’s best, with a situation like this, to strike as early as possible before it gets beyond our control,’ Stacey said. ‘We need to act quickly and decisively. The Muslims and the media are having a field day, and Zenith shares are dropping. Need I say more? Besides, we’ve got all day to prepare.’

  Stacey wasn’t afraid to show a little aggressive hostility in her tone towards John for having made such a mistake on television; but surely, as PR Officer, she should be thanking John and others like him for providing the situations that brought about the requirement for her job?

  ‘Rachael Haas is a sympathetic interviewer’, Stacey continued, ‘and is trusted by the public. Have you heard her?’

  John had heard her occasionally on the radio, this side of the amnesia, and nodded.

  ‘Mr Wilkinson will be at the interview too, of course,’ Stacey said. ‘So, before we get down to the tactical preparation, are we all agreed as to the strategy?’

  Wilkinson glanced at John with his deeply penetrating blue eyes. John, in turn, looked at Pete who was still smiling contentedly. Pete had agreed on the phone that he wouldn’t concede anything until John was present. John must have really angered him on television for him to be behaving in such a way. John could ask to talk to him privately, but he felt a great pressure to comply immediately, and there would be nothing John could do to change their minds, anyway.

  ‘I think so, yes,’ John said, not knowing what else to do.

  ‘Good,’ Wilkinson said, slapping his small knees gently and standing up. ‘I will inform the minister of our plan. And hopefully, calm him down a bit.’ He walked to his large desk on the other side of the room and picked up the phone.

  John remembered how the government had saved Zenith from bankruptcy. So to the public, it appeared complicit in the company’s image.

  ‘I’ll inform the shareholders,’ Mann said.

  After mock question and answer sessions, they stopped for lunch, and John decided to nip home before further preparations and the interview this evening. He needed his own space.

  He sat at the kitchen table and worried. If he were to refuse the interview, then Pete would still do it, ostensibly for the good of the company but, really, to enhance his own contribution to the design and, thus, diminish John’s, so John had to do it.


  The phone rang on the stand next to the sitting room door: ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, John,’ a soft and velvety voice said.

  John recognised the voice instantly, despite not having spoken to her for years.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ she said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘About getting a divorce.’

  John welcomed the surprise of hearing his wife’s voice and her decision, finally, to get a divorce as a distraction from the Zenith problem tonight: ‘I’ll have to stop giving you the money, then.’

  ‘Our money, John. I have as much right to that money as you.’

  ‘So you’re expecting half my money in the agreement?’

  ‘No, John, not the money you’ve earned recently from the Zenith building. Congratulations on that, by the way.’

  He already knew she hadn’t talked to him during the amnesiac period, because there had been no divorce, or change in the money situation, and no major problems with their daughter that warranted a chat. At least, this was as far as he knew from his paper records and the card he had received from Gemma when he returned from hospital six months ago.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I saw you on television last night. What was it you said about designing the building? You were only able to design it because you felt free for the first time in your life? And that that freedom came from the terrorist attack on the old building? Are you turning Muslim or something?’

  ‘No, no. That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Freedom, John!’ she said abruptly. ‘You dare to talk about freedom as if you had had a lack of it until then? In your twenties, you were lucky enough to have an inheritance from your parents to set up your own company. You were lucky enough to find me, too, and have a beautiful daughter. You were lucky enough to find a talented marketing man, like Pete, who would go into partnership with you. You achieved everything anybody could possibly want to achieve – a successful company, a loving family and lots of money. But, apparently, you didn’t feel freedom until the terrorist attack! You don’t have the right to talk about freedom.’

  John tried to reflect on what she was saying with the phone sufficiently away from his ear. It was true. He had had all the freedom that a person could ask for and, although he didn’t have the right to say that he didn’t feel free for much of his life, it was still, nevertheless, true.

  ‘What about you?’ he said. ‘You didn’t feel free. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have left me.’

  ‘That was your fault. You suffocated both me and your daughter. I had to get out of there, and I had to take her with me, too.’

  John remembered Gemma’s wide grin and fearless eyes that blinked when she laughed. He felt the pain of not having seen her for so long: ‘Where is she? Is she okay? Does she want to see me?’

  There was a pause: ‘I think so. Sometime, when she feels she wants to.’

  Hillary’s voice had calmed down and become more sympathetic, but John always believed she had brainwashed Gemma into not liking him: ‘What’s she doing?’

  ‘She’s in Africa, working hard. Anyway, I’ll send you the divorce forms and see you in a couple months when I’m next in the country. Okay?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The call ended. The house appeared darker than before. He walked upstairs and trod warily to Gemma’s old room. It was dark now, but he remembered the daylight hue when she used to run around and play with her toys. When she was older, she would gossip on the bed with her mother or with friends and boyfriends on the telephone. Where in Africa was she? What was she doing? What did she look like? And what had John done to make them want to leave him? He felt the loss of them, but the sadness couldn’t manifest itself properly, and a strange, though not unfamiliar, stiffness spread through his insides like the freezing of lakes in winter.

  13

  Something dark and distorted crept through the environment, like vines or ivy growing through the cracks of walls. It was in the woods, the churned farmers’ fields, the petrol station and, finally, the oncoming city as John drove back to the Zenith offices. It was everywhere and, yet, nowhere – too deep and essential to actually pinpoint or name.

  When he returned to Wilkinson’s office, ready to go over the preparations for a couple of hours before going to the radio station, he had decided he needed to consolidate the truth of his building to the world in absolute terms – without the interference of Pete. His plan was to subtly demean Pete’s contribution to the design.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Pete said as they went into the toilets together, just minutes before they were to leave for the radio station.

  In a soft tone of voice, John said: ‘Earlier, before I got to the office, you told me that we would first agree on something before Zenith pressurised us into doing anything. But when I arrived, you had already agreed the plan with Zenith which contributed to the pressure on me having to agree in the moment.’

  ‘I couldn’t see any other option. There is no other option. It was useless for us to go and talk about it separately. It would have seemed like an insult to them.’

  ‘Or perhaps, you like what the plan does for your reputation – reinvigorating your status as joint architect?’

  ‘I really think this is the best move for Gowan Partnerships.’

  ‘What about the truth of my building?’

  The sound of Pete’s piss hitting the enamel urinal became louder and then died away. Both men washed their hands in silence before walking out.

  Everybody collected their things and began their journey to the radio station in the centre of town. In Princegate shopping centre, they took the escalators to the fourth floor, close to the ceiling’s octagon-shaped skylights, where Blanworth Radio 101.6 was located. They stepped into a bright room with food machines and a coffee table. A young woman greeted them, and John, Wilkinson and Pete were then directed into another room, leaving Mann, Stacey and two bodyguards behind.

  Inside the darker booth, the radio guests were greeted by the interviewer Rachael Haas – an overweight lady in her mid-forties with a crooked set of teeth, curly brown hair, a white blouse and a gold locket around her neck. She welcomed them cordially: ‘Please take a seat. We should be ready in about five minutes.’

  The quality of her voice – instantly recognisable from the radio voice to which they were all accustomed – was deliberate and direct.

  They sat around a pale plastic, rectangular table with Rachael at the head, Wilkinson and Pete on one side and John on the other. In the middle of the table were microphones with coloured muffs and wires trailing from them off the end of the table onto the floor. Each person had headphones. On one wall was a Blanworth Radio poster, written in red and blue, and on another was a large window that revealed another room with radio operatives wearing headphones.

  After the preliminary introductions between Rachael and her guests, and the end of a music programme that had been conducted in another booth, the interview began: ‘Now, many people in Blanworth and, for that matter, the rest of the country were shocked by yesterday’s edition of Newsbeat on Channel 2 when John Gowan, architect of the new Zenith building—’

  ‘Joint architect,’ Pete said, butting in.

  Rachael looked up and smiled an apology: ‘Oh, I’m sorry, listeners. That was Pete Williams, the other architect of the building and somebody who you may remember being interviewed on this programme before, though not by me. He’s giving me a friendly smile, so I don’t think I offended him! But as I was going to say, many people were shocked when John Gowan, joint architect of the new Zenith building, stated that the building’s design was creatively inspired by the terrorist attack on the old building. Here is a part of the recording from last night, beginning with Mr Gowan who’s in conversation with Mr Wilkinson, the owner of Zenith Star Holdings, and Dianne Fielding, the interviewer:’

  ‘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 bu
ilding – a building which many people see as a defence and glorification of our free society – is that it was creatively inspired by the attack on our freedom!’

  ‘Are you advocating terrorism?’ Fielding asked.

  ‘No! I’m just telling you the inspiration behind the building’s design.’

  ‘But you mean that the sheer horror of the attack inspired your design?’ Wilkinson asked.

  ‘No, not the horror of the attack but the freedom from the attack!’

  ‘But what do you mean by that?’ Wilkinson asked.

  ‘I mean, the way I felt as a result of the attack and the way Blanworth appeared to me as a result of the attack. There was danger in the air, excitement, shock and, indeed, horror, but it was all free. For the first time in life, I felt free. Everything was suddenly natural and loose. Something real had happened, away from the contrivances of normal living. And with this freedom available to me, I designed the building.’

  ‘So, Mr Gowan, could you further elaborate on what you meant when you said that you felt inspired by the terrorist attack, and how that influenced the design of the building?’

  ‘First of all, I would like to apologise to Mr Wilkinson and his company for any embarrassment I may have caused. It certainly wasn’t my intention to embarrass them. I was suffering from nerves from being on television for the first time and, believe me, I was surprised, just as much as the listeners, when I said what I said in such a way – not to say that I disagree with it now but that I didn’t explain myself properly.’

  ‘Well, now you have the chance,’ Rachael said.

  ‘I’d like to make it clear that I don’t have any real resentment towards the society in which I’ve lived all my life – not enough to warrant an attack on it! I appreciate all the freedoms we enjoy, and I’m certainly not a fundamentalist Muslim. However, I did feel good from the terrorist attack. Something real had happened – away from the normal state of life we seem to cherish – and people were genuinely shocked. This good feeling later produced a profound state of freedom in me. And with that, I went on to design the new building.’