Delirious applause. For a moment Casey looks flummoxed. For security reasons the visit had not been included in his schedule. The VST camera swings briefly to an outside view. The downdraught of the helicopter’s landing sends Dianne’s academic robes into a wild dance.
The VST camera pans back to Gyro. ‘In just a few minutes, we shall be able to follow the Prime Minister’s announcement on these monitors. But as we wait, we will bring forward one of the musical items with which we were going to close.’
A ripple of orange-and-purple hair. Luscious moves to a point on the glass wall at about 90 degrees to the lectern. She is tall and as she moves, to the extent it can, the crowd parts in front of her. She is carrying the glass Bakhtin chair which she places between two waist-high speakers. Good God, I’d forgotten that … while it is not really a £4 million chair, in one sense it is.
Gyro addresses his guest directly. ‘Junior, your family have told us about some of the songs which have truly inspired you. For you they epitomise the principles of leadership. And of these songs, one has said it better for you than any other. If this tower can mean for others even one percent of what this song has meant for you, what an incredible force for good it will be in the world. Junior, we love you.’
Junior puts his hands up to his temple. His tears are few, but more than he has ever shed in public before. Laura beams. Casey cheers, having recovered from his discomfiture. Gyro beams at Junior.
Luscious is wearing a jewelled hair clasp, a full-length, long-sleeved orange sequin gown and elbow-length white gloves. We see these things because Luscious has climbed onto Alex’s chair. I remember now – because of the crush of bodies it is the only chair in the auditorium. We can’t watch her on the monitors because they are showing us the scene at the lakeside, where the Prime Minister is shaking the hands of his greeting party.
Luscious’ voice surges out in a gorgeous contralto and everyone turns to look. It is mercury, liquid power, filling any space for vibration in people’s souls as well as their bodies. By the final chorus everyone in the auditorium is joining in:
Climb ev’ry mountain
Ford ev’ry stream
Follow ev’ry by-way
Till you find your dream!
The Prime Minister is positioning himself to speak but in the auditorium he is unnoticed, the place now fully alive with whistles and cat-calls. Luscious is bowing deeply from the waist, both arms flung down in self-abasement, her hair tumbling forwards like Niagara. Or perhaps like Viagra, I remember thinking, wondering about the age of the audience and their reaction to a slightly ridiculous singer singing a more than slightly ridiculous song. Come on people, I remember thinking, a little proportion – this isn’t Tina Turner.
Luscious uncoils from her bow, her arms now up and triumphant, acknowledging the crowd or perhaps blessing them, holding microphones. Obviously she is moved by the feelings of the moment, sweating a little, even crying. Even the roots of her hair have been moved by the moment, coming forward over her forehead and to her left. She looks at the camera with hope, or even love.
Oh people, dear people, this isn’t Tina Turner, I remember thinking. This isn’t even a woman.
Amelia has paused the video at the moment when we can just see that it is Frank. But it’s Connie who’s asking me if I can remember what I was thinking right then. I know why she’s asking: this is my death moment, and her own will be coming up later.
‘I’m thinking those aren’t two microphones, the auditorium has exemplary acoustics. If those aren’t microphones, then what they’re wired up to aren’t loudspeakers. I’m thinking, did Frank assume that the Prime Minister would be in the tower or perhaps he had only ever been after the fat cats all along? But today I stand with those fat cats – me, a thin and confused cat, a cat who never did any harm at all. Even if I did harm others – all right, I did harm others – you are going to kill me. What about Gandhi? What about non-violence?’ I realise I’m yelling the last words.
Amelia presses the remote. Frank brings his hands together. What his hands hold touch each other. There is a flash beyond vision, a flash beyond pain, beyond noise and beyond understanding. The blind camera shows us nothing any more but nothing can stop me re-living the memory: Frank’s 45-year-old male womb is ripped open and a new body is born, both heavenly and deformed. A crumpled, wilting, collapsing body of brilliantly different, sword-white light, accompanied by the smell of charred flesh and a poisonous umbilical cord of flame, burning from a plastic wig.
---
Connie
Ben has described it to me but of course it’s indescribable. It’s agony to look into Frank’s eyes for the last time, but there is also glory. The nausea has gone, but it will take days to work through what I’m feeling in its place. I wonder if I’m hallucinating. Ben looks almost luminous.
Amelia is pushing on with the television clip, although these are images we have seen countless times on our TV screens – as news, as investigative journalism, as mystery, as the time the Martians landed. Starting that evening, Downing Street claimed that hackers got into the BBC’s computers and introduced ‘patently ludicrous’ words and images into the Prime Minister’s announcement. I ask Amelia about that.
‘Hackers is less embarrassing than North Korea. North Korea would be less embarrassing than the truth,’ she replies. ‘It saves face, doesn’t it?’
Speaking of face, the screen flickers and of course it’s Quincey Parcha’s, the tower glowing like a jubilee beacon in the background. We all know about Quincey Parcha, the 20-year old journalism student on a summer placement with BBC South who asks the question that goes round the world in less than an hour. Of course he doesn’t know that yet; he’s standing in for a sick colleague and about to do his first broadcast interview ever.
‘Welcome to Hampton College, where we are with the Prime Minister for a significant announcement about the National Health Service. Prime Minister, good evening.’
‘Good evening.’
Parcha stutters slightly. ‘Prime Minister, what is your announcement?’
‘I’m delighted to be here with Mark Topley, who is Hampton’s outstanding MP as well as Minister for Health in the government. In Hampton we have a world-class business school, supported by outstanding global business leaders such as Wilson Pinnacle and, beside me, Alex Bakhtin.
‘The college’s tower which has just been opened is an outstanding example of cutting-edge British design. As leaders we should always be looking ahead to the next frontier. My government has no more serious responsibility than to do precisely this for the NHS.
‘We need an NHS fit for the future. Already, we have world-class doctors, nurses and other clinicians: I say today that we need NHS managers to make the same grade. And so I am announcing the investment of one hundred and twenty million pounds by government and business to make management education in the British NHS the best in the world. We will double the number of doctors in the NHS.’
Parcha says, ‘Will the new doctors from this one hundred and twenty million pound investment be doctors of medicine?’
The Prime Minister grins. ‘They will be doctors of healthcare management excellence, graduating from business schools like Hampton. We are moving beyond MBAs and master’s degrees, useful though these have been. Having a doctorate means being at the cutting edge of research in your field. You may know that a long time ago I gained one myself. We are pledging, and this is the first time that any British government has pledged this, that NHS management will be as cutting-edge as NHS medicine. Why should British patients accept less?’
The interviewer says, ‘Prime Minister, but why Hampton? Why not London or Manchester, where there are strong business and medical schools side by side?’
The Prime Minister says, ‘Well, Hampton is a marginal constituency, isn’t it? We need to keep Hampton at the next election. I am very confident that this investment in Hampton will brin
g the appropriate return. And that will be the return of Mark Topley as Member of Parliament.’
Mark Topley’s agreement is emphatic. ‘I couldn’t agree with the Prime Minister more. This is outstanding news for Hampton and outstanding news for the college. And what has really helped bring the two together is that Dianne and I sleep together from time to time.’
The interviewer stalls before following his script. ‘Lord Bakhtin, you have donated four million pounds to this programme. Why?’
Alex puts his arm round Dianne. ‘Dianne is a very sexy lady, and Mr Topley is not the only man who can testify to that.’
Behind the camera a violent coughing fit strikes.
Dr Peach-Gyro says, ‘But please don’t put it all down to me. I mean, Alex, you got a peerage out of it.’
The Prime Minister nods.
Studio voices are whispering manically in the interviewer’s ear. He nods decisively and turns back to the Prime Minister. ‘Prime Minister, you have emphasised the international perspective tonight. So let me ask, why did Britain invade Iraq?’
A figure – Ed Lens – flies across the screen, punching the Prime Minister in the jaw so that he cannot answer. The camera is the next to fly, ending up upside down on the grass. Bedlam erupts. For a couple of minutes the screen is filled with sky and upside-down shoes and police boots. Two voices shout, ‘Stop! Armed police!’ Something is bleeped out.
‘Decompression,’ Amelia explains. ‘When an undercover police officer suddenly needs to identify themselves to uniformed colleagues. Like the bends, dangerous, painful and best avoided.’
Ben says, ‘Greg, I assume? You’ve blanked out a code word?’
Amelia nods. ‘He’s a detective now. Worldwide publicity and undercover careers don’t mix.’ She clicks the remote control. ‘You’ll see more if I turn the image the right way up.’
Someone (presumably the cameraman) leaves the camera lying on the ground but nudges it to point towards the action. Off-screen, Lens is shouting his innocence but the starting of the helicopter rotor drowns him out. Greg races the Prime Minister towards the helicopter and pushes him inside. Circular agitation disturbs the lake as the helicopter lifts off.
In the foreground a Land Rover with flashing blue lights brakes abruptly. Now we see Lens, dragged by two armed officers. He is still shouting. As the helicopter recedes I can make out more of the words: ‘Get Number Ten. Get a news blackout …’ He screams as the barrel of a sub-machine gun smashes into his spine.
Suddenly the helicopter shudders as if with unspeakable fear and swoops back towards the water. The side door opens, and you can just make out the Prime Minister’s immortal grin before he is shoved out. Two figures tumble towards the water as the helicopter rockets upwards. Two white splashes, and ten seconds later the screen shows us the picture of the Prime Minister that is on the front page of every national newspaper the next morning. In three cases the headline is identical:
NOT WAVING, BUT DROWNING
Then the screen goes black. ‘A police boot, I’m afraid,’ says Amelia. She pushes five sheets of paper towards me and Connie. ‘At this point we’ve lost video inside the tower, obviously. The camera’s microphone is still giving us an audio feed but what’s happening is utter chaos – shouting, screaming and crying. The technical experts were able to pull out some phrases and voices. So we can identify Junior shouting, ‘Casey, are you all right?’ and Casey yelling, ‘Dad, Dad, Dad!’. I thought if we wrote them down rather than played you a racket of noise, you’d more likely remember things.’
That makes sense. I scan the phrases, the script of a play with very short lines, most of them missing. A digital timeline runs down the left-hand margin from the detonation at 19:09:21 until 19:18:30, when I finish announcing the evacuation.
‘Can you remember how it was for you, immediately after the flash?’ Amelia asks me.
Amelia and Connie are leaning forward equally. Yes, with the script in front of me it’s easy to remember. I tell them.
I remember that the blindness lifts slowly, although the brilliant light doesn’t. Even if you are shielded from the light by others you cannot look towards it. Hands cling to eyes or ears. Those who can, look to see if they are hurt. I remember so many people crying out, ‘Am I hurt? Am I hurt?’
You have to look yourself to see whether you are blind. That’s scary. I remember saying to myself, ‘Look at the monitor! You’re not blind!’ The monitor is showing figures by the lake. Not only am I not blind, but the world hasn’t come to an end.
I hear, ‘Welcome to Pinnacle College at Hampton, where we are with the Prime Minister … ‘’
My abiding memory of that first two minutes is the odour of charred flesh and burning plastic. A fire extinguisher is passed through the crowd and someone – maybe Cardew McCarthy – sprays foam into the vortex of light. The smell diminishes but not the light. A realisation passes among us like guilt – we’re all all right. Except Frank Jones.
I look at Gyro. He is wondering how to take charge, but then the surreality overcomes him. It transfixes even the police officers on the terrace. I hear on the monitor the wheeze I came up with about doubling the number of doctors in the NHS. But something is very wrong.
The Prime Minister says, ‘Well, Hampton is a marginal constituency, isn’t it? We need to keep Hampton at the next election. I am very confident that this investment in Hampton will bring the appropriate return. And that will be the return of Mark Topley as Member of Parliament.’
Mark Topley says. ‘I couldn’t agree with the Prime Minister more. This is outstanding news for Hampton and outstanding news for the college. And what has really helped bring the two together is that Dianne and I sleep together from time to time.’
In the auditorium we are doing what it says on the tin – listening.
On screen, Alex puts his arm round Dianne. ‘Dianne is a very sexy lady, and Mr Topley is not the only man who can testify to that.’
Gyro faints.
Dianne says, ‘But please don’t put it all down to me. I mean, Alex, you got a peerage out of it.’
Gyro isn’t the only one. Junior collapses. McCarthy runs forward and starts pumping Junior’s chest. I’m thinking what is going on? What is going on is that people are telling the truth. As if this was perfectly normal.
‘Which is when I get it,’ I say to Amelia and Connie. ‘Suddenly I understand Frank’s project. He cared more for truth and honesty than for anything else, and he went back to physics to try to get there. He started searching two years ago for a different way up the mountain. He found a way to make a different kind of light. He found a way to tear the veil of our human world.’
Back in the auditorium I realise everyone has stopped listening and wants leading. It’s strange to see: every big-wig’s face – even Alex’s – is pleading, lead me! Someone lead me! It’s a spaceship full of emperors with no clothes.
Clearly, the someone to lead them will not be Gyro. He has passed out, his flagship event in tatters. Someone has died in his beloved tower, and two heart-stopping doses of marital news will be going out on national television.
And the leader will not be the Pinnacles either, father or son. The shock has killed Junior. ‘Casey realises that his father is dead when the amount on his cufflinks suddenly jumps to $50 billion dollars,’ I explain. Casey has inherited.
I realise one of the voices screaming in my ear is Haddrill, from the command centre. Stillman, he says, take charge please. Orderly evacuation in groups of ten by the lift. Use the lift because many of the guests are elderly and in shock. Everyone is to muster in the car park. Once the tower is clear, he will cut the power and hopefully the light.
I push the pages back towards Amelia. ‘So that’s what I do. I go to the lectern, I get everybody organised. I go down in the lift with the first group. Except I do one thing before all that. I find the set of keys to the Lexus wh
ich Gyro keeps in his jacket.
‘Then I jump in the Lexus and race out of the college like a bat out of hell. And I call you.’ I’m looking at Connie. ‘Thank God you were in the called numbers on my phone.’
---
Connie
It seems Amelia’s questions will never end, but around six o’clock they do – although neither of us can imagine what all that effort of inquiry will produce. Ben and I walk across the Millennium Bridge from St Paul’s to the Tate Modern. It used to wobble but no more. Downstream from the Tate is Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, where Ben has booked us to have dinner in the theatre restaurant. Is that what we have been telling – tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? I hope not.
The drizzle has stopped and it’s a spectacular summer evening. We pause to watch a dozen tourists in waterproofs be flung from side to side on the surface of the Thames in a high-speed inflatable boat. They have paid for that experience. The two of us have had quite enough of being flung from side to side as it is.
We say to each other that we both want to build normal lives, possibly together, but it will have to be some kind of ‘new normal’. For one thing, Ben needs to decide on a job. He has had some offers from those fat cats who see him as the hero of the tower.
However, so far 23 of those fat cats have given interviews somewhere in the world media in which their own role in saving world capitalism is centre stage. (I don’t normally read Private Eye but the satirical magazine is keeping score. Seth Carter showed me.)
Most of the offers he’s told me about, however, are Bakhtin 2.0 – more or less money, no life and for a terminal bonus they turn you into an arsehole. To put it another way, everything (which includes any question of ‘us’) depends on what the two of us have learned from this extraordinary circus. I’m glad Ben’s sticking to not making any on-the-spot decisions.
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