by Sean Mallen
Fixer Mick again played the role of incompetent, deliberately taking wrong turns and forcing us to navigate ourselves. After consulting the ordnance map we had been issued, we found our way to a bumpy path through the woods where we bounced along until a local waved us down and motioned us to drive through a gate, which he then closed and locked behind us. Duh.
“Julie, this does not look good,” I astutely observed. Even with my minimal experience, it was clear that we were breaking multiple rules for surviving hostile environments and were on our way to an unhappy end.
After driving around the wood for a few minutes, we got a mysterious call from the farmer who said he still wanted to see us but hung up before giving directions.
“I think it is now time for us to depart,” I said with the conviction of a hardened war correspondent.
Too late. Three men in balaclavas burst out of the woods and pointed their fake guns at us through the window. Time for that highlight of every hazardous environment training course: the kidnapping.
Bags were pulled over our heads, our wrists bound, and, in an interesting variation, our captors led us by the thumbs — evidently a kidnapper’s tactic for asserting control, as if the large firearms were not enough.
We were bundled into the back of an SUV, dumped gently on our sides, and driven around a bumpy road for a while, the thoughtful kidnappers keeping a hand under our heads to keep us from bouncing our noggins.
Eventually they stopped, pulled us out, made us kneel, and wordlessly touched the barrel of the gun to our ribs. Then it was over. The bags were pulled off our heads, the kidnappers reverted to being the smiling trainers again, one of whom handed back my glasses, which he had prudently removed to avoid damage.
It was really only a taste of what to expect, and knowing it was all play-acting, we could easily laugh about it. But best to take it seriously, because it does happen to reporters, and the real-life result is at minimum traumatic and at worst fatal. In the debrief later, Jonathan discussed tactics for dealing with one’s captors and none of the scenarios were good.
“If you’re kidnapped in Iraq, however, you’d better try to escape,” he advised gravely, based on his first-hand knowledge of the land of Saddam. “Because they’re going to cut your head off. Although it might help to emphasize to them that you’re Canadian, not American or British.”
Charming.
Julie had to leave that night to return to a gig, and I would miss her company and experience for the remainder of the course when I would be solo and trying mightily to not kill, maim, or otherwise traumatize my trainers in the play-acting.
There was the industrial accident out back of the meeting hall: a teenager ran at me screaming that he had burned his arm. I got him to hold a hose running cold water on it, then realized I had neglected a more serious case a few metres away. The trainer named Marlon had evidently fallen off a ladder and was on the ground unconscious, blood seeping from his leg. Poor fellow had suffered yet another compound fracture. I left the moaning, complaining teenager behind and treated Marlon’s break — correctly this time. My only mistake was not to go to him first. Here was the concept of triage.
Later that day, Marlon posed as the victim of a car accident, slumping over the wheel of his Land Rover. I managed to haul him out onto the ground, verified that he was breathing, and then did exactly the wrong thing: laying him on his back and giving him my backpack as a pillow for his head, effectively shutting off his airway. Fixer Mick pointed out that Marlon had stopped breathing and I belatedly remembered a key part of the training — the recovery position. I turned Marlon over on his side before he expired.
The first aid course covered a colourful range of calamities: sunstroke, frostbite, belly wounds. I learned that if your colleague’s guts are spilling out, do not try to stuff them back inside — better to bind them with moist packing to just hold them in place and leave the intestinal repair job to a medical professional.
The mass grave theme kept recurring. In one scenario, I was led along what I was told was a safe path through a minefield into a copse where some insurgents were holding a soldier hostage. With a gun held to his head, he finally revealed the location of the graves. Here was an ethical dilemma: I asked the rebels to hand over the soldier to me. They refused, so with no other bargaining chips than my sparkling personality, we left. On our way out we heard the crack of a rifle, clearly an execution. It encouraged us to hustle back to the vehicle.
Navigating using the ordnance maps, I managed to only get lost once before we at last arrived at the graves. However, that mistake resulted in us being caught in a vicious round of crossfire between insurgents and the army. Fixer Mick suffered a gruesome belly wound, with Plasticine posing as his guts. Crawling around on the ground to minimize myself as a target, I manage to get him bound up more or less in the prescribed manner.
Thus ended the violent portion of my training. That night Sarah, the owner of the B&B, kindly gave me a lift into Glastonbury so I could meet Jonathan for supper. The movie-makeup business was evidently treating her well because she was driving a gleaming new Mercedes-Benz convertible. It was a perfect night to have the top down — warm and clear.
“If you’re lucky you might see a Druid on the street,” she said, the corners of her mouth rising ever so slightly.
Myth and legend, rock and roll, all collide in this ancient town. There is evidence of human habitation going back to the Neolithic period. For such a small place, it has had some celebrated visitors — at least, so the stories go.
Dominating the landscape is the mystic hill rising at the edge of the village: Glastonbury Tor, with the ancient ruin of St. Michael’s Tower at its peak — an evocative landmark, visible for miles around.
It has been speculated as one of the homes of the Holy Grail, while some see it as the outline of the breast of a goddess and others as the entrance to the land of the fairies.
Arthurian scholars have suggested it could be the site of the Isle of Avalon, the place where Excalibur was forged and where the enchantress Morgan le Fay cast spells as the leader of nine naughty sisters.
In centuries past, it was a favoured place of execution. Unlucky wretches would be drawn and quartered while enjoying a fine view of the countryside.
A representation of the Tor was built for the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London — a green hill where the flags of the participating countries were displayed, to the delight of the Brits who know the story, even if the image left the rest of the world bewildered.
About ten miles to the east, in the Vale of Avalon, a more contemporary form of British mysticism plays out most years. Since 1970 the Glastonbury Festival has attracted thousands to its peculiar celebration of music, mud, rain, and discomfort. And the Brits love it. The Glastonbury Festival had already happened a month or so earlier, with U2 and Beyoncé headlining.
I was not to hike to the top of the Tor on this night. Instead, Sarah dropped me in the centre of the village, where I strolled past the rows of New Age shops to meet Jonathan at a funky tapas bar for supper. He regaled me with tales of Baghdad in the wake of the war, and how he shook his head at the fumbling attempts of the new leaders to build a proper gallows upon which Saddam was to be executed.
I was among Jonathan’s first clients (in hazardous environment training, not gallows construction). I told him it was all very enlightening, but considering how much time I spent sitting at my desk writing stories based on video shot by others, I wondered how much I would actually need it.
“Unless, of course, the Camden Market is invaded by terrorists,” I joked.
It was a line I was to remember just a few weeks later.
The final day of the course was short and light. The subject was preparing for an urban demonstration that turned violent. Here was the one area in which I had a bit of experience. For the field training, Jonathan chose the picturesque city of Wells. Although only a village, it gets to be called a city because of the ancient (and still unfi
nished) cathedral. It also boasts a stately bishop’s residence surrounded by a shallow moat. Why a bishop would need a moat remains unclear.
We strolled around the narrow old streets, talking about how to protect oneself when protesters start throwing rocks, cops start responding with tear gas, and reporters are caught in the middle.
I was in Toronto during the 2010 G20 meeting of world leaders when just such a scenario played out on the streets. But in that case I used my experience as a veteran journalist to avoid the nastiness, insisting that I be assigned to cover the actual conference, which generated little news, but which allowed me to relax inside the police barriers, sipping the complimentary Ontario wines, munching the complimentary canapés prepared by the city’s top chefs, and watching with interest the live coverage of my colleagues on the streets being drenched in a driving rainstorm and tear-gassed by the cops.
The walking tour of Wells brought the hazardous environment training to a close. An afternoon train brought me back to London, where I met Stu and Dan at a restaurant near Oxford Circus. There was a going-away party for Tom, a Canadian radio reporter headed home after a three-year stint in the U.K.
Tom and I had exchanged emails weeks earlier, planning to meet and compare notes about moving a family to London. Now, after having had a few, he told me it was a wonderful experience, that his wife and two children had loved it, that it was the world’s greatest city, the best kind of experience for a reporter, et cetera.
He was most insistent and enthusiastic.
“You don’t need to convince me,” I told him. “It’s my wife and daughter.”
Chapter Seven
The gas line had been repaired while I was away, so hot water had returned to the flat and the building had not blown up — a mixed blessing. It was now approximately one month until the arrival of Isabella and Julia.
I was fast asleep that first night back at Buckland when the phone rang. As I reached for it I could see on the clock radio that it was 1:15 a.m.
It was Isabella.
“Julia’s got something for you,” she said.
“Uhmg,” was my erudite response.
“Skype us right now.”
“Ah … okay,” I said, the fog slowly lifting.
I made the video connection on the phone and there was Julia with a knowing smile.
“Daddy, Mommy took me to Build-a-Bear today … and look!”
She held up a teddy bear, a shocking pink teddy bear.
“Her name is Sherbet!”
“Oh … That’s great, sweetie. But did you really need another bear?”
“No, Daddy, she’s for you! Listen.”
She squeezed the bear’s paw and out came a recording of her six-year-old’s voice: “I’m Julia Mallen from Global News National. Hi, Daddy! Me and Mommy are missing you. See you later. We love you!”
“Did you hear it? That’s me!”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak because of the lump in my throat.
“Sweetie, that’s got to be the best bear ever. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Bye!”
Isabella came on the screen.
“We’re going to mail it, but Julia wanted to show it to you right away.”
I knew of course it was her idea, her way of trying to keep a connection.
“Thanks for that,” I said, inadequately.
Sherbet arrived in the mail a week or so later and shared my bed every night.
Sunday was one of London’s rare sunny summer days. I strolled down Belsize Avenue to the cute enclave of shops and cafés at Belsize Terrace, bought the Sunday Times and had breakfast outside, feeling only slightly guilty that my wife and daughter were on their own back in Toronto.
Afterward, my mission was to buy the giant stuffed giraffe that Julia had spotted in a toy store in Hampstead.
On a gorgeous day such as this, Hampstead Village is lovely — the cafés jammed with expensively dressed locals, many with their expensively dressed children in tow. It is a kind of never-never land for a middle-class Canadian. I walked in their presence, breathed their air, smelled their croissants, but was separated from their privileged lives by a thin, impregnable wall of economic disparity. They cruised by in Bentleys as I exited the Tube, hiking to a store where I was to buy a toy that I could not actually afford.
It was a short walk up Heath Street — a hole-in-the-wall shop with shelves crammed with enticements for children rich or not so rich.
The owner informed me that the stuffed giraffe was among her bestsellers — she was in the process of packing one up to ship to Northern Ireland. Out came my card to lay down the £75.
The day had now become positively hot, too warm to think about walking all the way down to Buckland with a large stuffie, so I waited for the 268 bus out front.
It is remarkable how much attention one can attract by standing at a Hampstead bus stop with a four-and-a-half-foot tall stuffed giraffe on a sunny Sunday. Londoners who would barely give me a look at normal times offered knowing smiles as they walked by. A Hampsteader pulled his Porsche to a stop directly in front of me.
“Would you and your giraffe like a lift?”
It was an offer that straddled the border between genial and snotty, leaning toward the latter.
“Sorry. You’d need a convertible.”
The looks on the bus were kinder. I milked it a bit, holding the giraffe affectionately close. He was going to be my sole companion in the flat for the next month. I took him out on the balcony for a shared selfie, which I forwarded back home.
Isabella emailed back immediately: “I love it! Thanks so much for that. It made Julia laugh! And it made me horny … I want to have sex with you!”
Funny how the purchase of a stuffed giraffe can bring so much joy.
Another middle-of-the night phone call. This time it was 3:30 a.m. I knocked the phone to the ground as I was reaching for it. Isabella told me that Julia had been watching a movie that was tied into the American Girl doll that she owned. In it, the father of the lead girl was a doctor who had to go to London to prepare for duty in a war. Julia had somehow related it all to me and started to cry uncontrollably.
“We need to Skype so you can talk to her,” said Isabella.
I stumbled out of bed and turned on my iPhone. When we made connection, I did my best to explain to Julia that I was a reporter not a doctor and I did not plan to be going to any wars. I would just be travelling from time to time to do stories, much as I had at home.
In the back of my mind I wondered whether I would be called to go to conflict zones, a prospect that I put aside, hoping that I did not have to face such a decision.
Although only six, Julia was wise to any prevarication. She accepted my story, but with a note of suspicion.
After Julia left the room, Isabella said, “We sure have a smart kid. Our little sweetie really misses you.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s just a few weeks to go before you guys come. Please try to hang in there,” I said wearily.
“We’re trying. But this is tough, very tough.”
In all of my six-and-a-half years of fatherhood I could count on fewer than the fingers of one hand the number of times I had bought clothes for my daughter. Isabella had always taken the lead and I happily handed over the responsibility.
But with only a month until the first day of school, there was a pressing need to buy Julia’s uniform. The Royal had provided a long and specific list, all of which had to be obtained beforehand because she would be expected to show up properly dressed, with a full kit, from Day One.
So, one morning before work, up I went on the bus to the far northern regions of Finchley Road to the recommended supplier. Isabella had emailed measurements to at least give me a guide. Happily, the Royal’s colours were red and white, acceptable for my girl. Top of the list: a pinafore. Aside from the title of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, I had no idea what the hell a pinafore was. I handed over my list to the helpful clerks and they pulled out a coup
le and started a pile.
“These track pants seem a bit small for a six-year-old,” said the clerk.
I shrugged helplessly. She smiled and added them to the collection.
“Does this blouse look right?” she asked. “Because once you open the package it cannot be returned.”
Duh, I thought.
“Let’s just give it a go,” I said aloud, feebly.
There were blue tights, a summer dress of red-and-white stripes, shorts and a T-shirt for P.E., and a boater hat with a red ribbon, which I thought was adorable, but which Julia would surely detest. I added a Royal bookbag as an extra, along with several iron-on name tags.
Two large plastic bags were filled as they added up the total: £326! I had spent more than five hundred Canadian dollars for uniforms that my daughter was going to hate. As I waited for the bus, I silently thanked Aunt Sheila for her generosity that was subsidizing this whole harebrained project.
Having spent a couple of months working in the centre of the Camden Market, I thought that it was time to learn a bit more about the neighbourhood. A quick internet search yielded the London Walks company — you just show up outside the Camden Town Tube stop at a given hour on Saturday, hand over five quid to a woman named Judith, and she leads you around.
About a dozen of us gathered on the wide sidewalk on a typically grey, drizzly August day. Judith Clute was easy to pick out as she adjusted the headset and microphone for her portable amplifier. A trim woman in her sixties with short grey hair, the website had described her as a local artist. She won me over with the first few words out of her mouth, speaking slowly and methodically.
“I hope you can all understand me because I have a very heavy downtown Toronto accent,” she said, as though we were all language students from Mongolia.