by Phil Brett
Phil Brett
Gone Underground
With Britain turned upside down, some people will kill to get back to the top
Also in the Pete Kalder series:
Comrades Come Rally
For Mum and Dad. Words are not enough to say how much I owe them.
1. Pollination
Revolution was bloody hard work. It could also be damn frustrating. She yawned, feeling the effects of the past year. Her muscles ached; her head throbbed; even her bones seemed to feel brittle. Walking through the damp, cold and oily subterranean depths, she thought about what she was going to do. It had pretty much been a wasted journey here. The reason, the real reason, for her trip, had not been there. He had been transferred. Which was typical, just bloody typical.
Finding the correct stairwell, she cursed her bad luck. She had neither the time nor the energy to go on wild goose chases. Or indeed, any type of fowl pursuits. So, what was she going to do now?
She knew what her body was telling her. Go home and sleep. Hey, why not even do something wild and crazy – like see her kids!
From the day of the seizure of power onwards, she had not had much time for dancing in the streets or drinking in the festival of the oppressed. Funny thing was, that things seemed to get even harder after that day.
And then there was this.
She stopped. Could she hear footsteps? For a moment she just froze, but all she could hear was the dripping of melting snow. She shook her head; she was being paranoid. Understandable, all things considered, but she mustn’t let it take over her. She had been looking over her shoulder since she’d got here. It wouldn’t be that surprising if people were in here. It was after all, the most public of places.
It was the overwhelming tiredness she felt that was making her paranoid. It hadn’t helped matters that this part of South London had fully embraced the concept of renaming streets. Prince of Wales Drive was now Cymru Avenue. All very noble she was sure, but with satellite communication down, she had to rely on her phone’s stored navigation system and her brain’s memory. Both weren’t what they used to be, and she had made quite a few wrong turns since arriving, finding herself in strange streets and even at times confused as to which direction to take. Nonetheless, she pushed herself forwards; forwards because any other direction might spell death.
She opened the car door and sat back in her seat. The door gently closed, but she didn't instruct the car to start. Instead, she kept it in passive mode. She wanted to think. Now was decision time. Did she continue to build a case? If she did that, then when she did finally present it to the workers movement’s leadership, they would be able to act without hesitation or delay. A little extra time here could save a whole more later. Or was she just hesitating from fear? Should she now contact them and tell them what she knew? The problem was: it all amounted to fragments of facts, a greater amount of suspicion and a whole mass of guesswork.
Closing her eyes, she thought of the options.
God, she was tired. The seat was moulding itself to her body, and a growing temptation was gnawing at her to snatch a nap. She could take advantage of the peace and quiet here. It was just so quiet here. Perhaps it was too quiet. She opened her eyes and looked around but saw nothing other than more cold heartless concrete. She smiled. Only seconds ago, she was jumping at the slightest sound and now she was worrying that there wasn’t any. And quoting B movie dialogue. To herself.
Her eyelids grew heavy again. There was, of course, one further possibility. She could share what she knew with a comrade she trusted – one who would not laugh at her, run away or pick up the phone to the president of the republic. If she shared what she knew, then she wouldn’t feel so alone. They could possibly even help.
What to do?
What was that? Was someone there? She was feeling so jumpy. Again, she opened her eyes, expecting to see nothing but a cold, dank car park. Was that a noise?
Her side window shattered.
Blackness.
She didn’t have time to hear it.
She had run out of time.
2. Foeniculum vulgare
Being given permission to use the iron had been truly a day of rejoicing. It was an almost romantic experience to hold it in my hands and run it smoothly down the arms of my black-and-yellow checked shirt with its button-down collar. The limited space here came with limited clothes choice, but nonetheless, I figured that the three-button slim-lapel indigo suit would nicely complement it. And the shirt really did warrant praise. There may not be many of us here at the Anchorage, but those who were could at least have a glimpse of what style looked like.
Being deemed a medical facility, we had managed to escape the frequent national power cuts. We also enjoyed a constant supply of central heating so, despite the Arctic conditions, it was rather toasty inside. Because of that, and the fact that today I was expected to stay in the house, a lightweight pure cotton two-piece would be more than adequate.
After finishing the ironing and relishing the crisp creases, I dressed to the sound of Cab Calloway's '(Hep Hep) The Jumpin' Jive'. Finishing off, I picked several hairs of my knees, which Red, my long-serving purring comrade, had left when he had decided that sitting on my lap was an essential thing to do on a cold February morning. Well, my little hep cat, its time I jumped. It was almost 10am. I needed to get to breakfast. Not that in the Anchorage there were any particular rules for when you had to. There weren’t actually many rules about anything in here, but if you wanted a good breakfast, then you didn’t want to be too late for it. And, as it was usually worth having, it was worth making the effort.
Before I left, I gave my room the once over to make sure that everything was neat, tidy and in its place. Noting that the iron was still out, I hurried over and put it in its allotted space. I had been fortunate enough to have been allocated my own room, which boasted an en suite bathroom and full media access. Some of the later arrivals hadn't been so lucky and had been dorm’d up and were having to share the various reception rooms. Yeah, lucky me. Revelling in my good fortune, but not having any balloons or whistles, I closed my door and headed out into the Wednesday world of a mental health hospital.
Or, as it was officially known: 'a home to support and help in the welfare and rehabilitation of people with mental distress who have committed acts of extreme violence'. Here, we weren't patients but guests, with staff working with us. But it was easier just to call it a mental health hospital. Someone had once said that if something looked like a duck, walked like a duck and sounded like a duck, then it probably was a duck. But then, perhaps such generalisations were dangerous in a place like this.
After breckie, came the individual morning counselling sessions. To be honest, they weren’t as bad as they could have been. I’d been fortuitous here as well, as the psychiatrist, Dr Brakus, to whom I had been assigned, had a smattering of common sense, had at least a nodding acquaintance with a sense of perspective and was one who kept the psychobabble down to acceptable limits. She was even known to occasionally laugh at a joke. She did, it had to be admitted, have a few annoying habits – such as wearing brown corduroy trousers, having a penchant for sitting cross-legged and continually poking her blond hair behind her left ear – but she was okay.
It had gone quite well with Dr Brakus, or as she always insisted, “Call me Sarah”. As per, we had discussed the various events which had angered me over the last few days. Choosing what I had thought the most important, I had raged over yesterday’s announcement that the President of the US of A was once more demanding immediate parliamentary elections and the return of what he called England’s proud history of democracy, and by the by, the return of American financial assets seized by the National Workers Council. Shamelessly, he had been stand
ing next to our last Prime Minister, whose track record on democracy was somewhat shaky – he being the man who had tried unsuccessfully to mount a military coup. “Call me Sarah” had been treated to a full political discourse on recent history. I had given a passionate and well thought out resume of the past, with a few verbal flourishes and witty asides. She had simply said, ‘I know. I was here too.’
The good doctor though, was far more interested in my irritation with Harry at breakfast, who, sitting there with puffy eyes and thinning damp hair, had insisted that he was suffering from flu and had his head covered with a tea towel over a bowl of steaming water. To clear his sinuses, he had said. I had asked what a violent nutcase like Harry was doing being allowed boiling water. That had warranted a several rebukes from other ‘guests’ for being a negative and reactionary term for someone suffering from psychosis. They were right, of course. So, I had rephrased it: ‘Why was someone with a history of violence stemming from mental health issues being allowed boiling water?’ Nobody had replied to that.
What had made it worse was that, as Harry had surfaced from his self-administered medical treatment, I had noticed that he had not thoroughly cleaned out the bowl he was using and that soggy cornflakes were floating in the water. At this point ‘Call me Sarah’ had sprung into action and had interrogated me on the matter. She might like to give off the air of pussy cat dozing in the midday sun, but she had the reflexes of a cheetah. She'd not said a word about my political analysis but mention damp cereals and she was off running. We had spent ages dissecting why that had annoyed me. When I had tried to explain that a lot of what I was saying was just me being flippant, it had provoked the tired old question on my need for flippancy. Was it hiding something deeper? Something which I could not be honest about? I wasn’t sure what she thought that might be – the possibility that I had suffered a childhood trauma with some Kelloggs? That flippancy had just compounded her interest. However I answered, I was caught – when I tried to deny that was it, she had tried to find out why I was in denial. And when I threw in the towel and said yes, it must be that flippancy hid inner pain, we had to find what that pain was.
It had been a blessed relief when, somehow, we had moved away from cereal horrors and onto my on-going feud with Mark Grove, whom I’d also annoyed at the table. With his chubby little jowls pontificating over his orange juice on the importance of the King James Bible, he had slithered on as if it had been written with him personally in mind. Rumours were rife in this little community of ours that he had stabbed someone when he had been a teenager. As far as I was concerned, that wasn't half as bad as the bludgeoning we suffered at his hands through his chosen weapon of tedium.
“Call me Sarah” had been in one of her more “I’ve read a book on emotional well-being” moods and had dusted off her “surf, swim and sink” metaphor, which she had heard at some seminar or other, and had asked which heading I thought my inability to cope patiently with Grove came under.
She was fond of this method of categorising feelings under these labels, particularly after learning of my love of swimming – which, to my everlasting regret, I had once mentioned, saying that I found it to be an ideal way for me to lose myself. I had replied that I should just drown the bastard. That was a mistake, a big mistake, as she then had wanted to discuss this latest formulation of aggression. Off hand, I couldn't think of a suitably aquatic metaphor for it, but she had run out of time. The guests and staff committee had ruled that these sessions should last no longer than an hour, and the time was up just then.
It being a Wednesday, that very committee was due to meet. It couldn't, in a million years, be described as being particularly exciting. At times, I almost pined to be back with Dr Brakus and her focussed serenity. The overcrowding issue at the Anchorage had been the only item on the agenda. An important matter to be sure, but as interesting a three-day-old bowl of washing up. Primarily, it was a problem which we had little control over, stemming as it did from the workers’ state's attitude to crime and punishment. With many of the revolutionaries having previously enjoyed the hospitality of prisons, there wasn't much in the way of positivity towards them. Political prisoners had been promptly released, followed by a hard look at who was still residing in those establishments. Many whose crimes had stemmed from poverty, powerlessness or desperation were also released into a society. We were, after all, attempting to build a society free of such things. Drug addicts were sent for rehabilitation.
Then came the people whose crimes could be seen as stemming from mental distress and who required treatment rather than punishment. That was us. Although, truth be told – or at least my version of the truth – I didn't feel that group included me. I hadn't committed a crime; I wasn't suffering from any distress – apart from having to share living space with Mark Grove, that is – and I did not need treatment. But then, Dr Brakus wasn't alone in not entirely agreeing with my position.
As the numbers involved increased, so the Anchorage grew in population. It hadn't always been called that. It was a truly naff name, sounding as it did like some tacky theme pub in Chichester. Nor had it originally been designed to be any kind of medical facility. In fact, it had been a rather large home and – let’s be honest – an even larger public statement for one of the country’s leading architects. Come the revolution, people had noticed exactly how huge the building was and how small the family was who lived inside it was. Indeed, if I remembered correctly it was he, his partner, their child and his virile ego. Its huge expanse of steel and glass, resembling a kid’s geometry set, was actually pretty hard not to notice. So we were given his home, whilst he was rehoused in a two-bedroom semi in Edmonton. All concerned considered it a fair swap. Except maybe the architect. His partner. And his ego. The child was too young to comment.
However, despite the size of the building, we were now getting pushed for space. A case of too much space for the privileged but too little for us psychotics. The question was now: do we suffer the cramming of bed by bed, ask that further buildings be found or demand a temporary cessation of such releases? The debate had taken a good chunk of time, with opinions flying all over the place and many hitting severe turbulence from some of the committee member's frequent expulsion of hot air. Finally, we had agreed to request that the local accommodation committee look once more at under-used dwellings in the area.
After lunch, I had settled down on my bed to finish Turgenev’ Rudin and got myself enjoyably frustrated with the ineffectual lead title character. Lying there, enjoying the fine storytelling, with Red purring and snoozing by my side, I gazed out, watching a light snow come down, refreshing the previous day’s offering. The calmness of the scene, with the warmth of uninterrupted central heating, had the effect of pulling me in and out of sleep, rocking from reading pure and delicate prose to the silence of the snow falling, and then into blank sleep. On my waking, the triangular poles of attraction would then resume their competitiveness. On balance, dormancy had held the upper hand, even if it was a smooth and soft and very gentle one.
Of course, as enjoyable as that was, it had meant that I had neglected to prepare for my art appreciation session. Not only that: I had arrived late and groggy. By the time I had marched into the rec room, everyone who was coming was already seated. In the middle of the room was an image of David’s The Death of Marat. The projector wasn’t the best of ones, and the image appeared to be rippling, as if Marat was actually there, waving Corday’s letter of introduction in front of us all.
We were studying neo-classicism today. The turnout was quite good, numbering nine guests and three members of staff. Even old Harry was there, muttering random nonsense. It would have been nice to report that his social inabilities hid an artist of profound genius, but the truth was that when we were discussing a picture, it was a rare event if he uttered a sentence that remotely resembled coherence. As for his own painting, it could be labelled as workmanlike. He was better than most, but the fact was: we did not have a Leonardo lurking underneath
the mental health issues. I guess that only happened in the movies.
The session was – in the words of the mythical commentator – a game of two halves. The first was pretty disastrous, with my attempts to explain neo-classicalism floundering on what linked paintings of a man murdered in his bath, a pot of flowers and a lion attacking a horse. In the end, I gave up and we settled down to drawing the flowers. That went quite well, with everyone enjoying it. And, it had to be said, Harry’s did look rather good – if, that is, we ignored the rather surreal flower in the foreground, which looked more like a sulking dragon than any kind of plant.
From there, I retired to my room and watched yet more snow float down as I pondered what I would read next. The flakes were increasing in size and now were about as big as a baby’s fist. If it carried on like this, then there was a real possibility that the Anchorage would be snowed in. The thought of spending days cut off from the outside world – stuck with Harry, his flu, with his medicinal remedies and Mark Grove and his fascist ones – was enough to frighten the strongest of souls.
So, if it was to be the case that I was going to incarcerated with Harry’s babbling, then what was required was a good bulky classic to lose myself in. Although preferring the written word to be on paper, I was separated from my library at home by the weather. We could pretty much come and go here as we pleased, but as cool as it was, my scooter stood no chance in getting through this depth of snow. The Anchorage mini-bus was equipped with all-weather tyres, but I was only entitled to a lift home on official home-release days, and the next one wasn’t for three days.
Through the expanse of my window, I had in front of me the epic panorama of, if not the countryside, then an expensively sculptured garden that was losing its features under the white onslaught. It was a damn sight more romantic than what was behind me: a sonic background which, judging by the crashing sounds, was coming from an impromptu chimp’s tea-party in the dining room. Despite the noise, however, the ramped-up heating and the silent snow made me feel once more soporific.