Eventually I mentioned that I had gotten hold of Franz von Papen’s diaries. I talked about the sanctimony of his self-defence in the book’s opening. Whichever way history had characterised him, he had an axe to grind with his accuser. It was interesting to see the reputation that arose from the former Chancellor’s choices. His was perhaps the best perspective. In many ways he had his finger over the button when it mattered.
We went for drinks that night, beginning on the canalside bars and adapting to each other’s company pretty easily. We sat at a rococo table which rocked on the uneven paving. He became a little more diplomatic as he drank, supplementing his blonde beer with a toddy every half hour or so. It was a relief to see him relax a bit more, without reining in the precision and insight that came naturally to him.
He prised open my beliefs about the world, beliefs scattered and uneven until he had the generosity to start filling them out, broadening the spectrum. As we walked down by the canal I was feeling the drink and I confessed to him that if I couldn’t take responsibility for the whole world, I couldn’t take responsibility for the little things. I had brought up my feud with Wolfencrantz by then. He told me to forget about the self-made man. He turned his back to the canal and began pissing against a wall. We were on a fairly barren stretch between bars, one overlooked by luxury apartments.
‘You forget about the self-made man,’ he said, steadying himself against the brickwork. ‘He’s got nothing to offer you.’
4
THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY he phoned and offered to pick me up. He told me to dress as Franz von Papen. I searched my flat looking for a bow tie. I put on a grey suit jacket, shoved some papers into an old briefcase and looked in the mirror. I was just short of a moustache. My phone rang again and he told me we were going to a house party.
His taxi pulled up in the car park outside my flat. I got in and closed the door. I asked Jaroslaw if we could take a detour to the nearest fancy-dress shop. He was dressed as he had been days earlier, with the hat placed down on the backseat.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘George Galloway. I always go as George Galloway. I’m running late so you’re going to have to get someone to draw that moustache on for you.’
We drove down Pershore Road, south of Birmingham. After twenty minutes we left the suburbs and joined a Roman road. Jaroslaw said the road was haunted. There were often sightings of a chariot driver who had been out riding during heavy snowfall and ended up in the river. It was a small stream that ran alongside us. He pointed out the places where a car might slide in ice and crash into the bracken. We drove more slowly. I looked behind us for Romans. The rest of the journey took us down winding country lanes until we finally emerged in a small village. We pulled into a drive that was hidden by large fir trees.
There was a butler with a clipboard in the porch. Matthew Boulton, Imelda Marcos and Henry Ford had all arrived. Boris Yeltsin had been scribbled out. James Watt and Bertolucci were there. The butler found me on the second sheet, my name scrawled in pencil. He checked they had the right spelling. Galloway wasn’t written down anywhere. I kept looking for it, lifting the sheets but soon realised Jaroslaw had already gone in.
I was handed a glass of Prosecco. It shook in my hand. A freckled girl in a lace bodice offered me black olives. She pushed one in her own mouth and turned away. I followed her trail across the room. There I could see down the main corridor and into the garden. Everyone was dressed up and I didn’t know anyone. I tasted my drink and thought about talking to the East Asian girl to my left. There was no sign of my friend. I decided to guess at a few names. I started with the East Asian girl.
She was talking to someone about the influx of foreign players into the Premier League. It seemed that her companion didn’t appreciate what he called an ‘oversaturation’ of the player market. Despite these reservations he was thinking about an invitation to join a consortium to buy Liverpool Football Club. Every member had to bring something to the table. During their first, tentative, meeting he produced a blood diamond from a fabric purse. When he heard the gasps of his friends he called them up on their objections.
‘Don’t you know why Liverpool flourished? You hypocrites! Millions of slaves passed through the docks!’
I realised he was Henry Ford but I couldn’t guess the identity of the girl. There were bags under her eyes.
I recognised Matthew Boulton. James Watt was standing next to him. The latter was fretting and asking questions whilst looking at his watch.
‘Where’s the bathroom? When’s the buffet opening?’
He put these questions to Boulton but his companion was already somewhere else, looking at a young girl sitting in a chair. He raised a glass of wine towards her. His view was blocked by the appearance of Erasmus Darwin, whose large figure pressed into both men and forced them to shuffle back towards the banister. Boulton said he needed to make a call and patted his pockets. His eyes came to rest on Erasmus’ face. He said his phone was back at the office. With an air of vulnerability, he asked for his friend’s phone so he could make the call. Erasmus sighed and said, ‘Anything to further the cause.’
Boulton stood halfway up the stairs and sheepishly made his call. Across the room we watched the girl answer.
Jaroslaw came downstairs with a bottle of single malt. He presented the label to me and asked if I wanted to get some tumblers. We headed to the kitchen. The East Asian girl with bags under her eyes stepped aside in the doorway. I felt Jaroslaw’s hand on my shoulder as I followed his directions.
‘Don’t get sucked in. That’s Madame Nhu.’
I went straight over to the sink to check the drying rack for glasses.
‘Can you get me a glass of water?’
I grabbed a pint glass without turning around to see who it was. I turned on the cold tap and nothing came out for a few seconds. Then there was a weak stream. I kept turning. I placed the glass in the sink and turned it again. The tap cover came off and the handle fell against the glass. Jaroslaw told me I’d misjudged the flow. Then water started pouring out of the valve, bubbling at first.
‘There’s a bit of a delay in the flow,’ Jaroslaw said.
‘Where’s that water?’
‘Oh fuck, he’s broke it. He’s done it again.’
A jet of water shot out and I put my hand over the valve. People were laughing behind me. I tried to direct the water down into the basin with my palm.
‘We don’t have Lech Walesa around, do we?’ I said. There was laughter.
‘Jaroslaw’s Polish.’
‘Yeah, but he’s not a plumber.’
Cold water was spraying from my palm and I kept swapping hands. Jaroslaw was trying to protect Imelda Marcos from the spray. The crowd parted a little and a Pharaoh came marching through. Someone asked him to fix it before anyone told the owner of the house. The Pharaoh went straight to the cupboard beneath and tried to turn the water off. We walked away but Bertolucci, the film director, stopped us in the doorway. He wanted to get us in shot with the furore that was erupting inside.
Rather than fixing the leaking tap, the Pharaoh had somehow broken the pipe underneath the sink. Water was pouring out of the cupboard and onto the floor. We watched the Pharaoh slip underneath Imelda, trying to grab hold of her arm and stay on his feet. Bertolucci prodded us with his camera lens and told us to say something. I asked Jaroslaw whose house we were in.
My friend pointed to Lillie Langtry, who, in a tight bodice, was grabbing at some bottles on the kitchen counter. She stood thinking with a vodka bottle in one hand and washing-up liquid in the other. She began squeezing the cleaning fluid down into the sink until it was almost empty. Passing me the vodka bottle she bowed to the camera and started to dance whilst bubbles poured out from the cupboard and engulfed the sink. I swigged at the vodka, toasting my first ever foam party. Lillie was laughing, her cleavage shaking and sodden.
We all began throwing the suds around the room. Bertolucci picked up a passing ginger cat and threw it into the suds. The cat scurried straight back out and ran into the living room.
Eventually someone overpowered the stream and fixed the pipe. Fortunately the good work had already been done – the ice was well and truly broken. I began to exaggerate my own character traits. I picked up what looked like an important set of documents from a dresser in one of the bedrooms and left them in the bathroom. I told Henry Ford to take charge of the music and, as he began tossing jazz records out of the open bay window, I leant towards James Watt to reassure him: ‘We’ve got him under control, don’t worry.’ As the night went on, more and more of the guests greeted me with a nod and addressed me as ‘Papen’.
Lillie Langtry tied her hair back and sat with me and Jaroslaw in the converted garage. She told us that she didn’t mind how loud people were because the big fir trees surrounding the drive tended to soak up any noise. I asked what she did to get such a big house. Jaroslaw tried to give me a reprimand but she looked at me coyly, her blue eyes subdued in the lowlight of the garage. She answered, ‘Well, Papen . . . sorry . . . Franz . . . I’m an actress. Surely you’d recognise me. I’ve just finished a tour of Cleopatra.’ She winked and raised her hand. ‘I guess you’re impressed by all of this then.’
Jaroslaw excused himself whilst we talked.
Lillie waved him off and turned back to me. ‘Did you finish the vodka?’
‘I think I left it somewhere.’
‘Jaroslaw told me you’re a teacher.’
‘I’m teaching at a college in the city. Unfortunately I’m on borrowed time.’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘It seems to me you’d make a good teacher.’ She reinforced this compliment with a slight smile, touching the arm of my chair.
‘Well,’ I shrugged. ‘They are axing my subject.’
‘Can’t you go somewhere else?’
‘It’ll be tough. My record hasn’t been all that great.’
‘It’s tough to live things down,’ she said and her eyes dropped to the floor. She began to fiddle with her bodice then. I couldn’t tell whether she had gone back into character.
‘I don’t think I’m cut out for it. And I don’t know what exactly I am cut out for.’
‘Well, if you stick around with Jaroslaw he’ll show you what you’re capable of. He’s a fighter, in every sense.’
‘I’m going to get walked over again. It’s like it’s in my bones now,’ I admitted.
She laughed in a way that seemed to wrap up the resignation in my voice, and put it to one side, like a piece of broken glass. ‘Well, if you really think that’s going to happen, what are you doing waiting? You’ve got nothing to lose. Change the dynamic. Make a move before someone makes theirs.’
‘I can’t do confrontation,’ I said.
‘You don’t have to stick to the things Matt can do. Ask yourself what Franz can do.’
A breeze came under the garage door and shook the flames of the tealights. During our conversation one or two had gone out, a thin slither of smoke rising gently from their wicks. The front of Lillie’s bodice was still darkened from the foam fight. She looked around the room as if there were other people in it. Voices sounded in the hall. I swirled my drink, thinking about what she had said.
‘He can manoeuvre for power,’ I said.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked, trying to recover from some distraction.
‘Franz.’
‘Oh yes.’ She sniffed over her shoulder. ‘Can you smell that?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘I think someone’s smoking in there.’ She stood up and stretched. ‘I’ll be back. Actually – you should have a look around the garden, I think you’ll like it. I’ll come out in a few minutes. The keys should be in the porch door.’
Lillie didn’t find me anytime soon. I stepped out towards the looming shadows of those firs alone. There was a gentle wind. Everything was serene and secluded and I could hear the thin sounds of voices inside the house rise up and fall away again. I lay on the grass and thought about Lillie. Her generosity seemed impossible. I told myself to put aside the attention and whatever prospect it might or might not imply and to just enjoy myself. The firs rose over me, blurring together in the dark.
I looked up and into the house and I could see Madame Nhu with her hand wrapped around someone else’s waist. A light went off a few floors above. I imagined the moon going off next, as if in sequence. I must have fallen asleep because my glass was lifted away from me. I heard someone snorting something, a raspy, panicked snorting. Shadows were standing around me and three figures came into focus. The Lunar Men had found me. As I sat up I saw Erasmus had the back of his hand to his face. He was staggering around, as if repulsed by something. Then he sneezed and knocked against James Watt. Watt steadied the doctor so he could talk.
‘Franz,’ he said, ‘do you want any snuff?’
5
LATER THAT WEEKEND I got an email from Corinne. She said that Annabel was doing OK after the move down to London. There had been some problems with her initial tenancy but she had since settled. Settled where? There was nothing specific. Some of the email was an update about Corinne’s baby, Micah. The rest amounted to a vague suggestion that Annabel, herself unable to contact me, wanted to meet up. Corinne added that she thought Annabel would be pissed off if she knew we’d been in contact. Nevertheless, she had mentioned me recently. It looked like my ex was concerned about how I was getting on.
By Monday I didn’t feel up for work so I phoned in sick. I took a bus into the city and drifted towards Centenary Square. I slowed down for the cool air in Paradise Circus. The Hall of Memory was ahead of me, the ferris wheel beyond it. To avoid the crowds of the ICC and Broad Street I took a set of stairs down onto Summer Hill Road. Traffic rifled from the roundabout and out of the city centre. The architecture went from old civic-looking buildings to luxury apartments and then tapered off altogether. That was apart from two warehouses, spread out low and unassuming on the skyline.
I went into Wicks, the second warehouse. I bought a bottle of Lucozade and some yellow cloths. A little further out of the city, on the Ladywood Middleway, I found a phonebox. All the windows were missing. The cars passed in front of me as I leant against the top half of the empty frame. I phoned the police, speaking with two of the cloths wrapped around the receiver. I gazed up the road and saw a couple approaching with a pram. Their thin figures seemed to make slow progress under the endless clouds overhead.
The police called me back. ‘Is that you?’
It was a different voice now, still female though, and she had some very direct questions. ‘Where is it in the building specifically?’
I tried not to give her a hard time about the level of assumption in that statement. I hadn’t said the bomb was in the building itself. After I explained this, and told them where to look, I hung up. I was unsure of my success. The couple were close to the phonebox now and I turned to walk away as the man called after me, wanting a favour, wanting money. I got on a bus and I didn’t know exactly where it was going. We passed a hospital at some speed. There were lots of divots in the road and the back of the bus shook intermittently. Something in the engine was rattling all the way.
When I returned to work Munroe briefed me but it was Kamal who gave me the satisfying details. This is what I pieced together. At about 10.30am college security were told by the police that an anonymous bomb threat had been made. The device was planted somewhere on the campus. All evacuation measures were put into action and the students were directed out of the emergency exits by their teachers. Munroe herself made the decision to set off the fire alarm manually as many of the classrooms were not wired up to the tannoy system. The students were sheepish but mostly relieved. It was a lot worse for those taking their exams in the gym. They had been given enough time to fill about a th
ird of their answer paper.
The Law tutor came in and told the hall that every student was to pack away personal items, turn over their papers and make their way to the back of the school via the car park. It was a struggle. Students between free periods loitered. Some were still entering the building. They were eager to learn but, eventually, security locked the front doors and got everyone out on the field.
The police called the school a few minutes later and spoke to Munroe directly. They informed her that the bomb had been planted at the back of the school, on a field, behind a fence and adjacent to a sign.
‘The Bomb Assembly Point?’ she gasped.
Things fell into disarray then. Five hundred or so students and teachers were lined up taking registers in front of this sign. Munroe tried to stay calm. She shouted over the crowd.
Some listened and began to pick up on the trace of panic in her voice. Other students drifted across the pitches. Arguments began amongst the teachers and students, and a few girls kept asking Munroe what was happening. She lost integrity quite quickly then, not even in being evasive but rather by stubbornly telling them to listen to her instructions. An exam student was sick on her friend’s shoes as a voice rose up over the others. ‘It’s got to be a hoax. This is bullshit.’
Munroe grabbed the source’s arm and then the collar of his shirt. Kamal and another teacher stepped in to restrain her. Kamal told me that by the time the police had arrived and the pitches were cleared, Munroe was sitting in her car with tears in her eyes. The police spoke to her there, out of sight of the students. Four hours later and streets were sectioned off around the back of the school. Bomb disposal units went in on both sides of the fence. On the near-side the operation took a few hours longer. The earlier stampede across the pitches had churned up some of the turf and the robot took time to gain traction. Kamal saw the police emerge with a crushed cardboard box and a Sainsbury’s bag.
Septembers Page 8