by Peter Damon
“But you believe they have control of it,” Michael asked.
The professor nodded and sipped his cider again, clearly relishing it. “Oh yes. They’ve tested it for pollutants and radiation, and they’ve determined its life expectancy. They’ve probably taken it about as far as they can without actually using it.
“Look, these lads don’t know what they’ve let themselves in for. If someone doesn’t lend them a hand, and quick, then at best they’re going to be spirited away into some secret facility and never be seen or heard of again. At worst, they just won’t wake up one morning. It depends how easily their chemical can be replicated.”
“What else can you tell me?” Michael asked, peering at the screen as the news programme moved on to Iran, or what was left of it. The United Nations were still in discussion about the jurisdiction of the area to the south and east that remained habitable after the nuclear accident of 2014.
The professor looked at his near empty glass and sighed. “They gave me a demo. They used my paperweight,” he began.
“That old telescope lens?”
“The very same. They painted a small square of the glass with whatever their stuff is, and the thing lifted five feet off the carpet to hover in the air, totally unsupported. These boys are not scamming.”
“Hence the secrecy,” Michael finished for him, reaching for his own beer. “What will you do now?”
“I’m going to reappear while shopping in Selfridges. The boys will have to look after themselves, I’m afraid to say,” he said, sighing theatrically. In doing so, he slid a piece of A5 paper under the others newspaper.
Michael hesitated before speaking again, this time very softly. “Do you really want me back in Cambridge?” he asked.
Professor Rolle looked down at Bennett, pain deep in his eyes. “Claire won’t like it, but she’ll forgive me after a time. The real question, Michael, is can you ever forgive yourself?” he asked. He then turned to have a last sip of his cider before making his way out.
Michael remained in his chair, his head lowered over the crossword as, with greater and greater agility, he completed the rest of it.
“Want another?” the girl behind the bar asked.
“Why not,” he told her, and rummaged in his pocket for a bank note. “Add a Glenfiddich to it while you’re at it, will you?” he smiled.
While he waited, he glanced at the neat script on the piece of paper before tearing it up into small pieces, dropping some on the floor, and scattering others across the counter. He then took out his tablet and got to work.
+++++++++++++++++
There were four measures of fine scotch whiskey in his belly when Michael meandered back to the office late that afternoon. Occasionally he had to stop, predominately to find his feet again, but once to urinate up the edge of a grand building, sighing with relief while smiling at the gentry who walked past.
By the time he reached the newspaper’s office at the end of a short ride on the Dockland Railway, he was quite comfortable that no one was following him. Nor were any of the cameras showing any more than their normal interest in him when he walked past them, making unsteadily for the glass and aluminium doors that were etched with the newspaper’s logo.
He took the lift to the fifth floor, taking a delight in breathing over the others in the small cubicle. Once ejected onto the right floor, having taken three attempts, he managed a semblance of sobriety for his walk into the large and open plan office in which he worked.
Workers at each group of desks stopped as he walked past them, and then began again at a more fevered rate, as if his passing had led those seated to consider their own fragile position within the newspaper organisation, and try more strenuously to keep it.
“Well, well. If it isn’t the high and mighty Michael Bennett!” cried a deep voice from the left.
Michael struggled to grin like the proverbial Cheshire cat, but managed it before bowing graciously to his boss, the editor.
“Get in here!” he was told savagely.
He complied, swaying slightly and having to reach out for support. His hand found the padded cups of Beatrice’s bra under her woollen cardigan. He had always wondered about them.
With her scream still loud in his ears and the slap of her hand smarting on his arm, he closed the editor’s office door behind him and swayed drunkenly back and forth in front of the other man’s desk.
“Yes Boss? Got a job for me?” he asked.
“I’ve got absolutely nothing for you, except your sodding P45!” the florid faced man cried, and then stared at him. “How the mighty has fallen, eh?” he asked. He shook his head. “I gave you a chance, more than some would do, and what do you do with it, eh?”
“I’ve been researching a story!” Michael cried defensively.
“Just fuck off, Michael, there’s a good boy!” the editor responded, and walked round the desk to open the door for him too. “HR is on the third. They’ll get you your final salary. Might even offer you a coffee, if you’re in luck,” he was told.
“I’ll have you for distructive consmital, I will!” Michael cried, back in the main office and stumbling backwards towards the large doors he’d entered just a few minutes before. He had everyone’s attention now, from the old-timers with slicked back hair and wise eyes, to the glory boys, straight out of university and looking to make an impression with their prose, their grins speaking louder than their words would ever manage.
“Contstrictive Pissmisal, I mean,” he murmured, looking from one face to the next. “I’ll go now, shall I?” he asked them, deflating within his waxed jacket.
Someone held the door open for him, he couldn’t remember who, and there was someone to help him find the third floor too, no doubt urged to do so by the Boss. He’d have to thank the man one day, the Boss that was; for making it so easy for him. Strangely enough, Beatrice was sobbing loudly as she ran hurriedly to the Ladies, next to the lifts. She glanced once towards, him, and then hurried through the door, wailing in grief.
Twenty minutes later he was on the pavement again, a coffee having to be enough excuse for the sudden loss of his apparent drunkenness as he headed towards Liverpool Street Railway Station and the slow train to Cambridge. It would give him time to think.
October 13th
Thoday Street was one of several narrow roads in that area of southern Cambridge, each full of narrow terraced houses, many of which had been converted many years before into single-room accommodation for the army of university students.
Number 15 looked very much like its neighbours. High railings along the frontage made perfect stands for the basic black bicycle practically every student rode, while the occasional mature tree near the edge of the curb was enough to stop cars mounting it and completing the job the bikes had begun in attempting to make the narrow pavement inaccessible to pedestrians. Inside, each floor, from basement to garret, comprised three rooms, two that were bedrooms and one that was either a kitchen or a bathroom, alternating on each floor.
Michael looked around the ground floor flat he was being offered and winced at the odd coloured ceiling some previous tenant had thought ‘cool’. Along the hall landing was a bathroom that didn’t look too bad, while one floor above was the kitchen he’d share with two other tenants. It too was utilitarian and clean if somewhat aged and sparse.
“You a student then?” the agent was asking, all teeth and glasses, her clipboard held defensively up against her bust while her eyes, large and brown behind the even larger lenses of her glasses, looked Michael up and down with open curiosity. Michael wondered why the clipboard was held so; her bust was neither large enough to warrant interest, or in need of flattering. He also wondered why she hadn’t had her eyes repaired with laser surgery as had almost everyone else in the UK.
“I’m a journalist,” he told her, checking out the old 1950s furniture, including the high and heavy looking bed. It turned out to be quite comfortable. “I’ve just got a job with the Cambridge Chronicle,” he
explained, looking about him and continuing to test the mattress. His bouncing seemed to disturb the agent, heating her cheeks and making her look away; enough reason for Michael to continue.
“Oh, how marvellous. I don’t read it myself. I’m more an Express person myself,” she told him while she found something interesting to look at on the near wall.
“Yes,” he said, and bit back further comment. He stood and tested the sash window, opening it and releasing the papier-mâché someone had used to keep the draft out. He leant out to glance inquisitively up and down the outside wall. Unlike the two neighbouring properties, there were no satellite dishes protruding from the front wall, just two innocuous cables that ran up the brickwork to the two windows in the garret.
Michael closed the window and nodded. “Fine. I’ll take it,” he told her, and opened his wallet to provide the six weeks deposit she demanded. Truthfully, he could do better than the digs normally reserved for university students, but there was a more important reason for wanting that particular flat, and he knew he was lucky to have got it.
He saw the agent out, then stood on the landing and glanced up and down the stairwell looking for signs of life. Finding none, he decided to go shopping.
It was a cold and miserly day, but the walk wasn’t a long one, and it reassured him that his presence hadn’t alerted any of the authorities. He wasn’t being watched, as yet. No doubt that would change once things started moving, but by then he would have memorised all the camera positions and their field of vision, a trick he’d learnt many years ago that hadn’t died along with the rest of his loves.
Once in the centre of town, he dismissed his cautiousness and entered one of the larger men’s stores to buy multiple packs of socks and underwear. Then it was on to the charity shops, always well stocked in university towns.
He had only to visit three such shops to obtain six good cotton shirts, two tweed jackets and three pairs of dark trousers. He also bought a pair of comfortable looking loafers that happened to be his size and didn’t smell too bad. Then, finally, in a delicatessen he’d noticed on his way into town, he bought some groceries and headed back to the flat, his arms full.
He was in the first floor kitchen when the two lads he’d be sharing the kitchen and bathroom with appeared. Brown penne was cooking in one pot while the vegetarian’s latest alternative to minced beef was cooking in an open pan beside it, the herbs and onions filling the room with pleasant aromas. Beside them, and gently simmering, was the tomato sauce he would soon add to the meat, or not-meat, in this case.
“Hello lads. I take it we share this space?” he asked, a glass of non-alcoholic red wine in one hand, a wooden spoon he had found neglected at the back of one of the kitchen drawers in the other.
The two lads, clean shaven and in their mid twenties, looked back at him. They were not alike, Michael noted, and yet, if he didn’t examine them physically but just let his impression of them wash over him, they were incredibly alike. Physically one was taller that the other, and while the shorter one had sandy coloured hair, the taller of the two had dark, nearly black hair. Only in their build were they reasonably similar, and that could be said for most students who had given up real food and lived on the tinned alternative and alcohol.
“Where’s Lichen then?” the taller of the two asked.
“My predecessor?” Michael guessed, wooden spoon held like a wand in front of him.
“There’s no way you’re a student!” the shorter one proclaimed, and the taller nodded, his face turning as pale as his friend’s.
“Was I meant to be?” Michael asked, his face a picture of innocence. “Because I hope not. Been there, done it, really don’t want to do it again,” he explained, and sipped his non-wine and pretended to relish it before pointing to the bottle on the table. “Want some?” he asked.
“No, I mean, yes, I mean, no to being a student. Lichen said he was a student, but we could tell,” said the taller of the two, eyeing the bottle with an expression of mistrust.
Michael poured them each a glass, put them into their hands and started the age old process called Introductions. Jake and Matt knew the game and it didn’t take long, so Michael, never Mike or Mick, asked if they wanted to try some real food, because he was never able to cook for one, and the three of them sat down to eat and give a brief resume of their lives so far.
Theirs was so short that Michael felt motivated to cut his own short, leaving out the bit about being in the army after University, Special Intelligence to be precise, after which his cover as a journalist almost naturally turned into a real job as the army role disintegrated and made him a widower. It made him five years younger too. Not the army; his reduced resume.
Michael rarely dug up the past, and never for the purpose of remembering it. But he would have dearly loved to be in his early twenties again. He could sometimes fool himself into thinking he would have made a different decision, had he the opportunity. Unfortunately, puzzles like those presented by Military Intelligence just didn’t occur in Civvy Street, and he so loved a good puzzle.
Jake was the tall, dark haired one, his good looks arising from a strong jaw and an easy going smile. Matt, the shorter one, was the more serious of the two, talking less and appearing more anxious, but when he smiled, his eyes shone with his laughter and, for a moment, you couldn’t imagine him having a woe in the world.
“Now then,” Michael said, holding his hand up for their attention and bringing a card out from his breast pocket. “I need to find the Carrot and Hamster,” he told them.
“Mm,” Jake finished pouring the last of the non-wine down his gullet, “it’s the other end of the street, turn right and third left. But I wouldn’t have thought it a place you’d want to go to,” Jake offered.
“Work!” Michael sighed, and showed the lads the four tickets he had to the show that evening. “The Pillars of Crystal are playing there tonight, and as the new boy on the paper, I get the top job of writing their review,” he told them.
“You’ve got fucking tickets!” Matt cried.
“Four fucking tickets!” Jake cried, looking at them with wide eyes.
“What? You like these people?”
“Like them? They’re brilliant!” Jake cried.
“They’re like, so new!” Matt added.
Michael nodded with an awed look on his face, secretly wondering how these post grads had written their theses with such a limited vocabulary. “Then, would you mind coming with me, helping me out, like?” he asked, colloquialism getting the better of him. The dumping of the English language seemed to be catching.
The deal struck, the two postgraduate students went off to change leaving Michael to clean up the kitchen and, in doing so, surreptitiously throw away the listening bug naively hidden under the table. Lichen, or whoever he was, would probably be happy with just the one conversation. Well, he’d have to be, wouldn’t he, Michael smiled.
The street was longer than Michael had thought, and the walk a good fifteen minutes longer than he had supposed. There were too many people leaving their homes and making their own way to the large pub for him to know how many were legitimate, but he guessed they would all be. His age made him stand out, but he had a reason for being there. The others outside the pub were all young and bright, dressed haphazardly in the style of students, or cheaply, top garments making some proclamation or an unbelievable or absurd claim about the wearer. You had to be young and surrounded by your peer group to wear such clothes.
The doors opened and two sixteen-stone bouncers made their presence known, as if their cheap tuxedoes hadn’t done that for them already. Michael showed them his tickets and the three of them walked in, jostled by eager juveniles behind them.
The hall they stepped into had been created by covering the space between two buildings with a wooden ceiling and painting everything black. There was a small stage at one end and it was littered with the band’s equipment. Four speakers, each five foot high, promised a loud night.
While most of the floor was open for standing and dancing, there were some booths towards the back of the hall, close to the long length of bar which had already started doing a good trade.
“Look,” Michael told the two boys as they settled into one of the booths, jackets and overcoats piled on the seat beside them. “I’ve got to do some interviews before the gig, so why don’t you get us in a few rounds and I’ll join you in a booth shortly.” He peeled off a twenty Euro note and gave it to Matt. “I’m buying. Business expenses, so be sure to get a receipt!” he called, already walking away.
Michael strolled over to the men preparing the equipment and got permission to walk behind to where the group sat, chatting and laughing among themselves, five cups of take-away latte in their hands.
He talked to them for a while, noting on his tablet the details he knew he’d not remember, and making sure he got the dates and locations of their future gigs right. Nothing would kill a journalist faster than publishing wrong dates or locations for gigs.
The interview completed with his best wishes for the future, he strolled over to the bar and managed to talk to the owner for a short while, until the band struck up with their first number, after which it was impossible to think, let alone talk.
Michael sat in the booth the boys had secured, often alone, pretending to sip what looked like watery ale that had probably never seen a real hop. He made notes as he watched the packed students dance and sing along to the songs, and kept an eye out for another such as he; someone who didn’t quite fit in. He checked the boy’s jackets too, finding their phones and rapidly scanning them for messages, phone book and Facebook entries before returning them just as he’d found them.
He made his excuses when the band took a short break and walked back to the flat on his own, the melody from one of the tunes repeating itself in his head. The street was quiet with only the occasional bicycle passing him. He relished the freedom and wondered how long it would last, then climbed the steps to the front door to let himself into the building.