Gridlock

by Ben Elton

  'Trains!' shouted Digby, 'are an anachronism,' which, to give him his due, was an extremely brave word to attempt in front of a thousand people and four channels of television.

  'Contrast them if you will with the private motor car which is a gazelle. What do these great hulking dinosaurs have to offer us? Freedom of movement? No. Personal security and privacy? Luxury, comfort and a status symbol of which the whole family can be proud? No. They offer us a form of transport where people are packed in like sardines, which is confined to narrow lines and is in danger of grinding to a halt at any moment at the behest of some horny-handed trade unionist. Let me tell you what this government intends to do with trains!' Digby thundered.

  'Let me explain how we shall serve this cumbersome outmoded institution.' The audience strained forward, Digby was coming to that rare thing at a political conference, the announcement of a policy. They all knew what it was, and they could not wait. The Minister, their minister was going to announce the destruction of the railways and they would give him a monumental ovation.

  'What, you ask me, will the Government do with the railways?' shouted Digby, eyes wild now. Yes, yes, yes, they did ask him that, that was what they wanted to know.

  'What this government intends to do with the railways . . .' said Digby, rising to a frothing, spitting, fist-thumbing crescendo, 'is . . .!!!!'

  Digby froze. For a long moment the audience believed it was a dramatic pause. Then, by the look on his face, they thought he had got so excited about dismantling one of the country's greatest assets that he had had a heart attack. 'Good way to go,' some of them thought.

  Then they realized that he had gone mad, because Digby's next word was . . .

  'Nothing.'

  A CHANGE OF PLAN

  Sandy sat down again. People had been concentrating so much on the Minister's speech that they had hardly noticed the young man in the middle of the fourth row getting quietly to his feet to hold up a handbag. Out of the bag he took a red wig and a tape recorder. He held them for a moment, and then sat down.

  Digby had got the message. He remembered the confessions of the previous night, and he remembered the young man who had confronted him outside his hotel. Above all, he knew that he could not announce the setting up of BritTrak. So there he stood, facing 1,000 completely mystified and increasingly resentful delegates.

  Where was the promised crescendo, they asked themselves? Where was the rousing bit of policy that would bring them to their feet? This was what they attended conference for, or at least why they bothered to turn up for the speeches. They had done their bit by laughing at his jokes, where was the crescendo?

  Digby was thinking desperately. He knew what they expected of him, but he did not know how to deliver. The whole of the rest of his speech concerned BritTrak and on that he knew he must be silent. He could see the young Scot sitting quietly in the fourth row, gently stroking a handbag. How alone Digby felt up there, how terribly exposed. He had to say something.

  As the seconds ticked by he wracked his brains desperately. He was Minister for Transport, there must be something he could rouse them with . . . Bollards would not excite them, he doubted if zebra crossings would get them going . . . A thousand pairs of eyes were on him. The cameras of the nation turned. Digby could almost hear the commentators licking their lips.

  It was an appalling moment. Complete public humiliation in front of the entire nation is a prospect likely to make a man reckless, desperate even. So it was with Digby. Into his mind drifted a vision; a vision of great beauty; one that would excite and enthral as no dull railway policy ever could – it was the vision of a man stroking the model of a motorway flyover. And, suddenly, with the eyes of the world upon him, Digby threw caution to the winds and madness overtook him.

  'What are we going to do?' he cried, breaking a silence that had lasted an eternity. 'I shall tell you what we are going to do. We are going to build roads! We are going to build roads, roads and then more roads! We are going to build roads to tunnel under roads, roads to fly over roads, roads to fly over roads flying over roads. Roads, roads, roads, roads, roads!!'

  Digby could get no further. The conference was cheering and shouting, some even took up the chant, 'roads, roads, roads, roads . . .' In the television and press galleries the scribblers and wafflers went wild. This was news. This was controversial. This would split the country, it might even split the party. On the platform it was quite easy to see that there would be a split in the party, but only a small one, with Digby on one side and everybody else on the other. But that was something which Digby would face later. For the moment he was fired with evangelical fervour.

  'I have plans,' he shouted. 'I have plans to make every city in Britain ten times more accessible to traffic, twenty times. Where will we put the cars, you ask?' They weren't asking, they were too excited, but Digby was going to tell them anyway. 'In the parks, that's where. They're called parks, aren't they? Let them live up to their name.' This also received a huge cheer, although one or two milder souls did begin to wonder. Certainly Ingmar Bresslaw wondered, as did the Prime Minister. They could see their carefully calculated plans disappearing in a wave of public protest. Digby, on the other hand, was completely intoxicated with the response he was receiving.

  'Once the Channel Tunnel is fully working, people in the City, north of the Thames, are going to need ready access to that tunnel and the European Currency Units beyond. But they won't get it, will they? And why not? Because South London's in the way, that's why! Well not for long! I'm going to pave Brixton! I'm going to tarmac Wandsworth! I'm going to concrete Clapham! Every city centre in Britain is paralysed because you can't get your car into the shops, so what am I going to do? Shall I tell you what I am going to do? I shall knock down the shops, that's what. Then I shall build huge multi-storey car parks and put the shops on top of them.'

  COMEUPPANCE

  Digby received a wonderful ovation, and, feeling rather naughty but fully justified by the response he had received, he returned to his seat on the platform. Except he didn't because there was no seat to return to – it was gone. The place was still there, between the Ministers for Housing and Health, but the chair had been removed.

  'I say, have you seen my chair?' said Digby to the Minister for Housing.

  Perhaps it was the noise of Digby's ovation, but the Minister for Housing did not seem to hear . . . 'My chair, have you seen it at all?' Digby shouted at the Minister for Health, but again he received no reply. Neither of his colleagues even looked at him, it was as if he was not even there.

  Digby had no other choice but to leave the platform, he could not very well hang about like the last turkey in the shop. He gathered up his papers and walked with brisk dignity towards the steps that led down from the platform. He attempted in his manner to appear that he had other more urgent business to attend to and could not afford to sit about all day. Whatever impression Digby was trying to give, the one he actually gave was one of a bumbling loser . . .

  He did not notice how he came to trip up, it might have been a ruck in the carpet, it might possibly have been an outstretched foot, but there he was, face planted in one of the tasteful potted plants that had been placed about the stage as the central initiative of the party's green policy.

  Digby's ovation was over and the chairperson was moving on to other business as Digby struggled to his feet, grinning weakly. He reached for his briefcase. Digby distinctly remembered shutting the clips, but they were open now, and, as he picked up the case, his papers, along with a Mars bar, a little pack of tissues and a biography of Joan Crawford, flew about the platform. The chairperson ignored the kerfuffle Digby was making as he scrabbled about on the floor in front of a thousand delegates. Indeed, everybody on the platform ignored him, for Digby was now a non-person. The party's revenge for boat-rocking is swift and terrible. Without a word being said, all of Digby's colleagues knew that the oily little shit, Parkhurst, was no longer 'a member of the club'. He had opted for the wilder
ness and he was to be treated as a pariah.

  As Digby struggled to retrieve his Mars bar, he felt a painful kick in the behind. Nobody saw it happen, the Minister for Health who delivered the blow had, like the rest of the Cabinet, been to a good school and was hence highly skilled in the secret art of kicking an oik without authority being aware of it.

  Digby got to his feet, his half-closed briefcase under his arm, and managed to leave the platform without further incident. At the bottom of the steps Ingmar Bresslaw was waiting in terrifying silence. Ingmar's large, boozy face was red with rage. He nodded towards a small interview room just off the main hall. As Digby scuttled towards it, he began to consider for the first time just how serious his situation might be. In the heat of the moment, with a thousand delegates, first staring at him in disbelief, and then cheering him to the rafters, the size of his crime had genuinely eluded Digby. One look at Bresslaw's twitching, whisky-fied face had put him right.

  'You stupid little shit,' said the Prime Minister's top henchman as he closed the door on Digby's condemned cell. 'Do you really think you can steamroller us?'

  'No really, Ingmar, it's not like that,' pleaded Digby. 'You see, I uhm . . . I lost my notes about BritTrak so I . . . I just filled in with a bit of harmless waffle about roads . . . Went rather well I thought.'

  'Harmless waffle! You ruddy fool.' Ingmar's big bushy eyebrows quivered with indignation like two chilly black mice. Digby thought he could actually see blood vessels bursting on the man's nose as he spoke. 'That roads policy is absolute political dynamite. Half of our own party are going to be bloody uneasy about it.'

  'But they—' Digby tried to protest.

  'Cheered?' barked Ingmar Bresslaw. 'Is that what you were going to say? Cheered? Of course they cheered! This is a party conference, you ruddy arse! They're supposed to bloody cheer. But wait till they start seeing lorries tearing past their garden gates. They won't all be cheering then.' Ingmar suddenly threw out two great hairy hands and grabbed Digby's lapels. Digby was almost too astonished to be scared.

  'This was a back-door initiative, Parkhurst; a Civil Service operation! The politics of confusion and deceit, a nod here, a wink there. Now you've told the entire bloody world and we will have every shitty little protest group in the country on to us. Even our own wets will summon up the courage to table a question or two. There will be protests, commissions of inquiry, the whole thing will take decades, if it ever happens at all.'

  'I . . . I just thought . . . a few hints, for the faithful,' muttered Digby.

  'Shut up, Parkhurst,' snarled Ingmar, his big frame tensing up so that Digby thought he might be about to be punched. 'I've heard enough of your bloody girl's voice to last me a lifetime. I never want to hear it again, do you hear? For God's sake, man, what came over you? Acting independently of the party line? Who do you think you are? Winston Churchill? You got the job because the Prime Minister needed a faceless bloody nobody to front up a very delicate, and secret operation, but you got delusions, didn't you? You . . . you utter . . .' he struggled for a fitting expletive . . . 'turd.'

  Ingmar was truly offended by Digby's stupidity. After all, if you couldn't trust a talentless, featureless, arse-kissing git with a government ministry, who could you trust? Ingmar hauled Digby almost up onto his toes and delivered the final chop.

  'You've let us down, Parkhurst, and you're finished. The Prime Minister wants your resignation by midnight, all right? Now crawl away and die.'

  The big man released Digby's lapels, turned on his heels and went off in search of whisky, leaving Digby stunned.

  It was so brutal, so sudden. Surely he had not given away all that much of the road plans, he had only been playing to the gallery, pleasing the troops so to speak. But a couple of hours later in his hotel room, he knew, he saw the extent of his madness. His speech was the number one story of the day, it was described as 'extraordinary' and 'maverick'.

  There he stood again upon the platform, 'destroy, knock down, demolish . . . Pave, concrete, tarmac,' he shouted out of the television screen, fist thumping the air. Sitting watching it Digby was forced to confess that it did sound rather radical. Worse was to come. The Prime Minister appeared extremely cross, denying everything and deliberately getting the interviewer's name wrong. For the Prime Minister to be personally involved in the damage control operation showed just how seriously Digby had screwed up.

  The story the party were offering was that Digby was a brilliant but erratic personality. His deep sense of public duty and extraordinary political flair had, perhaps, combined to create a slight imbalance in his political outlook. The opposition of course were not buying it. They claimed, as did all the environmental groups, that there was no smoke without fire and that the Government should come clean about its plans. This time it was Ingmar Bresslaw who appeared, admitting that of course there were road-building plans, but nothing on the scale . . .

  Digby would have liked to have wept for the fate of his beautiful models but he had no tears to spare, he was weeping for himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE ROAD TO RUIN

  PART OF THE FURNITURE

  Back in London, Deborah's TV was tuned to the same news broadcast that Digby was weeping over. Deborah wasn't really watching it though, she was more concerned with why Geoffrey had lain down on the carpet and was tinkering with her chair.

  'What are you doing, Geoffrey?' enquired Deborah. 'In fact, don't tell me what you're doing, just get the hell away from my chair, all right?'

  Deborah was rather sensitive about people touching and fiddling with her wheelchair as if it was an ordinary piece of furniture. She had noticed in pubs and crowds that friends sometimes used it as a coat-hanger. She knew that they meant well, they wanted to show that the chair was not an issue to them and that it did not make them feel uncomfortable, but they were also glad of somewhere to put their coats while they went off to dance. Deborah hated the way she always became the receptacle and guardian of everybody's property at a disco and she knew it was the solid fact of her chair that created this position. Another thing she had noticed was that at pub gigs, whilst watching a band or perhaps a comic, if it was a crowded, standing gig, little knots of people formed behind her, the chair (and Deborah in it) providing breathing space in an otherwise crushed room. All this was OK within reason, but Deborah's chair was not a part of the furniture, it was a part of Deborah and she didn't like it being fiddled with.

  'I'm measuring it, Deborah,' stammered Geoffrey, his eyes a little hurt behind his thick glasses. 'I have to, I'm going to arm it.'

  'Geoffrey,' said Deborah. 'It's a wheelchair, I don't want it to have arms, they'll get stuck in doorways.'

  'I don't mean arms as in "arms",' Geoffrey replied firmly, although Deborah did not really register this firmness because Geoffrey's chin was bashing against his collarbone and she was having enough trouble following what he was saying without trying to work out the subtlety of his intonations.

  'I mean arms as in arms dealer, arms race, arms treaty,' said Geoffrey.

  'You mean guns?' said Deborah horrified.

  'Well, guns might be difficult, but weapons certainly,' Geoffrey stuttered. 'Listen, Deborah, I mean really, listen. I'm putting you in a lot of danger here, those men really did try to kill me. Satan is dealing from a rigged deck and some sucker's going to draw the dead man's hand. I have to make sure that the sucker isn't you.'

  'If you're going to keep saying "sucker", Geoffrey, go get a saucer. You can't say it without dribbling,' Deborah replied. 'Personally I think you're being melodramatic.'

  'Well, maybe about Satan and the dead man's hand,' conceded Geoffrey, 'but not about the danger. It's real, Deborah, and it's coming for us . . .' He snapped shut his tape measure and, using his good hand, wrote down figures in a school exercise book which he had wedged under a wheel of Deborah's chair. Of course, on reflection, Deborah didn't really think it was that melodramatic either. After all, they did both seem to have been thrust into
a web of murder and deception. She supposed it was not an entirely unreasonable thing to consider protecting oneself.

  'OK, James Bond, so what are you going to give me, I'm all out of machine guns?' said Deborah.

  'Oh there's lots of stuff around the house that I can improvise with.'

  'Great,' said Deborah. 'What do I get? A mounted ballistic food processor, maybe I can blend them to death. Perhaps you could tune up the Hoover, I could suck the guns out of their hands. Listen, Geoffrey, if things really are this dangerous, I think we need to make some plans here. For instance, once you've designed the engine, what then?'

  'I'm going to sneak out at dead of night, maybe in a raincoat and a homburg hat, and take it to Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth.'

  'Why?' said Deborah.

  'Well I just think that sneaking secret inventions around is very Dick Tracy and it's important to make the effort.'

  'Not the hat and coat, why the green thing? What's it got to do with a bunch of lentil munchers?' Deborah said.

  'Well, it's a pretty clear bet,' said Geoffrey con-spiratorially, 'that someday soon my stolen invention is going to be introduced to the world by a part of the car industry. When that happens it's going to revolutionize private motoring. It will be worth millions to whoever claims to have thought of it.'