‘So do I.’
‘Well, you’re a heartless bastard then.’
‘I don’t think so. I think it’s okay, me going with her. It seems to work.’ He glanced down at Sage’s unmasked hands, one with mere stubs for the two outside fingers, the other lacking the two first fingers and half the thumb. ‘So that’s what they look like. Tough. Was it the infant meningitis? I read you had that.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good job you’re into mixing, Sage. You’da been in problems if you’d wanted to play a guitar.’
The skull reappeared. Curiously, its expression was now almost affectionate.
‘Right, Ax. Well spotted.’
In the first week of December the Counter Cultural Think Tank was up for a full scale political reception. It was to be held in a prefab venue, installed specially for the purpose on the edge of Hyde Park. Here the great and the good of the CCM would gather to meet the Home Secretary’s radical rockstars. The Prime Minister was going to turn up. Paul was inexpressibly proud and excited. Most of what was supposed to be ready for D day was not going to happen. There was no way the English were going to have their national identity cards in time. Petty border disputes, and the division of capital assets, would grumble on for decades. But Paul’s initiative on the Countecultural problem was reckoned to be a great success. It had captured the public imagination.
Pigsty was equally thrilled. He took an obsessive interest in the details: the carpet, the paintjob in the prefab venue, the floral decorations, the buffet, the dimensions of the stage. Nobody else was keen. Only Pigsty Liver and the Organs were to play. The rest of them were doomed to stand around making small talk with an assortment of government suits and the Green Nazi aristocracy. Didn’t sound like fun. But pity the poor VIPs, invited to meet some of the best radical talent in English Indie music, and subjected to nothing but a brainless, derivative Organs set.
The event started at dusk, on a cold day of heavy cloud and still air. Around the prefab sleek dark cars cruised onto the grass, and disgorged those guests who felt they could get away with personal transport hypocrisy. Farther off, beyond the metal barriers and armoured police, clusters of campground folk stood and stared: some waved banners and placards.
Security checked everyone at the door. Fiorinda, who had come up from Reading with Krool, endured the scan and bodysearch, surrendered her phone and went off alone. The Grrls were ardent networkers, they’d be circulating: Fiorinda didn’t want to play. For a while she listened to Paul Javert, who was talking to another suit about the wonderful team he had created. We’ve done nothing, she thought. Absolutely nothing, except fill in some slack moments on the tv, and talk drivel to interviewers. We haven’t even agreed on a decent name.
The Chosen arrived in a body. Paul zoomed over to intercept Ax: brought him back to introduce him to the PM.
‘Axl Preston, lead guitarist from the Chosen Few. Axl, because your parents were big Stone Roses fans, isn’t that right Ax.’
‘Guns ’n Roses,’ said Ax sadly.
‘Ax is our Lennonist,’ said Paul. ‘He comes up with some killing lines, so witty—’
The two men, with identical wide, fixed, shallow smiles, stared at Ax expectantly, like dogs begging for biscuit.
Fiorinda moved away, grinning to herself. Poor Ax. He had not been looking forward to this event. Arguably there were people here who were actually doing what Ax talked about, and that must be so frustrating. Especially since they were doing it all wrong. She wandered, spotting the Heads in their skulls, Rob Nelson and the Eyes looking very flash; but she didn’t want to join anyone. How strange that something like the Counter Cultural Think Tank could get itself an existence, a website, a place in politics, articles in the papers, headed notepaper, stacks of tiring documents, when the content of the package was nothing. Most of the Lords and Ladies of Misrule were in very correct evening dress. Probably the smoothest ones were the nutcases, secretly behind the most ruthless, humans-must-commit-mass-suicide (or if not we’ll help them along) eco-terrorism. But here they were, looking dead pleased to have been invited. How insane.
Torn between longing to be introduced to the Prime Minister and feeling completely, defiantly out of place, she drifted over to the potted palms by the buffet table, where she bumped into Cecile Hunt, the Think Tank suit who had endeared herself to many because she so obviously detested Pigsty.
‘I should introduce you to someone,’ offered Cecile.
‘No thanks. I mean, yes, I suppose—’
‘I hate these things.’
‘So do I. What’s the point of a party if you can’t get drunk.’
‘You can get drunk, Fio. Go ahead, be a rebel. What else were you hired for? Look at Ken. He’s going to be legless in about ten minutes.’
But she didn’t want to be drunk, not here. In any case, the milling about was over, it was time for the musical entertainment. Pigsty and the Organs moved on up. Security men stood in front of the double doors, only exit or entrance (isn’t that a fire hazard? wondered Fio) from this crowded room. Pigsty was wearing vr goggles, leather jodphurs, jackboots: a new, shaggy Afghan waistcoat open over his six-pack belly; the chains between his nipple rings swinging and glinting. He strode to the front of the stage, the image of a cleaned-up but still deliciously scary Countercultural Monster.
‘And now,’ he roared. ‘All you RAVERS. It’s time to GET DOWN!’
The lights went out. There was a drum roll, and a fusillade of wild bangs, yells, crackles like machinegun fire: an incredible, shapeless racket. Typical Organs, thought Fiorinda, a bored sigh rising in her throat. Get down! wailed someone: grabbed her and dragged her to the floor.
Some lights came on again. Her knees were warm and wet. She was crouching in a pool of blood. Cecile lay beside her, face upturned and eyes wide open, the side of her head and her lower jaw blown away.
Where had the gunmen come from? Through the roof? The prefab was full of choking smoke, coloured smoke from the stage act, grey smoke that smelled of cordite: no, they must have come through the doors but how? How did they get past the security? How many of them were there? Three? four, five? People were running, pushing and fighting each other, to the other end of the prefab: but there was no exit that way, no way out. The gun men were going into the crowd, like shepherds among blundering sheep, still firing. There was Ken Batty, the Think Tank’s earnest politico, lying on the floor screaming, a horrible mess of blood and grey, puddingy stuff falling out of rip in his belly. There was a man in a dinner jacket, trying to crawl and falling on his face, oh God where’s Ax…?
…and then right by her she saw someone dragged out from under the buffet table. It was Martina, blood in her dreads and all over her Red Sonja jerkin, but who was that holding her? It was Pigsty. He held Martina and snogged her, very deliberately, mouth all over her face, hand inside the laces of the jerkin, squeezing one of her tits as if he was trying to wrench it off: then he hauled off and shot her in the jaw. Fiorinda backed away, staring, electrified, her mouth open…and someone grabbed her again. Not Cecile, Cecile was dead. It was Fereshteh the ghazal singer, dark eyes gleaming through the eyepiece of her veil, drawing Fio with an iron grip into the shelter of the palms. There they stayed, clinging to each other.
Somewhere off in the distance, sirens began to wail.
They were found, and hauled out. The room was full of the sounds of people crying and screaming, full of a confusion of moving bodies; the air smelled foul. The men who hauled them out looked like hippies from the campground. They were not rough, only insistent: they hustled the two young women out of the prefab. Fiorinda thought they were being rescued, she kept saying I’m all right, because she thought the hippies should go back and rescue someone worse off. But then they were bundled into the back of a small van. No one else in there with them, no windows. Sirens all around but they could see nothing.
The women didn’t speak to each other.
The van didn’t go far. They were delivered in
to a big tent, one of the Hyde Park indoor venues. It was brightly lit: the slick heavy duty membrane of the empty floor shining like the surface of a black pool. Pigsty was on the stage, holding a big hand gun. With him were the Organs, and some other hippie goons of the same hard-nut type, armed with automatic rifles. Allie Marlowe was up there too, looking very frightened. Down on the floor near the stage, surrounded by more goons, stood a small group of people Fiorinda recognised. There’s Rob Nelson, in his electric blue suit, all bloodstained. There’s DK the DJ. There’s those silly boys, Chip the black cherub, Verlaine with his ringlets; there’s Roxane Smith—
There’s Sage and there’s Ax. They’re alive.
Sirens were yelling wildly out in the Park. There must be a whole fleet of police cars and ambulances, whoever had called them: converging on the scene of the shooting, rushing to sort out the survivors from the dead. Pigsty didn’t take any notice of these noises, nor of his Think Tank colleagues. He was watching the back of the tent, waiting for something. Another vehicle pulled up. Two more hippies appeared, holding a man in evening dress between them. It was Paul Javert. They brought him up to the stage. There was blood on his face, hard to tell if he’d been shot or just beaten up.
‘What went wrong?’ he gasped, shook his head and spat out some blood. ‘I thought we were mates. I thought we understood each other.’
‘Nothing went wrong,’ said the Pig. ‘The plan changed.’
Blam! There goes Paul.
Paul’s body was dragged away. A hippie came up with a foam fire extinguisher and smothered the blood: came back with a bucket of water and splashed it casually around. It was Paul’s plot, thought Fiorinda. Paul had a plot, and maybe Allie was in it, she knew something anyway, but she wasn’t expecting what happened tonight. It was Paul’s plot but the Pig has double-crossed him, and taken over. And this is what the Think Tank was all about, this, not nothing… but she couldn’t hold it together, couldn’t think. Fear and shock took over, please God, I never provoked him, never challenged him, I didn’t laugh at him, I kept my head down, didn’t I? I knew he was dangerous—
What is he going to do with us?
Pigsty watched Paul being hauled off. He bowed his head, took a deep, fierce breath. ‘Now I want the Ax and Sage. You first, Sage.’
Tall Sage walks out from guarded corral. The skull is looking unperturbed. Neat trick.
‘Take off the mask,’ orders Pigsty.
The skull vanishes, the crippled hands are bare.
‘Will you kneel to me?’
Sage kneels, like he’s been doing it all his life. Doesn’t look up, doesn’t look down, no theatrics.
‘Will you obey me, Sage? Will you accept me as your boss?’
‘I will obey you,’ he says. ‘I will accept you as my boss.’
‘That’s good, that’s enough for now. You can go.’
Sage gets up and doesn’t know where to go. Decides to return to the corralled group. This seems to be okay.
‘Now I want the Ax.’
Pigsty is going to kill Ax. There’s no question. Looking back now you know you’ve seen the desire to kill Ax smouldering in his eyes, every time Ax came out with one of those smart one—liners, every time Ax made it clear that he is very clever and Pig is dumb as pigshit—
‘Well, Ax. Will you kneel?’
Ax kneels. Everyone waits, knowing this can’t possibly be enough. Pigsty pulls down his zip, heaves out his prick, which looks enormous, weighted by the thick steel thong through the glans. He starts to piss. Ax kneels there, piss on his hair and running down his face.
‘Will you say, ‘thank you boss’?’
‘Thank you boss.’
‘There.’ says Pigsty, zipping up. He waves for Ax to go away, Ax retreats, wiping his face on his sleeve.
Pigsty takes another of those deep, deep breaths. He stands tall, the coarse nobility of his features suddenly apparent under the bright lights. The men holding Fiorinda and Fereshteh release them, and they join the others; the hippie guards stepping back.
‘Now you’re my team. Not Paul’s. Mine. Let’s go. We got a lot to do.’
He took them to the building where the Think Tank sessions had been held. It was full of lights, people were rushing about. News of the incident in the Park had clearly already arrived. The Organs and the hippie goons left their rifles in the vans, but they were probably still armed: no one dared to make a break for it. Maybe no one even thought of trying. The Pig lead them with a swagger, talking to someone all the while on a radiophone. He used his keycard to pass through security doors, up to the familiar room. How strange the place looked now: the stately indifferent pictures on the walls, the coffee trolley in the corner.
‘Sit down.’
One of the Organs brought in a small tv and put it on the trolley, where everyone could see it. They saw the scene in the Park. Benny Preminder (whose absence from the reception nobody had noticed) was on the screen, standing against a background of flashing lights, darkness, bloodstained people wrapped in blankets, sobbing people being comforted; covered stretchers being carried. The reporter with him was explaining to camera, for probably the fiftieth time, that armed ultra-greens had burst in on the Home Secretary’s reception and opened fire, killing at least thirty people; and that Pigsty Liver and the Organs had retaliated.
‘Mr Preminder, what happened here? Can you explain why the security was so inadequate, at an event of this kind? And how did Pigsty and the band come to be armed?’
‘These are not normal times,’ said Benny Prem. ‘In extreme cases, normal rules do not apply. If it hadn’t been for Pigsty’s ability to fight back, there would have been a lot more casualties before the police arrived. As it is, many innocent lives have been spared. Surely a horrific incident like this proves that those on the positive side of the Countecultural Movement have to be free to fight fire with fire.’
This is what it was about, thought Fiorinda. This, not nothing. Feeling like a guilty child. They had all of them stayed out playing by the riverside too long, refusing to go home (but Fiorinda never, never wanted to go home): and this is what happens. The monsters get you.
‘Prem can be on the tv,’ said Pigsty, dismissively. ‘He can do the talking. That’s his shit. Now I’ll tell you something Prem doesn’t know. We’re setting off the Green Blitzkreig, as of tomorrow. It’s gonna happen all over, there’s a shitload of us, finally going for it, no more pissing around. We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more. Gonna save our mother earth, in England’s green and pleasant land, and I want to do a proper job of it. The only question is, are you brainy types going to help me?’ He reached down, pulled the big handgun out of the waistband of his leather jodphurs, cocked it and rested it on the table. He grinned at them. ‘Or not?’
A moment of stunned readjustment, then Ax says, ‘yeah, I’ll help you. Get me some maps.’
The others sat, bloodstained, immobile and hardly breathing, while the maps were fetched: listening to Pig explain how he’d been approached by Prem and agreed to take over Paul’s plot, but then Pig had decided to take command for himself. Listening to Ax calmly discussing the whole thing; able to realise that Ax was saving their lives. Rob began to get restless, began to twitch like a limb to which circulation is painfully returning, having been cut off. He started to mutter: he killed…gotta…he killed…gotta, can’t let…
‘Get him out of here,’ said Ax, casually. ‘He’s bothering me.’
Fiorinda and DK, who happened to be sitting on either side, took Rob by the elbows and moved him out. Pigsty’s goons didn’t stop them, but followed closely. ‘Get me a phone’, said Fio, imitating Ax’s manner; and this worked. A phone was produced. But then she couldn’t handle it, so DK called The Eyes. They were safe. They were still in the Park, but they could leave. They would come at once. ‘What’s going on there?’ DK demanded.
‘I don’t fucking know,’ answered Felice. ‘We’ll come and get our man.’
On t
he steps of the building Rob wept and struggled, beside himself. The goons stood by, while Fio and DK held him, until the pink Cadillac rolled up out of the streetlight dark. ‘He killed a sister. He killed a sister, man, the fucking bastard, I can’t stand for that—’
‘It’s all right,’ Fio pleaded. ‘The Eyes are okay, they’re here now—’
‘He means Cecile, I think. Rob, hey, that was an accident. Friendly fire. The Pig is cool. Be calm, the Pig is cool, you don’t mean what you’re saying.’
Fiorinda was sure there had been no accidents, the Pig had known exactly who he wanted to murder. But Rob’s losing it was also in some way a performance. He wasn’t struggling too hard. They piled him into the car: the Eyes looking grim on the front seat, Rob into the back, like tipping a wild animal out of a net into safe captivity.
‘You’re driving home?’ asked DK, ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’
‘We can look after our sweet selves,’ snarled Felice, ‘Why’d you think there’s three of us?’
‘That’s how many it takes,’ said Cherry. Her face was streaked with tears. ‘What the fuck happened? What’s going on? We thought you were all dead—’
‘Any sister waits in hope for a black man to look out for her, is a fool.’ said Dora, her voice shaking in the bitter fury of relief. ‘C’mon, fellow-babes. I don’t care what’s going on.’
The Cadillac rolled away. DK and Fiorinda, released from their terrifying burden, stumbled into a hug, clinging tight, white knuckled, bone on bone.
‘My God,’ he muttered, ‘My God—’
‘We’re still alive,’ she whispered. ‘We’re alive, hang onto that.’
They were taken back. Then, in the familiar room, there followed an extraordinary session in which Ax handed over detailed knowledge of how Pig’s ‘Green Blitzkrieg’ should be run. Where the arms factories were, how best to contain the security forces, the most effective way of closing an airport or tearing up a major highway. The most poisonous chemical plants and how to decommission them without disaster, leave the nuclear power stations alone. Channels of communication that must be kept open and frequently fed, calming the people and the world out there beyond… Often in the Think Tank, Ax had teased Paul Javert, letting slip hints of how much politically and socially useful information he kept stored with his Lennonisms. Now it all came out. There was no one taking notes, and if the Pig’s wishes had been obeyed there were no recording devices in this room, but that didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was that Ax could keep talking, holding the Pig fascinated, so Ax went on doing that, while the handgun stayed on view, sometimes pointed in one person’s direction or another, the hippie goons stood around, and of course Pig was joking. He wouldn’t shoot anybody, not in here, he just liked to see them scared.
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