When will Alanis get here? He needs some human contact, some softness, some give. What a release it was just to run out onto a field and play yesterday. And yet has the experience not left him hanging? He felt nothing from his teammates afterwards, and there was nothing. No celebration, no alcohol, no women, no myth-making, no love. He returned to his quarters in turmoil, effervescing without vent, a crescendo without resolution. The upheaval of contest must be smoothed over with festivity. These people aren’t human.
‘Is it true you’re from Wales?’ asks the most talkative of his new admirers. He’s tall. Ivon tries to imagine what sport he plays. Maybe a fast bowler. Or a basketball player. He laughs a lot, but it bursts from him suddenly, as by a switch. The others are quick to join in each time.
‘Yes. From Gower.’
‘Tell us about Wales, Ivon. Do they really not observe the Sanctity of Physical Fitness?’
‘We’re fit!’ protests Ivon. Then he slumps back into the couch. ‘But it’s a means, not an end. Play, live. That’s what we do in Wales.’
Just as he says it, Alanis appears. He smiles despite himself. She sees him and waves. There is colour in her cheeks, which reminds him of Cerys during the good times.
‘Ivon!’ she calls as she sweeps towards him. When she notices his new friends, she pauses and frowns in bemusement. Or is it with disdain?
Ivon reclines luxuriously on his couch and turns out his hands in resignation. ‘What can I say? I seem to have picked up some admirers!’
He rises to take her hand. This time he stands close, as she pulls his arm into her breast.
Alanis turns to the girl in yellow on the couch next to his. ‘Excuse me, could you move to another couch, please? He and I are waiting for a cot.’
The girl snaps to her feet with what sounds like a squeal. ‘My name is Tanya Elg,’ she says to Ivon, as if they don’t have much time. ‘I’ve put in for Monday, 15.30. Please ratify.’
With that, she retreats with the rest of the group, staring viciously at Alanis as she goes.
‘Oh, these tertiaries,’ says Alanis, as she takes up position on the couch. ‘I knew letting them in here was a mistake.’
‘I’m a tertiary, aren’t I?’
‘I don’t know where they’re all coming from. There’s a crowd of them at reception trying to enrol.’
‘What does she mean, “ratify”?’
‘She must have put her name down for a bout with you. If you ratify it, that will complete the booking.’
‘But I don’t even know her.’
‘At the desk, they said you have booking requests right up to the diary horizon. It’s highly irregular.’
‘And I’m just supposed to go with these women, am I?’
Alanis shrugs. ‘Unless you have a reason not to.’
‘What if I want to go with someone else? You, for example?’
Ivon watches her closely. Is that the same flush on her cheek he noticed when she first arrived, or is it deeper now?
‘Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem. Subject to my diary, we could arrange it. But this backlog of requests for one person is most unusual. It’s not right.’
Is it so unusual, though? What’s unusual is that he’s expected to honour them all. Ivon is well used to the idea of women wanting to sleep with him, but he’s not used to them putting their names down in a diary. And he’s always reserved the right to say no. Before Cerys decided she’d had enough of it, he didn’t even have to do that. He’d just seek her out and give her a kiss. He’s taken, ladies. Sorry. If only she hadn’t been away the three times. He’s not perfect; he should have been faithful, like Dafydd Bennett, but no one fancies Dai, so it’s not a fair comparison, is it? Anyone can be faithful without propositions. Much harder when the place is full of people making a move on you. He always told her, though. He couldn’t keep secrets. He loved her. For nearly half his life. He wants to find love again. Especially here, in a cold place like England. He’s not going to find it in a diary of names. Someone real.
He looks across at Alanis and longs to tell her. She doesn’t seem to have made the connection. Has she not heard about his performance yesterday? Surely, it’s obvious why these women are queuing up.
‘It could be to do with the game.’
‘Game?’
‘Sorry, match. Ours. Rugby. Yesterday’
Alanis beams. Genuinely. Stunningly. The rouge in her cheek, the hair pulled back against an open, honest face, around which play a few whisps, escapees from the hair band’s discipline. Shit, she’s gorgeous. Older than him, no doubt, but as fresh and hearty as she must have looked in her youth. Cerys had that, the same rosiness as a woman as when they were at school. As if she were always just back from the woods, ever so slightly out of breath. As if there should be sweat on her brow. As if she were too pure for sweat.
‘Oh, 72–15!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Ivon! What news! What a relief! If ever I’m irritated by these tertiaries, I just have to think of that! Do you think this could be the start of a revival?’
He’s not sure she even realises he was playing. She certainly doesn’t seem to understand that the whole thing was basically down to him. Does anyone seriously think they’d have scored 72 if it had been left to the English? No. He’s the 72. She’s looking at the source of her own ecstasy.
‘It was my first match in London, you know.’
She smiles, but then she was smiling already. Maybe her mouth opens a little wider and her eyebrows arch higher. Either way, it is all offered in a spirit of encouragement, a good-for-you supplement to the main event, not the loin-centric unwinding of her composure he’d hoped for. Alanis is impressed only by that scoreline. The part Ivon might have played in it does not seem to be of interest.
And, to think, they’re about to disappear together anyway down a dimly lit corridor to cut to the chase. He should be more excited about that than he is. He looks forward to the feel of her skin, but he hasn’t earned it. What about the rituals? The flirting, the drinking, the banter, the off-to-war heroics on the pitch, the peacockery of it all? They’ve done away with it. Seduction has been bypassed.
Not human, these English.
She won’t need that bout with Frank Hiscock, after all. Wow! Ivon! That was momentous! So often it can be hard work maintaining noise levels beyond the second or third changeover, but not that time. That time, it would have been harder not to scream. Actually, there were a couple of intervals there when she didn’t want to change over at all. Sometimes it all feels so right and something goes off inside her. She’s sure there are more joules arising when it happens.
They reach the recovery lounge – and, after the day she’s had, Alanis intends to recover – but her heart sinks when she hears another commotion, just like the one in the foyer earlier on. Sure enough, there is another unruly gathering in the lounge, and the yellow suits of the tertiary run through it like a stain.
‘I discovered his name!’ shrieked one of the two girls at the centre of the row. It is the same tertiary Alanis had words with at the desk. ‘I discovered which was his club! I deserve a bout with him before you! You owe me that!’
The girl she is screaming at is also a tertiary, the one Alanis shooed off the couch when she first sat down with Ivon that afternoon. Both are being held back from each other by flustered club officials. It really is most irregular.
‘That information is available to anyone,’ hisses the other. ‘I was the one who noticed him during the match. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even know he existed. You were too busy buffing your triceps surae.’
‘You shitting idler!’
‘Apathetic, day-dreaming slob!’
‘Ladies! Language, please!’ cries John Garcia. ‘No one is emerging from this with any credit.’
Suddenly, the second of the quarrelling tertiaries spots Ivon. She breaks free from her restrainer’s grasp and runs towards him, stopping within inches.
‘Please, Ivon, ratify me! My name is Tanya Elg. Mond
ay, 15.30!’
The other tertiary screams unashamedly and thrashes to no avail in a bid to break free. John appears quickly at Tanya’s shoulder and tries to usher her away, but, with the faintest hint of a sigh, she flings herself at Ivon. Her arms slip round his back and tighten their grip, so that the side of her head is pressed firmly against his chest. Her face is turned towards Alanis, who can see that it is twisted into an expression of extreme effort, the eyes screwed tightly shut, the mouth stretched unnaturally.
A gasp goes up around the room, soon followed by cries of protest and disgust at the unsanctioned physical contact. Ivon, to his credit, remains impassive. Fancy that, the Perpetual citizen in disarray, the Welshman in control. Oh, the shame of it!
There is a movement in the room towards Tanya, but Alanis is closest to this exhibition of wantonness. She seizes the girl and tries to prize her free from Ivon.
‘Get off him!’ she cries. ‘How dare you! It’s disgusting!’
John is soon lending his assistance and together they pull her away, before others converge to subdue the girl amid angry protestations.
‘Ratify me, Ivon!’ Tanya screeches, quite out of control. ‘Just one bout!’
‘Save your energy for someone else!’ cries John.
‘I don’t want anyone else! I don’t want anyone else!’
That’s what the other tertiary screamed at the desk earlier. What is this insidious preoccupation with one man? It must not be allowed to spread any further! It’s as if these people see coitus with Ivon as something to yearn for, something more than a drawing off of energy. Alanis fears for the reputation of the club. And, if this unnatural strain of individualism is allowed to develop, for the stability of society. It would be intolerable for such a breakdown in discipline to take hold just as London is showing signs of a recovery. Intolerable.
That was decisive. Ivon enjoyed that. Alanis wasn’t taking any shit. What a woman! She really didn’t like that girl hugging him, did she? At all.
He was beginning to wonder whether he was getting through to her. She has always shown him smiles and breezy friendliness, but he wasn’t sure he’d made a connection. He’s feeling surer now. That session in the sex room seems to have loosened her up. And why wouldn’t it have? That was a shag from the end of the world. He’s still feeling wobbly. And now this, a further show of passion he hadn’t thought an English girl capable of. It’s taken a bit of work, but she’s coming round. Soon she’ll be his. The more he realises, the more he knows that this, Alanis and he, is what he wants.
There she stands, flustered and gorgeous, between the two women screaming at each other and wrestling with their captors. The room is noisy with people appealing for calm. Ivon spots Dusty in the far corner – just watching, of course.
Suddenly, four men in black burst in. Without a word they split into two pairs, one heading for each of the hysterical girls. As the girls are handed over, their screaming and struggling suddenly stop. Was it the touch of the men in black that quietened them, or the mere sight? Ivon cannot tell, but the manner of their submission unnerves him. With heads bowed, they are led away from the room, which is now in the grip of a silence as sudden and complete as the girls’ capitulation. Not one of the men in black says a word, their adamant expressions set rigid and severe.
Murmuring creeps round the room once they’re gone. Alanis straightens her suit.
‘What the fuck was that?’ says Ivon.
‘Assimilation,’ says Alanis without looking at him. ‘They’ll be taken to the IC and assimilated. Those two were chronically misaligned.’
‘What’s the IC?’
‘The Institute of Correction. They’ll be corrected.’
‘You’re making it sound very sinister.’
Alanis looks at him now. She’s not smiling. The eyebrows are up again, though – just slightly this time, enough for him to take her seriously.
‘My advice to you is not to ratify any coitus requests for now,’ she says. ‘At least not from anyone you don’t know. Something’s not right about this.’
‘That’s fine by me. You’re the only person I know here. Let’s clear our diaries and get it on!’
Alanis settles down on a couch and rests a hand across her brow. ‘Those two have riled me. I was hoping to have a good rest.’
She closes her eyes, and Ivon is able to admire the length of her. Here, at last, is his home from home.
VIII
Dusty has gone too far. The noise of a cracking fills the air and rents his soul. Something has broken, because the seat he sits on drops suddenly. For a mortifying moment he is falling. Even when he settles again, he knows he is in danger. They are in danger. He looks to his right and by the moonlight sees Ivon, unmistakably Ivon, strapped into a seat, but older than Dusty knows him. At his feet, beneath a steering wheel, a silvery slick of water appears with a brief swirl, a flourish, as if by way of introduction, then begins the urgent business of swelling. Where is the water coming from? Dusty knows only that it is their danger made manifest. His recklessness must yield consequences. He panics and instinctively reaches for a handle to his left. It activates the latch in a door, against which he pushes hard. The door is heavy, but he forces it open against the water outside, which seeps into the footwell, burning him with its coldness. Free, Dusty wades across unstable ground towards a ledge of ice. He scrambles up onto it and sees that the ledge is, in fact, an empire of ice, smooth and unchallenged in all directions, interrupted only by the hole he has climbed out of. He watches now, in horror, as an ancient metal vehicle lists and rocks on a platform that is steadily sinking into that hole. The headlights wave slowly and hopelessly on their descent, until their mayday is smothered beneath the water. But there is another light on inside the vehicle. Dusty can see within its beam Ivon turn this way and that, searching in vain for a way out, strapped in a sinking cage, his mop of hair glowing eerily. Until it too slips beneath the ice.
He sits up with a gasp. It is 3.39 a.m. Slowly he lowers himself back into bed. He thinks about illuminating the room, but that would draw attention in these times of austerity, so he stares into the darkness instead.
He cannot see a way out. For Ivon. How could he have thought this a good idea? As if Ivon would put in a shift in a few matches, impress London in a quiet, understated way, then return to Wales, with all of them, Ivon, Dusty and London, better off for the experience. And Ivon will want to go back. He asked again about ‘phoning’ Ricky and Dee only yesterday, just after that incident at the club.
This growing storm of attention around him is dangerous, but it was inevitable. Dusty was right about Ivon – too right. London has never known anything like him. For now the unstable and weak of character are being drawn to his flame, but the attention of more formidable agents is sure to follow. Indeed, it has been pricked already. In Ivon, London has found a precious new asset. And London never gives up one of those.
Dusty feels the tug of nostalgia as he cycles through Kennington. With a wicked smile to himself, he decides to go out of his way to ride past the Oval. He relishes the memories it evokes of those early years on the field, where he learned to apply his technique with the Academy team. A flush rises in him as he indulges in these illicit meanderings, not only wallowing in the Past like this but cycling more than is necessary to do it! As he carries on down Nine Elms Lane towards the Academy itself, the nostalgia thickens further. Thirty years ago, when the sun shone on a Tuesday, they used to stretch out in recovery on these green banks rolling down to the Thames. His heart longs for those times.
The closer he draws to the Academy, the more he braces himself for the moment he sets eyes on the old place again. (The ‘old place’ – just listen to him!) He looks ahead, searching the skyline for the absurd Lapsed-Era chimneys that rose uselessly into the sky from each of the ancient building’s four corners. The heavy brick, the four square walls, how he and his comrades used to mock the place for its lumbering antiquity! But he thinks about it now, all these
years later, with affection.
He passes one of the Academy’s home blocks, sure that he will see those chimneys heave into view – but they are not there! The Academy of Cricket has been rebuilt. In its place rises a new building that glints in the morning sun and means nothing to him. It’s for the best. He can go about his business here with a head clear of memories.
He has an appointment with the Academy’s TMS officer MacAulay Elsom, who greets him warmly and leads him through a sunny atrium into the opaque corridors of the Faculty of Improvement.
‘So you want to attend this afternoon’s TMS procedure?’
Dusty nods.
‘I imagine you’ve undergone such therapy yourself.’
‘Yes. I’m not sure it had any effect on me, though. At least none that I noticed.’
‘Not many do notice much difference on a conscious level – until they next perform the skill in question, when they will have a sense of having performed it many more times than they actually have.’
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘Of course not. But the end result was evidently productive. I see your cover drive is due for upload when you reach stasis.’
Dusty winces to himself. The prospect of that honour troubles him now. A piece of his experience will be carried forward by who knows how many batsmen in a cause he no longer considers sacred.
MacAulay leads Dusty from the pearly glow of the faculty corridor into a small dark cubicle, one wall of which is a window onto a larger room. In that room, a man lies on a table, his head and shoulders couched in a chip interface. A scientist potters round him, taking readings, tending equipment.
‘This subject has been prepped,’ says MacAulay. ‘His existing stock should have been rendered ripe for removal by now. Let me see.’
He sits at a terminal in front of the subject’s neuromap, a glowing tree that hovers above the console. He navigates his way to the seat of memory, and the map morphs and seems to rush towards Dusty. It mushrooms into the heart of the neo-cortex. MacAulay swoops through the molecular clusters like a fighter pilot in space, arrowing in on the relevant collection of memories.
IVON Page 13