IVON
Page 28
At the statue’s glove, Dusty gasps. A pair of letters are carved into the strap, identifiers of the kind they used to wear when this statue went up in ’25, the player’s initials. Tears start to well again, as he considers them. Here, on the highest plane of The Cricketer, safely concealed from the impressionable eyes of those below, turned up towards the sky, reads the simple inscription: ‘DN’.
So, it was meant to be him all along. It is him. The Cricketer. He knew it. Dusty Noble is sitting astride Dusty Noble. Who sanctioned this tiny detail, tucked away from view? Was it the Commune of London itself, or a rogue operative working on the left glove, who detected in himself the forbidden admiration of an individual and indulged it where no one would see? Ha! In this way, the Perpetual Era winks at Dusty at the very last. All those years of unflinching coldness, of means-end rationality, all those years and the Perpetual Era had a heart somewhere after all, whether renegade or institutional, it matters not.
It matters not.
Dusty climbs over the fingers of the left glove, then those of the right, out onto the bat itself. His bat, he can now say. He sits cross-legged on the blade and looks along its gentle downward slope. He had thought he might do this at the end of the bat, more obviously isolated, but, no, he might fall. No statement was ever made by an amorphous stain on the floor. And, besides, his sense of theatre and panache, which he fancies was always there, is more heightened now. Such an end would never do.
He pulls the rope from off his shoulder and over his head. How grateful he is to ReSure for these arcane devices, and for its archive of information on how ends were met in the Lapsed Era. It is possible that without it he might not even have conceived of this brilliant solution. He is crying openly and relishes the thought that he is now beyond all fear of show.
From crèche to decommission, the cricket bat has defined his existence. He swivels round onto his front and lies along the length of this magnificent representation of it, his cheek pressing against the blade as he looks out over London. He slips his arms round the bat and with his left hand swings one end of the rope under it, catching it with his right. Sitting back up, he threads the rest of the rope through the loop he has tied at one end and pulls it tight round the blade. Then, through the loop he has tied at the other, he slips his head and gently closes the noose around his neck, as the footage described. The engineering of the knot is exquisite. The parts move smoothly, without resistance.
The stadium turbines roar into life again. Could this be the start of the upturn they have been yearning for? Hopeful signs have been there for some time. Ever since Ivon arrived, now Dusty thinks about it. That match at the White City Stadium, 72–15! Oh, what a pump that was! It occurs to Dusty that Ivon might be London’s lucky charm – and he smiles through his tears at the very thought, settling into a comfortable position facing Lord’s, his legs dangling over the side of the upturned bat.
Yes, he will remember Ivon as that – a lucky charm, a gift from another time. And if London had to appropriate him, so Dusty will travel the other way. Fancy bringing about your own premature departure! The audacity of it, the individuality, the dislocation of thought, the genius! Dusty Noble does not belong to London, what though they bred him and reared him. Dusty Noble will not surrender himself to London. He belongs to Dusty Noble, and he will take with him his cover drive and the myriad other shots he has played in his forty-nine years.
In a few hours, thousands of citizens will file out of that grand old stadium generator. The first few, perhaps, will look up routinely at the mighty statue and for once see a new message. And so the word will spread throughout the multitude. There are new possibilities; there are new ways to live! Look at Dusty Noble up there! To think, he might have trundled on to his stasis in eleven years’ time, surrendered all he’d had or known! To think we all might!
Yes, there is another way. Dusty pushes down with his hands against the bat and eases himself off its edge, as if slipping into a rock pool on the mystic coast of Gower, as if slipping into his freedom.
Acknowledgements
Crowdfunding is an increasingly popular path to publication, with good reason, but it does rely on the generosity and faith of potential readers. I hope I’ve already thanked profusely those who pledged their hard-earned towards Ivon without seeing so much as a dust jacket, but you can’t be thanked enough. So, thanks again. The phrase ‘it wouldn’t have been possible without you’ is a staple rhetorical device in acknowledgements, but to crowdfunders it applies literally.
All books, whether crowdfunded or not, need publishers. Many thanks, then, to Clare Christian, Anna Burtt and Heather Boisseau at RedDoor for agreeing to take on Ivon with such energy and creativity. Your hybrid model, marrying the selectivity of traditional publishing with the democratising verve of self-publishing, provides a much-needed outlet for those books that might not fit easily into any of the mainstream genres. I think it will prove as important a development in the publishing industry as crowdfunding.
Readers are important, too, even before publication. My thanks, then, to James Perry, Richard Warlow, Dan Morrish and James Cunningham for their comments on the early drafts of the all-important opening pages. And, for their comments on the early drafts of the full manuscript, still more to Hugh Godwin, Gilbert Simmons and Ben Roome, in particular the latter, who read it twice, apparently of his own accord.
This book was also expedited to its current state by Richard Beard and his class of happy (sometimes) scribblers at the National Academy of Writing: Lesia Scholey, Sally Hodgkinson, Eamon Somers, Laura Ashton and Sue Blundell. It’s a curious experience to have your work pulled apart line by line by a randomly thrown-together group round a table – and, of course, never easy. Friendships are forged or killed at birth by it. I’m so pleased we’re all still talking, let alone such good friends. See you at the Pineapple.
Finally, thanks and undying devotion to Vanessa, Max and Francesca. They say families are the death of creativity – and there’s no doubt they can get in the way – but neither is there anything like a noisy, loving house for seeing how people tick. Writing this book would have been possible without you, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun.
About the Author
Michael Aylwin is a sportswriter and an award-winning, bestselling author. This is his first novel.