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VIRTUAL ASSASSIN SIMON KEARNS
REVENGE INK
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Give me convenience or give me death. Dead Kennedys
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The light blinked green for two seconds then turned red. All the lights went off. They wanted him to sleep. Holding his breath he listened to the sounds of an alien environment, magnified and echoed by the suddenness of the dark. The jangle of keys receded down a corridor of earshot, a distant door slammed. Grey sounds. Grey smells. Institutionalised, depersonalised, dulled out. The darkness too was a greyish shade of black. Eventually, his eyes began to adjust and the cell, faintly illuminated by a light that had no discernable source, gradually materialised. It was about six feet by twelve, bare but for a low, stainless steel toilet and washbasin. He sat on a thin mattress supported by a shelf that jutted from the wall. They wanted him to sleep and he wanted to sleep. He was alone for the first time in many hours. The dark blue tide of uniforms, which carried him from one unknowable location to the next, had now receded and left him here in this tiny room. The cell looked brand new. There was no graffiti on the walls, no clichĂŠd bars of days crossed out. White tiles from floor to ceiling, the grouting immaculate. The toilet was so clean it appeared unused. There were no dents in the metallic door where hardened fists had punched in fits of regret, no fingernail 7
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scratch marks. The cell displayed no evidence of previous internees. Everything had a wipe-down surface. All stains had been erased. Lee Coller realised he was disappearing from the world. This cubicle, custody suite number five, was the next stage of his deletion. They had already taken his fingerprints and DNA. By the time he appeared in court he would no longer exist as a person at all. Only his crime would be visible, held up for scrutiny and evaluation. A pale grey blanket sat neatly folded at the end of the mattress. He put out his hand to feel it. It was soft and this surprised him, he had expected it to be coarse, punitively rough. He lay down along the shelf, his head on the blanket. There was a gap in his right-hand pocket where he kept his mobile phone. His belt and shoelaces had been removed. They were watching him. The black domed protrusion in the centre of the ceiling regarded him; a closed-circuit Cyclops. There were sixteen tiles from one end of the cell to the other. He did not want to know this, but he had already counted. His eyes had paced the floor. Sixteen tiles by eight. Lee waited. Waiting was all he could do. He wanted to sleep but he could not. He feared he would never be able to sleep again. The events of the day kept flashing in his mind, disjointed, random images. Shutting his eyes tight he tried to think of something else. He could not contemplate a future of any kind; it was a complete unknown. By his own actions he had removed himself from all consideration of what was to become of him. The present was just too terrible to think about; time was being measured out in unfamiliar portions and he could not bear to come to terms with this so soon. It was to the past that he desperately lurched. He thought about Rosa. Lying on the prison shelf-bed he thought about 8
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Rosa’s naked body. He thought about her hair, the mole on her belly, the variegating polish of her toenails. Lee had made his choice, and his choice had been not Rosa. How could that be? From recent memory came a conversation. He was standing outside a pub with his friend, Ray. His friend was asking him: What do you think you will do, Lee? And his reply: I don’t know yet. I don’t know what I’ve got in me. It had been in him then, the anger, this will for destruction. It had been nudging him the day he hid the letter opener in his office drawer. It had been waiting in him, ready to explode, the night he saw the little girl. It had been there right from the start; from the very first moment Blair’s name was mentioned. They were going to judge him. He wondered if they would understand what he had done. He did not understand it himself. He could see how the decisions he made had brought him to the cell. He could remember why these decisions had been made, but he knew that he had not taken it all as seriously as he ought to have. It had been a mistake, but he knew it wasn’t. He had sleepwalked into a nightmare, but he had been fully conscious of what he was doing. At every stage of his wide-awake progression to custody suite number five he had regarded himself with a dissociative incredulity. It was all just one thing after another.
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FRIDAY
“One more thing.” The others paused and looked back to the head of the table. “Sit down, please. Close the door, Lee.” The door was closed. They sat. Geoffrey Bowstock regarded his management team. He had pale blue eyes and the easy assurance of a man who knows he need not work another day in his life. When everyone was settled he began to speak. His voice, baritone with a hint of Home Counties, took on the gentle I’m-including-you-all inflection, which, like his clothes, was casual yet carefully considered. “One more thing. It wasn’t on the agenda. Now, it’s not a definite, but we may have a very important person coming to visit in a couple of weeks.” “Who?” demanded Maggie with customary directness. “I can’t say just yet, we’ve agreed to keep it hush-hush.” Hands out, palms down. A number of glances passed back and forth. The table at which they sat gave off a church-like smell of polish. The wengé wood surface doubled each of the six people leaning over it making them look like playing cards - the Jack of All Accounts, a Queen of Public Relations and the King of Dot Com Capitalism. 10
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Lee reopened his notepad. In black ink he had drawn two spaceships. One was tiny, made up of only a few hurried lines. It was being chased by the enormous hulk of a space cruiser. The larger craft was spiked with gun turrets and loomed over the fleeing ship as if ready to devour it. Will we ever escape? he wondered as he added another missile silo. “Anyway, it’s not definite, but I want the office spotless by close of play Thursday week. Just in case.” “Private or public?” asked Maggie, Scottish accent relishing the r and hard c, her hand inscribing the letters V, I and P on the relevant date of her large desk diary. “Public. Very public.” “Press?” “Yes.” Bowstock waited, his forefingers touching in a symmetrical spire. Internally he counted as his eyes alighted in turn upon the faces of the other five. He had eye-catching eyes, familiar from gossip pages and television screens. He was young and handsome. At thirty-six he had gone from reasonably well-off to ridiculously wealthy, very quickly. His company, anything@all.com, had turned around three years of Internet obscurity to become Britain’s number one supplier of, well, anything at all. He paused, allowing silence to punctuate the meeting. He enjoyed silences; they reinforced his control of the group. Lee shaded a section of the cruiser’s hull with quick flicks of his pen. Will we ever escape this weekly meeting? He initialled the larger craft GB in honour of his boss. “Okay then … any more questions?” “Yes.” Everyone turned to look at Lee. He was balancing his pen upon the side of his right index finger. They waited for the usual quip that typified his additions to the meetings. 11
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“Will this person of great importance be doing the usual tour?” The usual tour invariably involved a stop at Lee’s Design Department for a run through of basic web design and a display of cutting-edge graphics. Ten to thirty minutes of best behaviour and ingratiation. Lee’s work represented the public interface, the online webpage, the all-important advertising space. He briefly met Bowstock’s eyes before looking back at the pen poised upon his finger. The two men related to each other purely on a professional level. They rarely talked outside of the office. It was as if they had known each other for a long time, and a long time ago they had agreed to disagree. “It’s not decided, Lee,” said Bowstock. The pen dropped. It was time to close the meeting. “Well, if there’s nothing else. No? Okay. I believe you guys are playing pool after work? Good. I can’t make it tonight, otherwise, you know, I’d only win again, but there’ll be a tab behind the bar. Have a good weekend.” Everyone got up from their seats, said goodbye to Bowstock and filed out of the top floor boardroom. They waited silently at the lift, then entered. They stood close in the metal box. Maggie pressed the button for the first floor. Lee broke the silence. “You didn’t know about this, Maggie?” “Apparently not, Lee.” They descended without another word. The offices of anything@all.com were situated at the southern end of Charing Cross Road. The ground floor, which had been for sixty years a second-hand bookshop, was now one long window display of the company name and logo. A series of widescreen televisions played a looped animation of the globe 12
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with the little white hand symbol of a mouse pointer hovering over the UK as if ready to click it. The first floor was open plan, an extended rectangle with the lift entrance and reception at one side and the computer systems room at the other. The lift doors opened and they dispersed. Maggie Dunwoody immediately went to her desk just behind reception and checked her emails, then she checked her phone, then she checked her emails on her phone. Whatever communication she was hoping for had not arrived. She would continue to look, computer to phone and back again, remaining in the office until everyone had left and she was obliged to lock up. Steven Carey, Head of Customer Management, walked with his normal self-important hurry through the Research Team to his desk. Once there, he transferred the notes he had made on his palmtop to his laptop, excluding those referring to the visitor. He added bullet points and sent a copy, dated and titled Weekly Meeting, to his assistant manager at the call centre in Delhi. Lee Coller stood at the coffee machine in the compact kitchen area opposite his Design Department – five computers, three printers, two scanners and one other designer. They outsourced a lot of the work to a company in Bournemouth and one in Belfast. To his left, just beyond the low breakfast bar, were the desks of the four researchers, and at the back of the office, next to the systems room, was Jatinder’s Engineering Department. A barred back window gave onto a mirror image of itself in the wall of the building behind theirs. By the wide front windows at the other end of the room the reception desk trilled genteelly with another incoming call. Sara answered with her mantra, “Anything at all dot com?” She flicked her eyes as she listened, then deftly forwarded the call. 13
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Once more the office was given over to the hum of computers. Jatinder Aroras padded over to the coffee machine. “Well, JT, what do you think of that?” asked Lee, softly. “A very important person. Could be anyone.” “Maybe it’ll be that chick off the Italo advert. In her underwear. Lovingly bestowing oral pleasures on the staff in the boardroom.” Lee refilled his cup with black coffee. “It’s good to have something to hope for, it keeps your mind off things. How can you drink so much of that stuff?” “It keeps my mind off things.” The engineer was tall and slim with deep-set eyes that accentuated his nose, which, long and thin, was a physiognomic representation of the rest of his body. After many years of hair tied back in a ponytail he had recently cut it short, reverting to a style he had worn in his late teens, shaved at the back and sides, a flap of fringe that slipped forward with a tip of the head. He ran his right hand through the fringe, a recently reacquired habit, and nudged Lee with his elbow. “Tab behind the bar, Mr. Coller, you know what that means.” “I do, Mr. Aroras.” “I like it when VIPs come to visit. We always get rewards.” “Like the good doggies we are.” One of the researchers was staring at Lee as Jatinder continued to talk. Lee drank his coffee and stared back. Later that evening, at a bar in a nearby street, Lee was still staring at her. She was on the other side of the narrow room from him, between them a pool table. The sofas on which they sat were low so that only the eyes and tops of heads were visible over the array of pool balls. She was talking to her friend, watching the game and him 14
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beyond it. Chanced looks and pool balls skittered here and there across the chalk-flecked baize. There was a lot of drinking going on, Friday night drinking. The five thirty switch from caffeine to alcohol. A wave of office workers hit the shiny new bars and elderly pubs of Soho, crashing in a spray of beer froth and bottled cocktails. The rounds were being knocked back with speed and intent. To Lee’s left sat Steven and on his right Maggie. Jatinder and a mate of his from Account Management were knocking the balls back and forth on the table. “Are you guys still playing the same game?” shouted Lee over the music. “It’s like chess up here, man. This is intense pool playing.” “Come on, finish it, I’ve hardly had a game all night.” Maggie, having finally abandoned her computer, but not her phone, was busy catching up with the drinking. She leaned against Lee and drawled in her Glaswegian accent. “That girl fancies you.” “What girl?” “You know which one. Are you going to do something about it? Cause if you don’t, I will.” “Why weren’t you in on the VIP thing?” She put a cigarette between her bright red lips, lit it, inhaled and blew smoke into Lee’s face. He waited. She continued to smoke. “Well, it’s pretty obvious who it’s going to be,” she answered at last. “Would you like to share this obvious information?” “Tony Blair,” she said. “What?” Maggie straightened in her chair. She finished her pint and set the glass daintily upon the table then flicked ash onto the 15
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floor. She had sharp cheekbones, a sharp nose, a sharp black bob and an unfussy mouth well delineated in bold lipstick. There was a beauty in amongst all those edges, one that came to the surface on those rare occasions of genuine surprise or delight. She was well aware that she could cause men to take a second look and enjoyed their discomfort when she caught them staring. “Tony Blair, Prime Minister, leader of Her Majesty’s Government. It’s self-evident.” “And how is that?” asked Jatinder, now standing next to them. “I mean self-evident? Do you know something?” “No Jatinder, I’m making what’s called a deduction. Two reasons. First, the secrecy. We’re told someone’s coming but we can’t be told whom. Second, where did Geoff’s wife work before she married Geoff? … Anyone? … The press office of Number Ten Downing Street.” “Bollocks,” said Lee, sitting back. “They play tennis once a month. Geoff slaughters him every time. He’s a big donor to the New Labour cause is our Geoff.” “Fuck me,” he exhaled. “No thank you. But I will have another pint.” She stubbed out the cigarette only just lit. It was her new method for giving up. Jatinder bent to take a shot. He liked to scoff at Maggie for the way her accent anglicised when dealing with the press, when she became Margaret Dunwoody, Head of Public Relations. He could imitate her to a tee. “The Prime Minister? He does have some use to me. Oil him and send him to my bedroom.” She swiped him with her arm, knocking his cue into the white as he moved to shoot. Steven leaned towards them. 16
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“Hey guys. Not so loud.” “What, Steven, we can’t talk about the Prime Minister now?” “If it is … like who you say it is, then we shouldn’t really be talking about it at all, I mean in public.” There was a pause. They laughed. Steven sat back with an indignant expression and a shrug. A song ended and the next one started. Someone was dancing at the end of the bar. Maggie played with her phone. The game of pool continued. Lee stared through the pool table. His body felt sluggish, the room was blurred, but his mind had become a needlepoint. There was a possibility he would come face to face with the Prime Minister. He frowned, pint halfway to his mouth. This is something important, his mind uttered in an unfamiliar voice. This is opportunity. The concatenation of events on that bright blue morning in New York on September 11th, 2001, had succeeded in giving his generation a slap in the face. For a time everyone was politicised, everyone had an opinion. To most, 9/11 was a terrible thing, but for some it was more than this. It was a mirror. Lee had looked at his reflection and didn’t like what he saw there. He admonished himself by admitting that his Western lifestyle was that of a spoilt child, wildly out of proportion when compared to the living standards of the rest of the globe. However, he was able to counter the anxiety this knowledge created, essentially because it was weak, but also thanks to his perception of himself as an entirely impotent being. If there were something I could do, I would do it. He had reached the point of conscientious balance. He could have written another letter to his MP. He could have joined another anti-war demo. He could have bought another tee-shirt with another satirical image upon it, but he 17
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knew in his heart that these acts made no difference to the state of things. It never had. It never would. He was not Sisyphus. It was safer for his state of mind, for his ease of life, to accept inability and drink another pint. Feeling detached, he watched his colleagues revelling in the playground of the bar. They were drinking, killing brain cells, erasing little pieces of themselves. The company card next to the till would absolve them of all their worries, a cleansing alcohol bath. He imagined leading them in a toast: Let’s drink to forget what we’re not supposed to remember! The truth was, he was finding it harder to forget the reality of his life, and it was this - the need to forget these things, the fact that he couldn’t - that was making him angry. It was taking greater quantities of alcohol, and other substances, to quell the disquiet. If there were something I could do … and now there was. He had to say something. He had to make a statement in front of Blair, in front of the press. The adverts and webpages he created were seen by millions of people everyday, yet they barely scratched the surface of the public’s attention. Change channel – flick - gone and forgotten. Here was the opportunity to make a different mark, something political, something with a chance of lasting longer than the latest Internet sensation. What could he say to the man that would aptly portray his anger? Say? Why just say? Why not do? “Mate.” Jatinder was standing in front of him. “It’s you.” “Me?” “Yeah. You. You’re stripes … and the game is called pool, in case you’ve forgotten.” 18
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“I was just thinking.” “Well don’t. It’s the weekend. No thinking, just drinking.” “Sorry, I forgot.” Lee bent over the table. He knew that the woman from the Research Team was watching him. He slammed the cue ball. It cracked into the twelve ball and sent it down a pocket. “Cause and effect,” he said emphatically. They played a few more shots in silence, tapping feet and nodding heads to the music, checking out the females in their vicinity. Having decided not to limit his alcohol intake, Lee threw himself into the increasing tilt of drunkenness. Once again he had opted to forget. Maggie got the message she had been waiting for all day. She stood up and tucked her phone into her jeans pocket. “Right, fuck you lot. I’m off to Monkey Spasm.” Lee paused mid shot and looked up at her. “I don’t know what that means, but can I watch?” She picked up his beer, downed it and smiled at him. “You see, that’s why you’re such a loser, Lee. Whereas, I am a winner.” She walked towards the exit; stopping as she went to say something to the woman he’d been staring at. They looked over at him. Maggie waved and left. “JT, what the fuck is a monkey spasm?” asked Lee, missing his shot. “It’s a club in Knightsbridge. All the footballers go there.” “Who’s the chick in the green dress?” “I think she’s called Rosalind, or Rosita or something. She’s a temp, one of the researchers is away for a few weeks.” “She’s alright.” “Yes she is.” Jatinder smacked the black ball into a pocket. “Good game, good game,” he said, jutting his chin forwards, 19
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mimicking Bruce Forsythe. Steven stood up quickly and took the cue from Lee. “I guess I’m going to the bar,” said Lee. “I guess you are,” answered Steven. They played and they drank. They ordered burgers and chips and ate them standing. Jatinder routinely dismissed the balls of either stripes or spots, favouring spots when he had the choice. The other three took turns with the cue at the table or the queue at the bar. Lee continued the game of glances with the woman from Research, each of them flashing their stares - parry, thrust, parry, riposte - until, quite without realising what he was doing, he walked over to her. He did not know what he was going to say. Inebriation had eroded the last of his reservations. “Hello,” he said too loudly. “Hello,” she answered, standing. “Is there a chance I could have a game of pool?” And so the reign of Rosa from Research began at their table. She quickly beat Jatinder, demolished Lee and almost nineballed Steven. She was Spanish. She smoked strong cigarettes. She drank red wine like it was water and swore every time she missed a shot, in her own language, as well as French and English, even when the balls went in, which they did with forceful regularity. The guys quickly moved out of the way when she was cueing. They were shaken to see a woman so adept at their game, and the crack of balls, mixed with the swearing, unnerved them. She had dark curls that to Lee seemed alive, and strong eyebrows over brown eyes. “Can I get you a drink? Wine, isn’t it?” “Red,” she said. Steven left. Jatinder stuck around until he finally won a game 20
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against her. He took her hand and kissed it. The other guy went with him. Lee, desperate to keep her company, got another round. As he was coming back with the drinks the lights went up. The music quietened. He gave her the glass of wine, and their fingers touched momentarily. The green dress had a zip down the left side that drew his eyes. He sat on the edge of the pool table. “We’re gonna get chucked out,” he warned. “Down in one, then.” She knocked back her wine. Lee considered his pint, gulped a third of it, and decided to take his time. “Where do you live, Rosa?” “I live in Battersea?” Lee’s face brightened. “Really? I’m going that way. Maybe we can share a cab?” “You live in Battersea?” “No, I live in Crouch End.” “That’s on the other side of London.” “I can go the scenic route if I have to.” She laughed and perched herself next to him. He became bolder and moved closer. They said nothing for a time. One of the bar staff came along the tables gathering glasses and told them it was time to leave, pressing them to go elsewhere, a tired and overworked cupid forcing the situation. Lee finished his drink and handed over the glass. They left the bar and stepped out into the sodium bright street, his hand hovering at the small of her back. “So, you’re going to take a cab to Battersea and then go back to Crouch End.” “Well, I could do. Or I could take a cab to Battersea and then maybe get out at Battersea,” he suggested. “And I’ll go back to Crouch End?” 21
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“You’re a funny lady.” “I’ve been a lot of places, but I’ve never been to Crouch End.” “Have you ever been to Monkey Spasm?” She looked at him with a perplexed stare. “Never mind.” They went to Crouch End.
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SATURDAY
He was woken by the snap of a pool ball hitting another. He sat up. The room was dark. He stared at the shape at the foot of his bed, which, caught out by his waking, seemed on the verge of jumping upon him. He stared it down until it lost its menace and returned itself to a chair draped with clothes. Lee became aware of the body beside him. She was deep within her sleep; a faint whistle came from her nose every time she exhaled. Memories of sex awoke in his mind and body. He put out a hand and touched her brown skin. She murmured and he drew away. There had been a dream, but all that was left was the shape of its absence. He lay back and pulled the bedclothes up to his chin. Something was not right. It wasn’t the woman next to him, nor anything they had done in the bed or elsewhere. There was something else. He reviewed the evening: beer, pool, pools of beer, Maggie leaning against him, Rosa’s coconut hair, the meeting. The meeting. The visitor. The Prime Minister. Tony Blair was stepping out of his rarefied circles and into 23
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Lee’s reality. There was a confrontation coming. It had to be a confrontation. It was inevitable. He had known this as soon as Maggie told him who the visitor was likely to be. Before even, from the moment Bowstock had said, one more thing, and asked him to close the door. He didn’t want to think about it. He leant away from the memory and up against Rosa. She woke to find him kissing her shoulder. For a moment she stared at him, puzzled, then she relaxed and embraced him. She said something in Spanish. The exotic music of the sounds fired his desire. Afterwards she dozed. It was only half nine, but Lee was unable to let himself go. He carefully got out of the bed, gathered some clean clothes and tiptoed out. Hot water beat on the back of his neck. The Tony Blair matter was nagging at him, otherwise he was feeling pleased with himself. She was a good-looking woman, and she liked him. He felt proud of his pulling power. Another notch. He soaped his body. She worked in his office - it could be messy. He told himself it would be better to keep it simple; they had both enjoyed themselves, there was no need for complications. Unexpectedly, he experienced a twinge of remorse. It had been fun, but he was feeling regret and this was not right. Something was spoiling his moment of victory. He chased the reason for the souring of his mood. It was just another one-night stand. There was no value in it, but there didn’t need to be. He answered himself that he was not looking for anything else, casual sex was its own reward. He wasn’t convinced. Lee thought about the last time he had known anything other than lust for a woman. Not since Judith, and how many women had there been since the end of that relationship? Three? Four? All very casual. A smile in the morning, a telephone number taken and soon deleted, then avoidance. 24
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“Here we go again,” he said to the jet of water that now thrummed against his forehead. He needed a restoration of confidence. In his mind he recited the tenets of his self-assurance. This is who I am, this is the life I want: money, booze, drugs, sex. I am alone by choice, I have no obligations, I am happy like this. When next Rosa awoke her confusion lasted longer as she looked around the room she had not noticed the night before. The bed was low. To her left there was a wall and a curtained window glowing red with sunlight. To the right a desk, obsessively bare, upon it the latest Apple computer and tacked to the wall above that, a bright yellow poster showing a man with his fingers in his ears, the legend “The Factory” in bold black letters. The far wall was covered with a large cut of material. It looked Moroccan in design; deep, warm colours, easy patterns. It reminded her of her mother. She remembered to whom the room belonged and smiled. She got out of the bed delicately, not wanting to disturb the hangover that was still asleep behind her eyes, and wrapped herself in a dressing gown she found hanging on the back of the door. Lee was in the kitchen. It was bright and sunny. He put down the newspaper and stood up. He gazed at her. She was in the doorway, swamped by his dressing gown, hair all over the place, and he realised he wanted to spend another night with her. For the second time in their brief acquaintance he did not know what to say. “Good morning,” she offered. “Good morning … There’s coffee in the pot and I have some things for breakfast. I don’t know if you eat meat, but there’s bacon and sausages and eggs.” 25
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He opened the fridge and stared into it, trying to sound relaxed and in control of himself as he spoke. “I eat everything,” she said breezily and helped herself to the coffee. “That’s handy.” Following breakfast they looked over the newspaper. Rosa read the sports section avidly, swearing at the football fixtures. Lee went back to the arts supplement. “What shall we do?” she asked after another coffee. “I don’t know. When?” “Today. I mean, you have any plans?” “Not really. You want to do something?” “Something, yeah.” They decided to go into town. On the tube they did not get seats next to each other. Rosa pretended not to know him, and Lee stared at her, taking in the things about her that he found attractive. Then she looked at him, her black eyes full upon him. They both stifled their laughter, savouring the tension that the conventions of the underground train had introduced into their emerging forms of communication. Lee led them through the tube system to Charing Cross. It was the journey he made five times a week, and, distracted by the proximity of this woman, he had followed his subterranean routine without thought. They emerged in Trafalgar Square. There was a small demonstration taking place at the foot of Nelson’s Column. Lee could not quite make out what it was about. They made their way round the outside of the eastern fountain, holding hands, up the steps and onto the open space in front of the National Gallery. “How tame these protests look when given permission to use the square for the afternoon. How nicely contained,” announced Rosa as they looked out over the scene. 26
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“Yup. Downing Street is up there and Buckingham Palace just to the right, but those lions spring into action if anyone actually tries to do something,” answered Lee, turning his back to the throng. He was confronted by the grand façade of the gallery. “Where politics fail, art must prevail.” “Who said that?” she asked. “I did, just now.” They entered the gallery. Up the steps and through the prosaic Portico Entrance, across the mosaic muses on the floor, awakening, unnoticed, and into the galleries proper, pace slowing as they took in the array of artworks before them. There were many people, being as it was a Saturday afternoon. Each canvas they considered was viewed over the tops of heads or hurriedly, as if from a conveyor belt as the crowd shuffled counter clockwise about the vast, varnished floors. Hogarths, Gainsboroughs, bucolic Constables, bright Seurat, St. John beheaded, now turn and there is Stubbs’ rearing Whistlejacket, which, with its blank background, seemed to Lee a cut and paste awaiting whatever scene the designer wished, and here, extending through the walls, the depths of Canaletto. They made their way through the halls, past framed windows into other worlds. “I love galleries, but they make me feel weird,” said Rosa. They were standing in front of Madame de Pompadour at her Tambour Frame. Few people stopped for long in front of her. She was relatively unknown, a slightly dowdy, powdery looking middle-aged woman with a double chin and small dog. Her cheeks were improbably rosy, her big wet eyes round and bright. “Why’s that?” inquired Lee, looking from the grey blue pupils of the canvas to the darkness of Rosa’s. “All these pictures of dead people. It’s just weird. They are all dead, but here they are.” 27
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“Ghosts.” “Worse than ghosts. Ghosts are honest, they never look so … so beautified.” He looked back at Drouais’ canvas, and it was the eyes that pulled his gaze once more. He had never been able to immediately remember the colour of his own eyes, and if asked he would have had to think. They were not blue like the madame’s, nor brown like the senorita’s. Green then, yes, green. He imagined a portrait of himself, but it was not a mirror for it could only be his own creation, therefore subject to his own prejudices: the eyes a strong green to remind himself, with flecks of gold, the nose not as fleshy as it really was. Lee erased the blurry attempt and tried to see a portrait of himself painted by another person, filtered by someone else’s consciousness, but it was impossible. It could only remain an idea in words. A conceptual piece, he smirked to himself. What would it be like to see one’s own portrait? He didn’t recognise himself in photographs. All these sitters would have undoubtedly seen the finished piece, they had paid for it, now it was all that was left of them, but they had paid for that too. But what would I see there? he asked himself again. A familiar face or a stranger’s face? He stood transfixed by the question until the jet-black hair of a Japanese woman entered his field of vision, and he followed the sheen of it, his gaze unrestrained, unconditioned by the act of studying art. Rosa stood on the edge of a small crowd that had gathered around The Hay Wain. She was watching him. He joined her and they wandered on, commenting on the skill of the artists, the clothes of the subjects, the nationalities of the other viewers. “The Fighting Temer – Temeraire,” read Rosa. “Voted the 28
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greatest painting in Britain in a poll held by the National Gallery and the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.” She stepped back to take it in. “Wasn’t it the Today programme that got into trouble for saying the government made up all that mierda about weapons of mass destruction?” “Andrew Gilligan. He just said what everybody already knew.” They stared at the canvas. “What do you think?” she asked. “He was right. It was the pretext for an illegal war. The dossier was most definitely sexed up. How perverse that sounds. I can’t believe everyone just rolled over and let them … let it happen.” He used to listen to the Today programme every morning on his way to work: Humphries’ hectoring had given him a faint hope that someone still gave a damn. The Andrew Gilligan story had ended his relationship with Radio Four: the death of David Kelly, the Hutton Report, the resignations. It had felt like a betrayal. The BBC, his BBC, had given up the fight. Or was it always like that? he wondered. This particular war in Iraq was personal for Lee. He believed himself more aware, but whether it was a result of September 11th or just his age he could not tell. “I was meaning the painting,” said Rosa. “Oh. Right. It is a good painting,” he replied, cautiously. “What do you think?” Rosa cocked her head. “It is good, yes.” She leant forwards and read the rest of the card. “It’s about an old warship being taken to be broken up. It says that it is about the decline of British naval power.” “The ship is beautiful.” He immediately felt a need to counter his statement. “The way it’s been painted.” 29
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They were whispering. “Look at the tugboat.” “The what?” she asked. “The little boat that’s pulling the ship. It’s steam powered. It’s the new technology, getting rid of the old. It’s ugly compared to what’s behind it.” “I like the sunset.” They emerged from the gallery, their eyes tired, aches in the lower back, and stood blinking in the sudden rush of the city. Thanks to the breakfast the hangovers had not materialised. In a nearby bar they had drinks, beer for him, red wine for Rosa. It had been a good day. They told each other so. They exhausted the subject of art by citing Duchamp. Having little more than a night of passion and the office in common they talked about the office. “Nah, Maggie’s nice really,” said Lee, shaking his head. “She’s a good person, honestly. I like Maggie. There’s no bullshit with Maggie. And Jatinder’s a decent guy, you played him last night.” “Yeah, I remember. The Indian guy.” “He’s about as Indian as a Beefeater.” “He’s a charmer.” “Is he?” asked Lee with a raised eyebrow. “He is a handsome man.” “I’ll be sure not to tell him.” “What about Geoffrey Bowstock. What’s he like?” “Oh, he’s handsome, too. You have to be to work there … I’m not sure about temping …” She realised what he had said and hit his arm. “Ow! Physical violence? On a first date?” “Is this still our first date?” 30
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“What if,” posited Lee, “we went and got married today and lived together for the rest of our lives, would the rest of our lives be a never-ending first date?” She tried to think of a witty rejoinder but the English words would not assemble themselves quickly enough, and the silence that followed threatened awkwardness. Lee stopped it. “I don’t know Bowstock very well. To be honest, I don’t particularly want to. But I know he likes his secrets.” “What secrets?” He sat forward over the table and whispered, “I don’t know. They’re secret.” She smiled, sat back taking a drink of wine and spilled it on her chin. Lee laughed. “Oh,” said Rosa oddly. She wiped her chin and looked around the room as if waiting for something to happen, her face displaying unease. “What?” asked Lee, a little spooked. “Wait,” she told him. “Wait … No. No it’s gone. I’ve just had a déjà vu.” She gave herself a little shake and muttered a few words in Spanish then stared at something very distant in the table. After a few seconds she looked up at him. He was staring at her blankly. “Sorry, no. Do you get them strongly?” she asked, a little anxiously. “Me? I have had. I haven’t had one for a while. They are weird though. I know what you mean.” “Do you? It feels like everything is just … it’s all going somewhere and you can see it exactly as it happens. I don’t think my English is good enough to explain … or my Spanish.” This time the silence was friendly, tempered by the voice of David Bowie coming from the jukebox. 31
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Lee contemplated his last experience of déjà vu and played with the zip on his top. Rosa let her eyes wander the room, wondering what it was that had triggered the episode. It had been everything, she concluded: the people who had just entered, the pub aroma of alcohol and cigarettes, the way she was sitting, the feel of her big toe of her right foot in the recently bought boot, all of it, everything all at once. She took a drink then spoke again. “So what about us, Lee? You want to meet again or should this just be a one off, a temp job shag?” He could not help show his surprise. “A temp job shag?” “Yes,” she answered, suddenly red-faced. “It happens. A new girl in the office, just around for a few weeks, very … neat.” He shifted in his seat as he remembered his thoughts in the shower that morning. Instantaneously the situation had become uncomfortable. He sought for a delicate way to express himself. “I would like to see you again, but, I think I’m at some kind of crossroads, in my life. I’ve been thinking that I might just pack in the job, just fuck off somewhere, get out of the city, out of this country. I don’t know. I don’t like the way my life is going.” Rosa was about to say something but he cut her off. “I mean yes, I would like to see you again. Definitely, I would. I do want to see you again. Like this. Like last night.” “Okay,” she said slowly. “And what about work?” “What about it? I don’t care. Do you? It’s not like we’re gonna start snogging in the middle of the office or anything, is it?” She smiled. “No. Anyway, I like the idea of it being a secret.” “I’ll be undressing you every time I look at you. You do realise that, don’t you?” They finished their drinks and a loose arrangement was made 32
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to see each other again in the coming week. With a sensual kiss they parted ways in the ticket hall of Leicester Square as their underground lines took opposite directions, north and south. Lee took out his mobile as soon as he was above ground again. It was raining in Finsbury Park and he felt as though he had emerged in another country. He texted his friend Ray and immediately got a reply asking where he was. He called him. “Alright, dickhead?” “Lee. Where’ve you been?” “What’s more important right now, Mr. Little, is where I’m going. The Palmerston, you coming?” “Give me quarter of an hour. Oh and Lee?” “Yeah?” “Mine’s a pint.” Raymond Biggs took three quarters of an hour to get to the pub. Lee was on his second, the third of the day. Ray threw a bag down on a seat and flopped into his own, opposite Lee. He was a tall man, in good shape, a gym-toned physicality that expressed his presence strongly. A round, open face, closely shorn dark blond hair, pale in his eyebrows and stubble. He was an actor and a part-time telesalesman for an insulation company. When asked the inevitable “what do you do?” he would alternate his professions depending upon the swing of his mood. The rare acting appointments would keep him buoyant for a week or two, then, once more dependant upon the day job he would slide downwards, his confidence trailing. “Where’s my drink, bitch?” he snapped. “I’m drinking it.” Ray stood up again. “Is that barmaid working?” 33
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“She is,” answered Lee, looking that way. “Cover me, I’m going in.” Relieved, Lee watched the other walk off with a subtle strut. Ray was in a good mood. Their friendship was almost fifteen years old. They had spent a simultaneous year in a house-share in Finsbury Park, where they discovered a kindred taste in music and films. Ray was the closest friend that Lee had, the only person he could be totally at ease with. The familiarity between them allowed their true contempt for the world to be expressed. Each was finely tuned to the other’s dark sense of humour, and their sarcasm was often hidden to all but themselves. There had been one other person who came close to this kind of rapport, Louise, but she emigrated to Australia and thus removed herself from Lee’s immediate field of shared experience. Jatinder was a good friend, they often met up outside of the office, but their companionship was undoubtedly one based upon the work environment. When taken by the urge to quit his job, Lee wondered if any connection would remain with Jatinder. At times he worried he was too closed off from the world, too comfortable in his isolation. Ray was the one person to see behind the public façade, but even so, Ray hardly ever got to witness any more than Lee was prepared to show, which was not a lot. He looked across the pub and watched his friend, tenner in hand, turning on the charm. The barmaid, pulling the pint, obligingly coy. He laughed. It wasn’t so much that Lee built a psychological wall between himself and the world, as a series of little walls. He had created an obstacle course of facetious remarks, affected indifference, or simple rudeness, in order to discourage the prying of others into what he considered his true self. In an information age, when 34
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data was increasingly disseminated, Lee feared that if he revealed everything about himself, his “true self ” would become dispersed and valueless. Coming back from the bar Ray was grinning. “Did you see what she’s wearing? She’s so fucking hot, man. I think I’m in love. Really, I’m in love.” “Yeah yeah. Cheers,” said Lee, tapping his glass against Ray’s. “You’re always in love.” They drank and talked about women. Lee told his friend about the lovely Rosa from Research. He told him about her eyes, the green dress, her figure, and alluded to a late night of passion. Ray swore at him and said he didn’t believe any of it, that he had dreamt the whole thing. They ate in the pub, hot Thai curries, and stayed until closing time. Drunk, they went back to Lee’s flat for whisky and marijuana. “I’ve got a question for you,” said Lee and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Do I want some more whisky?” “If you were to meet Tony Blair what would you say to him?” Ray poured himself a good measure and regarded the other. “Tony Blair?” He took a drink, gave a slight grimace and lay back upon the sofa, his long legs over the arm of one end, shoes off, Arsenal FC socks bright red. “Depends upon the context.” “Face to face.” “Darkened alley?” “Would you hit him?” The other laughed, “I’d like to.” “No, really, would you hit him?” He sat up and stared at Lee who met his gaze and held it. “I would like to be able to hit him. Slap him in the face. But 35
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I probably wouldn’t. You know me. I’m not a violent person. I’d tell him he’s a … a despicable man, that he’ll go down in history as nothing more than Bush’s poodle.” They were silent for a while. Lee passed the joint. “Why?” “Why? … I heard that he might be coming to our office.” Ray opened his eyes wide and looked over at Lee. “Fuck off.” “It’s true, well at least it’s entirely plausible. I imagine it would be some promotion of British success stories.” “In that case … In that case you’ll have to say something. I mean, tell the man some truth, something he can’t worm his way out of. Fucking tell him he’s murdering Iraqis for oil. Seriously though, he’s coming to your office?” “Apparently so.” “This is too much. I gotta piss.” With that Ray passed the joint, then quickly and unsteadily left the room. Lee inhaled and imagined Blair standing in front of him. “You’re a despicable man,” he whispered. It would be a very satisfying experience, but what would it achieve other than probably losing him his job? He attempted to picture himself slapping the Prime Minister in the face. He saw the event from the perspective of third person, a film in which he himself was a blur, an unrealistic cipher, hastily imagined so as to realise the act. He closed his eyes and tried to see his own view, eye level, the man before him, the feel of the blow upon his hand. The scene did not progress. Tony Blair stood in shock, his left cheek reddening, but nothing else happened. He told himself that he would be immediately apprehended. He would lose his job and Bowstock would most likely have a heart attack; an admittedly pleasant possibility. But other than this, there would be no real 36
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repercussions. Perhaps a brief story on the evening news. If the event were filmed, it would be shown widely and undoubtedly become a very popular download. But nothing would come of it, eventually. Nothing of any worth. A few seconds of vulnerability, a moment of ridicule, then the dignified handling, questions in the house, the warning sermon and every newspaper proclaiming that the next attack may not be so mild. Ray dropped back onto the sofa and downed the rest of his whisky. “So, what are you going to do?” “I don’t know. There’s not much I can do. Hitting him wouldn’t achieve anything. It might feel good, but it wouldn’t change anything, except for the worse. And as for saying something, that would have even less effect.” “Do you know any suicide bombers?” “I used to know a few, but they blew themselves up.” “You’d lose your job.” “Is that such a bad thing?” Ray shot him a glance. “Is this a repeat of that job you walked out of, what was the company called? Eyeful. Is this the same thing?” “Is it? I don’t know. I guess it is,” replied Lee. “Yeah, I think it is, but this time you have a really good job.” Lee started to challenge this assertion, but Ray shouted him down. “No, no, no. No fucking way, man. You have a good job. You’re creative, and as you’ve said yourself, you have lots of freedom to be creative. And I know you’re raking it in, fuck man, come on.” “And you know that money isn’t what I’m about.” “No, but you like to spend it.” “Yeah, and you like to drink it.” 37
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He poured another measure for each of them and regarded his glass, gently turning the golden liquid inside. Fine single malt from the Highlands. He added a few drops of chilled mineral water from the French Alps and savoured the mixture. A silver gilt box he had bought in Morocco contained what he and others termed, “The Bits”: tobacco, papers, and travel cards for filters. The marijuana was local, grown in the cellar of a friend of a friend of Ray. It was strong but mellow. Lee wanted to talk. “It’s all wrong.” “What is?” demanded Ray. “Everything, the whole way we live, you know, what were those people on the table next to us talking about tonight, in the pub? About whether Sandra or Stephanie should have to go, and what the fuck does it matter? It’s only some stupid television show. It has absolutely no connection to reality. This is what our lives have become. We live like kings, admittedly. We eat what we want, we drink what we want but we’re so fucking bored by being comfortable that we make up different realities, totally lacking in any merit, just so that we can become obsessed with them and bored by them. We’re like the Chinese Emperor sitting in the Forbidden City, totally cut off from the rest of the world, and we’re not in any hurry to change that. That’s what’s wrong.” “We do try to change it.” “How? Tell me how.” “We went on the anti-war march, you and I, and a million other people. We keep ourselves informed. I know that you buy fair trade. I know that you worked, for free, for that anti-arms magazine.” “Oh big deal, we went on the anti-war march. I worked for an anti-arms group. Someone told me once that my social life 38
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sounded like a gathering of spinsters, Aunty Poverty, Aunty Arms and dear old Aunty War. I’m done with all that.” Stop the War! The rallying call of the February 15th, 2003 march. In Lee’s opinion the march had achieved nothing. He had spent most of the afternoon with Ray on the steps of Nelson’s Column, stamping his feet and watching the slow snake of protest wind it’s way around Trafalgar Square. “Make tea not war”, “Don’t attack Iraq”, “Freedom for Palestine”, “Not in my name” - the placards bounced, the banners fluttered, the whistles whistled. It was all very pretty. They stayed there, simply observing the procession, until a batucada group passed and their furious samba rhythms drew them down into the ranks. He and Ray danced all the way to Hyde Park, then left the crowds to meet up with Jatinder and his friends. They partied until early Sunday morning. It had been a good day, but, for Lee, nothing more than an exercise in stymieing culpability. “We just do it to make ourselves feel good. We know it won’t change anything.” He drank. Ray waited. “You know, you and me are constantly criticising everything about Bush and Blair and what they’re doing to the world, and about the way our society is, but we enjoy living in it. Don’t we? We won’t really do anything to upset our comfortable lifestyle. Like I won’t hit Tony Blair, or even dare to say something to the man, in case I lose my job.” Ray threw his arms in the air. “And so, what? What can you do?” “They’ve got us by the balls, Ray. It’s fucking pathetic.” “Well then, prove yourself wrong and do something about it.” “You think?” Ray sniffed, shrugged his wide shoulders and put his glass down on the table. 39
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“That’s your dilemma right there. Basically, you have to decide if you want to prove you’re free by destroying everything you’ve worked for.” “Put like that it actually sounds pretty easy. In theory.” “In theory, yes. In practice it’s a serious pain in the arse. As you know from experience.” “An inconvenience you mean?” “Quite a large inconvenience, I’d say.” Lee stared at his television. It was switched off, the screen a dull, graphite grey. “Compared to what half the world goes through, it’s fuck all, really.” They said nothing for a while. The music had stopped some time ago and Ray got up to put something else on. He looked through the CD wallet, chose a disk and slipped it into the player, then walked over to the windows and looked out at the orange glow of the city at night. “You know … just because you can do it doesn’t mean that you have to.” Lee had turned the television on, but, with the amp set to CD player, the images he watched were incongruous to the music. His brain tried to reconcile the visual and audial sensations. He gave up and looked at Ray. “Do you think anyone else is going to do it? I don’t. As far as I’m concerned he’s gonna be out of office soon, and the whole thing, the dodgy dossier, the forty-five minute claim, the whole fucking mess, will be forgotten. Now or never.” Ray returned to the sofa. “You’re probably right, you know.” Lee nodded. “If I do it I lose everything. All of this,” he said, his hand sweeping the room. “If I don’t do something I lose everything in here,” he finished, putting the palm of his right hand over his heart. 40
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There was nothing to say after this. They both watched the soundless television. After a few minutes Lee got up and went to the toilet. When he came back he flicked through a few channels then dropped the remote. “You wanna watch a film?” he asked. “Yeah, whatever.” “Skin up then.” Although supine for some time, his thoughts showed no sign of slowing. The bed was hard beneath him, the darkness of the room unfamiliar. He was thinking he had made a mistake in telling his friend of the visit of the Prime Minister. He worried he had divulged some immense secret that would eventually catch up with him, publicly and humiliatingly. “Rubbish,” he said aloud to the dark. But this was not what really scared him. The true fear was the possibility he was actually capable of spoiling his luxury; that within him lay the kernel of his own destruction. There was the precedent that Ray had cited, the Eyeful job. Lee graduated from the Middlesex School of Modern Media with a C in Design Application. One of his lecturers rated his work higher than the school and recommended him to the graphics company, Eyeful. He worked hard for five months. The office was pleasant, potted plants, a CD player open to all, a radio for the cricket. His colleagues seemed a nice bunch, they forgave his beginner’s mistakes. They took him for drinks. He settled into the working routine. He was given a desk. Outside of the home environment, he had been hot desking his entire life: school, work experience, college. For the first time he had his own. He personalised it with postcards and small library of 41
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books on the visual arts. One day he asked about a rebranding project and discovered it was an electronics company that made information systems for, among other things, a weapons manufacturer. It was the “other things” they were required to highlight, namely the hardware for a kitchen set. Smart kettles. Precision toasting. The following Monday he walked into the manager’s office and said he refused, as a matter of principle, to work on any more projects for the electronics group. The manager was surprised and confused; he had never experienced such behaviour. He told Lee that refusal to work for their biggest client was a refusal of everything Eyeful stood for. Lee thanked the man for his willingness to take him on, but regretted that he would have to quit his job. He packed up his postcards and books. No one understood his decision. His colleagues at Eyeful shook their heads in disbelief. His acquaintances from college could not believe he had given up the job so easily. His mother, especially, found it hard to accept that he had walked out of a fantastic career opportunity. He liked to tell people this story. People like Ray, and Jatinder. He would probably tell Rosa if he knew her long enough. It was a major element of who he was, the proof of his convictions, set out in a neat little story. It was also, importantly, in the past. Safely distant. Such an act would not be repeated. Immature nonchalance. Fine, when twenty-one, but no longer applicable. Nevertheless, it scared him. It was a fear akin to that felt standing on the edge of a great height, looking down, struck by the absurd ease of stepping into the emptiness. He recoiled. He would not hit the Prime Minister. He wasn’t crazy. He 42
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might say something. Perhaps, something only Blair would hear. With the presence of the press, Blair would be unwilling to cause a scene, but at least something would have been said. Lee latched onto this idea, unwilling to allow any other a chance to develop. He felt himself relax a little. His jaw ached and he realised he was clenching it. I need to calm down, he told himself. He filled his lungs with air. It whistled in his nostrils. There was always the possibility Maggie was wrong, that it was not Tony Blair planning a visit. This further eased him. But he could not totally let go. Despite his self-reassurances, he felt reckless. Previously, all things political, all manifestations of power, existed out there, beyond his influence. There had occurred a shift. The sudden prospect of the overlap of two previously unconnected realities - he imagined a Venn diagram showing the circle of Blair-government-power, an immense, swallowing circumference, and that of his own circle, a miniscule blip upon it – gave rise to agitation. The intersection of these worlds, that tiny, tiny stretched oval, was a particularly disconcerting shade of grey. The dust of his conscience, a thin silt upon the seabed of his thoughts, had been disturbed, kicked up. After a time he entered an insubstantial sleep from which he emerged many times throughout the morning. Sleep had ceased to be the bedrock of Lee Coller’s life.
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