Dinky has got the two other containers (acetone, sulphuric acid) back out of the bag, plus the hydrogen peroxide which never went back in, and alongside these, a large glass cooking dish. One of those ovenproof ones, with a lid on top. Now he’s putting this into an even larger bucket – an ice bucket; and from the ice bucket he’s scooping out enough of the crushed stuff to allow the ovenproof dish to fit into it.
If it were Stir Up Sunday, you could mix your Christmas Pudding in the ovenproof dish (though I bet even Heston Thingummy hasn’t yet thought of Figgie pudding on ice). But it isn’t a Sunday, and Dinky’s mixing something else.
First, hydrogen peroxide, poured steadily into the bowl. Then the acetone. He’s stirring them together with a swizzle stick. Now, the final element in the cocktail: slowly, carefully sulphuric acid, H2S04.
Do you remember it from the locked cupboard in your school chemistry lab? Since that time, if you were bold enough, you might have used it to clean a blocked drain.
Very carefully, very slowly, and with long gaps in between. So long that the pulse of heat which screen 167
Games Makers: a London Satire marks the entry of each new droplet into the bowl, has time to dissipate before the next one goes in.
By the end of this protracted process, in the mixing bowl there are three colourless liquids of different density. More use of the swizzle stick (good wrist action, Dinky), swirling them together – gently, though; and taking care not to inhale the fumes.
Dinky keeps stirring (gently, though) for a full five minutes, timing it with the watch his father gave him on his eighteenth birthday. In these few minutes he finds greater peace of mind than he has known since childhood. For years the orchestra in his head has been sawing away; but now, for once, he is not crowded by memories or pressured by his own desires.
This is it. It is what it is.
It is time to stop stirring. He puts the swizzle stick down on the tiled floor. Puts the glass lid on top of the dish with the mixture in it, then tapes the two of them together, criss-crossing from top to bottom, up and down the sides of the dish. It’s not exactly sealed – you wouldn’t turn it upside down (you wouldn’t, anyway, if you knew anything about the mixture inside), but the lid’s not coming off in a hurry.
Everything goes back in the bag, including the swizzle stick. The bag is zipped up.
(6) It’s the way you walk
The bag is in my hand and I am walking along the corridor to the exit. I press the pad, the door opens. Now I am coming out onto the street that runs between Cabot Square and Canary Wharf DLR station.
It’s called South Colonnade – just seen the sign.
I turn left and continue walking along the pavement.
In the road beside me, a security guard whirs past in an electric patrol vehicle. Sees me. Sees somebody else three metres ahead of me. Carries on.
I watch him out of the corner of my eye. He does not give me a second look.
Mr Gonads is my name. All the time I was taking pictures in the three locations, it felt like my balls were trying to shrink back into my body.
But now they are out and proud! Carrying what I’m carrying, everything about me is expansive. I’m having to walk with legs apart to give my testicles room to dangle down. My cock isn’t stiff, but even in its flaccid state, I could confidently slap it down on the table and insist that you get a load of that.
Time isn’t thickening, though. Just the opposite; it’s thinning out towards one single moment. My past and my future are all zipped up into the here and now. Highly compressed. You have worked it out, haven’t you? I’m walking through Docklands with a cocktail of carnage in my bag. The unholy trinity of hydrogen peroxide, acetone and sulphuric acid will be crystallising into acetone peroxide, even as we speak. And since the process is not refrigerated, it’s occurring...
This, Nessa, is what’s occurring.
...at a temperature which makes both the crystals and the liquid into two of the most dangerously volatile substances in the whole wide world.
Bump into me and I might bump you off. Show me a naked flame and I will explode. I’ve set myself to blow up in two shakes of a sports bag (one would do it, actually). Or it could just go up at any time. No reason. Well, of course, there is a scientific explanation for the chemical reaction entailed in the explosion. But no one would have to do anything to make it happen. It might just happen that way.
On the other hand, I could still make it home. Maybe I’ll even make it as a writer. You see, I’m also going ahead with the things Tony asked me to do: upload the pictures and send him the osamaobama email from my laptop, and if there’s been no explosion before then, if I haven’t by chance been killed, I’m going to offload the computer, camera and all the ingredients, lowering them gently into Old Father Thames.
That ol’ man river is deep enough to cool them off.
If I get that far. Nobody knows how far I’ll get.
There is no way of knowing, and that’s the beauty of it.
(7) In the lap of the gods
On South Strand, Canary Wharf, Dinky Dutta happens to be walking past a shop advertising ‘the gift of Bang and Olufsen’. He avoids the smokers clustered next to a sign saying ‘it is illegal to smoke here’, and continues west towards the Clipper pier (Thames commuter boats), situated alongside the Four Seasons Hotel.
You see, even the seasons have been corporatised.
Whoa! Almost a collision with another pedestrian coming at him from the left. Manages to move aside, though; and, just as important, succeeds in lifting the sports bag smoothly out of the way, without jerking it or allowing it to bang against his thigh or the other guy’s luggage.
Crosses his mind that it constitutes cheating, this taking care to avoid friction and flammables. But he refuses to dwell on it. Won’t allow that much circumspection. He’s finally managing to live in the moment, and he doesn’t want anything to spoil it –
however long it lasts.
Sky’s clouding over. Earlier this morning there were chinks of light dancing on the water, but right now, Dinky thinks, the Thames is a fat brown bastard.
He walks slowly down the long slope to the pier.
Sits in the glass-walled waiting room and logs on, taking care that his sports bag is not directly underneath the laptop.
Uploading photos to Pictures folder – done. Connect to Wi-Fi and Compose New Mail: Dear Mr Skance, you will be interested to see how the attached photographs illustrate London,s vulnerability to 'terrorist' attack. Best wishes, osamaobama.
Attach, no need to go Back to Message, just press Send. Already confirmed: your message has been sent.
Let the Games commence!
Now let’s get on the Clipper. Like Tony said, any Clipper, going either way.
Having come this far without fateful mishap, Dinky is starting to think that maybe life’s too good for him to risk blowing himself up. At last, you might say, an end to the idiocy of youth. About bloody time! But just as he’s making friends with himself again, coming round to the idea that his life should not be cut tragically short, news comes up on the message display board that boats in both directions are subject to a 15-minute delay.
Jesus Christ! The bloody bag could blow at any moment.
Having put his whole existence on the line, whether Dinky lives or dies may now be determined by an unexplained delay in riverboat traffic!
Dinky marches across to the ticket office to demand an answer. Of course, the young man behind the screen doesn’t know. He says he can try and find out, but adds, cautiously, that ‘we are usually the last to know.’ Dinky remains polite. Says he knows it’s not your fault that the boat is delayed and the information is lacking, but, really, there’s no need to bother. And the young man remembers to advise Dinky that it’s advisable to buy a ticket now, prior to boarding.
He sits back down. Now he desperately wants to get rid of the bag. He thinks about walk
ing to the edge of the pier and dropping it into the river, then walking quietly away. But the straps might catch on something. There may be all sorts of things sticking out of the pier, and the wash of the next boat coming in could cause enough of a bump to blow the whole thing. How much would go up in the explosion?
How many other people? Fact is, he doesn’t know.
This isn’t a calculated attack. It’s a test of himself, by himself, to see whether he could take it. To find out who he is.
Now he’s horrified by the prospect of causing death or injury to that little girl over there, talking excitedly to her mother. Or the posse of Indian tourists in the corner of the waiting room, unaccountably dressed all in white. It was one thing questioning his own existence, and too bad if some other people got caught up in the answer. But Dinky Dutta never intended for others to die before he got the chance. No way.
Drop the idea of dropping it by the pier.
You’re just going to have to wait, Dinky, till the boat comes in and goes out again.
Wait until it’s midstream, as planned. Shame about the extra waiting time. You could try meditating like your Dad taught you. May not help but it won’t make things worse: time can’t go any slower than it is now.
(8) Tony gets ahead