‘I think you know.’ I watched the surface of the water, as calm and eventless as plate glass. ‘An attempted putsch.’
‘Putsch?’
‘A palace revolution.’
Cruise grimaced into his make-up mirror. ‘Where’s the palace?’
‘We live in it. The Metro-Centre and all the retail parks between here and Heathrow. You and me and the people who watch your TV shows.’
‘Not enough of them—that’s the problem. Who was meant to lead this revolution?’
‘You know that as well. You were.’
‘Me? I’ll remember, the next time I need a dressing room and a courtesy car. Some revolution, some palace . . .’
WE WERE SITTING by the indoor pool attached to Cruise’s house on the Seven Hills estate, an exclusive Weybridge community once home to the Beatles, Tom Jones and other pop celebrities. The domed glass roof—a deliberate echo, I assumed, of the Metro-Centre—resembled an observatory open to the heavens, but the only star ever watched by David Cruise was himself.
The house was a substantial Tudorbethan pile, its rooms large enough to serve as squash courts, furnished like an out-of-season hotel. In an office next to the cloakrooms the day staff negotiated the fees for Cruise’s charity engagements and dealt with his fan mail. As soon as we arrived, Cruise scanned his faxes and emails, then led me through the empty rooms to the swimming pool, where we lay back in sun loungers beside the bar. Two docile Filipina girls served us breakfast—pawpaw, coffee and lamb cutlets—but Cruise was more interested in his large vodka.
I watched him settle his fleshy body in the lounger, white tuxedo and ruffed shirt well displayed. As we walked through the rooms of this mansion he had seemed bored by it, and vaguely suspicious of what was supposed to be his own home, aware that it was little more than a stage set.
Despite myself, I rather liked him. He discounted his own success, and was searching for some kind of certainty in his life, though his entire career was built on illusion and a set of emotional three-card tricks. His manner was overbearing, but he was deeply insecure and forever manipulating me into flattering him.
Meanwhile I decided to carry out an experiment, my last attempt to spring loose from the web of conspiracies that was responsible for killing my father. So far I had achieved almost nothing, playing the amateur detective who blundered into danger, perpetually dazed by the doors slammed in his face.
But in one area I was a complete professional, in that electric realm where advertising and popular taste met and fused. Brooklands and the motorway towns were the ultimate consumer test panel, and here I could put into practice the subversive ideas that had cost me my career. At Brooklands there were no ethics committees to keep an eye on me, no strategy meetings forever urging caution, and no ambitious wife waiting for me to make a mistake. If I could change the mental ecology of this uneasy Surrey town, and release the wayward energies of its people, I might penetrate the polite conspiracies that held them down, and find why my father had died so pointlessly.
For the moment, at least, I had made my first valuable ally. David Cruise was the most important person I had met in Brooklands, and one of the few who was ready to talk. He seemed vulnerable, eyeing me cannily over his vodka, as if he felt that the Metro-Centre bomb was aimed at him. This cable presenter, housewives’ pin-up and local ombudsman probably lacked a single friend.
I remembered leaving the Brooklands circuit with him. As we sat in the rear seat of the Lincoln, I had told him that my father had visited the racetrack as a boy. Almost without thinking, Cruise reached out and gripped my hand, sealing a comradeship fused in the fire of terrorism. And for all his blandness, a personality as soft and depthless as a TV commercial, he had stood up to Tony Maxted and Sangster, refusing to play their game.
‘I ADMIRE YOU for turning them down,’ I told him as the Filipina girls drifted silently between us, taking away the breakfast trays. ‘They were offering you the keys to the kingdom.’
‘Or Guildford Prison.’ Cruise lightly touched the tiny bottom of the older Filipina. ‘They had everything set up, the crowd going wild, the follow-up bomb, a complete circus. They wanted me screaming from a balcony. A suburban dictator based at the Metro-Centre—can you imagine it?’
‘I can. Every shopping mall and retail park turning into a local soviet. A popular uprising that starts at the nearest Tesco. It’s possible. There’s a hunger for violence, that’s why sport obsesses the whole country. Everyone’s suffocating—too many barcode readers, too many CCTV cameras and double yellow lines. That second bomb really got them going.’
‘That was the idea.’ Cruise studied his empty glass, as if in mourning for the first drink of the day. ‘Kill a few people and everyone thinks they’ve had a good time. Not for me—it’s always safer to stick to what you know nothing about. In my case, sport and home improvements. Forget about right-wing cliques hiding behind their family crests.’
‘I have. But the groundswell was still there. I could feel it in the crowd. They wanted you to lead them. You’re the figurehead who stands in everyone’s mind for the Metro-Centre. You keep the supporters’ clubs on their toes, you can say what everyone secretly feels about immigrants and asylum seekers. You’re the star in every housewife’s dreams . . .’
‘Too much me . . . that’s the problem. I have to carry the whole Metro-Centre.’ Cruise lay back, eyes lowered, lips forming and reforming a series of half-smiles, the signal that he was about to be sincere. ‘Listen, Richard—you have to understand. I’m a fake.’
‘Come on . . .’
‘No. I play a role. I’m still an actor, I act being a sports commentator. Do I know anything about sports? Between you and me, almost nothing. I’ve never sliced a tee shot, never potted a black, never scored a try or missed a penalty.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘No. In fact, it’s a help. The best commentators know nothing about sport. Their commentaries are the kind that viewers would give. “He’s playing a straight bat, she’s concentrating on winning . . .” Bloody silly. I’m in the looking-glass business, I give the public the kind of face they want to see in the bathroom mirror when they get up. Someone who shares their boredom and tells them a visit to the Metro-Centre is the answer to all their problems.’
‘You do a great job. I was outside the town hall last night. They like you.’
‘Who knows? They cheer, then they boo.’ Cruise leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘You may not believe it, Richard, but when I was young most people disliked me. Instinctively. They disliked the friendly smile, the bonhomie. They thought I was acting all the time. Even my parents avoided me. My father was a working-class GP. He specialized in hypochondria, it was the easiest to cure. My mother was a full-time case study. They scrimped and saved to send me to a private school; now I have to hide the accent and pretend I come from some Heathrow suburb. Every time we meet I know they think I’ve failed.’
‘You haven’t. People here believe in you.’
‘Don’t say that. If enough people believe in you, it’s a sure sign you’ll end up nailed to a cross. It’s a job, an assignment. Sometimes I feel I’m not up to it any more.’
‘You are up to it, and it’s not just a job.’
I waited, as Cruise seemed to sink into a trough of introspection and self-pity. He lay back in the sun lounger, his body stirring like a snake trying to shed its skin, a sleek carapace that lost its lustre as he watched. Then he sat up, shaking himself free of any self-doubt, and threw his empty vodka glass into the swimming pool. The flat surface dissolved into a rush of fleeing waves, which Cruise watched like a crystal-gazer stirring the future.
‘Richard?’ He beckoned to me. ‘Go on. I think you have a few ideas for me.’
‘Right. I’d like to lay something out. A different approach.’
‘That’s good—the Metro-Centre could use some help.’
‘And you’ve got exactly what it needs. A new kind of politics is emerging at the Metro-C
entre, and you’re in the perfect place to lead it.’
‘Once, maybe . . .’
‘Now. I see you as tomorrow’s man. Consumerism is the door to the future, and you’re helping to open it. People accumulate emotional capital, as well as cash in the bank, and they need to invest those emotions in a leader figure. They don’t want a jackbooted fanatic ranting on a balcony. They want a TV host sitting with a studio panel, talking quietly about what matters in their lives. It’s a new kind of democracy, where we vote at the cash counter, not the ballot box. Consumerism is the greatest device anyone has invented for controlling people. New fantasies, new dreams and dislikes, new souls to heal. For some peculiar reason, they call it shopping. But it’s really the purest kind of politics. And you’re at the leading edge. In fact, you could practically run the country.’
‘The country? Now I am worried . . .’ Cruise gripped the arms of his lounger, overcoming the temptation to stand and pace up and down. He looked at me with the intense gaze he turned upon the guests on his daytime show, and I could see that everything I said had already crossed his mind. ‘You’re right—I can lead them. I know it’s there, inside me.’
‘It’s there, all right. Believe me, David.’
‘I do a lot of charity work, opening retail parks, big hypermarkets out on the M25—it helps viewers get cabled up to the Metro-Centre. There are millions of people out there, in all those towns around Heathrow. They’re bored, they want to be tested. They’ve got the two-car garage, the extra bathroom, the timeshare in the Algarve. But they want more. I can reach them, Richard. One problem, though—what’s the message?’
‘Message?’ I stood up, raising my hands so that Cruise stayed in his seat. ‘There is no message. Messages belong to the old politics. You’re not some führer shouting at his storm troops. That’s the old politics. The new politics is about people’s dreams and needs, their hopes and fears. Your role is to empower them. You don’t tell your audiences what to think. You draw them out, urge them to open up and say what they feel.’
‘Avoid slogans, avoid messages?’
‘No slogans, no messages. New politics. No manifestos, no commitments. No easy answers. They decide what they want. Your job is to set the stage and create the climate. You steer them by sensing their mood. Think of a herd of wildebeest on the African plain. They decide where they want to go.’
‘How big is this herd? A million? Five million?’
‘Maybe fifty million. Think of the future as a cable TV programme going on for ever.’
‘Sounds like hell . . .’ Cruise chuckled in a guilty way to himself. ‘But five million, now that’s a very big afternoon audience. How do I control them, impose some kind of focus? The whole thing could start to go mad.’
‘Mad? Good. Madness is the key to everything. Small doses, applied when no one is really looking. You say turnover is going down at the Metro-Centre?’
‘Not down. It’s a sales plateau. A sure sign there’s a steep cliff nearby. We’ve done everything.’
‘Everything? You’ve tried the classic friendly approach, giving the customers what they want. Or what you think they want. You need to try the unfriendly approach.’
‘Tell them what they ought to want?’ Cruise waved this away. ‘It doesn’t work.’
‘No. It’s too authoritarian, too nanny state. It’s not new politics.’
‘And what is that?’
‘The unpredictable. Be nice most of the time, but now and then be nasty, when they least expect it. Like a bored husband, affectionate but with a cruel streak. People will gasp, but the audience figures will soar. Now and then slip in a hint of madness, a little raw psychopathology. Remember, sensation and psychopathy are the only way people make contact with each other today. It won’t take your viewers long to get a taste for real madness, whether it’s a product or a political movement. Encourage people to go a little mad—it makes shopping and love affairs more interesting. Every so often people want to be disciplined by someone. They want to be ordered about.’
‘Exactly.’ Cruise slapped the arm of his chair, and listened to the echo move around the pool. ‘They want to be punished.’
‘Punished, and loved. But not like a fair-minded parent. More like a moody jailer, watching them through the bars. There’s a sharp slap waiting for people who don’t head straight for the furniture sales, or pay up for the new loyalty card.’
‘They’ll walk away.’
‘They won’t. People need a little bit of abuse in their lives. Masochism is the new black, and always has been. It’s the mood music of the future. People want discipline, and they want violence. Most of all they want structured violence.’
‘Ice hockey, pro rugby, stock-car racing . . .’
‘That’s it. The new politics is going to be a little like pro rugby. Try it out on your next consumer show. Don’t change your style, but now and then surprise them. Show an authoritarian edge, be openly critical of them. Make a sudden emotional appeal. Show your flaws, then demand loyalty. Insist on faith and emotional commitment, without exactly telling them what they’re supposed to believe in. That’s new politics. Remember, people today unconsciously accept that violence is redemptive. And in their hearts they’re convinced that psychopathy is close to sainthood.’
‘Are they right?’
‘Yes. They know that madness is the only freedom left to them.’ I sat down in my sun lounger and waited for Cruise to reply. ‘David . . . ?’
Cruise was staring at the pool, once again as smooth as a dance floor. He turned and pointed both forefingers at me, a trademark gesture he employed when a guest uttered an unexpected insight.
‘It has possibilities. Richard, I like it . . .’
PART II
22
THE TRENCHCOAT HERO
THE HEATHROW TOWNS had cleared the runway, lifted their wheels and were learning to fly, borne aloft on the bosomy thermals of the bright August sun. As I left the motorway and approached the outskirts of Ashford I could see the tasselled pennants flying from an out-of-town hypermarket, transforming this ugly metal shed into a caravel laden with treasure. St George’s flags flew from passing cars, and floated from shops and houses. The livery of the local football and athletics teams decked the town hall and the multi-storey car park, giving a festival kick to the noisy air.
A sports parade headed down the high street, led by a pipe band and a troupe of majorettes, bare-thighed schoolgirls dolled up in Ruritanian tunics and shakos emblazoned with the logo of the sponsoring superstore. They strutted past, forcing the traffic to stop for them, followed by teams waving to their supporters who crowded the pavements and office balconies.
Behind them came the marshals and stewards in St George’s shirts, marching smartly in time to the brass band that brought up the rear. Everywhere classrooms and workstations were abandoned as the hot pulse of civic pride and enthusiasm swept through this nondescript town. Any drop in output, any shortfall at the cash registers, would be more than made up by a surge in productivity and a few hours of overtime.
I sat in the stalled traffic and waved to a group of supporters who had spontaneously formed up behind the marshals, joining the parade as it marched to the coach park near the railway station. From there they would be bussed to Brooklands, spend the afternoon shopping in the Metro-Centre and then cheer on their teams in the local league.
Feet stamped past me, arms grazing my rented Mercedes. But I liked these people, and felt close to them. Many were middle-aged, white knees rising and falling, vigorous and unrushed. Their crusader shirts were covered with stitched medallions, in effect scout badges for adults, another of the schemes I had devised. Each bore the name of a local retailer, and gave their wearers the look of Grand Prix drivers. David Cruise and I expected a certain resistance, but the medallions were hugely popular, reinforcing the sense that people’s lives were only complete when they advertised the consumer world.
A vast social experiment was under way, and I had hel
ped to design it. The neglected people of the motorway towns, so despised by inner Londoners, had found a new pride and solidarity, a social cohesion that boosted prosperity and reduced crime. Whenever I left the motorway near Heathrow I was aware of entering a social laboratory that stretched along the M25, involving every sports arena and housing estate, every playground and retail park. A deep, convulsive chemistry was at work, waking these docile suburbs to a new and fiercer light. The orbital cities of the plain, as remote as Atlantis and Samarkand to the inhabitants of Chelsea and Holland Park, were learning to breathe and dream.
AS THE BRASS BAND moved away I waited for the traffic to clear, for once in no hurry to escape from London. Three months after first meeting David Cruise, I had sold my Chelsea Harbour flat to a young brain surgeon. Our solicitors had finally exchanged contracts, after cliff-hanging weeks bedevilled by the surgeon’s sharp-eyed wife. She had spotted me pacing around an empty bedroom as she poked and pried, and misread my last doubts about moving permanently to Brooklands. ‘Where?’ she asked, when I explained my reasons for selling up. ‘Does it really exist?’
She suspected a secret flaw, perhaps a zeppelin mooring mast on the floor above or a sewage outfall ten feet below. She endlessly circled the dining room, visualizing the eternity of dinner parties that constituted her dream of the good life. The future for her was an escalator of metropolitan chatter so lofty that it generated its own clouds. When she left I squeezed her hand suggestively, trying to elicit a microsecond’s passion, a hint of sexual mischief, a saving flash of amorality. Go mad, I wanted to say, go bad. Sadly, she walked off without any response. But that was inner London, a congestion zone of the soul.
All the same, I had certain doubts over moving to Brooklands. I was leaving behind my baffled friends, my bridge and squash evenings, a former lover I was still close to, and even my ex-wife, with whom I had a spiky but intriguing bi-monthly lunch. Then there were all the pleasures and discontinuities of metropolitan life, from the cast room at the V&A to the shit in the letter box. To my friends I was apparently giving up all this in return for an obsessive quest to find my father’s killer.