The lumpy parcel, crudely lashed with rope and duct tape, drifted towards me, and with a last heave bumped against my chair. As I stepped forward, about to kick it back into the water, the undertow turned it onto its side. A figure with human features lay trussed inside a small carpet, perhaps a piece of teak statuary that one of the hostages had tried to hide before leaving the Metro-Centre.
A wave washed over the figure, dispersing the glaze of oil and dirt. Eyes with intact pupils stared up at me, and I recognized the blanched face of the Pakistani barrister I had seen remonstrating with Carradine.
Behind me, the engineers switched off the current. A last wave rolled across the beach, its foam hissing among the beer cans. With a faint sigh, the undertow retrieved the body and drew it down towards the dark floor of the lake.
35
NORMALITY
DAVID CRUISE WAS DYING, among stuffed elephants and kangaroos, surrounded by cheerful wallpaper and plastic toys, in sight of the television studio that had created him.
The Metro-Centre’s first-aid post, now housing an intensive care unit, occupied a suite of rooms below the mezzanine, usually visited by small children who had scraped their knees and pensioners with nosebleeds. For the present, the toys were corralled inside a playpen, and the reception room once manned by a kindly sister was filled with beds commandeered from a nearby store. The six patients lay on luxurious mattresses, unwashed pillows leaning against quilted boudoir headboards. Almost all were elderly hostages unable to keep up with Carradine’s more dictatorial regime.
Tony Maxted was crouching on a chair beside a white-haired woman, trying to extract a broken dental plate. He waved to me and pointed to the treatment room. He seemed unsurprised to see me, though every morning he urged me to make the most of my Sangster contacts and join the few hostages still leaving the dome.
Julia Goodwin, though, seemed surprised when I walked into the treatment room. Pale and nerveless, her neck flushed by a persistent rash, she was almost asleep on her feet, trying to break the seal on a bandage pack while searching for a stray hair over her eyes. As always, I was glad to see her, and had the odd sense that as long as I was with her, emptying the pedal bins and foraging for packets of herbal tea, she would be all right. An absurd notion, which reminded me of my childhood motoring trips with my mother, when I strained forward to watch the road as she argued with herself over the traffic lights.
‘Richard? What happened?’
‘Nothing.’ I tried to prompt a smile from her. ‘Nothing’s happened for days. We could be here for ever.’
‘You were supposed to leave. What are you doing here?’
‘Julia . . . I’ll make some tea.’ I pulled a packet of Assam breakfast tea from my shirt. ‘I’ve been tracking this down for days. Leaf, please note, not tea bags . . .’
‘Wonderful. That’ll block the drain for good.’ She held my shoulders, yellowing eyes under her uncombed hair. ‘You shouldn’t be here. I’ll speak to Carradine.’
‘No. I was held up at the hotel.’ I decided not to alarm her over the dead barrister. ‘There was a security problem—someone thought he saw Duncan Christie.’
‘Not again. People are seeing him all the time. It must be some sort of portent, like flying saucers.’ She took my hands and turned my anaemic palms to the light. ‘You have to get out of here, Richard. If there’s a release tomorrow . . .’
‘I will. I will. I want to leave.’
‘Do you? Maybe. Let’s have a look at that foot.’
Julia rebandaged my foot, using a fresh strip of lint, part of a consignment supplied, reluctantly, by the police. We were sitting in the pharmacy next to the treatment room, and our chairs were close enough for me to embrace her. Her fingers fumbled at the tie, and I took over when she seemed to lose interest. Her mind was elsewhere, in one of the high galleries closer to the sun, rather than in this airless clinic with its erratic air conditioning.
‘Good . . .’ I patted the bandage with its clumsy bows. ‘That should keep me going.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She leaned briefly against my shoulder, and then watched me with a faint smile. She was waiting for me to produce a ‘gift’ from my pockets, perhaps a foil sheet of antibiotics looted from a chemist’s shop. ‘It’s been a hell of a night. I keep hearing helicopters. Tomorrow, go straight to the entrance hall—you’ll be on the list.’
‘I’ll get there. Don’t worry.’
‘I do worry. We’re short of everything. We might as well close up shop.’
‘Why? The chemists here are packed with enough drugs to fit out a hospital.’
‘Haven’t you heard? It’s all got to stay as it was. We’re not allowed to touch a thing.’
‘Even for emergencies? I don’t get it.’
‘Dear man . . .’ Julia placed her worn hands around mine, for once glad of the physical warmth. ‘Emergencies don’t exist any more. For Carradine and his people everything is normal. He and Sangster did their ward round this morning and decided all the patients were getting better. Even the old pensioner who died in the night.’
‘And David Cruise?’
‘He’s holding on . . .’ She avoided my eyes and listened to the faint sighing of the ventilator from the empty storeroom, converted into Cruise’s intensive care unit. ‘I ought to take a look—I keep forgetting about him.’
I followed her into the storeroom, where Cruise lay in his makeshift oxygen tent. As always, the sight of him stretched inertly in his maze of wires and tubes made me deeply uneasy. The lithe and athletic figure with his tactile charm had vanished, as if the monitors and gauges were steadily pumping his life from him and transferring his blood and lymph to their voracious machines.
Only his hair survived, a blond mane lying across the phlegm-soaked pillow. I stood beside Julia as she adjusted the ventilator, now and then stroking the hair like the pelt of a sleeping cat. Cruise’s head had shrunk, his cheeks and jaw folding into themselves, as if his face was a stage set being dismantled from within. A transfusion bag hung from its stand and dripped serum into a relay tube, but the television presenter seemed so empty of life that I wondered if Julia was trying to revive a corpse.
‘Richard? He won’t recognize you.’ She led me back to the treatment room. ‘Now, we’ll find something for you to do.’
‘Julia . . .’ I put my arm around her shoulders, trying to steady her. ‘How is Cruise?’
‘Not good.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I’ve got to get him to the hospital, but Carradine won’t let him leave. Sangster says he’ll be up in a couple of days.’
‘How long can he last?’
‘Not long. We’ll have to use car batteries to run the ventilator.’
‘How long? A day? Two days?’
‘Something like that.’ Her eyes darkened. ‘If he died . . .’
‘Would it matter?’
‘They believe in him. If anything happened . . .’ She laughed to herself, a desperate chuckle. ‘It’s a pity they can’t see him now, all those people who marched and stamped.’
‘Julia, hold on.’
‘You corrupted him, you know.’ She spoke matter-of-factly. ‘Still, it’s a kind of revenge.’
‘For what? Losing my job?’
‘Your job? Your father’s death, for God’s sake. This pays for it. In a way, I’m glad for you.’
‘Why?’ I took her arm, trying to hold her attention before her mind could slide away. ‘David Cruise had nothing to do with my father’s death.’
‘Cruise? No. But . . .’
‘Others did? Who? Is that why you went to the funeral?’
Her gaze, once so thoughtful and concerned, drifted away into the borders of fatigue. But her hands touched my chest, searching for refuge. The attempted murder of David Cruise had relieved her of the guilt I had sensed since our first meeting, an anger at herself that had always come between us.
‘Julia? Who . . . ?’
‘Quiet!’ She smoothed her hair. ‘The cons
ultants are here. They’re starting their ward rounds.’
THREE MARSHALS IN St George’s shirts had entered the first-aid post and were strolling around the ward. Ignoring Tony Maxted, they began to read the clinical notes attached to the bed frames. With heavy earnestness, they bent over the patients and tried to take their pulses.
I started to protest, but Maxted caught my arm and bundled me through the entrance.
‘Right. We can take a breather.’ He was ruffled but unabashed. ‘They know I’m a psychiatrist—not the most popular profession in the Metro-Centre. I can’t think why . . .’
We sat on the plinth below the bears in the centre of the atrium, surrounded by jars of honey and the fading get-well messages. Trying to ease my ankle, I took off my shoe and stood up. I wanted to be with Julia, and resented being frogmarched from the first-aid post. But Maxted wearily pulled me against the baby bear’s massive paw.
‘Maxted . . . is Julia safe?’
‘Just about. Rape isn’t a problem . . . yet, I’m glad to say. The Metro-Centre is more important than sex.’
‘What are we doing here?’
‘Keeping you out of harm’s way. The bears are a tribal totem—you should be safe for a while.’
‘Am I in danger? I didn’t know.’
‘Come on . . .’ Maxted examined me wearily, taking in the sweat caked into my jacket, my hands bruised from prising the lids off corned beef tins, the tramp-like appearance that would once have barred me from the Metro-Centre. By contrast, Maxted was still wearing a shirt and tie, and maintained his professional air under the shabby lab coat. ‘As long as Cruise hangs on, you’ll be okay. Once he goes, all hell is going to break loose.’
‘I thought it had.’
‘Not yet. Take this siege—what’s the strangest thing you’ve noticed?’
‘No looting?’
‘Spot on. Not a diamond stud pinched, not a Rolex trousered. Look around you. These aren’t consumer goods—they’re household gods. We’re in the worship phase, when everyone believes and behaves.’
‘And if Cruise dies?’
‘When, not if. We’ll move into a much more primitive and dangerous zone. Consumerism is built on regression. Any moment now the whole thing could flip. That’s why I’m still here—I need to see what happens.’
‘Nothing will happen.’ I tried to push away the probing paw of the baby bear. ‘The siege will end any day now. Everyone’s bored. It could end this afternoon.’
‘It won’t end. Carradine doesn’t want it to end. His mind’s been under siege ever since he arrived at the Metro-Centre. Sangster doesn’t want it to end. All those years trapped in that terrible school, teaching those kids how to be a new kind of savage.’
‘And the Home Office?’
‘They don’t want it to end, though they’re being subtle about it. This is a huge social laboratory, and they’re watching from the front row as the experiment heats up. Consumerism is running out of road, and it’s trying to mutate. It’s tried fascism, but even that isn’t primitive enough. The only thing left is out-and-out madness . . .’
Maxted broke off as a squad of some fifty hostages trudged into the atrium, led by a marshal with a shotgun. They carried buckets and mops, brooms and aerosols of furniture polish, enough equipment to buff and shine the world. Surprisingly, they were in good spirits, as if determined to be the best cleaning squad in the dome.
Together they formed up below the mezzanine terrace, waiting as Carradine and Sangster walked down the steps where my father had met his end. An aide carried a pile of St George’s shirts, neatly pressed and store-new.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked Maxted. ‘Don’t tell me Carradine is going to complain about the ironing. The siege must be over.’
‘Nice idea. But I don’t think so . . .’
Carradine briefly addressed the cleaning squad. Sangster prowled behind him, eyes searching the upper terraces under the roof. The marshal signalled to his force, and a dozen members of the squad lowered their brooms and buckets to the floor and stepped forward. Carradine moved along the line, shaking them by the hand and handing over a St George’s shirt.
‘Maxted—it’s some sort of sick game . . .’
‘No. It’s exactly what you see. They’re being sworn in. They’re no longer hostages and they’re joining the rebellion.’
‘Joining . . . ?’
Without thinking, I stood up, steadying myself against Maxted’s shoulder. I watched the dozen former hostages don their shirts, then move away in an informal group, exchanging banter with Sangster. They were at ease with themselves and the vast building, with the deep rose light that lit the entrances to the stores and cafes around the atrium. They were immigrants to a new country, already naturalized, citizens of the shopping mall, the free electorate of the cash till and the loyalty card.
‘Richard . . .’
Maxted spoke warningly, but I was watching the ceremony. At the last moment a thirteenth volunteer, a sturdy young woman in jeans and a biker’s leather jacket, stepped forward to volunteer. All doubts satisfied, she walked up to Carradine, came smartly to attention and claimed her St George’s shirt.
Holding my shoe in one hand, I began to limp forward, then felt Maxted take my arm.
‘Richard, let’s sit down and think . . .’
He guided me back to the bears. Carradine and Sangster moved away, and the marshal drilled off his depleted hostage squad, assigning them to a supermarket near the atrium.
Maxted took the blood-caked shoe from my hand. Smiling a little wanly, he tapped it against his free hand.
‘Richard, what were you doing? Any idea?’
‘Not much.’ I looked up at his almost kindly face. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘That’s what I mean. Now, go back to the hotel. I’ll see you later and we’ll find something to eat.’
‘But, Julia . . . ?’
‘I’ll see she’s all right.’ He handed me the shoe. ‘Dear chap, you were going to join them. The Metro-Centre finally got to you . . .’
36
SHRINES AND ALTARS
THE FIRST SHRINES had begun to appear, wayside altars for passing shoppers, places of pause and reflection for those making endless journeys within the universe of the dome.
At dawn, when the last gunfire had died down, I stepped onto the balcony of my room at the Holiday Inn. No one within the dome had slept through the night, and a thin mist filled the shopping thoroughfares, a hazy fog of insomnia that haunted the arcades and pedestrian decks, in places dense enough to conceal an army marksman.
I assumed that the police commandos had withdrawn, and that the real danger, as always, came from one’s own side, from Carradine’s untrained militia. After thirty seconds on the balcony, inhaling the over-ripe air with its guarantee of another tropical day, I wiped the sweat from my face onto the net curtain and found my way to the bathroom.
Two bottles of Perrier were all that remained of my stock. Standing in the shower stall, I drank one and then poured the second over myself, feeling the vivid, carbonated stream bring my skin alive.
As usual, I avoided the washbasin mirror, where I would be joined by the tramp-like figure who shared the bedroom with me. Whenever I saw him, bearded and scarily calm, he moved towards me like a sharp-eyed beggar spotting a prospect. Then he flinched away from me, repelled by my body odour and the even more rancid stench of deep and dangerous obsessions.
Still nominally playing my role as David Cruise’s adviser, I was left alone by Carradine and his marshals as they rallied their three hundred supporters, kept careful watch on the few score remaining hostages and defended the Metro-Centre against the armed might of a government. Meanwhile I did my best to look after Julia Goodwin, scavenged through the abandoned supermarkets and brought her enough food to feed her four patients and herself.
I always stayed until she had forced herself through the tins of frankfurters, condensed milk and foie gras, rewarding me with a plucky smile. Her
two volunteer nurses had long since left the dome and returned to their husbands and children, but Julia was still determined to stay to the end. I sensed that in caring for David Cruise, keeping him forever on the edge of death, she was performing a penance similar to the shared bed into which she had drawn me at my father’s flat.
We were now into the second month of the Metro-Centre siege, and time had begun to dilate in unexpected ways. Days of sweaty boredom merged into each other, broken by the unending quest for food and water as Carradine’s quartermasters opened another supermarket for a few hours. Then everything would change abruptly, as Carradine released four or five of the more exhausted hostages. In exchange, the bathroom taps ran for half an hour, enough time to fill the baths and lavatory cisterns and stave off the danger of a typhoid epidemic.
But the patience of the police and Home Office had run out. Unsurprisingly, their willingness to go for the long haul, in the hope that the mutineers would lose heart or fall out among themselves, seemed to fluctuate with public interest in the siege. The television crews around the dome had been drifting away for weeks, and a Home Office junior minister blundered badly when he described the seizure of the Metro-Centre as part of an industrial dispute, a sit-in by disgruntled staff. When the siege was dropped from the main TV bulletins and exiled to late-night discussion programmes on BBC2 I knew that there would be a show of strength.
At three o’clock that morning, as I lay on the sofa beside the window, trying to breathe the humid, microwave air, I heard helicopters crossing the dome. Searchlights swerved and loudspeakers blared. Stun grenades exploded against the metal panels high above the atrium, showering debris on the luckless bears. A powerful explosion blew a hole in the dome above the portico of the North Gate entrance. A joint army and police commando entered the mall, and swiftly overpowered the small group of rebels defending the entrance. Unable to raise the fire door, the commandos moved to their primary target, the eighty remaining hostages held in the banqueting hall at the Ramada Inn.