‘Susan … Susan it’s me, Ryan. Hi … Yes, I’m on the way to the meeting now. I know you said you were considering your options, but I was just ringing again to see if I could count on your vote this evening … ? Well, I understand what you’re saying. I know Madeline is a great little fundraiser, but frankly, the whole Zebra Alliance campaign is a shambles.
‘There’s no bloody focus. I keep seeing bits of campaigns. Great ideas, fantastic people, but precious little sign of the strategy we really need to bring down a giant. We’ve got to put a squeeze on all the little companies that supply Malarek, whether it’s half a million quid’s worth of laboratory equipment, or the dude that comes in and refills the coffee machine.’
After listening to the voice on the other end for a few seconds, Ryan spoke with the wounded tone of scolded kid. ‘Well … OK Susan, I guess I’ve said all that I can. You and I go back a long way and I feel very let down hearing you say that.’
Ryan pressed the end call button and stared vacantly out of the window. ‘That’s another one’ll be voting Madeline Laing for chairman.’
‘Perhaps you should settle for a spot on the Alliance committee until you find your feet,’ Zara suggested gently. ‘You’ve been in prison for three years. Madeline has brought in a lot of her own people. You can’t expect them to hand everything back to you on a platter.’
Ryan tutted. ‘There wouldn’t even be a Zebra Alliance without me.’ He looked away from Zara and started dialling a number into his phone. ‘Hello, Sebastian. How’s tricks … ? Excellent. Listen, I don’t mean to keep pestering you, but it sure would be good to know if I can count on your vote at the meeting this evening?’
*
It was thirty minutes’ drive from Corbyn Copse to the shabby, brutalist campus of Avon University. It was beginning to turn dark when they arrived and James ogled student girls through the glare, while Zara wound the people carrier through a tortuous one-way system. They passed accommodation blocks and the glass and concrete bunkers where students attended lectures.
‘I nearly did my degree here,’ Zara said, as she pulled up at a zebra crossing to let two hockey teams cross in front of them. ‘At least, I would have done if I hadn’t got my scholarship to Yale.’
‘Look at that,’ James gasped, rubbing his hands as his eyes followed a cute, mini-skirted Goth with a pierced lip. ‘I can’t wait to get to uni.’
Lauren tutted. ‘Don’t drool over the upholstery, will you.’
James didn’t answer back, because Kyle’s mobile gave out a triumphant blast, indicating that he’d received a text.
‘Is it Tom?’ James asked.
‘Yeah, finally,’ Kyle said, before bursting out laughing. ‘He said he’ll meet us by the bar at the Zebra fundraiser. Apparently Viv’s up before the committee for setting off the firecrackers.’
‘What’s funny about that?’ James asked. ‘They should kick Viv out. That basket case nearly got me blown up.’
‘I know,’ Kyle said, still giggling. ‘That’s not what I’m laughing at.’
James reached over to grab Kyle’s phone, but Kyle snatched it out of his reach.
‘Private,’ Kyle said firmly. ‘Hands off.’
James looked upset. ‘You’d better not be taking the piss out of me.’
‘Oh listen to that ego,’ Kyle tutted, as he typed out his reply to Tom. ‘The entire world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.’
It took another couple of minutes to reach the car park at the rear of the refectory building. This large structure was the social hub of the university, with five restaurants, several bars, a nightclub and more than a dozen meeting rooms spread over five floors.
Ryan led the way through the main entrance into a bland concrete atrium enlivened by clusters of students standing in circles, or lounging on the aged leather sofas that rested against the floor-to-ceiling windows. One wall carried a noticeboard. It was twenty metres long and every centimetre was plastered several layers deep with notices. They advertised everything from second-hand bicycles to meetings of the Young Conservative Association.
It took half a minute to pick out a Zebra Alliance poster, promoting the regular Wednesday fundraiser and directing guests to the Purcell Room on the second floor. In big letters at the bottom it said: Admission £1, All Drinks Buy One Get One FREE until 9 p.m.!
‘How can they raise money if they’re giving drinks away?’ Lauren asked, as they set off up the stairs.
Ryan burst out laughing. ‘Ahh, to be so young and innocent! Once you get a few drinks down a student’s neck, they’ll keep coming back for more.’
The Purcell Room was big enough for several hundred people. Lauren waved to a few familiar faces from the protest site as they entered. They cut across an empty dance floor, dodging a bunch of little kids doing skids on the polished wood. The real action seemed to be taking place in a carpeted bar area at the far end of the room.
There were forty odd people there, a mix of students and Zebra Alliance members. They sat at hexagonal tables, with empty glasses stacked in front of them and cigarette smoke lurking over their heads.
Ryan headed up to the bar with Zara and Lauren. He broke into a big smile as he shook hands and hugged old friends.
James and Kyle branched off when they spotted Tom and Viv sitting in an alcove by the window. Viv wore a T-shirt with a drawing of a policeman with his head cut off and a slogan underneath: Hip, hip Hooray! He had a muscular arm around a leggy girl who could have come straight off the fashion pages.
‘Hey guys,’ Viv smiled. ‘This is my girlfriend, Sophie.’
Kyle reached out and shook her hand before sitting down next to Tom.
‘This little psycho is James,’ Viv said proudly. ‘The one I told you about.’
Sophie broke into a big smile and gave James a smoky peck on the cheek as he grabbed the chair next to her.
‘The cop killer,’ she grinned. ‘You made Viv’s day lobbing that firework.’
James had told Kyle and Zara that he hadn’t aimed the firecracker at anything, but it worked in his favour if Viv thought he had so he wasn’t about to contradict him.
‘What are you all doing here?’ Sophie asked.
James shrugged. ‘Just tagging along. Kyle was meeting Tom, and Ryan wanted to bring my mum up to see everyone. I figured anything’s better than sitting around the cottage on my own watching bloody EastEnders.’
‘So, tight wad,’ Sophie said, looking across at Viv. ‘Are you gonna get the drinks in or what?’
‘Skint,’ Viv said.
‘My arse,’ Sophie grinned. ‘Your bloody dad owns half of Lincolnshire.’
‘Yeah, but I ain’t got none of that yet. Not unless I drive up there and shoot the old git.’
As Viv said this, he went into his wallet, peeled out a twenty-pound note and waved it under Sophie’s nose.
‘Oh, I’m getting them am I?’
‘You’re nearest,’ Viv smirked.
Kyle and Tom had started their own conversation and both burst out laughing at something James hadn’t heard.
‘What’s your poison, Kyle?’ Sophie asked.
‘Pint of Fosters,’ Kyle said.
Sophie looked at James. ‘Same as,’ he said.
Sophie gave him a you must be joking look. ‘Coke or orange juice?’ she asked pointedly.
He felt his face boil up with embarrassment. ‘Coke, I guess.’
James tried not to be too blatant as he watched Sophie’s stunning figure slink off to the bar.
Kyle looked over at Viv. ‘So what’s going on with you and the committee?’
‘Spineless tits,’ Viv sneered. ‘They’re gonna kick me out, but I’m not losing any sleep. The only reason I’m going to the meeting is so I can personally tell them where they can shove their pathetic bloody alliance.’
‘So what will you do?’ Kyle asked. ‘Give up campaigning for animal rights?’
Viv smirked. ‘No way, man. My dad owns half a million pigs and I’v
e seen the way they’re treated. I went veggie when I was thirteen.’
James was shocked. ‘Your dad’s a farmer?’
‘He doesn’t get up at 4 a.m. and muck them out personally, but his estate is one of the biggest pork producers in the country. Dad’s seventy now though, so it’s run by our half-brother, Clyde.’
Tom made a dickhead gesture with his hand.
‘Precisely,’ Viv nodded. ‘Twenty-eight years old and he struts around in a Range Rover, wearing green wellies, cloth cap and a walking stick like he’s lord of the manor.’
‘Doesn’t speak to us since Viv nutted him two Christmases ago.’
James burst out laughing.
‘It’s true,’ Tom giggled. ‘Permanently flattened the bridge of his nose. I saw him a couple of months back when I was visiting our mum and he looked like a retired boxer.’
Viv slammed his massive fist into his palm. ‘When I hit someone, they stay hit.’
James suddenly stopped laughing. Viv was easy to get along with, but you couldn’t allow yourself to forget that he was a nutter.
‘So, what will you do?’ Kyle repeated.
Viv shrugged. ‘There’s other groups out there that are doing rather than talking.’
‘Some of them kick arse,’ Tom added. ‘The Zebra Alliance isn’t worth shit. All they’re interested in is getting their faces in the paper. They’re scared of doing anything radical in case the moderates cancel their direct debit payments.’
Viv nodded. ‘They’re hardly a liberationist group at all any more.’
Kyle decided that the social situation made it safe to probe a little deeper. ‘So, is there a particular group you’ve got your eye on?’
‘One or two,’ Viv shrugged.
Kyle phrased his next question as a joke, but he wanted to see how Tom and Viv would react. ‘Maybe we should go all out and join the AFM. You know any of that lot?’
‘Might do,’ Viv laughed. Then he raised his voice so that the whole bar could overhear. ‘The AFM are better than these do-nothing Zebra Alliance pussies.’
Viv got the attention he sought, as occupants of the surrounding tables turned to scowl at him.
Meantime, Sophie was back with a tray of drinks. She sat in her chair, before plonking a pint of Fosters in front of James.
‘I thought the little cop killer deserved his beer,’ she grinned. ‘But drink it here; don’t go wandering around where everyone can see you with it.’
James couldn’t help smiling as he brought the pint up to his lips and drank five mouthfuls, but put down the glass abruptly as Zara, Ryan and George came up to the table.
George wore an ill-fitting brown suit that made him look particularly geeky. ‘I’m taking Ryan and Zara across to the committee meeting,’ he said, pompous as ever, as he looked at Viv. ‘Would you like to come, or shall I just tell them you’ve tendered your resignation?’
‘You kidding me?’ Viv asked. ‘When have I ever turned down a chance to run off with my big mouth? Nice suit by the way, Georgie boy. How many toasters did you sell today?’
‘Some of us have to work for a living,’ George said. ‘We can’t all live off money inherited from our grandmothers.’
James looked slightly confused as George led Ryan, Zara and Viv across the hall and out the door. ‘Isn’t the meeting held here?’ he asked.
Tom shook his head. ‘Nah, the committee always meets in a secret location. It’s not wise for some members to show their faces and they’re totally paranoid that they’re under police surveillance. It’s usually held in someone’s room over in the halls of residence.’
As James drained his pint down to the halfway mark, Sophie gave him a nudge and gently grabbed the scruff of his T-shirt. ‘Come over here, with me.’
James didn’t know what was going on, as Sophie grabbed a pint in each hand and led him towards another table to join a couple of her girlfriends.
‘Why’d we move?’ James asked.
Sophie gave her two friends a look. ‘I think Tom and your brother would appreciate a little privacy.’
‘Why?’ James asked.
The three nineteen-year-old girls sitting around the table all laughed.
‘Kyle is gay, isn’t he?’ Sophie asked.
‘Yeah,’ James admitted grudgingly.
The coin dropped as James sneaked a glance over his shoulder at Kyle and Tom: the text messages, the laughing, the way they’d been sitting there in a world of their own – it all suddenly made sense.
16. SLAB
Things livened up as the evening wore on. The number of students swelled and once the bar ran out of seating, they began propping themselves along the walls of the dance-floor area. Down by the entrance, two folding tables had been brought in. One did a brisk trade giving away leaflets and selling liberationist books and STOP Malarek posters. Lauren volunteered to help out on the other table, which hosted a free vegan buffet.
Quite a few students looked like they needed a good meal and she happily ladled out guacamole, bean dip, corn chips, marinaded mushrooms and fruit salad. Every so often a bunch of hotheads would swagger in from another bar or meeting looking for trouble, or at the least to try winding up some veggies. One red-faced drunk in a Fred Perry shirt asked Lauren if she had any chicken drumsticks stashed under the counter.
She was prepared to go along with the joke, until the dude tried dunking a grubby finger in the bean dip. She grabbed his thumb, twisted it into a lock and brandished a fork with her free hand before doing her best little-girl grin.
‘Leave,’ she growled. ‘Otherwise, you’ll find out which orifice I plan to insert this fork into.’
The humiliated student staggered out of the Purcell Room as Lauren received bows and applause from his mates.
The food had been prepared by a middle-aged woman called Anna Kent. ‘You’re quite a little firebrand,’ she said, as the drunks shuffled out of the room.
Anna tousled Lauren’s hair, a gesture Lauren found oddly upsetting because it was exactly what her real mum used to do when she was proud of her.
*
James felt out of his depth sitting with Sophie and her two mates. They asked him if he had a girlfriend and he said no, which set the trio of girls off in a conversation about their first boyfriends.
Their stories about first kisses and getting caught in compromising positions by angry parents made him laugh and the girls bought him pints – or more often half pints – until he felt drunk and giggly. But he was also a touch sad, because the trio of beautiful, intelligent girls were all five years older and no matter how much he liked them, he was just a kid as far as they were concerned.
‘What took so long?’ Sophie asked, when a red-faced Viv finally sidled up alongside her.
‘It’s pistols at dawn in there,’ Viv said. ‘There’s this whole massive bun fight going on over who gets to run the Alliance.’
James had heard so much of Ryan’s rambling over the past days that he couldn’t help being curious about how it was panning out. ‘Have they had the vote yet?’
‘They had the first vote straight away, unanimously re-electing Ryan on to the committee, but he’s made it clear that he wants to take over from Madeline. They were also pretty pissed off that he’d brought Zara along to a secret meeting.’
‘So what about you?’ James asked. ‘Did they kick you out?’
‘Actually, they said I was a valuable activist and just wanted to suspend me for three months. But I told them exactly where they could stick that idea. And as I was heading out, I pointed at Georgie Boy and I goes If I ever see you again, I’m gonna pin you down and shit on your head. You should have seen the look on his mug.’
Fuelled by the beer, James started laughing out of control at the image of weedy little George getting crapped on.
‘That’s very mature,’ Sophie said, smiling wryly at her girlfriends.
‘So what do you reckon?’ Viv asked. ‘I can’t stand this stuffy hole. Who’s up for driving out some
where and howling at the moon? I’ve got Jack Daniel’s and vodka in the car.’
Sophie shrugged. ‘Yeah, what the hell.’
Viv looked at Kyle and Tom, who were now snuggled up with their arms around each other’s backs.
‘Oy, poofters,’ Viv shouted. ‘Gonna take a spin. You coming?’
Tom and Kyle both nodded as Viv looked at James. ‘What about you, cop killer? You up for a ride, or has Mummy gotta tuck you up early on a school night?’
James didn’t fancy being the odd man out amidst two couples, but he had a mission and Zara would expect him to go.
‘She likes me home by eleven,’ James grinned. ‘But she’s not around to stop me, so I’m in.’
As James stood up, Kyle passed by, heading for the toilets, and gave him a nudge that clearly meant come with me.
The toilets were nasty, with a smell that made your eyes water and an overflowing urinal that had turned the entire floor into a puddle.
‘OK,’ Kyle said, looking over his shoulder to make sure nobody was around as he stood at the urinal beside James. ‘I’ve been working on Tom. He reckons Viv is planning to get in with another group. It’s apparently something to do with a mate of Sophie’s.’
‘Is it the AFM?’ James said, as he started peeing.
‘He says they’re extremists,’ Kyle said. ‘I doubt it’s the AFM itself, but all the intelligence reports say that the number of radicals out there is small, so there’s a strong possibility that they’re linked.’
‘What’s our plan?’
‘All we can do is hang around Tom and Viv. Keep ourselves in the picture and gradually put the idea across that we want to get involved with an extremist group too.’
‘Might be tricky for me though,’ James said. ‘I mean, you and Tom are practically ripping each other’s kit off in there, but there’s a big age gap between me and Viv. That thing with the firecracker might have been a perverse stroke of luck, but I can’t see him hanging around with my fourteen-year-old butt once the novelty wears off.’
Kyle nodded as he zipped up his jeans. ‘Well, you know what Viv likes about you. You’ll just have to play it to the max and act even crazier than he does.’