It's just like on TV! And that is the most superlative compliment Archie can think of for anyreal-life event. Except this is just like on TV but better. It's very modern. It's so well designed youwouldn't want to breathe in it, no matter fart in it. There's these chairs, plastic but without legs,curved like an 5; they seem to work by means of their own fold; and they fit together, about twohundred of them in ten rows; and they snake around you when you sit in them soft yet supportive!
Comfy! Modern! And you've got to admire folding like that, Archie thinks, lowering himself intoone, a far higher level of folding than he'd ever been involved with. Very nice.
The other thing that makes it all better than TV is it's full of people Archie knows. There'sMillboid at the very back (scoundrel), with Abdul-Jimmy and Abdul-Colin; Josh Chalfen nearer themiddle, and Magid's sitting up at the front with the Chalfen woman (Alsana won't look at her, butArchie waves anyway because it'd be rude not to) and facing them all (near Archie Archie's got thebest seat in the house) sits Marcus at a long long table, just like on The V, with microphones allover it, like a bloody swarm, the huge black abdomens of killer bees. Marcus is sitting next to fourother blokes, three his age and one really old bloke, dry-looking desiccated, if that's the word. Andthey've all got glasses to a man, the way scientists do on the telly. No white coats, though. All verycasual: V-necks, ties, loafers. Bit disappointing.
Now he's seen a lot of these press conference larks, Archie has (weeping parents, missing child,or, conversely, if it was a foreign-orphan-scenario, weeping child, missing parents), but this is milesbetter because in the centre of the table is somethingquite interesting (which you don't usually get on TV, just the weeping people): a mouse. Quite aplain mouse, brown, and not with any other mice, but it's very active, scurrying around in this glassbox that's about as big as a television with air holes Archie was a bit worried when he first saw it(seven years in a glass box!), but it turns out it's temporary, just for the photographs. Irie explainedthere's this huge thing for it in the Institute, full of pipes and secret places, space upon space, so itwon't get too bored, and it'll be transferred there later. So that's all right. He's a cunning-lookinglittle blinder too, this mouse. He looks like he's pulling faces a lot of the time. You forget how alertlooking mice are. Terrible trouble to look after, of course. That's why he never got one for Irie whenshe was small. Goldfish are cleaner with shorter memories. In Archie's experience anything with along memory holds a grievance and a pet with a grievance (that time you got the wrong food, thattime you bathed me) just isn't what you want.
"Oh, you're right there," agrees Abdul-Mickey, plonking himself down in the seat next to Archie,betraying no reverence for the legless chair. "You don't want some resentful fucking rodent on yourhands."Archie smiles. Mickey's the kind of guy you want to watch the footie with, or the cricket, or ifyou see a fight in the street you want him to be there, because he's kind of a commentator on life.
Kind of a philosopher. He's quite frustrated in his daily existence because he doesn't get muchopportunity to show that side of himself. But get him free of his apron and away from the oven,give him space to manoeuvre he really comes into his own. Archie's got a lot of time for Mickey. Alot of time.
"When they gonna get on wiv it, then?" he says to Archie. "Taking their time, eh? Can't look ata mouse all bloody night, can you? I mean, you get all these people here on New Year's Eve, youwant something resembling entertainment.""Yeah, well," says Archie, not disagreeing but not completelyagreeing either, "I spe ct they've got to go through their notes and that.. Snot like just getting upand telling a few howlers, is it? I mean, it's not just about pleasing all the people all of the time,now, is it? It's Science." Archie says Science the same way he says Modern, as if someone has lenthim the words and made him swear not to break them. "Science," Archie repeats, handling it morefirmly, 'is a different kettle offish."Mickey nods at this, seriously considering the proposition, trying to decide how much weighthe should allow this counter argument Science, with all its connotations of expertise and higherplanes, of places in thought that neither Mickey nor Archie has ever visited (answer: none), howmuch respect he should give it in the light of these connotations (answer: fuck all. University ofLife, in nit and how many seconds he should leave before tearing it apart (answer: three).
"On the contrary, Archibald, on the bloody contrary. Speeshuss argument, that is. Commonfucking mistake, that is. Science ain't no different from nuffink else, is it? I mean, when you getdown to it. At the end of the day, it's got to please the people, you know what I mean?"Archie nods. He knows what Mickey means. (Some people Samad for example will tell you notto trust people who overuse the phrase at the end of the day football managers, estate agents,salesmen of all kinds but Archie's never felt that way about it. Prudent use of said phrase neverfailed to convince him that his interlocutor was getting to the bottom of things, to thefundamentals.)"And if you think there's any difference between a place like this and my cafe," Mickeycontinues, somehow full throated and yet never increasing above a whisper in terms of decibel,'you're having a laugh. "Sail the same in the end. "Sail about the customer in the end. Exemplifrickin' gratia: it's no good me putting Duck a. I'orange on the menu if nobody wants it. Vis-a-vis,there's no point this lot spending a lot of money on some clever ideas if they'renot going to do some nicking good for someone. Think about it," says Mickey, tapping histemple, and Archie follows the instruction as best he can.
"But that don't mean you don't give it a bloody chance," continues Mickey, warming to histheme. "You've got to give these new ideas a chance. Otherwise you're just a philistine, Arch. Now,at the end of the day, you know I've always been your cutting-edge type of geezer. That's why Iintroduced Bubble and Squeak two years ago." Archie nods sagely. The Bubble and Squeak hadbeen a revelation of sorts.
"Same goes here. You've got to give these things a chance. That's what I said to Abdul-Colinand my Jimmy. I said: before you jump the gun, come along and give it a chance. And here theyare." Abdul-Mickey flicked his head back, a vicious tick of recognition in the direction of hisbrother and son, who responded in kind. They might not like what they hear, of course, but youcan't account for that, can you? But at least they've come along with an open mind. Now, mepersonally, I'm here on good authority from that Magid Ick-Ball and I trust him, I trust hisjudgement. But, as I say, we shall wait and see. We live and fucking learn, Archibald," says Mickey,not to be offensive, but because the F-word acts like padding to him; he can't help it; it's just a fillerlike beans or peas, 'we live and fucking learn. And I can tell you, if anything said here tonightconvinces me that my Jimmy might not have sprogs wiv skin like the surface of the fucking moon,then I'm converted, Arch. I'll say it now. I've not the fucking foggiest what some mouse's got to dowith the old Yusuf skin, but I tell you, I'd put my life in that Ick-Ball boy's hands. I just get a goodfeeling off that lad. Worth a dozen of his brother," adds Mickey slyly, lowering his voice becauseSam's behind them. "A dozen easy. I mean, what the fuck was he thinking, eh? I know which oneI'd've sent away. No fear."Archie shrugs. "It was a tough decision."Mickey crosses his arms and scoffs, "No such thing, mate. You're either right or you ain't. Andas soon as you realize that, Arch, suddenly your life becomes a lot fucking easier. Take my word forit."Archie takes Mickey's words gratefully, adding them to the other pieces of sagacity the centuryhas afforded him: You're either right or you ain't. The golden age of Luncheon Vouchers is over.
Can't say fairer than that. Heads or tails?
"Oi-oi, what this?" says Mickey with a grin. "Here we go. Movement. Microphone in action.
One-two, one-two. Looks like the man neth begin nethuy> I'.. . and this work is pioneering, it is something that deserves "public money and public attention, and it is work the significance of which overrides, in anyrational person's mind, the objections that have been levied against it. What we needWhat we need, thinks Joshua, are seats closer to the front. Typical cuntish planning on the partof Crispin. Crispin asked for seats in the thick of it, so FATE could kind of merge with the crowdand slip the balaclavas on at the last minute, but it was clearly a rubbish idea which relied uponsome kind of middle aisle in the seating, which just isn't here. Now they are going to have to makean ungainly journey to the side aisles, like terrorists looking for their seat in the cinema, slowingdown the whole operation, when speed and shock tactics are the whole fucking point. What aperformance. The whole plan pisses Josh off. So elaborate and absurd, all designed for the greaterglory of Crispin. Crispin gets to do a bit of shouting, Crispin gets to do some waving-of-gun,Crispin does some pseudo-Jack Nicholson-psycho twitches just for the drama of it. FANTASTIC.
All Josh gets to say is Dad, please. Give them what they want, though privately he figures he'llhave some room for improvisation: Dad, phase.
I'm so fucking young. I want to live. Give them what they want, for Chrissake. It's just a mouse .. .
I'm your son, and then possibly a phoney faint in response to a phoney pistol-whip if his fatherproves to be hesitant. The whole plan's so high on the cheese factor it's practically Stilton. But itwill work (Crispin had said), that stuff always works. But having spent so much time in the animalkingdom, Crispin is like Mowgli: he doesn't know about the motivations of people. And he knowsmore about the psychology of a badger than he will ever know about the inner workings of aChalfen. So looking at Marcus up there with his magnificent mouse, celebrating the greatachievement of his life and maybe of this generation, Joshua can't stop his own perverse brain fromwondering whether it is just possible that he and Crispin and FATE have misjudged completely.
That they have all royally messed up. That they have underestimated the power of Chalfenism andits remarkable commitment to the Rational. For it is quite possible that his father will not simplyand unreflectingly save the thing he loves like the rest of the plebs. It is quite possible that lovedoesn't even come into it. And just thinking about that makes Joshua smile.
'.. . and I'd like to thank you all, particularly family and friends who have sacrificed their NewYear's Eve ... I'd like to thank you all for being here at the outset of what I'm sure everybody agreesis a very exciting project, not just for myself and the other researchers but for a far wider ..."Marcus begins and Millat watches the Brothers of KEVIN exchange glances. They're figuringabout ten minutes in. Maybe fifteen. They'll take their cue from Abdul-Colin. They're followinginstructions. Millat, on the other hand, is not following instructions, at least not the kind that arepassed from mouth to mouth or written on pieces of paper. His is an imperative secreted in thegenes and the cold steel in his inside pocket is the answerto a claim made on him long ago. He's a Pandy deep down. And there's mutiny in his blood.
As for the practicalities, it had been no biggie: two phone calls to some guys from the old crew,a tacit agreement, some KEVIN money, a trip to Brixton and hey presto it was in his hand, heavierthan he had imagined, but, aside from that, not such a head fuck of an object. He almost recognizedit. The effect of it reminded him of a small car-bomb he saw explode, many years ago, in the Irishsection of Kilburn. He was only nine, walking along with Samad. But where Samad was shaken,genuinely shaken, Millat hardly blinked. To Millat, it was so familiar. He was so unfazed by it.
Because there aren't any alien objects or events any more, just as there aren't any sacred ones. It'sall so familiar. It's all on TV. So handling the cold metal, feeling it next to his skin that first time: itwas easy. And when things come to you easily, when things click effortlessly into place, it is sotempting to use the four-letter F-word. Fate. Which to Millat is a quantity very much like TV: anunstoppable narrative, written, produced and directed by somebody else.
Of course, now that he's here, now that he's stoned and scared, and it doesn't feel so easy, andthe right-hand side of his jacket feels like someone put a fucking cartoon anvil in there now he seesthe great difference between TV and life, and it kicks him right in the groin. Consequences. Buteven to think this is to look to the movies for reference (because he's not like Samad or MangalPande; he didn't get a war, he never saw action, he hasn't got any analogies or anecdotes), is toremember Pacino in the first Godfather, huddled in the restaurant toilet (as Pande was huddled inthe barracks room), considering for a moment what it means to burst out of the men's room andblast the hell out of the two guys at the checkered table. And Millat remembers. He remembersrewinding and freeze-framing and slow-playing that scene countless times over the years. Heremembers that no matter how long you pause the split-second of Pacino reflecting, no matter howoften you replay the doubt that seems to cross his face, he never does anything else but what hewas always going to do.
'.. . and when we consider that the human significance of this technology .. . which will prove, Ibelieve, the equal of this century's discoveries in the field of physics: relativity, quantummechanics .. . when we consider the choices it affords us ... not between a blue eye and a brown eye,but between eyes that would be blind and those that might see .. ."But Me now believes there are things the human eye cannot detect, not with any magnifyingglass, binocular or microscope. She should know, she's tried. She's looked at one and then the other,one and then the other so many times they don't seem like faces any more, just brown canvaseswith strange protrusions, like saying a word so often it ceases to make sense. Magid and Millat.
Millat and Magid. Majlat. Milljid.
She's asked her unborn child to offer some kind of a sign, but nothing. She's had a lyric fromHortense's house going through her head Psalm 63 early will I seek thee: my soul thirtieth for thee,my flesh longethfor thee .. . But it asks too much of her. It requires her to go back, back, back to theroot, to the fundamental moment when sperm met egg, when egg met sperm so early in this historyit cannot be traced. Irie's child can never be mapped exactly nor spoken of with any certainty. Somesecrets are permanent. In a vision, Me has seen a time, a time not far from now, when roots won'tmatter any more because they can't because they mustn't because they're too long and they're tootortuous and they're just buried too damn deep. She looks forward to it.
"He who would most valiant be. "Gainst all disasterFor a few minutes now, beneath Marcus's talk and the shutters of cameras, another sound(Millat in particular has been attunedto it), a faint singing sound, has been audible. Marcus is doing his best to ignore it and continue,but it has just got considerably louder. He has begun to pause between his words to look around,though the song is clearly not in the room.
"Let him with constancy, follow the master ...""Oh God," murmurs Clara, leaning forward to speak in her husband's ear. "It's Hortense. It'sHortense. Archie, you've got to go and sort it out. Please. It's easiest for you to get out of your seat."But Archie is thoroughly enjoying himself. Between Marcus's talk and Mickey's commentary,it's like watching two TVs at once. Very informative.
"Ask Irie.""I can't. She's too far in to get out. Archie," she growls, lapsing into a threatening patois, 'youkyan jus led dem sing trew de whole ting!""Sam," says Archie, trying to make his whisper travel, "Sam, you go. You don't even want to bein here. Go on. You know Hortense. Just tell her to keep it down. "Sjust I'd quite like to listen to therest of this, you know. Very informative.""With pleasure," hisses Samad, getting out of his seat abruptly, and not troubling to excusehimself as he steps firmly on Neena's toes. "No need, I think, to save my place."Marcus, who is now a quarter of the way through a detailed description of the mouse's sevenyears, looks up from his paper at the disturbance, and stops to watch the disappearing figure withthe rest of the audience.
"I think somebody realized this story doesn't have a happy ending." As the audience laughslightly and settles back into silence, Mickey nudges Archibald in his ribs. "Now you see, that's a bitmore like it," he says. "A bit of a comic touch liven things up a bit. Layman's terms, in nit Noteverybody went to the bloody Oxbridge. Some of us went to the '
"University of Life," agrees Archie, nodding, because they were both there, though at differenttimes. "Can't beat it."Outside: Samad feels his resolve, strong when the door slammed behind him, weaken as heapproaches the formidable Witness ladies, ten of them, all ferociously be-wigged, standing on thefront steps, banging away at their percussion as if they wish to beat out something more substantialthan rhythm. They are in full voice. Five security guards have already admitted defeat, and evenRyan Topps seems slightly in awe of his choral Frankenstein's monster, preferring to stand at adistance on the pavement, handing out copies of the Watchtower to the great crowd heading for Soho.
"Do I get a concession?" inquires one drunken girl, inspecting the kitschy painting of heaven onthe cover, adding it to her handful of New Year club fliers. "Has it got a dress code?"With misgivings, Samad taps the triangle-player on her rugby forward shoulders. He tries thefull range of vocabulary available to an Indian man addressing potentially dangerous elderlyJamaican women (iflcouldplease sorrypossiblypleasesorry you learn it at bus stops), but the drumsproceed, the kazoo buzzes, the cymbals crash. The ladies continue to crunch their sensible shoes inthe frost. And Hortense Bowden, too old for marching, continues to sit on a fold-up chair,resolutely eyeballing the mass of dancing people in Trafalgar Square. She has a banner between herknees that states, simply,THE TIME IS AT HAND Rev. 1:3"Mrs. Bowden?" says Samad, stepping forward in a pause between verses. "I am Samad Iqbal.
A friend of Archibald Jones."Because Hortense does not look at him or betray any twinge of recognition, Samad feels boundto delve deeper into theintricate web of their relations. "My wife is a very good friend of your daughter; my step-niecealso. My sons are friends with your'
Hortense kisses her teeth. "I know fe who you are, man. You know me, I know you. But at dispoint, dere are only two kind of people in de world.""It is just that we were wondering," Samad interrupts, spotting a sermon and wanting to sever itat the root, 'if you could possibly reduce the noise somewhat... if only '
But Hortense is already overlapping him, eyes closed, arm raised, testifying to the truth in theold Jamaican fashion: Two kind of people: dem who sing for de Lord and dem who rejeck 'im at deperil of dem souls."She turns back. She stands. She shakes her banner furiously in the direction of the drunkenhordes moving up and down as one in the Trafalgar fountains, and then she is asked to do it againfor a cynical photo-journalist with a waiting space to fill on page six.
"Bit higher with the banner, love," he says, camera held up, one knee in the snow. "Come on,get angry, that's it. Lovely Jubbly."The Witness women raise their voices, sending song up into the firmament. "Early will I seekthee," sings Hortense. "My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and. thirstyland, where no water is .. ." Samad watches it all and finds himself, to his surprise, unwilling tosilence her. Partly because he is tired. Partly because he is old. But mostly because he would do thesame, though in a different name. He knows what it is to seek. He knows the dryness. He has feltthe thirst you get in a strange land horrible, persistent the thirst that lasts your whole life.
Can't say fairer than that, he thinks, can't say fairer than that.
Inside: "But I'm still waiting for him to get to the bit about my skin. Ain't heard nothing yet,have you, Arch?""No, nothing yet. I spe ct he's got a lot to get through. Revolutionary, all this.............