declares Tony.
‘So what is it that’s not working, Tony, my love?’
‘The whole show. It’s not working because it’s not a whole show. There’s a bunch of
people on the inside who’ve all got moves to make and their own trades to do. But they don’t add up: the pieces don’t come together. And most of the insiders don’t like me anyway, because I’m always going too far. Even if I knew where to take them to, they wouldn’t follow me.
Meanwhile the people on the outside don’t seem to want to come in on it.
‘Maybe they just can’t see what there is to come in on. Can’t blame them, either, because neither can I. But carry on like this, and the Olympics will be London’s non-event. “Non-event”,’ he gestures, ‘is how the Games will be seen.’
Tony, please don’t do that scare quotes thing, Pete’s thinking. Don’t thing me, Tony
would say to Pete, if Pete said aloud what Tony already knows he is thinking.
‘And that makes it hugely significant,’ Tony continues. ‘Not just a non-event that nobody notices.
The Olympiad looks set to be our Hurricane Katrina.
If the Games don’t make an impact, like New Orleans, the London brand will be broken
into smithereens .’
By now Tony’s almost enjoying himself. For weeks he has been unable to put his finger
on the problem. At least now he can talk to Pete about it.
‘Oh, the people out there’ – he’s gesturing again: maybe waving to them; perhaps
shooing them away.
‘They want it to go OK, they’re not willing it to fail. If it does, they’d be implicated, too.
But they sure ain’t willing to believe...’
‘Come of it, T,’ Pete interjects. ‘You want them to believe. Ha, ha, ha.’
‘Mock me,’ retorts Tony. ‘I don’t care. It will only make me stronger.’ He twists in his
seat. Now Tony’s face is looming in at Pete.
‘Look, I now it sounds dodgy, and in the wrong hands it could get really spooky. But I only want this city, this country, to have that shared experience, the kind we used to make when we were on stage. The togetherness we could produce for all those people, for them, with them.
Not just for our benefit, everyone in it together at least until the house lights came up.
‘So what if it was make-believe? If you could make what we made, and amplify it many
times over, and make it last a while longer, you could make a city out of that. A city that feels like a city, not just a ragbag of people with nothing in common. And that would be a decent legacy, wouldn’t it? And maybe the house lights wouldn’t have to come up for a long time.’
Has Tony said too much, gone in deeper than he should, assumed, groundlessly, that Pete is the same old Pete? He’s not sure. In any case he rows back to shore as fast as he can:
‘You getting those beers in, then...?’
While Pete goes to get them, Tony can’t think of anything except how much he wants a
cigarette.
‘It’ll be all right on the night, T,’ says Pete, back from the bar and the strawberry blond bloke standing behind it. ‘We could never tell from the sound check how it would turn out.’ But when he hears himself saying this just because Tony wants him to say something like this, Pete pulls himself up, kicks himself for falling into old habits so readily.
For your next line, Pete, find something that Tony isn’t expecting. Instead of cushioning him, holding him up, try rolling with it, let it go further than Tony would have wanted it to go.
See how he likes it.
He tries it straightaway. ‘Still, maybe you’re right, T.’ Pete pauses, takes a mouthful of beer, and sucks it into his cheeks before swallowing it. Ten years earlier he would have drawn heavily on a fag and steadily, deliberately exhaled the smoke.
Even now, when he looks back at that fateful night, just a few weeks before Games Time, Pete doesn’t know whether at this point he already knew what he was going to say next. And does it matter, either way?
Regardless of how much he knew, his first sentence contained yet another, highly
theatrical pause:
‘Perhaps the last time London felt... united’ –
employing, momentarily, the high falutin’ tone of wartime newsreel narration – ’was in July 2005 when some fools blew it up. That gave us something to share in.’
Tony chimes in: ‘And we’d been awarded the Olympics just the day before. A winning
combination.’
Pete has to top him. ‘Two shared experiences in significantly quick succession’, he adds.
‘The winning bid, terrorism, maybe they’re just meant to go together like love and marriage.’
‘Athletes, crowds,’ says Tony, ‘horse and carriage.’
‘Stadium, bombs,’ Pete adds.
‘The quick and the dead,’ they chorus.
‘Seriously, Tony,’ Pete continues: he won’t be bested on this. ‘The Olympic Games and
terrorism, hitch them back together and you’ve got it made.
Just one explosion, and it could be your biggest hit. Aarf, aarf. ’
There, it’s been said. Not that either of them had meant to go this far, had they?
It started with Pete not wanting to behave the way he was supposed to; or maybe it
started with Tony always setting up Pete to do what he wanted him to. In any case, Pete took the weight of Tony’s anxiety and swung it forward into full blown cynicism.
They have got to the point of saying, really, that London only comes together when it’s under attack, when there’s blood on the streets and bodies in bags. And when they came somewhere near to saying this, instead of stopping and leaving off, they carried on. In their silly dialogue, carrying on from how they always used to talk to each other, bloodshed first left unspecified, the blood flowing indiscriminately between the 1940s Blitz and the London bombings of July 2005, is now firmly attached to 2012. They have even begun to sketch out a new scenario: a bomb attached to the Games, a big bang during Games Time, which would
produce the shared experience that Tony has been dreaming of.
Without thinking, without having to think because the calculation is staring them in the face, Tony and Pete are adding terror to 2012 and hitting the jackpot; possibly the biggest pay-out ever.
Imagine: millions of media moments, shared across the city, across the world,
proliferating like fragments in a bomb blast. But instead of blowing London apart, the fragments are putting London back together again, making Londone.
London United. For all the world to see.
It’s a blockbuster waiting to be made, a truly global spectacle. A solution to the Olympics happening that isn’t happening. The there that isn’t there. Except that this isn’t going to happen either. It’s just a bad, stupidly bad joke between friends, isn’t it, just?
Pete’s mock laughter dies a death in his own mouth.
There is a moment of awkwardness between these two, who have experienced just about
every kind of intimacy with each other except sex (with each other). Then Tony cocks his head slightly and squints over at Pete.
It’s his signature gesture from the old days: looking askance, making it seem like you’re staring the other guy down, but really it’s the cue for more.
Pete hardly needs prompting. Even after a long lay-off he’s ready for the familiar game.
‘That’d top Jill Dando’ – his opening stake.
‘I think you’ll find she’s been topped already.’
Tony’s first response is low key. But then he plays a higher card: ‘It’ll be more Diana than Diana.’
Ace. Now Pete must raise the game still higher.
‘The nation will be united in mourning sickness.
There will be unprecedented pomposity, pretentiousness, and primadonnas of public
grief.
Never on
the field of battle...’
‘A field day for Charlie Brooker,’ Tony interrupts.
‘Predictable, boring bastard’, Pete jibes, and the two of them laugh like monkeys.
Teasing out their sickening idea, they play on into the night. Laughing, snickering at scenarios that aren’t really laughable. Of course the rituals they are sneering at – bow the knee at Dunblane, don’t speak ill of St Dando, observe the laws of the cult of Diana (‘Why all the Ds?’, quips Pete) – really are idiotic. But breaking them this way, playing out bastardised scenes of blood, pain and mock-canonisation as if this were only iconoclasm, that’s almost as stupid. And they know it.
Once when they were Smart Alec teenagers, they thought this kind of thing was...smart.
Feeling something like shame afterwards, came as something of a surprise to them. But now they know it’s making them feel dirty. Not horny dirty, just soap and water dirty. Like watching Big Brother (in recent years), or the wrestling on Saturday afternoons (many years ago), when you knew all the time you should have been doing something better.
Like old times, they tell themselves; but were they ever as tasteless as this? Then again, better not be too judgemental: this is only a couple of middle-aged guys, replaying old routines to cover the hole where their lives went. We must allow them something to cover up with, no matter what we think of it.
Over and over again, they smirk and grin; and so with this performance, acted out for
each other’s benefit, they make it through the night.
(13) Indecision time
The horses frightened him. Dinky had got used to the shouting, the whistles and the
volume of people. But when a troop of mounted police fanned out to face the demonstrators, he was scared.
This is Dinky Dutta we are talking about. Slim-hipped, coffee-coloured, nice smile, easy style.
Prize-winning student - no, former student, currently awaiting confirmation of his first class degree.
In another place, it would come summa cum laude, but Dinky’s been to a university
where they don’t speak Latin. Nonetheless, a writer already (two short stories published in online magazines), one of them even reviewed. Certain to be a major writer someday, somebody said.
Either that or he’s a worthless piece of crap who’s never done anything in his life and never will.
Are you a shit, sir?, he was once asked in the Gents of a posh pub off Piccadilly next door to the private view his Dad had taken him to. Probably a chat-up line, the real question being: do you take it up the arse, pretty boy? Either way, Dinky didn’t have an answer, then; doesn’t have one, now.
On this, the day of the national demonstration against debt, he wasn’t too concerned
about the helmeted warriors sitting on top of the horses.
So well coordinated they might have been a dance troupe. Too smart, too choreographed
to be really threatening, he thought (how little he knows).
It was the sheer, animal bulk that got to Dinky: the weight, the smell of the horses, even some distance away.
‘What are you supposed to do if they come at you?’
he asked Joe. Anarchist Joe (well, he wears black).
Joe who plays the bongos, a bit of a drongo, but really comes good when the pressure’s on.
If you’re in a tight spot, Dinky, you’ll be glad to have him around.
‘You’re not supposed to be there, that’s what’.
There’s a chuckle in Joe’s eyes. ‘If you don’t have the sense to get out of the way, you haven’t got much sense, have you?’
Enjoys breaking in the virgins, Joe does; and Dinky is his latest trophy protestor.
Yes, this is Dinky’s first time. Iraq, Student Fees, Education Cuts, while he was actually studying (sort of), he let the whole lot pass him by. Not quite the full political animal, even now.
This demo’s against debt: student debt, Euro-debt, Third World debt; hence ‘Cancel the Debt: Tax the Bankers’. To be honest, Dinky isn’t that bothered about paying his graduate tax, but he likes the thought of saying he only goes on demos now he’s stopped being a student.
Counter-intuitive, or what?
Sections of the crowd are getting restless. They’ve watched themselves on the monitors round Trafalgar Square. (Indeed you haven’t been on a demo nowadays
– nobody has, until you’ve seen yourself there on the monitors.) They’ve read the tweets supporting the demo from Stephen Fry and friends. What else to do now, except some old fashioned pushing and shoving?
It’s a stand-off, but that doesn’t mean standing still. Dinky is amazed at how much (some of) the students are getting away with. Surging forward every now and then, kicking and punching, eventually pushed back by riot police (on foot). Then the police drop back leaving a gap between themselves and the protestors. There’ll be a quiet period, punctuated by gleeful monkey noises every time a bottle flies over and cracks open on the ground in front of the police line. One bottle – just the one
– got past the riot shields. It curved over, curled in and split a policeman’s visor.
Goal!
Big cheer goes up from the away fans; stunned constable steered to the rear and replaced by one of his team mates.
There’s another lull, and Joe goes into a huddle with a group of friends. Two of them
come out carrying the poles of a banner which reads, ‘Front Line Theatre’. One of the pole-bearers is Dinky, who he can’t quite believe he is anything other than an onlooker. A third student is holding a large placard, declaring that this is ‘The University of Strategic Optimism’.
Meanwhile, dressed in cap and gown, Joe occupies centre stage – well, he would if there was one. In front of the placard, beneath the banner, he is the pop-up vice-chancellor for a spoof uni.
Through a megaphone, Joe addresses the crowd:
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the University of Strategic Optimism. We at the
University believe that this is the best of all possible worlds. That we are ruled by the best possible government.
That the future of our country will be tinted with gold, so long as we all believe that nothing can go wrong.’
Joe’s resolute expression and stentorian tones, are deliberately at odds with his asinine words.
Instead of politicians announcing state-sponsored nastiness in the flat voice of polite conversation – the ‘sofa politics’ we have become accustomed to, this is airy fairy nonsense delivered with Churchillian gravity. He continues in the same vein:
‘If only we have confidence in ourselves, then the benefits of wellbeing shall be ours. All we have to be depressed about, Ladies and Gentlemen, is depression itself. Thus I call upon you
– nay, I implore you – to keep taking the tablets. For they have been specially made by our little helpers to be the helpmeet of your dreams.’
In widening circles around Joe, there are signs first of bemused interest, now turning to ripples of laughter. Out come the iPhones – this is becoming an event within the event. Everyone wants a picture of Joe, and he’s getting into his stride: big gestures, lugubrious eyes, cavernous red mouth and a succession of elongated syllables that seem to go on for ever.
‘At the Uuuuuuniversity of Strategic Optimismmmmmmmmmm, yooooooou’ve never
had it so goooooo...!’
This last word was ever so rudely interrupted. It was going to be ‘good’ when Joe started mouthing the word. But it didn’t end up there; didn’t reach its intended destination.
Joe’s on the ground, you see, trying to protect himself. His fluttering hands suggest he doesn’t know which is worth saving – his brain or his balls. Meanwhile the blows rain down all over him.
In a subsequent inquiry, police officers will say that it was operationally essential to immobilize the protagonist prior to arrest.
And what of Joe’s friends and his new found audience? Did they pile in to protect him
from a beating?
One or two steamed in looking as if they meant business, but they had no means of protecting themselves against riot batons. A couple of thwacks – blow to the shoulder, here; a bloody nose, there, and they were hesitating, soon to be retreating.
Of course there were legions of people photographing the scene, many of them starting to boo in the venerable tradition of the pantomime season. But by the time they got past the ‘b’, even before the
‘oo’, the snatch squad had him away. The star of Front Line Theatre was already behind police lines, about to be bundled into a prison van.
Less than half an hour later, Joe, now without belt or boots, stood in the cells at West End Central, asking for a lawyer. All in good time, came the reply. All in good time, said the custody officer, as he walked upstairs extremely slowly.
Meanwhile Dinky was long gone. Scarpered. Dropped the banner pole straightaway and
Games Makers Page 4
