Perfidious Albion

by Sam Byers

  As she refreshed the inbox of Julia Benjamin’s website, she realised that she was awaiting an alert or confirmation: an automated message advising her of what she knew already to be final. She took a deep breath. There was that little spinning sand timer again, buffering her between two states: connection and disconnection, presence and absence. As long as the sand timer spun, nothing could really be said to have happened. She and Robert could buffer forever.

  Perhaps, she thought, she would be wrong. Perhaps she only imagined what Robert was doing to be related to her because now she imagined everything to be related to her. In the mess of connections, causes, positions, there was still a chance for Robert to do nothing. If she was wrong, she would admit to herself that she had been wrong. The admission would be easy, she imagined, because it would be fuelled by relief.

  The sand timer blinked, vanished. A new notification arrived in Julia Benjamin’s inbox. The sender was painfully, nauseatingly familiar: a particularly feral group of anti-feminist woman-haters that had led the attacks on her after Ziegler. They were wise to Julia Benjamin’s site and, judging by the message, already going to work on her. She looked again at the top of Robert’s head and knew exactly what he had done.

  Her response manifested not as feeling but as sound. There were no words in her head, only a faint, granular hiss, like the run-off of an old tape after the music fades. She thought of The Griefers’ facial dissolve, the hyper-blur of identities they’d harnessed and unleashed. She saw again Deepa’s wall of female figurants, her assemblage of images at once diverse and singular. She thought again of that imaginary archive: the data-trail of lives lived and abandoned. She clicked out of her messages and scrolled through old files and abandoned ideas, personae imagined and rejected. She began gathering the parts together, assembling them, giving form to something new and hybrid. Then she plugged in a thumb drive, moved the pieces across, and gave them a name that was a corruption of her own: Jasmine.

  This was how things ended, she thought, but also how they began: with neither a bang nor a whimper, just a click.

  *

  Vivian Ross, Hugo thought, was your basic bitch nightmare. Taller than Hugo, with a gaze that suggested she was accustomed to looking down on her interview subjects in every conceivable way, she rebuffed his attempt at a cheek-kiss and instead extended her hand, crimson nails pointed straight at his heart.

  ‘I thought we’d do this in the kitchen,’ he said, ushering in first Vivian Ross, then a cameraman, then a boom operator, and then some bloke with a clipboard who, Hugo assumed, directed or produced or something.

  ‘Let’s get some establishing shots,’ said the man with the clipboard to the cameraman, who immediately zoomed in on Hugo’s front door and then tracked from there into the hallway.

  ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t actually show the door number,’ said Hugo. ‘Or the street.’

  ‘You probably have to be careful,’ said Vivian Ross, which, Hugo noted, was not the same as saying they would be careful.

  ‘Get this,’ said clipboard man, pointing to the carpet. ‘And this,’ he added, pointing to the door through to the kitchen.

  ‘People like detail,’ said Ross. ‘Close-ups of door handles, a mug on the kitchen counter. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Softens things,’ said the man with the clipboard.

  ‘Come on through,’ said Hugo, wandering into the hastily cleaned kitchen. ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’

  ‘Looks best if we both have a drink,’ said Ross. ‘More convivial. But I don’t drink hot drinks. So make me a cup of tea and then don’t be offended when all I do is hold it.’

  ‘Right,’ said Hugo, turning to the kettle, already finding her bossy and unappealing.

  He filled the kettle and found a couple of mugs. He didn’t offer anything to the men he’d decided to think of merely as the crew. If he started asking what everyone wanted and remembering who took sugar and then handing round mugs, he was going to lose focus.

  Tea prepared, Vivian Ross holding her mug ornamentally in cupped hands over crossed legs, Hugo also holding his mug but now, due to Ross somehow psyching him out with regard to hot drinks, not entirely comfortable drinking from it, they sat at one corner of the dining table, clipboard man having quickly vetoed a strict across-the-table arrangement as too formal and confrontational.

  ‘Wouldn’t want it to get confrontational,’ Hugo said.

  Vivian Ross said nothing.

  ‘And, ready,’ said clipboard man, holding his hand in the air while the cameraman angled his equipment towards Hugo in what Hugo imagined as an unflatteringly tight zoom.

  ‘Um, are we just going to start straight away?’ said Hugo.

  ‘We were told your time is tight,’ said Ross.

  ‘Oh, it is,’ said Hugo. ‘Very tight. I just thought it was usual to go over—’

  ‘It can make it seem stilted,’ said Ross. ‘You know: too scripted. I like to keep it fast and loose.’

  ‘Right,’ said Hugo.

  ‘Which I’m sure is what you prefer too?’ she added. ‘What with your dislike of spin and formality and media slickness and the like.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Hugo. ‘Fast and loose is my middle name. Names. My two middle names.’

  ‘And three, two …’ said clipboard man.

  ‘Oh,’ said Hugo. ‘Blimey, let me just—’

  ‘Hugo Bennington,’ said Vivian Ross, suddenly cracking out a surprisingly warm smile she’d apparently been keeping under wraps until it was needed. ‘Thank you so much for having us in your home. I know how busy you are.’

  ‘I … Hello,’ said Hugo. ‘Absolutely. I mean, yes.’

  Beneath Hugo’s shirt-collar, discrete beads of sweat were starting to organise themselves into an insurrectionary army.

  ‘It’s been quite a week for you,’ said Ross.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Hugo. ‘But such is politics. It’s a fast-moving world and you just have to move with it or be left behind.’

  ‘Is that something you fear? Being left behind?’

  ‘No,’ said Hugo. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Because that’s a common criticism of your party, isn’t it? That you’re a throwback, a bunch of dinosaurs.’

  ‘Well, if loving my country and calling for a return to what I see as its values makes me a throwback,’ said Hugo, who had answered this charge so many times that he sometimes woke up in the morning unconsciously repeating this mantra, ‘then yes, I’m guilty as charged.’

  He laughed. Ross didn’t. He stopped laughing and she smiled. He hated her.

  ‘And what are those values, exactly?’ she said.

  ‘Respect, for one,’ said Hugo. ‘Integrity. Pride in our landscape, our people. Control over our borders, our laws. I think the English are fundamentally—’

  ‘Our people?’ said Ross.

  ‘The people,’ said Hugo. ‘The people of England. It’s about putting the needs of our country and the people in it first.’

  ‘And do you have a sense of what those needs might be at this point in time? I mean, what, for you, are the most pressing needs?’

  One of the most critical skills for any politician speaking in public, Hugo had always thought, was the skill of enumeration. It communicated control, orderliness, a systematic approach. The moment a question like this arose, his right hand shot up in front of his face in a reflex gesture, fingers curled into his palm, thumb extended.

  ‘One,’ he said, shaking the thumb. ‘Self-protection. We need to get control of immigration. We need to get control of our culture. We need to ensure we’re all, literally and hypothetically, speaking the same language.’

  Those should, he thought, have been three things. Instead, he had bundled them all into one and was still gesticulating with his thumb.

  ‘Two,’ he said, hastily extending his forefinger. ‘The economy. Why are we giving money away? Why are we allowing people to drain our resources? People like healthcare tourists and benefits cheats. Three,
liberty. We need to fight for our basic freedoms, which are being eroded.’

  ‘And what do you think those basic freedoms are?’

  Up shot the thumb again.

  ‘Freedom of expression. Freedom of belief. Just … Freedom, basically.’

  He’d somehow managed to enumerate this last, vague repetition of freedom as if it were a further point, meaning he now looked like a man who madly enumerated mere words in a desperate struggle to imbue significance.

  ‘You talk a lot about freedom of speech.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely,’ said Hugo, pleased at the opportunity to reset. ‘It’s something I feel incredibly strongly about. I mean honestly, this culture of offence. Look, all we’re saying is that we need to have free, open debate, and not have the terms of that debate continually dictated by a single minority group. It’s just common sense.’

  ‘So this whole notion of offence, for you—’

  ‘It’s ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s ridiculous that people are offended?’

  ‘It’s ridiculous that the idea people might be offended by something is becoming a de facto reason not to say it or write it, yes.’

  ‘Should people be able to say whatever they like then?’

  ‘Of course people should be able to say whatever they like. Do you want to live in a country where you’re not able to say what you think?’

  ‘Well, it just seems to me that there’s something of a conflict between the fact that on the one hand, you’re complaining that you and other members of your party are somehow discouraged from voicing your views, while at the same time, you’ve also spoken out very forcefully this week against someone who has tweeted—’

  ‘OK,’ said Hugo, ‘I see what you’re saying. But let’s be clear: this tweet was a death threat.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘You don’t think genocide involves death?’ Hugo decided to deploy his trademark, am I the only one around here who thinks this is crazy laugh, which he always used in tandem with a kind of glance around an imaginary audience. ‘Your conception of genocide must be very different from mine.’

  ‘I’m not disputing the definition of genocide with you, I’m just questioning why you appear to be advocating one rule for yourself and another rule for someone else.’

  ‘I’m not advocating any kind of rule other than the rule we already have, which is the rule of law. Incitement to violence is against the law. Racial discrimination is against the law. It really is as simple as that.’

  ‘What about the violence that has been threatened towards the woman who tweeted that statement by people who claim to be your followers and admirers?’

  ‘Well, like I say, I believe in the rule of law, and so I do not in any way condone—’

  ‘But you’re rather slower to condemn threats of violence by some people than you are others, wouldn’t that be fair to say?’

  ‘No. I condemn all threats of violence in the strongest terms.’

  ‘So for any of your supporters out there watching—’

  ‘Don’t … threaten violence. There. Simple.’ Hugo was about to say but. Remembering Teddy’s advice, he caught himself at the last moment and reshaped it into a now. ‘Now, I’d just like to pick up on this idea that some people are treated more severely than others,’ he said. He was still, he thought, just about clinging to the last tattered vestiges of his easy-going persona, but he was, he knew, close to a severe and no doubt costly break in etiquette. Just who, he asked himself repeatedly, did this woman think she was? ‘Because let’s imagine for a moment, if we may, the response from the general public if a white man had tweeted, however humorously, about a genocide of black women. I mean, can you even picture the outcry?’

  ‘Are you saying you as a white man want the right to tweet, perhaps humorously, about killing black women?’

  ‘No, I’m not saying that. Why on earth would I want to tweet about killing black women?’

  ‘Well, you seem to be very concerned about—’

  ‘I’m saying that we live, whether we like it or not, in a new orthodoxy, and political correctness is all very well—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No but. If you’d let me finish. Political correctness is all very well in theory, providing it doesn’t become so entrenched that we can no longer have a free and open debate.’

  ‘You mention there the, if you like, average white man,’ said Vivian Ross. ‘And you have in fact this week brought up the case of a particular man, a Mr Darkin, who coincidentally lives on the same estate as the woman whose tweets we were just discussing.’

  ‘Well, I mean, you just couldn’t make it up, could you?’ said Hugo. ‘Talk about a perfect illustrative example. Here’s this woman and her, shall we say unconventional family, at least one of whom is claiming benefits, tweeting this appalling vitriol, for all we know on a mobile phone or a laptop that was paid for with taxpayers’ money, and meanwhile, just a few doors down the road, we have a perfect example of the very person against whom she wants to take violent action: an old, vulnerable man, a man who has no doubt worked hard all his life, and who is facing eviction. Now, he’s not on Twitter, is he? He’s not promoting himself. He’s not lapping up the media attention. He’s not enjoying the benefits of the so-called welfare state while at the same time completely contradicting what I think everyone would agree are the basic values of English society. And yet his plight is very real.’

  ‘In that he faces eviction because the estate, the Larchwood Estate to be exact, is to be torn down and replaced with—’

  ‘There’s no room, is there?’ said Hugo, deciding he needed to interrupt Ross more frequently. ‘Let’s just come right out and say it. In the shiny, brave, new, happy-clappy future, there is simply no room for the Darkins of this world.’

  ‘Is it an issue of space then?’

  ‘Absolutely. Look, Britain has in the past however many years seen the biggest rise in immigration since the Second World War. And meanwhile, we’re evicting people from what was supposed to be social housing to make room for more housing. Are we supposed to believe that that’s some kind of coincidence?’ Hugo scoffed. ‘I mean, pull the other one, quite frankly.’

  ‘The estate has been bought out by a private housing organisation. I suppose I just wonder if this is really an issue of space, if we can really tie this situation back to immigration, or if this is more an issue of—’

  ‘The Larchwood Estate was an experiment,’ said Hugo, who by now was thinking, what the hell, why let her complete any sentence at all. ‘Can we agree on that? It was an experiment in community. It depended on shared values. Shared ideals. And yes, come on, let’s say it like it is: a shared culture. Now, I’m not alone in thinking that the Larchwood, as an experiment, has been a failure. Go out there and ask some of the residents. Ask local councillors. Ask charities. It fundamentally has not worked. Now, let’s look at what we’re left with at the end of this experiment. We’re left with a vulnerable old man facing eviction, stuck in his flat not knowing what’s happening, afraid to go out, afraid to speak his mind, afraid of his neighbours. And a few doors down, we’ve got this woman, this unconventional family, spewing hatred and violence. Hatred and violence, I might add, that takes as its primary target this vulnerable old man. Now, I ask you: is that the kind of society we all signed up for? Is that the kind of world we want to live in? I think that from this isolated example of a failed, shall we say inclusive experiment, we can draw further, more broad-reaching conclusions about the extent to which we have all been subject to a similar, but larger, country-wide experiment. And I think that experiment, the great politically correct, multicultural, multisexual, come-one-come-all melting pot of British culture we now find ourselves signed up to, in which some of the most fundamental tenets by which we live our lives – tolerance, respect, family values, and what have you – are not only called into question but actively, even violently undermined, has been a similar failure. Mark my words. What is happening on the Larchwood
Estate is indicative of a wider malaise. It is symptomatic. There will be more and more situations just like this. So you’ll understand, with that in mind, why I take this so seriously. Because how we handle this one sets a very real precedent for how we handle the ones that are to come.’

  ‘But aren’t you conflating—’

  ‘I’m not conflating anything, darling. These things are already conflated. The problem is that people like you—’

  ‘I’m sorry, people like me?’

  ‘People like you in the liberally biased media refuse to report these things as they actually are.’

  ‘But it’s almost as if you’re saying that this old man is directly at risk from this woman tweeting.’

  ‘Well, he is.’

  ‘I don’t think you can necessarily—’

  ‘You don’t think a vulnerable old white man living next door to someone who has called for the violent execution of white men is in some way at risk?’

  ‘Well, I almost think it sounds as if you’re—’

  ‘That poor man,’ said Hugo. ‘Terrified, no doubt. And, while we’re on the subject, let’s not even think about the horrors that await him once the PC brigade get wind of this.’

  ‘The—’

  ‘He’s an emblem, isn’t he? His views, his background. This is a man very much in need of protection.’

  ‘But you’re just stoking the fires of—’

  ‘I’m saying to the local community: this situation is happening right on your doorstep. Turning away and pretending it’s not happening is no longer an option.’

  ‘But you’re not advocating—’

  ‘I’m calling for positive community engagement,’ said Hugo with a smile. ‘Now surely you’re not going to criticise me for that?’

  ‘And what do you say to people who say that, far from promoting positive community engagement, you’re actually deliberately stoking the fires of racial hatred and then manipulating the fallout for your own political gain?’

  ‘Well, I don’t tend to pay much attention to crackpot—’

  ‘But you do recognise, don’t you, that those who said, back when your party’s main thrust was leaving Europe and curbing immigration, that all you had really done was conceal your racism behind popular mainstream political issues, are now pointing to the speed with which you’ve turned on this particular black woman as evidence of exactly the kind of bigotry you’ve always fervently claimed your policies remained uninfected by?’