‘Yes, even the writers.’
‘What about the fucking old men who run Mids TV? What about the people who put all that sexist stuff on TV, all those girls being chased round parks in comedy sketches and prancing around in leotards on gameshows about dogs?’
‘I love your Berliner Schnauze.’
‘I love you. My Berliner Schnauze, as you always seem very happy to point out – my born and bred grumpiness that all Berliners, all my Berliners possess – is rightly directed at them. Those fuckwits. Those fucking men who run Mids TV, who run everything.’
‘Rightly directed at them.’
‘And you work for them.’
‘I do.’
‘So you are an authority figure too, right?’
‘Well maybe. But I don’t get to make any decisions.’
‘But you get to set the tone of the culture.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘So why don’t you stop all that sexist shit? It gets me down. Do something about it!’
‘I tried. Anyway, on Big Plans there was none of that. I wrote female characters who swore and argued.’
‘I should fucking hope so.’
‘Very good. I do accept that Welcome To The Masshouse had pretty girls running around. And I also accept that Welcome To The Masshouse was a risible piece of low-budget entertainment.’
‘Risible?’
‘Scheiße sein.’
‘Ja.’
‘I’ve really got no time for those old dinosaurs. Especially the esteemed executives of the telly world. It’s like the 1950s never ended with most of them. This is a new era. But anyone in power is always going to try and cling onto that power. Why would you not? Those architects and planners weren’t, I don’t think, as utopian as you think they were. I think they were trying to express themselves and their bold ideas for the future, but if they hadn’t built those buildings they’d be nothing. They built to be powerful. They ejaculated concrete all over the city!’
‘And how far have you ejaculated your comedy, your words, over the city, my darling?’
‘A few miles.’
‘A few miles? You can ejaculate your words a few miles?’
‘More or less.’ I paused. ‘OK, look, we were bad. TV was bad. All that stuff with beauty contests and girls in bikinis was fucking shameful really. But architects haven’t got the best track record. Have they? They’re all blokes; they’re all about the “grand vision” rather than collaboration – the typical male failure. Not asking anyone’s opinion. And those subways weren’t great for women with prams.’
‘It was a different time. There should be more women architects, of course, and more buildings that aren’t some kind of… priapic posturing.’
‘I like that. It sounds good.’
‘Thanks. Maybe though, maybe brutalist buildings were more female, more complex, more interesting, less of that cock-in-the-sky business. But you’re right, it was the bigwigs in charge. It always is. But at least those bigwigs gave a shit. They wanted people to have something a bit nicer. What do today’s bigwigs care about?’
‘Just money?’ I offered.
‘Just money,’ she said.
‘But no one asked people if they wanted this stuff right? It was just, “you get what you’re given.” Maybe that’s why people didn’t respect those places, why they soiled their nests.’
‘If you ask people what they want, they think they want a house a kid draws – with four walls and a triangle roof. But they only think they want that because they don’t know anything else. When you’re creating a new society you have to create things that haven’t been there before. I think a lot of people really liked all these weird, modern buildings – once they understood them. And remember I’m talking about the good ones here, not the system-built crap. You’ve got to push things forward otherwise what have you got?’
‘Something simple.’
‘Simple, yes, but boring. You can be boring, my love. You need to embrace the future!’
‘I love how you believe everything, Bel. It’s very attractive. I just never know somehow.’
‘I believe in things. I think I’m right sometimes. I think people might be interested in what I have to say even? Television viewers in the Midlands maybe?’
Bel fluttered her eyelashes.
‘Are you trying to tell me something?’
‘Mids TV want me to make a television programme. About the book.’
‘Ten Brutalist Buildings? On TV?’
‘Exactly. Bob called me.’
‘Bob called you? Wow. He didn’t tell me. You’re going to be a TV star! Men around the entire region are going to want to have sex with my wife.’
‘They are.’
‘Will you be wearing a bikini and running round a park very quickly while you talk about brutalism?’
‘I will not.’
‘I remember how good you were on that episode of I Love My Dog! You looked so… sexy doing all those challenges. Breuer was all over the place. But you did really well. And you were a great talker, a great onscreen presence.’
‘Breuer was being very naughty that day. Beagles are.’
‘I was being naughty that day. I’m sure it’s against some law to have your own wife – and dog – on a game show you’ve written the script for. People might have thought it was a fix. The tabloids certainly would have.’
‘Who cares? And anyway, how can you fix a series of canine obstacle courses? Dogs are gonna do what dogs are gonna do. And that’s make themselves look fucking stupid, mostly.’
‘That really was funny. Breuer made me cry with laughter when he knocked into the table and mugs fell on him.’
‘Sometimes I think he’s a bit blind.’
‘I know. But look, back to the point. This is amazing. I’m so proud of you.’
‘I knew you would be. Let’s go upstairs. I want to celebrate.’
‘I’ll open some wine.’
‘Leave the wine. Just follow me.’
19
2008
Voiceover: ‘It’s the sixteenth of June, 2008. From the centre of the country, from the heart of your region… it’s Bullseye! Tonight… Birmingham looks to the future!’
[Cut to footage of stained concrete buildings.] ‘As plans are announced to demolish the city’s failed 1960s buildings and replace them with much-needed and futuristic housing.’
[Cut to computer-generated views of shiny towers on sunny days and shadow people with no faces standing as still as sausages in front of the flats.] ‘We’ll be speaking to the property developers who will transform Brum.’
[Cut to video of a clean-shaven man in a suit and tie, complete with factory-fresh hard hat which clearly has never been used. Underneath his face, a mauve band topped with white text, which reads ‘Alexander Newland’ and ‘Spokesperson – Aspiration Urban Existence Cocoons’.]
The man in the suit and hard hat: ‘We all agree that Brum is looking tired. These three buildings we’ve bought – Birmingham Central Library, Mids TV HQ, and Priory Square – they no longer work. In fact they’ve never worked; they’re failed architecture. Modernism, brutalism: these are failed styles from a failed past. They’re built badly, and look at them – they are not fit for a modern European go-getting region like ours. So we’re going to sympathetically de-build them using a light-touch technique. And once they’ve been sympathetically de-built, we are going to re-build fine new towers full of luxury apartments or, as we call them, chic cocoons, which will be attractive and provide chances for hard-working local people to buy their own home. And can I also add that this de-building and re-building will also empower hard-working local people with various employability opportunities. This is a chance to get rid of the bad old Brum and realise a renaissance, a vision for a glass-fronted regener…’
*
Bob said, ‘You’ve got a day off from the shoot before we head to Yorkshire. Go and get yourself a kebab and then watch a film.’
I went to Cannon Hil
l Park, tracing the path me and Bel and Breuer used to take. I was going to watch a movie at the arts centre by the lake in Cannon Hill Park. Me and Bel had seen dozens of flicks there. Many foreign films – German, Danish, Czech, Spanish and Korean. Bel was addicted to foreign cinema; she loved to see how other cultures dealt with the universal human experience – happiness/sadness, love/loss. Today there was a British New Wave classic from the 1960s showing in matinee. It was set in Lancashire and written by an angry young man. I knew I didn’t need to pre-buy a ticket. There’d be a few bored mums with babies and some old people. What was conceived as a revolutionary snarl in black-and-white times had today become a gentle afternoon out. I hesitated at the box office and instead veered out into the park. The weather was warm and appealing, I wanted to be outside. As soon as I walked into the park I knew it was a mistake. I felt crushed. Belinda loved it here. We’d walk down with Breuer on each and every Sunday that we were in Birmingham together. We’d let him off his lead in the park. The three of us. And one day maybe there’d be four of us. But Breuer was enough of a kid, our kid. He knew instinctively where we were going when we left for our park walks and was as excited about it as a child on Christmas Day. It’s funny how the excitement drains out of your life in adulthood – nothing really gets you fired up anymore, nothing moves you. Loss harms you, and loss becomes a constant as you get older. Life’s pains and disappointments suck the enthusiasm away. But a dog, well… a fucking dog still gets excited the same amount; his frenzy never diminishes. He tugged that lead so hard as we walked up Salisbury Road, he was so bloody intoxicated by the prospect of a run, of chasing a stick and bringing it back. All he wanted to do was get into mischief. Bel loved Breuer – probably more than she loved me. The way she’d rumple his fur and kiss his slobbery mouth astonished me. It was endearing though. I miss him because thinking of him reminds me of her.
Remembering these things addled my mind. Too many memories. I couldn’t compute the here and now. I propped myself up on one elbow and listened to The Rationalists through bad-quality headphones. I’d been meaning to buy some better ones. I suddenly felt very alone. The sun vanished without warning. The heavy sky above me seemed unusually ponderous. The bonds that appeared so strong had severed so easily, in the blink of an eye. My wife, once so real, so visceral, was now nothing but a memory. Did she ever exist at all? A German girl who ended up in Birmingham, a writer obsessed with a niche subject, a perfect mirror for me, who I adored and who, remarkably, adored me back. She seemed so implausible when I thought about it like this. A blade of grass between my fingers. I rubbed. I tugged it out and stared at it. How easily it would cleft in two if you pulled very gently. Two parts of what was once whole, split forever. Things you thought were permanent, things you assumed could never be moved – they weren’t permanent, they could be moved. The trees that framed the edge of the park swayed with a solid grandeur, but one lightning bolt could split them down the middle too.
Fresh air was good – apparently. Exercise was good – apparently. Healthy eating and a reduction in smoking and drinking would also cure me of my ailment faster. My doctor had been very generous, very understanding. Doctors had always been so nice to me, so calm. My heart was actually hurting though; its sinews strained at every beat. No doctor could ever do anything about that. The pressure in my head. Steel pressing down on my shoulders. My legs like tungsten. Sometimes I couldn’t move them. I had to lie down with my arms crossed over my chest. A beagle barked in the background. When I squinted, the scene turned sepia and the lines across my eyes became visions of wounds, oozing and seeping. With my eyelids closed I only saw Belinda smiling. ‘Elizabeth Anderson’ shot through the headphones and dripped its sombre, lilting pitter-patter of guitar and vocal into my ear canal and made my chest heave. Tears welled in my eyes, lakes with dams, dams were broken, liquid flowed, down my cheeks, first left then right. I sobbed as quietly as possible, muffled and serene. Everything was so slow, so lumbering. Everything had slowed down within me to match the way the city seemed to have slowed. My feet like lead. Rooted to the spot, one on top of the other, me lying on my side now. This was no way to live. My despair had a sensation, a sound, a taste. All of them repulsed me. And it was embarrassing. I couldn’t bear the thought of people seeing me like this. I felt a hot, wet tongue slather across my right cheek. A friendly face appeared, a familiar-ish face coloured brown and black and white, covered in drool and with its tongue lolling out. Its ears were huge. It winked at me. Was it real?
‘Buckley!’ I heard. ‘You naughty boy. Leave the poor man alone. Come back here!’ And then a, ‘I’m so sorry about that.’ I couldn’t say a word; I couldn’t move. ‘Are you… are you alright?’
‘Yeah… just…’ Wait for the worst to pass. Give it half an hour.
There was an ice cream van parked up. On the side of the van were painted the words Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, who must have been the owners of the ice cream company. The twinkle in a cartoon character’s eye caught my attention. Maybe a 99 could be my salvation. The pressure had arrested slightly, the weight had lifted momentarily. I remembered how much I enjoyed these ice creams with a piece of fossilised chocolate sticking out of the top. It seemed right to order one, and I did. I dragged myself up and walked over to the ice cream van. The chocolate was frozen in the same way it had been the last time I licked one of these – which was a long time ago. The sugar gave me a brief burst of energy.
Guided by voices, led by urges. How refreshing to let the plot take you along. Where was it shoving me? I walked to town and found myself at New Street Station. I got on a Coventry stopping train and got off at Marston Green. I walked along the path that leads round, north-west, towards the end of Birmingham Airport’s runway. Belinda had brought me to this unpromising spot once. Now, as then, the area was filled with caravans, scrap metal, cars, those portable offices that fit on trucks, banners and flags, footballs and horses. I loved it and ended up using it as a location in Big Plans – for a scene where the planners debate the merits of sacrificing the whole of Chelmsley Wood, that huge edge-of-town council estate, to double the size of the airport. Belinda thought there was a fierceness to this zone of industry and aircraft noise so near to the semi-detached houses of Marston Green which almost abut the runway itself. The sweaty reek of kerosene lifted my spirits, and when the planes started landing, roaring inches above my head on finals made treacherous by the crosswind, I watched them with awe. The runway wasn’t flat. Instead you could see it bobble up and down like a crinkle-cut chip as it followed the contours of the heath it sat on. I thought seriously about jumping the fence and walking out onto it.
I bought a takeaway pizza on the way home, from a local vendor which shared its name with a US mafioso from the 1920s. By the time I slumped on the sofa, the fat from the cheese had started to ooze and attack the box’s fabric. The food was tepid on my tongue; my mouth filled with the comforting sensation of salt and grease. I opened a beer and pressed the green button on my remote control. The TV fired up.
I went back under the stairs and swirled my arm into the box of Mids TV videos like the guests on the lunchtime show did when they were blindly selecting a competition-winning postcard, its owner to then be sent a toasted-sandwich maker or voucher for a free day out at the safari park near Kidderminster. I closed my eyes like they once did and revelled in the unholy sound of plastic bashing against plastic.
I picked a video out and went back to the living room, smashing it into the hole in the VHS machine with the same care that a postman puts a bill through your door in the morning.
Fuzziness, then the picture cleared up. I sat back and took a hearty sip of beer. A spinning ‘M’ greeted me.
*
[Title music – jaunty and insistent, like the soundtrack to a fair pulling into town. Scenes of Birmingham play out in the background, but they all look grotty – motorways, underpasses, tower blocks, concrete boxes.]
Title card – BIG PLANS
[The camera hover
s over Victoria Square and then crash-zooms down to show two men in suits with drainpipe trouser bottoms strolling across the screen and into the Council House as the music fades out.]
[Two builders are playing football on the roof of Priory Square. Building machinery and rubble has been added by props department to make it seem like it’s 1965 and the building is under construction. Because, remember, this is actually filmed in the 1990s.]
Seddon: ‘Come on, ’Arris, your mam could do better than this!’
Harris: ‘Me mam’s in a bloody wheelchair.’
Seddon: ‘Exactly.’
Harris: ‘Roight. It’s Villa vs Blues. FA Cup Final 1965…’
Seddon: ‘I don’t think that’s likely, ’Arris.’
Harris: ‘You can always dream! It’s a penalty at Wembley. Villa’s star striker Harris is up against that shite lad that Blues have got on loan. What’s his name? Oh yeah – Seddon! He couldn’t stop a ball for toffee. The crowd are going wild. It’s this one for the match, this one for the cup. Harris steps up. Harris kicks it and…’
[Seddon, the other builder, dives upwards but Harris has skied the ball. We see it fly through mid-air, out over the top of the car park, and then plummet to the ground…]
[Quick musical interlude; rapid montage of building-site views and girls in monochrome-patterned miniskirts walking through the Bull Ring Markets.]
[Two men in suits, one about fifty and one about thirty-five, are talking on a building site. We can’t hear what they’re saying. We just see a football drop onto the yellow hard hat of the older one then bounce off it and land in a pool of drying cement, where it lodges.]
[Shocked] Benedetti: ‘What the…?’
[The other man stifles a giggle.]
Benedetti: ‘What the hell was that, Rocaster?’
Rocaster: ‘It was a football, Mr Benedetti.’
Benedetti: ‘A blasted football?’
Rocaster: ‘I think so.’
The Wall in the Head Page 11
