The Wall in the Head
Page 31
‘It’s too late for that. They’re going to knock them down come hell or high water.’
‘You want to blow up the council offices?’
‘Jesus, I don’t want to kill anyone.’
‘Me neither. Not anymore.’
‘I just want… I just want the story to end with a bang. That’s all. No deaths. No one hurt. But rather than a depressing little whimper, I want Bel’s story to end with a fucking bang. She’d have loved that. She’d have loved it like that. I know she would. A final tribute to her. On the day they open those bloody new apartment buildings, in a couple of years or whatever… so no rush… but – well, I want that first day to be the last day anyone will see them.’
Pete exhaled. ‘Are you sure about this?’
I hesitated. ‘I’m not sure… I think I am. Sometimes you have to stand up for what’s right. Even if it means doing something wrong.’
Pete tossed the ciggie into the canal. The ripples from the point of impact spread fast, wide. ‘I’m not saying OK, because it is a crazy request. But I’ll see what I can do. We’ve got time. Lots of time to think.’ I saw his reflection in the dirty water. ‘My dad was in the army. I remember he told me once about a plot, in 1974. Some of them were trying to drag him into this thing – it was a coup attempt. He said he told them to fuck off, to think about right and wrong. I remember his cheeks going red when he told me this tale.’
‘I know exactly what you’re talking about. My dad was fascinated with that plot. Thought we could have ended up with a crazy dictator like in South America. Maybe we nearly did.’ A memory came to me. ‘That was exactly one week after the library opened. That was when they were going to take over the country.’
Pete looked thoughtful. ‘Everything’s circular, I guess.’
‘Hmmm. Maybe. Maybe not.’
Then he cracked a half smile. ‘Now about that pint…’
*
Yellow dinosaurs with greedy mouths chomped into Birmingham Central Library. I’d survived but it had not. Its organs were visible in the wound of smashed concrete. I opened the pot containing dry ashes that were somehow once connected to my wife in a way that seems too abstract to comprehend now. I scattered half of them where the building was dying. They blew away in the breeze. I shook hands with the foreman and gave the white safety helmet back to him. I crossed the bridge that swooped over the traffic circling below on Paradise Circus and navigated Centenary Square, past the city’s new library, which looked like an enormous Christmas decoration. The Mids TV HQ and studios were being knocked down too. More dinosaurs ate away at the structure. Everything was vanishing. Everything.
40
2019
Is this a dream?
Then I saw Pete. He was sitting on a bench, looking nonchalant. I turned round and time froze momentarily as I examined No. 1 The Studios. A monotonous new tower clad in glass and black plastic – shoebox-shaped, with dozens of odd protrusions up and down its facades like something approximating a pub game you play with stacked wooden bricks. The asymmetrical block was the worst kind of flimsy, flashy shite. Apparently this kind of architecture was what this kind of age was represented by. Bel had schooled me. I understood. This building said nothing of note. It meant nothing. It was all about making money for an elite. It was everything that Bel had railed against. It offended me because I knew it would have offended her. And because it occupied the site where our studios once sat. The studios weren’t much and you probably don’t remember them, but they were a part of my life.
This hideous skyscraper looked exactly like No. 1 The Books, with its even more moronic name, which sat 300 yards away over on the old Central Library site. The two were essentially the same building; the architects hadn’t even bothered to make them distinguishable. All the flats had been sold in both blocks – many to foreign investors, some to British citizens in their forties and fifties augmenting their pensions. Most of the flats would then be rented out to Birmingham’s young couples, master’s students, office workers. ‘Buy to let’ had become a scourge. Over at No. 1 The Priories, it was the same story: same shit design, same sell-out. All three buildings were to be opened on the same day – today. 16 June 2019. A terrible trinity.
Pete rose. ‘Just got the word back. All the buildings are emptied. I called in false fire alarms. Everyone’s out. The ball’s in your court…’
Suddenly, I was aware of a presence. From nowhere. I turned. It was her. A woman with honey hair stood next to me. ‘I’m sorry I lost you in Berlin that time.’ Hot breath in my ear. ‘Now do it.’ I turned and she had gone, but Rocaster and Benedetti appeared in her place, and they both nodded too. So I nodded at Pete. He raised his eyebrows and reached into his jacket pocket. Rocaster and Benedetti disappeared. Everything seemed so still and so calm for a few seconds. Then, suddenly, I felt a blast of heat like someone opening an oven door. A blinding white flash erupted in front of my eyes. I felt the earth contract and expand, tilt a little. I toppled sideways like a felled oak. Floored. A sound like a thunderclap cracked a mile into the sky. I lay there, blinking, looking up at the angry sky. I rolled onto my side. The faces of bystanders contorted in shock and wonderment – and fear. Rubble began raining down; dust billowed. A few seconds of silence, as if nothing had happened, as if time itself couldn’t understand what had taken place on its watch. The peace, the lack of movement, the shock seemed to last for years. Then I heard the stomping boots clatter past me. Then the alarms started wailing, wailing from every direction. No screams, thank God.
An Eastern European accent. ‘Everyone is ok, yeah? What the fuck? Did you and the other two get out?’
‘Yeah, everyone out, no problem. What the fuck? The entire building! Just come down!’
Men in overalls and blue hard hats just stood with hands on heads, surveying what used to be No. 1 The Studios, saying, ‘What the fuck? What the fuck?’
Bob and Kate appeared from nowhere. Bob started laughing.
Pete was squatting, one knee on the ground, hand on head, unmoved, cool as a cucumber. Pressing a button.
Another flash, another enormous explosion from the direction of No. 1 The Books, where the Central Library used to bask. Not as loud. Still it thundered. Bob’s laughs grew heartier now. Tears streamed down his face. Smoke rose up, turning day to night. When it cleared, all I could see was a gap on the horizon, a jigsaw piece removed, a tooth pulled, a slice of city given back to the sky, a blot on the landscape gone, a different view of the buildings beyond, an odd feeling, a sense of a job well done. I felt the tiles of Centenary Square hard on the back of my head.
Pete pressed again. One more huge bang in the distance, coming from the direction of No. 1 the Priories. Shock. Again, less loud than the first two. Too far away. Still demanding attention though. Then, my ears ringing, tinnitus squawking, like the sound of Mids TV after closedown. I put my hands on my temples and rubbed them, rubbed my eyes, my cheeks and my nose. Beamed. Laughed. Birds circled above, oblivious to the chaos, as smoke and dust wafted through the scene. Sirens sounded. Paused purgatory. Minutes stretching. Sickness simmering. Story ending. Bob and Kate peered down at me.
‘Get up off the bloody ground,’ said Bob, wearing a face like a Sunday-afternoon drunk, reaching down, his hands suddenly under my armpits. ‘You silly sod.’ I felt Kate’s hand on my cheek. She stared into my eyes.
‘Here’s to life,’ I coughed. The horizontals and the verticals mixed as I rose. I felt nauseous. I kept looking though. I kept looking. I always keep looking. I’ll always keep looking.
Not The End
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