Not From Above!

by Alexander Mayor

  A glass hits the patio, topped off with a ‘Fuck!’, and the assembled crowd decides to recombine indoors. Sarah, whose home this is, strides across; ‘Dustpan coming through!’

  I turned back to Daniel, but he’d started chatting to a striking, dark-eyed young woman who must be called Harriet, Elizabeth, Lydia, Mariella; who must be a dramatist, a ballet dancer, a saver of souls south of the Mile End Road, a Portuguese teacher who turns out beautiful repro tables in beechwood, recently featured in Monocle magazine.

  Matrices of possibility flip through a three-dimensional shape in my head, interpreting make-up choices as signals for potential outcomes. She glances over, not at me but at Christopher the performance poet, who’s gripping his wine and lurking by the door. Poor guy, he doesn’t look like he’s really prepped for this.

  The Route

  The advert had been teasingly, if probably inadvertently, enigmatic. ‘Passengers needed for ongoing civic transport training programme. Paid position.’

  A paid passenger? At worst it sounded like it could be dull. Days spent presumably circumnavigating the domestic wilderness here in zone 4 slash 5 at around 11mph. Ho hum.

  But I had two months until a repeat surrender into academia would lure me north to Leeds and had been effervescing money in pubs like nobody’s business. As if the flight north would be conducted on lottery wings. So much for that.

  Then too a heartbeat-length fantasy of meeting some delightfully like-minded young thing similarly just-appointed, her life also on pause. ‘We seem to share the same route…’ in the best clipped Cary Grant.

  A moment’s further reflection that ‘passenger’ doesn’t have a verb form. ‘Well, not yet,’ I thought; ‘you wait and see.’ Maybe waiting and seeing would turn out to be key skills? As I say, the thing was all stasis and possibility. Envelope-stuffing was behind or possibly beneath me, I thought, and applied at once.

  •

  Six weeks into any job and you should be starting to get your feet under the table, they say. You’ve met the key people, figured out the nearest passable coffee shop and ordered your business cards. There’s usually a slightly unnerving moment when you realise the new is the norm. ‘Yes, Katie, yup. Yup. Exactly. We should have coffee. Next week?’

  We’re passing through the Meadway Estate, a gently undulating grid of 1940s and ’50s two-beds off the A316, its homes’ tiny windows offset by gentrifying window boxes and occasional arty frills. As we drift by I can’t help thinking that in just a few weeks I’ve become a regular ‘one of the gang’.

  This was one of my favourite parts of the route – a realistically uneventful section of about a half-mile long, conducted at around 4.45pm and on the border of zone 4. I felt like we started to really gel at Meadway. For one thing, you started to see an uptick in passengers and more variation in the overall taxonomy. 11am–4.30pm was the worst – just young mums and pushchairs, occasional school kids bunking off – most of it stuff the drivers could handle even without the magnificent preparation conferred on them by the Programme.

  Andrew, today’s driver, pulled us into a narrow space between an artlessly parked 4×4 outside an antiques shop and a seemingly abandoned red Hoppa bus. He snuck about 70 per cent of the bus into a space that said 50 per cent, tops. ‘Impressive,’ I caught myself thinking, starting to take this gig proper seriously. And it was true that after the initial bedding-in phase I’d noticed we were all getting deeper into the roles. As a ‘parallel public’ we weren’t supposed to fraternise as such, all were to be as strangers, day in, day out. Maybe the solitariness helped deepen the delusion, for only then would we represent a test of the drivers’ mettle. Mass transit observation demanded nothing less.

  But we found little ways, people always do. I made a ‘7’ with two fingers and winked across the aisle at ‘Victoria’, the 19-year-old who scribbles and chews her nails. I don’t, of course, know that her name is Victoria, but it is clear that she chews (regularly) and scribbles (often) – which of these precise aspects were cast-iron parts of her original brief remained deliciously hard to establish. I like to think I can establish girls’ names from small clothing choices through make-up gambits to possible literary achievements, finally ascending to the headiness of actual name likelihoods. Largely an untested area of armchair-detective work, sure. But then you have to be both actor and critic in this game.

  ‘Victoria’ smiled faintly back at my digital ‘7’, then frowned back into her notepad and I resumed staring out the window at the fading afternoon suburbs. A ‘7’ for a bit of finessed parking is all well and good, but you couldn’t say Andrew had been fully tested – not yet. It was a Thursday afternoon, so the weekend was about to kick off – shortly Meadway and Twobridge would become Jäger-on-Thames, as the locals switched roles from retail management to beverage endurance analysts. Arise, rip-roaring regional deans of Alcoholica.

  But mindful of my imminent return to the treadmill of organised education – seminars… note-taking… writing and marking… – I couldn’t help but marvel at the Programme’s didactic scope and ambition. Once graduated, these drivers would be trained to deal with anything the metropolis could throw at them. From bomb disposal to the pacification of escaped animals, the four volumes of the Programme represented a breathtaking matrix of readiness. I felt a little pride for a moment, playing my small part in the finessing of this fine metropolitan system.

  The hydraulic doors exhaled and a lanky late teenager stepped on with a couple of associates in tow. ‘Hello!’ I thought. The last attempted to sneak in behind the second, head lowered as if his own attenuated view would confer invisibility. But Andrew was immediately on top of the situation:

  ‘Oi – where’s your Oyster?’

  ‘I’ve paid, mate.’

  ‘No you haven’t.’

  The trio sat down together in the seats reserved for those with an infographically heavy burden. It was a quality scene. Perfectly executed, with the immaculate timing of veteran performers. At the back of the bus, ‘Oliver’, a 50-something in a moth-eaten tweed coat who was given to reading scripts under his breath, began to protest.

  ‘Boys! You’re holding everyone up. Pay up! Come on!’

  That booming tone, such projection and reach – regional theatre? There were delicately credible tones of embarrassment, the mid-phrase self-doubting strangulation – a tincture of regret – it was all there. The boys remained all gangling wide-leg stance and confident staring. A mobile phone’s tinny speaker started up a contemporary tune. Chk chk pop trat! Chk chk aw right!

  Andrew hollered again from the cab, and in a move that surely marked a milestone in his advance through the Programme, performed a deft pre-drop combo: exit doors open, engine killed. Whammy!

  ‘No Oyster, no bus, lads.’

  The guns fell silent a moment and a pigeon wandered into view just beyond the doors. To break the silence, Andrew pulled out the big guns – and lowered the wheelchair access ramp, mockingly. Not PC, sure, but oh-so-very effective. The silence expanding within and cold air seeping in from the outside conspired to form a difficult weather front for the tough-guy trio, and with a final jumble of expletives at poor Oliver they slunk off the bus, slapping the doors and windows as they went. Bravo Andrew, bravo. There’s an ‘8’ or even a ‘9’ waiting if you can keep this up through the suburb’s lairy Friday night closing times.

  Walkthrough

  Okay, you’re here with Chris – uh, ‘RedTwo’ I mean, ha! – and in this episode, well, a whole lot of shit’s gonna get done, and get clear yo! So the new version has been out like two weeks now and I’ve been playing the hell out of this so I can share with you guys how to nail Level Six – which is a KILLAH! I’m telling you. It’s doable but you’re gonna need to bring your A-Games here, homies.

  First of all, make sure you’ve already got the right outer layers for this one – the city is cold, man, just cold. So hit ‘square’ and make sure you’ve got the armoured three-piece with waistcoat, pretty rad I must
say, but you’re going to thank me, hahaha, in about, oooh, six minutes.

  So where did we leave off? You’ve arrived just inside the town, fucking loving the detail in the drifting garbage got to say, real near to Big Eddie’s restaurant and casino. Okay, so we’re going to go up to the door, and the thing here is to take it slow, you don’t want too much attention, not just yet anyway!

  Right, we’re inside, so scoot over to the bar, here you can order anything from like 20 different cocktails, and they all have different effects depending on the strength, so take it easy if you’re new to this. Right, Moscow Mule, sorted – ten dollars, man! This city’s gonna leave you poor – but you knew that, right? Hahaha. Okay now, feint left – there are three chicas by the jukebox, ignore the redhead – I tried that last night and basically she only speaks Portuguese, so unless you’ve got the European languages extension, welcome to a long, slow evening!

  No, hit Up/Left and talk to the brunette, she’s the target here. I like worked this room for four hours last night – till my mum got home hahaha! – and I can totally tell you this is Sarah and she’s def the key to this level. The rose brooch on her lapel is pretty rad and you should totally mention it, hold Down and Left1 to make an opening comment about the brooch – this nailed it for me. Yo! And there she’s smiling – we are IN hombres! In!

  Okay, you can probably see there are now three other heavy dudes at the bar, don’t pull the rifle or pistols out just yet, the trick is to act real cool – I know, goes against the grain, right? Now hit Action and Right2 – sweet! If Sarah’s eyebrows are raised and she’s smiling, this means it’s all going to plan, so scooch over to the sofa.

  Right – inventory check: do you have the book we stole from the depository on Level 5? In downtown? Good, you’re gonna need it as while you’re with Rebecca you can get 5,000 bonus points by mentioning you’re well-read in poetry. Pull out the book with Action and Up. Nice work. See, both of your heads are closer together. Man, I wish it was this easy in real life, right? Hahaha.

  Okay, now holding Down and Left1 is the bit they don’t tell you at college – amaze! So you’ll notice the lights have gone down – well that’s just how it seems to you and her, it’s like an effect of the talking or something. Now bring up the dialogue input field, oh-kay, and this is where it gets freaky good. Type the following, s’like a code but it’s totally gonna unlock Level 7.

  ‘Sarah, can I tell you about how I sometimes just walk into rooms and just catch you out of the corner of my eye, even when you’re not there? And I’ll think up a funny story, one in which I do not emerge too well (but not that badly either, it must be admitted), just to make you smile, knowing that though I can’t quite see you, as you’re not quite there, this would be what we’d do if we were just together.’

  Wow! Like typing on this thing hurts, right? Damn! Okay, so now hit X and Down and bam! She’s getting up.

  Now the guys at the bar are checking out the room again – don’t, repeat don’t, pull the machine pistol as then it’ll kick off and they’ll totally have you. Okay gently pan 180, real cool like, and look she’s got her coat and is waiting for you by the door. It worked! Amazing, you’re on roller blades (ha! Joke! That’s another level, hombres!)

  And walk o-ver… yes. Yep! She flashed the smile. You’re done. Bo-nus! Prouda you guys! We’re still only nine hours in, but good job! Good job!

  Things That Happen on Islands

  Our first holiday

  Discovered tomes

  Beach-buried currency

  Horse worship

  Peacocks with remits

  Cliffs and their cruel reputations

  Coves with cove preferences

  Cold sibling publishers

  Some of the buildings turn out to be wooden stand-ins

  Rock formations favoured by lovers

  Harbours that harbour dangers

  Noticeboard-mounted unequivocations

  Incomprehensible gaudiness

  Driving-side surprises

  Auspicious tax arrangements

  Impossibly elderly dowagers

  Hyped ruins

  Booze/pie recombinations

  Professional postcard publishers

  Picnic litigation

  Childlike portions

  Jagged rocks and rugged jackets

  Coloured slate roofs that hide a sadness

  Our last holiday

  Year Zero

  I’ll be honest. One month in felt like an epic achievement. We’d all gather together, set aside our tasks for the day and try to share a sense of community. It helped dampen down the anxiety a little. I remember the toasts by candlelight fondly. But candles do unruly justice to the human face – anyone who tells you we all look better after dark is a fool.

  Jacqueline had a kind of practised pout, and a can-do earnestness that had earned her a few advantages when we were assembling the initial shelters. She’s a strong presence in the group. I like Jacqueline, we get on. But I feel sure she’d point the tigers in my direction if it came to it. Her hair’s definitely held up better than most. I wonder what she’s found to put in it?

  The campfire had begun to spark and roar. It was always an optimistic sight and the warmth was welcome too, given the island’s exposed aspect and the increasing lack of trees.

  Georg looked good too, his face inclined as he listened to Jacqueline’s latest poem about the sunset, a rich theme she would return to time and again. An engineer by former calling, Georg tended to look restless and impatient during the daylight hours, but then we must have made for poor labourers. Once lit by flames, though, he took on an explorer’s poise, his face jutting forward, seemingly ready to reach for greater goals.

  Twelve of us, sitting together eating and drinking, it was almost a civilisation restored. Blur your eyes (and your memory) a little and perhaps you might imagine we were at a festival, one of those upscale ones where there’s a suckling pig and the millennials dress like Red Indians. That’s not the PC term, but then that stuff doesn’t come up so much any more. ‘Year Zero!’ Jules held his plastic cup aloft and smiles broke like waves, soundtracked by the actual sea about 300 yards away. ‘Year Zero!’ we followed, in a discord of enthusiasms.

  With a Jules on board, a group will thrive. Be honest, ‘indefatigable’ is a word you rarely hope to use about people in day-to-day life. But when you find someone in your midst who genuinely deserves the term, and with your back against various still-to-be-assembled walls, points should be awarded.

  Jules was the second son of a former war correspondent, somehow battle-hardened despite a childhood in the Cotswolds. Rugged, charismatic, I want to say… leaderly? And bearing a smile that builds confidence in the least talented or most upset is a valuable and powerful skill. We all love Jules, in our different ways.

  •

  It must have been about six or seven weeks after the final camera guys went missing. It had been a tough old time. We’d destroyed the last of the saws cutting down the dragon trees to build the visitor centre. Someone said they’d evolved over 20 million years. They certainly proved more than a match for the prop-quality tools that the TV company had originally brought with us to the island. Crappy tools whose disappointing qualities were intended to cause predictable upset and outbreaks of blame-storming between ‘characters’. It was a grim realisation when it dawned on us that dragon trees take some actual slaying.

  But then you have to keep revising your plans. Adapt, adopt, extend your lifespan. So we all live in the ‘visitor centre’ now, it being the best built of the completed shelters. And references to the television crew have subsided. It’s rather as if we’ve always been here, just as we’ve become.

  •

  In any tabula rasa-type situation, you’re hoping for a nice mix of skills and a breadth of personalities. The nightmare scenario would be, say, all insurance convention attendees, creative writing retreaters, or the touring cast of Miss Saigon. In that respect, at least, we had lucked in.

/>   Predictably (although I didn’t predict it, not even slightly), once we’d got some semblance of a roof over our heads (and buried Sally and Nathaniel), attention turned to bigger questions. It was Alannah, our recovering American as she put it, who first suggested that perhaps we should write a constitution.

  In my English way I’d internally bristled at this idea, largely out of cowardice at the battles I feared it foretold. But after it came up again around the campfire one night I started to see possibilities, openings.

  Despite the liberations of life on a deserted island, rules are the first thing you crave after food and water. Realisations are sharp ended or bitten-in, almost always dangerous. In a tiny place all manner of norm violations become possible, admissible. And in the unknowableness of an island 146 hours by boat from the nearest mainland, every rule must be forged afresh. We became squinters, looking for advantage. Just as your long-distance vision gains acuity in hopefulness, you think bigger about immediate social questions. Maybe it was prudent to get stuff down on paper after all.

  Obviously there are a few big hitters in the constitution world, names to be reckoned with. But as a group, we wanted to go our own way. New stresses and emphases. These days I remember ‘freedom’ mostly as the realisation you’d wandered into the wrong movie screening. But in this situation you become more… how can I put it? Prescriptive.