Eating Air

by Pauline Melville

  ‘Shall we take mum up a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s the time?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she beamed. ‘The time’s in the front room.’

  ‘Do you want to watch children’s telly because if you do we’ll have to move at the speed of light. The programme is starting in a minute.’

  Hector pushed open the door to his wife’s workroom. Dawn put the tea on the table. Barbara ignored Hector.

  ‘Thank you, Dawn. Don’t forget the Maypole fete tomorrow. You can put out some clean clothes to wear.’

  ‘What is the speed of light?’ asked Dawn on the way downstairs.

  ‘Something that goes very very fast.’ Hector bent down to switch on the telly.

  ‘Faster than the speed of dark?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve never thought of that.’

  Chapter Four

  Victor Skynnard awoke with a guilty jump as the front door banged shut and Mavis left the house. She taught piano to various pupils around town. Victor tried to settle back down to his work. All told it had not been a creative morning. No new neural pathways had opened up. There had been no unexpected synaptic linkages, no images from the underworld of his subconscious apart from the unwelcome intrusion of the princes of the realm. He popped a marshmallow into his mouth. How would he describe his day? Mediocre, so far. He toyed with the idea of writing to the Honours Committee at 10 Downing Street, recommending himself for a gong, and then, when it was offered, publicly turning it down in a sunburst of glory.

  There was a blockage in Victor’s creative energy. When these blockages occurred, they affected the hydraulics of his writing in such a way that his creativity sometimes spurted out sideways in the form of anonymous letters to political leaders. During the war against Iraq he had, in his impotence and distress, fallen back on making obscene phone calls to the Ministry of Defence from a public call-box in a fake northern accent. One evening he ran out with a spray can and painted ‘Poodle Must Die’ on the corrugated iron fence round a building site. It felt like an act of courage. On the whole he believed that when it came to the end of the day, if Members of both Houses of Parliament quietly packed up their belongings, went home and never returned, the world would be a better place. Would it make any difference? The country was already a bird’s nest of laws, a haystack of legislation.

  At the precise moment when the doorbell rang Victor, with a rolled newspaper in hand, was absorbed in the chase of a bluebottle that had flown in a few days earlier in the mild weather. He was trying to persuade it to exit through the bottom of the open sash window. The fly had been stationary on the window pane wringing its hands for some time and obtusely refusing to take up the possibility of escape. It had stopped buzzing some days before and crawled here and there always just out of reach.

  Victor opened the door and a gust of rain came in. Standing on the doorstep was a middle-aged man wearing a heavy black leather motorcycle jacket, leggings and a red and black crash helmet. The pale visitor took off his helmet. He wore thick black-rimmed spectacles. The man’s hair was black but a grey streak rose up from the centre like a badger’s marking. His mouth was wide and thin. When he spoke his voice was soft, almost apologetic.

  ‘Victor Skynnard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mark Scobie.’

  For a few seconds the name meant nothing to Victor. Then, in a balls-shrivelling moment, he realised who was standing on his doorstep. A smile tried to force itself through the layers of dismay on his face but failed, only resulting in a nervous twitching of his lips. Victor tried to sound calm.

  ‘Good god! What a surprise! How are you? Is it safe for you to be here? How wonderful. What about the police?’

  ‘Is it OK to come in?’ The accent had a slight twang which Victor guessed must be the result of his years in Australia.

  ‘Of course. Of course. Sorry. Christ. How amazing. I can’t get over this.’ Victor glanced quickly up and down the street and then asked: ‘Is everything OK?’

  From his smile it was clear that Mark Scobie was aware of Victor’s trepidation.

  ‘Come in to the front room where I work.’ Victor stood aside. His hands were trembling slightly as he opened the door to his study. The leather-clad figure went in ahead of him.

  Victor’s first thought was to try and get this man away from the house as quickly as possible.

  ‘You’re lucky to catch me,’ he said looking at his watch and inventing an appointment. ‘I’ve only got about ten minutes before I have to go out. Well, well. This is so extraordinary. I can’t believe it.’

  Victor wrung the hand of his visitor with unnecessary vigour. The truth was that, despite his political convictions, Victor did not want a terrorist or even an ex-terrorist or a putative terrorist staying in the spare room. Not these days. This was no longer the seventies. It had been bad enough then. Didn’t this man understand that the whole international picture had changed? He cast an infuriated glance at the visitor. What the hell was he doing back here? Squad cars might come screeching to his door any minute. He, Victor, would be put under surveillance or house arrest. He would be taken to Paddington Green top-security police station. He began to invent his cover story. All he knew was that this man was the son of a famous actress who happened to be a friend of his. He knew nothing about his past. Victor could feel prickles radiating from the top of his spine. How quickly could he get himself a radical lawyer?

  Mark put his crash helmet down on the sofa and took off his leather jacket before stretching wearily. He seemed tired. The leather gear creaked as he sat down.

  ‘Look. I’ll be quick.’ He smiled. ‘I haven’t contacted my mother. I wasn’t sure where to go then I hit on the idea of coming to you. A while ago she gave me your address and said you were a reliable comrade. Can you get in touch with her for me and tell her I’m in England? That’s all I’m asking. I don’t know if it’s OK to go to her place or not. I haven’t met the guy she’s been living with since my father died and I’m not sure about him.’

  ‘Yes. Of course I can.’ Victor’s brain was seething with escape plans – his own escape. He managed to plaster a fake smile over his face. Mark Scobie continued to talk in a level tone.

  ‘The person I most need to be in touch with is Hector Rossi. If it’s difficult for me to stay at my mother’s he will find somewhere for me to go. Do you know where he is these days?’

  ‘Er no.’ Victor’s heart sank. He wanted nothing to do with all this. Hector Rossi was another well-known name from the seventies, a man who had spent a long time in jail. ‘Surely they wouldn’t do anything after all these years. The police, I mean. Have you … um … eaten?’

  Victor could have kicked himself for mentioning food or anything that would keep the man there longer than necessary. All sorts of thoughts were tumbling through his head. Supposing he, Victor, were charged with being an accessory to something. He could be charged with harbouring a criminal or worse, conspiracy or aiding a terrorist. Why had he opened the door?

  Mark nodded. ‘I grabbed a kebab on the way here, thanks. But I’m knackered. I’ve just biked over from Holland. Mind if I have a bit of a kip on this sofa?’ He was worn out and looked pale. Suddenly he put his feet up, boot-heels on the arm of the sofa. He rested his crash helmet on his stomach, placed his head against the other arm and went almost immediately to sleep. Victor stared at him with outrage then quickly checked his pocket for his front door keys and let himself out. He must find Vera straight away.

  As he left the house Victor felt himself to be riding the horse of a great decision. He headed for the telephone box at the end of the square. No point in making traceable calls from his own line. Panic is a great energiser. His legs began to run of their own accord.

  *

  Victor finally traced Vera Scobie to a picket of about ten people outside the newly refurbished Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Malet Street. Vera was wearing an expensive beige trench coat w
ith a scarf tied round her stylishly cut grey hair. She was busy handing out leaflets to passers-by. Sheltering under part of the porch were five Uzbeks whom Vera had brought with her. The women wore headscarves with big roses printed on them. They all looked gloomy. As Victor approached, a young square-chinned actor in a state of great agitation was talking to Vera about a failed audition:

  ‘You see I assumed the audition was going to be on stage at the Aldwych, but something was going on there and we couldn’t use the stage. So I had to do the audition in a tiny office upstairs crammed with furniture. There was hardly room to move and I was playing the part of a Chinese emperor who had epileptic fits. I went into the first fit and knocked some letters off the table including a very important one, about the theatre’s annual grant. I was just about to have the second fit when the director asked me to stop. “That’s fine, thank you,” he said.’

  ‘I shall phone him,’ said Vera huskily, ‘and explain your political background. No-one unfamiliar with the works of Rosa Luxemburg should be allowed to appear in that play.’ She turned away and called out to anybody who might be listening:

  ‘Save our profession.’

  Victor approached her and from ten feet away she started proselytising in her gorgeous smoky voice.

  ‘Hello there.’ She turned to him. ‘How lovely that you came.’ She addressed him with misty-eyed warmth. ‘Do you realise that our noble profession is being sullied?’

  ‘No. What’s happening?’ asked Victor.

  ‘I have just discovered that the mealy-mouthed governing board of this treacherous school, where I myself trained, has given in to the multinational corporations and agreed to train their management personnel. They now do not only train actors. They are training politicians and businessmen.’

  ‘That’s awful.’ Victor was indeed taken aback.

  ‘Yes. Can you believe it? They are accepting money to train businessmen in how to walk and gesture authoritatively; to look as though they are listening sympathetically to clients; how to persuade people to buy goods through seductive voice technique; and how to train politicians in the use of body language so that they look sincere and as though they are not lying. It’s disgusting.’

  ‘Save our profession,’ she called out again. It began to drizzle. Someone handed her an umbrella.

  ‘Thank you.’ The reward was a dazzling smile.

  ‘We must start a newspaper. We have to do it. It should include articles from theatre in other countries. An international paper. You could write for it.’ For all her renown there was something direct and unpretentious in her manner. ‘We have to denounce injustice everywhere.’

  ‘I don’t feel like doing that at the moment,’ Victor demurred.

  ‘Why ever not?’ For a moment she looked dismayed. Then she brushed away the inconvenient reply. ‘Well you could do it later. And perhaps you could think of somebody else meanwhile, until you are ready. We need to spread the information about what is really happening in our profession.’

  She continued like this for some minutes before pausing and seeming to examine his face in great detail.

  ‘It is Victor, isn’t it?’ she said. He had forgotten how short-sighted she was. She continued evangelising:

  ‘The prime minister is a philistine. He has no depths. He lacks wisdom. If he had depths he would love the arts.’

  Victor lowered his voice.

  ‘Vera. I need to speak to you urgently.’

  ‘Just one minute.’ She fished up her spectacles which were on a black cord around her neck and put them on. Then she rested the open umbrella on her shoulder and went to fetch herself a placard from the few that were resting against the glass front of the drama school. They had become wet and torn. She gave a placard to Victor. Her gloves were damp.

  ‘Here you are, Victor. What are you doing here?’ But before he could answer she raised her voice and called out in her famously throaty voice:

  ‘Keep big business out of the arts.’

  She turned towards Victor again. ‘Did you know Victor that, to our shame, Hitler was trained by an actor in gestures of oratory? Let us not repeat that ignoble episode. We must keep big business and charlatans out of the arts. Business has got in everywhere.’

  Victor managed to take her arm and lead her away from the group.

  ‘Vera. Listen to me. Your son Mark is here.’

  ‘What?’ She immediately came down to earth. She lowered the placard and looked at him in disbelief.

  ‘Mark is here. He’s in my front room. I’m sorry to break it to you like this but I’m not sure what to do.’

  ‘Well you must hide him.’ Vera looked aghast. ‘I must come and see him straight away. No I’d better not. It’s not safe. I’m too well-known. What’s he doing here? Why didn’t he tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know. He wanted me to tell you. He wasn’t sure he could trust Alex.’

  She bridled at this reference to her partner.

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Of course he can trust Alex. Alex knows everything. Alex is absolutely reliable. Alex thinks that what he did was splendid. He has the greatest admiration for him. Let me tell the others that something has turned up and I have to leave. One minute.’

  ‘Keep the boardroom out of the stage,’ she yelled as she rushed to put down her placard. Victor ran behind her.

  ‘He wants to get in touch with Hector Rossi.’

  She stopped.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’ She bit her lip and took Victor by the arm.

  ‘I’ve just remembered. I’ve got the Uzbeks with me. Go and tell Mark that I can’t come just now. Tell him that I have people from Uzbekistan staying at the house. They’ve been tortured. It’s not safe for him to come there just yet. You must keep him at your place until I say it’s safe. Dear Victor. You must be our go-between.’

  On the tube train as he hung on to the overhead bar Victor assumed a brave stance, upright, head thrown back, chin thrust forward – the sort of stance you might assume if you were up to your neck in a rapidly rising tide of shit.

  He checked that there was no sort of surveillance in the street and then let himself into the house.

  Chapter Five

  While Vera Scobie was demonstrating outside the drama school, her partner Alex Hamilton was sitting at the kitchen table of their house in Tenterden. The table was cluttered with scripts. The radio murmured in the background. He drank some half-cold coffee from a bowl as he looked through the newspaper. Several ashtrays were full to overflowing with the stubs of cheap Uzbek cigarettes. A pair of Vera’s spectacles lay upturned on the table amongst scattered pamphlets, unopened bills and envelopes. It was a relief to have the house to himself for a while.

  His partnership with Vera had lasted amicably for fifteen years. It was a good match of status. Both prided themselves on their radicalism. Alex himself cut an attractive figure, slim, debonair and well-proportioned with a light step. His dark hair almost reached his collar in a way that managed to be both respectable and a touch bohemian. He enjoyed his reputation as a progressive journalist, clear-headed and humorous. He nurtured that secret internal image every man has of himself – handsome, honourable and brave.

  In half an hour he was due to meet John Buckley from MI5. Such meetings two or three times a year were routine. Alex maintained the contact for professional reasons, but he also enjoyed Buckley’s company. Buckley had risen to become one of the top men at MI5 and Alex felt gratified at being one of the privileged few allowed a discreet glimpse into the power-filled arena of the secret services. He was often surprised by his contacts there. They seemed more broadminded than the stereotype would suggest. He looked forward to these meetings with Buckley. Buckley was a witty and erudite conversationalist.

  However, a telephone call from Vera had put his midday appointment with Buckley on a different footing. Vera sounded breathless and upset when she phoned from London. She knew about his lunch engagement and wanted him to find out from Buckley whether there w
as still an active warrant out in England for her son Mark’s arrest.

  ‘It’s urgent. Can you find out if the police and secret services are still interested in him? But be discreet when you ask.’

  ‘Why do you need to know that after all this time?’

  ‘I can’t speak right now. I’m surrounded by Uzbeks. I’ll tell you everything when we get home.’

  ‘I’ll do my best but it’s Special Branch who have that sort of information not MI5. Buckley isn’t the man to ask but I’ll try to find out what I can without being too obvious.’

  ‘Do what you can.’

  Alex stood up and went to the kitchen window. The helper had left some sort of stew on the Aga and he lifted up the lid of the pot and breathed in the steamy aroma of beef goulash. Then he wandered into the living room. They had built two extensions onto the rambling sixteenth-century house. The living room was part of the original building and was a little cramped and dark. The ceiling was low and the windows overlooking the garden were small. The wallpaper had a regency stripe and the walls were crammed with photographs of Vera playing various classical parts, framed playbills, sundry awards, designer sketches of costumes and a large oil-painting of her as Madame Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard. He looked at the clock. He was to meet Buckley at one o’clock in the Crown and Castle pub at Smarden.

  Alex opened the door into the quiet hum of the pub and saw the rotund figure of Buckley studying the large plastic-covered menu. His neatly clipped white hair surrounded a patch of pink freckled scalp. There was a deliberate devil-may-care look to his open jacket which he wore over a white poplin shirt with a solid red tie. He had to sit sideways with his legs crossed to make room for a paunch which escaped flamboyantly over a low belt. As soon as he spotted Alex, he put the menu down and pointed with pleasure to a half-empty glass of white Belgian beer.