Heaven's Light

by Hurley, Graham

  The waitress was at Barnaby’s elbow. He ordered steak and kidney pudding, watching her face as her eyes strayed to the poster. When she grinned, he asked her why. ‘I just wish it was true,’ she said. ‘That lot never listen to anyone.’

  Charlie roared with laughter, then blew her a kiss. ‘See?’ he said. ‘See what I mean?’

  She blushed, scribbled down Charlie’s order for egg and chips, then hurried away. A third poster rough had appeared at Barnaby’s elbow. This time the message was simpler. The pen-and-ink sketch showed a grinning footballer saluting the terraces. The opposition goalkeeper lay sprawled in the mud. Beneath, in the same rough scrawl, Charlie had sent the city another message. POMPEY FIRST, it read. ANOTHER HOME WIN.

  Barnaby smiled. Pompey’s football team was in deep trouble. ‘They’re nearly bottom,’ he protested.

  ‘I know. That’s the point. We needn’t be.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Absolutely. We start a new party. We get our shit together. We contest the next elections. Here. Look.’

  The last poster was different in tone, more sombre, more gritty. An upturned supermarket trolley lay at the foot of a council tower block. Kids hung around, crop-haired, watchful. In the background, the burned-out carcass of a car. The artwork was infinitely more detailed than the rest, an essay in urban bleakness, and underneath Charlie had penned a simple question. WHOSE PEACE DIVIDEND? it asked.

  Barnaby nodded. Of all the posters, he felt that this one hit the mark. Anyone in the city who bothered to keep their eyes open would recognize the scene. It made you angry. It made you want to change things. For centuries, Pompey had been spilling blood for crown and country. But when it came to peace, who were the real winners?

  Barnaby tapped the sheaf of roughs. ‘They’re excellent,’ he said quietly. ‘Who else has seen them?’

  ‘Kate.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘Not much. I chose a bad time.’

  ‘Billy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Back in February, Billy Goodman had led the charge that turned Haagen’s demo into a full-scale riot. By the time the ambulance men fought their way through to him, he’d been unconscious. Ten weeks in hospital had mended his broken bones but mentally he’d become a ghost, functioning only with the help of a cocktail of anti-convulsant drugs. Kate visited him daily. A discreet cheque from Zhu had bought him a fourth-floor seafront flat with views across the Solent but his life had contracted around him, and he seldom ventured out. Lately, according to Kate, he’d become depressed to the point of threatening suicide and she’d taken the precaution of removing the key to the balcony. Not that there weren’t a million other ways of taking a life if it no longer seemed to promise very much.

  Barnaby reached for the posters. Kate’s current interest in politics, as he knew only too well, was restricted to venomous asides about Labour’s rightward drift. A brand new party, the chance of a fresh start, might restore her political appetite and, with it, a little of the warmth that had once cocooned them.

  Barnaby held each of the posters at arm’s length, trying to imagine them on billboards across the city. Local elections took place in May. Normally only a third of the seats were up for grabs but next year, unusually, the entire council was to be re-elected. Charlie was watching him again, his new-found earnestness tinged with a little of the old mischief.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Are we up for it?’

  Jessie got back to Charlie’s house earlier than usual, winding the bull terrier’s chain around the railings while she dug in her jeans for the key. Normally, she walked Oz to the pier and back, three miles at least, but today Haagen’s pride and joy had been more than usually boisterous.

  The door opened and Oz plunged into the lounge. Lolly was lying full length on the sofa and as the dog began to tug at the trailing belt of her dressing gown, Jessie saw the corner of the blue air-mail envelope slipping out of the pocket.

  Lolly was trying to fight off the dog. As she tumbled head first from the sofa, the letter fell onto the floor. Jessie picked it up. Her own name. Haagen’s unmistakable scrawl.

  ‘When did this come?’

  ‘Just now. Second post.’ Lolly’s face had reddened. ‘I opened it by mistake.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘I did. I thought it was for me.’

  ‘Who do you know abroad?’

  ‘Loads of people.’

  ‘Like who?’

  Lolly was on her feet again. The dog had lost interest. ‘I thought you weren’t in touch any more. I thought it was all over.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Fucking liar yourself. Bloody read it. Go on, read it.’

  Jessie shut Oz in the hall, then sank into Charlie’s only armchair. The letter was brief, a single flimsy sheet of paper. Haagen was still crashing with friends. The friends were OK but he was bored out of his head. He’d no objection to reading but he’d already gone through all the books in the house twice. Going out was risky but he owed his brain a bit of stimulus. Maybe he’d try the local bookshop. It didn’t close until six and it was dark by then.

  Lolly had picked up the envelope, discarded by the armchair. She was peering at the postmark. ‘Where’s Den Helder?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  ‘Liar. Look on the other side.’

  Jessie turned over the page. In a long postscript, Haagen had thanked her for her other letters. He’d been reading them again. They were, he explained in a rare flourish, like water in the desert. They kept him alive. They kept him sane. He’d have gone mad without them. Jessie read the postscript a second time, oblivious to Lolly’s accusing glare, feeling the warmth flood through her.

  ‘Well?’ Lolly snarled.

  Jessie looked up. ‘Holland,’ she said. ‘Somewhere by the sea.’

  ‘But why are you writing to him?’

  ‘Because I wanted to.’

  ‘But why? Tell me why.’

  Jessie stared at her for a long time, recognizing the technique, the tone of voice. This was the way things went in Merrist House, those long, ugly afternoons when they all sat in a circle and screamed at each other. Aggression was the key. That’s what loosened it all up for you. That’s what was supposed to set you free.

  Lolly was folding the envelope into ever smaller pieces. Her face had gone pale. ‘You told me it was over.’

  ‘It is over. He’s abroad. He’s gone.’

  ‘But you want him back. It says so. As good as.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. Writing to somebody isn’t the same as wanting them back. He’s a friend, that’s all.’

  ‘But you miss him.’

  ‘I feel sorry for him.’

  ‘Feel sorry for him?’ Lolly was staring at her. ‘The bloke that caused all the trouble? Nearly killed your dad? Sorry for him?’

  Jessie felt the blood pulsing into her face. The riot outside the Imperial had been on television. There’d been no mistaking Haagen’s role and the shots of the beating her father had taken had made her physically sick. Yet even these images she’d somehow managed to lock away, persuading herself that they had nothing to do with the Haagen she’d known.

  ‘He’s a head case sometimes,’ she said defensively, ‘but you’re right, I do miss him – bits of him, anyway.’

  ‘Cow.’ Lolly stamped her foot, then collapsed in a heap on the sofa. She began to sob uncontrollably, a signal to Jessie that she wanted comfort, reassurance, sole possession, with nothing left for anyone else. Least of all, Haagen Schreck.

  Jessie got to her feet and joined her on the sofa. She began to run her fingers through Lolly’s hair but Lolly turned her face to the wall.

  ‘Cow,’ she said again. ‘How could you?’

  ‘How could I what?’

  ‘Write to him like that? Behind my back? Not telling me?’ In the absence of a reply, Lolly turned round, struggling up on one elbow. ‘How many?’ she said.

  ‘How many what?’

  ‘H
ow many letters? How many have you sent?’

  Jessie thought. She’d been writing for at least a couple of months, ever since Haagen had broken the silence with a phone call to a mutual friend. He’d fled to Antwerp. Then to Amsterdam. And then again to Den Helder where he now had a semi-permanent address. ‘Four or five,’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘And he writes back?’

  ‘Not until now. This is the first time he’s bothered.’

  Lolly reached out, her tiny hands closing around Jessie’s throat. When she began to squeeze, her strength surprised Jessie and it was a moment or two before she was able to fight her off.

  Lolly was sobbing again, incoherent with anger. ‘I’ve looked,’ she got out at last. ‘I’ve been upstairs and fucking looked. I found them. Just where you hid them. Under the fucking bed.’

  Jessie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In her heart, she’d always known that keeping secrets from Lolly was a contradiction in terms. With Lolly, it was all or nothing. Always had been. Always would be.

  ‘I wrote first because of the dog,’ she said simply. ‘And that’s the truth.’

  ‘Oz?’

  ‘Yes. I thought he’d miss him and I was right.’

  ‘But you kept writing.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘And he wrote back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  Jessie turned away, one hand still rubbing her throat. The sheer violence of Lolly’s anger had frightened her. Someone so small, so physically perfect, should be immune from that kind of ugliness.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘It just happened, that’s all. We were together a long time.’

  ‘A year and a bit. And he fucked you up.’

  ‘We fucked each other up.’

  ‘That’s not what you said before.’

  ‘It’s true, though.’

  Lolly pulled a cushion towards her, hugging it. To Jessie’s relief, she seemed to have calmed down. From the pocket of her dressing gown, she produced a stick of gum, stripping off the silver paper and tearing it in half. Jessie accepted the peace-offering. They’d seldom talked about Haagen but now was obviously the time.

  ‘What was it about him?’ Lolly was asking. ‘Sex?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was special, that’s all. Different. I’d never met anyone quite like him. It was the way he dressed. The way he thought. He knew so much. He took so many risks. He never seemed afraid.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And?’ Jessie shrugged. ‘We just got it on. It just seemed natural. Nothing else really mattered.’

  Lolly was frowning. ‘Did you trust him?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Even when he turned you on?’

  ‘Yes. That was no big deal. You know how it happens. Everyone thinks that smack’s, like, huge but it isn’t at all. It’s just another drug. It was there and we did it. He said we could stop whenever, and I believed him.’

  ‘He was lying, though.’

  ‘No.’ Jessie shook her head. ‘When he wanted to stop, he stopped. That’s the whole point, you see. He’s so amazingly strong. He wants to do something, he just does it. Regardless.’ She looked up. ‘If I couldn’t stop, then that was my fault. Not his.’

  ‘That’s shit. You’re talking shit.’

  ‘No, it’s not. I believe it. Whatever you do, whatever happens, it’s down to you. No one else. Just you. In the end, we’re all alone.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And you still believe it?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘So what does that make him?’

  ‘A friend. Someone who writes me letters.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You’re different.’

  Lolly thought about the answer, chewing furiously. Then she looked up, the sudden grin emptying her face of anger.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she said.

  Louise Carlton waited until the interval before broaching the subject of Portsmouth dockyard. The visit to Covent Garden had been her idea, an invitation casually extended over the telephone, and she’d been gratified by the extent of Ellis’s enthusiasm for Puccini. Of all the operas, La Bohème was his favourite and, better still, he had a passion for the pale young Australian soprano who was singing Mimi.

  They were standing in the crush bar, Ellis guarding the remains of a bottle of Bollinger.

  ‘If I ever settled down,’ he said glumly, ‘it would be with someone like her.’

  Louise did her best to look maternal. Over the summer, she’d treated him to a number of evenings out, surprised by the austerity of his private life. He lived alone in a soulless maisonette in Carshalton. She’d been down there once for a meal, instantly depressed by the smeary windows, the cobwebbed lampshades and the second-hand chintz. When she’d asked tactfully about his plans for redecoration, he’d mumbled something about not being bothered. Most of his waking life was spent in the office or on the train. He returned home, quite literally, to sleep. That may have been true but even a man as dedicated and single-minded as Ellis deserved better than this, she’d thought.

  Now, swallowing the last of her champagne, she mentioned Zhu. She’d heard that the dockyard negotiations were in trouble. True or false?

  Ellis turned his back on the crowded bar, looking instantly relieved. Small-talk was the least of his talents. ‘True,’ he said at once.

  ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘Of course.’ He offered her one of his rare smiles. ‘It’s because he’s smarter than we are. It’s as simple as that.’

  He bent towards her, explaining how the sale had bogged down in a mish-mash of conflicting interests. The minister, with Treasury backing, was only too eager to get rid of the yard. A sale to Zhu would save the taxpayer around £150 million a year whilst safeguarding jobs and maintaining certain facilities for the Navy. The latter condition had been built into the negotiations at an early stage, evidently with Zhu’s blessing. He’d be only too pleased, he’d said, to be able to bid for Navy work. This offer had been music to the minister’s ears. With the Navy’s other two dockyards at Devonport and Rosyth currently in the hands of private contractors, the price of repair and maintenance tenders could only go down. More good news for the taxpayer. Another round of applause at the party conference.

  Ellis refilled Louise’s glass.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ she asked.

  ‘The asking price,’ Ellis said. ‘The place is unsaleable and Zhu knows that. The MoD started the bidding at three hundred million. That was back in the spring. Now we’re looking at a dowry situation. Giving him money to take the bloody place off our hands.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  Ellis inclined his head, almost gleeful. ‘It’s happened before, with other disposals. Dockyards get contaminated. It’s the nature of the beast. PCBs. Asbestos. Heavy metals. Contaminants from ammunition, electroplating, you name it.’ He sighed. ‘Under current laws, the liabilities are already frightening. In twenty years’ time it could be even worse. Zhu knows that. And he’s not about to spend a third of a billion quid for the privilege of getting sued.’

  Louise was studying the remains of her champagne. ‘Any other tenders?’

  ‘None. Aside from the environmental stuff, you’ve got serious problems with employment laws, and then there’s all the nonsense about heritage. A lot of Pompey dockyard’s listed. Grades one and two. You could buy it but afterwards you couldn’t touch it. Which makes redevelopment a bit tricky.’

  ‘So Zhu has a clear run?’

  ‘Absolutely. And that means he can name his price – or even lift the thing for free. Not that the Treasury’s losing sleep. Until we get to capital-cost accounting, they’re only interested in what it takes to run the place. A hundred and fifty million a year off the PSBR sounds good to them.’

  ‘But what would Zhu do with it?’

&nb
sp; ‘No one knows. And not too many people care.’

  Louise heard the bitterness in his voice. Recently she’d concluded that Ellis was a patriot of the old school, his vision of England untainted by the rush somehow to balance the government’s books.

  ‘What about the Navy? What’s their line?’

  ‘They’re doing their best but they know they’re stuffed. We’ve got one too many dockyards. Get any admiral drunk and he’ll tell you Pompey’s useless if it ever comes to war. Badly sited. Wrong ocean. Too far to steam before you get to the bits that matter. It’s just a shame that half the Navy’s based down there.’

  Louise acknowledged the logic of Ellis’s case. Missile-carrying submarines had made Portsmouth redundant but history had ringed the city with dozens of other service facilities. The school of marine engineering was nearby. Ditto the establishments that taught weaponry, communications and tactical operations. Thousands of serving personnel. Hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of hi-tech investment. Without warships and a dockyard in the middle of this sprawl, the web would lose its spider.

  Behind the bar, a bell signalled the imminent start of act two. People emptied their glasses and began to move towards the door. Ellis hadn’t stirred. ‘It’s classic,’ he said with relish, ‘absolutely classic. A little Chinese guy arrives with a bundle of fivers and the politicians think it’s Christmas. A couple of months later he’s leading us by the nose. You know something?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘There’s nothing in this country that isn’t for sale.’

  Ellis raised an eyebrow as if cheered by the thought, then stepped aside, allowing Louise to pursue the eddies of expensive perfume as the last of the drinkers returned to their seats.

  Over supper, she’d make sure there was more champagne. They’d eat somewhere nice, somewhere fitting, somewhere expensive and oriental like Hai Tien Lo or Li Bai, and Ellis would tell her exactly how far he’d got with the Singapore people.