Blow the House Down

by John Blackburn

  ‘Following the Reverend Martin Judson’s speech at Newcastle-­upon-­Tyne last night, a spokesman for the Director of Public Prosecutions stated that charges under the Race Relations Act are being considered against him. This afternoon Mr Judson spoke to our reporter Henry Newson.’

  ‘He’s doing what he can, but what good has it been, Hilda? We’re stuck with them damn Spades for ever, if you ask me.’ Jack felt too morose to take much interest in the interview. Hilda’s hunch could be right all the time. Old Strand might have made a hash of the design and there’d be no moving into the Heights for a long time to come. When he’d heard the news he’d half considered getting out of Randel­wyck, but he was a foreman earning top wages and forty-­three years old. He’d never get another job as good, and accommodation was probably as hard to come by elsewhere. They’d just have to sweat it out in bloody Shelley Street with the Nigs till that lass, Janet Fane, was proved a liar or they found out where old Strand had gone wrong. He looked glumly round the sitting-­room. The ceiling had a bad crack, paper was peeling from the outside wall, and the skirting boards were furrowed with wood rot.

  ‘The Randel­wyck mystery.’ He turned towards the television again. There was no real mystery; just a silly girl’s imagination or a designer’s error, but it would be interesting to see what they had to say this time.

  ‘In the studio tonight are three men who can explain the situation to you, and I shall ask Mr John Forest of the Daily Globe to speak first.’

  ‘Good evening to all of you.’ The fat man’s face beamed out at them. ‘For perhaps the first time in my life I am delighted to tell my public that I have been wrong.’

  ‘What on earth does he mean?’ Jack muttered aloud. ‘Has that lass admitted she’d been imagining things?’

  ‘Shut up and listen.’ Hilda was craning forward with her eyes riveted to the screen, and after Forest’s second sentence Jack did the same. Slowly and clearly and with a certain humour, Forest explained what had happened; he was followed by Turner for the wind-­tunnel manufacturers, and an official of the Electricity Board.

  ‘We can end our programme on a happy note, ladies and gentlemen.’ The newscaster beamed in his turn. ‘No domestic building could be expected to withstand the conditions simulated by that test, and Mallory Heights is exonerated. Its tenants can look forward to a completely secure future.’

  ‘By gum – by gum, it’s all right, lass.’ Jack jumped up and switched off the set, his face glowing with happiness. ‘All a bloody mix-­up and we’ll be moving in on schedule.’ He swung round, knocking over the clothes-­horse as he did so, and grinned at her. ‘You’re not worried now, are you, Hilda? This has satisfied you that the Heights are as sound as a bell?’

  ‘Nay, I’ll have no more worries, Jack. I almost feel that the whole rumpus was sort of sent to put me mind at rest.’ She pulled him down on to the sofa and threw her arms round him.

  ‘Give us a kiss, lad.’ He gave her much more than a single kiss, and for a long time they were both too happy to notice the thunder of Luke and Molly Virgil’s dance of triumph pounding the floor.

  6

  The opening of Mallory Heights should have been a joyful occasion, but in four days’ time another event was due to take place in Randel­wyck. The demonstration against Fentor Park research establishment was now expected to be even larger than had been feared, and the authorities had decided to advertise their prepared­ness.

  The ceremony had started with a parade from the city centre to the Heights. A detachment of Northmoorland Fusiliers led the way, followed by the auxiliary services, the British Legion and the police: a great many police. The Chief Constable had received reinforcements from other areas and was showing his strength. A thousand uniformed figures marched behind the Legion, casting an air of gloom and menace on the proceedings, and thirty mounted men brought up the rear. If trouble was on the way the forces of law and order would be ready to receive it.

  Many of the trouble-­makers had already arrived. John Forest had decided to stay on in Randel­wyck when he heard about those police reinforcements and he knew that his decision was correct. The majority of the demonstrators might be perfectly reasonable young men and women filled with a desire to put the world to rights, but with them came the fanatics bent on trouble; the advocates of black power, white power, student power, and the power to raise hell for its own sake. The dedicated, the depraved and the plain dotty.

  The Reverend Martin Judson and his cohorts were there too, and the previous night he had spoken in the Market Square, standing beneath a banner that proclaimed ‘Britain for Britishers’.

  ‘I am not an architect nor a scientist. I cannot praise nor criticize the technical aspects of that structure. But I can tell you what its spiritual and moral effects will be.’ Judson had paused before a burst of heckling and then pointed dramatically towards the Heights. ‘Those towers will become breeding grounds of corruption and decay to ravage our people. Though you may clap and cheer when they are opened tomorrow, your children and their children’s children will curse you for their existence.’ He had stepped down to a mixed reception of jeers and thunderous applause.

  In another part of the city Mr Mahomet N’genza, the Black Lion leader, had also expressed his disapproval.

  ‘Why bridges? Why chains to bind separate races together? No coexistence, no peace without justice and full equality, that is our promise and, men and women, I tell you this,’ he had bellowed like an animal and shaken his fists to heaven, ‘unless we get justice the inhabitants of that building will not be black or white for long. They will be red – red with blood.’

  John Forest, too, had done much to prepare the ground. With the Mallory Heights scare disposed of, he had written a long article on the town itself, stating that within a few hours of his arrival he had noticed an aura of strain and tension amongst its citizens. A sense of menace hung over the town as if, like Denmark, there was something rotten in the state of Randel­wyck. Was Fentor Park the cause of this unrest, he asked? A military research station which few pressmen were allowed to visit, partially staffed by foreign technicians and less than five miles from a large city. The inhabitants of Randel­wyck had good reason to feel uneasy, and the young people were right to voice their protest. As Forest stood by the hotel window and dictated his article, a dilapidated van, crammed with students and bearing a placard, ‘Youth Must Lead’, lumbered down the street. Exactly what was going on at Fentor Park? He had demanded to know in the name of humanity, and hinted at radiation dangers, obscene viruses which might break loose, even the risk of a full-­scale atomic explosion which would lay the area in ashes.

  That article had been a godsend to the hard-­core organizers of the demonstration. Though there were still four days to go, their followers were pouring into the town and the police had given up the thankless task of turning them out of derelict buildings and breaking up their camp sites on the moors. More than twenty-­five thousand people were expected to march on Fentor Park, and Mr Judson had promised that a thousand of his supporters would be there to resist any violence ‘to our American allies’.

  So far the day had passed peacefully. The dedicated might praise or condemn Mallory’s vision, but the solid citizens of Randel­wyck merely looked upon the building as a step to ease their housing problem, and the parade had been orderly to the point of dullness.

  ‘Little more remains to be said.’ Thank the Lord for that. The Mayor was coming to the end of his address and Paul yawned openly, because, as at the banquet, there had been one hell of a lot of speeches: by Mallory, by the bishop, by a white trades union leader, by a black doctor representing the coloured community and by a member of parliament. Surely the Mayor must be the last of them.

  The ceremony was taking place on the lowest of the bridges. The official party faced the public from a platform raised before an entrance to the north tower, while on either side of them stood twenty families, ten coloured and ten white – the first tenants who would take
up occupation once the speechifying was over.

  The Mayor had finished at last, but there was more to come: the Fusiliers’ band had thundered into activity. Janet joined in with a rich, throbbing contralto and Paul moved his lips dutifully.

  ‘Now thank we all our God,

  With heart, and hand, and voices.

  Who wondrous things hath done,

  In Whom His world rejoices;’

  Paul tilted his head backwards. Strand had put a lot of novel ideas and techniques into his plans, and the result was certainly impressive. Lansberg had sneered – ‘a design almost unique to the best of my knowledge’. To describe anything as ‘almost unique’ was nonsense; but the gist of his comment was true enough. Michael Mallory had demanded that the tenants should have a place in the sun, and the tiered balconies jutted far out from the main structure as if floating in the air. Across the bridge, the neighbouring tower reared up as high as the walls of the valley, with its spire hidden in mist: Mallory’s dream and Strand’s brain-­child dominating the mean city that had given it birth.

  ‘Oh may this bounteous God

  Through all our life be near us,

  With ever joyful hearts

  And blessed peace to cheer us.’

  In the stifling windless air, with condensation rising from the river, the music sounded oddly distorted as if being performed in a hall with poor acoustics, while downstream a tug’s siren kept interrupting.

  Babylon and Jericho and Pompeii. Paul considered their visitor. Baylis had been a madman with a compulsive hatred for the Heights, the poor devil obviously needed treatment badly. Should they have tried to stop him and reason against his phobia? No, Baylis was past reasoning with, though probably harmless. There was nothing they could have done to help him.

  ‘For thus it was is now,

  And shall be evermore.’

  The final notes boomed up to the leaden sky, the bishop gave a brief blessing, and the tenants started to follow their ushers to the entrances. All of them were smiling and appeared eager to take up occupation. Because Mary Strand had noticed a light flicker on her oven, fear and anxiety had been banished. But as Paul stared up at the northern tower again, the senseless unreasoned notion that had come to him on the day after the Mayor’s banquet returned. The building looked too proud, too dominant, and, though the angle was not great enough to be registered by the naked eye, the slight curve of the bridges gave the distinct impression that the towers were enemies straining to escape from each other’s grasp.

  That was just as crazy as Baylis’s meanderings about Babylon and Jericho, of course. All the publicity about the conception of the building had put it into his mind. He had been working too hard and drinking too much during the last few months. But he had a fortnight’s leave due, and then he would be busy on a hydro-­electric project in Scotland. He could forget Mallory Heights.

  The ceremony was over and the band marched away to the tune of ‘Colonel Bogey’, with a mace-­bearer and the civic dignitaries following. This bridge was intended to support the recreation hall, but it had been left bare for the day’s occasion. When the procession passed Paul could see the prefabricated sections stacked ready for assembly.

  ‘That’s that, darling.’ He took Janet’s arm and they began to file away with the crowd. ‘We’ve both got the rest of the day free, so what about taking the car and driving up to the moors by Billon Tor?’

  ‘Bless you, Paul.’ She craned up and kissed his cheek. ‘There’s usually a breeze up there and for the last half-­hour I’ve been dreaming of nothing except fresh air.’

  ‘Good, we’ll get some, then. Billon Tor; what a strange name to be found in these parts. I thought tors were confined to Devon and Cornwall.’

  ‘I think it’s a corruption of “tower”. Up on the top there’s a clump of boulders shaped rather like a castle keep.

  ‘Do you want something, gentlemen?’ Janet broke off with a frown. Three men had stepped out from the parapet of the bridge and formed a semicircle in front of them. Two were young and fresh-­faced, one middle-­aged and sallow. Though the day was warm, they all wore overcoats and trilby hats.

  ‘Yes, we want you, Miss Fane. You too, Mr Gordon.’ The eldest of the three held out an official-­looking document, gay with scarlet seals.

  ‘We are police officers and this is a warrant issued under Section 7D of the National Secrets Act. You are both under arrest.’

  7

  ‘There’s no need to get angry. I am merely conducting a routine inquiry.’ The man sat beneath an Anglepoise lamp which was tilted towards Paul and Janet and his name was Stephen Dealer. He looked and behaved like a riding-­school instructor; lean and leather-­faced, with a manner made up of charm and authority, designed to soothe parents and allow no nonsense from children or animals. He was patient, too; that was his cardinal virtue. Major Stephen Dealer could have worn down a harem of Patient Griseldas.

  ‘Now, let’s recap again. It was in nineteen fifty-­eight that you joined the Communist Party, I believe?’

  ‘I did no such thing, Major.’ Paul struggled to keep his temper. They had been given no reason for their arrest, but were taken straight to the police station where Dealer, who was obviously an intelligence officer, and a uniformed sergeant named Jones were waiting to interview them. That was half an hour ago, and so far the questions had appeared purposeless. Parentage and background, education and careers; now political sympathies.

  ‘No, of course not.’ Dealer consulted his notes. ‘My apologies, Mr Gordon, we must be accurate. You joined the Young Communist League, which is a little different. You were seventeen and a half at the time and you let your membership lapse shortly after your nineteenth birthday. Why was that, sir?’

  ‘Because my views changed. Many young people hold extreme beliefs and outgrow them. Didn’t you follow any cause when you were young, Major?’

  ‘Can’t say I did, Mr Gordon; too busy thinking about my career, I’m afraid. Maybe a mistake in the long run. If I ever reach high rank I’ll have to change my name by deed poll.’ He grinned at his sergeant. ‘General Dealer would sound pretty silly, eh, Jones?’

  ‘Very silly indeed, sir.’ Jones had obviously heard the joke many times and he replied without humour. ‘Mr Gordon might have thought it convenient not to be a card-­carrying member of the Party, Major. Allows him to work in the dark, one might say.’

  ‘Possibly, Sergeant, but let’s think about Miss Fane, for a moment. You said you were fond of foreign travel. Went to Bulgaria last Easter, and the year before took a Baltic cruise which called at Leningrad.’

  ‘What about it, Major Dealer? A lot of people holiday in Iron Curtain countries, but it doesn’t make them Communists.’ During the last few minutes Janet had begun to feel that there was something completely unreal and dreamlike about the interview, as though she and Paul and their interrogators were acting in a play. ‘And please come to the point. Why and on what authority were we arrested?’

  ‘Inspector Crauford showed you his authority, Miss Fane: Section 7D of the National Secrets Act. A handy little clause that, slipped in by one of those legal tricks our recent governments have been so fond of. Allows us to ignore habeas corpus and hold any suspect for twenty-­four hours without making a charge. But we’ll come to the reason why you are here soon enough, don’t worry about that.’ He consulted a folder beside his notes, and then looked hard at Paul. ‘What exactly passed between you and Professor Lansberg at the mayoral banquet, Mr Gordon? Did you arrange to sit next to him?’

  ‘How the hell could I, and for what purpose?’ Paul considered asking for a solicitor. ‘It is public knowledge what Lansberg said to me, Major.’

  ‘Some of it is, sir, but I wonder if rather more was said. Did Lansberg give you certain instructions, perhaps? Tch – tch – tch. Do calm yourself.’ Dealer checked Paul’s forthcoming outburst with a series of soft clicking sounds as if he were gentling a horse.

  ‘All right, we’ll leave Lansberg for t
he time being and talk about this chap. A good friend of yours?’ He slid a photograph across the desk.

  ‘Certainly not. We’ve only met him once.’ Janet looked at the face of their strange visitor. ‘After that television programme he called at my flat. He said his name was James Baylis and gave me a visiting card. But he only stayed about half an hour and we really know nothing about him.’

  ‘Thirty-­two minutes to be exact, Miss Fane. Baylis hired a mini-­cab for the occasion and made it wait for him. The driver kept a log and was most helpful. Baylis left you at nine thirty-­eight and was returned to his place of employment by five minutes to ten.’ The major consulted his file again.

  ‘Baylis left a memo pad on his desk and in it we found these notes: “Must see Fane woman. Must find out if she can advise me – tell me if S.M. spoke the truth – if not must act on my own.”’ Dealer read aloud from the file. ‘What advice did you give him, Miss Fane?’

  ‘Baylis was a neurotic, Major Dealer. He said that he had had visions showing him that Mallory Heights would be destroyed by some divine force. Because of my television appearance he seemed to believe that I had experienced similar phenomena. When we assured him that that was not the case he left the flat.’

  ‘He left more than your flat. As I suspect you know, he has probably left the district and the country by now. He did not sleep at his lodgings last night, nor did he report for work this morning and that is why I am here.’ Dealer’s tanned face smiled unpleasantly. ‘So where has the wandering Baylis gone? To which Iron Curtain country did you tell him to defect? East Germany, perhaps?’

  ‘That’s what it’s all about?’ The suggestion was so absurd that Paul laughed aloud. ‘You honestly believe that we are Communist agents and that Lansberg gave me orders at that luncheon to contact Baylis and persuade him to defect. You must both be out of your minds, gentlemen. What’s important about Baylis anyway, and what country would want him? The poor chap was a nut case and he’d be a liability, not an asset, to any society. Why are you concerned about him anyway?’