“Complicated and difficult” work According to EDF Energy, the fire seriously damaged five major electricity circuits on a cable bridge, and one of the bridge supports. “There looks to be evidence of vandalism. This morning the locks were broken on the security gates at each end of the bridge.”
EDF Energy said the work involved in restoring power had been complicated by the necessity to ensure that the bridge itself was safe before the engineers could begin repairing the damaged electricity circuits.
EDF Energy’s spokesman, when asked whether he connected this outage with the series of power failures and various other outbreaks of vandalism and destructive behavior that have affected East London over the last two months, declined to comment.
Michael sighed and laid the newspaper aside. What disturbed him far more than the power outage was that—however evasive the EDF’s response to questions—last night’s failure obviously did connect to another feature of life in the East End over the last eight weeks: a rising level of casual and even quite meaningless violence.
A few nights ago a mob had actually started throwing stones at firefighters who were trying to rescue people from a burning home for the elderly. Michael would much more easily have believed a story of East Londoners—in his experience among the kindest people on earth—risking their own lives to help the residents. But there was no doubt that the story was true. The police had made a number of arrests, mostly of perfectly respectable young men and women who when interviewed said things like, “I feel terrible. I’ve no idea what got into me.”
The magistrate had no idea either, but that didn’t stop him handing out hefty chunks of community service—with a strong recommendation that as much of it as possible be done with the London Fire Brigade. “If,” he added, “the London Fire Brigade will have you.”
siding stAr 289 Then, of course, there was other violence whose purpose was only too clear. Racist. Ethnic. Religious. It was only days since in a minor way Michael had come up against it himself. Last Sunday, driving to St. George’s, Cannon Street, where he was to preach, he had stopped to chat for a few minutes with Nadia, a Muslim friend who taught mathematics at the university.
“Michael, if I were you, I’d get rid of that flag in your back seat.”
“It’s just an old Union Jack left over from Armistice Day.”
“I know. And it’s my flag too. I’m British and proud of it. Doesn’t make any difference. If anyone sees that in your car round here, they’ll think you’re BNP. And you know what that means.”
He did indeed. British National Party. Racist. Fascist. AntiMuslim. Anti-Semitic. Homophobic.
“If you’re lucky,” Nadia said, “when they see it they’ll just smash your windshield. If you’re not, who knows? They might set the car on fire. Or beat you up. Get rid of it, Michael. Just so your friends can stop worrying about you.” She grinned. “And by the way, it’s a Union Flag. It’s only a Union Jack when it’s being flown from a boat.”
“I never knew that.”
Nadia laughed. “Neither did I, but my kid sister’s just joined the Royal Navy. I think it’s the first thing they told her.”
So when he arrived back home he took it in—it was time he cleared out the back of the car anyway. But it saddened him to think things had got to such a pass that it was actually dangerous in some parts of Britain to be associated with the British flag.
Not, of course, that all the problems were being caused by the BNP, bad though it was. He could tell that from his newspaper. He moved from headline to headline. More suicide bombings in Iraq: yesterday, it appeared, a man had bombed his own family. The Israelis were still knocking hell out of the Gaza strip and declaring themselves ready for “long weeks of action.” The U.S. economy was in chaos with unemployment galloping and an administration in its closing weeks of office apparently inca- pable of action. Michael pushed the paper aside. This was really depressing. Was the world going mad?
Then he thought again of Nadia (with her kid sister in the Royal Navy!) There were plenty of people like Nadia trying to keep things on track. Police, like the wonderful Cecilia. Social workers, doctors and nurses, railway workers and secretaries and teachers, repair workers and engineers and firefight- ers, rabbis and imams and priests: keeping the hospitals and the surgeries and the schools open, keeping the traffic and the trains moving, keeping the lights on, putting out fires, saying the prayers.
Soldiers of light. That’s what they were. Doubtless few of them thought of themselves like that, but that’s what they were, all the same.
sixty-eight
Sunday, January 4.
Natalie announced at breakfast that she wanted to go to church. Charlie had thought she might want to attend one of the great churches, Saint Paul’s or the Abbey, but no, she wished to attend the 11:00 a.m. Eucharist at Saint John’s Wood Parish Church.
“It’s easy to get there,” she said. “We take the tube from Edgeware Road, change at Baker Street, and it’s one stop.” “It’s a nice church,” he said, impressed by her knowledge of
the London Underground. “But why especially there?” “Because a friend of mine from Charleston is doing an
exchange year there, and this morning she gets to be celebrant.
Her first ever mass outside the States. I promised her I’d come
if I could.”
So they went, and after mass he got to meet the celebrant,
a dark, rather Spanish-looking young woman who rejoiced in
the notably un-Spanish-sounding name of Calhoun Walpole
Perkins.
“We went to school together,” Natalie said. “And somehow
or other Callie and I just managed to get through the experience
without being thrown out!”
“But let’s face it, once or twice it was a near thing,” Callie said. They both laughed. “Actually, we were at two schools
together, one of which has since been closed.”
“And the other’s wisely decided to change its name,” Natalie
said. “Still, at least Callie’s managed to land a respectable
job. Which is more than Mama thinks I have. Did you know,
Charlie, that New York is no place at all for a properly brought
up Charleston girl?”
Church was followed by an uproarious lunch with Callie in
a nearby pub.
“So what have you been up to?” Natalie asked.
“Oh, being virtuous: serving the poor, visiting the sick,
preaching the gospel. Actually”—she grew more serious—“it’s
not as easy here as you’d think. There’s a lot of violence about.
Quite unusual for Saint John’s Wood. One of the curates got
assaulted the other day—for no apparent reason. The vicar
keeps warning me to be careful. He says he just doesn’t know
what’s gotten into people lately. But whatever it is, it’s nasty.”
It started to rain just as Charlie and Nathalie arrived back at Charlie’s house, and within a few minutes they had a downpour. “Let’s stay in and be cozy,” she said.
Assisted by the Doyley Carte Opera Company on a CD,
they sang through Trial by Jury with a grubby score he’d had at
school (Natalie found it in the bookcase in her room). Then she
picked Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,
and they listened in a more sober mood.
“That was glorious,” said Charlie when it ended. “It was. And I chose it especially for you! Do you know what
Herbert Foss says about it?”
He shook his head.
As she reached for the record notes, her hair caught the light. “‘These nineteen folio pages hold the faith of England,’”
she read. “‘In its soil and in its tradition, firmly believed yet
expressed in no articled details. There is quiet ecstasy, and
siding stAr
293 then alongside it comes a kind of blind persistence, a faithful pilgrimage towards the unseen light.’” She looked up. “How about that?”
There was a pause. He held out his arms.
He was no longer clumsy.
And nothing would ever be the same again.
sixty-nine
S
o Charlie was persuaded by love to be to be distracted, temporarily at least, from the prospect of annihilation, and if it is true that love is stronger than death, who is to say that he was wrong to be so persuaded? What then of the world’s governments, whose representatives had so frustrated him? To do them justice, it would by no means be true to say that they did nothing. On the contrary, in many ways they acted with remarkable vigor, and there was, certainly among the “developed” nations, a quite remarkable degree of cooperation as they took steps to preserve at least what they regarded as the brightest and best.
The hope that the northern part of the planet might be the most promising area for survival naturally formed the focus of much of this effort. So government offices and government servants found themselves called upon without warning or explanation (or, at best, with flimsy excuses—“for military exercises,” “in the event of hostilities”) to produce contingency plans for the selection and movement of significant groups; for the swift creation of underground complexes—schools, hospitals, administration buildings; for the commandeering of transport.
296
ChristoPher BryAn Naturally all this activity could not go unobserved. In the democracies, questions were asked, in parliaments and congresses, in newspapers and on television. But the explanations were ready. New refineries. New bases. New mines. Contingency against nuclear terrorism. And, of course, massive outlay to stimulate the economy. Indeed, the huge building projects did provide jobs. No one could deny that. And this surely was one reason why the hard questions were not pressed. As one union leader put, “I’ll build apartments for the devil himself if it means jobs for my people.” Only with time could it become apparent to those with access to information and tools to analyze it that the scale of the operations and their nature went beyond anything the explanations explained. Only with time—and time, like the economy, was not on the side of the questioners.
seventy
Heavitree Road Police Station. Friday, January 16.
Cecilia, dripping from the rain, scurried into her office, hung her raincoat on the hook, made minor repairs to her appearance in her small washroom, and finally approached her desk.
On top of her in-tray was a folder with a note pinned to it in Verity Jones’s handwriting: Thought this would interest you.”
It was a printout of a page from a tabloid newspaper. Attached was another note: From the digital edition of yesterday’s Hackney Gazette. See small column headed New College etc.
Cecilia turned to the article.
NEW COLLEGE PROCLAIMED ‘MASSIVE BREAKTHROUGH’
Minister of Technology Praises Cranston Speaking at a dinner of representatives of the Managerial Institutes of Industry, the Rt. Hon. Robert Dawes, MP, Minister for Technology, referred in glowing terms to the massive breakthrough for Britain represented by developments such as the new Cranston
298
Christopher Bryan College of Science in the heart of London’s former dockland, due to be officially opened on January 30th. Here, he claimed, as a direct result of far-sighted government initiative, Britain has a chance as never before to benefit from ever-changing technological advances. The new college is being acclaimed as an outstanding example of cooperation between government, which had provided the basic resource; local authority, which provided the site; and non-statutory bodies.
Why did Verity Jones think she would be interested in this? Cecilia shrugged and read on. The minister referred in glowing terms to the contribution of the London-based Academy for Philosophical Studies, to whose credit must go the provision of considerable funding from voluntary sources.
The academy! So they were back in business. She read to the end, but here was nothing more about the academy. Then she picked up the phone.
“Verity, do you usually read the Hackney Gazette?”
Verity laughed. “Not exactly. I got Joseph to program my computer for digital editions of the London local press, so the academy would come up on my screen if ever it got any mention in the press.”
“Well that’s brilliant. Joseph’s a genius—but then we knew that. Thanks, Verity.”
“It’s a pleasure, ma’am.”
So the academy was back, and from the end of the month an unspecified number of Britain’s and the world’s brightest young brains would be under the influence of an institution approved and supported by the same group that had not only tried to murder her parents but if Michael were right had schemed to bring about an incalculable amount of other damage.
siding stAr 299 In a general way she’d tried already to warn a few friends in the Met about the academy, but she was well aware it was hard for them to do much when she didn’t even know what to tell them to look for. As always, there was nothing concrete to go on. What, in fact, that would stand up in a court, did they actually know? Even about October 31st? That the academy had a fire! But that wasn’t a crime unless they started it. And now they were providing funds for a technical college. Not exactly criminal activity.
She would talk to Michael about it.
Before the Cranston College opening, if possible. He believed the academy was dangerous, and she’d seen quite enough to feel sure he was right. That said, she had no idea how to prove it. And for the present there wasn’t, so far as she could see, a damned thing Michael or she or anyone else could do about it.
Maybe pooling their thoughts would help.
seventy-one
The same day.
I
t was Natalie’s last evening in London. They were planning to walk along the Edgeware Road up to the Speakers’ Corner, enjoying the last light of the day. As they turned from Sussex Gardens they saw a harassed woman struggling out of a pick-up with parcels and a child. Natalie went and helped her, Charlie happily offering his assistance. The two women allowed him to hold the door open.
He and Natalie walked on, arm in arm. As they drew close to Marble Arch they saw the flashing lights of police cars.
“Some kind of commotion,” Natalie said.
A little further on, and they were passed by a helmet-less policeman supported by two colleagues. He was bleeding from a gash in his cheek.
“Good God,” Charlie said, “poor fellow. How on earth did that happen?”
Minutes after that, they were being turned back.
“I’m sorry ma’am, sir,” the officer said, “but there’s been some trouble at Speakers’ Corner, a sort of gang warfare, it seems. We’ve just about got it under control, but a couple of our lads got hurt, and we’d like to keep the area clear for a bit.”
302
ChristoPher BryAn Of course they turned back.
“I feel somewhat embarrassed,” Charlie said. “London’s not paradise, but it’s usually safe enough. Certainly at Marble Arch! You’re just not seeing us at our best. I don’t understand it.”
“Never mind,” she said. “Although I’m sure you’re personally responsible for the whole thing, on this occasion I’ll forgive you.”
And stretching up, she kissed him.
She meant it to be a light, quick kiss, just for fun, but then he caught her to him and she clung and somehow it wasn’t light and it definitely wasn’t quick.
In fact it took so long they had to go back to the house so as to finish it properly.
Next day, a Saturday, she flew back to New York. Before leaving, she told him she was scheduled for two more weeks’ leave, which she’d have to take in February or she’d lose them. She realized it was rather soon, but she could come and spend them with him in London if he liked.
He didn’t think it was at all soon, and he liked very much.
seventy-two
>
Saint Andrew’s Vicarage, Holborn Circus. Friday, January 23.
Michael hung up his raincoat, gathered several letters from the hall table, and climbed the stairs to his study. He’d been attending a long and particularly tedious meeting at Church House, followed by a more than usually slow busride back, and it was good to be home again. Mrs. Owens had put some flowers in his study. His books and papers were, of course, in an untidy heap, just as he’d left them. She had once, some years ago, tidied them for him. A disaster! “It may look like a mess, Mrs. Owens,” he’d said. “In fact, let’s face it, it is a mess. But it’s my mess and I understand it. If you tidy it, I’m lost!” She’d never moved his papers since. Bless her!
Michael heard the front door rattle and walked back to the stairs. Down in the hallway stood Jim, officially the church secretary and unofficially responsible for virtually everything practical that had to be done around the place. He wiped his feet, then placed a length of cable and an inspection lamp on the hall table.
“The heating went off in church,” he said. “It’s all right. We had to poke about under the boards. But it’s on again—for now, anyhow.”
“Well done!” Not for the first time, he thanked God for Jim. The church heating system was to Michael a mystery whose depths were beyond scrutiny.
Shaking his head at this profound thought, he descended the stairs, went to the vestry, and put on his cassock.
It was nearly time for the Eucharist.
Charlie Brown heard the church bell as he left W. H. Smith’s in Holborn, where he’d been on a lunch-time errand. He looked up at St Andrew’s clock, then at the church itself. He had passed it a thousand times, noting it as one of many fine churches in that part of London; but he’d never been inside. Well, why not?
His return to bachelordom from the joy of being a lover had been as hard as he expected. True, he now really had a girlfriend, a wonderful girlfriend, who’d said she would come and see him again in only a few weeks. He could email her and skype her and talk to her on the telephone, and already his British Telecom bill was enormous and he didn’t care. But still, with her physically gone from the house, it seemed he must again renew at least some of his anxieties. Last night for the second time since she left he’d dreamed the Dream, which now seemed to him ever more closely linked to the Siding Star, though he had no idea how.
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