Geoff Nicholson - Street Sleeper

Ishmael was unsure whether this was a real police constable or whether this was some elaborate ruse by Marilyn’s father. Either way Ishmael wanted to be rid of the pest.

‘Go away,’ Ishmael said gently.

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘Go away please or you may get hurt.’

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’

‘Then hear this. We are on a mission. Forces of good and evil are here in confrontation. Darkness and light will here collide. I don’t think this is a police matter.’

‘With respect, sir, I think you’d better let me be the judge of that. I suppose you have proof that you actually own those cars?’

‘Listen, little man,’ Ishmael said. ‘You are out of your depth. Be warned.’

‘I think I’d better step inside and ask you a few questions, sir.’

At that moment a volley of shots was fired from the rear of the house. The windows in the kitchen shattered with a good deal of sound and fury.

‘Be gone,’ Ishmael commanded the policeman.

Constable Peterson ran away at some speed. As he did so he almost bumped into two Crockenfield Blazers who were advancing on the house from the direction of the front gate. All three were mutually shocked. One of the Blazers dropped his shotgun and the constable accelerated his exit.

His parting remark was, ‘I’ll be back and I won’t be on my own.’

Ishmael had to agree with Clausewitz about war being like a fog, certainly he remained vague about what happened in the next ten minutes. But he knew for certain at the end of that time that there was not a pane of glass left in any of the windows of ‘Sorrento’, all of them having been shot out by Marilyn’s father and his chums, and the whole crew of them were occupying the grounds looking frantic and drunk on blood lust. In the same time the whole of Hawk’s Lane that ran in front of ‘Sorrento’ became blocked by police cars, motorcycles, fire engines, ambulances and sightseers. Ishmael couldn’t help thinking that things weren’t quite going to plan — The Plan.

♦

There is a photograph of Ferdinand Porsche taken by his nephew and secretary Ghislane Kaes some time after his release by the French. It shows Porsche leaning on the door of a Beetle parked at a gravel roadside in the Grossglockner, Karnten, in Porsche’s native Austria.

There are mountains in the distance. There is a sharp drop from the edge of the road, down to what could be water, though in the photograph it appears jet black.

Porsche could be staring away to the distant mountains, he could be looking at something on the water beyond the edge of the photograph; but it appears to us now that his stare is unfocused, and that his posture shows weariness, not relaxation. Other eyes could interpret the photograph as that of a man on holiday standing beside a new car of which he is very proud, but our eyes interpret it as a defeated man staring at nothing.

This interpretation can, of course, also be interpreted.

♦

And so it was that Ishmael and his followers found themselves besieged in Marilyn’s father’s house, surrounded by a large number of Crockenfield Blazers who were in their turn surrounded by ever increasing numbers of police.

Harold the former bank manager suggested that they make a foolhardy charge at the Blazers and go out in a blooming of fey glory, but he didn’t get any support. Even Ishmael thought it was too symbolic by half.

A plain-clothes police officer stood at the gates to ‘Sorrento’ and made a more or less inaudible speech about this all being madness and they’d all regret it later, and everything could be smoothed out over beer and sandwiches with a little common sense.

The moment he finished there was a shot or two fired in his general direction and Fat Les lobbed an empty gin bottle at him through a smashed upper window.

Then Marilyn’s father spoke. He was glassy-eyed and unsteady on his feet, and he spoke from behind a rhododendron bush, though with, Ishmael would have been the first to admit, an undeniable authority. He denounced the police, the state, youth, Ishmael, the two-party system, the courts, the internal combustion engine, and finally women. His final remark was that unless the police kept their distance there would be a terrible blood-bath and he’d slaughter everyone.

Obviously, Ishmael couldn’t let such an opportunity slip by. He stood at an upstairs window and bawled out a few generalizations about natural law, life and death, the road, and transcendent love.

It was well received by his followers who naturally then turned to him for guidance in their hour of need.

‘I’m all for a bit of a confrontation,’ Fat Les said. ‘But I can’t see much percentage in slugging it out with these Blazers if we then have to take on the pigs.’

Ishmael looked deep into himself. He felt tired. He felt old. He felt a long way from home and as though he’d lost all his maps. It was not, to begin again, what he had expected. He remembered how much he abhorred violence, and suddenly, like the protagonist of a thriller who gets a second bump on the head and wakes saying, ‘Who am I? Where am I? How did I get myself into this mess?’, he had his best idea yet.

He said, ‘I think I’ll hold a press conference.’

‘Why a press conference?’ Marilyn answered.

‘Because the tv camera is mightier than the sword, and we don’t have any swords, and because I think I’ll be rather good at it.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes. I have an easy and winning manner. I say what I mean, I don’t get tongue-tied, and people listen. I mean I convinced all you lot.’

‘Yeah,’ said Eric the tie-wearer, sullenly. ‘You know, rather than a confrontation with the devil himself I might be prepared to settle for getting out of this unscathed, unarrested, and sloping off down the pub.’

Typical.

‘And will they want to interview you anyway?’ asked Davey. ‘I mean, we’re not exactly national news, are we?’

‘I think we are,’ Marilyn said. ‘You see, what I haven’t told any of you is that my father, as well as being insensitive, brutal and slightly insane — he’s also a Conservative MP.’

You could have heard a pin drop if it hadn’t been for the police sirens and the occasional random shot. Les was the first to speak.

‘You mean we kidnapped a politician’s daughter, fire-bombed him, and then took over his house.’

‘Yes,’ said Marilyn.

‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell us?’ Fat Les shrieked.

‘If I’d told you you wouldn’t have gone along with Ishmael’s plan.’

‘Too bloody right.’

‘Then I wouldn’t have any material for my novel.’

‘We’ll have the fucking army after us.’

‘I should think so,’ said Marilyn.

‘I think we’re more than a match for the army,’ said Harold.

‘Oh shut up, you old prat,’ said Fat Les.

‘Hey,’ said John the Hippy. ‘This is getting heavy.’

‘Bollocks,’ said the Norton twins as one man.

‘How about that,’ said Davey. ‘Fancy me getting my leg over with an MP’s wife.’

‘WHAT?’

‘When I got Marilyn out, well I couldn’t find her room at first. I finished up in the missus’s bedroom and she wouldn’t let me go till I’d given her one. She seemed well pleased.’

‘Oh sweet Jesus Christ,’ said Fat Les.

‘Please don’t worry,’ said Ishmael. ‘I can talk us out of this.’

Adolf Hitler says, ‘Without motorcars, sound film and wireless [there is] no victory for National Socialism.’

♦

There are only winners and losers, good guys and bad guys. Ishmael began as a convincing bad guy — the crazy in the customized Volkswagen, the raider, not appealing, not prime time. Marilyn’s father made a very acceptable good guy — a property owner, a company director, a businessman, an MP defending his territory and principles. And that was how the events were reported at first. Then Marilyn’s father tried to shoot an Independent Radio News sound crew who were recording an interview with Constable Peterson. Then he was the bad guy. Then they wanted a hero, so they wanted to talk to Ishmael. They wanted him to be lovably eccentric and an underdog with his back to the wall.