Chris Cleave - Incendiary

People must of taken pity because I scraped together a fiver. I spent it on a Happy Meal for my boy and an extra-large Fanta and we sat at a table in the corner of McDonald’s. My boy was sulking and I couldn’t blame him Osama I mean no boy should have to see his mum on the cadge like that. He wouldn’t touch his Happy Meal and in the end I had to eat it for him.

We spent the night in a doorway in Berwick Street. I found a big sheet of bubble wrap and tucked it round us but it didn’t do any good against the cold. I didn’t sleep much. My boy sparked and smouldered all night but somehow there wasn’t any heat coming off him.

In that doorway tucked up in my bubble wrap I had a dream where the terror was over. In my dream Osama I wrote you this letter and you read it and then you went off behind a rock where your men couldn’t see you and you cried and you wished you hadn’t killed my boy. It made you too sad now. You didn’t feel angry any more you just felt very tired. I wrote to the others too Osama like I promised you at the beginning. I wrote to the president and the prime minister and now they felt sick and tired too. None of you wanted any more small boys to die 4 years and 3 months old who still slept with their rabbit whose name was Mr. Rabbit. So all you men just told your people to pack it in and go home. And that was it. It was over. There was just a load of old foxholes filling up with rain and empty basements with the jihad graffiti slowly going black with mildew. There were a million old chewing gum wrappers and fag butts where the terror used to be.

They untied all the balloons in the Shield of Hope and let them float away. I held on to the cable of my boy’s balloon and I hung there under his smiling face getting carried higher and higher in the night sky. It was lovely looking down on London shrinking till it was just a tiny spark in the darkness. It looked like all you had to do was spit and you could of put the whole city out. In my dream I smiled and I wondered where my boy would carry me. We floated very high above the world and the moon was very bright and I saw it all. All the rivers and the mountains were lit up with silver and the forests were full of creatures hunting and hiding and thinking nothing much. There was a warm wind pushing us and we swooped down low into the valleys and there were little villages there where the windows were lit up and all the colours glowed and you could smell food cooking. And from inside all the houses you heard mums singing their children to sleep and their love was stronger than bombs.

When I woke up it was raining and I sat in that doorway just shivering. I watched everyone in the Monday morning rush to work I was thinking how last Monday I’d been one of them. After I’d watched for a bit I got up and walked to a phone box. My boy followed along after me with the tarmac of the road melting under his feet.

I stuck my last coins into the phone box and dialled Jasper’s mobile. It was the longest time before he picked up.

—Jasper! It’s me. What’s going on? Can I come back to the flat yet?

—Wouldn’t be wise, said Jasper. There are people looking for you.

—I looked at the paper. I looked at all the papers. Where’s our story?

—Our story is nowhere, he said. Our story is dead. Petra killed it.

—What do you mean?

—Petra claims she changed her mind, said Jasper. She called me from the office late on Saturday night. Said she no longer believed the story was in the national interest. Bless. As if Petra’s ever given a fuck about the national interest.

—Look Jasper I haven’t got much time my money’s going to run out. If Petra doesn’t want to go with the story then you’ll just have to do it yourself.

—No, said Jasper. I’ll tell you what’s happened. The paper’s sold out to the government and Petra’s sold out to the paper. Now the government has your videotape and the paper has first dibs on the next big Downing Street leak. God knows what deal Petra’s cut for herself. I’m guessing she’ll come back from maternity leave as deputy editor. Everyone’s a winner. Oh. Except you. And me. And the British public of course. You do have to hand it to Petra Sutherland. She’s fucked an entire nation.

I couldn’t get my head round it. I leaned back on the wall of the telephone kiosk and watched the glass melting where my boy was pressing his nose against it.

—Are you still there? said Jasper.

—Yeah. What happens now?

—Oh, said Jasper. Now the fun really starts. I get sacked from the paper and blacklisted as a drug addict. No one else hires me. Petra moves to one of her family’s charming homes in Primrose Hill and has my baby and gets a court order barring me from seeing it. I fester. My cocaine dealer and my local off-licence garner a modest living from me for a short period of time. One day my neighbours ring up to complain about a nasty smell and the fire brigade turn up to remove my rotting corpse from the flat.

—You’re high aren’t you?

—Very very high sweetness, said Jasper. It’s 8 in the morning and good old Jasper Black is high as a motherfucking kite.

—I need to come back Jasper. I need my bank card and my clothes. Who are these people looking for me? What do they want?

—Nothing good, said Jasper. But maybe nothing too bad either. You’re small fry. They’ll probably just threaten you. Tell you what’ll happen if you try taking the story elsewhere. If it’s any consolation anything they can do to you and me is small beer compared to what they’ll do to Terence Butcher. They’ll chain that poor fucker down a well so deep you could throw a packet of fags down it and he still wouldn’t have anything to smoke till Christmas.

—Listen Jasper we’ve got to be quick this phone’s flashing at me. What are you going to do now?

Jasper laughed down the phone. It was a sharp and vicious laugh and it hurt my ear through the receiver.

—I’m going to do what any self-respecting Englishman would do in my position, he said. I’m going to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

—Please Jasper this isn’t the time to muck about I—

—Want to watch? he said. Meet me in an hour on Parliament Square. Do you want me to bring your—

The phone went dead.

I didn’t have the bus fare so I walked down to Westminster. It was only a couple of miles. It was raining a bit and the sky was so black and heavy it gave you a headache but it felt good to be going somewhere finally. I couldn’t wait to see Jasper even if he was off his rocker. My boy was feeling better too. When we walked through Trafalgar Square he laughed and chased the pigeons and singed their wet tail feathers with his hands.

Jasper got to Parliament Square before me. He was sitting on a pink suitcase under the big black statue of Churchill. There was a little dry patch there sheltered from the drizzle. I ran across the road and Jasper stood up and we hugged for a long time while the traffic roared past on the wet roads. He smelled of whisky. After a bit we stepped apart and looked at each other. Jasper got out his Camel Lights and we both lit one and I stood there smoking with my hand shaking like a sewing machine.

—You look like fucking shit, said Jasper.

—Thanks.

—So, said Jasper. Petra stitched us up.

I shrugged.

—Yeah.

—I’ll miss her you know, said Jasper. I’m surprised. What with me being heartless and everything.

—You’ve always been kind to me.

—Not always, said Jasper. I’ve always fancied you but don’t mistake it for kindness.

I smiled at him.

—I didn’t bring your bank card, he said.

—Oh.

—I brought you my bank card instead, he said. I won’t be needing it. Pin number’s scratched into the back of it. It’s good for a few grand. Not a king’s ransom but it should get you back on your feet.