Jonathan Lee - High Dive

‘I would say, in fact,’ Sir Keith went on, ‘that I probably speak to those gentlemen as often as I do to my own wife. Moreover, the — the Captain? Yes. Well, the Captain and I were in the middle, as it happens, of a conversation about environmental issues.’

‘Right,’ Moose said. ‘As if the environment’s a priority!’ He swallowed and studied Sir Keith’s increasingly grave expression. He was fucking this up. He really was. ‘In times like these, I mean.’ Stop talking, stop talking. ‘You know, the rich — poor divide and …’ This was bad. This was digging yourself a hole. A Moose in a volcano with a shovel, rumblings from below. Natural disaster with extra lava. He waited in silence for Sir Keith to speak.

‘The environment,’ Sir Keith said, ‘is among the most important of concerns. What you may consider to be background scenery is of course — Hello, James, how do you do? — the very thing keeping us alive.’

‘Makes me think,’ the Captain said, ‘of those lines from Auden.’

‘Yes?’ Sir Keith said. ‘I’m not familiar.’

The Captain recited a line of poetry, something to do with faces in public places.

‘Ah,’ Sir Keith said. ‘I must make a note!’ He looked bafflingly happy, his eyes soft and moist.

‘I always prefer,’ the Captain said, ‘to be outdoors, don’t you? The environment. The elements. The sea. Whereas events such as these — a fandangling job at curation, don’t get me wrong — but public men such as yourself cooped up in small rooms, the faces in private places …’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ Sir Keith said. ‘Refreshingly honest. I take no offence. In fact —’ he leaned in, chuckling (chuckling!) — ‘I couldn’t agree more, truth be told.’

Moose looked on, astonished, as the conversation continued to blossom. The Captain brushed crumbs from his jacket. His hair looked extra white and his cheeks teemed with uncommon colour.

‘Though I would like,’ the Captain said, ‘to speak to you about another matter at some point, too. One concerning education and health. I believe you have links to the pharmaceutical industry? I’d like to discuss what we can do to address a growing problem, a global problem I’ve already written to Mr Peter Tatchell about. It concerns prejudices and — sincerely — preventing many deaths. But perhaps I’m taking up too much of your fine-sung time.’

‘Not at all,’ Sir Keith said. ‘You have my ear.’

Fine-sung time? What did it even mean? Moose shook his head and walked away. You misread people and misread people and misread people again.

Marina was still standing by the curtains, bare arms crossed, back straight, hair and heels reflecting lamplight. ‘The Captain still seems to be here,’ she said.

‘Yes. That’s true. Holding it together pretty well.’

Sasha walked by, yawning. A minister touched Karen’s wrist and asked her about cake, or possibly his coat.

Marina said, ‘Freya has been going there a lot, no? The Captain’s museum.’

‘The what? Oh. That.’ Paparazzi were beginning to throng outside, a mass of denim jackets and camera bags, which meant –

‘She went there twice this week, I think.’

‘Why?’

Marina shrugged. ‘Because she finds him interesting, no? Or is a little bit alone.’

There was a burst of activity in the lobby. Voices. Flashbulbs. Marina saying, ‘Keep calm , Moose. Don’t rush. Your health.’

‘Calm’ was on your marks. ‘Rush’ was equivalent to a gun going off. He barely heard the word ‘health’. He lurched through bodies, elbows out, using the silver tray as a shield. Maggie was here, Maggie was here, and she was what this party was missing.

Some of the photographers had spilled into the hotel. They were saying ‘Prime Minister, do you have any comment on …?’, ‘Prime Minister, what do you say to the …?’, ‘Prime Minister, do you plan to …?’ Someone trod on his foot. A police officer was shouting. So many arms and legs. He wedged himself against a painting of Napoleon, chest aching, foot hurting, the blur of black-tie all around. John was a head’s height above the rest, close to the door. He looked confused, hopeless. He was saying ‘Excuse me, hello’. Freya might have knocked them all into shape but Freya — where was Freya?

A man with a walkie-talkie appeared on the stairs. Who was he? Where from? With a few authoritative words this man managed to restore some semblance of order, but there were still too many people shifting for Moose to get a glimpse of Mrs Thatcher. The plan to line staff up along the stairs no longer seemed actionable. John wasn’t actioning it. And Plan B was … Why didn’t he have a Plan B? Had he learned nothing? Light from chandeliers fell in shards, illuminating shoulder-dandruff.

He slipped through a few of the more half-hearted spectators. Here the crowd tightened around him. Ducking down he saw between tights and trousers a pair of shoes that could be hers. Brown shoes, scuffed, like his mother sometimes wore — they were not very prime ministerial. The roundness of the ankles surprised him.

A thin zigzag of space opened up. This was his moment. He raised his eyes, savouring every second on the way to her face. He saw the hem of a tweed skirt, he saw the wrinkled bend of a waistband, and it was at this point — the point at which he was straightening his back and beginning to stand tall — that a Special Branch guy barged him into the shadows.

FOUR-SOMETHING IN the morning, the moon’s soft indented of emotion, the night bright against closed windows. Dan was nearing the end of his long walk home. Knotweed on his mind, the lost library book, unspoiled face of the receptionist girl, a woman’s hand slipping from his. He was going to have to pay a pro a lot of money. Glyphosate sprayed over the garden. A non-selective herbicide. Kills everything and poisons the soil. Find Dawson and give him a dose? Keep it all for himself? He could imagine the tearful hangover tomorrow. He could imagine the day after that, waking up to no headache, the small pure joy of health restored. He could imagine hearing the Saracens slipping into low gears and men raiding his home, everything falling apart. He could picture the book on knotweed in a puddle of ale, a crowd of dipsos around it, the land of old smoke and the city of myths. There was no real life. Not here, not any more. Everything pretend. He was drunk.

He gifted a burp to the chill night air. He was booze-snug, insulated, full-bodied, cloudy. He thought he could hear a hysterical mosquito whining at the loss of summer. He tried to clap it dead. Girl in the blue dress had boarded her bus. Could feel the cold only on his lips, on the tip of his nose. His ears ached. They ached with nothing. In his assessment he’d need to be sick very soon. Could feel his weight shifting wildly as he walked. Waterbed head, a motherfucking dream. He loved Ireland, he loved Belfast. He loved it with nothing.

No cheers or shrieks to be heard in these streets. No raids of houses as far as he could see. It had gone off and the news hadn’t filtered through. It hadn’t gone off and there was no news. It had been found and defused, a press release shaped, clear roles assigned and the past flattened down: heroes, villains, survivors; everyone assigned their proper role and thinking in threes. He tried to find comfort in the fact that whatever had happened or not happened had by now happened or not happened. People wanted love, they thought it made them whole, but caring about other people was exactly what cracked you open. He cared and didn’t care. He felt cracked open now. He didn’t feel it until he thought it. It was the thought that shaped his fate. He was cracked.

As he got close to home a change of atmosphere occurred. His mind registered this in stages. First the scent of burning leaves. He breathed it in and hoped it would steady him. He liked the spice of kindling things. Then above a twitching street lamp a dark mass of shifting air. There were flecks of glitter within. Ash?