Читать книгу The Testimony - James Smythe, James Smythe - Страница 68

The Cabinet was called in that morning, dragged out of our beds at some unholy hour and forced to wearily make our way back to the city. I was Minister of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which sounds exactly as dull as it was in reality. It was a position that I didn’t ask for, but when they offered me a place on the Cabinet I said Yes. I had been in the party for nearly twenty years; it made sense, I think, to them. I was the elder statesman, which is a ghastly thought, so I sat there and read the reports that my staffers had made for me, and I took extra pay for my troubles. I had, in a previous life, worked in the City. Apparently, this meant I should govern the finances of businesses the country over, I don’t know. Regardless, I was called in, and I obeyed the paymasters to a T. I don’t remember if we discussed the practicalities of giving everybody a day off, a religious holiday. I’m sure that it must have come up. My assistant only bothered to make it in because I promised her a rise if she did.

We were meeting in Downing Street, so I was told, and it wasn’t until after the gate checks that they said the meeting was in 12, not 10. Everybody was already in the room apart from the PM and the Deputy, and it was like a bloody mothers’ meeting in there, all talking at the same time, all doing whatever the heck they liked. Thomson, the pillock in charge of education, was even over by the window, cranked open, fag in hand. Smoking! In a Cabinet meeting! I asked where the PM was, and that seemed to be a point of contention. Nobody knew, exactly. I’ve heard a rumour, Thomson said, that he’s done a runner. After a few minutes the Deputy PM turned up, asked us to sit down, confirmed it. Somebody saw him in Brighton, he said, and we’ve found his suit and his wallet on a beach. Somebody saw a man of his rough description waddling into the sea earlier today, wading out, then not coming back. Is he mental? Thomson asked; Has he gone completely bloody barking? Barely blame him, I thought. Has the press got this yet? somebody asked, and the Deputy shook his head. I’ll be making a statement in a couple of hours. And you’ll be standing in for him, I’m assuming? That was Thomson who asked, because he always hated the Deputy PM. I will. Rabble rabble rabble, went the room, and then Thomson lit another fag, and walked out. Three or four more of the Cabinet followed him, either trying to calm him down or just, I don’t know, to get out of the room. I didn’t say a word. I rarely do, I confess, because people tend to tune out when I speak, even when it’s about something important. We abandoned the session before most people were even having their breakfast, saying we’d reconvene later that day. Strangest walk down Downing Street I’d ever had, leaving there.

I decided to get the train home. Some of them were running again, or trying to; the stations were hideously understaffed, the barriers open, the ticket booths empty, but some drivers had turned up. On the board at the front, where delays get noted, some wag had written The End Is Nigh!, and they had drawn a smiley face underneath. I have no idea why, but the platform was almost completely empty. It was eight o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday, and nobody was going to work. Madness. I stood on the platform for twenty minutes or so before a train popped up on the board, read through a copy of The Times that somebody had left there – little more than a pamphlet really, no interviews, cut and pasted from their website, but bless them for trying with everything that was going on. I got myself a Curly-Wurly from the machine, as I hadn’t had time for breakfast, and was sitting watching the rats when this man started talking to me. I hadn’t noticed him before; he was scruffy, but only as much as most people have the potential to be, I suppose: a few days of unshaven chin, some scuffed shoes, greasy, scraped-back hair. I wonder if the rats heard Him as well, he said, and I laughed. God only knows, I replied, expecting some sort of follow-up, but he went silent. Fine, I thought, you started the conversation; it’s your right to finish it. A minute passed, then he sat down. They’re acting just the same as always, he said, meaning the rats again, and I agreed. Maybe they’ve got it right and we’ve got it wrong, I said. We’re running around and panicking, they’re just getting on with it. He scowled at me. I’ll bet they don’t even understand what God means, he said.

Before The Broadcast I would have described myself as a faded agnostic – faded, mostly, because I rarely thought about what I believed or didn’t. Once I thought that I had a tumour so I prayed that it wasn’t, and it wasn’t; it was a cyst, just a lump. Of course, through that I found out what was really wrong with me, and that led me towards a potentially abbreviated lifetime of pills and medicaments, so horses for courses. Either way, the praying didn’t do me any favours. I didn’t have the patience to listen to preaching before The Broadcast, and I certainly didn’t have the patience after it. I didn’t think that it was God. I didn’t know what it was. I was part of that enormous percentage of the population that was just wholly confused. Regardless, I smiled and nodded, because it felt like a time to be polite, and the scruff began fidgeting. You know when you see shoplifters, and you can tell that they’re shoplifters because of the way that they glance, all nerves and false confidence? So when the train started approaching I got up, walked down a way towards the map on the wall, even though I knew full well where I was going. When the train stopped I kept walking down a few carriages away from him, and I sat opposite the only other person in the carriage, an Asian girl – Japanese, I think. She smiled politely, and I smiled back, and it was friendly and quiet and I was away from him. Phew, relief, et cetera.

We were four or five stops along when I heard the door at the end of the carriage click, and the man stepped through, so I put my head down, tried to ignore him, but the Japanese girl, bless her cotton socks, smiled at him. He started speaking to her, rambling on about retribution and penance. He’s here among us, he said, even though it was patently clear that she didn’t understand what he was saying. Then he said something about eternal rest, about sending us all to eternal rest and I thought, What if he’s got a knife? What will I do? I was ready to, I don’t know, throw myself at him or something, at least try to wrestle him to the ground, but he stopped, turned back towards the door. Soon, we will all be dead, he said, and he opened the door again and stepped out, and to one side between the carriages. I screamed, I’m sure, and so did the girl, and we heard his body as it smacked against the glass windows, pinballing between the carriage and the wall.

We pulled into the station and the girl threw herself through the doors onto the platform. I followed her out, checked she was okay, but she suddenly seemed terrified of me, as if I was going to turn on her, as if we hadn’t both been in the same predicament. Clearly, I was the crazy man’s accomplice. I was home half an hour later, and I spent the day watching the news wondering if they would mention him, but they didn’t. Of course they didn’t; he was just another one of the many. A week previous and I wouldn’t have been able to escape hearing about him, at least for the first couple of hours after he died.