A Week in December (37 page)

Knocker watched them disappear with a pang, then stepped forward, as instructed, into the palace itself. At the top of some more steps he found himself in a huge rectangular room with numerous old paintings - Dutch, French, he didn't know. Here, a woman in a black skirt and cardigan, rather like a caterer, Knocker thought, asked him which decoration he was to receive. The KBEs and CBEs went one way, the OBEs and the MBEs another; each then regrouped in a holding pen, cordoned off by a scarlet rope, such as you might have in a post-office queue.

Knocker made desultory chat with a few of his fellow OBEs and tried hard to remember his homework. 'Betjeman ... Indeed. Perhaps underrated. Philip Larkin without the melancholy ...' Or was that Ted Hughes? A man came and pinned onto his lapel a hook from which the medal would in due course be hung.

A few minutes later, a grand gentleman in a uniform covered in gold frogging and with a scarlet stripe up the side of his trousers came bounding into the room and introduced himself with enormous pleasure.

'Good morning, ladies and gentlemen ... A few words of explanation ... Batting order as follows ...'

Knocker was so nervous he was barely listening. He went over his homework. 'Needs to learn the difference between "may" and "might" if she is to be taken seriously.' But which one was that? Damn it, he had forgotten. Virginia Woolf, perhaps. Or was she the one who'd put the 'anal' into 'banality'? He tried to summon up Tranter's whiny voice to prompt him.

'Anyone on this side of the room not, I repeat not, for an MBE? Splendid, splendid, you really are fast learners. So by process of elimination, every single one of you on this side must be a C or K. Excellent! You're doing my job for me!'

Knocker licked his lips and swallowed hard. He slipped a mint into his mouth, not wishing to give Her Majesty an unwitting reminder of the industry he had so faithfully 'served'.

The beaming courtier boomed on: 'Now the next thing you need to know is that this morning's investitures will be taken not by Her Majesty but by the Prince of Wales. He does an increasing number these days and the good news for you is that he is extremely good at it.'

For six months Knocker had been imagining his interview with the sovereign, the head of state. All his talk had been for her. 'T. S. Eliot, I believe, ma'am. A most interesting American poet. Have you read much of his work?' It was difficult not to be disappointed; but it was more than this that he felt: it was a sense of disorientation.

'... come in from the side, pause next to the gentleman usher, like so, then when you hear your surname called you step forward, like so. Now. The Prince of Wales will be on a dais. Do not attempt to join him on the dais.'

Knocker looked round in puzzlement. What was a 'day-iss'? Why should he not join the Prince on one?

'... and finally, can anyone tell me what you should call the Prince of Wales? Yes, sir, you.'

'Your Royal Highness.'

'Absolutely right. And if that's a bit of a mouthful with your false teeth in, then "sir" is perfectly acceptable. Now then. Any questions?'

By the time they were ushered out of the room, Knocker found he could barely remember the name of a single English writer. He was towards the end of the OBEs, his surname being deemed to start with R for Rashid, not A for al. They crossed the ballroom at the back and he looked round in vain for Nasim and Hassan. His mouth was dry as he waited in a long corridor and wondered if he had time for another mint, but the last thing he wanted was still to be sucking it when he had to make conversation so that he'd have to spit it out or secrete it in his hand, then shake the Prince's ... Oh dear.

He looked at the others in the queue. Many of the women seemed to have dressed in a way that Knocker had never seen in any woman except the Queen herself: a dress and a light coat of the same material and a squashed-meringue hat on top. The men looked slightly less ill at ease in their suits, but the people who had fared best were the numerous sailors, airmen and soldiers with shining brass and glowing brown leather belts. These are my fellow countrymen, thought Knocker, people who patrol the seas and skies, defend the shores. I never think of them.

By the time he was in the doorway, two away from his turn, Knocker's mind had gone almost completely blank. He was aware of its emptiness. Indeed, he could picture it: like the huge cauldron in which they stewed the limes, emptied, washed, hosed. He fancied he could actually still hear a slight ringing sound from the final scour of wire wool - but coming from his empty brain.

Some robotic force moved his feet forward and stopped them on the crimson carpet opposite the 'gentleman usher'. He could see the Prince conversing genially with the man ahead of him, who then took two steps back, bowed, and left the ballroom.

'Mr Farooq al-Rashid. For services to catering.'

The same impersonal force caused one foot to follow another over the strip of crimson to where the Prince stood above him on a dais.

'Catering,' said the Prince. 'Are you the pickle company?'

'Yes, Your Highness. Lime pickle originally and now a large range of other chutneys and sauces.'

'I see. And where are you based? In London?'

'No, we started in Renfrew, Glasgow, now we have other factories in Luton. And ...' Knocker trailed away, fearing he was babbling.

'Ah yes, I've tried your lime pickle,' said the Prince. 'Very good it was too. I've travelled a good deal in India and Pakistan, where--'

'Yes, indeed. Have you read A. H. Edgerton, sir?'

'Edgerton, did you say?'

'Yes, Edgerton, sir. He is a very fine Victorian writer. Some people call him the poor man's Trollope, but I think of him as the rich man's Dickens.'

'I shall certainly keep an eye out for him. Now I'm going to pin this on you ... And I hope that if ever times get difficult in your business, you will remember this moment and consider it an encouragement.'

'Do you read many good books?' said Knocker.

'As much as time allows,' said the Prince.

'I'm also a great admirer of Dick Francis and T. S. Eliot,' said Knocker.

'Excellent. So was my grandmother. Of Dick Francis anyway. It was very nice to meet you, Mr al-Rashid. Many congratulations.' The Prince held out his hand, the signal that the interview was over.

Knocker grasped it fiercely and looked into the Prince's eyes. He felt like a small boy. He could feel his late mother and father peering over his shoulder. 'What is Farooq doing?' 'What are you up to, little menace?'

Their voices were so strong in his ears that he could barely concentrate. His throat closed up and his eyes filled with tears as he stepped back awkwardly, trying not to trip on the bottom of his over-length hired trousers. Somehow he managed to bow and turn away, then walk across the red carpet with the eyes of the ballroom upon him, so that he found it hard to co-ordinate his arms and legs as he shuffled out.

As soon as he had made it to the far corridor, he was required to give back his medal to be placed in a presentation box. The man doing this gave him a winsome smile.

'Did you have a nice word with the princess?'

'Pardon?'

'She's ever such a chatterbox once she gets doing. There you are, sir. One little gong. Take care now.'

Finn slept badly and woke to find life even worse. In order to calm himself after the trauma of Alan the schizophrenic's on-screen suicide, he'd smoked a large joint of Aurora/Super Skunk Two, and he'd inhaled it quickly, leaving no time to gauge its effect. He had fallen deeply asleep, at last, towards dawn.

As soon as he awoke, he fell asleep again, or so he thought. Yet he seemed to be up and moving about in his room. Now this was the dream from which he must awake. He found that he was still in bed. If he fell asleep again, he would never wake, but now he was in the bathroom, the tap was running, he'd turned on the mighty shower that flooded down like a Yosemite cascade, so why was he still lying in his bed? The sheets would be wet from the shower.

'Get up, you're late,' said a woman's voice, though not his mother's.

Finn heard his own voice, or thought it was his own.

'I need to go to school.'

'It's the last day of term.'

'I haven't done my homework, though.'

'Get up, you useless fucking lump. Get up.'

Finn was on all fours, crawling to the door. The room was full of people, full of voices. He couldn't see the people. Perhaps, he thought, I'm still asleep.

He rested his face on the floor, feeling the tight weave of the grey carpet on his soft skin, abrasive against a new spot forming on his chin.

He called out for his mother, shouting as he lay in the doorway. 'Mum!
Mum
!
Mummy
!'

He curled himself up into a ball and gripped his ribs tightly through his tee shirt.

'She's never going to come. She can't hear him.'

'Mum-
my
!'

'He's such a sack of shit.'

There were too many thoughts in Finn's mind; so much coming in at once that he wasn't able to receive and organise it all. The breakwaters had been washed away.

He wanted to move his body down the stairs to find help, but couldn't mobilise the part of his brain that would have sent the command to feet or legs. He couldn't find it in the chaos. The only movement he could make was a reflexive tightening of his arms around his ribs.

A voice was calling for his mother, but he didn't know if it was his.

Other voices contradicted him.

Eventually, there was a hand on his shoulder. It was Vanessa, though Finn was not sure that she was there.

'What on earth is the matter, darling?'

II

Hassan left his parents at the palace, his father stunned, his mother pink with fussy pride, and walked up over the grass to Green Park Tube station on the Piccadilly Line.

At last, he thought, I am back in real life, back with things that matter. In the train, he took off his tie and stuffed it in his pocket. He was due at 'the pub' at 12.40, having asked Salim if he could be the last to arrive. The timing would be tight, but such was his elation that he wasn't worried. It was God's work, God's will.

He'd read accounts of Islamist groups in the
kafir
press and he'd read fine writing about what went on in the heads of 'terrorists'; he'd seen a 'drama-documentary' in the cinema about the planes that crashed into the Towers. What no one talked about, no one seemed to understand, was the joy - the pure exhilaration of belief!

People like himself were portrayed as madmen, mumbling, but as the Tube train rattled up to Manor House, he had never felt more lucid. It was all, as Ali had pointed out to them in Bradford, so simple. Life did not need string theory, eleven dimensions and a battering of the head against the inherent contradictions of human consciousness. All it required was to follow a simple revealed truth. There it was, on the bookshelf for PS6.99. For all time. What was more amazing, the glorious purity of the truth or the boneheaded refusal of people to accept the gift that had been given them?

Hassan went down the lazy street with its outdoor life for what he thought would be the last time, and rang the bell marked 'Ashaf'. Salim let him in. Upstairs were Gary the Gold Tooth Hindu, Seth the Shy One and Bald Elton.

There were four rucksacks sitting in the middle of the bare wooden floor.

In the corner, with his back to them, looking over the scrap of garden was someone Hassan hadn't seen before. The man turned round.

'This is Steve from Husam Nar,' said Salim. 'Steve, this is Jock.'

Steve was a short, tubby man of African appearance, about thirty years old. 'In these bags,' he said, 'are bomb components. We've used hydrogen peroxide injected into drinks bottles. This is a development of what was due to be used on those aircraft, where you need only a fairly small explosion to bring the plane down. We needed more bang, so each of you is carrying twenty-five drinks bottles. The detonators are in disposable cameras. The battery contents have been replaced by HMTD, or to give it the proper name, hexamethylene triperoxide diamine. This works as the primary explosive, or primer. It's unstable enough to go off easily, but stable enough to transport. Next to it in the battery casing is a small light bulb. When the camera is turned on, the charge to the light bulb is enough to detonate the HMTD which in turn sets off the main explosive. All clear?'

They all nodded. Steve had a thick East African accent, but his words were easy enough to follow.

'Listen carefully. You each go separately to the target. There are no trial runs. At the target you reassemble. You choose exactly where in a minute. One of you will carry all the detonators because we can't risk travelling on the train with the detonators in the same bag as the explosive. They're in this fourth bag here. Once you're at your assembly point at the target, the detonators are given out and the man who brought them is given his share of explosive by the other three. You've chosen?'

'Yes,' said Salim. 'Jock will take the detonators.'

'OK,' said Steve. 'The timing is that you meet at 11 p.m. tomorrow. You travel alone. You make your own travel plan. If you're on the same train and happen to see one another, ignore it. The target is fifteen minutes' walk from a busy railway station so there's no problem about getting there. You need to leave plenty of time, but not too much. Hanging around can be dangerous. Give yourself half an hour leeway but no more.'

The atmosphere in the room had become tense. Hassan no longer felt elated. Something about the charmless, practical way that Steve drove onwards made him feel, for the first time, extremely frightened.

From inside his coat pocket, Steve took out a folded piece of paper. When he opened it out fully, it was the size of a lecturer's flip chart. He laid it flat on the table.

'This,' he said, 'is Glendale Hospital. The local railway station is fifteen minutes this way. The map is not to scale because you need to see the layout of the different units in detail. The first three will be detonating here, here and here. The greatest density of patients is in this building here. It's possible that the first blast will be such that it will detonate the second without you needing to use the camera. Because of the long corridor that joins this outbuilding with the main hospital, the blast should be funnelled through into the main building, which is where the fourth and largest bomb will be placed. The outbuildings form a specialised psychiatric unit, but the main building is a general hospital, and the wing attached here, where the fourth blast will be, has "long-term" units on the first floor - people who are dying, basically - and then the maternity unit on the floor above. Our experts chose this site because of its particular vulnerability. The psychiatric clinic has quite low security, only two porters on the main gate, just here, and simple signing-in at a desk inside. But my ballistics man in Pakistan told me that this joining corridor, which is really there for catering trolleys and things, this bit here, will magnify and funnel the blast and so help with the bomb in the main building. We don't need to go into all those details now. What we do need is for each of you to have a very clear picture in his head of this layout and of where your rucksack is going to be put down. So come and have a close look. Once you've got the overall plan clear I'll show you photographs of the interiors.'