The last cinema-goers to emerge stood shaking sodden clothes and pulling pieces of seaweed out of their hair and mouths. They, too, were laughing and holding on to each other in their merriment. One girl spat a seashell into her hand. ‘
Titanic
. Fantastic movie. God, I think I actually drowned in there.’
Yet as Strether and Matt watched, the apparitions slowly dried up. The gore, the slime, the water, the bullet hole evaporated before their eyes, leaving not a mark or stain. The burned boy stood quietly as his skin returned to normal, the singed hair miraculously restored. The smell lingered; then he rubbed his chin, smiled and was gone, with, Strether thought, a touch of relief. He watched as the seashell in the girl’s cupped palm disappeared, molecule by molecule. It took about a minute to vanish entirely. The girl sighed. ‘That was lovely. Pity it’s all an illusion.’
‘The wetties,’ Matt murmured. ‘Brilliant invention. So much better than the feelies they had in Grandad’s day.’
‘Available on vid, now, aren’t they?’ Strether commented.
‘Yeah, but much more fun going with your mates, trying to see who can dodge the
muck. The vids are best for romance and porn, to be honest. To be watched in private.’ He glanced at his boss and coloured. ‘Sir.’
By the time they had lunched and taken the walkolator, large numbers of people were heading in the same direction. It was Friday afternoon: the bulk of the population had finished work until Tuesday. A twenty-five hour week standardised throughout the Union was sufficient to combine high productivity through sustained skills with an optimum level of job creation. In America the government was not allowed, by the constitutional amendment of 2015, to interfere with working hours. In Europe that, along with many other aspects of life, was regulated with great determination. It made Strether obscurely uneasy. Perhaps those cameras were checking that citizens did not work longer than their quota. It would be virtually impossible, if the camera operators were efficient, to operate a black market, to avoid taxes, to indulge in illicit liaisons. Was that what the surveillance was for? Who decided? Who controlled it? And who controlled the controllers?
The stadium roof soared over their heads, its aluminium alloy struts glinting in the sun. Watch-towers at each corner contained shadowy figures – Rottweiler guards, Strether guessed, shading his eyes against the sun. Yet no police appeared to be on patrol. Perhaps, given the complaisant nature of the spectators he had seen so far, crowd trouble was not a problem.
The stadium capacity was over eighty thousand. Its sides curved ovoid and soared over their heads. Strether noted that, as in America, the seats were of extra width to accommodate the larger body. The term ‘obese’ was frowned on as excessively judgmental and, under codes on both sides of the Atlantic, discrimination was outlawed. One stand in particular was advertised as; suitable for those weighing over 150 kilos – almost as much as Matt and himself put together. Since one adult in three in Europe, and one in two in the US, could now expect to reach such a body weight, that made commercial sense. It also made Strether feel almost puny by comparison with the massive girths and spreading thighs waddling in on all sides.
The man to his right was mountainous by any standard. He was accompanied by a short, dumpy woman and two roly-poly children. On one arm the man carried a basket from which spilled out packets of food, while the other cradled a metre-deep tub of buttered popcorn. His wife was similarly encumbered. As they sat down the entire row of seats creaked and sagged.
‘Hi!’ He nodded to Strether. ‘Should be quite a bust-up this afternoon. Name’s Fred.’
‘Bill,’ Strether returned. The man was struggling with his belongings. ‘Can I hold something for you?’
‘Nah, thanks. This lot’s not for me – the kids get hungry. Who d’you support?’
‘Nobody, exactly. I’m new here. American.’
‘Yeah, your accent. Crystal Palace, the home team, are pretty fair. They’ll beat Chelsea. Then there’s the Villa A side – I reckon they should murder Liverpool. The basketball at the interval – try the Brixton Babes. Dunno about the women’s matches, though. Got some new talent there.’
‘I think we should have mixed teams,’ his wife butted in. ‘Don’t hold with this single-sex rubbish. Why should I have to sit through two twenty-minute premier division games till
it’s our turn?’
‘You should count yourself lucky,’ her partner retorted rudely. His fist was deep in the popcorn; his jowls glistened with butter. ‘Those matches used to be forty-five minutes each way, plus a break in the middle. You’d have had to wait three and a half hours.’
Several members of the embassy’s staff had appeared, checked their tickets and found their seats in the row beyond Matt. Vendors moved along the wide terraces selling team favours, programmes, snacks, drinks, betting slips. More could be ordered by pressing buttons on the console embedded in the seat arm. On an impulse, Strether stopped a vendor and, on the basis of Fred’s tips, bet ten euros on the outcome of the first two matches.
His new acquaintance leaned alarmingly towards him and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I shan’t bother watching the wimmin,’ he confided. ‘I’ll go down inside the stand for the hologram of gladiators and lions. Blood and guts. That’ll suit me. I like to see a geezer with his arm torn off.’
He smacked his lips. To Strether’s eyes he looked as if he would have relished tearing off the limb with his own teeth. And eaten it. Given his own queasy entanglement with rampaging wildlife on the virtual-reality toy, the Ambassador declined the invitation to do likewise.
To much fanfare the first teams ran out on to the pitch. There were seven players on each side, a far easier number for fans to follow than under the old rules, Fred informed him. And the intense competition to get into these smaller teams had sharpened up players’ performances on and off the pitch. In quieter moments Strether’s podgy companion waxed lyrical about other recent improvements. Modern footballers were exponents of speedy acceleration but had poor stamina, so shorter games had become popular; the whole of the two main games, along with advertising, would fit neatly into an hour’s viewing that night. That had been the brainwave of Mr Maxwell Packer, the media tycoon Strether had met at the Palace, who was much praised for his intelligent appreciation of audience requirements.
Fred and his family entered fully into the spirit of the sport, roaring encouragements and insults, punching fists in the air as play ebbed and flowed. A disputed free kick had Fred on his feet, the row of seats see-sawing behind his vast posterior. Nor was he mollified by the instant replay on the giant screen opposite. With a furious expletive he pulled out the complaints box from the seat arm, entered his swipe card and recorded a string of reasons as to why the electronic referee should be emasculated. Yet his fury had a synthetic feel: Strether understood that it was style without substance. The man and his family, like the rest of the crowd, were far too good-natured to be threatening. Perhaps, he caught himself thinking, it had been bred into them.
At the interval between the first two games Strether saw his chance. He accepted the offer of a handful of crumbs from the bottom of Fred’s grease-smeared tub as the man ordered another.
‘You and your family,’ Strether remarked. ‘You do seem to be having a great day.’
‘Yeah, it’s not a bad life,’ Fred agreed. He licked his sausage-like fingers. ‘Me and the missus, we’ve been married twelve year. The kids, Jockey and Pony – me other hobby’s following the horses – they’re ten and six.’
‘Fred.’ His wife dug him in the ribs. Her elbow seemed to disappear into the mountain of flesh. ‘The foreign gentleman doesn’t want to listen to your rubbish. Belt up.’
‘No, no,’ Strether demurred. ‘I am interested. I was married myself, once. No kids. You should be proud of your family.’
‘Yeah, we are. Especially our Pony. He’s an NT,’ Fred smirked.
‘Oh? And why is that?’
‘Well, we can afford it now, see. I gotta better job with Walls Ice Cream. I test new products. Heh! Heh!’
The children looked alike, though the younger one was slimmer than his sibling. Fred explained, ‘We modified the fat gene. He’ll be able to eat more forever without getting as big as his Mom and me. Jammy bugger.’
Strether felt his mouth drop open and quickly shut it. On his left, Matt was engrossed in a mild sporting dispute with a colleague so could not come to his rescue. ‘I see,’ Strether said. ‘I’m intrigued, Fred. Did you have to pay?’
‘A bit,’ the man admitted. He had opened a double packet of chocolate chip cookies, which he rammed between the folds of his thighs, alternately cramming biscuits and popcorn into the sticky cavern of his mouth. It did not stop him talking. ‘But we’re on a scheme, see. We get our optional health care half price. Great employer, Walls.’
‘You didn’t think of spending the money on anything else?’
‘Nah. We got everything we want, the missus and me. Nice house, all paid for. Had to work hard for it: I used to do a thirty-five-hour week. Not any more.’
‘Do you take an interest in politics?’ Strether ventured. He felt manipulative, probing in this manner, but his companion seemed amiable enough. Matt had been correct: there would be lots of occasions to mix with the elites, the Énarques, but not so many to meet an average family.
‘Not a lot. We vote, like. Gotta do our duty. Even so, I don’t bother every time. Not unless it’s something important.’
‘What was the last thing you voted on?’
Fred screwed up his face. ‘Mayor of London, I think,’ he answered. ‘I voted for the geezer offering free tickets to the Internationals. He won, but we heard no more about it.’
‘The Prime Minister vetoed it,’ his wife reminded him. ‘Them NTs always get their own way in the end.’
‘Doesn’t that bother you?’ Strether asked quickly.
‘Nah,’ Fred answered again. His cheerful face broke into a wide grin. ‘They look after their business and I look after mine. I ain’t got much to complain about, an’ that’s the truth of it: as long as my kids can grow up okay, and the wife’s willing, and the gee-gees run fast once in a while. I’d like to see my grandchildren some day. They’ll all be NTs, I hope. Then I’ll die a happy man.’
The new teams were on the pitch. Fred broke off the conversation and began to howl abuse at one particular opponent. To Strether’s untutored eye, the players looked identical to the previous teams apart from the differently coloured strip. He nudged Fred and remarked on the similarity.
‘Yeah, well,’ Fred shrugged, ‘don’t you do that in the States? They’re NTs too. The finest quality. That one’ – he pointed –’he’s Maradona. Supposed to be, anyway. That one’s Pele. Fancy footwork but a bit slow. I prefer the Italian types meself.’
‘Gimme Cantona every time,’ his wife said, rolling her eyes.
‘When you think about it – and I don’t much – I reckon we’re sitting pretty,’ Fred added. ‘Got our pick. The best in the world. The best ever. Gawd, look at that. Pass it!
Go on, you stupid tosser!’
He half rose then slumped as a penalty was declared. He prodded Strether’s arm. ‘If you don’t have this in the States, no wonder you’ve slipped behind. Sounds a bit backward to me.
Yes!’
The penalty had been saved.
Suddenly there was a commotion three rows in front, on the other side of the gangway. Two Rottweilers marched down the steps, batons in hand. In a trice they had lifted a middle-aged man in a grey tunic suit bodily out of his seat and frogmarched him, arms bent painfully behind his back, up and along the terrace to the nearest exit. Strether saw the man’s expression, a mix of fear and bewilderment, but the prisoner made no protest, other than to drag his feet. As he stumbled, one guard cracked him hard across the shins with the baton. In a moment the trio had vanished.
The Ambassador turned to Matt, but the young staffer, who had seen only the man’s back as he disappeared with his escorts, spread his hands helplessly. Strether tugged at Fred’s arm. ‘What was that about?’
‘Dunno,’ the fat man answered, his attention on the play. ‘Often happens. Probably got behind with his alimony. Or taxes. Whatever it was, there’s a good reason.’
‘You sure?’ Strether demanded.
‘Oh, yeah. He’ll have been spotted when he got here. Checked out. Probably made the mistake of using his swipe card – then they’ve got ’im. No rest for the wicked, no hiding-place. You’ve got to behave now. Best for everyone.’
For the rest of the afternoon Strether watched mostly in silence. In the basketball match the loping players, all astonishingly tall, were uniformly black, shaven-headed and aggressive. That had always been so, but now it made him think. The women soccer players were more varied, though four of the defenders had the same sturdy build and, from what he could tell at a distance, identical complexions and facial bone structure. And similar ferocious scowls.
By the end of the last contest he was glad to order up his winnings – Fred had been a competent tipster – and leave with Matt. The other staffers followed at a respectful distance. They joined the crowds on the walkolators towards the tube.
‘Thanks, Matt.’ He patted the young man’s shoulder. ‘A remarkable day. I’m thirty euros better off and I’ve learned a thing or two. Come up with a few conundrums as well. What is it with these people? They seem extraordinarily laid back, don’t they?’
‘Oh, they’re content enough.’ Matt frowned and sighed. ‘I’ve been here a year, sir, and that’s what you’ll find everywhere. Makes you wonder.’
‘Maybe there’s something in the water.’ Strether half laughed, then regretted his levity and continued more soberly. ‘Maybe folk have got so complacent they don’t react to the strangest events. That man Fred didn’t blink an eye when someone was arrested under his nose, quite violently too, and I didn’t hear anybody reading out the guy’s civil rights. They weren’t even proper police.’
Matt walked quietly beside him. ‘We can’t assume anything. We ask, but we get nowhere. Unless it’s an American citizen we’re fobbed off.’
‘But you have your suspicions?’ Strether realised that he had spent the whole day taking in a host of impressions but had not been quite as dazzled as he had expected.
Something was wrong, but he could not put his finger on it.