Breaktime (9 page)

I watched and listened and sawheard in minddazzle.

Went on the standingman, ‘government people solidarity people people party people policy party left people party-strugglesocialistwelcome’

A waterfall of fryingpan exploding lightbulbs.

The standingman sat, the sittingman stood.

And spoke; an eloquent precision.

The sittingstanding talking man sat.

Fryingpan exploding lightbulbs waterfalled again.

‘That was a load of elephant’s,’ yelled Jack through the cascade.

‘All balloon,’ said grin-grimacing Ditto.

Robby was Vesuvius before Pompeii got its historic comeuppance.

The hall silence. The standingsittingman stood again.

‘stimulating honest peoplecomrade grateful socialist questions’

The again standing standingsittingman sat again.

Robby suddenly was standing at Ditto’s sittingside, leaning forward, hands white-knuckled grasping the green tubular steel frame of the infront canvas-covered chair.

‘I would like to ask our speaker when, if ever, he intends to demonstrate his solidarity with the working class by putting his considerable income where his not inconsiderable mouth is?’

‘Furthermore, does our speaker condemn absolutely the hypocrisy of those who live by preaching the doctrine of socialist change, let’s not use the dirty word revolution,’

‘while they themselves hold shares and directorships in important capitalist firms,’

‘not to mention their willingness to compromise on such matters as nationalization, the public schools, the maintenance of the House of Lords,’

‘and the careful use of backhanders, sinecure jobs, personal gifts and spurious business deals to sweeten local party officials’

‘When will you sleepers wake!’ yelled Robby as the surge engulfed him.

Ditto panned for Jacky; could not find him.

‘Don’t potter, Thompson,’ he yelled, ablaze and hurling himself at the trembling surge breaking over Robby.

Chairs atomized.

A table subsided beneath assaulting bodies, spraying coruscating china in smithereens.

Trip in regain dodge balance fling forward to rescue and combat support, did Ditto.

An advancing bonewall.

Party: Paean

When he woke to consciousness, he wondered if it was really him lying there.

Sound of water.

Sound of trees.

Sound of breeze in trees.

Sound of water.

Feel of stone.

Hard feel of hard stone.

Feel of breeze, cool.

Smell of green.

Smell of brown.

Smell of breeze over water.

Smell of sick.

Beer-vomit.

He retched. Jack-knifed up, sitting, doubled, turned, threw up. Was clinging to an edge of stone and heaving into a flow of water inches from his obeisant face.

‘Back in the land of the living at last, kiddo,’ said Robby. ‘We thought for a while we had lost you for good.’

The spasm remitted. He swilled a hand in the refreshing river. Performed with his palm a reviving baptism. Carefully lifted himself from the brink and took his bearings.

Late evening; a sunglow in the low sky, enough to pick out warmly the familiar lines of Easby Abbey poking from the trees above a bend in the river, upstream. There was opaque squint and sparkle on the wrinkling backwater pool at his feet, further out a grassy little knot of an island all but reached by humping boulders, the river curling into frothy little rapids between. On the bank, across, trees cushioned upwards, a fringe to the bellying field uprising beyond to the arching blue sky sweeping dome above the cave of trees under which he and Robby and Jack were.

Robby and Jack stretched out in luxurious ease on either side of where he must have lain, each with open cans of beer in their
hands,
their evening-paled faces regarding him with amusement.

‘That was better out than in,’ said Robby. ‘Sit down before you fall down.’

‘I’m okay, I feel better.’

‘Have a swallow,’ said Jack, holding out to him his beer can.

He sat between them.

‘Seeing I’ve just unloaded the last lot, I doubt I should.’

‘Hair of the mongrel,’ Jack said. ‘Make you feel on top again.’

He took the proffered can.

‘How did I get here?’ he asked.

‘Brought you in my car, then carried you the few yards down here to this Elysian waterhole,’ said Robby.

‘I must have been knocked out.’

‘Either by the thug who rammed his fist into your face or by the floor you fell upon. No one bothered much with the finer details.’

He drank a tentative mouthful of the beer. Surprised: he enjoyed both taste and swallow. Then, reminded of the blow to his chin, he prodded and gently manipulated his jaw. No damage, but a sore bruise.

‘I have to tell you,’ said Robby, chuckling, ‘that that was not the only time you spewed this evening.’

‘O, god, not in your car?’

‘Nothing so ungracious.’

‘Where then?’

‘Shall I tell him?’ Robby said to Jack.

‘You will anyway,’ said Jack.

‘You must understand,’ said Robby, snuggling his back into the bankside, ‘that after you were so rudely despatched, the fracas came to a sudden stop. Which is just as well, considering you were prone in the path of the stampede. Our venerable chairperson—you remember him?’