Gridlock (4 page)

Geoffrey got on the tube at Marble Arch and, by coincidence, arrived home at almost exactly the same time that a bemused cabbie found himself standing on the steps of a firmly locked Harlow Town Hall, holding a comedy hat, whilst behind him two furious thugs stared into an empty cab.

Geoffrey let himself into his ground-floor maisonette and began to pick his way carefully through the mess. Any stranger opening the door of Geoffrey's place would have presumed that Geoffrey had just been burgled by a hyperactive burglar who had taken a line or two of speed to get him into a good burgling mood. The place was a mess. It could not have been in more of a mess if it had been occupied by a fifteen-year-old girl who had decided to rebel against the bourgeois mentality of her parents because neither they, nor indeed anyone else in the world, understood her.

In choosing to live in a manner that would cause a punk sewer-rat to raise a dubious eyebrow, Geoffrey was unlike many other people with disabilities, who treasure order. Because simple functions are more difficult for them it is important to them to know where everything is and to make sure that wherever that is, is the most convenient place. If you are in a wheelchair for instance and want to read your book, it is obviously less hassle to know where the book is and also to have a clear, uncluttered path to reach it.

Geoffrey was not in a wheelchair, but he did move in a vaguely unpredictable way, which meant he often knocked things over. He really only became truly aware of the mayhem this can cause when he left home to go to university. Like every other new student Geoffrey discovered, to his astonishment, that clean socks do not organically form inside drawers and that mugs left around the house do not magically bathe themselves thoroughly and then levitate back onto a hook – they go mouldy. Geoffrey, like many an eighteen-year-old before and since, was forced to realize just how many of the true facts of life his mother had been keeping from him. Facts like, sheets go yellow if you don't wash them, the rims of toilets become encrusted with dust and pubic hairs if you don't wipe them, meals do not grow on the table and, in Geoffrey's particular case, if you don't pick things up, everything you own eventually ends up on the floor. Geoffrey struggled against this problem for many years, just as his mother had done before him, endlessly picking things up in order to knock them over again. Until one day the futility of it all suddenly dawned upon him. He felt like a philosopher contemplating war, or a British gymnast contemplating the Olympics. He realized that there was no point. He realized that the solution to knocking things over was simply never to pick anything up, thereby depriving himself of ammunition. From that day on, Geoffrey allowed the bulk of his worldly goods to remain on the floor.

Geoffrey was of course lucky, he had a wonderful cleaner who, after initial reluctance, had agreed to apply Geoffrey's method. The rule was very simple, she cleaned up anything wet, and left anything dry. Geoffrey never cooked, either eating out or having pizza delivered, so the system worked pretty well.

Geoffrey's passion was mechanics and, in particular, robotics. Perhaps because his own motor mechanism was so faulty he took a peculiar delight in clever and smooth-running machinery. His little maisonette was filled with fantastically complicated electronic gadgetry; a mass of bits of mechanical arms, half-finished vacuum cleaners that were supposed to do the hoovering by themselves, concertinaed platforms designed for lifting heavy objects. Geoffrey had work to do on most of his gadgets. At present the lifting platform was a touch enthusiastic. It lay almost flat on the floor and was designed to lift a wheelchair up a step for instance, or simply raise a heavy suitcase. Unfortunately such heavy-duty hydraulics are rather expensive, so Geoffrey was experimenting with pistons loaded with small explosive charges. Geoffrey would have been the first to confess that he was having trouble getting the pressure right, also the balance. In fact on the last attempt the suitcase had been catapulted out of the window and into the front garden. Geoffrey was grateful he hadn't tried it on a person in a wheelchair.

Geoffrey sat down, not unnaturally, still ruminating over the threatening manner of his two interrogators. He decided to have a glass of wine to facilitate thought. Sitting in his chair, he took up a little remote control device with switches and a joystick; Geoffrey's cerebral palsy was not as severe as for some and he had one fully working hand. He flipped a switch which activated his new mechanical corkscrew. Geoffrey liked his drop of sauce of an evening, and getting bottles open was a major drag for him, so he had invented a mechanical arm with a needle on the end, a needle attached to a canister of compressed air. The idea was that the radio-operated arm manoeuvred the needle over the cork and then plunged it down into the bottle, the downward movement causing the air to flow from the canister into the bottle, thus forcing the cork out. The machine was on the sideboard next to his booze stash. From his armchair on the other side of the room Geoffrey positioned the needle and sent the arm plunging down, there was a hiss of compressed air, but sadly the cork was a stiff one, the bottle gave out before it did, exploding with a loud bang and sending broken glass and Rioja everywhere.

Geoffrey was used to failure, he could not possibly afford the equipment required to make his equipment foolproof. He decided to have a cup of coffee instead. There was a pot all brewed in the coffeemaker. The pot was attached to an extendable robotic arm. Geoffrey's mug was where it always was, on the arm of his chair, he did not take milk or sugar so it was never washed. With a twiddle of the remote Geoffrey began to manoeuvre the coffee pot through the air towards him. When it was positioned perfectly, he twiddled again and the pot tilted. It was a triumph, a brimming cup of scalding coffee without leaving his seat. Geoffrey sent the pot flying home, put in his straw and, head jerking a little, took a careful sip. Relaxing, perhaps for the first time since the intercom had gone off in his office, Geoffrey continued to muse on that afternoon's disturbing encounter. For a moment he toyed with the idea of reporting it to the police, but then, what was there to report? Two men had enquired after him at his place of work. Certainly they had been unpleasant, but that isn't a crime. If it was, the courts would be packed with television astrologists and BMW drivers. Burglary is, however, a crime, and it was as he sat pondering that Geoffrey first noticed that he had been burgled. As has been pointed out, Geoffrey's place always looked as if it had been burgled, which is why it took him so long to realize.

It was not a bad burglary as far as Geoffrey could see. In fact, when he considered some of the horror stories he had heard, he reckoned he had got off fairly lightly. The burglars had been a thoughtful and professional bunch. They had refrained from having a crap on the coffee table or masturbating into Geoffrey's underwear drawer. In fact all they seemed to have taken was his television.

Geoffrey steeled himself to make the phone call, he hated ringing up people he did not know.

'Hello, police? I've been burgled,' said Geoffrey, adding, as he always did, 'and I talk this way because I'm a spastic.'

Whilst Geoffrey was being pursued by murderers and discovering the theft of his television, Sam Turk, the man responsible for this mystifying harassment, was in the back of a luxury car on his way to Brighton. Starting on the morrow, Brighton was to play host to a party political conference, or party political piss-up as the more honest politician would concede.

There is a similar institution in the world of marketing, it is called a 'sales conference' which, despite its businesslike title, is a corporate institution whereby the staff get the opportunity to become legless at the company's expense and the sales reps have a chance to try and shag the secretaries. Of course this is denied absolutely when the Inland Revenue queries the drinks bill. Then much corporate gobbledegook is spouted concerning 'late night policy sessions', 'target dinners' and 'strike-unit damage control briefings'. None the less, the sales conference is a piss-up. And why not? It is a small reward, a chance to get out of the Ford Sierra and into the bar; to get away from the typewriter and into a little black cocktail number. It forges
esprit de corps.
The Japanese have their company songs and exercise sessions; the British have their eleven pints of lager and at 3 a.m. attempt to break into the hotel swimming pool. People need a chance to express themselves.

Party conferences are the political world's equivalent of these fine corporate institutions. The only difference being that they last a week and provide an excellent opportunity for behind-the-scenes wheeler-dealing. This was why Sam Turk was going to Brighton.

Sam was not a politician, not in the elected sense anyway. But he certainly dealt in power. He was a car maker.

He worked for Global Motors, a US-based multinational auto manufacturing company, and he had come to London the previous year with the declared intention of kicking some English bottoms at Global Motors UK. The British motor industry, as Sam well knew, was still residing in the 1920s which, considering the US motor industry had made it as far as the 1950s, meant that Sam had a lot of work to do. The Japanese motor industry is, of course, in the 1990s. It was Global Motors' secret target that by the year 2015, they would be in the 1990s too.

For the moment, however, cars were not on Sam's mind, but killing was. In his briefcase lay hidden the most exciting designs that he had ever come across. However, in order for Sam to realize their full potential, he needed their creator dead.

'D'yah knock out the professor guy?' Sam asked Springer, his loyal lieutenant of many years.

Springer winced a little at this abrupt enquiry. He had not enjoyed the task of organizing a murder one little bit. In fact he had for the first time in all his loyal service attempted to defy Sam. It was only after Sam had reluctantly shared the momentous secrets of the plans with him that Springer had steeled himself to the task. It was immediately clear to Springer that the good of the company, indeed the good of the entire economy of the United States, might be at stake.

'I guess he must have bought the farm by now,' Springer replied. He had served in Korea and loved to talk like a soldier.

Sam nodded with grim satisfaction, none the less, he could not help but feel a pang of something. One wouldn't go so far as to say it was actual remorse, but it was definitely regret. Sam had led a pretty rough life in the paranoid world of the US motor industry and he had done wicked and unpleasant things. But he had never before had anybody killed.

'I can't help feeling that bumping the guy off was wrong,' he said.

Springer was surprised, it was most unusual for his boss to be tormented by doubt.

'I can get the driver to haul ass to a church, boss. It might be best to let a priest handle this,' he said sympathetically.

'I ain't talking morally wrong,' said Sam. 'We had a serious situation, and we made a move. That's business, that's what I'm paid to do, my conscience is clear. But was it the
right
move, I ask myself? Death
is
kind of radical. I still can't believe we couldn'a bought the damn thing off the little fuck'n' brain box.'

'I'm telling you, sir, there's no way he would have sold,' said Springer. 'We ran a full background make on the guy, major reconnaissance. He's a public transport nut, he hates private cars, reckons we should all be sat behind each other on stinking buses, picking the chewing gum off our pants.'

'Mother of God, ain't people sick?' said Sam in disgust. 'The guy's probably into free love too.'

'I guess he would be at that,' Springer agreed.

'You want someone like that having the right to ball your old lady?' Sam was working himself up into a fine state of self-justification. 'Smoking his pot and corrupting college kids? He got what was his. We did the world a favour.'

'We had to do it, sir,' Springer affirmed. 'His invention in the wrong hands could take out our entire operation. They'd be sending Global Motors home in a body bag.'

This last analogy was sufficiently ghoulish to reconcentrate the minds of the two men on the human cost of their business decisions. They lapsed into a brief silence.

'Yeah,' said Sam eventually. 'The little commie sure had it coming.'

The knock-on effects of the protest rally which had impeded Geoffrey's escape continued to paralyse part of London. Traffic jams are strange things, they resonate. As when a stone is dropped in a pond, the matter does not end with the initial plop. Six feet away some frog on a lily gets a series of rhythmic ripples up the back flap and hops off going
ribbit
and looking for something semi-aquatic to shag. It is the same with traffic. It's quite possible for a person to miss a train at Waterloo because half an hour previously a one-driver bus on the Strand was confronted with someone who didn't speak English, only had a £20 note and wanted to be taken somewhere that provided traditional English scenes, haddock and tea-time. Traffic jams never actually end, they merely expand and contract, merging into one another, endlessly connected by frustration and grinding synchromesh. There is a little bit of the very first traffic jam in every one that has happened since.

Sam was caught up in the ripple effect. His car, like his industry, was at a standstill and he was getting impatient.

'Jeez,' he barked, lowering the electric window which separated him from the driver. 'I never seen the city this bad. It's Sunday, goddamit, doesn't anyone in this damn country worship the Lord any more? What the hell's going on?' The driver explained that the traffic was particularly bad that day because there had been a huge protest rally in Hyde Park and the effects had fanned out across the city.

'A
protest
rally? What, like a hippy thing?' gasped Sam in astonishment. 'I don't believe this fucking country! It's like it never left the Middle Ages! A
protest
rally! What's there to protest about, there ain't no war or anything? Sometimes I just want to throw in the towel. The whole of Eastern Europe comes to its senses and kids in the West are still shouting about Ho Chi Minh.'

The driver explained to Sam that the protest was to do with the suspected new road plans for London and the south-east of England. Sam knew all about these plans. In his capacity as boss of Global Motors UK he was on very close acquaintance with Digby Parkhurst, the Minister for Transport, and wholeheartedly supported his policies. This was something which Digby took great pleasure in. It did not occur to Digby that it was perhaps a little unhealthy for a person whose function was to represent the best interests of the people in the area of transport, to be quite so close to one of the country's largest car manufacturers.

Sam was delighted.

'A protest about the road plans! Well, that's great,' he cried. 'That is my kind of protest. What is it, they don't think it's radical enough? I told that stupid son of a bitch Parkhurst that nobody gives a damn about Nelson's column.'

The driver was forced to disillusion Sam as to the political slant of the march.
'Objecting
to roads!' said Sam in astonishment. 'But that's crazy! What are they gonna object to next? Food? Don't they want to be able to get from A to B?'

'I think that they're concerned that there should still be an A to come from and a B to go to, sir,' replied the driver who cherished his individualism.

'What did he say?' enquired Sam who, as was his wont, had only been asking a rhetorical question.

'I think he said that he'd better button his lip or get fired,' said Springer, raising the soundproofed electric window again.

Sam looked sadly out at the rag-bag of protestors making their way home. 'I don't know,' he said wearily. 'People. You try to make a better world for them, and what do they do? Throw ballbearings under police horses.'

It was while Sam was having this philosophical ponder on the ingratitude of 'the little fellow' that Springer's personal phone rang.

'This is it, boss. News from the dead professor,' said Springer.

'You got hit men calling you here? In
my
car!' replied an astonished Sam.

'Relax,' said Springer. 'This is a brand new portable phone, after this call I chuck it in a river.' He answered the phone.

'What's he say? What's he say?' Sam demanded impatiently.

Springer's face had fallen.

'He says the gerbil is still twitching.'

'And why did he say that?' asked Sam, not unreasonably.

'Because the guy ain't dead yet. They missed him,' Springer admitted.

Sam grabbed the phone in a fury.

'Now listen here, you lazy, Limey fruit!' he shouted. 'When I employ tradesmen I expect them to get the job done and get outa my face, not to ring my car to say some hamster is still doing the rumba. What you doin', you English fuck? Taking a
tea break?
On a frigging
strike?
Jesus Christ, what is it with you English? You can't make cars, you can't kill people, how the hell d'you ever get yourselves an empire? I'll tell you how, you got the
Scots
to do it for you! That's how.'

'Pardonez moi, monsieur,'
said the impeccably polite French voice of the contract killer on the end of the line. 'I am Anatole Chiraud of Euro Despatch and I can assure you that the gerbil which you require to be sedated has only been briefly mislaid. The contract will be completed as soon as possible.'

The line went dead, leaving Sam frustrated and bemused.

'A French hit man?' said Sam. 'What is he going to do, breathe on the guy?'

Digby Parkhurst, the Minister for Transport, friend of Sam Turk and the man at whose image the students had spent the afternoon chanting 'Out out out', was preparing for his departure to the conference at Brighton. He was a little sad because he was going to have to leave his beloved models behind him. They were beautiful models, mounted on trestle tables all through his department, and he loved to touch them. He loved to feel the long, grey ribbons and stick his fingers in the tiny little tunnels. The models were of bits of the British Isles, although a native of those same islands would have been hard put to recognize them as such. Hills had been removed, villages relocated, lochs drained, and in their place were roads – long, empty, beautiful roads.

Well, not quite empty, here and there on the larger scale models the architect had placed a tiny model of a car. Just one, and a lovely-looking car at that. One could imagine it carrying a family off to have a picnic. Perhaps the family were planning to have the picnic under one of the little trees that the architect had thoughtfully placed on the beautiful models.

The architectural model is like the sluggish, hairy caterpillar that turns into the beautiful butterfly. Unfortunately, it happens in reverse. Take a stroll round something large and concrete in any neighbourhood, and then, with the image still in mind, rush round to the planning department of the local council and demand to see the original model and drawings. It will be a strange experience. For, although the dimensions of the building you have rushed from, and the model you are shown, will be the same and the colours similar, none the less the two images will
bear no resemblance to each other whatsoever.

The transformation between fiction and reality is as stark as that which drunk strangers, who screw each other after parties, go through during the night. How beautiful they had appeared in each other's eyes after a bottle or two of Spanish, but reality must be faced in the morning. Any little boy who has been entranced by the picture on the front of a soldier-kit box, the brave GI with gun blazing, will be familiar with the architects' trick. He will know the disappointment of Christmas morning when the box turns out to contain a squashed plastic hat and a gun that does not even go 'click'. Just as residents (and no doubt the architects themselves) know disappointment at the appearance of great rust streaks down the concrete walls and puddles of piss in the lifts.

It is not always the fault of the architect, planners give them impossible briefs and inadequate budgets, but they might make their failures more easy to bear if on the original models, instead of lots of pretty little trees and a tiny motor car, they placed models of hundreds of cars, three dead trees, a little discarded supermarket trolly, some model dog turds and plenty of damp.

Digby wandered like a dreamer from one pristine model to another, touching them gently, stroking their contours. In this exquisite private moment he even knelt down and pressed his cheek against the cool surface of a miniature flyover. As he stood up, a faraway look crossed his features. He could see clearly in his mind's eye, a sunny day, a crowd of dignitaries standing on the spotless concrete, a long blue ribbon of delicate silk stretched across the ten proud lanes, he himself sternly holding the golden scissors. Digby's eyes grew misty. 'I, Digby Parkhurst, Her Britannic Majesty's Minister for Transport, do hereby declare the UK orbital ring road open.'