Provender Gleed (32 page)

This was where they habitually went. It was a recreation area in name only. The tennis court there had no nets, the netball court likewise. In the children's section, the climbing frame was a hazard to life and limb - the RLA had posted KEEP OFF signs on it and kept promising to have it dismantled. The sandpit had become a litter tray used by every cat in the neighbourhood, and no self-respecting parent let their kids go anywhere near. As for the seesaw and the merry-go-round, there were concrete stumps where those once sat. Magically, mysteriously stolen.

Today, a handful of Young Moderns had gathered on the site, but they cleared off, conceding it to the ClanFan Society. One kind of gang-tribe recognised another kind, and the Moderns saw in the ClanFans a degree of fanaticism that in their view was not healthy. It was one thing to base your lives around a mode of fashion, quite another to base your lives around certain people - people, moreover, you had never met and would never meet. The Moderns didn't even think about picking a fight. They just upped and left, wanting to put distance between themselves and the candle-toting nut-jobs.

The Block 26 ClanFan Society spread themselves out in a circle on the netball court. In an atmosphere of joyous fervour, a match was struck, a candle lit, and then the flame was passed from wick to wick both ways around the circle until some thirty-odd candle-tongues were flickering in the breeze. Laughing and chattering, the ClanFans stood like a human birthday cake. They were waiting for one of them to start the singing. They were, at heart, a shy lot. En masse they had a robust strength but individually none like to stand out.

At last one brave soul overcame her reticence and began the song in a warbling contralto:

'Happy birthday to you...'

Swiftly the rest joined in, at various different tempos, in a range of keys. The first two lines were a complete cats' chorus, but by 'dear Provender' everything came together and the final line was delivered in rousing, gusto-filled unison. Then there were hip-hip-hoorays and someone embarked on 'For He's A Jolly Good Fellow', which the others sang along to with relish.

Traditionally what came next was a series of personal testimonials. Each ClanFan in turn uttered a statement about the birthday boy or girl, which could take the form of a paean of praise, a humble confession of admiration, a direct personal address as if the Family member were actually there, or perhaps a story, anecdotal or fictional, about what he or she meant to the storyteller.

The ClanFans had come prepared, each with speech notes set out on slips of paper. The statements were made in halting voices, stammered out, stumbled over. Each was listened to in respectful silence.

'...I wish he would make up his mind and marry, make his mother happy...'

'...know that if only we met, he would see straight away that I was the one for him...'

'...yeah, so if I had all that money like he does, I'd, like, build this enormous house with all games and that in it, and all my friends could come and live there, and if he did that I'd be one of his friends and we could...'

'...if royalty meant anything any more, he'd make a great king...'

'...and Provender, please, if you can, don't let there be a war, in fact I have faith you're doing everything you can to stop there being one...'

'...and he said to me, "Of course, what a great idea, why don't you come and live at Dashlands and be the official Gleed biographer?"...'

'...I'm not asking for much, just enough to keep me going till I'm back on my feet and have a job again, and he's got so much cash to spare he wouldn't even notice, I mean we're talking pocket change for him, and oh. My. God. Oh my sweet Jesus. He's right over there. It's him. He's coming right this way. I swear. I don't believe it. He's there!'

The ClanFan speaking, a man who had been out of work and living on benefit handouts for the past sixteen years, raised a trembling finger and pointed. The other ClanFans at first weren't sure what to make of this. What was he jabbering on about, Provender here? None of them wanted to turn and look in case it was just a practical joke, as when somebody yelled 'Behind you!' and there wasn't anyone behind you.

But the man kept urging his fellow ClanFans to look. His face had gone white. His eyes were out on stalks. He could barely draw breath.

So the other ClanFans did eventually look, and rapidly their faces went the way of the pointing man's. A couple of them dropped their candles. One woman spilled molten wax on her hand and didn't feel a thing. Another, unnoticed by the rest, fainted.

Like some miracle, like some visitation from on high, like a sighting of the Blessed Virgin Mary or an alien from a spacecraft, the impossible made real, over the recreation area at a fast lick he came.

Loping, stubble-bearded.

Provender Gleed.

46

On the twentieth floor of Block 26, Is and Provender were beginning to tire. They had lost count of the number of flights of stairs they had descended. They seemed to have become lost in a continuum of downward clockwise winding, their future an endless set of concrete risers coming up to meet them. The twentieth-floor landing offered release. There was a glass door leading out to a kind of cloister, which led in turn to a covered, colonnaded overpass, which terminated at the apex of a spiral staircase, which helter-skeltered all the way to the ground with overpasses radiating off from it at intervals. Still overdosed on stairs, the two fugitives exited at the first opportunity, heading across to Block 31. Is had calculated that there was little likelihood now of their and Damien's paths crossing. The estate library was on the other side of 26. He had no reason to be coming through 31. Still she wouldn't be wholly happy until she and Provender had found a phone, in fact until they had got clear of Needle Grove and were somewhere,
any
where else.

The overpass decanted them onto a recreation area attached to 31, and finding their way into the block itself seemed a simple matter. A recreation area invariably had easy access to and from the block it belonged to. The gathering of people on the netball court scarcely gave Is pause. They weren't a gang-tribe, just a bunch of ordinary Needle Grovers having a chat in a circle. Some kind of residents' discussion group? Probably. Is did not give them a second glance as she and Provender passed along the netball court's perimeter.

Then the residents started shouting Provender's name.

It was something that Is hadn't thought about, something that hadn't even fleetingly entered her mind. She was out in public with a Family member. Provender's might not be the best-known Family face but it was famous nonetheless. A coating of stubble didn't do much to disguise it.

Then she noticed that the people on the netball court had lit candles in their hands, and the penny dropped. ClanFans. She and Provender had had the awesome misfortune to stumble across a crowd of ClanFans who were out celebrating Provender's birthday.

'Fuck my luck.' Is seized Provender by the arm. 'Come on, we need to get moving.'

She said this because the ClanFans were themselves getting moving. A handful of them had broken away from the group and were stalking towards Provender, hesitant but with mounting confidence. They and the ones who remained rooted to the spot all had loose, inane grins on their faces and kept looking at one another - that was, when they could tear their eyes off Provender for a second - to seek reassurance that this was really happening, the person in front of them really was who they thought. They continued to call out to him, repeating the three syllables of his name in high, querulous voices like hatchlings in the nest vying for mother bird's attention. Then, all at once, the entire group surged forward, apart from the one they had left behind, who lay prone on the ground, insensible. With their hand outstretched, the ClanFans beelined for the object of their adoration...

...who stood immobile, uncomprehending. Is yanked on his arm. His body sagged in her direction but his feet stayed where they were.

'ClanFans, Provender,' she said.

Her words had no meaning to him. He didn't seem to know what he was looking at, why these people were calling to him. He was as mesmerised by them as they were by him.

Is's medical training kicked in. Procedures for rousing or getting attention of semi-conscious patients. Either: pinch the earlobe. Or: rub knuckles up and down median line of sternum.

The latter worked only if the patient was lying down. Otherwise you couldn't get any leverage. There was nothing to push against.

Is reached up and dug the nails of thumb and forefinger into Provender's earlobe.

'Oww!'

'Run. Now. Us. Fast.'

The ClanFans were a dozen paces away as Provender, galvanised, finally began to move.

It was love, pure and simple.

It was the need to touch, to grab hold of, to be sure of.

It was wanting to know if the person before them was flesh and not some figment of their imaginations.

It was the desire to lay hands on.

It was a form of lust.

It was worship.

It was greed.

It was all these things, and yet to the ClanFans it felt like nothing. A blinding urge. Indefinable. Primal.

When Provender was standing still, they had to home in on him.

When Provender took flight, they had to give chase.

Across the recreation area.

A square cavity in the side of Block 31.

A concrete tunnel burrowing into the building.

A narrower tunnel that jinked off to the side.

Stairs.

Is ran, pulling Provender after her. She ran in the knowledge that this was absurd, ridiculous. They were fleeing from a bunch of people who, by rights, were harmless. Ordinary individuals who normally wouldn't hurt a fly. Yet, in their devotion, their love for Provender, they might well tear him to pieces if they caught up with him. If nothing else, they were drawing attention to him, and that was exactly what he and Is did not need.

So she kept running, even as hilarity bubbled inside her, threatening to become hysteria. Had there been a moment to pause, had the ClanFans not been pressing hard on her and Provender's heels, she would have stopped and given in and laughed herself hoarse. But the ClanFans were right behind, yelping and imploring, a mass of needy arms, a rumble of desperate footfalls. 'Provender!' they cried. 'Provender, please! Please!'

She hit a landing, Provender still in tow, and barged through a doorway, which a woman with an armful of groceries was trying to negotiate from the opposite direction. Is shouldered her out of the way and the woman swore at her ripely and profusely. Next moment, the stampeding ClanFans burst through the doorway, and the woman and her groceries were sent flying.

Into an arcade, similar to the one in Block 26. Shops blurred by on either side. Ahead: a defunct indoor fountain, which a cluster of Orphans had commandeered -
our spot
. The Orphans, loaded to the gills with Tinct, chortled to see two adults come sprinting by, and laughed even harder at the sight of their pursuers, an assortment of grown-ups and children, all huffing and puffing frantically.

Beyond the fountain, a ramp. Down that, out onto a plaza, diagonally across to its only exit point, down another ramp to a disused swimming pool that had a residue of grimy water at the bottom in which car tyres and a rusty bicycle frame formed a reef. Around the pool, onward, till there were stairs, and more stairs, and yet more stairs, and suddenly, just like that, the ground.

They paused, Is and Provender, to take stock. They had managed to put some distance between themselves and the ClanFan pack, not much but enough to allow a brief respite from running. Compared with the majority of the ClanFans, they were young and relatively fit. Indeed, although they couldn't know it, there had been attrition among their pursuers. A few of the older and fatter ClanFans had had to abandon the chase and were strung out at intervals along the route, bent double, wheezing, experiencing all sorts of unpleasant palpitations to accompany the ache of anguish and frustration in their bellies. The rest, however, were still coming, undeterred by the fact that their quarry appeared to be getting away from them. They were relentless. They would keep after Provender as long as they were able to. Their lives had condensed down to a single objective: catch up with Provender, be with him, unite with him, embrace and cling to this avatar of Family, for ever. And as for that girl who was with him - what girl?

Is, panting hard, cast her gaze around. She didn't know Needle Grove all that well anyway, and down here on the ground it was another country, a gloom-hung, alien place, hostile territory. There were few map diagrams that hadn't had graffiti slapped over them and few signposts that hadn't been torn down, and the only other landmarks were car husks, which looked virtually identical, and trenches which the gang-tribes had dug out and fortified with rubble in the course of their perpetual turf-wars. The roads that wound through led somewhere but not necessarily out into London. Is could have navigated her way out of the estate if they had been standing at the foot of Block 26, somewhere near the parking garage entrance, since she knew that route reasonably well. But they were standing at the foot of 31, on the far side of the block from 26. She had only the vaguest notion of which way to go.

Above, on the staircase, the ClanFan clamour was growing louder. The front-runners of the group were closing in.

'Where now?' Provender gasped.

'There,' said Is, pointing along a road that ran to the right, and added, 'I think.'

'You think.'

She rounded on him. 'Would you like me to leave you here?' She nodded upwards. 'To meet your adoring public?'

'Uh, no.'

'Then shut up and follow me.'

47

Walking back from the library, videotyped ransom demand in hand, Damien reflected on what he had done to Is. He felt terrible about it, even if he hadn't hit her that hard, just a backhand swipe, barely even a tap. It wasn't right. He should have been able to control his temper. Whatever the provocation - and boy had he been provoked - he shouldn't have lashed out like that. He had probably ruined any chance he had of getting back together with her. She wasn't going to forgive him in a hurry, that much was certain. Yet he remained hopeful that he could make it up to her somehow and that he and she could be reconciled. Perhaps once this kidnap business was over, when Provender wasn't there any more in the flat, when the money had arrived and the regeneration of Needle Grove commenced - then Damien could say to her, 'Look. See? It was worth it. All we went through, all the hassle and strife - all worth it.'