The Dreams of Max & Ronnie (7 page)

The grinner observes this destruction with no change to his expression; the grin stays and the eyes remain glazed. When the Ned has finished and has taken a seat amongst the smithereens the grinner looks up again at the tank's rider and says:

– By my actions have I answered questions. The time has come for…

– Aye, I know, I know, the rider interrupts. – The time has come for an end to talking, right? Hird it aw befaw, man. Meant fuck aw then an it means fuck aw noo. Thanks fir fuckin nuttin.

The tank's engines re-roar and the machine reverses in an arc then moves forward, curving as it does, cutting through the crowd, disappearing down the valley. Its engine's noise drops from a roar to a shout to a grumble then a drone and then it falls quiet. The entire valley falls quiet in fact; no more fighting, no more war machines, no more electronic rage from the games console which now lies in pieces on the banner called Jack which the grinner now orders to be cleared away. Two obsequiously eager and fore-lock-tugging figures come cringingly from one of the smaller crowds that line the banks of the ford and sweep the detritus off Jack and then roll the banner up reverentially and bear it silently and solemnly away. The Ned stands and stares, the metal rope around his neck glinting. The grinner stands and stares too, the palings of pale enamel between his lips shining.

Ronnie hears birds twitter. He enjoys their singing for a moment then turns to the Beast of Britain and asks him who the three men were who rode the tanks and who had come to tell the grinning man about the distant dying and destruction.

– Unhappy men, the Beast says. – Men who are unhappy at the loss of their countries. Sons of those who were blown to atoms at Mametz Wood, Passchendaele, the Somme, Dunkirk, all over Europe, the world. Sons of the men who died too young and in terrible pain so that the people of their countries would never be sent to a faraway war on a lie to ingratiate themselves to the warrior over the water, to the sleeping giant who has now woken up and is in a very greedy mood. Sons of the men who died too young and in terrible pain so that their offspring could live in a country which is free from signs everywhere telling them DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T.

The Beast picks his nose as he thinks for a bit. Extracts a bogey, examines it, then flicks it away. Then says: – At least, that's what they
think
they are. Me, I reckon they're just a bunch of whinging bastards.

– Not the bravest men? asks Ronnie.

– I wouldn't call them that, no. But they belong to an island race that once hated to suffer any loss but which now hates the thought that somebody else might possibly have more than them.

– An island race?

– Well, a group of races, I suppose. Something like that. But all bound up into one by living on the same scab of land. Look where they come.

And the Beast sweeps a big and meaty arm to indicate the valley down which a multitude proceeds, a mass millions-strong, steadily walking, almost marching, towards the place where Ronnie stands and stares. They fill the valley floor, between the huge green rock-topped walls, beneath the flat blue sky, and the ground trembles with the steady tramping of their many feet.

– Don't be fooled by them, the Beast says. – They appear united, and calm in their unity, but they are attached to each other mainly by wires of mutual loathing. Few of them visibly declare their allegiances or their hatreds but I know who they are and I know of the abhorrences that burn within their breasts. Those with money hate those without, and vice versa. The Red Rose hates the White Rose. Both Roses hate the Dragons and the Thistles. The Blue-birds hate the Swans. The Magpies hate the Black Cats. The Liver Birds hate the Red Devils and the Toffees hate the Liver Birds. The Canaries hate the Tractor Boys. The Gunners hate the Spurs. I could go on. In some instances ‘hate' might be too strong a word but ‘distrust' or ‘dislike' would do. None of these people really like each other; each one believes that his or her neighbour is stealing their air, or is crowding in on the patch of land they have to live on. Each one believes that their neighbour has unjustly robbed something from them. Each one believes that their failures are the fault of someone else. Each one believes that their lives would be improved if their neighbours were to be removed. And these are your people, soldier boy, fighter-for-freedom, scourge of the tyrant; it is for this crowd that you will kill and lie broken and legless and screaming with your guts prominent on your chest in a desert land thousands of miles away. These are the children of this ancient democracy. These are the children of a brave warrior race. Of people who strapped rebels across the barrels of cannons at Lucknow and who fought like lions to free Europe. Of despots and rebels. Of sadists and altruists. Of imperialists and liberators. An odd, mixed people, now chipped away at down to this, this crowd. Only the objects of their hatred differentiates them. Look where they come.

And it passes, this crowd, passes Ronnie in its individual components, and Ronnie's dream-self is quickly aware of the inaptitude of the word individual. Under the flat blue sky the men of the crowd wear, mostly, shorts and training shoes, some shorts too tight and white and others hemming at mid-calf. The bared torsos are, many of them, the shapes of apples with limbs, some pillowing down over the shorts so that, from the front, some of the men appear, dismayingly, naked. Other torsos bulge with muscle, ripped by 'roids and weights. And there are tattoos, everywhere there are tattoos, although Ronnie soon realises that there are only a few designs shared amongst the crowd; many thousands of arms bear tiger stripes with pointed ends; many shoulders bear figures that look vaguely Celtic or Maori in origin; many people have big crucifixes on their backs because they once saw David Beckham bearing that mark and thought it looked cool and original and individual; many upper arms bear smaller crucifixes too because their owners saw Wayne Rooney wearing one and thought it looked cool and original and individual; the insides of many forearms bear Sanskrit lettering because their owners saw Craig Bellamy or any one of a hundred other footballers bearing that mark and thought it looked cool and original and individual; many women, on the fleshy outsides of their palms, bear a little black squiggle because they once saw Cheryl Cole bearing that mark and thought it looked cool and original and individual; many women sport antler-like designs in the small of their backs because, well, that's what everyone else has got. This must be the most tattooed nation on the planet, thinks Ronnie, with so few different designs; in any thousand people, 800 of them will be tattooed with any one of only five or so patterns. And hair: either worn shorn to the bone or teased down into comb's teeth on the forehead. The hive mind hums. The hive mind drones. My people, the dream-Ronnie thinks. It is for these that I must kill and die far, far away. Drone goes the hive mind.

– These are your people, soldier boy, says the Beast. – Defenders of freedom. Keepers of the values of democracy and fair play. Do you see yourself fighting for these people? Killing for them? Dying for them? Tell me. What do you see?

And the dream-Ronnie closes his eyes and it seems that he dreams still further, a dream-within-a-dream, a vision in a vision in which he sees himself in an armoured car travelling across a vast and flat expanse of one-colour sand beneath a blast-furnace sun; he feels the movement of the vehicle, feels the rocking of his body, feels the impact and detonation of the RPG as a sudden and dangerous idea in his bowels; sees himself, or what's left of himself, supine on the seared sand, hears the hiss and sizzle of his escaping blood; sees his legs, several feet away; sees the unbothered blue of the high sky blacken.

Singing yanks him from his trance. The crowd is singing songs of tribal intent, bellowed expressions of hatreds. ‘Three Lions on my Shirt' – Ronnie makes out these words. Chanting. The air above the crowd crackles. Violence again is imminent. Ronnie notices that many mobile phones are being brandished, their owners eager to film some violence. The Ned has joined the crowd and has become lost in it but the grinner is watching them and still grinning. Ronnie doesn't think he can stand to look at that grin any more. It hurts his eyes. Its very fixity is making him feel sick.

– Do you want to follow this man? the Beast shouts, pointing to the grinner, and many in the milling crowd turn to face him. – Follow this man to war?

A roar from the stirring crowd.

– Then follow him! All the way to London! Three thousand miles away from the bullets and the blood!

The crowd roars as one and falls in behind the grinner, who grinningly proceeds to lead them down the valley in a determined jog. All of them alike. All of them doing the same thing. The hive mind drones under a fizzing blanket of an electric charge which Ronnie knows will spark into destruction very, very soon. He hopes they're out of the valley before that happens. He hopes he's

 
...woken up!

– Has he? Fuck me! Ronnie, boy! Welcome back!

Ronnie opens his eyes and sees a cat, at close quarters, walk by him, a black-and-white cat with a question mark for a tail. He sees a smiling moo-cow close to his face. Then he sees two faces, human ones, that he recognises, two faces close by his, and he feels himself levered up into a sitting position and he rubs the mucus out of his eyes and plaps his lips to dislodge the icky sleep-slime.

– Three fucking nights, man! The face called Rhys is saying, quite loud. – You were out of it for three nights! Getting worried we were.

– Just about to call a fucking ambulance, the face called Robert says. – Thought you'd slipped into a bloody coma or something, yeah? That pill of Red Helen's, shit.

Pill? Red Helen? Knowledge enters Ronnie's smeared head in several jolts and jerks. When he speaks, his voice is rusty with disuse: – Three nights? I've been asleep for three nights?

– Aye, you have. Worried sick we were, yeah? Helen's gone off to pick up her baby and see if she can score some amphet, bring you round, yeah?

– Don't need it, man. Cup of tea'll do.

Rhys makes tea and Ronnie goes groaning up to the bathroom and uses the toilet and swills his face. Feels alive again, or begins to. He drinks his tea and his co-soldiers tell him of their worries and their activities while he was asleep which, it seems to Ronnie, involved drinking beer and vodka and watching a lot of TV and waiting for him to wake up. He strokes the cat who offers him her arse and he eats some beans on toast and drinks more tea and then suddenly there is a hurry on the three of them, a hurry to get to their homes and see their parents and siblings before they ship out.

– To Eye-rack, man! Kill some fucking ragheads, yeah? Gunner be the nuts!

Rhys raises his arms above his head and the sleeves of his shirt slip down to expose his tattoos, Chinese symbols, ‘war' on his left arm and ‘peace' on his right because that's meaningful and says something about the terrible duality of the human condition. Robert mirrors his movement, revealing the lion's head on his deltoid. He'd noticed, once, that Robbie Williams has that design and he thought it looked cool and original and individual.

– We're the Queen's Dragoon Guards, man, Welsh Cavalry! We're mean and reliable! We're a fucking Volvo!

The three soldiers hug each other and slap each other on the back and Robert finds a piece of paper and a pen on the mantelpiece and they leave a note for Red Helen and exit the house. Into the village. Where nothing moves anymore.

– Told you we should've gone to 'Beefa, Ronnie says. – Three nights, man. Can't believe I slept for three nights.

– Aye, well, you won't be getting much sleep over there, man, will yeh? Rhys grins. Ronnie's insides give a little lurch. – Not with all them sandstorms, yeah? And bombs and everything.

No sleep or too much sleep. No sleep or an end-less sleep.

– Tell yer what, tho, Ron, Robert says. – You was having some
mad
dreams, man. Twitching all over the bloody place you were. And making funny little noises. What was going on in there, then?

He taps Ronnie's head with a stiff finger. Ronnie looks inside his own head and sees very little. A lot of faces. A fixed grin which makes him feel a bit queasy. Limbs torn from bodies, separated limbs with ragged ends. He scratches at his left forearm with the fingers of his right hand; the tattoo's still healing. He wanted to go to Iraq with some sign of individuality on him, some indelible sign of his own autonomy, his own uniqueness. He didn't want to be bleached into total anonymity by the army, the great faceless machine, so a week or so ago he got himself a tattoo – a Celtic knot on his forearm. Hasn't healed properly yet.

– Dunno, he says. – Just dreams, yeah? They mean fuck all. Just dreams, like, that's all.

They've left the house of Red Helen and visions and now they leave the village. Soon they'll leave their
own
villages and towns. Soon after that they'll leave the country, and soon after that, Ronnie will leave the world.

 
 
 
 
Our man Max lives and works in the capital city, which is to say that he sells illicit drugs and stolen goods to the section of the conurbation's populace which is forever hungry for such things. He has a retinue of men who are willing, eager even, to use violence and intimidation in order to protect his business interests; sometimes, and out of Max's hearing, they will refer to him as ‘the Emperor', in reference half-fond, half-mocking to his aristocratic carriage and mien.
The Emperor,
they'll say,
he wants
me to break an arm today
. Or they'll say:
I've got to hang
up now, I've got to keep me line clear cos I'm expecting a
call from the Emperor
. Max is not really in the habit of enjoying the product he pushes but sometimes he will allow himself an indulgence, and on these occasions he likes to have several of his men around him for company and protection. Whoever forms this retinue will not ask payment for the service.