Gridlock (8 page)

In another part of the hotel, a small forlorn group of men and women waited for Digby. They too had champagne to offer, although not quite such a decent vintage; they too had choice nibbles, although theirs were potted meat, not salmon.

'I don't think he's coming,' said one.

'He never does,' said another.

The forlorn group of people were the chairman and senior management of Britain's railways.

Every year, at conference time, they mounted a sad little soiree for the Minister in order to put the arguments of the rail lobby. And every year the Minister did not come and the soiree got smaller and more depressed, like the railways themselves.

'Pretty soon we shall be having the rail lobby in the hotel lobby,' murmured the company gagsmith – but nobody was laughing.

The old man sighed.

'Well, gentlemen, ladies. We did our best, we did everything they asked of us . . .' And indeed they had. During the Eighties the Government had asked the railways to slicken up their act, to get modern, get groovy, get nasty – and the old man and his team had done it.

They were aware that the lucrative business traveller was ignoring the railways. Why was this? they asked. Was it because the railways were a crap, underfunded service? No, it seemed not. The problem, apparently, was simply one of snobbery. Top people, it was decreed, did not like travelling with scumbags. Britain used to have three classes on the railways, she would do so again! The old man and his team would reintroduce third class. Unfortunately the word 'third' is not a modern word; it is not a word that would much impress the Europeans; it is not a word that wins elections.

The solution of course was marketing. Marketing – that great decade-sized red herring which entirely replaced reality during the Eighties. A first class seat would stay a first class seat; that, it seemed, offended none. But the second class seat disappeared, re-emerging bright and new as a 'full standard fare' incorporating the new
Silver
service (a free instant coffee). Finally, third class was revived after an absence of forty-five years, but it was not called third class, it was reborn as a Super Saver.

So there you had it, First, Standard (with free coffee) and Super Saver. First, second and third. The business traveller could now be as isolated as he was in his car, and no bollards or contraflows. It hadn't worked of course, no amount of marketing can modernize lines and put new rolling stock on them.

'I should have fought,' the old man said sadly. 'Why didn't I fight like a tiger?' he mumbled into his booze.

'Because you're a cowardly old git and you wanted to get knighted,' thought his team – but they didn't say it.

'I should have told them to stuff their restructuring up their collective bum holes,' continued the old man. 'You can't run a railway without government money. They understand that in Europe. The garlic-gorgers know it; the sausage-suckers know it; even the pasta-pukers are beginning to suspect – why can't the British work it out? The savings come later. Oh well, it's too late now.'

'Too late, sir!' gasped the old man's team who thought more creatively than they spoke.

'Yes, I'm afraid this is my last lobby,' said the old man. 'Earlier today I spoke with Ingmar Bresslaw.'

'Ingmar Bresslaw!' gasped the old man's team, taking on the role of the Greek chorus at the tragedy.

And well they might have done, for Ingmar Bresslaw was the Government's chief hatchet man. The most terrifying man in Whitehall. It was he who had been chosen to lie to the press about Digby's road-building plans; and it was he who had carried the news to the chairman of Britain's railways that his industry was doomed.

'Ingmar Bresslaw informed me that tomorrow he will instruct the Minister for Transport to announce the formation of the BritTrak Consortium. Of course, I shall resign.'

The BritTrak Consortium?' replied the team, still practising their echo effect.

'Yes, the BritTrak Consortium. What's more, ladies and gentlemen, it is my sad duty to inform you that there is no "c" in "trak" . . . Is nothing sacred to these despicable people?' the old man anguished. 'They reduce Britain to a single syllable and the word "track" to four letters. What will they do to the railways themselves?'

The room fell silent. Well actually the room did not fall silent. The room went on playing the string arrangements of Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits which it had been playing all along. The people in the room fell silent. They knew that what the old man feared had already come to pass. During the love affair with tarmac most industrial nations had neglected their trams and trains, and now, with eco armageddon looming, and oil-producing nations holding the world to ransom, rail was needed again but was in no state to fulfil that need. In Britain, it seemed, the process of disintegration was not over yet.

Sandy Mackay, the youngest rail person, spoke up.

'What will the BritTrak Consortium do, sir?'

The old man took a deep breath.

'It will reduce the rail network to a single high-profit track, running from the City to a decent little pub in Chobham.'

Sandy was a rail enthusiast. He had wanted to be an engine driver when he was six years old, and he still wanted to be one. His love for trains was wild and huge. He knew what it was that made people stand on the end of station platforms in anoraks, insanely taking down a series of meaningless numbers – it was the beauty of trains. He understood the man who spent thirty-six hours of every weekend in his attic watching Hornby models trundle through tiny tunnels while his wife took lovers in the living room. It was the speed, the power, the romance of rail. And now it seemed that Digby Parkhurst had been instructed to finally destroy that romance for ever.

Sandy decided to act.

Deep deep down in the bowels of the hotel, where the ancient, groaning heating system shuddered and hissed and made sounds which wandered round the pipes, giving the impression that a ghost was being sick in the radiator, there stood one man alone. Deep down in the forgotten underworld of an English hotel, with the great piles of moulding leaflets from failed Fifties advertising campaigns (Isn't sunshine all the nicer for not having too much of it?) stood one solitary fellow with a bottle of rum in his hand. He was a huge, wild-looking man with great gnarled fists and great gnarled arms. Everything about him was gnarled – the story of how his inside thighs came to be gnarled delighted the lads at the Frog and Gherkin every time he told it.

The man was clearly mad. His wild eyes sparkling over his huge beard. A beard which gave him the appearance of a man who was trying to swallow an Old English sheepdog and not getting very far; a great tousled mass of steel-grey hair which was a sort of Bermuda triangle for combs and brushes. A great, strong, noble-looking man, with a fearful, savage dignity – but mad. That's what they said.

'Old Big Beard,' the hotel porters said, 'bloody mad.'

And they were right, but not mad as in insane, mad as in angry. Old Big Beard was angry as a man with no head who gets a collection of balaclava helmets for Christmas.

'He hasn't come!' Big Beard roared in a voice so filled with passion that even the boiler stopped gurgling and listened.

'Another year goes by! and still he hasn't come!'

This was the annual conference soiree of the canal lobby.

'Hear me! Hear me!' thundered Big Beard, pulling mightily at his bottle and grabbing up thirty or forty cheesy nibbles in his hamlike fist. 'Britain has hundreds and hundreds of miles of canals! Dug with sweat and blood and . . . and . . . shovels,' he continued, slipping from his oratory peak for a moment. 'Dug two centuries ago, to transport goods about the country. Today, we carry coal by road!!!' Tears stood in the huge man's eyes. 'Are we mad! A hundred million years coal lay still in the earth! and we take it on its last journey at seventy miles an hour! Burning oil all the while! Choking the sky! Scarring the land! Squashing the hedgehogs!' The tears began to dive out of the old beardy's eyes, making elaborate somersaults and pirouettes as they fell and bounced off his oilskin coat – just to make their point absolutely clear.

Behind Big Beard, mostly obscured by his huge gnarled tummy, was a map of the British Isles. A map which nobody but Big Beard ever saw. On it were marked the canals of Britain and on each canal was drawn a chain of barges covering its entire length.

The point was, that although the very first barge at the front of the queue might take weeks to reach its destination, from that point on, if the chain were not broken, barges might arrive every fifteen minutes. This clearly would not do for perishable products, but for coal, concrete, brick, wood . . .

'Imagine it,' the visionary screamed, 'a great, noble shire horse, running on high-octane grass and bramble, slowly plodding along, pulling perhaps thirty barges! No fuel consumption, no pollution, except the kind you can put on your roses . . .!

'Listen to me! Listen to me!'

Of course there would be pretty considerable practical problems, you certainly could not get that volume of traffic through locks as they are currently designed. But then there are considerable practical problems to building motorways, and that never stopped anyone. Anyway, Big Beard was an idealist. He knew nothing of practical problems, mainly because nobody had ever bothered to discuss them with him.

Big Beard took another great sorrowful pull on his bottle and loosened his bow-tie. He fell over. The canal lobby soiree was over for another year.

'What are you doing, Sandy?' said the young rail enthusiast's wife, sleepily.

She had gone to bed early claiming that she couldn't stand all the bullshit. She was right, there was a lot of bullshit, but Sandy's wife would have detected bullshit in a house brick, as long as it had been a London house brick. For she was a Liverpudlian, a Liverpudlian graphic design graduate who now lived in London and she had decided that London was entirely populated by bullshitters. Many arty London-based Liverpudlians share with arty London-based Glaswegians the deep-seated conviction that they, despite being artists and filmmakers quaffing champagne in the same bars as the native artists and filmmakers, somehow retain an honest earthiness and cynical sense of humour that is their birthright. The longer they live in London, the more convinced they become that nobody in that city is capable of communicating honestly. Whereas back home, a fishwife might be found sitting in a pub with a clothes designer and an ex-murderer discussing architecture. This is of course bollocks. All cities have an equal amount of bullshit, and an equal amount of honesty – and anyone who claims differently is bullshitting.

Anyway, Mrs Mackay was half asleep and she wanted to know what her husband Sandy was doing.

'Nothing,' he said. But he wasn't; he was doing something.

Sandy had spent the past hour trying to find a prostitute. It was his intention to either compromise or blackmail Digby Parkhurst out of announcing BritTrak on the morrow.

Digby was in his late thirties, and still single, but he was known throughout the party for his flirty ways with girls and his frequent, unpleasant and intimidating sexual allusions towards those women over whom he held power. Sandy reckoned that all this indicated that underneath Digby was probably a sad, frustrated little git. Also Sandy had seen Digby stagger to bed and knew him to be drunker than an eighteenth birthday party. If ever there was a time to get him, that time was now. At least that was what Sandy reckoned, but then again, he was completely pissed as well.

However, finding prostitutes is not really very easy in nice English towns, or probably anywhere for that matter. As the Global Crappee advert showed, the masturbating fantasies of video directors give the impression that gorgeous prostitutes are standing on every street corner, but of course they are not. Sandy had no idea where to look for one and after a nasty mistake with a late-night doughnut maker had retired to his room rather than be done for kerb crawling.

But the defence of Britain's greatest public transport system was not over yet. Sandy had a different plan, an even drunker one. He was a slim fellow, with large eyes and fine bones, and he was desperate.

'Nothing at all, darling. Go back to sleep,' he said, stealing a pair of stockings from her bag.

'I have to pop down and do a bit more business.'

'Bloody bullshitters,' she replied through her sleep.

To Sandy's great good fortune his wife had purchased a wig that day, to wear at the end of conference ball. He took it.

'Quite important people actually,' he said . . . 'Think I'd better have a shave,' and rolling up his trouser legs Sandy disappeared into the bathroom.

Deborah could not sleep. It was one of those aggravating occasions when one is too tired to sleep. Having had a busy day, she had arrived home pretty exhausted and gone to bed early convinced she would be asleep in five minutes. And here she was, two and a half hours later, wide awake, listening to noises. It was one of those nights when for no particular reason a person feels more scared than usual. Anybody living on their own is going to feel nervous every now and then, particularly a woman, but tonight Deborah had it worse.

Every creak and rustle seemed imbued with murderous intent. The shadows of the trees thrown against her curtain by the street lights turned into a steady stream of mad axe murderers strolling past her window. It was almost as if the All England Federation of Mad Axe Murderers had elected to have their annual convention in Deborah's front garden.

The wind whispered under her front door, and the wind had a very sick sense of humour that night. What other reason could there be for it whispering, 'Deborah, I'm going to get you. You can't run, Deborah, you can't run'? Unless of course it wasn't the wind at all, but an asthmatic sex fiend stretched out on her doormat getting his kicks. To Deborah's restless ear that whispering was beginning to sound more and more like the dickhead who used to ring her up before she got Telecom to put an intercept on her calls. Had he come to get her? Deborah longed to shout 'Piss off, dickhead' but it was probably only the wind.

The fridge was particularly talkative that night, it moaned and it burped, it burped and it moaned. It stopped moaning and burping, waited until Deborah's eyes began to become heavy, and then with a great moan and a burp started moaning and burping again. Eventually Deborah began to wonder whether this relentless cacophony of sound was the fridge at all. Maybe it was one of the mad axemen in the garden. Perhaps an unhappy one with a digestive problem had stepped over the asthmatic sex fiend, crept into the house and was standing in her kitchen by a silent fridge having his pre-murder moan and burp.

When the doorbell rang Deborah's heart nearly stopped. Was it the axemen? Was it the neighbours complaining about the axemen? No way was she getting up to find out. Gingerly she reached for the radio that Geoffrey had made for her and tuned into the frequency of her door intercom.

'Hello,' she said, trying to sound like a heavyweight boxer with a gun. Deborah listened then smiled with relief, she would know that guttural stutter anywhere. The relief turned almost instantly to anger.

'Geoffrey,' she snapped into the radio. 'What the hell are you playing at? I thought someone was trying to kill me.'

'Someone is trying to kill
me,'
Geoffrey spoke into the intercom, rather enjoying saying such a momentous and cool thing. Unfortunately the impact was wasted because Deborah, who normally understood at least 90 per cent of what Geoffrey said, was too fazed to follow him.

'God knows what you want, but you'd better come in.' She pressed the button and the ingenious radio wave that Geoffrey had created opened the door for him. Deborah remained in bed whilst, with great care, Geoffrey made some coffee and brought it through into her room, then spilt it.

'OK, duvet head,' said Deborah sternly. 'What's the big idea busting in in the middle of the night? If you've come round here trying to get in my pants again I'm going to be real mad, OK, doughnut brain? I mean, ringing your mom-type mad, Geoffrey! and you know she hates it when you get horny.'

Deborah was a citizen of the US. She used to refer to herself as an American, until she got trapped in a bar by a Canadian and a Peruvian who spent two mind-numbingly boring hours explaining to her that America is a continent not a country.

She was twenty-one years old and had been in Britain for three years studying, but the spirit of New York still seemed to hang about her. At any moment you expected her to say 'All right already'. Having had an English grandmother she had come to Britain to escape an over protective Jewish family circle. Her parents were not rich but they had agreed to help her through her four-year course in textiles.

'You need to travel three thousand miles to learn how to make trousers and blouses?' her poppa had complained. 'Trousers and blouses you can make in New York and live with your family. Is there a problem with New York I would like to know? Did we all suddenly get body odour?'

'Poppa, there's nothing wrong with New York, if you discount the fact that a person can get shot putting out the garbage, and then the city can't even afford to pick up the garbage, so a person dies for nothing and rats move into the neighbourhood hanging around the trash cans taking steroids,' explained Deborah. 'I love New York. It's you and Momma I can't stand.'

'Hear her, Poppa, hear her!' Momma had wailed. 'Deborah, listen to me. You turn your back on your family, and you desert your whole people, and your god. Nobody likes a Jew, family is all we got, read a history book.'

'Momma, I'm going to England, not joining the Nazi Party,' Deborah had protested. She knew it would be OK, there was nothing her family liked more than a drama. If Deborah had not announced that she wanted to go to Britain her mother would have wailed about Deborah's neckline.

'Maybe you should hang them out of the window,' Momma would protest at anything saucier than a turtleneck. 'I hear there are still people on Staten Island who haven't seen your bosom.'

'Momma, I have tits,' Deborah would explain wearily. 'OK, I'm sorry, but they're stuck to the front of me. If I could keep them in a handbag I would.'

'So now it's OK to swear in front of your mother?'

Gradually, over supper that evening Deborah's parents came round to the idea of her studying abroad.

'I suppose New York
is
getting kind of dangerous,' conceded Deborah's mother.

'Kind of dangerous, she says!' said Poppa. 'Like Hitler was a little temperamental. Dangerous? I should go to work in a tank! Drugs, crack, bullets flying everywhere, nobody knows who'll catch a stray next. Last week, Gosha, the watch repair fellow, he was shot in his
own apartment.
Am I still living in America when a man isn't safe in his
own apartment?'

'Poppa, Mr Gosha shot himself,' said Deborah. 'Crack didn't kill the guy, quartz did. He gave up the struggle when they started giving away watches inside cereal boxes.'

And so the conversation moved on to other topics, and Deborah was allowed to go to London. She was later to reflect on the irony of her parents supporting the trip partly on the grounds of New York's reputation for violence. For the night she let her friend Geoffrey into her home to seek sanctuary, she was letting in more violence than she would have got if she'd skipped London and joined the marines.

Geoffrey strenuously denied the accusation that his intrusion of Deborah's privacy was in any way carnally motivated.

'Deborah,' protested Geoffrey. 'My motives are pure as the driven snow.'

'Oh yeah?' she replied. 'Well I've seen snow in London. They mix it with gasoline and dog shit and pile it up in the gutter.'

Deborah was justified in being a little suspicious. Geoffrey had never attempted to disguise the fact that he craved her, and she had had on numerous occasions to dampen his ardour. It was not unreasonable of her to suspect that this was one of them.

'Pitch me, Geoffrey, and it had better be good,' she said.

'Deborah,' Geoffrey replied. 'I'm in trouble, the twilight zone is here. Two men came to my house tonight and tried to kill me. But luckily I managed to kill them first.'

Deborah was flabbergasted.

'That is pathetic, Geoffrey,' she said. 'Linda Lovelace wouldn't swallow that story, and she'd swallow anything. If you're going to invade a chick's privacy in the middle of the night you're going to have to do better than that. Go home and take less drugs.'

'No really, Deborah,' stammered Geoffrey. 'It's true.'

And pausing only to knock the glass of water off Deborah's bedside table, Geoffrey explained the events of the day.

Digby Parkhurst was having a restless night as well.

The booze and the comprehensive way he had put down the mighty Sam Turk had put a right ruddy firework in his jocks. He was restless and randy. Digby knew that elsewhere in the hotel, other, more important ministers were holding court and probably having an amazing time, but nobody had invited him.

He kicked round his room, wishing he hadn't left the road lobby soiree. They would probably still be drinking, probably having a really great time without him. Could he go back? Of course he bloody could, he was the Minister for Transport, he could do what he liked. But even dull stupid Digby knew that it would look a bit pathetic to sidle back now after his magnificent exit. Besides he might run into those dreadful railway people.

Digby realized he had shot his bolt. He dug a Scotch out of his minibar and was vaguely wondering about whether he could be bothered to haul off his shreddies and have a bit of a twang on the old one-string bass, when there was a knock at the door.

So they weren't ignoring him after all! It was probably Sam and some of the guys from the road lobby come to crawl a bit more. Perhaps it would be a couple of his cabinet colleagues looking for a bit of a lads' booze-up. Digby opened the door with a big smile.

'I'm awfully sorry to bother you, but I can't find my room. Do you think I might come in and use your phone?' said the tall, slender figure with the tight dress, the flaming red hair and the husky voice.

Digby stared at Sandy. Sandy stared back. They were both very drunk, both for a moment lost in their own thoughts. After a few seconds Sandy felt the onus remained with him to continue the conversation.

'Oh I see you've broken the seal on your mini-bar, I'm gasping for a snort,' he said. Trying to say it through a sexy pout.

Digby, who appeared to have been struck completely dumb, came back to life.

'How did you know? Who else knows? Who the hell put you up to it?' His voice shook with guilt and fear.

Sandy had not really expected this, and did not know what to say next. So he said, 'Uhm,' and left it at that.

'Get in here now,' said Digby, realizing that his worst nightmare was now reality, and trying desperately to sober up.

'All right, sonny, you tell me, and you tell me now, who put you up to this? If you hold back I swear I shall turn you over to the police as a dirty little blackmailing whore, and hang the consequences.'

'Sonny?' said Sandy rather disappointed.

'Yes, sonny, now answer my question.'

'So you know I'm a bloke then?' continued Sandy, his voice returning to its natural brogue.

'Oh God, a bloody Scot.' Digby was a very worried man. 'I knew they'd get me. Is this because I'm planning to put a road through the courtyard at Edinburgh Castle?'