Rainbow Bridge (4 page)

‘It was horrible, but listen. We saw our chance—’

‘Battle was raging. Panic-stricken Chinese were trying to skewer desperantos without denting the sacred holy ancient stonework, it was an opportunistic thing.’

‘We should just
show
you.’

Ver unslung his daypack, burrowed inside and pulled out a dirty sock with a lump in the toe. He rolled it down, circumspectly, under the rim of the table so nobody around them could see. She was scared it would be some grisly relic of Dilip, that was how her loopy mind was working… A white diamond, stellar brilliant-cut and bigger than a baby’s fist, sat in a nest of soiled Argyle knit—catching rainbow fire from the ATP patches on the tent’s walls.

‘Jaysus fockin’ God,’ breathed Fiorinda. ‘That is a
pretty
thing.’

‘It’s the Koh-i-Noor,’ whispered Chip.

‘I thought it might be,’ said Fiorinda softly. ‘Put it away.’

Verlaine buried the sock again.

Fiorinda rolled her eyes. ‘You’re right about not telling the folks. They’d go mental, we’re supposed to be on our best behaviour. What were you planning to
do
?’

‘Er, we weren’t planning. It just seemed too good to miss.’

‘We’re bound to need funds, and diamonds are always negotiable.’

‘Not that one.’ She put her chin on her hand. ‘Okay, well, I don’t know what to do with a famous national treasure right now, either. For the moment, you keep it.’

They grinned at each other, the young queen and her beardless counsellors, survivor guilt briefly vanquished; the future irrationally illumined by that stolen blaze.

The socially cohesive rock concert was tomorrow, with non-Few bands bussed in from London; tv cameras and approved mediafolk. Tonight was for the insiders, local heroes and radical rockstars on equal terms; a raw and consoling ritual. A girls’
a capella
group from Uckfield, singing ethereal, chilling post-modern madrigals. Rob Nelson, the Powerbabes and the remains of their big band sound; teenage guitar outfits from lonely villages; an ancient folkie with an accordion. More Sussex folkies, top of the range, playing for their own tonight and for the tourists tomorrow. Chip Desmond and Kevin Verlaine, the notorioso Adjuvants, far away in leftfild. Haywards Heath Operatic Society’s
Joseph and the Amazing Technicoloured Dream Coat
(highlights). A retro-Eurotrash duo from Maresfield (in sequined catsuits). Aoxomoxoa and the Heads with a guest guitarist, and a guest punk diva.

The dreamers stood in the rain that had set in at twilight, water running off their binbags as so many happy times before. They cheered, they sang along, they got into stupid arguments with the Heads’ snot-gobbing frontman. They eagerly accepted invitations to come up and have a go; they embraced Fiorinda, and other stage divers, most tenderly. The lights shorted and darkness engulfed the hollow, as mud engulfed the heather roots, but nobody left. At the end Ax gave them a bonus set—the President of the Invisible Republic, in a stained brown jacket and mismatched suit trousers, his fine-drawn profile sober and serene, making that guitar weep like nobody else alive. And everyone, musicians, engineers, security crew and babes in arms, trooped back on stage for the traditional finale.

The Chinese liked the English National Anthem. They had made it the theme tune of their Joyous Liberation tv channel (essential viewing, these days). And that was fine, no problem. A fuck sight better than the Second Chamber bastards using ‘I Vow To Thee’ to promote their Slave-Camp, Occult-Horror-Weapons, Neo-Feudalist Police State. But tonight the Reich’s leaders had elected to use a different song. It was a poem by Catullus, ‘Ave Atque Vale’, translated by Aubrey Beardsley; set to music by one of the survivors who’d got out of Reading before the bloodbath.

Ax sang in the original language, with minimal guitar.

then Fiorinda read the English poem.

No encores, no singalong. It would be their only act of defiance, their only solidarity with the dead. Brothers, sisters, for all time hail and farewell.

The babies were taken off to bed, the support crews left in search of false cheer. The backstage tent, marginally waterproof, dimly lit by ATP patches, was soon deserted except for the Triumvirate, the Few and their closest friends. They wanted to tell tales, bonding with each other in the strung-out exaltation of reunion. Sage’s brother Heads were lucky they’d been in London, because of the cognitive scanners affair. If they’d been caught down in Cornwall or Bristol they’d have been in problems. But what exactly happened to you guys? We haven’t had the details?

‘It’s a long story,’ said Peter Stannen, without enthusiasm.

‘Does anyone think Beardsley’s a great poet?’ asked Bill, gloomily.

‘No,’ said Ax. ‘I’m not mad about Catullus, either, tell you the truth.’

‘It was appropriate,’ said George. People nodded, silence fell.

Sayeed Muhammad Zayid al-Barlewi, leader of English Islam, heaved a sigh. His wife, his brothers, his daughters and his sons-in-law were in Bradford/Halifax, in Chinese custody. He was free because he’d been somewhere else. He stood up, shook out his sober raingear, and clapped Ax gently on the shoulder.

‘Come on, lad, on your legs. Let’s find the bar: I’ll buy you a pint.’

The young Islamics, Muhammad’s unarmed bodyguard, laughed.

‘Call it medicine,’ said one of them.

‘Call it what you like. The Prophet himself (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, added Muhammad, automatically, tenderly) wouldn’t forbid it tonight.’

The tent emptied, but Sage had copped a
look
from Rob Nelson. He stayed where he was, in fear and trembling, and the bandleader stayed too. The last gophers trolleyed away the tea-urn, calling goodnight. Rob stooped and rubbed at a splash of mud on the turn-up of his sharp yellow trousers: Armageddon would not get Rob on stage without a sharp suit. So what’s the damage? Not my dad, unless the Chinese telecoms controllers had me talking to a Joss Pender voiceprint the other day. My sisters wouldn’t rate this treatment, and Mary’s in Wales.

Oh, no, please—

‘Rob? What is it? C’mon? Please?’

‘It’s nothing bad, not terrible.’ Rob shrugged deeper into his borrowed parka, and ran a hand over his nappy skull. ‘It’s, er, Marlon’s gone missing. Apparently he left Mary a note saying he’d decided to join us.’

‘Oh. Right, I see. When…when was this?’

‘The week after the ceasefire. The first we heard was a few days ago, we couldn’t get to speak to you. Mary’s okay about it,’ Rob added quickly. ‘I spoke to her. Naturally she’s freaked out, and, you know, ancient history—’

Sage nodded, unable to speak. His relationship with Mary Williams had been an evil thing. For years she hadn’t allowed him near his son, and she’d had a right.

‘She’s more angry than scared. He’s sixteen, he isn’t a child. She thinks he’s with you, an’ she thinks we’ve been a lot more organised and in the Chinese pockets than is the case. I didn’t tell her any different. She said, er, “Steve was a bastard to me, but he’s turned into a good father. Tell him to do the responsible thing and get Marlon back here, don’t care what strings he has to pull…” I told her I’d be seeing you soon, and you’d get Marlon to call her, and not to worry.’

Stephen was Sage’s original name. Missing means dead. Sage leaned forward, slowly: elbows on his knees, hands clasped. The dim light caught on his yellow lashes, making them glitter.

‘I haven’t heard from him.’

‘I didn’t think so,’ said Rob, compassionately. ‘How could you have? Listen, there’s a ceasefire, he’s your son. We can ask the Chinese to help us trace him.’

‘Is there any record of him crossing the border?’

‘It’s closed, man, and Scotland too. Officially nobody’s crossing, but you know that border, it’s a sieve. I’m sure he’s okay, but I thought you’d want to hear news like that without the folks straight at you—’

‘You were right.’

Rob had two children himself. Little children can make a world anywhere, but they get bewildered, they get scared. Every hour of every day you blame yourself, and you pray you can get them safe through, to a better life

‘Kids. It breaks my back, thinking what we’ve brought them into.’

‘Yeah.’

There’d been a time when Rob Nelson had regarded Aoxomoxoa with quiet loathing, and resented his ascendancy. That big muscle-bound, swaggering ex-junkie, with the intimidating body-language, stupid fucking mask, and a past record of beating up his baby’s mother? How could you really trust him? There had been a time when Aoxomoxoa, perfectly indifferent to Rob Nelson’s opinions, had seen the bandleader as a liability: stiffly righteous in the head, won’t pick up a weapon, apt to fall apart in physical danger. A
bad
combination in the hellish situation that had closed over them all, on Massacre Night—

So now they looked at each other, two thirty-something veterans of Utopia in a cold leaky tent; remembering a lot, reflecting on human changes, sharing in silence a thought that need not be spoken. You’ll do, mister. You, I trust.

‘Let’s we get along to the bar, bodhisattva. You need a whisky for that cold.’

Sage was attacked by a bout of gluey sneezing.

‘I’ll be along in a minute,’ he said when he could speak. ‘Thanks, Rob.’

Plunged into memory. He was seventeen years old, freshly-skinned clean of his teenage love affair with the brown, still deep in hate with Mary Williams. That black hole obsession was going to drag him down for years yet. He was holding his baby son in his arms, so
small
, so very small, thinking
is this how it feels to be forgiven?
Missing means dead, gone for three weeks means dead. It was some comfort to realise that Rob genuinely didn’t think so. Marlon’s sixteen, he’s not a child. He’s not some little five-year-old, wandering along—

Oh, but he is to me. That’s exactly what he is, and he always will be.

‘Hello?’

Sage was wrenched from a vision of his tiny infant son, alone in a warzone, by a six-foot blonde beauty, in pristine green wellies and a slim, black and gold padded coat. Dian Buckley had appeared before him.

Ah,
shit
.

Dian was the mediababe who had done the werewolf interview, prelude to the doomed cascade of events that had put them under house arrest—when Ax had punched the head of the Secret Police in the jugular, and broken the bastard’s neck. She was widely regarded, throughout England, as the traitor who’d brought Ax down. She didn’t deserve that: but she’d been lucky to escape Chinese summary execution, for the way she’d served the Second Chamber. He’d known she was untouched, and rumoured to be very close to an unnamed General (Joyous Liberation news had its scurrilous gossip). He could not imagine what she was doing here.

He had seen Dian Buckley looking well-groomed in so many leaky tents, he waited for a moment for the flashback from the past to disperse: she didn’t.

‘Hey, Dian. Long time no see! How did you get out of London?’

‘Wang Xili,’ she said, chin up. ‘He’s a friend.’ She stared at him, chewing her glossy underlip. ‘I heard the single. The one George put out, when you three were in Wallingham. It was about me, wasn’t it? “Hell Hath No Fury Like A Sandwich”?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sage. (Dian, you don’t change.) ‘You’ve lost me. George did a protest song, I know. I was touched. I expect it had stupid words, they always write stupid words when I’m not there to guide them. Don’t worry about it… Dian, I don’t care what was in the charts last June. What are you doing here?’

‘I told Wang I wanted to be at Ashdown because something important is happening, and it’s true. I care, passionately, about the Reich, whatever anyone thinks. I don’t expect you to believe that.’

‘I’m sure you care as passionately about the Reich as ever you did.’

Dian looked around. She sat her pretty coatskirts on a plastic chair that at least had no puddle in the seat. ‘All right. You’ve decided what to think of me. But I—I have to talk to you, and this was the only way I could get near. It’s not about me, it’s about you, you people. Something terrible I’ve found out, and I have to tell you.’

‘Go ahead. It’s karma night.’

She braced herself, with fearful intensity. ‘You know that Hu Qinfu has moved into Matthew Arnold Mansions, your place in Brixton?’

‘Of course we know. He couldn’t very well move into Buckingham Palace, could he? So, what?’

‘Wang has done better. He’s in Chelsea, in the flat where Rufus O’Niall used to take Fiorinda. I sleep there. In that bedroom.’

Sage blinked at her: pulled out his current rag, found a relatively unused patch, filled it and carefully looked around for a binbag. Nope. All been cleared away.

‘Oooh, tha’s ingenious of him, if true… Is Hu pissed, is it a competition?’

‘You don’t get it, Ao-hahaha, Sage. He has photos of her when she was twelve, photos Rufus must have taken. Everyone knows Rufus took pictures, no one’s ever found a trace. Wang has them on the bathroom wall, where he can see them from the shower;
know what I mean
?
’

Sage cast another leisurely glance around for somewhere to dump the rag; sighed and returned it to his pocket. ‘Is that the terrible news? Dian, aside from I’m not sure I believe you, this is Fiorinda you’re talking about. Grow up, mediababe. Using a rockstar as wank-aid: not a crime. Not unless it leads to the fantasies getting invasively acted out. It’s a hazard of our employment, I’m sure Cliff Richard did not escape. Fiorinda is anybody’s. Ax too. An’ even me, eh? You think?’

Maybe she blushed: difficult to tell in the dim light, with permanent make-up.

‘It d-doesn’t concern you that he took great pains to find the shrine of the evil magician, and he’s desecrating the image of our lady there? Doesn’t that scare you? The Chinese claim they don’t believe in magic. So why would he do that?’