Meltdown (18 page)

Toby chuckled, but he wasn’t having it. ‘That’s stupid,’ he said.

‘Stupid!’ Jimmy said in mock horror. ‘I beg to differ, Sergeant! Adequately providing for the well-being of his men is a commander’s first duty.’

‘Yes,’ Toby insisted, ‘but if the SAS were going to all the hassle of smearing food on the seats then they would probably just put some in a proper picnic basket and stick it in the boot. I mean seriously, Dad, why smear it on the seats when you could keep it fresher in a Tupperware?’

‘Logical,’ Jimmy conceded, ‘although
slightly
dull. And the SAS do pride themselves on a certain eccentric flair. Not like those US Navy Seals who try to pretend they’re robots. You see, you get your logic from your mother. She’s the one with the steel-trap brain. I supplied your charm, your good looks and your ability to pick your nose while pretending to yawn. OK. Got a pen and paper? Let’s write about Granddad.’

But even Jimmy could not stay happy and positive while on a school run. It simply was not possible.

Sad to say, the first word Toby took down for his essay about Granddad was ‘Dickhead!’ That was what Jimmy shouted at a motorbike dispatch rider who cut him up and almost got himself killed in the process as Jimmy tried to pull out into Notting Hill Gate.

In the old days PC, Pre-Crunch, neither Jimmy nor Monica had had the slightest idea of the daily nightmare that Jodie was going through on the school run. Many were the days when Monica had blithely watched Jodie take Toby into the garage elevator, both looking fresh and well breakfasted, smartly turned out, hair brushed and ready for the day. Monica did not know as she punched up the cappuccino machine and considered her nightmare day ahead that a
genuine
nightmare awaited Jodie and indeed every driver who ventured on to the streets of London between the hours of seven and nine-thirty in the morning, as the usual heavy traffic of one of the world’s busiest cities was supplemented by an extra half-million or so cars (often HUGE cars) each containing one mum or nanny) and one small child.

Now that both Jimmy and Monica appreciated the full horror of the school run, Jimmy couldn’t help wondering why they didn’t walk it. It was only a mile and a half and it would probably be quicker on foot. He had in fact suggested this idea to Monica but she had refused even to consider it.

‘The streets just aren’t safe,’ she insisted. ‘What if Toby ran out into the road? He could be knocked down.’

‘By a parent driving a child in a four-by-four?’ Jimmy asked.

‘Yes actually,’ Monica replied angrily. ‘Some of those mums drive like they’re invading bloody Poland. It’s incredible. I saw a cyclist go down last week. Horrible.’

‘So we protect Toby from being knocked over by a frazzled, furious parent in a Range Rover by
being
that frazzled parent in a Range Rover?’

‘Look, I don’t care,’ Monica said, the light of battle in her eyes. ‘All I know is that if Toby’s inside the Discovery he is totally safe and if he’s outside it he isn’t. You can’t argue with that equation, Jimmy! I’m sorry, but end of story. We may be poor but we’re not going to let poverty kill our kids. He goes to school in a car. You don’t compromise on safety. Ever.’

Monica, like every other parent in the same situation, presented this point of view with an almost evangelical zeal, her eyes ablaze with moral certitude, as if merely by conjuring up the word ‘safety’ she had trumped any and all other arguments.

‘Monica!’ Jimmy protested. ‘That’s the argument the police use when they close an entire motorway because somebody’s having a piss on the hard shoulder. You have to quantify the risk!’

But Monica was not prepared to quantify the risk and so Jimmy joined the school run along with every other parent and nanny in London.

They screamed at taxi drivers. Taxi drivers and bus drivers screamed back. Tattooed and dreadlocked anarcho-cyclists banged bonnets. Leather-clad motorcycle dispatch riders chased leaping pedestrians through tiny gaps in the acreage of steaming, fuming metal. The very air throbbed with frustration and fury as Londoners young and old began their working day in the worst possible mood to do good business.

Jimmy did his best to stay positive as he joined the fray, attempting to edge his tank towards the school while simultaneously dictating an essay about his father to Toby, who was trying to write it down.

‘
My granddad has looked after people’s money all his life
,’ Jimmy said, then added, ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed, you stupid bastard!’

A cyclist swerved. Jimmy slammed on the brakes. The cyclist screamed, ‘Cunt!’ Jimmy shouted, ‘Arsehole!’ and Toby jerked forward, breaking the lead in his pencil.

‘Dad!’ Toby protested. ‘Don’t brake like that! I can’t write my essay now.’

‘I had to, Tobes. I would have knocked him down.’

‘He called you a cunt!’

‘Don’t say cunt.’

‘I didn’t. He did.’

‘Then you did.’

‘Only because he did.’

‘Look, we have to do this essay, Tobes.
Granddad worksin a bank and he—
’

‘My pencil’s broken!’

‘There’s pens all over the floor, mate. Grab one.’

‘They’re all broken and anyway it’ll be a different colour. I can’t write an essay in two different pens. Everybody will laugh and Mr Penfold will kill me. They’re always laughing! I’m always getting killed. Because all my stuff’s so crap!’

Jimmy glanced at his son, who was suddenly once more fighting back tears. Jimmy felt terrible guilt.

‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘Can we do it tonight? I promise. One day late won’t matter, surely.’

Toby didn’t answer. Instead, he angrily screwed up the paper he had been writing on and turned to stare out of the window. The school run had done its worst. The sunny mood had evaporated.

Toby was chewing his lip, clearly thinking of the embarrassments that lay ahead of him at school. It broke Jimmy’s heart.

Toby reached into his school bag and pulled out his Nintendo.

Jimmy almost protested, but then didn’t.

He had once been a dedicated gamer himself, but these days he hated that little box with a passion for the way it lured Toby away from real life. On the other hand, why shouldn’t the boy escape? He had plenty to escape from.

Thanks to Jimmy.

Having it both ways

In 2005 the people of Britain were encouraged to ‘make poverty history’ by attending a free concert in Hyde Park (or sitting at home and watching it on television). The concert was called Live 8, a reference to the G8 world economic summit going on in Scotland at the same time and also to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Live Aid concert held at Wembley Stadium.

The tickets to Live 8 were free and distributed by lottery but, in order to avoid any accusation that the concert had cost money that might have been better used to provide food for starving Africans, there was a so-called ‘Golden Circle’ where those who wished to could register their objection to poverty by buying premium corporate seats at the front and enjoying luxury catered hospitality.

Jimmy, now on the board at Mason Jervis, was absolutely insistent that the company should purchase such golden tickets for senior clients and management.

‘Forget golf weekends, paintballing and boring bloody Glyndebourne,’ Jimmy said excitedly. ‘Who cares about opera when you can Rock ’n’ Roll! Besides which, this corporate perk saves lives. How cool is that?’

As well as encouraging his employers to take a more morally responsible attitude towards their tax-deductible freebies, Jimmy announced that he intended to do his bit personally, taking a table of his own as a private individual in order to treat his friends.

‘There’s a real movement going on here,’ he argued, ‘a new consciousness. People are beginning to realize that the kind of global inequality which we have always taken for granted is
not
a fact of life. It can be challenged. It can be changed. I want to be able to tell my kids that I was a part of that change.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Rupert, ‘you just want to get pissed and watch U2.’

‘Well, there’s that too,’ Jimmy said with a grin.

The idea behind Live 8 was not to raise money directly in the way Live Aid had done twenty years earlier. This time it was
consciousness
that was to be raised. Particularly the consciousness of the world leaders at the G8 summit. The organizers, led by Bono and Geldof, wanted those leaders to understand that ordinary people did not like the idea of babies dying in poverty. Particularly when those infant mortalities were the result of the actions of iniquitous Western politicians. The people had had enough of third world poverty and Live 8 was going to give that discontent a voice. The innovative idea was that on the day, the people would be encouraged to register their outrage at the heartless politicians who represented them by sending a text or by logging on to a website
insisting
that poverty be made history.

Predictably, not all of Jimmy’s gang embraced the idea with the same enthusiasm.

‘As a matter of fact,’ Rupert said with his usual sardonic smile after he had stretched comfortably in his seat and studied the champagne list with the doubtful air of a man who does not expect to be impressed, ‘people regularly get the opportunity to make their opinions known and also to make them count.’

‘Oh yes, clever clogs,’ said Monica, already on the defensive, ‘and how do you work that out?’

‘They’re called general elections,’ Rupert replied.

‘Oh . . .’ said Monica, ‘well, I mean apart from that.’

‘What else could you want? Democracy is by definition an expression of the power of the people, and it can be achieved without the inconvenience of sitting on the ground for eight hours in a futile attempt to catch a glimpse of the top of Bono’s head because a bunch of rich arses like us are sitting at the front obscuring the view.’

Jimmy and Monica exchanged glances. They had seriously considered not inviting Rupert, knowing he would be like this and try to spoil everything. But Amanda would have been so hurt if they’d been left out and so they felt they had no choice. Particularly since Rupert and Amanda’s marriage seemed to be in particularly good shape at the moment. They had weathered the beautiful PA period and now looked pretty settled. They had even stopped sniping at each other in public, which was a deal-breaker as far as Jimmy was concerned.

But Rupert was still Rupert. The same smug, supercilious reactionary he had always been. It didn’t matter whether he was in a student pub in Sussex or the Golden Circle at Live 8, he was out to wind people up and he never failed to do so.

Particularly Henry.

‘Look, Rupert, you bastard,’ Henry snapped, ‘I’m one of those iniquitous politicians who need to be getting the wake-up call and personally I’m quite happy to pick up that phone and smell the coffee. This generation is
talking
to us. We need to listen.’

‘Which generation, Henry?’ Rupert said. ‘Bono’s at least ten years older than you are. Paul McCartney’s twenty.’

‘Yeah, actually that’s right,’ David said. ‘I think this whole event would have been much more relevant if they’d booked some hipper bands.’

‘True,’ Jimmy said with mock seriousness, ‘that would really have made it work for the starving Africans.’

‘I’m just saying if they want to connect with young people they need something off the wall and a bit alternative. Bit of Trance/Fusion maybe.’

‘Your problem, David,’ Amanda said, ‘is you still think you
are
a young person. You really need to sort that out.’

‘Anyway,’ said Robbo, ‘bollocks to
duff duff
dance trance wank. We want tunes. We want to rock!’

Henry, like any good politician, was not going to allow himself to be diverted from his political agenda.

‘We all know that everything is a compromise,’ he said, ‘and it’s perfectly possible to sneer – but at least it’s happening, right? At least people are doing something.’

‘Yes, they are doing something,’ Rupert said, popping the first cork. ‘And what they are doing is being a great big bunch of fucking hypocrites.’

‘You mean us,’ Henry asked, ‘the politicians? Easy to shift the blame, isn’t it, Roop?’

‘I mean all of us. Every single person here.’

‘Oh, give the bloody rich a break!’ Jimmy chipped in. ‘The whole Golden Circle thing has been gone over again and again. Somebody had to pay for the gig, why not the rich? And if they get a bottle of champagne and a decent seat for their trouble—’

‘I don’t mean just the Golden Circle, Jimmy,’ Rupert said, ‘and I don’t mean just you politicians, Henry, although I know you think that you’re the most important people on earth. I mean everyone in the whole park. They are
all
a great big bunch of fucking hypocrites. And the people watching it on the BBC. And the BBC, for that matter. Actually,
particularly
the BBC because they’re not even screening the political appeals. It’s just a free concert to them.’

Monica very rarely got angry and if she did she tended to bottle it up. She had been brought up always to be nice. This time, however, her cork popped along with the champagne and she let rip.

‘How can you be such a nasty
bastard
, Rupert!’ she said, her face going bright red. ‘Every single person in this huge crowd
cares
. Apart from you, that is. Of course they care! How can you possibly doubt it? And they want things to change too. It’s stupid and arrogant and utterly pathetic to be all cynical about it. In fact I wish you’d go, Rupert. I really wish you would. Sorry, Amanda, but it’s just awful of him to be so negative and destructive. It isn’t funny, you know, or clever. People are
starving
and it’s just horrible.’

Such was Monica’s passion that even Rupert’s studied sangfroid seemed to take a momentary dent. The old gang weren’t used to Monica getting up and having a go. She was famously a peacemaker.