The Minority Council (37 page)

“Sure, ask away.”

“Um… why, Mr Mayor?”

“Because they’re the senior members of the Minority Council, a group of Aldermen dedicated to going round behind my back and taking decisions without consulting me, which may or may not—and in this case did—result in the death of innocents, any other questions?”

“No!” she exclaimed, in full-lunged horror. “I had no idea!”

“I imagine I’ll be hearing that a lot.”

“I can see why you might want them there!”

I pressed two fingers into the place between my eyes, trying to force something, anything, into my brain that wasn’t pain and fuzzy bewilderment. “Kelly,” I croaked, “if I hadn’t actually met you in person, I really wouldn’t think you were real.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” she laughed. “Everyone says that! Now in terms of the rest of the support… do you think you’ll need light arms cover?”

“You’re joking?”

“I would never!”

“In that case… no, I don’t think light arms will hack it.”

If at all possible, she brightened. “Heavy arms? Demolition team? Evokers armed with tamed elemental spirits, perhaps?”

“Every little helps.”

“How about catering support?”

“Is that an option?”

“Of course, although I don’t recommend the vegetarian menu.”

Time to give up doubting; only madness would remain. “Sure, why not?” We never say no to free food. “Anything else I can do for you, Kelly?”

“Now wouldn’t be the right time to discuss your health insurance, would it?”

“Can a silence be stony over the phone?”

“I think, Mr Mayor, that you might be able to make it so. Although there’s always the danger that someone will
just think you’ve been cut off, and they’ll start shouting, and that will undermine the moment. If, I mean, if they couldn’t already sense the stoniness of your silence. Which they probably could.”

There was a long, slow rush as she let out the last of that breath down the phone. I waited for it to pass and asked, all sweetness, “Anything else?”

“Um… nothing that can’t wait.”

“Delighted to hear it.”

“Do you need anything else from me?”

“I dunno, Kelly; I think that depends on whether you’re cheering for the Minority Council and all their crap.”

She sounded almost indignant. “Mr Mayor, I’m your PA! At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where the cheque comes from or what the work is; my role is to assist you and you alone. That is the duty of the PA, it is the covenant, it is the…”

“You make it sound like a rite of passage.”

“I take my work very seriously, Mr Mayor!”

“How would you feel if I said the problem’s not you, it’s me?”

Indignation turned to dignity. “I would be gravely understanding of your situation, Mr Mayor.”

“Bye, Kelly.”

“Goodbye, Mr Mayor.”

She probably didn’t mean for it to sound so final.

The other missed call, from Templeman.

I rang him back, but it went straight to voicemail.

I left him a message saying I’d gone to get something to eat.

Willesden Junction.

A dump.

Londoners have intense loyalties to the areas from which they come. Those born in Croydon will argue that theirs is a borough with access to the green belt, excellent shopping and wide, pleasant streets, while the rest of the city flatly knows that Croydon is a soulless hole whose only redeeming feature is the novelty of the electric tram and a large DIY store with reasonable parking. Likewise, those from Hackney would contend that their borough is vibrant and exciting, instead of crime-ridden and depressed; those from Acton would argue that their suburb is peaceful and gentle instead of soul-destroyingly dull, samey and bleak; and the people of Amersham would proclaim that their town is the ideal combination of leafy politeness and speedy transport links instead of, clearly, the absolute end of the earth.

However, no one, not one mind worthy of respect, could defend Willesden Junction as anything but an utter and irredeemable dump. It is where journeys pass through each other: a mess of bridges and cuttings, a dirty canal and too-narrow one-way roads, as well as railways for the high-speed express and the crawling commuter train.

We stood on a pedestrian bridge that spanned the line to Wembley, eating dubious kebab with soggy chips, and listening to the trains rumble by. Trying to get anywhere in Willesden Junction for any purpose other than changing trains is a game of hugging walls and ignoring signs. Like the Barbican, there are places here, between the scrapheaps and the marshalling yards, where the borders between spaces grow thin.

This we knew. We could feel it, taste it. The smell of the city, that sense that goes straight into the stomach without asking permission of the brain; in these streets, even here, it had power, its own distinct character. It was a magic made from the rattling of wheels on old railways, from the electricity in cables overhead, the bumping of pram wheels on cracked paving stones, the cacophony of a dozen different languages which sometimes dipped into English for words like “asbo,” “texting,” “Twitter” and “iPhone” before darting away again. Listening long enough, hard enough, and the mind would start to snag like cobwebs in the bare branches of a winter tree, and for a moment all that there was and all that there needed to be was

pigeon wings, weight above, weight below, pushing one against the other to soar upwards from the screeching of

neighbourhood cat smell of fox frightening, smell of packaged food behind, a door slamming in the dark as someone calls their pet home to

house where TV plays in the living room, out of tune, football results, favourite side lost again, drowned briefly by

bus engine rattling needs to be serviced parts creaking
inside just get to the end of the line and turf the passengers off,

beneath telephone lines chattering oh God yeah you won’t believe what he said to me yesterday I mean can you believe it he was actually like babe I don’t find you that attractive any more

bbbeeeeeeeeee

says the dialling tone

beeeeeeeeeeeeee

change in the texture of the sound as Underground trains nose up into the open air whoosh almost now the change in darkness outside the windows of the Tube making the light inside the carriage seem more dim, dazzling fluorescent in the tunnel and

seagulls don’t even raise their heads from the rubbish yards as the train rushes by and

“Matthew?”

and listen hard enough and there it is, the smell of gas in the pipes beneath our feet and the water running downhill towards the river in the sewage pipes and in the plane overhead a woman looks down at the city and wonders if she can see her house from here and

“Matthew? Mr Mayor? Are you all right?”

We let out a long breath and, with it, everything else: sound, sense, the weight of air and the humming of minds, blowing away to nothing. Glancing round, I said, “Hello Templeman.”

“Are you all right, Mr Mayor? You weren’t at the hotel…”

“Needed something to eat.”

“For five and a half hours?”

“Needed to think.”

In his face I glimpsed what might have been concern.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Matthew? Something hasn’t happened?”

“I’m fine. Everyone here?”

“I believe so.”

“You explained what we’re going to do?”

“Yes.”

“They going to play sensible?”

He gave a probably humourless smile. “I believe I have convinced my colleagues that this particular enterprise is, perhaps, not worth preserving.”

“I bet they’re all giddy about that.”

“There will be a reckoning at some stage, Matthew,” he warned. “Maybe not tonight—to be honest I think the speed of your action has caught them unprepared—but at some moment, there will be a reckoning. The Minority Council can’t be ignored.”

“
You’re
the bloody Minority Council,” I snapped, pushing past him and marching towards the end of the bridge. He fell into step a few paces behind. “And if you look closely, you might just see that the last thing I’m doing right now is ignoring you.”

“You’re not all right,” he murmured. “What happened? Why did you leave the hotel?”

“Personal stuff.” I saw his face. “Don’t give me that look. What’s that thing Shakespeare says? When things get crappy, they get crappy all at once?”

“I believe Shakespeare dressed it up a little.”

“Jammy git. Come on.”

A flight of metal steps down to a metal footbridge which ran into metal fences framing metal ramps down to the streets. Nothing human about Willesden Junction was built to last; it was a place for machines to reign trium
phant and man to service their needs. A rush of air knocked us, from a snake-nosed train as it picked up speed towards the country; elsewhere a flash of blue-white electricity lit the dark like a camera flash, from a commuter train passing overhead.

There were Aldermen waiting at the foot of the ramp; at first glance I counted twelve. They all wore black, and I suspected the large metal case that two of them were sat on didn’t hold playing cards. They stood as I approached; a quaint gesture from a traditional kind of bastard. Caughey pushed his way to the front. His coat was a little too small, the buttons straining. Someone had had stern words with him, because he managed to spit out, one consonant at a time, “Good evening, Mr Mayor.”

We ignored the disgust in his voice. “Good evening, Mr Caughey. I’m sorry I missed you earlier. Did you get the minutes of the meeting?”

“Mr Mayor!” A voice exploded from the back of the crowd, full of delight and excitement. Moments later, the owner of the voice pushed her way through, her arms sagging under the weight of plastic bags.

Kelly Shiring.

Because you had to see it, to believe it.

“Mr Mayor I’m so sorry I’m late I was just on the phone with Transport for London and they’ve agreed to clear all maintenance crews tonight from the area and reassign to Kentish Town West until we give the all-clear. And I know you don’t necessarily need it, but I’ve got…”—she rummaged in her plastic bags—“… egg and tomato, ham and cheese, BLT and tuna and sweetcorn, and a flask of tea and a flask of coffee, and crisps. I could only get cheese and onion or ready salted, is that okay?”

I realised my mouth was hanging open. Likewise the mouth of every Alderman assembled.

“That’s very considerate of you,” we said. “We’ll have BLT, and coffee, and cheese and onion, if that’s all right.”

Her face lit up, in a grin flashing wide enough to collide with her ears, and she delved into the plastic bags in search of supper.

We turned to the Aldermen. One or two of them had the decency to look away. “Okay,” I said, a little too loud. Then, getting control, “Let’s get this said, just once, and then we won’t have to deal with it again. You lot suck. You really do. I mean, I know the arguments. Greater good, bigger picture, think of the city, not the streets, the crowds, not the people, the whole is greater—much, much greater—than the sum of its parts. But your project killed a kid, and sucked the souls out of Christ knows how many more, and you know what? You don’t have the right to decide that your right is all that matters. So, guys, here’s the news—you screwed up, and we’re going to fix it. Let me add, right here, right now, that I screwed up too, and when all this is done we should have a chat about that.

“So, let’s dismantle this cock-up monster thing before it can rip anyone else to bits.”

Small hours of the morning on a railway line.

Against the silence I could hear the humming of electricity in the cables overhead, loud and busy, waiting to be tapped; smell the scrapyards and rubbish dumps that orbited the marshalling yards and busy tracks, like lava moons around a burning planet. Separated off by a chain fence, a foothill of crushed cars, compressed to splinters of metal and glass, stretched upwards like a pharaoh’s
tomb against the stained night sky. Once, proud owners had polished the windows of these cars and waxed the bonnet on a Sunday afternoon, before rust and time had eaten them up from the inside out.

The Aldermen were waiting.

They formed a ring of men on bridges and women in the shadows of the sleeping cranes, watching entrances and exits, as much to keep strangers out as monsters in. I hadn’t needed to be told when the last train had pulled out of the station. I’d heard its engine whining the final song of the day, felt it drawing power, and known, in the pit of my stomach, that was it. No more.

When the moment came, it was disappointing. We’d hoped, at least, for a little light and fire when they summoned the culicidae; but the five of them—Templeman, Fadhil, Holta, Kwan and Caughey—simply stood together in the middle of the tracks, clustered round a wand that looked, from afar, suspiciously like a TV remote. Maybe when Alan invented the creature he did have a sense of humour, to make up for other absences in his soul.