I walked between the cameras as the crew shut down their equipment, complimented the producer and his assistant on another superb effort, then let myself into Cruise’s dressing room.
He lay back in front of the picture window that overlooked the central atrium, generously saluting any concourse visitors who waved to him.
‘Richard! Did you see the show?’
‘You were great. Lonely, lost, angry. More than a hint of the mentally deranged. I almost believed you.’
‘It’s all true. I wasn’t acting.’ He sat up and grasped my hands. ‘I’m finding myself out there. I’m laying myself bare, tearing shreds off my flesh, letting the blood trickle over the mike. Things I didn’t know about myself. God, the stuff waiting to come out. All the psychic shit backed up for years.’
‘Don’t hold it in. People need that stuff. It’s pure gold.’
‘You think so? Really?’ He waited until I nodded vigorously. ‘I’m going mad so they can stay sane.’
‘The show’s over. Try to take it easy.’
‘I’m fine.’ He lay back and raised his hand, waiting for me to pass him his glass of vodka and tonic. ‘It takes me a while to land. I have to fly so high, there’s some strange weather up there. I spent years humiliating my guests and got nowhere. Now I humiliate myself and I’m a huge success. What do you make of that?’
‘It’s the air we breathe.’
‘You’re right.’ He pointed to a reproduction on his dressing table of one of Francis Bacon’s screaming popes, as if recognizing himself in this demented pontiff who had glimpsed the void hidden within the concept of God. On a bizarre impulse I had given the reproduction to Cruise, and he had taken a keen interest in it. ‘Richard, tell me again—what exactly is he screaming at?’
‘Existence. He’s realized there is no God and mankind is free. Whatever free means. Are you all right?’
‘Fine. I know the feeling. Sometimes . . .’
Still holding the glass of vodka, ready to place it in Cruise’s limply hanging paw, I sat in the armchair next to the sofa, the position of an analyst listening to a disturbed patient. These chat-show performances were changing Cruise. He had begun to resemble the distraught heroes he played in the commercials. His face was thinner and more angular, and he had the ashy pallor of a hostage released after years of captivity.
‘So, Richard. Sold your flat? Goodbye Chelsea, goodbye all those nancy dinner parties. You’re part of Brooklands now, you’re committed to the Metro-Centre. We’ll put you on salary.’
‘Well, not a good idea.’
‘I won’t order you around. Anyway, you’ve earned it. Sales and viewing figures are up, and that’s not just the Metro-Centre. It’s all along the M25. There’s something new out there, and I’m giving it to them.’
‘Something violent. That frightens me a little.’
‘I feel for you, Richard. Sitting for years behind a big desk in Berkeley Square, you still believe in the human race. People like violence. It stirs the blood, speeds the pulse. Violence is the best way of controlling them, making sure that things don’t get really out of hand.’
‘They have already. These attacks on Asians and asylum seekers, the fiery crosses in front gardens. You didn’t want all that, David. Some of these supporters are using the sports rallies as a cover for racist attacks. Setting fire to streets of houses. It’s ethnic cleansing.’
‘Street theatre, Richard. Just street theatre. Maybe I wind them up a little, but the crowds want blood. They believe in the Metro-Centre, and the Asians don’t come here. They have a parallel economy. They’ve excluded themselves, and they’re paying the price.’
‘Even so. Can you talk to the chief marshals? Try to calm things down?’
‘Right. I’ll see what I can do.’ Bored by this talk and my wheedling voice, Cruise sat up and waved away the glass of vodka. ‘Think of them as skid marks, Richard. Roadkill. But we have to keep driving. Remember—“Mad is bad. Bad is good”?’
‘I meant it. I still do.’
‘Good. Maybe we need to go further, engine up the product a little. I could talk more about my alcoholism and drug use.’
‘You’re not an alcoholic. You’re not a drug user.’
‘That’s not the point.’ Cruise watched me patiently. ‘Alcoholism, drug addiction. They’re today’s equivalent of military service. They give you a kind of . . .’
‘Man-to-man authenticity?’
‘Exactly.’ Cruise raised a forefinger, calling me to attention. ‘Take sex compulsion. I’ve been looking at that book you gave me.’
‘Krafft-Ebing?’
‘That’s the one. It’s full of ideas. We could slip one or two into the programme, see how the sofa ladies react.’
‘They’d have a heart attack.’ Trying to reassert my control, I stood up and turned my back to the picture window and the shoppers waving from the floor of the atrium. ‘Be careful people don’t start to pity you. It’s far better if they fear you. Don’t give too much away. Be more punitive, more demanding.’
‘The stick, not the carrot?’
‘Be more mysterious. Get rid of the Lincoln. It’s too American, too show business.’
‘Hey! I love that car.’
‘Swap it for a black Mercedes. A black stretch Merc with tinted windows. Aggressive but paranoid. At the same time make it clear you’re manipulating their emotions. Make shopping an emotionally insecure experience. Forget value for money, good buys, all that liberal middle-class rubbish. We want bad buys. Try to touch their unease, their dislike of all those people who look down on consumerism.’
‘The old-style county set? I like that.’
‘Another point.’ I circled the sofa, apparently deep in thought. ‘You need your audience, but now and then deride them. You despise them, but you need them. Play the unpredictable parent. Invent some new enemies. Tell people to join a consumer club at the Metro-Centre if they want to be part of their real family. Defend the mall is the message.’
‘Defend the mall.’ Cruise nodded solemnly. ‘That’s it.’
‘Tell people to join the gold-card evenings, the discount shopping nights when they can go on TV. Keep them on their toes with the threat of withholding affection. Treat them like children—it’s what they really want.’
‘They are children!’ Cruise threw his hands in the air, then gave a middle-finger salute to the picture window. ‘I love it, Richard. I’m glad we talked this through. You can feel it happening—MPs are phoning up to help, they say they want to be part of the organization. I tell them there is no organization! Even the BBC offered me a show.’
‘You declined?’
‘Of course. People here would cut off my balls.’
‘We don’t want that . . . What would Cory and Imelda think?’
Laughing at this reference to his Filipina maids, Cruise stood up and patted me on the back. A red star pulsed on his control panel, and he saluted smartly. ‘Right. Rehearsal for the evening show. Stay to watch?’
‘I’ll get home and catch it there. I’m still settling in.’
‘Take your time.’ Cruise followed me to the door, an arm around my shoulders. ‘Someone told me you were off to London again.’
‘News to me. When?’
‘This Home Office delegation. Julia Goodwin, Maxted, Sangster. They want more police involved in our lives.’
‘That’s the middle-class way.’
‘You’re not going?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Good. The Metro-Centre is your real home, Richard. Your father would have understood that.’
I LEFT THEdome by one of the side exits and joined the late-afternoon crowd that filled the plaza outside the Metro-Centre. Three separate rallies were taking place. Marching bands stamped and wheeled, supporters’ clubs cheered the high-stepping majorettes. The motorway towns were out for the day, small children on their fathers’ shoulders, teenage girls in saucy gangs. Families glowed with health and optimism, cheering and clapping in rhythm. I still assumed that I was part of a merchandising operation that was ringing all the tills in the Thames Valley, but something far larger was under way, a new kind of England that was disciplined, proud and content. The burning Asian houses belonged to another country.