‘Julia? Who . . . ?’
‘Quiet!’ She smoothed her hair. ‘The consultants are here. They’re starting their ward rounds.’
THREE MARSHALS INSt George’s shirts had entered the first-aid post and were strolling around the ward. Ignoring Tony Maxted, they began to read the clinical notes attached to the bed frames. With heavy earnestness, they bent over the patients and tried to take their pulses.
I started to protest, but Maxted caught my arm and bundled me through the entrance.
‘Right. We can take a breather.’ He was ruffled but unabashed. ‘They know I’m a psychiatrist—not the most popular profession in the Metro-Centre. I can’t think why . . .’
We sat on the plinth below the bears in the centre of the atrium, surrounded by jars of honey and the fading get-well messages. Trying to ease my ankle, I took off my shoe and stood up. I wanted to be with Julia, and resented being frogmarched from the first-aid post. But Maxted wearily pulled me against the baby bear’s massive paw.
‘Maxted . . . is Julia safe?’
‘Just about. Rape isn’t a problem . . . yet, I’m glad to say. The Metro-Centre is more important than sex.’
‘What are we doing here?’
‘Keeping you out of harm’s way. The bears are a tribal totem—you should be safe for a while.’
‘Am I in danger? I didn’t know.’
‘Come on . . .’ Maxted examined me wearily, taking in the sweat caked into my jacket, my hands bruised from prising the lids off corned beef tins, the tramp-like appearance that would once have barred me from the Metro-Centre. By contrast, Maxted was still wearing a shirt and tie, and maintained his professional air under the shabby lab coat. ‘As long as Cruise hangs on, you’ll be okay. Once he goes, all hell is going to break loose.’
‘I thought it had.’
‘Not yet. Take this siege—what’s the strangest thing you’ve noticed?’
‘No looting?’
‘Spot on. Not a diamond stud pinched, not a Rolex trousered. Look around you. These aren’t consumer goods—they’re household gods. We’re in the worship phase, when everyone believes and behaves.’
‘And if Cruise dies?’
‘When, not if. We’ll move into a much more primitive and dangerous zone. Consumerism is built on regression. Any moment now the whole thing could flip. That’s why I’m still here—I need to see what happens.’
‘Nothing will happen.’ I tried to push away the probing paw of the baby bear. ‘The siege will end any day now. Everyone’s bored. It could end this afternoon.’
‘It won’t end. Carradine doesn’t want it to end. His mind’s been under siege ever since he arrived at the Metro-Centre. Sangster doesn’t want it to end. All those years trapped in that terrible school, teaching those kids how to be a new kind of savage.’
‘And the Home Office?’
‘They don’t want it to end, though they’re being subtle about it. This is a huge social laboratory, and they’re watching from the front row as the experiment heats up. Consumerism is running out of road, and it’s trying to mutate. It’s tried fascism, but even that isn’t primitive enough. The only thing left is out-and-out madness . . .’
Maxted broke off as a squad of some fifty hostages trudged into the atrium, led by a marshal with a shotgun. They carried buckets and mops, brooms and aerosols of furniture polish, enough equipment to buff and shine the world. Surprisingly, they were in good spirits, as if determined to be the best cleaning squad in the dome.
Together they formed up below the mezzanine terrace, waiting as Carradine and Sangster walked down the steps where my father had met his end. An aide carried a pile of St George’s shirts, neatly pressed and store-new.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked Maxted. ‘Don’t tell me Carradine is going to complain about the ironing. The siege must be over.’
‘Nice idea. But I don’t think so . . .’
Carradine briefly addressed the cleaning squad. Sangster prowled behind him, eyes searching the upper terraces under the roof. The marshal signalled to his force, and a dozen members of the squad lowered their brooms and buckets to the floor and stepped forward. Carradine moved along the line, shaking them by the hand and handing over a St George’s shirt.
‘Maxted—it’s some sort of sick game . . .’
‘No. It’s exactly what you see. They’re being sworn in. They’re no longer hostages and they’re joining the rebellion.’
‘Joining . . . ?’
Without thinking, I stood up, steadying myself against Maxted’s shoulder. I watched the dozen former hostages don their shirts, then move away in an informal group, exchanging banter with Sangster. They were at ease with themselves and the vast building, with the deep rose light that lit the entrances to the stores and cafes around the atrium. They were immigrants to a new country, already naturalized, citizens of the shopping mall, the free electorate of the cash till and the loyalty card.
‘Richard . . .’
Maxted spoke warningly, but I was watching the ceremony. At the last moment a thirteenth volunteer, a sturdy young woman in jeans and a biker’s leather jacket, stepped forward to volunteer. All doubts satisfied, she walked up to Carradine, came smartly to attention and claimed her St George’s shirt.
Holding my shoe in one hand, I began to limp forward, then felt Maxted take my arm.
‘Richard, let’s sit down and think . . .’
He guided me back to the bears. Carradine and Sangster moved away, and the marshal drilled off his depleted hostage squad, assigning them to a supermarket near the atrium.
Maxted took the blood-caked shoe from my hand. Smiling a little wanly, he tapped it against his free hand.
‘Richard, what were you doing? Any idea?’
‘Not much.’ I looked up at his almost kindly face. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘That’s what I mean. Now, go back to the hotel. I’ll see you later and we’ll find something to eat.’
‘But, Julia . . . ?’
‘I’ll see she’s all right.’ He handed me the shoe. ‘Dear chap, you were going to join them. The Metro-Centre finally got to you . . .’
36
SHRINES AND ALTARS
THE FIRST SHRINES had begun to appear, wayside altars for passing shoppers, places of pause and reflection for those making endless journeys within the universe of the dome.
At dawn, when the last gunfire had died down, I stepped onto the balcony of my room at the Holiday Inn. No one within the dome had slept through the night, and a thin mist filled the shopping thoroughfares, a hazy fog of insomnia that haunted the arcades and pedestrian decks, in places dense enough to conceal an army marksman.
I assumed that the police commandos had withdrawn, and that the real danger, as always, came from one’s own side, from Carradine’s untrained militia. After thirty seconds on the balcony, inhaling the over-ripe air with its guarantee of another tropical day, I wiped the sweat from my face onto the net curtain and found my way to the bathroom.
Two bottles of Perrier were all that remained of my stock. Standing in the shower stall, I drank one and then poured the second over myself, feeling the vivid, carbonated stream bring my skin alive.
As usual, I avoided the washbasin mirror, where I would be joined by the tramp-like figure who shared the bedroom with me. Whenever I saw him, bearded and scarily calm, he moved towards me like a sharp-eyed beggar spotting a prospect. Then he flinched away from me, repelled by my body odour and the even more rancid stench of deep and dangerous obsessions.
Still nominally playing my role as David Cruise’s adviser, I was left alone by Carradine and his marshals as they rallied their three hundred supporters, kept careful watch on the few score remaining hostages and defended the Metro-Centre against the armed might of a government. Meanwhile I did my best to look after Julia Goodwin, scavenged through the abandoned supermarkets and brought her enough food to feed her four patients and herself.