In order to prepare for the Meddlers’ attempt to bury him, Martin John has done copious amounts of research to help him understand how they meddle, where and how they’ll attack. His research consists of endless hours of videotapes of people speculated on the news. He commenced with cassettes but found them too easy to destroy. He tries for local news programmes where the reports are more detailed and the Meddlers announce themselves.
He’s alert to the weapon that is the camera. The spy tube. The eyewitness pry. Any camera hoping to seek him out will fail. He can dodge them with the speed a mugger takes flight. Any camera — whether student-, tourist-, or ITN-operated — and he is gone. He has a ritual for passing by a camera and letting the camera operator know he will not participate. That he is not giving them permission to capture his image.
A Meddler with a camera would be the final clunk-click. He understands it was a photo that got him into trouble.
Martin John does not like Meddlers.
Meddlers don’t understand things can upset a fella and get him down.
Meddlers can’t comprehend this.
It’s why they’re Meddlers.
You’ve to be doin’ jus’ right
jus’ right.
You’ve to be alright.
Full fucking safe right.
Exactly how they want you to be.
Except you’ve to do their right.
You’ve to be prepared Martin John. You’ve to be ready. You have put us in this situation mind. I warned you, I had you warned and you didn’t heed me. Not once have you heeded me, perhaps now with the help of God and the devil’s promise you’ll heed me.
~ ~ ~
Rules have already been broken in this book. The index told us about refrains, not rules. There was no mention of rules early on. Martin John will not like this.
Meddlers have rules. Rules have Meddlers. Meddlers do not tell you the rules until you’ve broken or filleted them.
They’ve rules, Meddlers. Rules none of the rest of us are privy to ’til they tell us. Youse’ll do it this way, which is my way, Meddler way. Even if Meddler way is going through the cow’s mouth and out its ear to go up its arse, Meddler way prevails. Meddlers prevail at work and it troubles Martin John. He doesn’t like Meddler way. Mam doesn’t even know about Meddler way. She didn’t warn him. She shoulda warned him. She shoulda, he says that aloud so we, who might be sitting nearby, can hear it. We, who might be sitting nearby, find out-loud pronouncements worrying. We pretend the person, in this case Martin John, has said nothing and we stare ahead. Martin John is grateful for our avoidance.
Even if they’ve no rules Meddlers’ll make some up while you are standing there. A Meddler is trouble brewing, trouble half-cooked, trouble that’ll come back and bite him in the ear. There’s a stoic quality to Meddlers.
Meddlers won’t rust in the rain.
Meddlers order off menus.
Martin John does not eat out.
He doesn’t trust kitchens.
Fuck the Meddlers.
It was always the Meddlers who interfered and turned him in. It was the Medlers who turned him in the first time. It’s the Meddlers who’ll turn him in the next time. It’s the Meddlers who’ll bury him.
His Meddler research, the videotapes, all sit up, tower-wards, in a lifting stack, until they beach at the ceiling, end. There is no abrupt interruption from floor to ceiling. Neat. Precise. Up. Identical. Up. Identical tapes up. Identical red-and-black cases up that give no indication to their contents. No scribbled titles, no scrawled-upon stickers. No blue biro. They separate from the 9 years’ worth of Eurovision Song Contest recordings, which rise and archive themselves in the identical manner, along the parallel wall. His cell is walled tapes. His wall is cells of tapes. There is no voluntary wall space unoccupied. No section available. Also, the titles are not labelled. He keeps them stowed. Secret. Un-de-code-able. Martin John has binders full of numbers that correlate to his tapes. He studies the tapes from time to time. More obviously, he studies the streets. He is out walking by day. Watchful.
Inside things are safe. Except for the one big problem.
His best weapon for observing Meddlers is the puddle. He can stand by a puddle and wait for them to pass. He can stand in their way. Just. Like. That. Stop! Stop hard and abrupt in the middle of the pavement. Sometimes people bump into him. He likes that. They apologize. The Meddler will claim not to have seen him. They call him mate. Instead of bait. He is bait. Baited to them. But subtracted now because of a puddle. A puddle is the most successful way to separate from a Meddler.
All Meddlers and the noticeable increase in Meddlers can be traced to the arrival of Baldy Conscience. There have always been Meddlers but never ever at this volume. It was Baldy Conscience who brought the maximum Meddlers out.
He has a prepared statement to deflect them. He raises his hands carefully in front of his eyes and repeats, “I don’t contribute, I don’t contribute to these things.” He takes no chances since the advent of palm-held video cameras, which are regularly found on Tower Bridge Road in the hands of Italian tourists. No distinction is practiced. He practices no distinction: if it is a camera, he performs his declaration. It matters not who possesses the camera because as his mother has long told him you just don’t know in whose hands these things might end up.
A photo has put him in the situation with Baldy Conscience, he must remember this. He must not have a camera near him. Ever. No cameras ever. No women ever. No Meddlers ever.
All photos have been removed and burned. If they come they will find no photos.
If Ralph says he gave him the picture Martin John will say No picture. Never no picture.
Mam warned him about getting his picture taken.
Be careful, she said. Duck. Don’t ever let them take a picture of you. Someone from home might recognize you. They could come for you and it would be over.
It is never defined.
With the help of God or no God — Martin John finds it unlikely any God would take pity on a man such as he — he continues not to heed her. These days, instead, he heeds the Meddlers.
The Meddlers I have no choice over, he has told mam. They’re not just coming for me, they’re here, gunning for me, stamping all over my head as I speak to you. They will get to me before the guards. I’ll be dead before the guards come for me.
Whenever Martin John talks of the Meddlers she drills him for information and — should he spew any small bit — disputes and dismisses it. So he has begun to withhold the information, but he’s withholding it in the only way he’s ever managed to withhold anything from his mam — a wriggling withhold. I wouldn’t tell you for it would put the fear of God in you and we wouldn’t want that. He speaks to her like she is a fragile imbecile. She gets cross, demands to know what he is waffling about. Make sense would you, make sense before I come and make sense of you.
But what is the point, for as soon as Martin John begins detailing the ascent and assailing ways of his nemesis Baldy Conscience, mam retreats into pleading that he shut up, shut up, shut up. For Christ’s sake shut up with this old shit would ya. And she is back drilling him again on the details of his day and night.