A black pantechnicon stalled in a bank of mist beyond some cottages, only one rear light visible and no blinkers going. She was so distracted by a man crossing the road that her car glanced the side of the stationary vehicle. To pull up would have left her half on the road, and being just over the summit of a slight rise there was the likelihood of cars overtaking at suicidal speed and crashing into hers. The only safety was in going on, wanting no argument with men who might be even more unpleasant because she was a woman. The barely audible glancing suggested that any damage was little more than superficial to both parties. She wondered in fact whether any contact had been made at all, and that she hadn’t imagined a touch of the car against the stalled and lurking monster.
Nevertheless, she was trembling, no lights anywhere but her own, snowed-up hedges like loaded camels by the roadside ready for the trip to some Samarra of the North Pole. The weather babble had not prepared her for a blizzard. Or maybe it had, for she had kept the radio on most of the day, but hadn’t taken in the vital words. The flash of a bare tree frightened her more than the thickening carpet in front, though from confidence that the car would get her anywhere, she was afraid of becoming entombed.
Stuff and nonsense, she laughed, going back to baby language in a crisis. Trundle trundle great big teddy bear car, are you going very far? Far enough, on such a night, the engine sturdy and the dashboard bright. There were no lights in houses passed, dead walls side on to the road, and any that could be seen were as dim as if those inside already sat around a candle.
Snow made the world raw, sent everybody back to the cave age, and though kids might think it fun, all in all she did not like to be out, which was hilarious when you mulled on how the country seized up in six inches of snow. Even Mrs Thatcher’s true-blue Britain hadn’t solved that one, though you’d think it wouldn’t be so difficult, with so many people on the dole.
Islands of snow, in which shores were indistinct and flattening at the glass, were pushed aside by wipers turning more and more sluggard. A corridor of winter trees dropped bomb pies from overweighted branches. Or the wind flicked them, hard to say what the hell in such an ambush, catapults at all angles turning the air to chaos.
Brakes on, the wheels locked, windscreen showing what she hardly dare drive into, feet controlled by the strutwires of instinct. A group of buildings dimly along the road, but could she slide the bumps that far? Lights called her on to keep going, play the feet and hands, piano and violin to win even a metre, a few rolls forward.
How safe the place was, good or bad, she couldn’t know. It wouldn’t have to matter, she had to weave along the snow, white woolly ruts building around the tyres The gates came close, she grazed the post and then after more manoeuvring was in, following the PARKING sign and across the courtyard between two other vehicles forming the dead end of a white glove thrown down from she didn’t know where.
FIVE
After setting out on the road Daniel never wanted to stop, though he hated driving at night, and therefore would like to do so as soon as practicable. The simplicities of life are all that matter, he mused, if only we can find them and keep them pure. The plan was to deliver the van in Coventry, and hope they would have a car to get him home by midnight. What, he smiled, could be purer than that?
The heater worked. He took off his cap and, bald head perspiring, managed a look at the mirror: pale thin face, bushy greying moustache. White-blue eyes blinked before returning to observe the road. As if there was a slow fire in the clouds, though he couldn’t smell the smoke, a flake of grey came down like burnt paper, the remains of God’s manifesto floating oddly into ashes. Too cold for snow, he had thought, but it wasn’t. A few more became moisture, their weight bursting bounds to make runnels, a system of watery freelanes till he turned on the wipers to a cleanliness that was almost next to a God he couldn’t afford to believe existed.
Leafless trees were tinselled with hoar frost. To look backwards and check that the cargo hadn’t shifted would be perilous, even more so if a shadowy ice patch caused him to skid and jolt. The prime-timing mechanisms were fail-safe, they had said, but then they would say that, wouldn’t they? ‘We’re professionals,’ they smiled, ‘none more so, by now.’ He knew those icy smiles that meant death if you didn’t take them seriously. ‘We get what we need and we know what to pay for. The Libyans and the Czechs are the technological tops in the business.’
Danger was one of the simplicities of life right enough, pure and unadulterated on this leg of delivery, fail-safe never sufficiently safe no matter what they said. But the amount of time between him and Coventry was not hard to live with, two hours of over seven thousand seconds, each a possible full stop on the future. Which particular white-scorched second would it be? The purity of that speculation was also hard to beat, good for a sweat and a fairly wry smile on any part of the trip.
He would be back at his teacher’s slog in the morning, you had better think so, someone else would drive the van to London or wherever, and he would be waiting to hear the radio squawk on about another pinprick of death and injury for the Cause in terms of terrorist atrocity, whereas he and all who so nobly fought knew that if there were enough of such attacks the elephant of oppression would eventually bleed to death and let them go their justified way to freedom and self-government.
Oil and grit coated the screen with a subtle paste, melted flakes not enough to take it off. Pressing the button to ease the squeaking wipers, no liquid shot out, connections to the bottle blocked. He slowed, not wanting to stop and wipe with the rag but, his prayer answered, more snow came, melting till he saw clearly again.
The van ran easily, maintaining the ruts, soothing rhythmical bumps under the treads. He had an easy score to keep, not like those clear-eyed heroes who sniped from blocks of flats or drove a laden car of mercurial juice to outpost or point of ambush. Mayhem was their purpose, and bloodshed their policy. If he looked in the mirror again his eyes might encounter the tactical success of visionary technicolour.
More than the heater was making him sweat, more than the promise of a terrible explosion. Those who set bombs or fired Armalites had neither the imagination nor the intellect to appreciate the picture of reality they created. Reality for them was planning in cold blood and watching television, whereas for him the spectacle on the screen was no reality at all, his TV being reality itself.
He regretted that his courage wasn’t tested directly, but even so, the load was itching his feet, and he wanted to speed up time, and be floating homewards with mission accomplished. If the police stopped him he would be locked up for twenty years, an aspect of the struggle he didn’t care to think about, though how could anyone imagine that such material was carried in this ordinary van? Elation one minute, deadly fear the next, snow indicated a simplicity of life he felt little connection with, the van an impermeable boat taking him along a powder trail to destroy the villainous enemy. He would read about the attack in the common-room Guardian, salt tears smarting his cheeks, and the exciting thumps of a heart that would never kill him.
He enjoyed using his courage and faculties in a lost cause, if so it was, because you could not be a hero if you won. If you strove too keenly for victory, success would elude you. You would become careless, make mistakes that would destroy the precision of action. The only way to erode the enemy and finally defeat him was to live from day to day, as if there could never be an end to the fight.