‘You came back,’ she shouted excitedly. ‘We hoped you would. In a way we knew you would. This is where you belong. We need you. You are the sunshine of our lives. Wait till I tell the others.’
The evening meal at Fox’s Farm was a great occasion. The other members of the commune were every bit as delighted to see Ishmael as the tiny blonde woman was. John the Hippy made a speech of welcome. Everyone else was still pretty sullen but they were obviously making an effort, and by their own standards they were embarrassingly warm. They were friendly, admiring. They were downright worshipful.
Sausage and beans and mashed potato were served for dinner. The communards constantly asked Ishmael if things were good enough for him. He said it was all fine. They were very concerned. He could have anything he wanted — more beans, brown sauce, anything. At first he found all the attention overwhelming, but it didn’t take long for him to get used to it.
He made a short speech. He knew it wasn’t great. It was a bit too general. He talked about the problems of the world today, the need to stamp out evil and capitalism, about the lack of spiritual insight, the misguidedness of middle class values, the lack of communication between people, and the fact that the devil incarnate was alive and well and living in a house called ‘Sorrento’ in Crocken-field.
He didn’t feel that he was at his dynamic best, but it all seemed to go down very well. Later he would tell them The Plan. For the time being they knelt at his feet and he placed his hands on each of the members of the commune in turn.
♦
A few weeks pass. Steve has had enough. It is September. It is getting cold. He doesn’t want to be standing on the forecourt all winter.
Then one day Kyle comes back. It is seven in the morning. The place is quiet. Steve is running the station on his own and has nearly finished his shift. Kyle pulls up at the pumps.
‘I suppose you want petrol,’ Steve says, doing his best to sound insolent.
‘It’s full of petrol,’ Kyle says. ‘I just want to use your toilet.’
‘Jerry wouldn’t like that,’ Steve says.
‘I’ve already had to speak to Jerry about you once.’
‘Had to?’
‘Just do your bloody job and give me the key to the crapper.’
Steve can see Cindy’s Volkswagen about to pull into the petrol station. He has to think quickly. He enters the office, gets the toilet key and gives it to Kyle. Kyle goes into the toilet and the door closes itself behind him. Steve gets a tyre lever and jams it in the door so it won’t open. He gets a container of brake fluid and empties the contents over the bonnet, wings and doors of the Lotus.
Cindy has pulled in and is waiting for petrol. She looks like she’s been up half the night crying. Steve starts pumping petrol into her car. He can hear Kyle struggling with the toilet door, trying to get out. The tyre lever won’t hold him long. Steve puts the nozzle back in the pump and screws the petrol cap back on Cindy’s Beetle.
‘You’ve hardly put any in,’ she says.
Steve opens the passenger door and slides in beside her.
He can see the paint on the Lotus already starting to curdle. He can see the toilet door about to burst open.
‘I think we’d really better get going,’ he says to Cindy.
‘Am I supposed to know what’s going on here?’
‘Better if you don’t.’
Cindy smiles thinly, turns her eyes to the sky and she drives off.
‘Am I supposed to know where we’re going?’
‘Better if neither of us do.’
They both laugh. They drive in silence for a long time, then Steve says, ‘This is a really nice car. What kind of mileage do you get?’
♦
Here, in a nutshell, as described by Ishmael to the members of Fox’s Farm commune, is The Plan.
He said, ‘There are times when it is necessary to make a gesture. There are times when it is necessary to perform a symbolic act.
‘What do I want my gesture to symbolize?
‘What act do I want to perform?
‘I want to symbolize truth, beauty, goodness, love, light — the usual. I want it to symbolize a triumph over evil, complacency and middle class values.
‘Are you with me so far?
‘The problem — how to find a gesture and an act so powerful, so resonant, so rich in implication, that it can carry and communicate this weight of meaning.
‘Can we blow up the Houses of Parliament? No.
‘Can we cause civil disturbance? No.
‘Can we surround an American Air Force base? No.
‘Why not? Because what is needed is something more aesthetic, more creative, more domestic. More me.
‘I have looked into myself, I have become my own myth. I have plunged down into my own self and I have dredged up from these lower depths the raw material I need for this heroic deed.
‘I think naturally of Enlightenment — a charred hulk, consumed by the fires of evil.
‘I think of Marilyn’s father — a dark one if ever I’ve met one.
‘I think of the Crockenfield Blazers — the serried forces of darkness unless I’m very much mistaken.
‘It all seems very clear to me now. Marilyn’s father and his cronies represent everything that is wrong in this vale of tears, everything that is evil and corrupt and middle class. They dwell in darkness.
‘I know that we must confront that darkness. Let us throw down a challenge. Let us unite ourselves.
‘We will meet them and fight them. Good and evil. Day and night. Heaven and Hell. God and the devil. Me and Marilyn’s father.
‘And if we are beaten? And if we are destroyed? So be it. But at least we’ll have made our point.
‘Symbolic acts are like that.
‘It may not be the final solution, but it’ll do for now.’
Nine
Ishmael and Marilyn and Fat Les and Davey stayed at the commune. Ishmael did his best to contribute to commune life but it’s hard to fit in when people insist on treating you like a messiah.
It didn’t worry him, though, since he was heavily concerned with the fine detail of The Plan, as, at one time or another, were most of the other members of the commune. Otherwise they ate, sulked, took drugs and went to work just like ordinary people.
John the Hippy was much as he had been when Ishmael had met him before except he had been using Marilyn’s father’s American Express card to modest but good effect. He now wore a pair of hand-tooled cowboy boots, a quartz wrist watch, a silk shirt in flame red, and he carried a top of the range Sony Walkman.
Eric was the name of the tie-wearer who had eventually told Ishmael how to get to Fat Les’s. Eric didn’t get spectacularly less sullen in the time it took to put The Plan into effect and Ishmael learned that he had a career in computers, all of which confirmed his opinion that Eric might not be the man for the big occasion.
The Norton twins, by contrast, looked very handy lads to have on your side. They were probably two very different and very individual boys, but they didn’t seem to be. In fact, Ishmael coyld never tell one from the other. You might have called them Hell’s Angels, certainly they were bikers. They rode big British motorcycles — Nortons, although Ishmael never discovered whether they were actually called Norton or whether that was just a nickname because of the bikes they rode.
They had pot-bellies, beards and long hair and were not the most approachable of people. They didn’t seem to do much except ride their bikes, drink beer, and show their contempt for a pleasingly catholic variety of things — the police, ‘straight’ society, personal cleanliness, the family, drivers of MGs, newspapers and television.
Ishmael sort of liked them.
Tina was the tiny blonde woman who had been so glad to see Ishmael return. She looked about thirteen but could have been forty. Whatever her actual age, she had the distinct air of a runaway. She was very worshipful to Ishmael and he couldn’t help wondering if she liked oral sex.