‘What difference does that make?’
‘Well—’ he began, but that was all he managed.
‘Don’t you dare!’ cried Alison. ‘You can’t just go grabbing land for yourselves when there are so many of us working! Who do you think you are, exactly?!’
‘We’re Michael’s closest friends.’
I looked at Simon and realized that he believed what he said was true. He really thought that he, Steve and Philip occupied some privileged position. A glance around the canyon told a different story. From all directions came workers heading back to camp, each of whom were convinced they had a special affinity with Michael Hawkins. Several dozen had already left the footpath and wandered over to find out what the fuss was about. Now they stood watching as Simon made his preposterous claim.
‘We’re all his friends!’ announced Alison. ‘You and your cronies are just trying to steal a march on the rest of us.’
‘No, we’re not!’ protested Simon. ‘We’re preparing the ground, that’s all.’
This sounded rather lame to me, and I wasn’t surprised when it brought a jeer from the onlookers.
‘Nonsense,’ said a voice behind me. It belonged to Patrick Pybus. I turned and saw him coming forward with six or seven other people in tow. These I recognized as some of the fresh-faced volunteers from the city. They didn’t seem quite so friendly now, and all at once Simon’s situation appeared less than secure.
‘Hello, Patrick,’ I said, attempting to lighten matters. ‘How are you settling in?’
‘How can anyone settle in?’ he demanded. ‘When none of us is ever told what’s happening. Day after day we’ve been waiting for the word to come, and still we hear nothing. All we get is these so-called friends of Michael telling us what we can and cannot do!’
Everyone now looked at Simon, who had suddenly raised his hand for silence.
‘Michael says we should be patient,’ he announced.
This provoked another jeer, and I realized that if he kept on coming out with such unwise remarks he was going to be in serious trouble. Quickly, I stepped towards him and removed the hammer and pegs from his grasp. Then, watched by many eyes, I went round the other pegs and pulled them out of the ground. A murmur of approval came from the crowd as I did this, and I hoped it would be enough to get them to disperse. Next instant, however, there was a flurry and someone said, ‘Here’s Michael.’
It was extraordinary the way they parted to let him through. The confrontation with Simon had caused their number to swell to more than a hundred, yet Michael passed between them with ease, pursued by a question coming as from one voice: ‘When shall we build our city of tin?’
Walking behind him were Steve Treacle and Philip Sibling, who looked most put out when the jostling mob surged around them. Only Michael himself was given room to move, and it was with some difficulty that these two managed to keep up. Steve had a bustling manner about him, and I almost expected to hear a shout of ‘Make way!’ as he followed after Michael. Philip, meanwhile, pushed along as best he could. Both of them were apparently oblivious to the one question being repeated all around them, and seemed only interested in maintaining their role as Michael’s guard of honour. It was a role that came to an end when they saw me holding the hammer and pegs.
Without a second thought, they made a rush towards where the rectangles had been. This, of course, separated them from Michael, and within seconds they were lost, powerless to move, in the midst of the seething crowd. For a moment I feared for their safety, but, luckily for them, everyone’s attention was on Michael. He, too, had noticed the hammer and pegs in my hand. He approached and took them from me.
‘When shall we build our city of tin?!’ went up the cry.
Michael held the implements aloft. His audience fell silent.
‘The next time we use this hammer and these pegs,’ he declared, ‘it will be for all your houses!’
A great cheer ensued, and from my place in the crowd I could feel anticipation stirring.
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long while!’ he continued. ‘But it had to wait until I felt you were ready! Now, at last, the day has come, and the question can be answered! You ask me when shall we build our city of tin, and I say to you: Never!’
During the few moments it took for his words to sink in, most of the people around me just stood there gaping. Then a groan of disappointment such as I had never heard arose and threatened to drown him out.
‘Never?!’ said Alison. ‘What do you mean, never?’
‘This is the great step I told you about,’ replied Michael. ‘We have no more need for tin! Why? Because there’s clay here! Now we can make bricks and tiles! We can build proper houses, with foundations, and walls that won’t creak and groan at every breath of wind!’
‘We don’t know how to build from clay,’ said Patrick Pybus. ‘We only know about tin.’
‘You can learn,’ Michael answered. ‘And as you learn, you can build. Build a great city of clay in this canyon you’ve created!’
‘But we already have a city of tin!’ someone called from the back, to noisy acclaim.
‘Abandon it!’ he commanded. ‘Let it stand as a monument to your folly and your lost aspirations! From this day on, we build only from clay!’
There followed a brief lull, during which one or two individuals near the front repeated what they’d just heard. ‘We build only from clay,’ they said, as if testing the sound of it for themselves. ‘From this day on, we build only from clay.’ These words were taken up by a few other people, then more, and then more still, and gradually the doctrine spread. In small groups and in pairs they began to discuss Michael’s latest pronouncement. It had been a shock, for they’d assumed they only had to dig a canyon and their city could be founded overnight. Now, it seemed, a further step remained.
As I watched them drift back to the encampment, I realized he had won their obedience yet again. From now on they would build only from clay.
It was an outcome I found most gratifying.
19
In some respects I felt quite sorry for Simon, Steve and Philip. They had, after all, been pioneers in their particular field, and now at a stroke it was being snatched away from them. To live in a house of tin had ceased to be the great ideal. As a result, their knowledge of the subject offered no advantage. Previously they’d managed to persuade themselves that it might win them favour with Michael, but the episode with the pegs had shown them otherwise. He’d moved forward, and their only hope was to follow his lead and take their place in the city of clay.
To their credit, they seemed quickly to have grasped this, and they buckled down to the new regime within a couple of days. It was clear, though, that some of their habits weren’t going to change. At any particular time, for example, Steve could still be seen marching up to some work party or other and dishing out all sorts of orders. The difference now was that no one took the slightest bit of notice, as word of his powerlessness went before him. Undeterred, he managed to put himself in charge of the hoists, which everyone agreed was a good channel for his energy. The fact that nobody else wanted the job didn’t appear to bother him. Philip, of course, was always at hand to lend assistance, and the two of them spent many an hour maintaining an apparatus that actually required no attention.
Simon, meanwhile, had set himself the task of designing a flag to fly above his new house. His former optimism had returned apace, and he was convinced he would be amongst the first residents of the completed city. Nightly, he went round the encampment trying to muster support for his proposition that every dwelling should eventually have its own flag. Like Steve and Philip, however, he was no longer taken seriously.