Fletcher had placed his war correspondents on a map of the Middle East like a high roller at a roulette table. Anthony Loyd was in northern Iraq with the Kurds; Janine di Giovanni was in Baghdad; and another Times veteran, Stephen Farrell, would be posted near the Iraq-Jordan border. My fellow course delegate David Sharrock, a veteran of the first Gulf War, would follow the British troops into the southern port town of al-Basra. Ayres and Owen, meanwhile, were wild gambles on the one-armed bandit. The odds of a decent story: a million to one.
During the eleven-hour flight from Los Angeles, I had listened to a depressing Nick Cave CD and read the even more depressing Valentine’s Day edition of the Los Angeles Times. It informed me that Hans Blix had declared Iraq’s “al-Samoud 2” missiles to be in breach of UN Resolution 687, because they had a maximum range of 180 kilometers, instead of the allowed 150. I wondered why Saddam didn’t just come clean with his weapons. Perhaps he didn’t think President Bush was serious. I almost wanted to go to Baghdad and tell him myself: He’s serious.
“You ’avin a laugh?” asked the cabbie.
“Sorry?”
“Portland Place? Today?”
“Er, yeah.”
There was a short silence. I wondered what was wrong with Portland Place, but was too jet-lagged to ask. I was dizzy with worry, cosmic radiation, coach-class miniatures, and chemical food. So I looked out the window instead and watched a British army soldier, in jungle fatigues, clomp his boots by an outdoor ashtray. He was clutching what looked like a submachine gun. I couldn’t remember seeing soldiers at Heathrow before. At that moment a column of armored vehicles, complete with caterpillar treads and gun turrets, grunted into the short-term parking area, slowed down, then carried on, toward a roundabout with a model Concorde on top of it. I remembered reading in the Los Angeles Times that this week was Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, an important Islamic holiday.
“Blimey,” I said to no one.
“I’ll do it, but it’ll cost yer,” said the driver, finally. A thick forefinger reached for the meter. The back of the cab smelled of vomit and diesel. We jerked forward into the camouflaged traffic. All I could see of the cabbie was a red Arsenal scarf, a thinning turf of gray hair, and a tattooed forearm.
It felt good to be back in England.
“What’s the problem with Portland Place?” I asked eventually.
“What? Other than the one million wankers marching through central London, protesting against the war?”
He said “war” as though it was spelled “woe-aghr.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish. A million of the buggers. Biggest protest march since the 1840s, according to Five Live. Gridlock, innit.”
He turned up his radio. “Listen,” he said.
“… actress Venessa Redgrave… is one of the marchers,” said the announcer. Redgrave came on. “The world is against this war,” she declared. “No one doubts Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator, but war is the most ghastly way to try to bring change.” I heard chanting and cheers.
“So you support the invasion?” I shouted, leaning in close to the plastic screen that separated driver and passenger.
“What? Nah. Bloody stupid idea. Blair must have been born yesterday. That George Dubya is leading ’im up the garden path, I reckon. I’ve got a nephew in the Royal Marines, though, so you’ve got to support the boys, ’aven’t yer? Poor buggers. This one won’t be over in five bloody days.”
“Right,” I said.
“Mind you,” continued the cabbie, “after what ’appened in New York, with them twin towers, makes you think, dunnit? Last thing we need is old Mohammed sitting in a field in Berkshire, firing rockets at EasyJet.” He pointed to a tank parked on the hard shoulder of the highway, under the Heathrow flight path. “Sometimes I wonder if these army boys know something we don’t.”
He laughed, which seemed to cause problems deep within his lungs. The laugh ended as a violent, eye-watering cough.
“Anyway, where’ve yer come from today?” he asked, when he finally recovered. “Been on ’oliday, ’ave you?”
I told him everything. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t stop myself. At one point I thought I was going to have to use the metal tissue box that had been thoughtfully screwed to the cab’s rear window ledge. In the end we got to Portland Place in fifteen minutes, a world record. The roads were empty. No one, it seemed, had dared face the predicted gridlock in central London.
“That’ll be fifty-four thirty,” said the cabbie as we pulled up to the Hilton. “Thought you was looking at a ton—easy.”
I shuffled backward out of the cab, dragging my luggage in front of me.
“Cheers,” I said, as I stood on the pavement and passed him four crisp notes through the window. “Here’s sixty-five.”
The cabdriver’s face was plump and mottled, but dad-ish. He bent down to make eye contact through the passenger window.
“Take care of yourself, son, wontcha?” he said with a nod.
“I’ll try,” I replied.
The taxi gave a diesel snarl and began to pull a U-turn across Portland Place. There was an oily clack as its doors locked automatically. I saw the driver’s lips move. “Silly bugger,” I could have sworn he said.
In the bleached hotel room, with its panoramic view of plumbing and masonry, I washed off the sweat of a night in economy class, slumped onto the double bed, and attempted to calm myself by reading an issue of Car magazine. Unable to concentrate, I prodded the television awake. It showed me a column of well-dressed antiwar protesters marching through London, hoisting signs that read NO WAR FOR OIL, MAKE TEA NOT WAR, and just NO. They didn’t look like the usual hippie peaceniks. There was barely a pair of Dr. Martens footwear or a woolen beanie to be seen. They looked like Times readers, in fact. The television also showed demonstrations in New York, Berlin, Paris, and Athens, with a total of 5 million protesters worldwide. Then it cut to Tony Blair, who was giving a defiant speech in Glasgow to the Labour Party. “There will be no march for the victims of Saddam,” he declared, “no protests about the thousands of children that die needlessly every year under his rule; no righteous anger over the torture chambers which, if he is left in power, will be left in being.” I didn’t know who I found more convincing: the peace marchers or the prime minister. The truth, however, was that I was too selfishly preoccupied with being sent to Iraq to worry about the justification for the invasion. My instinct was to support it. If I was going to be gassed by Saddam in the desert, I at least wanted it to be for a good cause. But I admit it: Part of me was happy that someone was trying to stop it from happening.
“What d’you make of the protesters?” I asked Glen later that evening over a salad at Vingt Quatre, a posh diner on Fullham Road
“My mum was one of them,” he said.
“Your mother marched?”
“For selfish reasons, probably. Doesn’t want her son to go to war.”
“You’re going to an aircraft base.”
“Still technically war,” he said, pointing his fork at me. “And Scud missiles, as you know Chris, can land anywhere.”
“I’m sure my mum would’ve done the same. If she knew I was going.”
Glen glanced up from his overpriced plate of lettuce. Behind him, I could see Chelsea blondes with their banker boyfriends.