‘And now we just do whatever they tell us,’ said the dirty don, and Cameron noticed that although the academic’s cheeks were ruby coloured, the tip of his nose had become oddly white and protuberant. It was astonishing how much he could remember, but perhaps that was the alcohol, too. Perhaps each fact was pickled and preserved in the runnels of his cerebrum.
‘I could go on,’ said the don, ‘and I will.’
‘Go on then,’ said Cameron.
‘I give you Skybolt. Remember how they decided to get rid of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent, back in 1963, wasn’t it? And who was responsible for that infamy? It was Kennedy, of course, the adored JFK, the son of the disgusting wartime Ambassador.’
Again Cameron had a vague feeling that there must be more to this story. Was it entirely America’s fault that Britain hadn’t been able to hack it as a nuclear power? But she had neither the inclination nor the knowledge to protest. She had never heard of Skybolt, this luckless British firecracker, jilted on the launching pad by JFK.
‘Your witness,’ said the don loudly to Adam.
Adam leant back. ‘I tell you what amuses me. It’s the way everybody sees everything through this roseate prism called the special relationship and people completely misremember events. Everybody now thinks of Reagan and Thatcher as this inseparable duo, she in her pearls, he in his aviator’s jacket, each incarnating the eternal Anglo-Saxon struggle against tyranny, each pledged in blood to come to the aid of the other. Britain and America contra mundum, to the ends of the earth: that’s how you remember it, isn’t it? But look at what actually happened in 1982, when a deranged Argentinian junta violently seized a piece of sovereign British territory.
‘Did Britain and America storm the beaches together? Like hell. If you look at the record the Americans — that includes Reagan — repeatedly refused to describe themselves as allies. British ships were being blown up in San Carlos Bay, British troops were being fried alive in the
‘The Peruvian Peace Plan!’ shouted the don. ‘I spit on the memory of the Peruvian Peace Plan.’
‘And people have forgotten Jeanne Kirkpatrick,’ said Adam, and his voice, though not drunk, was also full of excitement.
‘Jeane Kirkpatrick, my Gawd,’ said the don. Cameron felt impelled to ask who this person was.
‘Jeane Kirkpatrick was the US Ambassador to the UN during the Falklands Crisis. Irish,’ said the don.
‘Now, now,’ said his wife.
‘And there was one point at which Britain drew up a UN motion calling for an unconditional Argentinian withdrawal, and she actually vetoed it,’ said Adam.
‘Well,’ said the don who had learned from the unparalleled viciousness of the academic world that you must never trifle with fact. ‘She didn’t actually veto it. She just said afterwards that if she had been asked again she would have abstained.’
‘Frankly, I think that’s just as bad,’ said Adam.
‘You’re right,’ said the don, anxious not to seem unpatriotic. ‘Death to Jeane Kirkpatrick, always assuming her husband hasn’t by now done the sensible thing and put ground glass in her tea.’
And the don and his wife laughed in the Brussels restaurant, weeping and guffawing like some masterpiece of Flemish tavern merriment, painted by Jan Steen. Adam laughed too, but more briefly, and that was just the point.
He took life seriously. To a man like Roger Barlow, the whole world just seemed to be a complicated joke, an accidental jumbling of ingredients on the cosmic stove, which had produced our selfish genes. For Barlow, everything was always up for grabs, capable of dispute; and religion, laws, principle, custom — these were nothing but sticks we plucked from the wayside to support our faltering steps.
That wasn’t good enough for Adam, and Cameron thought it wasn’t good enough for her. Clutching the reserved tickets, she now re-entered Portcullis House from the Embankment. She passed through the cylindrical glass security doors. She used her electronic pass to enter the main concourse, graciously received the smiles of the security men and descended the escalator towards the colonnade that leads to the Commons. Cameron walked fast, but MPs were now overtaking her in their haste to claim their seats.
She saw Ziggy Roberts zipping along ahead of her. He appeared to be wearing morning dress.
In one of the cafes in the Portcullis House concourse a large group of researchers and gofers — the taxpayer-funded clerisy of Parliament — was watching a live TV feed.
‘Omigod,’ shouted one excitable young man, as Sir Perry Grainger handed over the Staffordshire pottery tribute of both Houses of Parliament to the most powerful man in the world. ‘What’s he supposed to do with that?’
Raimondo squeezed his way through to the west of the square, the girl following.
‘What’s the story?’ he asked a policeman.
‘No idea,’ said the copper, with a tight-lipped Knacker of the Yard expression.
Sandra had more luck. Another policeman said, ‘Looks like they found a lot of blood in Tufton Street.’
‘What did he say?’ everyone asked.
‘That girl just said the cops found a body in Tufton Street.’
‘The police killed someone?’
‘Somebody said the cops killed someone in Tufton Street.’
‘A police horse killed somebody in the road.’
A death! Someone had paid with his life! Someone had come to London SW1 this fine July morning of argent and azure, and offered all he had for the cause. As so often, it took a death to give point to their campaign. The vaporous resentments — of America, the Pentagon, McDonald’s, globalization, zero tax on air fuel, the Windows spell-check —suddenly achieved a crystalline form. Eyes that had been dulled with dope or hangover now gleamed fever-bright. On the brows of middle aged, Middle England protesters, people whose homes were called ‘Whitt’s End’ or ‘Jessamine’, veins began to throb as they called for the martyr to be avenged. Killers. Pigs.
‘We’ve got a bit of crowd trouble in Parliament Square, sir.’ Grover indicated one of the monitors.
‘Ricasoli,’ said Colonel Bluett of the USSS, dialling up the Black Hawk, still in permahover, ‘what’s the story?’
‘Can’t say, sir,’ yelled Ricasoli. ‘Looks like they’re kind of mad at something.’
To and fro the mob now began to wave, like a tentacled anemone under an incoming tide of rage. They knew not who their martyr was. They would have been interested to discover that the police had nothing to do with his injuries, but in no way deterred. Death had transformed an event into history, and at once they were glad they were there.
‘Bastards!’ yelled Sandra the nanny at no one in particular.
‘Yeah,’ said Raimondo, ‘assholes.’
Thanks to the fluid dynamics of the crowd, they had ended up at the bottom left-hand corner of the square, the nearest point to St Stephen’s Entrance. Ambassadors and other dignitaries were being dropped by car and scuttling into the porch, scalded by the blast of hate. A big blue limo of curious design drew up. Had Sandra but known it was a Renault, she might have stayed her hand. Had she spotted the blue, white and red tricolour on the bonnet, she might have thought twice.
A man got out, and there was something about his ineffable air, his swept-back hair, the weary glance he directed at the crowd; something which left her with no choice. She pulled the egg from her sack, and before Raimondo could do anything about it, she flung it.
As she had said, it had been laid that morning by the pride of the Knout flock, a seven-foot hen called Kimberly. The egg weighed 1.9 kilos and was eleven inches in diameter and fourteen inches long.
Kimberly was an ostrich.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
0942 HRS
