Rainbow Bridge (41 page)

‘D’you want to be Famine or Pestilence?’ said Rob to Allie. ‘Since War is not invited… I fancy Pestilence myself, but I don’t mind.’

At New Bridge the National Trust campsite welcomed the Landsturm with fine food, good ale, unlimited hot showers and blister kits; quite a feat of organisation. They sat up in the camping barns, and out under the stars: talking Techno-Green Utopian blues, sharing News From Nowhere in thirty languages; singing, playing guitar, forming impromptu bands and eternal friendships. Dor and Felice dropped out of a fiery debate on “space travel, what does Gaia think?”, and lay on their backs, staring at the misty stars. Cherry was with Rob, alone over there under the apple trees, and they knew every word that was being spoken. They felt branded, as if every fucking person here was pointing the finger. Hey, there’s Rob Nelson’s laydeez, thought they were so cool, but they couldn’t hang on to the pretty one, the silky skin, the sweet mouth. She took her wings, she’s got to fly—

Their feet hurt, but their hearts were breaking. They categorically did not believe they were being dumped for a choirboy. Cherry wanted out, that was all.

‘Everybody’s private lives,’ said Dora, ‘start to crawl out from under. We’re not alone. A lot of breaking up and moving on’s been suppressed, all these years.’

The dissolution of their love seemed like a toll exacted on the success of this congress. On the success of Ax’s plan, on the birth of a new world.

‘Don’t try to make it easy, or I’ll hate you. We were in a fool’s paradise, girl. She never cared about us, we were steps on her shining way, that’s the fucking truth.’

‘Shut up.’

Next day there was an easy stage onwards to Wall End. Here the walkers rejoined the sybarites, on a second Fairground. Ax Preston made one of his rare full-on public speeches, at an event billed as Preserving Our Musical Diversity.

This is the choice. Do you prefer to be swallowed whole, and live on in the belly of the Empire? Or would you rather be chewed to mush very painfully first? We don’t want a fight. We’d have to be insane. We’ve watched this dawn rising, over many years. We want the benefits of Sphere membership, am I right? We fought for something new, vital, humane to rise from the Crisis, and here it is. We of all people should be ready to
engage
with the World State concept (although knowing the reality of that may be a long way off). We need to show Elder Sister that Europe is more than a ‘tragic and violent backwater’. Oh, yeah, and we have a diverse heritage to defend, our ‘musical diversity’, good metaphor, true as well. No music if the notes are all the same, every folksong a web of history—

He compared Elder Sister to Napoleon, but a
true
Napoleon, getting it right. He told them she needed, she
wanted
different voices in her Empire, to keep her on the path of lasting glory, and this was the role to which they could aspire. ‘
Engage,
it’s such an Ax Preston word,’ murmured a woman in the crowd to her wife, and they sighed, and clasped hands. They would follow him anywhere.

Question-time was rough. This was a self-selected crowd, nobody was going to offer the slightest offence to the Chinese, nothing resembling the term collaborator could be used. But there were ways of speaking the bitterness.

Why should we listen to you? You’re the dupe of Babylon!

‘Remind us, what part of the American Way did you most admire, Ax? Was it the fascism or the rapacity?’

That was a francophone Belgian, top EU (so far as that body survived) maven; posing as a folkie storyteller. White, but married to a Rwandan-born academic and used her husband’s name; which Ax avoided trying to pronounce. She’d been a sparring partner of Ax’s at the Flood Countries Conference.
What’s happening in Central Africa, Mathilde?
Can you find a way to tell me? How bad is it? Do you and Dom have any real news?
Real news
was a Landsturm catchphrase, and a dangerous one, have to watch that. You mean Joyous Liberation isn’t real?

Never argue, answer a different question, it’s child’s play.

‘Few of us who were adults when the Crash came were innocent, Mathilde. We can’t call it the American Way, it was global. Rich or poor, the world over, we knew it was dirty, but
we all took the money—
’

One bastard asked him did he now consider himself a rabid Celtic, or was the tattoo mindless rockstar body-art?

‘The Extreme Celtics put my girlfriend on a bonfire,’ said Ax, ‘for the crime of protecting the people. Then another time the Scots saved our lives, and this is their mark. Wake up, brother. Death is simple. Life is complicated.’

The Chinese Observers filled the front row, quietly attentive.

It was a little like tunnelling out of prison, climbing the Wall, crawling through the razor wire to freedom, to be greeted by a yelling, rotten-veg-slinging crowd. He was angry about the DON’T SHOOT THE GARDENER tees, fucking rows of them staring up at him. Nobody asked my approval for that. What am I? The Shield Ring’s Poster Boy? But what shook him was the way he
recognised
so many of the faces, the people he had never known by name, though they thought they knew him like a (wastrel, stupid) brother. He’d been with them in Amsterdam; in Bucharest, when they were freeing the Danube. He’d taken refuge with them in Paris. In one case, last spoken to the bloke in the Cardiff Assembly. We rise on the backs of the mass movements. We fall by the way, in one Terror or another, at last it’s the few who are still standing, all shades of our creed; most of us known to each other. And we decide. Small and far away, in Reading Arena, in a world he couldn’t remember, he saw a naïve little figure with a guitar on his shoulder, thinking about that red-headed babe, posing for the mirror of the crowd—

‘The amazing Mr Preston,’ murmured Alain, when Ax finally escaped from the podium and rejoined the panellists. ‘The perfect master at leading pigs to market. You will have them convinced it’s their very own idea to love Big Sister.’

Ax grinned (shakily) and nodded. The air has ears.

A Steadman like a two-legged Centaur with a noble chestnut beard gave the vote of thanks.
Ruskin, thou shouldst be with us at this hour
, etc. Ax heard music coming in from the field outside, wandering like a lost soul between the heated bodies, and realised he could not stop shaking. He lost the last exchanges, the finale. The next thing he knew he was in a backstage space, a three-cornered patch of green grass between drab marquee-membrane walls. Big George Merrick and Bill Trevor were leaning casually in the entrance to this roofless cave. Sage was beside him, unmasked, looking strange. I’ve been here before, he thought. A horror washed through him and was gone.

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing bad,’ said the big cat. ‘Standing ovation, you walked off, no damage. Let Alain make the curtseys and press the flesh—’

‘Sage? Are you okay?’

‘Wish I could run away an’ join the circus. Otherwise I’m good.’

‘Me…same.’

Blue eyes, blue eyes. Ax felt that the tension between them, building since he’d told his lovers about Elder Sister’s irresistible offer, was ready to snap. Words didn’t come, his need was choking him, closing his throat.

‘I belong to you,’ said Sage, softly. ‘You want to sort me out, babe?’

‘You want to go and find somewhere?’

They went and found somewhere, and had a sorting out, nothing held back. Sometimes nothing less than
savage
discharge can express, can explain, can release the hard, hard place we’re in.

Link hands and stare at the sky. ‘Want to go another round?’

‘I’m done,’ murmured Sage. ‘You realise we’ve been rolling in sheep turds?’

‘Don’t fucking care.’

Fiorinda, in the Hospitality Tent, was interviewed by Margaret Smallwood, one of Simon Hartshorn’s sisters, or his cousins, or his aunts; for a radio talkshow called
Hause,
with ‘floating title pictures’, whatever that meant—Cosoleth having been taken away by a gaggle of Hearthmaidens. She was asked about the one-child family (Cumbrian women are concerned). The labour camp system (will English working people still be slaves?), and did she have qualms about abandoning the ‘forbidden technologies?’

‘None whatsoever,’ said Fiorinda, smiling, on edge. Leave them alone together, she was thinking. It usually works.‘I’m excited about finding out what the new, righteous Sphere technologies have to offer.’

Margaret’s manner was intense. A middle-aged prophetess, she hovered on the edge of rash comment, rash reservations; and moved on. Cultural diversity. Schools to adopt
putonghua
as a compulsory teaching medium. Fiorinda grew restive. I have a job, you know; not just Ax’s First Lady. What about my new download? My all-star girl band? Can we even talk about my latest drunken folly? Nah, thought not.

The announcement of Fred Eiffrich’s death had reached them in Coniston.
After an illness of several weeks, borne with dignity
, said Joyous Liberation. There had been no extended coverage. No solemn music, no grave procession of talking heads-of-state, but at least he got
borne with dignity.
Suppose that’s the Chinese way of saying thanks for saving us from another A-team, dude. In the evening, after the talks and panels, there was a rock concert, of course. A blaze of lights, flawless sound and gleaming guitars; the Langdale Pikes peering down through the sweet air, like pointy-headed old giant-women, curious to know what these ants were doing at their feet. Ax did a solo set. He played for an hour, bantering with the crowd, very relaxed, and then paused, his white Strat at half-mast, looking over their heads into the last sunset light, for so long people started to get uneasy.

Here we are on the other side, Fred. It’s not like we imagined, but we made it.

He leant to the mic. ‘This is for Fred Eiffrich.’

No one in the Landsturm crowd knew what the hell to do with a Hendrixed-up American anthem. The mask slipped; the fear showed. Then Chinese Observers began to applaud, with what seemed genuine enthusiasm, so everyone joined in. Elder Sister doesn’t like people who abandon their friends. A craven puppet could never hold Europe for her; true allegiance is not afraid to criticise. And now they wanted
Jerusalem
.
Okay, okay. Sing along, why don’t you.

Yeah, had a feeling you’d all know the words.

The man has perfect instincts, thought Alain de Corlay, affecting ignorance of the lyric on the VIP straw bales. The pity that he’d felt in the afternoon dissipated. He saw that Ax had merely been shaken by a moment of fugue; for the human frame, mind and body, is bound to struggle against the shackles of power. The hero of this hour was deeply at peace with himself, and with what lay ahead. Which implied his partners must also have accepted their fate… That’s good, because you’ve become our Special One, my poor friend. And
we
will be the kingmakers; if we survive our last tight corner. For once, and at such a price, the Utopians, radicals, social rebels of Europe will be the ones pulling the strings—

By the third march it was beyond dispute. The soft-optioners were out of the loop, the walkers
were
the Landsturm. There were supposed to be eleven hundred of them (there was no accredited accurate count). Very few dropped out, although there were blistered feet and sorely fried hides—mainly mixed-race urbanites who’d taken no precautions, having had no idea they could get UV-burned in the English Lakes. Possible rulers of a future Europe, radical rockstars, veteran eco-warriors, Free Cumbrians: young and old, they fell together into the rhythm of the hills. There were hours when the singing stilled by common consent, a walking meditation. We shall lose everything, and live to fight another day, we shall defend
liberté, egalité, amitié
in the World State (that may never happen). Oh, but the price!
Muß es sein?
they chanted—a delegate of a classical bent having taught them a round, based on Beethoven’s marginal comment, his last words on life and death; maybe a joke, maybe profound truth, maybe both.

Must it be?

And then the
good
bit, the intensely satisfying bit everyone waited for, and cheered for, sung by that whiskery old Bavarian bloke with the growliest, deepest of bass voices:
Der Schweeeeer gefaaaaasste Entschluß!

The difficult resolution!

They knew this march through the fells would live forever.

Mr Pie, the wall-eyed piebald stallion, drifted about, munching and cooling his big feathered feet in peaty sloughs. Death, on foot, took sight lines, studied his gadget belt and his visionboard. Occasionally he stuck a pronged instrument into the ground and stared mysteriously into the distance. Silver Wing, sitting on a tussock, restlessly braiding and unbraiding her silvery-brown hair, watched this performance with an utterly teenage lack of curiosity. They were on top of Esk Hause, the Irish Sea a glittering ribbon glimpsed between the western fells.

‘You don’t
want
us to be together.’

Sage left a complex (and forbidden) realtime analysis to run, and lay on his back, arms outstretched. Marlon had asked Silver to marry him. Pearl had told Marlon’s dad, in a fit of vicious sibling rivalry. Marlon’s dad, in a fit of unbelievably stupid candour, had told his son he was an idiot if he thought wedding vows would cure Silver’s taste for playing away. Take her as she is or let her go, kid—

‘I just think you’re both very, very young.’

‘That
stinks.
You have no fucking right to say that.’

‘True. Silver, when I was your age it never crossed my fucking mind to expect or demand adult approval for anything. Why does it matter what I think?’