The Testimony. James Smythe

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СКАЧАТЬ eventually hang you. The guards saw us listening and told us that it was time for our showers; it wasn’t close to that, but the noise of the water deafened all else. They switched them on, told us to strip, prodded us – myself, Finkler, a thug from New York who called himself Bronx, a man who smothered his wife and children while they slept, name of Thaddeus – into the shower room. The water ran hot always, and we were forced to stand inside it, directly under the faucets so that they soaked our faces. They couldn’t be sure we were washing properly, they said, and this was the only way: scalding our skin. Finkler turned thick pink, like a lobster; he complained about the heat. Thaddeus wept. Bronx kissed his teeth and turned, and called Thaddeus a whiny bitch, and laughed at him. Nobody spoke to me, or looked at me. These people were not dangerous; they fashioned themselves as threats, either by accident or intentionally, but they were nothing. We stood under the faucets and watched as the guards – two of them, Johannsen and another one I didn’t recognize – spoke in the corridor. I heard Bronx whisper something, out of his faucet, closer to me.

      We can take ’em, he said, rush over, I’ll take one, you take the other. This panic, we could be out of this fucking place. Bronx was a rapper (though nobody could lay claim to having heard his music); he had shot three people from a moving car, caught by a traffic camera. Come on son, he said, we can get out of here. No, I said. He laughed, rocked backwards – he fashioned himself like some African chief, his laugh belly-deep, a false man to his very core – and grabbed my shoulder. No shit, he said, you like it here, eh? I washed myself. You fine with staying here, dying in this place? Shit, man, you crazier than Finkler. He nudged toward Thaddeus; I knew before they even whispered to each other that the family-killer would join in with the plan; he didn’t cry over his family, he cried over himself. There’s two types of pity in prison: self, and for what you did. You have self-pity, my father used to tell me, you can’t have any self-respect. Thaddeus was nothing but self-pity, a ball of it. Next thing I knew, he was running toward one guard, Bronx toward the other. They barrelled into them, slamming them against the wall. The guard I didn’t know the name of was quick; he shouted, reached down for his stick, but Bronx was faster, clubbed him across the face with his forearm. Come on, he shouted to me, you can get the fuck out of here. Solidarity in colour. I turned away, took a towel, dried myself and returned to my cell. What the fuck? Bronx shouted. You won’t make it, I said, but he didn’t listen, and the three of them ran down the corridor.

      Only one who returned – ten minutes later, cowering, shakier than when he left – was Finkler, and he didn’t say what happened to Bronx and Thaddeus, and I didn’t care to ask.

       Simon Dabnall, Member of Parliament, London

      The Cabinet was called in that morning, dragged out of our beds at some unholy hour and forced to wearily make our way back to the city. I was Minister of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which sounds exactly as dull as it was in reality. It was a position that I didn’t ask for, but when they offered me a place on the Cabinet I said Yes. I had been in the party for nearly twenty years; it made sense, I think, to them. I was the elder statesman, which is a ghastly thought, so I sat there and read the reports that my staffers had made for me, and I took extra pay for my troubles. I had, in a previous life, worked in the City. Apparently, this meant I should govern the finances of businesses the country over, I don’t know. Regardless, I was called in, and I obeyed the paymasters to a T. I don’t remember if we discussed the practicalities of giving everybody a day off, a religious holiday. I’m sure that it must have come up. My assistant only bothered to make it in because I promised her a rise if she did.

      We were meeting in Downing Street, so I was told, and it wasn’t until after the gate checks that they said the meeting was in 12, not 10. Everybody was already in the room apart from the PM and the Deputy, and it was like a bloody mothers’ meeting in there, all talking at the same time, all doing whatever the heck they liked. Thomson, the pillock in charge of education, was even over by the window, cranked open, fag in hand. Smoking! In a Cabinet meeting! I asked where the PM was, and that seemed to be a point of contention. Nobody knew, exactly. I’ve heard a rumour, Thomson said, that he’s done a runner. After a few minutes the Deputy PM turned up, asked us to sit down, confirmed it. Somebody saw him in Brighton, he said, and we’ve found his suit and his wallet on a beach. Somebody saw a man of his rough description waddling into the sea earlier today, wading out, then not coming back. Is he mental? Thomson asked; Has he gone completely bloody barking? Barely blame him, I thought. Has the press got this yet? somebody asked, and the Deputy shook his head. I’ll be making a statement in a couple of hours. And you’ll be standing in for him, I’m assuming? That was Thomson who asked, because he always hated the Deputy PM. I will. Rabble rabble rabble, went the room, and then Thomson lit another fag, and walked out. Three or four more of the Cabinet followed him, either trying to calm him down or just, I don’t know, to get out of the room. I didn’t say a word. I rarely do, I confess, because people tend to tune out when I speak, even when it’s about something important. We abandoned the session before most people were even having their breakfast, saying we’d reconvene later that day. Strangest walk down Downing Street I’d ever had, leaving there.

      I decided to get the train home. Some of them were running again, or trying to; the stations were hideously understaffed, the barriers open, the ticket booths empty, but some drivers had turned up. On the board at the front, where delays get noted, some wag had written The End Is Nigh!, and they had drawn a smiley face underneath. I have no idea why, but the platform was almost completely empty. It was eight o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday, and nobody was going to work. Madness. I stood on the platform for twenty minutes or so before a train popped up on the board, read through a copy of The Times that somebody had left there – little more than a pamphlet really, no interviews, cut and pasted from their website, but bless them for trying with everything that was going on. I got myself a Curly-Wurly from the machine, as I hadn’t had time for breakfast, and was sitting watching the rats when this man started talking to me. I hadn’t noticed him before; he was scruffy, but only as much as most people have the potential to be, I suppose: a few days of unshaven chin, some scuffed shoes, greasy, scraped-back hair. I wonder if the rats heard Him as well, he said, and I laughed. God only knows, I replied, expecting some sort of follow-up, but he went silent. Fine, I thought, you started the conversation; it’s your right to finish it. A minute passed, then he sat down. They’re acting just the same as always, he said, meaning the rats again, and I agreed. Maybe they’ve got it right and we’ve got it wrong, I said. We’re running around and panicking, they’re just getting on with it. He scowled at me. I’ll bet they don’t even understand what God means, he said.

      Before The Broadcast I would have described myself as a faded agnostic – faded, mostly, because I rarely thought about what I believed or didn’t. Once I thought that I had a tumour so I prayed that it wasn’t, and it wasn’t; it was a cyst, just a lump. Of course, through that I found out what was really wrong with me, and that led me towards a potentially abbreviated lifetime of pills and medicaments, so horses for courses. Either way, the praying didn’t do me any favours. I didn’t have the patience to listen to preaching before The Broadcast, and I certainly didn’t have the patience after it. I didn’t think that it was God. I didn’t know what it was. I was part of that enormous percentage of the population that was just wholly confused. Regardless, I smiled and nodded, because it felt like a time to be polite, and the scruff began fidgeting. You know when you see shoplifters, and you can tell that they’re shoplifters because of the way that they glance, all nerves and false confidence? So when the train started approaching I got up, walked down a way towards the map on the wall, even though I knew full well where I was going. When the train stopped I kept walking down a few carriages away from him, and I sat opposite the only other person in the carriage, an Asian girl – Japanese, I think. She smiled politely, and I smiled back, and it was friendly and quiet and I was away from him. Phew, relief, et cetera.

      We were four or five stops along when I heard the door at the end of the carriage click, and the man stepped through, so I put my head down, tried to ignore him, but the СКАЧАТЬ