Fugue for a Darkening Island Page 5

  Lateef showed me a leaflet he had found. It was printed by the Royal Secessionist Air Force, and it stated that ten minutes' warning, in the form of three low traverses, would always be given to civilian occupants of villages before a raid was to take place. There was a road through the New Forest. I drove along it in the twilight of the evening, knowing that we had stayed away too long. It had not been wise to do what we had done in any event, and with the present police situation it had been foolhardy.

  I had a girl in the car with me. Her name was Patti. She and I had been at an hotel in Lymington and we were hurrying to get back to London before nine o'clock. She was asleep next to me, her head resting lightly on my shoulder.

  She was awakened by my stopping the car at a road-block on the outskirts of Southampton. There were several men standing by the block, which was a makeshift arrangement of two old cars and an assortment of heavy building materials. Each of the men carried a weapon, though only one had a rifle. It occurred to me that for the last few miles we had not seen any traffic going in the same direction as us, and guessed that most local people would have known about the block and have found an alternative route.

  As a result of the road-block we were obliged to turn round and follow a long diversion through the countryside to Winchester, and thence to the main road to London. We had been warned by the people at the hotel to expect similar obstructions at Basingstoke and Camberley, and as it turned out we were required to make lengthy detours around these also.

  The road into south-west London was unobstructed by civilian defence groups, but we saw many police vehicles and spot-checks on motorists. We were fortunate in passing through without delay. I had not been out of London for several months and had had no idea that access and movement had been curtailed to this degree.

  I dropped Patti near the flat she shared in Barons Court and carried on towards my home in Southgate. Again, none of the major roads was blocked by civilian resistance groups, but I was stopped by the police near King's Cross and my possessions were searched.

  It wasn't until nearly one in the morning that I arrived home. Isobel had not waited up for me. The next morning I went to a near-by house and managed to persuade the occupier to let me have a gallon of petrol siphoned from out of his car's tank. I paid him two pounds for it. He informed me that there was a garage less than three miles away which had been selling petrol up until the night before. He gave me directions to find it.

  I returned to the car and told Isobel and Sally that with any luck we would be able to make Bristol during the day.

  Isobel said nothing, though I knew she did not want to go to her parents. From my point of view it was the only solution. As it was equally obvious that we could no longer return to our house, the prospect of moving to the relatively distant town was one sufficiently familiar to reassure us.

  I filled the tank with the gallon of petrol and started the engine. As we drove towards the garage as directed, we listened to a news broadcast on the radio which announced the first break in the police. About a quarter of the force had seceded in favour of the Afrims. There was to be a meeting of chief constables with both the Afrim command and Tregarth's Home Office, and a statement would be issued from Whitehall later in the day.

  We found the garage with difficulty and were allowed what the proprietor informed us was the standard quota: three gallons. With what we had, this gave us a maximum potential mileage of around one hundred and thirty miles. This should be just sufficient for us to reach Bristol, provided we were not forced to make too many detours from the shortest route.

  I told Isobel and Sally, and they expressed relief. We agreed to set off as soon as we had had something to eat.

  At Potters Bar we found a small café which gave us a good breakfast at normal prices. No mention was made of the Afrim situation, and the radio that was playing carried only light music. At Isobel's request we were sold a vacuum-flask which was filled for us with hot coffee, and after we had washed in the toilets of the café we set out.

  The day was not warm, but there was no rain. Driving with the windscreen missing was unpleasant, but not impossible. I decided not to listen to the radio, seeing for once some wisdom in Isobel's attitude of not allowing the events around us to affect us. Although it was of course essential to keep abreast of the developing situation, I was won over to her passivity.

  A new worry materialized in the form of a continual vibration from the engine. I had been unable to maintain regular servicing on it, and I knew that one of the valves was in need of replacement. I trusted to it lasting at least until we reached Bristol and did not mention it to the others.

  As far as I could see, the worst part of the journey would be in avoiding barricaded sections of the suburbs around London. I therefore skirted the north-western edge of the city, driving first to Watford (unbarricaded), then to Rickmansworth (barricaded, but open to through traffic on the by-pass), and then across-country to Amersham, High Wycombe and south towards Henley-on-Thames. As we went farther from London we saw fewer and fewer overt signs of the trouble, and a mood of tranquillity came over us. We were even able to purchase more petrol and fill our reserve cans.

  At another small café on the way into Reading we ate a lunch and made our way towards the main road to Bristol, confident of arriving there well before nightfall.

  Five miles to the west of Reading the engine-vibrations increased suddenly, and the power faded. I kept the car going as long as possible, but at the first incline it stopped. I did what I could to investigate, but the fuel- and ignition-systems were not faulty, and I could only assume that the valve had finally blown.

  I was on the point of discussing this with Isobel and Sally when a police-car pulled up alongside.

  I worked for some months as part-time barman in a publichouse in the East End of London. It had become necessary to earn some extra money. I was then studying for my Finals and my grant had been spent.

  It came as something of a surprise for me to learn that the East End was a series of loosely connected ghettos, containing Jews, Negroes, Chinese, Greeks, Cypriots, Italians and English. Until this work I had always assumed that this part of London was primarily white. The pub reflected this cosmopolitan aspect to some degree, although it was clear that the publican did not encourage it. Arguments in the bar often arose, and we had been instructed to remove bottles and glasses from the counters if a fracas developed. It was part of my duties as barman to assist in breaking up any fight that started.

  When I had been at the pub for three months the publican decided to hire a pop-group for the week-ends, and within a matter of weeks the trouble had passed. The type of customer change noticeably.

  Instead of the older drinker, set in his ways and dogmatically opinionated, the pub began to attract a younger element. Members of the minority groups no longer came, and within a couple of months almost every customer at the pub was aged less than thirty.

  The clothing fashions at the time tended to be colourful and casual, but these were not common at the pub. I learned in time that this was an outward manifestation of an innate conservatism that is widespread in this part of London.

  The publican's first name was Harry; I never learned his surname. He had once been an all-in wrestler, and on the wall of the bar behind the counter there were several photographs of him in satin dressing-gowns and with a long pigtail. I never heard Harry talk about his experiences in the ring, though his wife once told me that he had earned enough money from it to enable him to buy the pub outright.

  Towards the end of the evenings several of Harry's friends, who were in general around his own age, would come into the bar. Often after closing-time, Harry would invite them to stay behind and have a few drinks with him. On these occasions he would offer me a few extra shillings to stay later and serve them. As a result of this I overheard many of their conversations and came to learn that their prejudices and information on subjects such as race and politics were as conservative as those attitudes impl
ied by the dress of the other customers.

  Several years later, John Tregarth and his party were to gain a substantial electoral backing from areas in which different races were mixed freely.

  We stayed a few more days at the encampment. Each of us was undecided what should be done. Most of the men had lost a wife or a sleeping-partner in the abduction, and though we knew from what had happened to Willen that it would serve no purpose to approach the Afrims directly, it was instinctive to stay in the place from where they had been taken. I felt restless, and worried continually for the safety of Sally. Isobel I was less concerned for. It was with relief, then, that I heard at the end of the week the rumour that we were to go to Augustin's.

  Though I had no personal wish to visit the place, it did at least mean that we were to move and with apparent purpose.

  As we loaded our possessions on to the handcarts and preparations were made for the move, Lateef came over to me and confirmed that we were going to Augustin's. It would, he said, be good for the morale of the men.

  He appeared to be right, as within a couple of hours the mood had changed, and in spite of a sharp fall in temperature we walked the first few miles in a spirit of cavalier good humour.

  "You do have a name?" I said.

  "Yes."

  "Are you going to tell me?"

  "No."

  "Do you have a reason for withholding this information?"

  "Yes. That is, no."

  "Well, tell it to me then."

  "No."

  That is the first conversation I had with my wife. Her name was Isobel.

  As the full scale of the forthcoming disaster made itself apparent to the British public, there descended on the country the kind of stalwart resolution and directed confusion that my parents had sometimes told me about when recounting their experiences of the early months of the second world war.

  In line with a major part of the intellectual element of the country, our college formed a society which professed to be sympathetic to the plight of the Africans. Our motives were principally humanitarian, though there were a few members -- mainly those who had earlier reflected a more conservative view, and who joined the society for policy reasons -- who adopted a more academic attitude. It was people such as these who first discredited the movement, as they were unable to answer the charges in the press and other media that the pro-Afrim groups were left-wing revolutionaries.

  It was undeniably true that the African immigrants were forming themselves into armed groups, that they were being supplied with weapons from abroad and that they were moving into cities on a large scale and occupying houses and displacing the former white inhabitants.

  Most people had seen for themselves that these charges were true, but the belief of our college society was that the fault lay with the government.

  If a more charitable attitude had been adopted from the outset, the Africans'

  plight would have been lessened, and political opportunists would not have been able to exploit the situation. But extreme policies induce extreme reactions, and the tight conservatism of Tregarth and his government --

  approved of by a sizeable percentage of the country -- allowed for little liberalism towards the illegal coloured immigrants.

  In the remaining weeks of the college term my colleagues and I did what we could to pass our beliefs on to our students. When the end of term arrived, the period of our influence passed. I felt apprehensive as I delivered the last of my own lectures, and even before I left the college grounds I was censuring myself for not having expended more energy in this direction.

  In the weeks that followed, as industrial unrest spread and public demonstrations in the streets became an everyday event, I saw that we had been wrong to believe that our attempts to arouse sympathy for the Afrims would do much good. There was a small and vociferous section of the community which adhered to its moral principles, but more and more ordinary people were coming into direct conflict with the Afrims as the armed insurgence went on.

  At one of the largest demonstrations in London I saw some of the students from the college carrying a large banner emblazoned with the name of our society. I had not intended to join the march, but I abandoned my intended errand and followed the demonstration to its noisy and violent conclusion.

  In the event, the doors of the college were never opened for the following term.

  We were told by the two police-officers that we were in restricted territory and that we must move at once. There were reports, they said, that there had been a mutiny in a near-by army-camp, and that the entire neighbourhood was being sealed off by government forces.

  I told the police that our car had broken down and that though we were not disputing what they told us, we had come into the vicinity without any warning from the authorities.

  The policemen appeared to be incapable of listening to reason.

  Their instructions were repeated and we were told to leave the area immediately. Sally began to cry at this point, as one of the policemen had opened the door of the car and dragged her out. I protested at once and was hit hard across my face with the back of a hand.

  I was pressed up against the side of the car and my pockets were searched. When they looked in my wallet and saw that I had once been a lecturer at the college, my identity-card was confiscated. Again I protested, but was ignored.

  Isobel and Sally were similarly searched.

  When this was completed our belongings were taken from the car and put in the road. Our reserve petrol cans were taken from the boot and placed inside the police-car. I remembered what I had heard on the radio earlier, and asked to see the warrant-cards of the police. I was again ignored.

  We were told that the police-car would be returning along this road in half an hour. We were to be gone by then. Otherwise, they said, we would be responsible for the consequences.

  As they turned to get back into their car, I moved forward quickly and kicked the man who had hit me. I got my shoe hard against his coccyx, throwing him forward on to the ground. The other man turned round and dived at me. I swung my fist at his face, but missed. He threw an arm around my neck, pulled me to the ground and held me there with my arm twisted up against my back and my face pressed painfully into the dirt. The man I had attacked had climbed to his feet, and now he came over and placed three hard kicks into my side.

  When they had gone Isobel helped me on to the front passenger-seat of the car, and with a paper tissue wiped away some of the blood that was coming out of my mouth.

  As soon as I had recovered sufficiently to walk we set off across a field in a direction opposite to the one in which the police had waved vaguely when telling us about the army mutiny.

  There was a severe pain in my side, and although I could walk with some difficulty I was unable to carry anything heavy. Isobel was therefore obliged to take our two large suitcases, and Sally had to carry the small one. I held our transistor radio under my arm. As we walked I switched it on, but was able to raise only one channel of the BBC, and that was the one playing continuous light music.

  All three of us were at the point of despair. Neither Isobel nor Sally asked me what we should do next. . . for the first time since leaving our house, we were wholly aware how far beyond our control events had moved.

  Later, the rain returned and we sat under a tree on the edge of a field, frightened, directionless, and utterly involved in a sequence of events that no one had expected and that no one now seemed capable of stopping. I learned from the newspaper I read regularly that the mood of the country had polarized into three general groups.

  Firstly, those people who had come into contact with the Afrims and suffered accordingly, or those people who were colour-prejudiced in any case, who followed the government's policy and who felt the Afrims should be deported. According to several polls this feeling was prevalent.

  Secondly, those people to whom there was no question but that the Afrims should be allowed to stay in Britain and be afforded as much char
ity as possible until they were capable of integrating with our society in a normal way.

  Thirdly, those people who did not care whether or not the Africans landed, so long as they themselves were not directly affected.

  The apparent apathy of this third group displeased me, until I realized that for my general lack of involvement I should probably be counted a member.

  I questioned my own moral stand. Although my instinct was to remain uncommitted -- at this time I was conducting an affair with a woman and she was occupying a major part of my thoughts -- it was this awareness of my insularity which convinced me I should join the pro-Afrim society at the college.

  The political and social climates were not responsive to the kind of moral judgements that had to be made.

  Soon after the second election Tregarth's government introduced much of the new legislation it had promised in its manifesto. The police had wider powers of entry and detention, and the elements that some of Tregarth's ministers described as subversive were more effectively dealt with. Public demonstrations on any political issue were controlled tightly by the police, and the armed forces were empowered to assist in the keeping of the peace.

  As the boats from Africa continued to land on British shores, the problem could no longer be ignored.

  After the first wave of landings the government issued the warning that illegal immigrants would be prevented from landing, forcibly if necessary.

  This led directly to the incident in Dorset, where the army confronted two shiploads of Africans. Thousands of people had come to Dorset from all over the country to witness the landing, and the result was a confrontation between army and public. The Afrims got ashore.

  After this, the government's warning was modified to the effect that as illegal immigrants were captured they would be given suitable treatment in hospital, then deported.

  In the meantime, polarization of attitudes was accelerated by the illegal supply of arms to the Afrims. As their presence developed into a military threat, so there grew deeper schisms in the country.