Spring morning fresh as a rinsed eye. On the side of a bus stop, the corner of a brightly coloured poster of some London landmarks and a smiling police beneath the words, ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’ flaps in a breeze. A man runs past down the road and through the crowd. Outraged people shout and move out of the way. He sidesteps and spins . Klaxons blare and further off tyre screech. A black Crysler skids to a halt up by the curb twenty yards behind the fleeing man and three men in dark suits and coats jump out and sprint after him. The running man looks over his shoulder and glimpses his reflection in a shop front window. He runs into more people and stumbles frantically on.
In the road running parallel to the British Museum, two men stand outside a café and smoke, the collars of their dark coats turned up against the fresh morning's breeze. One touches the earphone in his right ear. They watch motionless as the man on the opposite side of the road to them careers into a wall of armed and uniformed men waiting besides a corner by a blue BMW van.
The officials surround the flailing figure. "In you get sunshine.", someone shouts as the shape is bundled into the back. A helicopter hovers overhead. The van speeds off and the event is swallowed up by the passing crowd.
A man, neither old nor young, is sat by himself at a table in the quarter full interior of the café. He is wearing a dark, stained work shirt, worn jeans and a black jacket. There is a folded newspaper in front of him. He is moving his foot in time to the music and his workboots squeak faintly on the waxed wooden floor. A cloud passes over the sun.
One after the other, the two men outside crush their cigarette butts. One holds the door open for the other and they go back inside. Noise of passing crowds, a siren and cars briefly fill the room. The lone man at the table looks up with an air of expectation. He notices the helicopter then goes back to examining the bright screen of his pda and sighs. He shivers and brushes a mosquito form his ear. A waitress passes his table and asks him about coffee The man looks up and nods.
The café's unintentional theme is faded luxury. It is poorly lit. The leather sofa seats are frayed and there are cuts in their shiny black surfaces. There are bookshelves and impressionist prints on the walls. The low slung varnished cedar wood tables are worn smooth, and on them there are small vases of wilting flowers. One of the two smokers, now at a table over by the window, laughs loudly over the classical music.
The man in the linen shirt takes a folded letter out of his pocket and squints. It is definitely addressed to him. He reads it again. The letter is short and has been written on heavy A4 embossed paper. He glances up. The flower’s white petals are caught in the sun. He sighs, folds the letter in half and slides it back into the envelope.
Looking down, he notices a red ant crawl across the table towards the half-empty sugar cellar. He picks up his pda. A message from the bank, a cancellation and some publicity for a pub's closing down party.
He whispers to himself and tries his get his mail. The pda makes a tiny discordant noise. He curses to himself. The ant, as if sensing a change in mood, turns round and retreats. It wanders into a slanting trapezoid of sun light on the table. Its body glints. McCabe crushes it with a damp slightly trembling thumb. He feels its tiny body yield and stick. He rolls its remains between his fingers. It turns to dust. He wipes his hand on a scrunched up serviette and notices the time on the faux antique clock over the counter.
He takes a sip of the luke warm, almost tasteless, coffee and stares at one of the cafés sculptures. He frowns at his squinting reflection in the bottom of the cup, then puts it down and closes his eyes.
McCabe does not notice the lull in the level of conversation for a moment or the faint chill that infiltrates as a tall man sidles in through the door. He looks round, notices the person he is looking for and walks over. McCabe looks up startled. He has time to get the paper into his bag, spills the remainder of his coffee and makes a move towards the toilet, in one smooth movement. His path is blocked by a large figure in a dark coat. McCabe turns and walks diagonally towards the foor of the L-shaped café and knocks against a woman who spills her drink. McCabe doesn't hear because he is set on
"McCabe. Sorry I'm late", the man says. They smile and shake hands. He is slightly breathless and there is a film of perspiration over his wide top lip. He takes a pda out of his pocket and takes his jacket off. They both sit down. "How's it going?". He glances at his sleek looking silver pda, switches it to 'remote' and puts it on the table between them where it glints and slowly rotates.
"The late Freddy Dermott. It's been a long time." McCabe says. “I’m ok. You?”
"You're receding a bit I'm glad to see." Dermott says. “Schoenberg I believe. The music, I mean. This place still pretentious."
"How long's it been Freddy? Three years, four?"
Dermot sighs and gestures at the waitress.
"Not that long in the scheme of things. But it's probably about that. Is the coffee still as bad in this place?"
"Yeah." McCabe asks "Rum and coke wasn’t it?"
"Nah nah.” Dermott holds his big palms out to McCabe for a second. "Had to pack all that in didn't I? Burned it up for too long. Thing is, you're supposed to feel better but. . .” He crosses his legs and brushes a mote or two of dust off his dark trousers. “Anyway, its not that I'm talking to someone who doesn't know about that kind of stuff. It is good to see you though McCabe.” He rubs a hand through his short graying hair. “You know you look better than I thought you would for a washed up honky.”
“Ever the charmer.” McCabe says.
Dermott grimaces and gestures to the waitress again. He picks up the menu. "Enjoying the Gogol work? He sucks air in through a gap in his teeth. "All that giving something back to society stuff?"
McCabe says sitting up. "Hang on." he smiles. "Is the firm spying on its ex employees now?"
"Spying? Of course not." Dermott says. "We just like to rest assured that our former charges are kept form harm. That's all"
The two men in dark coats get up to leave. One of them looks over to McCabe's table as the other opens the door.
"I take it they're your lurkers?"
Dermott smiles faintly and takes the drink he'd ordered from the waitress.
“How’s your brother these days?" Dermott asks.
McCabe frowns briefly. “He's still up North. North East somewhere with his business. What's left of it. Why?"
“Oh you know." Dermott leans forward and plucks a petal off one of the posies. “It’s good to see things going so well. Given the situation and all." He sips his rum and coke. "Isn't that a Cezanne there?" Dermott leans up in his chair to see the famed print. "So it is. The cardplayers. Died of pneumonia, you know."
McCabe says, "Is this a social summons, Freddy? Cos, much as I like to catch up on old associates I've got a bad tempered boss."
Dermott rolls the white petal between finger and thumb and laughs.
"OK. I'll get to the point, give me chance." he says. He flicks something off his sleeve and reaches into his shoulder bag by the leg of the chair, pulls out a red carton of cigarettes and tosses them on to the table next to the paper.
"Real fags." Dermott looks at the picture of a diseased lung on the front for a moment and turns the pack over.
Dermott smoothes his red tie. "Yeh well there has to be some recompense for selling your soul."
“Working for the gamekeeper now.” McCabe picks the carton up. "This proposition. Some compensation at last I hope."
Dermott shakes his head slightly and glances over the menu again. “Tellis got promoted you know, after you left. He asked me to send you his regards."
"I haven't thought about all that in ages."
"I don't believe you McCabe."
"That's the way it is."
Dermott raises his eyebrows. "I wouldn't worry about your boss too much either." Dermott says. He dips a slice of carrot into some hummous.
McCabe looks up. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, word on the grapevine. I wouldn't take too much notice."
McCabe sighs. "Go on. Let's hear it."
"Things being what they are. Capital outflows, bank runs and the like. Things could get untidy"
McCabe shrugs. "It's just a job."
"Strictly speaking what you do, is just work. I've got a career and the people I work with have got jobs."
"So you've come hear just to gloat have you?"
Dermott sighs. "Of course not. I'm sure what you do has its merits." McCabe glances at the ceiling briefly. "Ok. Look." Dermott says. "The thing is. The firm is under a bit of. Of pressure at the moment, as you can imagine. I admit it." He strokes his hands over his face. “Things. Strikes and all that. . ." he trails off and looks at the painting again.
"Nothing the place can't handle, though." McCabe says.
"Yes but this time. . . " Dermott says and coughs. "Things have become difficult shall we say. Of late. You'd be surprised. The thing is some old debts are going to have to be called in"
Dermott smiles a regretful smile. He watches McCabe put the cigarette packet back on the table. “Besides, you don't look like someone who's having any difficulties Freddy. Let’s see here, the flash pda, the suit and somewhere the car. What possible difficulties could someone like you with a career and all have exactly Freddy?”
“The difficulties are more. Existential."
McCabe yawns and looks at his watch, "Now who's being pretentious?"
Dermott plucks the last petal of the flower.
"The difference is that this actually is important."
McCabe scratches his nose. "Well it's all relative isn't it?
"No. No it isn't. Not this time."
"What I mean is, if anyone thinks something is important enough then there's someone else going to say they're being pretentious."
"Listen. There are things in the world that are fundamental, McCabe."
"No no Freddy come on" McCabe raises his hand briefly. "You were doing so well up to then. " He sucks dressing from his fingers. "The distraction with the Cezanne, the appeal to old loyalties. Don't over do your hand."
Dermott leans forward. "Careful McCabe."
. . .Look. This proposition. I'm serious. Unless you got me here under false pretenses I really do hope this is about compensation."
Their drinks and food arrive. McCabe takes a shrivelled radish from a pile in one of the white bowls and cuts the top off with his knife. Dermott sips a beer and says, “You were one of our better. One of our better agents."
"Oh no no no."McCabe scratches his chin. "I really hope you're not building up to some sort of job offer because if it is I'm really not interested."
Dermott smiles and wipes his lined face. “Do you ever hear from any of the others?" He puts his glass down and picks a white fleshy mushroom from a bowl. " I wonder sometimes what happened to them all. Remember Antique Dave, Lucas that Heap woman”
McCabe crunches the peppery radish and unscrews his bottle of Australian mineral water. "Look. I'm sorry. I think I'm leaving. It's been nice to catch up on old times but if you're not here for what i thought you were here to tell me then...
"Come on McCabe. Don't be so naive. So lacking in. In insight."
_________________________
"Oh, there here and there you know. Tinny and Gillespie’ve kept in touch. Haven't heard much from Lucas recently. I think Heap was in America the last I heard. Dunno." He takes the slice of lemon out of his water and chews some of the flesh off. “That was a while ago actually.” Freddy turns his nose up slightly. McCabe feels the cool water flow down his throat.
"America. Well, that's were the action is." Dermott says and pours some coke. "You were out there a while back weren't you?"
McCabe feels the cool water flow down his throat. "Yeh. Don't remind me."
"I just have."
"Ha dee ha." McCabe says and shakes his head. He feels the soothing balm of the water in his stomach radiate out to his limbs.
“You know, “ says Freddy, “it’s as long after the election as college was before it. It’s that long.”
"You remember the stupid flash mobbing?"
McCabe eats and listens as Dermott recounts anecdotes he has heard often enough before. He smiles at one about the Chemistry lab.
"They were good times. Stupid but kind of, well, . . . hopeful you know. . ." Dermott says and gives a thin smile.
"Yeh. It was a long time ago.", McCabe says. He watches the helicopter fly over again for a second. The food is Spartan but revives him. "I've still got a pile of them in the cellar back home, you know. I could never sell them." The police copter's engine throbs and the noise briefly shakes the cutlery.
McCabe says, "I used to just give them away or leave them places and then, well, pay for them myself." He breaks a piece of baguette in half and dips it into the Roquefort sauce. He licks his fingers, "Bloody delicious this sauce."
Dermott smiles and says,
" You gone all bourgeois in your statelehood? Frenchy dips?", and then, "So did I. I think everyone did. The papers I mean." He tries the light green sauce with some bread and winces. "Fuckin' stuff smells like old sock."
McCabe smiles and glances up at the pictures on the wall as he eats. They are big replica oil paintings of eighteenth and nineteenth century European battles. Horses’ nostrils flare, cannons flash, soldiers charge and fire.
"Waterloo". Dermott says and chews his food and picks up another mushroom. “You can tell by the uniforms. Fifteenth Scottish grenadiers..”
“Ever the receptacle of eternal and sacred knowledge. Are you still the sub-trivia king?”
“I don’t know, but try this. He picks up a slice of mushroom and examines it. “Did you know that mushrooms, well what we call mushrooms, are just the sexual organs of a huge network of fungi filaments?”
McCabe groans. “You know Freddy, I didn’t know that. And there’s a good reason why that is.”
“It’s true. I learnt it from the Professor of Biology at Oxford University at a conference the other week. Jesus College top fucking table. Where they filmed that witchey film, man. It’s a huge underground organism.” Dermott reaches into his jacket for a pen.
McCabe frowns again. “I thought it was just a university.”
Dermott is glancing down. The in one smooth action, he picks up the packet of cigarettes and flicks its base with a noisy click. A cigarette flies out and a smiling Dermott catches it between his bright white teeth. He lodges it in the corner of his mouth.
“You still working for those acamedia frauds?”
McCabe looks up from his anchovy and pepper slice. “They’re all right really. It’s a job. Like I said investigative stuff - ok for a while.”
“You might be glad of it soon.” Dermott says. He rolls the cigarette between his fingers.
“I doubt it. It’s just something ‘til things get back to normal.”
“Normal?”
“You know, the music.”
“Is that really all fucked up?”
“Royally. Left right centre. Fucking lead singers. Still. . .”
“Downloaded the last album. It was ok.”
“You didn’t even pay for it? Twat.”
One of the smokers walks past. He glances at them briefly, heading towards the can.
“Well times are hard. So what’s this investigative shit?”
McCabe starts to explain his latest job. But before long he correctly senses Dermott’s lack of attention.
“Sorry Freddy, am I boring you like?”
“No only things are a bit jumpy this week. Bit distracted. It’s something that’s been brewing for a while. Heads might roll. The silver circle’s in some kind of uproar. Shit.”
A subaudition throb from Dermott’s pda interrupts and glows a moon blue. The conversation is brisk. He nods and frowns but barely whispers into the tiny mouthpiece. Half a minute passes by. He swears and closes the pda’s top.
Dermott stops frowns and says, “Stupid job. The bleeding edge.” and then frowns. He slides a note over to McCabe who frowns as well. “Keep talking normal.”
“O what’s this Freddy?”
“The best gig of your life wasn’t it?”
On a small green square McCabe reads, “Can’t talk – lurkers – place is bugged too There’s trouble in the Department - from the very top. . .” McCabe looks up from the tiny bloc of words.
“Not this again, Freddy. Is that what this is all about?”
“What? Nanahnahnah. That’s all over now McCabe.”
McCabe slowly drags his gaze across the remainder of the note.
“I’m fine McCabe that’s all gone really. That”, he nodded at the note, “That’s triple A genuine.” he hisses.
“Why are you showing me this Freddy?” McCabe folds the note and slips it under his plate, shaking his head.
“I’ll be frank with you. . .”
“I thought you were Freddy.”
“Seriously McCabe you’re the last resort.”
“Right. Thanks.”
“Come on McCabe. No hold on. Do you think I can leak this stuff to the Guardian or something? I’d end up face down in the river. And the others in the Box, well nobody. Trusts anyone.”
“Christ. Here we go. What’s next ‘I’ve seen things you people would never believe’?”
Despite himself, McCabe feels a distant excitement. But it is quickly dispelled by some phase change in his hangover. Some internal organ’s declaration of independence or surrender.
“ “War?” ”
“You know a war, shouting, guns, shooting bombs and stuff?”
McCabe shifts in his seat. “Fuck off. I thought there was going to be some vote or something.” He says, taking an olive stone from his mouth. Nausea floods adrenalin into his system.
“Not so loud. No. That’s for dis one. The Middle East one.” said Dermott. He takes a silver lighter out of his pocket. He puts the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “Don’t you follow politics anymore or something?”
“Yes but. . .” McCabe trembles a little and swallows. “Freddy”, he says frowning, “What are you doing with that?”
“What’s it look like? I is going to smoke it”
“Dermott, it’s against the law these days.”
“It’s only a light.”
The waitress and manager are talking in hushed tones and look over. McCabe’s right leg starts to bounce up and down in small agitated twitches. The waitress starts to walk over.
“Freddy for fuck’s sake.”
“You making a career out of that McCabe?”
The lighter flares and Dermott breathes in the heat. He watches the waitress slink on over across the polished stone flags.
“Excuse me sir”, the woman says as she reaches their table, “But this, is a non smoking café.”
Dermott breathes out a cloud of blue grey smoke high over McCabe’s head. “Well it isn’t now is it?”
“Look, you know that if you don’t put out it out I’ll have to call the police. You know how it is.”
“My friend has just come back from overseas.”
Dermott smiles apologetically. “K Don’t get fretted. He pinches the end of the cigarette between finger and thumb and looks sharply at McCabe. “Come on McCabe what I’ve got to say I can’t really say in here anyhow.” He pushes a plate away and gets up. McCabe grabs his jacket and follows Dermott to the door.
“Still the jibes McCabe.” Dermott half shouts as they manoeuvre and then lean by the sides of the caff entrance.
“Fucking busy.” He reaches into his pocket for his tobacco. “Yeh sorry Freddy.”
Outside, it is colder than it was earlier on. In the distance they can see the Greek columns of the British Museum glow luminously in the late morning sun. There is a slight breeze. The sky is half overcast and McCabe warms himself in a patch of sunlight. He fumbles with some papers. The tobacco, dry and powdery, trickles through his fingers.
“Fuck’s sake.”
“Here. Have a real one.” He points the brightly coloured packet at McCabe, its slack mouth hangs open. The noise of the street is impressive. They have to shout now to make themselves heard. He looks around excited by the crowd’s yawl and throb. McCabe takes the next to last one. “I guess you want to know why I wanted to see you.”
“Well, Yeh. Not just to catch up on old times I guess. Why the cloak and dagger stuff?”
Dermott blows lungs full of smoke into the air. McCabe lights his cigarette with Dermott’s heavy lighter. Suicide for cowards. He notices the skull engraving on its shining surface.
Freddy looks up and nods towards the bank of grey cloud moving in from the East.
“There goes Spring.” Dermott says and puts his lighter back in his pocket. McCabe just smiles and breathes gratefully. Freddy turns towards McCabe and says, “You were one of the more. . .” he pauses and rubs his forehead, “One of the more perceptive ones McCabe.”
“I was?”
“Look. . .I mean what I said about this job. I know what you think about it all. But it is the hard edge of things. “And”, he says, “There are things going on.”
“I imagine."
“Listen you know who Cassandra was?”
His pda hums again. Dermott scans the screen. “Bollocks man.” He looks up for a second.
“What’s this?”
“Some mash from the Directive people.” Dermott shouts.
“Right.” McCabe shouts back.
“A bunch of werewolves.”
“Still the Transport Police.” Dermott looks at McCabe who says, “Ok. Not the Transport Police.”
“Good old days. Wish I’d stayed there sometimes. Look about before. I know all that cryin’ wolf stuff. This time it’s just too big.”
McCabe has heard this and the next section of this speech a few times before.
“Next will be the pleas to be believed then the evidence that doesn’t quite add up and then the rage Freddy is that it again?”
“Listen McCabe that was years ago. Look where I am. Why would I risk. . .especially at a time like this. . .” There is a howling in the sky.
They watch as a two jet planes scratch white furrows in the blue half of the sky. The crawl closer to each other miles overhead. One descending the other arrowing east. They cross as if yards apart.
“Time like this?” McCabe shrugs his narrow shoulders briefly. “It’s just business as usual isn’t it?”
Dermott continues to stare at the planes. “Even they’re probably part of it.”
“The war you mean?”
“Yeah” he looks closely at McCabe.
“What carrying drugs for guns for insurrections for oil?”
“It always was a kind of joke for you McCabe wasn’t it?”
Dermott begins a discourse on the nature of the war and wars to come. “No, not another war. A deepening of the same war..” then goes onto the obvious stuff. McCabe catches a lot of it. The government can neither retreat or advance, the costs, the fall-out. He lights yet another cigarette and recounts how the seeds of one conflict give rise to the next and why the ‘home front’ was as it was. He describes why the pressures in his department and how far he’d been pushed. “It’s a huge war of position.” Dermott ends and smiles at McCabe.
McCabe frowns. “I see.”
“Good”
“ No I mean I see that you’re under a lot of pressure, that maybe things are a bit pressed on the home front. . .”
“You think I’m losing it.
“No no. Well. I mean the letter you sent. . .It wouldn’t be exactly be the first time would it?”
Dermott sighs and takes another pack of cigarettes out of his jacket. A publicity bus passes by advertising a film. Women in bikinis stand and wave from the topless upper deck. A man in a suit points a gun. A heavy lorry carrying cranes lumers past. “Tell me McCabe what do you see here in the street.”
“What?”
“Just try to tell me what you see here right now in front of us.” Dermott says to McCabe.
“The latest Bond film bullshit.”
“Apart from that.”
“Look Freddy.” McCabe says “I’ve. . .”
“It’s a simple question. What do you see?”
McCabe sighs and shakes his head. He sees cars and buses pass. The thousands of people in an endless flow of colour faces skin and noise. He sees an advertisement on the side of one of a bus ‘See the Empire through New Eyes’ and another ‘Terror pure and simple’ advertising a museum. He sees shop fronts, cafés, taxis bright publicity hoardings, the edge of a Govscreen and tall Georgian architecture, a letter box and in the blue half of the sky a jet stream brilliant white against the hard edge April sky.
“And crowds. People form everywhere.”
“OK.”, says Dermott. “Obvious but OK. But you don’t really see it do you McCabe. Not any more. This is the epicentre, the capital of the Empire of the war – the heart of machine.” Agitated now he leans across the netrance and touches McCabe’s arm lightly. “Take a look round, the evidence is everywhere. The street names, the buildings, the statues, monuments. And everyone in it. It’s a collaboration. That’s what you see McCabe – collabos.”
McCabe leans away slightly and frowns at Dermott. He drops his cigarette end on the floor.
“The thing is Freddy, I came here because your letter said you had something really important to tell me. I’ve got my car on a red zone, I’m hung over and I’ve got a hundred things I need to be doing. Now all this physcogeography if that’s what it is, is very interesting in its place but. . .” they both pause and watch a group of three punks walk by. The sugar spiked hair, the studs, the old names tippexed on black leather. They walk apart through the crowd.
Dermott smiles. “They’re part of the tourism industry now.”
“Yeah Freddy. Just like you. Look I’m going for a piss.”
“I meant what I said. Anyway, I thought you wanted to see me?. ” His smile vainishes. “. . . there’s going to be another war, you know. Everything’ll change this time.”
McCabe turns to go back inside tired suddenly of the lecturing. “Yeah Freddy. People have been saying that for so long now, I’ve tuned out. Look I’ll be back in a minute. You coming in?”. His old friend smiles wanly.
“Nah I’m having another clop. I’ll be right here. Be right.”
McCabe crosses the bar and his boots creak on the café’s stone floor.
He stands in front of the knee high porcelain and sighs. Just yet, he daren’t look down. You’ve got to be in the best of mental states for that and that wasn’t going to happen for a while. Besides this was an urgent biological function. A minute or so later McCabe is still pissing and drowning out the noise of the decrepit plumbing.
“Christ.”
McCabe re-enters the bar, now virtually empty and blinks around him. No change. He heads towards the door. Three of the staff stop talking as he passes. The smokers have left.
He opens the door but Dermmot is gone.
McCabe tuts and goes back inside to the table. He finishes three levels of Affinity then the food when his pda sings and flutters. He touches the sleek surface of the technology Dermott has left on the table.
“I’m at Harry’s Place. Yeh that’s right. You were probably right. He’s done one anyway. Looks like it. Don’t worry I’ll put it under discretionary outgoings."
The waitress comes on over. She says a large number and McCabe hands over his pda She scans it. “You didn’t happen to see my friend come back in did you?”
“No sorry”. McCabe notices her tense mouth. She is stopping herself from laughing.
“Strange. Only. . .” she smiles and hands him a receipt and says,
“I’ll ask the others if you like.”
She tucks a stray curl back over her ear then turns and strolls back to the counter.
He sees them shake their heads. McCabe shrugs a slow shrug and goes to leave. He pauses, turns back and picks up the abandoned pda.
How can you tell from looking if a person is tired or drunk or even ill if they’ve never seen you before? You see a face for the first time and that’s how it could just look. He passes pikies, nomads, Japanese, Indian, rich woman, poor man, beggar woman, thief. As long as there’s no obvious immediate damage, that’s just who you are. Nobody is going to stare or judge. You would need to be a God to understand this city. McCabe sets off down towards New Oxford street and the hidden away car park near the underground station at Holborn, but is not consoled by this thought. He Is sweating when he gets to the space in the underground car stash. He descends the dank stairwell that reeks of piss. But where his jolter should be there, instead, is a bright red glistening Dodge viper. For an absurd moment he smiles then sees the slow flash of a Parkmarker light on the concrete column next to his ex-space. He scans his pda over it and reads the bad news.
With this and what happens in the next few weeks he forgets all about Freddy.
