Chapter X

X

As any parent will tell you, the growing pains of an infant child are many and varied, both for the child itself and for those around it. Life becomes all the more difficult for the child if it does not have stability. So it was with the Bubble whose mother – the blessed Joanna – had died in childbirth, and whose surrogate parents – Reverend Dalrymple and his second lieutenant, Mr Seggar – had died as martyrs for the cause of the Bubble’s moral fortitude.



There had been, as we have seen, much confusion in the countryside. Rivers and streams ran uphill and burst their banks; animals previously unnoticed by the naked eye expanded colossally and took to the skies; and the former giants of the animal world – great mammals and carnivores and underwater predators – shrunk to the size of fleas. In the towns as well there had been considerable damage. But it was the relationships between people which were most significantly altered by the Bubble’s foundation. The leaders of the old world – politicians, landowners, squires and ministers – had been so shaken by this turbulence which they could do nothing about, that they tended to stay at home in the early days of the Bubble. But the common people of the world – “the Real People,” as they referred to themselves – had decided that it was best to act early in order to effect change. It was they who had been the powerless and the disenfranchised in the old world, and they were not prepared to submit to such paralysis again. Nevertheless, they were faced with a considerable dilemma. Most of the Real People had nourished an allegiance to God in the old world. Their doctrines differed considerably, and the God of one particular group would have been unrecognisable to another. But, nevertheless, a belief in God and a belief in humanity were the tenets which bound the groups together, however tenuously. By denouncing the presence of God, Reverend Dalrymple and Mr Seggar had taken away their reason for living. They had to somehow reclaim Him without reneging the ethics their founding fathers had set down.

A decision was made by Mr Tozer, who as Joanna’s friend had assumed some responsibility for her creation. He arranged a meeting for the leading lights in London to meet in the Palace of Westminster, which, in the confusion of the Bubble’s birth and growth, had been dumped temporarily on a beach on the south-west coast, and discuss the future of the Bubble. Somebody somewhere – a Radical most likely – had spread the word and invited everybody he knew, in the belief that a discussion about everyone’s future by a select few was a discussion not worth having. The same man had also arranged for some light entertainment to precede the discussion: a strongman friend called Timothy Service who amused the people by lobbing planks of wood through the Palace’s windows. This angered some people, who found the idea of wanton destruction blasphemous and distasteful; others found it hilarious or empowering or incendiary or, in a few cases, carnally arousing. In any case, it had the desired effect of reclaiming the Palace as a public building, and as such one that the people could do with as they pleased. One man was even spotted carefully extracting window-panes and door-frames and taking them home to repair his house with.

The group gathered in the House at half-past eleven o’clock and Mr Tozer, who had assumed the role of Speaker, led the House in saying prayers. Mr Tozer opened the discussion with some opening remarks.

Mr Speaker (Mr. William Tozer): I must welcome the House to this important debate regarding the constitutional affairs of our new world. I would like first to set out some ground rules. The first is that is we are here under God’s ceiling because we are all equal in his eyes. In this respect, I would ask that all Members remain quiet while another is talking, and would also request that each Member listens with a careful ear to his Friend’s opinions. My second plea is for each Member to speak his mind in its totality without fear of restraint or rejoinder. An opportunity such as this does not occur every new moon or even every blue moon. We must make the most of it. Miss Harriet Clarke, please!

Miss. Harriet Clarke (layperson): I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your moving welcome, and I thank everybody here for coming. I would echo what you said, Mr Speaker, and simply add my own counsel for the good people in this place today. It is this: the Palace in which we sit or stand today is the place appointed by God for the purpose of bettering our society through honest government and the gentle rule of law.

Respectful applause from the Members of the House.

Miss. Clarke: Those who sat in this place before us to talk money and pass laws did not have our best interests at heart. They governed us scornfully, favouring the propertied and the monied. Most of us here are neither propertied nor monied. I myself am a mother of four; my husband is a phlebotomist. None of us are schooled; my husband earns a dreadful wage which we share amongst us the best that we can; the house we live in does not belong to us, and our landlord – a true scoundrel – might take it away from us as his fancy takes him. I, like most of you here, have never voted for anyone, nor made any contribution as to how I am permitted to live. That is why I am grateful to take advantage of this opportunity to talk to you all, and urge you to think about your family and friends and neighbours who are not able to be here today. It is them, as well as ourselves, we must have in our thoughts.

Cheers from the House. Shouts of “Liberty!” etc.

Mr. Speaker: Mr Max Baker.

Ironic cheers.

Mr. Max Baker (Independent and Reformist): Mr Speaker. Ladies and Gentlemen. I shall not, you will be relieved to hear, allow deliberations to be protracted through cause of my own speech.

More cheers and laughter.

Mr Baker: But, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a brief point about the nature of time, if I might be permitted.

Mr Speaker: If you must make your point about time, Mr Baker, please ensure you do not exhaust too much of it in doing so!

Great laughter from the House. Slapping of thighs, clutching of foreheads, general mirth etc.

Mr Baker: I take your point, Mr Speaker. There are several theories about the nature of time. Some of these are archaic – though, to some, still somewhat relevant – and some are relatively modern. One could quite logically make the claim that ideas about time should not be prejudiced by its passing, but such is the temper of ideas, the development of which must inextricably be linked to human development, that it is often assumed, and at times with good reason, that philosophical thought is bound to improve over time, including those thoughts about time. One of the most interesting ideas I have heard about time, which I became privy to purely by chance in an establishment located in one of the more respectable areas of a northern town, whose name I shall not disclose here, is that it follows a cyclical path. For the purposes of elucidation, I should like to introduce you to an imaginary traveller. Let us call him –

Voice from the rear of the house: Saint Christopher!

Mixed emotions from the House. Those of a decadent nature roar with laughter once again, while the more sensitive Members frown and pray for this wicked wit’s soul.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the gentleman speak.

Mr. Baker: Let us call him –

Uproar continues. A missile of paper is lobbed across the House..

Mr Speaker: Order. Really, ladies and gentlemen. I must remind you of your surroundings. I have granted this urgent debate and I can stop it at will. If Members shout, that is what I will do, so they have a choice.

Uproar subsides.

Mr Speaker: Now, Mr. Baker. Continue, and please heed my warning and aspire to brevity.

Mr. Baker: I am merely seeking to explain the point, which I overheard in the northern town to which I made reference earlier, that time does not work in terms of a journey which our unnamed traveller might take. It does not have a starting point; it does not stop for rests or sustenance; and it does not have a terminus. It simply goes round and round and round: never quickening nor slowing down, never resting nor tiring: just continuing to pass. I am striving to explain this point, which some Members amongst us today might find contentious, intelligently so I am surprised that certain sections of the assembled find cause to get so aerated.

High-pitched “ooh”s of derision from the House.

Mr. Baker: But the implication is this: we are compelled to do what is right for us now. We are no nearer to the end of history than we were a year, ten years, a hundred or a thousand years ago. We should not be troubled by how the future will judge us. We must do what is right for the Bubble now!

Cheers from the House.

Mr. Speaker: Mr John Hood, please.

Mr. John Hood (Calvinist): Mr Speaker, I thank you for the wise words you used to open this debate and congratulate the previous speakers on their cogency. I myself find it ungodly that we are having a debate of this kind at all –

Roars of objection from the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. You may not like what Mr Hood has to say but please remember my ground rules. The quicker he is allowed to make his point, the quicker we can return to sensible discourse. (to Mr Hood) I apologise, Mr Hood, but that is my view.

Mr. Hood: It is one you are entitled to hold. For my own part, I consider that you live in Satan’s kingdom, and thus any opinion you air in my direction is quite irrelevant. But if I am allowed to continue –

Mr. Speaker: I shall not stand in your way.

Mr. Hood: Much obliged. I myself find it ungodly that we are having a debate of this kind at all, and there are five reasons I would like to give for this assertion.

Mr. Speaker: (in disbelief) Five?

Mr. Hood: They are all quite short.

Mr. Speaker: Very well. Proceed.

Mr. Hood: The first, Mr Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, is related to your residence in Satan’s kingdom. If you have not subjected yourself to the transcendence of God – and your various delusions of creating a future of your own making clearly indicate you have not – then you must clearly be very evil people indeed. I do not say this in order to offend; in fact, I am very much enjoying the pleasure of your company this morning, and would like to invite those of you who are able to join my wife and I at church on Sunday. She is cooking a goose for lunch, which the more profligate among you may enjoy. Nevertheless, in failing to give every part of yourselves to God, you are all clearly very depraved indeed. My second point is that I too am depraved. I sin regularly and, were it up to me, I should have stoned myself to death many years ago. Thankfully it is not up to me – nothing is! – and such is the beneficence of God that I am forgiven for my sins and can therefore be here to talk to you today.

Voice from the back: More’s the pity!

Laughter from the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I sympathise with your objection sir, but trading insults will not enable this debate to progress.

Mock tutting from the House.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Mr Hood, please proceed.

Mr. Hood: My third point is that your eventual conclusion today is irrelevant, since God has predetermined the course which the world will take, and which of us is suitable for salvation.

Voice from the back: But surely that means he has pre-determined what conclusion we will reach today? And that means whatever is decided – even if we decide to determine our own destinies and say yah-boo to old dyed-in-the-wools like yourself – will have God’s backing.

Sensation in the House.

Mr. Speaker: They do say He works in mysterious ways. Anyway – who’s next? The Duchess of –

Mr. Hood: (interrupting) But I still have two outstanding points!

Mr, Speaker: I think we can surmise what they might be, Mr Hood, since your first three all more or less said the same thing.

Laughter in the House.

Mr. Hood: But –

Mr. Speaker: You might like to send any concerns you have regarding the democratic processes of this House in writing to the Serjeant-at-Arms.

Mr. Hood: Is there such a person?

Mr. Speaker: Certainly. You are talking to him now.

Hubbub in the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order gentlemen please. Thank you. Now – who have we next? Mr Feversham?

Mr. Feversham (Chiliast): Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

House: (confused) Amen.

Mr. Feversham: (with high drama) I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Mr. Speaker: Yes, speaking of words, could Mr Feversham not also send these thoughts to the Serjeant-at-Arms in writing?

Mr. Feversham: And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light was like unto stone a most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; and had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr Feversham, I appreciate your respect for the authority of the scriptures, but there is really no need to out-God us all. We all of us here are good Christian folk –

Voice from the back: Speak for yourself!

Laughter in the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. – but we did prayers earlier, so unless you wish to furnish us with information of a more relevant nature –

Mr. Feversham: Sir, perhaps I might point you towards the relevant bits in what I have just said?

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

The House settles down again to listen to Mr. Feversham

Mr Feversham: In the passages with which I began my address, I referred to the lost tribes of the children of Israel. The events of the last week – the creation, I mean, of this thing which we are calling a Bubble – have seen the lost tribes of Israel dispersed far and wide –

Mr Speaker: – They have been spotted in Birmingham and Wapping, I believe.

Laughter in the House

Mr Speaker: Order. For the life of me I cannot see what is funny in that. Mr Feversham, continue.

Mr Feversham: I have read reports in the broadsheet newspapers and titbit weeklies of what has happened. Some, as we know, are claiming that a Bubble has consumed the world: beginning somewhere in the south-west of England, and spreading out in all directions until it had taken possession of the entire world and everything within it. This seems to me a barely plausible explanation, but it is not bad. Some are referring to something called a Big Bang and something called evolution: this, for my own part, I feel is deeply irreligious. Others are placing the whole affair at the feet of a late Devonshire woman, of whom God was apparently particularly enamoured. I do not know which of these explanations is correct, but I can report the following to you.

Air of expectation in the House.

Mr Feversham: On the morning when the full force of the Bubble (for I agree to call it that) was thrusting itself upon ourselves and our brothers and sisters, I spoke to God.

Mr. Speaker: (meekly) And what did He say, Sir?

Mr. Feversham: (ignoring Mr. Tozer) And as we spoke, I realised that the Bubble was in fact the work of God Himself.

Mr. Speaker: Did He confirm this?

Mr. Feversham: (irritated) One doesn’t ask God foolish questions, Mr. Tozer. Anyway, the point I am making is that it was only because I talked to God, and because of His infinite grace and mercy, that the world was not completely destroyed. I asked Him if he might spare us, so that we could build a new city where there is no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All this was what the Book of Revelations prophesied; in our most desperate moments, all of us have wondered whether this day would ever come; and now, ladies and gentlemen, it has! I can see the new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light shall be like unto stone a most previous, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; and it shall have a wall great and high with twelve gates, and at the gates there shall be twelve angels, with names written thereon. Can you see the new Jerusalem? Can you? Will you?

House descends into triumphant and passionate applause, cheers, women fainting etc.

It was at this point in the discussion that, to most of the assembled party, the Bubble suddenly made sense. Ever since Reverend Dalrymple had rolled down the hill from Ottery St. Mary’s churchyard, all eyes had been on the Bubble. It was all anybody had spoken about since Christmas. Those outside the Bubble wondered what it could be and why it had come; and those inside it wondered what it could mean. There were as many theories as there were people, but now Mr Feversham had offered up an explanation that everyone could believe in. It was not simply an act of Nature or – pshaw! – evolution. The Bubble actually meant the end of civilisation and the coming of Christ. Like a politician, Mr Feversham had asserted his millenarian claims with just enough logic to make them plausible, and his zeal was such that it divided the House into two discrete groups. One was led by Mr Feversham and its manifesto was to work towards the new Jerusalem of which he had received such stunning vision. The other (something of an omnium gatherum) was made up of people who, for various reasons, distrusted Mr Feversham and his lofty rhetoric. And in between these two groups were the majority: wavering, unsure which camp to pitch in, and feeling every bit as powerless as ever.
Anyhow, Mr Tozer concluded the Debate with some fine platitudes, including a passing tribute to the Duchess of Marlborough’s hat, and the group then dispersed.

The following weeks saw further debate among men and women of learning on both sides, so that extreme points of view gradually became moderated and sensible policies began to be applied. Normal people carried on regardless. It seemed curious to some that the rulers of the Bubble were so keen to appear to act on their behalf, while at the same time working as if they were in an elite cabal, a more civilised species as it were. But such was the desire of these rulers (from Reverend Dalrymple and Mr Seggar through to Mr Feversham and the future Prime Minister, the Duke of Marlborough) to assert their authority that they persisted in forever moving the goalposts, so that

WORSHIP ONLY GOD

had become

THERE IS NO GOD

which became

EVERYONE IS GOD

which became

EVERYONE IS NOTHING

which became

SOME PEOPLE ARE SOMETHING.

Some people were something, and the majority were nothing: faceless, nameless nobodies, useful when it came to elections, but with no other specific function in society. The people of the Bubble instantly accepted this. They had always been nobodies, and they could see no reason why the birth of a new world would change that.

END OF BOOK ONE

Chapters VIII and IX

VIII

On the eighth midday since the Bubble’s birth, and the first since it had been substantially populated, Reverend Dalrymple and Mr Seggar held their first Committee meeting. It was held in a spherical space, approximately ten feet in diameter, dead in the centre of the Bubble where Reverend Dalrymple had set up his home.

During the confusion of the Bubble’s first rapid expansion, the Reverend had taken a large oak table which had spilled out of some duke or other’s residence. It had been the duke’s, but it was now in the spherical space, and was therefore Reverend Dalrymple’s. He had decided he would write committee reports and design grand strategies and urban plans for the Bubble at this table. It barely fit in his ten foot by ten foot spherical space, but for now it served as ground control.

Although Mr Seggar had been the second person to enter the Bubble (by about five days), Reverend Dalrymple agreed that they would be joint Chairs of the Committee. “Two heads,” he said astutely, “are better than one.” There were no other constituents present, and Membership was not one of the agenda items. These were:

1. Apologies
2. Terms of Reference
3. Governance
4. Any other business

Mr Seggar volunteered to take minutes.

“Very well,” said Reverend Dalrymple, “shall we begin?” Mr Seggar held his pen a centimetre above the page ready to note salient points.

“Any apologies?”

“I haven’t received any.”

“Me either.” There was a pause.

“You should write Item one, colon, Apologies, then underline it. Then underneath write None.”

“I see.” Mr Seggar did this.

“Have you written the title of the meeting, and the date, and who is present?”

“No.”

“You should do that as well.” Mr Seggar began to write something down, then scribbled it out.

“What is the title of the meeting?”

“The title of the meeting? Ah.” Reverend Dalrymple scratched his eyebrow and sniffed. “A New World Management Board,” he said authoritatively. Mr Seggar wrote this down, along with the date and his and Reverend Dalrymple’s names, at the top of the page.

“The next item is Terms of Reference. Do we have any?”

“I haven’t brought any,” said Mr Seggar.

“Me either. I shall draft the Terms of Reference for the next meeting.”

“We are having another meeting?” asked Mr Seggar, surprised.

“Many more meetings, Mr Seggar, many more. Now. I shall draft the Terms of Reference for the next meeting. That is called an action point. You should write Reverend Dalrymple – or RD – to draft Terms of Reference for the next meeting, then underline it.” Mr Seggar wrote this, not knowing what Terms of Reference meant.

“Now. Governance. This is a very big topic, Mr Seggar. A very big topic indeed. So big that it may take several meetings to thrash it out properly.”

“What does it mean?”

“Well, Mr Seggar, you and I were the first people to enter this place. I was the first and you were the second. Before you became the second, do you remember what you asked me? Down in Ottery village square?” Before Mr Seggar could reply, Reverend Dalrymple answered his own question. “You asked me if I was God.”

“Yes,” agreed Mr Seggar.

“Do you know the answer to your question?”

“I’m not sure,” said Mr Seggar.

“Well, Mr Seggar. Let me tell you something about human life. You needn’t minute this, but you may wish to take some brief notes for your own reference. Now, Mr Seggar, the first thing to say about human life is that it is made up of two distinct groups. Not men and women; not employer and employee; not clever and stupid or rich and poor. Creators and survivors. Those are the two groups, Mr Seggar: creators and survivors.” Mr Seggar wrote down Creators and Survivors. “Some people cling onto their mortal coil for dear life, just because they feel thankful to be on the coil at all, to have something – anything! – on which to cling. But there are other people who want nothing more than to let go of the coil and to find out what is inside of it, or outside of it; what it looks like from above, or below; whether you can break it, smash it to pieces, use it as a spring; whether it has a beginning or an end, or whether it is a moebius strip which never begins or ends and which has no middle and therefore no real measurements at all. Do you understand what I am saying, Mr Seggar?”

“A mortal coil,” murmured Mr Seggar doubtfully.

“Creators and survivors.” Reverend Dalrymple got up from the table and began to pace around his spherical space, looking out onto the Bubble. “Survivors survive through instinct. Something – a voice, perhaps, but one which they don’t hear – tells them that they should carry on whatever they were doing yesterday and last week and last month. They have no free will to do any different. Only creators have this. Creators let go of the mortal coil and some fall into black holes and stay there for a split second which equals eternity. But others find new coils and new creations. Some are made from coloured matter daubed over a coarse cloth – you will find these in a gallery. Some are made from air vibrations controlled by blowing or hitting or picking or scraping – you will hear these in a concert-hall or on a record. Some are made from dyed fluids stamped or engraved onto reprocessed wood in more formations than any sensible man could count – these are on your bookshelf, Mr Seggar, if indeed you have one.”

“They are books,” said Mr Seggar eagerly.

“Indeed they are. But another of these creations is the planet Earth. God, using his own free will, created the planet Earth, and thereby established his own existence. A painter does the same, as does a musician, or an author. All these are Gods. I created the Bubble, and so, to answer your question, I am God. Having established this, I call on you to help me decide precisely, or as precisely as is possible, what it is that I have created. To do this you will also have to be a creator. Have you created anything before, Mr Seggar?”

“No.”

“Do you have a wife?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any children?

“Yes.” A look of excitement arched over the Reverend’s face.

“Did you intend to?”

“No.” With great sinking shoulders Reverend Dalrymple sighed and looked at the floor.

“You are, I’m afraid, a survivor, Mr Seggar. This is something we must change. We will work together to make you a creator like me!” Mr Seggar and Reverend Dalrymple looked at each other. They looked at each other for some time, trying to synchronise their psyches. After a while Mr Seggar began grinning. His eyes grew wider and took on a glisten and a shimmer. He bared his teeth at Reverend Dalrymple in a horrible and beautiful grin. His nostrils flared and a prickly sweat covered his face. Reverend Dalrymple looked at him and looked at him until he started not to look like Mr Seggar at all. Mr Seggar started to write something. Reverend Dalrymple furrowed his brow and looked at Mr Seggar as if he were a medical experiment. Mr Seggar wrote and wrote, then scrawled and scrawled, with the energy of a wild animal. His hand was not making any logical movement. It was like the hand of an untamed concert conductor as it flailed and flopped and carved deep black scores and smudges onto the paper. Then he stopped, and with his own free will wrote six clear words under the mess of the picture on the page:



Reverend Dalrymple took the piece of paper, ripped it up, and threw the pieces outside of the spherical space at the centre of the Bubble. They flew in every direction and dissolved into thin air. He said to Mr Seggar:

“I destroyed your picture. Now we are both God.”

And thus they set about governing the Bubble. Firstly, they agreed that the planet Earth, the world they had left behind, was bad. It was ruled by the wrong people and these people killed the other people over whom they ruled. The people who were the rulers were the creators, but with their free will they created death. The people who were the ruled were the survivors, but their instincts told them to obey the ruler and die, and some didn’t know the difference between living and death. This happened over and over and over so that history was no longer history and probably never had been. It was just an endless series of repetitions. Reverend Dalrymple had created a new world for the first time since God. The Bubble would take over the world, God was dead, and Reverend Dalrymple, with Mr Seggar, was now God. Having established the world’s rottenness, they decided that the Bubble must be entirely different. It must share none of the old world’s traits. Rules must change; feelings must change; thoughts and the way in which they are expressed must change; morals must change; time and space themselves must change. Ultimately, Reverend Dalrymple idealised, people would not think in terms of rules, feelings, thoughts, expression, morals, time and space, or anything else. But he knew this would take time. He must start small. So he and Mr Seggar, in their first New World Management Board, discussed the accepted morals and immorals from the old world.

They then decreed that all morals and immorals must be reversed so that what was once moral was now immoral and must be outlawed, and what was once immoral was now moral and should be rewarded. At the end of the meeting, the two men killed each other. This is how the meeting ended.






IX

It was now early evening and time for William to be getting back home to Kate and the boys. He had not worked especially hard today if truth be known; but then again he had not earned a penny. He had been given a sitting down job to do – counting 100 bolts into little cardboard boxes – so he had the whole day for his head to go wherever it chose. So it dreamed about being crushed in a riot; it thought about the church where he’d said his prayers yesterday and how he might suggest to Kate that they could escape to the bell-tower one night with some beer on credit from the pub, and some cigarettes, and he could try and woo her like he had done when they were kids.

And that got him thinking about his own kids, and whether one day there might be something – maybe a revolution, because people spoke about revolutions all the time – which might mean that his boys could have a good story to tell their grandchildren. William had, ever since he was a boy, lived in a world where whatever he did or did not do, whether he bore children or killed his own mother, his actions would have no impact at all on the world. None at all. He had been born thirty-four years ago, had received a rudimentary education for a few years and had been mostly left to pasture; then he had become a labourer on a farm in Kent; then a gardener; then he met Kate and married; then they had two kids; then he had been made redundant and found another job in a factory which he knew exactly how to blow up and take with it most of Camden and Highgate and Finsbury Park. There was a story in there somewhere but William did not know how he was going to tell it to his grandchildren. They would not care that in all his time alive he had worked, read a bit, had sex, eaten meals, got drunk, said his prayers, gone to his parents’ funerals and tended their graves without having any effect on the world whatsoever. This did not make him angry but it did make him wonder why he was alive and whether anyone else thought like this. It was this that made him want to go “AAAAAAAAAA” and get a boot stamped in his face.

But it was no good. Nothing would happen to make his boys grow into real people. William would keep his head down, try not to get too drunk on Sundays, and wait for the recession – or whatever it was that they called poor people dying – to end. The Blackstocks would be OK even if the Tanners and the Pirellis would not. His boys would get better jobs than William had managed and get more money. They would get married and have children of their own to worry after. But they would never mean anything to anybody except themselves. If they became sufficiently affluent that they had leisure time to enjoy, the things they would fill their evenings and weekends with would be as boring as filling little cardboard boxes with bolts. William could feel himself breathing. He could still feel his heart beating from all that beer last night. But really he knew he was dead, and that Kate and the boys were dead too, and he only wished he could tell them.

William signed out from the factory and began to walk home. He felt a pinging and a tingling in his ears. He walked past a school which had just been demolished, then past the police station, then past a slum. He looked back and saw trees and a field full of rape and something which looked like running water. He wanted to pick apples from the trees and lie in the rape and roll his trousers up to his ankles and take a dip in the river. But something pushed him onwards and made him realise he could not go back. He had heard the managers and the mechanics say something about a force (that was what they called it) which was coming from the west and which would change the world. All the factory was in a great tiz about it. William couldn’t have cared less as he put his 97th bolt in the box. But when he couldn’t climb a tree that was barely twenty yards away, or smell the rapeseed oil of a field he could see glowing beside a copse, or feel a cool trickle of water running over his hand – it was then that he realised the Bubble did exist and that he was the only person in the world who wasn’t inside it.

CHAPTER X OUT ON 19 AUGUST 2006

Chapter VII

VII

William did not notice this. He had been working in the factory all morning. He had received his punishment for being late. He would work the rest of the day for no money and there was nothing he could do about it. As he worked he drifted off into his favourite fantasy. He was in a mob, a crowd of thousands of people all marching along a London street. The mob was packed tightly so that William pushed into the person in front of him, was pushed by the person behind him, and jostled and was jostled by those to either side. Seen from above the crowd had the shape of a mooncalf – surging, coming together, then drifting apart, diluting, then coming together again. It never quite had a set shape, but it never disintegrated.

William was not sure why the crowd was marching. He did not know why he marched with them. He could not see their faces so he did not know if they were angry or hateful or euphoric. He was sure they were all strangers. None of them seemed to be the herds and gangs from his neighbourhood or from the factory. There was an orderliness and a dispassion to the crowd which made William uneasy. Sometimes he looked to his right or to his left and saw, through the mass of people, a policeman. The policeman was always looking at him, wherever he was, always looking at William, smiling stupidly, flashing all his teeth at him. It was not a friendly or a nasty smile, and the policeman did not seem to have any control over it. There was a panic in the policeman’s eye which seemed like a cry for help – “please! take this smile off my face! take these teeth from my mouth!” But still the policeman stood, a vile white smile frozen on his face, always looking at William.

And sometimes unruly sections of the crowd would peel away from the rest and smash the windows of a shop, or shout at the shop’s staff, calling them slaves and smashing their skulls in with their banners or with their own skulls. Such breaks from the crowd were dealt with swiftly by sensible and orderly stewards.

A speaker would get up and the crowd would stop. The speaker would say a few words to focus the minds of the crowd. He would call out familiar slogans to which the crowd would clap in an orderly fashion. The speaker would bawl out another slogan and the crowd would clap again. A heckler would heckle or boo or hiss the speaker, and he would be dealt with by the sensible and orderly stewards. Then the crowd would move forward a little further. And the desperate smiling policeman would keep his gaze on William. Sometimes a tear would run down his face.

Then a pocket of violence would erupt in the mass of the crowd and would explode outwards like a big bang or a cancer or a nuclear explosion. This was the most exciting bit of the fantasy. This was the bit where William felt a clamp against his heart which squeezed a scream up through his chest and out of his body, a scream that went “AAAAAAAAAA” and blocked out everything else and never stopped. This was when William heard the violence begin and stood still, rolled his eyes back in his head, lifted both feet off the ground and waited for the stream of violence to hit him and sweep him up and carry him off. When it came it felt like flying. Bodies surging towards him; he went from upright to prone, only a few feet off the ground. Some of the bodies were clothed, but some had their clothes ripped off. William wanted to be pushed and shoved by the ones whose clothes had been ripped off and he wanted to push and shove them back. Some of the bodies were children. Sometimes William pushed and shoved the children. Sometimes he kicked and punched the children and tore their limbs apart. Sometimes they were William’s own children. He would close his eyes and smile and feel the heavy boots kick his face and the teeth of desperate women sink into his ears, and hungry hands grab his hair to pull him along in another direction. His neighbour’s blood would drip onto his face and William would count the drops and lick them greedily from his cheeks and under his chin. When he had this fantasy, he would feel nothing but liberation. It took him away from the factory for a while.

CHAPTERS VIII AND IX OUT ON 12 AUGUST