Chapter Eight

The phone call seemed in keeping with the day’s prevailing atmosphere of discomfort and bad timing. Sarah shifted her weight in the grey plastic chair and reached to pick up the phone, ringing out from an undisclosed number. When the short, stilted conversation was over, Sarah breathed a deep sigh, a resigned acceptance that her day was not going to go as planned but much, much worse. She would have expected to feel a great deal of shock in this situation, but her practical concerns took over, and she stumbled towards the taxi rank in the hope that her taxi was finally here and that the driver wouldn’t object to a detour, a detour she couldn’t begin to explain. The policeman on the phone had been mercifully swift and to the point; stating where she needed to be, but his words were distinctly lacking in the detail and explanation she craved. The taxi driver also looked as if he would have liked an explanation, giving her a curious appraising look when he heard the infamous address, the new drop off point. It chuckled to himself that the address was much more commonly used as a pick up point for people wishing to escape the country, than a destination for those who had just arrived.
Sarah was sat, yet again, in a plastic chair, surrounded by the institutional smell of lemon floor cleaner and the squeak of official shoes. The murmur of purpose and rustle of paper echoed the corridors. Sarah had initially glanced up at each passing official, and by the time the man stood at her side, asking, ‘Mrs Howard-Dobson?’ , he had to repeat the name twice in order to catch her attention, and even then it took her a slow five seconds to understand, and nod her head slowly. This gave the official the impression that Sarah was slightly slow, although this could only work to her advantage. The official took her into a room, sat her down, and gave her a cup of tea that they both watched get cold and grey. He informed her, with suitable gravity, that her husband had been caught deliberately and unashamedly flouting the protest law, outside the houses of parliament. He waited a beat, in order to let the news sink in, and to give Sarah the time to gasp, as family members usually did, and then explained the situation. He explained that the charges against him were defined as civilian, through the AFL, rather than criminal, and this meant that, although he was confined to the AFL cells, he had greater access to the outside world, and more specifically her, than he would in a conventional prison. Sarah was aware that this public presentation of leniency actually allowed the AFL to keep those confined in their cells for longer periods without a public outcry.
Sarah was presented with an ID card, which, she assumed, also contained a tracking device, and ushered through the corridors, past several security points. The guards glanced up, saw the official at her side and waved them through each one, until they reached the cell wing of the AFL building. After the swift progress through the building, the procedures before entering the cell block seemed arduous; metal detectors, finger prints, and ID cards. Finally, she was lead to a room where, at a table, Adam sat. They grinned at each other in natural reaction to seeing each other after all this time, but then the situation made them more stilted and formal.
‘Wh..?’, she began. With a slight nod towards the guards Adam interrupted.
‘I knew you’d come. Thanks. I really need to talk to you.’ He paused. He spoke as if he had prepared what he was going to say. And well he might. This meeting was highly important, and he knew it. He jiggled his leg nervously. It had been a big risk mentioning Sarah as his wife, but it was a calculated risk. His trust in her had been vindicated by her quick thinking in answering to Mrs Howard Dobson. He had half thought she would snort at the statement for its ridiculousness and put the whole operation in jeopardy. He hoped Jim wouldn’t mind too much either.
On the other side of London, Jen was sitting at one of the plastic tables, licking sauce off her fingers, absentmindedly picking the salad away from the meat, when Alex ran in. Alex was blind to all else; since her flight touched down in London, her mind had been focused on this moment. The moment when the dead weight of the coins in her hand would be exchanged for the hot savoury comfort of Golden Fryer chips, the tang of vinegar, pool of ketchup and savouring the soft, salty greasy potato. As she grabbed parcel of chips from the man, she spun on the back of her heels, catching sight of Jen at a table in the corner.

Chapter Seven

MI5 Headquarters…

I was worried about the Agent they had sent, she is a good agent; straightforward, serious. Additionally she uses her good looks and sharp wit to her advantage, she has fooled many men with that, very impressive. However, this time it will be different, these people know her real name [Nathalie] and it would be hard for her, emotions could cloud her judgement, women are often confused by that.
There is no doubt she is the best agent for the job, but maybe when I go I should watch over the operation with extra care. She doesn’t know I orchestrated the whole thing nor does she know my identity, not many people do…..……..

KNOCK KNOCK

“Boss”

“Yes, Mary?”

“The president and the prime minister are waiting for you in the conference room”

“Thank you Mary, I’ll be through in one minute”

As I walked out my office room my mind was elsewhere, I was not thinking of the briefing I was about to give to the two most important men in the world; but I was back at Varey house in the first year of my university career. As I thought about it, I realised that it was my own fascination to see those people again making me go, that checking on my agent was a façade.
When I think back it was probably the fact that I finished my course a year later than everyone else that made me lose touch. But I still remember those halls; the walls had held so much laughter, so many memories. But it seemed that at the moment when they tapped me on the shoulder I had forgotten my youth it had [it appeared] been hidden under suits and shirts for 10 years.

There was no way I could give away what my job is, that would be a matter of national security, not to mention how I would endanger myself as well. It is why almost nobody knows who I am. But, as I turned the handle of the conference room door I smiled because I realised in that instant that at the reunion I would not be pretending I would in fact, be being myself for the first time in years, well with a few white lies of course. I managed to wipe the glorious grin of my face just before they looked up and saw who I really was, who I hadn’t been for years.

Chapter Six

With the swift turn of a simple mechanical action that had been performed many times before Lizzy flicked the latch and swung the attic window up and open. She lent her forearms on the sill and shuffled forward, leaning out over the rooftops. She listened to the echoing sirens and shouts from the streets below. Her mind, cloistered in the convoluted scribblings she had been transcribing, was rapidly brought back to modernity. She contentedly gazed at the moving clouds and darkening skies. Suddenly she was aware of the time. And she was late. She hoisted herself down, and quickly and skilfully tidied the papers in their requisite boxes, glanced about, flicked off the light and was down the ladder.
On the way out of the house she popped her head round the kitchen door. She knew Charles would be mixing his hot toddy, despite the residual warmth of the evening.
“I’m just off”, she called. It was no good. He had his back to her. He was unlikely to be aware of her presence, let alone to have heard her half-hearted call. She waited the heartbeat it took for him to turn, the golden liquid sloshing about the glass, and called again.
“I’m just off now. I’ll be back tomorrow morning I expect.” He gave a slow nod of understanding. “I’ve nearly finished the first journal,” she continued, and, as he looked expectant, she smiled reassuringly. “I’m really enjoying doing it. It’s really interesting.”
Lizzy jogged down the front steps, bag banging against her knee. She strode towards the tube station with a satisfying sense of purpose. She had spent the last couple of months so immersed in the journal, she had hardly thought about anything else. She had attempted to persuade Charles to allow her to move the journals to one of the libraries, to be catalogued properly. He was stubborn and possessive of the manuscripts, and understandably so. It was an incredibly important find, but that wasn’t really the reason of course. He was reluctant, to the point of obsession, to change anything about the house since Dee had died. Favourite mugs, forty years old, when broken, were mourned as part of the house, part of Dee even. The journals of her predecessor, therefore, stayed in the attic.
It was only chance that Lizzy had met Charles at a gallery opening for an exhibition of letters and journals. Charles had mentioned his wife had some manuscripts in the attic that they had always meant to have transcribed, and Lizzy mentioned the work she had done. She remembered telling an American colleague about the find; he had made some witticism about the British being the only nation who could accidentally come across journals of such significance in a grimy attic. She felt thrilled to be given access to them, even if it had meant staying in London longer than planned, and spending the spring months sequestered in an attic at the top of Charles’ house, while he pottered around below.
As Lizzy stepped on to the top of the escalator, Matt opened the door of the Globe.
He stepped in furtively, and immediately scanned the room for a familiar face. He wanted to establish quickly that he was here for some sort of reunion, and not to be papped by some enterprising photographer who would be paid well for images of him in a pub. The only advantage of that, perhaps, would be the likelihood that it would take the heat out of the AFL meetings. Abstinence from alcohol was not popular at the Anti-Fundamentalist League. The large following he had gathered over the last few years and the evangelising of his people meant that the AFL had taken begun to take an active interest in the organisation. It was to be expected these days, but Matt still found the interviews galling. He’d an intensive set the week before, after someone claiming affiliation with him had tried to protest outside Parliament, striding up and down, shouting slogans. Parliament had become increasingly sensitive about that type of thing, but luckily Matt had been able to distance himself from the lone individual.
It took a second look, long-extended, to recognise Nat. She was not how he had expected her to look. Her hair was gathered at the nape of her neck, fly-away sections framing her face. She was wrapped in a large woollen garment. It must have been a cardigan of sorts. She had lost the savvy look of the city, and Matt strode with a little more confidence. He felt knowing and secure in response, aware that his robes gave him authority.

Chapter Five


It was with her order of her first drink that Nat broke the first of her boss’ rules. It was generally accepted that drinking on the job was, to say the least, inadvisable. Control was highly prized, and on a normal job, Nat would have abstained. But, despite herself, she was nervous. The weight of her knowledge felt heavy. She already felt she knew too much about these people – she knew what stories they would tell, she knew what lies they would pass off as their personal truths. As she scanned the room again, a habit learned from years of surveillance, she noticed a figure furtively step into the Globe. She wasn’t surprised Matt was uncertain. Not only did the Globe appear very different, she suspected it had been many years since he had entered a drinking establishment. She had been surprised that he had agreed to it even now, considering the damage being seen here could do to his…well…business. She regretted, in terms of her desire to remain inconspicuous, that he had arrived first. They would be a strange sight, a bizarre couple indeed.
Sarah had the metallic taste of early mornings and long journeys in her mouth. Her eyes were swollen with unsatisfying and interrupted sleep. She could have wept with tired frustration. The grey and faceless airport lounge presented the worst aspects of British culture; the florescent lights lit a building of aspirations to continental sophistication, but it instead contained barely manageable sordidness. The benches were populated by travellers out of time and place, waiting to be relocated, wary of theft and irritable of each other. The shops sold pretentious bad food at extortionate prices, smug with the knowledge that the travellers had little choice and that travel would have already worn down any level of resistance. It was in this position that Sarah found herself. Although she could guide a green gapper through their first week away from home, she had booked her taxi an hour late. She slid into an uncomfortable chair and ordered a breakfast that came badly-cooked and tersely-served. As she picked it over, thoughts that she had managed to suppress for the flight begged her attention. She had other things than the reunion on her mind, other reasons for being in London. She knew, logically, returning to the UK was the best thing at this point, but she couldn’t help feeling as if she was giving up something of herself for her husband. She was worried about losing her sense of independence, that England would trap and restrict her, that living on the same continent would reveal rifts in her marriage. She knew she shouldn’t think, but the fact he’d been married before, twice in fact, made her worry that his understanding of the marriage vows was very different from her own.
They had met, or reunited, in Africa. It had been a strange coincidence, a story hardly believable when told second hand. Some people would call it destiny. I would really rather not. She had been travelling to the outer villages, trying to find a way to transport more children to the school and enjoying learning more about the surrounding area. She had recognised the way he carried himself, and his gestures from a distance, as he had a discussion with a local guide. After the initial rush of emotion, the conversation ebbed and flowed naturally, as they strolled around the village. It was so good to fall back easily into a pattern of conversation, so familiar. It seemed he was recovering from bankruptcy and divorce. Apparently the ex-wife was not so keen on his company when it didn’t also come with penthouses, holidays and regular surgery. He mentioned his other marriage too; he said it was a familiar story, being too young, too selfish and too idealistic eventually broke them apart acrimoniously. He seemed ashamed by these examples of failure, more so than his spectacular bankruptcy – from wealth to nothing in a couple of months. They talked long into the twilight. Sarah had the impression that a continued faith in the technology that had made him rich prevented him from absolute despair. That, and a strange doctrine that was currently sweeping Britain; The Truth of the Muse. Sarah had laughed derisively at first, but he earnestly explained how much it had helped him, and many others. He tried, and failed, to explain the ideas to her. She mulled it over, it sounded a little cultish to be honest, although not altogether dangerous. In the airport, she smiled. She hoped he’d moved on, as he usually did, to something new; the prospect of explaining The Truth of the Muse to her mum was not something she relished.

Chapter Four

Nat was having a stressful meeting with her boss. She was aware everyone had to be fully briefed on the nature of the reunion, but there were problems. Some of the group attending had been identified as volatile characters. She found herself rolling her eyes, as it was yet again made explicit the importance of her secrecy, and the dangers involved if her current target was lost or suspected the true nature of Nat’s employment. Since her closest family were still unaware of what she did, Nat was confident in her abilities. Her boss was nearly as confident, after all, someone does not progress through the organisation as quickly as Nat had, without a high level of skill. However, there had been problems in the past – levels of trust between old friends combined with an emotional reunion and alcohol could produce dangerous confidences that would cost a lot of money to correct. The Globe, where the reunion was planned, had already been placed under surveillance, and the level of detail in the background checks meant Nat knew more about the group than they knew about themselves. Her disguise, someone staid, content and dowdy, was prepared. She was convincing in this role, and knew it would reassure everyone else of the relative excitement of their own lives. Nat could not suppress a smirk at this thought.
Nat was the first to arrive at the Globe. If she had not been briefed with surveillance photos, maps and possible exit routes, she wouldn’t have recognised it.

Chapter 3

The most difficult person to get in contact with had been Chloe. Everyone else’s life provided a fully traceable internet track. Chloe was still attempting to shake off the shackles and traces of technology. This was intensely difficult, and created an isolation of sorts that many people would have found difficult. It was lucky that her face to face contact with people was so effecting – she appeared as a character in many blogs and online diaries. Those around her used the internet, and Ego had at first accidentally contacted her daughter, who at first accidentally believed she was being targeted by a pervert with an unconvincing back story. Once this misunderstanding had been cleared up (this took a lot of courage on the part of Ego, after the abusive and disturbingly graphic castration suggestion he received in his inbox at first), Chloe’s dislike for the internet forced a face–to-face meeting. Chloe and Ego met for tea in a café off Russell Square, three months before the planned reunion. The instant recognition felt both unnerving and natural, and the afternoon quickly spiralled into a drink fuelled discussion of the group. Once their own lives were accounted for, they began to speculate on the others’. The conversation naturally fell to Jen. They noted the gossip magazines had not yet become aware of her predilection for crisp sandwiches, and were sceptical of reports that she spent evenings cooking for her husband. They marvelled at the irony of seeing Jen in the publications she had been addicted to as a student. Ego tried to explain the far reaching effects of Mark’s computer company and its inventions but after an hour they gave up, and Chloe accepted she would never understand the implications, other than the wealth and fame of the couple, and the bizarre circumstances of having a previous housemate on the cover of Vogue, still sporting her lizard tattoo.
In the first months of Mark’s riches, Jen was thrown into a world of wealth and perfection. She was alone and unprepared. At first she felt the way to contentment was conformity – to accept her new life and the people in it. This involved believing in the importance of nostril waxing, and that arranging a party every year for charity was selfless, fulfilling and extremely hard work. If she had continued in this attitude, she would have been an unremarkable and unpleasant wife to a rich man. But Jen revolted. After months of obsessive preening and exclusivity, Jen rejected, rather forcefully, the doctrine. This occurred at the beauty spa, and left other rich men’s wives with broken nails, a nasty case of mud-inhalation, and a bald patch where Jen had waxed the off a section of hair – roots, extensions, highlights and all. In the aftermath and publicity, the spa announced a new and stringent no drinking policy.
Jen’s rebellion was seen by some to be feminist, post-feminist, or post post-feminist. Jen didn’t care either way. She went and got another couple of piercings, a tattoo to mark the occasion, and set up her own, now internationally renowned, business, in representing and promoting actors. More specifically, she searched for unusual looking actors- those who looked real, and those who looked interesting. Most specifically, she rejected any who pouted. She liked to call it Anti-Keira. Being represented by Jen soon became an indicator of acting talent and personality. Many independent and web film producers began to solely use her as a talent scout, and her new discoveries, as well as Jen herself, were looked to as indicators of off-beat and alternative fashions. Jen found this perplexing, as did the members of the Varey group, who saw her wearing her old Camden platform boots in Heat and watched it spark a resurgent craze. Meeting Jen again would certainly be an interesting experience. Chloe and Ego were particularly interested to discover whether the stories of diva behaviour were well founded, as well as the relative truth behind rumours of more intriguing incestuous celebrity couplings. Ego wondered if it would be morally wrong to ring into Heat’s Spotted page after the reunion.

Chapter 2

Ego had sent out the invitations with a sense of foreboding; the group had proved to be positively incapable of successfully meeting up. Also, he had hoped to hold off from sending out the messages for a little longer. However, it had become clear that the time was here, and there was little he could do about it. He wished he could have shared in an abstract joy in seeing everyone together again, or spent idle minutes contemplating how they would all look, how they had changed, and how they would react together. It was with growing disbelief that he had watched the replies flood in, from the US, from Africa, from London, from an unreadable postcard, from assistants, from secretaries, and from hand-writing he could immediately recognise – all agreeing to meet back in Mile End. He still could not quite believe they would all successfully arrive – he had his eye on Alex’s delayed flight, Pat’s book signing on Charing Cross Road, and the vague response from Matt, his old knowledge of Lucy’s inability to be on time. At least, this time, he thought ruefully, he could count on himself. If he had not arranged the meeting, he was a likely candidate to cancel.
Lucy had been up the night before. She padded around a lamp-lit house in thick cashmere socks and a crumpled nightshirt, Death Cab for Cutie, not listened to for years, on low, clutching a mug, as if it would relieve the tense anticipation of seeing faces aged and lives changed. This anticipatory stress was felt by Sarah, as her plane landed in the early hours of the morning. She was greeted by a low-level, but pervasive grey that cannot be fully understood unless you have arrived alone in an airport an hour outside of London, after leaving a country of debilitating heat and bright sunlight. Sarah often travelled backwards and forwards – she tried hard to ensure her children had the same sense of extended family as she had had herself – but she had not managed to accustom herself to the stark contrasts between her homeland and the one she had adopted. This journey had been particularly poignant; as well as the Mile End reunion, it represented one of the last of these flights – she had recently decided that it was time to settle back in Britain. The travelling that had seemed so exciting when she was younger, now felt wasteful and mundane. She wanted her children to know their cousins and their grandparents, and feel a sense of their preceding generations. The importance of family and the assumed wisdom and respect for the elder generations was an aspect of life in the village that she particularly relished, and would miss in her move back to Britain. It was something she tried to encourage the British volunteers to adopt – although technology had increasingly entered the village she still asked the volunteers to rely on conversation and friendships with the locals. She had told the group of volunteer teachers and staff from the school about the reunion. They were sitting together, drinks in hand, on a Friday evening, recovering after a long hard week. As they watched their students kick a football around in the twilight, they discussed the reunion with increasing hilarity – at first thinking clearly about the intervening years, speculations becoming wilder until they discussed the possibility of obesity, hermits, people with eighteen cats, and likely danger of being stalked by an old friend, and finally, as the sun finally set, lewd comments about the possibility of passionate reunions.
Pat was pissed off. He had to keep reminding himself why he was there. People had turned up to see him; they bought his books and this allowed him to become sickeningly used to expensive lunches, quality alcohol, and having a butler. And besides, for every few dozen tourists and slathering mindless fans, there was a person worth knowing, a new contact. When he had first started these events, he had felt ridiculous and incongruous in the bookshop environment – so far removed from what he had expected his career to be, and an ideological distance from the banks where he had earned his first millions. Now, as bookshops had moved from selling the actual publications, which were much more accessible online, they had had to focus more on the human sense experience – providing meeting places for authors and readers, communities, nights focused on bringer together the reader communities from the internet, and a few copies for those customers who were committed to the archaic notion of holding a publication in one’s hands. Pat represented one of the biggest names; his ability to draw people out of their homes and into the shop surpassed that of many other writers. It was speculated that this was related to the controversial way his writing became known, and his column meant his opinions were ever present in many people’s lives. Even Pat, and his respected opinions, could not have anticipated the ever-widening effect of that first unwise email.

Chapter One

Lucy sank into the seat. Her head lolled briefly against the back, and her eyes followed the road in front, and then her own slow progress into London. She couldn’t contain as sense of emotion – strong yet indefinable emotion. It seemed conversely a lifetime and a few days since she had left Mile End. It had been twelve years. Twelve years since they had all vowed to stay in touch forever, since they had made plans for the years ahead, safe in the assumption of their all consuming togetherness. This seemed a laughable concept now, considering how few of them had managed to stay in touch, even fewer had done more than Christmas messages and the odd email. The break up had all started when Alex had failed to return from America that summer, and the stress of living together in the second year had driven rifts between them. When Lucy had returned from her year abroad, the group had scattered further, and only passing reference was made to all their comings and goings. She realised she was as much to blame as anyone. She had had different priorities since then, and despite good intentions, had failed to make the drinks, reunions and all arranged attempts to reunite the group. Thinking about it now, she considered that in some ways she had thought this a good thing – why try and re-create what had already passed?
The lack of communication did not mean, however, that she was completely unaware of their activities, jobs and varying degrees of success. She had stopped to stare at the familiar faces staring back from morning television, the Sunday supplements and magazines. The others? Google, of course.
Across London, dressed in tailored expensive black, and carrying a coffee so large, it could have held a small child, Jen juggled her phone, her bag, and her invitation for the Mile End reunion. In a fit of exasperation she thrust her bag in to the arms of her assistant, who had to maintain a surprised jog to keep up with Jen’s long strides. A charity mugger. He had recognized her face from the press, and, visioning enormous sums of money, sprang in front of her, unable to contain himself from calling her name. He had only reached ‘Je..’ when a swift kick to the genitals with Jen’s favourite stiletto boots rendered him speechless. It was the inane grin that did it, she would have recognised it anywhere. Jen took great pleasure in placing one stiletto on his clipboard, and the other on his hand, before continuing swiftly onwards, glancing again at the invitation. It mentioned tea, it mentioned alcohol, and even with her busy schedule, Jen couldn’t wait to see how everyone had aged.
Alex was drumming her fingers on the armrest, distractedly. The stranger in the seat beside her glanced significantly, attempting to wither Alex into stopping, but her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking back over the years. Her husband was incredulous that she was travelling across the Atlantic, to a country she rarely visited, to see people with whom she had spent 8 or 9 months with, over a decade ago. She had reminded him of exchanged phone calls, emails, and fly-by-night meetings in New York, where the obligatory few drinks seemed both too long and not long enough time to spend together. At this point however, she wasn’t quite sure what she was doing on this plane. She reassured herself with a sip of her drink and the thought of London shops and museums. Even if Ego’s strange message was a hoax, she felt confident in her abilities to find something to amuse herself, even if it solely involved finding a proper chippy. As the plane dipped in to land, she wondered if the Golden Fryer was still there. In fact, she remembered with a smile, that had been one of the comments that had followed the first shock when she announced that she was staying in the US – how would she manage without proper British chips? She had, it seems.
When she had left that summer, she had been apprehensive to say the least, and the last thing on her mind was staying any longer. Fate had intervened. Or perhaps it wasn’t fate, but Alex’s love of American shops, American living, and, of course, American men, that had been most influential. But had she not met Bradford, whose passion for the geography of the American coastland was infectious, and had she not been able to transfer her course so easily, then she would have been back in Mile End by October. As it was, Alex revelled in the American University experience, and had worked hard to build a successful life for herself. With so much of her family having so many connections in, what she now considered to be her part of the US, she had hardly made it back to the UK once a year. But the message from Ego, asking for the reunion, had hit her in a particularly vulnerable and nostalgic moment in the small wee hours, after a few beverages. She was sat at the computer, in a house full of sleeping bodies – her husband, her children and their friends, entities that were briefly forgotten in her search for memories of her youth. And so, in this state, she booked the flights and hotels that would see her returning to Mile End, for the first time.