Read Blast From the Past Online

Authors: Ben Elton

Blast From the Past (2 page)

BOOK: Blast From the Past
6.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

And Polly would rack her brains and remember the time back in her old life, when Peter had been just another sad case, when he had remarked on how much he liked the top she had been wearing.

The appalling
thing was that after only a short period of harassment Polly did of course have a kind of relationship with Peter. Everything
she
did she did with Peter in mind. Thus the stalker feeds his need, becoming central in the life of someone who should be a stranger to him. For the victim – Polly – it was like being in love, except the emotion she felt was hate. Like a besotted lover, she thought about her torment the
whole
time. Of course to Peter this was only right. For he was giving everything – his time, his passion, his every living breath – so why should not the person he loved give something back? Surely a true and deep love is worth that at least?

Eventually Peter got his wish. He and Polly were brought together, if only in court. Bringing matters to such a pass had not been an easy process for Polly. Naturally the law had been as concerned for Peter’s rights as it had been for hers and, as the police had pointed out, you cannot prosecute people for being annoying and rude. The law at the time did not even recognize stalking as a crime.

Neither did it recognize the fact that Polly was being driven mad.

It was not, it seemed, illegal for Peter to repeatedly write to Polly expressing his wish that she would get AIDS (which was all a bitch like her deserved). It was not illegal for him to stand outside her house and stare up at her window until late into the night. It was not even illegal for him to ring her front doorbell in the small hours of the morning. Polly’s distress was in fact almost irrelevant to the courts. What they wanted to know – what Polly was required to show – was that Peter’s actions had dealt her
material harm
. Money, it seemed, was the bottom line. The law required Polly to establish that Peter’s activities had left her out of pocket. Had the mental torment she was suffering rendered her unfit to work? Could she demonstrate that Peter was preventing her from making a living?

If she could, the law would be in a position to act; otherwise she would simply have to learn to live with her problem.

Polly produced her doctor’s letter, her employer’s testimonial, the diary of harassment the police had advised her to keep. She told of her sleepless nights, her clouded days, the tears and the anger that blighted her life.

Across the courtroom Peter luxuriated in every detail, thrilled, finally, to have proof that she was as obsessed with him as he was with her.

When it ended Polly had won a victory of sorts. The judge granted her an injunction. Peter was to neither approach nor contact Polly for an indefinite period, and should he try to do so he risked a custodial sentence. It did not stop him completely, but after further warnings from the police his hysterical intrusions on Polly’s life slowly began to diminish and for Polly life started to resemble something like a nervous normality.

He was still with her, of course. She felt he always would be. She still glanced up and down the street when she left the house in the morning, still checked in the communal hallway when she got home at night. Still wondered as she had always wondered whether one day he would try to stick a knife into her for betraying his love.

‘Actually, I don’t think he would ever have turned violent,’ Polly would say to her friends.

‘No, definitely not,’ they would reassure her.
‘Actually
I read that those type of people almost never do.’

But she always wondered.

And now, three months since he had last surfaced, it was 2.15 in the morning and Polly’s phone was ringing.

3

ON THE PREVIOUS
evening, as the dark clouds had gathered over the grim hangars of RAF Brize Norton and an invisible sun had set behind them, a small party of military men (plus one or two civil servants) assembled in the grizzly, drizzly gloom. They were awaiting the arrival of an American plane.

Inside that plane, suspended high over England, sat a very senior American army officer, deep in thought. So preoccupied was the general that he had scarcely uttered a word in the five hours since his plane had left Washington. The general’s staff imagined that he was considering the meeting that lay before him. They imagined that the general had been wrestling with the delicate problems of NATO, the ex-Soviet states and the New World Order. After all, it was to debate such weighty issues that they had crossed the Atlantic. In fact, had the general’s staff been mindreaders, they would have been surprised to discover that their commander was thinking about nothing more momentously geopolitical than a young woman he had once known; scarcely a woman – almost a girl, in fact, a girl of seventeen.

Back on the ground the British coughed and stamped and longed for the bar. There were always mixed emotions involved for British officers when dealing with their American cousins. It was a thrill, of course. The undeniable thrill of being on nodding terms with such unimaginable power. Most of the officers standing waiting, shuffling their feet on the tarmac at Brize Norton, thought themselves lucky if they got the occasional use of a staff car. Their professional lives were couched in terms such as ‘limited response’, ‘tactical objective’ and ‘rapid deployment’. When they described themselves and their martial capability they spoke of ‘an élite force’, a ‘highly skilled, professional army’. Everybody knew, of course, that these phrases were euphemisms for ‘not much money’, ‘not many soldiers’.

The Americans, on the other hand, measured their budgets in trillions.

‘Can you believe that, old chap?
Trillions
of dollars. Makes you weep.’

Their ships were like cities, their aeroplanes not only invincible but also apparently invisible. They had bombs and missiles capable of destroying the planet not once but many times over. Traditionally within the scope of human imagination only gods had wielded such mighty influence on the affairs of men. Now men themselves had the capacity, or at least some men, men from the Pentagon.

There was no denying that to other soldiers, soldiers of lesser armies such as the British who stood waiting
on
the cold, damp tarmac, such power was attractive. It was sexy and compelling. It was fun to be around. Fun to tell the fellows about.

‘I read somewhere they were developing ray guns.’

‘Bloody hell!’

But alongside the sheepish admiration there was also jealousy. A deep, gnawing, cancerous jealousy born of grotesque inequality. The difference in scale between the American armed forces and those of its principal and most historic ally are so great as to render Britain’s military contribution to the alliance an irrelevance. In truth, Britain’s role is nothing more than to add a spurious legitimacy of international consensus to US foreign policy. That is why Britain has a special relationship. That is why Britain is special and why the Americans let it remain special. They certainly can’t trust the French.

The general’s plane was beginning its descent. Looking out of the window, he could just make out the fields below. Grey now, nearly black. Not green and gold as he liked to remember them, as indeed they had been on that fabulous summer’s day half an army lifetime ago. Before he’d blown his chance of happiness for ever.

He took from his pocket a letter he had been writing to his brother Harry. He often wrote to Harry. The general was a lonely man in a lonely job and he had few people in whom he could confide. Over the years he had got into the habit of using his brother as a kind of confessional, the only person to whom he showed
anything
like the whole of his self. His brother sometimes wished that he would unload his woes onto someone else. He always knew when he saw an airmail letter in his mailbox that somewhere in the world his celebrated and important brother was tormented about something.

‘The little shit never writes to say he’s happy,’ Harry would mutter as he slipped a knife into the envelope. ‘Like I care about his problems.’ Although of course Harry did care; that’s what families are for.

As the plane began slowly to drop towards England and its undercarriage emerged, rumbling and shaking from its belly, noisily pushing its way into the gathering night, the general took up his pen. Contrary to all accepted safety practices, he also lowered the tray table in front of him and laid the unfinished letter out before him.


Olde England is outside of the window now, Harry
,’ he wrote. ‘
Funny, me returning this way. Back in those sunny, glory days when I was last in this country, all I could think about was becoming a general. All I wanted was my own army. Now I’m a general, a great big general, the biggest fucking general in the European Theatre. Strange then that all I can think about is those sunny, glory days. And her. I’ll bet you’re laughing
.’

General Kent paused, then put down his pen and tore the letter into pieces. He had never lied to Harry and he did not wish to start now. Not that anything he had written was untrue. Quite the opposite. His thoughts were indeed filled with memories of halcyon days long
gone
and the girl with whom he had shared them, and he was certainly cursing the army that had torn them apart. But that was only half the story of what was on General Kent’s mind, and Harry would see that immediately. With Harry, omission was tantamount to deceit. Harry would know that his brother was holding out on him, as he always did. Harry had known that Jack wanted to be a soldier even before Jack had known it himself. It had been Harry who had broken the news to their parents after Jack had chickened out and left home without a word. Christ, what a scene that must have been.

The general stuffed the torn pieces of his letter into the ashtray that was no longer allowed to be an ashtray and returned to staring out of the window.

Down below, the chilly Brits were assuring each other that, despite its undisputed position of global dominance, the American army was not what one would call a proper army.

‘They’re either screaming abuse at each other, singing silly spirituals or bonding in a big hug. I mean really, I ask you, what a way to run a show.’

The Brits all agreed that, despite having more fire power than Satan and more influence than the God in whom they trusted, the armed forces of the United States were not what one would call a formidable fighting machine. No, no, the damp, miserable, khaki-clad figures felt, much better to be lean. Lean and hungry, like the British forces. Much better to be underfunded, undermanned and undervalued, like they were.
That
was character-building. That was what made a soldier a soldier.

‘They can’t even get the uniforms right,’ the jealous Brits assured each other. ‘They seem to be dressed either as hell’s angels in leather jackets and sunglasses or as Italian lift attendants with more brass and braid than a colliery band.’

Everybody agreed that it was a shocking state of affairs, but in truth there was not a man amongst them, itching in his damp khaki blouse, who would not have dearly loved to swap places and be dressed half as stylishly as the Americans.

A far-off noise in the gloomy sky announced the imminent arrival of the loved and hated allies.

‘On time, at least,’ remarked the senior British officer in his best patronizing drawl. ‘Thankful for small mercies, eh?’

It started to rain.

‘Look at them,’ said the general, staring out of the drizzle-dotted window as his plane taxied towards the little RAF terminal and the forlorn-looking British reception committee. ‘Nothing ever changes in the British army, you know that? They’re actually proud of it.’

One of the crew handed the general his coat.

‘They always look the same. Down at heel but defiant. Like they just got off the boat from Dunkirk. The worst thing about being a great power is when you’re not one any more. It takes centuries to get over
it
. Look at the Portuguese. They just gave up altogether.’

‘Sir! Yes, sir!’ said the young airman, not having the faintest idea what the general was talking about.

Jack turned to General Schultz, his chief of staff, who was sitting respectfully two seats behind, playing on a gameboy.

‘Let’s make this piece of bullshit as quick a piece of bullshit as any bull ever shitted. OK?’

4

POLLY TURNED ON
her bedside lamp and felt her irises scream in protest at the sudden light.

The phone was on her desk, on the other side of the room. Polly had put it there so that if ever she booked an alarm call she would have to get up in order to answer it. It was too easy to just reach out from under the duvet and clunk the receiver up and down in its cradle. Polly had missed trains that way. You didn’t wake up, your dreams just changed gear.

The phone rang again. Somehow it seemed to be getting louder.

Through Polly’s watery eyes the room looked strange. The phone, her desk, the crumpled shape on the floor that was her jeans, everything looked different. It wasn’t, of course, just as the phone wasn’t getting any louder. Everything was exactly the same as it had been when she’d gone to sleep the previous evening.

The phone kept ringing.

Polly got out of bed and padded across the room towards it. Across almost her entire home, in fact. Polly’s landlord claimed that Polly lived in a
studio-style
maisonette and had set the rent accordingly. Polly thought she lived in a bedsit and that she was being ripped off.

The phone was set to ring six times before the answerphone kicked in. Polly watched the machine as it completed its cycle.

She was more angry than scared.

Very angry, terribly angry. Anger had seized hold of her whole body, which was the one thing she knew she must not let it do if she wished to get back to sleep before dawn. In vain she struggled to regain control of herself, but it was too late. The anger had released its chemicals and they were surging through her nervous system like a drug, making her muscles twitch, her stomach squirm and her heart expand like a balloon against her ribs. An anger so powerful because it was born of fear.

BOOK: Blast From the Past
6.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Boyfriend League by Rachel Hawthorne
Moments of Clarity by Michele Cameron
Red Queen by Honey Brown
The Madman Theory by Ellery Queen
Owl and the Japanese Circus by Kristi Charish
Straight to Heaven by Michelle Scott
Young Eliot by Robert Crawford
Recessional: A Novel by James A. Michener
Lady Laugherty's Loves by Laurel Bennett
Dead Air by Robin Caroll