Time of Lies Read online

  Then he invited his audience to eat their fill from a buffet of existing BG promises. An end to National Insurance contributions and the House of Lords. The United Kingdom protected – no playing dice with the country, like the Conservatives. Welfare payments to stop after nine months. Local communities to zone British-only home ownership areas. Six Dreadnought submarines to replace four Vanguards carrying Britain’s nuclear deterrent. A one-hundred-ship Royal Navy. Five hundred additional aircraft, including drones, for the Royal Air Force. Leaving the EEA right away; saying boo to the IMF.

  Bob had two courses to go. The third was bankers. Their greed was shameless. They had put their fists into the taxpayer’s pocket once more without so much as a ‘sorry’ after the first time. The other parties had made laws which meant no banker or ex-banker was likely to have to cancel their second skiing holiday, let alone go to jail. While the Future Tories caught at Davos were particularly shocking, all the other parties had been too corrupt or scared to do anything.

  When Bob broke his pause to yell, ‘Until now!’ the crowd boiled over. BG had acted at Davos, Bob explained, and unlike any other party, BG would act in government. From day one, anyone who had ever earned more than £75,000 in one year from a bank would have to wear a regulation-size ‘B’ sewn onto their outer clothing, or go to jail. He said it three times so that it sank in. The crowd danced deliriously while stewards threw yellow eight-by-four-inch Bs into the air and onto the stage.

  Kathy’s head swam: the whole event was unfolding in some parallel universe. She could not imagine any of this happening. Patrick looked wan. Shima had petrified into a gargoyle.

  The finale – strong borders, controlled immigration, safe streets, BG’s heartland staples, familiarly disturbing or reassuring according to taste. But what was going to be new?

  Bob called Annabel Wale up onto the stage. Naturally she was in Vigilance uniform, with a red and white lion just below each shoulder. Her black crew neck sweater and red belt had a designer cut, as did her figure-hugging black jeans and boots with gladiator straps, but she paid full homage to the uniform worn by two thousand youngsters stewarding in the stadium. The youngsters in the crowd went wild for their idol.

  Watching the two together, Kathy grasped the purpose of the raised heels; without them, Wale would have been slightly taller. This rally had been orchestrated to the inch.

  ‘The Vigilance guards our greatness and protects our hopes,’ barked Bob, adopting a fiercer tone. ‘That greatness and those hopes don’t belong to BG but to the whole country!’

  The crowd roared back the Britain’s Great refrain. ‘The role of the Vigilance is stepping up. It will take time to build up our armed forces as we have promised. But I pledge that from tonight the Vigilance will be there in support, a powerful extra force, at the service of the whole country. The Vigilance has been training, and is ready, for this larger role. From tonight it will have a system of ranks, and a special uniform for officers. Tonight, let me introduce to you, General Annabel Wale!’

  Bob wrapped around Wale’s shoulders a scarlet knee-length cape, clasped on her left side with five gold chevrons. On her right side was blazoned the inevitable white lion, a foot high. She waved to the crowd and then the stadium plunged into darkness. The green exit lights were the first to become visible, before Bob and Annabel were bathed on stage by three spots in red, white and blue.

  ‘Welcome to Britain’s fourth force!’ Bob declared. Four roving searchlights stabbed up into the night sky from the corners of the pitch.

  ‘Giving their own time, the Vigilance’s volunteers have learned a skill which will be as definitive of the twenty-first century as driving a car was in the last.’ Bob pointed upwards.

  Out of the dark they came, first one, then six, then a dozen, then more, black triangles flying in slow formation. Searchlights intersected the hovering triangles.

  Patrick grabbed the opera-glasses. ‘Clever,’ he said. ‘The night and the lights make it easy to give an impression of hundreds. But there might only be –’ he paused, ‘– thirty?’

  So Patrick was as surprised as everyone else at what came next. The searchlights went out and lights on the drones themselves came on. Eventually Kathy counted two hundred triangles overflying the stadium, hovering in formation for a minute to fill the sky with a giant ‘BG’. They flew off while the stadium lights gradually returned.

  As faces and bodies in the crowd took shape once more, it would have been possible to imagine that nothing had changed. But, Kathy realised, everything had changed. The people who thought they were in power, weren’t. Even a lowly lieutenant-commander might have just put paid to her career by making a complete hash of her report. Eyeing Kathy, Shima Patterson might have been about to say something along those lines but a fierce shake of Patrick’s head cut her off.

  Wale spoke. ‘Tonight, as Bob promised, BG has given you proof. The Vigilance is ready tonight. Thanks to the Vigilance, Britain has stronger borders, safer streets, challenging activities for young people and investment in their skills from tonight. Because we pledge to work, not for BG but for a Greater Britain, from tonight.’

  Under Bob a bar stool had materialised. The friendly publican had returned in giant close-up. ‘Friends, our future is close enough to touch. In ten days, let’s call time. Time on politicians who stole our children’s chances. Time on foreigners who exploited this nation’s trust. Time on experts who sneer at what ordinary people can do. In ten days let’s not just touch that future, but through the ballot box grasp it and make it ours. And never, never carelessly give it up.’

  Kathy checked her watch: fevered yells of ‘Bob! Bob! Bob’, applause, girlish shrieks, high fives and stamping feet reverberated round the stadium for seven minutes.

  Patrick’s head was in his hands. Shima glowered, rigid with rage or fear.

  Two confident knocks at the door of their box snapped them out of their traumas. A Vigilance officer – what else was there to call him? – entered. In his early twenties, he was the proud wearer of a smile and a one-chevron cape. ‘How has the evening been for you, ladies, sir? Up to your expectations?’

  Kathy clutched at a straw: the glorious new Britain would still include customer service-speak.

  ‘I’d have to say it exceeded them,’ Patrick said disconsolately.

  ‘Delighted to hear that.’ The young officer turned to Shima and extended his hand. ‘Welcome to BG, Dame Patterson.’

  Shima stiffened, ignoring the hand and the gaffe. So much for incognito. Amplified throughout the stadium came a drum roll. The officer turned didactic. ‘Please stand and face the flag for the national anthem. All of you, please.’

  The larceny of her country’s symbols outraged Kathy. ‘As an officer in the Royal Navy, I certainly stand for the national anthem. But this is a private box and this isn’t an official or royal occasion –’

  But Shima stood and turned, so they all did. The Queen remained alive, so the country still petitioned God to save her. As twenty thousand voices sang, Bob and Annabel hauled an enormous Union Jack up from the stage to the rigging above. It was a Marines-on-Iwo-Jima visual epigram: the nation’s honour raised high, thanks to sacrifice, courage and leadership. The picture occupied the whole front page of the next day’s Sunday Shock: no words were needed. See page three for a cut-out-and-use ‘B’.

  Never before had the words of the national anthem stuck in Shima’s throat like barbed wire. Every two months she journeyed to Balmoral to pay her respects and to offer a fragile figure a short account of the world. If anyone was losing their mind, it wasn’t Her Majesty. Next time Shima would take a spade: the Queen liked to rehearse meticulously. It was time to dig a grave, in order to practise turning in it.

  PART TWO

  Loves go down

  16

  London, Friday 1 May 2020

  Genius will out – my booking for one role-play turns into three
, rising from nine participants on Wednesday to fourteen today. Each half-day in the offices next to the clinic in Waterloo leaves everyone shattered. The civil servants and military slink off like guilty survivors of a bomb blast. They throw envious glances at patients giving urine samples. The anxious patients are bemused. On Wednesday and Thursday I take two extremely well-deserved joints out of their case and sit down with a bottle of wine for an hour in the darkened briefing room.

  That’s not happening today, however; halfway through the show Patrick arrives with a smiley Chinese man with meticulous hair and a loud suit. They stay to the end. Fuck me, the Chinese observing a role-play about a mad Englishman and the South China Sea? Fortunately that is above my pay grade.

  Today’s role-play is my last, thank God. Kathy said to vary the aspects of Bob which I play up; the MOD may keep outsiders’ noses out of its secrets, but internally the gossip machine is fast. Today owed as much to Bruno Ganz as to Bob Grant: there were shades of Downfall and Hitler’s bunker as I stabbed fourteen breastbones with my finger.

  ‘What a finale!’ applauds Patrick as the blast victims file out. ‘You’ve done an outstanding job.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but thanks for the extra bookings. I took them as a vote of confidence.’

  ‘They were. Sadly they were also a reflection of BG’s polling. Still, that’s next week’s challenge. In the meantime please meet Brigadier General Chuck Leung of the United States Air Force. He has experience of exactly what we need from the Pentagon. Chuck, Zack Parris.’

  ‘Surely a pleasure to meet you, Zack. We’ve got much in common.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Up to 2017 I ran Armed Forces Entertainment. Call it the biggest creative studio and booking agency you’ve never heard of. You’re a fine actor, sir.’

  I blink. Patrick puts a reassuring hand on my arm. ‘You’re gasping for a drink, which is on me, but in ten minutes. I’ve promised Chuck an experience which not many tourists can take: a London commuter pub on the Friday before a holiday weekend. But take a few minutes, Chuck, to share with Zack the superb insight you’ll be giving our people next week.’

  It takes Patrick all of the minutes and several false starts to connect Chuck’s laptop to the room’s projector (‘see what I’m like without Kathy?’ he apologises). While he struggles, Chuck tells his story.

  ‘When Trump was elected in 2016, we were caught with our pants down, none more so than our military. A new President brings in his own civilian advisers – thousands of them. But the senior military stay the senior military. So Armed Forces Entertainment pulled this training video together in secret within two weeks of the election. We had no idea how a Trump presidency would turn out, but we had to shake the generals out of business-as-usual, and we didn’t have you to role-play. So the way this video was used, we explained to the generals that it shows Trump about to make a key appointment to his Cabinet. When the video finished, they had to come up with arguments to dissuade him from making that appointment. So the same but different to what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘It was a good phase one – we got attention, and we got focus on how various business-as-usual arguments and techniques might well crash and burn. The video wasn’t a solution, but it created a hunger for solutions. Solutions was phase two, and three, and four. That’s why since 2017 I’ve headed up a new department, OSP – the Office of Strategic Perspectives.’

  ‘So my sending guys back to their desks shell-shocked is phase one. You’re phase two.’

  ‘Well, next week Patrick’s asked me to share in confidence a few of our wins.’

  ‘Wins like?’

  Chuck turns to Patrick, who is trying to connect cables under the conference table. ‘Go ahead, Chuck,’ he calls out. ‘Zack’s a good ’un. He’s one of us.’

  ‘Well, with Trump, clearly you play to his massively superior intelligence. So we headed him off Iran, for example, by persuading him that the country doesn’t actually exist. The whole Iran problem is made up, a strategic ruse by the Chinese, just like climate change. We backed it up with data, classified satellite pictures and stuff and then said, join the dots. How many months did Clinton and Kerry waste on a country whose existence, in point of fact, has never been scientifically established? Who do you know who has been to Iran, Mr President? And how did they know that where they were was Iran? A brilliant mind – he got it straight away.’

  ‘Shit,’ I say.

  Chuck shrugs. ‘It took eighteen months before we hit pay-dirt – abolishing monogamy. We produced shed-loads of computer simulation to show that monogamy was this whole outdated thing which was particularly hurting the efficiency of the military, not least our commander-in-chief. Imagine, we said, if your rank and file soldiers were as motivated as the Mormons? And think how much more effective you could be if you could have a Second Lady, and a Third Lady? I mean, the time saved on lawyers and alimony, for one. Not to mention Utah. As you know it became his signature issue. He was so grateful to us that afterwards, he kind of just did what we asked.’

  ‘Done it!’ exclaims Patrick.

  The video lights up the far wall of the room. A security classification – SECRET: FOR TRAINING PURPOSES ONLY – is followed by an aerial shot of the White House and the opening flourishes of Hail to the Chief. Through a window in the Presidential quarters we zoom into a bathroom the size of Texas. In the middle is a jacuzzi with the Presidential seal. The camera approaches a Donald Trump-lookalike from over the shoulder of the woman he’s in the jacuzzi with. Both are naked.

  ‘You used digital?’ I ask.

  Chuck nods and then laughs. ‘Look-alike actors and then digital. Or maybe we hacked into Trump Tower – take your pick.’

  The Donald says he’s about to appoint his Secretary of the Interior. The camera swivels to show a smiling woman with a striking resemblance to his daughter. Her breasts displace a generous quantity of soap bubbles. ‘As President, I only appoint the most qualified individuals to my Cabinet. Ivanka Trump is by far the most qualified person for this role. First of all, like her exterior, her interior is fantastic. Plus, she has experience in business and design.’

  The camera zooms in on the woman’s face. ‘All my career, I have totally stuck to classic, fundamental principles of business and design. And the most fundamental principle I have learned is, you can never have too much white space.’

  ‘Drinks, everybody?’ says Patrick with a grin.

  17

  London, Thursday 7 May 2020

  Kathy opened the front door of 102A to cannabis and the sound of Zack talking too loudly on FaceTime. Zack had left the studio door open and not noticed.

  In the last week she had seen him stoned more often than she cared for. A vape liquid from the States brought back by an actor-friend hadn’t helped. It was stronger than he was used to, she was sure. The smell, an inch left in the bottle of Sauvignon on the kitchen table and what day it was sounded a big alarm in her head. Alan was expecting them next door in under an hour.

  The final week’s polls had been unrelieved gloom. All had given BG a lead of between four and eight percentage points, and now it was election day. Kathy had come from the train station via the parish church of British democracy, the polling station. Rosetted supporters (one per party) had waited outside, the ten-minute polite queue had shuffled forward, her name had been found and read out, and finally she had made her mark with a pencil last sharpened and chewed in the 1930s. Like thirty million others she had placed her voting paper into a black padlocked box. The boxes and their counting at 10pm were jealously guarded by democracy’s Vicars of Dibley, the returning officers, but in truth that night all the boxes belonged to Pandora.

  Zack came down the stairs and into the kitchen. Kathy poured the last of the wine down the sink. ‘Did you vote?’ she asked, an edge in her voice.

  ‘Sure. This morn
ing.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Are you saying I wouldn’t be arsed to vote against my brother? Come on.’

  ‘We’re due next door in forty minutes and you need a shower.’

  ‘I had one this morning.’

  ‘You need another now.’

  ‘But it’s only Alan. Lighten up! Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’

  Kathy skewered Zack with her gaze while opening the pedal bin with her foot. ‘It’s not only Alan, it’s also me. I hope that’s the only bottle of wine you’ve put away.’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Then Zack crumpled slightly. ‘I’m sorry, Kathy, it’s been really rough today. I don’t know. You know those role-plays? At the time I thought Patrick wanted to shock his people, and I had a bloody good laugh playing mine. But war in the South China Sea could be happening tomorrow.’

  Zack put his arms around Kathy from behind and gave her a peck on the neck. She didn’t resist but neither did she melt. ‘Yes, I had a good day. Thanks for asking,’ she said.

  ‘Oh come on. You’ve just walked in the door.’ Zack opened his mouth again but thought better of it. He went to shower.

  In the ten minutes before she could do the same Kathy browsed her social media. It was lamentation squared, interrupted by the occasional obscene hilarity. In a new first for the mother of parliaments, a candidate had been thrown out from a polling station for indecent exposure. There were zillions of pictures on Instagram.

  ‘Look at this,’ one of her friends had written. ‘Sick!!!’ Someone had set up BG2021, a channel streaming mash-ups imagining future life under BG. The link took her to one which was off the scale in terms of likes and abuse, called ‘the Final End Of’. A packed Holocaust wagon-train slowed to a halt inside a camp: ‘End Of’ appeared on the screen. Some sicko had added a perky TV ad melody from 1978: ‘Cook… cook… cook… cookability; that’s the beauty of gas.’ The original British Gas logo now read Britain’s Great. Kathy hit the off button.