19 The Final Space -1

Thursday, 31 December 1992

So said the banner on the top of the newspaper. So proclaimed the revellers who danced

through early evening streets with their shrill silver whistles and Union Jacks, trying to whip up the

feeling that goes with the date; trying to bring on the darkness (it was only five o'clock) so that

England might have its once-a-year party; get fucked up, throw up, snog, grope and impale; stand

in the doorways of trains holding them open for friends; argue with the sudden inflationary tactics

of Somalian minicab drivers, jump in water or play with fire, and all by the dim, disguising light of

the street lamps. It was the night when England stops saying pleasethankyoupleasesorrypleasedidl?

And starts saying pleasefuckmefuckyoumotherjucker (and we never say that; the accent is wrong;

we sound silly). The night England gets down to the fundamentals. It was New Year's Eve. But

Joshua was having a hard time believing it. Where had the time gone? It had seeped between the

crack in Joely's legs, run into the secret pockets of her ears, hidden itself in the warm, matted hair

of her armpits. And the consequences of what he was about to do, on this the biggest day of his life,

a critical situation that three months ago he would have dissected, compartmentalized, weighed up

and analysed with Chalfenist vigour that too had escaped him into her crevices. He had made no

real decisions this New Year's Eve, no resolutions. He felt as thoughtless as the young men

tumbling out of pubs, looking for trouble; he felt as light as the child sitting astride his father's

shoulders heading for a family party. Yet he was not with them, out there in the streets, having fun

he was here, in here, careening into the centre of town, making a direct line for the

Ferret Institute like a heat-seeking missile. He was here, cramped in a bright red minibus with

ten jumpy members of FATE, hurtling out of Willesden towards Trafalgar Square, half listening to

Kenny read his father's name out loud for the benefit of Crispin who was up front, driving.

'"When Dr. Marcus Chalfen puts his Future Mouse on public display this evening he begins a

new chapter in our genetic future.""

Crispin threw his head back for a loud, "Ha!"

"Yeah, right, exactly," continued Kenny, trying unsuccessfully to scoff and read simultaneously,

'like, thanks for the objective reporting. Umm, where was I ... all right: "More significantly, he

opens up this traditionally secretive, rarefied and complex branch of science to an unprecedented

audience. As the Ferret Institute prepares to open its doors around-the-clock for seven years, Dr.

Chalfen promises a national event which will be 'crucially unlike the Festival of Britain in 1951 or

the 1924 British Empire Exhibition because it has no political agenda'."

"Ha!" snorted Crispin once more, this time turning right around in his seat so the FATE minibus

(which wasn't officially the FATE minibus; it still had ken sal rise family services unit in ten-inch

yellow letters on either side; a loan from a social worker with furry animal sympathies) only

narrowly missed a gaggle of pissed-up high-heeled girls who were tottering across the road. "No

political agenda? Is he taking the fucking piss?

"Keep your eyes on the road, darling," said Joely, blowing him a kiss. "We want to at least try to

get there in one piece. Umm, left here .. . down the Edgware Road."

"Fucker," said Crispin, glowering at Joshua and then turning back. "What ajucker he is."

'"By 1999," read Kenny, following the arrow from the front to page five, '"the year experts

predict recombinant DNA procedure will come into its own approximately fifteen million

people will have seen the Future Mouse exhibition, and many more worldwide will have

followed the progress of the Future Mouse in the international press. By then, Dr. Chalfen will have

succeeded in his aim of educating a nation, and throwing the ethical ball into the people's court.""

"Pass. Me. The. Fuck. Ing. Buck. Et," said Crispin, as if the very words were vomit. "What do

the other papers say?"

Paddy held up Middle England's bible so Crispin could see it in the rear-view. Headline: mouse mania

"It comes with a free Future Mouse sticker," said Paddy, shrugging his shoulders and slapping

the sticker on his beret. "Pretty cute, actually."

"The tabloids are a surprise winner, though," said Minnie. Minnie was a brand-new convert: a

seventeen-year-old Crusty, with matted blonde dreads and pierced nipples, whom Joshua had

briefly considered becoming obsessed with. He tried for a while, but found he just couldn't do it; he

just couldn't leave his miserable little psychotic world-of-Joely and go out seeking life on a new

planet. Minnie, to her credit, had spotted this straight off and gravitated towards Crispin. She wore

as little as the winter weather would allow and took every opportunity to thrust her perky pierced

nipples into Crispin's personal space, as she did now, reaching over to the driver's cab to show him

the front page of the daily rag in question. At one and the same time Crispin tried unsuccessfully to

take the Marble Arch roundabout, avoid elbowing Minnie in the tits, and look at the paper.

"I can't see it properly. What is it?"

"It's Chalfen's head with mouse ears, attached to a goat's torso, which is attached to a pig's arse.

And he's eating from a trough that says "Genetic Engineering" at one end and "Public Money" at

the other. Headline: chalfen chows down."

"Nice. Every little helps."

Crispin went round the roundabout again, and this time got

the turning he required. Minnie reached over him and propped the paper on the dashboard.

"God, he looks more fucking Chalfenist than ever!"

Joshua bitterly regretted telling Crispin about this little idiosyncracy of his family, their habit of

referring to themselves as verbs, nouns and adjectives. It had seemed a good idea at the time; give

everybody a laugh; confirm, if there was any doubt, whose side he was on. But he never felt that

he'd betrayed his father the weight of what he was doing never really hit him until he heard

Chalfenism ridiculed out of Crispin's mouth.

"Look at him Chalfening around in that trough. Exploit everything and everybody, that's the

Chalfen way, eh Josh?"

Joshua grunted and turned his back on Crispin, in favour of the window and a view of the frost

over Hyde Park.

"That's a classic photo, there, see? The one they've used for the head. I remember it; that was

the day he gave evidence in the California trial. That look of total fucking superiority. Very

Chalfenesque!"

Joshua bit his tongue. don't rise to it. if you don't rise

TO IT, YOU GAIN HER SYMPATHY.

"Don't, Crisp," said Joely firmly, touching Joshua's hair. "Just try to remember what we're about

to do. He doesn't need that tonight."

BINGO.

"Yeah, well

Crispin put his foot down on the accelerator. "Minnie, have you and Paddy checked that

everyone's got everything they need? Balaclavas and that?"

"Yeah, all done. It's cool."

"Good." Crispin pulled out a small silver box filled with all the necessaries to roll a fat joint and

threw it in Joely's direction, catching Joshua painfully on the shin.

"Make us one, love."

CUNT.

Joely retrieved the box from the floor. She worked crouching with the Rizla resting on Joshua's

knee, her long neck exposed, her breasts falling forward until they were practically in his hands.

"Are you nervous?" she asked him, flicking her head back once the joint was rolled.

"How d'you mean, nervous?"

"About tonight. I mean, talk about conflict of loyalties."

"Conflict?" murmured Josh hazily, wishing he were out there with the happy people, the

conflict-free people, the New Year people.

"God, I really admire you. I mean, FATE are dedicated to extreme action .. . And you know,

even now, I find some of the stuff we do ... difficult. And we're talking about the most firmly held

principle in my life, you know? I mean, Crispin and FATE.. . that's my whole life."

OH GREAT, thought Joshua, OH FANTASTIC.

"And I'm still shit scared about tonight."

Joely sparked the joint and inhaled. She passed it straight to Joshua, as the minibus took a right

past Parliament. "It's like that quote: "If I had to choose between betraying my friend or my country,

I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." The choice between a duty or a principle, you

know? You see, I don't feel torn like that. I don't know if I could do what I do if I did. I mean, if it

was my father. My first commitment is to animals and that's Crispin's first commitment too, so

there's no conflict. It's kind of easy for us. But you, Joshi, you've made the most extreme decision

out of us all ... and you just seem so calm. I mean, it's admirable .. . and I think you've really

impressed Crispin, because you know, he was a little unsure about whether

Joely kept on talking, and Josh kept on nodding in the necessary

places, but the hardcore Thai weed he was smoking had lassoed one word of hers calm and

reined it in as a question. Why so calm, Joshi? You're about to get into some pretty serious shit why so calm?

Because he imagined he seemed calm from the outside, preternaturally calm, his adrenalin

enjoying an inverse relationship with the rising New Year sap, with the jittery nerves of the FATE

posse; and the effect of the skunk on top of it all ... it was like walking under water, deep under

water, while children played above. But it wasn't calm so much as inertia. And he couldn't work out,

as the van progressed down Whitehall, whether this was the right reaction to let the world wash

over him, to let events take their course or whether he should be more like those people, those

people out there, whooping, dancing, fighting, fucking .. . whether he should be more what was that

horrible late twentieth-century tautology? Proactive. More proactive in the face of the future.

But he took another deep hit on the joint and it sent him back to twelve, being twelve; a

precocious kid, waking up each morning fully expecting a twelve hours until nuclear apocalypse

announcement, that old cheesy end-of-the-world scenario. Round that time he had thought a lot

about extreme decisions, about the future and its deadlines. Even then it had struck him that he was

unlikely to spend those last twelve hours fucking Alice the fifteen-year-old babysitter next door,

telling people that he loved them, converting to orthodox Judaism, or doing all the things he wanted

and all the things he never dared. It always seemed more likely to him, much more likely, that he

would just return to his room and calmly finish constructing Lego Medieval Castle. What else

could you do? What other choice could you be certain about? Because choices need time, the

fullness of time, time being the horizontal axis of morality you make a decision and then you wait

and see, wait and see. And it's a lovely fantasy, this fantasy

of no time (TWELVE HOURS LEFT TWELVE HOURS LEFT), the point at which

consequences disappear and any action is allowable (Tm mad I'm fucking mad for it' came the cry

from the street). But twelve-year-old Josh was too neurotic, too anal, too Chalfenist to enjoy it,

even the thought of it. Instead he was there thinking: but what if the world doesn't end and what if I

fucked Alice Rodwell and she became pregnant and what if

It was the same now. Always the fear of consequences. Always this terrible inertia. What he was

about to do to his father was so huge, so colossal, that the consequences were inconceivable he

couldn't imagine a moment occurring after that act. Only blankness. Nothingness. Something like

the end of the world. And facing the end of the world, or even just the end of the year, had always

given Josh a strangely detached feeling.

Every New Year's Eve is impending apocalypse in miniature. You fuck where you want, you

puke when you want, you glass who you want to glass the huge gatherings in the street; the

television round-ups of the goodies and baddies of time past; the frantic final kisses; the 10! 9! 8!

Joshua glared up and down Whitehall, at the happy people going about their dress rehearsal.

They were all confident that it wouldn't happen or certain they could deal with it if it did. But the

world happens to you, thought Joshua, you don't happen to the world. There's nothing you can do.

For the first time in his life, he truly believed that. And Marcus Chalfen believed the direct opposite.

And there in a nutshell, he realized, is how I got here, turning out of Westminster, watching Big

Ben approach the hour when I shall topple my father's house. That is how we all got here. Between

rocks and hard places. The frying pan and the fire.

Thursday, December 31 at 1992, New Year's Eve

Signalling problems at Baker Street

No Southbound Jubilee Line Trains from Baker Street

Customers are advised to change on to the Metropolitan Line at Finchley Road

Or Change at Baker Street on to the Bakerloo There is no alternative bus service Last Train 02.00 hours

All London Underground staff wish you a safe and happy New Year!

Willesden Green Station Manager, Richard Daley

Brothers Millat, Hifan, Tyrone, Mo Hussein-Ishmael, Shiva, Abdul-Colin and Abdul-Jimmy

stood stock-still like maypoles in the middle of the station while the dance of the New Year went on

around them.

"Great," said Millat. "What do we do now?"

"Can't you read?" inquired Abdul-Jimmy.

"We do what the board suggests, Brothers," said AbdulColin, short-circuiting any argument

with his deep, calming baritone. "We change at Finchley Road. Allah provides."

The reason Millat couldn't read the writing on the wall was simple. He was stoned. It was the

second day of Ramadan and he was cai ned Every synapse in his body had clocked out for the