The Mission Song Read Online Free PDF

ceiling is low and sheer. If they hadn’t heard his declaration of intent, at least they should have heard the
ping
of his polished shoes vibrating as he advanced, but the dominant wife was treating us to her views on modern sculpture which were not merciful. It took the little gentleman several loud
Sirs
to make his presence known.
    ‘
Sir
,’ he repeated, speaking as a matter of protocol strictly to the Head of the Table. ‘I came here to enjoy my meal and read my newspaper’—holding up what was left of it, like a dog-chew, as court evidence. ‘Instead of which, I find myself subjected to a veritable deluge of dialogue
so
loud,
so
trivial,
so
strident, that I am—
yes
’—the
yes
to acknowledge that he had obtained the attention of the table—‘And there is
one
voice, sir, one voice above all the rest—I will not point the finger, I am a courteous man—sir, I entreat you to restrain it.’
    But having thus spoken, the little gentleman did not by any means quit the field. Rather he stood his ground before them like a brave freedom-fighter facing the firing squad, chest out, polished shoes together, the dog-chew stowed neatly at his side, while the three stalwart men stared incredulously at him, and the offended woman stared at her husband.
    ‘
Darling
,’ she murmured. ‘
Do
something.’
    Do what? And what will
I
do if they do it? The big men from Ricky were old athletes, it was plain. The crests on their blazers exuded an heraldic lustre. It was not hard to suppose they were sometime members of a policemen’s rugby team. If they elected to beat the little gentleman to a pulp, what did one innocent brown bystander do, apart from get himself beaten into an even worse pulp, and arrested under the Anti-Terror laws into the bargain?
    In the event, the men did nothing. Instead of beating him to a pulp and throwing what was left of him into the street and me after him, they fell to examining their brawny hands, and agreeing among themselves in loud asides that the poor fellow was obviously in need of help. Deranged. Could be a danger to the public. Or himself. Call an ambulance, someone.
    As to the little gentleman, he returned to his table, laid a twenty-pound note on it and with a dignified ‘I give you goodnight, sir’ directed at the bay and nothing at all at me, strode like a miniature colossus into the street, leaving me to draw comparisons between a man who says, ‘Yes, dear, I completely understand,’ and puts his
coq au vin
into the waste disposal, and the man who braves the lions’ den while I sit there pretending to read my
Cromwell, Our Chief of Men
.

    The second recorded signal was transmitted next evening, the Tuesday. Returning to Battersea after a four-hour stint in the Chat Room protecting our great nation, I astonished myself by jumping from my moving bus three stops early and striking out at full running speed, not across the park towards Prince of Wales Drive which would have been the logical direction, but back over the bridge to Chelsea whence I had just come.
    Why on earth? All right, I’m impulsive. But what was impelling me? The rush hour was at its height. I detest, at any time, walking alongside slow-moving traffic, especially these days. I don’t need the faces in the cars giving me the looks. But running—flat out in my best town shoes with leather soles and heels and rubber quarters—running, if you’re my colour, build and age, and carrying a briefcase—running at full pelt in bomb-shocked London and looking straight ahead of you, manically, not asking anyone for help and bumping into people in your haste—that kind of running, at any time of day, is frankly unhinged, and at rush hour, demented.
    Did I need the exercise? I did not. Penelope has her personal trainer, I have my morning jog around the park. The only thing in the world that explained me to myself as I charged down the crowded pavement and across the bridge was the frozen child I had spotted from the top of