Thread: Red: Chapters 1, 2.1 and 2.2

Chapter 1
And Red


'And now?'


'It's looking better but a little less stable then we thought.'


The first speaker looked down, creased his brow and drank from his glass. The second man, of a considerably younger age shifted nervously to his back foot, adjusted the papers in his hands and looked even more awkward than before.


'Get Cameron. Quickly.'


The young man span on his foot and alighted from the conversation through the door, watched constantly. Five meters left from the door. The outer door opens. Crunch of foot on gravel tending towards nothing.


And back into silence.


To the shelf. Thin vinyl disc. Bach. Shift to the record player. Careful now. Careful not to scratch it. Place the needle: careful now. Tchz. And round and round we go. Spinning. Inexorably. An inescapable spiral. Constant. Bach Double Concerto for Two Violins in D minor. First movement. Vivace. Quickly now. Quickly, quickly. Still turning, still moving yet exactly the same.


His hand darted in circles around the record player, round his glass and onto the shelf. Hardbacks. First edition hardbacks at that. His hand ran along the names – authors mostly dead but their legacy remaining in these leaves – Beckett, Steinbeck, Joyce and Dickens onto Nabokov and Bulgakov; finally La Divina Commedia shoved far to the end and hidden behind Golding's Lord of the Flies.


Alone he makes his way to a large leather wingback – bespoke – and eventually finds a comfortable position. As the first movement ends he reaches for his glass, realising the room, as the architect had suggested, was too large to reach without having to move considerably. Standing up leaving his Elysium of leather he walks a circle around the room, careful not to tread the same route twice, securing his glass in a well versed hand and back to his chair.


He finds his place again, his mind already departed.


Second movement. Largo. Slow, static, stagnating in solemnity. Voltaire and Rousseau Records. Classical. Why Voltaire? Why Rousseau? Philosophers namesaking music. Marshall Rights? Marshall Aid? Strange. Why classical? Baroque. A hundred and fifty years early! I should have told him. Grand Philosophers of Music. Traditionally of the politic. But no! Those that wrote of them did not know. Music! Where were they? Townhead. Fists and knives. Collectives. Bags passed in handshakes in dark alleys. Unpleasant but stable. It didn't change, neither do most things though. Is Adam still there? When did we speak last? '99? Did neither phone the other even at the millennium? No? Could have died from all the planes falling, the food crisis, banking crash and missile malfunction; that or the hysteria. Adam. The first man ever created. The Genesis and Revelation of innocence. Seems inappropriate that he is younger. Our mother thought she must stamp her heritage on him; and our father on me. Viktor. Not even spelt normally. Well maybe in the Old Country. Do people actually say Old Country? Where is he? Not Adam, he is still where he always was – Cameron. Mum always liked him – his name and her her religion. And dad not me. Viktor. Viktor. Russian but only on the skin. No language. Not Orthodox. Never travelled. Third movement. I should listen. I should. No Stravinsky before twenty. Shostakovich only at thirty. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky at forty. Ashamed. A heritage ignored. Can you ignore the repressed? That which you do not know. Should I have looked? Should they have looked? Looked now? They will. But they didn't. They were told. And thus they will act. But not off their own back. Not on their own. No catalyst. Why did he say it would be too big, maybe for drinking on you own. It is nice though. Spacious. Vacuous? No just spacious. Although perha- no. Just spacious. Grey and blue. Not the friendliest of colours. My old room, sorry Adam, our old room was red. Was red. Was. Red. Red. Was red once. Peeling walls supported by posters. Bunk beds. And red. This thing is twenty minutes long. Where am I? Midway through the third movement? Probably. Yes, yes. Allegro. Fast. Faster yet compared with its neighbour. What's that noise?


“Who's there?” he called from his seat.
“I can't see you, where are you?”
“Cameron?”
“It is he.”
“Thank you for coming, I know it isn't ideal outside.”


The two men came together at last, shook hands briefly and moved to the desk in the centre of the room. The newcomer, Cameron, reached for the decanter but was beaten by a hand trained in its task. Two small glasses were pulled out and two small measures poured.
“Its cold”, Cameron mused, “are people more prone to displeasure when cold?”
“Eh. Oh, yes weather.” he replied half heartedly, pouring another drink.


Cameron stared, studied and sought out an ember of reaction but found none. The old man's face was set with age and experience, wrinkled and sagging slightly. Exaggerated by the dim light each prominent ridge threw shadows a mile long across the furrows.


“Thank you for coming”, he spoke, breaking the silence.
“You've already said, Viktor.” replied Cameron.
“Well, thank you anyhow. It's cold and the people- I know it is not easy. There's not many people left here. Just me and a few of the old timers left downstairs.”
“They haven't come close then? The streets look clear. Not yet at least.”
“No, no. No one yet. Another drink?” finishing his second he went for the decanter again. Cameron still turning his glass in his hand, still waiting to take a sip.
“I'm fine. Is that your third already?”
“Fourth. I had one before you came in. Nothing else to do, I suppose.”
“You should slow down. You might need your wits soon.”
“Do you remember the border last year?”
“I do.”
“I carried you so often, do you remember?”
“I do.”
“You grimace, do you abhor me now? Did you create me as a villain in your mind?”
“I detest this now- where are your ideas?”
“Run dry – time. Not enough, or too much. Too few ideas over too long a time. Not enough time for new ones to form. Don't you have a wife to get home to?”
“I have a little time.”
“And you think they will blame us?”
“I do. And I am sure of it.”
“But what I- what we do is to allow, to facilitate. We don't intervene but we are not necessitated, we are not the event and the event not us. From what it does, in its madness, we cannot be blamed.”
“I agree. I agree you are not in your mind guilty. Not in your opinion at fault. But the mass opinion is not dictated by you and your mind.”
“A fact is that – we did not kill, we did not murder. None of us – especially me.”
“It's naïve, and that's the flaw of your person. You will not listen, not hear what they say when it does not align with what you believe.”
“If you were trapped in a well an-”
“No, stop this.”
“Hear it out– Only decent.”
“No, I'll not, and they will not.”
“If you will not be persuaded then we can wash it- a little water- They still think we are the paper mill. It leaked, but not far – a few newspapers. They panic but they will not listen.”
“Yes, well panic has spread, I will not argue with that. If, though- when rather, when order is restored facts will seep out. What you are will become known. They will recognise us for what we did. What you did.”
“No, no, no- A few newspapers, that's all. A few pockets, a few hushes and it will be fine.”
“No. It is not like it was. It is not simple. It is not a few pockets; or hushes; or a few here and there's. It is not easy any more.”
“But why? People are people. People have always been people! It isn't that far different!”
“People might be the same, as they always have been but this isn't”, gesticulating angrily around him, “It's a brave new world.”
“I can leave then! The factory can burn. It's a paper mill after all! We can brush it up and hide it!”
“I think perhaps it is too late for that.”
“Then- then what?”
“Viktor, I'm sorry.”


Cameron turning to leave, shrugged off a hand on his arm. Feeble. He strode to the door, and left. His shadow lingered in the frosted glass a moment while hushed voices meandered back into the room in small groups of words. Most unintelligible and meaning nothing as a whole. No suggestion of precluding thought.


The door opened again and two large suited men awkwardly worked themselves into the suddenly shrinking room. Not vacuous, not even spacious. The walls contracted, drawing in around him. Shepherding him to where they wanted him. A cage, a trap: his downfall.


“I know- I know you!”