“ID,” shouts the dark-blue uniformed security guard for the tenth time that minute.
Jak shows him her phone.
“Follow the rail round to the right and join the line to the entrance booth.”
Jak walks down the side of the temporary three-tiered, crescent-shaped stage, its surface covered in a marble-style laminate. Behind it looms a large screen, currently showing an image of the domed Radcliffe Camera, with a backdrop facade of faux-medieval battlements complete with chunky, square crenulations and wide-eyed gargoyles with twisted grins. As she walks round to the building site entrance booth, the gargoyles’ eyes seem to stay on her. She can feel them on the back of her neck.
Only one booth is open for entry. Workers queue for it, show their phones as usual and are then directed to specific seat numbers on the stage, re-exiting the building site and climbing stairs to take their place.
“Jacqueline Churchwell to seat C2. ALL Phones and Devices MUST be switched OFF.”
From her seat in the highest tier, next but one from the left, Jak looks across the Plain – up Iffley and Cowley Roads. Her view of St Clements is partially obscured by the trees in the centre of the roundabout but she can just make out the Cheese Moon cocktail bar, where customers have gathered on the outside seats and ground floor window ledges to watch the show, or at least whatever they can see of it
Long tables, flanked by benches, line the other side of the Plain. The three roads – and much of the view of everyone on them – are blocked off by signs proclaiming ‘Welcome to the Magdalen Archway – the seventh wonder of Oxford’. Jak wonders what the other six are. Arching her neck round she looks up at the screen, now showing an image of the Bridge of Sighs, which dissolves and is replaced by an image of the Westgate Shopping Centre.
Men, women and children arrive in family groups and are shown to their places on the benches. Plates of food, jugs of water and vases of flowers are laid out on the tables. Many of the children clutch plastic cups of lemonade with coloured points of light winking on and off. One large banner, on the pavement behind the tables, reads, ‘Disco Soda’.
Looking up Cowley Road, Jak can see two gold-coloured fountains set up opposite each other on either side of the street. One spouts red wine, the other white. A succession of men, and some women, scoop up wine in buckets and knock it back. As much as they can, as quickly as they can. One woman simply leans backwards into the fountain with her mouth open for what seems like an age before being dragged upright by her laughing friend.
People keep coming and the benches soon fill up. Late comers push in to grab chicken drumsticks and sausage rolls before retreating to consume their spoils, washed down with gulps of wine.
Robbo, large plastic bottle in hand, joins the throng around the white wine fountain, which is supplied by refrigerated pipes from a large lorry, but then notices the red wine fountain has fewer people around it so heads over to that instead. Jak makes out his familiar, shambling gait and wishes to herself that the fountains run out of wine very soon before he has a chance to embarrass himself. Maybe she’ll just have to pretend she doesn’t know him. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The PA system, stacks of speakers either side of the giant screen, whines into life and a caption is displayed: ‘Dr Antony X Messina III’. The doctor himself soon appears, in cricket whites and sat in a wicker chair against a background of rolling chalk hills, reading from a book whilst looking out across a field.
“‘Both gods and men are angry with a man who lives idle, for in nature he is like the stingless drones who waste the labour of the bees, eating without working; but let it be your care to order your work properly, that in the right season your barns may be full of victual. Through work men grow rich in flocks and substance, and working they are much better loved by the immortals. Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace. But if you work, the idle will soon envy you as you grow rich, for fame and renown attend on wealth. And whatever be your lot, work is best for you.’”
He closes the book and looks into the camera, “So wrote the poet Hesiod in the eighth century BC. And what was true in ancient Greece is true in our world today.
“I worked hard to achieve success. The men who built the Acropolis in Athens, the Theatre of Epidaurus at Argolis and the Temple of Apollo at Delphi all worked hard to build their masterpieces. And so did the men – and women – who have built this magnificent Magdalen Arch for you.
“So, good and hard-working people of Oxford, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this sweet city’s seventh and newest wonder. As of tomorrow morning, it will be possible for residents of the Outer Oxford Border Zone to access the City of Oxford via the Magdalen Arch. For now though, I am sure you will all want to join me in thanking our arch builders and congratulating those who have excelled in their roles and who will deservedly receive medals today.
“I am sure you will also join me in enjoying the fare laid out before you and, perhaps, partake of the free wine and Disco Soda for the kids that the Oxford Authority has kindly made available to you all. But before I hand over to our master of ceremonies, Professor Sir Marcus Stannington, Chair of the Oxford Authority, I have one more thing to say,” Messina winks and, after a few seconds of struggling with the cork, pops open an overflowing bottle of champagne, “I declare this Archway… open!”
The screen image pulls back to reveal a sun-hatted group, men in crickets whites, women in floral dresses, who applaud. Their clapping, amplified through the large speakers, prompts most of those on the stage and some of those on the benches to applaud as well. Others, containers of wine in one hand, dutifully stop drinking for a second and slap their free hand against their thighs.
At the front of the stage is a slightly raised podium. Professor Stannington, wearing a flowing black graduation gown and gold-trimmed mortar-board hat, skips up the steps and speaks into a microphone, “Thank you Doctor Messina. And I hope there will be at least some of that rather fine looking champagne left for people to drink!”
On the screen, Messina holds up an A-ok sign with his forefinger and thumb. And the screen switches to the professor’s grinning, heavily bearded face.
“Well, that’s a relief. I can’t bear to see good bubbly go to waste. Or fine wine for that matter, so I do hope you are partaking of the fountains. Well now, onto the matter in hand. The Magdalen Archway construction awards. And without further ado, the Busy Builder award, for going above and beyond the call of duty in doing no fewer than seven extra shifts in one week of construction, goes to…” he glances down at his autocue, “Lee Thurgood!”
A loose suited man leaves his seat in the front tier and walks across the wide stage to the podium. A girl, pink ribbons in her hair, runs up to him with a bunch of flowers. He holds the flowers tight to his chest as he bows slightly for Professor Stannington to place a medal round his neck.
“Careful Carpenter… Outstanding Team Player… Morale Supremo, for being the joker in the pack who brought a smile to all his colleagues’ faces…” awards are announced, applauded and received with apparent gratitude. In each case the little girl presents them with flowers as they approach the podium.
“And next, a very special award for a very special young woman – the Loyalty and Equality Award goes to… Jacqueline Churchwell!”
‘Oh God no, what? Is that why I had to be here? Fuckers!’
Jak stands up and squeezes past her colleague in Seat C1. Cameras are on her. And she is on the big screen as she carefully walks down the steps, feeling slightly dizzy and worried about stumbling. At least she doesn’t have to say anything. Just walk across the stage, wait for the flower girl and then walk up to the podium… ‘just wait for the flower girl’.
At the opposite side of the stage, the flower girl looks from uniformed adult to uniformed adult in confusion. The woman who had been handing her flowers has disappeared and nobody else has any. Eventually the girl runs onto the stage anyway but, with nothing to give Jak, then simply runs off again.
Robbo knows what to do. He puts his nearly empty bottle of wine down and, apologising, pushes his way past a few people to a table, grabs a bunch of flowers – deep blue delphiniums, bright pink sweetpeas and some tiny white flowers he doesn’t recognise – and strides towards the stage.
On the stage, Jak walks slowly to the podium.
“Well, it looks like, er,” Professor Stannington tries to delay in the hope that flowers will be forthcoming but a message in his earpiece tells him to get on with it, “well everyone, it seems like we have run out of flowers. There are so many wonderful award winners that we’ve not quite ordered enough flowers to go round. My apologies. But thankfully we do have enough medals, so well done Ms Churchwell. I shall make it my personal mission to ensure that you do receive an extra special bouquet.”
A security guard, micro-cams attached to either side of his face at eye level, stands in Robbo’s way, “no further, sir.”
“Flowers for my daughter,” explains Robbo.
“No further. Sir.”
Jak bows her head to receive the medal to a smattering of applause.
“But flowers for my Jak. Like everyone else got.”
“No sir. Please return to your seat, sir.”
“Haven’t got a seat.”
“Return to your seat. Sir.”
“Flowers for you? To give to her?”
“Well, now thank you for patience and understanding Ms Churchwell and if you’re as good with flowers as you are with bricks…” Professor Stannington chuckles to himself, “there may well be a vacancy coming up for a flower supplier at the Oxford Authority.”
The guard hears an expressionless voice in his earpiece, “monitored subject is Paul Robertson, watchlisted for possible connections to death of James Booth and attack on Farmoor Reservoir. Treat as potentially dangerous.”
“Step back now! Sir!”
“Just got flowers, look,” Robbo holds the flowers inches from the guard’s face, his hand at chest level. The flowers wave back and forth in the breeze right in front of the micro-cams.
Jak starts to head back to her seat but, while still on the stage, catches the commotion out of the corner of her eye. She glances round, ‘dad? What the fuck!’
The micro-cams relay their blurry signals, cycling rapidly through different focal points, to a data-processing plant. It runs its algorithms and emergency ‘threat-to-life’ processes, and spits out instructions that are received by a marksman looking through a viewing hole in the Magdalen Arch facade. He squeezes his trigger. And a grinning gargoyle spits golden fire.
Robbo’s head rocks back with a sudden and violent jerk. His neck and shoulders follow split-seconds later. His head rebounds like a recoiling rifle, before his body hits the ground.
The sniper’s report echoes around the Plain.
There is a moment of silence. Followed by screams. The flowers scatter at the security guard’s feet. Terrified, all he can think to do is stoop to pick them up.