Part 14 (1/2)

People were eating Christmaspudding, slices of turkey. They were even forcing down brussels sprouts, just on principle. Someone gave me a mince pie. ”Blessed be,” yelled a radical pagan in my ear, and gave me a leaflet demanding that once we had won back the season, we rename it Solsticemas. He was buffeted away by a group of muscular ballet dancers dressed as sugar-plum fairies and nutcrackers.

I was getting close to the venue where the party was supposed to be, but if anything there were even more people on the streets now. The place was going to be surrounded. How would we get in?

Figures were moving in on the crowd. Oh s.h.i.+t, I thought, the police. But it wasn't. It was an angry-looking, aggressive bunch, smas.h.i.+ng car windscreens as they came. They were dressed as Santa Claus.

”f.u.c.k,” muttered someone. ”It's the Red-and-White Bloc.”

It was obvious that the R&Ws were out for trouble. Everyone else in the crowd tried to draw away from them. ”p.i.s.s off!” I heard someone shouting, but they paid no attention.

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville Now I could see cops, ma.s.sing in the side streets. The Red-and-White Bloc were drawing them out, chucking bottles, screaming, ”Come on then!” like p.i.s.sed-up Footballfans.

I was backing away. I turned, and there it was: the site for the party. Hamleys, the toy store.

The armed guards who normally protected it must have run ages ago, faced with this chaos. I looked up and saw horrified faces at the windows.

I should be up there, I thought. With you. They were the partygoers. Kids and their parents, besieged by the demonstration, watching the police approach.

And oh, there was Annie, shouting to me, standing under Hamleys' eaves. I wailed with relief and ran to her.

”What's going on?” she shouted. She looked terrified. The Yule Squads were approaching the provocateurs of the Red-and-White Bloc, banging their truncheons in time on tinsel-garlanded s.h.i.+elds.

”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l,” I whispered. I put my arms protectively around her. ”There's going to be trouble,” I said. ”Get ready to run.”

But as we stood there, tensing, something astonis.h.i.+ng happened. I blinked, and out of nowhere had come a young man in a long white robe. Before anyone could stop him he was between the ranks of the Red-and-White Bloc and the police.

”He's mad!” someone shouted, but all the hundreds and hundreds of people were beginning to hush.

The man was singing.

The police bore down on him, the R&Ws made as if to shove him away, but his voice soared, and both sides hesitated. I had never seen anything so beautiful.

He sang a single note, of unearthly purity. He made it last, for long seconds, and then continued.

”Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.”

He paused, until we were straining.

”Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.”

The R&W Bloc were still. Everyone was still.

”Yet in thy dark streets s.h.i.+neth, the everlasting light...”

And now the police were stopping. They were putting their truncheons down. One by one they Looking for Jake, By China Mieville set aside their s.h.i.+elds.

”The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

More white-clad figures were appearing. They walked calmly to join their friend. With a start, I realised I was s.h.i.+elding my eyes. There was an implacable authority to these astonis.h.i.+ng figures who had come from nowhere, these tall, stunning, uncanny young men. The white of their robes seemed impossibly bright. I could not breathe.

Now all of them were singing. ”How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is giv'n. So G.o.dimparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav'n.”

One by one, the police removed their helmets and listened. I could hear the frantic squawking of their superiors from the earpieces they removed.

”No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin...” The singers paused, until I ached to have the melody conclude. ”Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

The police were smiling and tearful amid a litter of body armour and nightsticks. The first singer raised his hand. He looked down at all the discarded weaponry. He declaimed to the Red-and-White Bloc.

”You should not have tried to fight,” he said, and they looked ashamed. He waited.

”You would have been trounced. Where as now, ” he continued, ”these idiots have disarmed.

Now's the time to fight.” And he swivelled, and en ma.s.se, he and his fellow singers launched themselves at the police, their robes flapping.

The helpless cops gaped, turned, ran, and the crowd roared, and began to follow them.

”We are the Gay Men's Radical Singing Caucus!” the lead singer yelled in his exquisite tenor.

”Proud to be fighting for a People's Christmas!”

He and his comrades began to chant: ”We're here! We're Choir! Get used to it! ”

”It's a Christmas miracle!” said Annie. I just hugged her until she muttered, ”Alright Dad, easy.”

Behind me the crowd were shouting, taking over the streets.

”That's the trouble with the Red-and-White Bloc,” muttered Annie. ”b.l.o.o.d.y 'strategy of tension' my a.r.s.e. Bunch of anarchist adventurists.”

”Yeah,” said a boy next to her. ”Anyway, half of them are police agents. It's the first principle, isn't it? Whoever's arguing fiercest for violence is the cop.”

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville I was gaping, my head swinging between the two of them as if I were a moron watching tennis.

”What...? ” I said finally.

”Come on, Dad,” said Annie. She kissed me on the cheek. ”You'd never have let me go otherwise. I had to get you to walk here or we'd have been too early. Trapped like them.” She pointed at the still-staring prizewinners in Hamleys' top floors. ”And then I had to run off or you'd never have let me join in. Come on.” She took my hand. ”Now that we've bust through the police lines, we can reroute the march past Downing Street.”

”Well then it's the perfect opportunity to get out of here . . .”

”Dad,” she said. She looked at me sternly. ”I couldn't believe it when you won that prize. I never thought I'd have a chance to be down this way today.”

”Someone grabbed you,” I said.

”That was Marwan.” She indicated the young man who had spoken. ”Dad, this is Marwan.

Marwan, this is my dad.”

Marwan smiled and shook my hand politely, s.h.i.+fting his placard. MUSLIMS FOR CHRISTMAS, it said. He saw me reading it.

”It's not that much of a big deal for me,” he said, ”but we all remember how this lot came out for us when Umma Plc tried to privatise Eid. That meant a lot, you know. Anyway . . .” He looked away shyly. ”I know it's important to Annie.” She gazed at him. Ah, I thought.

”Marwan's handful of flowers, Dad,” she was saying to me. ”Off the internet.”