📕 A Hotbed of Rebellion

There are those of the British bulldog spirit who do not back down. Proud souls who, once crushed to earth, rise again. To this brave bunch belonged Charles Benedict, Lord Leathers. Lord Leathers had unexpectedly risen from an earnest peace activist to a Labour peer by the simple method of never knowing when he was beaten. Having been through the revolving door of local government, charities and eventually landing in a cushy, well-to-do publishing house - he knew the rungs of the social ladder. The fact that he bullied his way through the honest bods of the third sector to get there did give his heart the occasional pang. However, he was an Oxford man and had learnt that a stiff upper lip, a regular counting of his income and an Old Fashioned usually quelled any concerns. The fact that he was now ringing the buzzer of the Sixth Extinction Offices proved that the tenacious spirit still lingered in his later years. He had come to tackle Joan Pickington in person regarding that much gossiped memoir of hers, A Hotbed of Rebellion, and he meant to stand no nonsense. 

Many in his easygoing position, informed that the veteran activist, Joan Pickington had decided to not publish her memoir, would have felt that there was nothing to be done about it. They would have accepted her choice as one of characteristic firmness, grieving for moment the loss of a book that promised to be a hoot. Lord Leathers, however, was made of sterner stuff. Whilst he enjoyed the company’s boozy lunches and soirees with semi-stardom, he also straightened up when gold was in the offing. Reading Joan’s curt email retracting the memoir he had raged and grieved: but it never occurred to him not to persevere.

He who perseveres, conquers, as his old public school motto went. 

A busy man about town, he could not immediately pull himself away from his bustling publishing house. After receiving Joan’s notice of reneging on her contract, Lord Leathers had had to deal with a mounting pile of work and attend daily dinners before he could set off for Rebellion HQ. But at eleven forty that morning he had taken the tube to Euston and, after finding his way through the bazaar of restaurants on Drummond Street, stood in front of the tower block of Sixth Extinction.

His mood was a mixed one. He repeatedly assured himself of his prowess in art of negotiation, afterall it was he that had tackled several Members of Parliament for memoirs after a bubbly Conservative Conference had ended in a recorded orgy of “highly unprofessional” whipping. It was he who had even faced up to the young Royalty regarding their stealing of pigs and sinking of rival rowing boats during a Cambridge hazing process. The idea that he might fail in his mission with a so-called “Rebel Mama” was surely a distant one. And yet, a dim recollection of Joan Pickington stirred a faint shake in his knees. For you see their paths in the rebel underworld had crossed before. Just shy of 40 years had passed since their last encounter at a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rally. Even in the old days he had never really been one of her entourage, that was saved mainly for the female sex, but he retained a vague memory of a feisty, energetic woman. 

Yet surely that was just a youthful flair? Just the kind he had once had against the Cold War. All that puritan stubbornness would have worn off with age and a gradual acceptance of reality’s compromises. Steeled by the thought, Lord Leathers imagined her softly breaking, like an apple crumble, under the weight of his status and reasoning. That was exactly what he would subject her to as soon as this intercom was answered. Lord Leathers had great faith in his gift for the gab and he was just clearing his throat, preparing it for the job at hand, when a young nasal voice answered the buzzer.

‘Hello.’

‘Yes... Sixth Extinction Offices - Who are you?’

‘Lord Leathers.’

‘Lord… Are you sure you’ve got the right place?”

“Yes, quite sure. Is Joan in? Joan Pickington?’”

“As ever.”“Well? May I see her?”“Alright c’mon in. 4th floor. I reckon she’s in the Dodo Den.’

The Dodo Den, however, proved empty. Nonetheless, there were clues to a recent occupant. A sheet of flipchart paper was skewed across the floor with a marker pen mindmap drawn under the title “Who’s shagging who?”. Lord Leathers felt his pulse quicken as he leant forwards, trying to decipher the scraggy scrawl. 

‘Maybe Joan’s out in Regent’s park. She walks there sometimes,’ said the nasal rebel, as one tolerant of the foibles of genius. ‘Take a pew’, the youth gestured to a beanbag, ‘and she’ll be back…’. Turning to avoid eye contact with the plump Lord of the realm, the nasal youth began to jaunt off to the rhythm of a distant beat. 

On another day, Lord Leathers would have stared after this non-binary youngster, as his generation were apt to do, and wondered of their gender but today was different. Had Lord Leathers taken his seat he would have seen this pink-haired youth walking off to enter into a dance circle and wondered of the work ethics of today. But Lord Leathers did not take a seat. He was staring, transfixed, at something that lay upon the Dodo Den desk. He drew closer—furtively, with a sidelong eye on the door and the shrinking pink mop on the youth’s head. Yes, his guess had been correct. It was the manuscript of A Hotbed of Rebellion that lay before him. Clearly its author had only just risen from the task of polishing it, for the fountain pen ink was still wet on a paragraph where, searching like Dumas for the mot juste, she had crossed out the word ‘drunk’ and substituted it for the more colourful ‘blotto’. 

Lord Leathers’ pulse stepped up a notch. His globular eyeballs, mimicking his rotund belly, bulged imperceptibly forward with a quick inhale.

As anyone who had wrestled prestige from a resistant world, Lord Leathers has a touch of the Viking about him. A practical, pilfering gene that extends from the clarity of his blue eyes to his readiness for a light footed escape. Even as a young activist, he had been on his toes for any chance at a spot in the limelight. Once he had even sent three other journalists on lengthy ghost chases around the Hebrides to search for nonexistent US army bases just so he could secure a job as a writer for Peace News.  It was this trait that led to him to fly up the ranks before eventually consolidating his years of showboating back in the world of words as a publishing house editor. And while prosperity and his budding place amongst the media mogul monopoly had reduced his spunk for giving rivals the elbow, it had not died altogether. As he hovered over Joan’s desk and flexed his fingers, he eyed the empty rooms around him through glass walls. Not a soul in sight. Everyone it seemed was in the Pangolin Pantry, dancing barefoot to a hypnotic beat. With the coast clear and a tube station just around the corner, Lord Leathers felt the urge to ‘grab-and-dash’ tantalisingly close. A bead of sweat was just popping into existence as he stretched his chubby fingers towards the desk edge.

And perhaps it was fortunate that age had slowed his instincts, for his ears then pricked up to a new sound. He drew back as he heard the lift door open and turned to find Joan Pickington humming Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me in the corridor.

She walked up to the Dodo Desk as gay and carefree as if she had just lost the dead weight of a crotchety husband. In the doorway she paused, lowered her broad sunglasses and eyed her visitor keenly. Her forehead wrinkled as she took in the ornate patriarch in front of her. 

‘Don’t tell me,’ she begged. ‘Let me think. I pride myself on my memory. You’re fatter and you’ve aged a lot, but I know you. In some peculiar way, I seem to associate you with hummus… Pete Pancake? … Foxy Fred? … No, I’ve got it, gosh! Charlie Creeper!’. She beamed with simple pleasure. ‘Not bad, that, considering that it must be fully forty years since I saw you last. I never forget a face. Particularly one so round and red. Charlie. That’s who you are. And we used to call you Creep. Well, well, how are you, Creeper love?’ 

Lord Charlie Leathers’ face had taken on a deeper shade of burgundy than the one mentioned. His assurance was knocked by this reference to his increasing number of chins and his greying locks. True, he had put on a few more pounds, there was no denying that, but such brash reference to it was unpleasant, even for a man of his status. Then of course there was the name. Creeper! How anyone could think that such a nickname for the Lord was beyond him. Even in his earlier, more self conscious years, he had dismissed this reference to his habit of lurking near protest microphones. He had the gift of the gab, as anyone who looked at his present media empire could see, and so, naturally, he should have been on the microphone instead of those meek women of the time. He couldn’t stand to hear his honourable ambition so degraded by a nickname. He said so. 

‘Well, all right. Charlie, then,’ said Joan Pickington with a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘How are you, Charlie? Crikey, this takes me back. The last time I saw you must have been that night at The Bricklayers when Flossy Fran started throwing beer and got a little over-excited, and one thing led to another and in about two minutes there you were on the floor, laid out cold by bottle of rum and all the undertakers present were making bets on your state of consciousness. I can see your face now,’ said Joan Pickington, chuckling. ‘Red as a robin’s breast’ 

Lord Leathers was taken off guard by this trip down a drunken memory lane. The wobble in his knees grew. However, whilst Joan chuckled in recollection, he regained his balance and stepped forward with a flash of his Viking eyes. 

“You’ve quite the memory, Joan. In fact, it’s just your lurid recollections that I wanted to talk about”.

His words fell on deaf ears. Joan Pickington had turned to face out of the window, lost in her thoughts. She suddenly became grave, and her smile hardened into pursed lips of concern. 

‘Poor old Floss!’ she sighed. ‘A lady who never knew when to stop. Her only fault, poor thing’ 

Lord Leathers shifted uncomfortably. He had not left a busy day in one of the most prestigious publishing houses on these fair isles to talk about the alcoholic demise of the late Francesca Silver, a woman who, even before the binge alluded to, had never been a comrade of his. He coughed loudly, trying to break Joan’s reminiscent mood but once on memory lane she was not an easy woman to divert. 

‘I took the whole thing up with her at the pub the next day. Throwing bottles of rum in quaint pubs wasn’t done, I said. Not British. Beer, yes, I said. Bottles, no. I pointed out that all the trouble was caused by her fatal practice of always ordering shots where others began with pints.’

 ‘I…’ said Lord Leathers. ‘I levelled with her about it. She said to me “I know Joanie, I get ahead of myself after an action. It’s the rush of the thing. I need a couple of steady drinks to cool my nerves.” Of course you remember the 80s Creeper, the police weren’t so soft as those in blue today. A drink to regain your composure was natural, sometimes even necessary. I remember one day back in ‘86 when we were picketing a Bristol Shell garage for their dodgy involvement in apartheid when who turned up but Flossy Fran herself. She was carrying one of those cheeky grins and so naturally I knew trouble was brewing.”

 ‘I…’ said Lord Leathers. 

‘Yes trouble, that was old Floss’, proceeded Joan Pickington. ‘In the end, she ended up bashing in one of the petrol machines and getting banged up over in Keynsham police station. The Filton branch already being packed up with our people, you’ll remember. And, so of course I drove down after the picket in the ex-husband’s van to pick up the pieces. A Quaker lass by the name of Sissie Cindy, came down for the ride. As we waited I pulled up to the offy and emerged with several six-packs of solid brew.  Sissie C looked at me in disbelief. “Surely we shouldn’t be turning up to the station with drink?” She said, with spectacles looking particularly square if I remember rightly.’

 ‘I…’said Lord Leathers. 

‘Of course, I nipped that argument in the bud. And good thing too. For when Floss et al emerged from the clink in the wee hours they looked up at me in the van with wide, expectant eyes. Ho-ho I remember Flossy’s words to this day. “This is the end, Joanie, I’m parched as a desert. I haven’t had a sip of the stuff for almost 24 hours. I'm losing my grip.” Poor thing, as you can readily imagine. I drew her into a seat and consoled like a well lubricated aunt, having already had half the cans myself. This time she gave me her solemn word that from that day onward she would never touch another drop. “I’ll do it, damn it,” she said, “I’ve got to. I can’t go through the rest of my life seeing hallucinations in the cell. I saw pink elephants, talking skeletons and even the tomato face of Creeper Charlie looming over me.”’

‘Yes, brother, in that grim moment she thought of you … And she went off with a set, resolute look about his jaw which it did me good to see.’

‘I…’ said Lord Leathers. 

‘And about a month later I came across her in a women’s gathering up North, over Kendal way. She was bubbling over with quiet happiness. “It’s all right, Joanie.” she said, “I’ve discovered the teetotal remedy that is palatable and positively appetising. Mary Jane, they call it, and now I’ve got that I don’t care if I never touch wine, spirits, or any other booze again”.’ 

‘I am not interested,’ said Lord Leathers hotly, ‘in your friend Francesca!’

Joan Pickington was remorseful.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t have rattled on like that—a regular failing of mine at the moment. You see I’ve been knee deep in memories fishing out all that wasn’t lost down the river Lethe during the high tide of drink. And then you know how it is, once you’re on to one corking memory, another flashes back. Probably you’ve come on some most important mission, and here have I been yarning away, wasting your time. Thank you for pulling me up. I’m always telling these young ones to do it. Take a seat, and tell me why you’ve suddenly bobbed up like this after all these years, Creeper.’ 

‘Don’t call me Creeper!’ 

‘Of course. I’m sorry. Forgot. Well, carry on, Charlie.’

 ‘And don’t call me Charlie. My name is Leathers’ 

Joan Pickington started. Her sunglasses fell from the end of her nose and hung swinging by their cord. Another one of those brief wrinkles of strain came over her brow. She gave the man a disappointed look and shook her head gravely. 

‘Going about under a codename? After all these years of open organising? Bad. I don’t like that.’ 

‘Oi!’

 ‘It never pays. Honestly, it doesn’t. Sooner or later you’re bound to be found out, and then you get it all the hotter from the judge. I remember saying that to Rowan Bloom in the noughties when the Greenham Common camp closed down; she was sneaking about London calling herself Vera Brittain in the empty hope of baffling the coppers after a messy blockade of the Army Recruitment Centre. And she, unlike you, had had the basic sense to at least put on a wig. Creeper, old friend,’ said Joan Pickington kindly, ‘is it worthwhile? Can this do anything but postpone the inevitable end? Why not go back and face the music like a satyagrahi? Or, if the thing’s too bad for that, at least look in at some good fancy dress shop and buy a false beard. What is it they are after you for?’

Lord Leathers was beginning to wonder if even a volume that would so stir the British nation like A Hotbed of Rebellion was worth the price he was paying. 

‘I call myself Leathers,’ he said between set teeth, ‘because in a recent Honours List I received a peerage, and Leathers was the title I selected.’ 

Light flooded in upon Joan Pickington’s darkness. 

‘Oh, you’re Lord Leathers?’ 

‘I am.’

 ‘What on earth did they make you a lord for, Creeper love?’ asked Joan Pickington in frank amazement. 

Lord Leathers was telling himself that he must be strong. 

‘It may come as some surprise to you, given the way you’ve been going on, but I happen to occupy a rather sizable position in the charity and literary world. I am now the editor of an establishment whose name may be familiar to you— the Dolphin Publishing Company.’

‘Dolphin?’ 

‘Dolphin.’ 

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Joan Pickington. ‘Let me think. Wait’, she clicked her finger with remembrance, ‘aren't Dolphin the people I sold my book to?’ 

‘They are.’ 

‘Creeper darling—I mean Charlie—I mean Leathers,’ said Joan Pickington regretfully, ‘I’m sorry about that. Yes, by Gaia, I am. I’ve let you down, haven’t I? I see it all now. You came to twist my arm. To help me see the other side. Well, I’m sorry, you really should have called and I would’ve made it clear as day Creeper, you old bloodhound. The book will not be published.’ 

‘But …’ 

‘No. Don’t try your old tricksy ways. I won’t do it.’

 ‘But, goodness gracious! …’ 

‘I know, I know. It’s a blow for the nation. But I won’t. I have reasons.’

 ‘Reasons?’

 ‘Reasons, Creeper. Surely you can imagine the bind the book has put me in since the Rebellion launched into the spotlight. I can’t go around dishing the dirt on those I’m meaning to be leading in the good fight’ 

‘But it’s outrageous. You must have thought of that before. You signed the contract. You were satisfied with the terms we proposed …’ 

‘It’s got nothing to do with the terms.’ said Joan Pickington wistfully picturing the six figure cheque in her hand.

‘And you can’t pretend it’s not ready. It’s there on the desk, finished.’ 

Joan Pickington took up the manuscript with the tenderness of a mother nursing her first-born. She stared at it, sighed, stared at it again, and sighed once more. Her heart was aching. 

The more she reread it, the more of a tragedy it seemed to her that this bundle of laughs should not be given to the world. It was such damn good stuff. Yes, if she did say it herself, such damn good stuff. It was set to rock the British people into just the guffaw they needed at this darkest hour in human history. She had toiled with such love to this great task of erecting a lasting memorial to an epoch British protest history which, if ever an epoch did, deserved its Homer or its Hobsbawm, and she had done it, by Gaia! Unquestionably good stuff. And no one would ever read the damn thing.

 ‘A book like this is never finished.’ she said ‘I could go on adding to it for the rest of my life.’ Her thoughts glided through the glass office doors and fixed on that motley crew in the Pangolin Pantry. What a tale was yet to come out of those earnest souls. Lord Leathers shifted his weight, preparing his next line of attack.“How about under a pseudonym?” he coaxed. “They”, he gestured over to the laptop workers in a neighbouring room “would never need to know,” 

“Oh, the depths you’ve sunk to Creeper. It’s all for the money, isn’t it for you these days? What about the movement? What about the revolution?”

Lord Leathers threw up his hands at such naivety. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Joan. You’d stand a better chance of changing things with a bit of cash and leadership than with the great unwashed over here.”

Joan pivoted on her small heels with determination. Lord Leathers had crossed a line.“It’s over, Creeper, and you’d best be on your way before I teach these youngins about what the Lantern Attorney did with your kind in the French Revolution.”

The threat was hardly out of her mouth before she regretted it. Joan lamented this violent streak in her words. It was endlessly getting her into trouble. The venom, however, had its intended effect. Lord Leathers fumed and reddened with exasperation and, failing to find another persuasive angle, turned to leave. His timing was poor, for at that moment, a yoga mat was pulled from in front of the doorway, and he was sent tumbling into the wider office space. The slapstick of it produced a general guffaw from the Pangolin Pantry Conga line. Fearing tendrils and guillotines, Lord Leathers recovered his balance and dashed for the exit, even uncharacteristically choosing the stairs for a speedier escape. 

Yet despite the general gaiety, Joan Pickington watched on with lips pursed. Refusing money often had this silencing effect on her. She sighed, then brightened. The suppression of her masterpiece was the price of a community spirit. If the media team never wanted the internal debaucheries of protest movements to see the light of day, then so be it. For now, the rebellion came first, and there was nothing to regret or sigh about. She smiled lightly in the morning sunshine and started to tap her feet to the Afrobeat.

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