‘Hello . . . ? You down there . . . come up and join me. You get a better view of the race . . .’

Above me, on the upper slope of the embankment, a man was strolling through the darkness. He wore a white tuxedo, as if he had strayed from an all-night party. He beckoned to me with an actorish gesture, but moved cautiously along the pitted concrete, as if a lifetime of treacherous floors had taught him to be wary of any surface. Seeing that I was too out of breath to climb up to him, he made his way down the slope.

I waited for him to reach me, and noticed an American car parked on the road below. A chauffeur in a peaked cap leaned against a door, smoking a cigarette and drawing small sketches on the dark air with its red tip.

‘Right . . .’ David Cruise took my hand, smilingly easy and avuncular, as if greeting a new contestant onto his cable show. ‘It’s worth going up there, you can still feel the slipstream. Listen—did you hear that?’

‘Hold on. A Bugatti, I think. Four carburettors, or maybe a Napier-Railton.’

‘That’s it!’ Pleased that I had played my role in his little routine, Cruise shook my hand. ‘Mr—?’

I introduced myself, but Cruise waved my name into the misty dawn air, taking for granted that he was too famous to identify himself. Without being aware of it, he was playing to the camera, which I sensed was somewhere beyond his favourite left profile.

‘Good, good . . .’ He savoured the air, as if relishing the tang of burnt rubber. ‘Wonderful . . . unlimited horsepower, twenty-litre engines. Nothing like it today. We have the technology, but we can’t build a dream.’

‘Formula One? No?’

‘Come on . . . millionaires in asbestos suits plastered with logos. This was the real thing.’

‘More than the Metro-Centre?’

Cruise stopped to glance at me as we made our way down to the Lincoln. ‘The Metro-Centre? I wish I could see it lasting seven years, let alone seventy.’

He gazed over the dark rooftops of the town, where the last haze of smoke from a few smouldering cars merged into the morning mist. At the football stadium the giant screens were still lit, showing an intermission commercial to the deserted stands. His screen self spoke to an elderly team supporter about her new bedroom suite, his hand bouncing the mattress as if inviting her for a romp.

Cruise silenced me with a raised fist, and stopped to watch himself. His mouth mimed in response to his signature repertory of engaging smiles, the shy grimaces that expressed a deep interest in his studio guests.

Despite the dim light, I could see him clearly in the pale aura of suburban fame that surrounded him. The dark was his medium, the deep blackness disguised as the interior of a TV studio. I was struck by how small he seemed, though he was almost six feet tall, with the kind of muscled physique found among gym users. He was bantering and easy-listening, but never ironic about himself. A minor deity should never express doubt over his own existence. In every way he was a creature of afternoon television, with a head of silver hair sculpted to show off the lower half of his face and hide his high forehead and the inner coldness of his eyes. Long ago he had convinced himself that he liked and felt at ease with ordinary people, and the illusion had sustained him.

A brief cascade of sparks flared beyond the north stand of the stadium, a warehouse put to the torch, an insurance scam taking advantage of the night’s fires.

Cruise winced and turned towards his car. ‘Madhouse—looting, arson, broken windows . . . there was a bomb at the Metro-Centre. As if we haven’t got enough problems.’

‘I saw the damage. The police took me into the basement.’

‘You were there? Brave man. They planted the bomb in someone’s car.’

Cruise had reached the Lincoln, where the driver stood by the open passenger door. I decided to take a chance, and said: ‘My car, as it happens.’

‘Your car?’ Cruise paused before getting into his rear seat. He noticed me for the first time, a face in a studio crowd that the director had pinpointed through his earpiece. ‘They blew up your car? Poor man. You must have been shocked.’

‘I was. An old Jensen. Beautiful car: nothing worked, including the rear lock.’

‘Obliterated? Thank God the bomber was killed.’ Cruise pointed to the silent embankment. ‘And that’s why you came here, to the racing circuit. You wanted to hear those engines again. The authentic thing, like your Jensen.’

‘You might be right.’

‘I am right!’ Cruise held my shoulders in a pair of powerful hands, as if comforting a bereaved contestant. ‘I know—that’s why I came. It’s a ruin, but it’s the only part of Brooklands that’s real.’

‘The Metro-Centre is real.’

‘Please . . .’ He took my arm. Deep in thought, he walked me away from the Lincoln. ‘Listen, I’ve seen you before?’

‘Yesterday. Outside the Metro-Centre. You arrived for your afternoon show.’

‘No. Somewhere else. Years ago.’ He stared into my face with the cold eye of a pathologist recognizing a cadaver. ‘You were younger, tougher, more ambitious. Your voice was higher, you ordered me around. God, I needed that job. What business are you in?’

‘Advertising.’

‘That’s it! The crazy Skoda commercial. I played the dangerous driver. Everyone thought it was mad.’

‘It was mad. That was the idea.’

‘My agent warned me not to do it. Too weird, he said. I’d be typecast. Fat chance, I hadn’t worked for a year. It turned out I was too big for the car, they couldn’t see my eyes. But after that I never looked back. My agent was fighting them off. In a way, thanks to you . . . ?’

‘Richard Pearson. You were very good.’

‘No, I was still trying to act. A big mistake in this business. You have to be yourself. That takes a lot of working at. Every one of us is a cast of characters. I told myself I was a director putting on a new play. All these people turn up at the audition, and they’re all me. Some are more interesting than others, some are more real, some can reach your heart. This happens every morning when I wake up. I have to choose, and I have to be ruthless. You understand that.’

‘Absolutely. It’s a matter of finding the right roles. The kind of roles where you don’t need to act.’

‘That’s it. I remember, last year you won an industry award. At the Savoy, I saw you collect it . . .’

Cruise straightened up, leaving his thoughts to float away across the embankment. I assumed that I would soon be forgotten, the creator of his career left here like the Ben Gunn of this concrete beach.

Then I noticed that the driver had walked around the Lincoln to the offside. Both passenger doors were now open.

‘Richard . . .’ Cruise’s sunburnt hand took my elbow, steering me towards the car as if moving a lucky contestant to his prize. ‘Let’s have some breakfast at my house. There are one or two things we need to talk over. You can give me your advice. Already I feel we can work together . . .’

21

A NEW POLITICS

‘BROOKLANDS? THE WHOLE PLACE is off its rocker. I just don’t get it.’ David Cruise screwed up his paper tissue and threw it at the camera mounted on a tripod beside the swimming pool. ‘What on earth was happening last night?’

‘I think you know.’ I watched the surface of the water, as calm and eventless as plate glass. ‘An attempted putsch.’

‘Putsch?’

‘A palace revolution.’

Cruise grimaced into his make-up mirror. ‘Where’s the palace?’

‘We live in it. The Metro-Centre and all the retail parks between here and Heathrow. You and me and the people who watch your TV shows.’

‘Not enough of them—that’s the problem. Who was meant to lead this revolution?’

‘You know that as well. You were.’

‘Me? I’ll remember, the next time I need a dressing room and a courtesy car. Some revolution, some palace . . .’