RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

210 | denis beckett
I remembered this for a freak reason. There’d been pride and
jest and champagne toasts, not to the first-ever floating of maxidemoc,
but to the first-ever Frontline appearing on the first day
of the month it was dated.
In point of fact my memory was a bit out. That had been June
of 1984, not May. But taking a seat in a park, fresh from rebuff
Number umpty X, the five-year question was in my head: what
had I achieved during it? answers:
(1) status of crank and bore,
(2) bouncing cheques.
against that, ephemeral stuff – a sense of purpose, an
understanding of things not understood before. Would I do the
same five years again? Yes. Did I want five new years of the
same? No no no no no no please no aaaargh.
When I’d made my not-quite promise to my colleagues,
I had been not-quite serious. Now on a faraway park bench,
envying the park’s cleanliness, it was crystal clear. It wasn’t
about abandoning Frontline. Why had I ever thought like that?
It was rescuing Frontline from the quirk in my head. as of now,
I would slap down the direction-finding molecules in my typing
hand. I would get home with but one aim in mind: resuscitate
Frontline and make it the lively, not to say lucrative, journal it
was meant to be.
The finality in my mind surprised me. I had two questions:
(1) who would be happier: Gael, or my colleagues?
(2) how had it taken me five years to sober up?
Well, now it was done. I was over the hump.
I took a long detour. There was spring in my step. a load
was shed. London was summery and beautiful. The world was
fine and the future was bright. at the hotel I showered with a
light heart. as I shut the water off I heard the TV news in the
bedroom. It said: “… prominent anti-apartheid activist.”
I scuttled into the bedroom and there was David Webster
in the box behind the news-reader’s head. David had done
something? Something had happened to David?
Somebody had shot David. He was dead.