The Delegates' Choice aka The Book Stops Here

'What the hell's going on over there?' said Ted.

Israel peered through the windscreen. 'Well, from a distance it looks to me like it's people burning tyre wheels and rolling them down the hill.'

'That's what I thought,' said Ted. 'But why in God's name would anyone do that?'

'No idea. Some sort of pagan ritual?'

'Burning car tyres?'

'Well, maybe a sort of…reinterpretation of some…pagan ritual.'

'Aye. That'll be our lot then.'

Israel parked the Mini carefully in a lay-by and then they clambered over a stile and began walking down across a field towards the tyre burners.

It was dark now, but still warm, and there was the sound of birdsong, and suddenly, here, just for a moment-a tiny moment; just a half even, maybe, or a quarter-in a field somewhere in England, for the first time since being back, Israel felt, for a piece of a moment, at home.

He felt overcome by the intensity of his own existence, and yet at the same time completely disembodied from it, as though he were observing his own experience. He thought for a moment of Robert Browning, and of Robert Bridges, and Thomas Hardy, and Ray Davies, and T. E. Lawrence, and Tim Henman, and of hedgerows, and cricket, and is there honey still for tea? He did not think, for a moment, of Gloria. He felt idyllic.

He decided not to mention this to Ted.

'Get down!' said Ted suddenly, as they approached a hedge. 'Down on yer hunkers.'

'Mywhatters?'

'Hunkers. Quick! Down. Get down! Quick!'

Israel did not get down on his hunkers quick enough, so Ted pushed him down flat into the damp mud.

'Ted!'

'Sshh!'

'What? Why?' whispered Israel. 'Have they seen us?'

'Look. There,' whispered Ted.

'Where?'

'Ahint the hedge there.'

'A hint?'

'Aye.'

Israel looked ahint the hedge there.

It wasn't the travellers.

It was a long line of policemen, wearing dark blue boiler suits. And protective helmets. And carrying shields. Shoulder to shoulder. In total silence. And behind them, just over the hedge, piled up, were shovels and picks and spades.

'Oh, shit!' said Israel. 'I don't like the look of this, Ted! What are the police doing here?'

'The same thing we're doing here,' whispered Ted. 'Come on, we need to get out of here,' and so they wriggled along on their bellies beside the hedge, as quietly as they could, away from the police, taking a much longer, snaking, circuitous route through fields of wheat towards the travellers and their burning tyres.

Eventually, having successfully evaded the police, and down towards the bottom of the hill, safely hidden in among some trees, they were close enough to observe.

'Travellers in their natural environment,' whispered Israel, putting on his best David-Attenborough-observing-the-gorillas voice.

'Sshh!' said Ted.

Men and women, stripped to the waist, were leaping over fires. Someone was playing bongos, and people were dancing barefoot, and there were jugglers, and fire-eaters, and people were being tattooed, and there was a child dancing around in a luminous skeleton suit, while other people lay around on the ground, wrapped in rugs, passing bottles and joints. And there, among them, sprawled out, were Stones and Bree, locked in-'Sweet Jesus!' said Ted-an intimate embrace. And behind them, parked at the top of the hill, among the camper vans, old coaches, horseboxes and ambulances, was the mobile library, resplendent, glowing in the firelight, in all its repainted glory, its Eye of Horus keeping watch over the proceedings.

'Got 'em!' said Ted.

'Keep your voice down!' said Israel.

'The dirty lying thieving bastards!' continued Ted. 'Look at 'em. Totally scunnered, the lot of them. Bloody bunch of scoots.'

'So what do we do now?' said Israel.

'We're going to wait here until they're all well away from the van,' said Ted.

'And then what?'

'We're going to steal her back.'

'Steal her?' whispered Israel. 'That's-'

'How else d'ye think we're going to get her?'

'Well, couldn't we just go and talk to them first?' said Israel. 'And then we could maybe talk to the police, and explain what's happened and-'

'It'll all be happy ever after?' said Ted.

'I'm sure the police would help us.'

'Aye, well, I've never met a policeman before who wanted to help me, and I very much doubt I'm going to meet one now.'

'Well, I don't know about that,' said Israel, 'the police can be'-and then he recalled a number of recent incidents in Tumdrum, including his being accused of robbery and the kidnap of Mr Dixon, of Dixon and Pickering's department store, for example-'a little unpredictable,' he admitted. 'But stealing the van back is quite a risky strategy, isn't it?'

'A risky strategy?' said Ted. 'It's justice, ye eejit. What is it you people say?'

'Which people?'

'You.'

'Vegetarian Jewish librarians from north London?'

'Ach, no! "An eye for an eye."'

'"A tooth for a tooth"?'

'Aye.'

'"A hand for a hand"?'

'Exactly.'

'"A foot for a foot"?'

'There you are.'

'Exodus, you mean?'

'Rebritution,' said Ted.

'Retribution,' corrected Israel.

'That's right,' said Ted. 'That's what you lot believe, isn't it?'

'Your use of the term "you lot" is not entirely helpful, I must say,' whispered Israel. 'And I think you'll find that in Jewish law, in fact-'

'Ach, well, all I mean is, they stole the van from us, and so we're perfectly entitled to steal her back.'

'Well, that may sound perfectly reasonable,' said Israel, mouthing the words rather than speaking them, 'but I hardly think it would stand up as an argument in a court of law.'

'We're not in a court of law, you eejit! In case you hadn't noticed, we're in a bloody field in the middle of bloody nowhere!'

'Yes, that's right,' whispered Israel, 'and how would you suggest we go about getting the van back, seeing as the obvious obstacles in our way in this bloody field in the middle of bloody nowhere include several hundred travellers, and at least the same number of riot police? Huh?'

'I don't rightly know at the moment,' said Ted. 'I'm thinking. First thing we need to do is lure them away from the van.'

'Well, that's not difficult, is it?' said Israel. 'Four fifty-eight a.m.'

'What?'

'Is the time of sunrise, didn't the steward say? They'll all be up and worshipping the sun then, or something. That'll certainly distract them.'

'Brilliant,' said Ted, patting Israel hard on the back-too hard. Israel almost fell over. 'Brilliant! Ye know what, that's the only sensible thing you've said all day.'

'Thank you,' gasped Israel.

'That'll do us rightly. So all we need to do is keep watch, wait for them to start the auld slaughtering of the sheep and the goats-'

'I don't think they slaughter sheep and goats on the solstice, Ted.'

'Or whatever it is they do, and then we slip in and take the van. We'll take it in turns to keep watch. Right. You bed down there. I'll take the first shift.'

'Bed down where?'

'There.' Ted pointed at the ground.

'On the ground?'

'Aye.'

'I'm not sleeping there.'

'Well, unless you brought a wee blow-up feather bed with you, that'll be exactly where you're sleeping.'

'Couldn't I go back to the car?'

'Of course you can't go back to the car,' said Ted.

'Why not?'

'Because we're on reconnaissance. We've got to keep a lookout.'

* * *

'Well met by moonlight!' came a voice then, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, Israel's mother was squatting down among the trees with them. She was wearing a highly visible bright red Gore-Tex jacket-which matched, worryingly, the colour of her lipstick-and a pair of long brown boots, with heels, with velvet trousers tucked into the top.

'Jesus Christ, woman!' gasped Ted. 'You scared the crap out of me there!'

'Sorry, boys,' she whispered.