by James Ellis
I mopped up the last of the egg with some bread, and while I was wondering whether I could get away with using my tongue to clean the plate, I said, ‘Does anyone have any thoughts on recent events?’ I glanced up. The others were looking at me, waiting. ‘I mean, we’ve agreed to leave here and find the hairy man but other things are unusual too. Don’t you think?’
‘You mean the dog and the decay and the general sense of utter weirdness?’ said Billy.
‘Yes.’ I stared at my plate and picked it up.
‘Don’t lick it,’ snarled the always-angry restaurant owner.
I put it down again. I said, ‘I mean, I feel like our lives are changing. I feel like I’m being stretched out, as if someone’s squeezed into my head and what they see is different to what I see, and because they’re wearing my eyes I see their things too. And they’re too big; too big for my thoughts.’
The always-angry restaurant owner said, ‘Are you talking the same language as me? I have no idea what anything you just said means.’
I didn’t either. I had another go. ‘Everything seems to be changing. Nothing looks like it used to and I wonder how can that be? Things are so different but we’re not reacting in the way that perhaps we should. We’re just accepting it. We’re curious but we’re not… I don’t know, we’re not appalled. We’re not up in arms staring at each other and running around, saying, “Hey, what the hell is happening?” We’re accepting it because we’re always okay with everything that ever happens, no matter how crazy. Whatever happens to us we accept.’
‘That’s because we’re cool,’ said Billy.
‘Is it? You’re sure it’s not because we’re… stupid? I mean, too stupid to even know we’re stupid? We don’t learn or grow. We have a little adventure and then we hang around and then we have another little adventure. What is all that about? Nothing ever changes. No matter what happens to us, we end up back where we are. There’s no cause and effect, no then. It’s always now. If we have an adventure and the restaurant burns down, the next time we look, it’s there again. How does that happen?’
‘But that’s normal,’ said Plenty. ‘That’s natural. Why are you talking so much? I don’t like all these words. Let’s just do things. There are too many words in the air.’
‘I have to admit I feel uncomfortable these days,’ said Billy. ‘I feel heavy and I think about things.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Things that have happened, as if there are lots of me behind me, and it’s the things that have happened to them that I think about.’ He pulled another dry, dead quill from his side. ‘I don’t know what I mean either. But yeah, I think you’re right. Things are changing.’
The always-angry restaurant owner had been watching us, saying nothing, her eyes following our words. Now she said, ‘Thanks for sharing, but shall we keep it real? I don’t want to talk about wearing other people’s eyes or feeling heavy or how everything is changing. We have a dog situation and we have a somebody-is-spying-on-us-and-drawing-us situation. That’s it and all about it. Let’s fix on those two things and worry about the multiple Billy effect later.’
She was right, but I had felt that we had been getting close to something. We weren’t expressing it particularly well but it was something worth pursuing.
‘I think the dog is Bullet,’ I said. ‘So does Plenty. I mean the dog that came last night, not the one that chased us the other day.’ I saw the look of distress in the always-angry restaurant owner’s eyes. Bullet had been, for a short time at least, and a long time ago, her dog.
Billy nodded. ‘I was thinking about that, too. I wasn’t sure but now you say it, I think it has to be her. But where has she been?’
‘She slipped her lead and ran away,’ said the always-angry restaurant owner. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘Sure. It was for the best,’ said Billy. ‘She didn’t fit in. But…’
‘But what?’
‘It must have been difficult for her out there, all alone. That’s all.’
‘She kept chasing us,’ said Plenty. ‘I’m glad she went.’
‘But now she’s back,’ I said.
‘Bad and mad,’ said Billy.
We looked at our empty plates and I thought about the dog we had seen the previous night – her massive head and jaws, the rows and rows of teeth, her insane, blood-red eyes. What had it been like for her, wherever she had been? And where had she been? Where do we go when we’re not here?
‘Is she still out there?’ said Billy.
‘I’ve looked,’ said the always-angry restaurant owner. ‘She’s gone and so have all the bins and rubbish and everything. The alleyway is empty.’
‘Where has it all gone?’
‘How would I know?’
Plenty got up, stretched and went back to the fire. She settled lazily into the warmth, stretching out on the floor, her eyes dark and glittering. ‘You know the cartoon,’ she said. ‘Is that us?’
‘I think we’ve established that,’ the always-angry restaurant owner said.
‘I mean, is that us? Am I a cartoon cat?’ she purred. ‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Then nothing I do is my fault. I can do whatever I want because I’m not real.’
‘How can you not be real? You’re here.’
‘Am I?’ she said without apparent interest in the answer.
Out of the mouths of babes.
‘Of course you are,’ I said. ‘The cartoon is just a drawing of us. Not the other way round.’
I picked up the newspaper, which had been left in the middle of the table, now scruffy and torn and singed, and turned to the puzzle page where the Scraps cartoon strip was. I looked at it for a long time and then at my scrawny, threadbare arms on the white tablecloth next to the newspaper, at the reddish-brown fur that showed skin and tendons beneath it. That’s when I began to think about all the bin-bag stuff and where it came from. I sat back and took out my tin of tobacco. I laid a pinch of tobacco in the paper, spreading it along the crease, and then added a small white menthol filter. I gave the paper a shake, a quick roll and then licked the edge, sealing the tube and plucking out a couple of loose strands from one end, which I put back in the tin. I rolled the Zippo on my leg, sat back and lit up.
Sucking in the smoke, I felt blood run through my veins. I felt my heart beat. I felt thoughts rush through my mind and heard a low-level hiss in my ears. I looked at the chipped, chapped, shiny reality of my claws and felt the pressure of my backside on the seat, the slight discomfort of the table-legs against my knees. My teeth were sticky and needed cleaning, my bladder was full, there was gas in my stomach and my eyes itched.
Plenty was right. There were too many words in the room.
I looked at each of them in turn: smelled their decay, heard them breathing, watched their tics and twitches. I narrowed my eyes and tried to see them as patterns in a two-dimensional mosaic; a flat jigsaw and nothing else, a coloured drawing if you like. But I couldn’t. They loomed towards me, solid, heavy and real. I could hold them, squeeze them, embrace them, grip them, turn them around and view them from every angle.
‘What are you thinking?’ Plenty said.
‘I’m thinking that I could turn you around and view you from every angle.’
‘Just try and see what happens,’ she said.
‘I have a question,’ said Billy. ‘How come we’re so different to other animals? I mean, like, way different – not a bit different but super different. For example, you’re a fox that can talk and smoke cigarettes and walk on two legs and has elbows and knees and things. Is that normal? Seriously? Is that the way of other foxes? And we’re all about the same size, too, aren’t we? Other animals aren’t like that. I’ve not mentioned it before, but now we’re having this sort of conversation I thought I’d bring it up. You know what I mean? The graph looks a bit odd – every other species: flat line; this fox, this cat, this hedgehog and even this Pelican: massive spike. Maybe a smaller spike for the Pelican.’
; ‘Have you seen every other species?’ I said.
‘No.’
I stood up, leaned on the table and without thinking flicked some ash into my saucer. ‘Let’s go and find the Pelican and check out the hospital and find the hairy man. Deal with the difficult stuff later.’ I looked across at the always-angry restaurant owner. ‘Can you remember how to get there?’
But the always-angry restaurant owner was staring at the saucer with my ash on it. ‘People have to eat off that,’ she said.
She got to her feet and it was a bit like a mountain rising from the ground. But all the free-form conversation had loosened me up and I was feeling boisterous, and I missed the multiple warning signs that would have kept me safe and free from physical attack had I noticed them.
‘What people?’ I said. ‘The only time I ever saw any people in here, they were shapes in the window. Shapes like cardboard cut-outs. And the only person I ever actually see in here is you. Where are all your waiters? Your chefs? This isn’t really a restaurant, is it? It’s a backdrop for our adventures. It could be anything. You could be anyone. It’s…’
She hit me on the head with her rolling pin and I fell over.
While I lay on the floor, I watched Plenty jump up and attack the always-angry restaurant owner. I watched them roll around, with Plenty bearing down with her claws out and the always-angry restaurant owner holding on to her wrists. I watched them thrash from side to side and push tables across the floor and knock over chairs. I watched them catch our tablecloth and pull all the breakfast dishes onto the floor too.
My head hurt.
I saw Billy dance around and then roll up into a ball and land on top of both of them, his quills cracking and snapping. He unrolled between the two and spread himself out, his arms against their bodies, forcing them apart, until they all lay side by side, on their backs, breathing heavily, too tired to move.
‘I haven’t got the energy for this anymore,’ said the always-angry restaurant owner after a while.
‘Then don’t hit Scraps,’ said Plenty.
I hauled myself into a sitting position. ‘I think my skull is cracked.’
They looked up at me.
‘There is a bump,’ Plenty said.
‘Just a little one,’ the always-angry restaurant owner said.
‘It looks like an egg,’ said Billy.
‘I am dying here, you know that,’ I said. But the pain and physical activity had actually gone some way to clearing my head. They had gone some way to breaking it, too.
‘I am sorry,’ the always-angry restaurant owner said, getting up, and then she added with some curiosity, ‘I don’t think I’ve actually done that before, have I? I’ve threatened to hit you with my rolling pin, and I’ve definitely chased you, but I’ve never actually done it, have I?’
‘No, and I don’t want you to do it again.’
‘It was satisfying.’
Plenty jumped up and sat next to me. She looked at her paw. She had lost a claw in the fight. She leaned in and whispered to me, ‘Shall I kill her and eat her babies?’
‘She hasn’t got any babies.’
‘If she had.’
‘I think we’re all friends now.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’m worried about the Pelican,’ said Billy.
‘Well, if all the fighting and hitting is over,’ I said, ‘shall we go on the roof and see what’s happening out there?’
We made our way upstairs and again I had an uncomfortable feeling as we passed along the landing that the floor was shifting slightly beneath us. We hurried onto the roof and found a clear blue sky, a warm sun, a balmy breeze. I lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Nice day.’
‘Are you kidding? Take a look down below,’ said the always-angry restaurant owner. ‘Did a bomb go off in the night? Where is everything?’
‘It looks like a kaleidoscope,’ said Billy.
He was right. The rooftops and houses of the previous night were gone. Below, the landscape looked like a liquid mosaic with shapes and unfamiliar objects receding into the distance towards the horizon. They seemed to be moving and changing colour, fizzing into existence and achieving a moment of clarity before fading away into something less defined. It was as if scenes from different films were being played and superimposed on each other.
‘What is that?’ said Plenty. ‘What is all that stuff?’
Billy leaned over the parapet and looked down. ‘There’s the alleyway. See? It’s like a path leading off that way.’
The restaurant was the only building left standing. That and the alleyway. One end of which, the end that had once led onto a blinding light, went nowhere. But the far end seemed to continue into the distance, weaving through the strange, new, ill-defined landscape.
‘Is that the way to the hospital?’ I asked the always-angry restaurant owner.
She frowned, thought and then shook her head. ‘Possibly.’
‘I’m tired,’ said Plenty.
‘You’ve only been awake an hour,’ said Billy.
‘Fighting makes me tired.’
‘I don’t think we should wait. I think we ought to get going,’ I said. ‘Find the Pelican and the hospital and the hairy man.’
‘I want to rest first,’ said Plenty.
‘You can rest later.’
‘You’re not the boss.’
‘I know, but I’ve been hit on the head. Be nice.’
‘I am nice.’
‘If you were nice you would go now.’
‘I am going now.’
‘All right, we’ll all go now.’
Billy laughed. ‘You’re getting better at that,’ he said.
‘Why don’t we deal with this as if it is another adventure?’ I said. ‘Even if it is a really messed-up adventure. And we’ll sort it out like we always do and we’ll come home like we always do. And don’t forget this time we’ve got the always-angry restaurant owner on our side.’
‘She hit you.’
‘We’re over that now.’
We went back inside and down to the restaurant, and straightened the tables and chairs and then looked at each other.
‘Is this it?’
‘This is it.’
‘Is there anything we need to take?’ said the always-angry restaurant owner.
‘Do we have any more bacon?’
‘It’s all gone.’
‘In that case, nothing. Are you ready?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘Me neither, let’s go.’
We stepped through the door and went.
17
It was as if a bulldozer had arrived in the night. Instead of seeing walls and buildings, we saw debris. And the sheer scale of it created strange, optical illusions.
‘Are we looking down?’
‘Or across?’
‘Or up?’
‘I don’t like it,’ said the always-angry restaurant owner. ‘It’s making me feel dizzy. Like I’m going to fall.’
‘Just stay on the path,’ I said. I thought that sounded good, a calm and terse and authoritative piece of advice; as if I knew what I was doing and was not in any way bewildered, or scared, or confused. We walked and I wondered if anyone was watching, but I didn’t think so. I could usually tell when hidden eyes were on me… a shiver ran down my spine. ‘Just stay on the path.’ After ten minutes of walking, I looked back. There was no sign of the restaurant.
‘Has it gone for good?’ said the always-angry restaurant owner.
‘I don’t know.’ That was becoming my mantra. Ask me a question, any question, and I wouldn’t know the answer.
Plenty walked to the edge of the path and looked down at the changing mass of shapes and objects that ran either side of us. She knelt down and reached out to something she could see.
‘Careful.’
She extracted a ball, a pink ball with a bell in it.
‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘I knew it was somewhere.’
‘That was odd,’
said Billy.
We strung out. Billy and I walked together at the front, the always-angry restaurant owner trudged along at the back, and Plenty kicked her ball along between us. She alone seemed indifferent to the shifting shapes around us and walked without any apparent concern along the edge of the path.
‘This is creepy,’ Billy whispered. ‘And where is the Pelican? What if it got tired of flying and had to land in this stuff? I don’t think I could take it if it suddenly leaped out at me.’
‘Just take it one step at a time.’
We took it one step at a time for over an hour. Plenty kicked her ball until she grew bored and left it where it was. Billy retrieved it. The always-angry restaurant owner grumbled and muttered and swore. I smoked and looked furtive. We were all in character.
‘Hey, look,’ I said.
‘What?’ said Billy. ‘Where? Don’t freak me out. Is it bad?’
‘There. Look.’ I pointed. Off to one side, in the middle of the opaque, swirling, changing scenery was a swing hanging motionless, surrounded by railings. ‘I know that swing. I know those railings,’ I said. ‘There ought to be an underpass around here somewhere.’
‘Passing under what?’ said the always-angry restaurant owner. ‘There’s nothing here.’
‘Just keep walking,’ said Billy. ‘Jesus Christ. Now what is she doing?’
Again Plenty was kneeling by the edge of the path, reaching into the moving, translucent surface. She pulled a box into view. A small red box with a screen on it, and a button and a speaker. We gathered round.
‘What is it?’
‘Press the button.’
‘Do not press that button,’ said Billy. ‘Seriously. Do not press that button.’
Plenty pressed the button and a face appeared in the screen. I thought Billy had evacuated his skin. He seemed to be in two places at once, beside us and about a mile down the path. On the screen was a young boy’s face; a young boy with a large, lumpy and shy face.