by Kevin Brooks
whose face was quite turtle-ified,
so when Joyce was quite shaken
by the knock she’d just taken
she mistakenly thought Myrtle was Clyde.
I’m not sure though …
It doesn’t quite work, does it?
I’ve probably misremembered it.
Anyway, there was another one. A shorter one, about a zebra, which I just can’t remember at all. I’ve been racking my brains for days, but I can’t get it. And that’s really bothering me.
08.00: The light comes on and my memories fade. I get out of bed, already dressed, and wrap myself in blankets. Everything’s cold, but my feet are the coldest. They’re cold all the time. Drinking gallons of icy water probably doesn’t help. I go to the bathroom, wash, slip the sheet over my head and try to use the lavatory. Not much there. I walk back down the corridor, nod a silent greeting to Fred as he passes the other way, and go into the kitchen. Sit down, wait for the lift to arrive.
08.45: Jenny comes in. We talk. She has sores on her mouth and her nose is runny. Her breath smells horrendous. Mine too, I expect.
08.55: Fred wanders in, shirtless, scratching his belly. He doesn’t say much. He ruffles Jenny’s hair. I tell him I want to see him later. He says OK, drinks from the tap, and wanders back to his room.
09.00: The lift comes down. Empty.
09.30: The day drags on. I talk to Fred. We discuss how long we can go without food. Neither of us knows for sure, but we both think it’s probably quite a long time. Ten days, a couple of weeks, a month …
‘As long as we’ve got water,’ Fred says. ‘Water’s what counts.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You got any ideas?’
‘About what?’
‘Getting out of here.’
I look at him. I start giggling.
‘Shit,’ he says.
My laughter turns to tears.
Later on, back in my room, I lie down and think some more about the zebra. It’s becoming an obsession. There once was a zebra … ? No. Zebras are … ? No. I try to imagine Dad’s mouth speaking the words, hoping it’ll nudge my memory. I see his teeth, his lips, his bristly moustache … but I can’t hear the words. And now I can’t even remember what he looks like.
I can’t remember what Mum looked like either.
No, hold on … there she is. I can see her now. We’re walking down the road together, a long time ago. It’s dusty. There are builders across the road, building a new house or something. I can hear the dumper trucks. Drills. The whump of a jackhammer. Shouts for tea. The road is tracked with dried clay and the clay is zigzagged with the tyre marks of the dumper trucks. Dried clay is good for kicking. Cracks off nice and hard.
Mum tugs at my hand. ‘On the pavement, please.’
I pull away from her and aim another kick, and a slab of dried clay skids across the street.
‘Linus!’
At the bottom of the road we pass a workman coming up. One of the builders. Knapsack, hat, cigarette, boots, a waistcoat over sun-browned skin. He’s got a bracelet on his wrist, a silver snake. He steps aside to let us pass. Dark eyes, a passive nod. Then he carries on up the street. I look back at him, wondering what he is. He looks like an outlaw Indian from one of Dad’s picture books. Blue Duck the Cherokee, or the Apache Kid. Yeah, the Apache Kid, took to the hills as a renegade, swooped down to pillage and rob from time to time, eluding all pursuers.
‘Don’t stare,’ Mum says. ‘It’s rude.’
‘You were.’
‘I was not.’
‘You were. I saw you.’
‘Don’t be stupid. Come on.’
We turn the corner and go down the hill.
‘Is he a bad man?’ I ask.
‘Who?’
‘That man, the hat man.’
‘He’s just a builder. He builds houses.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘I don’t know. Give me your hand, we’re crossing here.’
‘Can I wear a hat?’
‘Give me your hand.’
We cross the road.
‘What’s it called, Mum. On his arm?’
‘What’s what? Mind the dog dirt.’
‘The –’
‘Mind! Watch where you’re going.’
I’m skipping now, making circling gestures on my wrist. ‘Here, on his arm. That man had a snake.’
‘A tattoo?’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
‘Like a ring. Like a … you know … on his wrist.’
‘A ring? Oh, a bracelet.’
We stop again, hand in hand, opposite the newsagent’s. Traffic is light, but Mum does it right: look right, look left, look right again, then walk – don’t run – across the road.
‘Can I get a snake bracelet?’
‘No.’
Monday, 19 March
Last night I thought I had the flu or something. I woke up early in the morning feeling really bad. Kind of sick and hollow. My head was splitting and everything was aching like hell. Legs, arms, chest, even my eyes were throbbing. My nose was all bunged up with snot and I could hardly breathe. Then within an hour or so, I started feeling all right again.
Very odd.
I suppose it’s just a lack of energy. No fuel, no energy. No energy, no good. No good, bad.
I’ve been looking for insects. Cockroaches, flies, spiders … whatever. Yeah, I know spiders aren’t insects. I ain’t dumb. You know what I mean. Bugs, creepy-crawlies, invertebrates, small crunchy things on legs. I’ve looked everywhere. Down the back of the cooker, along the walls, nooks and crannies. I couldn’t find anything. Nothing. Not even a dried-up fly.
Where’s all the bugs when you need them?
Escape seems to have drifted away. I don’t think about it any more. What’s the point? I don’t want to get gassed. I don’t want to get wet. I don’t want my head bombarded with noise. All I want, most of the time, is to sleep.
I wonder what He did with the bodies. Anja, Bird, Russell, the dog … what’s He done with them all? Buried them? Burned them? Chopped them up? Put them in bin liners and chucked them in a river? Maybe He’s eaten them. That’d be something, wouldn’t it?
Another thing I wonder about is His appearance. What does He look like? I can’t remember. My memory of Him is useless. All I can remember is a blind man in a raincoat, and I know He’s not that. A while ago I flipped back through the pages of this notebook and found Russell’s description of Him. Middle-aged, dark hair, about five feet ten inches tall. Well built, but not overly muscular. Strong hands. Clean-shaven. Lightly tinted spectacles. Charcoal suit, white shirt, burgundy tie. Black slip-on shoes, burgundy socks.
It’s a pretty good description, but it doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s not how I see Him.
That bothered me for a while. I didn’t understand why I should have a different picture in my mind. Why should I reject the probable truth? But then I thought, why not? I can do what I like.
So this is how I see Him.
He’s quite short, kind of dumpy, about forty years old. He wears plastic-framed glasses with greasy fingermarks on the lenses. The glasses keep slipping down His nose, and when He pushes them back up He wrinkles His upper lip. His skin is pale, sallow. He has a childish mouth, an unremarkable nose, and small round ears. His hair is shit-brown. He combs it to one side and thinks it looks smart, but it doesn’t. Clothes? He wears pale-coloured nylon shirts with the sleeves always buttoned. No tie, suit trousers, slip-on shoes, a zip-up leather jacket from somewhere cheap like Peacocks or Primark.
How’s that, Mo
nster Man?
Am I close?
No?
Well, I’ll tell You what. That’s my picture of You, and that’s all that counts. It doesn’t matter what You think about it. All that matters is me. Because I’m all there is. Nothing else comes into it. It’s me and me alone. What I imagine, what I see, what I think … it’s beyond question.
That’s all there is to it.
OK?
What I see is what You are.
Wednesday, 21 March
The lights come on.
The empty lift comes down.
The day passes.
The empty lift goes up.
The lights go off.
All my life I’ve never really felt like I belonged anywhere. Home, school, the street … wherever I’ve been, it’s never seemed right. The street was OK while it lasted, but it was never really for me. I don’t really have what it takes for the street. I got away with it for a while, but I know it would have found me out in the end. Home was always mixed up. Even when I was little, before Mum died, I never really felt happy at home. And school was even worse, especially after Dad got rich. The ordinary kids didn’t like me any more because they thought I was rich, the rich kids didn’t like me because they thought I was ordinary. I never knew where I was. And now here I am, stuck in the depths of this cold white bunker …
And you know what? I finally know how it feels to belong somewhere.
The three of us stay together most of the time now. We’ve moved all the mattresses and blankets into my room, all the sheets, everything. I don’t know if it helps, but at least it gives the impression of being warmer. We lie around all day, huddled up in this tiny room, not doing much. Saving energy. Saving heat. Surviving.
Our skin is getting wrinkled and yellow. Our muscles are thin and stringy. We’re cold all the time. We should have taken the others’ clothes. They wouldn’t have minded. Dead people don’t need clothes.
Sometimes, when we’re not too cold, we talk. It passes the time.
FRED: We should have kept the dog.
ME: What?
FRED: The dead dog, the Dobermann. We should have kept it. Put it in the fridge. We could be stuffing ourselves with fried dog now if we’d kept it.
ME (giving him a look): Christ, Fred …
FRED: What? Are you telling me you wouldn’t eat a chunk of fried dog right now?
ME: Well, no … but –
FRED: It’s no different to eating anything else. Chicken, cow, pig … it’s all just meat. Flesh. Food. Energy. It’s all the same. (He grins) We should have kept Bird and the others too. Bird would have kept us going for months.
ME (smiling): You’re an animal, Fred.
FRED: We’re all animals.
JENNY: I’m not an animal.
FRED (gently): Yes, you are.
JENNY: I’m not.
FRED: You are.
JENNY: Not.
FRED: Are.
Jenny, smiling, punches Fred on the arm. Fred cries out and grabs his arm, pretending he’s hurt. He topples over and rolls around on the floor, writhing in mock agony.
We watch him for a while.
Eventually he stops, grins, and just lies there on the floor.
We’re all silent for a while.
Then:
JENNY (quietly, to me): Are you scared?
ME: I don’t know. I suppose so. Yeah.
JENNY (to Fred): Are you scared?
FRED: No.
JENNY: Why not?
ME: He’s too stupid.
FRED (giving me the eye): You’re lucky I can’t be bothered to get up.
ME: Yeah?
FRED: You want to know why I’m not scared?
ME: Not really.
FRED: I’ll tell you why. (He props himself up into a sitting position) I’ve been in worse places than this before. I got out then, and I’ll get out now.
ME: Places like what?
FRED: You don’t want to know.
JENNY (to Fred): What’s the scaredest you’ve ever been?
FRED (grinning again): Well, there was this one time … I was staying with some friends out in the country somewhere, I can’t remember where it was. It might have been somewhere in Wales, or maybe Cornwall. Somewhere like that. Anyway, we were in this old stone cottage right out in the middle of nowhere, and I was in bed one night, fast asleep, and all I can really remember is suddenly waking up and seeing a monkey sitting at the bottom of my bed.
JENNY: A monkey?
FRED: It was just sitting there. Staring at me.
ME: Which one was it?
FRED: What?
ME: Which one of the Monkees? Davy Jones? Or was it the one with the funny hat?
FRED (laughing): Now, that would be scary.
Of course, Jenny doesn’t get it. She’s never heard of the Monkees. So then I have to explain who they are (a 1960s pop group who had their own TV series), and I have to explain why I know anything about a 1960s pop group (my dad loves them, he’s got all their records), and by the time I’ve done that, my monkey/Monkee joke isn’t funny any more.
And then we start talking about something else …
And the time drifts by.
Saturday
It’s too tiring to write. Too depressing. It’s bad enough feeling like this without having to write about it. I’ll tell you one thing though – I’m sick of being hungry. It doesn’t actually hurt any more, it doesn’t cause me any violent suffering. In fact, the physical pain is hardly worth mentioning. Hunger is a longing rather than a suffering. But it’s there all the time, boring away deep inside me like a worm. I hate it.
It’s a hard feeling to describe.
Think how it feels when you haven’t eaten for a while. Think empty. The pit of your stomach. The back of your throat. Dry and empty. Think of yourself shrinking.
Think a hundred times worse.
I don’t think we can last much longer.
I think of you.
You and You.
I think of you, comfortable in your nowhere. Doing nothing. Existing, reading this, killing me. I’m never getting out of here. Never going to burn you. I give you what you are.
I think of You.
Whatever it takes, whatever it takes …
Promises.
Body. Air. Food. Water. Blood.
Eternity.
You think about that.
Sunday
I ate some pages from the bible. Stupid thing to do. Ripped them out, tore them into strips, chewed and swallowed them. They tasted papery. A bit inky. Not the greatest taste in the world, but as soon as the pages hit my stomach, my hunger exploded like you wouldn’t believe. I started wolfing down more, stuffing the pages into my mouth two, three, four at a time.
And then the cramps set in. Stomach cramps. God, it hurt so much. I thought I was dying.
Spent the rest of the day suffering.
Sick, diarrhoea, sick …
Tip for the day: never eat a bible when you’re starving to death.
Monday
08.00: the lights come on.
09.00: the lift comes down.
I’ve got so used to it, I don’t have to look at the clock. The hour is ingrained in my body. The sudden sterility of the lights, the silent click, then 60 minutes later the metallic sound of the lift – g-dung, g-dunk …
As dependable as the rising sun.
So when the lift didn’t come down this morning, it felt like the end of the world.
Imagine how you’d feel if the sun didn’t rise. Imagine that.
The three of us gathered in the corridor.
‘The lift is the clock.’
He knew what I meant.
We stared at the closed door. Solid metal, silvery dull.
‘Maybe it’s broken,’ Jenny said. ‘Lifts are always breaking. My dad got stuck in one once. They had to wait for the fire brigade.’
‘I don’t think He’ll be calling the fire brigade.’ I looked at Fred. ‘What do you think? Is it broken?’
‘How the hell should I know?’
We stood there for a while, just staring at the closed door, making the occasional comment.
‘Maybe it’ll come down later.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Doesn’t really matter anyway …’
‘No.’
Of course, it does matter. The lift might be broken. And that could mean something, although I don’t know what. Then again, it could be that He’s just playing His stupid games again. Giving us something to think about. Shaking us up.
Seems a bit pointless though.
I mean, compared to what He’s already done, and what He could do, it’s a pretty crappy kind of game. Hardly worth the bother, really.
On the other hand – and this is what really matters – it could mean that He’s not up there any more. Maybe He’s gone. Just got fed up and left. Or He could be ill. Or He could be just pretending.
Yeah, that’s more like it. That’s a good game. Playing possum. Playing dead. He makes us think that He’s gone, and when we try something – BOOM! – ha ha, fooled you all!
Very funny.
I’ll have to think about that.
Talk it over.
First, though, I have to sleep. All this activity has tired me out. Standing up, walking, talking, writing … I’m exhausted.
Slept for a few hours. I don’t seem to dream any more. Not that I remember anyway. It’s about ten o’clock at night now. The lift still hasn’t come down. I’m so cold, I think my blood has frozen.
We’ve talked about the possibilities.
What does it mean to us if the lift is broken?