Five Stories High

by Jonathan Oliver

  The birthday cards all show the bunny, and it’s the exact same picture, and yet it isn’t – because doesn’t the bunny look demented now, caught in this never-ending trap of ageing, onwards and ever onwards until death? – and then no one will remember him, the bunny will be gone and he’ll leave no bunny-related legacy behind him. One hundred mad drunken bunnies goggling up at the boy from his desk.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?” Christ, the assistant is still there, he’d thought she’d gone. He tells her no, no, there isn’t, there isn’t anything anyone can do, she may leave him, go, go. And then, as an afterthought – he thanks her for all her many years of dedicated service, and wishes her all the best for a happy life ahead.

  He goes to the window, he stares down at the car park. The old man in the mailroom leaves work at half past six. He’s been watching him every day, he’s regular as clockwork. But the old man is sneaky, though. He never uses the same car twice. A red Ford Fiesta, a white Peugeot, yesterday he left in something Japanese and blue. And the boy was thrown by this at first, until he discovered that if closes one eye – the good eye – the one that never rattles – then the illusion is lifted. At last he sees things as they really are. The old man has a car that’s small and box-like and jet black.

  The boy watches, and waits, and fingers the knife he has tucked inside his jacket pocket.

  BY HALF PAST six the staff car park is all but empty, and the boy has parked his own car on the main road so as not to draw attention to himself. Today the old man’s car is an orange Mini Metro; the boy closes his eye so it takes on its correct colour and shape, and follows.

  It feels good to be the hunter. So good, and it makes him want to sing. And then he thinks he shouldn’t sing, he doesn’t want to be too noisy and scare his prey. There’s such a lot to hunting he has to learn about. He actually puts a finger to his lips; “Ssh,” he tells himself. He giggles.

  You mustn’t scare the prey – not until they’re good and ready to be scared. And for that reason he tries to keep at least two vehicles behind the old man’s car. But it’s a hard thing to do, and sometimes traffic overtakes him and puts him three, four vehicles behind, and at that he gets so angry, he can feel the rage bubbling away hot inside him. Other times he loses his cover as cars in front turn off on to other roads, and he’s left right upon his quarry’s tail, and he tries to find a way to fall back that isn’t too obvious.

  And there’s nothing for it, at one point he is forced to pull up alongside the old man’s car at the traffic lights. And they both sit there side by side, and the boy grips the steering wheel so tensely he thinks it might break, and he waits for the red light to turn green and waiting is such an agony – where has all that patience gone he had to learn so well as a child, it’s dead, that’s where. He knows he must not turn his head, must resist the impulse to look at the old man – he must look straight ahead, at the traffic lights, and at nothing else, he must not turn his head even a fraction towards the car he is pursuing. Even though the urge is burning him, it’s an itch he just has to scratch. And he does it, but carefully, carefully – with a show of nonchalance he turns, just for a quick glance, just for the shortest second – and the old man is there, and doesn’t see the boy, the old man is looking straight ahead at the traffic lights just as he should be doing, waiting patiently for them to change, red, green – and then, thank God, at last they do.

  The boy follows the old man down the high street, towards the big roundabout, and then to the right, on to the back roads.

  What will he do when he catches him?

  He doesn’t have to know that yet.

  And over a second roundabout, and on to the dual carriageway.

  He keeps forgetting to keep his one eye closed, he gets suddenly frightened that he’s lost the old man, and then he shuts the eye down hard and there it is again – the squat black shape, looking less like a vehicle now but some greasy smear, alien and unmistakeable around the other cars.

  What will he do? He ought to work that out. He just wants to talk. That’s what he tells himself. He wants to talk to the old man about what he has done to him, the way his entire life has been ruined – because it is ruined, basically, he can accept that? He’s fifty-five today, by the end of the month he’ll be seventy-eight and maybe he’ll be dead, and how is that fair? He’s only a little boy! And maybe it’s all right he’ll die soon, so long as he gets answers now. Or, if not answers, then an apology. Or, if not an apology, at least some show of understanding, the boy understanding the man or the man understanding the boy, it doesn’t matter which, just some small scrap of comfort he can take away with him.

  The knife feels such a weight in his jacket.

  It feels good to be the hunter. No, it does. But, dear God, it’s so much easier to be the prey. You don’t have to do anything, there are no decisions to make – no pressure of responsibility!

  They’ve been driving a full hour now, and they’re heading far out of town. He’d thought the old man must be living locally so he could commute to work, where is he taking him?

  His eye flutters open again, he’s lost the car – and the boy doesn’t stop to think, he just reaches up and plucks it out of his head. It comes out nice and easy, just as he thought it would, the other one has been rattling loose inside his skull for years. He doesn’t know where to put it, the glove compartment is full, he really doesn’t want it rolling about on top of the dashboard. He pops it into his mouth, just for safekeeping.

  It’s perfectly all right to suck your own eyeball, it’s only sucking other people’s that is obscene.

  On he drives, and he remembers the game he used to play with his parents in the car, back when his parents were nice and loved him, they played I Spy and sang counting songs and sucked travel sweets, and he’s forgotten his eyeball isn’t a travel sweet, he’s sucked it till it’s small and hard and round, and now he’s swallowed it, and now it’s gone.

  Another set of traffic lights. He’s forced to wait in the lane beside the old man once again. He mustn’t look. He mustn’t look. Stare straight ahead. But he does look. And the old man is looking back at him. Face close to the window, his head completely swivelled towards him – and he’s not surprised to see him, there’s something triumphant in that look, he’s grinning from ear to ear.

  And the old man takes his one arm off the steering wheel. He raises it up, lifts a finger. And crooks it, urging him to follow.

  The lights turn green, and the old man drives away.

  And the boy is chilled – but then the chill just burns away. There’s the rage, rising up his throat, he thinks he’s going to choke on it – he puts his foot down hard on the accelerator and races after him.

  He hawks, he spits. The phlegm is warm, and black like tar.

  He now knows what he’s going to do when he catches the old man, and he doesn’t want apologies or explanations and he doesn’t want any fucking understanding, he’s going to kill him, he’s going to stab him with the knife, he’ll stab him in the throat and in the face and in the chest, he’ll stab him so hard through his grinning mocking mouth that the blade will come out the other side of his skull.

  He’s never going home again, but he knew that, didn’t he, all along? And that’s why he said goodbye to his personal assistant, and why he turned off the gas and electricity supply, and why he strangled his cat.

  They turn on to the motorway, and the old man begins to pick up speed, and the boy speeds up as well. Eighty, ninety, one hundred miles per hour, and the roads are empty, it’s just the two of them, and the dark is closing in.

  And there’s a sudden strange joy to it all, and the boy starts to sing – “Ssh,” he tells himself, and he tries to put his finger to his mouth, but the finger is just a blunt nub above the knuckle, he lost his finger in the wastelands years ago.

  They drive on for hours, and the sun sets so suddenly, and the old man’s car is blacker and shinier than the night. And the boy has never been so hap
py, and this has all been worth it after all, hasn’t it? Whatever happens next, he’ll have no regrets.

  HE HASN’T SEEN the old man’s car in days, but that’s all right. There’s only one direction to go.

  His car is at crawling speed now, it would be quicker to get out and walk. But it’s worked hard for him, the boy wants to spare it some last dignity. The car is drowning in the void. The void has got in through the air conditioning, through the edges of the windows and the windscreen. The void is black and thick and slippery and it sticks to everything and won’t let go.

  Only when he’s sure the car is dead does the boy turn off the engine, open the door, and step out.

  There’s only the void left, and it’s the same black tar he’s been spitting up, the void is his rage.

  It stinks of sweat. And there’s one narrow pathway leading through the centre of it.

  The boy licks his lips, and they are cracked and old, and there are so few teeth left in his head, and his skin is dry as sand.

  There’s a white maggot crawling on the stump of his finger, and he idly flicks it away.

  He walks on, and he has nothing, and he is nothing, and there’s nothing he’ll leave behind when he’s gone. What, four children who won’t speak to him, three ex-wives, two estranged parents he must now assume are dead. A partridge in a fucking pear tree – and when people tell you they love you they don’t mean forever, and when people tell you they love you they mean a different you to the you you are – and when you tell people you love them you’re lying because you don’t know what love is and it seems like too big a thing to know and if you say it often enough you might make it come true, I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you – and he spits out more rage, and it isn’t enough, he shoves his entire fist into his mouth, and he pulls out whole oily clumps of it, wet and fat and warm, and he flings the black tar of his rage against the black tar of the world and it sticks against the side, dribbling.

  There is nothing, and then there is the house, and it is straight ahead of him, and it has always been straight ahead of him. A single building emerging from the dark, as if it’s slipped out from behind curtains to surprise him.

  He knows it at once.

  The windows are blackened, and the roof is too sharp, but the front door is wide open, and he goes in.

  VIII.

  The Best Under the Circumstances

  IT IS NICE to be home again. It’s nice.

  The man still smells like chipolata sausage and baked beans, it’s almost nostalgic really. But you have to get really close up, and the boy does. The man laughs. “Oh, we’ve got so old! Just look at us both, Timmy!”

  The boy’s name is not Timmy. “We are old,” he agrees.

  He ties the man to the kitchen chair with some rope he finds in the understairs cupboard, and the man doesn’t seem to mind one bit, he even gives good advice on how to make the knots stronger.

  “It’s good to see you,” says the man. “If I had to be caught, I’m glad it was by you. You were always my favourite. Did you know that? All the other children, they were total shits. Really, shits! You have no idea! But you were the special one, Timmy, I always loved you, Timmy, we loved each other, didn’t we, Timmy boy?”

  The boy wonders who Timmy was, and tries not to feel jealous. “Yes,” he says.

  “So, I’m your prisoner now. I’m at your mercy, to coin a phrase. And will you show mercy?”

  The boy says nothing, he takes out the knife.

  “What do you want with me? Now we’re together one last time, right at the end.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want revenge?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to cut me?”

  “I tell you, I don’t know.”

  “Slice me up like a birthday cake?” And he laughs.

  The knife feels ugly and stupid in the boy’s hand. The decision to bring the knife was made such a long time ago, when he was younger and more naive. He puts it away.

  The man says, “Do you want me to tuck you up in bed? To kiss you and cuddle you and keep the nightmares away? Do you want me to trim your beard with my sharp little teeth? Do you? Timmy. Do you want me to make everything better?”

  “Yes.”

  The man looks sad. “I can’t make everything better. I cannot give you your childhood back. I cannot make the rage I put inside you go away.”

  “No,” says the boy. “Of course. I knew that.”

  The man tilts his head to one side, and thinks, and for just a moment he looks like the woman the boy loved, the only woman he’s ever loved. “So, again. I have to ask. What do you want from me?”

  The boy sits down at the kitchen table beside the old man, and tilts his head to one side in thought as well, and doesn’t speak for a long while.

  “I WANT,” SAYS the boy at last. “I want. I want you to tell me a story.”

  “Do you?”

  “I want. You to finish my story.”

  “I see.”

  There’s silence.

  “Well?” says the boy.

  “No,” says the man. “No. I shan’t do that.”

  “Oh. Oh.”

  “But,” says the old man, “if you bend closer. If you put your ear right up to my mouth. Not quite touching, close enough you’ll feel my breath. Then I’ll whisper you another.”

  THE OLD MAN tells him a story. It is not a perfect story. It’s an ordinary story. It’s a story about a little boy, and the people who love him, and the people he will one day love by their example.

  The boy cries. Tears streaming from his one surviving eyeball. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you.”

  The old man tries to smile, but he is so weak now, his mouth can’t quite contort far enough. Some stories take so much effort to tell, they suck the very life out of you.

  “I hope it was all right,” he says quietly. “It’s the best story I can manage under the circumstances.”

  IT TAKES SEVERAL hours for the storyteller to die, and the boy stays with him all the while. They don’t speak much, there’s not much else to say.

  The old man says at last, “You know what you have to do next,” and the boy nods, and he doesn’t know why he does this because he hasn’t even the faintest idea. The storyteller opens his mouth wide then, the too long tongue makes some strange dying dance and then lies down to rest.

  The boy closes the storyteller’s mouth, closes the man’s eyes. Undoes the ropes that fasten him so tightly to the chair, the dead body sinks down gently on to the table.

  Outside the rage is thick and dark and batters against the window.

  The boy looks in all the cupboards for something to eat, and there’s marzipan, and icing, and boxes upon boxes of chopped nuts and mixed fruit. He puts some of the nuts in his mouth, and it’s such an effort to swallow them, it’s hard to find room inside when his throat is bubbling over with tar.

  And he goes up to his bedroom to rest. There’s the lamppost shining in from the window, and it’s the only light left in an angry world. There are his toys. There are the paint demons on the wall, and they’re slumped down against the floor, and their eyes are closed, and they are dead.

  The bed is for such a little boy, and it looks small and mean.

  The bed stretches out to the wastelands, and the wastelands are without end, it’s just so fucking vast.

  He feels something bubble up inside his throat once more, and he prepares to spit out another mouthful of tar.

  Instead he lets out a shriek. It pierces his ears, it hurts so much. He wants to stop, but he can’t, the sound is full within him and it wants to be birthed, and however did he manage to contain something so huge within his own meagre body? It hurts, but it’s also a cry of jubilation. And he doesn’t want it to stop, it’s his now, it’s all his – this room, this life, this soulless body he wears – it may not be much, but it’s his, and he wants to celebrate it.

  He shrieks good and hard, and it se
ems to him like a war cry, like a call to arms, like a summons.

  A summons for all the parts of him that are missing, and there are so many, and he has to find them and to take them, no matter who they belong to.

  And then, suddenly, the shriek dies, and he’s entirely empty.

  There are so many doors. The wall has grown so many doors. Thousands of them, some huge, some discreet – they jostle for position, they overlap each other, and each of them is wooden, and each of them has a perfectly rounded doorknob, all the knots on it raised like a face that smiles. His room is nothing but a thousand thousand doors, and through the doors, a thousand thousand possibilities.

  He feels so hungry.

  He doesn’t stop to think. He picks one, and the doorknob turns easily in his hand, and the door opens, and he steps through.

  NOTES ON IRONGROVE LODGE

  SACRIFICE.

  Of course it would be that. In all the histories of Irongrove Lodge, something is always given. I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to realise this, but then again sacrifice is such a fundamental ritual component, encountered again and again in magic, that I was hoping for something different.

  Disappointing as it is, it is also a relief that it should be something so simple. I had been hoping that the house would recognise me in the course of things; that I would be chosen, lauded as a good student, if not the best. Blavatsky, Crowley – both had attempted great magical experiments, both had claimed to be disciples of true power, but what I have been laying the foundations of, for a lifetime – some of which has been blighted by charlatans such as those mentioned above – isn’t some filtering and appropriation of established spiritual traditions. Instead, I am engaging in a brand new philosophy.