by Matt Hill
He’s laid out Colin’s box in front of him. Brian and this thing that’s covered in dry blood. Sitting, falling, into the gravity well of this grim box. Six sides that took his friend and now this room. It’s almost a whirlpool, our mermaid’s adrift, his legs stuck together and his eyes closed. Four hours, five hours, face forward for the night. Just him and Birmingham on telly and Colin’s box – a kind of singularity punching big chunks out of what he thinks is real and pulling him through. Brian in his stinking wool with that empty fridge nearby. Brian without his savings. Not on a wing, never with a prayer.
Anubis watches Brian from the top. Watches him watch the lines blur. Colin’s box starting to talk to Brian about this and that.
Open me, it keeps saying. Go on. The box from the hills, from the van. Birmingham screaming as she burns –
The way the box doubles up when he loses focus. The way each edge whispers about heartache. The way his head swims – bursting, fit to pop.
The monsters are waiting beyond the lid. And the curiosity of change, of Noah’s new face. Wondering if Colin’s box did all that. If Noah meant all that. If this is why they shot Colin in his purple Transit. If this is why Noah came apart in the belly of his shoe shop. If this is the way to fix his breaking heart.
Thinking of the people on the insides of this stupid island, all of them wishing mountains were molehills. Because with every bead of sweat, Brian’s losing salt and losing time.
And time isn’t patient. Those hours keep passing –
Brian’s so close to opening the box. As if the box is opening him. As if it’s some kind of biblical temptation. And Brian is circling the plug hole. Brian’s really in the shit; out of frying pans and into fires. The treasure and the reward. His head cracking with fright –
Brian knows. He thinks, I’ve got to hide this bastard thing. Got to get rid, hasn’t he. Won’t have the willpower, elsewise. The means to cope with the shrapnel.
Only Brian isn’t strong like that. Brian likes to say one thing and do another. Really, he fancies a glance, just to see, just to understand. See what the fuss is about, for one. This thing nobody understands but everybody wants.
And it’s funny how ideas set fast:
How it’s a fluid movement between intent and the verb.
So he’s on it now. He pulls the box fully out of the plastic bag. The edges are cold. The locks feel solid. And yet with light pressure, it hisses, and it opens. He raises the lid. He holds his breath.
Inside he can see himself on the bottom.
Brian’s face fills the box.
Pandora’s box is already tipped out.
11.
Thursday, Diane doesn’t come round to spoil Brian’s day.
Nobody’s asking, but Brian is through here – in the lounge, watching his CCTV monitor, watching his drive, the rain.
Brian’s in his chair – the wheelchair in the middle of his world. All days are the same. All days, every hour – trapped. The fat man in his yawning city. Ageing. Smoking and sleeping between damp walls and under bare bulbs. The fat man who sat through power cuts and water shortages. Listened to new riots and masked radicals on his telly. The same chair at the arse-end of Manchester, old capital of the north. The cold city, the blinking city.
Brian: half a man in an old battered chair. Battling to heaven. Finding some new ways to get numb.
Brian dicks about. Brian thinks on making some phone calls. Brian figures he should get hold of Harry, mysterious Harry, and tell him about Noah. But Brian’s useless and forgot the tick sheet back in the shop. Lost his marbles; gave up on his pal and took his gear. And he’s hating himself, Brian is. Hates how he got so used and fell so far down this rabbit hole. Rubbed up and left to drown. Hates these things he can’t understand. Hating the box and so much hindsight. Hating that he’s all out of tinnies. Nobody shaking brollies up any walls now.
So he leaves the lounge and makes for the bog. Artex walls to study. Four different walls and a door that won’t lock. The downstairs bathroom still wet from his last wash. The tin of exfoliant still green, growing a skin. Sand in the bath; grit in the sink. The skimmer for his skin propped up against the tiles. The light cord a two-metre string. Not clean by your standards; kind of spick and span by his.
But Brian doesn’t go in. Brian notices something. Brian stops short of the light cord, swallows hard. Unease is drawn from his toes to his chin. The taste of copper. The dread feeling he’s missed something he shouldn’t have. The world tipping to its side; sliding around him.
Too late: the hole opens wide and the dread comes through. Fast and hard, hot and dizzy, fear rolling and worse –
The toilet seat is up.
The toilet seat that’s never, ever up.
Brian, he breathes no. And from behind, muffled, the stairlift starts climbing its chains.
Feedback peals across the house – the tannoy singing its filthy tune. The house is finding its mouth and starting to talk.
The voice says, Will you be my friend, Brian? The voice is modulated; distorted through the tannoy. A sound like slow songs from a cassette player out of juice.
All your doors are locked, the voice says. Really easy when you know how.
Brian’s mouth hangs loose.
Come back into the lounge, will you? Let’s get a good look at you.
Now it’s Brian who’s alone with his worst dreams.
Don’t play silly buggers, the slow voice says. You listen hard, you’ll be right.
I –
The person taps the mic; flat sounds turned to booms on account of the volume.
This on? I meant it. Don’t bother with the doors. I’m looking after the bottom of your house.
Brian rolls across the lino, these words washing round him. Brian gets back in the lounge, seated three feet over the debris of his life under bulbs.
Brian hears a noise in the hall. Air moving. Something brushing the floor.
Got your attention, have I? Good.
A louder bang. It’s definitely in the hall. Brian strains to look.
There’s paper folded up into planes.
Brian is the quiet mouse caught in a trap.
Please let’s be friends, the voice says.
A book hits the floor out in the hall.
Brian goes to see.
The Olympic flag bounces softly from the second stair and unfurls.
Brian’s archives are coming down the stairs. Planes and books at the bottom of the stairs.
Bananas in pyjamas, says the voice –
Stop it, Brian says. Stop whatever it is you’re doing.
There’s a rumble over the boards above.
A box of skin splits open, bursting with cream flakes.
Brian recoils from the view in front. He closes his eyes, forward another few feet – so used to the topography of his house he doesn’t need to see. That thing they say when you’re young: can you get out of your house in smoke, in the dark, in the black. Count the stairs and remember the steps, our kid. ’Cept you’ll have to roly-poly, won’t you, our kid –
Brian’s in the hall now. He hammers the stairlift buttons but they’re all dead.
I told you, the voice says. This is my house now. And I’ll save you the trouble of checking the phone, too.
What is this? Brian says. What do you want?
Your skin looks very yellow, Mr Meredith. Are you drinking enough water?
How –
And the state of this place –
Stop it.
Tell me where the box is, and we’ll be good pals, you and I.
What box?
What fucking box, Brian? The box you already looked inside.
Brian’s chair creaks.
You think we haven’t seen everything? That we don’t know? You have something you don’t need; don’t want; don’t have any right to have. So make this easy for us both, and you’ll have a new friend plus a clean sheet.
Brian shakes his head. Brian’s eyes are all wet. Brian�
�s voice is warbling with the stress. I don’t know how to help you, says Brian.
Then I’ll make it easy. People pay me to make collections. You have something a lot of people want collected.
Right.
The box, Mr Meredith.
How did you get in here, you sneaky bastard?
Cloak-suit. Same way anyone naughty does anything.
And if you take the box, then what?
Like I said. You get a new pal. Friends in right places. People who’ll give you all you’re after.
You don’t know what I want.
Don’t I?
And if I don’t hand it over?
Well, we all have our insurances. I won’t be handling it myself – you’ll meet somebody in town to make the drop. Trams are running today, aren’t they. Thursday, isn’t it. So you’ll take the box into town and meet our contact by memorial column. I’ve brought a lead container. You’ll find this at the bottom of the stairs. The change you’ll need for the train is in an envelope on the container.
Who are you?
Could ask the same of you, putting it like that. Had to put your head over parapet, didn’t you?
I’m not doing sod all for anyone.
Not what Anubis tells us, is it?
Brian looks at the statue.
Ah. There you are, the voice says.
Upstairs, Brian hears laughing.
Help us, the voice says, and you won’t be done for it. We’re all friends, Brian. Really great friends.
Through the wall, Brian hears the stairlift chains moving –
Done for it? Done for what?
– The sound his stairlift makes with a full load.
Brian closes his eyes. Emphysemic breathing. Brian reels backwards in the hall, surrounded by his archives and the half-light of outside.
Brian opens his eyes behind his hands. Sees the container on the second step.
Sees the swollen feet coming down from the dark, dark, dark, over the red carpet. Sees her red dress. Sees her red scalp. Sees her red and black skin coming down over the red, red, red carpet.
Everything red.
Diane –
Just in case you thought we weren’t serious, the voice says from top of the stairs. The shadow at the top of the stairs.
Ian’s voice.
She’s better off this way, you know. Better than muddying some other shores with that other paki she married. The thought of them breeding –
Brian’s chest is crushing him –
So when I’ve confirmed you’ve made the drop, an undertaker – pal of mine – pops round, and our matter’s resolved. Might even sort your carpets. And for your peace of mind, I’ve written extra instructions you’ll find in an envelope on the top. Bit of cash as we’ve said. There’s some diazepam there too. Help a man of your composition, that. And I’ll lock up, of course. Can’t have anybody walking in here.
His hand on the wall. His head lolling around.
Diane –
Fail to show up, it’s your friends from The Cat Flap next. Talk to anyone, I’ll have a lynch mob round here faster than you can spell paedophile.
Diane –
Well go on. Best get moving, hadn’t you? Wouldn’t want your house growing secrets.
Outside, Noah’s Nissan Cherry is parked opposite.
12.
A skinny pigeon follows Brian down the long road townways. Mainly it bobbles out in front, but whenever Brian stops to get his puff, which is often, and sometimes for a few minutes at a time, it finds a fence. And when Brian turns off his line to find a lowered kerb, it sits on a post. Sits there and stares at this man in bits.
Brian doesn’t feel anything. He’s found that new shade of numb. You’d say he had his head up his arse. Pushing himself over the endless cracks and weeds. Caught outside with nothing to live off – just petty cash and the timetable in his pocket. Colin’s box in the too-heavy container on his lap. There’s a lot of glass, and his wheels crunch on every rotation. Crisp sounds, scuffing sounds. The raised ironworks of these churned roads.
Another corner, and this time Brian sees the pigeon. Brian looks at its feet. Notices how the pigeon’s feet are burnt and curled – the feet those silly birds get from standing in their own crap too long.
Shoo, Brian tells it – half convinced he’s seeing things. Go on. Get out of it.
The pigeon hops to the floor as Brian stares it down. Staring it out. But he knows these city birds have balls. That they’ll make you step over them before they sling their hook. That’s why Brian is half minded to squash it.
The pigeon’s playing chicken. Playing chicken and winning.
Brian bimbles on, wondering if the traffic lights will still work at the end of the world.
The question being: will he make it by dark.
Brian gets to the tram station and heads up the ramps. At the top, he stops and spits a big white blob. Very dehydrated, now. To have a cold beer, or time in beer gardens. And he wouldn’t remember the journey if it weren’t for that daft bird.
Through a corridor of smokers, a few Wilbers half-ready to press-gang the vulnerable. Past the kids hanging off the railings. Past the whiteboard and today’s delays in red marker. Sweating and counting the floor tiles to keep his mind off death.
Surprise surprise, the ticket man can’t see Brian over the plexiglass counter. He almost serves some pushy old wretch instead. The ticket man huffs when he realises, too – that favourite trait of the self-defensive.
Don’t get all PC on me, he says to Brian, passing back a penny in change, a card for the train. And he sneers for having to stretch.
Brian says, Thank you. Brian says, See you. Brian over the tiled floor and up gentle inclines.
Brian hits the busy platform, pulls up the blanket and towels his face. The air’s close. Heavy weather for heavy times. Pathetic fallacy, your English teachers call that.
The platform, it’s a shower of bastards from end to end. It’ll be rammed like this all day on account of people and their part-time jobs in town. The closest thing to a commute you’ll find. One tram an hour, three days a week, with the newest version of an economy built to match. That’s how come it’s not worth the walk.
To his right, people in tatty suits buy veg from the kiosks; trading their Argos tat and their Tesco vouchers for tobacco.
Sometimes, you get people hanging off the trams. Real third-world stuff like that. And even though the Council says they’re acting on it, there are bad rumours. Rumours and apathy. Apathy about it all. Of course, the worst rumour, like all rumours, caught hold fast – spreading now and on its way to urban legend. Something about extra voltage through the live wires. A deterrent, they call it.
Brian takes the platform’s median and keeps his chin tucked into his chest. His eyes pulled down the barrel of a six-sided cannon. He doesn’t want to catch the eyes of others; nobody does. So he opens Ian’s envelope. Sees the diazepam and a bleak future beyond. Pulls out a sheet of A4 and the pop-foil pack.
Brian thinks balls to it. Brian bombs the diazepam. Brian hopes for the best – an hour or two of rest.
And Brian starts to read.
The instructions are concise. The paper says:
Bench. Memorial column between four and five. A man will throw money at your feet. You will give your thanks. He will bend down to chat. You will allow him to take the box, which you will have left at your feet. No gimmicks. Nothing else. Try anything on, you’ll be destroyed. Remember me with kindness. Ian.
Brian folds the paper and stuffs it back in the envelope. Closes his eyes and thinks of Ian’s England –
England and some things he can’t unsee. Diane sitting still on the insides of his eyelids –
Somebody on the platform screams.
Jolted, Brian sees a scuffle; people falling over themselves, more screaming and shouting. Hot orange splashed up and across. A man has set fire to a kiosk, and now he’s throwing punches at people.
God is great! he shouts �
�� plain and flat in a thick Blackburn accent. God is great!
The disenfranchised are making a scene.
Brian boards the train with a ramp and all kinds of fuss. He finds his space and tries to look like he likes a good time. He doesn’t do too well.
People are talking about the man on the platform. The usual safe comments about foreigners going home. Don’t like our country, don’t bleed our country. Goddamn leeches.
These are the normal things you hear.
And whispers on the tram reveal worries about Birmingham. They’re coming here, here to Manchester, a woman says. And down there they’ve gotten into a nuclear plant with bricks and bombs . . . They’ll recommission the health trust half-tracks.
And Brian remembers the bulldozers. The smell of burnt stuff.
He remembers the crowds in their masks, the skinheads and their sticks, the policemen and their vans. The radicals at his door. The spit from angry mouths. The lads on buses and trams with chains and bats. Coming paki-bashing? They said. And after weeks – maybe months and more – the soldiers. Soldiers brought home to massacre their own. Six years ago. When war came home and the world went bananas.
Brian remembers this one lad from the telly. He stood against the army with his arms out and his mouth wide. Only a young fella, he was. How, after the bang, he fell to his knees and then backwards, a rock star pose, his heart turned into a bloody rose. And how the shouting grew loud around the cameras, and people took pictures with their phones.
When the city burned from Ancoats to Castlefield, Brian didn’t have as good a view. Never did, being half the height of others.
The end of that came with the bullets. The start of this came with harsh words and drafted ships.
Time to become us, or leave us, the Government said.
And more riots and radicals and revolutionaries were made.
Still, Brian doesn’t flinch. He’s used to these memories. He’s reconciled with them. And while he’s unfeeling, he definitely isn’t deaf. You don’t want to be the victim in the crowd.