by Matt Hill
The tram crosses a bridge over a road. Below, a column of police support vans and half-tracks are filing into the centre.
We were all liberals once, he hears someone else whispering. A young bloke with blonde shagpile hair and a scar running from forehead to chin. And now look at us, he says. Look what fear’s done to us all.
13.
Into Manchester Piccadilly. The place they never did bomb. Still shiny in places, too – one of the few refurbishments to last this long.
The concourse, it’s not the place to hang around. It’s a petri-dish for Wilbers now, and their colonies stand all beady-eyed every few metres. You won’t see the captured, of course, because Wilbers do their capturing of people out of sight. But it happens, and everybody knows it. In toilets or taxis. Snatch squads that follow you home. They’re always patient, see. Pack-dogs with lengthy stares.
People walk in ruler-straight lines for the exit. Only fools don’t bother. You have to keep your eyes down and ignore the taunts. The Wilbers have ways to get your attention – the girls especially. They know the twitches that come with adrenaline. They know when you’re glancing, or when you’re moving too fast. They know the victims. And they’ll pull you up. They’ll ask about your day. They’ll peel you, expose your cogs, your belts and your gears. They think up places they’ll put you to work.
So Brian moves on. Brian keeps a nice face on. The diazepam nowhere near working. Out towards the breeze.
And breathe. Manchester smells of gone-off meat, upturned bins, rotten feet.
A sweeper works the station approach. He’s brightly dressed but very small, so while he’s hard to miss, nobody pays him any attention. It’s windy out here, so half the crap he’s trying to bin actually just moves around in circles. He kind of stabs at the floor with his brush, chasing lost papers and crisp packets and dimps. Seems to Brian he’s undeterred: there’s no way he can let any of it go. And when another bunch of people stamp their fags dead, and go on down the ramp to their jobs, he starts a new circuit. Starts over again. Nothing better to do, no promises round the corner.
I would prefer it, Brian thinks, as he free-wheels downhill towards the sharp edges of town. I would prefer that.
Manchester’s like this before dusk. Quiet, or tense, depending on the size of your arms. You expect knives, usually see a scrap, and always feel queasy. Squint, though, and you see the city as it was. Grand old buildings with grand old names. Trees before the neon, and plants before the weeds. It’s a safari after dark, course – but . . .
But it’s changing, isn’t it. It’s in a state of flux. Growing wider, eating the suburbs. Bloating hard like a body in a lake. And you talk to this city like mothers talk to naughty sons: I love you, but I don’t like you.
On Market Street, a bunch of kids are playing footy against a low-bolted shutter. The ball – bang – is stripped of leather, orange innards poking through a Stanley-knife slit. Bang – the ball off the boarded shopfronts. Kids just having a kickabout on Market Street, ignoring the triple-X on all these signs. White kids, brown kids, black kids besides.
Brian stops a while. Watches their volleys and miss-timed headers. He shouts, Hey! Give an old man a kick!
But the kids ignore him. Everybody does. And twenty yards later, the journey gets boring fast.
Grey fast food and market stalls churning out manky grey produce. Grey walls and wooden panels. Churned up roads and broken bollards –
Outside a pub, a group of squaddies stand with half-pints in a circle, their camo trousers and black t-shirts fading. White faces, brown faces, scabs and scarred knuckles that tell their own stories. Maybe Brits and Afghans who’ve seen past the politics of older wars. Brown faces, white faces, just big lads goading each other to drink faster, and a load more of it. For friends, they’re calling each other some squalid things. Their shoulders still big, but their bellies given over to a welcome lapse in discipline. And Brian has to look down again, thinking of what he and Noah did up in those hills. Who he pretended to be. The lies he told and the fortunes they’ve sown.
And as he rolls past, the shame stabs harder. Because they somehow mistake him for that person. They clap him solemnly. One of them even salutes.
It’s a free country.
He’s round towards Deansgate and the ghosts of old bomb attacks. It still feels weird you can’t see the Beetham – so long the axle around which this decaying city span. Without the light on, it’s a conspicuous absence.
Brian finds a bench and settles next to it. He smiles. Funny how you gravitate to the spaces where the town-planners want you.
Brian checks his baccy tin. Enough for a jay; maybe two thin ones.
And Brian waits for the diazepam cloud. A good little boy doing as he’s told.
The memorial column, it’s their bright way to say sorry.
It throws a clean wide beam. Keen and clean. From its base, standing there on Deansgate, by the iron benches and the engraved plaques; the stone wreaths and the fresh flowers, it goes on up for always. Just on and up. Painting cloud, poking stars. That sunset on its side.
But in most ways it doesn’t really go with their city. This side of town, the look is red-brick, Victorian, and next to these old mills and arches – the green steel and rust-orange waters of Deansgate Locks – the dish of the light seems too shiny; too obvious. They’ve set the lamp body and generators into the big oblong of concrete they buried the past with. Steps lead down to the lamp for maintenance, and the circle around it covers at least ten yards. At that size, that circumference, it takes a lot of power to send their thank yous skywards. And that’s why it doesn’t go. The memorial’s a new, enduring thing in a city of entropy.
Every coin has a reverse, though. Stands to reason that from some places – some other views – the memorial glows like another bloody advert for another bloody name. Specially when you can’t see how tall it goes. And that’s when it makes a perfect fit for this grave new world.
Anniversary or not, survivors or bereaved, tourist – ha! – or traveller, they all come here to look at something. To remember or find a better way to forget.
Brian is half-asleep by his bench. Half-asleep with his box to bear. No energy to scout roofs for snipers, or to wonder how the Beetham, as it fell, missed the railway bridge that runs the outside edge of the memorial site. How it didn’t even clip it.
It’s dark and growing darker, and the column puts everything into deep contrast, it’s so bright. The red viaduct’s a muddy brown. The concrete’s turned a slick black. It’s imprinted when you blink, throws shutters across your vision when you turn away.
He sees the night in, sitting there. Sees low clouds lit up and speared by the beam. Hears the city coming to life around him – the homeguard soldiers getting out and about, and after so much fanny. Their own war at home.
He hears sirens. A procession of police spreading themselves into a net.
In silhouette, a figure comes towards Brian. He can’t be sure if it’s aiming his way. Jealously, he grips the box and prepares for the moment he must let go. He feels disconnected; dreamy.
Closer, he sees it’s too small to be anyone he knows. Some kid – probably working pockets like every other opportunist under these stars. Until he hears a little voice.
Hello Mr Brian, she says. A little girl, seven or eight, no more. She’s sitting on the bench now, swinging her legs. She’s in dungarees and jelly sandals. Nineties clothes; the type of clothes kids wear without a worry.
She smiles at him, missing teeth and all.
You’re Brian, she says.
Brian doesn’t react. Maybe the diazepam, maybe something else. But he’s seen her before –
My mummy says you’re sad.
The little girl from Inner Sole.
Brian’s tummy starts to turn. He feels the temperature in his cheeks. He doesn’t want to be seen alone with a young girl. The way people think in this day and age –
You’re not on your own, are you? he whispers.
The little girl shakes her head.
Mummy says you’re special.
The bad feeling pulled across in two black curtains. The bad, bad feeling –
Does she now?
Constance nods tersely.
Yep. That you’re a fish out of water, she says. You want to walk, she said –
Now come on, little one –
Mummy says you have to come.
Come where? What’s your name?
The little girl stands up and curtseys.
I’m Constance, she says.
That’s an unusual name, says Brian. Let’s find your mam shall we?
Constance shakes her head from her hips upwards. Swaying left and right.
No.
No?
No.
Well, we’ll have to call the council, won’t we? And they’ll come and take you and put you in a home.
Constance laughs. Constance runs circuits round the bench. Constance says, You’re mean, Mr Brian. Pleee-ee-ase come. Mummy wants to help you. My daddy wanted to help but you didn’t listen to him. And when you come we can play Top Trumps and Playstation and Tiddly-Winks –
Brian chokes as he tries to swallow. Brian looks round for a call box.
I’ll ask you one more time, Brian says. I’ll count to three.
But Constance has started to cry. Dark clouds are rolling over the sunshine. Her wet face lit up wet and white by the column.
Now don’t make a scene. Just tell me where your mam is.
A figure flickers on the bench besides Constance. A person in strobe – flickering on and off. Sitting perfectly still on the bench, looking right at Brian.
Mummy’s here, the figure says.
All at once: the girl who knocked on for money; the girl from Inner Sole –
Gone again.
Constance grins and cuddles up to thin air. And before Brian’s eyes, thin air pulls Constance closer.
Brian forgets to breathe. You.
Put it down and we’ll get you out of this.
Who are you?
I’m Juliet. Don’t look so frightened – the suit’s just protection. If they see me, they’ll kill us both.
The edges are fuzzy. The buildings are tilting. Brian goes, Did you –
Brian, it’s no cliché to say there isn’t time. Ian’s contact will be here in forty-three seconds. You will be dead in forty-six. You’re going to have to listen.
Brian’s stomach on a lift platform north. The blanket around him letting in the cold. The wool getting heavier.
You can’t see it, Juliet tells him, and nor can the shooter on the viaduct, but there’s a vehicle in front of you. Cloaked the same way you know, just bigger. On three, we’ll push you on board. It’s a van; more than big enough.
Tick.
The buildings tilting further, the earth spinning faster. Nothing ever simple.
Tock.
And no, you don’t have much choice, I’m afraid.
Bloody right I don’t, says Brian. Not when you put it like that.
It’s this or you’re the proud owner of three new holes. Constance?
Yes?
Off you go.
The girl takes four steps and disappears. Brian can’t wrap his head round it.
No time like the present, this woman called Juliet says, behind him now.
And Brian moves, moves, moves.
As the first shot comes.
As the second hits something loud; sends a bouquet of sparks through the black.
As he moves through a pane of Manchester and into a tin.
14.
Juliet doesn’t say much – she’s all white knuckles and hard lines. She looks in her mirrors and stands on the gas. Constance is in her child seat, kicking her legs.
They belt off down Chester Road from the memorial site. She parks the van near Old Trafford football stadium. The theatre of shattered dreams, skeletal, shelled out, derelict like the rest. A perfect case study from a ruined city. The wasteland and scrub outside it; a surprising amount of crap built up in so little time. Those opposite poles, money and the monastic, smashed together.
Brian, Brian has had it up to here. Brian is shouting and banging about. But Brian can’t do much from his position and never truly can – an impotence he resents more than the circumstances. He’s having a bad trip. A right old ding-dong. He’s claustrophobic and won’t have any of it. Who the hell is this bitch? These kind of thoughts. The thoughts you assume nobody will ever hear. The thoughts you’re told to keep to yourself.
Juliet comes into the back. She isn’t wearing much, a shabby crop top and running shorts. The marks of a big pregnancy on a slim frame are clear. Her hard face. She pulls a shawl round her shoulders and sits back against the panel opposite him. Not a shred of make-up now. Not a shred of self-consciousness. Her cheeks sallow perhaps because she doesn’t make the time to eat properly. The van austere in the same way. High-top Transit; tortoiseshell MDF to finish. Older than Constance’s jellies, even.
Going to quit being a drip?
Brian spits on the floor.
Calm down and listen to me. You’re safe in here.
I’ve lost my home –
You’d lose more than that hanging about on that plaza.
Ian promised me.
Ah, Ian. Promised you legs, didn’t he? All that war-tech they spoke about. Well, not before he tattooed a Hitler-tache on your top lip, son.
He promised. The box for his word.
Promises aren’t hard to break.
You have to trust people. It’s all we have left –
Juliet snorts.
You know in your guts that’s bullshit. They promised my husband, too – and you saw what the bastards did to him.
Brian looks down. Brian’s hairs tingle.
The realisation and the revelation.
Tight guts and hard frowns. The man in the corner; the man on stage.
Could’ve guessed by the van, Brian says. A resignation to his voice. And the charity work, he goes, the shoe-shop – you and him for all this time?
Juliet shrugs.
You were meant to notice, yes, she says. It’s everybody else you have to fool.
Why me?
It’s a kind of fate that’s brought this box here, has it not?
Don’t talk daft.
No more daft than what they killed my Colin over. The ideas you heard at that conference for little boys in big suits. Nationalism bores the piss out of me, love – but the men in that place wanted so much more. Left unchecked, Ian’s going to become a very big problem for your country.
Don’t want no bloody riddles neither, Brian tells her. I just want my home back.
Juliet nods. Brian swears he catches a half-smile.
But it’s not just you, Juliet says. Not like you’re important, is it? We’ve tabbed your friend Noah for ages, too. Mixes with the wrong type, doesn’t he, your man? And I’ll tell you this for bloody free: he’s playing the game, he is. Working for everyone. This thing my Colin had was not for stealing. This thing you’ll leave with me.
Brian asks what she means about Noah. Not knowing if she knows Noah has gone.
And Brian would have a lot more questions if he weren’t so sick or tired, sick and tired.
Well, you were second fiddle, Juliet says. We knew you had contact with him. That’s why you were interesting for a time. But him – Noah. For starters, you realise there’s probably no Garland? No Garland, no pay-out, no rewards. There might’ve been – a client of his sometime ago maybe. But from all we can gather, he’s quite dead now. Seems your Noah gets his info about their meetings the same place we do, and thought he’d look at our box himself. Wanted new ideas for himself, I expect. Or more likely, he’s batting for his council chums again.
Brian doesn’t want to say anything more about Noah. The names in his office screamed of a man whose loyalty you have to buy. Brian, he’s usually taken for a mug, but he’s not completely stupid.
And
the spies always find their eyes.
Besides, there’s a different question on his tongue:
Who are they?
Juliet’s mouth curls at one corner. They.
Do you believe in God, Brian?
Doesn’t answer my question, that.
But do you?
Selling God after all, are you? he says. What’s that got to do with anything?
I wondered.
I don’t bloody know, do I?
I think you barely believe in yourself, Juliet says. Your unreal life in this unreal place.
How do you know so much about me? asks Brian.
Juliet looks down. Seen one you’ve seen them all. I’ve met a hundred yous across a hundred worlds trying to find the right one.
Bollocks you have.
Have to do your research when something like this crops up. I’m not asking you to believe me.
Aye, and I’m not asking you to tell whopping lies.
Course, you don’t need to believe in something if it happens anyway. There’s a big gap between faith and proof – a difference you obviously can’t be arsed with. And since I don’t have time to faff around, I’m happy to let you think what you like. You want your house back, you leave it to us. You want your life back, you leave it to me. Just don’t ask bloody questions when you say you don’t have time for answers. Let’s just say I work for people beyond these walls. And that the world doesn’t revolve around you.
Seems all of you work for somebody, Brian says. But you know he’s gone, don’t you? Noah?
Juliet nods.
The box. Can’t explain the bleedin’ mess –
I know, Juliet says. Which is why I want it back.
What did it do to him?
Does different things to everybody. It’s a dangerous thing.
Convenient, that, Brian says.
Hardly, says Juliet. I’ve spent long enough trying to find it. Curiosity and cats, Brian. Just for Christ’s sakes tell me you didn’t open it too.
Juliet scans Brian with some kind of rod. He’s shaking, our Brian. From the cold and the adrenaline. The endless comedown.
He opened it all right. And it opened him –