The Folded Man

by Matt Hill

What has the box done?

  They’re in the van, the surfaces turning damp with the cold. Juliet runs the rod lengthways from top to tail. It bleeps a lot. She keeps huffing, put out. She’s really cheesed off with him. She tells Brian he’s like all the men she’s ever known.

  It was empty, Brian tells her. Empty. I could see my face in the bottom of it. That’s what I don’t get.

  You can’t see air, she says back, concentrating. But you damn well know it’s there.

  Am I going to die?

  We’re all going to die.

  You know what I meant. Like Noah. He melted. He bubbled up and melted.

  Juliet smiles coldly. She clips her voice. I already told you. I don’t know. From what we’ve seen, different things seem to happen to different people. And that’s because it’s not meant to be looked at, opened, used. It’s part of something else. It’s a component of a project you lot never deserved to know about.

  Diane’s dead, says Brian. In my house, on my stairs. I have nothing to give anyone.

  I know.

  Dead over your box, though. That’s why you tell me what’s in it and what the bloody hell I do now.

  Colin already said. My lad you all robbed from.

  I don’t remember.

  He told you on that stage. He came to make offers, and nobody wanted it on his terms. Or everybody did –

  I don’t remember.

  You take too many drugs is why. You’re all the same.

  If you mean we all have a vice.

  She looks down at his tail, still waving this strange wand across the flesh. The van is perfectly quiet but for the hum of the rod’s battery. Perfectly dark but for the weak strip along the roof.

  Juliet puts a hand on Brian’s bulbous knee. Why do you pretend you’re not all there, Brian? Is it easier?

  You’re at it again. I don’t know what you mean.

  Your mother made you believe something.

  Mam’s dead.

  You still dream of her.

  I –

  Juliet pokes his thigh.

  Your tail – do you call it that? And the way you eat your hair because you think it makes you invulnerable. Because you read that in some old Japanese books. Because it’s a nicer way round what you really are.

  And what am I?

  You scrub your skin because you see scales. You skim the water. You live your mother’s words because you’re frightened of your own. A life under the gaze of her watchtower.

  She’s dead, Brian says again. He’s dizzy suddenly.

  She’s dead, and you’re not. But you should have died, shouldn’t you? Don’t usually last so long, people with your condition. That’s special enough, isn’t it – that you didn’t?

  Dizzy and sick –

  They said it was a miracle. That I was –

  Juliet smiles again. We say miracles breathe through gaps in knowledge.

  Sick and dizzy –

  I’ve seen it all, she tells him. I told you. You were lucky enough to get an arsehole, a bladder. Most with your condition get nothing at all; die before they’re nine or ten.

  I’m special, Brian tells her. Now he’s starting to weep.

  But only because you survived. And all that in spite of your mother. More through luck than care. Because your mother wouldn’t allow the surgery; wouldn’t accept what she’d birthed.

  Stop it, Brian says.

  Religion dictates the funniest things, Juliet says. Though it worked out for you. A miracle’s made on the back of your luck.

  Please –

  Your mother couldn’t face the deformity, so she made you believe the myth. She didn’t believe in doctors, did she? You and her in the hospital she didn’t want to visit. Other people’s blood; other people’s bodies. Because yours is your own and should never be sullied. And she took you to the Olympics and then she went and died on you.

  Brian wretches. Brian has wretched so many times before –

  You poor, poor man, Juliet says.

  Juliet dries Brian’s face. She passes him bottled water and invites him to take sips. The bottle is cold and slippery. Constance is sleeping in the front seat, bundled into a fleece blanket.

  Juliet asks how long since he last got high. Brian tells her the truth. Juliet shakes her head.

  Juliet tells Brian some stories. She’s fierce about Colin. She tells him in clichés and hollow proverbs, just so he can understand. She says bland things like: We’ve all lost something precious. It’s how you deal with it that matters.

  Brian sniffs. Brian’s putting a brave face on.

  Brian’s terrified of Juliet.

  Of what she knows.

  They’re still by Old Trafford, parked between the divots of heavy tracked vehicles. The early hours of some day or the other.

  I didn’t choose to come to your version of Manchester, Juliet says.

  You said you weren’t going to tell me why you’re here.

  It’s just a way of speaking, says Juliet. But you know you’re in trouble. The people who took my fella aren’t the forgetful type. They want what you brought here.

  Why?

  You care now?

  I don’t care about anything.

  Terrified.

  Good, says Juliet. Because when they catch up with you, they will take everything.

  15.

  They drive on. Silent. Under lamps and strobe-flash neon.

  Juliet parks in shadows and covers the Transit in camo netting. She’s gone four minutes at most; obviously well practised on the weighty matters.

  Juliet has itchy arms after that. She opens the van’s side door. The netting falls about her as a dress.

  Best kip here, hadn’t you, she goes to Brian. She scratches herself with bitten nails. We’ll move first light – think on the fly. I know some people over in Matlock; you could stay there till we’ve sorted Ian.

  Sort my own mess, can’t I, says Brian – stoic again, or just stubborn.

  Juliet laughs. She slaps the van’s hull. Skirts the issue.

  Can’t use the cloak tonight, I’m afraid. Old girl’d have nowt left in her by morning.

  Brian doesn’t say anything else. Brian can see her nipples through the top, but unlike that first time, she’s turned asexual and sinew-y. A witch. Her dimples have turned to lines. A sorceress. She has been hollowed out – a tough, pretty thing turned soft inside. A wretch.

  Brian looks behind her. He doesn’t know where they got to. The way you see places differently at night.

  But he knows where the box is. And something in him wants the box back. Wants the box to keep. Because it’s the only thing to his name; a new currency now trust has gone. An asset that makes him relevant.

  Asexual Juliet has a peaceful face owing to sleep. Brian had meant to put diazepam in her flask, but fell asleep himself before he got chance. Constance is still sleeping in her fleece blanket. Little Constance with the big gob.

  Brian wishes he’d asked Juliet what her game is.

  Brian makes his move and grabs the box. His box – the one he collected for himself on the floor of Noah’s bunker.

  Over to the doors; the outside beyond. He’s not waiting to find out.

  Not waiting around to find out about Matlock or otherwise – the week has taught him that. Sure, best laid plans don’t come to pass, but he isn’t staying in a tin cage and having someone else decide for him. You want to win, you go in with your studs showing.

  His chair creaks as he cracks the door; his eyes closed like that helps. The net’s a big problem but mechanical noises by night are bigger.

  Still: better out on his shattered land than trapped in here with a witch.

  Brian makes his move. Brian slides out the access ramp, inch by inch, squeal by squeal.

  And Constance hears him.

  She peers through the slat below the headrest, rubbing her eyes.

  Where are you going, Mr Brian?

  For a damn tinkle, kid.

  Mummy says you’re not al
lowed.

  Your mam’s asleep. She can’t tell grown-ups what to do.

  We are not in your city any more, the little girl tells him. We’ve moved house.

  But Brian is gone and rolling away – faster than you’ve ever seen him move.

  All signs say Salford Quays. Stands to reason when you think of the roads away from the memorial light.

  From the tilt of the Earth towards the moon, Brian knows he’s outside, alone, in curfew hours. Alone without a watch and rolling towards the bright city lights with the box rattling over his mess of a knee. The memorial light as tall as the clouds.

  Soon, the sky breaks and soaks the land. Brian’s wheels start to pull a fine spray from the tarmac. Fast hands banging the wheels as though he’s rowing; fast hands that slip too often and twist him sideways in jerks.

  Flat Salford Quays with the tramps by the waterfront. Flat Salford Quays with pretty lights and lock-tighter doors – the BBC folk in compounds like forts. And the van, it’s well behind him now he’s taken two corners. Constance could raise all the hell she wanted – he’ll have a better chance of hiding.

  Brian stops for breath. Swearing at the weight of the box. Alone in the company of racing thoughts – the thoughts of a man out of options.

  A man off by the waterfront has his hood pulled tight. He’s looking out over the water, a thick rope running from the railings into the dark.

  Water taxis.

  Brian forgot about the water taxis.

  In fairness to Brian, pretty much everyone does. Few years back, they built an extra canal – the first in a hundred years – and another venture they were excited about before the riots. It runs from the Quays out towards the Trafford Centre. Then, it was a golden chance to roll between the Quays and the shops. A novelty, but a profitable one.

  Now, the canal’s a nasty strip of water between two derelict holes.

  They were brighter days, those. The BBC coming north and the Quays finally filling its rooms. The gondolas, very English gondolas, lazing across the waterfront. Lazy execs and writers getting stoned on their dinner breaks.

  Novel businesses died during and after the riots. This one drowned.

  New business came. Bad men with bad hearts. Same as any route you can move along, they run coke and the rest up these dark channels.

  And Brian remembers these water taxis.

  Brian has a lot of thoughts at once.

  Like the first ant, you look closer to see more. Surely enough, a dozen men appear. Cresting the water edge, their heads bobbing up and down; in and out of view.

  For all the static between his ears; the fuzz and the fretting, Brian knows it might be the best way to skip town. Nobody would look for anybody on these waters at this time. The worst place the council could send their bootboys.

  The canals. A perfect place for an inland mermaid.

  I have nothing to give you, Brian tells the man by the water. I just need to get out of here.

  Nie rozumiem, the man says. He’s a heavy-set Pole. His mouth is a scar running cheek to cheek.

  Brian points desperately at the boat and into the black. Please, he says.

  Nie rozumiem, the Pole says, shrugging.

  Brian doesn’t move. Doesn’t know what he’s being told.

  The Pole rubs his forefinger and thumb together. Cash only, Brian guesses. You earn trust and service by paying up front – and by paying plenty.

  Brian looks dumbstruck. But I don’t have any cash, he says. I just need to get away from here.

  The Pole raises his arms.

  Pierdol sie! he goes.

  What? Look –

  The Pole flaps his hands away from him. The international language of shoo. Spadaj! Ostrzegam Cię!

  Brian gets it at last. Unwanted and weeded out. Those best laid plans all gone to muck.

  Debil! The Pole shouts from the railings.

  The other men, smoking by their own boats, turn to see. Their view makes Brian little more than a floating head.

  Brian roams. Smokes and roams. The water in the night. The clouds and the lights.

  The rain stops. The Imperial War Museum with a shiny roof – a great sleeping beetle.

  Brian, he knows they’ll be looking for him soon. The girls, Constance and Juliet, giggling and ganging up –

  Thinking, Dogs with barks need muzzles.

  Thinking, Next time.

  By a footbridge, he finds a pile of wet cardboard. It’s sodden and drooping at the corners. Someone’s last bed, perhaps, though not tonight.

  Brian remembers what Noah said once. They were up on Werneth Low. He talked about how the best survivalists stashed baccy, alcohol, printed encyclopaedias for doomsday. Stuff to sell, stuff to drink, knowledge for the days beyond the internet – or worse, to brighten the new dark age.

  Those days came. Those days are now. And all Brian stashed was a blanket and a last corner of sniff.

  Brian takes the time to wrap up tight; the old blanket a loyal friend – as loyal as the unease and the dread.

  Struggling to space the cardboard. Struggling to make his bed at God knows what the time is.

  There are things he can’t handle from the chair – gravel, grass, steps – but he’s determined he’ll get this one thing right.

  Soon, he unfolds himself and leaves his chair; puts weight through his wrists and rolls to his side. Shoulders the hard ground. On his back, he pulls soggy cardboard around him as best he can. Like a sausage roll, the more you look at him.

  On his back, vulnerable and wheezing, those black curtains drawing close, he gets the idea that everything you dread never usually comes to pass.

  But still he dreads more rain. More rain and worse.

  The wrong kind of water –

  Day dreaming at night of warm sun and morning light and salt over his skin. Everything’s all right in the day time. Everything’s all right in the day time. Everything’s all right in the day time –

  But he knows what good his dirty little habit does; the knowledge he has. He rolls up his sleeves. He looks over his forearms. He smiles. He has something. And he nibbles hairs from the wrists – the longer hairs; the finest hairs. And he swallows, hard to do when you’re flat-out, and he chokes on the hairs, the fine little hairs. And he pulls the cardboard to his mouth and sucks hard – the taste and the wet –

  Our Brian, our half-man on the roll, our man Brian hiding and still –

  Our Brian, wrapping cold fingers round the box like it’s all he has left.

  Falls –

  Into –

  Sleep.

  Into nightmares. Broken sleep for broken men on their backs on the half-shores of Salford.

  Apples, worms; cables, cars. Post-it poems. The car by the lamp post.

  The watchtower in the sharpline nest.

  The sea, then. The wet sand. The watchtower as the lighthouse now.

  Somebody close – the breath in his hair.

  Sitting on a knee, a knee by the sea.

  You’ve ruined everything. My little –

  Mam.

  For Brian, it never ends.

  Three facts:

  He wakes on Salford’s half-shore to a searing pain in his back.

  It’s raining – it’s always raining –

  He lies in a circle of pigeons.

  A circle of goddamn pigeons looking over him, strutting around him.

  The pain in his back knocks him sick –

  A hand wrapped round and clamping does nothing. Just wet, wet heavy cotton and bits of grit.

  The box still there, the box in his other hand, his back screaming.

  Early hours Saturday. The blue-grey hours before alarms and paper rounds.

  His hand clasped, squeezing, pushing.

  You didn’t need clairvoyance to see the rain coming. Long thin drops going straight down – cutting margins into the world. Saturday’s pigeons not arsed, the pigeons just waiting.

  Piss off, Brian goes. Go on. Out of it, you little gits.
r />   The pigeons are never arsed. Ballsy types, these. Waiting forever, they are.

  So Brian swipes, shrieks, the cardboard tearing along the wettest seams. He looks down. And then.

  And then.

  And then there’s a pigeon on him – two more and then three – three altogether, all pecking, and more coming.

  Brian screams, brushes them off. Screams and fights the birds from his tail.

  The birds peck and tear at his blanket. They go at his pale skin and at his scales. The blood starts to well in little centimetre pits; the blood running in stripes across the whitest, whitest skin.

  Oh God, Brian says.

  Nobody around. Nobody around. Too early.

  He screams. Awake for sure, now. He screams and crawls, an impression of a smashed crab; a broken tripod, his hands cut over harsh ground. Dragging Colin’s box, which scrapes and bobbles and catches on its edges –

  The other pigeons come round, come about. A half-circle, all closing on his tail and his meat and his body. His chair’s beyond them – his only way out with any dignity, but maybe not fast enough. And screaming like he is, the girls will find him faster.

  The water laps the concrete behind him, so he aims himself that way and keeps hoping, his eyes fixed hard on the birds by his feet, all of them taking pot-shots basically.

  The edge, and the railing. He pulls his body into a seated position, with his tail sticking out towards the birds, his back to the water and all those bad ideas.

  The box in his hand. His chair beyond the birds. The birds at his toes.

  Brian leans forward, shouts, Fuck you, and reaches into his top pocket as the first bird strikes his webbed toes.

  Brian takes out that last corner of sniff. A finger in, a finger out, a finger in his nose.

  Enough to take off the sting. Enough to tighten his grip.

  Just water left, now. And the birds take chunks off his shins. The birds screaming with war, their beaks shining with the red and the wet, his blanket torn a little more.

  Bad luck dumps Brian into water that’s even colder than it looks. Black below and blue above, and turning over himself so he doesn’t know which way’s which. The gasp on impact, his chest compressed by the chill of it.

  Brian’s eyes are on their ends, his ears full, his heart smashing out. In the water and churning over – clothes round him heavy, the chair and blanket gone now, the box heavy but still in one hand, pulling him between this life and another. The wrong water, the lights across the water every time he surfaces, the pigeons on the concrete laughing.