by Tom Fletcher
‘Jack,’ Taylor says. ‘Seriously. Don’t worry.’
‘I thought maybe we could share, Erin?’ Jennifer asks. ‘Jack has to endure me every night, normally – might make a nice change for him!’
‘I’ll share with Jack then,’ Taylor says.
‘And that leaves us,’ Graham says, looking at me. ‘Francis. Will you be the sugar or the spoon?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I say.
The room has a sofa-bed in it. And some rugs and bean-bags. And a TV, a CD player. I put my bags down on the floor and look around. In one corner a wooden beam sprouts from the wall. It disappears into another room. The wallpaper is striped, vertically, blue and white. It only reaches about half-way up the walls though. And above that it is torn off, revealing red. I lie down on the sofa-bed. Half-hoping that I might be able to sleep away the last of the hangover. But then the door opens and Jennifer slips in.
‘Francis,’ she says.
‘Jennifer. Hi.’
‘I’m glad you’re here, Francis.’
I don’t know if she means me, or all of us. Sometimes when she visited Jack in our old house I would think that she was trying to communicate something to me through her eyes. She’s looking at me in a way now that may be friendly warmth or it may be desire. I just don’t know. I feel my mouth drying up. She is heart-stopping. I imagine her naked. Her three lip-rings catch the light from the window and for a moment I see them as three teeth curving down over her lower lip. Her long, artfully messy black hair is held back from her face by the blood-red bandana. Her deep green eyes are wide. Her full lips are parted ever so slightly. She wears a tight black jumper and white jeans.
‘What are you wearing for the party?’ I ask.
‘Black dress. Black wings.’
I imagine her walking towards me from the door. Putting her hands on my shoulders. Closing her eyes. Kissing me.
‘Jack’s making his famous lasagne,’ she says. ‘Come down and get a drink.’
‘I will. I’ll be down in a moment.’
Fell House stands naked against a bloody sky. Tall thin figures like stretched men are blown against it by the bitter wind. They accumulate around the building like dead leaves, whispering and crackling. There’s something about them. Something awful. But I’m too far away to make out the detail. The sky is cold, red, still, blank and dying. Dying slowly. I’m holding on to the ground like it’s unstable. My fingers are muddy and raw. I’m forcing my forehead into the hard earth. My mouth is full of soil. Somebody is shaking my shoulder. I roll over. Jack’s wide eyes are staring down at me. ‘Jack?’ I say.
‘Hey, Francis. Francis. What’s wrong?’
‘Jack?’ I say. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘I have bad dreams in this house too. But try to forget about it. The lasagne’s ready, and it deserves your full attention.’
Jack and Jennifer have a big old wooden table that they’ve put in the living-room. There’s a big coal fire blazing. Taylor’s leant the big carrier bag of birthday presents against the wall. The room is bathed in orange light. Erin’s plugged her MP3 player into the stereo and is playing something relaxing, with extraordinary female vocals. I feel like I’m in an advert or a lifestyle magazine. But I like it. Jennifer and I are on opposite sides of the table, but not actually facing each other. We don’t talk to each other much. Which I’m glad about. Because it means I can relax a little. I look at her, though, when she’s talking to the others. When I’m not looking at her, I can feel her eyes on me. She is beautiful. I look at her face. Her arms. Her hair. The curve of her breasts as they rest against the table edge.
‘This room,’ Taylor says. ‘It’s lovely.’
Jennifer’s skin glows. I smile and nod. ‘So is the lasagne,’ I say.
‘Francis had a bad dream,’ Jack says, to Jennifer. ‘I was telling him that we get them in this house.’
‘Yes,’ Jennifer says. ‘It might just be new surroundings and stuff though. You know. Doesn’t have to be anything sinister!’
‘No,’ Jack says. ‘Interesting phenomenon though. New-house dreams.’
‘Your presents are over there,’ Graham says, pointing with his head towards the carrier bag. ‘You going to open them?’
‘He’s not opening them,’ Erin says, ‘until his birthday. End of story.’
Despite all the red wine, I can’t sleep. Graham is snoring away next to me. I keep thinking about the dream of the red sky. I try counting. Usually, if I have trouble sleeping, I start to count to try and clear my head. But tonight, I get to the number 666 and then start to panic. I don’t remember ever getting that far. I am too hot. I’m sweating. I think about the Devil. And, you know. When you think of the Devil. The Devil thinks of you. I stop counting and turn the lamp on. Graham snorts, but doesn’t wake up. I dig a Paddington Bear book out of my backpack. Start reading. I keep one on me at all times. I read it and reread it. After two hours, I put the TV on. There is an advert for some rolled-up pizza or something. In the advert, the police can’t catch these criminals. Because they – the police – are all eating these rolled-up pizzas. And they can’t talk to each other because their mouths are full because the pizzas, being rolled up, are perfect for, you know, eating on the move. And then there is this advert for a mobile-phone company. In which nobody speaks to each other. Even when they’re standing next to each other. Because text messages are so fucking cheap. And then there is an advert for bathroom air freshener. With a talking toilet. And then a repeat of some circus of a singing-contest-talent-show thing comes on. And by this point I am thoroughly pissed off. I turn off the TV without checking the other channels. Because I have a feeling that every channel will be identical. I turn the lamp off too, and close my eyes. I should have just watched Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.
We are sitting in the living-room. This morning we went for a walk. We headed uphill so that we could see across the mountains opposite us. We could see another lake in the distance. Bright white and flat. Something metal in the middle of all the green. Then we came back and started playing Scrabble. But at some point we stopped. Jennifer, stoned, is swaying to the music like she’s underwater. The board is laid out on the floor. There are cushions and Scrabble tiles scattered around.
‘What are your plans for the next few years, now you’re sacked?’ Taylor asks me.
‘I’m going to travel,’ I say. ‘Well, once I get some money together and stuff.’
‘I’m going back to Ireland, maybe in a year or two,’ Erin says. ‘But I think I’m going to have to work in this country for a while first. I’ll probably go to live with my dad in London and get a job there, and then – yeah – move back to Ireland.’
‘What about you, Taylor?’ I say.
‘I don’t really know,’ he says, looking at Erin. He bites his lip. ‘I might go to America. Live there for a while.’ He shrugs. ‘But I’ll need some money first. And it all depends, I guess.’
Outside, it is only just turning dark and the sky is clear.
I didn’t sleep again last night. In the paper today I saw that evidence has been uncovered of further atrocities in Iraq. I have said little since then. We are all sitting in the living-room again. It’s approaching ten o’clock. There is an advert on the TV for some top-end supermarket Christmas food. Except, it’s not just Christmas food. It’s ridiculously expensive Christmas food. It does make me hungry though. And the bread sauce being poured over the turkey in slow motion, well. Kind of turns me on.
‘Can I watch the news?’ I say. ‘I need to watch the news.’
‘Why?’ Jack says.
‘What do you mean, why? It’s about the war. It’s important.’
‘It’s always about the war,’ he says.
‘It’s always important,’ I say.
‘Eurotrash is on, Francis,’ Graham says.
‘And anyway,’ Jack says. ‘There’s more to life than the war. I was reading about the Coffin Trail over Burnmoor Fell,
where they took coffins on horseback to the church over in—’
‘Everything,’ I say, ‘is to do with the war.’ But I say it quietly. I keep a tight hold on my third bottle of Copper Dragon. My little finger pulling at the corner of the label.
‘What did you say?’ Jack asks.
‘Nothing,’ I say. It didn’t really make much sense. ‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You’ve got a right cob on,’ Graham says, as Newsnight starts. I notice Jack, Erin and Taylor looking at each other. And then away. Jennifer is watching me like a cat watches a mouse.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘OK? I’m just watching the television. And maybe you should watch it too. You know. If you think I’m in a bad mood, and you want to know why.’
‘But I thought you just said that you weren’t in a bad mood,’ Jennifer says. She’s smiling.
‘Let’s just all watch the TV,’ Graham says.
At that moment, the screen fills with a video recording of some of the abuse that was taking place in Abu Ghraib. Certain areas of the screen are blurred out. My arms are shaking. I don’t understand. I genuinely don’t understand how Jack can ask me what’s wrong. How they avoid feeling the anger and disgust and shame that I feel. And I can feel my face turning red. I’m filling up with hot water. I’m chewing my lower lip so viciously that I can taste blood. But I don’t feel any pain. Each and every time new videos or photographs of these abuses are released, the images are burned into my brain. I never forget them. And times like this they all come flooding back. They’re followed by the execution videos. The hostages that get decapitated. The videos they never show on the news. But that inevitably turn up on some dickhead’s mobile phone which gets shoved in front of your eyes at a friend’s birthday party and you can’t look away. You can’t. And there are people that swarm round and giggle. Who find these videos funny, or interesting. And others that collect them. These videos of beheadings and torture and abuse and rape. They’re all there like so much pornography. Because that’s what it is to people now. Porn. My legs are trembling and my eyes are filling up. And how can Jack just bang on about some coffin trail over Burnmoor or whatever? I could justify it and say that I feel like it’s my duty to make them see. To make them understand the deep toxic depths of the terror that surrounds the planet and is yet apparently invisible to the vast majority of people. I could say it’s that which makes me want to roar and shriek and smash my teeth together until they shatter. But in reality my anger is just anger and I can’t claim to understand it.
I take a deep breath. Control.
I look back at the TV. Somebody’s talking about how Saddam used to torture his opponents in the prisons where his followers are now held. He used to dissolve people in vats of acid. Rape women with dogs. Somebody is talking to the camera about a specific prison. Their face is pixel-lated out.
‘The place is haunted. Haunted. It is an evil place and the shadows make people do evil things. There is a spirit there. The memories of the women and the dogs are still there. You can still hear the noises when you’re on guard duty. You can still see—’
Later. We are all sitting in the living-room. My eyes are closing. Opening. Closing again. I open them again. Try to keep them open. But every battle against your body is a battle lost, like Taylor says. Somebody suggests a film but Erin says ‘No!’ and insists that we turn the TV off. Because the TV is responsible for the death of the art of conversation. And if we lose the art of conversation then we’ve had it. She suggests that we play some kind of game. Everybody sits around talking about what we should play. The conversation is warm. I don’t open my mouth. Chess, I think. Hey, Jennifer. Want a game of chess?
I keep my thoughts to myself. I am the first to fall asleep.
JACK
Outside it was snowing. It was accumulating across the fells, each layer providing a softer, more comfortable landing for that which followed.
‘I was thinking about tomorrow,’ Graham said. Graham was always there, just there, at the periphery of my perception. ‘I was thinking we should all dress up because it’s your birthday. Make an effort. Maybe we should all put our suits on.’
‘You brought your suits?’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Francis said, as he entered the room. Francis always went through doors slightly nervously, head first, as if there would be something dangerous on the other side, and the habit probably came from watching too many second-rate horror films. ‘’Course we did.’ He clapped me on the back and grinned. ‘Like Graham says, we want to make an effort.’
‘Is Taylor wearing his too?’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Graham said. ‘And Erin brought a dress.’
‘OK then!’ I said. ‘Thank you! I’m starting to look forward to it a little bit now, actually. It’s really good of you all to come up like this and bring your suits and everything, just for this. Feel like I should have organised a party or something!’
‘Who needs all the hassle of a party and all those people you don’t really know,’ Graham said, smiling widely, ‘when you’ve got all your best friends with you?’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Not like you to say a thing like that, Graham.’
‘No,’ he said, and scratched his belly, and then his chin. ‘I know.’
Francis turned on the TV. Seventeen people had been killed by a roadside bomb in the Gaza Strip. It sometimes felt like the bad news happened because Francis was around to hear about it – genocide, environmental disasters, global panic, hellish war crimes – they were all very much a part of him. Or maybe it would be more true to say that he was very much a part of this world, a product of it, inextricably linked. The Prime Minister was giving a press conference.
‘We will stop at nothing’ – he said – ‘nothing – to find and bring to justice those who persist in committing these dreadful atrocities. These attacks are tearing the fabric of our global society apart, and the time has come—’
‘Lunch’ll be ready in a couple of minutes,’ I said. ‘Beef sandwiches, and the beef up here is really good.’
Francis just stared at the TV, as if he hadn’t heard. I saw that his knuckles were turning white.
‘Food,’ Graham said, standing up. ‘Wicked. I’m always hungry. Always, always hungry. Come on. Let’s eat.’
‘What are you wearing for tomorrow night?’ I asked Jennifer, over lunch.
‘What?’ she said, looking up sharply. ‘What’s tomorrow night?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s my birthday.’
‘We, um, we all said that we’d wear our suits,’ Francis said.
‘Oh,’ Jennifer said. ‘Oh, right. What are you wearing, Erin?’
‘A dress.’
‘Think I’ll wear a dress too,’ Jennifer said. ‘Yeah. Simple but effective.’
Later, alone, I walked to the river and wandered under the trees, where the sun had not yet penetrated and the earth was still snowy and hard with frost. The river had escaped the freeze and ran on between the white and frozen banks, overhung by boughs and branches that were laden with ice and crystal drops. Everything looked like it had grown a deep coat of fur in a futile effort to keep out the cold.
I didn’t know if Francis and Jennifer thought they were being subtle when they had been looking at each other the night before. I should have been thinking about my article – it was never going to get written, the way things were going. What was happening with the two of them, really?
The sky was pale grey. I looked at the patch of cloud sheltering the sun, and it was beautiful, and bright around the edges. I liked it down there; I would try to go more often. Sometimes it felt like I could get things in order, sort things out, if I had a moment to think and a clear brain to do it with, like that was all I needed to make everything OK.
I stepped on to the grass that protruded from the snow and snapped it. I picked up handfuls of the little crystals that it had broken into and scattered them about, along with the cold fluff of the snow itself. I could see
Fell House up on the fellside back above the lake and the windows were squares of bright silver. Why didn’t I think of it as our house, really?
Crossing a field, I found a wide hollow filled with water that had frozen solid. Had it rained yesterday? Last night? I stepped on to the ice, warily at first, but with more confidence as I saw that it was thick and would not break beneath me. I stepped back on to the grass, and then ran and jumped back on to the ice. I flew right across to the other side of the hollow, then I turned around and did it again, only the other way. There was grass sticking up out of the ice, long grass that grew in wet places, and when I slid over the ice the grass snapped off and the cold breeze scattered the fragments. I slid and I spun and I jumped. The ice in the hollow caught the bright autumn-yellow light that filtered through the clouds. I ran and I slipped and I nearly fell and I did fall, and when I fell the ice cracked, not much, but enough to make that creaky ice noise. The cracks spread as I skated and I saw the cracks get deeper and spread and lengthen until they covered the ice, but the ice didn’t actually break, not once. The surface remained intact. It was like a disguise, like it was disguising something deeper and more true, but at the same time it was the thing that was deep and true. The disguise of the thing was the thing itself. Ice. I fell on my knees but it didn’t hurt and I fell on my hands but they didn’t get wet and I fell on my face but I didn’t bruise and I didn’t bleed. And I was alone and I didn’t care if I did hurt myself, really, not right then.
The blood would only have frozen anyway. Once it came out.
I flew towards the edge of the ice, and I couldn’t stop, and my foot hit the hard grassy earth, and I tumbled towards the ground, face first, and burst my nose and the blood poured out on to the white grass and all over my hands.
Jennifer. I loved her but I didn’t think that she loved me, and I didn’t know what to do.
On the way back, I had to wait at the road as two girls and a boy riding bicycles passed by in the direction of the far end of Wastwater. The boy was fair-haired with husky-blue eyes, while both the girls had jet-black hair and huge brown eyes. All three were lean and tanned and laughing. As they whipped away, I heard one of the girls shout out something in a language I didn’t know. Her voice was high and sharp and clear, and I could hear their laughter all the way home.