Chapter 2
The General approached the battered camper van warily. It was parked next to a sludgy river amongst the debris of a past life: abandoned cars, sheets of old metal, plastic and decaying cardboard and paper, a place commonly seen after the great slump and before the mania for recycling obsessed the world and changed our industrial landscape. It was a place ignored by the decent honest people and inhabited by rats and the type of people who didn’t fit in.
It was dark, past midnight, and a cool breeze blew across the barren wasteland bringing with it the smells of the river and the decomposing rubbish. It had started to drizzle with rain. He could feel it against his face and it had started to soak through his clothes. He hardly noticed; he was staring at the van. He had a good idea what type of person would choose to spend the night in such a dreary, godforsaken place.
He made up his mind and decided to take the risk. He banged on the side of the van. The noise was designed to wake the dead. It succeeded in waking a man and a child.
‘What is it?’ a husky voice cried out from within. It sounded distinctly annoyed. A child was crying. The General could hear the voice whispering to the child to be quiet. He stood back and waited. He was sure he had picked correctly. It looked like a substrata van; it needed to be one that was loyal. When a face peered out of the window, he blessed a God he didn’t and had never believed in.
The face was pale and thin: pale blue eyes, colourless lips against freckled skin and thin blonde receding hair. The man, who was probably about thirty but looked older, saw the General and recognised at least what, if not who, he was. He smiled nervously, revealing yellow teeth with dark gaps. But the most distinctive feature of the man’s face was a terrible scar on his left cheek: an inverted cross crudely cut down his cheek, with three gouges to denote sweet-smelling roses. It was an old scar to be sure but terrible nonetheless, not just because of how it looked but for what it symbolised: the sign of the Twenty-six, the sign of the discard.
The man opened the window. It squeaked in protest. He pushed the window up and nodded to the General. ‘Sir!’ he said respectfully.
The General glared at him. ‘Do you recognise me?’
‘You’re the General!’ the man said. He dropped his gaze. ‘How can I help?’ A child crying again interrupted his request. He turned in annoyance.
‘Stop the brat from crying!’ said the General. He had no time for this.
The man turned away and briefly disappeared inside the van. A moment later he returned. ‘My wife will see to it,’ he said.
‘You have a wife there, as well?’
The man nodded. ‘I’ve told her I’m busy and to keep our child quiet.’
‘She a discard?’ asked the General out of curiosity.
The man nodded again looking puzzled.
‘Are you loyal to the Brotherhood?’ asked the General.
‘Of course!’
‘And to Matrix?’
‘He is our God,’ responded the man enthusiastically. He held up his arms; despite the fact that it was the middle of the night, his wrists were both bound in black leather.
‘I have a package for you to deliver – an important package. I require the utmost secrecy.’
‘You have it.’
Too quick! thought the General. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If I don’t, you, your wife and your child are dead and none of you will die quickly. Do you understand?’
The man swallowed in fear; nervously he licked his pale lips. ‘Yes, General, I understand.’
**********************
Let me tell you something about my family. I have a complicated family tree, complicated by multiple marriages, adoptions and confused family ties. I have already mentioned my deafblind brother, Davey, but in fact, he is not really my brother. He is, in fact, my brother’s son. Robert, my real brother, is twenty-five years older than me and is the result of my father’s first marriage. Davey, therefore, is really my nephew even though he is actually two and half years older than me. As we were brought up together in the same house and my mother played mother to him; you can understand how confused we both were when we were children and why we always called each other brother. We played together, fought each other and defended each other against a hostile world. We were there for each other in the way only brothers can be. As far as I am concerned, we are brothers in the true sense of the word. Robert was more of a second father to me than a brother – and one that was actually stricter than my real father, much to my annoyance when I was a teenager.
I was born on 28 December 2012 in a small cottage hospital in the Highlands of Scotland, the same hospital incidentally that my father had been born in fifty-two years before. Most people think that, with a name like Patrick, we must be Irish; in fact, we are Scottish. My father was a Highlander and his mother was a proud Highlander who hated the English with a passion, to the extent that, when my father and his sister were children, she failed to teach them English. They went to school when they were five, only able to speak Gaelic, and both were promptly sent home again. That was probably the first visit of many from Social Services, as it was then called, telling her that if she did not teach her children English they would be taken from her and put in care. This was the only reason she finally complied, although Gaelic continued to be the main language spoken in their house.
Our Scottish ancestors must have been a godless clan because at some point in our history we lost the Kirk in our name. Kirkpatrick became Patrick, and that was the name I was born into in those final days of 2012. By then we were living in the West Country of England. My father had married a despised Sassenach, but we always spent Hogmanay in God’s own country. Everyone knows that Father Christmas is Scottish so it was important for us children that Christmas was spent close to his home base so that we would be first to receive presents. That Christmas, of course, I was in no position to decide where we would spend Christmas or the New Year. It was my brother who insisted on dragging a heavily pregnant forty-five-year-old woman, my father and a traumatised deaf child all the way from Devon to Scotland, and I think it was he who insisted on them all going for a walk in the snow, resulting in my mother having a fall and ending up in hospital for an emergency birth, six weeks premature. Blame my brother for all of this. I did.
Sitting here, in my wheelchair in the latter part of the century, I look back to 2012 and see a time much more tolerant and easy going than the one I now live in. We didn’t realise, how could we, how lucky we all were, at least in the West. So much was accepted, so much tolerated. We were kinder then, kinder and more innocent. It was a world where the desire for a better and more sustainable world had not yet been hijacked by the political right; where bigots were seen for what they were and not placed in positions of power and called realists; where it was fine to be different and where the vulnerable were, to a certain extent, still protected. We were more innocent then for sure or perhaps we were more gullible? In the end, we were sitting on a moral precipice and we hadn’t yet realised it. Already the world into which I entered was preparing to change. Global warming, concerns over resources and overpopulation were on the agenda and people were looking for solutions – not just solutions but scapegoats too. There wasn’t enough to go round. Someone would have to pay the price, but who and how? And who would be brave enough to find and then implement the solution that would save the planet and the human life that covered its surface?
In 2012, these were the questions that were being debated in the media, in the pubs and throughout society. But not so in a small cottage hospital in the Highlands of Scotland. Here a forty-five-year-old woman was giving birth to a baby with blank eyes, another symptom of Hynes’ Syndrome: we have no colour in our eyes for the first six to eight weeks of our life, longer for a premature baby. There was panic in the maternity ward, and nurses fainted at the horrific sight of the white-eyed baby boy. You would have thought that this hospital would have known better having seen the same sight fifty-two years earlier when my father
had been born, but obviously not, and my mother was carefully given the news that she had given birth to a freak. Well, I’m sure the word ‘freak’ was not actually used; we were, as I say, a much kinder world then, but freak was what she gave birth to and she called him Alexander.
Chapter 3
I was half-carried, half-dragged through the drizzle and wind to the camper van. As I approached I could hear the General talking to someone inside. ‘Get out!’ he was saying. He was putting on his best Glaswegian accent.
‘I need to get my chair.’
The General swore violently under his breath. ‘You’re a para,’ he said.
‘Yes, do you want me to ...?’
‘Don’t bother. The package has arrived.’
I was that package and I needed complete secrecy.
I was bundled into the front seat of the van. I was sweating freely but shivering intensely at the same time. I slumped in the seat, unable to move. I felt the man turn his gaze on me and I heard him gasp. ‘But it’s ...’
‘What did I tell you!’ shouted the General. The man froze and said nothing. The General, who was still standing outside in the damp, dark night, leaned into the open window by the driver’s seat where the man was sitting. ‘You can drive this thing?’ he asked.
‘Yes, it’s been adapted for me.’
‘Well, remember what I said. Follow your instructions. You’re to take the package to the travellers’ site north of Coventry; are you sure you know it?’
‘Sure I do.’
‘Someone will be waiting for you and they’ll take the package from you. Under no circumstances are you to talk to this person.’ He paused menacingly. The General did this well. He was a violent man and everyone knew it. ‘You know what’ll happen if you do?’
‘I don’t need threats. I’m loyal to the Brotherhood and to,’ he paused and finished lamely, ‘everyone in the Brotherhood.’
‘Is this your child?’
The man turned round. ‘Yes.’
‘How old is he?’
The man opened his mouth, about to speak, but hesitated and then said. ‘Nearly five, sir.’ He dropped his gaze as he spoke.
‘Would you like him to see his fifth birthday?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then do as I say. If you fail me, he dies and so does that wife of yours. You can watch them die. Do you understand?’
‘I understand.’
The General banged the side of the van. ‘Get going. Don’t let us down. Remember that wherever you are the Brotherhood can find you. You fuck around with us and you and your family will regret it.’
‘I said I understood,’ returned the man angrily. He went to turn the ignition on. It was an old van and had one of those old-fashioned cards for switching on the engine.
The General stopped him. ‘What’s your name, friend?’ he asked.
‘My name’s Jason Morris,’ he said, ‘people call me Jazz.’
‘And your son and wife?’
‘Ben and Rachael.’
The General nodded. ‘I’ll remember your names, I promise.’
Jazz nodded in return, switched the engine on and swung the van round. Soon the abandoned warehouse in Bristol was left behind and so was the General. I felt only a moment’s misgivings and then the pain took over and I no longer cared. I was going home; that was all that mattered.
***********************
My father was not a handsome man even before he got the scars that disfigured the right side of his face. Although he was tall with a full head of hair until the day he died, those strange yellow eyes were tired and sad and were perhaps a little too close together. His face was stern and rather dour. His mouth was firm and uncompromising and set in a permanent scowl; he rarely smiled and his conversation was limited. Even those who liked him referred to him as a social cripple. If I took friends (or rarely girlfriends) home, they found him a tad scary. They tended to visit just the once and then made their excuses. Universally they felt sorry for me for having a father who, obviously, must beat me at weekends for the fun of it, which was ironic really because my father had the gentlest, kindest nature you could ever imagine.
He was unhappily married for over twenty years to Robert’s mother, Sarah. Then, at the age of fifty, he fell completely and obsessively in love for the first time. She was a tiny red-head with pale skin and large brown eyes; she was forty-three years old, divorced and childless. She fell completely in love with my father, just as he had done with her. She was beautiful, both inside and out. She was my mother.
I was the surprise package. My mother had been told she could not have children and now in her forties had given up on the idea. One day she was working at home when someone rang her doorbell. She went to the door to be met by a ragged gypsy woman. My mother was about to shut the door on her when she remembered her religion and the fact that she was a socialist so she agreed to buy some pegs from her. As she passed the money across, the woman offered to read her future on her palm for a further pound, the currency of the day. My mother, despite being English, had Irish grandparents and the Celtic blood in her was strong; therefore, she could not resist giving into the superstitious impulse and agreed to have her palm read.
The gypsy woman held her hand and peered into it. According to family legend, she gasped with terror when she saw my mother’s palm. Hastily she pushed my mother’s hand away and gave her back all the money. My mother, now puzzled and slightly alarmed, asked her what she had seen. The woman hesitated and said: ‘You will give birth to a golden-eyed God who will suffer more than any man, but you will not live to see him suffer for you will not live to see your sixtieth birthday.’ She then blessed my mother and left her standing there with her money and a bag of pegs.
My mother would probably not have remembered this encounter if it had not been for the fact that she had just met and fallen in love with a golden-eyed vet, and, although they had argued and separated at that point, he was still very much in her thoughts. She never forgot the encounter and often joked about it, calling me her little God.
The gypsy was wrong, though. My mother did live to see her sixtieth birthday. She died twelve days after that birthday from a brain haemorrhage. I was fifteen years old at the time.
Chapter 4
The General returned to the warehouse heavy with foreboding. Nothing had gone according to plan, but he was about to change that. He paused at the entrance, a dark, narrow doorway with wooden doors hanging off the hinges. Paint peeled from the wood and someone had gouged holes across its surface. A pale, subdued light drifted out of the doorway. His keen ears caught the sound of footsteps and soft voices. He didn’t have much time.
Someone approached. He didn’t move. He had so little time, but he was desperately afraid that the man he respected more than any other – a man he would willingly die for many times over – was about to do the unthinkable: die first.
‘What now?’ It was a beautiful soft Edinburgh voice.
The General turned to the voice. The man who had spoken was anything but beautiful. He was tall, too thin, with arms and legs out of proportion to the rest of his body. His face was pale, gaunt and covered in acne. His lips were pale and thin and he had yellow teeth, several of which were missing. His head was shaven and covered in crude tattoos. His name was Todd. Most people called him Sweeney, a child of the streets, of the knife. Drunken brawls, football fights and racist attacks had marked his life since he was nine years old; he was the product of a violent father, a drunken mother and damp high-rise flats. He was classic substrata. Unthinking violence had once defined him. Now, the Brotherhood did.
‘Can we trust that bastard in the van?’ he asked belligerently. He hardly knew how to speak any other way.
‘He’s a discard; what do you think?’
Sweeney hesitated. ‘Where Matrix is concerned we should trust no one.’
The General stared into the distance. ‘I have the code. I need to activate it.’
‘He gave it t
o you?’
‘He had no choice.’
‘But he hesitated. We all saw him.’
‘He gave me the code.’ The General turned to leave.
Sweeney grabbed his arm. ‘You are not Matrix!’
‘What do you want from me?’ cried the General. ‘My brother is dead and Matrix killed the rest. Now more will die. I’ll make sure of that.’
Sweeney released his grip. ‘How many?’
‘God willing, all of them.’
‘God? You don’t believe in God!’
‘No, but my brother did. And if he’s with his mythical God now, he’s waiting for his revenge. There are men and women sleeping in their beds who’ll not wake up tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure of that, now that Matrix has given me the code.’
Sweeney smiled. ‘Does that include the Wakefields?’
‘Aye, for sure. I’m just sorry you’re not the one to be wielding the knife.’
‘But the person who does will, no doubt, hate them as much as I do.’
‘Unfortunately, their end will be swift. No time for anything else. Meanwhile, burn this place down. If the pigs find this mess, they’ll guess who did it and this time they’ll make sure that Matrix rots in prison.’
Sweeney straightened slightly. “I’ll see to it.’ He hesitated. ‘I just wish we could trust that para.’
The General turned to him. ‘Does Matrix trust you?’
Sweeney flinched slightly, gently touching his left cheek where the old scar burnt deep within it: the inverted cross and the three sweet smelling roses. He nodded and left.
The General stood in the night, smoked a cigarette and activated the signal – the signal that should have been pressed days ago by Matrix. But it hadn’t been pressed. Matrix had hesitated, and that hesitation had cost his brother his life – and perhaps Matrix his, too. But now it was done, and tonight would go down in history as a night soaked in blood, as all across the country people would be murdered in their sleep, or relaxing in their homes, and everyone would know that the Brotherhood was responsible.
The Dream Catcher Diaries Page 2