by Mark A. King
“But it’s all I ever wanted to do.” Surely I could win this old coffin-dodger around? How hard could it be? I wasn’t sure what was wrong with him, or why he couldn’t see that this was the best place in the world to work. “It’s my dream. I’m sure you must love working here… really.”
He did that thing that old people do to young people when they look away and can’t be bothered explaining that they were young once and thought as you did. “It’ll turn into a nightmare, son. You always see them. The one-unders. It’s not like you can stop them.”
“One-unders?”
“The jumpers, son. Don’t you know anything?” He did that injured-caterpillar impression with his eyebrows. “Sometimes, afterwards, you think you can will them away from the edge, if only you just stare hard enough, if only you focus those parts of the brain that we’re said not to use. But you can’t stop them. And you can’t stop them from coming back. This station is full of them. I see them when I blink, when I ride the trains, when I sleep. It never stops. Do yourself a favour, son, and get out while you have the choice, while there are easier routes in life. See the light outside. Don’t let this dark existence become normal.”
Was he just bitter? Unable to cope? Old? On a wind-up and doing this for a bet? It didn’t matter. Either I quit the job and took my chances with lower pay and worse conditions, or I ignored Serious Steve, mentor extraordinaire.
Eight years had passed since my induction, and at the age of twenty-five I felt old.
On my way home, I’d often hear the haunting echoes of busker music reverberating down the curved walls of the pedestrian tunnels—the music of the hungry. Sometimes I’d see scraggy men clasp furtive hands in rapid, passing exchanges—money for drugs or other services—I never questioned. I’d see the faces of the shuffling teenagers—young girls, young boys—who ought to have been at home, their eyes calling out in desperation through dilated pupils.
Those were the obvious ones.
With the passage of time, you get to see the darkness in all of us. Every commuter was just a husk. Hollowed out—their shells shuffling or harrying from one place to another. They were not there. They were just shapes.
The last jumper was different.
He was smiling. Waving almost like he was drawing attention to something he had in his hands. When he jumped, he seemed to hang in the air—as if trying to communicate with me, to tell me something. He wasn’t like the husks. He seemed happy. Content.
They tell us not to think about jumpers as people. Not to find out their names, their lives. It makes it harder to deal with if you think of them as real people. It’s the only way—but it’s ridiculous. Do they think we’re inhuman? The jumpers are real. I couldn’t just brush them aside like meaningless dust.
His name was Gerry. The obituary said he had a loving wife. Social media said the wife had a serious job with big responsibilities; it said they couldn’t have kids, that the IVF treatments were not working, nor were the holistic therapies, the alternative medicine, or the spiritual healers. Give me a break, the trolls and parasites on social media, they love all this. It made me wonder why he jumped. Surely there was more to it. How could I move on unless I understood what drove someone like Gerry to do it?
Mindfulness dealt with the here and now. I’d started the programme in an attempt to avoid the muffled comfort of substances and possible addiction. It was about living in the moment—not judging, or analysing, no yesterday or tomorrow—just the moment you are in. It was at one of these moments that I first encountered the spirit of the city. I was relaxing in Regent’s Park; I’d taken a break from work, been signed-off with stress. I was sitting on one of the many memorial park benches dotted in the dappled sunlight, watching the cyclists and dog walkers.
“Anyone sitting here?” he said.
In line with usual protocol, I ignored him. He coughed and repeated the question. I shrugged, a half-hearted acknowledgement that he could sit, but, I’d prefer if he didn’t.
I stole a glance as he lowered himself onto the bench. His trousers were lightweight cream cotton. His shoes, brown faux-crocodile winklepickers, circa the 1980s.
Smell is a funny thing. I’ve heard it’s hard to smell more than one thing at once, but I’ve found that this simply isn’t true. It’s usually possible to smell a couple of things at the same time, for instance when someone tries to mask the smell of a dog shit with air freshener, you get whacked with the synthetic perfume smell first, but you can still smell the crap underneath. As the stranger moved, I got overwhelmed with the smell of citrus fruits, freshly sliced lemons and limes. I could taste the tang like I’d chewed raw rind. Then I got an undercurrent aroma—suntan lotion. It evoked memories of childhood family holidays: dripping ice creams, dive-bombing seagulls, and gritty sandwiches.
“It’s funny,” he said.
I ignored him, again. In my experience it’s best to ignore strangers; it rarely works out. I’ve always been an introvert, nervous around others. Society mistakes introversion for aloofness and stupidity; so sometimes I’ve had to push myself against my instincts. But life is not like the crap on TV. I was no intrepid traveller going to far-flung places and meeting friendly random strangers unable to speak the same language but still connecting. I wouldn’t dance with them, go hunting, eat strange meats around a fire, or drink juice fermented with fruit and spittle until I passed out. No. My experience told me I’d get the random stranger with issues—a drunk, a thief, or an ITK conspiracy theorist.
“I said … it’s funny,” he repeated, more assertive this time. From my peripheral vision I could see he was staring at me, and he looked unlikely to respect my privacy, a resource to which I felt all Londoners were entitled.
“What’s funny?” I said, slowly turning to him. He was wearing what looked like a bowler hat; it was skewed, smart and strangely fashionable. It was hard to place his age. His eyes seemed to glow with the fire of a young, eternal star. Yet his skin was brown and leathery, dotted with sun damage.
“I like how you choose to come here to see what you cannot normally see beneath the ground,” he replied. “For you, it’s like the darkness escape. You’re afraid of the real world. Yet you’re forced to confront it because—” he paused, as if waiting for me to fill in the silence, but I didn’t want to play his games. When I went to leave, he tugged me back. “—because you feel like you have no other option. But if you always seek the darkness—then it’s darkness that you’re likely to find.”
I didn’t know what to tell him. He troubled me, not because he was creepy—which he was—but because I felt drawn to him. He radiated warmth and charm, like my favourite uncle. I guess he also troubled me because he knew those things about me. I told him he didn’t know what he was talking about and that he’d got the wrong guy.
“I’ve got the right guy. You’re Callum McKinley. Twenty-five. Born in Epping. Undergoing therapy for PTSD and alcohol-dependency issues, but you’ve never failed a breathalyser test. Professional avoider of the light. I’m here to save you.”
I grabbed him tightly and yanked him towards me, shouting, “Leave me alone, you freak. Who the hell are you?”
“I am the manifestation of the glorious city of London. At its finest. At its very best. I am the picture-postcard images. I am the open-topped red busses. I am the museums, the rivers, the parks, the palaces, and the towers. The tourists with megapixel cameras. The selfies. The heartbeat of the city. The centre of world finance. The money—the infinite amounts of money. I am the day and the bright light.”
He sounded like deluded preacher, but I my stomach knotted and I felt my legs twitching, ready to run. It seemed more likely he was a first-class stalker. How did he know who I was? I scanned the exit routes in the park and assessed defensive weapons I could use in case things turned nasty. He was a similar height and weight to me, but older. I figured I could take him, if I was forced to it.
Was he mentally ill? This seemed the most likely possibility. I’d lived with i
llness all my life, but nobody wears a sign—it’s not like a cut, a bruise, or a scar. But he seemed to know too much about me. If he was ill, and I was ill, how would I know who was worse, or who might need more help? As a minimum, I would need to work out strategies in case his illness resulted in unpredictable behaviours.
Have I become more ill than I thought? Was he there at all? This was the most worrying outcome. It was entirely possible; after all, I already had one confirmed diagnosis. How would I know? Surely if I was ill, then I would be trying to dismiss it, to rationalise it, to seek the alternatives. I was naturally reluctant to admit this was a likely cause. It was best to confront him directly. “Look, mate, I don’t know why you’re bothering me, but let’s suppose, in some crazy and unhinged version of reality, that you’re right or… I’m just humouring you. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to be happy. Nobody who lives in the dark is truly happy. It is unsettling. An emptiness that we fill with fear, with selfish desires. Night—the dark—is a time of crime, of exploitation, of inappropriate desires—sins, if you want to be old-fashioned about it. The more decent folk I can save from the night, the better this great city will become. Surely, that’s all we want. Tell me you don’t want to get better? Tell me you don’t want to see happiness again?”
“Who exactly are you?”
“I told you, I am everything good about the city.”
I really should have just walk away, but he seemed so real and convincing that I felt I had nothing to lose. “Yeah, yeah, you said that already. Where did you come from? How old are you? Do you have a name?” I quizzed, almost nonchalantly, as if completely disinterested in his answer.
“All good questions, Cal, my friend. They’ll all be answered in good time. Time is nothing more than an illusion. A trick humanity has invented to make sense of things. Nothing I can say or do today will convince you. You’re naturally cynical. What I am telling you is ridiculous and outlandish. Only actions and facts will change your mind. I don’t want anything from you. Just avoid the night-time. Cross the street when you see shadows. Don’t go underground. You will find that you get better. You will find that I am right.”
At the time, I was hopeful I wouldn’t see him again. However, somehow I knew this was just the beginning.
Jimmy
Hospitals, especially those with wards of death, were places of rules.
Don’t run.
Nil by mouth.
No electronic devices.
Only three visitors per patient.
Jimmy Kinsella had only ever followed his own rules.
Some were rigid, like being polite to your elders. Others were flexible, like engaging in violence and crime.
The patient next to Jimmy’s bed was a sallow bag of skin and patterned liver-stains who had been taking severe liberties. Bad enough that the guy kept Jimmy awake every night, chucking up lung-juice as if it were an Olympic sport, but it was his attitude towards staff that made Jimmy’s rage reappear after years of ill-health and decline.
Jimmy said nothing as he watched the bloke encourage his obnoxious cohort of visitors to smuggle in super-strength booze. Jimmy bit his tongue as the codger pretended to blow his nose on a hanky while snorting something up his nostrils. But when the scumbag leered at the staff and laughed as they cleared up, Jimmy paid him a late-night visit to remind him of the rules. This seemed to sort all the problems—apart from the lung-heaving. In the past, Jimmy would have fixed that, too.
Jimmy felt the approach of death. It stalked him in the long hours of increasing pain; he felt it in his bloating body filled with luminous fluids they frequently drained from him. If he listened carefully enough, he was sure he could hear the smothering noise of the tumours multiplying.
What else was there for him to do but think? Thoughts spun in his head like an infinite fairground carousel. Death—let it come. It will be a release. I’ve lived too long and seen too many changes. This new world is dirty and nasty. There are no rules. No boundaries. No—
“All right, Gov?” Josh stood at the end of the bed, Ryan beside him. They looked like two mighty sarsens holding up Stonehenge.
Jimmy wiped the dribble that he could feel wanting to escape from his mouth. “I’ve had better days, Josh.” Josh had bulked up. He’d always been squat, a criminal version of a Rugby prop, but Josh’s suit was now struggling to contain the muscle within it.
“I thought you should see this, Mr Kinsella. It’s what I mentioned in my text,” Josh said, eagerly handing Jimmy a tablet device.
Ryan jostled forward. He was tall and well groomed, and he sometimes employed a disarming bling smile when performing work for Jimmy. “I wouldn’t worry yourself about it, sir. You need to rest up. It’s nothing we can’t handle.” He tried to grab the device.
Josh edged his partner back. “Stop trying to protect your own lanky, guilt-ridden arse, Ryan. Mr. Kinsella needs to see this. If we don’t show him, he’ll find out some other way.” Jimmy gently nodded and took the device. “Just press the screen, sir. The play button.” Josh inserted the earphone jack into the device and tapped his ears to indicate to Jimmy to put in the buds.
Jimmy put in the earphones and looked at the screen. Beneath the pause icon stood the news-reporter—outside a newsagents’, which looked to be cordoned-off with crime scene tape. The reporter had been at the centre of numerous stories in the last year. She was aggressive in her criticism of the police and the authorities, to the point that most viewers questioned her impartiality. Her pony-tailed copper hair and china complexion gave her an artic-wind coldness, and her tailored suit wouldn’t have been out of place in a premium car-dealership.
Jimmy prodded the screen with a wrinkled finger.
“This is Danielle Greene, reporting on the horrific events that happened here in the early hours this morning. While the city was waking, two violent criminals—some would go so far as to say they were thugs connected to organised crime—attacked the store behind me. The events that followed can only be described as carnage. A visitor to our once-great city was slain in front of her young daughter—who is now missing. Another woman was injured and taken to the hospital a few streets from here. One of the criminals was found dead at the scene, but the other is still at large.”
Jimmy removed the earphones and pressed the pause icon. He shook his head and ran his fingertips through his sandpaper stubble. “I’ve seen enough. How did this happen, boys?”
Josh and Ryan looked at each other and shrugged, but this wasn’t going to cut it. Jimmy scowled at them. Josh nervously answered first, “It looks like Ryan here screwed up again, sir.”
Ryan bristled. “Shut it, Josh. You don’t know anything. Sure, I shouldn’t have used Leo, I should have done it myself. I had to do the job, I was trying to protect Mr. Kinsella.”
Jimmy rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Just tell me what happened.”
“Westbourne, Mr. Kinsella. There were threats against you. There was a human trafficking exchange—”
“Are you pulling my chain? You know how I feel about that stuff.”
Ryan held his hand up in a defensive motion. “I promise I didn’t do anything like that. I know you have rules, Mr. Kinsella. I was supposed to get money, hand it over. I called a guy. He took a kid with him. They screwed up. I was supposed to hand the money over to protect you.”
“Bloody hell, Ryan. You are seriously thick sometimes. You didn’t use that crack-head Leo, did you?” Ryan was silent. “I told you to drop him. We don’t need to use people like that. You know I don’t want anything to do with the shite that Westbourne is into. All that smuggling of drugs, of people, the corruption—it’s too much. I might have broken bones, burnt buildings, ripped people off—but nothing like the toxic crap Westbourne is up to. You know I won’t be here much longer. I just wanted to tidy things up, make amends, go out trying to do one good thing, and now you screwed up, big time. What happened? I need to know everything.”
�
�It went wrong.” Ryan replied.
“Lay off the steroids, son. They’re making you even more stupid. I know it went wrong. Don’t you think I can frigging see that with my own eyes?”
“Sorry, Mr. Kinsella.”
“Care to explain it?”
“I did use Leo. He had an inexperienced runt with him. I didn’t know about this other kid—I swear. They were jacked up on some crap. Looks like they stabbed a customer, then got into a scuffle with the mum and her daughter.”
“A scuffle?”
“The runt stabbed the older lady, the mum, when she got in the way. Then somehow the stupid twat got himself killed by falling in the blood and cracking open his head.”
“Good. He was as good as dead anyway. Westbourne would have seen to that. ”
Ryan nodded. “So we have two dead. One was an innocent bystander. One was someone who could be linked back to us.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Leo phoned me. He said he needed my help. I told him to go screw himself.”
“You did what? Didn’t you think it might have been better to reel him in? Westbourne has connections but they can only stretch so far. Let me get this right—we have Leo still running around out there—somewhere—linking you, then me, indirectly to Westbourne and the other crap I want nothing to do with?”
“Yes, Mr. Kinsella.”
“Anything else?”
“The young girl is a witness. She’s missing. Then there’s the woman who tried to intervene—another witness.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s here, in the hospital. A few floors down.”
I need to find the witness downstairs. Jimmy thought. The witnesses are in danger. These new generation scumbag gangs have no limits, they have people working on the inside—people in power. The sorts of people who couldn’t afford to have crimes linked to them in any way. Jimmy shuffled. Even getting into an upright position was an effort Jimmy could barely stomach. “Westbourne won’t want any link. That woman downstairs, the patient—she’s in danger. I don’t want things going wrong further. Go check in on her, Ryan, make sure she’s safe. You’ve screwed up, the least you can do is try to put it right.”