I mean, just imagine Lights Out on the Outside. She'd have no dozie, no fizzio, no tuck-in. Who'd do her hair? Cough Cough says she's a genius. But you have to be more than a genius to survive in the Outside.
I think Cough Cough is a genius but he's degrading. He's degraded a lot recently. I think he degraded tonight as we talked. He's degrading before my very eyes. That's why he says these things about Doctor Dearly. But Doctor Dearly looks after our WELFARE, he's says our good is his chief concern. He even said it on the voice-over.
Then I hear Moose moaning.
It's the wind in the chimney Cough Cough always says. Nothing more.
But I'm not sure, CC, I say to myself. Moose may look like a daftie but he still knows a thing or two. He's not just a stuffed animal. He's got eyes that follow you. He's been in the Bin longer than any of us. You can't just ignore him.
Lights Out knows what I mean. She says Moose is her friend. But all animals are her friends, even snakes.
Tell me about the Outside I say to Moose.
Outside goes on and on right up to the stars says Moose. To reach the stars you have to cross the sea he says. Which means you've got to be a fish or a bird or a cloud I say. Or a boat.
Moose looks down his large nose. He is doubtful. Better stay Inside he says. Outside makes you very small. Outside makes you so small an ant could eat you all up.
Moose is tired.
He's going to sleep he says. Sweet dreams he yawns. He sounds just like Mrs Murdoe.
3
At first tuck-in I wait for Lights Out to go to the washes before I tell Chicken Angel about Cough Cough.
First I tell her about me sicking all over Doctor Dearly.
‘What did he do to you?’ she says.
‘I thought he was going to cough cough my eyes,’ I say. ‘And an operator is coming to look at me. From Edinburgh. Cough Cough says that's a London in Scotland.’
Chicken Angel is puzzled.
‘What's an operator?’
‘Cough Cough says it's someone who cuts you open and lets out the blood so they can look inside you.’
Chicken Angel is horrified. ‘That's a leopard,’ she says. ‘Why do they want to leopard you?’
‘I don't know.’
‘It'll kill you.’
Her eyes widen. Chicken Angel has beautiful eyes. They glisten. They are green and blue and look like under the sea. Inside each globe there are fish trembling and coral flowers gently waving their long silken fins.
Chicken Angel is very AGITATED. She runs her fingers over her face, pushes them into her mouth. Strokes my hair, gentles my cheeks, wipes blood from my lips.
‘You are so beautiful, X-Ray. Your skin shines.’
I smile.
I lean forward and say very quietly, ‘Cough Cough says Doctor Dearly wants to get rid of us all. That's why.’
‘Yes,’ says Chicken A. ‘He's always saying that.’
‘And everything is being degraded.’
‘Yes. He says that too.’
We sit there in silence. We're trying to add it all up. She too is thinking about the television and the books and the pencils. It's all fluttering in my head. Nothing stays still long enough to get a clear picture.
Neither of us wants to admit CC is right. Because where would that leave us?
I look round the day-room. Moose is there, a big cobweb hanging between his antlers, the fur round his nose patched and dusty. The waterhole hiccups at us and under the cushion of the Big Chair I can just see the shiny edge of The Golden Treasury.
I get up and tuck the book out of sight.
That's what I want to do with Cough Cough and his warnings and worries and his mouth mouthing of Doctor Dearly.
‘He could be right,’ I say, returning to the table and hoping Chicken Angel will tell me I'm wrong.
But she is nodding slowly and tears are edging down her cheeks.
‘WWe are going to go takeaway, X-Ray, aren't we?’ she whimpers. ‘What can we do?’
‘Get out. Leave. Escape,’ I say, surprised at the words leaping out of my mouth.
She wipes her eyes and looks at me like I've got after-trank.
‘Cough Cough says he's going away, getting out,’ I say quickly.
She snorts. ‘Poor Cough Cough,’ she says. ‘He has gone goo goo then. That's dozie talk. Surely you don't believe a word. He can't even get out of a wheelchair now. He can't even see.’
‘But we can,’ I say. ‘We could escape if we worked out a way.’
Chicken Angel frowns. ‘Tell that to the leopard,’ she says.
Just then the door of the day-room opens and Doctor Dearly's nurse comes in and beckons to me. ‘The Doctor, ’ she says, ‘wants to see you. You've got a visitor.’
I look at Chicken Angel.
Her eyes are alarm all over. Monkey face.
She reaches across the table and gentles my hand. Then I realize she's morsing me.
Be brave she says.
4
On the screen in Doctor Dearly's office is another eye cut in half. All the blood has gone and there's just the eye left with pink muscles and the lens and the CORNEA and the retina and in between a large CAVITY.
At the desk is a man in a white lab coat. He looks like Cough Cough, chubby and balding.
‘Sit here,’ he says, pointing to a large black chair.
He pumps the chair with his foot and I am tilted back.
I begin to struggle, try to sit up. He presses me down.
‘What are you going to do?’ I say.
‘Just look at the light. Up. Down. Left. Right.’
He turns to Doctor Dearly. ‘I think we can proceed. It's good.’
He steps back and goes to the screen.
Doctor Dearly stands in front of me. ‘G4, you want to help your friend, don't you?’
I nod.
‘We've reached the end of the line with our present treatment. For G1 something more radical is needed.’
‘Your friend,’ interrupts the man at the desk, ‘suffers from accelerated PREMATURE MACULA DEGENERATION. We cannot save the eyes but we can –’
‘Do something else,’ says Doctor Dearly taking over. ‘But we need you. Now you're on level 4 fizzio so I think we can assume you are strong enough to take the operation.’
‘Operation?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will I lose all my blood?’
Doctor Dearly frowns. ‘Who's been putting such rubbish in your head? No, G4, you will not lose all your blood. We are only operating in the eye.’
‘Ohh,’ I squeak as if a Hyena Man is squeezing my throat.
‘Do not worry, G4. We have Mr Shahabi here who is a specialist in OPTHALMIC surgery. You will be safe in his hands.’
‘You're not going to kill me, get rid of me?’
‘No, whatever gave you that idea? Would we be doing a transplant to save your friend's sight if we had such an idea? What irresponsible nonsense.’
‘What's a TRANSPLANT?’ I say, beginning to tremble. I can feel my skin tightening. I'm onioning.
The Shahabi man speaks. ‘It's where we replace a bad organ like a heart or lung with a good heart or lung.’
‘Or eye,’ says Doctor Dearly.
I look up at him. His eyes are cold and unblinking.
‘You're going to take my eye and give it to C… C… Cough Cough,’ I stutter. I can feel shakers in my arms and the skin of my face pulling tighter.
‘G1. Yes, that's the plan.’
‘But you said I was nebulized.’
The Shahabi man looks at Doctor Dearly.
‘That was a blind,’ he says. ‘So as not to alarm you. Your eye is a very good eye.’
I sit in the chair trembling. I lick my lips. They are salty with blood.
Mine for Cough Cough's.
An eye for an eye.
CHAPTER 12
Booty
1
When I get back it feels middle of the morning. The lights are full on and there's n
o sign of Cough Cough. His bed's fresh on as Mrs Murdoe would say.
Mine too.
The others must be in the day-room.
I lie down, still trembling inside. I put my fingers over my eyes. I can feel them, little spongy balls.
Next thing I know Chicken Angel is whispering in my ear and doing gently on my cheek.
‘Tell us what's happened?’
I can smell dozie on her tracksuit. Sick and soap.
Lights Out has her head on my middle. She is stroking my knee.
‘They're going to operate, Doctor Dearly and the other man.’
I tell them about the other man. I tell them about transplants. I tell them about the eyes.
Lights Out mews and mews.
I stroke her crinkly hair.
Then Chicken Angel squeezes me to her. She is crying. We do Jesus Hands.
Then she whispers: ‘I'll write it in my story.’
I know she thinks it will help. But who will it help? Chicken Angel. For her the words will carry the hurt away like those scapegoats Mrs Murdoe told us about.
‘It's terrible,’ wails Chicken Angel.
‘But it means Cough Cough will be able to see,’ I say. ‘He's m friend What can I do?’
‘But what if it doesn't work?’
‘Doctor Dearly says it's routine.’
‘Is that what they do on the Outside?’ says Chicke Angel. ‘Swap eyes?’
I shrug. I can feel her little wing fingers stirring.
‘It's terrible,’ she says again. ‘You mustn't let them. It'll squeal so much. You mustn't.’
‘It's for Cough Cough,’ I say simply.
What else can I say? I can't say no.
We sit there on my bed, hugging. The nurse walks past but doesn't say anything. She's carrying a towel. Is it for Cough Cough? He's probably in the Recovery Room.
I think they've been told not to disturb us.
When Cough Cough comes back he looks dozied out. The nurses lie him down and cover him with his blanket.
‘We've got to talk to him,’ whispers Chicken Angel after they've gone.
‘Where's he been?’ I say.
Chicken Angel shrugs. ‘He didn't have first tuck-in,’ she says. ‘Tests probably. More tests.’
Then Lights Out gets up and goes to Mrs Murdoe.
She doesn't morse. She stands there stroking the face in the wood and shaking her head.
Chicken Angel and I watch her.
This is too much even for Mrs M.
Then Lights Out starts tap tapping the forehead.
Cough Cough has a plan she is saying.
Talk to Cough Cough.
2
Down at the Garvie PO all was quiet. The ice-cream board was out and slapped with a SOLD OUT sign.
Nail walked up to the door and grabbed the handle.
Time for Mister Fox to check out the hen house.
Door stuck?
No. Door locked!
Nail swore.
He checked the opening hours.
Half-day closing.
The sign swung inside the glass of the door. Ha ha it said.
Nail kicked the waste bin next to him. It rattled with empties. He couldn't even get a tin of McEwan's. Garvie – morgue town.
He pressed his face to the glass and tried looking inside.
A light spot-lit the counter and a camera eye peered at him.
He gave it the finger and rattled the door.
No Natalie. No go.
So what was she doing saying she was up for it and available then shutting shop and disappearing? Was it a wind up? She was the sort. A bit stuck-up now he remembered. One of those posh accents. The sort that comes with money.
Well, two can play at that game, Natalie tight-bum with yer doodah glasses.
Well, hang about. He wasn't feeding her meter while he waited.
Give it a couple of days. Don't be seen, keep ’em keen.
He sauntered off like it was no big deal, like he had places to go, people to see.
But Garvie didn't have places to go and by the middle of the afternoon Nail found himself walking down the road to Coddy's. To his surprise he could see him in the front drive standing at the back of his van and looking up and down the road like he was expecting trouble.
As Nail approached he killed his fag and motioned him over.
‘Wanna earn a fiver?’
‘Doing what?’ said Nail. For a fiver Coddy would want blood.
‘You deliver these tonight when you pick her up.’ He thumbed at the van. Nail looked through the back window. He could see half a dozen white cardboard boxes stashed up against the partition behind the front seats.
Nail had told Coddy he'd passed his driving test so he had occasionally let him have the van.
‘Her?’
‘Kenneth's mother. She wants a lift tonight and tomorrow.’
Oh that ‘her’. Coddy's wife. Separated from Coddy like you'd separate from a crocodile. They kept well apart even though she only lived two miles away on the other side of Garvie. And that was too near for Coddy. Only a 12-bore elephant gun would take him within shooting distance of her.
‘Her car's done a sickie. It's in the garage for two days. The last bus leaves before her shift ends. So she needs a lift. She works at Bin Linnie. The nut house. You know that, don't you?’
Nail nodded. So he had to go the Bin.
‘And I'm delivering this stuff?’ Nail pointed to the van.
‘Yeah, and you watch out. I don't want any cock-ups. Go to the Bin a bit early. You deliver to Naz in Maintenance there. Knock twice on the green door and wait. Kenno knows the routine. He's going with you. After, you pick her up, remember. She finishes at eight.’
‘What's the booty?’
Coddy said nothing for a second. ‘It's legit. Body stockings.’
‘For a house of freaks. Come on!’
Coddy scowled. ‘Just deliver.’
‘Will do,’ said Nail.
He grinned. He was going to the Bin to see the monkey heads.
3
Talk to Cough Cough? How? He was dozied out.
‘What do you think he'll say when you tell him about swapping eyes?’ asks Chicken Angel.
‘It's not swapping,’ I say. ‘It's giving.’
‘Taking,’ says Chicken Angel.
I think about this.
It'll prove to CC he's wrong about Doctor Dearly, about him wanting to experiment on us. This isn't for Doctor Dearly's benefit, CC. He can see OK. It's for yours. So you can see again.
‘But what if it doesn't work?’ Chicken Angel is saying.
I don't say anything. I've told her what I think. That Doctor Dearly says it's going to be OK. Run of the mill the operator said.
But will it be OK? What if the eyes are different sizes and mine doesn't fit? How do they keep them in? Cough Cough says they have blood vessels. What happens to them? What if the eye dies?
I can feel the shakers again.
Chicken Angel puts her arm round me. ‘Take one of your tabs,’ she says.
Lihts Out joins us.
We do Jesus Hands.
We huddle.
4
And all morning we huddle right up to second tuck-in. No one takes any notice of us. But we know later it will be different. Tin Lid is on the afternoon and evening watch and she hates hugging.
‘You look like stupid monkeys,’ she'd say. ‘It's not normal at your age. Get back to your beds.’
So we'd sit on our own and wonder about our ages. Chicken Angel liked twos and said she was going to be twenty years. Cough Cough said she was daftie because by twenty all your ORGANS are fully developed and hers weren't even half developed from what he could see. I asked him about Chicken Angel's organs developing but all he said was wait and see. I don't think he knows really. I'm not sure she'll ever develop her organs properly. We've all got some organs fallen behind. I've not developed many skins and not much hair, and Lights Out has eyes that haven't even
started. So it's likely somewhere Chicken Angel has some still waiting.
Anyway what difference does it make whether we are twenty or thirty or even a hundred years like Mrs Murdoe?
According to CC we're not going to be here much longer.
5
Chicken Angel and I have decided to wait till after light-out before we talk to him. If Lolo is right about what Mrs Murdoe says then we'll soon find out about his plan.
How can Mrs Murdoe know about Cough Cough's plan? Is Lights Out just making it up? She makes all the animal stories up about bears and thunder and lightning and birds and things. What if there is no plan? And anyway how could we take CC with us? I won't be able to go if I lose an eye. Because if you've no hair and funny skin and you lose an eye on top of that it's the last nail in the coffin as Mrs Murdoe used to say.
After third tuck-in we wash and I put on my silk bed suit. It's the last one I've got and it smells. Then we play snakes and ladders and Chicken Angel says we could do with some ladders so we could climb out of the Bin.
And I say we could do with some snakes to bite Tin Lid. All the time we watch out for her and sometimes we forget to slide down a snake. But Tin Lid doesn't come round much. Instead she stays in the nurse's office working on her desk and shouting at her mobile. The mobile means Tin Lid can hear the Outside. Whenever she's on the phone we listen in and try and see who it is and what's going on. When she shouts we go to the water-hole where we can hear better. This evening she is mouth mouthin someone called Kenny.
During snakes and ladders we do a lot of yawning. This is so Tin Lid will think we're too far gone to be trouble and she won't turn the cameras on later and she may even leave out the tabs.
But no. We still get tabs. She watches as I take mine. I take the water, tuck the tab under my tongue and pretend to swallow. She makes me open my mouth. But she can't see the tab. She never does. She thinks we're too stupid to daftie her. She only makes us open mouth to warn us just in case, to show us no one dafties her.
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