Then she goes to Chicken Angel.
I lean over and tap CC on the shoulder. His hand comes out from under the sheet. His fingers waggle and disappear.
I slide the tab out and put it under my pillow to give him later.
Then the light dims and ghosts the dormie bluish.
CHAPTER 13
Cough Cough's Secret
1
‘Twenty bleedin' rads,' moaned Kenno.
‘Bleedin' all right,’ grinned Nail, revving the engine.
Kenno flexed his stiff fingers. They were stained reddy brown from radiator gunge.
‘Five quid. The tight old git. A fiver for lumping scrap all day. I tell you, Nail, he can go swing if he tries that one again.’
Nail said nothing. The van ground round a corner.
Kenno frowned. ‘What did you do today?’
Nail shrugged. ‘Bit of this, bit of that.’
‘You didn't go and see that girl then?’
Nail ignored him. Ahead the Bin came into view.
‘Thought you fancied her?’ said Kenno, bit suspicious. ‘I bet you did. You'd do that behind my back, you would.’
‘You don't know anything do you, Kenno. Let them wait. No rush. You don't want to look like a pushover. Harder you play, harder they fall.’
Kenno grunted. With lassies you just never knew.
‘But what if they go off the boil?’
‘Turn up the heat,’ said Nail.
He slipped into third.
Across the road ahead was a security gate. They were entering Bin Linnie.
Nail braked gently as a figure stepped out from a small portahut.
‘They got us on camera back there,’ explained Kenno. ‘Looks like it's Dougie on tonight.’
Nail eased the van down and rolled it slowly slowly till it was almost touching Dougie's trousers.
‘That's prat driving,’ hissed Kenno. ‘He'll have us for that.’
Nail wound down the window.
Dougie walked round slowly. He bent down.
‘And who do you think you are?’
Nail turned to Kenno.
‘He's my cousin and a police training cadet,’ said Kenno.
Dougie frowned.
‘Coddy's got a bad back,’ Kenno added, explaining why Nail was driving.
‘Police, eh!’ said Dougie. ‘Sorry about that, Kenny. Police in the Coddy family, eh! Now there's a 999 story. Mind, about time something dropped in his beer. He'll have to watch his back now.’ Dougie couldn't get over Coddy's bad luck. ‘Police, eh!’ he repeated. ‘He'll be doing community service next.’
And with that he waved them through, a grin all over his face.
‘Dougie's a prat,’ said Kenno. ‘One of Coddy's drinking mates down the Lobbie.’
‘Like this Naz bloke?’ said Nail swinging the van left through an archway and into a small parking area.
‘No. He's as bent as a plumber's elbow. He and Coddy were at school together, occasionally. They were always out pulling a trick or two together, even then.’
Nail circled the car park till they saw signs to Maintenance and Stores.
Naz was waiting by the green door.
The three of them had the van emptied and doors shut in seconds.
‘Coddy said yer bringing more stuff tomorrow night.’
Kenno nodded.
First Nail had heard. Still, smuggling NHS surplus was better than doing the five-fingers in the local Post Office.
Naz lowered his voice. ‘Only come if Dougie Brown's on the gate. If he's in the office he thinks he's Steven Spielberg with those bleedin' cameras, he has them jumping everywhere.’
Ten minutes later, in the van and Kenno's ma was giving it some.
‘The spookies are getting more and more spooky,’ she said. ‘It's the doctor's fault for cutting off the television. It makes them restless. And anyway they're starting to run down, sleeping longer and longer, eating less, losing weight. They're getting high maintenance and it's either more nurses or more sedation. It's just getting too much. You can't get staff. Who wants to work with things like that? It's a nightmare.’
Nail was uneasy but curious.
‘So why work with spookies?’ he said.
‘Because that's all there is in Garvie, spooks and wasters like yer cousin.’
‘Why spooks? What's up with them?’ said Nail.
‘They're retards,’ said Kenno from the back. ‘One of them's got wings, hasn't she.’
‘Wings?’ said Nail. ‘An angel then?’
‘One had two heads.’
Nail swallowed. It made him feel sick.
‘But he died. And another didn't have any –’
‘Shut it, Kenno. Shut it,’ he snapped.
He remembered the purple baby.
‘Ohhh!’ said Kenno.
‘Why are they kept in there?’
‘Because who wants retards,’ said Kenno.
‘But why lock them away? You see funny kids in wheelchairs in parks and everywhere nowadays.’
‘But you've not seen this lot, Nail. I mean think of it,’ said Kenno. ‘Two heads. You don't see that in Garvie, do you? You wouldn't want to see them either. They're retards, honest, mate, they are.’
‘In the office they call them deletes,’ said his ma. She turned to Nail. ‘It's because something went wrong, and nobody wanted them so we have to look after them.’
They drew up outside her flat.
She rummaged inside her bag. ‘I'm all fingers and thumbs,’ she said. ‘It's being in that place all day.’ She turned round to Kenno. ‘Same time tomorrow night,’ she said.
Kenno nodded.
Nail turned the van and headed towards the Golden Fry.
‘It's double mushy peas for me,’ said Kenno.
Suddenly he leant forward. ‘It's her,’ he said pointing through the windscreen.
Nail squinted.
Natalie. Carrying a bag of chips.
They just had time to see her slide into the front seat of a small red car. The door slammed and she was gone.
‘We could get a portion of that tomorrow,’ said Kenno.
Nail said nothing.
2
We wait.
‘She's asleep.’ Lights Out is asleep.
Chicken Angel slides into my bed. We cosy cosy for a minute. In our heads things are fluttering and flying into each other. Can we really get out of the Bin? What happens when Tin Lid and Doctor Dearly catch us and bring us back? How much trank will we get then?
I can feel Chicken Angel's little wings flutter. They're only POLYPS says Cough Cough. An organ. When we lived in the sea everyone had them.
Lived in the sea? That's one for Lights Out, CC. But Cough Cough insisted. We all came out of the sea. Changed our life form. Like from tadpole to frog to prince said Lights Out like on The Natural World. No said CC, there are no princes out there. No, like from fish to monkey he said. He'd read about it in the library.
*
The cameras are red-off.
‘Cough Cough,’ I whispered. ‘You awake?’
He grunts.
Chicken Angel and I get out and help him up. She sits one side of the bed, I sit on the other.
‘I've got something to tell you,’ I say. ‘It's very important.’
He's wheezing heavily and I can feel the damp from under his arms as we hold him steady against the pillow.
‘I need a drink,’ he says. His voice is croaky.
Chicken Angel goes to get her drink for him and I tiptoe to the washes and find a paper towel.
When I get back the top drawer of CC's bedside cabinet is out and Chicken Angel is reaching inside feeling under the top of the unit.
I wipe CC's forehead.
Meanwhile I can hear a tearing sound from where Chicken Angel is pulling at something.
‘Shhshh,’ says Cough Cough.
Slowly she brings out a small packet which she holds out for CC.
He shakes his head and nods at me
.
Suddenly I'm in charge.
Chicken Angel gives me the packet. Thrusts it at me like you do in Pass-the-Pippi, the game we used to play with Mrs Murdoe, where no one wanted the pippi.
I take it.
It's flat, big enough to hold a knife and fork and is wrapped in lint and bound by sticking plaster.
Cough Cough wants me to open it. He seems to be in a hurry.
I peel the plaster off one end, and out of the lint sleeve slides a white plastic box.
‘Open it,’ wheezes CC.
I open it.
‘Oh!’ I lean back astonished.
‘Is that all you can say?’ says Cough Cough.
‘What is it?’ says Chicken Angel.
I hold the box up for her.
A look of horror spreads over her face. ‘Where did you get that from?’ she whispers.
3
We both stare at it, at the white plastic cylinder and the thin steel lance and the two capsules neatly bedded in soft pink foam.
‘It's only a hypo,’ says Cough Cough. ‘You've seen lots of these. What's so bad bad about it?’
‘What's it for? I mean what are we going to do with it?’ I ask.
‘Stick it in someone,’ says Cough Cough. ‘Now take it out. Feel it in your hand. Come on, it won't bite. Not you anyway.’
I ease the hypo out of the foam and hold it up. It hardly weighs a cotton ball. Over the point there's a plastic cap.
‘You take this off,’ whispers Cough Cough. He reaches out and I place the hypo in his hand. ‘Then you push the needle into the capsule… pull out the plunger… so it sucks the trank out and into the delivery… cylinder of the hypo.’ He says all this halting every few words for a good breath.
I nod.
I know how hypos work. We all do.
‘But where did you get it from?’ says Chicken Angel, staring at the thing but not wanting to touch it.
I'm wondering who Cough Cough thinks we're going to trank.
Cough Cough gasps and looks at Chicken Angel. ‘Tin Lid. Remember when they tranked Lolo because of her Pippi? They all had trank sets. In the chaos this must have got dropped because I found it under the bed.’
Chicken Angel shivers at the memory.
‘Cough Cough, I've got to tell you something. It's about your eyes. And mine.’
CC turns his head towards me. He is slowly nodding. ‘So you've found out,’ he says.
‘Found out?’
‘About the experiment.’
‘You know?’ I say uneasily.
‘Yes. They want to do an eye transplant.’
‘If you knew why didn't you say?’
‘Because it's not for us, it's for them. It'll be a breakthrough. A scientific first. Dearly wants the credit. Doctor D the father of the new optics, the eye popper.’ Cough Cough snorts. ‘And anyway I was hoping it wouldn't happen, hoping I was wrong. I didn't want to tell you because I knew it would scare and squeal you.’
I squeeze Cough Cough's hand.
‘But it's not an experiment, CC. It's for you,’ I say. ‘I know it's for real but I'm not scared because I'm doing it for you.’
‘It's for them,’ says Cough Cough fiercely. ‘You'll be doing it for them. That's why you've got to get out. They can't do it if you've gone.’ He paused for breath. ‘I guessed something was up when I saw them measuring you while you were coma-ed that time you got the immo.’
‘But we can't leave,’ says Chicken Angel. ‘Not without you and how can we get you out like this?’
‘I stay,’ says Cough Cough. ‘I've got my own surprise. Something they won't expect. You'll see.’
‘What are you going to do, CC?’ I say.
‘Wait and see. You'll find out soon enough. Now listen. There's something else you'll need. This.’
Cough Cough points to the drawer that Chicken Angel has left on the floor. She picks it up and places it in front of him. CC takes out a tube of toothpaste. He unrolls the flat end and pulls out a small object. He rolls up the tube. ‘It's a key card. Opens the fire escape door in the library. I've been waiting years to use it. Now it's time.’ He turns to me again.
‘X-Ray, you take these, the hypo and the key. You've got to do it, before it's too late. Get out now. Tomorrow. Soon. Trank the nurse with this, go to the library up the stairs outside the day-room, go down the fire escape and –’ He stopped. ‘After that you have to work out the rest for yourselves. I've done my bit.’
He lies back on the pillow exhausted. I wipe his forehead again. The skin is clammy cold.
‘Trank the nurse!’ says Chicken Angel, hands half covering her face. ‘Trank a nurse! How could we do that?’
‘It looks like it's Tin Lid on duty,’ says Cough Cough, his voice very feeble all of a sudden. ‘Wait till it's nearly dark on the Outside. Keep the Weather Eye open. Then give it her, in the buttock, up to the hilt.’
‘But how?’ I say.
Cough Cough splutters and flaps his hands on the bed. ‘How daftie are you, X-Ray? Use your imagination. One of you plays sick. Ram it in while she bends over the bed. Just do it.’
4
I look across at Chicken Angel sitting on the other side of the bed. Her eyes are wide with the idea of tranking Tin Lid.
Suddenly CC starts coughing.
‘Give him water,’ I hiss at Chicken Angel, ‘before the night nurse hears him.’
She puts the beaker to his lips. CC splutters and calms a little. I reach under my pillow for the tab I'd hidden earlier.
CC starts shaking again and I can see he's going to blow his lungs any moment. One tab won't do it. I hurry round the bed while Chicken A tries to get more water into his mouth. I pull out the second drawer of the cabinet. I'm looking for another tab, like the one from yesterday he never took.
The drawer slips and as I grab it I feel something underneath.
I turn the drawer over. Taped on to the wood is an envelope. I peel away the tape and open it.
I give it a shake and one, two, three packets of tabs fall out into my hand. Enough to dozie the lot of us for a month.
‘Where did you get these from?’ I ask in amazement.
Cough Cough waves my question aside.
I break one open.
Tape the envelope back.
Cough Cough grabs my wrist. He's smiling and wheezing. ‘They're for putting in her tea.’ The words are squeezed out. ‘Knock her out for good.’ He giggles and wheezes and his chest heaves. He points shakily at the two drawers. We slide them back in place.
Just in time.
Because then Cough Cough blows. His whole body shakes with coughing.
Chicken Angel runs to her bed before Tin Lid appears.
I shove the key card and hypo and wrappings under my pillow, climb up, pull the sheet tight against my neck and close my eyes.
Cough Cough is shaking to bits.
The nurse runs in. I hear her rush to the bedside. I can smell her – dozie and sweat.
I open my eyes a fraction.
She is bent over CC. I can see she's holding a hypo.
Cough Cough is pulling in great moans of air but he's stopped coughing.
Tin Lid is waiting. Another cough and she'll trank him.
If I stretch out my arm I could touch her easily.
I slide my hand under the pillow.
I can feel my hypo.
My fingers close round it.
Cough Cough knows.
Slowly his breaths quieten.
I can hear him no more.
Silence.
The waterhole gulps.
Tin Lid walks away.
CHAPTER 14
Gone Takeaway
1
Next morning Nail watched Coddy leave.
He had to deactivate Kenno. He didn't want him turning up at the PO eager to make up for lost time and get his ‘portion’ as he called it.
So as soon as the van was out of sight he went into the kitchen. He found what he wanted under the sink
behind the bucket.
The water stop tap.
He turned it off.
Then he went into the front room and unscrewed the bleeder valve on the main radiator till black water started to dribble out.
Back on the kitchen table he wrote out a note. ‘Kenneth,’ it read. ‘Rad leak. Mains off. Wait in for plumber. Dad.’
Upstairs in the bathroom he pulled down the toilet seat and stuck the note on it with a squirt of toothpaste. Kenno wouldn't need eyes in his bum to read that. Then he tiptoed into Kenno's squat. The lardy lad was giving it some grunt.
In the front room a dark patch of wet carpet had spread two or three feet up to the edge of the fireplace. He tightened the bleeder valve on the radiator and watched the dribble stop. Then he slipped out, along the hallway, into the kitchen and quietly out through the back door.
‘PO time,’ he said stepping into the bright sunshine.
2
There was no sign of the girl.
Just some old biddy behind the counter.
‘Is Natalie around?’
The woman gave him a look to freeze.
‘Who's asking?’
‘Name's Nail. Hard as.’
‘Well, she's out.’ The woman put on glasses and turned to her forms.
‘When will she be back?’
‘None of your business,’ she said without looking up.
Nail didn't move.
The woman ignored him.
‘Up your bum,’ he said.
‘Up yours,’ said the woman.
Nail laughed and left.
He thought about getting a bus back to town but he needed to move not sit in some shelter waiting for a shuttle full of prams and kids and shopping bags and crinkly biddies on the charity-shop run.
He started walking.
*
He'd not gone far when he heard someone calling him.
He turned and saw Natalie standing in the middle of the road and waving him back.
He stood his ground.
‘Where you going?’ she shouted.
He raised his arms. Armpit Garvie. End of the line he thought.
Beyond Natalie he could see a series of hills, stacked higher and higher, the lower ones pinked with heather, tapestried with dark green, the farther ones blued in the mist of distance.
‘Glen Nowhere,’ he shouted back.
‘Same here,’ she called.
Nail began walking slowly towards her. She had jeans on and a short pink wrap-around top tied at the waist.
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