Angel Blood

by John Singleton

  Natalie watched his stroll. He had his hands in his pockets and looked Mister Top Shop.

  She waited, head on one side like she was trying to get a different angle on him. He seemed taller than she remembered. He was smiling this time but as he got nearer she sensed it was a camera smile being shot at her. A smile that had an eye behind it watching and calculating. Well, she could deal with that. All boys wanted you in the frame, nicely posed. This one looked no different.

  ‘You were dead rude in there just now,’ she said once he'd stopped in front of her.

  Nail raised his hands.

  ‘Well, try that again and you're dead.’

  ‘Nail in my coffin, eh!’

  ‘Ha ha. Too right, it'll be bye bye. End of story. You won't see me again.’

  ‘I've seen what I want already.’

  ‘Well, what you want and what you get are two different things.’

  He grinned. ‘I'm sorry. Next time I'll kiss her backside.’

  ‘There won't be a next time.’

  ‘There's always a next time whether we like it or not.’

  She frowned at him. ‘I thought you were coming yesterday, you and your mate?’

  ‘Waited, did yer?’

  ‘Long enough to check m'watch.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then I put you back of the queue.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then I had a good day.’

  Nail nodded slowly.

  ‘But you did wait.’

  ‘But you did come.’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘So what kept you?’

  ‘Had things to do.’

  ‘Like get up.’

  Nail ignored that. ‘And before you ask, Kenno, my mate as you call him, is all-day closed after a night on the juice. He's somewhere else.’

  ‘Oh!’ Natalie sounded disappointed. ‘He's sort of chunky and pobby at the same time. Safe to be with. Maybe he can come tomorrow and we'll all go for a picnic.’

  Picnickers to you thought Nail.

  ‘I'll try and persuade him,’ he said aloud, ‘but I doubt he'll want to come. He's always on the Internet.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Natalie.

  ‘Burning tunes he shouldn't.’

  ‘That's so boy,’ she said and started to walk back towards the PO. ‘We can go to the pub later,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Later?’ said Nail smiling to himself. ‘What comes before later?’

  ‘Helping me clean out the caravan.’

  Caravan! Nail swore quietly.

  ‘That's so girl.’

  Natalie eyed him. ‘And next time you try kicking our waste bin, do it quietly. Aunty doesn't like her nap interrupted.’

  Nail groaned. ‘Right,’ he muttered. ‘Got you.’

  3

  I'm suddenly wide awake and scratching. This happens sometimes when I get hot. It's because I don't have good sweat glands and I itch and then I scratch and then I blood out. And that's another reason they get the cleaners or the san team in first thing to clear the beds.

  I throw off the sheets and breathe slowly like our fizzio teacher used to say. Best way to chill he said.

  Next door I can hear the waterhole gurgling and across the room the faint sound of Chicken Angel breezing in her sleep.

  Through the glass windows at the top of the wall dividing us from the day-room filters the pale blue of the night light.

  I look across at Cough Cough. He's huddled on his side as usual and all I can see is the back of his head, a dark pod nestled in the white of his pillow. He is neither wheezing nor snoring. Dozied out I think.

  I decide to go for a pee. I've just finished when I hear the slap of Chicken Angel's slippers. She never puts them on right.

  ‘I heard you,’ she whispers.

  She puts her arm round me.

  I hug her.

  ‘I'm scared, X-Ray,’ she says in my ear. ‘I've had this bad dream. We're in the Outside and the wind is blowing and blowing. It gets stronger and stronger and bits of us blow off, fingers and arms and nails and hair and ears even. And then we go looking for our lost parts. And I'm looking for my wings and I can't find them and I think someone has found them and stolen them and it means I can't get back in.’

  ‘In what?’ I say.

  She pulls away. ‘In here. Whenever we find a keyhole we can't turn the key because we have no arms and fingers left.’

  ‘It's only a dream,’ I say.

  ‘It's because of Cough Cough,’ she says. ‘And his daftie ideas.’ From across her face she pulls aside a hanging tress of hair and looks at me frowning and with her eyes squinting. ‘I don't think we should try and escape,’ she whispers. ‘Not if it means we finish up in bits and pieces.’

  I nod.

  ‘And anyway in the Outside you would just have blood outs all the time. And Lolo… well!’ She sighs and shrugs. ‘She'd get eaten up by the first leopard we bumped into.’

  And with that we go back to bed and sleep till the buzzer wakes us.

  The day nurse is on and she's new and as I walk towards the washes she stops me.

  ‘Girls first,’ she says.

  ‘Girls?’

  ‘The blonde one – G… G… whatever – and the little blind one.’

  ‘But we all go together. No one's stopped us before. It's OK.’

  ‘Not any more, Doctor Dearly says. You're getting too old for that sort of thing. Sexes are always segregated. You're ignoring the rules.’

  I wonder if being SEGREGATED squeals like having trank or your eyes squirted.

  ‘But I do her back,’ I protest, ‘and wash her wings and she does my back because of my skin and we look to see if any of us have lumpies growing.’

  She looks at me as if I'm all over daftie and shakes her head.

  ‘Orders. There's to be no more monkeying around like that. You're going to be segregated and that means being cut off, separated. Got it? Now just wait.’

  As I'm dressing I decide to ask CC how they SEGREGATE sex.

  I'm about to tap him on the shoulder when the new nurse barks at me. ‘No. Leave him. He's sedated and needs to wake in his own time.’

  I back off.

  4

  Opposite, Lights Out is sitting on the edge of her bed and sniffing. She's working out what we're having for first tuck-in. She picks up two pretend spoons and does porridge eating, each hand dipping into an invisible bowl and feeding the hot grainy slop into her mouth.

  ‘Have you checked Cough Cough?’ says Chicken Angel.

  I say no because of the new nurse saying he needs to be left and I tell her about no more washes together. ‘It's because of the sex,’ I explain. ‘We've got to be SEGREGATED.’

  ‘What's segregated?’ asks Chicken Angel.

  ‘It's where you're cut off,’ I say.

  Chicken Angel goes pale. ‘Like in my dream,’ she says. ‘I'm going to lose some bits, am I?’

  Suddenly I'm not sure.

  ‘When Cough Cough wakes we'll ask him,’ I say. ‘He'll know. He knows lots.’

  Chicken Angel and I and Lights Out are sitting at the table eating porridge. Well, Chicken Angel and Lights Out are eating. I'm waiting for my supplements. I have to take them before I eat.

  Chicken Angel's almost finished.

  ‘Just eat it,’ she says. ‘It's going cold.’

  Lights Out nods and nods.

  ‘I need the supplements first or they don't build me up,’ I say.

  Chicken Angel is silent. She has red eyes because she hasn't slept much. She's been wondering what to do, I can tell.

  It's so big, everything's so big. What Cough Cough says is so big. Outside is so big.

  I'm beginning to feel angry at Cough Cough for making everything so big. It means we've got to be big. And choose. We've never had to choose before. It's Cough Cough making us choose. Choose between tranking a nurse and having an eye out. Choose between going on the Outside and degrading on the Inside. It's so big.
And another thing just as big. We have to choose between two Cough Coughs. One Cough Cough is my friend, someone who needs cosy cosy a lot. And the other Cough Cough is a goo goo brain who's having HALLUCINATIONS because of the dozie he's getting now. He's so dozied he can't see Doctor Dearly is only trying to help. All this is very very big and I don't know which big is the right big to follow.

  I'm thinking this and watching the porridge. My spoon is resting on the top hardly sinking in because of the skin.

  I pick up that daftie spoon and my hand is shaking. I dip it in the porridge and just as I'm about to put it in my mouth someone screams.

  It comes from the dormie.

  We all go on hold.

  We are staring at the dormie door, which is only just open.

  Someone is moving inside.

  ‘It's that new day nurse,’ I whisper. ‘She's still in there.’

  I try and take a deep breath. No need to panic Doctor Dearly is always saying. If the alarm sounds stay calm, stay put and wait for a nurse to come he says. Everything is under control.

  Then the alarm does sound, loud and ringing ringing, first in the dormie then in my head ringing it and ringing it till I have to cover my ears like Lights Out.

  ‘Cough Cough,’ squeals Lights Out. She is holding the edge of the table and it is trembling in her grasp.

  Chicken Angel puts her hands to her mouth. What has Lolo seen?

  Chicken A's eyes are wide with terror.

  I go cold. Onion skinned.

  What does Lolo know? All over my body – forehead, back, chest – I can feel my skin tighten. My fingers are being clawed inwards, my toes curled. My lips are near splitting. I daren't move in case I tear, in case I blood out.

  Just relax Mrs Murdoe used to say when I went onion skin.

  Suddenly the day-room door swings open and two nurses rush in and race past us into the dormie.

  Chicken Angel half rises, then slumps back. She wants to see what's happened but daren't look.

  Slowly I stand.

  Chicken Angel puts a hand on my arm. She is shaking her head.

  I walk stiffly towards the dormie.

  I get to the door but before I can push it fully open it is slammed in my face. I hear the key turn in the lock. I stumble back breathing hard and fast. Something dreadful's in the air. It wafts past me, the reek of vomit and pitch and pee.

  ‘It's Cough Cough all right,’ I say back at the table.

  ‘Listen,’ says Chicken Angel.

  From beyond the dormie door we can hear banging and scraping and then thud and then the sound of something being dragged and then another thud and then the banging of the other door and then nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  5

  Lights Out stands up and listens.

  It's OK I say in my head. Cough Cough's done this before, fitted out and then come back. They've probably put him on the machine or they've hypo-ed him back to normal. He'll be OK soon.

  I breathe more freely. My fingers straighten. I run them over my forehead. The wrinkles have come back.

  ‘Maybe he's fitted out again,’ I whisper to Chicken Angel. ‘I think they're giving him oxygen right now, opening his air tubes and puffing up his pulmonaries. That must be it.’

  Chicken Angel squeezes my hand. I can tell she doesn't believe me because she squeezes me too tight.

  Then Lights Out sits down and starts morsing, but on the table.

  Cough Cough's gone she says. They've taken him away.

  Suddenly we hear footsteps in the dormie. We all sit up and straight at the table like we do when Tin Lid's around.

  The key turns in the lock.

  A figure stands there.

  It's Doctor Dearly.

  Lights Out raises her head, sniffs and whimpers.

  Doctor Dearly takes one step into the room, stops and adjusts his glasses.

  None of us dare move. We know now something terrible has happened.

  ‘G1 is dead,’ he says.

  Chicken Angel shudders and I let out a cry.

  Lights Out just nods. She knew. She knew soon as the door slammed. She smelt it, the little leftover of Cough Cough.

  ‘This should make no difference to you,’ Doctor Dearly is saying. ‘The body will be disposed of hygienically. Health and safety and your security are our primary concerns and during the rest of your stay here you can be assured everything in our power will be done to make your lives as comfortable and as secure as possible. Meanwhile you will remain here in the day-room until your dormitory has been cleaned and sterilized. The day nurse will inform you when it is fully functional again so that you can return to your beds.’

  He nods, turns on his heel and leaves, locking the door behind him.

  Cough Cough dead! Gone takeaway.

  6

  We sit there moosed.

  I look at Chicken Angel. ‘Poor, poor X-Ray,’ she whispers.

  And I cry and cry and cry. The tears burn my skin.

  And I know now that over the last few days these tears have been waiting and waiting for CC. In my heart of hearts, in my soul of souls, deep in the burrow of me I've known he was going, known and not known, known and closed my eyes to his dying.

  Refused to see the leopard closing in.

  Chicken Angel stands beside me, holds my head in her hands and I hug her round the waist like I am holding on to my last hope.

  ‘CC.’ I cry his name like thirst at an empty cup.

  How long we stayed like Jesus Hands I don't know. Not long possibly but after a bit I realized she was stroking my hair. Doing gently gently for me.

  Gradually I calm and then, like 4, I become aware of a drumming noise, loud and louder.

  It is Lights Out morsing morsing on the table again.

  Chicken Angel loosens my arms and bends over her. She strokes her hair too and bit by bit Lights Out stops morsing.

  Very quietly and oh so gently gently Chicken Angel starts humming to her, murmuring and quietening her soul.

  Chicken Angel is Mrs Murdoe for us now I think.

  I wipe my eyes.

  But who will be Cough Cough for us? Who will know things for us? Who will tell us about the Outside and the stars and London and Scotland? Who will warn us about the leopard?

  Cough Cough dead! Gone takeaway!

  I lip the words, taste their poison. Tox in my heart.

  Chicken Angel is watching me. She reaches out her arm, draws me in again. I clutch her and feel the whimpering of her finger wings.

  ‘We should have stayed with him,’ I say. ‘We left him to go takeaway on his own.’

  And for the first time I think about takeaway. How the room turns to dusk, how the eyes die to light, how the door closes, how there's a dark hole crouching in the corner waiting to drag you in and swallow you.

  I shudder.

  ‘At least we could have held him, taken his hand,’ I say through tears.

  Chicken Angel isn't answering.

  ‘What was she morsing?’ I say after a while.

  ‘She says Cough Cough's gone to Mrs Murdoe's,’ says Chicken Angel turning to Lights Out. She strokes her hair. ‘Cough Cough's gone in the Sky Boat, Lolo,’ she says quietly. ‘It's flown away with him over the sea and up in the sky. Like Mrs Murdoe promised. One day the Sky Boat will come. Over the sea. Over the sea.’

  Her voice trails away like the mew of a bird fading in the hills.

  ‘It'll be cough cough for all of us now,’ squeaks Lights Out.

  We don't answer, Chicken Angel and I. We don't even notice she's spoken.

  The only sound is the gurgle of the waterhole.

  7

  Then the day-room door opens and Tin Lid comes in.

  ‘Not eating?’ She looks at me.

  I shake my head.

  ‘G1 died of heart failure,’ she says. ‘With his lungs he was lucky to have survived so long.’ She watches me wipe my eyes. ‘He didn't feel anything, so no need to get all goo-eyed. Your flame doesn't last fo
rever, you know. Even you should know that. Just get on with it I say. We're only waiting our turn.’

  I stare at Tin Lid.

  What does she know?

  ‘And you won't be needing supplements either, not now,’ she says.

  ‘But…’

  ‘Doctor Dearly's orders. Now get this litter to the hatch. The sooner we get back to normal in here the better it'll be for all of us.’

  Lights Out starts mewling.

  ‘What's wrong with her?’ says Tin Lid.

  Lights Out morses the table.

  Tin Lid puts her hands on her hips and looks on impatiently.

  ‘Well?’ she says. ‘What's the stupid girl saying?’

  Chicken Angel listens and frowns.

  She looks up at Tin Lid. There's no afraid in her face. No monkey in her eyes.

  ‘She says that you and Doctor Dearly are bad bads. She says that you're the witch that keeps Maiden China in her prison. She says the princess will escape one day. She says that Jack the Cat is our friend and will catch you out. She says you can't put a spell on Jack. He is spell-proof one hundred per cent. She says watch out for his claws. They are sharper than you think.’

  Tin Lid sniffs.

  ‘Stupid girl,’ she snaps. But instead of mouth mouthing Lights Out she turns on Chicken Angel. ‘It's you set her up isn't it?’ she says. ‘Telling her stories. I've heard you. You put that witch in her head. She's stupid, just stupid, and from now on you're not to encourage her. She's not a baby, you know. Just because you're… you're different and in here doesn't mean that you can't grow up and behave like ordinary kids. Any more stories like this Jack Cat thing, and Mr Trank, the Nasty Wizard, will be giving you a dose you won't forget. Got it?’

  Chicken Angel just stares at Tin Lid as if she's looking through her. I can see she's doing a Lights Out on Tin Lid and Tin Lid doesn't like it.

  *

  I decide to ask Cough Cough if he really thinks we could trank a nurse.

  But then… What am I thinking of? We don't have a Cough Cough any more.

  And it takes a big swallow to stop tears again. I don't want Tin Lid to see me crying.

  Then the phone starts ringing in her office and she hurries over to answer it.

  No. I'll never be able to ask CC anything ever again.

  We're down to three now.