Naming the Bones

by Mauro, Laura

  Alessa arrived ten minutes late. Upstairs, the group had already gathered and were talking when she approached, sidling quietly up to the open door. She peered through the gap. There were more people than she’d imagined there might be. The chairs were arranged in a haphazard circle; a man in a navy cable-knit jumper appeared to be the focal point. He had an unflattering ginger beard and a clipboard. An NHS badge on a lanyard around his neck suggested he worked at St Thomas’ in some capacity.

  “I still have trouble sleeping,” a woman was saying. The puckered red outline of a recent scar peeked out from the deep V of her shirt, dissonant against her dark skin. Alessa didn’t recognise her. “I manage to drop off but every little thing seems to wake me up again. My next-door neighbour works night shifts, and when she starts her car up…I know it’s going to happen every night, but it still scares the life out of me.”

  Beside her sat a man with horrendous scarring to the left side of his face; bleached ridges of flesh puckered outwards, fading into a patchy hairline. It was an old wound. The London Bridge bombings had been far more severe than the Elephant and Castle incident; sixteen dead and scores injured, many of them disabled for life. A multitude of terrorist organisations had tried to claim responsibility. But nobody had come forward to claim the Elephant and Castle bombing for their own. The police, it was rumoured, were at a loose end to explain who’d been responsible.

  Alessa slipped away from the door, pressing her back flat against the wall. There were too many people in there. People who were already familiar with one another, familiar with the intimacy of this process. She imagined their eyes trained upon her as she spoke, the words tangling on her tongue as she tried to explain why she was here. She imagined her secret spilling out, slipping like something live from her open mouth, the truth of her lunacy irrevocably revealed. And their pitying looks; the undercurrent of relief in their eyes as they silently exhaled, reassured that their own private madnesses were minor in comparison.

  That won’t happen, she told herself, and did not believe it. I’m in control. Her chest felt hollow, her ribs a fragile cage inside which unseen wings fluttered, quick and arrhythmic. A sudden lightness settled inside her head. I’m in control, she told herself again, approaching the door dry-mouthed.

  A man was talking now. “I dream about my house catching fire,” he said. “I always manage get out in time. Sometimes I’m able to save the kids, but never my wife. She’s always stuck inside with the dog. I try to smash the windows but it’s like they’re made of diamond. I can see her at the top window, banging her hands against the glass. She’s shouting, but I can’t hear her, and I can’t save her…” He broke off. His eyes were bright with tears, his voice suddenly thick. “I’m sorry,” he managed, before pressing his sleeve to his mouth to stifle a sob.

  That’ll be you, a small voice inside of her insisted. Don’t go in there. You’ll lose control. You’ll panic. You’ll probably pass out.

  She breathed deep, found her lungs utterly absent; an undignified splutter escaped her lips. She clapped a hasty palm over her mouth. A man in a pinstripe suit looked up from the circle, curious. There was something vaguely familiar about him, a sense that she’d seen him before. His eyes met hers through the gap in the door, black and inquisitive. She pulled sharply away, thumping against the wall; her fingers searched for something to hold on to, scrabbling fruitlessly against plaster. For a long moment she stood, palms flat against the wall, spine rigid, listening to the ebb and flow of conversation emanating from the open door. The ease of discussion astounded her, the revelation of fears and nightmares and memories, details which, to Alessa, seemed like pulling apart one’s own ribcage and inviting the world to poke among the entrails.

  “Excuse me?”

  Alessa’s heart lurched violently. She turned, wide-eyed, aware that her mouth was hanging open. The man in the pinstripe suit held up his hands, smiling apologetically. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I haven’t come to tell you off for peeping. Actually, I should have left five minutes ago, but you get drawn in sometimes.”

  Embarrassment crept up her neck, colouring her cheeks. She forced her jaw shut. “I...I did want to come in,” she said, turning her gaze to the buttons on his suit, the laces of his shoes, anywhere but his face. “I wasn’t eavesdropping.”

  “It’s okay. I believe you” He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. He was very tall, perhaps six foot six and lanky with it. “It’s a bit nerve-wracking the first few times. Takes a while to work up the courage. Trust me, you’re not the only one ever to lurk out here for the entire session.”

  “How do you make yourself do it?” Alessa said suddenly.

  He tilted his head, curious. “Do what?”

  “That.” She nodded towards the door, closed now since the man’s exit. “In there. Everybody opening themselves up. Telling total strangers what keeps you awake at night. Don’t you find it hard?”

  “Honestly? No. But I’m used to performing on stage, and that’s basically like standing naked in front of an auditorium full of people. Don’t feel bad about it. It’s not easy.” He paused. “Anyway, I came out here because I sort of wanted to talk to you.”

  Cold dread settled beneath Alessa’s skin. “Did you?”

  “Yeah. It’s just…I think I remember you,” he said. “In the tunnel, after the bomb? You had glass…” he gestured vaguely in the general area of his thigh, like he was too squeamish to actually say it aloud. “Was that you?”

  “Yes,” Alessa said. She looked up at him, taking in his face for the first time. He was young – early twenties, maybe; olive skin, hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. High, sharp cheekbones, the kind of full, pretty lips women paid a fortune for. A model’s face on a scarecrow’s body. She cast her mind hesitantly back to the tunnel, to poor burnt Deborah and the woman with the silk scarf. It came to her, suddenly, a fuzzy memory, blurred at the edges like an old photograph. “You had a cello,” she blurted, and was relieved when he smiled.

  “I still have it,” he said, a little shyly; he seemed hunch-shouldered and awkward, like he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with all that height. “I have no idea how it didn’t end up smashed to pieces. I guess it really does pay to get an expensive case. I’m Tom, by the way.” He didn’t extend his hand, and she was grateful for it. Her own were still trembling a little.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Briefly, anyway. I’m already running late for work and I really should get a move on instead of harassing you…”

  “There was a man,” Alessa said suddenly. “At the back of the train. He led me to safety. Probably others too.” She forced herself to lift her chin, look Tom in the eye. He regarded her with placid interest. “Just before help came, he saw a light down in the tunnel. It was coming from the direction of Elephant and Castle. He thought help had arrived and went to meet them, but…” The words were catching in her throat, threatening to tangle on her tongue. She swallowed hard. “I never saw him come back. I don’t know what his name was. I don’t know if he survived or not. It…it still bothers me.”

  There was a brief, thoughtful pause. She knotted her fingers tight; her knuckles bit sharply into one another.

  “Look,” Tom said, after a moment, glancing towards the door. “I really do need to go. But I think I remember that man. I remember watching him walk away.” He fumbled in his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card. “You should email me. I can tell you everything I remember, for whatever it’s worth.”

  She wanted to grab his sleeve and tell him to wait, to stay here and tell her everything, and she was sure he could see it in the desperate look on her face. But she held back, slipping the card into her pocket. “Okay,” she said evenly. “Thank you. I’ll be in touch.”

  *

  A short while later Alessa found herself standing at the ticket barrier at Waterloo station, holding her Oyster card in one sweat-slick hand. She had intended it to be an act of empowerment, proof to herself that she could, but now
she was actually here, breathing in the cold steel scent of the station, staring wide-eyed at the escalators leading down to the Tube platforms, she was beginning to question whether making a spur-of-the-moment decision powered solely by stubbornness had been a smart idea.

  She took a deep breath and imagined black dust settling in her lungs. If she left it much longer it would soon be rush hour, and the crush of commuters would only make the experience worse. Her body seemed to run on automatic as she passed through the barriers and beyond, where the escalators rolled down into the depths.

  It was quiet in the station. It had been quiet that day, too. She’d been half an hour later than she’d intended, although she couldn’t remember why. She held onto that thought as she stepped into the lift, fixing her eyes on a faded poster for a musical that had finished the previous year. It seemed ludicrous that she could remember the exact position of every last stud of glass in the parka-woman’s face, but not why she’d been late. Not the sole decision which had put her on that train, at that time.

  Alessa closed her eyes.

  People passed by her on the escalator. She could smell them, a fog of different perfumes and aftershaves and a faint hint of body odour, a cacophony of scents. She swallowed hard. She was stuck on this conveyor belt, sinking deep underground where the air was recycled through a hundred pairs of lungs before it ever reached your lips. Jesus, she thought as she stepped off the escalator, stomach lurching, this was a terrible idea.

  Her feet moved, carrying her forward, and she let them go: around the corner, through the narrow corridors. She’d have been able to see the platform through the grilles if she were to look down, but she did not look down. She kept moving, walking without seeing until she was finally there.

  The Bakerloo Line platform stretched out either side of her, once-white tiles rimmed with grey dirt. The posters here were the same ones she’d seen out of the train window that night, unchanged even in the month she’d stayed away. A little to her left was a bright, beautiful poster depicting some faraway beach, all sparkling turquoise sea and sapphire sky. She’d been staring longingly at that same poster when the train departed for Elephant and Castle that night, wondering how much two weeks in the Caribbean might cost.

  The sign overhead indicated that the next train to Elephant and Castle was due in three minutes. A violent chill ran the length of her, settling in her gut. She would get on that train. She would do it to spite herself. To spite that little voice in her head that insisted she wasn’t ready for this yet.

  She looked around. Perched on the bench a few yards away was a woman with dyed black hair and a glimmering silver nose-ring, tapping a rolled-up copy of Metro impatiently against her knees. A little further down, a plump African woman garbed in jewel-bright fabric hummed cheerfully to herself. She thought about approaching one of them, but the idea seemed ridiculous. What would she say? Sorry to trouble you, but there’s a better-than-average chance that I’ll have a whopper of a panic attack the moment I set foot on this train, could you please hold my hand? If she found herself on the verge of a meltdown she’d close her eyes, name the bones, and hope very hard that it would be enough.

  The sign above the platform flashed: two minutes.

  Alessa walked a little further along the platform. She couldn’t bring herself to approach the yellow line. The platform stopped abruptly a few feet ahead, giving way to the black yawn of the tunnel. Unbidden, her mind conjured an image of the lost man – half a shadow in her mind, always in profile – shambling, dazed and bloody out of the tunnel like a zombie. She could imagine the looks on the faces of the passengers as he emerged from the stairwell, stinking of soot and blood and fear.

  In the mouth of the tunnel, something moved.

  Her head turned, an automatic motion, and she knew even as she moved that she didn’t want to look. There seemed a sudden shiver of motion, a ripple in the darkness like a stone dropped into a perfectly still pond. She stood, transfixed, watching as the shadows danced in the deep, undulating with slow grace like kelp caught in some strange undertow. And she could feel them move, a low vibration reverberating deep in her spine, shuddering in the space between each vertebra.

  She looked frantically around her. Nobody else seemed to notice anything amiss.

  A pool of thick, tarry matter began to bleed out, long black fingers slithering along the rails, prying blindly at brickwork as they sought their way towards her. She took two faltering steps backwards, eyes fixed on the tunnel, tongue thick and dry in her mouth. In the depths, something seemed to pull, to twist, separating itself from the blackness around it as if the shadows were thick, viscous matter. It fell out onto the tracks, writhing maggotlike in the catchpit.

  Occipital, she thought. Parietal, frontal, temporal…

  A pair of pale eyes flickered open.

  Alessa turned, gasping for air. The black-haired woman stared up at her. Beneath the thick kohl her eyes were hard as marbles. Alessa’s heartbeat thundered in her throat, her nose, pulsing behind her eyes, and it was pure panic that made her run, a deep and intolerable terror which meant she did not stop when the woman spoke, quiet but audible even above the din of her own roaring blood:

  “You see them too, don’t you?”

  FOUR

  S he thought she’d never be able to find her way back up, that the tunnels would curl in on themselves and lead in endless circles, burrowing ever deeper beneath the city. When she finally found herself in the concourse, staring at the sunlight through the grubby glass station roof, it seemed she had never felt such profound relief.

  She headed outside, seeking fresh air and sky. The South Bank was a familiar place, and therefore a safe one. Even the crowds were reassuring. Dark things with pinhole eyes would surely not dare to lurk where they might be seen. She walked around the bridges, never under them where shadows convened and coagulated. On Waterloo Bridge she paused, filling her lungs with brackish air. She imagined she could see the soot of the Underground emerging from her mouth with every exhalation.

  From above, the river seemed restless, churning debris around on the steely grey surface. When Alessa was younger, she had wondered if there might be something huge down there, cold and silent on the silt at the bottom, thrashing restlessly at the water. Some great, lonely monster.

  You see them too, don’t you?

  The black-haired woman on the platform had opened the door to an awful possibility. Until now she’d been able to dismiss everything as some kind of hallucination, a ‘monster in the closet’ scenario borne out of panic. Not ideal, but it could be dealt with. It could be treated and resolved.

  But if the black-haired woman had seen them too…

  Her head suddenly seemed full of static. She managed to half-walk, half-stumble into the café adjacent, slipping into a seat at an empty table. She leaned back in her chair, breathing deep and slow. Her fingers trembled against the tabletop. The frantic hummingbird flutter of her heart had mostly subsided, though she could still hear the rush of her own blood, a faraway hiss like a seashell pressed to the ear.

  I’m going to have a heart attack if I keep on like this, she thought, reaching for the coffee menu. She wondered what Moira would say about all of it. Surely this was a problem above and beyond the powers of meditation and aromatherapy.

  “All right?”

  Alessa looked up.

  Slate-grey eyes stared back at her. The glint of a nose-ring. The dregs of adrenalin coursing through Alessa’s system kicked up one last, faltering protest, but she was too tired to heed it.

  “Don’t run again,” the black-haired woman warned, sliding casually into the seat opposite Alessa. Her voice was throaty, coarse, a dry wind scouring old bones. “I don’t know what you think I’m all about but I swear I’m not gonna hurt you or nothing. I just want to talk.”

  Up close, she seemed comprised entirely of sharp angles; the bones of her face were severe, her nose like the edge of a hatchet. Her clothes hung from her thin frame in a way that su
ggested she’d deliberately bought them too big. Eyes like marbles set into the thin shell of her skull.

  “How did you find me?”

  The woman shrugged. “You don’t move all that quickly. Plus you were sort of dazed. I’ve tracked trickier people.”

  “Right.” Alessa wondered whether she made a habit out of tracking people. Something about the woman’s face told her it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask. “Why did you follow me?”

  “I wanted to talk,” the woman replied. Her skin seemed translucent, the web of her veins visible at her temples. “About what happened in the station. You going off like a rocket and all that.”

  “I was hurt in the Elephant and Castle bombing,” Alessa said. She found herself talking quietly, which was ridiculous; the people around her probably didn’t give a shit about her personal circumstances. “It was the first time I’d been on the Tube since the explosion. I panicked.”

  “Didn’t you just,” the woman said. She leaned across the table. She smelled of rollup cigarettes, a deep, pungent odour. “Listen,” she said. “I know what really happened. You panicked, but not because you got triggered or whatever. It was the thing in the tunnel. The shade.” She almost spat out the last word. “You’re scared,” the woman said, though Alessa thought she’d been doing an admirable job of remaining stone-faced. “’Course you are, it’s not every day you see spooks hanging about in the shadows. But I’ve been seeing them for a while now. Ever since the bomb.”

  You’re mad, Alessa thought. And she did look it; her eyes had taken on a manic sheen, her cheeks flushed a feverish pink. And if she was mad, that meant Alessa was almost certainly mad too. At least she wasn’t alone. The thought was oddly comforting.

  The woman leant in closer. The tip of her nose almost brushed Alessa’s chin; she moved backwards with a jolt. “You’ve probably told yourself they’re a figment of your imagination. You’ve tried to forget about them. I did too, at first. But I know you want to know what they are.” She spoke in the hushed tones of one imparting some great and profound secret. “You’re asking yourself, can they hurt me?”