I was on the return flight from Sweden, the landscape of cloud unrolled to infinity; grandma’s plaits and heads of dirty cauliflower, lakes of cushion wadding and spray on snow. As the sun fell deep below the horizon, the black, jewel-encrusted land was revealed to me, but when the plane began its descent to Manchester I didn’t fall with it, instead I was yanked out like a toy by a fairground claw. Floating further into the ether, I heard it. The melody my granddad loved, made famous by Josef Locke.
‘Hear My Song.’
And the light was everywhere and I became it.
Part Two
“This is the six-o clock news on Radio National, with Julian Harris.”
“An electro-magnetic storm centred over Royal Hospital in South Manchester shows no sign of abating. The unexplained and unprecedented event began last night around nine p.m. It’s believed that at least seventeen people who may have been in the area at the time of the storm’s inception are currently missing. We’re now going to speak to Kathryn Walters at a site near to the area to get an update on the situation.”
“Kathryn, are the authorities any closer to understanding what has happened in Manchester?”
“I’m afraid not, Julian. Deep unease continues to grow throughout the country and as you can imagine, most particularly for the people of Manchester, who were today congratulated by the Chief Constable, Alistair Rowe for their calm and fortitude in the face of these events and the patience and dignity with which the evacuation was conducted. He added that it made him proud to be British. Fears of looting and anti-social behaviour have proved unfounded; it’s as if everyone here appreciates the extraordinary nature of the event. I must say, Julian, I witnessed parts of the evacuation first-hand, and I witnessed the calm and, I have to say, good-natured behaviour of everyone involved. The evacuation into a two-mile exclusion zone, which takes in the fringes of central Manchester, is now fully complete. There are significant fears about its effect on the economy in this part of the country, particularly if this situation continues for any length of time. I’m speaking to you from the Kenney Tower, the tallest building in Manchester, which is at the edge of the exclusion zone and which has become the temporary headquarters of the co-ordinated response team. I can clearly see the glowing, rippling halo and the offshoots of lightning that the storm – approximately five metres wide and twelve metres high, is creating. Nothing like it has ever been seen before. One of the servicemen who conducted an initial investigation of the site referred to it as ‘beautiful and terrifying’.”
“Kathryn – I understand that scientists involved in analysing this event were hoping to use a probe to find out what’s happening inside this so-called storm.”
“Yes, Julian, that’s correct. Unfortunately, the electro-magnetic interference from the storm itself is so strong that it’s impossible to use any kind of electrical equipment within at least half a mile of the site. They had hoped to shield the probe from electro-magnetic forces, but their attempt was unsuccessful. As you already know from previous reports, Julian, even though the latest technology is ready and available, the continuous lightning strikes coming out of the storm, combined with the significant electrical interference make it impossible to overfly the area to make any detailed measurements or investigations into the nature of the event. Even satellite images of the storm are subject to considerable disruption. Until the experts can find an explanation for what’s happening, we can only wait. There is deep concern that there may be people trapped inside this storm, but also speculation that it could be perfectly calm inside, perhaps akin to the eye of a hurricane, but I must stress that this is only one of any number of theories that are currently being discussed. Other than that, the main concern is that the storm could grow in size.”
“And do scientists have any clues about what started this event, or what its nature is?”
“I’m afraid not, Julian. They clearly recognise it as a highly charged electro-magnetic storm, with a ferocity that’s usually associated with planets like Jupiter, rather than the Earth. Another unusual feature of the storm is that it appears to be perfectly stable at the current time, that is, it hasn’t changed or moved in any way. It’s believed that the storm, which started quite suddenly, is centred over the outpatients section of the hospital. A few hours later and the place would have literally been teeming with people. We can only hope that the authorities involved have a breakthrough in the hours to come.”
“Thank you, Kathryn. That was Kathryn Walters reporting from Manchester. We’ll return to this item later in the programme, when we’ll be talking to our Science Editor, Lawrence Clarke.”
Fourteen
I’d been wiped and rebooted, a specimen of pure primate lying on a beach like it was the most natural thing in the world. I squinted at the sky without surprise or question. Complacent in sunlight, the dry sand pleased as it sifted through my fingers. There were others a little way from me, peering through the grass that sprouted from the dunes, but at that moment I had no need of them. The things that covered me were annoying. Tearing at my shirt, it came away easily. I pulled at the shoes. In time, they winkled their way off, but there were other things underneath. By the time my feet were bare, my body was hot and wet. Lithe and powerful, I relished the warming sand on my soles as I made a move on the others. I beckoned to Cairo, though I didn’t know it was Cairo, or any of the others for that matter, just that she was familiar and unthreatening. She moved close, which I liked. Gizmo joined her and I didn’t mind, then Vik, Joe and Bentley, but I wanted to push Bentley away. When I pulled at Cairo’s top, she yelped, so I stopped. Then we stood like lions on the savannah until I caught wind of beckoning in the distance. I led the group with Cairo close behind and Joe beside her. Next were Vik and Bentley. Vik kept in line, but Bentley kept shifting around like he didn’t know his place, while Gizmo took the rear guard. Nothing was lost on me, not the pitching waves or rustling grass, the pine and salty air, the caramel sand that nuzzled my feet, the skin pleasing breeze, the mingling scents of my following companions. Everything was delicious and captivating, no ripples of dislocation or question. A head untenanted by thought and memory, filled with only knowing. I never felt so complete as I did then.
Once under the cover of the trees, large shapes became apparent and a focus of cowering followed by curiosity. Much bigger and wider than me but not as tall as the trees, a few had the colour of wood but others were pale like foam on the sea. It would be a while before I recognised it as a campsite with log cabins and caravans. Compelled to get inside one of the big things, the one where the best smells were coming from, we hovered and fumbled, stroked and pushed. Gizmo happened on the way in, she must have pressed the handle before being devoured by the cavernous beast. I lunged, my only instinct to protect and once inside scanned for threat, yanking her up from the floor. Now assured, the others made their way inside. It smelt odd, familiar but other. We bunched up until I put a finger inside my mouth. The others made sound, “Ah”. We snuffled our way through the rooms of the cabin until we found the kitchen. The architect and the neuroscientist, the doctor and the lawyer, the whizz kid and the craftsman, all a hobbling and hunching and hooting, grunting and shaking and rattling like it was mystery time at the monkey house.
Cairo stopped in front of a cupboard, pressing her nose hard against it then thumping on the surface. Unable to get inside, she lunged for Bentley, screeching, and grabbed his arm, whacking it on the cupboard door. Bentley growled at her, causing me to growl at him. Bowing his head, he clawed at the cupboard, wincing before Vik caught centre stage as he kicked the fridge. Shoving him aside, I ran my fingers along the incomprehensible, smooth, white box, discovering the rubbery seal. I picked at the bouncy, grey substance until the door opened by accident rather than skill, jumping at the pleasure noise coming out of me. I pawed at the cool contents, which spilled out onto the ground. As containers exploded, everyone plunged to the floor, first, scooping, then,
gulping, then, tearing into containers, handfuls of food stuffed joyfully into ravenous mouths as we squatted, bathed in the fridge’s blue light.
Post feast, we fell, satiated, huddled together on the living room floor with gluey hands and faces, clothes covered in splattered food that filled the room with its deteriorating scent. As a blanket of sunlight from the open door covered us, Cairo hooted invitingly and we rallied out to explore, heads peering into wooden frames and white metal boxes, cushions and covers ripped and thrown, furniture a free jump playground, trees climbed to survey the land, all activity accompanied by screeches and giggles. Even then, the fence around the site gave us a sense of territory and was pissed against any number of times.
It was close to dusk when we returned to the junket, eating in a more leisurely, but equally unkempt fashion. Cairo peered at the patterns on the empty packets and boxes, dragging them into a corner like a litter of puppies and holding them up to her face.
“Oooh. Oooh. Oowor. Oowords – we make words.”
The slurping stopped as Cairo pointed to each of us in turn. “We have words inside.” She tapped her head. “Find words inside.”
Her mouth moved into a cascade of shapes as the sounds poured out. I liked the mouth, but the words confused me until they reached a place I understood, an arrow pointing to the verbal storeroom. “Don’t know... anything.” I said. “Don’t know why... different. But feel what to do.”
Vik watched me as I’d watched Cairo, mouth open and closed like a freshly caught fish. “Chaay. Chay. Change.”
Gizmo rubbed her back and stretched. “Sleep good.”
Bentley uttered a single word. “Bastard.”
He shrugged his shoulders. Joe just carried on eating.
It went on like that for a while – food, rest, play, exploring, musing, broken speech, a few days probably, I remember it falling dark several times. The dry, knotted rivulets of bark patterns sparked hours of study, perpetual waves rolling themselves to the shore required days of attention. Sometimes the observer was as riveting as the observed, the tilting head, a tongue sticking out in concentration, the furrowing of a brow as it tried to make sense of what it saw. Sound was pure and revelatory. Patterns of lines across my hands that went shiny when wet were received as a gift. Simple games of hide and seek, chasing and wrestling provided endless entertainment. There was no shame or embarrassment related to screams and smells, bodies or behaviour. Disputes were few, quickly solved and easily forgotten. There was no recollection of brain fears or terrors about the loss of memory and what it means. When all memory fades, bliss is left. How we cling to our memories, construct ourselves from their imprint, nurse them or run from them, but they’re not who we really are.
Fifteen
I woke feeling irritated by the sharpness of my thoughts, shards embedded into the mellow flow of the many days that had passed. Stretching out on the hump of the last dune before sand flattened to meet sea, I mused on strands of marram grass as the breeze gave them a backswept blow-dry. It was a flowering of unease; there must have been a before because I knew all kinds of things and had an idea that you didn’t just know things, you had to find them out or be told and if I’d found out or been told, there must have been a before. Things seemed calm; which strengthened the before theory because if I thought things were calm, there must have been a place they weren’t calm. It was like a word on the tip of my tongue or driftwood on the sea, washing forward to its furthest point and landing on the shore, only to be reclaimed before I could grab it. And yet I knew things, like the name of the grass, even though I hadn’t known them only a few hours before, but there were still things I didn’t know and I wondered how I knew I didn’t know them.
There was much to captivate, like the patterning wind and footprints in wet sand. The footprints would disappear after a while and compel me to make new ones. I loved to wander up the dunes, slipping so it was like I was walking on the spot. Most of all I liked the sun carving light and shade as it pleased. But the before wriggled around in me and I knew stuff and it would have to be fathomed, but there was so much else to do. Like watching Gizmo and Vik with the hard, flat thing that hit the round thing they’d found in the lodge, running up and down the beach, soles slapping on wet sand.
The known aspects of my location had become imprinted and I was unable to resist drawing them up like a hologram. The long, straight beach was encased by sand dunes, the only feature to break the stretch, a small piece of woodland with... it was a campsite, of course. It was where people went for holidays. Holidays – where you went to get away from everyday life and rest and play and have fun. Was life so bad you needed to get away from it? There were a handful of log cabins and perhaps a dozen caravans. Caravans – houses on wheels that you could move. But they were static caravans. This seemed a ridiculous idea. Why would you have a structure designed to move that didn’t move? Perhaps it didn’t cost a lot of money. Money – paper and metal and little plastic cards you used to get things that you needed, or wanted. It was like being a dictionary – dictionary, a book that explained words and showed you how to spell them. My tightly packed head was inexplicably tiring.
We’d commandeered the largest lodge that contained a shop, cafe and office as a communal base, but opted to find our own beds in nearby dwellings. There was a big cloth in the back of the shop that I wanted to make high and be inside it, but couldn’t remember how to make it high. I took the cabin next to Cairo even though the way it looked bothered me. Then I remembered that the thing in the back of the shop was a tent, which I resolved to pitch later.
A head appeared over the brow of the dune. It was Cairo. She didn’t cling quite so closely anymore, which didn’t please. Cairo filled me with muddled things that churned around my insides, but she’d become my favoured interest as she went about her business, graceful and precise.
“Will you come to where we are, Gabriel? Things are...”
“Things are good, Cairo. I’ll come with you.”
The day before, there’d been a realisation that the stink that followed us around was coming from the filthy, food-caked clothing we wore and the bodies that lay beneath them. It was Vik who recalled the notion of showering, although it took several hours of trial and error to fathom the workings of the white-tiled bathroom, which included the disquieting realisation that we’d spent a good few days drinking out of the toilet. After sitting in wet clothes for half an hour, Cairo remembered they could be removed and replaced from the stock of garments hanging around the various dwellings, which caused further obstacles in the manner of sizes, sleeves, legs, zips and buttons. Once fathomed, I appreciated that I didn’t have to pull my trousers down every time I needed to pee. By the time everyone was clean and dressed, the day was virtually over. Nobody chose to return shoes to their feet. Sprawling on the dunes with the others, my eyes fell on Cairo’s slender toes that seemed so different from my own as she spoke.
“I want to say. Every time I try to say it, I feel like bad will happen. Now I’m speaking, it makes me afraid. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
An uncomfortable silence encased the circle. Gizmo glanced at me before tapping Cairo’s foot with her own. “I know this feeling. We’re happy, but a thing is far away from us. There was...”
I sighed. “I like it here. I like this sand and I like the sea. I like this blue sky and white clouds, I like this breeze and I like the sunshine. I like the way the sand feels and the water over my legs. I like the way I am inside.” I turned the pebble I was holding around in my hands. “The smallest pebbles are the oldest. They get worn down until they’re just a grain of sand.”
Cairo leaned towards me. She smelt clean and pretty, but I thought I shouldn’t sniff too loudly, a memory that it wasn’t polite.
“How do you know that, Gabriel? Tell me how you know.”
I shrugged, turning the pebble ever more quickly. “What does it matter? Why do we nee
d answers when we don’t know what the questions are?”
“Perhaps that’s why we’re here – to find answers.” Vik said.
“I’ve told you once. I like it here.”
Cairo persisted, the tension in the group like a boa constrictor around its prey. “There was a... Oh, help me, will you?”
A sharp look from Gizmo as I threw the pebble down. Joe put his hand on my arm, but I pushed it away. He seemed to have coped the best of any of us, like he knew the form and just accepted it.
“Okay, okay.” I said. “There was a before, okay, there was a before. Happy now?” Stalking off, I sprinkled the rest of the group with sand. Cairo was still chanting the words as I headed towards the sea.
“There was a before, there was a before, there was a before.”
Bentley, who struggled much more than the rest of us in his mastery of co-ordination and speech, finally came to life as the voices began to fade. “What’s a before?”
“I think we should not upset Mr Gabriel.” Vik said. “Maybe we won’t talk to him about this now.”
“What saying you?” Said Bentley. “It’s all blah, it’s like you say blah, Gabriel, blah, happy, blah, sunshine.”
“Maybe you were a dog in another life, Bentley.” Gizmo said.
“What’s a dog?”
Sixteen
The plank was a long, well-finished piece. I’d been collecting wood for days, hoarding it in a plateau enclosed by four substantial dunes a few yards away from the hollow where I’d pitched my tent. There were plenty of planks over at the campsite and lots of irregular pieces here and there, particularly creature-husk driftwood that speckled the dunes. The backbreaking process of gathering it into one place had become my only mission. I revelled in the smell and feel of timber, my badge of honour calloused hands, the sweat that poured down my temples as muscles stretched and firmed. Resisting offers of help, I’d been content to leave the others fussing over the care and maintenance of the campsite, but I never minded Joe’s companionable silence. We both agreed that the wood needed to go together in a special way even though we didn’t know what the special way was. But we did know things about the wood, that damp wood would shrink when it dried, but wood that was too dry would creak and that I needed to go to HQ because it wouldn’t go together in the mysterious special way without small metal things and maybe rope. There were visions while I went about my business; white powder falling from a cold sky, looking out of a window in a high room, hypnotised by amber light that illuminated a place of dark and hard. I knew they were probably about the before, but tried not to think about it.
The Cairo Pulse Page 9