I remember how I had walked away from the kiosk with my bike, very leisurely so as not to get Peder and Gerard het up. They’re like animals, I had thought; if I started to run it could trigger their hunting instinct.
‘Oi, Ironing Board, come here a minute.’ It was clear who Gerard was talking to. For some reason he had decided to notice my presence. ‘Or whatever the hell your name is. I said stop.’
I halted mid-step. He might be serious, I thought: after nine years in the same class together, after thousands of hours of lessons in the same classroom, despite having posed in all those class photos together, maybe he never had learnt my name. It was entirely possible, and would explain an awful lot.
‘I want you to pay attention to this,’ he said. ‘And if I want anyone to have it confirmed, like somebody who isn’t here, who might be doubtful, who claims I would never do it, then I’ll tell them they can ask you. You get me? Ask Ironing Board, I’ll say. She was there. Like a witness, you get me?’
He smiled at me, all friendly, as if this was any run-of-the-mill matter of confidence.
‘I can’t rely on Peder and Ola. They just say what I tell them to say. Everybody knows that. So that’s why I want you to watch. Stand over here.’
I put down the kickstand on my bike and went over towards him.
‘That’s enough,’ Gerard said matter-of-factly. ‘Don’t come any closer, you really do reek, just like everybody says.’
I was maybe five metres from them. There was another paw sticking out of the carrier bag, scratching at the ground. The mewing was a bit quieter now.
Are you really gonna do it?’ asked Peder again. ‘You’re fucking nuts.’
‘What do you think, faggot? That I’m some kind of animal torturer? No way.’
Gerard suddenly no longer seemed to care about the cat. He took a few steps to the side, took a piss out into the evening darkness, tapped out a cigarette from a packet of Prince, put it in the corner of his mouth and started flicking his lighter. Only a few feeble sparks came out, like those from a damp sparkler.
‘You thought I’d do it, didn’t you?’ he asked.
Peder laughed. ‘Well, yeah, what the hell was I supposed to think? You poured petrol over it.’
‘Honestly, do I look like a guy who tortures defenceless animals? Do I? Ola, what have you got to say?’
Gerard looked almost concerned. You could sense uncertainty spreading among the trailers.
‘Dunno, really.’
‘Dunno? So you have no opinion?’
‘Same opinion as you.’
‘And what opinion do I have, exactly?’
‘Like I said: dunno.’
Gerard shook his head, disappointed.
‘Shit, I’m freezing,’ he said quietly. And then he turned to me as he managed to produce a flame with his lighter: ‘What are you looking at, you fucking bitch? Did I say you could look at me, huh? Who the hell gave you permission to do that?’
I was down in the woods now, the cat memory had vanished. I followed the path among the birch trees, stumbled over fallen branches, over a root that was sticking up, carried on past the mound of stones where Robert would play on his own when he was in his upper years of primary school and I couldn’t protect him because I had started Year Seven and was in a different part of the school complex. I remembered how I used to search for him there in the afternoons. He was only ten and was always on his own. The other kids had gone home or else were having fun with their mates in the playground. He used to sit on a big rock in his worn discount jeans and look at me as if I were a messenger from a distant planet. His wispy hair that fell over his forehead. The eczema on his hands that kept getting worse, even though I helped him to rub cream into them every day. His glasses, almost always broken and held together with tape. I had to cajole him to get him to come away from there. That was when things were at their worst at home, and if it had been up to my brother he would have slept in the woods overnight – maybe even lived there for the rest of his life...
I carried on up the little hill and stood at the top. It was completely silent now. I could no longer hear the shrieks. In the distance behind me, the schoolyard stood deserted. The ceiling lights were on in the classrooms; I saw silhouettes of people sitting down at their desks. There is always a beginning and an ending. They’ve killed him. It’s not what they wanted to do, but that’s what happened, the stakes were raised. And I wasn’t able to protect him, I wasn’t there when he needed me. My heart was pounding as if it were an animal trying to escape from my chest, to claw its way out, like the cat had wanted to claw its way out of the carrier bag last winter... Gerard’s face had looked almost resigned as he crouched down and set fire to the invisible fuse of petrol. It must have gone very fast, and yet I remember it as if it had lasted several minutes. The fire must have reached the bag in just a few seconds, but in my memory it wended its way over the asphalt like a long, luminescent snake, over towards the wriggling, mewling bag. There was an explosion, but it wasn’t particularly loud, more like a banger, sort of like a miniature firecracker.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Peder. ‘I didn’t think you would do it.’
‘I said I would. I’m freezing... Take a look at the fucker!’
I hadn’t known until then that it was trussed up. Each pair of legs was bound together with wire. And it was still trying to run, limping round in a little circle as if it were chasing its tail. It looked like a little burning carousel. The noise it emitted was reminiscent of a whimpering infant. Flames rose up from its fur, as if it were electric. You could hear the plastic melting, it sort of fizzled around the cat’s fur. Its ears were like two pointed wicks on lit candles. The cat opened its jaws, and it looked like it wanted to say something. And for a moment that’s what I actually thought: that it wanted, to say stop, or what are you doing, have you gone completely mad? in plainly comprehensible language. But instead its mouth and tongue began to burn, and then it grew silent. It did not emit any more sounds, just ran after its own tail, in an ever-decreasing circle, like a small, fiery swivel chair, and you could hear how the plastic was melting into its skin, how its nose and eyelids were melting, and then came the smell of summer, of barbecues in the garden, of charred meat from the back garden, that scent of food and smoke that hangs over Falkenberg long into August after the last holidaymakers have gone home. Finally it simply lay down. Collapsed under its own weight. Its nose had fused with the plastic somehow, it was lying with its mouth open and panting. Staring straight ahead, wild-eyed, because its eyelids had been burnt off. Loud wheezes came from its windpipe, like those from mine as I stood on the brow of the hill looking down over the woods. Staring and blinking away tears, staring again, alert to the slightest movement among the trees.
I went down the slope. Not a single movement anywhere. Had they let him go? Was he in his classroom right now, reading aloud from the remedial maths book, where everything was far too easy and so difficult for him for precisely that reason? Had they suddenly let him go when the bell rang? I knew that wasn’t what it was, yet I couldn’t help hoping, wishing, just as I had done my whole life, trying to wish and hope away everything terrible, like trying to change the course of events by sheer will.
There was a small clump of trees over to the left. His cap was hanging in a fork in the branches.
‘Robert?’
No reply. Just the sound of the wind that had started to blow, bringing with it the smells from the sea.
I continued through a thicket of juniper bushes. For the first time I noticed how cold it was. I had left my jacket in the common room. Through the window I had seen them dragging him off, towards the gym: Peder, Ola and the trailers; I’d seen how he was trying to resist in absolute terror, I dropped my books on the floor right then and there and raced towards the doors. Someone grabbed hold of me by the exit, I couldn’t remember who it was, somebody who wanted to stop me helping him, but somehow I broke free, ran in the opposite direction down the corridor and got out th
rough the Year Eight door. By that time I couldn’t see him anywhere.
‘Robert? Where are you?’
A slow movement just behind me. But when I turned round, there was no one there. Only a lone crow flying off between the trees.
‘Robert!’ I shouted. ‘Can you hear me?’
Thirty metres away was the fence that marked the western boundary of the school grounds. There were only fields and gravel tracks on the other side, leading down to the sea. I leaned against a tree trunk, shut my eyes and listened.
You’re a witness to this, Ironing Board, if any of my mates ask. Gerard did it,you’ll say. Nobody believed he’d dare, but he actually did it. He’s crazy!
The plastic had melted into the flesh. Its stomach had burst, guts had come out – intestines, I think. Peder had looked away in disgust. There was a strange glow coming from its hindquarters. Gerard, that sick bastard, tried to light his cigarette on the body. ‘Can you feel it?’ he asked, ‘it’s warmer now. I was fucking freezing before. It’s better now.’
Eight months had passed since then, and suddenly, today, they had got it into their heads that I had blabbed and decided to take their revenge out on my brother. I didn’t understand any of it. Somebody else must have seen them by the newsagent’s kiosk that night. That was the only explanation. The question was, why hadn’t they come forward until now?
‘Here he is, Ironing Board!’
The voice came from the other direction, beyond some juniper bushes... Robert was squatting with his face turned towards the ground. Blood was dripping from his nose. His eyes were shut and he looked like he was sleeping. His trousers had been pulled down and they were wet; he had wet himself out of fear. They had stuffed things into his pants: pine cones, twigs, pages ripped out of his maths book. There were pine needles and grass sticking out of his nostrils and mouth, and a cigarette in one ear. Four lads from the trailer were standing round him in a semicircle. Behind were Ola and Peder.
‘What the hell have you done?’ I asked. It must have sounded ridiculous, because at the same time I was relieved they hadn’t had a chance to do anything worse. It was nothing personal. It was me they wanted to get at, and the easiest way to get at me was through Robert.
‘Does it feel better now, you fucking mong?’ someone asked, nudging him with their trainers. ‘Get up! God, he’s disgusting. Totally pissed himself’
‘This is because you snitched on Gerard. Hope you get this into your head, Ironing Board. It’s your fault your brother’s pissed his pants.’
I recognised him from the games room, where Gerard would hold court during free periods. A big lad in Year Seven. Robert had pointed him out once, he was one of the ones who was always nasty to him. I wondered where he had been when they burnt the cat alive. I couldn’t recall.
When we started secondary school we were given a leaflet about what to do in situations like this: When pupils are treated badly by others: contact the school welfare officer, teachers or head of year. I remember how I’d just laughed at that. That would have just made everything ten times worse. Tell your parents if you are unable to contact the school administration yourself. Some words bear no relation to reality. And it doesn’t enter other people’s realm of consciousness that someone could have a mother and father like mine.
I put a hand under Robert’s chin and gingerly raised his head. They had drawn things in ink on his cheeks. A cock on one, a swastika on the other. They’d written ‘mong boy’ on his forehead. He still had his eyes shut, and I could understand. Why should he look out onto such a vile world?
‘It’s my fault,’ I whispered. ‘Forgive me, Robert. It’s me they wanted to get at.’
‘Doesn’t he look nice?’ One of the lads gave him a scratch behind the ear as if he were an animal, maybe a dog. He was still wearing his glasses. The plaster on the left side that I had stuck on there was black with dirt. One of the arms was loose, but it could be mended. That’s what I was thinking about: practical things. How it was better in any case than if the lenses were broken or if they had chucked them into the woods. It could take several weeks f or the school nurse to get hold of new ones, and during that time he wouldn’t be able to see and would get even further behind in his lessons.
‘If there’s a beginning then there is an ending,’ I whispered, ‘and the ending is always better.’
I crouched down and put my arms round him, exactly the way I used to do when he was little. He shivered slightly, as if he were cold. I could hear his heart fluttering in his chest, like a terrified little bird. ‘There is a beginning, but you don’t need to worry about that. It’s the end that counts, because that’s where a new, better story begins.’
Maybe it was stupid of me to whisper to him. In the animal kingdom, a simple sound or movement from the prey is sufficient for the slaughter to begin.
‘Move it, Ironing Board. He hasn’t finished eating his lunch.’
That was Peder. I’d sort of tried to forget he and Ola were there. And that Gerard was probably pulling the strings behind the scenes. He didn’t even need to be there in person; he issued orders to the others, who carried them out to the letter. Or maybe it was Peder’s own idea – something he was doing to get on his boss’s good side?
‘That’s what happens when people blab, Ironing Board.’
‘I didn’t blab!’
‘Sure. But how many people were actually there? Us and Gerard and then the old lady in the newsagent’s, but she couldn’t see anything from where she was.’
He turned to Robert and tried to imitate Gerard’s friendly psychopath voice:
‘We told your sister to be a witness and say what she’d seen if somebody didn’t believe us. And of course what we meant was if one of the lads at school doubted us, not some fucking teacher or a cop. But your stupid cow of a sister must have misunderstood everything.’
The trailers appeared unsure what they should do. Their energy was in the process of ebbing away. Someone needed to act to make things start to happen again. Ola tore up a handful of grass and started stuffing it into my brother’s mouth. I tried to cover his face, but someone grabbed me by the hair and dragged me off along the woodland path.
‘Have you seen his disgusting scaly fingers, it looks like he’s got fucking leprosy. Eat up some more hay, you goddamned donkey. This is because your sister blabbed... ’ They prised open his face and shoved more grass into his mouth and nose, I could hear him spluttering, heard his gag reflex, and knew I couldn’t leave him in the lurch again. I screamed, or at any rate I heard something distantly reminiscent of my own voice, I scratched at the hands that were tearing at my hair, turned round so I ended up on my belly. Now there were several hands pulling at my hair. Someone must have come over to help out. I didn’t say anything; dirt and pine needles were poking into my eyes, I shut my eyes and lashed out until someone caught hold of my arms and pinned them up against my back.
‘Lie still now, you little cunt.’ And then there were hands tearing off my trousers and knickers, ripping them off as if pain had no meaning, as if I were something to which they could do whatever they wanted because I wasn’t really alive, hands trying to stuff something into my arse without even bothering to spread my bum cheeks apart, just shoving something sharp and spiny, and I hoped it wouldn’t break apart in there.
My vision was starting to turn black. When I could see again, they had turned me round a hundred and eighty degrees so I could see my brother where he was sitting hunched up on the path, five metres behind me, with grass sticking out of his mouth, nose and ears, like a strange scarecrow.
‘Now go and feed your sister. Give her some fresh straw. She needs to have a reward so she won’t blab any more in the future. Then she can go. But we’re keeping you. It feels like we’re not finished with you yet... ’
It was the commander who had turned up at last: Gerard had sort of materialised among the trees in an unbuttoned leather jacket, trainers with the laces undone, gloves on and his friendly psychopath’s
smile. The trailers led my brother over to me, where I lay on my front with my arms pinned against my back. He screwed up his eyes for all he was worth as he knelt down in front of me.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I promise. Do what they say, Robert.’
And then I turned to the boss:
‘There must be some way to solve this, mustn’t there?’
‘I can’t really hear what you’re saying.’
‘I said, there must be some way to solve... for you to let him go.’
‘Still can’t hear. Can you speak up?’
‘How much do you want to leave us alone? I can get hold of some money.’
He lit a cigarette and exhaled smoke through his nostrils, like two grey tusks.
‘That depends. How much do you value your brother? What do you reckon is a fair price? Fifteen hundred?’
‘You can have as much as you want. Just so long as you leave him alone.’
‘To be honest, I don’t think he’s worth fifteen hundred. You can haggle him down a bit. Let’s say nine hundred... or a thousand kronor. Then we’ll leave him alone for the rest of term. So the next question is, when can you pay?’
I could no longer speak and just stared down at the ground, the green moss and the fallen leaves.
‘Did I hear one week? Then we have an agreement. Next Friday. Otherwise, he’ll basically be mine, your little brother. Sort of like a security deposit.’
‘Here, have a little feed,’ I heard Peder hiss to my brother, ‘and go and feed your cow of a sister until she’s right full up. She wants to, she said so herself. Come on, you fucking spacker!’
Tears ran down his cheeks as they placed a fistful of grass in his hand. He held it out towards me, keeping his eyes shut. But I did not flinch. There was one way to get out of this, for them to leave us alone, at least for the time being. And so, like a confused animal, I began to eat grass and pine needles out of my brother’s outstretched hand.
The Merman Page 2