by Clive Barker
Then there were noises through the blue veil of twilight, the soft brushing sound of passage through the nettles, accompanied by the murmur of voices.
Two boys were approaching the sty, respect and caution in every step. She made them nervous, and understandably so. The tales of her tricks were legion. Didn’t she speak, when angered, in that possessed voice, bending her fat, porky mouth to talk with a stolen tongue? Wouldn’t she stand on her back trotters sometimes, pink and imperial, and demand that the smallest boys be sent into her shadow to suckle her, naked like her farrow? And wouldn’t she beat her vicious heels upon the ground, until the food they brought for her was cut into petit pieces and delivered into her maw between trembling finger and thumb? All these things she did.
And worse.
Tonight, the boys knew, they had not brought what she wanted. It was not the meat she was due that lay on the plate they carried. Not the sweet, white meat that she had asked for in that other voice of hers, the meat she could, if she desired, take by force. Tonight the meal was simply stale bacon, filched from the kitchens. The nourishment she really craved, the meat that had been pursued and terrified to engorge the muscle, then bruised like a hammered steak for her delectation, that meat was under special protection. It would take a while to coax it to the slaughter.
Meanwhile they hoped she would accept their apologies and their tears, and not devour them in her anger.
One of the boys had shit his pants by the time he reached the sty-wall, and the sow smelt him. Her voice took on a different timbre, enjoying the piquancy of their fear.
Instead of the low snort there was a higher, hotter note out of her. It said: I know, I know. Come and be judged.
I know, I know.
She watched them through the slats of the gate, her eyes glinting like jewels in the murky night, brighter than the night because living, purer than the night because wanting.
The boys knelt at the gate, their heads bowed in supplication, the plate they both held lightly covered with a piece of stained muslin.
‘Well?’ she said. The voice was unmistakable in their ears. His voice, out of the mouth of the pig.
The elder boy, a black kid with a cleft palate, spoke quietly to the shining eyes, making the best of his fear:
‘It’s not what you wanted. We’re sorry.’
The other boy, uncomfortable in his crowded trousers, murmured his apology too.
‘We’ll get him for you though. We will, really. We’ll bring him to you very soon, as soon as we possibly can.’
‘Why not tonight?’ said the pig.
‘He’s being protected.’
‘A new teacher. Mr Redman.’
The sow seemed to know it all already. She remembered the confrontation across the wall, the way he’d stared at her as though she was a zoological specimen. So that was her enemy, that old man. She’d have him. Oh yes.
The boys heard her promise of revenge, and seemed content to have the matter taken out of their hands.
‘Give her the meat,’ said the black boy.
The other one stood up, removing the muslin cloth. The bacon smelt bad, but the sow nevertheless made wet noises of enthusiasm. Maybe she had forgiven them.
‘Go on, quickly.’
The boy took the first strip of bacon between finger and thumb and proffered it. The sow turned her mouth sideways up to it and ate, showing her yellowish teeth. It was gone quickly. The second, the third, fourth, fifth the same.
The sixth and last piece she took with his fingers, snatched with such elegance and speed the boy could only cry out as her teeth champed through the thin digits and swallowed them. He withdrew his hand from over the sty wall, and gawped at this mutilation. She had done only a little damage, considering. The top of his thumb and half his index finger had gone. The wounds bled quickly, fully, splashing on to his shirt and his shoes. She grunted and snorted and seemed satisfied.
The boy yelped and ran.
‘Tomorrow,’ said the sow to the remaining supplicant. ‘Not this old pig-meat. It must be white. White and lacy.’ She thought that was a fine joke.
‘Yes,’ the boy said, ‘yes, of course.’
‘Without fail,’ she ordered.
‘Yes.’
‘Or I come for him myself. Do you hear me?’
‘Yes.’
‘I come for him myself, wherever he’s hiding. I will eat him in his bed if I wish. In his sleep I will eat off his feet, then his legs, then his balls, then his hips —, ‘Yes, yes.’
‘I want him,’ said the sow, grinding her trotter in the straw.
‘He’s mine.’
‘Henessey dead?’ said Leverthal, head still down as she wrote one of her interminable reports. ‘It’s another fabri-cation. One minute the child says he’s in the Centre, the next he’s dead. The boy can’t even get his story straight.’
It was difficult to argue with the contradictions unless one accepted the idea of ghosts as readily as Lacey. There was no way Redman was going to try and argue that point with the woman. That part was a nonsense. Ghosts were foolishness; just fears made visible. But the possibility of Henessey’s suicide made more sense to Redman. He pressed on with his argument.
‘So where did Lacey get this story from, about Hene-ssey’s death? It’s a funny thing to invent.’
She deigned to look up, her face drawn up into itself like a snail in its shell.
‘Fertile imaginations are par for the course here. If you heard the tales I’ve got on tape: the exoticism of some of them would blow your head open.’
‘Have there been suicides here?’
‘In my time?’ She thought for a moment, pen poised. ‘Two attempts. Neither, I think, intended to succeed. Cries for help.’
‘Was Henessey one?’
She allowed herself a little sneer as she shook her head.
‘Henessey was unstable in a completely different direc-tion. He thought he was going to live forever. That was his little dream: Henessey the Nietzchean Superman. He had something close to contempt for the common herd. As far as he was concerned, he was a breed apart. As far beyond the rest of us mere mortals as he was beyond that wretched —‘ He knew she was going to say pig, but she stopped just short of the word. ‘Those wretched animals on the farm,’ she said, looking back down at her report.
‘Henessey spent time at the farm?’
‘No more than any other boy,’ she lied. ‘None of them like farm duties, but it’s part of the work rota. Mucking out isn’t a very pleasant occupation. I can testify to that.’
The lie he knew she’d told made Redman keep back Lacey’s final detail: that Henessey’s death had taken place in the pig-sty.
He shrugged, and took an entirely different tack.
‘Is Lacey under any medication?’
‘Some sedatives.’
‘Are the boys always sedated when they’ve been in a fight?’
‘Only if they try to make escapes. We haven’t got enough staff to supervise the likes of Lacey. I don’t see why you’re so concerned.’
‘I want him to trust me. I promised him. I don’t want him let down.’
‘Frankly, all this sounds suspiciously like special plead-ing. The boy’s one of many. No unique problems, and no particular hope of redemption.’
‘Redemption?’ It was a strange word.
‘Rehabilitation, whatever you choose to call it. Look, Redman, I’ll be frank. There’s a general feeling that you’re not really playing ball here.’
‘Oh?’
‘We all feel, I think this includes the Governor, that you should let us go about our business the way we’re used to. Learn the ropes before you start —‘
‘Interfering.’
She nodded. ‘It’s as good a word as any. You’re making enemies.’ ‘Thank you for the warning.’
‘This job’s difficult enough without enemies, believe me.’
She attempted a conciliatory look, which Redman ignored.
Enemies
he could live with, liars he couldn’t.
The Governor’s room was locked, as it had been for a full week now. Explanations differed as to where he was. Meetings with funding bodies was a favourite reason touted amongst the staff, though the Secretary claimed she didn’t exactly know. There were Seminars at the University he was running, somebody said, to bring some research to bear on the problems of Remand Centres. Maybe the Governor was at one of those. If Mr Redman wanted, he could leave a message, the Governor would get it.
Back in the workshop, Lacey was waiting for him. It was almost seven-fifteen: classes were well over.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Waiting, sir.’
‘What for?’
‘You, sir. I wanted to give you a letter, sir. For me mam. Will you get it to her?’
‘You can send it through the usual channels, can’t you? Give it to the Secretary, she’ll forward it. You’re allowed two letters a week.’
Lacey’s face fell.
‘They read them, sir: in case you write something you shouldn’t. And if you do, they burn them.’
‘And you’ve written something you shouldn’t?’
He nodded.
‘What?’
‘About Kevin. I told her all about Kevin, about what happened to him.’
‘I’m not sure you’ve got your facts right about Henessey.’
The boy shrugged. ‘It’s true, sir,’ he said quietly, apparently no longer caring if he convinced Redman or not ‘It’s true. He’s there, sir. In her.’
‘In who? What are you talking about?’
Maybe Lacey was speaking, as Leverthal had suggested, simply out of his fear. There had to be a limit to his patience with the boy, and this was just about it.
A knock on the door, and a spotty individual called Slape was staring at him through the wired glass.
‘Come in.’
‘Urgent telephone call for you, sir. In the Secretary’s Office.’
Redman hated the telephone. Unsavoury machine: it never brought good tidings.
‘Urgent. Who from?’
Slape shrugged and picked at his face.
‘Stay with Lacey, will you?’
Slape looked unhappy with the prospect.
‘Here, sir?’ he asked.
‘Here.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m relying on you, so don’t let me down.’
‘No, sir.’
Redman turned to Lacey. The bruised look was a wound now open, as he wept.
‘Give me your letter. I’ll take it to the Office.’
Lacey had thrust the envelope into his pocket. He retrieved it unwillingly, and handed it across to Redman.
‘Say thank you.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The corridors were empty.
It was television time, and the nightly worship of the box had begun. They would be glued to the black and white set that dominated the Recreation Room, sitting through the pap of Cop Shows and Game Shows and Wars from the World Shows with their jaws open and their minds closed. A hypnotized silence would fall on the assembled company until a promise of violence or a hint of sex. Then the room would erupt in whistles, obscenities, and shouts of encouragement, only to subside again into sullen silence during the dialogue, as they waited for another gun, another breast. He could hear gunfire and music, even now, echoing down the corridor.
The Office was open, but the Secretary wasn’t there. Gone home presumably. The clock in the Office said eight-nineteen. Redman amended his watch.
The telephone was on the hook. Whoever had called him had tired of waiting, leaving no message. Relieved as he was that the call wasn’t urgent enough to keep the caller hanging on, he now felt disappointed not to be speaking to the outside world. Like Crusoe seeing a sail, only to have it sweep by his island.
Ridiculous: this wasn’t his prison. He could walk out whenever he liked. He would walk out that very night: and be Crusoe no longer.
He contemplated leaving Lacey’s letter on the desk, but thought better of it. He had promised to protect the boy’s interests, and that he would do. If necessary, he’d post the letter himself.
Thinking of nothing in particular, he started back towards the workshop. Vague wisps of unease floated in his system, clogging his responses. Sighs sat in his throat, scowls on his face. This damn place, he said aloud, not meaning the walls and the floors, but the trap they represented. He felt he could die here with his good intentions arrayed around him like flowers round a stiff, and nobody would know, or care, or mourn. Idealism was weakness here, compassion and indulgence. Unease was all: unease and —Silence. That was what was wrong. Though the television still popped and screamed down the corridor, there was silence accompanying it. No wolf-whistles, no cat-calls.
Redman darted back to the vestibule and down the corridor to the Recreation Room. Smoking was allowed in this section of the building, and the area stank of stale cigarettes. Ahead, the noise of mayhem continued unabated. A woman screamed somebody’s name. A man answered and was cut off by a blast of gunfire. Stories, half-told, hung in the air.
He reached the room, and opened the door.
The television spoke to him. ‘Get down!’
‘He’s got a gun!’
Another shot.
The woman, blonde, big-breasted, took the bullet in her heart, and died on the sidewalk beside the man she’d loved.
The tragedy went unwatched. The Recreation Room was empty, the old armchairs and graffiti-carved stools placed around the television set for an audience who had better entertainment for the evening. Redman wove between the seats and turned the television off. As the silver-blue fluorescence died, and the insistent beat of the music was cut dead, he became aware, in the gloom, in the hush, of somebody at the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Slape, sir.’
‘I told you to stay with Lacey.’
‘He had to go, sir.’
‘Go?’
‘He ran off, sir. I couldn’t stop him.’
‘Damn you. What do you mean, you couldn’t stop him?’
Redman started to re-cross the room, catching his foot on a stool. It scraped on the linoleum, a little protest. Slape twitched.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t catch him. I’ve got a bad foot.’
Yes, Slape did limp. ‘Which way did he go?’ Slape shrugged. ‘Not sure, sir.’ ‘Well, remember.’
‘No need to lose your temper, sir.’
The ‘sir’ was slurred: a parody of respect. Redman found his hand itching to hit this pus-filled adolescent. He was within a couple of feet of the door. Slape didn’t move aside.
‘Out of my way, Slape.’
‘Really, sir, there’s no way you can help him now. He’s gone.’
‘I said, out of my way.’
As he stepped forward to push Slape aside there was a click at navel-level and the bastard had a flick-knife pressed to Redman’s belly. The point bit the fat of his stomach.
‘There’s really no need to go after him, sir.’
‘What in God’s name are you doing, Slape?’
‘We’re just playing a game,’ he said through teeth gone grey.
‘There’s no real harm in it. Best leave well alone.’
The point of the knife had drawn blood. Warmly, it wended its way down into Redman’s groin. Slape was prepared to kill him; no doubt of that. Whatever this game was, Slape was having a little fun all of his own. Killing teacher, it was called. The knife was still being pressed, infinitesimally slowly, through the wall of Redman’s flesh. The little rivulet of blood had thickened into a stream.
‘Kevin likes to come out and play once in a while,’ said Slape.
‘Henessey?’
‘Yes, you like to call us by our second names, don’t you? That’s more manly isn’t it? That means we’re not children, that means we’re men. Kevin isn’t quite a man though, you see sir. He’s never wanted to be a
man. In fact, I think he hated the idea. You know why? (The knife divided muscle now, just gently). He thought once you were a man, you started to die: and Kevin used to say he’d never die.’
‘Never die.’ ‘Never.’
‘I want to meet him.’
‘Everybody does, sir. He’s charismatic. That’s the Doctor’s word for him: Charismatic.’
‘I want to meet this charismatic fellow.’
‘Soon.’
‘Now.’
‘I said soon.’
Redman took the knife-hand at the wrist so quickly Slape had no chance to press the weapon home. The adolescent’s response was slow, doped perhaps, and Redman had the better of him. The knife dropped from his hand as Redman’s grip tightened, the other hand took Slape in a strangle-hold, easily rounding his emaciated neck. Redman’s palm pressed on his assailant’s Adam’s apple, making him gargle.
‘Where’s Henessey? You take me to him.’
The eyes that looked down at Redman were slurred as his words, the irises pin-pricks.
‘Take me to him!’ Redman demanded.
Slape’s hand found Redman’s cut belly, and his fist jabbed the wound. Redman cursed, letting his hold slip, and Slape almost slid out of his grasp, but Redman drove his knee into the other’s groin, fast and sharp. Slape wanted to double up in agony, but the neck-hold prevented him. The knee rose again, harder. And again. Again.
Spontaneous tears ran down Slape’s face, coursing through the minefield of his boils. ‘I can hurt you twice as badly as you can hurt me,’ Redman said, ‘so if you want to go on doing this all night I’m happy as a sand-boy.’
Slape shook his head, grabbing his breath through his constricted windpipe in short, painful gasps.
‘You don’t want any more?’
Slape shook his head again. Redman let go of him, and flung him across the corridor against the wall. Whimpering with pain, his face crimped, he slid down the wall into a foetal position, hands between his legs.
‘Where’s Lacey?’
Slape had begun to shake; the words tumbled out. ‘Where d’you think? Kevin’s got him.’