Michael closed his eyes and his body sank into the warm softness of the sofa. Days of half-snatched sleep and endless wandering pulled him into unconsciousness. He slept deeper and longer than he had in days.
~
MICHAEL WOKE WITH a start to the sound of a fist banging on wood. He prised open his eyes to see the dawn light struggling into the flat through the window.
Someone knocked loudly on the front door. “Nathaniel?” a muffled woman’s voice called from outside. “Nathaniel!”
There was a click and artificial light flooded the room. Michael squinted to see Otis standing outside the bedroom door near the light switch. He wore an unflattering pair of maroon pyjama bottoms.
Thud, thud, thud!
“Nathaniel, open up! I know you’re in there.”
Otis staggered, half-asleep, towards the door. He tripped over the corner of Jack’s bedding. He swore.
The woman kept knocking.
“All right, all right, keep your wig on!” Otis complained.
He stopped at the front door and laid his palms out flat on its wooden surface.
Jennifer emerged from the bedroom. Her hair was a tangled mess. She wore a short cotton nightshirt that only just covered the cheeks of her bum. Michael, now fully awake, couldn’t help but stare at her naked shapely legs as she walked by.
“I’m ’ceiving one person,” said Otis to Jennifer as she approached. “Agreed?”
She nodded. “One person.”
“Okay.”
Otis opened the door and the knocking abruptly stopped.
Standing outside was a short black woman in a knee-length coat, a silk scarf and a determined expression. “Where’s Nathaniel?”
She pushed past Otis.
“Excuse me!” Caught by surprise, he didn’t have a chance to stop her. He followed her into the lounge. “Who the hell are you?”
“I know Nathaniel comes here. I followed him once.” She walked around the room, looking everywhere. She went into the kitchen and came out again. She looked behind the sofa and the television.
Michael covered his body by struggling into one of the coats he’d been using as a blanket and got off the sofa. “Who’s Nathaniel?” he said. But no one answered. They were absorbed watching the woman rampage through the flat.
She pulled the crumpled duvet off the makeshift bed on the floor. Michael expected her to uncover Jack’s sleeping body, but all there was underneath were two armchair cushions.
“What have you done with him?” she demanded.
“We ain’t done nothing,” said Otis.
The sound of a toilet flushing made everyone turn their heads to the bathroom. The flushing subsided and there was the click of a sliding bolt as it was unlocked. The door opened to reveal Jack standing in the doorway in his underpants.
“What the ferret’s scrotum’s going on?” he said blinking into the light, looking around at the four of them standing before him. His eyes settled on the woman. They widened in surprise. “Mum?”
“Nathaniel Jackson, where have you been? I’ve been ringing and ringing!”
“Mum, what are you doing here?”
“I came to find you – to tell you, you got an appointment.”
“Appointment?” Jack shook his head in confusion. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Jack steadied himself with a hand on the bathroom doorframe. The colour drained from his face.
Michael shot a glance at Jennifer and Otis to see if they understood what was going on. They looked as shocked as Jack did.
“Mum, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“My hopes?” He laughed. An ironic laugh. A frightened laugh. “At least a month, you said. We’d talk about it, you said.”
“I thought we’d decided it was for the best.”
“You decided!” said Jack.
She gave him a reassuring smile. “You’ll feel different about it tomorrow. Tomorrow, you’ll be normal.”
“You don’t get it!” He brushed by his mother and dropped himself onto the armchair cushions. He curled his knees up to his chest and looked back at her. “I don’t want to be normal.”
“Well,” said Mrs Jackson. “It’s all booked now. Why don’t you get dressed, eh? We can talk about it on the walk home.”
Jack was like a lost little urchin boy sitting near-naked on his ragamuffin bed, staring up at his mother. He shifted his gaze to Jennifer and then to Otis, as if asking for help.
“You don’t have to do this,” said Otis.
Mrs Jackson stepped forward, blocking her son’s view of his friend. “I’m sorry, but it’s already booked.”
Otis turned on her, his face angry. “Hey! This is none of your business.”
“I’m his mother!”
“It’s his decision,” said Otis.
“Shut up!” screamed Jack. His words cut through their argument as sharply as turning off a radio. He scrambled through the bedclothes and pulled out his borrowed T-shirt and trousers. “I’ll go for the damn appointment.”
He got dressed in silence. The disagreement hung in the room, but Jack seemed to have made his decision. He put on his trainers with stoic determination and tied the laces like a person getting ready to leave, not like someone playing for time.
When he stood up, fully clothed and ready to go, Otis came up to him. “Are you sure about this?” he said.
“I knew this day was coming,” said Jack, resolved. “They’re coming for all of us in the end, aren’t they?”
“Not if you help us stop it,” said Otis.
Jack looked across at his mother. She still had her coat on and stood with her arms folded. “I can’t.”
Jennifer came up to Jack, wrapped her arms around him and gave him a long, gentle squeeze. “I’ll miss you,” she said. “But we’ll keep in touch, yeah? I’ll text you when I get my new phone.”
“Come on, Nathaniel,” said Mrs Jackson.
Jennifer withdrew her arms from Jack and stood back. Jack straightened his T-shirt and, with a nod, indicated to his mother he was ready to leave.
He kept his head down as Mrs Jackson led him from the flat. He avoided looking at Otis or Jennifer as he passed them. He didn’t say anything. He allowed his mum to open the front door for him, they walked through and she closed it again; pushing it shut with a gentle click of the catch.
“Bitch!” said Otis.
“Did you ’ceive him?” said Jennifer. “He’s so scared.”
Michael looked from one to the other, wishing to hell he was in the perceivers club. “What’s going on? What’s this appointment?”
“He’s going to have the cure,” said Jennifer.
“Cure?” said Michael.
Otis paced around the room. His anger, barely controlled, thumped down into the floorboards. “They’re going to take everything he is and throw it away.” His rage seethed from every syllable. “They’re going to turn him into a norm.”
“But you said he was going to be cured,” said Michael.
“Of perception,” said Jennifer. “It’s a cure for perceivers.”
CHAPTER SIX
Natasha Hill looked directly into the camera. She’d chosen an electric blue blouse to read the news that evening and two pearl earrings large enough to poke out from her shoulder-length blonde hair.
“Waiting lists for clinics have soared since it was announced the procedure to cure teenage perceivers will be available on the NHS. Doctors say they’re getting more calls from desperate parents every day. Our Health Correspondent, Toby Pearce is outside a cure clinic for us now …”
The shot cut to Toby: looking into camera, a light breeze wisping at his thin hair. Behind him, a concrete building with a temporary sign reading Cure Clinic attached to the door.
“Yes, Natasha. Ten teenagers were cured at this clinic today, but doctors I’ve been speaking to say demand is so great, they coul
d have seen ten times that many. I’m with Marjorie Schaffer and her daughter Evy …”
The camera widened the shot. Marjorie – mid-thirties, trendy in T-shirt and jeans – stood proudly next to Evy – not much more than thirteen, clasping onto her mother’s arm like a three-year-old.
“Marjorie, you brought your daughter here to be cured today … How did you feel when you got the appointment?”
Toby directed his fluffy microphone at the mother.
“So relieved. When we got that phone call to say we had a place – well, we knew this was going to be a fresh start for our family. I feel sorry for the other parents. To be living with a perceiver in the house, not knowing how long it’s going to be like that … I mean, I know how hard it is.”
“Evy, if I can turn to you …”
Fluffy microphone angled to the daughter.
“… How does it feel to have been cured?”
Quietly: “Okay.”
“Were you frightened?”
Looks up to Mum for guidance. Mum smiles. Evy shrugs. “Gave me an injection, I woke up in the recovery room. Now I can’t perceive anymore …”
~
MICHAEL DRIED HIS hands on the bathroom towel which was a bit smelly and needed a wash. The sound of the toilet flushing subsided from a gush to a gurgle of the cistern refilling. It allowed the murmur of voices in the lounge to be heard. Michael opened the bathroom door a crack.
“… we should start meeting again.” Jennifer’s voice.
“Where?” Otis’s voice. “The community centre’s a pile of ashes.”
“Here.”
“I don’t think so. Adults torched the last place we met. I don’t fancy being asleep when they burn down the flat.”
“Groups are gathering across the country, we can’t sit around doing nothing, especially now Jack is gone.”
“Okay, here. I’ve got stuff this afternoon, so they can come this morning. But we find a new place for next time.”
“Otis,” said Jennifer. Her voice lowered to a whisper – the words so quiet, Michael couldn’t make them out.
Otis responded with more whispers.
Michael guessed he’d been discovered. Perceivers didn’t have to see him to know he was eavesdropping.
He flushed the toilet again – to pretend he’d only just finished – and walked into the lounge, trying to act natural.
“Hi, Michael,” said Jennifer.
“You off out today?” said Otis.
“I suppose,” said Michael.
“Good,” said Otis. “I mean, that’s fine. See ya later.”
Michael usually went out during the day, it didn’t feel comfortable for him to be around the others too much. Usually Otis said nothing about it, but on that particular day it seemed he was unwelcome. Which was fine, he knew he wasn’t one of them. He was an outsider among outsiders, a squatter in someone else’s squat, a norm among perceivers.
He went to the park. He often went to the park. The wide open spaces allowed him to see any police officers out on patrol from far away and avoid them. Not as if he got the impression that the few he saw were hunting for the murderer of Agent Cooper, but he couldn’t be sure.
It also gave him space to think and try to remember details about his life. He spent hours sitting on a park bench with his eyes closed, thinking himself back beyond the moment he found himself in the corridor. Or, trying to think beyond it. Because all he encountered was darkness. An endless nothing. He replayed the sound of the woman’s voice who had called his name and tried to remember who she was, but he kept coming up against the blackness. He tried so hard it hurt, but then – frustrated – his eyes would snap open and he would find himself staring at the only reality he knew.
That day in the park, he saw a group of boys playing football. They were school-age teenagers and split into two teams in red and blue football kits. He stopped to watch a little distance where a smattering of parents were gathered on the touchline. Occasionally they shouted, “Come on my son!”, “Pass the ball!” and “Put it in the net!”
One boy drew Michael’s attention. He was a lanky black teenager with pock-marked skin and wearing a red football strip. He played with impressive dexterity. He dodged his opposite number on the blue team, intercepted the ball with his inner right foot, dribbled it for two steps and passed it to a stocky white boy in red. Cheers erupted from the parents … which turned to groans as the white boy shot for goal, the ball struck the post and bounced back onto the field. The black boy slowed to a walk and gave his teammate a commiserating slap on the back.
There was something familiar about him. For a moment, Michael thought he was watching someone from his lost past. His heart leapt with excitement.
And then he realised.
The boy he was watching was Jack.
Free of his plaster cast, with shorter hair, and showing unexpected athleticism, it was definitely him.
Michael wanted to go up to him. To ask Jack what happened, to find out if he was all right. But the game continued on the pitch. And he noticed, for the first time, that one of the parents on the touchline was Jack’s mother.
Eventually, the referee blew his whistle and the players sagged to a stop. Jack jogged off the field and collected a water bottle from his waiting mother. He swigged some round his mouth and spat it out on the grass. He took a second sip, which he drank, then wandered away from the others to a large sycamore tree. The gentle sunlight filtering through its yellowing autumn leaves cast a mottled shadow on Jack as he leant against the trunk and extended his leg behind him in a calf stretch.
Michael cast a glance back at Mrs Jackson. She was engrossed chatting to the referee.
He approached Jack, who appeared not to notice. Jack swapped legs and stretched the other calf.
“Hello, Jack,” said Michael.
Jack stopped stretching and stood up straight. “Do I know you?”
“It’s me, Michael.”
Jack returned a blank stare. His cheeks were flushed from exercise, but they were the only living features on an otherwise dead expression.
“I was with Otis and Jennifer, remember? I was the one who rescued her from the fire?”
“Oh yeah,” said Jack. The tiniest hint of recognition flickered across his face. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“Why not?”
But Jack was already turning away.
“Wait! Jack!” Michael pulled at his shoulder and twisted him back. “Can’t you just tell me how you are?”
Jack looked at the hand on his shoulder like it was a hairy tarantula crawling on his skin. He flicked Michael’s fingers off him. “My name’s Nathaniel,” he said.
“Okay, Nathaniel – what happened? Why haven’t you called Otis or Jennifer? Aren’t you guys friends anymore?”
“I’ve been cured,” said Jack simply.
“Cured of your friendship?” Michael searched Jack’s face for the boy he remembered. The boy who screamed injustice in the hospital when he thought someone was queue-jumping, the boy who stood up to his mother and said he didn’t want to be normal.
“Thank you for your concern,” Jack said with precise politeness. “I’m much better now.”
Michael was still trying to reconcile his memory of Jack with the boy who was standing in front of him when the sound of Mrs Jackson’s voice drifted across the park. “Nathaniel!”
She waved at her son from the touchline.
“Excuse me,” said Jack. “I have to go.”
He turned and walked away without giving Michael a second glance.
Michael took several steps backwards until he felt the solid trunk of the tree at his back. He let it take his body weight as thoughts spiralled through his mind. So that was the cure, he thought. It had taken a strident, vivacious boy and emptied him of his spirit.
Like Michael had been emptied of his memories.
Looking into Jack’s face had been like looking into his own mind – the harder he stared, the more he s
aw only blankness.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I’VE SEEN JACK!” Michael cried as he entered the flat.
Otis looked up from where he was sitting sprawled out on the furthest armchair, tapping away at his phone.
Jennifer put down the kettle halfway through making herself a cup of coffee. “Is he all right?” she asked. She came out of the kitchen to join Michael in the lounge.
“He was…” Michael tried to think of the right word. “… different.”
“But he was all right?”
Michael didn’t know what to say. The way Jennifer was looking at him, it was like she wanted him to say ‘yes’. To tell her that Father Christmas exists, there’s gold at the end of the rainbow and everyone’s going to live happily ever after. Michael didn’t believe in any of those things and so he said nothing.
Otis was the one to break the silence. “He’d had the cure.”
“That’s what he said,” said Michael.
Otis got out of his seat and discarded his phone on the cushion behind him. “Seem withdrawn? Unemotional? Robotic?”
“Yeah,” said Michael.
“Like they’d taken part of his soul and thrown it in the rubbish?”
Jennifer turned on Otis, accusation in her eyes. “It can’t be that bad.”
She turned to Michael. “It wasn’t that bad?”
But Otis’s description wasn’t far off.
As Jennifer looked deeper into Michael, she must have perceived his thoughts because she didn’t ask him again. She just sat down hard on the sofa, like she had no strength left to stand anymore. “We should have stopped him, Otis.”
“How? He’s underage. We’d only have the police coming down on us.”
Frustration was rising inside Michael. This was how it often went with Jennifer and Otis. They’d talk about things and he wouldn’t understand. “Are you going to tell me more about this cure or what?”
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