Sputnik Caledonia

by Andrew Crumey

  Kid takes a long leak, washes his hands and face, finds a tiny tube of complimentary toothpaste in a basket but no brush, so fingers his gums clean, stares at himself in the mirror. Everything you can possibly imagine is real somewhere. Like Stegosaurus phoning to check, it really happens. Probability non-zero, though pretty damn small. Wearing every sequence of sock. Kid hasn’t got a change of anything – he’ll be wearing the same clothes tomorrow with a probability of one, if the guy doesn’t kill him tonight. And no pyjamas, like it’s part of the plan. Naked boy found dead in hotel room with con man. That is so totally sad and embarrassing. That is so not going to happen in this universe.

  Kid switches off the light and comes out of the bathroom and the guy’s lying on his bed but under the cover now, on his back like a corpse, eyes closed. Looks like he’s asleep. Left the kid’s bedside lamp on out of consideration but switched off the rest, kind of a fatherly touch, so the room looks cosier now, softly illuminated by the single shaded bulb. And the guy’s naked, at least his arms and shoulders are, so he didn’t even take a set of pyjamas or a washbag out of his black trolley case that stands guard at the foot of his bed. Guy hasn’t touched it. Padlock’s still fastened, kid can see it from where he stands. As in he’ll never know, and that’s just how it has to be. You stay here, he’s a fraudster. You leave now, he’s a ghost. Let the ghost go home.

  So the kid quietly, very quietly, lifts his light-blue jacket from the bed where he tossed it when he arrived. The neodymium magnets rattle in the inside pocket; kid thinks for a moment he’s going to be rumbled. But the guy only gives a heavy breath that’s almost a snore, he’s truly asleep. Then the kid carefully folds his jacket over his arm, walks to the door, and a moment later he’s free.

  He’s in the empty corridor, walks swiftly to the staircase and goes down to the lobby but the reptile’s at the desk and the kid hesitates, doesn’t want to attract attention, what if reptile stops the kid and phones upstairs to check? Only a moment’s hesitation but it’s long enough to make the kid turn on his heels in strict accordance with the First Law of Life, like he’s meant to be here in the lobby, on his way to that room he noticed earlier, posh place with its name in gold letters on a wooden plate on the open door, Maxwell Room, lots of people there, mostly women chatting among themselves, nobody turns a head when he slips inside and stations himself in a corner where he stands carefully examining a painting on the wall. Everyone thinks he’s somebody else’s kid. All of this is meant to happen.

  ‘Ah, here they come.’ Heads turn towards the doorway where a couple are entering, a bald old man with piggy eyes in a dark blue suit and a woman on his arm, she’s like in her forties but he could almost be her father, smiling at everyone with the look of a politician. Kid twigs, it’s the one he saw in the newspaper, David Luss with his wife or assistant or mistress or whatever, and the door being closed behind them, kid’s got himself trapped in some kind of meeting and nobody notices or cares. The pair settle on a sofa and the woman does the introductions. ‘David, as you know, has long links with this town, because he used to teach here. In fact he even used to teach me.’ Blush of pride and chuckle of embarrassment, kid sees Luss’s eyebrows rise on his empty forehead, a different kind of embarrassment. ‘David plays a key role in shaping education policy, and that’s what this informal get-together is about.’ Kid wants to make a run for it, but now she’s inviting someone else to speak, another middle-aged woman like one of the hags his mother goes shopping with, they all look the same with their lines and baggy faces and hairdos. This one’s called Rosalind and might have been good-looking once.

  ‘Thank you all,’ says Rosalind, with a voice that’s almost a purr. ‘And thank you, Miriam, for inviting me here. Since many of you don’t know me, I should explain that I first got to know Miriam at a holistic community where I ran a healing centre. I’m interested in meditation as a means of therapy and personal development, and I want to explain why I think meditation should be taught in schools.’

  Then she goes into this long speech like you get at assembly, kind that sends the kid straight to sleep but he knows how to look awake and in any case everyone thinks he’s only here because his mother couldn’t get a babysitter. So the First Law is working really well and this Rosalind woman is going on about body and spirit and the word she keeps coming back to, holistic, like it’s all to do with holes. Then she stops and somebody asks whether meditation should be taught in physical education or religious instruction. And Rosalind’s like, do it everywhere. English lessons, maths. Get them all meditating for one minute at the start. Kid thinks this is way cool, like it’s what he’s been doing in lessons all his life as in falling asleep, only this time it’d be official and you could get a qualification in it.

  David Luss speaks. He says he hears what they’re saying about joined-up education and he’s already argued for its implementation blah blah blah. Big long speech about how he’s fifty-eight years old and can remember blah blah. How his professional relationship with Miriam has helped him blah blah. How he’s devoted his entire educational and political career to furthering blah blah. It’s all about dialogue and synergy as in everything’s connected and the kid thinks that’s what the guy upstairs was saying, only he sure as heck wasn’t saying it like this. David Luss says he used to be a chemistry teacher blah blah, and Miriam’s got like this twinkle in her eye, like she knew him then, like she worshipped him even then, like there’s this story that only the two of them are ever going to know, like she’s not really called Miriam.

  Then it’s Rosalind again. ‘Everything has two kinds of explanation: a rational and an irrational. Science concerns itself only with the rational, so it leaves out half of human existence. We need to give equal weight to the irrational.’

  Sounds reasonable, but when’s the kid going to be able to make a dash for the door?

  She says, ‘All of us here have a professional interest in alternative knowledge systems: astrology, feng shui, crystal therapy. The education system betrays its students if it fails to give them sufficient grounding in these disciplines. It’s all very well teaching children about the planets of the solar system, but are those planets merely lumps of rock, or are they spiritual presences in our lives? Shouldn’t we spend an equal amount of time finding out how to do a basic birth chart?’

  They’re all kind of like muttering and agreeing with each other but not enough for him to slip away.

  ‘Let’s do a little experiment,’ Rosalind says. Then she brings out this pack of playing cards and starts handing paper and pencils round the room and the kid’s like holy shit it’s an exam. ‘I don’t expect to get positive results from those of you already aware of your own psychic ability. I find, though, that this test can be a good way of uncovering hidden talent – it’s one that every school should conduct.’

  He’s got to get out of here, they’re all rustling pages and putting on spectacles like they’re limbering up for a game of Pictionary and this is his moment, kid goes to the door and he’s out without looking back, reptile’s not even there now, it’s like so totally easy, kid slipping on his jacket as he passes the empty desk without any slackening of pace because fact is, nobody gives a shit what he does, going through the revolving door and into the darkness of the night. He’s walking away from the hotel, down the long driveway through the trees to the main road, and it’s like so what? No searchlights or barking dogs or thunderous overhead helicopter mussing up his hair while a guy with a megaphone tells him to put his hands up. It’s basically bye-bye and good riddance kid. Which is so not what this is meant to be about, as in who’s going to show up for his funeral and the Nelly Furtado gig?

  If he’d stayed with the guy he could have been famous. As in Terrorist # 2: The Accomplice. Boy in light-blue jacket seen near the check-in counter, wanted for questioning. His blurry CCTV image on Crimewatch. Stegosaurus seeing it and dropping his tin of beer. Maiasaura getting straight on the phone to the Hags. Barking dogs, helicopters et ceter
a. But he’s walked out and it isn’t going to happen, he’s trying to retrace the route to town and soon realizes that’s not going to happen either. As in he’s so to speak lost. Generic unlit country road sort of scenario.

  Kid saw something on UKTV History once, as in he watched three or four minutes of it, a record for anything on that channel. All about these terrorist groups in the sixties and seventies who had great names like the Weathermen or the Angry Brigade or Baader-Meinhof or the Red Army Faction, like they were basically pop groups, and they all had like long hair and beards and sweaters and did drugs and the girls all had this rock-chick look, getting led away in handcuffs like they were being busted for playing their music too loud. Nowadays if you want to be a terrorist you’ve got to be a dark-skinned Muslim, which is so basically unfair. Maybe Robert Coyle is like this white wannabe, kind of an Eminem deal, his fake passport photo will be in the newspaper: the lone bomber. Only the kid and Jodie will know, and it’ll be so totally cool.

  Kid hears a river as in it’s under him and the road here is like this small bridge wide enough for. one car, doesn’t remember walking over it earlier but the river’s how he got here so he tries to find a way down, settles for scrambling through bushes and feels a tear in his jacket, ends up on the bank. He can follow it all the way back to Kenzie or he can basically camp out as in lie down on the ground, it’s not too cold, and if only Jodie was with him it’d be so romantic. Plan is to find her after the plane explodes and tell her the two of them have to go on the run, because even though all those people died the guy had to do it, as in he knew there was this child on the plane who was going to grow up into like the next Hitler, so he’s basically a hero even though on the front page of the Record he’s Face of Hate and in the Sun it’s Bastard and the Independent’s got like something totally irrelevant. Only Jodie and the kid know the secret and they’re going to share it forever in their little cabin where they’ll have babies and buy everything mail-order off the Internet.

  He walks fast while he thinks about it, everything’s slotting into place like this is how it’s got to be because he’s learned that you can still be a hero as long as at least one person knows about it. Like you don’t need to be on TV, there just has to be the one who believes, the one who cares, the one who makes your life mean something instead of being this unwatched programme. He’s almost running and then he stops. Over on the other side of the river it’s like there’s this random old guy staring at him. Hard to see in the darkness but the kid can tell he’s old because of the way he walks, can’t be police but maybe he’s like this plainclothes anti-terrorist guest marshal they keep on standby in the hotel in case anybody suspicious checks in, and the old guy has come to a halt too. Maybe he’s got like body armour under his zip-up coat. A walkie-talkie, a gun. Helicopter’s going to fly over any moment.

  The old guy’s shouting something, kid can’t hear but he can guess. Kid’s thinking, better run, but his feet aren’t moving, it’s like he’s busted big time. He’s scared. And holy shit, the old guy’s marching down to the waterside and now he’s coming straight at him, wading through the river, like they gave him a wetsuit as well, in case of aquatic-chase scenarios. Only the guy’s not so fast, he’s knee-deep in cold black water, slipping and stumbling and looks like he might fall on his arse, kind of amusing. He’s stopping for breath, it’s taking him like ages to get across a few yards of river, and the kid’s not so scared now because this is like not threatening it’s just plain weird, he could run away if he wanted but he doesn’t need to. He wants to know what this crazy old man really wants.

  ‘Robbie! I’m coming!’

  Kid can hear him now, like this sad old man making a total dick of himself, nearly across, looking up so the kid can see his face better now, covered in sweat and basically exhausted. The old man’s panting hard, slowly coming to the edge, grabbing at reeds to steady himself and maybe the kid should help him up but he doesn’t as in it’s not like a crossing the road standard situation he’s dealing with here.

  ‘Robbie, it’s me.’

  The old guy’s made it up the bank to the kid and he’s standing there in front of him with water dripping off his trousers and his coat where it splashed.

  ‘It’s me, Robbie. I’m old now but you haven’t changed at all.’

  He’s got like this look on his face which is sort of between hypnotized and delirious and basically out of his head, like whatever he’s seeing isn’t what’s in front of him because the kid isn’t Robbie but he isn’t Felix either and if you’re going to get through every submenu of life then what the heck?

  ‘Hello,’ says the kid.

  ‘Oh, Robbie! Son!’ He basically hugs him. Embarrassing sort of moment. ‘I don’t know how it can be possible …’

  Kid’s got an answer to that. ‘Anything’s possible. Everything’s connected.’

  Kid backs off a little and see there’s stuff all over the old man’s face like sweat or tears or river water, he’s basically a mess, and his expression is sort of changing, he kind of nods like he gets it but his breathing doesn’t sound right and his grip on the kid’s arms has loosened, the old man’s arms have fallen, his legs are buckling and he’s going down on his knees as in praying and then he makes like this really disgusting grunting noise, the whole of his insides are rattling and his eyes are widening, staring, pleading, it looks totally scary. He’s trying to say something, clutching at his chest. He basically dies.

  It’s like the kid’s staring down at this dead old man who must have been on drugs or something, well, you hear about pensioners taking Ecstasy and so forth, their hearts can’t take it. And now the kid’s got like this situation to deal with as well as the other one, it’s so totally interesting. But first thing he’s got to do is get away from here and find somewhere to sleep.

  13

  Dawn breaks over Kenzie and Anne Coyle lies awake in bed, still waiting to hear if the police have found him yet. Across the whole of the dormant town, night’s shadows slide and shrink; St Mary’s church, the municipal library, the empty Springdale Centre, all welcome the new day, and on the riverside memorial, the painted ‘fuck’ becomes more clearly visible to an indifferent fauna. Anne finished her book hours ago, not long after Joe went out. A death and a wedding: the traditional endings in the story-book version of life. Happy ever after, on Earth or in heaven.

  In the bushes beside the river where he slept, the kid wakes to hear birdsong and the flowing of the water. He looks along the path and in the distance can see the old man still lying where he fell; it seemed such a long way last night when the kid stopped running and lay down exhausted, but in the daylight it doesn’t take him long to walk back to the spot, as if to make sure the old man really is dead, lying peacefully on his back but with his legs in a strange position. When he gets near, the kid sees the old man properly for the first time, his eyes wide open and staring straight up into the sky, his mouth open too, caught in the process of trying to frame whatever it was he wanted to say when he collapsed at the kid’s feet. Long strands of grass fringe the old man’s grey head, and on his coat some shiny dark insects patrol with forensic determination.

  There was nothing the kid could have done, or can do now. It’s time to move on. But first he stoops beside the body, half expecting it at any moment to leap back into life like the zombie in Taste of Blood. In games and movies nobody’s ever truly dead, that’s what makes the real thing so cold and final. What the kid wants to avoid more than anything is touching the old man’s skin, but if he has a wallet somewhere, cash, the kid could use it. A pity the kid didn’t take the magic card before escaping from the hotel, but he didn’t dare risk it. A corpse is easier to steal from than a ghost.

  The old man’s back pocket is the place to try, but he’s lying face-up and it’s out of reach. The kid gives the body a slight push to one side, hoping to get a hand underneath, yet when the dead weight shifts it releases something trapped inside, there’s a gurgling sound and the kid thinks he
might throw up, he lets go of the body and it slumps back into its former position. The kid stands up and feels himself gagging, manages to hold it down. He ought to go now. The old man’s death was nothing to do with him and he should forget it ever happened.

  He hears a sound and looks up; an airliner high above, Robert Coyle on his impossible mission, the kid feels sure of it. The plane so high he can hardly see it, but he knows this has to be the one, this tiny dot where Terrorist # 1 is sitting in seat 13C, gazing out at white clouds rolling like cauliflower beneath him while an air hostess walks by offering coffee. The kid can see it all so clearly, the terrorist standing up waving a non-metallic weapon, saying, ‘Nobody move. Nobody panic.’ And everybody panicking.

  But the plane’s still up there. The kid watches the dot grow smaller, swinging slowly across the brightening sky, until he loses track. The mission has failed: the world has not been saved. There is still work to be done. The kid takes a last look at the old man whose face retains the rigid dignity of his dying moment, then sets off for town to seek the girl he loves.

  COPYRIGHT

  Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,

  24-26, St Judith’s Lane, Sawtry, Cambs, PE28 5XE

  email: info@dedalusbooks.com

  www.dedalusbooks.com

  ISBN printed book 978 1 910213 13 1

  ISBN ebook 978 1 910213 33 9