by Amy Lilwall
Windy waved Lamb’s invite away and chuckled. ‘How can I forget? I can’t ever forget.’ She fanned her hands out in front of her. ‘I am the memory.’
Lamb took hold of Windy’s hand and squeezed it, turning to Bonbon. ‘See? She always says these things, about memory, emotion, bears; but she won’t tell us what she means.’
‘I keep telling you, there’s no point, Lamb.’ Windy reached out and tucked a piece of Lamb’s short black hair behind her ear. ‘They’re so pretty,’ she said. ‘Just like a fairy, or a pixie… Or some other legendary thing.’
Lamb beamed. ‘I don’t know what any of that means. And if you’re not going to tell me then I’d better go back. I’m helping Fola with the subjects for this afternoon.’
Windy rubbed Lamb’s hand. ‘Off you go then.’
Lamb grinned and walked back towards the crowd of littlers.
Bonbon turned to say goodbye, but by the time she’d looked back towards Lamb, the little black head was bobbing far along the corridor. Had she been staring at Windy the whole time? She turned back to the old littler who had sat on the edge of her cage and let her legs dangle towards the floor.
‘Why did you say that you are the memory?’
Windy patted the space next to her. ‘Because I am.’
‘But can’t you remember being at the doctor’s?’ asked Bonbon as she sat down.
‘It wasn’t me, dear. It was probably my sister. I’m a Batch Eight, you know. We all look exactly the same.’
The word ‘dear’ crept up behind Bonbon and rubbed her shoulders. ‘Exactly the same?’
‘Yes.’
Bonbon wondered what it would be like to have a sister. The image of sleeping Jinx flicked on and off again in her mind; as if it were a television screen. Where had her mind found the words ‘television screen’? she thought, as she saw a very little girl with almost-brown hair crying in front of a square picture, a television, telling of how she wanted to see people just like her… Except she wasn’t really telling of that at all! The words she said didn’t match the feeling that Bonbon took on as she watched her. Fingers rubbed over the eyes that watched from the inside of her head and Bonbon realized that the eyes were not hers, the sadness was not hers. It was like the others had said; she was feeling what her littler was feeling. She closed her eyes and tried to turn them inwards to watch, but the image was gone. ‘I just saw something.’
Windy nodded. ‘Memories,’ she said as if it were the most boring word in the world.
‘I’m so confused about all these pictures in my head,’ said Bonbon, wanting to hold Windy’s hand and put her head on her knee. Instead, she crossed her ankles and swung her legs, letting her heels tap against the cage. She shook her head. ‘I’m sure it was you I saw. I remember really well because seeing you made me not want to leave the doctor’s. And hearing your voice just now made me want to run to your cage.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Windy, nodding her head, the same way she did with the others when they wouldn’t stop telling her to practise her memories; when they wouldn’t believe her that there was no point. ‘It’s nice of you to want to come and see me, dear,’ she said.
‘Darling,’ said Bonbon, as ‘dear’ gave her another hug from behind.
Windy straightened and blinked at Bonbon. ‘Where did you hear that word?’
‘I read it,’ she said. ‘It’s my favourite word.’
‘Oh.’ Windy’s back curved into a slouch again. ‘It’s good to read.’
‘Can you read?’ asked Bonbon.
‘Yes,’ replied Windy.
‘It’s funny because I read that word and it made me feel so… um… I don’t know really. It was a big feeling, though.’ She swung her legs up high and looked at her toenails. ‘Jinx can’t read but she can make noises in front of the biggerers.’
‘She must be a very emotional littler.’ Windy rested her head on her hand.
Bonbon noticed that her hand was full of bumpy green lines. She looked at the back of her own hand before her eyes were drawn back to Windy. The sound of breathing hissed in her ears; but not the ears on the outside of her head… She breathed in and out quickly and realized that the breathing in her ears continued on its own; slowly in and slowly out. In and out. They weren’t her breaths; they belonged to the littler inside her head. He was watching Windy and concentrating on her. Sadness pulled at Bonbon’s eyelids. ‘The bear was called Bonbon,’ said Bonbon. ‘Like me.’
Windy narrowed her eyes as her head cocked to re-hear what it had just heard. ‘Sorry?’
‘Bonbon,’ she repeated. ‘The bear was called Bonbon.’
Windy’s eyebrows crushed her eyes into slits and her nostrils opened wide as she breathed deeply. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bonbon. ‘I’m right, though, aren’t I?’
‘—.’
‘Tell me, Windy; his name was Bonbon, wasn’t it? And the other bear… The other bear had Jinx’s name, didn’t she? The bear who died and left Bonbon all alone.’
‘—.’
‘Why won’t you help me? Why won’t you tell me what it all means?’
Windy shrugged her shoulders right up to her ears. ‘Because there’s no point, Bonbon.’
‘But why?’
‘You’ll never beat them.’ Windy’s eyes darted over all the cages in front of her as if what she was saying was so obvious that bits of it were lying around everywhere. ‘I’ve been here for six days and in the beginning, I told them everything I could. It didn’t help. One by one they’ve been taken off to the next room, and the next day another littler appears in their cage with so much hope.’ She looked straight at Bonbon. ‘Do you know what the next room is like? The one after this one? My sisters do. They’ve been there and stared at the walls until their brains rotted.’ As she said this, one of her arms crept down towards the floor and pointed at it. ‘They tell me when I close my eyes; they show me what it’s like when I sleep; they beg for me to talk to them every night until they’ve forgotten how to talk. The memories of Batch Eight are powerful memories, Bonbon, but they are managing to disperse them like flakes in water.’ She turned to face Bonbon; her mouth straight and liney like a comb. ‘It’s painful to forget. Especially when you can feel it happening. You, Batch Twenty, you don’t stand a chance. Why are you working so hard to preserve something that will be taken from you? You should just let yourself go, Bonbon. All of you should let yourselves go.’ She gestured towards the other end of the corridor, towards those who should have been letting themselves go instead of repeating everything that had happened to them since they’d been there, the same way they did every afternoon and evening. ‘They are right, those biggerers. We shouldn’t communicate. We shouldn’t stimulate our brains. We should live without always trying to discover the truth…’ She shrugged. ‘There’s no point,’ she repeated.
As Bonbon listened, the breathing in her ears became so loud that she had to lean closer in order to hear. The heart that wasn’t hers beat so fast that it had to take over her own one, for help, or else it might have exploded. The sadness that tugged at her eyelids pushed up her eyebrows and pulled back her lips. Her fingers shook with an energy that hadn’t come from her and drummed the side of the cage in a way hers never would. There’s no point! played over and over again as pictures flicked one after the other of biggerers she’d never seen before, laughing on a spotty blanket and shouting around a table, a bowl of green rocks at its centre. In every picture was the little, almost-brown-haired girl; an animal, like a cat but bigger and yellower, stood next to her or behind her or under her; Bonbon felt the top part of her head being pulled back as words that weren’t her own bubbled out of her mouth and into the air. ‘There’s always a point, Isabel!’ she shouted.
Windy gasped. ‘What did you call me?’
‘Isabel,’ said Bonbon. ‘I called you Isabel because that is your name.’
‘How do you know that?’
Bonbon’s chest pumped so much
that she thought she would be sick. She thought of the littlers in the glass tank who looked like they should have been running. Her eyes started to ache and tears formed and tumbled over her nose. ‘I don’t know!’ she said. ‘Help me, Windy! Help me to remember!’
Windy stood up as quickly as she could, her feet searching for the ground, her back bending forward; she gripped the side of the cage with shaky, green-striped hands and puffed out her cheeks as her weight fell onto her ankles. She hobbled over to Bonbon and put her arms around her. ‘It’s alright, I’ll tell you,’ she said as Bonbon sobbed. ‘The bear was called Bonbon. And his mate was called Jinx.’ She rocked Bonbon’s body inside her skinny hug. ‘I am called Isabel,’ she said. ‘My sisters and I are called Isabel.’
Like dirty moons, he thought, turning his hand out and gazing at their black nail tips. His gaze tumbled down to the lump that stuck out just underneath his chest. Like a buttock, he thought. Like a large, hard buttock, but on the front of him, blocking out his feet. He belched and laid his head back down. Those black fingernails had come from scratching at his feet when he was under the bed with Blankey and Jinx. The baby ones weren’t black. He never scratched anything with the baby ones. They just weren’t strong enough. He brought his hand to his eyes. This time yesterday, had he properly thought about it, he might have eaten those useless baby ones. He definitely would have pushed his bottom tooth under each fingernail, and eaten up the black stuff. A ribbon of light swooped out of the black clippy thing that was stuck to the front of his cage. Oh no… He let his head roll to the side. Not again. No more… The ribbon travelled up his body. He lifted his hand to cover his mouth, but the light caught it and held it. ‘Please, no more, no m—’ A tube of light held his mouth in the shape of ‘more’. A thinner tube buzzed its way through the centre of the light and into his mouth. Chips wriggled and writhed, trying to arch his back or tip his head to the side. The light on his body strengthened its hold. He gagged as the tube continued over his tongue and into his throat. The noise started. Like a low hum heard through pinched closed ears. He’d often hum with his fingers in his ears. It would stop him from feeling hungry. But now… He let his eyes water, maybe that was his belly making them water; his hard buttock-belly getting bigger and bigger and pushing all the water out to make more room for whatever was buzzing out of that tube. He spluttered but the thing continued. He moaned but the thing continued. He breathed a long breath through his nose and watched his belly rise above his chin line.
The thing continued.
CHAPTER 19
Oh gosh, who were all these people waiting for? Surely not him? They were definitely shouting in his direction. Look away. Just look away.
‘This way. Hold it on your head, Drew. Cover your face. But careful on the steps; here, take my hand.’
‘Okay.’ Just follow Tim. Tim won’t let them tear you to bits. Tim just got you out of prison.
‘Baby grower! Baby grower!’
‘You’re GAY, not God!’
Drew would have laughed at that had it not been yelled at him by about twenty people. Oh dear, where were Watty and Quail? Concentrate, Drew, just think about them; they’ll be so pleased to see you. Then they would all go home together and have a lovely meal.
‘Shut the fuck up, you lot! Didn’t you get that he’s not right in the head?’
Respect to the man who just told twenty people to shut up, but was this really how that part had been translated? Tim’s way of putting it had been more… elegant. ‘Mental anguish’ would for evermore be known as ‘not right in the head’. Watty would laugh, he would most certainly laugh. Good Lord, how many steps were there?
‘Nearly down, Drew, just watch your step.’
The jacket slipped from his head and a camera flashed in his face. Three microphones appeared with three journalists attached. One of the journalists screamed as she got crushed by the other two. ‘How does it feel to be free, Drew? Do you think what you did was right?’ But Drew didn’t answer; he gazed at the row of men and women dressed as ballet dancers, all of them with red lipsticked smiles painted right up towards their ears. They stuck their middle fingers up at Drew.
Drew let his eyes close. He’d never dance again. What a horrible thing to do.
‘Baby grower! Baby grower!’
‘Do you think that gay couples should have the right to grow their own babies?’
‘Do you think that we’ll ever see baby-grow kits sold in high street stores to assist gay parenthood?’
Tim pulled the coat back over Drew’s head as Drew laughed. Baby-grow kits! How did they dream up these ideas? He thought about what Tim had said in court: ‘What we should really be asking ourselves is why a drug-addicted teenager with an unwanted pregnancy would be allowed to keep her baby yet a geneticist, capable of producing a human child in, perhaps, safer conditions than a natural womb, should have terminated his? He wanted to save a life, may I remind you. Would it have been more acceptable if he were a woman who couldn’t have children naturally? Surely we cannot hold the fact that he is not a woman against him?’ Clever Tim. Clever Watty for going to the same university as clever Tim.
‘Justice has been done, Drew! We love Isabel!’
‘Thank you for Isabel, Drew!’
Drew pulled a buttonhole over his eye and peeked out. A group of round ladies with smiles like thumbnail dents in potatoes stood with their children sat on their hips. The children made heart shapes with their thumbs and forefingers. They wore tee-shirts with pictures of Isabel at the centre, all done up like a little Barbie doll. Ha! Quail has been working hard. A placard appeared next to them. ‘Drew Mahlik crushes gay parenthood acceptance.’ Drew looked the other way. Dear oh dear, was that what people really thought?
On his left-hand side, men and women stood in a line with their hands in a praying gesture. One after the other, they bowed as Drew passed. ‘Our pro-life brother,’ they said. ‘Thank you.’ Then a flower was poked underneath the coat. Drew lifted the edge of the fabric to see the face that had offered it to him. ‘She’s a miracle,’ said a very smart lady with a grey bob and a black shirt-dress. ‘Well done for saving a miracle.’ He took the flower, his eyeballs tingled and blurred. The lady reached out to put a hand on him but was pushed away by more journalists sweeping around him, snapping photos and trying to poke their microphones under the coat. ‘Why are you crying, Mr Mahlik? Do you have any regrets? Do you have any regrets about what you’ve done? Do you? Do you regret anything, Mr Mahlik? Why won’t you answer the question, Mr Mahlik?’ Suddenly, a pressure on Drew’s head pushed him down and forward into a car. Tim scrambled in behind him, pulled the door shut, and there was silence.
Drew pulled the coat from his head. Tears beaded his jawline. He rubbed his eyes and looked towards the front seat.
‘Hello, darling.’ Watty’s pupils glittered. Drew’s nose snorted, his mouth screwed up into a wiggly line, he bent his blonde head forward and, as if he were a reflection, Watty did the same. Foreheads touching, Watty held Drew’s cheek with his hand. Drew put his own hand over Watty’s and started to kiss his face until both wiggly lines touched and they sat in that position and sobbed. Outside, cameras flashed and the crowd knocked and smacked at the windows.
‘Where’s Isabel?’ Drew asked, dragging his eyelid towards the edge of his face with the heel of his hand.
‘Who?’
‘Isabel, where is she?’
‘What?’
The earth moved underneath him, bouncing his horizontal body up then back down again – wait – horizontal? Darkness billowed about his eyes before curtains started to glow beyond the far-right bed post that stood black and straight like a muscle farm column in calm sea.
‘In bed, one would hope.’ A pause. ‘Were you dreaming? You’re panting.’
Drew pressed two fingers to his jugular. ‘It was one of those vivid ones.’
Watty rolled over and curled an arm around Drew’s waist. ‘A bad one?’
‘It’s alright,’
Drew said through a yawn. ‘It’s over now.’
* * *
They walked back to the crowd together, slowly as Windy couldn’t walk as well. She reminded Bonbon of Blankey’s she-one, and as she thought of her, she wondered again where Blankey could be. Heads turned to stare at Windy as she took her place at the back of the crowd. The speaker was remembering Hester and Note, two littlers who had been moved to the next room just that morning. Bonbon left them and climbed back up to her cage. ‘Jinx!’ she hissed as her head poked over the edge. The space where Jinx had been lying was empty. Bonbon looked towards the back to see her bent over her flakes, her face pushed into them, her teeth and breath making greedy noises. ‘Jinx!’ she called again. ‘We’re having a meeting. It’s an important one.’
Jinx sat back and watched Bonbon until her mouth was empty. ‘They were so horrible to me, Bonbon.’
‘I know,’ Bonbon nodded. ‘I saw the marks on your legs.’ She climbed into the cage and walked towards Jinx, her arms already in the shape of a hug. ‘We need to discuss this with everyone else. They want to know what happened.’
Jinx nodded and stood up, brushing her hands on her thighs even though she hadn’t needed them to eat her flakes. ‘Let’s go down.’
When they reached the crowd, Bonbon whispered that they had to sit with Windy. ‘Who’s Windy?’ Jinx hissed.
Bonbon felt the jumpy and shaky feeling come back as she looked in her direction. ‘My littler knows her.’
Jinx screwed up her face. What was that all about? Bonbon didn’t have a littler, did she? If anyone was Bonbon’s littler it was her, Jinx; is that what she had meant? That was a bit of a weird way to say ‘Jinx’. But then she did have quite a few new words recently, like… darling.
Jinx stopped. She stared so hard at the other littler who now sat next to Bonbon that the white head turned, and one hand like a bird’s foot rose into the air to beckon her over. Jinx walked towards her as if she were being pushed from behind. She stared down at Windy for a minute, then crossed her ankles and lowered her bottom to the floor. Windy eyed her from the side of her head as, rather than facing the middle of the crowd and the speaker, Jinx had sat herself down so that she was facing Windy. She continued to stare.