He looks over his shoulder, but he can’t see much in one blurred glance. The boys seems slightly closer perhaps, one had been holding a cigarette... He remembers the back of the school bus, being pinned down by bodies. One had held his eyes open so he couldn’t blink, another moves the red tipped cigarette closer and closer... It is darker now, and the shadows don’t just seem to come from the trees but from something darker above. He can hear their footsteps now, and his, and so the leaves must be thinning out. He keeps walking, his head down, and the boys’ strident laughter makes him jump. He realises that, absurdly, his heart and lungs have shifted up a gear. He wonders whether to run, surely he could outrun them? But why is he so afraid all of a sudden? Nothing can happen to him here, now.
He stops suddenly, determined to behave like the man he is, not the boy he was. Things have changed, he can’t be intimidated. With false casualness he sits on a bench at the side of the path and opens his Larkin book randomly. He is determined to read calmly while the boys pass by, silenced by his composure. Or more likely, he thinks, they’ll turn and scurry back to where they came from...
The first word he reads is shadows, the second pithead. He can see, out of the corner of his eye, the boys coming closer, four of them, dim-figured in the sudden settled shadows. The dead smell of the leaves seems to grow stronger. He wonders how it got dark so quickly. Pithead, he reads, the slagheap. His eyes keep flicking from the page, drawn to the dark figures – surely too large? – with hands out of pockets now. His heart raps out a warning against his chest. The poem’s phrases mix and melt and become meaningless: shadows pointed the dead and the slagheap, down the lane oath-edged, down the pit and the smoke and the dead, the dead go on... They step off the path and towards the bench.
He drops the senseless book, because his hands are shaking. The boys laugh and snigger. He knows their kind well. He gets up and starts to run, stumbling, trying not to look over his shoulder. They keep up with nonchalant ease, one still smoking as he runs. They are not coming after him at full speed; they’d rather prolong the chase. How did he ever imagine he was bigger than them? He smells decay, which in the back of his mind he vaguely associates with leaves, although there are none. He keeps running, a hot stitch growing up his side. He passes streets of terraced houses, some stone-clad in an effort to achieve individuality. He can see the pithead brooding against the dark sky, dreaming its last dreams. It already looks dilapidated and run down, with no promise for the future. Everyone knows the boys his age will never work in it. Yet it is still there, black overhead, and its tunnels still reach down to earlier ages.
He heads round the back of the Welfare, where maybe he can lose them. “Wanker!” one calls after him. He feels so angry, they make him feel so childish... But it would be suicide to stand up to them he knows. Only the stupid kids do that. There are no lights at the back of the building, and the shadows stretch out to become part of the night. He had hoped for a gap in the chicken-wire fence – there’s normally a gap! he thinks angrily – but there is none. Litter strays through the wire onto the playing field on the other side. He feels as though he has been in this situation a thousand times before, and his panic is dulled by a sense of routine. He hears them laughing right behind him, he knows he has no chance of escape now. This isn’t fair, he thinks, I was just...
A foot kicks at his ankle from behind and sends him sprawling. He grazes his palms and gravel plugs his wounds. Hands grab him and haul him up. Don’t fight back, he thinks, you’ll only make it worse. He is slammed against the Miner’s Welfare wall, the brick scrapping his shoulder blades, which are stuck out like stubby wings. Four faces fill his vision. I wish you were dead, he thinks; the dead go on, he thinks, without knowing where he got the words. His imagination is so strong he can actually see their bodies, twisted and wrecked... One of the boys spits in his face, and he closes his eyes. He knows the worst bit will be going home and trying to act normal, in front of his parents, all the while feeling weak and useless. If only..., he thinks, before someone punches him in his stomach; it would double him up were he not pinned back. If only I was somewhere else, he thinks. His lip is split open by a punch. And in the blackness behind his eyelids he can picture the life he longs for, he sees a place and a time when he will have grown up and escaped, and he won’t live in this dead end village anymore, when the Pit will be gone and replaced with new architecture. And as he thinks this the pictures in his mind grow clearer, as if that life were real somewhere, like a memory of something once true, that is just outside his consciousness’ reach... But the four boys don’t seem like they will ever let him go, and all he can smell is the decay of dead leaves; although surely there are none?
Some Stories for Escapists #1: The Werewolves
“From out of the forests the werewolves came, their pack dissolving into the larger pack of humanity. They could hide in this pack because they could assume its shape, live its life, live its dreams. Faceless, their faces were blank, normal, everybody’s and anybody’s. Whilst they were looked at they were scarcely remembered. At first they could pick each other out by smell, but gradually they became infected with the stink of humanity, and the pack lost each other.
"Routinely, the full moons came. Then, inside their cottages, hovels, castles or bedsits, their flats and garrets and semi-detacheds, the werewolves changed and assumed their true shape; or at least another shape.
"Some seemed pure wolf, vast, shaggy, snarling and rabid, without a true wolf’s sense of loyalty and restraint. Others half and half, snarling half-men, weremen, with clawed, clutching hands, fanged mouths stretched out to hold the nerves of the newly sensitive nose, bristly hair sprouting unevenly over their bodies.
"And, in different places all over the world, the werewolves pounced on the unsuspecting, inflicting the most terrible atrocities on their victims before they killed them. All were tortured and maimed, blinded and gouged at, some were even raped, men and women. For awhile the hot, doggy breath panted in their faces. Then finally, the last neck snapping, throat cutting bite.
"After the bodies were found police said it was the work of ‘animals’ - by which they meant, men. And so manhunts were organised, desperate attempts to find the killers because no one dared leave their homes. Which were no protection, the killers could just as well be inside. Manhunts, sniffer dogs, TV reconstructions - some killers were found, but no werewolves. The werewolves had faded back into the crowd from which they had come. The forests were distant in their memory now, they killed when they wanted, not when the moon dictated. Their lives were normal, organised, nine till five with a pension plan at the end, much like yours or mine. And when they wanted to kill now many of the weremen didn’t bother to change to wolf or half-wolf, but just used their human shape, for it was easier to fade back into the crowd that way.”
First Time Buyers
They made an offer on the house on the day they first heard the term ‘credit crunch’, and a vague feeling of unease dogged them until completion. A few months before they had been conscientious readers of the economic pages, alert to any twitches of the interest rates or movements in house prices. Now they avoided such things, not wanting to know if their new home had lost value before they had even moved in. Before it had even been built.
“At least it’s a new-build,” Kat said the night before they moved, “so at least they’ll be no repairs to pay for. And no ghosts.”
“Hmm?” Alex said, not really listening. “Ghosts?” On the TV people were already marching, waving placards. Already looked tired.
“It’s new. So no ghosts – no cursed history or...”
“I wouldn’t mind if there were ghosts. It might add value.”
“It was just a joke!” Kat said. “C’mon love, it’s our first house!”
Their new house was part of an unfinished estate on the edge of the town where Kat and Alex both worked. Any industry which had existed had been replaced by quickly built and temporary looking office blocks and business parks; t
he new housing estate was no doubt intended to attract those who worked for the call-centres and debt agencies who were now the only big employers.
Soon after Kat and Alex signed, the building company stopped all work on site, while they reconsidered the number and style of properties they wanted to build - a rethink driven by the worsening economics no doubt. No one was buying anymore. As a result Kat and Alex moved into the middle house of a row of completed yet empty homes, behind which unfinished houses and flats stood in various stages of completion, deserted and somewhat unnerving, with their empty window-frames like blind eyes, like bad teeth. No builders had been on site for weeks.
The sound of Kat and Alex popping open a bottle of champagne that first night seemed very loud in the silence, and echoed around the unfinished and ghost-less houses.
***
The next morning Kat took Sheba for a walk around the building site (the roads for the new estate were already built, and there was a small grassed area already finished). Sheba was a spaniel she’d picked out a few months earlier, who ate twice as much as she should but was never full. There was an early morning mist moving through the bare window-frames of the unfinished houses, and a silence that Kat, brought up in the city, wasn’t used to. Even Sheba seemed subdued, sniffing at the earth in a desultory manner – “there probably isn’t much to smell yet,” Kat said, “no other dogs at any rate.” No other people yet either – she shivered as she looked around again. It was easy to imagine that the houses weren’t halfway through being built at all, but halfway destroyed, as if she and Sheba were the last survivors of some apocalypse. What are those bombs, she thought, that killed people but left buildings standing? She must ask Alex (Alex too, Alex had survived). He would know.
She pulled on the small dog’s lead. “C’mon then,” she said with a yawn; “if you’re not enjoying this there’s not much point.” (It’s not talking to yourself, she thought, if it’s to a pet...) She took one backwards glance as she walked the compliant dog away, and of course it was easy to imagine things moving in that mist; easy to think she saw something watching her from an empty window-frame of an empty house, which ducked back out of sight when she glanced around.
***
“You’re back early,” Alex said. “Shut the door for Christ’s sake, you’re wasting heat.” He was pulling on his coat. “I was just off,” he said, not meeting Kat’s eye. They’d had a few arguments about Alex going back to work the day after they’d moved. “It’s a new job,” Alex had said, “I can’t just take a week off like you...” Now he was rushing off to his office, leaving Kat with all the unpacking. She didn’t say anything.
Even on normal days Alex left for work early, and arrived back late. This suited Kat, for it gave her chance for a couple of hours writing each night (although she rarely took that chance anymore). She told Alex, and herself, that her writing was the reason she’d remained working for a temping agency – she wanted something where she wouldn’t have to work late regularly, or waste her mental energy. When she and Alex had first started renting together it hadn’t mattered, for they’d both earned the same and split everything equally. But now Alex had his ‘new job’ and earned more than she did, and although he never said anything she wondered if he resented it – he was paying the brunt of the mortgage for their new home. She watched him leave for work with a certain absence of feeling – his pinched face, his painfully thin looking body. He said “love you” without kissing her, shut the door.
Kat wandered into the lounge, where all their possessions were still packed in cardboard boxes. She heard Alex’s car pull away – the only sound on the estate. When did you start to feel so adult, so tired all the time? she thought, looking at all the boxes. “Yesterday, when you bought this place?” she answered, out loud to Sheba, to show that it was only a joke.
***
After a few hours unpacking, Kat had had enough of the silence, of one-sided conversations with the dog. They needed groceries, so she decided to walk to the local shops. The quickest way was through the heart of the unfinished building site. Without the distraction and companionship of Sheba the abandoned buildings seemed even more eerie; except not abandoned, she reminded herself, there’s been no one to abandon them yet. But it was hard not to imagine that around her was an ending not a beginning; “what if the building company goes under?” she mused aloud. It could easily happen, people weren’t buying houses at the moment (except them) - would all these half-complete and skeletal houses be left as they were?
A movement in the mist distracted her.
The figure she saw running was adult-sized, but skinny to the point of looking child-like. Its round head looked completely bald, and it ran with a queer, stumbling gait, bent over so that its long white arms looked hung almost to the ground. It was crossing the waist-high and exposed foundations of a row of houses about fifty meters away, seemingly unaware of Kat’s presence.
Kat felt a moment’s fright; then a moment’s irritation with Alex – she knew just what he would say if he knew there were squatters in these unfinished houses (something about the apparition’s appearance had made Kat think of squatters immediately; of the homeless on the news). She felt ambiguous about the idea – the houses were standing empty, but she didn’t particularly want any addicts around. And surely the figure had to be on something, to be running around in this cold mist in just a long-sleeved white t-shirt (so tight that Kat could see the ridge of his spine)? Like an animal determined to be away the figure moved quickly out of sight, not so much hiding as fading into the mist.
Continuing, Kat examined her quick and instinctive frustration at Alex, at how she’d assumed he would have sneered at that poor wretch. But was that what really annoyed her, or was it the fact that he’d blame the area too? Blame her, in fact, for Alex hadn’t wanted to move here, or yet. (“Prices will come down,” he’d said. “Let’s go in equally when you’re earning more.” “But it might be years before my writing takes off,” Kat had said.) If there were squatters or undesirables around, he might blame her.
“No need to tell Alex,” she said to herself.
When she reached the local shops, half were boarded up or simply closed. Outside the one shop she did enter, a white hand reached out to her, but she didn’t have any change.
***
“It’s so quiet,” Alex said that evening.
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Yeah I guess.” Alex sighed, although not for any particular reason as far as Kat could tell. He’d started doing that a lot – at least he’s too tired for an affair, she’d said to herself, all this working late could make a girl suspicious. She’d fixed him a drink on his return, and so far he didn’t seem bothered about food. He just sprawled on the sofa and sighed quietly to himself, fingering his collar.
“I mean it’s so quiet!” he said suddenly, causing Kat to jump, “that you imagine something is outside, you know what I mean?”
“I’ve been doing that all day,” Kat said. No need to tell him what she had seen.
“Or it would be quiet if it wasn’t for that damn dog,” Alex said. “Sheba be quiet!” For the dog was whining and for some reason pawing at the backdoor.
“Alex, this is a new place for her too, dogs are territorial and...”
“Damn dog,” Alex repeated. “You’ll get fed when it’s time Sheba! When are we eating anyway?”
Now there was a noise outside, which they both heard, and Sheba too, for the dog suddenly ceased its commotion as if listening. But the noise, which had been a clattering sound from the back garden, didn’t repeat itself.
“Is there someone out there?” Alex said, getting up to look out the back window. Kat joined him. But there was no street lighting on the new estate yet, and no light from the other houses obviously, and the glow from their cheap light-bulbs didn’t even penetrate to the end of their garden. “Who can it be? No one else has moved in,” Kat said, telling herself that it wasn’t quite a lie.
“I gu
ess I’ll have to go out there,” Alex said reluctantly – not reluctant from fear, but from the same sighing tiredness that was beginning to get on Kat’s nerves. “Know which box we packed the torch in?”
Kat didn’t, and so Alex went out into the dark garden without one, watched from the doorway by Kat and Sheba. In just a few seconds he was gone from her sight, and she was left staring at nothing but blackness. Kat wondered again if she should have told him about the figure she’d seen that day. But the squatter or whatever couldn’t get into their garden, couldn’t get over the fence. “Surely?” she said to Sheba.
The dog was making a quiet growling sound in her back of her throat.
Kat was starting to feel nervous, her eyes itching as they pointlessly strained against the dark. She couldn’t even hear Alex moving now, and she was on the verge of calling his name when she heard him shout.
“What?” she shouted back, eyes widening. There was a horrible second’s pause before Alex replied.
“The bins,” Alex said, coming back towards the house. “Damn foxes, must’ve been at the bins. We’ve hardly put anything in them yet. They were all tipped over.”
“Foxes?” Kat said. “Then that’s why Sheba...” For she always defended the dog when she misbehaved, because secretly she knew Alex hadn’t wanted to buy a pet, even though he’d never said.
They went back inside, and put on music to drown out any other sounds.
***
Kat’s eyes felt like they’d been crying all day.
The Other Room Page 4