She watched a film. It wasn’t The Wizard of Oz. She watched the TV in the dark and she mouthed the words to all the songs that played in black and white but she didn’t sing out loud. Outside the black road snaked and looped. She slept on the living room floor and she didn’t dream and didn’t think of Dad and she didn’t think of Mum who she couldn’t remember anymore. Then in front of her in a line down the beach she saw a hundred of her mothers all naked in a row and each daughter played with the hair of each mother and each mother played with the hair of each grandmother and so on and so on for hundreds of years back. They stretched so far she couldn’t see. All blood. All of them connected. When she woke up she smoked and wore the dark green glasses and blew all the smoke into the air. Remember when you were a girl, her mother said in her head.
No, why don’t you tell me.
She watched the flicker of the black and white fuzz where she had kicked out or hit out at the TV in the night and the cable had come loose from the back and broken off and the wires twisted like veins that didn’t connect to anything. The bird in the back room called nine or six or eight. She didn’t know because she wasn’t listening anymore. She turned the TV off and she sat in the middle of the room staring into the black.
There was no blue beneath the paper on the walls that surrounded her. No yellow boat painted by her father to remind her that they had once been happy. She looked at the curtainless window and then she looked at the doorless frame beside the TV set and she watched the hallway where the woman in the bed was standing.
What are you doing?
The woman didn’t answer.
Where are you going?
Silent still.
The woman didn’t look into the room but walked through the hallway and past the frame of the door so slow, very slow. Then the woman was gone and she heard the front door open. And close. She stood up and went into the hallway and into all the warm light that came from the little window and into the cold artificial light that hung above them and she opened the door.
The woman stood looking out from the balcony. The wind caught her by the long hair and sent it in swirls behind, just above that long beautiful back. Her breasts were lifted over the wall. Her arms rested there. A flowerpot was on her left. There were poppies. Dying. She stood naked and unafraid and bathed in all that light that came from the moon and though she was bare her bareness wasn’t strange. It seemed just as it should be. She joined her on the balcony and stood next to her and saw her tall and beautiful and pale before that lovely sky. The woman closed her eyes and the light caught her skin and the smoke rose around her. I forgot about this, the woman said.
What?
She smiled but didn’t speak and stood looking at the sky and at the towers that rose like polished black stones in the distance. They stayed there watching the world with that close edge and the lights on the black road and the people that lived their lives in the rooms that were cemented together and cemented apart. The woman smiled but didn’t speak. After some time she turned and looked at her and she bent down to kiss her face and the kiss caught the cold and stayed on her cheek awhile. The woman turned around then and went back inside. She followed her to the bathroom where she washed her face and put on makeup and she followed her into the bedroom where she picked out the clothes that she wanted to wear. She couldn’t leave her side and couldn’t take her eyes away as the woman who had drawn herself out of her bed had begun to resurrect.
*
The boy had been quiet for days. When she stood in front of him he looked at his feet or out of the window and when she offered him food he shook his head. He didn’t jerk his head or bark in his sleep. That part of him was gone.
The woman who had once been in the bed went into the kitchen to sing and make dinner and to fascinate the room and the birds and the black cat that did not know her. When she was done there were potatoes and there was meat and there was cabbage and food that she hadn’t seen before. Gravy. Pudding. Mint. The woman had woken early and gone out and taken the bus and she had talked to people who had thought she died when she had got married and she talked to others who didn’t know her and she came back with bags of food and told her that she had been pushed into life and cooking. She couldn’t help it. There were flowers standing in vases that grew towards the sun even though they had been cut and would die in days.
Have you seen those people, the woman said, have you seen all those people? There are some who grow old and scared and seek out forgiveness just before the end. There are some who play like they’re worried the playing will run out. Have you seen the ones who claw through brambles and drag themselves to church to seek their posthumous reward? Why do they grow old? Why do they let themselves do that? I think I love them all. This meal is ours and when we eat it we’ll think of them.
She ate and said nothing and when she was done she smelled the sleeves of Lucky’s coat and went into the kitchen to clean while the woman stood outside and caught the rain in her hands. She took a plate into Tick who wouldn’t eat and wouldn’t talk and wouldn’t turn to look at her when she came into his room. He stayed beneath his blanket and she sat with him until the sound of breathing turned into nothing but soft sighs and the word Dad, shouted over and over.
She went outside to throw stones at the dog on the wall and to sit on the swing that had been twisted all the way up to the frame. She smoked and looked at the light on the end of the lamppost above the wall and she looked at the old fridge that had been turned on its side and she looked at the whole estate through the green glasses that were now more hers than ever before.
A boy in black walked by and she watched him go. He climbed over fences in the rain and kicked the railing that was topped with razor wire and he broke through a door that had been locked and she followed him. She followed him across the concrete and as he went up the stairs and she stood on the other side of a wide space in the cold and the dark where the towers stood side by side and there were no bridges between them. She called out to the boy and the boy turned around.
Where are you going, Tick?
He didn’t answer.
Can you come back?
He jerked his head and grabbed the back of his neck and in the driving rain and the light that cracked in the sky she could see the shape of his face and she could look deep into the mines of his eyes. He mouthed something but she couldn’t hear it and he shook his head but. He turned around and went through another door and he was gone.
She found a staircase and she ran down it and she found a corridor and went through it and she tried to follow him but she didn’t know where he had gone. In the park there was a child and she asked him if he had seen Tick but he just covered his face and cried. She went on. The world was grey and green and black. The boy and his shadow were drawn up onto the walls and she followed one and then the other as they rose and fell. She coughed and threw down her cigarette. She ran.
She went where the light didn’t want to go and she looked up and saw the edge of that blackened building where there had once been a fire that was started by a child. Below the blackened edge where the walls of the building fell there was a small girl who stood with her hands together in prayer and her face looking up. She stood beside her and turned the child around. The child looked up.
What are you doing?
The boy has come again.
What boy?
The one who burns.
The girl nodded her head like Plastic Jesus. She pointed to the open mouth of the building and she pointed to each blackened floor and she pointed to the top where a boy stood looking down.
She climbed through the blackened room at the bottom of the estate and went through the door that was not there and she went into the hall where the smoke had not gone and junk had been left to pile up along the walls. She climbed the junk as she had before. There was a brick that wedged a heavy door open and she opened the door and kicked the brick away and went through and closed the door after her.
She went up t
he familiar stairs and down the familiar corridor and she stood outside that familiar door that was wedged wide open with a stone just like the door downstairs and it all looked different because nothing was green. She went through the door and into the white room and Simon was not inside and neither were the rabbits. The TV that played on the ceiling was broken and projected only the black and white static that fizzed and growled like a monster. She turned it off.
In the hallway the rabbits were running. She looked towards the end and saw the ears of one and the tail of another and the shadow of all of them cast upon the wall and she followed it as it turned the corner. At the end of another hall there were three rabbits and around another corner there were seven more and they were all going in the same direction. She followed them. They jumped and stopped and jumped and stopped, all travelling forwards and back towards where she had already been. The corridor turned black and became burnt and twisted and the cold air drove through and the rabbits began to leave little black footprints and stretched the burn to the untouched white that she left behind her.
The black corridor became a black room that had lost its door and part of the floor and its entire back wall that had been ripped out and scattered all over the estate below. There was a wide opening. As though she was standing in a black mouth. The wind blew through and caught her hair up in twists. The white rabbits were dirty and they lined up along the walls and refused to venture near the long drop. The door was on the floor and she fell over it as she stepped into the burnt room. She pulled herself up again. Junk was everywhere and it was sodden and broken and falling apart just like the junk she remembered that ate up her Dad and ate up her memories.
On the edge of everything was the boy. He stood with Simon on the folds of floor that broke off into nothing and he looked down at the world under his feet. The wind swept the ashes into black powder that stained the corridor behind her and the boy stood back from it and held Simon by his wasted arm and twisted hand and his body that was tilted to the left. Simon made a noise deep in the gutter of his throat and Tick held him closer. The wind did not touch the boys. They were suspended. They were stones tilted on the edge of a wall that would soon crumble beneath them.
She stepped into the middle of the room and called their names.
What are you doing? she said. She walked closer, her red shoes gathering dust and changing from red to grey and into black. She held her hands out for balance and moved slowly around the battered furniture turned on its side and she went around the back of the TV that had been hollowed out and she stepped over the films that were burned and melted into stacks and she stood apart from Tick and the boy who gurgled and smiled and pointed at her. Tick drew the boy to him and held him tightly by the arm and looked to the edge of the room.
Please, can we take him home?
Tick wiped his eyes with the sleeves of his coat and shook his head.
Let’s take him back.
Simon clapped and smiled and laughed at the birds that began to sail in the air beside their faces. Her red shoes were caked in black. Her black shoes were.
Let me take Simon home.
It’s too late.
It’s not. I can take him back and we can go home.
I can’t.
You can. I’ll help you.
It’s too late. The other kids already saw me.
The cold air caught them again. The boy pulled Simon closer. She clung onto a fence that had been put up and then pulled back down again. Her body twisted in the wind. The dog on the wall growled at the moonless sky. She steadied herself and stood between the bricks that had once belonged to the room. Underneath the old TV was an old video player that was still plugged in.
We can run away.
Then they’ll win.
Who?
Everyone else.
I don’t understand. I’m scared.
That’s how they like it.
The boy cried into his sleeves and she tried to move and she couldn’t do anything because her feet were stuck and her shoes would do nothing to help her. She was crying too. She cried for the boy and she cried for herself and she cried for her mother who couldn’t help her and she cried for Dad who helped her only once. When the crying was done she looked at the boy once more and reached out.
I want to go home.
I can’t go there now. It’s too late.
It’s not.
Simon made a noise and Tick pulled him by his pyjama top and he looked at her and he smiled. Everyone said he couldn’t die. Don’t you know that? Everyone said he couldn’t die and everyone said he was their friend but no one helped him when he needed them. He killed him and it was because of me. He was my Dad. He wasn’t like me. He was good and kind and he prayed for good things to happen and sometimes they did. I saw it. He was better than me and now he’s gone. I’m still here and it’s my fault. Everyone is scared all the time and I’m sick of it. I’m scared too and I’m sick of it. I can’t. I can’t. I’m me. I’m me. I’m me and this is all there is. This is all there’ll ever be.
The boy cried and Simon cried too and rubbed the dust out of his face. The rabbits dived madly around the room and some of them jumped over the edge and into the drop. The boy turned Simon to face him and Simon looked at Tick who was not as tall. Tick wiped Simon’s face with his sleeve and he wiped his own and he smiled and he said don’t you know that it’s all a game, Simon? Don’t you know that it’s so much fun? Everything. Look at that and that and that there. Look at Anna. Don’t you know that it’s all a mad game?
She stepped forward with her hand out and her shoes slipped and she couldn’t take another step again and she held onto the TV and the cable that was still plugged into the wall socket. The wind came. Dad was in her head and Mum was in her shoes and she couldn’t move because she was weighed down by thoughts of falling. Tick looked at Simon who pointed to the ground and clapped.
Let’s play a good game, he said. Let’s play Simon says. You like that game, don’t you? You like playing Simon says with me. He looked at the boy and the boy looked at him.
Simon says clap, he said.
The boy did.
Simon says nod your head.
The boy did.
The boy looked at Tick and Tick looked at the boy. Simon looked below him at the long drop down and then he looked back up. Tick stepped away from Simon who balanced on the edge of broken bricks and crumbled floor and iron bars that stuck out broken like Tick’s braces. Simon laughed and tried to hold onto Tick but Tick was pulling himself away and crying.
Simon says jump, Tick said.
Simon gurgled.
Simon says jump. Jump. JUMP.
Then Simon smiled. And jumped.
She lunged forward from behind the TV and grabbed the air and got hold of him and caught hold of his pyjamas and held herself back on the TV cable that was still attached to the wall. The boy clapped wildly. He moved up and down. She held him as tight as she could while he shouted and laughed. She twisted her arms around his waist and felt the pull of her muscles. Tick stood back with his hands on his face. He watched them like they weren’t there. Watched them like TV. What was happening was far away. Not there. Not to her. She couldn’t. She pulled and Simon kept jumping over and over again and he leaned out of the gaping mouth and laughed into the wind that caught his voice and sent it shooting out between the towers. The TV cable pulled tight and whined and the last rabbit watched them from a dirty chair. She kicked off her shoes and she planted her feet and pulled Simon back from the edge and he jumped and pulled himself forward again and she cried and held the TV cable as tight as she could. Tick looked at the rabbit. Her. Simon. The edge.
Help me, she said. Tick. Help. Help.
She lost her red shoe down the long drop. Tick wiped his eyes and opened his mouth and then he came forward quickly. He bounded over the upturned concrete and over the broken sheets of wallpaper and past the rabbit that watched him as he split from his terrible dreaming. He came fast and took Simon b
y the collar. He shook his head and pulled Simon back but the boy kept jumping over and over. Stop, he said. Stop. Stop. Stop.
They were close to the edge now. They held onto each other and each felt the wind that came up from the bottom. They couldn’t hear each other, only the hearts that beat fast and heavy under their clothes. There was grass in the air. Cold water. There was the smell of cooking and the smell of dogs. There were no sirens but there was talking from below. There was the sound of a million other TVs. Closing doors. Music. Mess. Home.
Stop, Tick said. Simon pulled.
Simon says stop, she said, Simon says stop.
Simon stopped, and they pulled him back.
They didn’t know until then that the passenger had been watching them while they. She could see that his shadow had darkened the room and she could see in the eyes of the boy that he had come there. The passenger stood behind them and called out in a rage when he saw Simon held unsteady above the fall. She couldn’t turn to look at him as he came, but she watched the fear in Tick’s face and she felt the footsteps and she didn’t turn because she couldn’t let any of them go. The passenger came and he came too quickly. She heard him stumble and fall. He tripped on the cable that she held in her hand and he went into Simon who laughed and smiled and clapped his hands as his father danced around the edge. She held onto Simon and Tick held onto her and the man stumbled all the way over the edge.
She saw the man and she followed him down as he twisted black and terrified in the cold air. She watched him fall all the way down, and she held onto Simon who wanted to follow. She pulled him away from the drop and pushed him back into Tick’s arms. Simon giggled and clapped and Tick sat down with him and put his arms around him and he said Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
The Insomnia Museum Page 23