by Martin Dukes
“There was something you said last night,” said Alex. “It got me thinking. You said that some of the people are actually dead. They just don’t know it.”
Kelly pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”
“Well, what did you mean, ‘go on for a while’?” he asked. “I mean I can see there’d be all kind of practical difficulties with dead folks getting back into reality. What if you’d actually died in hospital and ended up here in ‘Sticia for now. It’d be a bit odd if you got sucked back into Reality and your corpse showed up suddenly in the bandstand, wouldn’t it?”
Kelly grinned suddenly. “That, Alex, would be what we call a logical inconsistency and Intersticia doesn’t much like stuff like that. No, I’ll tell you how folks get back into Reality, if you really want to know.” She glanced around conspiratorially as though she feared being overheard.
“Will doesn’t even like to think about it because he’s chicken to his core, see?”
“Uh huh?” said Alex encouragingly. “Go on.”
She sat down on the edge of a bench next to a stiff holding a half-eaten baguette. There wasn’t room for Alex to join her without budging her along a little so he was obliged to remain standing.
“They say Cactus Jack comes for them,” she said, flicking at a crumb of manna on her knee, and looking up at Alex with those big brown eyes. “Eventually, that is. You might be here for ages and ages first. I never saw it happen myself but I’ve heard others talk about it. Not that anyone really wants to, you know – talk about it, or anything. It’s almost like, what d’you call it?..taboo, that’s it. You have to work on people a bit. They say this guy..”
“Cactus Jack,” supplied Alex, trying to keep things moving on.
“…Comes and drags them back into Statica. Grabs hold of them, gives them some kind of death grip and sets them up as stiffs. He wanders about at night sometimes; gives everyone the creeps.
“Whoah!” breathed Alex. “Creepy. Do they know he’s coming for them or anything?”
“Come on,” she said, after a moment’s reflection. “Let’s go.” It was clear that Kelly wasn’t that keen to talk about Cactus Jack either.
“Let’s go where?” was a question that suggested itself to Alex, but it was some time before he actually asked it. For the moment he was content to walk with his new companion as they threaded their way amongst stiffs at the South end of the big pool, where dozens of statical geese were being fed bread by a couple of stiff kids. Half a big white crust was caught in mid air.
“Paulo’s place,” answered Kelly. “If he’s there. He’s supposed to be copying out King Lear. That’s what Ganymede made him do this week. He really, really hates Paulo. And I mean really,” she added, as though Alex might not have been following her drift. “I’m lucky; he just doesn’t like me.
“Who is this Paulo anyway?” asked Alex. “What is he, the local “A List” celebrity? Everyone keeps talking about him.”
“Paulo? He’s seventeen. He’s cool. I think so anyway. Other folks seem to think he’s a bit of a bad lot. His face doesn’t fit…you know…bit of a free spirit. He’s always in trouble about one thing or another… Talks about vegetables a lot.”
Kelly, who seemed to enjoy a private joke, smiled reflectively at this last disclosure, which caused Alex a twinge of irritation.
“What do you mean he talks about vegetables a lot?” he demanded peevishly, as they crossed the main road.
“He’s kind of foul mouthed,” Kelly told him. “And that really hacks Ganymede off. He got so fed up with Paulo swearing he did some kind of weird magic thing to him. Now, whenever Paulo thinks he’s swearing he’s really just saying the names of veg. He doesn’t know though. He still thinks he’s bad-mouthing. Funny really. Don’t laugh at Paulo though, will you? Not unless you want a kicking anyway. He really hates that. Being laughed at, I mean.”
Alex made a mental note to himself not to jeer at Paulo. He was beginning to feel a little worried about Paulo, who sounded a lot like the kind of boy he spent much of his school career trying to avoid.
They came to a large detached house across from the park. Kelly led them along the side of it, through an open gate, and into the rear garden. Here a patio door gave access to the house. Inside, a middle-aged woman was vacuuming the carpet.
“Paulo,” called Kelly, her voice sounding hugely loud in the stillness of the house. There was no reply. Kelly frowned. They went upstairs. Here, in the master bedroom, were signs of occupation, manna crumbs, a jug, a few blankets. On the dressing table was a copy of the collected works of Shakespeare. Torn pages from it were scattered all over the room. Scrunched up sheets of file paper lay everywhere.
“Jesus,” said Kelly, with a low whistle. “I guess Paulo got fed up of it.”
“Looks that way,” said Alex, picking up one of half a dozen or so broken biros. “Not the studying type is he?”
“You could say that,” agreed Kelly, looking at him with her head on one side. “I wonder if he left any manna. I’m starving.”
“Fancy that,” said Alex with a wry smile.
A brief search of the premises on Kelly’s behalf revealed no manna, only a jug of water in the bathroom. Kelly was in the dining room and Alex was checking the kitchen cupboards when he became conscious of a small girl watching him from along the hall. She was perhaps nine years old. There was an expression of wonderment on her face.
“Hello,” he said, looking up from his scrutiny of the cupboard under the sink.
“Kelly,” said the girl in a shrill voice. Kelly appeared at her side.
“What?”
“Have you seen this?”
“Seen what?” The sprog whispered urgently in her ear for a moment. “....Oh..”
Alex’s first reaction upon spotting the unexpected brat had been to shut the cupboard door. Now he slowly stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans.
“What?” he asked into the heavy silence that had suddenly descended.
“You’re not supposed to be able to do that,” said Kelly at length.
“Do what?” asked Alex, knowing full well what she meant, and feeling suddenly intensely anxious about it.
“Move Statical stuff,” said the younger girl, her small brow furrowed. “I should tell Ganymede. Then you’d be in trouble.”
Alex, who had taken a fairly instant dislike to the undersized newcomer, found this dislike cranked up a gear or two.
“No, you shouldn’t,” Kelly told her, with mock severity. “Not unless you want your silly face pushed in. You never saw nothin’… Right?” She grinned and gave the girl a playful shove that bounced her off a wall.
“Alex, this is Tanya. She’s a pain sometimes but basically she’s okay?”
Tanya giggled and put her arms around Kelly. They hugged, Kelly picking up Tanya and jogged her up and down until she screamed.
“Paulo’s gone,” said Tanya, panting, when Kelly had set her down. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”
“He’s left his jug and his blankets,” Kelly pointed out.
“He’s got some more,” retorted Tanya. “He stole some. I know he did.”
“Where’s he gone then, clever clogs?” asked Kelly.
“How should I know?” said Tanya with a shrug. “I saw him earlier. He was in a right strop.”
“Mentioned a lot of vegetables did he?” suggested Alex.
“Yeah.” Tanya chuckled. “Loads. I could’a made a casserole.”
Kelly shrugged. “Oh, well. I guess he’ll show up tomorrow at the Gathering.”
“Do you like having sticky out ears?” asked Tanya, in that guileless way of the very young that makes it hard to object too much.
“All the better to hear you with,” said Alex, making the best of it, after a moment in which he felt the blood rush to ears and cheeks.
“Wow! You must have hearing like a bat,” she said with a frown.
Moving things on, Alex pointed out that P
aulo didn’t appear to have struck up much of a relationship with Shakespeare. Kelly seemed to consider this.
“Well,” she said. “It’s never stopped him before.”
Alex was beginning to think that the subject had moved safely on from his apparent ability to interfere with the forbidden world of Statica. No such luck. Kelly came into the kitchen and ran her fingers longingly over one of the glossy red apples in the fruit bowl on the table. It was like Snow White’s apple.
“I can’t tell you how often I’ve dreamed of apples,” she said, regarding the fruit dreamily and then suddenly turning her eyes upon Alex. “Get it for me Alex. Go on.”
There was an intensity about her gaze that came perilously close to melting his resolve. At last Alex shook his head. “Can’t,” he said, feeling a hot flush in his cheeks.
“’Course you can,” said Kelly, in an encouraging tone, taking Alex’s hand in both of hers and pressing it to the apple. Alex flinched and withdrew his hand, although not before a delicious thrill had transfixed him. She licked her lips. “Come on. Tanya saw you close that cupboard door. So she tells me. An apple should be easy enough.” There was something almost plaintive in her tone.
Tanya came up at her side. “Go on,” she said. “I saw you do it, didn’t I?”
But Alex was steadfast. He knew that he was looking at the thin end of a very fat wedge. Getting Kelly an apple was only the first step on a long and dangerous road that would involve the provision of sweets, chocolates, crisps and heaven only knew what. He was far too scared of Ganymede to take so much as a humbug from Statica for now. He certainly wasn’t about to start doling out treats to Kelly, or anyone else.
“I can’t,” he said. “Tanya’s wrong. I was trying to open it but I couldn’t budge it. Honest. I can’t.” He felt bad about lying but the consequences of telling the truth struck him as infinitely worse.
“Can’t or won’t?” Kelly’s mouth was set in a hard line now.
“Can’t” insisted Alex, holding her gaze steadily. For the benefit of his little audience he made a passable pretence of trying to move the apple. He felt it stir under his fingers as he grunted and grimaced.
“See,” he said, letting go. To his enormous relief it didn’t roll out of the bowl.
“I saw him do it,” said Tanya, stamping her foot and regarding Alex ruefully. “I know I did.”
Alex slept at Will’s house again that night. On the way back there from the park he was surprised to find a solemn procession of small creatures crossing the road. They were like nothing he had ever seen before. Each was about as tall as a large dog and covered in fine sleek hair, stumpy creatures with two short legs and no arms at all. Although they had no obvious necks, their heads were surprisingly human in appearance, except for the position of their ears, which were like terriers’ ears, placed on top of their heads. Long tails swished behind them as they proceeded into a litter strewn passage in stately single file. When they had gone, Alex stood for a while, whilst his brain tried to assimilate what he had seen. Then he hurried onward, eager to ask Will if he knew what the creatures were.
Will was already there when Alex made his way up to the back bedroom. He was writing what he said was his diary.
“Not much of diary really,” he explained. “But there’s not a lot else to do of an evening, unless someone comes round, or you get invited somewhere.”
“They’re quite peculiar, aren’t they?” said Will, rather understating the case, when Alex asked him about the strange little creatures.
“They’re called “snarks.” Ganymede’s always going on about them. They’re like his ideal creatures or somethin’. They don’t speak; they don’t even do anything much. All they do is think. They’re supposed to be creatures that have evolved not to do stuff, like humans have, but to think.”
At this point Will started doing a passable impersonation of Ganymede’s voice, waving his arms around theatrically. “They are fine, noble creatures. They have beautiful minds. Do you hear me? Bee yoo tee ful minds. Each one spends his days in contemplation of life, and the meaning of existence. Which is more than I can say for you ‘orrible lot!” A snort of self-congratulatory laughter brought this to a close.
“They were going off towards Micklebury Hill when I saw them,” said Alex, with a grin. “They hardly seemed to notice I was there.”
“They wouldn’t,” said Will, tossing his biro up in the air and catching it. “They’re too busy philosophising. Some nights they like to go up on Micklebury and stand about looking at the moon. Ganymede says it fine tunes their thought processes.”
“Oh,” said Alex evenly. “Does it?” He was becoming more and more accustomed to bizarre phenomena. “So what are we doing tonight then? Party, party, party, is it?”
“What do you think?” snorted Will. “I can do without Kelly coming round again and scoffing all my manna. She’s like a manna hog. I never knew anything like it.”
Will had an extended grumble about the austere regime in ‘Sticia. Alex listened attentively enough although he had the feeling he was listening to the first of many similar rants to come. Nobody ever had as much manna as they wanted. Ganymede doled out just enough to keep body and soul together. This meant that food was always a big issue with people, and kept everybody’s minds focused on whatever work Ganymede had required of them. And then there was the boredom. There was so little to do, other than work. There was no television, no music, no cinema, and hardly any books, except those that Ganymede saw fit to issue to them. And these were usually distributed only so that they could be copied out, translated or learned by heart. Ganymede had a passion for learning, particularly where others were concerned. He was even more passionately committed to it when those people were naturally averse to learning. Hence Kelly was trying to learn by heart the poems of W.B.Yeats. Hence Paulo’s reluctant encounter with Shakespeare. On the other hand, those whose inclinations were cultured and bookish, found themselves engaged shovelling sand or carrying bricks. It seemed that Ganymede had an ironic sense of humour. Or possibly he was just a sadist, thought Alex.
Will was not one for staying up late. Having written his diary he went straight off to sleep. Alex wondered what on earth he found to confide to his diary. It was presumably little more than a bald record of manna lost, equations solved, empty streets wandered. It seemed unlikely it would make racy reading. Alex decided his new companion was a bit dull. There must be more to life in ‘Sticia than Will was making out. Instead of going to bed himself, he wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and made his way out into the street past the stiff and her neighbour. The faintest of breezes was stirring the cool air of ‘Sticia and the flock of birds beyond the church were silhouetted against the peculiar false moon. The familiar texture of seas and craters he was used to seeing on the genuine article was replaced here by something somewhat more regular, as though an artist had recreated it from a traveller’s description. He took a deep breath of vaguely lavender scented air and looked up and down the silent street, wondering where Kelly was now. His mind trawled uneasily over the day’s events. Suddenly there was a faint sound and then movement, away beyond the cars at the end of the street. He could hear distant footsteps, firm and purposeful. Inexplicably, Alex was seized by a sense of dread so profound it was as though his heart had been gripped in a fist of ice. Gasping for breath, retracing his steps, he ducked behind the hedge that enclosed the tiny front garden. The footsteps came closer, and with every step the grasp of terror grew tighter and tighter. Alex found that he could hardly breathe. His labouring heart thudded in his throat. He hugged his knees to his chest and dared to peer sidelong through the gaps in the foliage as whoever it was passed briskly by. Alex had a brief impression of a tall male figure, dark jeans, a white T shirt with a cactus on the front. And then he was gone, his footsteps receding along the street. Alex found that he was panting.
Chapter Five
The next day was the Gathering. This took place in the park, of course, which s
eemed to be pretty much the centre of things in ‘Sticia. Alex made paper aeroplanes out of some of Will’s less successful quadratic equations. These they threw and caught and chased, as they made their way across Cardenbridge to the park, until Will, chasing after Alex’s plane, stubbed his toe with some violence against the kerb. He had to sit down for a while, grimacing and cursing whilst Alex, jumped on and off the pavement, fidgeting with his aeroplane.
“I suppose there’s not a lot of stuff to play with in ‘Sticia,” said Alex.
“Not really,” grunted Will, massaging his toe. “The planes were a good idea Alex, but Ganymede keeps a pretty tight rein on the paper too. You’re supposed to hand any workings back into him. And I look after mine. For my diary and stuff. We’d better hide these outside the park before we go in.”
“How long have you been keeping a diary, Will?” asked Alex, as his companion put his shoe back on.
“Only a couple of weeks,” said Will. “But life goes by so uneventfully here you tend to find it all blurs together after a while. I thought a diary would help me keep things in focus. I’ve been to lots of Gatherings, you see, but I’ve no idea how many.”
“What do you mean, you’ve no idea how many?” asked Alex, wrinkling his nose.
Will was perhaps about to answer but at that moment there came the sound of a horn of some sort, a long clear blast that cut through the quiet air and echoed off the tall park buildings where the council had its offices.
“That’s Ganymede blowing his horn to get things going,” said Will. “We’d better get a move on.”
They were passing through the park gates by now. From the top of the parade they could see that a few dozen people were gathered in the area around the bandstand, standing in small groups. Another small group was making its way up from the South Gate. Alex fancied he recognised Kelly amongst them. The horn blew again. Will broke into a lumbering run.
“Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re going to be in trouble.”