‘Yes!’
‘On both sides of The Wall?’
‘When are you going to stop this nonsense? You know perfectly well who our people are. It’s you and me and people like us. Our friends.’
‘But I have friends on the other side of The Wall. And there are people on this side of The Wall I hate. There’s someone living in this house who I hate. So who are my people? You tell me.’
‘When are you going to stop this?’
‘There’s only one person who wants to kill me, and he’s married to you. You said it yourself.’
‘What’s happened to you? How can you be so cruel and divisive? When did you become this person? I . . . I . . . I feel like I’ve lost you. You’re my only child and I . . . I’ve lost you. Who are you?’
Her sobs start slowly but gather momentum, until it begins to seem as if she won’t be able to stop. I pass her tissue after tissue, horrified and embarrassed, while a series of retches and convulsions pass through her body. Even the death of my father didn’t do this to her. Or if it did, she never let me see.
By the time she finishes weeping, a soggy mound of crumpled paper almost covers her feet. She blows her nose and looks at me with reddened eyes, which have shrunk back behind puffy, swollen eyelids.
‘I won’t let anything bad happen to you,’ she says, her voice snotty and moist. ‘I promise.’
‘It’s a bit late for you to say that, isn’t it?’
‘I can’t help you if you’re lying to me all the time – if you’re living in my house but sneaking around and tricking us and hiding yourself away. It’s still my job to look after you, but I can only protect you if you’re honest with me.’
I shrug.
‘And I have to know you’re on our side.’
‘Whose side? Who’s us, anyway?’
‘Just tell me where the tunnel is. You only have to tell me. It can be our secret.’
She gently rolls me towards her and leans close to my face. ‘Just whisper it once in my ear.’
I never thought tears had a scent, but I can smell them on her, wafting towards me in thick, sweet waves.
‘Our secret?’ I say.
We’re nose to nose. She nods, not flinching from my gaze, willing me to be stupid enough to trust her.
A question springs to the tip of my tongue. I want to ask her if she is dead. Are you both dead – you and Dad? These seven words sit behind my lips, ready to blast out, an insult for her insult, a slap for her slap.
I press my mouth close to her ear. A strand of tear-moistened hair brushes my cheek. She is utterly still, her body rigid with anticipation.
‘I have to ask you something,’ I say.
‘What?’
It’s as if I don’t even choose the question. The question chooses me, popping out of my mouth before I even know what I’m going to say. ‘Did something happen when I was born? Something bad?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When they cut me out. Were you hurt?’
A barely perceptible flinch scampers across her face, then the skin around her mouth tightens into a clenched smile. ‘Of course not. It’s a simple operation. They do it all the time.’
‘But did something go wrong?’
‘Why are you asking me this?’
‘I need to know.’
‘You mustn’t worry. Why are you – ?’
‘Liev said I damaged you.’
‘He didn’t mean it like that. You’re confused.’
‘I know what he said and I know what he meant.’
She puts a hand on my chest, above my heart. ‘You’re the only child I ever wanted,’ she says. ‘The only one.’
Another lie. Her eyes fill with tears, then empty again, as if by sheer willpower she’s sucked the liquid back into her head.
‘OK?’ she says.
I shrug.
‘You believe me.’ She phrases it more as a statement than a question, so I don’t answer.
‘Now it’s my turn,’ she says. ‘Where’s the tunnel?’
I barely have enough saliva in my mouth to form the words as I whisper, ‘The building site with the blue hoardings. Round the corner from the bakery.’
She nods and kisses me once, swiftly, on the lips. For a moment we breathe one another’s breath, as if there’s no distance at all between us. ‘I love you,’ she says. ‘Nobody’s going to hurt you.’
She slips off the bed and begins to pick up the mound of tissues at her feet, but with only two or three in her hands she stands upright, remembering there are more important things to do, and walks to the door.
‘You don’t have to go to school today,’ she says, half-turned towards me in the doorway. ‘After what happened. I’ll say you’re sick.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I’m fine. I want to go.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Is Liev still here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to school,’ I say. ‘I’d rather be at school.’
She lets out a disappointed sigh, and walks out.
Now I have to move fast. I throw the sheet back and jump out of bed. The room sways and tips, my weak, rubbery legs crumpling under my weight, slumping me downwards in a slow-motion topple on to my knees.
I take a few breaths and pull myself up, using the bedstead to support me, but part of my brain seems to think I’m still lying down, with a conflicting voice telling me I’m vertical but floating. I know I ought to get back into bed, give myself a few hours for the booms and throbs in my head to subside, but there’s too much to do, and no time to waste.
I dress as fast as I can and grab my piggy bank from the windowsill. It’s in the shape of the Empire State Building, sent by my uncle for a birthday, years ago, and is supposed to look like it’s made of bronze, but the surface has worn away at the corners to show the white plastic underneath.
I prise out the cork, pull free a couple of notes that are jammed in the opening, and coins cascade on to my desk. I shove the whole lot into my pockets – all the money I have – and walk as fast as I can to the front door, skipping breakfast, not wanting to stay a moment longer under the same roof as Liev. I sense from the feel of the house that he’s already left, but there’s nothing to be gained by checking, so I try to slip away unseen.
I’m several steps into the front garden when Mum comes after me, holding out my backpack.
‘Your schoolbag,’ she says.
‘Oh, yes. Of course,’ I reply, taking the bag, pretending I want it, pretending I’m going to school.
She kisses me and turns towards the house.
‘Bye, Mum,’ I say, regretting immediately that I didn’t kiss her back, wondering, as I walk away, if I will ever see her again.
Hot, dry air, blown straight from the desert, tingles in my throat. A wind from the south usually leaves the car dusted with a film of sand, but our driveway is empty. Liev has gone.
I stop and breathe. Each dose of fresh oxygen, sweeping in from far away, soothes my head and steadies my balance. Every puff I exhale will be in another country by the end of the day.
There’s no time to indulge my weak legs and lingering dizziness. I break into a run, but stop myself after a few strides and revert to a brisk walk. I have to move fast, but calmly. It’s important that I don’t draw attention to myself.
The white security car glides past me. I don’t let myself catch the driver’s eye. They can’t be watching me yet. The car passes by and recedes from view. It’s too early to get suspicious, but just the idea of being followed makes it hard to walk naturally, hard to know where to look, what to do with my arms, how fast to go.
I head for the nearest chemist, stopping twice to tighten my shoelaces, using the crouch to look around me in all directions. As far as I can tell, I’m alone.
A bell over the chemist’s door chimes as I walk in, making me jump. The man at the till looks up from his paperwork, frowning. I smile, but he returns to his work without acknowledging me. The shop smells of boiled sweets an
d swimming pool.
I find the shelf with painkillers, a bewildering array of brands in almost identical packets showing silhouettes of body parts dotted with orange and red circles, rings of pain drawn to look like targets. The pictures remind me I still have a headache myself, but these aren’t for me.
Confused by the breadth of choice, I contemplate buying a selection, then remember Leila specifically asked for aspirin. There are six packets. I scoop them into my hands and carry the unwieldy pile to the till.
The shopkeeper continues writing for a few seconds after I drop the pills on to the counter, then looks up and eyes me sceptically over his frameless glasses. His bald pate is glistening in the strip lights. ‘Are these all for you?’ he says.
I nod.
A frown remains grooved into his forehead. He makes no move to pick up and scan the aspirin. I hear myself gabbling, ‘It’s for a school project. Chemistry. I was sent out to get them for an experiment.’
‘The school doesn’t buy its own materials?’
‘It . . . I don’t know . . . the teacher just asked me.’
‘I can’t sell them to you.’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘I never said you were lying,’ he says, in a crowing tone which seems to imply that he’s just proved I am. ‘It’s the law.’
‘I’m old enough!’
‘Nothing to do with your age. Only one packet of aspirin to be sold at a time. To anyone. It’s the rules. People do stupid things.’
I’m not sure whether or not to believe him, but there seems to be little point in attempting to argue him round. I shove five packets aside and pay for the remaining one. He takes my money with limp, reluctant fingers and hands me the box of pills, seemingly disappointed to find the pleasure of thwarting me coming to an end.
I clatter out through the glass doors, pinging his bell as loudly as I can. Back in the fresh air, I walk briskly out of the chemist’s field of vision before pausing to calculate an alternative plan. I can think of one other chemist, three grocery stores, a petrol station and two newsagent’s. All of those probably sell aspirin. One pack from each place will make eight. With a better cover story I might be able to get two at each shop, which would push me up to a decent tally of pills.
I plot a route on my mental map of Amarias and set off, soon finding myself at a newsagent’s. I buy a chocolate bar, and as I am paying say, casually, as if it’s an afterthought, ‘Oh, Mum asked me to get a couple of packs of aspirin.’
The guy reaches behind him and hands them over without a moment’s hesitation, barely glancing at me, or the pills, or my money.
The woman at the till of the first grocery store says she isn’t allowed to sell two packs, but when I tell her my Mum has flu and I’ve taken the day off school to nurse her because my father is dead, she takes pity on me and changes her mind.
I’m up to eleven packs, with two more shops to go, when my route takes me towards the building site with the blue hoardings, round the corner from the bakery.
I already know what I’ll see. I know what my mother will have done. ‘It can be our secret. Whisper it once in my ear,’ she said, stroking me, kissing me, lying to my face.
The soldiers are exactly where I expected to find them, two bored-looking conscripts only a few years older than me, their guns slung casually over their shoulders. They’re guarding the entrance to the building site, which looks like it has been smashed open with a bulldozer or a tank. As I get close, I can make out a set of track marks on the flattened wood.
They acted fast. I approach the soldiers, wondering how quickly they searched, and if they’ve realised yet that I directed them to the wrong building site.
When I look in, I’m surprised to see only three men ambling disinterestedly around the site. Maybe they didn’t really believe Liev’s warnings. Perhaps they have alerts like this all the time.
I turn to the soldiers on guard duty and ask what’s happening.
‘Anti-terrorism operation,’ one of them mutters.
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Not here. I think they got something up the road. A tunnel.’
His words hit me with the force of a punch in the stomach. How had I been so stupid? Why had I directed my mother to the wrong building site when there were only two in the town? If they drew a blank at one, they’d of course search the other. I could have sent them way out of Amarias. I could have chosen anywhere.
I turn and run, sprinting towards the tunnel, and from the end of the block I can already hear the noise. Army trucks have closed the road at both ends, and a bulldozer is audibly crushing something. Two jeeps carrying important-looking, grey-haired soldiers turn up just as I arrive, and I watch from the taped-off end of the street as they hurry out of their vehicle and through the flattened gates into the site. The soldiers here look tense and alert, their guns pointed to the ground but gripped in both hands.
I push through the gathering of onlookers and try to get the attention of the soldier manning the roadblock, but he won’t speak to me. I shout as loudly as I can, but he alternates between ignoring the whole crowd and insisting we move on, behaving as if dealing with civilians is an embarrassingly menial chore he doesn’t want to be seen doing.
As I watch, I feel all hope drain out of me. My only way to help Leila and her father is gone. I have the aspirin, but I’m trapped on this side of The Wall. The tunnel has been found, and will be guarded, then sealed. I’ll never get through the checkpoint on my own, and there’s no other way through. Posting the aspirin might have been possible, but Leila had written no return address on the letter, probably for fear it might be intercepted. Even if I did know where to send the pills, it seems unlikely the parcel would be delivered unsearched and intact.
A further truckload of soldiers arrives, accompanied by a lorry stacked with green metal crates, as large as coffins. The soldiers unload the crates at speed and carry them over the crushed gates towards the tunnel. I gaze at the efficient swirl of activity, asking myself again and again what I should do now. Could I really just give up? Could I possibly go home and carry on with my life, pretending I’d never met Leila and her family, pretending my stepfather hadn’t almost throttled me, pretending there was even a shred of trust left between me and my mother?
The soldiers stand aside as a helicopter arrives and hovers overhead, sending up waves of dust. I turn, cowering from the flying grit, and walk. I have no plan. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m just walking away.
I stumble on, my mind empty of all thought, until I realise I’ve walked out of town, on to the forbidden road to the olive grove. My tennis racket is still in the dust beside the junction, now almost perfectly camouflaged.
As I hurry onwards along this familiar strip of tarmac, away from Amarias, towards the hills, my head begins to clear.
I examine the soil at the start of the footpath. Still no bulldozer tracks, but for how much longer? Liev was already suspicious of the olive grove, of my visits here and my relationship with the owner of the land. Using me as the link, he’s bound to have reported a connection between this place and the tunnel.
I run up the path, kick off my shoes and throw myself on to the ground, lying flat on my back with arms and legs stretched out. Above me, tiny green olives not much bigger than peanuts are hanging from the branches. I stand, reach up, and pluck one. It’s dry, hard, slightly rubbery, nothing at all like the plump, juicy globes you buy in jars. I lift it to my lips and take a nibble. Spears of bitterness spike my tongue. I spit out the shard of flesh, toss away the remainder of the olive, and hurry towards the spring. A scoop of cool, fresh water, gathered up in my cupped hands, soothes my mouth. I tip a second handful on to my bruised head. Droplets trickle deliciously down my spine as I pull myself on to the wall and sit on the rickety stones, looking back at Amarias.
What now?
The idea of returning home and simply carrying on is intolerable. I can’t go back to that house. I can’t pretend for one mor
e day, one more meal, one more minute, that I feel anything towards Liev except hatred. As for my mother, I no longer know what to think. Everything between us feels suddenly clearer and also more confusing. Today another bond snapped, another barrier went up. I am less of a son to her, now, than I was this morning; and she is less of a mother.
I look up at a solitary puff of cloud hovering far away, one lonely wisp hanging weightless in a vast expanse of blue. A pressure in my chest seems to ease, a knot loosens, as a plan, out of nowhere, drifts into my mind.
Year after year I’ve been waiting for my mother to take me away, and it’s clear now this is never going to happen. The only way I’m ever going to leave is if I do it myself. As I gaze across the scrubland towards Amarias, I see for the first time that running away shouldn’t frighten me. There’s no reason to fear setting off on my own, because if I were to stay, if I were to go back home, I’d be no less alone. My mother has cut me loose. From now on, whatever I do, wherever I go, I’m alone. There’s nothing left tying me to my home. I’m free to run.
If I manage to get back to my village by the sea, there are people who might remember me. Perhaps someone would take me in – a family who’d been our friends when Dad was alive – or I could seek out a charity that gives protection from violent parents. I’ve seen adverts for emergency phone numbers. My mouth is cut and my head is bruised. My neck is red with strangulation marks. I won’t even have to lie. My stepfather attacked me. If I turn myself in, describe what was done to me, I’ll be given a bed somewhere. I’ll be looked after, housed, fed. All I have to do is run away.
The longer I wait, the less visible my injuries will become, and the harder it will be to prove what Liev did. I have to act fast, but one thing stops me jumping on the next bus. I can’t throw away my stack of aspirin. I can’t abandon Leila’s father without making an attempt to deliver the medicine.
With the tunnel in the hands of the army, there’s now only one way to get beyond The Wall. In normal circumstances it isn’t anything I’d even contemplate, but I can think of no other method, and I know that if I don’t try something, I won’t be able to leave with a clear conscience. I won’t be able to leave at all. It’s far riskier than anything I’ve attempted before, and can’t be tried until after dark, but it’s the only plan I have.
The Wall Page 19