Grow

by Luke Palmer

  My fingers slip on the door and it opens a fraction of an inch. Through the small opening, I see the back of a blue knitted jumper, fraying at the elbows. Faded jeans. The man is facing the opposite wall. I ease the door closed again. The hinges creak loudly.

  ‘So do you know Carl quite well then? Like, hang out with him and stuff?’ My question surprises me. So does the low voice I try to put on when I ask it.

  ‘Well, not so much really, apart from these meetings. But we always have a drink after. There’s not a lot of friendship going around at the moment. People are suspicious of everyone. Seem like everyone’s scared of each other I’d say. And anyway, even if it is only once a month, at least it’s something to do, eh? What else you going to spend your Sunday night doing, except sitting in a toilet?’

  He laughs again, then coughs.

  ‘Tell the truth, I’m not always a hundred per cent convinced Carl’s got his head screwed on right, but it’s his opinion and he’s entitled to it. Anyway, I’m going to get back in before they start. Don’t know what nonsense they’re going to talk about tonight, but they seem pretty excited. Maybe we’ll have a chat after it’s done, eh? If you come out, that is?’

  There’s another laugh, and a creak as the man removes his weight from the door frame. I hear his footsteps cross the bathroom, the door open then close again. I give it half a minute before I come out.

  I run my hands under cold water at the cracked sink, looking at myself in the mirror. I can see my father’s eyes looking back at me somewhere behind my own. Or at least that’s what I want to see. Just listen, I tell myself. What else have you got to do on a Sunday evening?

  On my way back into the room, the man in the blue jumper and jeans catches my eye. His face has a sort of open expression. But his eyes seem to be somewhere else. He’s on his own at a table, two large cokes in front of him. He picks one up and raises it in my direction, offering it to me.

  ‘Cheers,’ I say. That deep voice again. It’s not my voice, but it makes me feel … better, somehow.

  ‘Catch up in a bit then, eh?’ The man asks. His eyes have an almost desperate quality. ‘My name’s Dan, by the way.’

  ‘Sure. Nice to meet you, Dan. I’m Josh.’ We clink glasses. I make my way back to Alan and Vince’s table, walking a bit taller.

  A few minutes later, Dana slips in and sits on her own in a table in the far corner. She doesn’t look at me as she crosses the room. She doesn’t look at anyone. At the front table, Carl turns and watches her cross the room. For a horrible second I think he’s seen me looking at her, but he simply nods at our table – Alan nods back – and Carl goes back to his conversation with the others.

  ‘Can you feel it, Josh? That buzz in the air?’ Alan can hardly keep still. ‘Something’s going to happen tonight. It’s all about you, Poster-boy!’

  I don’t know what he’s talking about, but there is, despite the smell, something electric in the atmosphere. In ones, twos and occasionally threes, the men in the room are talking in hunched groups or to those men on other tables, raising their pint glasses and clinking them together. And looking at me.

  ‘Right lads, we’re gonna make a start.’ A man steps to the centre of the room and a hush descends immediately. He’s wearing all black, but stands out a mile. From the ripped ends of his black T-shirt, full-length sleeve tattoos of skulls and hammers run down to his wrists. Creeping above the line of his collar towards his left ear, a union flag. On the other side, a pair of crossed hammers.

  As if responding to some unspoken cue, the whole room stands at once. It takes me a few seconds to realise I should stand up too. Everyone’s got their hands across their chests, like they’re taking some kind of oath.

  The man at the front of the room barks a few words, then everyone replies together. I don’t know what they’re saying, or what I should say, but I stand there with my hand on my chest and try to mutter something. There’s a little bit that I do recognise: the 14 words from the end of the videos. I think I get about half of it right.

  Everyone sits down again, the energy in the room doubled in intensity.

  ‘As you know,’ the man at the front continues, ‘Carl’s got some stuff to feed back on the last few national meetings in London. Then he’s got some news about what’s coming up here soon.’

  There are a few cheers and whoops, shouts of ‘Go on, Carl!’ which the frontman silences with a smile. He continues, ‘Once again gentlemen, it’s very good to see so many soldiers here this evening. It’s good to know that there are still good people in this town who love their country and are willing to protect it.’ His eyes flick to me at that moment, finding me in a heartbeat. Like he knew I was here. ‘For our children. And now, Carl.’

  Carl steps up. He also bears a sleeve of inked hammers, skulls and flags. I didn’t notice them under his shirt last week, and they must be recent as they weren’t in the article photograph either. ‘Before I start, I’d like to welcome a new soldier to the ranks. Someone we’ve been expecting. Gents, this is Josh.’

  I freeze as all the eyes in the room are on me in a second. Just able to return their gazes for a second each, I see many other tattoos of crossed hammers, many blue-inked knuckles wrapped around beer glasses as Carl continues.

  ‘Josh’s story is known to most of you, and it’s with pleasure that I welcome him here. He’s made a step towards doing something about what happened to him. About what’s been taken from him. And you know what he’s been through, so make him feel welcome. We’re going to help you. We’re all here for you, alright Josh?’

  I realise this is a question, and nod rapidly. The other men nod back, more than a few cross their arms in front of their chest, revealing a tattooed hammer on each forearm. Alan pats me on the back.

  ‘Anyway, the National Committee are pretty happy with the groundswell at the moment, and how that’s continued for the last year or so,’ Carl continues. ‘We’ve kept the momentum going locally, even in the smaller backwaters, like here, where there’s no centre to base a movement around. I know a lot of us are part of various football lads’ groups, but we’ve kept our end up without the traditional pull of a big team. So firstly, from them, well done. We’ll carry on with the leafletting we’ve been doing, keep talking to the same groups, and keep up the agitations at the weekends.’ There’s a small cheer at this. ‘But Barney…?’

  A huge man with a shaved head looks up, ‘Yes Carl?’

  ‘Remember to keep it PG before the watershed OK? There were kids in that pub last Friday. It’s not good that their safety ends up dominating the press on the issue.’

  ‘Right you are, Boss.’

  ‘Good work on the choice of target though – sounds like those three … gentlemen … won’t be coming through again, on business or pleasure.’

  ‘My business, my pleasure,’ smiles the man called Barney. There’s a low cheer, and a smattering of applause.

  Carl holds the attention of the room in the same way that good teachers keep control of their classes at school. After every few things that he says, he makes a joke or a comment about someone in front of him. The result is a funny kind of glow that goes from person to person around the damp-smelling room, almost like Carl is a kind of lighthouse, casting light on each person in turn. It’s warm in the light, and you listen very hard to what’s being said, because you think that will make the light fall on you again. It reminds me, for some reason, of the Thursday evenings in Mr Walters’ classroom.

  So I listen very hard to talk about national actions: a march that took place in London last weekend – peaceful, unfortunately, but with good opportunities to network with other groups; an online campaign to encourage younger members to get out from behind their computers and be more active – Alan and Vince get some light for that one; and finally the news that the White Lions’ plan has been given the go ahead by the national committee. ‘Martin thinks it’s good. Sketchy around the edges, but the core is pure gold, he said. And you know what that means.’ />
  Again, cheering. Everyone seems to know who Martin is, except me.

  Everyone in the room is leaning further forward on their elbows. There are eager looks between a few of the men. Carl scans the room with narrowed eyes, fully aware that everyone is giving him their undivided attention, like some wild animal, waiting for the rest of the pack to show respect, and milking it when he gets it. A pair of older guys towards the back of the room are talking quickly to each other under their breath. Carl stares hard at them until they realise and cease speaking immediately. He could rip their throats out. He is leonine, impressive. I’m rivetted to the spot, ready to hear what the fiercest man in the room has to say.

  ‘It’s been disappointing,’ Carl begins, his voice changed and barely above a hissed whisper, ‘that so many of our recent actions have not seen the participation of more than a handful of this group’s members.’

  The quiet in the room gets, somehow, even quieter. People are afraid even to cough or move their hands. Drinks go un-drunk on the table tops.

  ‘Who is it that goes out on patrol in the evenings, keeping our streets safe? Who is it that has been taking our message straight to the root of our country’s problem? Which of you can say that in the last year he’s done anything more than waving a flag at a couple of demonstrations?’

  With this last question, Carl seems to look directly at several people in the room at the same time. Their eyes lower, meekly. The man called Barney says, ‘Too fucking right.’

  Carl continues, ‘So if any of you have lost your appetite for this war, I’ll say what I’ve said a hundred times. There’s the door. If you can’t stomach what needs to be done, if you are too selfish to commit, if you are putting your own interests above those of this beautiful country, above doing what’s right for Josh, then get out. Now.’

  In the seemingly endless silence that follows, nobody moves. All eyes are on me and I can barely breathe. I see Dan in his blue jumper, nodding.

  ‘Good,’ Carl’s voice is even quieter now; a rasping, guttural croak. ‘Because this thing we’re going to do, for our country, for Josh, is going to include all of us. You are all necessary. You all have a role to play.’

  Every time I hear my name it’s like an electric fist in my stomach, tightening. Under the table, I can feel Alan’s leg bouncing in nervous excitement. Vince sits with his arms crossed, looking as always like a dog at heel. I can feel my heart racing in my chest and I’m reminded again of Dana’s story. Not about Carl but about her father, about the well. I feel like I’m hanging over a dark hole, and someone has been lowering me down slowly all evening. The more I’ve listened, the deeper I’ve gone.

  And in the musty room of that pub, when Carl tells us his plan, someone lets go of the rope that was holding me. I fall head first, and so fast that my mouth packs with rushing air. I can’t even scream.

  FORTY

  Monday morning, and I wake up in my own bed, not entirely certain of how I got there. My bedside clock says it’s just after 5am, but I know I won’t be going back to sleep.

  I roll over in the darkness of the first day of December and stare at the ceiling, last night replaying in front of my eyes as vividly as it did when it first happened. As vividly as it replayed again and again all night. I’ve barely slept; every time I drifted into a kind of sleep I’d be met by the faces of those men, swimming out of the blackness to snarl at me. Some invisible ‘Martin’ behind them all. Every time oblivion threatened to welcome me, Carl’s hissing voice told me again the details of what they were planning to do.

  I shiver beneath the duvet. Dana was right. I shouldn’t have been there.

  But I was. So, wrapping the covers around me, I shuffle over to my desk and open my laptop. I open one of the many sites that are now saved in my browser and start looking for the justification that I need.

  I find what I’m looking for after a few clicks.

  The pictures of the blown-out tube train float on the screen in the darkness of my bedroom. The whole room is lit by their blue-grey glow as I stare again past the twisted remains of seats, looking for what I thought I saw last time.

  The pictures haven’t changed – they’ve been waiting for me patiently, holding their secrets. The blood in the foreground has the same pattern as I remember – blurred footprints. The buckled metal of the seats, the smashed over-head lighting; everything is just as it was.

  I increase the image size and use the scroll-wheel to pick through the pictures section by section, like a search and rescue party sifting through a snowy field. But I’m not looking for survivors.

  I zoom in on a section of the train which must have been at the centre of the blast. The sides of the carriage are split and you can see the walls of the tunnel itself, the dim lights shining weakly between the ripped tin-can edges of buckled steel.

  When the pixels start to separate from each other, and the whole screen looks like a collage of grey and brown squares, I zoom in even further. Eventually, just one square fills the centre of the screen. It is a very dark square, almost black. It is the colour of Dad’s pannier bag, and it will do.

  I stare at it for a long time.

  *

  That single, black square hangs in my vision all day. I use it to block out the memories of last night; the looks on the faces of those men as they heard about what was going to happen, about what Carl was going to do. What he was going to make us all do.

  About the thing that Martin said was pure gold. Whoever Martin is.

  English passes behind this black square. So does Maths after break, and Geography before lunchtime. I spend these lessons staring at this black square in my mind. Later, it blocks out all the noise and jostling of the canteen. The same as I get my lunch. I sit at the window again and stare at the black square, imagining that it has been printed out on a huge piece of paper and stuck to the glass. It’s not quite enough, so I imagine living inside of the square, being enveloped by it, letting it take up all the space and sound around me.

  But it’s still not enough. Every now and again, Carl’s face will get through the cracks where the black square isn’t black enough, or isn’t complete enough. Sometimes it’s his voice, disembodied and quiet, slithering into my ear. And there are thoughts I can’t keep out: not those of Carl or Alan or Vince or the other men, but my thoughts.

  I don’t go, that afternoon, to my biology lesson. I spend almost two hours in the end cubicle of the boys’ toilets, staring at the wall and flushing the chain whenever the silence gets too loud.

  *

  On the way home, I drift along with the tide of people heading away from school. The traffic is at its usual almost-standstill, the drone of queueing engines oddly soothing. It is raining lightly. I think Ahmed waved to me as he got into his mum’s white 4x4, but I’m not certain. I’m not even certain of where I’m going, or of what I will do when I get there.

  I’m not sure, either, of what Jamie says when he puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me. All I know is that I want to get away. I want nothing so badly as to go back to that screen with that single, black square that may or not be Dad and to stare at it with all my being until everything else fades away.

  But Jamie is asking me questions. His face seems to show a look of concern. He is taking me by both shoulders and shaking me gently, stooping slightly so he can look into my eyes.

  I want him to go away.

  I don’t hit him so much as push him. It’s not as if I swing a flaming fist into his cheek to give him a bruise and spill red blood all down one side of his face, like mine.

  It’s not like that.

  Instead, I place both hands on his chest and shove as hard as I can, to get him away from me.

  And then I’m fully awake, the black square lifted, and I’m seeing everything very, very clearly.

  I see Jamie step backwards, his startled face lost as he struggles to keep his balance. He takes one, two, three steps. Backwards.

  Towards the road.

  The traffic still
isn’t moving very quickly and, behind the wheel of her white 4x4, Ahmed’s mum sees Jamie coming before he steps off the kerb and starts falling backwards. She stops in plenty of time. But we both watch, our faces similarly frozen, as Jamie bounces against the back end of a red car in front of hers, his arms desperate for some kind of solid surface to push against. We watch the red car, unaware of what is happening, creep slowly forward in the flow of traffic and I see through her windscreen Ahmed’s mum’s mouth held in a perfect O, her eyes wide, as Jamie starts to slip sideways and fall into the gap between her car and the red one in front.

  In the passenger seat, Ahmed’s eyes are glued to his phone screen, but because she has been watching, Ahmed’s mum reacts quickly, braking hard to bring her car to a stop safely in front of Jamie, who sits in the road, staring at me in disbelief. Ahmed flinches, his head jerking up. He takes it all in. He sees Jamie in the road. He sees me.

  But the cyclist, riding fast down the inside of the stationary traffic, his headphones loud, his mind elsewhere, does not see any of it. He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t see Jamie lying in the road.

  He passes the white 4x4 at speed.

  His front wheel ploughs into Jamie’s leg.

  The bike stops. The cyclist doesn’t. He turns a complete somersault over the handlebars, through the air above Jamie’s head, towards the back of the red car.