Life Ruins

by Danuta Kot

  A face leaped out of the darkness, the mouth open in a snaggle-toothed snarl, the eyes covered by some kind of mask.

  His grip on the lighter failed and it snapped shut, plunging him back into darkness. His hand grabbed for it. Without light, he was dead. The shock made him pant for breath. His head hurt as if someone was tightening a band round it.

  God almighty, what had he seen? He tried the lighter again. His hands were shaking so much it took several tries to get it lit.

  There was something hanging above the ladder like a – the image came into his mind without prompting – like a statue you might see carved high into the arches of a church. In the dim light, he couldn’t tell if he was looking at a face or at a crudely painted drawing.

  And there was a smell – heavy, sweet, cloying. A smell like decay . . . His mind searched for links, and he was in a church, listening to the voice of a priest talking about some stranger, someone he’d never known; not about Charlie, his best mate since forever, Charlie who . . . wasn’t even there.

  Only it wasn’t a funeral, it was a wedding.

  Now he was going crazy for sure because the figure half-hanging from the collapsing roof was a bride in a white robe with a veil of lace around her face that was mercifully shadowed in the intermittent light.

  The blue light.

  His mind snapped to attention. The flame was flickering blue, orange tipped. Foul air. The pounding in his head and the tightness in his chest weren’t caused by shock. He was short of oxygen.

  He had to get out.

  He used the lighter once to get his direction, then started crawling back along the tunnel, dragging himself through the thick, scummy water. And as he pulled himself forward, he thought he could see, in the darkness in front of him, another figure struggling with the claustrophobic narrowness of the passage. They just had to get through here, and they would be back in the main cave, then . . .

  He shook his head to clear it. He wasn’t in the Derbyshire cave. He was in a side shaft off the Kettleness tunnel. He just had to get back a few hundred metres. He couldn’t afford to lose concentration. Put one hand forward, draw up his knee. Ignore the pain. Now the other hand. Now the other knee. Again. Forward.

  The chill of the rock was drawing him back, the struggle and stop, struggle and stop as the passage narrowed and narrowed again . . .

  Don’t lose it. You’re in the side tunnel. Just keep moving. Think about something. Think!

  His mind was clearing. He could see a lesser dimness in the blackness around him. He flicked the lighter and this time it ignited at once and the flame burned orange. He could feel the oxygen flooding through his body, even though his head still pounded.

  The image of the face leaping out of the darkness was vivid, and now he didn’t know what to believe. He had been seeing things, he knew that, because in his memory of the scene, among the stuff that had fallen on him, the brief cascade of rubble making him think the roof was coming down . . . he couldn’t have seen a bride, or an angel. He couldn’t have seen flowers.

  Shimmering lacy flowers, gleaming in the flickering light.

  Chapter 6

  It took Jared forever to get free from the side tunnel. By the time he reached the wall blocking the portal, he seriously doubted his ability to get back over it. The only thing that stopped him from collapsing onto the tunnel floor was the cold and the knowledge that if he fell asleep here he might not wake up.

  The climb over the wall was a nightmare. His arms were like wet string, his back a column of agony, every part of his body aching with exertion and fatigue. The effort took almost all of his remaining energy, but he still had to get to the car and he still had to drive back.

  He followed the dim glow from his lighter along the path, one step after another – keep going, keep going – barely feeling the cold that was eating through to his bones. His crawl through the water had soaked him to the skin. He stumbled his way to the car, his mind focused on one thing – staying alive.

  He could hear the sound of the waves as he stood in the car park. Despite the cold, he stripped off his jacket, his fleece, everything, standing naked in the night air. Cold was a killer, and wet clothes only exacerbated the effect. He pulled on dry trousers, T-shirt, heavy jumper, socks and shoes, but the shivering wouldn’t stop.

  He’d almost panicked. He’d almost got himself stuck in the fucking tunnel. Every time he’d tried to move, the twist sent his back into a spasm, and each time that happened, he’d waited as it eased, knowing if it didn’t, he would be stuck until hypothermia took its fatal toll.

  But he’d made it.

  By the time he was on the road the rain had stopped, but fog was rolling in from the sea. He was driving through a semi-opaque barrier that reflected his headlights back at him and made the road almost impossible to see. He didn’t care. He was past that. He just needed to drive. The caravan was a haven he had to reach.

  As he came into Bridlington, the level crossing barrier was down. He rested his head against the steering wheel, waiting for the train to pass. He could feel sleep trying to claim him, feel the deadly cold numbing his feet and his hands.

  Keep going . . .

  Then he was at the turning into the caravan site. Out of season, the owner didn’t bother with lighting up the park – cheapskates like Jared who took advantage of winter prices could find their own way about. His car rocked as the wheels crossed the deep ruts in the path.

  The static vans were darker shadows in the darkness, his headlights briefly illuminating the faded colours, the peeling paint. Someone was shouting and in the distance, at the far side of the park, he could see lights as if some kind of activity was going on.

  Parties in the night. His fuddled brain couldn’t bring itself to care.

  He pushed the car door open, letting its weight pull it back against its hinges. Every bone, every muscle ached. Worse than anything was the exhaustion. He could feel his body starting to take over, to fool him into sleep, and out here in the cold, even so close to home, sleep could be fatal.

  There was one more thing he had to do. He didn’t want to, but . . . The figure hanging from the ladder. How long before someone else would go in there and find her? He took out his phone and made the emergency call. He didn’t wait to be put through to the police, just gave his message and hung up.

  Then he grabbed his wet clothes from the back of the car, remembered to lock it – though who was likely to steal it? – and dragged himself to the caravan. He could feel his consciousness fading into dreams. Making a massive effort, he focused on the key in the lock, turned it and tumbled through the door, managing to pull it closed behind him.

  The last thing he remembered was falling across the bed.

  He dreamed of masked faces in the darkness, a tunnel closing in on him, water inexorably rising as he struggled to breathe and the pounding music of a party somewhere nearby, that went on and on into the night.

  Chapter 7

  Becca Armitage had been in Bridlington for a month and she was not impressed. It was a dump. She didn’t like the town and she didn’t like the coast. She was used to the stimulus of college, money in her pocket, the urban buzz of Leeds, the busy streets, a city where there was always something to do, a place full of people and activity. Here, the town was empty. The land was too flat, the sky was too big. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go, just the empty streets and the deserted seafront.

  The people looked as grey and hopeless as she felt herself. Neil, her boss, said they shipped people in for the cheap winter accommodation but it didn’t seem to do much for the town. The few cafés that were open were mostly empty. The only places that seemed to be thriving were the amusement arcades that lined the front, spilling out loud music and flashing lights from their dark interiors.

  She’d had a life in Leeds; a college student with friends, an income, places to go. A future. She knew Leeds. Bridlington felt dangerous, as if the rules she’d understood in the city weren’t the rules here.
In Bridlington, as she walked the streets, she looked over her shoulder often.

  The alarm dragged her out of sleep. She sat up, resisting the impulse to dive back under the covers as the cold hit her. It was Friday, the end of her first month. When she started, she hadn’t expected to make it to the end of the first week, so lasting out a month . . . she tried to find something good in that, but as far as she could see, it just meant she was a big loser with nowhere else to go.

  The room she rented was called a studio flat, but actually it was a bedsit with a cooker in the room and a shower and toilet on the landing that she shared with the shop downstairs. It was heated by an ancient gas fire, squat and ugly against the chimney breast. The fire made the windows drip with condensation and it ate the tokens she fed into the meter at a speed that meant she couldn’t afford to keep on using it.

  But she was cold now. She wrapped the quilt round her and dived across the room to switch the fire on, huddling close to it until it began to glow and warmth began to seep through the chill.

  She should get a move on. It was seven, and she was supposed to be at the drop-in by eight, opening up the café to serve tea and bacon rolls to the first kids through the door, and then to a slow procession through the morning.

  ‘The first ones in will be the ones who’ve been sleeping rough,’ Neil, the centre manager had told her. ‘Then we get the sofa surfers and the ones who are living in B & Bs. They get chucked out after breakfast.’ The kids should have tokens, he explained, which entitled them to a certain number of free meals a week. The B & B kids didn’t get those – they were supposed to be fed in the hotels – but the others did if they signed up. She couldn’t hand out food to kids without tokens, but she could give them a cup of tea.

  One morning – it was in her first week – she’d seen a small, pale lad spooning sugar into his free cup of tea with the desperation of real hunger. She’d slipped him some toast, just as Neil came in. Neil must have seen, but he hadn’t said anything, or not until later when it was quiet. ‘Just a quick word, Becca.’

  ‘What?’ Her chin lifted as her defences locked in place.

  ‘When you gave Martin some toast.’

  She would have explained but he hadn’t given her a chance. ‘If you see something like that again, tell one of us. We can give them emergency help, but it’s got to be done through the system, or they’ll all be wanting free food and we’ll get swamped. We’ll get into trouble, and that will affect our funding. So if you think a kid needs feeding, tell me, or Hannah, or one of the support workers. Don’t just act on your own.’

  What did Neil know? He’d never gone hungry. He didn’t know what it was like to go to sleep so empty it felt like your guts were being torn out. Tell one of us. Like she was too stupid to spot a hungry child when she saw one. If she saw a kid as hungry as that again she was giving him something and Neil could fuck off. ‘Yeah, whatever.’

  It was 7.20 by the time it was warm enough to brave the small bathroom on the landing. The shower gave a meagre spray and was never more than tepid. Breakfast would have to wait until she got to work.

  She got out her make-up bag and painted out the unevenness in her skin, especially the white line of the scar that ran from the side of her nose to her lip, but didn’t bother with anything else. Her hair, which had reverted to its natural light ginger, she left hanging round her face. She’d been colouring it black when she was in Leeds, liking the effect of the dark hair against her pale skin. She’d cut it all off when the Bexgirl thing blew up – but she didn’t want to think about that.

  The important thing was, no one really noticed her with her hair like this.

  She pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt and another sweatshirt on top of that for warmth. Her clothes had all been bought in the summer in Leeds when she had money in the bank and the expectation of more. They weren’t made for winter on the east coast.

  She zipped up her jacket and let herself out of the flat. The rain was still falling, a fine, penetrating drizzle. Cars buzzed past, sending up spray, their headlights reflecting off the wet road. The weather was so foul she thought about taking her own car, but she couldn’t afford the fuel. She pulled her hood up and headed for the bus stop.

  She hated her new life, hated it. It was the weekend. She should be thinking about shopping, texting friends, discussing the hot clubs and the Saturday night parties. Instead, here she was shivering at the bus stop, a few coins in her purse, heading towards a dead-end job in a dead-end place. How had it all gone so wrong?

  Act like a loser, be a loser. She lifted her chin and glared at the bus as it made its bumpy way down the road towards her.

  Chapter 8

  The rain had stopped and mist was drifting in from the sea as Becca got off the bus. It stung her face where it touched her bare skin. She walked fast up the side street to where the drop-in was located in what used to be a church hall, its dark, barred windows looking cold and unwelcoming. The doors were locked but she could see one or two kids hanging round, huddled into hoodies.

  ‘Let us in, Becca, come on.’ She was getting to know the regular users. This one, Paige, was a small, skinny girl who wasn’t usually among the first arrivals. According to Neil, she was supposed to be in a B & B with her mother and the younger kids, but mostly she sofa-surfed and her mother seemed too far gone to care.

  ‘You’re early,’ Becca said. From the look of it, Paige hadn’t been home that night. She was dressed for clubbing – short skirt, crop top, bare legs, feet in ballet slippers.

  ‘Yeah. It’s freezing. Come on, let us in.’

  ‘I’ll go round and hurry them up.’ There was a staff entrance off the gennel that ran behind the row of buildings. Becca knocked on the door and Alek, the caretaker, let her in.

  ‘It is a cold day today,’ he observed. He had a bit of an accent – probably Polish or something, she didn’t know. She was a bit wary of him – he seemed friendly enough, but he was a big man and he rarely smiled. The users didn’t mess around with him.

  ‘Yeah. There’s some of them, you know . . .’

  ‘They want their breakfast. That’s OK, Becca. I let them in.’

  Which meant she’d better get moving. The main room was warm enough, though the dirty cream walls, which must have been painted about a million years ago, and the old grey drapes that hung on the windows made the place look dark and depressing. It was where the kids spent most of their time; playing snooker, using the computers, or talking to the youth workers. The café where Becca worked was in a smaller room just off the main one.

  Cafés in Leeds were smart places with a bit of style, but this was just a dingy room lit by a couple of fluorescent tubes, with old, cracked lino, some battered tables and chairs and a serving counter at one end.

  It could have been made nice. At the first meeting she went to – Neil liked everyone to come to the meetings, including Alek, who almost never did, and a representative of the users, who never did at all – she’d suggested painting the walls, and using some of that coloured stuff to stick over the table tops – something bright and light, red tables, green tables and yellow tables, then the café could be OK. It could be quite cool and it would give the kids something to do. ‘They’d, like, have a stake in it, you know?’ Using the stuff she’d learned at college.

  But Neil just did that sort of laugh that meant she didn’t know anything and said they had better things to do with their money. She didn’t bother making suggestions after that.

  Becca knew the routine now. She locked her bag away in a cupboard under the work top, put on the tabard that she hated – a loser in an overall, she’d said to Kay – and began setting up for the morning. Behind the counter was a door leading into a small kitchen with an urn, a hob, a fridge and some cupboards. Someone – probably Alek – had already switched on the urn so there would be plenty of water for tea. She put a frying pan on the hob, got a big tub of spread out of the fridge, put bread in the toaster and opened a bag of rolls.

 
This reminded her she was starving, and she was just cramming the last of a buttered roll in her mouth as Alek unlocked the doors. For the next couple of hours, she was too busy to think about anything, running between the serving counter and the kitchen, frying bacon, making toast, pouring tea. It was after ten before she had time for a cup of tea and a slice of toast herself.

  She sat down at one of the tables, feeling hot and greasy. She had been on her feet for about two hours, she probably smelt like a bacon roll and she was tired. She drank her tea, playing a game idly on her phone.

  ‘Hey. You Becca?’

  She looked up. A young lad – he looked very young – was leaning across from the next table. She knew who he was. His name was Liam, and despite his appearance, he was seventeen, and a familiar face at the drop-in with his friend, Terry. Terry was a big, silent lad who followed the lively Liam around.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said cautiously. She hadn’t had much to do with Liam. He didn’t often come into the café but spent most of his time on the computers or playing snooker in the main hall, where he was usually surrounded by a group of followers. The other users treated him with a wary respect and Becca took her cue from them.

  ‘You’re from Leeds, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Becca lined up a bird on her screen and shot it towards the pigs’ fortress, which crumbled satisfyingly.

  ‘OK place, Leeds.’

  It was an OK place and Becca missed it more than she often admitted to herself. ‘Yeah. It is. Do you know it?’ She lined up another bird.

  ‘Kind of. I know a mate of yours.’

  Becca’s hand froze on the screen. She could see him assessing her response and tried to make herself relax. ‘Who’s that then?’

  ‘Tell you later . . . Bex.’ He jumped up and headed out of the room, followed by the silent Terry.