Life Ruins

by Danuta Kot

  There wasn’t one.

  He started whistling to keep his spirits up and called back to Charlie to get a move on, claiming he was getting cold. He didn’t know if Charlie understood the significance of the rising water, but Jared did. He drove himself forwards, shouting instructions to keep Charlie moving and keep him moving fast. The compulsion was overwhelming: get out, get out, get out.

  He was looking for an opening in the passage wall – the way out. The book said it was there, but he’d stopped trusting the book. And then he saw it in the light of his head torch: a narrow slit in the rock. He didn’t like the look of it, but it was all they had. He stopped and waited until Charlie caught him up.

  ‘OK, mate,’ Jared said. ‘It’s the way out.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Charlie sounded close to panic. The water was almost up to their knees and rising fast.

  ‘It’s the way out,’ Jared said, with a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘It shouldn’t be too bad. We’ve been through the roughest bit.’

  Charlie managed a grin, but he refused point blank when Jared suggested Charlie go first. ‘Look,’ Jared said, ‘I’m bigger than you. If anyone’s going to get stuck it’ll be me. Fuck’s sake, mate; it’ll be a doddle.’

  But Charlie was adamant. He didn’t want to break trail. He wanted the reassurance of Jared having got through. In the end, Jared agreed. The water was above his knees now. They didn’t have time to hang around. He pulled himself through the slit, which widened slightly into a narrow chamber. He had to crawl on his hands and knees to get through.

  But then the passage narrowed, and narrowed again. Shit! Fuck! It must be a dead end and he was going to drown in there. Panic yammered in the back of his mind, demanding a way in. Jared felt himself tense up, and as the passage narrowed even more, he stuck. Jesus. Jesus. He took some deep breaths and forced himself to calm down. Breathe slowly. Flow. Like water. The roof came down closer and closer until he could barely lift his head. At least the passage was there. At least he hadn’t come to a stop against solid rock.

  Then there was a zigzag. He tried to go through, and couldn’t. It was tight, and with his torso gripped by the narrow passage, he couldn’t bend his back enough. He wriggled his way back until there was just enough space to turn over, and approached the zigzag again, his face scraping the roof. He had to eel his way down the first turn, then almost corkscrew his way round the next one. For a heart-stopping moment, his hips stuck, then he was through, then a short climb and he was pulling himself out into a spacious chamber.

  He lay on the ground, panting. But he didn’t have time for this.

  He looked back at the gap he had crawled though. It didn’t look possible that he’d fitted through there. He put his mouth to it and called down. ‘Come through, Charlie! Stay on your back! It’s a bit tight at the end! Yell when you get there, and I’ll talk you through. It’s OK. We’re nearly out.’ He held his breath until he heard a faint call of acknowledgement, then sat back against the wall to wait.

  He checked his watch. It had taken him ten minutes to navigate that passage. It had felt like hours, but it was only ten minutes. The tension that had been inside him since Charlie panicked in the first zigzag squeeze began to dissipate.

  The sound of water was louder now, and the stream running through the chamber looked swollen. He wasn’t worried – he knew where he was and this part of the system didn’t flood, but it was a good job he and Charlie had got out of that other bit while they could.

  He listened as the scuffling that marked Charlie’s progress came closer, then closer.

  Then stopped.

  He shouted into the gap, ‘Get a move on, mate! Come on!’

  ‘I’m stuck.’ It was Charlie’s voice, muffled as if his face was pressed against something solid.

  And that was the start of the real nightmare. The surface was an hour away, he had no phone. All he could do was encourage, hector, bully, try to get Charlie to stop panicking, to make the twist that would get his body through, but the more Charlie tried, the more he panicked, and the faster he stuck.

  And then he started screaming.

  Water began to run out of the narrow passage, just a trickle at first, and then a flow, faster and faster, into the stream that ran through the cave.

  And after that, Charlie was silent.

  Chapter 25

  Jared didn’t tell all of this to Becca. He told her they’d gone caving, he’d led, Charlie got stuck and drowned. It was the memories that engulfed him and he surfaced to Becca’s panicked ‘Watch out!’ He’d drifted across the road and a van was coming towards them, fast. He swerved and the van skidded past them with a blaring horn.

  He was driving on autopilot. Also driving like an idiot. He pulled in to the side of the road and made himself breathe slowly until he began to relax a bit and his heart slowed down. He’d only told her the bare bones, but the telling had taken him right back into it. ‘Charlie was my best mate,’ he said. ‘He was only nineteen. I left him to drown in a cave that I got out of.’

  Becca was watching him, a frown creasing her forehead. ‘You didn’t though. Not really. I mean – what could you have done different?’

  She didn’t say it as though she was trying to reassure him. She was asking an honest question, and one he’d asked himself enough times. What could he have done? Made Charlie go through first? They’d both have drowned. Would that make him feel better? ‘Later, I found out it was the wrong tunnel. If we’d just kept going a few metres further on we could have strolled out. I got it wrong.’

  ‘Yeah, but you didn’t know that at the time, though, did you?’

  But he should have known. His father got it. What went wrong, mate? And unspoken: What stopped you going back?

  ‘What else could you have done?’ Becca persisted.

  ‘I dunno. Stayed out of that fucking shaft in the first place.’

  ‘Makes sense to me.’ Becca played with her phone a bit more then said, ‘So where are you going?’

  ‘Just up the coast. Past Whitby.’

  ‘Is that where the tunnel is – the one where you got hurt?’

  ‘Yes – more or less.’

  ‘And you’re going back in?’

  He was, but he didn’t want to admit it. ‘It wasn’t the tunnel. There was a sort of side shaft where . . .’ He wasn’t going to start telling her about weird masked faces under the ground. He didn’t want her to think he was completely crazy. ‘I thought I’d look for the place where the side tunnel comes out.’ Then one of those impulses – exactly like the ones that drove him forward when the rat was biting – made him say, ‘You can come with me, if you want.’

  She looked at him for a long time. ‘Come with you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  She chewed her lip. ‘Why would I . . . yeah, I . . . No. I can’t. I’ve got to get to work. But thanks.’

  They drove into Brid in silence, but it was no longer a hostile silence. He thought she was mulling his suggestion over, and half expected her to accept at the last minute. When she didn’t, he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. He was sick to death of himself.

  Following her directions, he stopped near the bus station. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘No, it’s me should be thanking you. Look, sorry about hitting you with all that cave stuff; it was years ago.’

  ‘Yeah. Shit happens,’ she agreed. He saw the faint line of a scar running from the side of her nose to her upper lip, giving it a slight quirk, like a half smile.

  ‘I hope your friend’s OK,’ he said. ‘Take my number – you can call me if there’s any news.’

  ‘OK.’ She keyed it into her phone, then sent through a quick call to check it.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said as she slid out of the door. He’d like to see her again, but he probably wouldn’t.

  She stood watching him as he turned the car round, and waved as he drove off. He raised a hand in acknowledgement. When he glanced in his mirror as he reached t
he junction, she’d gone.

  Under a grey sky with towering banks of cloud, he turned the car round and headed east towards Flamborough Head to pack up his stuff.

  Then he was going north, towards Kettleness.

  Towards the tunnel.

  Chapter 26

  It was after midday by the time Becca reached the drop-in. She wondered if she should have called anyone – but they knew where she was. More or less. After a morning spent talking to someone who didn’t bang on about jobs and responsibilities and obligations, the thought of the drop-in was dreary and depressing. More and more, she wished she’d taken Jared up on his mad offer. He needed someone to look out for him.

  That was the way Kay thought about her. She was always looking out for Becca, and sometimes . . .

  When Kay had told her about the job, it had been a lifeline – somewhere she could get away, somewhere where no one knew her, somewhere she could make a bit of money and keep herself going while she decided what to do next. How to move on from Bexgirl. To Kay, it was a way of getting experience in social care that would put Becca back on track. But Kay didn’t understand how impossible that was. Becca wasn’t even sure any longer if she wanted to be on that track and anyway, no matter how long, no matter where she went, the Bexgirl image might surface at any time.

  But despite the dreariness, things about the drop-in were starting to matter. When Becca was twelve, she’d run away and survived for three months on the streets. You learned to sense danger – if you survived, you learned how to spot when something was off. And more and more, here in Bridlington, she was getting the feeling something bad was going on.

  And it was her job – never mind the bacon sandwiches and the coffee and the listening – it was her job to keep people safe. Paige had been going to tell her something, and then she’d changed her mind. And now Paige wasn’t going to tell anyone anything.

  The drop-in worried Becca.

  It looked like a safe place, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was a cleverly baited trap.

  She wanted to tell Alek what had happened at the police station. She went round to the back to see if he was in the yard. He was there, but he was talking to someone, another man. The two of them were engaged in one of those low-voiced conversations that looked angry. The man he was talking to looked big and bulky – bigger than Alek, even.

  Alek looked up suddenly over the other man’s shoulder. When he saw her, he scowled and waved his hand at her in a shooing motion, indicating she should go. She backed away, unnerved by the anger on his face. It was only a couple of hours ago he’d been telling her about his daughter, Ariana, about Ariana’s disability, about how proud he was.

  Fuck that. She didn’t have time to worry about it – she had to get to work. It was busier than it had been earlier, though nothing like as busy as it usually was around lunch time. She put her bag in her locker and pulled on the hated tabard – loser in an overall. She was just heading towards the coffee bar when Neil’s office door opened. ‘Becca. Where have you been?’

  ‘At Ashville Street,’ she said, surprised. He knew that.

  ‘All this time?’

  ‘Not exactly. I . . .’ She wasn’t going to explain about Jared – it would sound too crazy. ‘Is there any news about Paige?’

  ‘No. The police are checking. Becca, we need to have a talk.’

  ‘Where’s Paige staying? Where does she sleep? Has anyone—’

  ‘The police have all the information they need. We’ve told them—’

  ‘Where? Neil, I could go and talk to some of them, her mates, you know? I’ve been in places like that. They’ll talk to me.’ He wasn’t listening. ‘Ask Alek. He knows Paige talked to me. He was . . .’ How to explain that Alek knew how she was with the users, and that he trusted her? ‘He told me about his daughter,’ she said. She could hear the pleading in her voice and hated it.

  Neil looked at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Alek. He told me about his daughter, Ariana . . .’

  ‘Alek hasn’t got a daughter.’

  Not got . . .? ‘But—’

  Neil spoke over her. ‘Becca, you must understand that I’m not going to give you confidential information. This discussion is over.’

  OK. Fuck him, she’d get it from one of the other users.

  ‘Come in.’ Neil stood aside and gestured her into the room. He closed the door behind him. ‘Sit down.’

  Becca sat on the indicated chair and watched Neil as he fiddled with the papers on his desk, not meeting her eye. She began to feel the coldness of apprehension. Something bad was coming. ‘Is it Paige?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. Becca, I’ve had some very disturbing information. It seems you were involved in . . . well . . . participated in . . . an illegal act.’

  Bexgirl. Becca felt her chin lift. ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘Becca, I’d prefer it if you told me the truth. I have the photos. Are you saying someone faked them? They look genuine enough to me.’

  The thought of Neil looking at stills from her camming felt perverted, the way the camming never had. She knew her face had gone red and was angry with herself. She didn’t want him to see she cared. ‘I know which photo you mean. It’s me with my friend’s sister. That my friend took. It’s just a photo. There’s nothing wrong with it.’

  ‘Come on, Becca. I wasn’t born yesterday. I have checked this. I don’t act on malicious gossip – it was taken in a sex chat room.’

  ‘It was taken in my flat. We’d been into town, to a movie, and we came back to my flat and had pizza and then Ashley took the photograph.’

  ‘I’m not interested in how the little girl was persuaded, Becca, I’m interested in the outcome.’

  The unfairness of it almost took her breath away. ‘She wasn’t persuaded to do anything. There was nothing wrong with the photo.’

  ‘Then how did it end up in a sex chat room?’

  ‘It didn’t. It’s . . . I used to make a bit of money camming. I did it at my flat. There wasn’t anything funny about it. I just took my clothes off and did things, OK?’ Neil looked away and Becca was glad to see he looked embarrassed. ‘I wasn’t camming when we took the picture. I’d never do that – I . . .’ She couldn’t talk about her past to Neil. That was hers. That was private. ‘I got doxed.’

  ‘Doxed?’

  ‘It means they find out who you are. They know where to find you. They hacked all my accounts. I had the photo in my stuff on Facebook. Private stuff, you know?’ Friends and Family. Yeah, right. ‘They sent it to all my friends along with some of the camming shots. It was . . .’

  Neil sighed. ‘Becca, I’m prepared to accept your word that you intended no harm. But it caused harm, and it was your actions, and your lack of care that did it. We have vulnerable people here, as you know. Since you started work here, the girls – they trust you. Some of them look up to you. And now we’ve had an incident of one of them going off in a car – with a kerb-crawler by the sound of it – you must see how that looks.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like anything! I told you about that. You wouldn’t know if I hadn’t told you. How do you know it’s since I started? It’s probably been going on for months and you were all too stupid to see it.’

  ‘Shouting isn’t going to help, Becca. I can’t have someone here who has worked in the sex industry. You must see that. You’ll have to leave. You can go without any unpleasantness, but I want you to leave today. We’ll pay you up to the end of the month.’

  He thought he was being generous. She was supposed to be grateful that he didn’t pitch her out on her ear with no money. Well, fuck that. She wasn’t grateful. He’d talked nicely, kept his voice down, made it all sound so sensible – you must see that – but what he’d said in the nice, quiet voice was hateful: persuaded . . . how the little girl was persuaded . . . since you started work here . . .

  ‘One thing. How did you find out?’

  ‘I don’t think that matters, Becca.’

  ‘Of course it mat
ters! If someone’s got it in for me, I need to know.’

  ‘Becca, no one has “got it in” for you. Being paranoid won’t help. You have to take responsibility for your actions. Someone concerned about the welfare of these young people very rightly alerted me to an important issue relating to a member of my staff.’

  ‘But they didn’t give you a name.’ She could tell from his expression that she was right. ‘Someone who won’t even tell you who they are . . . and you just believe them without asking me my side.’

  His voice didn’t change. He spoke with that unnatural calm that social workers used when they were trashing your life and didn’t just expect you to accept it; they expected you to be grateful and obedient and all that shit.

  ‘I got an email,’ he said. ‘The person who sent it was worried about the users. Somewhere like this, Becca, people will be concerned about these issues. It isn’t personal. You can get another job. Why don’t you try one of the pubs? Or a supermarket? No one’s going to worry about it if you’re working in a place that doesn’t deal with vulnerable people like we do.’

  Pub, supermarket; that’s all you’re worth, Becca. She was on her feet and her arm swept everything off the surface of his desk. There was a thump as his books hit the floor, followed by the splat of papers landing everywhere. ‘Don’t you ever – ever – talk to me like that!’

  He’d jumped to his feet as she attacked his desk, but his voice still had that fake calm that she hated. ‘Getting abusive won’t help anything, Becca. I want you to go. Alek will come with you to collect your things and he’ll see you off the premises.’

  ‘You have no idea what’s going on in this place! You think it’s so amazing and you don’t have a fucking clue.’

  ‘Becca, don’t make me ask Alek to force you to leave. This isn’t helping.’

  In her head, Becca was back at Matt and Kay’s; she’d lost her temper and the lovely bedroom Matt had shown her into was a mess of strewn sheets, pillows, covers, the drawers pulled out and thrown across the room, the curtains hanging off the windows, a vase shattered on the floor. Matt was talking to her, his voice just starting to penetrate the red mist of her rage. She knew this was just part of where he told her she’d have to go but how it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t care. One foster home, another foster home . . . but she was tired. After the secure unit, the big soft bed looked – had looked – inviting, and there was a smell of cooking coming up the stairs . . .