My Side of the Diamond

by Sally Gardner

Bentwaters airbase … I thought that was why you’d come … maybe you are an angel.

  Yes … strange what you never forget. Never. Even drugged up to the hilt of non-existence I can remember that time well. I was a technician in the labs, down, down, down, three floors down, under the base. Smelled of stale air.

  Christmas Day … that day he came down. Icarus, a gift from outer space. Didn’t know it then. I was with my brother Frank and his girlfriend Phoebe at her mother’s house in Orford. I’d been living with them. Good times. Hot summer, friends, artist’s life, still full of possibilities. That evening, driving back to Shingle Street, we saw the lights … Frank joked … my boyhood wish had come true … the aliens had landed. Phoebe said it was just the lighthouse – it was a misty night. I had a phone call from a friend … said something was happening in Rendlesham Forest.

  Frank and Phoebe had had a difficult year. Wanted children.

  Do you have them, Mr Jones – children?

  I can’t hear you. Did you speak? Thought not. Noisy. It’s noisy in my head. I can see all this as if it was a film. Perhaps that’s all we are when we die, just a film going frame by frame until we run out of images.

  Phoebe had suffered a miscarriage in … in the month of leaves. October, Nov … November. It was November. The sculpture of the little girl was a way for her to deal with her grief. Their grief.

  Boxing Day, called back to the airbase. God, I hated that place. Hated it more when the Chief of Security asked me to sign another Official Secrets Act. Already signed about half a dozen before they’d given me the job. This was different though … If I ever spoke of what I had seen I would be terminated. Meaning, I’d be discreetly executed. At the very bottom, in small print, were the words ‘Darkstar Programme’.

  Military work was well paid. Saw the job as a step up the ladder. There were one – two – three – four – six of us on my usual team. That day there were twenty-five and I knew none of them. I asked what was going on and was told it was an inappropriate question.

  I don’t think I can say more. Mouth too dry. Pour me a pint, Mr Jones …

  You still here? Good. Must’ve fallen asleep. Yes, of course – my mind hasn’t gone yet. Where … that’s right, Boxing Day. They’d caught an alien who’d landed in a craft in Rendlesham Forest … he was being held in the observation room. I was called in to have a look at him. Don’t know what I had been expecting … pointy head, triangular eyes; whatever it was, this wasn’t it. Before me was a man dressed in a fancy costume, more eighteenth century than of our time. Incredibly elegant. I thought it was a joke … except no one was laughing. He was classified as having ‘Abilities Unknown’.

  What was that, Mr Jones?

  Yes, yes, you’re right, I monitored him and noted my observations. The alien had said he was known as Ishmael. He sat in a chair, eyes closed, never moving.

  It was about midnight on 28th December when I realised Ishmael had vanished from the holding cell. He must have walked through the walls because he was standing right behind me.

  He said, ‘Don’t speak, Mark.’

  Yes … knew my name. The dials on the desk in front of me had stopped moving. The main lights flickered. That’s when I saw him – another alien; he came through a steel door as if it didn’t exist. I saw his eyes, the way he looked at me, the way he knew me. Knew all about me.

  He said, ‘I am Icarus.’

  Unable to move, I watched as the aliens walked together through the closed steel door.

  I was found unconscious on the floor. I asked about Ishmael and was told that everything was under control. I was to go home and wait until I was called. I wanted to know more but those officers don’t get medals answering questions. They get medals muddling up answers. For some reason I never understood, I didn’t tell them about Icarus and they never asked.

  It was only when I arrived back at Phoebe and Frank’s that I realised I’d been away for three days. A cold, misty morning. That’s right. The sky was magnificent … ice blues thrown across a grey sea … I remember I went into the studio to see if the sculpture was finished. The plinth was empty, Phoebe’s tools scattered on the floor. It felt strange. I went to make a cup of tea and in the hall I saw clay footprints. I told myself it was impossible, what I was thinking was impossible. I opened the kitchen door and there she was. Clay dress, clay socks, clay shoes – but her body was flesh and blood. Phoebe was holding her.

  Frank said, ‘She’s our daughter.’

  These drugs – they bugger up my memory.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I’m a tooth hanging by a thread. One yank and I’ll be gone. The doctors tell me that I’ve enough morphine in me to kill a cow. I must be a bull.

  Joke, Mr Jones.

  I signed the Official Secrets Act … swore I would never talk about this until the day I died. Well, it’s night, it’s not day, and I’m dying … But, Mr Jones, I broke my promise once before.

  About a week later, Phoebe told me about Mari and the stone. Mari had said it had fallen from the sky … given one to her schoolfriend, Rex Muller, the brother of the boy who came back from the dead. That explained Lazarus …

  People had seen those stones falling. The stones were a matter of great interest on the base. They’d searched for them but not found any. What they found was … was more valuable … They found the body of an alien being. Forgot the stones. Believed they weren’t important. Wrong.

  Phoebe and Frank let it be known that they’d adopted Skye. Peculiar little girl … silent, wordless, still. I did my damnedest to make sure no questions were asked.

  When I went back to Bentwaters, I worked on data. It was a dull job … I think they were testing me. Must’ve passed the test because I was promoted … became one of the top technicians on the Doubleday project.

  I never spoke to Frank about my work … he never asked …

  Enough. Forgive me. I can’t … what …?

  Ah, is this what I think it is? It feels so good just to hold … give me a moment …

  Wow. I feel clear in my head for the first time since I’ve been in here.

  Yes, I remember, Mr Jones.

  It took two years. We used the alien body that was found in the forest and created the first half-alien, half-magnetic being. Scientists had found a way to create cyber skin, using nano-wires to mesh with alien cells, producing a synthetic skin that was part living, part electronic. The ultimate success would be if Doubleday could live within society undetected. He was to be monitored every step of the way.

  Oh, Mr Jones, I can’t tell you what it feels like to think straight.

  Remember, this was years ago – what we were doing was beyond the conceived idea of what was possible. Then, disaster: almost immediately after he was released he went missing. Reports came in of a young punk who had stolen from shops in the Ipswich area. People who encountered him talked of his strength. They used words like ‘not human’ and ‘alien’.

  The Doubleday we had sent out was a respectable-looking young man in a suit, could have been a salesman. The picture of this punk did not correspond with any of our data.

  By then I was living at the barracks on the airbase and hadn’t been in touch with Phoebe and Frank for a while. Because of Skye, I’d thought it would be safer if I separated myself from them.

  One day – about three weeks after Doubleday had gone missing – Phoebe phoned me in a terrible state. She said she was worried sick because Skye had started talking.

  I said, ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  Phoebe said it wasn’t the talking that was freaking her out but what Skye was saying.

  I drove to Shingle Street that evening. When I arrived Skye was just staring out of the window. Phoebe told me that she kept saying the same thing, over and over. ‘Doubleday is out there, he’s looking for Icarus.’

  I felt sick. Not that Icarus, surely? Not the Icarus who walked through a steel door?

  I said, ‘Who’s Icarus?’ hoping with all my heart that P
hoebe would say she hadn’t a clue.

  Instead, she said, ‘He’s a friend. But I don’t know who Doubleday is.’

  Skye turned around and looked at me.

  ‘Uncle Mark,’ she said. ‘You know who Icarus is. You kept him secret. Doubleday wants Icarus to make him whole again.’

  I tell you, Mr Jones, she was the creepiest little girl I’d ever met. How she knew all that I had no idea. I asked her and she said nothing more.

  Shortly after Phoebe had put Skye to bed, Frank came home.

  ‘Do you know what she’s talking about?’ he asked me.

  I said I did.

  We sat in the kitchen and looked out of the French windows onto the dark beach and heard the sea hitting the shore. In the distance the container ships, lights twinkling, were parked on the horizon.

  Over macaroni cheese I broke all the rules and told Frank and Phoebe about the stones that had dropped from the UFO, about the alien corpse that had been found in Rendlesham Forest, how Doubleday had been created out of the dead alien’s organs. And how Icarus and Ishmael had disappeared in front of my eyes.

  Phoebe said, ‘Do you think Doubleday’s after Skye’s stone? It’s the same as the one Lazarus had. Do you know about Lazarus?’

  Oh yes, the Darkstar Programme knew about him all right. They were making sure his parents stayed suitably numb. You know the Pink Floyd song, Mr Jones? Maybe it isn’t ‘suitably’. I’ve forgotten … numb is right … ‘Comfortably Numb’, that’s it.

  I didn’t think Doubleday was dangerous and said so. I didn’t say that he had been programmed to find aliens.

  But Phoebe said, ‘Is Icarus an alien?’

  One candle was alight on the kitchen table. There were no other lights and our reflections in the French windows shone back at us. Suddenly, Doubleday’s face was staring in. We all froze. He looked anything but harmless. His eyes were red, his feet were bare. He fitted the description given in all the reports we’d had about the punk from Ipswich, reports no one had been able to follow up because Doubleday had disabled all his circuits so that no one had control over him. He’d pulled the synthetic skin from the back of his head. He looked like a monster, and I thought that’s exactly what we had created. He stuck out his tongue, licked his lips and as he walked away from the house, the back of his head lit up.

  My duty was to call the Darkstar Programme immediately, have him captured and taken back to the base. But I sat, not moving.

  Frank said in a whisper, ‘What are you going to do?’

  I said, ‘I have to shut him down before his handlers find him.’

  ‘We are in deep trouble if he’s found,’ said Frank. ‘Aren’t we?’

  I nodded. The Darkstar Programme wouldn’t hesitate to do what was necessary to keep their latest toy top secret.

  I came up with a plan of sorts. I said we would have to trap him, trick him into believing that Icarus was here.

  It was Phoebe, I think, who came up with the idea of her mother’s pantry. She said she was sure her mother would help us. She was very fond of Icarus.

  There is a saying, Mr Jones. It has to do with a shitty creek, a leaking boat and a paddle. You’ve heard it. Well, that’s where we were – up that creek.

  Frank suggested the portrait that Phoebe had recently painted of Icarus might be enough to fool Doubleday, might lure him into Mrs Berry’s pantry. I hadn’t seen it and hoped he was right. I went to work, figuring out how to shut down Doubleday’s energy source, how to make his world lightless.

  Next morning, Phoebe went to London to pick up the painting. She took Skye with her, even though Skye didn’t want to go.

  Mrs Berry was a remarkably brave and calm woman. When we told her our plan, she just said yes. She said Icarus – and Skye – must be protected. So we emptied the pantry, blocked up the window, made sure there wasn’t a crack left for sunshine to sneak in. Then I placed Phoebe’s portrait of Icarus on the back wall and hung a lamp above it. The portrait was incredibly realistic, one of the finest paintings she’d ever done. I put a pair of shoes on the floor. The effect was good enough. In the gloom, it looked like Icarus was standing there, waiting for Doubleday.

  Phoebe wrote a note in case someone should find Doubleday and accidentally let him out.

  Skye had the stone with her and around tea-time, she became very agitated, saying, ‘He’s here, he’s here, Doubleday’s here.’ Phoebe and Mrs Berry went upstairs with Skye. I told Frank to go with them but he insisted on staying with me. He was my older brother, after all.

  I opened the back door and we waited for Doubleday to walk in. The second he saw the painting in the pantry he went towards it, calling to Icarus. As I’d anticipated, his brain was so destroyed he couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. The second he was inside we slammed the door shut and turned off the light. And I just hoped that I had sufficiently blocked his energy source and he wouldn’t have enough power to break out.

  He battered at the door for some time, shouting, ‘You’ve tricked me, Icarus, you’ve tricked me. Again you’ve let me down. I will find you, Icarus, and I will have my revenge.’

  After a while, the banging on the door became a tapping and his fury abated, his voice becoming weaker. It was dreadful to hear him.

  ‘Icarus,’ he said, ‘don’t do this, my comrade. Help me. Only you can help me – I need a stone. Icarus, it’s me, I am Troyon, I am your kinsman … don’t forsake me.’

  On and on he went until the words petered out and at last, all was quiet. Frank and I spent the night in the kitchen. The following morning, we taped over the door and painted it, pushed the dresser in front of it, went back to work as if nothing had happened. I told myself that the Darkstar Programme had no idea what we’d done.

  Two days later, Frank and Phoebe were killed in a car crash. I was told it was a police matter, investigation was under way. We never knew what caused their deaths. I had lost the people most dear to me and I was only still alive because Darkstar needed me. I felt close to breaking down. They wanted me on medication but I wouldn’t take it.

  One night, I was in a very bad way. I was stumbling back to the airbase; it was pitch black but in the beam of my torch I saw Icarus. Where he came from, I don’t know. Just like the deer, he appeared from nowhere. I told him about the alien’s corpse, what they’d done to it. I hoped he might kill me, then all the grief would be over. He was very quiet and then said, ‘You were brave. You did the right thing.’

  It was five years before I saw him again.

  Phoebe’s mother was amazing. She looked after her strange granddaughter, protected her like a lioness until …

  I went to see her after they’d jumped, after Icarus had been arrested. I wanted to say how sorry I was. Mrs Berry looked at me as if I was as thick as a bench. She said that they had to go home, they couldn’t have stayed here. I said I didn’t know why Icarus hadn’t gone with them.

  She sighed. Simple, Icarus came here to learn about love and that takes time and it meant learning about sorrow as well.

  What time is it, Mr Jones?

  Three? In the morning?

  No, I don’t want to sleep. I have all eternity for that pleasure.

  After my brother died I wanted to leave the Darkstar Programme. But once you’ve signed on the line, you’re there for life.

  It was a relief when they sent me to America to retrain for undercover work. I returned to England and was given time off, told they would call on me when I was needed. Didn’t have to wait long. Icarus was sent to prison, to be kept in solitary confinement. I became his prison officer. I never minded. It was a pleasure; he was an extraordinary man. We became very close. I miss him. I think of him as one of the best friends I have ever known. He had many opportunities to escape. He could walk through a wall as if it was tissue paper. He often did but he always came back. Darkstar instructed me to turn a blind eye. I asked Icarus why he didn’t just leave. He said he wasn’t ready but when he was, he would be gone. Eventually, they pu
t him in an open prison. I was no longer needed. I fooled myself for a while that I was free of the Darkstar Programme. I liked the idea of being my own boss and started a chimney-sweeping business, bought a van, the works. But no one is ever free of those people.

  I heard from an ex-colleague who still worked in the prison service that this girl, who had written a bestseller, had been given permission to visit Icarus. I didn’t realise immediately that I’d met her, swept the chimney at her parents’ house in Orford. A few days later, Icarus walked through the wall for the last time. He’d found what he’d been searching for. It was time for him to leave.

  People said horrible things at the inquest, that Icarus had groomed her, that he was a paedophile. He wasn’t. He was that rare being – genuine, honest, and when at last he found love, passionate. He loved Becky enough to let her go; she didn’t have to return with him. But she wasn’t going to leave him. She was too like him – out there, not of this world.

  Have you seen Mari Scott, Mr Whoever-You-Are? She must’ve gone through hell. Still going through hell. I regret that I couldn’t tell Mari Scott, or his girlfriend, what had happened to Alex. I couldn’t, but I knew. After all, I was there. She was beautiful, his girlfriend. Her name was … the name of a plant … smells so sweet, smells of life. Summer blossom, perfumes hot nights … jasmine. Jazmin. Jaz for short. Both of them, Mari and Jazmin, deserve the truth. Now it’s too late. The official story is that he went missing the day Becky and Icarus jumped. He did, but not in the way people thought.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I must have fallen asleep. Are you still here, Mr Jones? Good, glad you didn’t leave. What’s the time? You don’t know, I don’t know and you are right, it doesn’t matter.

  Well, I’m still here and my head doesn’t feel scrambled so I can say I feel better, thank you for asking. Do you want this back?

  Where was I? You see, Mr Jones, I was with Icarus for so long, I knew him, he knew me. Because I was working undercover it was difficult to form any other relationships, so we only had each other. We were both prisoners in a way and we became very close. When he told me he was going home and taking Becky, I knew he meant it. He needed access to a high building and asked if I would help him. I told him that the only way would be if I informed the bigwigs at Darkstar. I thought they would cooperate in order to catch a sighting of a UFO at close range. It was a risk but there was no way it could be done without them. I never said where Icarus was, or how I’d found him, but I suspected they knew. They knew everything. They let Icarus go home because they wanted Doubleday back. He’d been a multi-million-dollar project that had walked into oblivion only to reappear to cause havoc. It was becoming harder to keep his trail of destruction invisible, especially after the violent murder of the minicab driver.