Bleeker Hill

by Russell Mardell

  Sullivan walked his well-worn path around the courtyard, the chain locked to a metal pole bolted into the ground and fastened at the other end to the leather strap that was tied around his neck. He never liked to shuffle – which was the action the set up naturally lent itself to – but a quick pace was beyond him. Besides, anything too fast and the endless circling would make him dizzy and if he fell Hudson would probably beat him. It would be violence through habit rather than sadism, of course, – “give a small man a stick and he will beat you before he ever contemplates using it to pick the wax outta his ears,” Wiggs used to say, and he should have known – but Sullivan knew his body wouldn’t stand the scrutiny of abuse these days and tried to give Hudson no reason for it, and besides, Mandrake always shuffled and Sullivan had never liked him. Even in this situation, in this corner of the world, having your own identity seemed to matter.

  Sullivan was on his tenth turn of the courtyard when he realised Hudson was not there any more. Looking to his right at Mandrake, he saw Hudson just beyond him, scuttling towards the watchtower in a flustered waddle like a man late for a first date who has forgotten the flowers. A tall man was standing on the edge of the shadow spilt by the watchtower and Hudson stopped before him, his little arms waving around as if trying to direct the man into the light. Incoherent words, tied up in Hudson’s nervous laughter broke the silence, and it was immediately clear to Sullivan that whatever power Hudson had at Thinwater prison, or thought he had, it had just been transferred to the stranger.

  Mandrake was trying his best to turn his shuffle into a jog and was failing miserably, landing with a heavy thud on the concrete and then hobbling up again before the inevitable repeat performance. Mandrake had been at Thinwater long before Sullivan. He’d been arrested under Party outlawed practices no. 117a – the facilitation of false hope. Mandrake, like so many others, claimed he could speak to the dead. It was nothing new. After the country broke and so many fell, preying on grief and offering hope to the hopeless became big business. Mediums, fortune tellers, psychics and soothsayers; suddenly everyone claimed the touch and possessed the power. They were working street corners, back alleys, door to door, and people were buying. Some still traded money, but usually it was food or water, clothing or sometimes a room for the night. That so many were willing to believe terrified the Party and so such practices were soon outlawed, punishable by a ten-year stretch, if they were lucky; Party Plod had been known to shoot dead on sight. The Party was strong and powerful, but even they couldn’t control the dead. “Bet they are working on it.” Wiggs would say, and Sullivan couldn’t disagree.

  That Mandrake could have either the touch or the nous to work the con amazed Sullivan. The old man barely seemed capable of knowing the day. He was hunched and pathetic, his long and matted hair crudely framing a pruned face, his dirty rags swinging from a disjointed skeleton. Occasionally, Sullivan would hear him calling out from his cell at night, long and guttural moaning hiding disconnected words and soft pleading. Such noise never lasted long, Hudson would see to that. “Didn’t see that coming did you?” he would often hear Hudson scream from Mandrake’s cell on the floor above. Then would come the old man’s sobbing and Sullivan would have to bury his head into his pillow so as not to hear.

  Hudson was now in heated conversation with the stranger, his arms gesticulating wildly between Mandrake and Sullivan and from the prison block to the wall of the courtyard. The stranger remained still, cushioned in the shadow and towering over Hudson much as the old watchtower towered over the prison. Mandrake fell again in front of them and this time Hudson took up the slack of the chain around his strap and began to whip him with it; an unleashed fury in each swipe, and in each grimace on his sweaty little cubed face. Mandrake struggled up and the chain caught him around his mouth and shattered the few old teeth that had been holding on. He tumbled down again and his face hit hard on to the concrete.

  ‘Get up old man! Get on up and walk. Face us.’ Hudson barked the words, spitting them out, chewing on every full stop.

  Suddenly, as if waiting for a cue, the stranger stepped forward out of the shadows, pushed Hudson to one side, walked one quick circle around Mandrake as if he were eyeing up a car to purchase, and then drew a small pistol from a holster on his hip and shot Mandrake through the head. The casualness of the act, if not the actual act, made Sullivan retch, his heart sagging like a carrier bag filled with warm water, and suddenly it hurt, everything hurt, and his body felt like it would escape him. He quickly turned his eyes away, looking back down to his feet, to his own path that led back to where he started, and he began turning his circles just that bit more quickly. Across the courtyard, the stranger had moved away from Mandrake and was striding towards Sullivan the way only a man in charge of something worthwhile could. Hudson was trotting along behind with the horrid look of a pupil trying to impress a teacher. The stranger, for his part, didn’t even seem to know Hudson was there.

  ‘Keep walking,’ the stranger said to Sullivan through a closed mouth. Sullivan hadn’t actually stopped walking and so read the instruction as it was really meant – “walk faster!” Sullivan knew the stranger must have been an important man as they were the only people who said what they wanted by saying something else. It was the little runts like Hudson that had to scream it at you in capital letters.

  ‘Good build isn’t he?’ Hudson panted. ‘All things considered.’

  ‘Does he speak?’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes he speaks. Don’t you, Sullivan?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Hudson. Yes, I speak.’

  ‘Give you any trouble?’

  ‘Nothing he hasn’t learnt from, isn’t that so, Sullivan? You learn the right from the wrong don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Mr Hudson.’

  ‘Is he educated?’

  ‘Oh yes, regular at the library is Sullivan. Bit of a bookworm.’

  ‘So he can read?’

  ‘Yes. He can read. Can you read, Sullivan?

  ‘Yes I can read, Mr Hudson.’

  ‘Good enough,’ the stranger said, stepping closer. ‘Untie him.’

  Hudson leapt forward and yanked the strap from Sullivan with such eagerness it made Sullivan gag and he had to fight the urge to buckle forward. Hudson was then at his back, shoving him clumsily, trying to straighten him up to face the stranger. Sullivan tried to smile but soon thought better of it. He thought of offering his hand but not for long. The stranger’s demeanour made cordial greetings seem like the ultimate offence.

  ‘The Party loves you, Mr Sullivan.’

  ‘The Party loves you too, Mr…’

  ‘My name is Frankie Bergan. Have you heard of me?’

  Hudson shoved Sullivan in the back making his reply stick in his throat and show itself simply as a shrug.

  ‘I guess not. Good. I am a man light. Grennaught caught a bullet. He was a good man. How do you feel about that?’

  ‘Well…’ Sullivan began, arching away from the sweaty fist of Hudson that was hovering at the base of his spine.

  ‘I prefer complete honesty. Rare as that may be in this world,’ Bergan continued, rolling forward on the balls of his feet briefly before settling back and fixing Sullivan with charcoal eyes.

  ‘I really don’t care,’ Sullivan replied, with complete honesty.

  Bergan smiled, a warm and genuine smile. Had that warmth transferred anything, even the most remote flicker, to his dead eyes, Sullivan might have felt at ease rather than terrified. But Bergan’s face was a contradiction, a mask to keep you wary and on edge and ultimately confused. Even the contrast between his jet-black hair and his greying beard seemed to be a deliberate ruse to throw you off the truth of the man.

  ‘Good. You’ll do. Grennaught was strong and skilled. I’m sure you can find a way of filling that void.’

  ‘I’m a lag, Mr Bergan. A lifer. Been here over five years.’

  ‘You’re vertical aren’t you? Right now, that qualifies you.’

  2

  Bergan led the
m back into the prison, turning corridors until coming out on to the staff landing and kicking open the door to Hudson’s office, a small once-white room now a vulgar yellow-brown colour thanks to Hudson’s tobacco and, probably, some form of universal decay.

  Bergan sat and put his feet up on Hudson’s desk, which made the little man wince before he gathered his well-rehearsed pupil character again and stood to Bergan’s shoulder like a soldier on parade. Bergan ushered Sullivan to sit and took a wrapped sandwich from inside his jacket and tossed it on to the table.

  ‘Cheese and salami. I think it’s still edible. Eat it,’ Bergan said and waved a hand towards Sullivan and then to the sandwich. Sullivan didn’t need telling twice and ploughed into the hard cheese and curled salami sandwich with super speed, salivating from one corner of his mouth and coughing bits of bread back to splutter on to the table. Sullivan nodded his gratitude, Bergan shrugged, a smile on his lips, death in his eyes. ‘Petrol canisters,’ Bergan said into the air, almost as if to see which of the two men would grab the words. Predictably it was Hudson.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘Find me some petrol canisters. And some rags.’

  ‘I don’t understand?’

  ‘That’s why you are you, and I am me. Go away.’ Bergan flicked a finger to the open door and set an expression that ended the conversation with inarguable finality. Hudson rocked from one foot to the other before scuttling away, head bowed and shoulders hunched. Sullivan took a moment between bites to allow a smile out. ‘A tedious individual if ever I stumbled across one,’ Bergan said, and leant back in the chair fixing Sullivan once more with those dreadful eyes of his. ‘You and the old man were friends?’

  ‘No. I never liked him.’

  ‘You don’t think me a bastard for doing what I did then?’

  ‘I’m trying not to think anything, Mr Bergan.’

  ‘There was really no other option. In fact, I really did him favour. We live in harsh times. There is very little room for the weak. Of course I could have turned him out, back into the world, but really, how long would such an old man last? He was of no use to me, no use to the Party, no use to society, not the way it is now. So really, I merely expedited the inevitable, and I did it quick. He felt nothing. No, very much the thing to do. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  Sullivan nodded timidly and returned to devouring his sandwich.

  ‘What do you know about the way the country is, Sullivan? The real world, outside these walls?’

  Sullivan swallowed hard as the last bite of sandwich caught on his dry throat and coughed violently before holding up a hand of apology. ‘My wife used to tell me things when she visited, then they stopped letting people come here. I heard bits and pieces from people. My wife used to write me letters. When that was allowed. They were heavily edited at the start, but I got the gist. My daughter always used to say that things had got funny.’

  ‘Funny? Curious sense of humour children have these days.’

  ‘Funny…weird, you know?’

  ‘Yes, Sullivan. Yes. I know what you meant.’

  ‘Sorry. We are at war, aren’t we?’

  Bergan fell silent and stared through Sullivan at the open door behind him. ‘That’s what she said, is it?’

  ‘That’s what she thought.’

  ‘Out the mouths of babes.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘We are in a lot of shit, Sullivan. Country has gone to the dogs. Dogs don’t want it. Who can blame them?’

  ‘I remember things before I got sent down. But they feel like dreams. Little fragments of dreams. Like they don’t really belong to me any more. Does that make sense?’ Bergan’s face said nothing. Sullivan continued. ‘I remember the fires before I got sent down. Everywhere seemed to be ablaze, every building and every house. I still dream about that. Almost every night my dreams are of fire. Sorry, that’s…’

  ‘Meaningless, yes, go on.’

  ‘There were riots. There were curfews. I remember all that. I remember my wife being scared, then I remember her getting excited because she had heard that the system was falling apart, government I mean, the law, courts, all of it. I remember her telling me that I wouldn’t even stand trial, that no one would care any more and that it would all crumble. I guess I left the party before the cabaret?’

  ‘You left the party before the Party.’

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s right. The Party is going to make it all better.’

  ‘You’re not a Party man, Sullivan?’

  ‘I’m not anything, Mr Bergan.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Is that who you work for? The Party?’

  ‘We all do, Sullivan. One way or another. Even you. Even here. You got off lightly. It’s not pretty out there.’

  ‘It’s not pretty in here. Still, it’s better than the Wash, right? That’s what Wiggs used to say. “Better than a bag on the head and a hypodermic up the jacksie.”’

  ‘What do you know about that?’

  ‘What I hear. I’m not daft. People talk. I knew something was happening. Every night we expected them to come for us. I guess I got lucky.’

  Bergan seemed to flush a translucent colour and shifted in the chair. ‘A vicious practice from a quack with a god complex.’ He wafted a hand in the air as if trying to swat away the words Sullivan had just spoken. ‘Right, let’s get to the bones, time is short, my desire to be here even shorter and my patience non-existent. You have an offer here, Sullivan. I assume you aren’t stupid enough not to see that? You have a choice. You have options. Something you haven’t had in a long time. Say thank you.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Thank me.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You come with me and you work for me. You do as you are told and follow me, without hesitation or question, or, and I stress this is the only other option open to you now, I waste another bullet. Here and now. Through your head. Bang! I will drop you like litter and leave you here. Speak. Tell me how it is going to be.’

  ‘I don’t see what I have to offer you.’

  ‘Don’t question a good deed in a bad place. Personally, I’m totally indifferent to your plight. But I need someone to fill Grennaught’s shoes. Circumstance gives me you. So that’s what is on offer. I need a shooter who will do whatever is asked of him without question. You are ignorant and you know how to fire a gun. I’d say you were over-qualified for what I need. Of course, you don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything. It can end here if you really want it to.’

  ‘How do you know I know how to fire a gun?’

  ‘I’ve read your record. You were sent here for shooting someone. A young kid, so it goes. Quite the nasty little bastard, aren’t you?’

  ‘It was self-defence.’

  ‘It was still murder.’

  It never failed to get Sullivan where it hurt. He could barely remember what he had done the previous day, yet he could remember that day as if he were still there living it. In many ways he was. He had left all that was good lying on the floor of his living room that day, mixing in the blood of that kid. He could piece every detail together with crystal clear clarity, could see it all, smell it all – the furniture polish in the house, the smoking embers in the fire in the hearth, his wife’s perfume, the soft scent of his daughter. Then there was the waft of death mixing with those joyous smells, invading all and overpowering them with brute strength, brought forth on the tang of the gun barrel – he had never touched a gun before, never would again, he vowed. Now, suddenly, all he wanted to do was lie down on his bed and close his eyes. He needed to think of his family without interruption. It was what kept him going and he felt Bergan was trying to wrestle that from him. He was beginning to sweat and to twitch, the barely chewed sandwich lying in his throat, tasteless and harsh. Bergan seemed to be scrutinising every tick and droplet of perspiration, those lifeless eyes roaming every inch of his body. Sullivan thought back to the speed with which he had stepped from the shadows and put a bullet into old man M
andrake, and the silence that had fallen between them now seemed dangerous. He looked to Bergan and was about to speak, say anything to him, when the sharp smell of petrol flooded his nostrils and charged into his brain, dragging him back to the here and the now, shutting out the never again.

  Hudson was out of breath, weighed down with four petrol canisters and a bundle of rags – old prison uniforms. The clothes of ghosts. He dumped them at the table and stood panting, pointing down at them and struggling to speak.

  ‘Very good, Hudson. Now pick them up and follow me.’ Bergan stood and pushed past Hudson, slapped Sullivan on the shoulder and walked to the door. ‘You’ve five minutes to get anything you want, Sullivan. Then we are going to burn this bugger down.’

  The words seemed to squash Hudson on the spot. To Sullivan, Hudson had never looked smaller than he did at that point, prison rags bundled under one arm and the petrol canisters wobbling in the other.

  ‘But, the other prisoners, Mr Bergan?’

  ‘What others? You’re it. The last one out the door.’

  The realisation smacked Sullivan hard across the face, reverberating through his mind in waves of understanding.

  ‘What? Mr Bergan…please.’ Hudson’s voice was small and weedy, drained of any power or force. In another circumstance, another world, Sullivan could have pitied him. ‘Why would you…but, my job, Mr Bergan? What about my job?’

  ‘You have no job any more you rancid little cock botherer, or hadn’t you noticed? No more animals in this zoo, Hudson. You’re nobody in particular in charge of nothing much at all.’

  As Bergan turned out of the office, Sullivan could see the truth creep over Hudson. In all his posturing, in all his sycophantic platitudes and grovelling at Bergan’s feet it had not, even for a moment, occurred to Hudson that the very man he was trying so hard to please, had just swept in and made his own life meaningless.

  Sullivan stared back through the open door and into the dark hall outside, towards the sound of Bergan’s slowly descending footsteps on the metal stairwell. To his side, his mouth hanging open at a slant, much as it did when he was chewing his tobacco, Sullivan’s jailer wept.