Arkady

by Patrick Langley

  Jackson knew it. She’s playing a game, like hide and seek.

  He ducks behind a fern, watching people through the mesh of leaves.

  The waiter from yesterday raises his hands. ‘Calm down, sir,’ he says. ‘Please. You are causing a scene.’

  People in chino shorts and see-through dresses have begun to halt and gawp. Breakfast is almost over: a steady stream of people dawdle out of the restaurant’s doors. The receptionist holds a phone halfway between the desk and her ear, mouth open, staring at Jackson’s dad. Closest to him is a pair of women at a low glass table, sipping lemonade. Their enormous sunglasses, lurid yellow blouses and black bumbags make them look like oversized, wrinkly bumblebees.

  ‘Sir, please,’ the waiter says, reaching out to touch his shoulder, ‘if we could—’

  He moves one way and Jackson’s dad moves the other. There’s a muddle of limbs, an impulsive shove – the waiter loses balance. With flapping, wide-flung arms he topples onto the table, which crashes beneath his weight. Drinks glasses backflip, shed their liquid, and explode on the floor. The women leap and scream, neck-skin wagging as they howl. Reeling, drenched in lemonade, they gasp at Jackson’s dad.

  On the floor, the waiter winces. He looks like he’s wet himself, the puddle pooled around his waist. Standing up, face twisted, he plucks something out of his palm. It flashes like a diamond in the sun. Red blood slithers down his wrist.

  ‘Shit – listen – I didn’t mean to do that,’ says Jackson’s dad.

  Prickles chase each other over Jackson’s skin. Something is wrong with the air-conditioning: the room is fridge-cold.

  A policeman nods at the door and asks Jackson’s dad to step inside.

  ‘No,’ says Jackson’s dad.

  ‘Sir,’ the policeman says. ‘Please.’

  Stars go fizzing through the air, specks of light that swim and pulse through Jackson’s eyes. He grips the side of the potted palm: the floor’s tiles rock like waves. The clock behind the desk says 9 and he holds his breath. Holds it. His dad follows the policeman, dragging his heels. The door clicks shut. The receptionist, smiling, lifts the phone to her ear. Jackson slides to the floor and exhales.

  Frank is on the bedroom floor, his plump legs folded, T-shirt bunched at his waist. Jackson stands above him for a moment, watching his brother play.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he eventually asks.

  Frank claps and hiccups: ‘Guh!’

  The duffel bag, made from shiny blue fabric, has lots of pouches and zips. It bulges with their father’s clothes, which he angrily stuffed into it on the morning of their flight: polo shirts, blue shorts, chino trousers, a pocket phrase book and a fold-out map. Jackson undoes the wide zip in the top of the duffel and empties half the contents. After folding the clothes in a pile on the floor, he stuffs a hotel towel and a few of his father’s polo shirts: the end with the black plastic wheels. At the other end is a plastic handle.

  Frank sucks at the skin of his wrist. Drool slicks down his forearm.

  ‘In,’ says Jackson, nodding. ‘You go there. Sit still.’

  He lifts Frank into the duffel and packs the towels and shirts around his waist to form a throne. Frank sits upright, legs crossed, and grips a towel’s white corner. He seems to like it. He dribbles and claps. Jackson does the zip of the central pocket until Frank is snugly wrapped: a makeshift pram.

  ‘Frank,’ he says, ‘are you listening? Mum is gone, I don’t know where, and we have to find her. Understand?’

  He tugs the plastic handle until the metal rods extend, then lifts the duffel and drags it a couple of feet. The wheels drag heavily against the carpet, but the duffel moves. Frank bounces and writhes in his bag, but the zip holds firm.

  ‘Stay still,’ says Jackson. ‘We’re going.’

  Jackson’s mother showed him the special way out, the route she takes to find the pool in the afternoon. While she swam, Jackson would sink into the shallow end and pretend he was a mutant, that the world had flooded, and he was the only one who could breathe underwater, suspended in the pool’s blue depths, goggles biting the bridge of his nose. The route leads from the lift through two white doors and to an outdoor path flanked by wooden lattices, the white grids woven with sweet-smelling vines. Flowers with yellow needles dot the leaves. The air smells like syrup as he drags Frank towards the road.

  The high sun frazzles the valley’s plants to browned bundles of gnarled, contorted leaves. Cacti bristle in the dirt. Bushes shiver with paper-pale leaves. Jackson took his father’s tortoiseshell sunglasses, but the heavy-framed things keep slipping loose off his head. His eye-muscles ache in the light. Sweat wicks down his nose and sun-cream seeps into his lips, an acrid taste that makes him gag. He pushes the glasses up with one hand and uses the other to drag the case. A sharp pain spreads along his left arm. It feels as though the bones will snap, the joints collapse, the muscles unravel.

  Frank dozes in the suitcase, stunned by heat. Jackson watches the trail of bright rocks, crooked as a lightning bolt, that runs along the floor of the valley. This is the path they must follow. It leads to the sea.

  The sky and the earth are at war and the earth is losing. Bone-dry branches crackle under Frank’s duffel as it drags. The ditch beside the road is filled with empty plastic bottles, wads of tissue, whitened cans, and limp bags muddled in the gravel. Black flies buzz over hay-studded lumps of dung.

  Whatever survives in this heat, in this dust, is evil. Beetles clamber over stones and through mazes of knotted grass. Their gloss-black armour reflects the sky’s punishing blue. A spiny thing scuttles under a rock, too fast for Jackson to see it properly. The rocks themselves are rubble, the sharp, half-pulverized remains of a recent explosion: a bomb dropped from the sky, a great wave of destructive heat. There are no birds. No bees. Just hardened, spiky creatures crawling through dirt in which no flowers will grow.

  The road curves gently as it descends, tracing the bulk of the mountain. There is a bay in the town at the bottom, a harbour with bobbing boats. Jackson has never been so thirsty in his life. Hot air scorches his lips. His cells have hardened to grains of sand.

  There is a cluster of trees near the road. They have lots of branches and even some leaves. Thin shapes shimmer in the heat pulsing off the stones. He drags Frank through big white boulders until they reach the shade. Frank reaches out and grabs a handful of empty air. A sweet, rancid smell hangs around him.

  Jackson lifts Frank down from his throne, lays him on the earth, and tugs the sellotapey bits on the side of his nappy. The nappy flops open to reveal a smeared dollop of yellow wet muck. Jackson tugs it off Frank and chucks it behind a bush. He grabs a fistful of fallen leaves, their waxy skins crisped at the edges, and wipes his brother clean.

  ‘Okay,’ says Jackson. ‘Better.’

  He gulps from the big plastic bottle he found on his mother’s bedside table and filled from the tap before they left. The liquid slides down through him as he gulps, a clean, clear feeling that pools in his stomach and spreads through his blood. This is the best drink, the best in the world, he will never drink coke again. He puts the bottle to Frank’s chapped lips and watches him swallow. Water spills down his grubby cheeks.

  As soon as the water is finished, Frank begins to cry. The wail pierces Jackson’s ears. ‘Shut up,’ he says, skull throbbing. ‘Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.’

  Naked from the waist down, Frank screams in the dirt.

  Jackson is about to hit his brother, to kick him until his is quiet, until he remembers the powder. He unzips the netted pouch in the side of the duffel and takes out the second bottle. This one is filled with powdered, pre-mixed milk, the bottle’s sides specked with its creamy white silt.

  Frank takes the plastic nipple in his mouth and instantly falls quiet. A frown of intense concentration, or of blissful distraction, creases his features. He sucks with a rhythmic hunger, breathing through his nose, until the milk has gone. A moment later, he drops the bottle. His head lolls to one side.
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br />   A lizard darts up the side of a tree. It halts halfway and flicks its tongue, a trill of red against the brown wood. Jackson chews the bread roll he stole from the breakfast buffet and watches the lizard’s stomach pulse as it breathes. Its small eye is fixed on his, a bright black bead. It slips into the crack of a broken stone and disappears.

  Jackson lies beside his brother. His body aches all over, and although the sun is high, the light blinding, he can barely keep his eyes open. Warm air caresses his skin. He rests his head on his folded arm and listens to the crackling heat.

  The sky fades from yellow to orange to purple, like a bonfire slowly dying. Now it is so blue it looks black, with a deep red scar in the distance. Too many stars to count: a sprinkling of cold bright points.

  Now that dark is falling, Jackson is afraid of the road. The sudden, swooping flash of the headlamps. The thunder of exhaust. He has watched the cars roar down it, bright lights rippling past the rock. Adults. Strangers. Police. Anyone could see them, grab them, drag them back to the fortress hotel.

  Instead of walking back to the tarmac, he turns the other way. It is darker in the valley, and the way is strewn with rocks. He drags the suitcase along the dried-up riverbed, between the boulders and the trees, heading towards the distant lights of the town. The duffel case jolts and bounces, it growls to a halt in the dirt or gets jammed between rocks. He has to stop repeatedly to set it free or pluck out the toothy stones that get stuck in its wheels.

  Later, one of the wheels breaks off: a brief yelp of snapped plastic.

  Jackson drags the broken bag for as long as he can but it’s too heavy with just one wheel. He stands in a patch of sand, panting. The temperature is dropping in the valley. A breezeblock house stands nearby, its windows pitch dark.

  ‘You need to get out,’ he says, lifting Frank from the duffel.

  Frank sits in the dirt and rubs his eyes.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Jackson says. He is talking to the duffel, not his brother. It has taken them so far – down the road, across the valley.

  He plucks a flower from the dirt. It has avocado-green leaves with sharp edges and a small white flower. He lays the flower in the suitcase, takes a handful of dirt and lets it slip from his hand to the edge of the weeping stem. He pours a dash of water on the dirt.

  ‘Okay,’ he tells Frank. ‘We can go now.’

  He drinks half the water and leaves the rest to his brother. Instead of crying, Frank watches Jackson with his wide, calm eyes.

  The town is closer than Jackson realised, right there, beyond the trees. He can see its dark buildings and yellow lights. The hotel is far away, pale and solid in the night’s blue heat.

  Frank is usually good at crawling. But the rocks have the texture of sandpaper, his knees and wrists get scuffed. The moon is high above them now, a bright, pale face. Shadows stretch across the lightning bolt, the white stones smoothed by a vanished river. Jackson thinks about his mother. She will be happy when he finds her. She will smile, she will be proud.

  But Frank is being stupid, too slow. He can’t even walk: he just crawls along, lazy and aimless, with sudden whimpers and anguished howls. Jackson lifts Frank under the armpits and shows him how to do it.

  ‘This foot,’ he says, ‘then the other foot, then the other foot again, like this.’

  Frank concentrates very hard, but his legs jerk around like a puppet’s. He puts his right foot down and wobbles. Jackson loosens his grip and Frank dumps down on the broad white stone and claps his hands.

  Something moves through the sky. It looks to Jackson like a giant insect with a shiny, dark-orange shell. Its blades hum through the valley and fade and blend with the crickets’ singing. A long white beam of light is shining from its head. The beam swings left and right, searching for something on the far side of the buildings, out at sea.

  The rest of the walk has the feel of a dream, an endless stumble over warm stones and dusty stretches. Then, without warning, they reach the edge of the town, a narrow path winding up to the street through twisted, bowing trees. The town is dark and mostly empty. Some people are in the restaurants at the bay, sitting outside on the porches, drinking and smoking cigarettes, laughter echoing off the walls and mixing with the hiss of the surf. Foreheads glistening. Big smiles.

  Jackson looks for his mother for a very long time. He walks down empty streets and dark alleys, chasing stray shadows and sounds. Afraid of being seen, he hovers in doorways, but does not knock. Instead, he stands at windows. He glimpses a gloomy corridor through ghostly net curtains. Women slicing onions in a bright kitchen where a radio blares. A family gathered in front of the TV, slumped on sofas or wicker chairs. Two dogs running circles in an empty, white-tiled room. Delicious smells perfume the alleys: fried garlic, roasted meat. He walks along the harbour looking at restaurants, shops, and cafés until he reaches a narrow path leading into a copse of dark trees. But she wouldn’t be there, in the forest. The shadows chitter. He turns to go.

  Fishing boats sway in the water, chains rattling as waves knock their sides. The sea is black and silver in the light of the moon. The flying thing has disappeared but is buzzing somewhere, near the cliffs.

  He stands outside the restaurants and peers through the open doors and goes inside the one with the candles. It is his mother’s favourite place to eat. They have the freshest fish, she says – the owner’s father is a fisherman. Jackson stands at the window, peering in. The room is empty. Chairs upside-down on the tables. A vague smell of smoke haunts the air. For a long time, he stands in the middle of the empty, lamp-lit room, surrounded by upturned furniture, and does nothing. He wants to give up. To stop looking. But how else is he meant to find her?

  Earlier, Jackson had found a good place in an empty garden with crumbling walls and laid his brother down beside a bush in a wooden trough filled with dead leaves. Frank is sleeping when Jackson returns. The garden is quiet. Creatures scuttle and slip through the grass, insects dance in the air. Jackson sits beside his brother and cries.

  When he is finished he carries Frank over the crumbled wall and into the dim amber street and sits him down. Frank is half asleep, making vague and sleepy movements with his arms. His drooping head rests against the stone wall.

  ‘It’s your fault,’ Jackson says. ‘You weren’t strong enough. You weren’t old enough. You were stupid.’

  He slaps Frank on the head. Frank’s face scrunches up and he starts to cry, a throaty wail that fills the alley.

  ‘If you weren’t here, I would have found her,’ Jackson says. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid Frank. Your fault.’

  There is movement at the edge of his vision. He turns to see his mother at the end of the street, levitating mid-air. His heart stutters and a bright light bursts in his head. Then his eyes adjust to the glare of the lamps. It is a woman, another stranger, not his mother after all. She has long dark hair and is sitting in a chair made from red plastic. It is raised off the street on black wheels.

  ‘Hey,’ the woman says, ‘are you alright?’

  She is English but has a strong accent. She isn’t from Jackson’s city. Her necklace sparkles in the electric light.

  Frank is wailing now. Water streams down his red cheeks. The brothers look at the woman.

  ‘I’m really tired,’ Jackson says.

  ‘Oh,’ she replies. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  She wears a dark red dress and high heels. A handbag hangs from the handle at the back of her chair.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she asks.

  ‘Frank,’ Jackson says.

  ‘I like his T-shirt,’ the woman replies. ‘Are you lost?’

  Jackson nods. He doesn’t have the energy to run.

  ‘That’s sad,’ the woman says. Crickets whirr across the valley. Jackson listens to the hush of the waves. ‘I heard something on the radio earlier,’ she says. ‘It said the police were looking for two young boys. I don’t suppose you know where they are?’

  ‘No,’ Jackson says.

&nb
sp; ‘Apparently they went missing from the hotel this afternoon.’

  Jackson blinks. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘you must be tired.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Being tired is boring.’

  Frank stops crying, a bewildered look on his tear-soaked face.

  ‘What is that?’ Jackson asks, nodding at the wheels of her chair.

  ‘Oh,’ the woman says, ‘it’s my chair. Look.’ She moves the small stick on the arm. The chair jerks left, then right. It makes a whirring sound.

  ‘Why do you have it?’

  ‘To get around.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your legs?’

  The woman laughs. ‘I was sick when I was little,’ she says. ‘About the same size as your brother.’

  ‘He can’t walk either.’

  The woman laughs again. Her voice is clear and bright, like a note high up on a piano. ‘He will one day. Look, he’s already moving around.’

  ‘He goes in the wrong direction. He keeps stopping to pick things up. He falls asleep.’

  The woman shrugs. ‘Could be worse.’

  Frank is lifting his foot to his open mouth and attempting to eat the big toe. The foot is covered in dirt. Jackson bats it away and tells his brother to stop.

  ‘I think we need to get you back home,’ the woman says. ‘I would want to be back home, if I was down a strange dark road.’

  The town is fast asleep. Home is very far away.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Jackson says.

  ‘Oh, well… I was at a nightclub.’

  ‘What’s a nightclub?’

  ‘A place where people go to be awful human beings,’ the woman says. She stares at the moon for a while, as if deep in thought. ‘I’ve realized that I don’t like my friends. I think the feeling is mutual. It’s a bit sad, really, isn’t it? An awkward thing to discover when you’re sharing a house with them for another ten days.’ The lady digs in her bag while she talks. She pulls out a mobile phone and prods a button. ‘How about we call someone? I think that would be – FUCK!’ The woman yells. ‘Wait – sorry – language. Reception around here – it’s total shit.’