by Nick Green
‘You should lie down, Tiffany.’
‘Ben, listen to me. Between you and Geoff… There’s something. It’s like love.’
‘Hold on. The ambulance is coming.’
‘I’m bleeding, Ben, I’m not mad!’ She caught her breath, her eyes rolling unsteadily. ‘Trying to… explain. Ben, even if he always meant to betray us, he still got close to you. Really close. Close like brothers. Like cats from the same litter.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning… Ben, you won’t know this, it’s one of those cat things, but brother-or-sister kittens, no matter how much they look like they’re fighting…’
She was mistaken, however. Ben did know, he must have heard or read it somewhere, a useless scrap of cat folklore he had thought no more about. Before she could finish telling him, he was on his feet and running. It was true, it had to be, for still he could feel himself drawn to Geoff, as if by a rope that bound them together.
He reached the far side of the cabin to see Geoff in the doorway, flinging Mrs Powell to the floor. There was no more fight left in her. She lay at the top of the stairs, barely struggling as, clasping her hair with one hand, Geoff raised the other over her neck. His fingertips twitched and the air faintly sang. A snarl twisted his lips.
‘Remember that day we met, Felicity? You should have let me steal your handbag.’
Down came his claws. Ben didn’t think. He dived through the doorway and thrust his palm between Geoff’s fingertips and Mrs Powell’s bared throat.
It hurt. But it was the stab of hard fingers, not the agony of hooks tearing his flesh. Geoff gave a strange whinny of astonishment. He had the look of one who throws a brick at a window only to have it bounce back. Frozen in his crouch at the top of the stairs he could only mouth ‘How?’
‘Look,’ said Ben. He scratched gently at Geoff’s arm. The skin bore just the pink marks of fingernails. ‘You did that. Because I trusted you. Because I needed you. Because you needed me too, I suppose. It wasn’t all lies, was it? You’d kill me along with the others, yeah, but you were ready to cry about it afterwards. We know it. And our Mau bodies know it. Which is why they won’t hurt each other, no matter how much we try. How about that, Geoff? We’re like family. Your claws don’t work on me, and mine don’t work on you.’
‘Ben…’ Geoff’s blue eyes glistened in wonder.
‘Which means I have to do this.’
It wasn’t a pashki move – it was a football one, the kind used to take penalties. All the grief Ben felt inside him went into that kick. Geoff caught it on the bridge of his nose and plunged backwards down the stairs. The banisters had been ripped out when the tower was prepared for demolition, so there was nothing to stop Geoff pitching sideways off the steps and falling, with a yell, into darkness.
Ben knelt by Mrs Powell. A frail old lady mugged and left for dead could have looked no worse than she did. Her face-print had been lost inside a mask of bruises and blood, the grey hair on her head torn up in clumps. From her eyelids, not a flicker. Geoff had killed her after all. Ben’s throat closed. He clasped her cold, wrinkled hand in both of his.
‘Mrs Powell. No.’
Her eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright.
‘Ben! You’re not still here?’
‘Y-yes.’
Not so much as a thank-you. But then that was typical of your average cat.
‘Ben Gallagher, get this through your head!’ She was hissing in his face. ‘That streetlamp he was trying to use. It isn’t really broken.’
Somewhere deep in his exhausted brain, alarm bells started to ring.
‘It’s not broken,’ Mrs Powell repeated. ‘I just reversed its relay switch. I rigged it so it would light by day instead of night. Do you understand?’
No – wait – yes, he did. Streetlamps were light-sensitive, he knew that much. Most were primed to switch on automatically at dusk. But not, she was telling him, not this one. This one would light at dawn.
Which was now.
Colour bled into the sky. His shadow cowered on the cabin wall.
‘That detonator. He never unplugged it.’
‘Ra is rising,’ said Mrs Powell.
The stairwell howled with a cry of rage, of astonishment, of mortal fear.
‘Felicity!’ Geoff was on the staircase only two floors below them, racing up the steps towards them five or six at a time. ‘Felicity, what have you done?’
Mrs Powell looked at Ben.
‘Save her,’ she said.
She leaped at Geoff as he reached the final flight. Ben heard a noise like a lion-tamer’s whip. Mrs Powell locked her arms round Geoff and they fell, tumbling, down into the stairwell’s folded depths. Another noise punched through the soles of Ben’s feet, a roll of drum beats rising to a blow that seemed to smash his toes into his teeth.
He ran. Out of the cabin, onto the roof, into a blaze of sunlight – the very light, he knew, that had ignited the streetlamp and triggered the explosives in the tower. The boom reverberated from the buildings all around, billowing up in clouds of startled birds. Then the birds appeared to freeze in the sky, flapping as slowly as newborn butterflies, as Ben’s Mau body found its magical top gear.
With the speed of a terrified cat he sprinted across the roof, which had begun to yield underfoot, its hard paving cracking as if thawing in the sun. His stomach lurched into his chest and he realised he was falling, falling as he ran, dropping with the tower’s walls, its stairs, its floors, its bones. Concrete and steel crashed and folded into one another, shattering under their own weight as they crumpled unstoppably towards the ground. With his trainers barely brushing the disintegrating rooftop, Ben flung himself towards the far guard rail where Tiffany was staggering to her feet. There was time to do only one thing, to shout one word above the roar like thunder. He hooked his right arm under her left and gave it everything he had.
‘JUMP!’
A giant fist slammed him in the back, a wind so thick with grit that it felt solid. Roiling waves of dust engulfed them both. He could see nothing, not Tiffany, not himself. Was he still in the air or had he already hit the ground? He hit the ground. It crumpled his legs under him and tore Tiffany from his grip. Curling into a ball of pain he rolled and rolled until the crashing in his ears died away.
He looked up. A fog of golden brown had hidden the world. Trace by trace shapes appeared. Wire fencing. Rows of lamp posts. A peak like a rugged pyramid. It looked to be steaming in the morning sun, yellow dust venting from the fissures of its slopes.
‘Tiffany?’ He tried to stand. Just as he was panicking, he saw her. She was clambering on the pyramid, tearing at the rubble with blood-caked hands. His strength spent, he could only crawl towards her over the painful rockeries of concrete and mangled steel. Dust parched his mouth and stung water from his eyes.
‘Tiffany, don’t.’
She didn’t look at him. She strained to lift a grey slab that five men couldn’t have moved. She searched for other rubble to dig. There was plenty.
‘Tiffany, you’re hurt. Stop it.’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘No, no, you can’t.’ She raked out clumps of plaster and screed. ‘You can’t. You can’t do this to me. I won’t let you. Not again. Not again.’
‘Tiffany, stop. Please stop.’ He reached her. With arms wrapped around her he tried to pull her from the feeble hole. ‘Stop.’
She sank upon the rubble as if onto a bed. Down a ragged slab ran a stream of tears, making muddy rivulets in the dust. He sat beside her. He had nothing left, not an atom of strength, not a word in his head that might comfort her. He could barely remember his own name. All had boiled down to a faint, tingling sound. At first he supposed that the deafening implosion had set off a ringing in his ears. Then he managed to place it. In the communal gardens across the way, where the sun had just alighted, the birds were singing in the trees.
PINS AND NEEDLES
Ben woke up. He’d had the strangest dream.
The bedroo
m walls were sunlight. He lay warm under the duvet.
In his dream he’d been at home. Mum and Dad were there. That was all. That was his dream. It was the most extraordinary thing.
This looked like his bedroom. One of his bedrooms. Where had it come from? Through the window was a morning sky. He found the glass of water he somehow knew was on the bedside table. The door opened and Mum came in, wearing her dressing gown.
‘Mum! What are you doing here?’
‘That’s the third time you’ve asked me that.’
Was it? His memory was like a jigsaw puzzle box. He rummaged. Getting Tiffany to A&E at Homerton hospital. Then a gap. Beating at the door of Dad’s flat. A gobsmacked Dad, a wailing Mum. Falling against them. Being carried to his room, undressed and put to bed. Sleepy glimpses of Mum at his bedside, then Dad, later both of them… unless those parts were dreams.
‘Don’t tell me he’s finally awake.’ It was Dad, with a cup of hot tea.
‘Finally?’
‘You’ve slept a whole day and night, Benny. Guess you were tired.’
‘Uh. Yes.’
Dad laughed as if this was the best joke ever. Mum’s eyes twinkled like sugar dissolving.
‘Oh, young man, you are in so much trouble!’
Ben lay back on the pillow and shut his eyes.
‘Not any more.’
There came a twenty-fifth hour of sleep, then a huge breakfast in bed. After this Mum ordered him to get dressed and help with the washing up. He dried every teaspoon and then offered to help clean the kitchen, even though the slightest movement made him ache.
Mum and Dad were furious with him, but their fury took the form of delight. Both kept demanding where he had been, then saying, before he could answer, that it didn’t matter, he was home now. When he did finally get a word in, he said he’d slept in a tube station with some other runaways. It was hard to tell if they heard. He was home, that was all they cared.
Midway through fish and chips the following evening, he plucked up his courage.
‘How long are you staying, Mum?’
‘Why? You bored of me already?’
‘No, I thought… your job.’
‘I can get up earlier and go by train. Till I find one locally.’
‘Locally – ?’ He took a gulp of Coke, which almost fizzed out of his nose as he realised what she was saying. ‘You don’t have to, you know. Not if it’s, you know, difficult. Not just for me.’
‘What are you blithering about?’
‘I mean,’ said Ben, getting hot, ‘you two don’t have to pretend to get back together. It’s all right. I won’t run away again. I promise.’
His parents stared at him. Dad chuckled.
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Benny. It’s not only for you. Is it, Lucy?’
‘Ben,’ said Mum. ‘When we worked out what had happened – that you’d run away – it was the worst thing. Worse than having our home knocked down. It was awful and no-one could make it better. No-one could understand. Except your father. There was one person in the whole world who I could talk to about it, who wanted you back as badly as me, and who might get me through it. And he did.’
‘No, she did,’ said Dad. ‘You were the strong one, Lucy.’
‘So,’ Ben tried to get his head round it. ‘You’re not pretending.’
‘Don’t think we are,’ said Dad.
‘Then we’re all living here now? Mum as well?’
‘In this dump? I think not.’ Lucy Gallagher snorted. ‘Which reminds me, Ray. That pinball machine in the living room…’
The next day he went back to school. Few remarked on his absence before the holidays, though he had to think quickly when Miss Bird, his form teacher, asked if his tonsillitis was better. Walking home he took the turning that led to Tiffany’s house. He braced himself and rang the doorbell.
‘Oh,’ said Peter Maine. A rat on the porch would have got a more welcoming look.
‘Is Tiffany around?’
‘No. And she can’t be disturbed.’
Tiffany’s voice called down. ‘Let him in.’
‘See here.’ Mr Maine came out onto the step. ‘I think it’s best if you stay away. Don’t you?’
‘I said let him in, Dad.’
Mr Maine’s face quivered. Taking that as a yes, Ben slipped inside and upstairs.
Tiffany was in bed. Had been, Ben guessed, for several days. The sheets had the look of mixed cement starting to set. He sat near her feet.
‘I see your dad’s still my number-one fan.’
‘Sorry. He’ll be worse than ever now.’
‘He doesn’t know–?’
‘All they know is that something’s happened. Something awful. Some reason why I won’t stop crying.’ She gave a choking laugh. ‘It’s obvious. They think you’re my boyfriend.’
‘Ha. Funny.’
‘And that you’ve dumped me. And now you’ve come to upset me even more. Maybe you should leave by the window.’
‘Thanks for the tip.’ He sat where he was. She was clutching an elderly teddy bear, which he pretended not to notice. A queasy thought crept up on him.
‘What about your arms? The claw wounds? Your parents must have seen them, they must have.’
‘No,’ said Tiffany. ‘Long sleeves. Sulking in my room. I’m good at secrets.’
‘But the doctor…’
‘He won’t tell. He didn’t even ask me how I got them. He just stitched up every cut, one after the other. Then he asked if I was unhappy.’ Tiffany shrugged. ‘I said no.’
‘Do they hurt still?’
‘I don’t notice.’ Her face lost all its shape. Tears sluiced down her cheeks. ‘Ben. I can’t feel this way. I can’t bear it.’
Ben said nothing. What could he say?
‘I’m giving it up. Pashki. I’m giving it up. I won’t ever do it again.’
‘Okay.’ Now he couldn’t even reach for her hand. ‘Okay.’
‘It was me,’ Tiffany whimpered. ‘I killed her.’
‘No.’
‘I did. I tracked her down. I did exactly what he wanted me to do. I should have seen it. He couldn’t find her himself because he didn’t–’ she shuddered from deep inside, ‘he didn’t love her.’
Ben twisted a corner of her bed sheet.
‘If it wasn’t for me,’ Tiffany whispered, ‘she’d still be alive.’
‘It was Geoff,’ Ben burst out. ‘He didn’t have to connect that detonator, did he? And she didn’t have to stay and fight him. But she did. To save us.’
‘I helped Geoff to get her.’
‘He used you,’ said Ben. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘It is. I wanted her back. I wanted to find her so badly.’
‘Yes. You wanted to.’ Ben found he was holding her hand. ‘You’d have done it anyway. No-one could have stopped you. That’s how it works. We know that.’
She stared into space. Her head wobbled, a nod maybe.
‘That’s the other worst thing. The Oshtian Compass. I thought it would stop, now she’s gone. But it’s still there. In here.’ She pressed Ben’s fingers into her stomach below her ribs. ‘I can feel its needle sort of… spinning. Going crazy. Trying to point to something that isn’t there.’ Abruptly she pushed him away. ‘Oh, what’s the use. You never really liked her.’
‘I’ve dreamt about her every night since,’ Ben confessed. ‘Her face. Over and over. Telling me to go and help you instead of her. It was the last thing she said. I–’ He broke off. He always awoke from that dream on a pillow wet against his cheek.
‘Sorry,’ said Tiffany. ‘Didn’t mean it.’ She gave an exhausted sigh.
‘The weirdest thing,’ said Ben. ‘I even miss him. Geoff. Even though I know what he was. I miss the person I thought he was. I remember someone who felt like, oh, like he was a friend. Who did some good things.’ He looked to Tiffany, exasperated. ‘Was he ever real? Was any of it real?’
She turned her head to face the wall.
&
nbsp; ‘I don’t miss him.’
She made Ben leave before her parents kicked up a fuss. Weary bedsprings creaked underneath her. Her stitched wounds itched, raging hot. Farmers were burning stubble on her arms. Rufus came to lie on her duvet, purring as if he had swallowed a live dove. Her hand lay upon his back. The digits of her clock tiptoed from 5:20 to 6:20. At twenty-eight minutes past seven came a knock at the door.
‘Go away.’
The door opened.
‘No, Stuart. Go away.’
‘I need to rest first. I’m practising walking with these.’ Stuart had been prescribed a new pair of KAFOs to brace his legs, as he was outgrowing his old ones. ‘Doctor Bijlani says to try short distances first. It’s a short distance to your room.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I could use some help with the PM.’
‘PM? Prime Minister?’
‘Paranormal Map. It needs some adjustments.’
Oh, if it would get rid of him. She rolled herself out of bed. Crossing the landing behind her brother’s ponderous steps she felt hollow and light, transparent from weeping. Up on Stuart’s wall was the map of the British Isles, speckled with coloured dots.
‘Need more pins pushing in?’
‘Actually,’ said Stuart, slumping into his chair, ‘I need you to take some out. Down there.’
In the shaded patch that was London she saw a cluster of green pins. Nine of them.
‘I thought green ones were sightings of the Loch Ness Monster?’
‘They used to be. But under the old system I had too many greens left over. So now they represent people with supernatural cat skills.’
‘What,’ she asked, suspicious, ‘am I doing with them?’
‘Well.’ Stuart pushed up his arms to make a shrug. ‘It’s not accurate anymore, is it?’
‘In what sense?’
‘You’re giving up your pashki. Which means the others will probably give up too.’
‘I told you not to spy on me.’
‘I forgot. Anyway, you see the problem. I need you to take all the green pins out. I can’t do it myself.’ He lifted a book on UFOs off the arm of his chair and used both hands to guide it to his bedside table. ‘I don’t have the strength to pull a pin out of a notice board.’
