At the door, as if it’s an afterthought, I turn back. ‘Oh, one last thing. I was just wondering. You said psychiatrists were sent to schools. Did they assess all the kids, or just some?’
‘Oh, you couldn’t assess everyone. That would take forever. I think the head teachers put forward a list and made the appointments. I mean, they know who the bad kids are, don’t they?’
‘The bad kids?’
‘Troubled. I mean, the teachers spot the symptoms, the heads collate the information; it’s the only logical way of doing it.’
‘And what proportion of the selected kids were diagnosed?’
‘Oh, you’ll have to ask the mayor that, but the uptake was excellent. The pre-selection process was very effective. It’s an excellent scheme, and I can’t say I’m surprised that its withdrawal has created this uproar.’
‘So you see a direct connection between the withdrawal of Concentr8 and the riots?’
‘Absolutely. Doesn’t everyone? I’m not condoning their behaviour, but we have the means to keep these people quiet and just to let that all go is ludicrous.’
‘Are there withdrawal symptoms related to coming off Concentr8?’
‘It’s hard to be categorical about these things, but just a return to the symptoms exhibited before being given the drug, spread over a large number of unruly young people at the same time, was likely to create a highly combustible situation. The prime minister has a lot to answer for. Off the record, of course.’
Off the record? What a schmuck. It’s the old put-away-the-Dictaphone-then-carry-on-the-conversation trick. Works every time.
‘Thanks again,’ I say. ‘I won’t waste any more of your day.’
‘Not at all.’
It could be my imagination, but as I shake his hand I momentarily sense a flicker of panic scampering across his features.
It is much cheaper to tranquilize distraught housewives living in isolation in tower-blocks with nowhere for their children to play than to demolish these blocks and to rebuild on a human scale, or even to provide play-groups. The drug industry, the government, the pharmacist, the tax-payer, and the doctor all have vested interests in “medicalizing” socially determined stress responses.
M. Lader, ‘Benzodiazepines—the opium of the masses?’ Neuroscience
TROY
The food and medication you requested has been placed outside. In return we would like some evidence of the good health of the hostage. A walkie-talkie is there to facilitate this.
It’s the megaphone.
Nando’s! yells Lee jumping up and rushing straight out to get the stuff. Before anyone has time to say it might be a trick or cover your face or any of the obvious shit like that he’s gone. For moment I’m thinking that’s the last we’re going to see of him – then he’s back and there’s enough food for ten I swear – plus drinks and a ton of Concentr8. Everything we asked for. Unbelievable.
What we gonna do with this? he says holding out the walkie-talkie.
Everyone looks at Blaze but he just shrugs.
We going to need more meals I say. Let’s do it. Keep them sweet.
Suit yourself he says with a flick of his chin that’s telling Lee to pass it to me.
Lee’s happy to hand it over – like it’s toxic or something.
I walk off with the walkie-talkie but turn back near the door and shout don’t eat it all without me even though that ain’t even possible. Sometimes just walking away from the others feels spooky – specially when it’s to go in to the hostage.
Never used a walkie-talkie before. Didn’t know they even still existed. Seen them on TV though. People saying over at the end of each sentence for no reason. I ain’t doing that – that’s stupid.
The guy looks up at me from the radiator. So depressing man the sight of him. Ain’t his fault though. I ain’t never been to a zoo but I don’t reckon I’d even want to. Same thing. Animals all caged up how are you supposed to enjoy that?
They want to talk to you I say.
I know. I heard.
Just say you’re OK. Say we ain’t hurt you. Nothing else.
All right.
Anything else and we’ll . . . you know . . . just don’t say nothing more.
I won’t.
I click the chunky button at the side and it hisses like on telly.
You there?
We’re here. Please may we speak to the hostage? Over.
Over? What a dick! I put it to the guy’s mouth.
This is Anthony. I’m OK. They haven’t hurt me.
I pull it away before he can say nothing else. Bye I say walking out and heading for the Nando’s. Don’t want to miss the good stuff.
I’m about to sit down and eat when Blaze says smash it.
What?
Might be bugged. Don’t need it no more.
I’ll chuck it out the back.
I go to the back door fast cause I swear it physically hurts walking away from all that food. Shove open the big concertina door on to a little closed-in smoking area and chuck out the walkie-talkie but sliding it not tossing it cause I don’t want it to smash. Don’t know why – just you never know. Best to have it there in case. Specially if I’m the only one knows where it is. Wouldn’t want Femi to get it.
It’s thinking about Femi that makes me step out and shove it under some bricks. Hidden is definitely better.
Everyone’s already had a Concentr8 and you wouldn’t believe the amount of food that’s already gone by the time I get back but there’s still enough. It’s more comfy now than the night before cause we been all over the warehouse gathering stuff up to make a base. There’s a load of chairs from some room up near the office – almost like school ones but better cause they’re a bit cushioned. One of them’s on wheels and we been messing around with it half the afternoon playing like human tennis or something putting somebody on to it and shoving them between two people fast as you can – or just crashing them into things to see what happens. It was a good laugh except when Lee got gashed across the forehead on a shelf – but he didn’t mind that much and didn’t even want to stop. Sometimes with Lee it’s almost like he wants to get hurt. For the extra attention or something. Just makes everyone think he’s more of an idiot but he don’t get that.
There’s also an armchair what got found somewhere and dragged in. It’s knackered with springs poking out and it twangs when you sit down but it’s still better than the others so that’s where Blaze sits. Nobody says nothing we just know that’s Blaze’s chair.
Should have aksed for some White Ace says Lee.
No chance you dick says Karen.
Why not?
Cause it’s the feds! They’d have to arrest themselves for giving it to us!
Everyone laughs even Blaze.
Femi ain’t with us. He’s on his own up in the room we got the chairs from. Nothing in there now except some massive desk big as a parking space. He been weird all day. Went up there more than an hour ago – either sleeping or sulking nobody knows – and he ain’t even come down for the food.
I get up – rearrange the buckets to put two thighs and a couple of fistfuls of chips into one – and I take it up to him with a Lucozade.
He’s on that table lying down like it’s a bed. Don’t know if he was asleep or awake but he sits up when he hears the door.
I give him the food but don’t say nothing. I ain’t acting angry but not too friendly neither. Don’t want nobody to think I’m taking sides or nothing least of all against Blaze. I just put it down next to him and walk out fast so nobody can say I stopped to talk to him. Don’t blame him for feeling weird or for saying what he said. But can’t have nobody thinking I want to go over to his side cause that ain’t me – that just ain’t even possible.
It was all a bit flat a bit weird before the food but after we eaten and had a pill everyone’s up and buzzing. Lee been eating his food walking around cause he hates sitting down and suddenly there’s this huge crash and you can hear his stupid laugh.
&nb
sp; Watch this he says and he picks up a huge metal thing almost as big as his arm – some massive wrench or something – and chucks it against the tyre rack hard as he can. Makes this massive noise and the metal shelf takes a huge dent.
Looks like a good laugh so I walk over and have a go – then Matchstick does even though he can’t hardly lift it – then Blaze too. It ends up with Matchstick and Blaze on one side and me and Lee on the other – and we’re chucking this huge thing at each other and I swear if it hit you it would kill you – it’s such a laugh. Whatever it hits there’s like a boom unless it’s the concrete and even then half the time it takes a chip out of it before it skids away. Karen watches but don’t join in – and I don’t see him coming but after a bit Femi’s there too and he goes on Blaze’s side which I reckon is a good thing. Except that now me and Lee’s outnumbered so I go behind one of the big machines and Lee makes a pile of old tyres cause we’re in that corner. One of the tyres he takes must have been holding up the stack cause there’s this sudden topple and masses of tyres come down – almost bury him – and some just roll out all over the place it’s crazy – and this spanner is just flying back and forward smashing things up – the noise of it almost like a war zone. I swear if the feds is listening they’re just going to be going what the fuck?
Blaze and Matchstick and Femi’s behind a huge shelf thing now but there’s a gap at the top so me and Lee we’re tossing it high – high as we can so it comes looping down on top of them. I swear it takes a chunk out of the concrete where it lands and it’s good nobody gets hit cause I don’t know what we’d do.
After that tyres start getting chucked about everywhere then Femi figures out a hub cap works like a Frisbee if you throw it right and there’s just stuff flying everywhere – all of us laughing – Blaze right close to Matchstick always making sure he don’t get hit.
Everyone’s forgot about Karen but then there’s this fluttery noise and we all look up and she’s on the balcony outside the office and she’s got armfuls of papers from somewhere and there ain’t really no reason for it but she’s chucking them down and it’s like some snowstorm or something it’s just beautiful. Papers everywhere flipping flapping some of them going miles. It makes us stop chucking stuff and we all end up underneath her and she goes in and out of the office – chucks down more and more paper – and we just stand under there like it’s rain and we’re cooling off in it or something. Might sound stupid but it makes me think this is the first time since we came here that we all felt proper together like no splits or worries or arguments or nothing – just all of us a unit feeling the same thing.
By the time she’s emptied out the office the whole place looks different – tyres everywhere and paper in a huge circle spreading out from where we’re standing – almost like another riot’s happened but it feels good. First time we all realised this is our place now and we can do whatever we want – ain’t nobody going to stop us. Ain’t never had that before and don’t reckon the others has either. It’s beautiful.
Blaze goes up into the office with Karen after that and Lee goes off on his own for a dump but between you and me I don’t reckon it’s a dump.
Me and Femi we just lie down and chill. Finish the chips. It’s good he came down. If it weren’t for me he’d still be up there. Matchstick disappears but that’s Matchstick ain’t it. He always comes back.
Frailty 2,900
Dementia 14,100
Hyperkinetic Syndrome [ADHD] 39,500
Department for Work and Pensions, Disability Living Allowance recipients by main disabling condition, May 2010
THE HOSTAGE
It’s the second night that gets me worried. I mean, they took me in the evening, and night seemed to fall pretty fast. It was scary – terrifying, even – but on some level it still felt like it might be some kind of prank rather than a genuine kidnapping. I had the feeling that at any moment they might get bored, or be struck by the reality of what they were doing, and set me free. But after a whole day, just sitting there tied up in the same spot from sunrise to sunset, when it begins to get dark I feel panic grip me for the first time. I haven’t let myself think that I might not get out alive, haven’t allowed that thought in, but now, with darkness falling, and nightmarish howls, crashes and shouts emanating from the warehouse, it becomes impossible to keep the idea at bay.
Kids like this don’t have much restraint at the best of times, but now it sounds like they’ve cut themselves loose from everything, drifted outward to some zone where there’s no fear of anything. Through the half-open doorway I can hear their wildness rise to a higher and higher pitch, hear the manic glee as they find more things to destroy, or new ways to smash up what’s already broken. And I can’t help feeling that when there’s nothing left out there to break, they’ll turn their attention to me.
The leader, Blaze, I can see in his eyes that he’s someone who knows how to inflict pain: has mastered the skills, speaks the language like a mother tongue. There’s some carnivorous power in him that I sense could rise up on a whim, and crush me.
A stripe of light stretches from the door to just near my radiator, and the high window lets in a sickly glow, so it’s not exactly light and not quite dark. Through the broken pane I can see what looks like a single mosaic tile of London’s grey-orange night sky.
I’ve never felt mentally fragile in my life, never felt there was anyone piloting my brain other than me, but now I have the feeling you get on a ski slope that’s a shade too hard for you. I’m in control, but only just, and something is pulling me forward, onward, downward, faster than I have the capacity to resist.
Without warning, the cacophony from the warehouse stops. I dread, and also crave, someone coming in to see me, but the silence thickens and no footsteps approach. They must have finally gone to sleep. They’ve gorged themselves to exhaustion on mindless destruction. That seems to be it for the day.
I sleep in tiny snatches, probably no more than five or ten minutes at a time, jerking awake again and again. My exhausted mind seems to have made the calculation that it’s too much of a risk to let itself switch off.
It feels like the middle of the night, several hours after silence fell, when the door scrapes open and somebody enters. It looks from the silhouette in the doorway like it might be Blaze. I shut my eyes, pretending to be asleep. He’s not the one I should talk to. Any engagement with him, even eye contact, is dangerous. He’s capable of anything.
I listen to the slide and slap of his bare feet moving ever closer. When the sound of movement stops, and I begin to hear his breath, he feels so close my body flinches and my eyes snap open. Some vestigial fighting instinct has given me the impression I’m about to be punched.
He’s not as close as I thought. He’s two or three paces away, the sound of his breathing amplified by either the echoey space, or my terror. He’s motionless, staring down at me, his face an unreadable pitiless mask, a blank with an aura of pure menace, of fearless contempt.
He gazes at me, seemingly lost in thought, not reacting to my flinch, as if my being either awake or asleep makes no difference to him whatsoever. I want to ask him what he’s looking at, why he’s staring, but I’m too afraid. Those questions are cues for a fight. Even though I can hardly make him out in the half-light, his body seems to crackle with the potential to inflict physical harm.
I can’t just cower there though. I have to use every opportunity to remind him and his friends that I’m a human being.
‘I need the toilet,’ I say.
Green T-shirt kid has taken me up till now. Never Blaze.
He looks down at me for a while longer, then wordlessly bends and unties me from the radiator without releasing my wrists from the clumsy but immovable knot that joins them together. With a tilt of the head he indicates that I should walk ahead.
We shuffle through the dank, hot air of the warehouse. Since the last time I saw it, everything smashable has been smashed. The long empty shelves have been twisted and pulled free
of the wall. Used tyres are scattered everywhere, and one end of the warehouse seems to have been carpeted in a layer of invoices and business letters. I would never have thought this was a place capable of being vandalised, but clearly I was wrong.
Blaze doesn’t let me linger, and doesn’t explain what has happened. He shoves my shoulder into the gents’ toilet and straight into the first cubicle, which is now so full it’s almost overflowing.
We’re halfway back when I turn and face him. He has a knife in his hand, a short blade which he holds with the calm authority of someone who knows how to use it.
‘Why are you doing this?’ I say. ‘What do you want?’
He doesn’t respond. Not a flicker.
‘Why me? What have I done to you? How long are you going to keep me?’
He half nods, a small upward movement of the chin that seems to mean shut up, turn round and keep walking.
‘Please,’ I say. ‘Don’t do this. The longer you go on the worse it gets for you. The police are outside. Let’s just end this. I’ll say you didn’t hurt me. I’ll say it was just a prank. I mean you haven’t really done any harm. Not yet. I mean . . . what is this? . . . It’s nothing, really . . . we can both just walk away . . . no harm done. Come on. I don’t hate you. Please.’
His eyes remain cold, hard and distant, as if he can’t even hear me.
‘What’s the point of this? Please. What’s it going to achieve? Come on, enough’s enough. Let’s just get out of here. There might be a reward. If there isn’t, I can try and arrange one. You’ve been good to me. Everyone’s going a bit crazy, right now. I’ll say you didn’t hurt me.’
‘Turn round,’ he says.
‘Please. You’ve got the wrong guy. I haven’t done anything. I’m nothing. I’m nobody.’
‘Nobody’s nobody.’
‘I just type things into a computer. I don’t make any decisions. What do you want from me?’
He stares, with the expression of someone trying to summon up a distant memory, then with an open palm slaps me across the cheek.
Concentr8 Page 7
