‘Hush,’ she said, rubbing something fatty and soothing into my hands, the sorry skin of my face.
I don’t know how long I spent drifting like that – her face or the coal-black walls swimming into focus – but it felt like days. By the time I was fit enough to sit up and take a cup of water from her hands, I was wearing three or four days’ worth of beard.
Coin was tired. She had attended to me throughout my recovery and had suffered for it. I ordered her to rest for a while, and as she slept I mooched about in the cave, which seemed more like a factory basement. The ghosts of tram tracks wove across the floor. Dirty yellow struts supported a low roof criss-crossed with riveted iron girders. The floor was scarred with mould and damp.
Nearby was a meagre scattering of what I supposed were Coin’s effects. There was nothing here to signify the presence of a pubescent child; no toys or teddy bears, no stereo, no photographs, no ticket stubs from the cinema. No mobile phone. There was a small shoebox, however, and inside it were dozens of newspaper cuttings. Many were like the article I had read in the Evening Standard, telling of sightings of The Pusher, but there were others too, in which other sightings had been made, of shadowy figures fluttering around the Tubes, observed by passengers in mid-journey through windows or on CCTV long after the stations had been closed. These articles were recent, but became more frequent in the days leading up to the quake. Some of the text had been highlighted and initialled: O. I didn’t know how important this text must be, but I could at least ask Coin about it, when she revived. She’d not escape from me again.
I spent a few minutes examining my injuries. I couldn’t see my face, but my fingers retained enough feeling to inform me that the hair on the back of my head had been scorched to stubble. The skin there was tight but had escaped serious burning. My hands, where they had blistered, were raw and tender, but again, I had been lucky to sustain only superficial damage and the unguent that Coin had smeared on them had helped immensely. My clothes were damaged beyond repair but they had been substantial enough to save my body from harm. I shuddered when I thought of that rippling wall of orange-blue. And the scream that had seemed to power it.
Hours later, I put together a little meal for Coin, made from more of that strange, soft meat and a few crumbled biscuits. I poured some water into a plastic beaker and carried it over to where she lay. I stroked her hair gently and she opened her eyes. She was looking directly at me.
‘Sleepyhead,’ I said, and offered her the tray.
‘Thank you,’ she replied. She nibbled on the biscuits and drank some of the water, rubbing her eyes clear of sleep.
‘What’s this?’ I said. ‘Are you vegetarian?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I just don’t like cat food.’
‘Great,’ I said, quietly. ‘Just beautiful.’
She hid her mouth behind her hand; somehow, a laugh found its way out of me too.
‘Do you feel better?’ I asked.
‘Much. You?’
‘As well as I’ll get, until I see a doctor, I suppose. Where are we?’
‘Camden,’ she said. ‘The catacombs.’
‘What?’
She told me how the tunnels here were a relic of the 19th century; they served the Round House, the old locomotive turntable that prepared trains for their trips north. The tunnels shadowed the Euston mainline for a while, and were hemmed in by the goods depot at Primrose Hill to the north, and the Regent’s Canal to the south. Blore knew these places as reflexively as he knew the insides of his own eyelids. He knew them all. Better than I did. He had been the needle drawing my thread through the fabric of the city. He had tied me in knots.
‘I need to go soon,’ I said. My voice fell against the damp walls like something executed. ‘I have to find Laura and Nuala.’ I searched her face to see if she recognised the name. There was something going on in those little blue eyes.
‘Mistral,’ she said. ‘A fine assassin. Odessa called her a killer of rare ability. She was a great asset to our family, until she deserted us too, for him. We’ll miss her.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You were referring to Mistral.’
‘No. Nuala.’
Coin nodded. ‘Mistral.’
I sat down hard. ‘Assassin?’ I said. ‘She wouldn’t harm a fly. She wouldn’t harm the bacteria on a fly.’
Coin shrugged. ‘Still,’ she said, and shrugged again.
Her words caught up in the sludge of my brain. It was like being in a canyon, and hearing the tail end of an echo.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Wait a minute. Deserted?’
Coin explained how Mistral had been Blore’s partner in the underground, his bodyguard too, before he became a Gonebad. She had disappeared, the moment the first woman had been pushed under a train. She hadn’t been seen underground since then. ‘She’s with him,’ Coin said. ‘They’re inseparable.’
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head, as if that might buttress my denial. But I was arguing against ineluctable evidence. Nuala had expressed her intentions to be with H. What was more shocking was the thought that she must have known about me. If she was protecting him, then maybe her move into the flat above mine was more of a conspiracy than I wanted to believe. She had been keeping her eye on me all the time.
‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ I said, flatly. ‘I have to find them.’ A pool of sickness was spreading in my gut. I knew, but I didn’t want to accept it.
I stood up. ‘Will you wait here, a little while? I need to have a look at what happened back there.’
I didn’t wait for her reply. Instead, I swivelled and stalked away in the direction of the tunnel from which she had rescued me. Away from her, I was suddenly aware of the tightness of my chest.
Nuala. How she had cried against my chest after showing me the video. The tenderness she displayed towards me. The outright affection. Was it all a sham?
I padded back towards the necropolis of trains, sucking in air that now smelled of fried dust and burnt synthetics. The clamour from above could only be Camden Lock. Every so often, through the iron grilles in the ceiling, I caught a glimpse of feet as they marched along the road above me, or a whiff of noodles, or pizza. It was the only light that came in: rays hit the walls like chalk marks ticking off a stay in prison.
I passed through other chambers, the tunnels used as stables for the horses and pit ponies that used to pull the old train wagons; the canal basin, close to the Lock itself.
At last I entered the chamber containing the broken Tube stock. The trains had been blackened by the fire, their windows shattered by the heat. Some pockets still smouldered, and the heat was noticeably greater in the cave than in the tunnels that fed it. Through the open frames I could no longer pick out the seats; they had become a single molten mass. Up ahead, where I had seen the figure consumed by fire, was a sickening pile of ashes and blackened bones. I approached carefully, picked off a length of metal that was hanging from an engine and, steeling myself, began raking through the cinders, looking for a clue to the victim’s identity. I hoped I’d find the chain that H. used as a weapon, or an arm that had escaped the flames, complete with his tribal tattoo.
Instead, I found a shark’s tooth.
‘Nuala,’ I gasped, and slumped to the ground, all the strength in my legs vanished. I rubbed away the ash on the curve of enamel, until I could make out the serrations. I remembered the shock I had felt when I first saw it dangling from her sex, simultaneously the most uninviting and enticing object I had ever seen. I pressed the tooth against my mouth and prayed that Coin was right. If Blore and Mistral – H. and Nuala – were inseparable, then he must be dead too.
Coin pushed herself to her feet and shuffled over to a large tea chest, from which she pulled a plastic jug. She motioned to me – want some? I nodded, despite my impatience. She poured greyish water into two beakers and brought them over. High above us, the hiss of hidden streams and pipes filled the caves with reptile music. It was strangely c
omforting, but I was still glad Coin was with me. Alone, these caves would have scared me half to death, even though I seemed to have spent quite a portion of my life around here. That so much of my time was unconscious to me was a chilling, depressing truth. How much else of my span was unknown to me? How many other people and places was I a part of?
‘The charts you saw at the sentinel’s bivouac in Hyde Park depict what we at first believed was a mythical place, a subterranean city that our forebears had pursued for centuries, a place many of us thought never existed. The charts changed all that. They described a route to this city, and the area in which we might be able to find it. The Face was at the end of a long tunnel towards what we hoped would be the doorway. It really exists. And we are there now.’
‘What? Here?’ I looked around.
‘No. There is only one entrance to the Face. The way in. All of us, except for me, are through. I’m going too, soon, when I’ve taken you back to the surface.’
She gave me a look, from deep beneath her dirty fringe. ‘Odessa wanted me to thank you, for your help.’
I snorted at that. Some thanks.
‘She asked me to offer you an invitation to join us, if you felt that your life as a Topsider was too painful now. If you are ready to return to us, rid yourself of this surface mentality.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I said.
‘Are you ready to go? Do you feel strong enough?’
I nodded. ‘Thank you,’ I said to her, covering her tiny hand with mine. Such a young child. Such a wise person. ‘You saved me.’
‘I didn’t save you enough if you want to go back there,’ she scolded, jerking her head towards the ceiling.
It took the best part of an hour to get back to street level. On the way, we bypassed the cave where I had first seen Odessa. Coin ushered me in, keen to prove that Odessa’s offer was genuine and that it wasn’t just a titbit thrown to me to make me feel a part of things.
The cave was empty but for her chair and the small screen on the floor. It flickered, blue seeds of interference shifting across the washed-out image of that ancient woman. I could just about make her out in the tide of white noise, the filth coating the screen. The message was on a constant loop. The sound wasn’t great but it was good enough. She said:
‘If you see this, Monck, then it would appear you survived your bouts with Blore. We are grateful. Had you died, your sacrifice would not have gone unnoticed. We salute you. And I extend an invitation to join us, should you feel that your life as a Topsider is over. If you wish to return to the fold, you will know where to search for us. But be warned. We will not hesitate to act if you expose us to the surface. I wish you well, Monck… Underman.
‘If you see this, Monck, then it would appear…’
‘Satisfied?’ Coin asked.
An hour later, I was standing in deep night near a fissure outside the Langham Hotel. Across the road, BBC Broadcasting house was a shell, gutted by an old fire that had long since burnt itself out. I walked parallel to Oxford Street, picking my way through the dunes of demolished buildings on Foley Street and Howland Street back towards H.’s flat. Although the shark’s tooth burned against my skin, I had to hope that Laura was all right, that she would be there at the flat, alive.
I noticed, as I neared Charlotte Street, that steps had already been made to right the trashed city. Giant cranes clustered like yellow spiders around the worst implosions; makeshift roads had been carved through the rubble to allow dumper trucks to remove all that weight of failed concrete and steel. Rescue teams worked ceaselessly, sifting through the wreckage for bodies. Spastic blue light washed the city. The chatter of static and voices burst like sporadic gunfire through the silence. Nets of dust hung in the streets. I couldn’t help thinking about Meddie, Iain and Yoyo. Here was some pocket for them. Here was some fucking pocket.
By the time I reached the flat, I looked like a ghost, coated as I was in grey powder. I thrashed at my clothes for a while before pushing my way through the main entry door, swallowing hard as the familiarity of the stairwell and what had happened here last time I made an unheralded visit hit home. Up the stairs, I crouched by H.’s front door, listening for movement from within. When I was convinced it was empty, I barged my way inside. I could smell Troake, his stale cigarettes; his wet, yellow bandage, but he was no longer around.
If I was expecting H.’s flat to be some kind of shrine to depravity, I was disappointed. It was as plain as a bowl of porridge. There were no ornaments or knick-knacks. No clutter. The surfaces were clean. An aspidistra flourished in a large terracotta pot – the bastard – but that was about it in terms of decoration. A futon was freshly made. At the far end of the flat was a second room, its door closed, a decal of a sunflower stuck to its centre.
Clearly H. had not been here for some time. In a desk drawer I found the only clue that this was his flat; cuttings, from various tabloids and broadsheets and free weeklies, reporting his crimes. Wherever he had been referred to as The Pusher, he had savaged the text with a ballpoint pen. In the margins he had scrawled NO and IDIOTS and FUCKERS. That he was prone to such bouts of vanity cheered me no end.
I went to the other room and strode in before I could conjure any foul images of what might be waiting on the other side of the door. Soft music, very quiet, spilled from an old ghetto blaster. I recognised the song. It had been playing on my first visit to Nuala’s flat. Paperback novels spilled out of an overcrowded bookcase. A bed covered with understated linen, soft throws and cushions. I sat on the bed and listened to the song until it finished. And then it started up again. It was important not to make any rash movements, even though she knew me inside out. Shock had turned her as white as salt. Very carefully I reached out and teased away the masking tape that was covering her mouth.
I moved slightly, and leaned against her. Her weight settled against mine as easily and as comfortably as it always had. Equilibrium didn’t have to be reached, it was always there. Even when we were apart.
I said, ‘Laura? Are you okay?’ She didn’t appear to be injured in any way, despite the great amount of dried blood on her skin.
She nodded. I untied the knots that bound her hands and feet, watching her reaction, watching to make sure she didn’t turn hysterical and start lashing out.
The music kept playing. Like Odessa’s message to me, it was on a repeat loop. I tried to imagine Nuala sitting here, listening to it, perhaps thinking of me, before H. barged in and showed her what his version of commitment meant.
The song ended again and started again. Smoothing Laura’s hair against her forehead, and making sure she was warm and comfortable, I pushed myself off the bed and picked up the jewel case by the stereo. A Cocteau Twins album: Four Calendar Café. Track one, her favourite.
The spit in my mouth vanished.
I led Laura to the door and told her to wait for me while I set fire to H.’s cuttings and let the flames spread to the furniture, before their colour and heat upset me and I had to run outside. Grief enveloped me halfway down the stairs and by the time I stepped into the street, I couldn’t see for the blur, and I fell over and grazed my knees.
Know Who You Are At Every Age.
The song’s title was the same as the message jammed into Greg’s throat. The tears were coming so hard and painfully that I couldn’t work out what was fuelling them: grief? Anger? Madness? I was crying so hard that I couldn’t see the figure reaching out for me. I said, ‘Mum?’
At the last moment, before she reached down for me, I recognised her and recoiled. It seemed too much like one of my dreams. I couldn’t bear the rejection that would settle on me when I wakened. But then soft, real hands gripped me and hauled me out of the gutter.
It seemed those hands had never done anything but.
Chapter 20
Monument
We spent long evenings talking. He’d bring me a beer and we’d sit in the garden, smelling the wood smoke as the sun tumbled and next door’s cat chased moths across
the lawn. I got to know him well in those weeks, and we achieved a rapport that was better than usual for a British lad and his British dad. But somehow, no matter how great my love for him, or the level of respect, there appeared to be a strange law somewhere that banned any emotive trading between Dad and me. He’d shake my hand on my birthday, nudge his shoulder against mine on the day of my departure after a weekend visit. There was distance at the same time as there was none.
But here we were. Now.
After Laura had coaxed me back to life, she called my dad and he drove down the M1, as far as he was able. We met him at Toddington service station, coming the other way, having cadged lifts from strangers leaving the city. There were lots of people leaving the city. We spent a few hours in the back of a VW Campervan with six cats and a sweaty child who was being copiously sick into a bucket. The mother kept patting his back and offering him tea from a flask. ‘You have to top up your fluids after you’ve been sick,’ she said. The boy would take a sip and then hoick his guts up again. Laura sat him on her knee and read him stories from a book about a patchwork elephant. He hiccupped a few times, but the vomiting stopped. That’s what you do to people, I thought. You calm them down. You bring them out of the moment. I could do with some of that.
Dad drove us back to the north-west, and I slept all the way. When I woke up, Laura was gone. Dad was sitting in the driving seat, watching me in the rear-view mirror.
‘She’s having a bath. And then she’s going straight to bed,’ he said. ‘And you. What about you? Where are you going?’
All I could do was meet his gaze. And then I said, ‘Thanks, Dad.’
We discussed subjects that had never been broached before. Mum, his childhood, his father and grandfather. His time in the Army, stationed in South Korea just after the end of the war in 1953.
London Revenant Page 27
