Being

by Kevin Brooks

  I wondered if it was all an illusion. The rusted railway machinery, the wires and wire supports, the padlocked sheds, the Coke cans and crisp packets, the mysterious numbers painted on the trackside walls… it all seemed real enough, but what if it wasn’t? What if there was something wrong with me? What if I was seeing things that weren’t there? How would I know? How could I tell the difference? For all I knew, everything was an illusion - me, the hospital, Ryan, Casing, Kamal…

  The rails started humming.

  I looked up and saw the lights of an approaching train. I got to my feet and watched it pull into the platform. It rattled and slowed… rattled and slowed… rattled and slowed… and finally ground to a halt. I glanced inside, looking for unwelcome faces, then I opened the door and got on the train and immediately went looking for a toilet.

  The train sighed – pishhh – then settled on its metal sound and lumbered slowly out of the station. Inside the rattling toilet cubicle, I let out a long wheezing fart and emptied my bladder. The toilet bowl was stuffed full of creamy-white paper. I stood there peeing for a long time, steadying myself with a hand against the wall, and when I was done I felt weightless and empty and hungry. My urine smelled bad. I smelled bad. Sour and sulphurous, like the smell of someone else.

  I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror above the sink. The glass was cracked and dull, and my reflection was smeared and unfamiliar. I said hello to myself.

  ‘Hello, Robert.’

  It was good and bad to be alone again.

  I rubbed a finger of hot water into my gums and over my teeth, then leaned over and retched into the sink. Nothing came up but some thin spitty stuff that stuck to my lips in shiny strings. I wiped it off with the back of my hand and rinsed my mouth from the tap. The water tasted metallic. I belched, then my stomach heaved and I threw up.

  I wanted to cry then. I was so scared, so sick, so confused… so everything. It was too much, all of it, too much to think about… I didn’t want to think about anything. I just wanted to cry, uncontrollably, like a lost child sobbing for its mother… but I couldn’t.

  I can’t.

  I’ve never been able to cry. Whenever I feel like crying, something happens to me – a door closes, the lights go off, I disappear.

  I took the bottle of water from my rucksack and rinsed out my mouth again and again – rinse and spit, rinse and spit, rinse and spit – until all I could taste was the clean tang of water. I looked at myself in the mirror again. What I saw was just a face – pale, tired, confused – but still just a face. I sniffed, spat a final gob into the sink, then I began to undress.

  It didn’t feel good, standing naked in that stinking little rattle-box… naked and cold and sick. It seemed dirty and wrong, and it made me feel as if I didn’t know myself any more.

  I gazed down at my belly.

  It didn’t look too bad – a crooked black gash, a reddened slash. Pink. Some white. Bruise-brown and dirt-yellow. A slight swelling. It was healing fast… I was healing fast.

  Most of my early childhood is hazy. The memories are there, but they don’t mean anything to me. Unknown people and unknown places. Faces, voices. Houses, Homes. Hard wooden chairs, squeaky floors, the smell of disinfectant. None of it means anything.

  But I do remember things.

  I remember a voice, from a long time ago. A woman’s voice.

  ‘Oh, he’s a fast healer, that one,’ I remember her saying. ‘He’s a fast healer, all right…’

  I don’t remember who she was, or what she was to me.

  But she was right. I am a fast healer. Cuts, scrapes, bruises… I’ve always healed quickly. Quickly and cleanly.

  I dressed in the clothes I’d got from Sainsbury’s – underwear, trousers, shirt, jacket, shoes – then I transferred the contents of Ryan’s jacket to my new jacket and stuffed the old clothes into the rucksack.

  A final look in the mirror, then I flushed the toilet and left.

  As the train rattled and hummed through the darkness, I gazed through the window and tried to think about things – what was I doing? where was I going? what the hell was going on? – but I just couldn’t do it. It was all too big. Too confusing. Too much to think about. And I was so tired. I just wanted to close my eyes and drift away… just for a moment…

  I closed my eyes.

  I didn’t know where I was when I woke up. The train had stopped at a station and now it was just sitting there – humming and murmuring, hissing and moaning, not going anywhere. I looked out at the platform. There weren’t many people around. No station staff. No uniforms. No men in suits. I looked around for a station sign, but I couldn’t see one.

  The train groaned for a moment, something hissed… and then it went quiet again.

  I sat there for a minute or two, listening to the ticking silence, then I got up, walked down the aisle and got off the train.

  As I left the station and started walking, I still didn’t know where I was. I think it was probably Romford or Ilford, somewhere like that. One of those ford places. Somewhere near London, but not in London. Not that it mattered. The way I saw it, if I didn’t know where I was, neither would anyone else.

  The streets outside the station were busy with traffic. Cars, taxis, buses, vans, lorries, motorcycles, bikes. People were moving, going places. Going home, going out, going somewhere.

  No one cared about me.

  Why should they?

  I kept my head down and kept walking. Down wide pavements of grey-white concrete, past closed shops and noisy pubs and greasy little kebab places. Past bus stops and nightclubs, taxi ranks, wine bars…

  I kept moving, kept going.

  Away from the town centre, into the outskirts. Past black-glassed office blocks and leisure centres, past beggars and skateboard kids and girls dressed up for the night…

  I walked.

  The pain in my stomach dulled to an ache.

  The rain kept falling.

  I kept walking.

  Into the night.

  I walked for a long long time.

  Until, eventually, after walking forever, I finally reached Paradise.

  6

  The Paradise Hotel was seven floors of dull grey concrete on the outskirts of a dull grey town. I didn’t know how I’d got there, and I didn’t know if it was a good idea to stay there or not, but I was bone-tired and wet, and my stomach was hurting, and I just couldn’t walk any further. But, most of all, I needed to be on my own. I needed to start thinking about things. I needed to do something.

  Without giving it too much thought, I opened the hotel doors and went inside.

  It was a fairly big place, and fairly smart. Smoked-glass doors, a dark-carpeted lobby, pillars and panels, plants in brass pots. There was a bar at the far end of the lobby and a restaurant off to one side. Both were quite busy. Men in suits, women in suits, everyone drinking and having a good time.

  I felt out of place.

  I’d never been in a hotel before. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know the procedure. So, for the next five minutes or so, I just stood in the doorway – glancing at my nonexistent watch now and then, as if I was waiting for someone – and I watched what was happening. How it worked. Where people went. What they said.

  Then, when I’d worked it all out, I smoothed back my hair, straightened myself up and crossed the lobby towards the reception desk.

  The young woman behind the desk was sleek and well dressed. She had a thin face, a false smile and slick blonde hair. As she watched me crossing the lobby, I wondered what I looked like to her. You’re just an ordinary young man, I told myself. You’re wearing an ordinary jacket and an ordinary shirt, and you’re carrying an ordinary briefcase and an ordinary rucksack. You’re ordinary, that’s all you are. That’s what she sees.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ she said. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘I’d like a room, please.’

  It was easier than I thought – the procedure.

  She asked me
questions, I answered them.

  ‘How many nights?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Single or double?’

  ‘Single.’

  ‘Smoking or non-smoking?’

  ‘Non.’

  ‘Newspaper in the morning?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Any one.’

  The only tricky part was when she asked me for a credit card. I had credit cards. I had Ryan’s and Kamal’s credit cards. But I didn’t want to use them. Credit cards are traceable. I didn’t want to be traced.

  ‘There’s a problem with my card,’ I told the receptionist, giving her what I hoped was a weary smile. ‘It’s been playing up all day. I think there’s a faulty computer or something. Is it OK if I pay in cash?’

  She hesitated for a moment, then smiled and nodded. ‘Cash? Of course, cash is fine. We’ll need some identification, though – credit card, driving licence, passport… something like that. And full payment in advance, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  I was thinking hard now, thinking fast, trying to work out what to do. What could I use for ID? And what would the receptionist do with it? If I gave her a credit card, would she swipe it? And if she did, would Ryan find out? What if I used Ryan’s ID card? No, that was no good, it had his photograph on it. Kamal’s driving licence? No, that had a photo on it too. And, besides, who in their right mind would believe that I was called Kamal Ramachandran? What else could I use? My medical card, Ryan’s business card…?

  ‘It doesn’t matter if your credit card’s faulty,’ the receptionist said. ‘We’re only going to make a photocopy.’

  I smiled at her. I still wasn’t sure what to do, but I knew she’d start getting suspicious if I didn’t do something soon. So, still smiling, I took Ryan’s wallet out of my pocket, selected his Amex card, glanced briefly at the signature on the back, then passed it over.

  The receptionist barely looked at the card. She just smiled at me, made a quick photocopy, then gave it back.

  The rest was easy. She pressed buttons on her keyboard, gave me a form to fill out and sign – Ryan’s signature was just a scrawl – then she took my cash, and that was it.

  Room 624. Sixth floor.

  Through the doors, down the corridor, the lift’s on your left.

  Thank you, Mr Ryan.

  Thank you.

  It was a small room – single bed, cupboards, TV and VCR, bathroom. I locked the door behind me and dropped my bags on the bed. I went over to the window, pulled back the edge of the curtain and looked outside. I was at the back of the hotel. All I could see was a plain brick wall and the rear of the kitchens down below. I turned on the TV, clicked through the channels, then turned it off. I went into the bathroom, looked around, took a glass tumbler from a shelf over the sink, then came back out again. I sat down on the bed and put the tumbler on the bedside cabinet. There was a telephone on the cabinet. I stared at it for a while, imagining how simple it would be to just pick up the phone and press a few buttons…

  Hello?

  Bridget? It’s me, Robert –

  Robert! Where are you? What’s going on…?

  No. It wouldn’t be simple at all.

  I leaned across the bed and opened the cabinet drawer. Inside was a pad of writing paper, a hotel pen and a Bible. I took out the Bible and flipped through the pages, then put it back in the drawer.

  I knew I was just playing for time, putting off what had to be done. And I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer.

  It was time to think about it now.

  Right now.

  I emptied my pockets and tipped the contents of the rucksack and the briefcase on to the bed. Then I just sat there and stared at them, making myself see the bare truth of those things: X-rays, photographs, a videotape, scalpels, needles, syringes, papers, medical records, an automatic pistol, wallets, cash, clothes, vodka, chocolate bars, chicken, painkillers…

  It was an unthinkable collage.

  And I knew what I had to do.

  I picked up the glass tumbler and half filled it with vodka. The smell of it made me gag. I hate vodka. I hate alcohol. I hate the taste of it, the smell of it, how it makes you feel. I hate it.

  But it was necessary.

  I topped up the glass with Coke.

  Took two paracetamol.

  I drank, shuddered, and drank again.

  It was necessary.

  I started examining the items on the bed.

  The X-rays. Blurred images of bones and organs on a plastic film. X-rays. Normal, Casing had said. Normal. I held the X-rays up to the light and studied them, but they didn’t tell me anything. I didn’t know what I was looking at. I didn’t know what I was looking for. What does normal look like? I put the X-rays to one side and turned to the pile of papers.

  The papers. Photocopies of my appointment card and admittance record, my name and address, a few personal details on a handwritten sheet. Blank pages. Papers. Nothing about Ryan, nothing by Ryan. Nothing to tell me what had happened. I collected all the papers together and placed them on top of the X-rays.

  The medical records. Cramped handwriting on small white cards. I glanced through them, looking for anything unusual, but there was hardly anything there. In fact, apart from the details of my stomach problem, there was nothing there at all. No broken bones, no diseases, no ailments.

  Was that normal?

  I tried to remember if I’d ever been ill. I knew I’d had colds. Snuffles, sneezes, a cough. Colds and chills. But, no, I couldn’t remember anything serious. Nothing that needed medical attention.

  Nothing?

  Ever?

  Chickenpox, measles, mumps…?

  No.

  Nothing. Not as far as I could recall.

  Only bad dreams.

  I didn’t know what to think about that.

  I took another drink.

  Refilled the glass. Three parts vodka, one part Coke.

  The photographs. Black-and-white stills taken from the endoscopy video. Unclear images of unclear things. Strange things. Strange shapes. Cones, flecks, weird black chambers. Wiggles of white, curves, ridges, trails. Patterns. I didn’t know what I was looking at. There was no sense of dimension or direction. No reference points.

  Not yet.

  I stacked the photographs and placed them beside the videotape.

  Another drink.

  The pistol. It was matt-black, slightly oily, with a moulded grip, chunky little sights and seven vertical grooves gouged into the rear of the barrel. On the side, it said MADE IN AUSTRIA, and below that, GLOCK. It was a gun. A 9mm automatic pistol. I thumbed a little catch and the magazine slid out. I counted sixteen bullets. I replaced the magazine – snick – and hefted the gun in the palm of my hand.

  It felt solid and primed. Powerful.

  It felt like death.

  I placed the pistol on the left-hand side of the bed.

  Putting things in order. That’s what I was doing. I was picking things up, one by one, examining them, studying them, seeing what they told me. Then I was arranging them in separate piles on the bed. On the right, the stuff that told me nothing, the stuff I could get rid off. On the left, the stuff I needed to keep. And in the middle, right in front of me, the stuff I needed to look at.

  Order. Keep things in order.

  I liked to keep things in order.

  Chocolate bars, water, paracetamol – left. Map – left. Ryan’s wallet and penknife – left. Old clothes – right. Kamal’s wallet – left. Car keys – right. Cash – left. Photographs – middle. Video – middle…

  Left and right.

  Right and left.

  Middle, middle, middle.

  There was a carrier bag in the waste bin. I gathered all the stuff from the right-hand pile and packed it into the carrier bag, then I placed the carrier bag in the corner of the room. The pistol, the map, everything else from the left-hand pile, I put into the rucksack. Then I changed my mind
about the pistol, removed it from the rucksack and placed it on the bedside cabinet.

  What was left? Videotape, photographs, syringes, needles, scalpels.

  It was almost time.

  I put the endoscopy video in the VCR and sat on the bed with the remote in my hand. I drank more vodka and Coke. The alcohol was getting to me now, making me sick and numb and stupid. It was doing what it had to do.

  I stared at the blank television screen. Grey-green. My thumb hovered over the play button.

  Whatever you see, I said to myself, whatever’s there… there’s a thousand ways it won’t be you.

  I thought… don’t think.

  I drank some more… and pressed PLAY.

  The screen turned white, flickered, then cleared. On the screen, the endoscope was moving inside me like an electric eye. I was seeing things that I didn’t understand. Black things, grey things, blurred and formless. Then suddenly everything came into focus and I was seeing definable shapes. A tube, smooth as metal, smooth as plastic. Dulled silver-white, shining dark in the light of the eye. The walls of the tube were lined with tiny asymmetrical grids, like… like nothing I’d ever seen before. Intricate patterns of dots and lines, circles and waves. Fine hairs, like slender worms, moving to the flow of something invisible…

  PAUSE.

  It was too much to look at. Beautiful, terrifying, unfathomable. Sickening. The paused picture shimmered on the screen. It could have been anything: organic, manufactured, living… metal, plastic, carbon, flesh.

  It was me.

  It said so at the bottom of the screen: 281105SMITH-R1042ANDREWS.

  It was me.

  I rested my hand on my chest, feeling where my heart should be. How did it feel? It didn’t feel wrong. But how do you know how you’re supposed to feel?

  PLAY.

  The picture started up with a jerk and the electric eye moved on, crawling down through a thin gauzy membrane and out into the roof of some kind of chamber. For a second or two the camera light dimmed, and then – my God! – I was inside the body of a wondrous cavern. I was inside it, and it was inside me. The light of the eye turned slowly and I watched, breathless, as the inner structure was revealed. A sizeless space, shaped like a broad-shouldered bottle, with irregular walls of blackened leather. A cavern, rising and swirling with fantastic alien machineries: filaments, struts, crystals, ties, pillars, pipes, valves, ribbons, sheaths, valleys, tunnels, veins, countless glimmering particles…