I can see why you like this stuff, Lee said above the racket.
Like what?
This morphine, or whatever it is.
Wild snorted. Like is not a word I would use to describe my particular relationship with narcotics.
Love, then.
I wish.
Well. It takes away pain.
It’s a trade-off, really—one form of pain for another. At least with this I have the illusion of control. And he corralled the boxes of syringes and drugs to his side, as if they were kittens roaming into danger. From a coat pocket, he produced a packet of jelly babies and proceeded to pop them into his mouth, one by one.
Lee watched him, still unsure why he should trust this man, whether he was a doctor at all. Relaxed but nauseous, he remained where he was on the floor, lulled by the sound and movement, happy to abandon himself to the rhythm. He imagined the blur of tracks and sleepers whizzing below.
Wild cleared his throat. Can I ask you a question?
I guess so.
How do you handle them—him? How do you handle him?
Josef? I don’t plan to have to handle him at all—
There was the Gatling-gun rattle of a warning bell as they passed a railway crossing, a glimpse of red flashing light. Wild seemed suddenly shy. No. Not that.
Who then?
How do you handle the . . . dead?
Lee licked his dry and flaking lips. He felt untethered, miles from anywhere. What?
That person you killed, Wild yelled above the noise. They make demands. I was wondering how, you know . . .
Lee stared at Wild, uncomprehending. Was it a trick question? He recalled something Marcel had said to him when they first met six months ago. You know what? Marcel had said. The way people like us survive is that nobody really believes we exist. They go to the movies or read something in the paper, but they don’t really think it’s the truth. Or maybe they do but only in the—what’s the word?—abstract way. Not that the man on the bus is, you know, a hoodlum. Like a ghost. You got to be a bit like a ghost. Some people swear they seen one, there’s stuff about them, books and what-have-you, but nobody knows for sure, right?
And Lee recalled the low, orange light of the apartment, the way Marcel perched on the edge of his blue sofa in a grey cardigan and scuffed shoes. He remembered Marcel’s grandfatherly smell of mothballs and hair tonic and the way Josef stood nearby sucking at his tooth. And Lee also remembered how, afterwards, on stepping into the damp street, he had stood by a redbrick wall and trembled with something utterly mysterious, a feeling he now recognised as a presentiment of regret, as if he knew more at the time than he allowed himself.
He watched Wild hunting through his bag of sweets. The guy was always eating. What would you know? Look at you, stuffing your face like a fucking kid. What would you know about anything? You don’t know anything.
Wild looked up with unfocused eyes. He made a sound as if he intended to answer, but instead just muttered into his beard. His face sagged and he returned again to his lollies. Lee wanted to say something more, but failed to locate the words, or even the reason to utter them. He watched as Wild turned away and scrabbled among his boxes, probably preparing another hit. Great, he thought. The old guy is going to OD on me in the middle of nowhere. He sat up and pressed his eye to a crack in the carriage wall. The train rollicked through the vast night, taking them wherever it was taking them. Even in the darkness, he could see the passing countryside was flat, relieved only by shallow topographical bruises and the occasional scarecrow army of power poles striding across fields with their cables. Halfway to the horizon, the blurred lights of buildings clustered like punctuation marks adrift on the landscape. What did Wild say before? God doesn’t have a clue where we’re going.
15
Wild knew not all darknesses were the same. Some were more complete than others, more shapely, larger or denser or more complicated than they first appeared. Some darknesses were familiar and others not so easy to identify.
The train had come to a halt at some point during the night. He had been aware for a while that they were no longer moving and had been trying to ignore the cold that had seeped through his coat and trousers and riffled through his ageing bones. Finally, he could no longer pretend. He opened his eyes. His head felt as if it had been stuffed with things as he slept. The dope, he thought, as he rubbed grit from his cheek and sat up. His back hurt from having slept on the hard floor of the train carriage and he shook out one hand to relieve the blush of pins and needles. His face felt like an unmade bed. The door of the carriage was ajar and a sallow dawn glow spilled in. He could hear birds. It was a thinning darkness, then. Morning. A new day, in fact.
Lee was beginning to stir. At least he was still alive. Perhaps he was tougher than he gave him credit for. He wasn’t sure if this was a good thing. Wild nodded. Good morning.
Lee grunted. He looked emptied of colour and bulk and the skin of his face was papery, as if mere wrapping for the real face beneath. A smudge of dried blood below one eye and his scarecrow hair. The suit he’d stolen from the crash gathered in bulky folds around his scrawny frame.
Wild crawled over to the part-open door and peered out, careful to remain hidden should there be anyone outside. He inhaled the crackling morning air and the sharp, watery smell of fog. The milky sky was lightening as the sun rose behind a stand of distant trees bordering the railway tracks.
Are we there? Lee asked. His voice was a croak.
Wild looked around for anything he might recognise. The railway yard was sort of familiar but it was hard to tell. He nodded anyway. How are you?
Lee shrugged and held his stomach. I feel like shit, he said and winced as he sat up.
Wild stuck his head out a little further. No signs of life, just train carriages and half-lit signal boxes. The shine of rainwater and the twitter of birds.
Lee brushed past him and sat on the lip of the carriage before lowering himself to the ground with a soft grunt. Can you watch my suitcase? I got to piss. And he staggered off behind a carriage before Wild could say anything.
Wild scratched his neck and rubbed at his nose. His skin always itchy because of the morphine. He could do with another hit, but he should wait until they got away from here. They might actually make it. Just need to stay alert for a little while longer. Beneath his clothes, his skin felt like cardboard. He crouched in the shadows and patted dust from his coat and trousers and combed his unruly hair with his fingers. His feet were blistered and cramped, still jammed into shoes without socks. There was water in his shoes and he knew that later his toes would resemble bruised sea sponges waggling uselessly at the ends of his feet. I’m like some bloody Dickensian bum, he thought. Gobspittle or Farnwarkle or something. All he needed to complete the picture was a grubby kerchief about his neck.
He wondered how Sherman would receive him after all this time and smiled at the thought of his old friend’s unflappable mask almost dissolving in surprise before managing to reassemble itself. Yes, ah . . . well, hello and what do we have here, if I need ask at all? There is nothing that can’t be solved, although you seem bent on proving that one wrong. You know, Wild, I was just saying to Jane the other day . . . The way he would clasp Wild above the elbow and divert him so blandly that Wild would be under the impression that in fact it was he who was leading; how he would encourage another mouthful of barley soup; his dry and tuneless hum, like leaves across a wooden floor.
It must be three years since he had visited Sherman. A few months before the ‘incident’. As always that momentary certainty that this time it would all be different; the intention to get off drugs was always like a bet with his darker self. They had talked on the verandah late into the evening, batting moths and mosquitoes from their faces. Wild remembered the glint of Sherman’s oval glasses and the way the old man sat forward slightly in his chair, never quite looking at you but concentrating nonetheless, hearing everything, waiting for his turn to speak. Grey-haired, patient, forgiving. And Jane’s ex
hausted shrug earlier in the afternoon, how she had turned away at the moment of farewell so that when Wild had leaned in to kiss her, he caught instead the ridge of her ear across his lips. Cartilage, the soft straw of her hair, and she was gone down the dusty driveway.
Wild heard Lee outside crunching over stones and turned to face the glare of a torch. He stepped back, stumbled.
Right, said an unfamiliar voice. What we got here?
Wild shielded his eyes with one arm. What? The torch still bright in his face.
Step out of there, will you, sir?
What? Who are you?
Are you armed?
What? No. Who are you?
Step out of the carriage, sir. This is private property here. Come on, now. No need for a fuss.
Wild paused, then did as he was told. Once outside he could see that it was a doughy railway guard, squeezed into a grey uniform. At least it wasn’t the real police. He blinked in the dawn light and the guard again flashed the torch in his face. Hey. Stop that, will you?
The guard had one hand hovering over his black belt hung with keys and various sinister-looking implements, even a gun. Now sir, the guard asked as he allowed the torch to play over the rest of Wild’s body, are you armed?
The whole torch thing seemed a little unnecessary, considering the sun was almost up.
Armed? Don’t be ridiculous.
The guard was in his twenties, with a pink and shiny face. Probably the chubby kid always picked last for the cricket team, getting his revenge at last. He told Wild to stand with his hands resting on the railway carriage, legs apart.
You want me to do what?
I told you, sir, just turn around.
Wild wondered if he could make a run for it. He wasn’t in great shape but this guard didn’t look too quick on his feet. He ran a hand through his hair.
As if gauging his thoughts, the guard reached for his holstered gun. Come on, sir. Don’t make me use force here.
Wild threw up his hands and turned around to face the carriage. OK.
The metal carriage floor was cold in his palms. Where was Lee? Presumably he’d reappear any minute. Did he take his gun? Were there other guards? This was bad, really bad. And when he was so close.
The guard frisked him and told him to stay as he was, bent in half with his hands on the lip of the carriage floor. Wild could hear the guard’s laboured breathing, as he played his torchlight through the dim carriage. If I were his doctor, Wild thought, I’d be telling him to lay off the doughnuts and fried eggs.
That your suitcase?
Wild stiffened. Um. Yes. But there’s only clothes and things in it.
What kinds of things, sir?
Oh, you know, thousands of dollars in cash, diamonds, that sort of thing.
The guard wheezed. What about that other stuff? What is that, medical stuff?
Wild cleared his throat. I don’t know. That was here when I got in.
Right. So you admit to travelling on railway property without a ticket? Trespassing?
Wild said nothing, just stared at the stones beneath his feet. He felt sick. Where the hell was Lee?
Right. What else? Potatoes, is it?
What? Yeah, I think so. Potatoes.
The guard peered again into the carriage, probing his torch beam into the corners and across the ceiling. You alone, then?
Yes. Of course.
Why, of course?
Wild shrugged.
Because in my experience, you blokes often travel in pairs. You’re not covering for any buddies, are you? Because—
No.
You sure? Because if you are, you’ll be in even more strife than now. And with that the guard stepped back. You stay there, sir, right where you are.
He listened as the guard crunched back and forth, poking his torch under the carriage and apparently making notes in a small book. Stay calm, he told himself. Stay calm, stay calm. Already he could feel addiction’s great hidden engine kicking into gear; the low anxiety of withdrawal.
He wiggled his toes in his battered shoes to warm them. The guard then stopped behind him and fiddled with something on his belt. Where the hell was Lee?
Then the guard took one of Wild’s arms, his right arm, swung it up his back, jerked him upright and took the other arm around the wrist. And it was like his body remembered something before his mind because his body clenched even as he was thinking: Why is this action so familiar, this discomfort, this thrashing heart? And it was only upon feeling the shameful cinch and ratchet hiss that he knew. Handcuffs. He struggled and nearly lost his balance on the rocky ground as he swung around to face the fat guard. What the hell are you doing, you fool?
Always got to cuff vagrants, the guard said, noting something in his book before snapping it shut and jamming into a shirt pocket.
What?
Vagrants. Going to have to charge you with trespass. Can’t just go around travelling for free, you know. And he produced a padlock and began to close the carriage door.
But what about my stuff? My . . . clothes? You can’t lock them in there.
The guard hooked his torch onto his belt, where it jangled against a massive ring of keys, then put his hands on his hips. His nose whistled like a tiny kettle. Well, I can, actually. He stared at Wild for a second before reopening the carriage door and reaching in to retrieve the suitcase. A corner of it snagged on something. He had to jerk it loose before hugging it to his chest and securing the carriage with the padlock. He took Wild by the upper arm, the way they do. OK. Let’s go.
Do we need the handcuffs? Come on, it’s not like I really did anything wrong . . .
But the guard ignored his pleas and led him away, explaining the intricacies of the Trespass Act as they passed between other trains huddled in the thinning fog.
Wild walked mostly with his head down. With his hands cuffed behind him, it was difficult to balance and he stumbled on the uneven stones. His feet were like bricks.
After several minutes they arrived at a guardhouse perched amidst the knot of railway tracks and jumble of carriages and signal boxes. It was just a small, wooden cabin with smoke unravelling from its thin flue. A square window glowed.
At least it was warm inside. The guard sat Wild on a wooden chair while he slung the suitcase to the floor, removed his own coat and stamped water from his shoes. He shoved a piece of wood into a potbellied stove.
Is this really necessary? Wild asked.
Yep. We take this pretty serious, even if you don’t. Always got to prosecute vagrants.
Oh, come on. Vagrants! What is this, the Depression? I’m a doctor, not a vagrant.
Yeah. You look like a doctor. Living the high life, riding on freight trains and that. Wearing such nice clothes. You must think I’m stupid or something. My uncle’s a doctor, I meet a lot of doctors, I know what a doctor looks like. Not you. Not a bit like you. Now you got some ID? You got a wallet or something?
Wild shook his head and looked around the cabin. The place possessed an earthy smell of coffee and wood smoke and boredom. A narrow iron bed squatted behind the door. Several coy pin-ups were tacked to the wall immediately above, along with a postcard from a seaside resort. Tins of food and packets of rice.
But the fat guard wasn’t to be put off and began going through Wild’s pockets, despite his squirming, finally holding his wallet aloft like a trophy. OK. Now I’m going to check your identification here so we know who we’re dealing with. I presume you got a driver’s licence or something?
Wild said nothing as the guard fingered his wallet. He didn’t know what he could possibly say. His bones were becoming soft and sagging under the weight of his body.
The guard produced a photograph. This your wife?
Show me.
The guard flipped the small square in his chubby fingers.
It was one they had taken in a photo booth in London, Jane sitting on his lap, bedraggled, all smiles, the romance of foreign cities. He didn’t like the idea of her in this idiot�
�s clammy grasp. Yes, he said. That’s my wife.
Nice picture. Daughter?
Yes.
How old?
Alice. Fifteen.
The guard clomped about behind him but Wild ceased paying attention. His skin was singing and his nose was beginning to run. He sneezed. His coat was bunched in awkward places about his body; under one arm, at his neck. Behind him, the guard was making a phone call, talking softly and hmming to himself. Wild writhed sideways on the chair. He wondered if he could ram this fat guard, run at him or something and get away from here. Was he capable of that? Had he at last become that kind of man?
But then the guard was back, walking about the tiny cabin with a ridiculously proprietary air. Well. Seems you’re a wanted man, but I guess I don’t need to tell you that, do I?
And it felt to Wild that something clanged shut inside him, almost audible. He sneezed again and wiped his nose on his shoulder, leaving a shiny trail. The guard blinked, slowly, with his girlish lashes. Or is it blunk? Wild thought. Why isn’t it blunk or blank? The guard blunk.
Anyway. Police’ll be here soon and take you back to court or whatever.
Wild stared at the little prick. Fat little prick.
Yeah. They were quite interested, as a matter of fact.
How long?
What?
Until the police get here?
The guard shrugged and set about making coffee, placing a small pot on the cast-iron stove. He fetched two cups, milk and sugar, and cleared a newspaper from the table before sitting opposite. He picked up the bottle of milk and sniffed it. So, he asked with a particular concentration, who’d you kill?
Wild looked away and tried to maintain his composure. The fire crackled beside him. Suddenly hot, he wanted desperately to shed his heavy coat. Like a dead seal over him. Like a freshly killed seal, it was. Sweat ran down his face. The guard was enjoying this, making the most of the situation. Wild writhed and the chair barked on the wooden floor. But he said nothing.
The coffee came to the boil and the guard poured them each a cup and added milk and sugar.
Wild rattled his handcuffs behind him. How am I going to drink it?
The Low Road Page 11
