by P. G. Burns
Raphael looks very proud. “Of course you did and you will get through the entire course and be the first Caucasian to graduate. Now, who is this young lady?” Raphael eyes Ember up and down.
In turn Ember is looking above Raphael’s head. He knows why and pauses, staring back at her intensely.
“This is my friend. She was dying to meet you actually, weren’t you?”
She doesn’t say anything at first, too busy staring at what looks like some sort of smoke cloud swirling around Raphael’s head. It forms the shape of a snake then disperses into a whirl of colours before reforming as a snake again. She catches Raphael’s eye and instantly knows not to mention it, then it seems to fade.
“I’m Ember Jones,” she says as they exchange long looks. Adam feels awkward.
Raphael takes her hand. “Holy moly, yes you are.” He turns to Adam but keeps one eye on Ember. “Can I ask, have you two a few minutes to spare?”
Adam looks to Ember. She is looking very strangely at Raphael, almost as if she has seen a ghost. He decides it’s best to take her home.
“Sorry, Raphael, Ember has to get home. I can come back though once I’ve walked her to the station.”
“No, I need to show you both something.”
Ember snaps out of her trance and holds her palm up as if to slow the conversation down.
“What is it you need to show us?” she says and Adam can feel her anxiety but wonders where it is coming from.
“I have a recording you will both be interested in. It’s very rare footage from the days before the Tribulation. It should help you in the thesis you have been set. It is actually an eye-witness account of the Verdi Revolution.”
Ember’s bewilderment at the swirl she saw above Raphael’s head is trumped by her excitement.
“Really? A recording from before the Solution? That’s rarer than android shit.”
“Indeed,” smiles Raphael.
Adam has not felt uncomfortable around Raphael before but something is not right. Also, how does Raphael even know about the thesis?
“I can come, but Ember’s got to go back to her sector,” he says. “It’s getting late and–”
Raphael interrupts. “She must come as well.”
Adam frowns. “Why so urgent? Can’t it wait ‘til another day??”
“No time like the present,” says Raphael. “I’ll give Miss Jones a ride home straight after.”
“Are you sure that’s okay? I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“I insist,” replies Raphael, smoothly taking her arm and leading her forwards.
Adam follows behind. Ember really badly wanted to meet Raphael and though Adam does trust him, she’d be cross with him for stopping her. Maybe he was being jealous; it was nice just the two of them. Raphael leads them to a Second World War army-style jeep sitting in a side car park and opens the doors.
“Who robbed the museum?” asks Ember.
“Don’t dis the Raf-mobile,” Raphael replies.
Ember laughs and looks at Adam. She raises her eyebrows and shakes her head with light-hearted disbelief, pleasantly surprised by Raphael’s humorous retort. They drive to a large, detached, derelict house hidden behind some corrugated fencing near an old railway line in an area left over from the old city of Adelaide. Raphael pushes the unlocked door open and the two youngsters follow him through a side door and up some exposed stairs inside the building. They walk through a maze of doorways and end up in a dimly lit room.
“I’m sorry to drag you both down here like this but when you turned up with Miss Jones here, I couldn’t miss this opportunity.”
Adam looks at Raphael in confusion. “What opportunity?
“I was confident you two would become friends,” mumbled Raphael. “But bringing her here so soon… I mean, holy moly!”
Adam is concerned as Raphael doesn’t seem his normal self, not that he was ever normal but this is different.
“What do you mean? How could you possibly know I would befriend Ember? What has this got to do with anything?”
Adam looks to Ember for support but she is staring at the sparse room that contains just two chairs around a low coffee table, a filing cabinet against a broken window and a curious black rectangle device with a matching black box.
“Is that an old-style plasma television and an early twenty-first-century Blu-ray device?” she asks in awe.
Raphael laughs. “You know your historic tech.”
Raphael goes over to the cabinet and pulls out a package. He turns to the teenagers and his eyes look a little manic. Sweat drips from his brow.
Ember finally shares a worried glance with Adam. Has she been stupid? She has just jumped in this man’s car minutes after meeting him. A man who on first sight seemed to have smoke billowing around his head and yet no one said anything about this. She is now in some derelict squat in a part of town that her father has warned her never to go to with a guy who looks like he’s on some serious drugs.
“Miss Jones, you look worried,” says Raphael. “I’m sorry, don’t be, you will understand in a minute.”
The tone in his voice relaxes Ember a little. Adam smiles at her and then turns to question Raphael. “What’s going on, Raphael? You seem a bit edgy.”
Raphael places a package onto the table. “Yes, sorry, it all must seem a bit strange but trust me, my mood is driven by excitement. You will not believe how long I have waited to open this.”
They all look down at a brown parcel no bigger than a book.
“What is it?” asks Adam.
“That is the last known correspondence from Shane Mills.” The two teens look at each other, Adam wide-eyed, his jaw on his chest. Ember’s raised eyebrows and slight shaking of her head expressed her scepticism.
“It is a recording he made over eighty years ago. Countless people have died protecting it, even though none have ever watched it. I have kept it for twenty years, hoping for this day.”
Ember is even more disbelieving now. Adam looks stunned. “Why hasn’t anyone watched it?” asks Ember. “Why would people die for something when they don’t even know what is on it? Plus if it’s authentic it would be priceless and highly illegal.”
“Oh, it’s authentic and they do know what’s on it, Miss Jones,” smiles Raphael. “The Truth! That is what’s on it. The reason no one has watched it is because it wasn’t for them.”
He pushes the wrapped parcel over to her. Ember picks it up and reads the faded writing on the front.
For the attention of Miss September Jones.
It is signed in the same handwriting.
Shane Mills
Stoke Prison, present day
“Hear a lot, see everything and say nothing.”
Since the events of his first day, Shane has had a comparatively quiet couple of months. Besides the two horizontal thugs, Errol and Bird, both of whom had been moved up to the high-security wing for some previous misdemeanours, he has not had issues with any inmates. Of course, the fact that he so easily dispatched the two most feared prisoners on the wing did not go unnoticed and all the lags give him the utmost respect: a type of respect that only comes from fear. But Shane has not exploited his new-found status and he has been just happy to be left alone. This has confused most of the others. In prison the toughest guys call the shots; they make the rules, they get all the benefits and extras. But Shane is not interested in becoming the daddy; he just reads his books and has kept his head down. An unlikely friendship with the old Jew he had rescued from the pair of would-be assassins is something else that puzzles the inmates. These two have become strange cell-mates, competing in daily chess matches and whiling away the hours in conversation.
Shane sets up the chess board as he waits for Leo to join him. He has learned some fascinating facts about the old man over the last couple of months. Leo Verdi was the personal accountant assigned to Pope Benedict XVI. Shane feels Leo is still sussing him out before he is prepared to confide in him why he would break into a jewell
er’s shop then wait patiently for the police to arrive, only to assault a young officer. Leo also avoids the issue of why he left the Vatican twenty-four hours before the Pope announced his retirement. Although Leo is shy when it comes to relaying information he certainly is not averse to asking questions. Shane gets the feeling that Leo is in some way interviewing him but for what he has no idea. Every game of chess turns into an inquisition. How? What? Where? Who? It is unrelenting. Yet strangely, Shane doesn’t mind. He likes Leo and more importantly he trusts him. Shane has nothing to hide and although he’s usually uncomfortable discussing his past, he eventually opens up to Leo, telling him all about his upbringing on the notorious Ballymun estate in Dublin and about his drug-addled mother who attempted to raise Shane and his baby sister Chloe.
To say his childhood was traumatic would be a gross understatement. His mother, Ainne, was addicted to heroin long before Shane was born and for a long time after. At first she managed to balance her addiction and live a comparatively normal existence but when Shane was three years old his sobbing mummy held him and told him, “Ya da has died. He’s been killed.”
His father, Tommy Mills, a well-known tough guy from north Dublin, was shot dead in a row over a missing car. On reflection, Shane lost both his parents that day. Without Tommy’s income to feed Shane and more importantly her own drug habit, Ainne resorted to selling her body and with it, her soul.
Of course at such a young age Shane was not really aware of his mum’s addiction or the trade she plied to pay for it. He was under the impression she was just poorly and had a lot of male friends. Ainne loved her little boy, and she would never have introduced Patrick O’Hagan into the family unit had she any indication of his schizophrenic personality. Patrick started out as a just another punter. Then after a couple of months he moved in with Ainne and Shane. It didn’t take long before Ainne fell pregnant and within a year of Patrick moving in, Chloe was born. Shane didn’t remember any trouble before Chloe was born but soon after her birth the relationship between his mum and Patrick became very volatile. Patrick would kick her out to earn money and then kick her head in for the way she earned it.
It seemed to Shane that every night he would be woken by his mum’s screams as she and Patrick fought. He would wake up and go straight to Chloe, his beautiful little sister who Shane felt an overwhelming obligation to protect. She was a little bundle that would cry and cry unless her big brother held her and sang to her. She had big rosy cheeks and, although unkempt and often mucky, her cuteness shone through. Always either smiling or crying, she was a ‘mischievous wee skitter’ as their neighbour Fat Beryl described her.
By the time he was eight Shane was aware that his mother was a junkie and a whore: he just wasn’t sure what that meant. Patrick was not a drug addict. His weakness was alcohol and when he had a lot he liked to believe he was either Elvis or Bruce Lee. Shane preferred his Elvis impersonation as the Bruce Lee one usually ended up with Shane being punched unconscious. Patrick completely ignored Chloe, and Ainne was generally either working or out of her head so Shane would change, feed and bath his little sister. Looking back, they were the happiest times of his childhood. Patrick would be unconscious from a late-night binge and Ainne would be shooting up before midday so that left Shane and Chloe safe and together.
Shane was a very extroverted and chatty little boy, always mucky like his sister and wearing hand-me-downs from people on the estate. They looked like they had walked out of an old war orphans photo. Everyone on the estate knew them and commented on how good Shane was with his little sister. Together they would spend most of the day out on the estate with Shane shoplifting any of the things he thought his sister needed. He would take her around to Fat Beryl’s, the local matriarch, who would let him hang out and get warm. Beryl knew Shane and his sister’s situation but still Shane would tell her, “Me Ma’s not well so school have given me time off. She will be better soon.”
As Shane told these stories in prison, Leo’s eyes would widen in horror and pity but he really was a happy child back then, who loved looking after his baby sister.
It was two days before Chloe’s third birthday that it all went wrong. Shane had nicked a small doll from the toy shop and was looking forward to seeing Chloe’s face when he gave it to her. The two of them left Fat Beryl’s at around 18:00. She had given Shane some tea and he had fed Chloe. They entered the lift, which took them up to their seventh-floor flat but as Shane pushed the buggy out Chloe had cried, “Don’t want to go home.”
Shane understood what she meant; he always dreaded going home and just prayed his mum was straight and that Patrick was out in some pub. But on this day his mum was far from straight and Patrick was home and extremely drunk, even for him. Shane entered the flat and put Chloe safely into her room then sat on the torn settee praying that Patrick was Elvis tonight. He could hear him shouting at his mum.
“You fucking whore, you spent all the money on that shit.”
The sound of Patrick slapping his mum no longer startled him. However, this was particularly loud and he seemed to be smashing the room up as well. After what could have been half an hour of screaming and smashing, the room went silent. Ten minutes later Patrick came out wearing his tracky bottoms and Ainne’s kimono-style dressing gown. The bandanna wrapped around his head confirmed that tonight he was Bruce Lee.
To see this man mimic Bruce Lee would be funny for an outside observer. He would mouth words then say them in a terrible attempt at a Chinese accent. Then he would go through his efforts at martial arts patterns, which bore no resemblance to any real kung fu. Most the time he would fall over as he tried his version of the crane or the crouching tiger. Regularly he would use Shane as his punch bag. “Here, stand up, ya wee cunt, ya.” Luckily Patrick was usually too pissed to actually hit him. When he did though, it was a fully grown man hitting a child and Shane had been knocked unconscious more times than he could remember. Still, not once did he cry or show the bastard any fear.
On that particular day, Shane thought he might have escaped the punches and kicks as Patrick seemed even less lucid than normal and not very interested in their usual “game”. Instead he mumbled something under his breath and then went back into the bedroom. Shane didn’t know if he should sit back down. Was it over? Unfortunately it wasn’t. Patrick leaped out of the room shouting his version of Bruce Lee’s war cry, “aaaaayaaaay”, with some recently purchased nun-chucks. Shane thought of running out of the flat but that would have meant leaving Chloe. He stood there as the sticks whistled past his head.
“Stop fucking moving, I won’t hit you, I’m a fucking master,” Patrick reassured him.
Shane closed his eyes and prepared for the pain of the blunt sticks hitting him.
“Stop it! Leave Shaney alone! Stop you, stop, bad daddy!”
Shane immediately opened his eyes and panic swept over him. Chloe had got out of her room and was standing in front of Patrick, scolding her daddy. Shane had told Chloe never to get out of bed when Patrick was “playing”. He looked at Patrick and saw what was coming. Shane froze as Patrick quickly turned and smashed the heavy wooden staffs down on Chloe’s head, caving in her tiny fragile skull. Everything happened in slow motion in Shane’s eyes. He watched, frozen to the spot as Chloe’s head crumpled, blood spurting from a wound, reddening her beautiful blonde locks. A loud crack followed as her skull smashed against a hard wooden table and then her tiny lifeless body flopped, her eyes still open, staring into Shane’s, holding him in a trance. He snapped out of this state when he heard Patrick scream out a crazed warrior cry. He looked at him, no longer scared, just numb. Patrick dropped the stick and grabbed his jacket and ran out the door. Shane collapsed next to his sister as all emotion flooded from his body. He had held his breath, unable to function but eventually he had to let the air enter his body. His lungs filled, followed by a scream and then a heart-wrenching cry. His mother did not move, he could see her through the open door staring up at
the ceiling. Shane shook his baby sister gently.
“Wake up, Chloe, he’s gone now, wake up, WAKE UP!”
Paranoid schizophrenia, that’s what people said Patrick was suffering from. “He is delusional, he is very ill.” All Shane knew was his beautiful little sister was dead. Shane was taken into care and moved around several foster families in Ireland. All of them reported the same thing: “Shane was very introverted and showed no interest in any activities”. He spoke very little. After a year of moving from pillar to post Ainne’s sister Maggie was granted custody. Maggie was a single parent, living on the dole in England. She would not be most people’s choice for mum of the year but to Shane she was an angel. He only had his mother to compare her to and the fact she cooked dinners, cleaned his clothes and hugged him at night was enough to give her this status. Maggie’s house was on a notorious council estate south of Manchester. She managed to get Shane into the local school and informed the headmaster of Shane’s troubled past. With an Irish accent in an English school and in second-hand clothes, it didn’t take long for some of the other boys to start picking on Shane. John Edwards was two years older than Shane and he was the school’s worst bully. His family were well-known criminals but when he heard that Shane’s mum was a brass he couldn’t help but take his opportunity to inflict pain on a young pupil.
“Oi, pikey, I hear your mum’s a slapper, ten pound for a blow job.”
John had mimicked what he thought a blow job looked like and the four lads with him had laughed.
Shane had been at the school for four weeks. He had said no more than ten words in all that time. His only interaction with any of the kids was asking where the toilet was on his first day but he was about to interact for a second time.
Every bit of pain and frustration that Shane had suffered over the last twelve months went into the punches that pummelled John Edwards unconscious. The school headmaster said he was shocked that such levels of violence could come from someone so young. Shane had found an outlet for his anger and frustration.
