It was more of a general store than an off-licence. It sold everything, all day. Thanks to the nearby student housing it concentrated on cigarette papers and cider but there were also shelves of videos to rent, racks of paperbacks, toiletries, fresh vegetables and spices. It didn’t have opening hours because it didn’t close. It was open all hours, forever.
I bought twelve cans of cheap strong lager and a few bags of crisps. They did a line in crisps with strange flavours – hedgehog, roast parsnip, seafood medley – and I tried to get a good varied selection. Dermot always wanted to try the weirdest flavours.
‘Check them out,’ he’d say. ‘Dandelion and cowslip. Cajun catfish! Just try these.’
The assistant put everything into a bag very slowly. He operated the till as though he’d never seen one before, and puzzled over the change.
‘Thanks,’ I said. He ignored me. He was on a different wavelength, not quite aligned with the human world.
As I left the off-licence I saw a car sneak across the junction down by the ex-cinemas. The traffic lights down there were on red, as usual. The car ignored the lights and drove quickly across the junction, heading up past the entrance to the zoo. There wasn’t much other traffic. I was reminded of Dermot demonstrating his new set of pedals.
The car continued on up the road. It was a strange colour, a bright sunburst orange that hadn’t been seen on cars since seventies US cop shows. It didn’t look right. It was reflecting streetlights where there weren’t streetlights. It had a number plate but there were no real letters or numbers, just that squiggle that lazy cartoonists use to represent writing. The windscreen was a flat grey panel.
It wasn’t any particular make of car. It was just a car, vaguely sporty. It didn’t sound like a car. It sounded like a bee in a jar. The wheels weren’t turning. It had no windscreen wipers.
I realized that I was picking up all of these details because it was heading towards me. It was aimed at me, and it was going to run me down if I didn’t move. It crossed a lane and drove through a couple of real cars without anyone else noticing. I knew it was after me. There was no other reason for it to be there. I knew it wasn’t real, but I didn’t want it driving into me. I didn’t know what might happen. I ran towards the bus station, where cars weren’t allowed.
I wasn’t thinking straight, but I did know that if you’re chased by a car you should get off the road. In films, people being chased by cars run down the white lines.
I ran up the wide flight of stone stairs that led to the bus terminus. From there I’d be able to loop back to the High Street and get home. It wasn’t going to be able to drive upstairs to my flat. It’d have a hard time getting to me now, I thought.
The car came right on after me. It simply drove up the stairs. It didn’t bother with real-world physics. It let out a couple of badly animated showers of sparks as it scraped against the wall of the public toilet and then did an impossible turn and faced me. The stairs hadn’t even slowed it down.
The bus terminus has long stands for people to wait in while the buses make their weary way home. They’re long tunnels of Perspex and green tubular metal, with far fewer seats than prospective passengers. For most of the time they’re occupied by the living dead, who can’t drive. At that time of night there were only a few people, standing glumly, waiting for amusement.
Because the car was my own private hallucination and none of them could see it, they got the fun of watching me run from side to side down the length of the central stand, leaping over barriers and looking behind me in panic at nothing. I dodged sideways into another stand and ran across the road and around the corner onto the High Street. The amplified angry-mosquito sound of the pursuing motor followed me. I ran past the Asian girls, who stopped comparing mobiles to watch me run past. I didn’t do a lot of running. Computer programming involves sitting still. Some programmers thought that was too energetic, and slouched. There wasn’t much physical exercise involved except for typing. Clive didn’t even do much of that, he had keystroke macros recorded for words he used a lot – loop, while, exception – and got by on shortcuts.
The illusory car pursued me, following me wherever I dodged, maintaining enough speed to keep me running.
I ran in and out of the empty market stalls, did a quick semicircle around the statue of Duncan Edwards and got through my front door just ahead of the tinny whine of the car. I raced up one flight of stairs and looked around. The car had come into the hallway, going through the front door without in any way affecting it. It had got itself stuck, not having room to exist. The space was too small and the car was having trouble sorting out its co-ordinates. It tried to squeeze into the available space but it was loosing integrity. It couldn’t fit into that amount of reality. It exploded into separate polygons, and vanished.
I took the shopping upstairs.
II
Dermot was still trying out his pedals.
‘Let’s have a drink then,’ he said. ‘You’re breathing a lot there mate. Those stairs getting too much for you are they? Shall we get you a bungalow instead?’
I passed him a can. I didn’t want to tell him what had happened.
He opened the can and of course it covered him, the chair, and a good part of the room with spray.
‘Have you had this in the spin dryer?’ he asked. ‘Look at that, I’ve missed the time bonus now. And I’ll reek of fucking beer all night. What’s wrong with you?’
He had turned away from the screen for a moment. Something about the way I looked was unsettling him. I imagined that I looked quite shocked. I certainly felt it.
‘You’re the whitest person I’ve ever seen,’ he said. ‘What happened to you? Muggers? Terrorists? Dinosaurs?’ He looked out of the window. ‘Those girls down there was it? Did they call you something naughty? I could go and give them a slap.’
I sat in a chair.
‘I was chased by a car,’ I said. I sounded very calm, all things considered.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well what did you do to it? Cross in front of it or something?’
‘No. It just chased me. It nearly hit me.’
He let go of his steering wheel. I had his full attention, although knowing him I wouldn’t have it for long.
‘Where did it happen?’
‘All the way home.’
‘What, you outran it? What was it, a fucking milk float?’
I didn’t answer him because my lower lip had started to quake. I tried to open a can but the ring-pull was too difficult for me. I wasn’t very calm after all. Dermot took it from me, opened it, said ‘fuck’ as the spray drenched him all over again, and handed me what was left.
‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘Sit quietly. You’re in shock. You need brandy. Do we have brandy in the building?’
I shook my head. He’d finished the brandy off months ago, along with all of the other spirits.
‘Well I’m not going and buying any, there’s a mad fucker out there running down innocent pedestrians. Oh look, it’s smiling. We have a connection with Mr. Aston. What make was it?’
I shook my head.
‘He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know one car from another. Well what colour was it?’
‘Orange.’
‘What? No one has an orange car mate. At least the witnesses will have noticed it. Did you clock the number plate?’
‘It had one but there was nothing on it. There were no numbers on it. And no one else saw it.’
‘Are you shitting me here? What was it, the fucking mystery car? It came from nowhere, did something or other and then fucked off? All unseen by human eye? What happened to it?’
‘It followed me into the hall downstairs and then it exploded.’
He sat back. He had developed a wary look.
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I heard that. I remember wondering what it was. That had slipped my mind. Is your telephone working?’
‘It wasn’t real,’ I said. ‘I’m not mad.
It was a hallucination. I know that, but it doesn’t help. I imagined it, but it felt real. That’s why you didn’t hear anything.’
‘Right, that’s not mad. That’s normal. What do you mean, it was a hallucination? What the fuck are you on? And why didn’t I get any of it?’
‘I’m not on anything. I had another one a few weeks ago.’
I told him about the non-specific video-game bint who had flown in through my window spraying the room with bullets.
‘She was the same,’ I told Dermot. ‘She was a video-game thing. I thought I’d been playing too many games too much of the time and I gave it a rest for a few days. Spent quality time with the real world, started on a new idea for a game myself. Then this car turns up and chases me home.’
‘Have you seen anyone?’
‘Only the girl with the guns.’
‘No, have you seen anyone medical? Have you sought medical attention for your condition?’
‘Not yet. I thought it might just be that one time. I’d been working a lot and I was tired.’
‘Well I think you should see someone. You have a doctor?’
‘I used to. When I was little.’
‘Well you need one now you’re all grown up. Fucking hell, you could have a brain tumour or something. Did you used to get a lot of burgers from Scratto or anything? Any of those big bags of minced hooves they do in there?’
I shook my head.
‘You’re not being very comforting,’ I told him.
‘Well I’m not a fucking nurse, am I? You had a burger off me a few years ago. I told you not to. I warned you about it. Don’t eat the burger, I said. Did you eat many burgers?’
Of course I did. I was a computer programmer. Convenience food was convenient. Of course, British fast food joints had never got the hang of ‘fast’, or indeed ‘food’. There would always be a queue waiting while the dazed staff warmed up more roundels of mashed livestock.
‘It’s just a couple of hallucinations,’ I said. ‘Everyone gets those.’
‘Everyone at fucking Woodstock, maybe. The rest of us mostly get by without them. You need to see someone. You might be right, too much time staring at the screen, not enough sleep. You might be wrong, your brain could be melting or your eyes could be going mad. Best to do something about it now, before it gets any worse.’
‘I’ll go to the doctor.’
‘Good man. And don’t worry about it. I’m sure they can fix it, whatever it is. Now, pass another can.’
III
I didn’t know how you went about getting to see a doctor. They were protected by receptionists who didn’t want to let you into the practice. I looked in the Yellow Pages and that got me nowhere. The numbers I called rang out unanswered, when they weren’t engaged.
The next day at work, I asked Tracy. She would know. She knew everything.
‘I can get you an appointment,’ she said. ‘My ex-husband’s sister is a receptionist at the Keys Place clinic, she’ll get you in. Will this afternoon do? They’re usually full but she can get someone else moved, they only ever have colds. They only go in to get doctors’ notes.’
I said that would be fine, and spent the rest of the morning working on my artificial intelligence project, which was showing no signs of intelligence at all. I’d christened it Boris.
I’d have to draw up an execution plan for him. That’d tell the code what order to do things in, and where its priorities lay. Without a good execution plan, it’s difficult to write decent software. I hardly ever used them. Perhaps if I did, I’d be able to move somewhere nicer one day.
I told Clive that I had an appointment at the doctors that afternoon and he told me to take all the time I needed. I’d been hoping that he wouldn’t let me go. Going to the doctor might only confirm that my brain was turning into Swiss cheese and that I’d be spending the first half of the year walking backwards and talking to people who weren’t there, and the second half in a coma as my systems shut down.
Perhaps it would be better not to know something like that.
At one thirty I saved everything, powered down the PC, and left.
I felt as though I was going to my own execution.
EIGHT
I
The Keys Place clinic had been built in the early sixties in an attempt to cater for the increasing population of the Dudley area. More and more people were moving to Dudley, for no good reason. The people already there were breeding like rabbits because there was little else to do that didn’t involve going down a mine shaft. The existing medical practices soon were overrun with people with measles, colds and warts.
In an attempt to reverse the spread of unsightly disorders, the Health Authority reluctantly stumped up the cash for Keys Place. It was build with that sixties flair for characterless cuboid concrete constructions, and it sat next to the Broken Egg café until the Broken Egg was demolished in 1970 along with the surrounding streets. The area was unsafe due to mine workings. After that, Keys Place clinic stood by itself, a mile out of town, with nothing else nearby. It couldn’t be demolished because it couldn’t be replaced.
On the plus side, it was easy to park nearby.
I looked at the clinic. It didn’t cheer me up. The concrete was grey under the soot. The windows were narrow and barred. A security camera watched the world. It looked more like a correctional facility than anything medical. It looked like a castle. A door with powerful springs holding it closed led into the clinic.
Inside, after battling the door, I found myself in a small anteroom. Another door led on, but it was locked. A handwritten faded note was taped to the door.
‘Check in at Reception,’ it said.
There was a Perspex screen set into one wall of the small room. Behind it, three middle-aged women with variously coloured and elaborately coiffured hair ignored me. They each wore spectacles with thin gold chains attached, and a pen on a string around their necks. They were having a nice chat, and couldn’t see me, obscured as I was by being in plain view of them. I looked for a bell to ring but there wasn’t one.
I knocked on the Perspex screen.
They looked at me. They looked at each other.
The largest one approached the window.
‘Do you have an appointment here?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Doctor Phipps at three.’
‘Oh,’ she said, evidently disappointed. ‘Take a seat in the waiting room. Doctor will see you when he can.’
She pressed a button and the inner door shifted in its frame with a loud click.
I carried on through to the waiting room.
II
The waiting room was large. It was twice the size of my living room, and full of long red benches with padded seats which were spilling yellow foam from flesh wounds. The walls were painted pale green and the floor was coated in linoleum so that it could be wiped clean. No one had taken advantage of the feature. A Perspex screen allowed the receptionists to ignore patients in that room too. In one corner a small area held battered toys. Another door led to the doctors. On the walls posters gave health tips:
‘If your skin begins to slough, stop what you are doing and call …’
‘Rat bites can be nasty if left untreated …’
‘Incontinence can be difficult to talk about …’
On the benches rows of ill people sat, most of them appearing to be at death’s door. Some had made it to the hallway. One actually was dead, as far as I could tell.
I tried not to look at anyone’s rashes or boils. I found a space between a young woman who was apparently suffering from a deficit of shampoo and an old man holding a wadded handkerchief against one eye. There was a distinct smell of urine from somewhere. It was so strong that I checked my own lap. There was a hint of dampness from the bench beneath me.
Someone sneezed wetly, filling the air with a cloud of droplets. God knew what was in them, it could have been anything from the common cold to Dengue fever. People sneezed, snuffled and scratched. I felt less healthy
by the second. I wanted to bathe in antiseptic.
The old man took the handkerchief away from his eye, held it out, wrung it out with both hands and replaced it. It left a yellowish pool on the floor. I was in danger of doing something similar.
The young woman with the shampoo problem shouted ‘Tiff’ at the top of her voice. A little girl in a shell suit arrived from somewhere, holding a length of discoloured bandage.
‘Give that back to the man,’ said the young woman. ‘He needs that. Naughty girl, aren’t you? Bad thing.’
The little girl, Tiff, offered me the bandage.
I didn’t want it. I wanted to go to the centre for tropical diseases in Atlanta, Georgia, where they only had Ebola and Lassa to worry about. I was trying to make myself as small as possible so that the germs would overlook me.
‘Not this man. The one with the finger. Go on, give it back to him.’
Tiff toddled off.
‘She’s a one,’ said the young woman. ‘She’s always up to something. That’s how she got the nits, if you ask me. Spending time with the wrong people.’
I nodded. Another sodden sneeze released another cloud of microbes.
The final door opened. A man came out of it with a small bottle and a worried expression.
One of the receptionists gave up on her knitting pattern for long enough to call a name out. Another man stood and walked through the door, followed by Tiff.
‘Oi,’ shouted the young woman next to me. ‘Don’t you go through there.’
The door closed.
‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘She can’t get up to a lot in there. They’re trained to deal with children, aren’t they? I’ve just got her and her brother, he’s no trouble.’
She looked at my clothes.
‘Are you married at all?’ she asked. ‘Do you get on with children?’
The old man emptied his handkerchief again.
III
By the time they called my name out, hallucinations were the least of my worries. I wanted immunising against everything. I wanted a full blood transfusion.
Execution Plan Page 8
