‘It’s all right,’ I said, uselessly, because clearly it was not. Only the most innocent child would have believed me in that situation, and I honestly don’t know how much child she had left in her by that stage, let alone innocence.
It is hard to piece it all together, the next few days; time and location became muddled by endless journeys in tight spaces. But, somehow in those tight spaces, something happened between Charlie and I.
People have certain expectations about relationships. Love must carry them through their life, it must keep them happy, fulfilled and interested. You need to be ‘compatible’ to succeed in love. But these expectations are just a function of the time you believe you have left and Charlie and I did not believe we had much. So in those dark and claustrophobic days, our expectations became dense and fertile, vivid with desperation. All we wanted was comfort, all we needed was a familiar smell, and a source of hope. And we found that in each other. When everything else is stripped away, a human relationship is simple and requires no effort. You don’t need to be compatible. You don’t need long walks, a shared sense of humour, or common interests; sometimes all it takes is the warmth of a finger looped in your own.
Although touching others was now a daily torture I had to endure, unless I wanted to attract the attention of the guards, Charlie’s touch – like Aisha’s – brought no torment, only comfort. I suppose you could say my heebie-jeebies were showing signs of weakness.
At one point we found ourselves in a huge, crowded space full of murmurs and rain. I peered through the gauze of my sack, but all I could make out was light and dark separated by jagged line. We remained there for one night. Sleep was impossible so I busied myself by chewing a small hole in my sack so that I might see out. As I ground my teeth against the tough fabric, I became aware of a man muttering to himself. I spat out the cloth.
‘Who’s there?’ I whispered. There were guards nearby; I could sense their flashlights roaming over us. The man stopped his twittering and his sack rustled as he turned in my direction.
‘Nobody!’ he wheezed with a giggle.
‘Do you know what’s happening? Why are we being moved about so much?’
He stopped laughing and made a grave warning note in his throat. ‘Being moved about is good,’ he said. ‘It’s when you stop that you need to worry. That’s when they test you, stick those things in your gobs and see what’s what. They’ve got their rules, see; they like to stick to the rules. Beep, beep!’ He chuckled.
‘Why don’t they just test us all now?’
‘Ha! Because they don’t have enough, that’s why. They’re all breaking, cheap foreign shit!’ He gave a shriek of laughter and a flashlight swung in his direction.
‘Quiet!’ shouted a guard, and the man gasped. I heard nothing more from him.
The next day I felt a prodding in my ribs.
‘Up,’ said a voice.
Keeping close to the sounds of Charlie and Aisha, I allowed myself to be shepherded in another trudging line. The air chilled as we were led outside and I found that I had chewed enough of my sack to give me a dim view of the world. We were walking across a clearing in which a large wooden structure had been erected. I shook the sack to gain a clearer view and, with a dreadful turn of my stomach, I saw what it was: a long line of gallows with twenty or thirty people standing before nooses.
Now, hanging is a rather fascinating business. It used to be a respectable trade, as it happens, and to execute a person correctly using a noose required a high degree of care and expertise. Everybody is built differently and a person’s height and weight had to be taken into consideration when the noose was prepared, if the job was to be done properly, i.e. that the drop ended with a clean break of the neck. Too short a rope could end with a long and painful strangulation; too long and the head could come clean off. It was, I believe, a matter of professional pride to ensure a swift and painless death.
I watched the trapdoors swing open and the ropes snap, lamenting once again the fact that nobody does a proper job any more.
We were pushed onto another truck. I called for Aisha and Charlie but my distraction at the gallows had caused us to become separated. I hung my head and cursed myself; not only had I lost Lineker again, but now Aisha and Charlie too. The engine growled and, as we pulled away in that dark, stifling box, I called their names in vain.
Among the whimpers and sniffs I heard a faint voice from the opposite corner.
‘Reginald? Reginald, are you here?’
‘Charlie?’
‘Yes!’
‘Do you have Aisha?’
‘Yes, she’s here, where are you?’
‘Wait, I’m coming across.’
I stood, much to the annoyance of my fellow passengers, and attempted to balance on the truck’s rocking floor. With my hands still tied behind me, every jolt or turn would send me crashing into another crowd of people, and I stood on countless limbs and probably a few heads as I followed the sound of Charlie’s voice. Eventually I reached the corner and fell down in a heap beside them.
‘Don’t let go again,’ said Charlie, feeling for my finger.
I did not.
Aisha, oblivious to or uninterested in the tense atmosphere that remained in the wake of Duncan’s protests, completed her morning rounds and returned to sit beside me on the mattress. From her bag she produced what little remained of the rations and ate it, slowly and deliberately. Charlie coughed and winced in pain, holding a hand to her chest.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied, but it was far from the truth. She was ill, and had been growing steadily worse for the past two days. She was not the only one either. Many of the others, including the children, had begun to cough as well.
‘What about you?’ came a voice from the opposite wall. It was Duncan again. In spite of all advice to the contrary, he had refused to sit still or be quiet, intent only on understanding the reasons for his incarceration. His question was aimed at me. ‘Well?’ he went on. ‘I see you sitting there all day long scribbling in that book of yours, but you don’t say or do anything. What are you? Some kind of writer? A journalist, is that it? Did you write for the Guardian or something?’
I let my book drop to my knee. ‘I am an electrician,’ I said.
After a pause he gave a dry huff. Then he turned his head to the ceiling. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ he whispered, restlessly. Then, ‘Well, to hell with this. Guards!’ He got to his feet and strode for the pillar.
We all held out our hands for him to stop.
‘Sit down!’ someone hissed. ‘You’ll get us killed.’
‘Guards!’ he yelled. ‘Guards!’
David leaped, but before he could reach him a slack-postured Jamaican man appeared at the opening. He wore a denim waistcoat over a dirty white vest, black combats and a battered cap, and the skin of his bare muscled arms glistened in the low light. A squat, powerful-looking gun was slung across his torso. We knew this man as Jag.
‘Great,’ said Dana, burying herself into one corner. ‘Thanks a lot, asshole.’
Mr Jag was not a pleasant gentleman and it had become quite apparent that he was taking advantage of his position to coerce certain prisoners – namely the younger women – into sexual congress. Thankfully he did not appear to have paedophilic tendencies but he had been giving Dana more attention than any one of us was comfortable with.
Behind Mr Jag stood two other guards. One was unremarkable, but the other … the other gave me grave concerns. He was tall with huge arms, a thick chest and an enormous belly, and he had that look of trouble about him; the buzz cut and squint eyes you would try your best to avoid if you passed him in the street. But it was not his appearance that gave me concerns. No, it was the way he looked at me. I found it most unsettling.
‘What do you want?’ he drawled.
‘Yes, hello,’ said Duncan, slapping his hands together. ‘Thank you for coming so quickly. I have something to … I mean, I …’
Jag looked him up and down. With a curl of his lip he slouched towards him. ‘What do you want?’
Duncan tapped his fingers together. ‘I want,’ he gulped, ‘I want to know why I’m here.’
Jag paused, cocked his head. ‘Same reason everyone’s here. Sorting. Right ones, wrong ones, useful,’ he flashed a grin, ‘not useful.’
‘But … I am right,’ said Duncan. ‘Everything about me is right. Right religion, right background, right business, right …’
‘Colour?’ said Jag. He tutted and ran a finger up the lapel of Duncan’s threadbare suit.
‘It’s not as simple as your skin, Mr Businessman. Or where you’re from, or what you do or believe.’
‘I don’t understand. How did someone like …’
‘Someone like me?’ Jag yelled, and in the hush that followed he gave Duncan’s cheek a gentle slap. Then he spoke more softly. ‘How did someone like me get this job, Mr Businessman? Walking around with a big gun, keeping you in line?’ He tapped his skull. ‘I used my head, Mr Businessman. Made myself useful. Used my vote!’
Duncan frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You were on the wrong side.’ David piped up from across the room.
Jag looked down at him and beamed. ‘Wrong side,’ he repeated, nodding.
‘What do you mean, the wrong side?’
‘You didn’t vote for them, did you?’ said David.
Duncan hesitated, thinking. ‘What difference does that make? They got in, didn’t they? And I accepted that. That’s democracy. I didn’t protest, didn’t go on any of those stupid marches or join those idiots, the Rising Fist or whatever the fuck they were.’
‘But you did not vote for them, and that is why you are here,’ said David.
‘This man speaks the truth,’ announced Jag with glee.
‘Impossible,’ said Duncan. ‘Voting is anonymous.’
Jag turned to David, still grinning. ‘Go on,’ he said, nodding in encouragement.
‘That it may be,’ said David, hesitantly. ‘But all the information was already there.’
Jag clapped his hands. ‘Yes!’ he cried. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’
David went on. ‘Social media, CCTV, credit cards, loyalty cards – everything you did built a picture of the person you are. They just needed the right algorithms to process it.’
Duncan frowned. ‘You’re telling me that I’m in here because of my Twitter feed?’
Nobody spoke.
‘Right,’ Duncan continued. ‘In that case I, er –’ he smiled ‘– I would like to hereby pledge my allegiance to the BU.’
Jag’s grin lost its sparkle.
‘Yes,’ said Duncan, ‘that’s right, and I, er, want to offer my services as an, er, experienced economist and a talented mathematician, and if I can help in any way then please consider me your slave, I MEAN, I mean, sorry, I mean, servant. Your servant.’
He clasped his hands together and closed his mouth, breathing long breaths through his nose. Then, ever so slowly, he bowed his head.
Jag looked around the room. ‘Is he for real?’
When nobody responded, Jag bent to look up at Duncan’s downturned face. He put two fingers to the terrified banker’s chin and raised it. ‘Look up,’ he said. ‘There. That’s better.’
Duncan smiled and released a shaky laugh. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you—’
Jag caught Duncan in the jaw with the butt of his gun, then landed a boot in his stomach. Duncan fell to the floor, clutching his side.
‘Anyone else want to pledge allegiance,’ said Jag, all his mirth now disappeared.
Nobody answered.
‘Good.’
He turned to leave but stopped at Dana’s mattress. She looked up, instinctively drawing her knees to her chest.
‘What?’ she whispered.
Jag knelt down, looking her over. He gave the air around her a few sniffs.
‘You know what, turtle dove.’
The room was silent, apart from a few uncomfortable shuffles as Dana looked for support. I felt Aisha’s discomfort next to me, twitching and picking at the mattress. I knew what she wanted to do, so I laid a quelling hand upon her shoulder.
‘Easy,’ I whispered. ‘You will get in trouble.’
‘Jag,’ said a voice from outside the pillar. ‘Come on, man.’
Jag slumped his head and sucked his teeth. He glanced up at Dana with a cheeky smirk.
‘Bad timing,’ he said. Then he blew her a kiss, stood and left.
As his companions turned to follow, my buzz-cut friend let his dull gaze land once again on me, and he gave me that curious look of his. I did not like it. Not one bit.
Duncan crawled back to his mattress, where he lay clutching his jaw. After a minute of silence I felt Aisha stir beside me.
‘Where are you going?’ I said. ‘Aisha, no, sit down.’
But she was already on her feet and picking her way across the rubble to Duncan’s mattress, where she knelt and produced a water bottle from her coat. This she held to his lips, allowing him grateful sips.
David nudged my elbow. ‘Some child,’ he said, watching her in awe.
‘I know,’ I replied.
Routine
LINEKER
The machine goes on.
The machine goes on and I’m awake. At the slam and whir of the generator my eyes snap open and I watch each fluorescent strip light buzz on, one by one, along the length of our kennels.
Some cages still rattle at this false dawn. They’re either home to the new recruits who have spent the night whimpering and howling and who’ll soon learn the hard way that’s not how things are done around here. Or else they’re the ones containing dogs who just have not learned, will not learn, and will soon no longer be a problem.
I am not one of those dogs.
I stand and face the door. Seconds later it opens. Again, some dogs – those new fish or hopeless cases – will bolt at the sight of their imagined freedom, so the rest of us endure the familiar sound of paws skittering on concrete followed by thumps, boots and yelps as they’re reminded of the protocol.
Stay inside until you’re told otherwise.
Boots clomp and shuffle to a stop, one set in front of each cage. I see my pair, bulbous and steel-capped, gleaming in the strip light, topped with a towering set of sturdy legs and a black vest stretched across a brutally hard midriff. Two hands curl by my handler’s side. The right one clicks its fingers twice and I am up and out.
Our handlers lead us around the rim of the kennels and out into a covered paddock. The problem dogs, still trembling at their little reminder, are clipped onto chain leashes to prevent any further nonsense, and with a blast of a whistle, we start our trot. My handler and I are usually near the front or occasionally at the rear, but never in that messy middle of panicking dogs straining and tripping over each other. I have responded well to training; a fine example to my pack.
After another whistle blast we stop dead. At least, most of us do. I have to suppress whines of frustration when I see those idiots who continue to run or cower at the sharp sound, or who gnaw at their leash, or give long, nervous yawns. Some more reminding occurs until every dog is still and silent. Then the whistle blasts again and we trot on our way.
It’s not rocket science. Do that and you won’t get hit. Get it?
After an hour of this we’re led into the feeding yard. There are two troughs, one along each wall. The first contains high-protein kibble and, if we did well the day before, scraps from the handlers’ dinners. The second contains water. There are no bowls or allotted spaces at the troughs so it’s a free-for-all, and it can get nasty. It’s no use trying to edge your way in or find a quiet spot at the corner to avoid the fray; the only way to get your fill is to shove your way in and claim it. If someone tries to take your share you get in their face and show them what for. Sometimes things can get out of hand and I’ve seen dogs try to settle their dispute away from the trough with a full-on fi
ght. But if you’ve got a fucking brain – which, luckily for those of us who do, many do not – you soon realise that fighting over food does not get you fed. First, you lose your space at the trough. Second, you waste all your energy fighting. Third, if you fail to win you’ve got fuck-all chance of getting a place at the trough the next day. No cunt will let a loser in.
And fourth, you might get shot.
Just claim your spot, stand your ground and eat.
When breakfast’s done it’s time for a proper training run out in the yard. This is my favourite place. It’s set up with logs, tunnels, sheds, and these scarecrow things on sticks. Now it’s just me and my handler with his stick and a whistle, and I have to follow him and do what he says, which means respond to his whistle blows by jumping, crawling, retrieving, stopping, flattening, returning, growling at or attacking a scarecrow. And I get reminders from that stick of his if I don’t get it right.
These days I always get it right. Not so much before.
The other good thing about the training area is rats. They’re fat and fast, mostly keeping to the perimeter and the crumbling ruins of the houses in which we practice sniffing out trouble. If you get a chance you can snatch one for a bonus breakfast top-up. You don’t get the stick for this; killing of any form is encouraged.
After the training session we get more water and sometimes my trainer will throw me something from the scrap box, like liver tubes or heart or a string of fat. This gives me a surge of a feeling I have no name for. You couldn’t call it pleasure; it’s like pride or a snap of purpose, I suppose, but then what’s the use in describing feelings? You just have them sometimes. It’s a waste of time to reflect.
We’re led out to the prep area and the energy changes. The handlers suit up and buckle our harnesses. We try not to get restless but it’s hard because we’re excited, and there are a fair few sticks in action to keep us in check. Once we’re ready we march out onto the square and stand in our places, facing the front, waiting, waiting, waiting …
That mangy old wolf was right about one thing. My life was squandered before. I’m supposed to have a purpose, and this right here is it. It’s my calling. It’s my life.
The Last Dog on Earth Page 25
