Why, I’m driving, ho ho ho!
Then the caravan tilts slightly as one wheel rolls over something. Peter hears a high-pitched scream which is cut short after a fraction of a second, to be replaced by a cracking sound, just like when a dead tree falls and the dry branches splinter on the ground. Then the wheel comes down with a bump, the caravan rights itself and all is silent. The caravan travels a few metres further on before it stops.
*
Emil doesn’t know that the caravan is hitched up to the car, so when he hears an engine start up, he simply wonders who is about to drive off. He considers getting out the lightsabers and letting the Darth Maul figures have a fight. Then the wheel immediately to the left of his chest begins to turn.
He just manages to bring down his arms to try to push himself out when his shirt is trapped between the wheel and the ground. He screams as the wheel grips the skin below the crook of his arm and twists it like a vice. His nipple is dragged to the left as the full weight of the caravan lands on his thin chest.
He throws his head back, looking at the world upside down as all the air is forced out of him. His ears pop, and he doesn’t hear his ribs breaking, he is just aware of fiery blue thrusts of pain stabbing through his body and warm liquid surging up into his throat and he knows it’s blood and
I’m too little to die
a bird that he is able to identify as a flycatcher in the fading light darts across the sky before his eyes. He turns his head to the right and sees it land on the fence surrounding the campsite, where it waggles its bottom up and down a couple of times before it is sucked down into the darkness.
*
Something that had been forgotten in the general confusion was the digging of the latrine, so Lennart and Olof have taken on the job. They have dug down and hacked at the earth, which smells of blood. It is good working together. Good because the conversation is restricted to the task in hand.
‘How deep do you think we should go?’
‘Half a metre ought to be enough for the time being.’
‘We could do with some turf or something. To use as a cover.’
‘Yes. That would be useful.’
‘Then again, if we have any more rain…’
‘If that happens I think it will put paid to most of our problems, so to speak.’
When they have finished digging the trench, they straighten up with aching backs and admire their work. It isn’t really big enough for ten people, but at least they’ve made a start, and perhaps those with younger muscles can carry on later, if it proves necessary.
‘What about you?’ Olof asks, nodding towards the hole. ‘Do you need to go?’
‘Well, not right now,’ Lennart replies. ‘But we ought to put up some kind of screen.’
‘Yes. But that’s quite funny. Under the circumstances.’
Lennart gives Olof a look. ‘You could say that depends on your sense of humour.’
‘You don’t find it funny?’
‘Maybe a bit.’
They have dug the latrine twenty metres behind their own caravan, and as they walk back to the camp they see Molly slide into the black Toyota. Nothing strange about that. They carry on walking. It does seem a little strange when the engine starts up, and by the time they reach their door, they see that both the Toyota and the caravan have begun to move.
‘Is Molly…’ Olof begins. ‘Bloody hell!’
Both of them see what happens. Emil’s arms appear, his head jerks back as the wheel of the caravan is dragged across his chest. They hear the sound of breaking ice and splintering branches as his bones crack. Emil’s eyes roll back so that only the whites are visible as a fountain of blood is forced out of his mouth in a single gout, spurting all over the grass. His arms drop and the caravan stops.
Lennart and Olof race over to Emil and drop to their knees beside him. Peter appears in the doorway.
‘What’s going—’ He catches sight of Emil’s head protruding from beneath the caravan, his forehead and cheeks covered in blood. Peter’s face is distorted in a tortured grimace and he whispers one word, ‘Molly…’, which is drowned out by the sound of Carina howling.
*
Four pairs of hands lift Emil and carry him to his own caravan, trying keep him perfectly flat in case his back is damaged. Is this the right thing to do?
The front of his shirt looks horribly sunken, because his ribcage has been compressed. His breathing is faint and gurgling, as if there is fluid on his lungs. It ought to be drained, isn’t that the procedure? But no one knows how to do it.
Emil’s eyes are closed, and his fingers are twitching. Occasionally a drop of blood trickles from his mouth. His life is as fragile as a bubble. It could burst at any moment, the shimmering rainbow colours disappearing in an instant.
He is lying on the sofa, with Carina on the floor beside him. She gently presses the palm of his hand to her forehead, as if she is trying to transfer her own life force to Emil. She is no longer screaming. Stefan is sitting by his son’s head, gently running his fingers through the boy’s hair.
Peter, Lennart and Olof watch helplessly. From time to time they look at one another as if they are about to say something, but nothing comes out. Someone should be issuing clear instructions, explaining what can be done to improve Emil’s condition, to save his life. But no one knows. No one has a clue. The only thing they can do is wait and hope.
Emil’s broken ribcage heaves, straining the fabric of his shirt. Everyone holds their breath. Then he coughs, just once. More blood spurts out of his mouth. Carina sobs, pressing his hand harder against her forehead. Was that…? No, Emil is still with them, his breathing shallow but even.
Stefan’s hands are shaking so much he can hardly get a grip when he leans over Emil to unbutton his shirt, exposing skin in shades of blue and yellow. However, no broken bones are poking through, there is no external bleeding. Although perhaps that would have been better than the internal bleeding? To let it flow? No one knows.
They all notice it at the same time, or more or less at the same time. The red cross imprinted on the skin over Emil’s heart. As if he has been marked, branded.
Stefan cautiously slides two fingers into Emil’s breast pocket and takes something out: two thin lengths of neon-coloured plastic. Their outline must have been pressed into Emil’s chest by the weight of the caravan.
‘The lightsabers,’ Stefan whispers. ‘The lightsabers.’
*
‘The lightsabers.’
Peter can’t stand it any longer. His own body was part of the weight that crushed Emil. He heard the sound of the boy’s ribs breaking, felt it like a faint clicking and scraping that went right through the metal, through the mattress and into his back as he lay there sleeping like a pig instead of keeping an eye on Molly.
His body is a hole, a coal-black vacuum where nothing can live. He has helped to carry Emil, he has stood with the others watching the boy fight for his life, but essentially he has ceased to exist.
He was the kind of person who brought happiness. Helped people to regain control of their lives and their bodies. A source of inspiration and a role model. He will never be able to do that, be that person again, and therefore he is nothing. It’s over.
Without saying anything to the others—what could he say?—he turns and heads for the door. As he is about to step down, he stops dead.
Molly.
Under normal circumstances he would have thought about his daughter, about how she might have been affected by what had happened. But for one thing these are not normal circumstances, and for another he has stopped thinking of Molly as his daughter. His paternal feelings are not enhanced by what he sees from the doorway.
Molly has stripped naked and is lying face down on the grass where Emil vomited blood after he had been run over.
Mummy left me in the tunnel. I became like them.
Slowly he steps down from the caravan. If it hadn’t been for Molly’s long blond hair, he wouldn’t have reco
gnised her. The pale pink skin has faded and turned white. Her body is jerking as if the heart of the earth is punching her in the stomach, jolting right through her. As Peter moves closer she lifts her head and her hair stays on the grass like a discarded wig. The person who gets up on all fours is his father.
Peter is not afraid. To be afraid, you must have something to lose. Peter has nothing to lose. Everything has been taken from him, and all he has now is a task which he must complete. He unhooks the caravan from the tow bar and hears his father’s voice behind him. Or from the side or in front of him. He hears it.
‘Peter,’ says the voice in that drunken, slurring tone that Peter hates. ‘Come and talk to your daddy, there’s a good boy.’
‘Go to hell,’ Peter says. ‘I know it’s not you, but go to hell anyway.’
He gets into his car; it has no sunroof, so the interior is undamaged. The key is still lying on the passenger seat. He presses the start button and the engine springs into life. He looks up at the horizon.
I’m coming.
The hole that is his body will be transported to where it belongs, the task will be completed. He puts the car in gear and sets off to meet the darkness. This time he will not turn back.
*
‘Pik-pik-pik, pik-pik-pik!’
Pied flycatcher.
Emil can identify twenty-two birdsongs, including the pied flycatcher. The bird is singing just above his head, and he opens his eyes.
The last thing he saw before everything went dark was a flycatcher landing on the fence surrounding the campsite. Now he has somehow moved; he is lying next to the fence and the bird is directly above him.
‘Hello,’ Emil says, and the bird tilts its head on one side, contemplating him with its beady eyes for a second before it flies away.
Emil sits up and rubs his eyes. He really is on the campsite, near the spot where their caravan stood before everything got weird. A few metres away is the communal barbecue area where they cooked sausages one evening; he can also see the kiosk, and the trampoline, which no one is using at the moment.
Emil wonders whether to go over and have a bounce for a little while, but when he stands up and takes a couple of steps, he feels a burning pain in his chest. It’s like being stung by a wasp, and he cries out and rips open his shirt to let the insect out.
There is no wasp. Emil looks at the spot where it hurt, just over his heart. He sees two intersecting lines, a cross drawn on his skin, burning and smarting as if it has been etched there by a wasp’s sting.
Or a laser.
This makes him think of the Darth Maul figures; he was holding them just before…before what? He can’t remember. He was playing with the Darth Maul figures, and then he was here. He is no longer holding them, and when he checks his breast pocket he discovers that the lightsabers are gone too, and he is on the verge of tears.
Daddy will be really cross. No, worse than that. He’ll be really sad.
The mark on his chest burns like fire as Emil searches all around, but there is no sign of either the figures or the lightsabers. Occasionally the pain subsides, and unconsciously at first, then deliberately, Emil begins to take a step in different directions, like someone searching for the hidden object in a game of Hot or Cold, trying to work out where it’s
Warm, cool, warm, boiling hot
and he works out that it is least painful, in fact it hardly hurts at all, when he is standing on the track. The track that cuts through the camp, and is intersected by another track by the barbecue. He stands still, and after a while the pain comes back. He moves forward a couple of steps, and it subsides.
He has to walk right through the barbecue area to avoid deviating, then he carries on along the narrow track that leads further into the camp. He has to put his feet one directly in front of the other, almost taking baby steps so that he stays within the boundaries, and it’s like a game.
Walk the line.
Although he’s not looking for birds this time, but something else. Something that the track is leading him to.
Walk the line, he thinks again, the words of the song running through his head.
It might be fun if he weren’t so terribly tired. It’s as if he has a temperature, a really high temperature, and his legs feel like jelly. He can’t go on. Where are Mummy and Daddy?
He can barely keep his eyes open as he looks around. He knows what’s supposed to happen. If a child is poorly, grown-ups are supposed to come and help. He is a child, but all the grown-ups are looking in different directions. As if they don’t want to see him.
In spite of the fact that the pain in his chest is getting worse, he has to stop and rest. He stops. Sits down. Lies down. Just for a minute. Then he’ll carry on. He closes his eyes, fumbles around in the grass and finds his mother’s hand.
*
Carina feels the pressure of Emil’s hand in hers; she gasps and looks at his face. His eyes are screwed tight shut as he concentrates hard. As she gazes at him his expression softens, the muscles relax and he opens his eyes.
‘Emil?’ Carina says, forcing back the tears. ‘How are you feeling, sweetheart?’
Emil says something she can’t make out, and she leans closer. ‘What did you say, my darling boy, my precious…’
‘Walk the line,’ Emil whispers. ‘I walk the line. Mummy…’
Stefan’s hands are joined as if in prayer, and he presses them to his chest as he looks at Emil.
‘What is it, sweetheart?’ Carina is so close now that her lips are touching Emil’s cheek. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Mummy. Must go.’
Emil’s eyes close, and Carina’s tears run down his face as she kisses his cheeks, his forehead, and whispers: ‘No, no, no, no, you can’t go, sweetheart, don’t go.’
Emil’s eyes remain closed, but the thing Carina fears most in all the world does not happen. He carries on breathing, carries on living, even if he is inaccessible. Carina flops down onto the floor, stroking his hand.
‘What did he say?’ Stefan asks; it is difficult to hear the words because he is now pressing his joined hands to his mouth.
‘Must go,’ Carina replies. ‘Mummy. Must go.’
Carina’s fingers stop moving. Mummy. Must go. Mummy must go. She hears a discreet cough behind her, then Lennart’s voice.
‘Perhaps we should leave you in peace. But if there’s anything we can do, anything at all—’
Carina interrupts him. ‘He wants me to go.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘That’s what he said. Mummy. Must go.’
Carina pulls herself to her feet and is already on her way to the door by the time Stefan says: ‘Hang on, where do you think you’re going?’
‘I don’t know, but that’s what he said. That I must go. So I’m going.’
If there’s one thing Carina thinks she has understood about this place, it’s that they don’t understand anything at all. They are like newborn babies thrown into an incomprehensible reality where everything is new. Chaotic. But just as a child, deep within its genetic makeup, has at its disposal a machine built to bring order out of chaos, little by little, Carina has gradually begun to discern patterns. As soon as she tries to make sense of them or to think rationally, they slip beyond her grasp, but they are there. The machine recognises them.
Why else would she have become so obsessed with the crosses on their caravans, and felt such dread when she discovered the crossroads? And now the mark over Emil’s heart. It’s all connected. She doesn’t understand it, any more than a baby understands the link between the nipple and the warm, delicious taste in its mouth, but the connection is there, and all she can do is act on that basis. She is not going to die, Emil is not going to die. There are tracks. Mummy must go along one of these tracks. But which one?
In spite of the fear kicking deep inside her belly, she laughs out loud when she steps down from the caravan; it is the laugh that is forced out of someone riding the ghost train, when something scary but o
h-so-obvious leaps out of the darkness.
Of course.
The tiger is waiting for her. It is lying next to the spot where Emil had his accident, its head resting on its front paws. When it sees her, it gets to its feet and yawns, exposing a row of sharp, white teeth. It is the beautiful tiger, the terrible tiger. The tiger from the Brunkeberg tunnel.
The tiger turns around, glances over its shoulder and begins to walk out into the field. Carina is about to follow when she feels a hand on her shoulder.
‘Carina,’ Lennart says. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t know. But I have to go. Tell Stefan…’ A series of alternatives that might make her conviction sound reasonable flash through her mind. None of them work, so she simply says: ‘Whatever you like.’
The tiger is now about twenty metres away, and it is following one of the tracks. Perhaps it is important to stay close to it, so she hurries along until she is five metres behind the swishing tail, then she slows down and continues at a steady pace.
For so many years she has felt this tiger creeping up behind her, following her every step, lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce. Perhaps she has misinterpreted the whole thing. Perhaps it was just waiting. Waiting for her to follow it.
*
Donald has parked a short distance from their caravan and got out of the car. When Majvor fails to follow suit, he walks around to her side, opens the door with a chivalrous flourish, and says: ‘Madame!’
Majvor doesn’t know what Donald is planning, but she feels obliged to clamber out of the uncomfortable seat, using the doorframe for support. She accompanies him on an inspection tour of the caravan: most of the contents appear to have fallen on the floor, and the remains of her unbaked cinnamon buns are smeared all over the parts of the sofa that haven’t been eaten away.
‘Dear oh dear oh dear,’ Donald says, wringing his hands. ‘Dear oh dear oh dear.’
He opens the cupboard under the sink and takes out a couple of plastic bags, which he fills with undamaged food. He fills a third bag with bottles of booze from the drinks cupboard. Majvor has found a corner of the sofa that is more or less intact and is not covered in sticky dough, and she sits down, folds her hands neatly on top of one another, and watches his activities.
I Am Behind You Page 37
