"Honest, Barry, he never—"
"Shut the fuck up, Marie, or I'll rip both them lumps off you. You do like you're told, lad, before I fetch you one up the arse."
Marshall was already sidling out of the doorway. He looked at Darren, and the other boy met his gaze, but his eyes were as blank as his face. Marshall was certain they meant to tell him something, only what? Darren's mother threw up her hands, distorting them into claws as though she intended to scratch Marshall with them, then let them drop as he dodged past. Barry was striding after him, so that he would have at most a few seconds unobserved in the back room. He grabbed the doorknob with both slippery inflated hands and wrung it, and followed the door across the threshold, and halted in panic.
He didn't know whether the room had expanded in his first moment of seeing it or he himself had shrunk. Either way, his fever had been lying in wait for him. He seemed to be in a deserted barroom, or perhaps an attic in which a few shabby chairs had been stored together with a homemade bar and a low table preserving hands of cards beneath its surface. The side of the bar was covered with garish hula dancers, all of them twitching like a cartoon stuck in a projector and about to burst into movement when the film pulled free of the obstruction. Several boxing posters drooped on the wall next to the bar, and the name on each of them was trying to form into the name of the man who'd pulled a gun on his father. Not now, he pleaded with his uncontrollably alien mind, any time but now. The floor was growing shifty, shaken by the footsteps which were coming for him. He stared desperately around the room, unable to determine how much he was seeing was real.
Under the window grey as thick smoke was a wrinkle in the carpet where it might have been lifted; against the foot of the bar an edge of the carpet was turned back like the inside of an old man's eyelid. The quivering of the floor seized his body as a creaking of leather arrived behind him. "Grab your chance, lad," Barry said in his ear.
Marshall floundered forward through the dim stale light which smelled and felt like ash. He was aiming to kneel, but his momentum sent him sprawling against the bar in a helpless crouch. He dragged his knees backwards, one hand flattening a restless cartoon dancer, and peeled the edge of the carpet away from the floor. Beneath the carpet was ragged brown linoleum which splintered when he tried to pull it up, and beneath that was a board which was clearly not loose, since part of it was trapped under the bar. He retreated several inches on his knees to be able to reach the next board, his shoulders flinching from the possibility that Barry was behind him, poised to capture him. But when Barry spoke, his voice came from across the room. "This what you're after?"
He was in the corner farthest from the door. As Marshall swivelled on his aching knees, Barry brandished one hand at him to let him see it take hold of the corner of the carpet and lift a wide strip away from the wall, and dig its fingers under the end of the exposed floorboard. The board tilted up, and Barry's creaking arm thrust into the gap, and reappeared with the gun in his fist. "Want it, lad?"
Marshall couldn't speak, nor could he judge how visibly he was shaking his head. As he raised one knee and gripped it with both hands, Barry jabbed the revolver at him. "Here it comes," he said in delight as wild as his grin, and snatched a cushion from the nearest chair.
"Don't, Barry, Christ, not here," Darren's mother screamed. If that had any effect, it was to encourage him. He shoved the muzzle into the cushion and lined them up with Marshall's face less than a yard away, and pulled the trigger.
There was a muffled sound—a click. "Lucky twat," Barry muttered, "and now your luck's run out," and squeezed the trigger again. This click sounded yet more muffled, almost apologetic. He stared at the gun for a moment, then flung it and the cushion onto the chair. "Fucking useless," he snarled, kicking the loose carpet against the dislodged board, and turned on Darren's mother, who was loitering in the hall. "Right, so when was he in here?"
"I told you, Barry—"
"I'll tell you what you fucking tell me. You tell me the fucking truth." Barry crossed the room in three strides which vibrated boards against Marshall's knees. Darren's mother pivoted like a weathercock caught by a gale, then she dashed for the kitchen. "Stop your boyfriend going anywhere or you won't even be able to limp," Barry snarled at Darren, and stalked after her.
The moment Barry was through the door, Marshall lunged for the revolver. He bumped into the chair, and the gun slid off the cushion, onto the floor. He clutched at the barrel before it could fall, and swung the butt into his hand, and closed the other hand around it, and hooked the trigger with his finger. The gun felt lighter than he remembered, but surely there must still be a bullet in it. He tiptoed swiftly into the hall, just as Darren came to find him.
As Darren saw the revolver, what might have been a secret grin passed over his face before it reverted to blankness. His attention strayed along the hall, toward the source of a jangling crash. His mother had pulled out a kitchen drawer, presumably in search of a knife, so hastily that the broken drawer and all its knives were scattered across the linoleum. "Come ahead, Marie, give us a fight," Barry jeered as she tried to grab a knife but sent it skittering under the table. "Only if I get it off you, think where I'll be sticking it." Then his lowered head rose slowly, and turned even slower, and Marshall saw his own reflection which Barry had seen in the kitchen window. "Hey, look, Marie, you're rescued," Barry shouted. "Here's fucking Wyatt Twerp."
The old man upstairs had begun to groan at the fall of the drawer, and at last his complaint became words. "Was that a bomb?"
Barry's false geniality turned into contempt as he glanced upward before confronting Marshall. "Put it down, lad, or I'll bash your teeth out with it. Get in the front while you can."
Behind him Darren's mother had straightened up empty-handed to watch. Marshall stepped backward quickly, with a sureness which holding the weapon had lent him. As he came abreast of the front room Darren moved out of his way, then doubled up with pain and clawed at the banister. "Don't just wave it like your dick," he said through his teeth. "It's still loaded."
Barry jerked to a halt outside the kitchen. He looked as though a noose had been thrown over his head, pulling back the corners of his eyes as far as they would stretch. His mouth opened, displaying the wet insides of his lips, and teeth which looked eager to bite. He saw Marshall almost at the front door, and tramped toward him as if trying to crush insects underfoot. "Here I am. Bang fucking bang. I'll be shot, and you'll be locked up, and nobody to guard your arse."
Marshall let go of the revolver with his left hand and groped behind him for the latch. His right hand began to shake with the weight of the gun. The shivering ran up his arm into his body, and he couldn't find the latch. Struggling to keep the gun pointed along the hall, he glanced at the door and closed his free hand around the metal knob. A cramp seized that hand, twisting it off the latch.
He almost let the gun fall. He felt it slump in his fist. He clung to the knob with as many fingers as he could force to work, and strained his elbow up, up. The knob seemed to move only slightly, but he tugged at it with what little strength remained in his hand. The door swung toward him so readily that he staggered along the hall as if the weight of the gun was pulling him toward Barry. That must have looked like a real threat, because it stopped Barry just short of the end of the staircase. Before the man could close the distance between them Marshall stepped backward, sure of himself again now that both his hands were supporting the revolver, and out of the house.
He drew a breath which tasted fresh as sunlight, and kept retreating. Once he was beyond the gate he might feel truly safe, and then, little as he liked to abandon his friend while he did so, he could run for help. The spectacle of his escape appeared to have paralysed all activity within the house; even the old man had fallen silent. Marshall looked over his shoulder to ascertain that he was several steps away from the gate, then peered down the barrel of the gun. Barry was stalking along the hall, but he no longer seemed nearly so dangerous, however vic
ious his face was growing. Marshall wasn't prepared to see him grab Darren and pull the boy in front of him, one arm around his throat, the other hand clamping itself between his legs. "Come back here, you, or I'll cripple your boyfriend."
Darren's face crumpled and was all at once much younger. He tore at the arm around his throat with both hands, and Barry grinned more widely. "Do it," Darren snarled at Marshall. "Shoot him. Pull the trigger."
Marshall took one step toward the house, to enlarge the target of the man's face. "Let him go or I will."
"That's it, lad, keep coming." Barry licked his lips, savouring the excitement. "Get a move on or it'll be too late for your lover."
Though his hand at Darren's crotch appeared hardly to stir, Darren's eyes bulged and his mouth stretched wide, the lips quivering around the teeth. His mother ventured tentatively out of the kitchen—Marshall couldn't tell if she was afraid or trying to reach Barry unnoticed—but as the man's head snapped around, she retreated. "Shoot, fucking shoot," Darren screamed.
Marshall stumbled forward one more step, and prodded the muzzle at the sneering target above Darren's agonised face, and pulled the trigger. The impact of the hammer on the empty chamber was barely audible, as though it was ashamed to own up to its uselessness. Barry's eyes blazed gleefully, and Darren's face convulsed as his captor thrust the hand up between his legs. "Better not shoot," Barry jeered, "or you might hit—"
Something slammed into the heels of Marshall's hands. The ache of it rushed up his arms to the shoulders, from which it seemed to leap into his ringing ears. For a moment deafness blotted out all his senses, and then he was able to see beyond the muzzle and its wisp of acrid smoke. The agony had drained from Darren's face, which looked almost comically astonished, as if he hadn't believed Marshall capable. Just above Darren's head, Barry's throat was growing bright crimson.
The man wobbled toward the stairs, letting Darren sag in his grip. As the boy's head slipped down the leather jacket, Marshall saw it was leaving a track. It wasn't just the blood which was pulsing out of Barry's throat, he saw. It was pulsing out of Darren too, out of his shattered scalp.
Barry wavered backward and sat down hard on a stair. Darren's limbs began to flail the air weakly and haphazardly. Marshall seemed to be watching a dummy sitting on a ventriloquist's lap—a dummy of which the ventriloquist was losing control. It kicked a little, then its legs flopped, and it tried to reach with one hand for the top of its head to feel what had happened there. The hand rose as far as the forehead before giving up. As the fingertips trailed down again they appeared to pull off the peevish bewildered expression which the face was making an effort to wear, and then it was a little boy's face, slack as though asleep, the lips slightly parted. A moment later Barry's head lolled forward on a neck which was now entirely reddened. His chin poked into the ruined scalp, and a wash of crimson welled down the boy's face, turning it into a red plastic mask.
A clunk of metal recalled Marshall from wherever his mind had retreated. The revolver had fallen from his hands onto the concrete. He watched Darren's mother run along the hall, slapping her hands against the wall and the staircase, and hunch her shoulders nearly as high as her ears when she saw what Marshall had done, and begin to scream. She swung her head almost blindly toward him and came out of the house at a fast jagged walk, screaming words now, too harsh for him to distinguish. Whatever she was calling him, and whatever she meant to do to him, he thought it was less than he deserved. It wouldn't bring his friend back.
He stood waiting, close to welcoming her onslaught. Her nails raked at his eyes, but he felt nothing. At first he didn't understand why, even when he saw her staggering back across the doorstep to sprawl on the floor. It wasn't until his mother stepped in front of him and took his hands that he realised her fist had met the other woman's jaw, knocking her unconscious.
A Man
As the last bulging suitcase wobbled away along the conveyor belt, Marshall saw a man in the crowd beneath the flight arrival and departure monitors identify him and his mother. She was saying "None" to the woman behind the check-in desk, except that the word changed in his mind as he realised it had only three letters. A gong tolled overhead before a female voice warned yet again that unattended baggage would be removed and might be destroyed. Through the faint hollow echo of the tolling in his ears he heard his mother thank the airline clerk. She turned away from the desk with the boarding cards in her hand, and the man beneath the screens that were shuffling words moved toward her through the crowd.
Marshall swung the baggage trolley in his direction. There was a policeman by the restless automatic doors into the long high booking hall, two more were chatting to a clerk at the Lufthansa desk, and all of them wore guns. He pinched the double bars of the handle together to release the brake, and steered the trolley toward the two policemen and the interior of the airport. His mother was trotting to keep up with him when the man called, "Mrs. Travis?"
The trolley stalled, almost throwing the hand luggage onto the floor, because Marshall's mother had taken hold of his shoulder. One of the policemen glanced incuriously at the incident, which no doubt looked as though a father had just located his wife and son among the mass of passengers. Except that his father was too young, and wore glasses whose narrow lenses were tinted the same dark blue as his suit and cheeks and chin. "Yes, what is it?" Marshall's mother said.
"I wonder if I can ask you a few questions for—" Another gong tolled, and the female voice summoned a member of staff. Marshall stared at the policemen in case they were wanted, but neither moved off. "For what, did you say?" his mother said.
The man repeated the phrase, and Marshall realised that the single syllable was the name of a newspaper. "If you've just a few minutes," the man said.
"I don't know, Marshall. Have we?"
The policemen were taking their leave of the clerk, turning away so that Marshall couldn't see their guns, but he no longer felt the need. "I don't mind."
"If he doesn't mind I suppose I don't either, Mr....?"
"James. Shall we find somewhere to sit? Can I get you both a drink?"
"I could use one. How about you, honey?"
Marshall was trying to decide if James was the reporter's first name or his last; being less than sure of anything about a person made him uneasy now. "Thanks," he said.
"Let me take your bags." Before Marshall could argue, the reporter grabbed both from the trolley and lifted a strap over each shoulder. "You didn't want to keep on pushing, did you, son?"
Whenever anyone called Marshall that, he felt as though they were presuming to be compared with his father. He didn't reply, only looked for armed police as the reporter ushered him and his mother into the next hall, where shops and a bar hemmed in a great many seats fitted back to back. There was a gun, and there another, quite close to the bar where the reporter found three empty stools like puffed-up miniatures of the table they surrounded. "Gin and it it is, and for you, son?"
"Orange in a bottle, please."
"In a bottle," the reporter said as though sharing Marshall's finicality with several Africans in robes and multicoloured caps outside the bar, and swung the cabin baggage off his shoulders before strutting to the counter. As Marshall gazed after him, his mother touched his hand. "We really don't have to do this if you don't want to."
"I don't know what it is yet."
"Our farewell to England."
"Sure," Marshall said, and turned the stool and himself to stop the fluttering of destinations on a monitor from plucking at the edge of his vision. His mother eyed him as if she couldn't judge what answer he had given her, and at once he didn't know. He watched while the reporter delivered himself of an ostentatious amount of change into a saucer on the bar and carried over their drinks dwarfed by his own pint of bitter. He set the bottle and glasses on the table, and pulled the creases over his knees, and shot back his cuffs as he produced a notebook from inside his jacket. He hadn't opened the notebook when he said, "So will you b
e taking any pleasant memories home with you?"
"Of course," Marshall's mother said, and looked the question at Marshall.
"Sure." That sounded as vague as the last time he'd used it, and he backed it up as best he could. "There was the lady who bought my dad's shop."
"Really. She was..."
"She paid a lot more for it than we were expecting, didn't she, mom? The last books my dad ever bought were the rarest, but she needn't have said."
"Honest of her," the reporter said approvingly, then set the notebook down so as to take a drink. "And will there be much you'll miss?"
"My videos."
"Really," the reporter said, squinting at him over the tilting glass.
"The police took them because they weren't British. We thought they might give them back for us to send home, but they wouldn't. It's all right, mom," he added as he saw her regretting having signed the videos away when they'd seemed not to matter. "Some of them I don't like much anymore."
Marshall's mother stood her glass on the table with a rap like a gavel. "Excuse me, but what kind of story are you planning to write?"
"As much of the truth as you and the nipper will tell me."
The reporter was presenting an earnest expression to her, but just for an instant Marshall saw another one stir beneath it. Every face shifted like that if he looked too long and hard. "I want to talk about what happened, mom."
"It's up to you, Marshall. If you're sure."
He hoped she would understand when she heard him. He wanted to leave behind an image of himself closer to the truth than the wimp who'd been seen weeping in nearly every newspaper and on maybe every television channel in Britain. Only now that he was being given the chance, he didn't know how to begin. The inside of his skull was growing slippery and brittle when the reporter said, "Whenever you're ready, Marshall."
The One Safe Place Page 44
