by Liam Brown
It was at this moment my luck ran out.
Momentarily distracted, my foot snagged on a concealed knot of tree roots and I went down. Even before I hit the ground, I knew it was going to be bad. With no hands to break my fall, my face took the majority of the impact. I felt my nose pop under my weight, my eyes immediately flooding with tears.
I lay there for a second or two, willing myself to get up. The image of Butcher flashed back into my mind, and somehow I managed to clamber to my knees. A steady stream of blood dripped from my nose, splattering the snow a startling red. I spat once, twice, and staggered to my feet.
And then someone spoke behind me.
‘It’s over,’ they said.
I turned around. Rusty stood twenty paces from me. He looked exhausted, leaning against a tree trunk for support, his forehead glistening with perspiration. Even so, he was smiling. He held Bruno by the scruff of his next. A low growl rumbled in the dog’s throat as he strained to escape his master’s grip.
‘It’s over,’ Rusty said again. ‘We’ve got her. We’ve got your little girl.’
*
There’s a phenomena in poker called the ‘crying call’. Taking place in the last round of betting, it describes the act of placing your bet to see your opponent’s hand, even though you know you’re holding nothing. Now, as the name implies, the crying call is rarely, if ever, a happy circumstance. It normally comes at the end of the night, when you’ve drunk too much and stayed too long and invested too much money in the pot, so that even though you’ve got next to no chance of winning, you can’t bear the thought of just walking away. Again, as the name implies, I’ve seen real tears in the eyes of grown men at this stage in the game. In my experience, there’s little in this life that sobers you as quickly as the realisation you’re about to put twenty more years on your mortgage for the sake of a pair of twos.
Generally speaking, there’s only one thing you’re clinging onto when making this kind of call. That is the hope that the guy or girl sat opposite you is somehow even more full of shit than you are. Of course this is rare, but occasionally it does happen. You spot the bluff. You match their bets. And you call them out. Like I say, it doesn’t happen that often. I’ve seen professionals get it wrong. But when it comes off, when you open the window and step out, only to have your fall broken by a concealed ledge? Well, it’s like seeing the face of God. Other people look at you differently too. You’re transformed suddenly, so that rather than being just another drunken idiot chasing a broken dream, you’re crazy old David facing down Goliath. Only you did it without the slingshot. They shake your hand for it, these people, imagining you knew what your were doing the whole time. They shake your hand and they call you a hero.
*
I stared at Rusty. It’s funny how you stop seeing people when you’re around them too often. It’s like you get so used to someone’s face that you stop noticing their features, and instead use a sort of a crude child’s drawing as a mental placeholder while you concentrate on more important things. Seeing Rusty now, I mean really seeing him, I was shocked at how much he’d aged. Or had he? It occurred to me I’d perhaps got some things fundamentally wrong about him. His rosy cheeks, for example. In my head I’d always taken them as an outward sign of his cheery nature, his rude, outdoorsy health. Now though, I saw that the red smudges on his cheeks were simply the burst capillaries of a former heavy drinker. Similarly, I’d associated his long white beard with a sort of jolly, British eccentricity. Looking closer however, there was something almost malevolent in its breadth and unkemptness. I saw not Santa Claus, but Harold Shipman, Charlie Manson. The guy was clearly a psychopath. But was he a liar?
There was only one way to find out.
‘Prove it,’ I said.
Rusty blinked twice. It was fast, but I saw it. ‘You what?’
‘You heard me. Prove you’ve got my daughter.’
At this, Rusty laughed. He laughed so hard that he began to cough, phlegm rattling in his chest. He sounded like he was drowning. ‘It’s not up to me to prove anything, sonny,’ he said once he’d got his breath back. ‘I don’t care one way or the other if you believe me or not. I only thought you might like to know is all. ’Specially after what Butcher and the boys have got planned for her. Not that I blame ’em. It’s so hard bein’ cooped up with a bunch of fellers the whole time, ain’t it? A man needs a good release now and then or he’s liable to go a bit funny in the head.’
I felt my jaw clench involuntarily, a surge of fury scorching my chest. I pictured myself taking a rock to Rusty’s skull. Still, I didn’t move. He was playing me, I was sure of it. He was pressing buttons, searching for points of weakness. Trying to unbalance me. I held his eye and stood my ground. ‘I don’t believe you. If you’ve got her, then where is she? Where are the others?’
Rusty laughed again, but this time less heartily. He was struggling to disguise his irritation. ‘Look, Adam, we’ve had some fun, haven’t we? But it’s time to stop messin’ around now. Why don’t you come back with me and we’ll see if we can’t sort all this out? Who knows, if we talk to the lads nicely we might even be able to get them to let that little girly of yours go free.’
I stared at him, this wheezing old wreck of a human. He was a pitiful sight. It wasn’t just his physical state though. When you spend as much time in casinos as I have, you learn to recognise desperation when you see it. It bleeds from you, a wound that’s impossible to staunch. It stains everything you say or do. It doesn’t matter how expensive the cut of your suit or the name on your watch, when you’re truly desperate, you’re a marked man. After that, it’s only ever a matter of time before the sharks begin to circle, preparing to drag you down.
‘I don’t think I will do that,’ I said, not taking my eyes from him. ‘In fact, I’m going to leave now. Goodbye, Rusty.’
Rusty’s face twisted in fury. ‘So what? You’re gonna run away, are you? She said you’re good at that…’
I shrugged, a familiar feeling of weightlessness already settling over me. Nothing he could say could hurt me now. I’d placed my bet. There was nothing left to do but wait to see what he was holding.
‘Goodbye, Rusty,’ I repeated, already turning from him.
At that moment, there was a thunder of paws of behind me. I looked back to see Bruno bounding in my direction, a savage blur of hair and drool and teeth. I tried to move out of the way, but it was hopeless. Even without the icy floor and the twisted ankle and the bound-up hands, I’d never have escaped him. He was just too quick. I braced myself for the impact, while behind him Rusty laughed.
And then something strange happened.
Bruno vanished. One moment he was charging at me, his jaws parted, his fangs bared, the next he was gone. He’d disappeared, as suddenly as a puppet plucked away from the stage by its strings.
Still too stunned to do anything else, I inched forward to investigate. Rusty had stopped laughing now. I took another step, peering down.
And then I saw him.
Bruno was lying at the bottom of a deep trench, a wooden stake protruding from his side, a trail of blood already leaking from his ear. It was one of Marshall’s concealed bear pits, rendered invisible by the recent snowfall. It was a miracle I hadn’t stepped on it myself.
‘Ah, Jesus. No, boy. No!’
Rusty rushed forwards, dropping to his knees as he attempted to free the stricken beast. I had a feeling it was too late for that.
‘OH GOD, NO!’
This time I didn’t hesitate. I turned and I ran, Rusty’s roars ringing in my ears. I didn’t look back.
*
The play park was deserted when I arrived there. There was no sign of Olivia. No sign of anyone. I ran frantically from one side to the other, convinced I’d somehow missed her – that at any moment she’d pop out from behind the rusting swings, the broken slide. I circled the tiny play park three, four times. But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t there.
That’s when the pain engulfed
me. For the first time in my life I appreciated why people used the term ‘heartbroken’. For that’s where it hit me, a sudden visceral cramp directly in the centre of my chest, so sharp it stole my breath. It was like every loss I’d ever experienced in my life distilled into a single, burning drop of anguish. Every dud horse. Every busted flush. They were nothing compared to this. I’d gambled on my daughter’s life and come up short. They had her. They had her. And there was nothing I could do about it. It was over.
I stumbled backwards, my limbs finally preparing to give way after carrying me so far for nothing, when I noticed a flash of movement in the distance, over by the entrance to the park. At first I assumed it was one of the men. Ox or Butcher perhaps, swaggering over to gloat or finish me off. Good, I thought. I won’t stop them this time.
As the figure drew closer, however, I realised it was too short to be any of them. The clothes too fitted. The hair too long.
And then I was running towards her.
‘Daddy!’ she squealed, terrified and delighted in equal measure as she ran to meet me. ‘I tried calling but you didn’t come. I wanted to wish you happy Christmas. Oh, what’s happened to your face?’
She stopped dead a couple of feet from me, her smile dissolving into a look of horror.
‘And your hands? Who’s done this to you?’
I tried to talk, tried to apologise, but no words would come. Only tears. My Olivia. I fell to my knees, my head pressed against her legs while she patted my hair awkwardly.
‘Daddy? What’s going on? You’re scaring me.’
My Olivia. I wanted to explain, but no words would come.
Instead I kissed her. I kissed her and I cried.
It was all I could do.
SPRING
We have tarmacked the forests. We have filled the sky with concrete. We have choked the ocean, fouled the air, scorched the fields. What once was green is now grey. What once was blue is black.
In the same spots where wild deer roamed and adders coiled under a sleepy midday sun, there is now nothing but a spaghetti-knot of carriageways. Where drunken bees once bumbled through meadows and orchards, hordes of pale zombies now shuffle to offices, pinching and plucking at digital screens.
We have levelled mountains and drained swamps in order to construct labyrinthine shopping centres and vast multistorey car parks, monuments to nothing but bottomless greed and consumption, to our own terrible appetites. We have torn out the trees and replaced them with satellite dishes and mobile phone masts, so that we can talk and talk and never feel alone.
We are gods now, each and every one of us. All seeing. All knowing. All speaking, hearing, buying, destroying.
But oh, what careless gods we turned out to be.
All this I think while staring out from the window of my small council flat.
This is where I live now. This is my home.
*
I’d intended to take Olivia back to Lydia, but instead she led me to the hospital. She’s changed a lot in the time I’ve been away. She’s more mature now. Wiser. I can see how much I’ve put her through. She’s old beyond her years.
I’ll always be sorry for that.
They kept me on the ward for weeks. I lost track of my various ailments. A fractured ankle, a broken nose, chipped teeth, cracked ribs, bronchitis, impetigo, anaemia, mild frostbite, dehydration and malnutrition. They attached me to an endless bank of machines and drips. They washed and cleaned my wounds. They evaluated my mental health. They assigned me a caseworker.
And then, finally, they let me go.
*
Lydia wouldn’t see me. I wasn’t surprised and I didn’t insist. After my Lazarus-like return there were ‘implications’ that needed to be considered. Legal. Financial. Not to mention personal. I wasn’t allowed to see Flynn either. That was tougher to accept. The letter from Lydia’s solicitor explained that, while he had bounced back well from my disappearance, the new situation would need to be negotiated delicately. There was talk of more counselling.
Olivia visited though. Not every day, but enough to keep me sane. I was staying in a hostel at this point, though I wouldn’t let her meet me there. I would take her to a café round the corner. There she would sit and spoon the froth from sugary lattes and moan to me about school, about Lydia, about boys, while I sat and nodded, stunned that this beautiful, vivacious young woman would see fit to include me in her life. I still went to pieces every time she called me Dad.
We talked about everything on those long, caffeinated afternoons. Everything except what had happened in the park.
*
Eventually I was allocated my own place, a small one bedroom flat on the seedier side of town. The walls were magnolia, the carpets grey. The whole place stank of cat piss and stale marijuana.
I couldn’t sleep there at first. I still couldn’t get used to walls and ceilings. To radiators and curtains. To lights that came on at the flick of a switch. Most of all, I couldn’t get used to being alone. After the first few exhausted nights, I hatched a plan. I carried my bedding through to the kitchen and draped a sheet over the table. Then I took my pillow and blanket and climbed underneath, snuggling down into the dim safety of the den I’d built.
After that, I slept in the kitchen every night.
*
As the weeks and months passed, I found myself thinking more and more about the guys in the park. I wondered how they were doing. What – or who – they were eating. In spite of everything, I still felt guilty for leaving them.
Of course it crossed my mind to contact the police, but in the end I decided against it. I wouldn’t know what to tell them.
Besides, the park was another world. What happened there was governed by an altogether different set of rules.
At least, that’s what we told ourselves. Else how could we ever hope to sleep at night?
*
One day I opened the newspaper and read a small article that mentioned Adenbury Community Gardens. It said the whole place was about to be redeveloped – flattened to make way for an exclusive range of apartments and penthouses. A ‘bespoke living sphere’, the article called it. There would be a selection of restaurants, a private cinema, a fitness suite. There would be a twenty-four-hour concierge and secure underground parking. There would be a business lounge.
It sounded like hell on earth.
After that I spent many evenings walking the streets, scanning the doorways and underpasses. I always expected to see a familiar face huddled in a sleeping bag or digging through bins. My heart would leap whenever a wizened hand would reach from the shadows to nudge a tin towards me or ask for a cigarette. But then they would turn their heads and it was never them.
The men and women I saw there were a different breed to the guys at the park. They were invariably mentally ill or drunk, or else broken in some other fundamental way. They stared at the floor when I passed, or mumbled for change. They seemed ashamed.
Compared to us, they were like domestic dogs to wolves.
*
As for the park, I never did risk returning there. Perhaps I wasn’t as interested in seeing the others as I thought I was. Or maybe it was just time to accept that that part of my life was over for good.
*
As the months crawled by, I began to wonder what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I still wasn’t able to see Flynn, and Olivia’s visits had become less frequent now that she was sure I wasn’t about to drop dead or disappear again. I didn’t begrudge her absence though. Far from it. I knew she had a whole story ahead of her to write, in which I would only ever be a minor character.
For a long time I admit I didn’t do very much of anything. I sat in my small, dank flat and stared at the walls, brooding. In many ways, it felt as if I had lost two lives. My entire pre-park career had been built on reputation, on the illusion I was disciplined, organised, well-adjusted. Now that I’d comprehensively burned all of that to the ground, it was difficult to see how I would ever work again
. Not that I was sure I even wanted to. The world I’d returned to seemed miserably sedate in comparison to my life in the park. If I was hungry, I simply had to walk to the shops and pick up a vacuum-packed steak or a breast of chicken or a tin of tuna, all of it neatly stacked and labelled, all traces of its nature scrubbed and skinned and stripped away. If I was thirsty, I needed only to turn on the tap. If I was bored, the television or the Internet was only ever a click away.
At first it was a revelation. But the novelty quickly faded. It felt like cheating, to have everything made so easy for me. Besides, what was a person supposed to do all day? With the challenge of everyday survival removed, I was left with a dangerous amount of time to think. And what I thought mostly was this: how could anyone ever be expected to truly value something if there was no effort involved in getting it?
*
One day, Olivia arrived at my flat with a present. It was a small pot plant.
‘What’s this?’ I asked. ‘It was my birthday months ago. You already got me a card?’
She laughed. ‘I just thought some flowers might brighten the place up a bit. Stop it being so… shit.’
‘Thanks, Ollie. It’s lovely,’ I said, examining the small shrub. ‘But this isn’t a flower.’
‘Isn’t it?’ she asked distractedly. She was already bored of the conversation, her hand twitching for her mobile phone. ‘I just picked it up from the shop.’
I smiled. ‘No. It’s a tomato plant. Look, cherry tomatoes.’
‘Mmmm? I thought it might be a rose or something. Listen, Dad, I can’t stay. I’m supposed to be meeting Kyle…’
*
I put the tomato plant on my windowsill.
*
It’s been sunnier lately, the snow and ice of the winter fading to nothing but a distant memory. Everywhere I look, green shoots are beginning to appear, needling their way through the cracks in the pavement and the gaps in the brickwork. The trees too have shrugged off the cold, their boughs suddenly plump with flurries of pink-and-white blossom, like fireworks frozen mid-detonation. The city might still be predominantly grey, but nature is waging a guerilla war on us. I don’t think it would take much for the balance to shift in its favour. You see, nature has a secret weapon, one that for all of our technical brilliance, we have never mastered:
