by Claire North
Silence on the high street.
Silence outside the church.
Silence where the arcade had once jittered and tittered its twinkly songs, its come-yea-golden salutations into the night.
Silence by the old railway line, the copper cables taken up and sold for scrap, the pylons rusted overhead.
Silence on the bridge that looked down to the dry-tiled swimming pool
Silence in the bingo hall, painted cobalt blue, a domed roof above a shuttered concourse.
Silence on the shore, except for the beating of the sea as it pulled a little more of the land back down into its depths.
The town was dead except for the man on the bench and the sound of rage from the inland streets.
Theo followed memory through a ghostly map, and went to the detached two-up, two-down on the edge of a caravan field where, as a child, Dani had lived, and knocked, and heard no answer and immediately felt stupid, and went round the back to the garden overgrown with brambles and stinging nettles, tried the back door, found it open.
Fading light from a settling day through the kitchen window.
Empty cupboards and empty shelves, an empty place where the fridge had been.
Tiles behind the sink, he’d painted them with Dani, a childish thing in bright pinks, purples, blues and yellows. It had been part of a community art project, a summer fête for the kids, they’d caught the perfect moment; both still young enough to be welcome at the kids’ fair, and old enough to have decided that mucking around with paints was cool again.
That had been a few years before the night on the beach, the sound of the sea and pebbles in Theo’s back.
He went upstairs.
Dani’s room.
Her parents’, though only one had ever slept in the bed. The mattress was gone, the frame remained, as did a mirror on the wall.
He went down to the front hall, was surprised to find some mail, curling up and crinkled. The gum had long since faded and the contents came out easily; he read with barely a glimmer of guilt.
An offer for a discount eye exam.
A letter from the GP commanding Dani to book and prepay for 10 per cent off her smear test.
A series of ever-more-threatening letters from the council, demanding unpaid taxes and charges.
A leaflet inviting the people of Shawford to come to a town meeting about Budgetfood’s proposed withdrawal, explaining that without this industry the town would die. It would simply die.
But Budgetfood had enough workers coming up through the patty line. It wasn’t economically viable to stay in a place where they had to pay national minimum wage. Cheap food came at a price, after all.
He searched the house by the failing light, and didn’t find anything interesting.
By the time he finished, he was working by the light of the torch on his mobile phone, SIM card in his pocket.
There was no electricity. No lights shone in the streets.
He let himself out the way he’d come in, and wandered a few roads over until he came to the house where once he’d been a child, almost the twin of Dani’s, and finding the front door locked, went round the back, and finding that locked too, broke the glass panel above the handle and let himself in.
Chapter 44
There had been a day his mother phoned.
“I’m selling the house and moving to Dorchester.”
“You’re … why Dorchester?”
“A job. I’ve got a job there, I’m going to be a care assistant.”
“You’ve never cared for—”
“A care assistant—the pay is £8.20 an hour I will look after the old women and I will help them shower and use the bathroom and eat and …”
“Mum I’m not sure that it’s such a—”
“And I’ll start again. I’ll start again in Dorchester.”
“Where is Dorchester? Is this really what you—”
“I’ll start again. You should think about what that means. I want you to remember this. It’s never too late to start again.”
When he became Theo, he only ever called her on a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, and never from the same place twice.
“Hi, Mum, how are you?”
“Oh. You know. It’s all pretty grim.”
Said affably, without much interest. Things are bad. They’ve been bad a while. Why would you bother asking?
“Hi, Mum, how are you?”
“Well my back’s given out.”
“How are you?”
“My wages have been cut and I’m very lonely. You know.”
“How are—”
“I don’t know why you bother to ask me that, what do you think I’m going to say, that it’s all puppies and roses?”
“What do you want me to say instead? What else is there?”
Their conversations became shorter, except for sometimes when she explained about how someone had said something about something else that she thought was stupid. She never asked how he was. She never knew that he was called Theo. She never called him and after a while …
He thought that if he called her, she’d be grateful to speak to him, and they’d be happy for a few minutes.
After a while, he thought that she might be dead.
There was nothing malicious in thinking this. She needed to be someone else. When his father was taken away, so went the woman she had been, leaving only a body behind. He needed to be someone else too; in that they understood each other perfectly.
There was probably a bit of love left, somewhere. It simply hadn’t been a priority for either of them.
An empty house in a silent town.
The furniture gone, every room seemed bigger, the windows smaller, looking out on to something less exciting than he’d remembered.
There was a smell of damp. Someone had ripped out the boiler and left the pipes wide open, but the gas and electricity had stopped a long time ago, and in the living room there was still that mark on the wall where he’d once thrown a plate and it had dented the plaster. He couldn’t remember why he’d been angry at the time.
He lay on his back on the place where his bed had been, stretched out across the floor, and studied the ceiling. Constellations shone luminous green-yellow above, glow stars bought in packets of twenty-five which he’d meticulously pressed into the shape of the galaxy above his head, and, not knowing what to do with the rockets and UFOs that came with them, added some space battles too, fleets roaring across the universe in endless pursuit.
His phone beeped, battery getting low.
He turned off the torch and lay a while longer.
Time is …
When he left home to go to university he couldn’t wait, it was the most important thing, he was stifled by everything to do with …
… and he didn’t just leave home, he left his father’s crime, his mother’s … whatever his mother was …
He left Dani’s despair and the taste of over-salted microwave meals, you could get ten for £2 on a Friday when they had their reject sale it was
And now that he is back
In this place you cannot hear the sea, but there is still a memory of something that might have been contentment.
The man called Theo thinks that tomorrow, when he leaves, he will not remember the thoughts that now run through his mind, glue him to this spot.
And the man called Theo remembers the day he put his father’s name into the Criminal Audit Office’s system, to see if he was still alive, still on the patty line, maybe even up for parole.
He wasn’t. He was dead in an unmarked grave behind the prison after a spill in which two chemicals shouldn’t have mixed, a fire that gutted B Wing of HMP Elmsley by Dazzling Beauty and Skincare. Seventeen people died in the blaze, and Theo hadn’t heard about it, and four weeks later they reopened for business. The prisoners on B Wing made jewellery, plastic gems and studs, barbells and hoops. His dad, before he burned alive, had specialised in vaginal gems. Theo hadn’t realised there were such things.
And the man called Theo thinks that time is …
Is not …
Is …
… getting harder and harder to keep track of, as time goes by.
A knocking on the door.
Theo jerked awake, listened, waited for it to go away.
The knocking came again.
It didn’t seem urgent. There was no breaking of glass, howling at the night.
Three knocks, then waiting, then three knocks again.
He went downstairs, holding the phone like a weapon, a thing to smash into faces. A figure against the half-moonlight framed in the front door’s frosted glass. He undid the lock from the inside, opened the door on the chain, just like his mum had taught him.
“Yes?”
“Are you Theo? Dani sent me.”
Chapter 45
The girl was no older than eighteen, and sat cross-legged on the floor eating cheese and onion crisps from a bag in her pocket. Theo sat opposite her. Between them a USB stick.
Around mouthfuls of potato wafer: “I knew Dani from the prison, she was nice you know? She knew what she wanted—you don’t get many people what know what they want and that’s something that inspired me, you know, like real inspired. I’d like to know what that’s like, I mean, being certain about things, like who I am and what I think and what I’m worth because that’s the first step—you got to know—and Dani did. I don’t know shit. That’s what everyone said,” a huge gap-toothed grin, another fistful of crunch, it’s funny this, isn’t it? Everyone says she doesn’t know shit and that’s a really funny joke, look, trust me, just because you weren’t there you don’t understand and so …
“I got out a few months ago. Parole company sponsored me, like with Dani, but they said I was pretty that I could make a few extra quid if I slept with the old men and the old ladies and that. And I said no, fuck that, because I’m trying to know myself and I don’t think that’s the sort of thing I’d do, and Dani told me that I shouldn’t, she said that it would be …
So they terminated my contract, removed my sponsorship. And there I was without a job but Dani, she worked real hard, got me this job in this club down in Wivelsfield I mean, yeah, it’s a sex club, only it’s like run in this semi-detached house in this really dull street. The missus, she drives a Honda, but I don’t do the sex. That’s the deal. I’m the cleaner. All that stuff has got to be kept clean, I mean, you should use barriers on everything because you get tearing, and the vagina’s got some natural protection against STDs, the fluids and stuff that are secreted which help clear things out, but still, you know. So I take my work really seriously, even the straps and that because you get bodily fluids and chafing and that’s the blood barrier, it’s all about the blood barrier, so yeah I’m …
Anyway, Dani called a few days ago, like, last week or something, and asked me to do her this favour. She gave me cash to buy the time off and my boss was real understanding cos she used to be on the patty line too and she was like ‘You won’t be sterilising dildos for ever, my girl!’ only she didn’t say my girl, that’s sorta what you think she’s saying but she doesn’t say it out loud, if you get me.
And Dani’s got this memory stick she needs to hide, cos it’s got serious stuff on it. So she goes down to the club late one night yeah and leaves the stick in the laundry and I pick it up, and there’s money and stuff and I’m like, cool. Then I get this phone call, and she’s crying or something, like properly scared and she says she’s being followed and watched, and I owe her, you know? I owe her. She saved my life, back on the line. She saved me. So she says I need to wait a few days, then take the money and the stick and go to this place called Shawford and wait. And I’m like are you fucking kidding me, screamers and ragers no thank you but she’s like it’s okay, it’s okay, they won’t hurt you if you stay small if you stay broken they recognise the broken ones, the broken things, they don’t hurt them who are already hurting, and I’m like fuck that shit fuck right off …
But I owe Dani. And two days after that the club is raided, I mean like, it’s torn to pieces it’s just the most
and that’s when I knew that maybe Dani wasn’t lying. That maybe she was in shit, because the local superintendent he was with the girls every other day and even his wife sometimes came down so …
But these guys, the ones who tore the place up, they weren’t like normal coppers—I got interrogated! Me, I got put in this room with a man called Markse and he was all like ‘Tell me about Dani Cumali’ and I’m like, don’t say a word, like not even hello, cos if you start to talk to them that’s how they break you, and in the end he lets me go, not worth bothering with.
So I get the memory stick and I’m on the first train to Dover, which is like the most expensive thing I’ve ever done ever, and then I walk and I’m waiting at this place, just waiting it’s the shittiest thing I’ve ever done but also sorta the best. The ragers leave me alone, mostly. One night they started screaming and they were real close, and I pissed myself, like, actually pissed myself—not bad, like, not a lot of piss just a little bit, like less than a teaspoonful I reckon. Then I started screaming too, just screaming, and it felt good. I’d never done nothing like that before but I was crying after, I screamed and then there was nothing left and I just cried and it was the best thing it was …
They don’t bother me now. They’ve got this guy, this boss bloke, he goes to the sea every morning and rages at it. Just rages at it, cos of how he was born into this shit, and he didn’t ever find no way to make his life good, and he rages at the sky cos it never helped him, and at the earth cos it never carried him somewhere else, and his raging it’s … it’s sorta good, you know? It’s like going to church, only different like. Sometimes I scream, it’s like praying, but different.
Anyway. Tonight’s the last night I’m sticking in this place. Fuck knows where Dani even is, I’ve got stuff to do … but tonight I come home.
See there’s someone in the house.
And there you are. There you are.”
She finished speaking, twisting the crisp bag into a knot, then unwound it as if surprised by her own destructiveness, smoothed it out on the ground between them. Stared at the USB stick, looked up at Theo, then away. “Missus already reopened the club, mind. Says she’s still got a place for me, says there’s a market in Wivelsfield, and I’m like real diligent; that’s economics that is that’s knowing your business. Says no one else bothers to put the plastics in the bin marked BIOHAZARD. I’m gonna …”
She stood up, unfolding in a single motion, long skinny legs in dark blue leggings, pale face turned towards the door.
Theo stayed sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Thank you for the—”
“I did it for Dani. Dani was good to me. She was like … she was good. Is she dead?” An afterthought, a thing which was probable but which the girl hadn’t wanted to ask.
“Yes. She is.”
She nodded once, sad, at nothing much. “I thought maybe she might be, way she was acting it was all … was it quick?”
“I think so.”
“Did she die cos of that?” A nod towards the memory stick.
“Probably.”
“Why? No—don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. I got a life I gotta live. I got … I got this person I need to be. I gotta find … I’m gonna go now. I gotta get back to Wivelsfield.”
“Thank you for the …”
The girl was already going
going
gone.
Chapter 46
Once upon a time Neila was a man called Neil, and she worked out down the gym six times a week and drank protein shakes and was going to have the surgery for her arms, to make them properly, you know, but one day she realised that all of this, all of this was because she was in the wrong body and the protein wasn’t making it right because not only was her body wrong, the soul she wa
s trying to force herself to be
the place inside her flesh where she fitted the light of her heart
she had shrunk down so small beneath the muscle mass that she hadn’t been able to see that the shape of her soul was a woman, blazing with light.
Theo stands at the back of the narrowboat, one hand on the rudder, and for a little while Dani Cumali is with him, disguised as a cormorant that keeps following the boat. It follows like the albatross followed the ship at sea, and for a while it was discomfiting, but now he knows it is divine.
On the patty lines they sing their songs
We are the ones who
we are the fallen who
we are the dead who
we are the dirt beneath
ours were the dreams that
we were the ones who
We lost the
we lost the
we broke the
blessed is the key in the lock
blessed are the children, for theirs is tomorrow, and their hands make the world anew.
Chapter 47
Theo slept on the floor where once his bed had been.
The cold kept waking him. He huddled into the furthest corner from the window, buried himself inside his coat and slept.
Once he thought he heard music, a tiny sound, sung in a child’s voice.
“Together we march, together we sing, happy in our community. The children play, there are igloos on the green, happy happy happy, the aliens make noodles …”
He thought he was dreaming, and the thought that he was dreaming seemed very alert, and wide awake.
He curled up tighter, shivering, and the singing went away.
A little before dawn the screaming started again. A morning chorus, a rising prayer, the hidden people of the town turned their faces towards the mirrored sea and wailed. Not a song of rage, not for the rising of the sun. They called out the long sound of the whistle that marked the end of the factory day. They sang the closing of the metal gates across the forecourt. They shrieked the rubber on road of the last lorry driving away. They called to the sea, and at their sound Theo jerked awake, and bleary crawled to the bathroom and tried the tap, and there wasn’t any water, and so he walked to the front door and opened it a crack as the eastern sun bounced off the ocean at the bottom of the hill, and as he opened it, someone grabbed his hand from outside, pulled him forward and off his feet, and kicked him in the head.
