The Panopticon

by Jenni Fagan

  Click, click, click.

  ‘Where’s Tash?’ I ask the laddie.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Aye, you ken,’ I say, and I stagger down the step, feet on the tarmac – I dinnae feel right.

  ‘That was fucking amazing!’ the smallest laddie says.

  I run up to the corner and the bus is just pulling out. I catch up with it and bang on the door – he stops. Thank God he’s stopped.

  ‘A half tae town.’

  ‘Are you a half?’ he asks.

  ‘Aye, I’m a half!’

  He puts it through. Twat! I dinnae look at the folk on the bus, with their long noses, and their stares. I’m going cross-eyed – those trips are way stronger than the last I had. Wobble down the aisle. There’s condensation on the windows and everything smells like wet dog. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I just need to make it to Jay’s. He’ll have something to bring me down, Valis or smack or anything, I dinnae fucking care what.

  Glance out the window. The polis urnay following, just the experiment – four black rimmed-hats, a car overtaking, one looking up. Fuck them. They can fucking try me! I’m not taking it, not now.

  My nose. Look at in the window, and it’s so fucking long. Keeps growing. Rain spatters outside and the experiment speed up and cruise ahead. Paris. Think of Paris. I bet the rain in Paris is way nicer than this. Imagine if there was an Outcast Queen in Paris, flying to work on her cat; maybe she sent Malcolm to bring me to her, but the experiment turned him to stone.

  I need tae get milk.

  I hate it when this happens. I can hear people’s thoughts – all the way down the bus, I can dip into each passenger’s head and hear what they’re thinking.

  I cannae be bothered ringing, she’ll just moan. Wish this bus would hurry up.

  Look at the back of the passengers’ heads and try to work out which person each thought comes from. I cannae switch them off, they lilt in and out – most people’s thoughts are so boring I could die, but I dinnae want tae be dead, staring away with no light in my eyes and my hand held out and scissors on the floor and blood on my cheek.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! I’m panicking. Shit, shit, shit! I wonder if the police are tracking me right now from my tag? I need to get it off.

  I can hear a siren somewhere. I feel fucking sick. Shit, it’s getting worse, palpitations and colours like worms everywhere – shit, shit, shit!

  Just, hold, on. Rub at the window. Stare. Stare. Stare. I grip the seat in front of me and I’m sweating, and everything looks the same outside the window, and if everything looks the same how am I gonnae know when to get off?

  Eventually they appear – five huge fingers pointing at the sky. The high-rises are like one hand that holds hundreds of people’s lives. There’s five blocks and Jay’s safe-house is in my old staircase.

  I ring the bell. There’s a woman in front of me.

  Need tae get Jack a winter coat. A tartan one. Need tae get his injections from the vet.

  Woof, woof – I growl as I walk by her. The bus doors open and I soar down the steps.

  The cold air stings, and it’s misty when I breathe out – cars blare their horns at me as I cross the motorway; ribbons of light unfurl from their headlights. And I remember watching gymnasts when I was wee, with coloured ribbons and coloured leotards. The experiment – Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! 3–0 to the experiment. They have Teresa, Tash, and now Isla, but you need four queens to make a deck. They drive by and one lifts up his hat, so he can stare right at me.

  ‘You’re next,’ he mouths.

  The lift stinks of pish.

  This is where I stood in cords, holding a social worker’s hand, going to see my new mummy. And this is where they took her away, and this is what I have to do. Now. I press floor fourteen. Wait. Crack my knuckles. Wait. The lift pings open and it is sat there. Door 73F.

  Step up to the door and knock, just lightly.

  I bend down on my knees and the acid is putting trailers everywhere – my fingers are elongating, and I open the letterbox and peer in. There’s a light on in the hall. At the end of that hall is the living room, and that hole in the door has been there for about ten years. Our carpet is a different colour than it used to be, though, and there is no clock on the wall. Whoever lives here now doesn’t smoke, because all I can smell is air freshener and nothing else.

  I’m sorry.

  I whisper it through the door and turn around and march straight back into the lift. Jab – up, up, fucking up! I’m getting out. Fuck it. That’s what Teresa would tell me to do.

  She’d want me to have something better: to go to Paris and paint naked boys and read every book in every library and walk by the river and never look back. I am getting out. They’ll want me in John Kay’s when I get home. Later. They’ll get me in there this week. Unless I go. This is my floor. Ping.

  Mike opens his door.

  ‘Hello, Anais – a vision indeed!’ He has a tinny in one hand.

  ‘Mike, can I come in?’

  ‘Aw, Anais, away and come in, hen, aye, come in. Fuck, how are you?’

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘I’ve not seen you since your ma, well – we all miss Teresa, you know. She was quite a woman.’

  His hallway’s rammed with magazines and boxes of knocked-off PlayStations and MacBooks and mobiles.

  ‘D’ye need a laptop, hen?’ He points.

  There is a stack of about forty laptops on one desk; the other wall has stacks of boxes of dog food, then beans, Xboxes, porn DVDs. He has a Christmas tree up and the light bulbs are those coloured ones that nobody ever gets now. On the top of the tree there’s a Barbie; she’s smoking a spliff and she looks like she’s wearing bondage gear.

  ‘No, Mike. What I really need – is tae get rid of this?’

  I show him my tag.

  ‘Aye, hen. That’s no a bonnie bracelet for a wee looker like you, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ I’m laughing, and Barbie is parting her legs, sliding down the top of the tree, up and down on the top of the tree, and I’m leaning against something inky. Fuck – it’s the money press. Beside me on the floor’s a wee mountain of fake twenties.

  ‘Are you alright, Anais?’

  ‘Aye. I’m gonnae go and see my boyfriend, ay. I’ve not seen him for ages.’

  ‘He’s a lucky laddie. What’s his name?’ he asks as he goes into his kitchen.

  ‘Jay.’

  He comes back out with a welding gun-type thing and plugs it in tae heat it up.

  ‘Ye might get a wee burn, is that alright?’

  ‘Aye. It’s fine.’

  ‘Jay that’s inside? He’s no out for ages, Anais. His door’s marked – d’ye ken that? He owes a fucking wadge ay cash out, and no tae nice people. Can you not meet a nice laddie? A banker, no some wee piece ay pish fae round here.’

  ‘A banker?’

  ‘Or ken somebody straight!’

  I must look confused. Barbie has got her tits out and she’s go-go dancing in the reflection of the baubles, and I can remember laughing with Teresa, I can remember that. Jay’s probably just not telling anyone he’s out, if he’s in that bad a debt. I’m not saying anything.

  Fuck! The heat on my leg is unbearable, and the gun buzzes and everything’s far away.

  32

  THERE’S WEE WITCHES on the inside of my eyelids when I blink. They are always the same ones – they’re quite cheery like, until they turn. If the experiment put an implant in my head, could they see the witches?

  Sometimes I close my eyes when I’m tripping and I can see wee Pac-Men eating the dark, turning everything fluorescent.

  Get into the lift, press down. My ankle is red fucking raw fae that burner – but nae tag. Nae fucking tag! My arms feel grimy. I should have wore a coat, cos it’s so fucking cold, but I dinnae, I never do. I dinnae wear coats or extra jumpers, cos it never looks as good.

  My T-shirt is damp. I mind sleeping rough last year, and when I ran out o
f clothes I robbed a clothes line, but because it was winter all I could find was rows and rows of frozen jeans, and frozen jumpers and knickers and towels. I unclipped one pair of jeans and carried them away like a cardboard cutout.

  It’s all buzzing too loud: the light in the lift and Isla and Teresa and Tash, all telling me – what?

  The lift pings open. Four doors just stand there. A darts commentator is making his low speech in someone’s living room. An audience claps. It smells like Fray Bentos pie on the landing. Teresa wouldnae let me eat processed food, apart from the only thing I can cook – Kraft macaroni. She would make an exception for that. Usually she got all organic stuff from the butcher. He would bring us chickens, or steak and chops – when he came around for his shags.

  Hands shaky, and my legs. I just want tae get in bed with Jay, and watch cartoons, and smoke myself blind. I keep feeling like I’m gonnae pass out, cos I’ve had too much, but I want more. I want to forget.

  I tap on the door, but there’s no answer – tap again.

  ‘Alright, Anais?’

  Spin around. It’s troll. Troll Mark, who sells the shan wraps.

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘Jay’s expecting you, Anais, has he not answered? He’s fucking wasted, ay. You are looking great, by the way!’

  He passes me a wee bong; it’s neat, really pretty green glass. I drag hard on it – and my spine goes numb.

  He knocks on the door five times, then twice more.

  ‘Man, you’re growing up!’ he says.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Have another smoke, finish it!’

  I inhale again, twice, hold it, then drag the last bit of the bong. My throat is burning and my legs are heavy as fuck. He knocks exactly the same way again, and I see it then. A big deep cross gouged into the door – somebody’s done that with a big fucking knife.

  ‘It’s marked?’

  I turn around and the door is open and nobody is there.

  ‘Aye, it’s fucking marked!’ He slams his fist out and drags me in.

  SLAM.

  The hall is black; fear in my gut, I want tae go, need tae fucking go – now! He pushes me against the door and there are voices down the hall, and I dinnae ken what was in that bong, but it’s all falling away, the floor, my legs.

  I’m being carried down a hallway. I know it’s a hallway because it echoes the way they do in the high-rise flats when there’s nae carpets on the floor.

  The living-room door opens and it’s bright and there’s four guys. Four. One, two, three, four, and Mark makes five. One bald guy comes right up to take a look at me. He opens my mouth.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Fuck!

  ‘I need tae use the bathroom,’ my voice says. I cannae-fucking-breathe.

  ‘Dinnae waste your time, Anais. The door’s fucking locked.’

  Shit! My heart pounds. Dinnae let them know you’re scared, try to smile – maybe I’m just reading this wrong.

  ‘Sit down, have a smoke?’ The bald guy shoves a joint in my face.

  Try to focus. Who’s in here? Count. There’s Mark, a skinny guy in a tracksuit, the bald one, an Asian flashy bloke and a short stocky bulldog fiddling with a webcam.

  ‘Nice ay ye tae help Jay oot with his debts, hen. You must be a right good girlfriend, ay?’

  The windows are covered with bin liners, and I know for fucking sure Jay’s in his cell. He’s in his fucking cell. I’m woozy, shit! There’s the floor, underneath me. I’m lying back against the wall, but I’m still dropping back, back, back. I can hear them, but I cannae lift my arms now, not even an inch. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  ‘What did you give her?’

  ‘Everything: smack, roofies. She only smoked half, but she was fucking pickled anyway.’

  I’m shrinking – there are colours everywhere so I cannae see clearly, but I can hear everything in here, I have crystalline audio vision.

  Whoooompf. I need tae not float like this, along the ceiling, cos that strange wee body down there – I’m sure it belongs to me.

  ‘D’ye like movies, hen?’

  The bulldog’s pulling my T-shirt off and I’m numb – the experiment are here. Watching, and they are clever and I am nothing.

  ‘D’ye hear that, lads – she likes movies. Nod your fucking head, hen. D’ye like movies, ay?’

  ‘Take her fucking bra off.’

  ‘Hit my fucking hand away again, hen, and I’ll rape your arse so fucking badly you’ll bleed for a fucking week, ya fucking cunt!’

  Black. No colours. No light.

  ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘She can still hear – look, she’s listening.’

  I’ve got a brand-new bike. It’s red and the wheels go round. If you were a flying cat, would you eat the eggs of kestrels?

  Zip rips my gut – intae lurch.

  ‘Turn her fucking over.’

  ‘Fucking cunt bit me.’

  ‘Turn her fucking over!’

  33

  THERE ARE CASKETS made out of bamboo and they swing along the forest roof.

  The trees are tall and thin and there isnae a lot of leaves up there, so you can clearly see that each casket is open, and the bamboo’s woven in wide circles so you can see through them. Each contraption is about six and a half feet long by two feet wide. It’s the best way tae rot a corpse – did you know that? A bamboo cage at the top of the trees.

  ‘It’s very comfortable, Anais, you should join us.’ Teresa smiles down at me from a lovely old bamboo cage.

  ‘Where’s Isla?’

  Teresa points along. There’s Isla, her mouth’s open. A centipede crawls out.

  ‘Mother Teresa?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘I dinnae feel well.’

  ‘You’re not well, Anais. Not at all. Dinnae be scared. You’ll stop breathing soon.’

  Her kimono sleeves are so wide. Each inch of silk costs more than the person who made it can earn in a year. She’s holding my bone cigarette holder, and smoking, and reading a book – she flicks her ash and it falls all the way down through the trees.

  My neck is getting sore looking up. John’s in the basket next tae Teresa. She’s shifting her kimono so he can see her tits. He begins to wank frantically.

  ‘Nae offence, Anais,’ he shouts down.

  The canopy of baskets sways. The monk is there. So’s Jay; he’s become a skeleton, but I know him by his shoulder blades.

  ‘Why?’ I’m croaking it out, but he cannae hear me. ‘Why the fuck did you do that?’ I try again.

  The twins are playing with a feather headdress and a bouncy ball. Their basket is a double; it’s taller than the others, so they can stand up and play clap-a-hands.

  I’m so tired. Lie down and stare up, my eyes are getting heavy.

  ‘Is it alright tae go tae sleep?’ I ask Teresa.

  ‘Aye. Just give intae it. Dinnae fight it. Just let go, Anais.’

  Her teeth are gone.

  I’m sinking into the foliage on the forest floor, and a giant centipede crawls across my stomach, but I dinnae care. I dinnae feel it, I dinnae feel its feet; just a tiny pin, jabbing into my forehead. Then another. It hurts. It’s fucking sore! I open my eyes. Someone is dropping something on my head, sharp enough tae puncture my skin. I touch where one has hit me and, when I take my fingers away, there is blood.

  A basket above me is shaking – it’s Tash. She’s shaking her cage and her moustache unfurls – it curls right out through her bamboo cage and all over the sky until it’s dark. It hooks itself around the moon and drags it out the sky.

  She’s shouting.

  ‘Wake up. Right fucking now, Anais. WAKE the fuck UP!’

  Dry eyes, sour mouth – there’s burnt spoons on the floor and black bags taped over the windows and the room fucking stinks.

  Where are they?

  Push myself up. Fuck, I can smell vomit, it’s on my hand. Top lip’s burning, coldsores, cankers in my mouth; my tongue is huge, swollen, and I’m shri
nking.

  Get up, get fucking up! They’re not here, they’ve gone, the webcam’s away. Shit, retching, lean over. Stop. Stop it! Get fucking up: now, Anais. One foot up, then the other one, use the wall. There’s my jeans. Pull them on – fuck, it hurts! Wrap my arms around myself and sink down, sobbing.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! Stop crying, get up, finish pulling your fucking jeans on. That’s it, pull them up, dinnae touch the bruises, dinnae stop; get out the fucking flat, now. I rip one of the bags off the windows. Look – there’s still a world down there, there are matchstick prams and Lego dogs. A wee speck of a laddie swings a lead.

  Jay. I hope someone kills him.

  There was five of them. There was five. There was a webcam. There was five. It’s one of those where a lassie looks all fucked up and underage. Fuck! I can smell them. I can smell them on me. Piss rises up from my jeans.

  Toilet. Pull light on. Nobody’s in the flat now, just me. It’s just me, but I need tae go now. One minute, though. One minute. The water’s cold in the taps, my hands are shaky as fuck. There’s a tracksuit top on the floor. Pull it on.

  Clever experiment.

  I fucking, hate!

  I was dreaming of Teresa – she was giving her old punter a hand-job and John was watching and wanking.

  Tash kept dropping wee clocks on my face.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  34

  I DON’T KNOW how long it took me tae get back here. I cannae remember most of it. Angus was shouting and saying the polis were gonnae be able tae lock me away now, and Shortie was just standing on the stair staring at me.

  This is life. Breathing in, and out. The bathroom is white. My legs are purple bruises. There isnae anywhere I dinnae ache, and I think if I died now, it would be peaceful. Tash would meet me, and Isla.

  I want tae just slip under the water – but instead I am pulling myself up, and undoing the lid on nail-varnish remover, and cleaning varnish off my toes. I’m cleaning myself as careful as if I were a newborn.