by Ally Kennen
“Carol came in an hour ago. She’s been out all night as well. What are you up to?”
So Carol hasn’t told Verity. But for some reason I’m not as relieved as I ought to be.
“Just felt like some fresh air,” I say. I notice three cardboard boxes lining the walls of the kitchen. My fishing rod is sticking out of one.
“What’s this?”
Verity turns back to her frying pan. “You haven’t been making much progress packing up your stuff, so I’ve done everything that’s been lying around the place.” She spoons hot oil over the eggs. “Don’t worry; I haven’t touched your room. But you need to get on with it, Stephen.”
I’m tired. I have to sleep.
“Yeah, right,” I say moving towards the stairs.
“Just a minute, aren’t you going to tell me where you’ve been?” asks Verity.
“Nope,” I say.
I lie on my bed. I can’t sleep even though I’m knackered. Every single thing I do makes my life worse. And when I do finally doze off I dream of my dad.
Look, I’m not really worried about him. Disappearing is what he does best. If I had a heart attack each time he buggered off I’d have died before I could even walk. This is typical behaviour. He’s chickened out. That’s the score. Believe it.
Later, I make myself have a shower.
I am drying myself off when there is a knock at the door. I wrap the towel round my waist.
“Come in.”
It is Carol. She’s bug-eyed with sleep.
“I didn’t tell,” she says sitting on my bed.
“Why not?”
She smiles but doesn’t answer.
I’m never going to be able to work that girl out. But I do know she is pretty twisted.
“So,” she says. “What next?”
“Maybe we should give the police an anonymous tip-off,” I say. “Before it’s too late.”
“Nah,” says Carol. “They’ll never believe you.”
She’s right. It’s a crazy story.
We stare at each other for a few minutes and I get self-conscious about my bare chest.
“The cage is still there,” she says. “We can try again.”
Just then there is another knock.
“Stephen, telephone.” Verity barges in. I am surprised because usually she waits until I say, “Come in.” She looks pretty sick at seeing Carol on my bed.
“Telephone,” she repeats, giving Carol a hard look.
Verity would hate worse than anything in the world for me and Carol to get together.
I pull on a T-shirt and go downstairs. For the first time in my life I am hoping that the person on the end of the phone is my father.
“Stephen, where’s the ferret cage?”
Eric.
I am ordered into the workshop and after I have eaten, I go. Look at me, trotting off to my slaughter like a little pig. I’ve got the feeling where you want to step out into the road so you get knocked over, and break a leg or two, so you don’t have to worry about the next few hours. I’d quite like to be in a coma now. Maybe Eric will put me in one. But I don’t think he will. He’s had a good chance to hurt me and he hasn’t. By now he will have found Dog, safe and sound, and that’s got to help. He thinks I’m a mixed-up kid. All I was doing last night was behaving like one.
All the same I am pretty nervous when I enter the workshop.
“You look like shit,” says Eric. He’s heating up a bar of iron in his forge. The end glows hot orange. That would hurt. I lick my lips. I am thirsty but now is not the time to ask for a cup of tea.
“Why’s my truck so dirty?” asks Eric. He pulls the bar out of the fire and places it on the anvil. He chooses a hammer and starts whacking.
He pauses for a breath.
“Where’s the cage?”
He hammers some more then puts the bar back in the forge.
“And why did you bring my truck back?”
He turns to me.
“And why was this in my truck?”
It is a girl’s pink hairslide. Carol’s. I roll my eyes. The whole world thinks I am a lady-killer.
I have a few choices at this point. I can make up something or I can tell the truth. Now I’m not practised at telling the truth and it makes me feel uncomfortable. But at the moment I am incapable of making up anything new. Dog runs in and licks my hand and I get this shot of warmth running up my arm. I don’t want to be dragged off to the pigs as a woman-murderer. As I start talking I feel like I am stepping off a cliff.
I tell Eric everything.
I start with the evening, about six years ago, when my mum gets me out of bed because my dad’s come home. I sit in my pyjamas on the sofa next to Selby. Selby’s been out with his mates and has taken something or other because he’s acting weird and he’s snotting into his sleeve. I’m looking at my dad. It’s been a while since I last saw him. He looks big. I remember that.
There’s a massive fish tank on the floor in front of the telly, covered in a dirty white sheet.
“You have to keep him warm,” says my dad. “Or he’ll die.”
Inside is this little lizard thing, floating about in manky water. It looks dead already. My mum looks like she’s going to be sick.
“This is for you,” says my dad. “Happy birthday, Stephen.”
My birthday was three months earlier.
I tell Eric about how fast my birthday present grew, how he ended up in the bath, then how I smuggled him into my dad’s lock-up. I explained how I kept him alive, feeding him frozen mice from the pet shop and using a thermostat to check the water temperature. I’d told my family he’d died and that I’d buried him. Everyone believed me. There was some heavy stuff going on at the time and my mother wouldn’t have noticed if I’d had a sabre-toothed tiger in my bedroom. It’s true. She went pretty mad and we all ended up moving in with Gran. It was my dad’s fault. Whenever he came home, he’d be as nice as anything at first (giving me crocodiles, taking us to the pub, bringing home some chips for Mum). But after a few days he’d be plastered and that’s when we’d clear off out of it to avoid a bashing.
Mum always got the worst of it.
What set him off that time was Victor. He lived over the road from us and when Dad was in the nick, he’d come round sometimes and wire plugs and replace fuses. The sort of stuff me and Selby could have done but couldn’t be arsed. He worked at the council offices doing something. He was all right. I never took much notice of him. But that time when Dad came back with My Little Present, Victor decided to show up with a sink plunger. (The kitchen sink was blocked.)
From the way Dad went on, it was like Victor had come round with an engagement ring. I’m not going into it. All I’ll say is that Mum has shaved her head ever since.
I watch Eric. You know sometimes, you are telling someone something, and it’s true, but it all sounds false? Well the opposite is true now. Every detail I give makes my story sound more real. I show Eric the scar on my arm. I tell him about nicking chickens from the meat factory. Even so, he is having a hard time swallowing it. He raises his eyebrows when I tell him about the escape. But nods when I talk about how I encouraged him to build the ferret cage a certain way. I tell him about last night.
When I mention Carol, he interrupts.
“Hang on,” he says. “So she actually saw it?”
I nod and keep talking. But I don’t say I came away without my dad.
The forge has gone out and Eric has taken the phone off the hook. Dog is lying in the doorway, chewing on a bit of leather.
“There’s a few problems with your story,” says Eric. “One, why hasn’t he attacked anyone yet, and two, how come the cold hasn’t killed him?”
My mouth falls open. Maybe that’s it. Maybe the lake is too cold and he is ill. That’s why he didn’t catch us last nigh
t. He’s dying. Maybe if I just leave things as they are, he’ll die naturally and one day someone will find a crocodile skull and wonder how the hell it got there.
“They need the sun to warm them up,” says Eric. “I don’t believe he’d survive an English winter.”
I’d kept him warm when he was younger, but it hadn’t occurred to me that the water cage would be too cold.
“He’s managed somehow,” I say.
I can tell Eric doesn’t believe me, but he is fascinated all the same.
“Carol actually saw it?” he repeats.
“Ring her up,” I say. “Ask her.”
“So why don’t you just go to the police?” asks Eric.
I give him a look.
“I can’t,” I say. “What if he’s killed someone?”
T w e n t y - o n e
I might as well sell tickets. I could open a mini-zoo. It’s funny to think that just a few weeks ago, I was the only one who knew about my little pet. And now Eric and I are walking round the reservoir path, from the car park, to the pump cage. I wanted to sneak in via the lay-by, but Eric wasn’t having any of it. He said he wasn’t going to trespass over someone else’s land. He said he’s only come to collect the ferret cage and he’s made me come with him. I walk on the right side of Eric, as far from the water as I can. I know my boy’s in there. He has no reason to be onshore. There’s no sunlight for him to bask in. He’ll be lurking somewhere in the water, just below the surface, looking like a floating branch.
Eric obviously doesn’t believe me. I’m surprised he’s here at all as he’s got loads of orders to get through. I can’t believe he just shut up the workshop, in the middle of the day, to come out here. Handy having your own business.
Eric snaps himself a stick from the hedge and swings it round, swatting at brambles and nettles.
From habit I look carefully round before leaving the path. But really it is a waste of time. My secret is out. Eric will either believe me or not. If he does, he’ll tell the police, if not, he’ll probably throw me in the lake. I might as well have a megaphone and start shouting:
“I’M STEPHEN. I’VE ILLEGALLY KEPT A MANEATING CROCODILE AT THIS RESERVOIR FOR FOUR YEARS. I HAVE LET IT ESCAPE. IT WILL KILL YOU IF IT CAN. I’M HERE. HOLD ME RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATHS THAT ARE ABOUT TO HAPPEN.”
I wonder how long I’ll get. A couple of years? A few months? Community service? And at the end of it, I’ll end up in the same place.
St Mark’s.
Just like my bloody dad.
I’m not that cold-hearted, you know. I reckon he ran off the other night. I think this because if the crocodile had got him, then why would he be trying to catch us all night? If he had nabbed my dad, he’d have eaten him right then or dragged him off somewhere for laters. And there was no blood the next morning. The Internet says that crocs make a terrible mess of their victims, leaving bits of them everywhere. There was no carnage, was there? My dad is probably back at his hovel feeding cheap cat meat to Malackie.
Yeah right.
Eric gives me an odd look when I show him the ferret cage. Carol and I had piled bits of branches and bracken over it. The rope lies coiled just inside.
“You really did bring it up here,” says Eric. He looks at the marks in the mud where we dragged it out of the water. Then he wants to see the pump cage.
“This is it?” Eric sounds surprised. He peers through the bars at the dark, scummy water.
“Yep.”
“It stinks.”
Eric walks slowly round the cage, pausing to poke the wobbly bars at the side. He’s quiet.
“I’m not lying, Eric,” I say. I can’t stop twitching like a freak. I keep looking round at every crack, every snap. I keep a close eye on the shore.
“I almost believe you,” says Eric. “But not quite.”
Before I can stop him he has climbed into the cage through the bars and is standing on the concrete ledge.
“Don’t,” I say. “He might have come back. He can move really fast.”
I’m worried. My boy thinks this place is home.
But Eric isn’t bothered. He kicks a stick into the water and peers in.
“Come out, please.” I can feel my scalp prickling.
“There’s something over here.” Eric starts edging round the narrow strip of concrete along the side. He yanks a mass of greenery, brambles, bracken, dead branches that cover the back wall into the water.
“Look, Stephen.”
But I don’t want to look. I don’t want to see the twisting body leap up out of the water and grab him. I don’t want to watch as the life is shaken out of him. I don’t want this story to get any worse.
“For God’s sake, Eric. I’m not joking.” My voice cracks. Eric thinks this is a game. He has come up here, not because he believes me, but because he wants an afternoon off.
I think I see something dark in the water.
“Eric.”
“There’s a hole,” he says. “Look.”
I don’t want to look. I can feel something horrible building up inside me. It makes me breathless and makes me want to stand very still. I never thought Eric was so crazy. He doesn’t believe me and now he is about to lose his life.
I force myself to look. Eric is leaning right into the wall, and I can’t see his head.
“No way,” he says.
This must be it.
“Eric.” My voice sounds like a little kid’s. “Get out.”
“It’s like a cave,” he says. “Do you know about this?”
A cave? I don’t want to get any closer. But I have to see what he is talking about.
I look at the water. There is no sign of the animal. But then I hear a splash.
“Eric.”
The stupid bugger is moving stones and earth from the back wall and dropping them in the water.
“It’s a burrow,” says Eric climbing through. “Come on.”
“Eric.”
I’ve got this funny feeling on the roof of my mouth. You know, like when you’ve eaten too much sugar and your skin goes numb and your spit goes globby? I force myself up to the bars. Eric has gone but I can hear something moving around.
“Eric?”
He doesn’t reply and I feel panicky. God knows what he’ll find in there.
I ought to go after him and make him come out. But it would be madness. I never imagined there was a hole in the wall back there. As my eyes get used to the light, I can see that it is just about big enough for a large crocodile to fit through.
The crocodile is probably still swimming around in the reservoir. Why would he break back into his cage? No, Eric is probably safe. I’m in more danger than Eric, out here, in the open. I might get pounced on and dragged into the reservoir.
I decide to wait just a little longer anyway.
“Stephen.”
Eric’s voice sounds like it is coming out through the hillside. He doesn’t seem like he’s in danger. So that means I can stay where I am, doesn’t it?
“Come and look at this.”
Even though his voice is muffled, I can hear surprise in his voice. I test the loose bars, look up at where they have come away from the cage. The animal must have had awesome strength to break out, even though the cage is old and rusty.
“Stephen.” Eric sounds impatient. I peer into the water.
There is no motion, no sound, nothing. I think I am safe. I think if he was in here, he would have got Eric by now.
I step through the bars and on to the concrete platform. How many times have I seen him lying on this ledge, motionless and with his jaws gaping open? I would never have imagined myself here.
“Stephen. It’s fine. Come and look at this.”
Eric’s voice reassures me and I manage to let go of the bar I am clinging to.
Hand over hand, I move round the edge. My arms are trembling and my knuckles are white. I want to look behind me and check the water but I am scared of losing my balance. The last thing I want to do is fall in. I’d die. I really would.
Eric is talking to me through the wall but I can’t hear what he is saying. Finally I reach the back wall and I pull back the curtain of greenery. I’m hit by a draught of warm, stale air. As my eyes get used to the dark, I make out quite a large space. I yank at the ivy and brambles and pull them off into the water. I stick my head through the hole.
“Jesus.”
Eric sounds so surprised I pull back and nearly fall back in the water. Everything goes quiet. I stand very still and listen. I know what noises my boy makes. I know how he roars. I know the sound of his breathing. Sometimes he hisses, like a snake. Other times he lets out this noise, like he has a baby’s rattle caught in the back of his throat. But I can’t hear him now.
I think I might go back. So there is a cave behind the wall. So what?
Something moves behind the wall and I begin to step quickly back round the ledge.
A head thrusts through the hole.
“Are you coming or what?”
Eric looks at me.
“Wish I had a torch,” he says. “There’s loads of stuff in there.” I pass him my Maglite. He nods. “I’m beginning to believe you,” he says.
It is a kind of animal burrow and it stinks of shit. Claw marks run over the walls. It is about the size of the inside of a minibus and it’s pitch black. Bones lie scattered here and there. Some are bigger than others. I don’t look too closely. It is strangely warm, much warmer than outside. A massive iron girder reaches up from the floor to the ceiling.
Eric kicks it. “Could be something left over from the war,” he says. “Or maybe this was an alternative site for the dam.” He beckons for me to follow him to the back of the cave and shadows leap over the walls.
“And this,” he says, “is why I am beginning to believe you.”
He points the torch into a hole, about two feet across. Even in the poor light I can see it’s deep. Eric proves it by kicking a clod of earth which we don’t hear land.
