by Erme Lander
“Stubborn child.” Dodie didn’t have to pretend a fondness, she loved all her children. Others used street rats like Talia, smaller, weaker and less able to protect themselves. They beat them up, sold them, made them fear the world and made them into bullies and pimps like themselves. Dodie used a different method. She took them in, looked after them and had ended up with an army of youngsters who knew what their life could have been like. Talia had been one of the few to rebel and go her own way. She brought Dodie information when she had it, trinkets when she wanted something, otherwise she attended to her own business. Dodie tolerated her wilfulness as long as she didn’t cross her.
Dodie waited until Talia put down the bowl and they argued amicably about the percentage each would get. They agreed Dodie would find a name and let her know in a few days.
“Come and see me soon darling.” The words were for everyone to hear. This time the crowd parted for Talia as she moved to the door and she made the most of it, conscious of the protection laid on her.
Outside it was a different matter. She kept the swagger up, past the corner and then slid into the night, aware that others might follow her back to her sleeping place. There was always the risk that someone would find it and use it or find it and wait for her. There’d been that time several years ago when a man had taken a liking to her, not paying attention to her threats. She shuddered, he’d trapped her one evening, caught her when she’d been tired from digging and not checking as she’d wriggled into her hiding place. The warm blood running over her hands, the gasp and shake of a body over her. The first time she’d killed someone. She’d run and curled up in an empty cellar, not caring about the bruises or the dogs sniffing around.
Now she was careful, wide eyes scanning the darkness, head tilted to catch any sound and breathing lightly to prevent her lungs catching at the mess inside. A stumble close by, she froze. A deep cough and the sound of fabric against brick. She stayed still, nostrils flaring and caught the smell of urine. The patter against a wall. A muttered swear word and the man staggered on, nearly brushing against her.
Her feet carried her back to her current hidey hole. She stayed in the entrance, trying to sense if anything had changed. Nothing, no difference in the feeling. She risked her lighter and walked into her territory. All was safe.
Talia glanced down at where the nob was lying. His mouth was open and she briefly considered dropping something into it. He looked young, none of the scruffy half shaven look that most of the boys her age shared. He certainly had the scrubbed look of the few nobs she’d seen behind their armed escorts. His skin was soft, a pinkness on the bridge across his cheeks. She remembered his voice and the pang it had sent through her the first time she’d heard it. It had stopped her replying to his questions while she’d analysed her reactions and then dismissed them as not being important.
Still curious, she leant forwards and abruptly drew back as she felt her lungs curdling for a coughing fit. She moved away and hacked into her elbow, not wanting to wake him. No soft feelings of sympathy for the nob, he was simply better off asleep. Less noise and somehow less pathetic. Only a nob could fall over his own feet and expect to survive down here. She wiped her nose across a sleeve stiff with grime and absently scratched a nail through her hair.
Talia mentally re-arranged her plans for the next few days. She wouldn’t be chatting up the traders from across the city as she’d planned, those trinkets she’d found would go to the new cause currently sleeping in the corner. She’d have to find an excuse to get into the inner circle behind the wall. Dodie would give her a contact name, no more. Talia would be expected to find the reason to get to the contact herself, unless she was prepared to pay more. The offer to simply give up the nob and live off Dodie’s largesse had been unspoken in Dodie’s smile. Talia muttered something at the thought of being dependent and shivered.
She curled up on the pile of rags she slept on, her mind working furiously. She needed a proper bribe. There were still good things to be found in her diggings far in the south of the city. The risks were worth it, few got the items she did – another reason Dodie was prepared to tolerate her.
Her lungs trembled again and she forced the cough down. Someone would pay a lot for him. Talia curled up and blew out the lamp. She stared into the blackness where her prize lay until her eyes closed.
Chapter 5
I wake groaning and every muscle in my body protests against my stretch. It’s cold and a thin grey light sifts through the open doorway. My shoulders drop. It’s real. I’m not at home in bed with Biggles lying across my feet. I long for my thick winter duvet and the luxury of snuggling for five more minutes. Cautiously I feel the lumps on my head, a dry crusty scab above my eyebrow meets my fingers and the remains of a headache lurk amid the tenderness. I rub the rest of my face, wishing for coffee. What am I going to do? I remember how the grey slid through my fingers until I’d grabbed hold of the girl. I need to find her. I try to recall her face and fail in the memory of sun speckled eyes.
A movement catches my eye and I jump. Talia is sat in the corner, picking her teeth. I suppress the image rising of a baboon from a nature documentary, the unknown ferocity and a native intelligence in both their eyes. I try to tell myself that I know more and fail.
“Morning.”
Talia grunts at my forced cheerfulness, wipes her nose across the back of her hand and stands up. “Come on.”
“Why?”
“Gotta meet someone.”
“Who?” I pluck at my shirt, peeling it away from my armpits where it’s spent the night clenched against the cold and heave myself up.
“Someone to get you back to where you should be.” I try to hide a flinch as she comes closer. “You don’t smell.” Her voice is curious.
I sniff and regret it, I can smell plenty and only some of it is myself. Another more urgent feeling intrudes, I need a pee. I scramble up the stairs to follow her outside and move away to give myself privacy. There’s no way I’m asking permission. The sound makes me wince, steam rises off the wall and floor from the stream. I try to act unconcerned, inside I feel like Dominic. I turn to find Talia gazing off into the streets, her back to me.
She grunts at me to follow. Talia walks in a purposeful way through the streets, giving wary nods to other people. I’m surprised at the number of people about, still not many considering the size of the buildings lining the streets but it’s not quiet on the main thoroughfare either. Somehow I’d expected Talia to dodge and keep to the shadows, instead she’s confident, even swaggering a bit. These people look as tough as her. I find myself flinching at the knives worn openly and notice the seamed faces flicking to mine in return, assessing and dismissing.
The mist has dispersed a little in the early morning, a soft glow outlines the buildings. A fine powder falls briefly and stops. I brush it off my jumper and find it’s warm, is it ash? I wipe the smears onto my trousers and try not to thinks about the man’s skin flaking onto my fingers. I shake myself, it must have been a trick of the light, something to do with concussion. Last night was a bad dream, I’ll get home today. I can almost feel Biggles shoving his hard head against me in welcome and his claws scrabbling.
She glances in my direction more than once and then drags me to the side. “What are you doing?” I look blankly at her. “Walk properly nob. You’re calling attention to me, making yourself a target. Here.” She rummages in the bag slung over her shoulder and a piece of metal is shoved into my hand, narrowly missing cutting me. “You walk like a good time boy, people’ll think I’ve gone soft. Act tough.”
Act tough. I’ve never been good at acting. I clutch the makeshift weapon gingerly, try squaring my shoulders and put my face into an expression of grim determination. A slap stings across my face and I glare at her.
She smirks, “That’s better. Now walk.”
We keep going and aware of her warning, I try not to rub my face. Something trickles down it and I wonder if it’s bleeding, I daren’t ask. My mind
goes back to home with a pang. My parents would be up by now, I’d have collected the milk from the doorstep and left it in the kitchen. Would they have checked to find out why I hadn’t? Lost in my thoughts, I follow at Talia’s heels, not paying much attention to the streets around me. I nearly bang into her as I miss her hand wave to stop. Talia mutters something under her breath, I’m sure it’s a swear word. There’s a group of people in the road ahead and snatches of conversation drift towards us.
“Stay here, and try to look normal.” She sighs as I lean against the wall and flinch away at the damp seeping in. I can feel myself flushing, even here I’m not considered normal.
She swaggers towards the group, hand on the knife in the back of her belt. A thin voice greets her casual comment. The group parts and I see a body on the cart of a large woman. Talia peers over the edge, makes a comment and stalks back towards me.
“Come on nob.” Is her voice sharper?
“Who was that?”
“No one you’d know.” A definite sneer.
“Why do you keep calling me nob?”
“Cos if I chopped you off at the hips, you’d still have a knob for a head.” My mouth opens at the unfairness and clicks shut as she turns and walks away, fists tight against her sides. I glare at her back and keep up, reduced to being baggage.
Stinging from this latest comment, I notice the tangled hair and holes in her clothes. I’m stuck following this person, is this the best I can do here? There must be someone in authority who can help. Talia hasn’t even told me where she’s taking me. Anger begins to burn, first my sister, now Talia. The receptionist and Clive making comments, there’d been others too. Always stumbling, getting things wrong, even the counsellor hadn’t understood what I’d wanted to say. They all laughed at me, was I always going to be something for people to sneer at?
I start paying attention to my surroundings, there must be a way out of here, somewhere to get information. Surely someone as grubby and foul mouthed as Talia can’t help. I’ve no sense of direction, was this the way we’d come in the dark last night? Another intersection and a tang of salt in the air hits me. The sea? There are always important buildings next to the sea – customs offices and so on.
Talia is still stalking ahead, muttering to herself. She doesn’t think I’m important, she’s proven that by her comments. Not so many people in this street, fewer to help her catch me if I run. I slow, eyeballing her skinny figure and make a sharp turn without fully thinking about what I’m doing. The air is still grey in the dawn, further down the street only the outlines of buildings can be seen. This place is dismal even during the day.
I throw down the piece of metal and start running, anger and a wild joy lending me strength. Talia coughs her lungs out like a pensioner on sixty a day, there’s no way she can catch me running. I’m fit, I trek up and down the hills daily with Biggles. Dust puffs around my feet as they hit the floor. I feel pride in finally being able to do something she can’t. I hear a shriek as Talia realises my escape. I no longer care that she might be able to help me get back home. She denied all knowledge of the rift I came through. Inspiration hits, maybe I can find that girl on my own. She can’t blend in here any more than I can.
Something slams into my shoulder. I stumble, putting a hand out to stop myself falling and look behind me in disbelief. Talia stands in the distance weighing another stone. She’s thrown half a brick at me. I gape in stupidity then narrow my eyes. There’s a limit to her throwing range, I must be close to it. I run again, trying to ignore the pain spreading down my arm. It’s harder to run with only one arm working properly. A screech of rage behind me and the other rock clatters close by. She can’t possibly throw much further. My lungs are burning, I daren’t think how much dust I’m breathing in or the other people I’ve heard coughing. This sort of stuff can kill you if you breathe in too much.
Another smell of the sea and I turn towards it, working my way downhill all the time. I risk looking behind and see nothing in the narrow alleyways. I must be safe, I’ve been out of Talia’s eyeline for several streets. I slow and start to look around, allowing my breathing to relax. What is this place? Some kind of city, it’s enormous. It would have been stupendous if it wasn’t a ruin. All the buildings are made of brick, giving it a Victorian steampunk feel. Fancy brickwork shows through the grime. I touch a window ledge, it’s covered in the same grey ash I noticed earlier, only here it’s inches thick.
It’s like some movie set from a dystopian future, a hopeless future waiting for the hero to come barrelling in. I snort to myself – not me. My eyes flick to the windows high up, noticing the broken panes and I wonder what the buildings were used for. I’m not anyone’s hero. Talia’s proved that. All I can do is run and use computers.
All the films I’ve seen about rebuilding a future like this. How exactly do they rebuild? These people have nothing, they’re living off scraps from the past. I have a horrible thought, is this my world – in the future? I glance around. What had happened to make the city like this? Ruined in places and covered in dust, a war? I go cold, my imagination working overtime – nuclear war? I begin to panic and catch myself covering my mouth and stop. There’s nothing I can do. If the city is radioactive, then I am dead. People are surviving here, I can too. Until I find a way home at least.
As I head downhill, the buildings become larger and are in better condition. The rubble is cleared to the sides of the streets to allow for the traffic. Signs of restoration appear, one building is covered in a shaky scaffolding with buckets being hauled up on ropes. Everything is done by hand, men stripped to the waist and sweating in the cool air. The new day begins to show more as I walk. I peer upwards and see smoke billowing out from the chimneys above. Large windows are covered in grime, the same as the rest of the city. Are these factories? I wonder what they could make in such a pre-industrial area.
A plaza opens out in front of me, I can smell the sea but can’t see it. A building stretches across the back, blocking the way through, another road crosses from left to right. I freeze as I notice the bodies hanging from gibbets at one end and imagine the baying crowds.
A heavy low thumping fills the square, I swing my head trying to locate the sound and fail. It must be coming from one of the buildings close by. I can feel the rhythmic vibrations running through my feet. I stop in the shadows, trying to work through my options and wonder if Talia is following. I lean against a building to watch and shift away as vibration rumbles through my bruised shoulder.
People walk through the large square, there’s little to show if they are male or female. Their clothing is practical and smeared with the dust that covers everything. Grime emphasizes the lines in their faces making everyone look old, including the children. I’d expected them to be bent over and downtrodden. These people give the appearance of workmen doing a job that wasn’t to their liking, but had to be done. They walk in small groups, talking quietly. The few children I see stay close to the adults. I wonder if I should ask one of them about contacting the authorities. The bodies swinging in the background trigger a diluted survival instinct, making me aware that this may not be the best option. Maybe Talia had been right.
I twist behind to see if she’s caught up and an awareness invades my mind, like a smell of a dream. I turn back to the square, trying to work out what it is. I have a nagging sense of wanting to warn the people in front of me. I can’t say what’s wrong, just that something is. I shudder and look at the bodies swinging, trying to convince myself that I’ve been spooked.
The people in the square walk faster, the soft murmur of talk stills. Something is definitely wrong here. Still no sense of panic, simply those in a certain area move, slowly clearing a space in front of one of the alleys. My eyes are drawn to the entrance, a figure stands in the shadows. I can barely see him and yet I know he’s there. I squint, and the recognition grows stronger.
It’s the grey man, the same figure I’d seen the previous night. I’m sure he’s the same man I’d
seen by the hedge. The first link I’ve had with my own world. Maybe he could take me back if I can’t find the girl. I feel a sense of distaste, despite my hope that he can help. Why don’t I want him to come closer? A lethargy creeps over me, I can see people moving slower, panic starting to show on their faces. Why aren’t they moving faster if they’re not happy?
The grey man steps out into the square, somehow drawing the shadows with him. A hood over his face obscures his features. The crowd parts further, a ripple in custard. A slow motion movie where the only person moving normally is the grey man. The figure raises a hand, a slow step forwards and he places it on the man’s shoulder. A gesture of friendship, a greeting and yet the man staggers and lets out a muted cry.
I see his mouth open and close, the terror on his face visible. The man falls to his knees and topples to hit the floor. In the silence, the sound of his head connecting with the cobblestones makes my stomach lurch. The grey man follows his victim down, kneeling on the ground briefly beside him. I stare, mouth open, this was the man I’d wanted to help me. I remembered Talia’s fear the previous night as she’d mentioned the grey man. Frozen in place, I watch as the figure stands, leaving the man on the ground and walks away. The crowd follows his movements, watching him leave and the weight lifts from my limbs.
There’s a brief moment where people stare at the body and then they resume their business, walking around him like a pile of rubbish. The square gradually clears. What has happened? Why isn’t anyone helping? A determination fills me. I’m not going to be a bystander on this. Only a few people are walking by now and I jump as a loud noise blares. The remaining people hurry away. Some kind of warning? My anxieties about nuclear war are raised again. Where’s everyone going?
I’m left in the square with the body. I strain my ears, I hear the clattering and thumping from the buildings close by, nothing else can be heard over the noise, certainly no aeroplanes. What sort of aeroplanes would fly in a world like this? I scan the sky, trying to see through the mist. Nothing. My gaze returns to the body. I’ve been sweating in the cool air. Out of habit, I pull my jumper off and tuck it under my arm as I walk over. The man is lying huddled on the ground, his face turned away.
