Breakdown, page 3
‘No matter,’ he says.
An icy wind blows against me. I shiver. Nan’s coat is so heavy. If he thought getting the shoes was going to be easy that’s not my fault. An empty window rattles. A piece of broken, yellowing plastic blows down the street.
‘Len, you go with her.’
Lenny looks up and tries to hold on to him.
‘I won’t be long.’ Tarquin shakes him off.
‘Can’t I go with you?’
‘Then who’ll take care of her?’
Lenny doesn’t answer.
‘Don’t make me remind you of what I said down by the river.’
Tarquin calls out to the two others. ‘One of you wanna come help with the shoes?’
Nailey and Kaylem don’t bother to reply.
‘I won’t be long.’
‘The boaters always got knives,’ I say.
Tarquin hands the stick and the tin pan to Lenny. ‘Drum me up some help,’ he says.
At the next street he slips into the shadows and sprints off. At first the dogs don’t notice he’s gone. Then they do. One of them howls. A bunch of them look like they’re going to follow. Lenny starts banging the tin pan. The banging seems to refocus their attention. They move back towards us, settle into the old rhythm, and we trudge on.
‘Soon be there,’ says Lenny.
I’m so cold I hardly care.
‘An’ I’ll look after you till Quinny gets back.’
‘If he gets back,’ I say.
‘It’ll be OK,’ says Lenny. ‘An’ he’ll bring the shoes.’
Shoes, I think – all this for shoes.
‘There you see, I’m always right,’ says Lenny suddenly, pointing at something.
I look up.
And ahead of us, bang in the centre of an open wasteland, are the white walls of Games City.
6
We’d heard about the place, of course, Nan and me.
People had warned us how the Light of the Lord had gone out there. People got quite biblical on the topic, cautioned everyone that a new breed of humans was evolving. A breed as cruel as Herod, that could survive radiation, could multiply like cockroaches; could infect things.
And they were spawning in multitudes in Games City.
But as I trudge up towards its ramshackle barricades and its towering walls, this new evil breed of mankind is not the first thing I notice. The first thing is the smell.
It belches out at me. Sour like a bad dream. Even before we get there.
And the closer we get, the worse it is.
Across the barricades and into the old VIP lounges, and it’s so thick I can’t breathe. Saliva rises in my mouth. And however empty I thought my belly was, I’m sure I’m going to spill it right there. I nearly do, though my stomach’s so shrunk it can’t be much bigger than a pod.
I try to cover my nose with my coat sleeve, try to stop myself retching. How can people stand it? And I think of all the stories. It must be true then. Radiation must’ve changed them. They must be like cockroaches, happy to live on filth.
And I know I can’t stay here. That’s for sure.
Kaylem and Nailey march me down to the arena.
The once-gleaming, white-spoked Olympic Stadium with its glorious racetrack, which Nan told me all about, is now riddled with ramshackle alleyways. Lean-to sheds. Tin shacks. Hovels of buckled boards. Everything huddled together. Pools of filthy water. Mud. Sewage. Slime-covered concrete. Cracked paving. Litter. Rubble.
And stench.
A brindle dog slinks towards us, its tail between its legs. Oh hell. They’ve got dogs here too.
‘She’s a tracker dog, Miss,’ says Lenny. ‘And she’s my friend, ain’t ya?’ He fondles the dog’s head. She tries to wag her tail.
Kaylem sees and steps over. ‘Get,’ he snarls, and whacks the dog around its muzzle with the iron bar.
The dogs squeals and runs off.
‘You didn’t ought to do that,’ says Lenny. ‘She’s still got a bad mouth from before.’
‘Shut up,’ says Kaylem.
Oh Nan, where are you? Don’t abandon me here. Not with these gangers and these dogs.
Please take me with you.
Take me to a place where we won’t have to scrabble around in dirt trying to grow a few scabby potatoes, hoping this year some apples will fruit on the old tree.
Take me to a place where the bees are back.
We heard that once – didn’t we? That the bees were coming back. That somewhere, up-country, in the far north, in the mountains, somehow, they were there. Buzzing on lavender-coloured heather. Not biome bees – real bees, honey bees, collecting nectar, dusting pollen from blossom to blossom.
How long will they take to come south? How many years must we wait?
But we’d have waited, Nan, just the two of us. We’d have sat by dying fires, thrown books on to keep us warm.
How you cried, Nan, when we did that, and said: Not the books – not a life without stories, not a world without the Gods. How you held me close and called me your hope, your little Melissa, and reminded me of my name – Melissa, the nymph of the mountains, who was cursed to dwell in the underworld until Zeus, grown from the child she rescued, took possession of paradise and took pity on Melissa, transforming her into a beautiful bee and sending her back to earth to regenerate the souls of men.
‘To regenerate the souls of men.’ That’s what you said, Nan. ‘That’s the task, Melissa.’ How often did you tell me that?
But, Nan, we got by, didn’t we? We used the embers to cook those potatoes, dried our sodden feet, told our own stories.
And you said, ‘The sacrifice has been made. The earth has been punished. The bees will return.’
We’d have waited together.
While those bees were coming.
Lenny’s upset. He tries to call the dog. But she’s too scared to come. We’re marched into the centre of the racetrack. I stare at the piles of refuse around me.
I can’t stay here.
Kaylem shoves me, says, ‘Get close to the fire, then. Dry yourself out. You ain’t going to fetch nothing if you look nasty.’
I don’t move.
Oh Nan. Are you there? Can I follow you? Please? To that other place?
Is it different there – over the doorstep of death? Is there a hearth with real logs burning brightly and a pot of stew bubbling and clean clothes in the closet and shoes for every day of the week … ?
Kaylem slaps me hard across the back of my head. ‘I don’t ask twice.’
It’s only when Lenny pulls my hand and leads me to the fire that I move. My ears ring. ‘Miss, you got to do like they say or we can’t help you.’
‘That’s it, you watch her,’ snaps Kaylem. He rolls his iron bar to Lenny. ‘Whack her with this if she’s trouble.’
‘Please, Miss?’
I get up and go close to the fire. I take off Nan’s coat and hook it over an upturned grocery trolley so it can dry out. Then I sit where I can dry out too. The smoke curls itself all around me. I’m glad. I cough, but the smell of smoke shuts out the stench.
Kaylem and Nailey walk off. They head towards some benches at the far side of the arena. Noise. Something like music. Oil lamps flicker. A lot of shouting.
‘They’re doing drinking, Miss,’ says Lenny. ‘Old Ma Taylor’s brew. And playing checkers.’
Nan’s coat drips and steams. The brindle dog slinks back, her belly close to the ground. Lenny croons over her, feeding her scraps of things from his pocket.
‘I gotta feed her,’ he says. ‘And she’s one of our best trackers. But Careem hit her bad last week an’ broke some teeth. She’s still recovering an’ she can’t eat easily no more. Can you, doggy?’ He tickles her shoulders.
I scrunch myself up as tight as possible and stay next to the flames. They die away. Nobody tends them. I start to get cold again. If there was wood nearby I’d risk another slap to get it. Lenny watches me.
‘Got to watch you,’ he says. ‘Tarquin says.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m not going to hit you, though.’ He toes away the iron bar Kaylem rolled at him. ‘Even if you tries to escape. I won’t hit you, Miss.’
‘OK.’
‘But please don’t try. You might get away and then they’ll beat me.’ He sits scrunched up as well, his too-big head on his scrawny knees. The dog nuzzles him. Lenny watches me with his oversized eyes and I think: I can’t escape right now. I’m too weak. It’s too cold, and it’s night, and there’s dogs, and Nan’s dead. But I will. And I don’t care who they beat.
But I don’t say anything. I just watch him back with my eyes all squinty.
Not that I want him beaten.
‘I really ain’t going to hit you,’ says Lenny and he rolls the bar even further away to show me he ain’t.
‘I wish you could get away, though,’ he says, quite unexpectedly. ‘If you could, I’d go wiv ya.’
I look at him then, my eyes open despite the smoke. ‘What’d I want to take a kid like you for?’ I say.
He shrugs. ‘Don’t know,’ he says. ‘You mightn’t.’
‘You’re damn right.’
There’re some ideas you have to kill dead.
Lenny sighs. He scratches the dog’s head, lifts up one of its ears and whispers into it, ‘You’d like to go wiv me, wouldn’t ya?’
Then he just carries on watching me with those eyes in that face on that scraggy neck, like he really thinks there’s some kind of paradise that I can escape to and am refusing to take him there on purpose.
I sigh and look out over the stadium. It’s very dark. They’re still shouting and drinking at the far edge. I wish I could sleep. I wish I could curl up in an even tighter ball and never wake up.
But the kid’s got me thinking. I could escape. Maybe not right now, but tomorrow, when it’s light, when the dogs have gone to ground. Maybe at dawn. What I need to do is find out how. I remember what Careem said to Tarquin: ‘You get to take her back and have her for the rest of tonight. After that I’ve got something else in mind.’
Maybe Tarquin won’t come back and I can give this kid the slip.
But if Tarquin does come back and thinks I’m gonna be so grateful he pulled me out of the river that I’m gonna be his for the night, he’s got another think coming. And if he tries it on by force, I’ll kill him.
I really will.
But then again, maybe he might help me. He did pull me out of the river and he did say: ‘If your legs work, get up and get going.’
It’s Careem who’s gonna be the biggest problem.
‘What time do the gangs get back?’ I ask.
‘At dawn, Miss.’
‘What does Careem do with girls like me?’
Lenny shrugs.
What would Nan tell me to do?
I think of Nan and her life: and how as a girl she had everything and how she lost everything, including everyone she loved, except me.
She survived though. And her favourite advice was always, ‘Think first.’
Oh Nan.
I try to think. How big is this place and how much do I know about it? I try to remember.
Nan told me how the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park was the new jewel in the Crown of England. How it cost the country hundreds of millions of pounds. How it featured myriad colours and all the colours whirled to form wheels in pinks and blues and greens and oranges that changed throughout the stadium as they were picked out in paintwork, glass, fabric and lights.
Doesn’t look anything like that now.
Raw sewage running down between the seating aisles, sheds and shelters of rusty tin, plastic sheeting for roofs, people curled up on rubbish heaps, men drinking, children sifting through trash looking for God knows what.
Holes full of shit.
Vicious tracker dogs.
Thin, starved faces.
‘Why don’t you wanna take me, Miss?’ asks Lenny.
‘There isn’t any place to take you to,’ I say.
‘I could help carry things,’ says Lenny.
‘What things?’
‘Any things you want me to carry.’
‘You’re not coming.’
‘But there is somewhere, ain’t there, even if you can’t take me?’
‘And I haven’t got “things to carry” if that’s what you’re thinking.’
He tilts his head to one side as if he knows better. ‘There’s the farm.’
I roll my eyes. ‘The covered farms are not nice,’ I say. ‘They’re prison camps.’
‘No, not them,’ he says. ‘The little farm.’
‘Look,’ I say, ‘you don’t want to end up in a covered farm.’
‘I mean the little farm in the north.’
I haven’t got a clue what he’s on about so I just say, ‘Everywhere outside London’s got radiation.’
‘I know.’
‘No you don’t,’ I say.
He goes quiet.
‘It can strike you down, just like that, and all your hair’ll fall out and you’ll shrivel up and die and that’s it.’
He sucks in his cheeks.
‘There’s no cure for it and nobody’s working on one, neither.’
‘I know.’
‘No you don’t. Nobody survives radiation once they’ve got it.’
‘I know. My mum didn’t.’
That stops me dead. I should have known. His mum.
I look at him. His bottom lip’s trembling. He keeps glancing across the racetrack and then back at me.
‘He’ll be all right,’ I say. ‘They didn’t really have big knives.’
He nods.
‘We’ll all be all right. Me too. I’m always all right. I’m stubborn like that.’
Immediately he looks more cheerful. ‘I knew you was going to be OK, Miss,’ he says.
Well, that’s nice of him I suppose. And it’s true. I am going to be OK. I’m going to get out of here and go home. Whatever stupid plan these gangers have ‘in mind’ for me.
And that makes me smile. The first smile since Nan died. I out-sparked them, didn’t I? So I know I can get away, plus I don’t care. I don’t care if I live or die right now. And that gives me power.
So I crouch there thinking, slowly drying out by those embers, listening to the slight crackle of charcoal burning down and the noises of the ghetto.
I’m not going to do anything to suit them.
Not me.
Not while I got a tongue in my head and a brain to think with.
7
A wailing starts up outside the arena. Right by the stadium gate. The howl of dogs. The sound of tin pans suddenly banging.
‘It’s Quinny, Miss,’ says Lenny, his face suddenly alight. ‘He’s back and the pack are on him.’
I straighten up. Rub my eyes. The fire’s only embers. I’m dry. Nan’s coat’s dry. I pull it back on. ‘The pack are on him?’
‘The dogs, Miss. Trying to stop him getting through.’ Lenny’s already on his feet and doing a little dance on the spot. ‘Me and her is going to go and help.’ The brindle bitch jumps up as well.
‘OK.’
Just as Lenny is about to leave, Kaylem reappears.
‘Leaving?’ he snaps.
Lenny’s face falls. ‘Quinny’s back,’ he says. The dog bolts away. Lenny remembers. He’s supposed to guard me. His dance changes. No more hopping. Now he shuffles slowly on the spot.
Kayem shrugs. ‘Well, lucky for you, I can take over.’
Lenny’s eyes widen. A look of relief. Quickly followed by a look of alarm. Kaylem isn’t trying to be helpful.
‘Go on.’ Almost a smile from Kaylem.
Lenny looks at me, looks at Kaylem, starts running anyway for the stadium gates.
Kaylem chuckles. It’s not a nice noise. I wish Lenny hadn’t gone. Small as he is, he’d have been there.
‘All on your own now, are you?’ says Kaylem, as if he can read my mind.
And without any further ceremony he lays a hand on my arm and drags me upright. Our eyes meet, just for a second. His lips part. I can read what’s in his eyes.
I scream.
Lenny stops, turns, catches the picture of us there, Kaylem’s hand on my arm, dragging me.
‘Get,’ yells Kaylem.
Lenny turns away, runs fast towards the gate.
‘Now you,’ says Kaylem. ‘Let’s see how much boom you got.’
I look at him, balance, twist my arm free. I start to back away, clutch my coat around me. I take two steps back. Behind me two gangers suddenly appear from nowhere. They close in. I stop. No way back. I look from them to Kaylem. No way forward.
I’m trapped.
The two behind drive me on. Kaylem smiles, his arm ready with an iron bar. I stop. I let out one shrill cry. A hand from behind descends over my mouth. I bite down, but it’s clamped too tight. Someone kicks my knees out. I half-fall, stagger. I try to drag Nan’s coat even closer.
‘Not here, you clods,’ snaps Kaylem. ‘Drag her to the south end. Then beat it. Cover my back.’
Two of them grab my shoulders, hold my elbows in, pin me against them. They drag me, kicking, away from the fire, towards the darkened edge of the racetrack.
Where the light stops, they stop. They leave me. I struggle to my feet. Kaylem comes in close, grabs my hair, drags my face up.
‘I wanna see the look in your eyes when I do you, boom-ting,’ he says.
The other two snigger.
‘Get lost, you lot,’ snaps Kaylem.
They move off. Like a flash I try to step away. But Kaylem holds me. Pulls my hair. It’s so painful I cry out. My scream is swallowed in the darkness. Cries drowned out by the clamour. My heart stops. His hand goes over my mouth. I kick. There’s no time to think. I try to hit out.
With one savage motion Kaylem kicks my feet out from under me. I’m falling, thrashing. I’m flat on the grass. My head hits the racetrack with a crunch. I hear my skull thwack. He tries to kick my legs wide. But I fight. I kick back. I rip at him.
