Experiment With Destiny (27 page)

‘Green fields and trees you’ll never see;

Mountain air, sea breeze you’ll never breathe.

The taste of the cold wind, a bird on the wing.

Life rich in mystery. But no life within.’

             
Jennifer reached into her Burberry bag and took out her cigarette lighter. Placing it carefully beneath the shred of paper she flicked her bloodied thumb over the roller. The flint sparked, the gas caught and flamed, and the paper flared. It cast a warm glow in the mirror, giving colour to her pallor. She saw herself smile, and with the smell of blood and paraffin filling her nostrils, she allowed the burning page of poetry to fall.

             
Moments later her bedroom had erupted in a ball of flame. The glass of her window shattered instantly and the blaze took hold. Timbers cracked and splintered. Outside came the excited shouts that she did not hear, as the cameras whirred into life to capture the spectacle of thick black smoke belching through the empty window frame. Soon after, in the distance, sirens wailed for her, too late.

* * *

Part 6

Eat Your Fruit, But Don’t Take Roots

XVI

“COME away boy!” His tired voice ruffled the stillness. The boy paid no attention. “Come away, I warn you! They’ll be here soon with their dogs!” The old man stooped to collect his ragged plastic bag. Still the boy gave no heed.

             
Malcolm peered into the dark sky, struggling to balance the bag over his worn shoulder. A tear, drawn by the bitter wind, traced the lines of age down his hollow cheek. He groaned aloud in the empty market place. The sound of his voice echoed through the rows of abandoned stalls and he immediately wished he’d contained his weariness in silence. He tried to hold his laboured breath. He listened to the whispers of paper drifting across the square and the guttural cough of his lookout, stationed in the doorway of a Gothic-looking bank. He listened intently but there were no sirens, no heavy booted steps and no dogs.

             
Malcolm breathed again, more freely. The punishment for foraging was detention, usually accompanied by beatings before and after. For a non citizen, the shadows of the half light bred unpleasant memories. He turned to the boy once again, his dry, tired voice almost pleading.

             
“Come now boy! Come…or I’ll leave you to their dogs and their sticks.” His free arm beckoned beneath a stained, heavy coat. “Leave their machine alone. Messin’ with them will only get you in trouble.” But the boy ignored him, or was no longer aware of him. Malcolm saw the glow of the television reflected in the boy’s enraptured face. He cursed beneath his wheezing breath then lurched forward in his filthy boots. “Damn you boy! Why’d I ever take you in?” He shuffled through the debris of last night’s trading, now picked clean of all that was edible or useful. A few steps more and it was as though he’d shaken off the burdens of age and perpetual ill health. He trudged through the maze of deserted stalls until he reached the alley. There, he turned to see if the boy had followed. He had not. Despairing of his attempts to warn the boy away, he switched his attention to the look-out.

             
Three taps of a bent penny against a rusting drainpipe brought movement and Malcolm’s eyes warmed to the sight of his watcher emerge from the shadows to limp toward him across the empty street. The figure vanished momentarily among the stalls then reappeared on the edge of the market place. He held out his hand and the girl almost danced to greet him, despite her twisted limb. She offered a toothless smile between her grubby cheeks and reached out, grabbing his stiff, bony fingers, giving them a squeeze. Malcolm beamed down at her, this bundle of rags was barely a teenager but she was the size of someone much younger…the effects of poor nutrition rather than genetic heritage…yet with the hard expression and weather-worn features of someone much older. Life in the wastelands was harsh. But the fear of this night seemed to lose its grasp as he revelled in her tenderness. She released his partially gloved hand and poked the plastic bag like a playful kitten.

             
“The citizens have left us much tonight, precious Rachel. Perhaps Ma can cook up some of her broth if these vegetables aren’t too rotten.” He pulled her tight to him and pressed his chapped lips to her louse-ridden hair. She was so like his daughter, or at least the memory of her, long ago…before he lost his job, his credit rating, then his home and his family. So long ago he could barely remember them…what they looked like. “We must go now. They will be here soon.”

             
Releasing her spindly body, he turned his back on the market and began down the unlit alley, sure of his way from the countless times he’d made his way here and back again.

             
“Where boy?” She grappled with the frayed arm of his coat, her strength surprising him. “Boy come too?”

             
“Leave him.” Malcolm glanced over his shoulder. “He chooses to stay and play with their machines. He will follow soon enough, or he will learn the hard lesson.” Rachel’s eyes widened in dismay. She relinquished his coat sleeve and limped back toward the pale streetlights. “No Rachel! It’s not safe! We must go, before the dawn!” His half-growled, half-whispered protest did nothing to hinder her progress across the market place. “Aaargh!” Malcolm spat at the floor. He wanted to go after her, but he remembered the dogs…the sticks…the pain. He dismissed the memories with a gesture and continued on his way home toward the wastelands.

             
He had almost reached the end of the alley when he sensed the distant vibrations of an engine. He froze. A sudden urge to flee filled his mind as cold fear seeped like ice along his spine. Even if he broke the paralysis of this terror he knew his aching body would not afford him the speed or the stamina to get very far. He could hear the noise clearly now, the hum of an approaching patrol car just a block or two away. Distantly, he could also hear Rachel’s voice…shrill and urgent, calling to the boy. She too had become aware of the danger.

             
Malcolm searched ahead. He was no more than 50 yards from the edge of the wastelands. They would not pursue him there, through the scattered heaps or rubble and debris where their vehicle would not venture and they would risk injury on foot. He was suddenly torn between the choice of hurrying to his own safety or turning back. His love for the girl, his adopted daughter, was strong…but so too were the memories of their violence and the burning pain in his side. It was a dilemma he couldn’t solve.

             
The bag containing his early morning spoils dropped to the floor with a splat, spilling the unwanted over-ripe fruit and vegetables over the filthy flagstones. His hands clawed the air hopelessly and he moaned aloud. Within seconds the engine noise was drowned by the wail of a siren, shattering the frosty silence of the pre-dawn. He saw the flashing blue of their light reflected along the damp walls of the alley. Then he heard their shouts and he shut his eyes, slipping within his own personal darkness…

             
It was too late to go back to them. Rachel and the boy, curse him, were lost. If the police had dogs then he too could not hope to evade capture. It was just a matter of time before they sniffed him out. He heard a scream…then a solitary shot that echoed from wall to wall, lingering on the chill breath of the night. Malcolm dropped to the stony floor, his knees squelching with the vegetable matter. He began to writhe in terror and self-loathing.

* * *

              Officer 620 stared at the appalling stain of blood and brain that smeared the roadside. A steaming trail of crimson trickled to a nearby drain and vanished beneath the street. He rolled the girl’s body without thought of dignity beneath his heavy boot, his expression darkening as he realised this fresh corpse was merely a child.

             
Stepping carefully over the gathering pool of blood that framed her broken body, he returned to the patrol car. Lifting the microphone handset, his eyes scanned the dull red-bricked buildings that surrounded the square. Most were shops but, above one or two, curtains began to part in the windows as residents drawn from their sleep by the siren and gunshot peered down at this ugly scene.

             
“Six-two-zero to control, over.” The receiver crackled.

             
“Control to six-two-zero, receiving. Send traffic. Over.” He sent his report; suspected armed bank robbers sighted in the market area by some sleepless citizen had turned out to be vagrants, unarmed, scavenging for waste among the stalls. One dead, another – he described as ‘tramp boy’ – in custody. “Roger that,” confirmed control. “We’ll dispatch a meat wagon and get that mess cleared up for you before the citizens start waking up. Over.”

             
“Probably a bit late for that, some of them are already awake! Over.”

             
“Whatever…might do them some good to see real police work, eh? Stay safe Six-two-zero. Over and out.” The receiver went dead and he replaced the handset. Officer 620 glanced over at his partner, some distance away, who was in the process of cuffing the boy, still transfixed by the television.

             
“You frisked him?” he called. His partner nodded. “Stolen credit card?” His partner shook his head. “Then how the bloody hell did he do that?” He gestured toward the public service broadcast screen. “And why? What possible interest can it be to the likes of him?” His partner shrugged, clicking the cuffs closed and pushing the boy toward the car.

Officer 620 stepped toward the ‘tramp boy’ and studied him. He showed no apparent sign of fear, which was unusual. Perhaps he’d never encountered the force of law before, and didn’t know what happened to his kind when they trespassed into the real world. This would be a salutary survival lesson for him then.

“How did you activate that thing…without a credit card?” The boy said nothing, wasn’t even looking at him. “More to the point, why would you activate it? Probably what woke up our concerned caller and gave the game away for you! Poor choice of viewing too, for someone your age!”

They pushed him into the caged rear of the patrol car, the boy craning his neck to try and see the screen.

“Good morning British Eurostate,” it continued minus its audience. “This is International News Broadcasting. It’s 5am. Coming up in just a few moments, Tuesday’s edition of Eurostate Today with your host Ted Hallder. But first, here are the headlines wherever you live…”

* * *

              The cold sky was a blur of steel grey. It held no comfort for Malcolm. This morning, while the sky was still charcoal black, he’d lost his treasured companion, his adopted daughter. He was used to losing companions, it was an occupational hazard, if being a non citizen could be considered an occupation. Usually his friends and ‘family’ – for he considered Rachel to be both – passed away from illness, hypothermia or sometimes malnutrition, though that was rare. When they died, their empty bodies…their shells…were cremated and members of the wasteland community would gather in silence around the fire to reflect on times shared with the departed, good and bad. There would be no cremation for Rachel, no shared ceremony of sweet memories from her short, young life. Denied: her body was gone, taken away by the police and the flagstones scrubbed of every trace of her. Malcolm stared up at the tarnished heavens, his chilled hands wringing out what little warmth his blood could offer. The corners of his pale eyes offered up a silent prayer. Such a dreadful, pointless loss….why? God rest her soul. That boy…! But he told himself that questions would not bring her back and the bleak sky became even hazier behind his veil of tears.

             
“What’s up wi’ Malcolm today?” Harry’s throaty voice asked. The old tramp stood in the doorway, eclipsing the sky, his withered frame hanging like bones within an over-large brown crombie. “He don’t seem his-self. ‘Ardly a bloody world all mornin’ to the world!” Harry thrust a hand-rolled cigarette fashioned from dog-end tobacco he’d painstakingly harvested from empty streets under cover of darkness between his toothless gums and drew breath for all he was worth. Its embers flared briefly between his grime-stained fingers. Ma ignored him and continued to work the pot on the open fire, her forehead sweating from its heat. Harry watched her labours and started to salivate as the bubbling liquid slowly thickened and the aroma of vegetables wafted across. He exhaled, his lungs whistling. “Seems like nobody round ‘ere wants to spend the time of day talking to an old soldier today!” He shook his head, turned and stumbled away across the rubble surrounding the tumble-down warehouse. Ma glanced up to watch him go, then glanced round at Malcolm before returning her attention to the pot with a deep sigh.

             
Harry’s arrival and departure had not gone unnoticed. Malcolm heard the tone of friendly concern in his voice but sorrow seemed to slow his senses and prevented him from making any meaningful response. Harry was a good sort. Originally from across the border, up north somewhere, his wry humour and tales of soldiering did much for community spirit. Malcolm knew that at night he could sometimes be heard crying alone in his ramshackle shed, either remembering the long past horrors of war or enduring the very present and increasing agony of arthritic pain. Yet, by daybreak, Harry was always smiling again as he meandered from ruin to ruin, sharing the warmth of his fellow waste-dwellers’ fires and his own unique brand of cheery conversation.

             
“It’s the dark that brings the pain closer,” he’d told Malcolm once. “The dark more than the cold. It usually goes with the dawn frost, unless it’s a deep, deep frost.” The arthritis prevented Harry from taking part in many of the community’s activities: gathering kindling and firewood; forays into the edges of the other world for food; or carrying out makeshift repairs to the daily crumbling homes they fashioned from the derelict ruins. But Harry did his best, played his part, in other equally important ways. The community valued him and welcomed him and Malcolm knew he would be remembered with fondness when his turn came to pass from this world of pain.

             
Malcolm wiped his eyes and looked beyond Ma out through the doorway of his home. Rachel was gone…and soon Harry would be gone too…and Ma, and him…and how many countless others? The other world had not known the passing of an orphaned girl so how would it learn of the passing of all who had been cast aside on this refuse tip of humanity? He wondered how his own passing would come about…murdered by the police, like Rachel, or choking cold and alone in the night, like Harry’s probable demise. And when he had gone, what stories would they tell of Malcolm as his bones sizzled in the fire and what trace of him would remain after the nomadic ones passed through and picked clean anything that remained of his few worldly possessions in his meagre abode?