Authors: Kevin Brooks
The Bunker Diary (28 page)
We can’t get his body out of the
bathroom. Too big. Doesn’t matter. We don’t go in there.
Jenny …
I had another vision thing. I saw her.
She’s lying beside me on the floor. The fire’s going out. I can’t get
up to get any wood. I could burn you now. I could burn you now. I saw her, a long time
ago. Looking up at the ceiling. Clear brown eyes, soft shiny hair, a curious little
mouth.
He’s a bad man, isn’t he?
Looking up at the ceiling.
You’re a bad man, Mister. A very bad man.
She’s a feather of bones.
Long time.
Days.
A long way from everything. Floating, sad,
cold. I wish things were different. I wish I was home. I wish Dad was sitting in his
armchair with a cigarette and a glass of brandy, with a Wild West picturebook in his
lap, with Mum in the kitchen, and the Monkees playing quietly on the CD player. I wish I
was the little kid standing beside the chair, like a small ghost in blue flannelette
pyjamas, giving off a silent fragrance of orange squash and skin. I wish I was standing
there with my head cocked to one side, looking down at the pictures in the book.
Pictures of cowboys, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Frank and Jesse James,
Davy Crockett.
‘He got a dog on his head.’
Dad looks at me, then looks back at the
picture of the handsome fellow in buckskin breeches and a raccoon-skin hat.
‘That’s Davy Crockett,’ he
says.
‘Doggett.’
‘Crockett, Davy Crockett. He was born
on a mountain top in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free, raised in the
woods, so he knew every tree, tamed him a b’ar when he was only
three …’ Dad sings quietly, ‘
Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild
frontier …
’
I point at Davy Crockett’s hat.
‘Got a dog on his head.’
‘No, it’s a raccoon.
Ra-coon.’
‘Dog.’
‘Raccoon. It’s a bit like a
dog –’
‘What dog?’
‘It’s not a dog, Linus.
It’s a raccoon. Ra-coon. Raccoon-skin hat. See its stripy tail?’
‘It’s past his bedtime,’
Mum says from the door.
‘Raccoon dog,’ I say.
‘Bear. Fox.’
Dad sighs, sips his brandy and turns the
page.
‘Come on, you,’ Mum says.
‘It’s time for bed.’
Jenny dies in my arms.
Goes to sleep, doesn’t wake up.
My tears taste of blood.
Days, no light.
Hours days years.
flesh and blood meat drink that’s all
it isflesh and blood it’s allthesame chicken cow pig = 3 it’s all just
meatfleshfoodenergy it’s all the same turn the bad to good we’re all
animalsanimalsanimals
meatanddrink
your liquid eyes
so sorry
so hurting skinned dry
please forgive me
no tears now
too long
sick
don’tcare the light the tunnel
no
this is what i know
it doesn’t hurt any more
this is
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Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin
Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80
Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
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First published 2013
Copyright © Kevin Brooks, 2013
Cover photo © Getty. Cover design by
samcombes.co.uk
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author and illustrator
has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-141-91059-8