The gift of joy, p.10
The Gift of Joy, page 10
Disturbed by this strange parody of humanity far more than I cared to admit, I chose to move on, striding down the street in the wake of the tram with as much dignity as I could muster; only to falter and come to a halt after a few steps.
Ahead of me more people were appearing. In ones and twos they slunk out into the open, emerging from between buildings or from sunken stairways. It was as if they had been in hiding, waiting for their sighted and more sombre brethren to go before they dared show themselves.
All were like the old man: dressed in rags, moving with a cautious, furtive manner, and all were eyeless.
One of them had been disturbing enough; being surrounded by a mob of these strange, feral people was too much for me. I felt as if I had stumbled into somebody else’s nightmare, one in which I had no reference points and no control.
They were appearing in every direction. The only possible sanctuary seemed to be back into the alley, so I turned and retraced my steps, hurrying on legs suddenly weak and unstable as fear rose within me.
The old man was still there. His face lifted as I approached, his lip curling in what seemed to be a snarl rather than a smile. As I drew level, he grabbed at me, reaching for my arm with long-nailed fingers. More on edge, more scared than I had ever been in my life, I was ready for him. I twisted as he lunged, so that his grasp found only my shirt sleeve, which ripped as I pulled away. His talons left gouges on my arm, drawing blood, but I was past him and running.
From behind came an ululating cry. This was the first sound I had heard issue from a human throat since I arrived here and it sounded anything but human. Truly terrified now, I ran for all I was worth, all aches and pains abruptly forgotten.
Around the corner, and I arrived at the garbage heap, the end of the blind alley. Spurred on by the sound of running feet behind me, I didn’t hesitate but leapt onto the mound, climbing, pulling and clawing my way to the top, oblivious to the ripping bags, the rotting filth and stench that surrounded me.
Mercifully I came to the summit, only to find myself confronted by a brick wall. But by stretching, I could reach its top edge. I felt the unstable heap beneath me shifting and knew that I was in danger of sinking into the supporting detritus, so clung desperately onto the rim with both hands and tried to pull and scramble my way up, finding purchase in the crumbling wall.
Panting and terrified, I lay on the flat roof, gazing down at the dozen or so creatures gathered below. They might walk like men, but I could no longer find it within me to think of them as human. Like a pack of hunting animals they jostled and prowled around the edge of the trash mound, as if seeking a clear way through. All the while, their blind faces stared up at me.
“Look, I’m a stranger,” I called. “All I want to do is get back home.”
My words only seemed to goad them. Two leapt into the rubbish and started to wade and clamber towards me.
In desperation I looked around for a means of escape. The first thing I saw was the gaping mouth of the chute which had spewed me forth so little time ago. It emerged from a rock wall that had been hidden from view at street level. It was completely out of reach and, in any case, memory told me that its surface had been far too smooth and steep to ever dream of climbing up.
Only then did I notice the ladder: a narrow strip of grey metal that clung to the rock face and was all but invisible in the gloom. I rushed over, finding that it came down to the very roof top I was on, extending past the mouth of the chute and disappearing into the darkness beyond.
Great. Where were all the elevators when you needed them? I was already tired and my knees felt weak just thinking about the climb ahead.
Sounds of scrabbling gave me new heart and without glancing backwards, I started to climb.
I have no idea how long that climb took. After a while it all blurred into one interminable effort. Initially I kept expecting to feel the ladder vibrate to the clambering presence of others, and strained to hear the sounds of pursuit, but none came. When I did eventually summon the courage to glance down it proved to be a mistake, as I realised just how far above the ground and even the rooftops I had climbed. At this point I was well past the chute and above even the rim of the distant chimney stacks, gaining a clearer sense of the raging fires they contained: angry, red, pulsing in the darkness like bleeding hearts.
Higher still and I was climbing near total darkness as the light from below receded. Yet as my eyes adjusted, I realised that even here it was not completely dark. Some growths on the rock-face around me, which later research suggested were probably lichen, glowed faintly with their own wan luminescence. The world was limned in narrowly defined shades of black and grey.
I rested several times and may even have dozed once or twice, clinging to the ladder which had become my whole world. Not for long, mind you; I was determined to reach the top before my strength failed entirely.
The end came almost as a surprise. Suddenly there were no more rungs to climb and I was collapsing forward to lie on a flat surface, muscles cramping with complaint at such abuse. It was tempting to lie there and slip into genuine sleep, but I remained terrified of being caught by those feral humans of the City Below and after a few moments forced myself to stand and look back. I was on a platform built into the rock-face, the distant city stretched out beneath me, etched in orange and red, as if it were on fire.
Before me stood a door, bizarre in its normality after so much strangeness. It sprung open at my touch and I stumbled through into the oppressive warmth of the Caretaker’s domain.
When I first woke up here it had seemed to me like hell, but it was nothing of the sort. I now realised that this was in-between, this was purgatory: a limbo that separated the unsuspecting City Above from the hell that lay beneath our feet.
What remained of the adventure was pretty straightforward. I shuffled along, all the while watching the ceiling, confident that somewhere up there would be a way back to the world I knew.
Finally I saw something; a barely perceptible seam above one of the anonymous blocks that surrounded me. After scrambling through rotting food and rubbish, the grime no longer held any fears and I soon climbed up the block in question to examine the possible crack more closely. Only then could I be certain: here was a hatch of some sort and I wondered how many similar irregularities I had blundered past without seeing.
Frustrating minutes passed as I stood there, pressing and prodding at the doorway, trying to find the release. By chance, I eventually pushed a spot at its very centre and the hatch started to slide open. The movement triggered a shower of dust which caused me to cough and splutter as it drifted down onto my upturned face.
I almost lost my balance as a platform beneath my feet started to rise, lifting me up through the newly exposed opening. The temperature dropped abruptly as I emerged, causing me to shiver. The cold and the sudden daylight made my eyes water. I was home. Well, almost.
I called Jezz, reckoning the very least he could do was pick me up and take me back to my apartment. He brought the whole crowd with him and within minutes I was surrounded by familiar faces, all of whom were talking at once.
It emerged that, after spiking my drink, my ‘friends’ had dumped me down in the Machine basement, which Jezz, naturally, knew all about. Jezz took pride in knowing about everything. Apparently there had been a door directly above my head, at the very spot I woke up. They then went back to the club for another drink, with the intention of coming back a little later and following me once I awoke. But by the time they did, I had already gone.
“We tried to find you, but it’s huge down there.”
“Tell me about it.”
“How did you get out, anyway?”
So I told them about the Caretaker and about the City Below.
Jezz shook his head, “There’s no one down there. The Machine is self-repairing, self-perpetuating; has been for centuries. It doesn’t need anybody.”
“How do you explain all that I saw then?”
Alan laughed. “After the amount you were putting away? Nothing you saw would surprise me.”
Jezz was more pragmatic. “It may have been the Machine. It can reproduce anything, you know.”
“Yes, but why would it?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? But trust me, all you saw down there were ghosts in the Machine.”
None of them believed me and I began to wonder whether they were right not to. Already the emotions were receding and everything that had happened was assuming a distant, dream-like quality. Had I really dropped down through different layers of the city, or through different layers of delusion, or even insanity?
I went home to collapse into bed for a long-overdue sleep, but in the process of drifting off I was struck by a thought which brought me wide awake again. The Caretaker had claimed that people only ever travelled through his realm in one direction, that nobody ever went up. If true, was it only because nobody Below had ever thought to do so? Had I just shown them the way?
What would happen if those awful, feral, eyeless creatures should find a way up to the surface?
On that terrible day, years later, when death erupted out of the sewers and the manholes, from the trapdoors in the streets and from the forgotten gaps in existence, I think I was the only person who failed to be surprised. And even I had almost forgotten, right up until that final, fateful moment when the machine stopped and the two Cities merged.
***
I’d never written a dystopian tale, something we Brits are supposedly renowned for, so I set out to produce one. What emerged was a story in which the protagonist accidentally sees beneath the surface of the apparently utopian society he lives in and glimpses a reality far darker.
In an effort to create a distinct contrast, I made the utopian element snappy, trendy and superficial, while the darker underbelly is intended to be grim, gritty and deliberately old-fashioned – Wells’ Morlocks as seen by the protagonist of Butler’s Erewhon in a Dickensian industrial setting, with a sprinkling of added ‘bizarre’ for good measure.
Hopefully, the result has a nostalgic feel with a surprisingly dark aftertaste – a sugar coated bonbon with a hot chilli centre.
Knowing How to Look
Have you ever been to London?
If so, which one?
Was it tourist London, with its over-priced cafés and tacky souvenirs – models of red buses and phone boxes, cuddly bears dressed in union jacks and uniforms parodying the Beefeaters that stand duty at the Tower? Or perhaps it was the London of Shopping – Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Regent Street and Oxford Street, proud department stores, designer boutiques and restaurants bearing the badge of the latest celebrity chefs, or maybe Financial London with its futures, stocks and shares, its bankers and city financiers frequenting their various bars of oyster, wine and tapas. It might conceivably have been the London of Government – the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall, pin-stripe suits and gentlemen’s clubs, or that of Pageantry – the Royal Family, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the changing of the guard and trooping of the colour. Perhaps you were even lucky enough to stumble on a remnant of Old London, the city that survived the plague, the great fire of 1666 and the blitz of WWII – the London of jellied eels, pie and mash, cockney humour and barrow-boy brashness. It is becoming harder to find these days, but it’s still there if you know how to look.
You see, there are many cities called London, all co-existing at the same geographic location. Between them they contain people of every race, religion and culture, some of whom call London home, while others are just passing through.
On occasion amidst all this rich diversity, in certain places where the different Londons meet and overlap, the strangest things can slip in, unnoticed…
*
I like Jamie on the whole. Just as well, really, since he is married to my sister. Sure, I know there is no rule that says you have to like your in-laws, but it certainly helps.
When he phoned and suggested we should go out for a drink, I knew that something was up. As I say, I like him well enough, but we’re hardly bosom-buddies – different circles, different friends. No, he wanted to talk about something. I didn’t ask what, assuming it was something to do with him and Sue. Of course, at that point I had no idea about Dawn Jenkins’ suicide.
Predictably, the real reason he wanted to see me was the very last thing we spoke about. There were the formalities to be observed first. So we each listened politely as the other talked about what was going on at work, though I am sure he had as little interest in mine as I did in his, then gave proper mention to the weather (a hell of a lot of rain for this time of the year), before falling back to the safety of a common interest: football; dissecting the latest rumours and transfer speculation with relish.
Only after a lot of hot air had been expelled and much alcohol absorbed did we turn our attention to the real meat of the conversation.
“Chris, I’m worried.”
Ah, this was it. I dragged back that part of my mind which had wandered to the far side of the bar, where a pretty young blonde with a tight top, long legs and a short skirt sat laughing with friends. My full attention was again focused on Jamie and whatever he was intending to reveal. “What about?”
“Me, mostly... and Susan.” My sister.
“Are the two of you having problems?”
“No. Well, sort of... God, this is difficult.”
It always is. “Take your time,” I encouraged.
“You met Dawn, didn’t you? Dawn Jenkins, my P.A.”
I remembered Dawn. A tall, slender woman in her fifties; thin-lipped, grey-haired and immaculate, projecting an air of confidence and competence. Jamie always spoke of her in glowing terms – the type of secretary everyone wanted and so few were ever able to find.
I nodded, “How is she?”
“Not so good. She committed suicide last month.”
“My God, I’m sorry.”
“You can’t imagine a more balanced and dependable person, solid as a rock. She’d been with the company for years, even longer than I have.”
“You never can tell what’s going on inside someone’s head…”
“Until a couple of months ago, that is,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “She suddenly started to become, I don’t know, reticent, sullen even. Not like her at all. Then I came into the office one morning to find her crying. Dawn Jenkins, crying? It was unthinkable. I tried to find out what was wrong and she just cried harder and retreated to the ladies. Came out after a while and apologised, got on with her work. Wouldn’t talk about it, wouldn’t take the day off, just put her head down and carried on.
“Huge mood swings after that – it felt as if I was treading on egg shells all the time. Then she went off sick. Anne, one of my colleagues, well, a friend really, called round to see her. Depression. A week later Dawn was dead; an overdose.”
All this was said with Jamie simply staring at an empty chair opposite. I sat silent, letting it simply pour out of him.
“I can’t help feeling responsible.”
Which was only natural, under the circumstances. Something like that happening to someone you have been close to, a person you worked with every day, it would be enough to affect anyone. “I’m sure there was nothing you could’ve done,” I said.
“Then Anne started to act the same way.”
“This is your friend at work, right?”
He nodded. “Mood swings, tears... and she won’t talk about it to me or anyone. I mean, first Dawn, then Anne, it’s almost as if depression has become infectious.”
“Don’t be daft. Coincidence; something in her private life has probably gone to pot and unsettled her…”
“And now Susan.”
“Susan?” That startled me out of meaningless-platitude mode.
“Yes. Tears, tantrums over the most trivial things, bouts of depression… She’s stopped talking to me and she’s not eating. We go through whole evenings without her saying a word, just staring at the TV.”
Not my sister. She was the last person in the world to suffer from anything like depression. “Has she been to see a doctor?”
He shook his head, “Refuses to, she won’t even discuss the subject.” He rubbed his eyes, as if to wipe away sleep, or tears. “Dawn and Anne were bad enough, but Susan… Chris, these are the three women I spend most of my time with, the three women in the world I’m closest to since my mother passed away. What’s going on?”
He was right, of course. One was a tragedy, two might be a dreadful run of bad luck, but three was pushing coincidence way too far.
“If depression is infectious, I guess I must be the carrier.”
“Only women….”
“Pardon?”
“You said it yourself: the three women you’re closest to. Have any of the men at work shown symptoms of anything like this?”
He thought for a second and shook his head, “No, not that I know of.”
“Neighbours, friends?”
“No.”
There was something here, just out of reach. I turned it all over in my mind, furiously sifting through what he had said, and knew that there was a gap, a missing piece.
“What else?” I asked.
“How do you mean?”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“God, isn’t this enough?”
“Not quite. There’s more, isn’t there.”
He glared at me, and I saw in his eyes the shadow of desperation, like a small boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar and knowing there was no escape. For a moment he contemplated lying, I could see that in his eyes as well, but then his shoulders slumped and I watched the defiance drain away. A deep breath and, “You mustn’t tell anyone about this, Chris, not even Susan – especially not Susan.”
