Fallen, p.20
Fallen, page 20
They lay in silence for a long time. He could only surrender to the constantly shifting discomfort of his body, wait for the methadone to kick in and bring him some semblance of normality again.
‘About last night,’ Daisy said. Here it came. ‘Like, how do you feel about it?’
‘It was good. I just…’ he sighed. ‘I felt weird after a while. I kind of disappeared inside myself, you know? Like I didn’t know how to deal with the feeling.’
‘Yeah, I get you, man. Mostly I just zone out with men, but with you, I don’t know, it’s different, innit. Like you understand me. You actually care about me.’
‘Yeah.’ He stroked her arm under the sheets. ‘We can try it again sometime.’
‘Only if you want to,’ she said.
He parted his lips to reply but his stomach convulsed. This was no false alarm. He jumped up, ran to the bathroom on legs of sand, and vomited into the toilet.
He’d have to re-dose on the methadone. Back to zero. Was there some sadistic puppet master pulling his strings, intent on watching him squirm?
He wiped his face on a stretch of toilet roll and rinsed his mouth under the tap.
When he straightened up, his reflection stared accusingly back.
We had a deal, Simba.
Was this what other people saw when they looked at him? The cold, hard stare, the waxen skin like a Madame Tussauds model. No wonder strangers couldn’t stand to look at him.
You keep us fed and we take the pain away. You haven’t kept your side of the bargain.
And what the fuck was he supposed to do? He’d already looted the Boots for methadone and opiates. Where was he supposed to magic up smack from?
Use your fucking head, Simba.
He stared back at his reflection, itching to reach through and claw out his eyes. Why didn’t the voice just tell him, if everything was so simple?
Because I am you.
He shuddered. Behind the cold, monstrous eyes was a terrified child desperate for shelter from the hell he’d been spat into. He could almost hear the sirens of ambulances pulling into the emergency department where he’d been found.
And then it struck him.
Surely they kept morphine in ambulances. They wouldn’t need to risk their lives breaking into a hospital or doctor’s surgery; they could simply smash the back window of an ambulance and raid the medical supplies.
He tore away from the mirror and stumbled back to Daisy.
‘You okay?’ she asked, sitting up.
He smiled. ‘I will be.’
She frowned.
He told her his plan.
‘Yeah, man. That’s a good idea. Where’s the nearest hospital to here?’
‘Not far. We could walk there in ten minutes.’
‘Shit.’ An exhausted smile washed over her face. ‘Well, what we waiting for?’
KAREN
Karen paced the width of the bedroom, four strides from wall to wall.
Her mind’s eye painted an image of Selina: long, blonde hair; doe-eyed with fluttering lashes; delicate, red lips like the mouth of a sex doll; firm tits and a round arse. She bet the slut had sucked his cock on her knees, taken it from behind. One flash of Andrew’s wealth and she was his play thing for all of his darkest fantasies.
How many times had they fucked? Three, he’d said, but did he really expect her to believe that? Or that Selina had been the only one? He’d lied all this time. Why would he tell the truth now?
But she did believe it. Maybe she was an even bigger fool than she knew, but she’d seen the terror in his eyes when he woke. Even Hollywood actors would have a hard time performing that. It was the look of someone who had been chased through hell, haunted by unimaginable demons.
And now they’d found Karen too.
Part of her had known all along. On the lonely nights when he’d worked late for the third time in a week, she’d imagined him flirting with his secretary, fucking her on his desk. She’d even dreamed about his infidelity on numerous occasions. But she’d told herself she was being stupid, jealous. It was almost funny, how naive she’d been.
The evidence had been there all along. Why had she thought that his lack of self-control ended with the coke or the spirits? Or with his insatiable need for wealth and status? Was it her own arrogance to assume that she’d fulfilled him as a wife?
He was a child in a designer suit, chasing a lollipop on a string. He was never happy, only placated momentarily before he started running again.
It wasn’t her. She tried to tell herself that it was Andrew who was broken - he’d said so himself - that she could have been the perfect housewife, and he still would have fooled around behind her back. But that didn’t make her feel any better. The reasons almost didn’t matter. The fact was he’d betrayed her. He’d taken her heart with both hands and torn it in two.
And now she had to live with that, trapped down here of all places. She could not pack her bags and leave, take Saff with her. She would have to see his face every day and be reminded of his infidelity. Maybe he should stay outside the Ark, spare them both the shame.
She collapsed onto the bed, hugged her knees to her chest, and pressed her face into the duvet.
Tears leaked from her eyes; her nose ran. Who would hold her now and tell her that everything would be alright? She yearned for her own mother’s arms, but she was lost to the outside. She had no friends in here, and Saff had her own shit to deal with.
That was the child in her, the longing for comfort and security. The same part that had allowed Andrew to play her like a fool. There was no shelter to find in this dark world. She had to fight in the storm.
She got to her feet again, resumed pacing. The rage and desperation filled her like molten lava. She had so much energy and nothing to do with it. Nowhere to run. Nothing to fight.
Her face contorted and a sob heaved out of her. She heard it almost as a spectator above herself. Such a pathetic, infantile noise. She disgusted herself almost as much as Andrew did, as much as his little blonde slut did, and that only made her bawl harder.
Her hair had fallen out of its bun, her fringe dangling in front of her face. She tore out the hairband and threw it across the room.
She needed to get her shit together. Saff must have already heard her yelling; she could not hear her crying as well.
The Bordeaux was still on the kitchen counter. She could drown her misery with the rest of the bottle, but that was exactly what Andrew did, running from his problems to the next bottle, the next line, the next slut. How many failures could he justify with the abuse his mother had inflicted on him?
Fuck that. It was not the same thing.
She wiped her eyes and walked into the living room. It was dim inside, the only light the corner lamp. The personal effects she’d laid out to make the place homelier only reminded her of her naiveté now: the clothes draped over the armchair, the books stacked on the coffee table, the Eiffel Tower ornament. The domestic life she’d mourned was a lie. A pantomime. When had Andrew first betrayed her? Months ago? Years? How many times had he kissed her cheek, held her in his arms, told her that he loved her, all the while burying the knowledge of his disloyalty inside himself?
She walked to the breakfast bar, poured the rest of the Bordeaux into a pint glass, and tipped it back. She popped out a couple of Prozacs and swallowed them too, took a few deep breaths to collect herself.
She spotted the photo album in the open rucksack, withdrew it with shaking hands. She opened it to the first page: the photograph on Parliament Hill. Her young, innocent face smiled back at her. If only she’d known back then what Andrew would become. She would have run for her life and never looked back.
Tears filmed her eyes. She peeled back the dust sheet, took the photograph out, and tore it in two. She stacked the two halves, and tore them again and again until the photo was in a dozen pieces on the counter.
She tipped back her glass and turned the page.
Why was she doing this to herself? It was self-flagellation. Nothing else. But somehow, she felt it was necessary, to punish herself for being played, or at least to brand it into her memory as a reminder never again to make herself so vulnerable. She may as well have taken out a kitchen knife and carved the words I was a fool down her arm.
She lifted the album with both hands and flung it at the wall. It landed with a resonant thud. Photos rained down like heavy confetti.
Shit. Saff must have heard that. The whole Ark had probably heard it.
Karen walked to the hallway, stood before Saffron’s door. There was no light underneath. She turned the handle and peered around the door.
The bed was cloaked in shadow, and Karen could not make out a body. She turned the dimmer switch slowly. The glow illuminated the empty bed.
Saff was gone.
The door to the bathroom was ajar. Saff was not in the apartment. When had Karen last seen her? She’d gone to bed shortly after Andrew had returned from poker, and she seemed to recall hearing her go to the bathroom an hour or so later.
Perhaps she’d gone to breakfast early, or else she’d heard them arguing and escaped to the common room or somewhere.
Karen went back to the bedroom, pulled on a cardigan, and stepped into her plimsolls. She wiped her eyes in the bathroom mirror and fixed her hair before she left the apartment.
There were only half a dozen occupants in the dining hall and Saff was not one of them. Nor was she in the common room or the games room at the back. There were only so many places she could be, as labyrinthine as the Ark first appeared.
Karen tried the smoking room next. She startled its only resident, one of the soldiers, out of reverie.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘You haven’t seen a seventeen-year-old girl around, have you?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ the man said with a hint of suspicion. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yeah. She must be in the gym or something. Thanks anyway.’
She followed the corridor back down, peered inside the library, but it was deserted.
When she rounded the next corner towards the chapel and gym, she nearly ran into a man coming the other way.
‘Jesus.’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s Karen, right?’
‘Yeah. You’re…’
‘Ian,’ he said, as though this was inconsequential. ‘You’re looking for your daughter.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Yes. How do you - Have you seen her?’
He nodded his head slowly with a frown. Her heart jumped into her throat. Something had happened to Saff.
‘Where? Where is she?’
Ian swallowed. ‘I think it’s best if I show you.’ He gestured for her to follow, and started back down the way he’d come.
They walked past Karen’s own apartment to a door marked ‘Maintenance’ a few down from the metal entrance door. Why would Saff be in here?
But inside was only another soldier, seated in one of the desk chairs in front of a three-monitor setup. The screens displayed grainy black-and-white CCTV footage of the entire Ark. There were views of the corridors, all of the communal rooms, and even shots of the Gherkin lobby and the street above.
Ian fell into the second chair and hit a few keys.
The footage scrubbed back in time. Karen saw herself and Ian flit back up the corridor and break apart. She watched herself walk in and out of the rooms, and then finally return to her apartment.
Everything was still for a moment as the minutes ticked away in the top right corner of each screen. A few strangers flickered down the corridor: those going for breakfast early, the other soldier entering the smoking room.
Ghosts raced up the street. At the end of the corridor, the metal door opened. Bodies flashed across the screen and the door closed again.
Ian hit another key, and the footage slowed to real time.
Andrew, Mac, and the bald, ginger-bearded soldier stood before the metal door. On another screen, Saff peered around the edge of the corridor, waiting. As the soldier opened the door, Saff rounded the corner, walking briskly towards them. Mac went through first, and by the time Andrew walked through, Saff was running at the gap. She pushed Andrew aside and ran out.
She was gone from view now, in the dead zone where no cameras could detect her.
Karen stood in silence, watching as the real seconds melted away. Eventually, Saff reappeared, sprinting out of the Gherkin lobby. Andrew chased her into the street, but he was too far behind. They ran past the parked cars and out of view again.
Into the abyss.
SAFF
Her lungs heaved like bellows. She was growing lightheaded as her muscles drank oxygen from her brain.
She needed to stop.
She could maybe have pushed herself a little further if it were not for the sudden sting in her stomach, like shrapnel.
She bent over, leaning against a post box. She glanced back over her shoulder, but her father was nowhere near. Why had he ever thought he could catch up to her? She jogged regularly and took care of her figure, while he shovelled cocaine into his nostrils and drank like a sailor in a tempest.
And cheated on her mum. She couldn’t forget that one.
She’d known his business and personal habits were far from clean, but she never thought he would stoop that low. Her own father. Her own mother.
Convulsions tickled her stomach. She turned aside, but nothing came up. Oxygen was more important.
She was in Hoxton now. Central lay behind her, but there was a long way to go yet, and it wasn’t like she could jump in a cab or on the tube. She would have to pace herself. She’d won the sprint, but now she needed endurance.
Rory’s house in Harringay was forty, maybe forty-five minutes away at a brisk walk, and that was probably all she could manage from here on, unless she stumbled across an unchained bicycle, but that wasn’t too likely.
Her insides were so dry, it was like she’d been breathing in sand. She needed a drink - water or a Lucozade - but she couldn’t risk going into an off-licence. She hadn’t forgotten about the hosts lurking in the darkness.
She pressed a hand to her stomach and walked slowly on. Her legs burned with every step, but that soon started to fade.
Her father must have headed back, or else he was streets behind. He knew where she was going, of course, but that didn’t matter. He’d had his chance. She didn’t need his help now.
If it wasn’t for her mother, she would have run and never looked back, barricaded Rory’s house and waited until the army or the police or someone saved them.
But she could not leave her mother. Her sobs still rang in Saff’s ears. Had she realised Saff was gone yet or was she still crying alone in her room? It didn’t matter. There was nothing Saff could do for her now. She needed to focus on getting to Rory as quickly as possible.
She made her way north, glancing all around for signs of movement. There were voices nearby, but she could see no one. An alarm was echoing somewhere behind in central. She’d expected London to be either in a state of pandemonium, like they’d seen en route to the Ark, or a ghost town, but apart from the streets clotted with cars and the occasional body, it seemed so…normal. Birds sang in the trees. The wind carried leaves down the street. The sun shone through a relatively clear sky.
Everything was still so bright. Either her eyes had not fully adjusted yet, or the Ark was much darker than she’d first realised.
And now that her stitch was fading, it felt good to breathe the cool, natural air. She almost hoped it rained soon, just so she could feel it kiss her skin.
She dug her Nokia out of her jeans pocket and checked the signal. Still nothing. Were all of the phone masts in London down, or had something gone wrong at the source?
Fuck. If only she could call Rory, tell him she was coming. That was assuming he was still alive, of course. Yes. He was alive. She couldn’t let these kind of thoughts affect her. She knew he was okay. She just had to reach him.
A shout behind her as she walked past the Essex Road Overground station.
A Middle Eastern man had run into the street behind, but he seemed to be headed the other way. Maybe.
She broke into a jog, feeling her stomach tense, leak adrenaline.
She could not take much more. She could not afford to run for her life a second time.
Thankfully, the man didn’t follow her towards Holloway. She dashed into an off-licence up the road, whose drink fridge she could see clearly through the window. She was in and out in two seconds, and she heard no noise from the shop.
The water was still cool. She drank most of the bottle and poured the rest over her head.
She wasn’t far now. Maybe another twenty minutes at a light jog.
She picked up her pace, ignoring the pain tracing from her ankles up to the back of her thighs. She could rest once she knew Rory was safe.
Andrew
A stone was growing in his stomach, and his feet felt as though they’d been skinned. His socks were sodden with sweat, but it could easily be blood. His entire body pleaded for rest. His heart thumped against his ribcage, like a manic claustrophobic, but he refused to stop. Not yet, at least.
Saff had her youth and physical health. He had determination.
He fumbled for the last of his coke, shot it up his left nostril, and kept running.
He knew where she was going. He’d dropped Saff off at Rory’s enough times to navigate there on foot.
If only the streets weren’t so fucking packed, he could take a car with its keys left in and drive there. A motorcycle would be even better, but he wouldn’t be able to handle it even if he found one.
She knew. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d heard him and Karen arguing. She’d probably heard everything through the thin walls. Was that what had motivated her to escape, or had she been planning it all night? He should have seen this coming. As if Karen needed another reason to hate him, he’d let their daughter slip through his fingers. He could only pray that Saff intended to bring Rory back to the Ark instead of running away with him somewhere.
