Being (6 page)

‘I think you have two choices,’ Kamal said. ‘Either you trust me, or you kill me.’

It was a good answer, an honest answer.

Two choices.

Trust or kill.

I let the silence hang in the air.

‘If I were you,’ Kamal continued, ‘I would trust me.’

I smiled at him. ‘Why?’

‘Because you don’t want to kill me.’

‘I don’t want to trust you either.’

‘It’s the better option.’

‘Is it?’

‘I think so.’

‘You would.’

‘I do.’

I drank some more water and opened the road map in my lap.

Did I trust him?

I did and I didn’t.

I didn’t have much choice.

‘Take the next left past the bridge,’ I told him.

We veered gently off the main road and followed a downward bend towards a dark roundabout surrounded by pine trees. I studied the map.

‘Take the second turning at the roundabout,’ I said. ‘It should be the next left after that.’

The car park at Heystone railway station was a small concrete field dotted with potholes. It was empty when we got there. No cars, no people, nothing much to look at – a broken fence, a ditch full of ditch things, tall trees slanting in the rain.

My stomach hurt.

I checked the timetable outside the station – there was a train to London in twenty minutes, a train to Ipswich in twenty-five. I told Kamal to park at the far end of the car park, away from the station lights.

London, twenty minutes.

Ipswich, twenty-five.

London?

Or Ipswich?

It didn’t really matter. As long as it was somewhere else.

I took the pistol from my pocket and told Kamal to
give me the car keys. He removed them from the ignition and dropped them into my palm.

‘And your phone,’ I told him.

He pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and handed it over. I put it in my pocket.

‘Look at me,’ I said to him.

He didn’t move.

‘Look at me, Kamal.’

He turned his head and looked at me.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘My name’s Robert Smith. I’m sixteen years old. This morning I went into the hospital for an endoscopy. When I woke up, I was lying on my back in a strange room. I was blind and paralysed. Conscious but unconscious. I was surrounded by men with guns. A man in a white coat cut my belly open and there were unhuman things inside me.’

I paused, trying to remember, trying to forget.

Kamal just stared at me.

‘That’s all I know,’ I told him. ‘I don’t know anything else about it. I don’t know why… I don’t know what it means. I don’t know who those people are. I don’t know… I can’t explain anything. All I know is that I have to get away. I can’t let those people find me again.’

The clock ticked, the rain tip-tapped.

My bladder ached.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Kamal said.

‘Give me an hour or so. Just sit here and wait.’

‘I’ll have to answer their questions. Ryan will want to know everything.’

‘Just give me an hour, hour and a half. Then you can tell him whatever you want.’ I pointed at the station
entrance. ‘There’s a phone box over there. You can ring the hospital. Tell him… tell him…’

‘Tell him what?’

I shrugged. ‘Tell him what you like. I don’t care, tell him anything.’

Kamal smiled. ‘I’ll wait here for as long as I can. You have my word.’

‘Thank you.’

I put the pistol back in my pocket and picked up the briefcase from the back seat.

‘Where will you go?’ asked Kamal.

‘I don’t know.’

I dropped Kamal’s wallet and car keys into the rucksack and zipped it up.

‘Well…’ I said.

Kamal held out his hand. ‘Good luck.’

I looked him in the eye as we shook hands and I wondered briefly if I’d ever see him again, but somehow I knew that I wouldn’t.

I stepped out of the car and buttoned my jacket.

I breathed the air.

It smelled of wet fields and iron.

I leaned into the car to say goodbye, but a sudden searing pain knotted my stomach and I closed the door without speaking.

Goodbye, Kamal Ramachandran.

Thank you.

I’m sorry.

I slung the rucksack over my shoulder and headed towards the station.

∗

I didn’t trust him. I learned a long time ago not to trust anyone. I
couldn’t
trust him. He’d do whatever he thought was best for him.

Was he good?

Was he bad?

What did he think I was?

Good or bad?

It didn’t matter.

Trust, faith, good, bad… none of it matters. All you ever do is what you have to do. Follow your desires, fulfil your needs, escape from pain. That’s all there is to it. Kamal would do whatever he had to do, and it wasn’t worth thinking about.

The telephone box was at the bottom of a slope at the station entrance. I went inside, took Ryan’s penknife from my pocket and sliced through the telephone cord.

Inside the station, the ticket office was closed and the toilets were locked. I walked out on to the platform. A cold wind was blowing, whipping close to the ground, whistling around the empty buildings. The station clock said 20:04:42.

I sat on a bench and crossed my legs.

I wondered what I looked like. A reasonable tramp? A drunk in an ill-fitting suit? A scarecrow? An outlaw? It didn’t matter. There was no one there to see me.

I looked around. The rain was coming down harder now, gleaming white in the stark station lights, making everything look harsh and unreal: the dull silver shine of the tracks, dirtied with wads of waste tissue; the sprawling
yellow weeds dripping in the lowlight of arches and walls; red doors, blue doors; the sand and scrap of the station fringe.

I wondered if it was all an illusion. The rusted railway machinery, the wires and wire supports, the padlocked sheds, the Coke cans and crisp packets, the mysterious numbers painted on the trackside walls… it all seemed real enough, but what if it wasn’t? What if there was something wrong with me? What if I was seeing things that weren’t there? How would I know? How could I tell the difference? For all I knew, everything was an illusion - me, the hospital, Ryan, Casing, Kamal…

The rails started humming.

I looked up and saw the lights of an approaching train. I got to my feet and watched it pull into the platform. It rattled and slowed… rattled and slowed… rattled and slowed… and finally ground to a halt. I glanced inside, looking for unwelcome faces, then I opened the door and got on the train and immediately went looking for a toilet.

The train sighed –
pishhh
– then settled on its metal sound and lumbered slowly out of the station. Inside the rattling toilet cubicle, I let out a long wheezing fart and emptied my bladder. The toilet bowl was stuffed full of creamy-white paper. I stood there peeing for a long time, steadying myself with a hand against the wall, and when I was done I felt weightless and empty and hungry. My urine smelled bad. I smelled bad. Sour and sulphurous, like the smell of someone else.

I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror above the sink. The glass was cracked and dull, and my
reflection was smeared and unfamiliar. I said hello to myself.

‘Hello, Robert.’

It was good and bad to be alone again.

I rubbed a finger of hot water into my gums and over my teeth, then leaned over and retched into the sink. Nothing came up but some thin spitty stuff that stuck to my lips in shiny strings. I wiped it off with the back of my hand and rinsed my mouth from the tap. The water tasted metallic. I belched, then my stomach heaved and I threw up.

I wanted to cry then. I was so scared, so sick, so confused… so everything. It was too much, all of it, too much to think about… I didn’t want to
think
about anything. I just wanted to cry, uncontrollably, like a lost child sobbing for its mother… but I couldn’t.

I can’t.

I’ve never been able to cry. Whenever I feel like crying, something happens to me – a door closes, the lights go off, I disappear.

I took the bottle of water from my rucksack and rinsed out my mouth again and again – rinse and spit, rinse and spit, rinse and spit – until all I could taste was the clean tang of water. I looked at myself in the mirror again. What I saw was just a face – pale, tired, confused – but still just a face. I sniffed, spat a final gob into the sink, then I began to undress.

It didn’t feel good, standing naked in that stinking little rattle-box… naked and cold and sick. It seemed dirty
and wrong, and it made me feel as if I didn’t know myself any more.

I gazed down at my belly.

It didn’t look too bad – a crooked black gash, a reddened slash. Pink. Some white. Bruise-brown and dirt-yellow. A slight swelling. It was healing fast… I was healing fast.

Most of my early childhood is hazy. The memories are there, but they don’t mean anything to me. Unknown people and unknown places. Faces, voices. Houses, Homes. Hard wooden chairs, squeaky floors, the smell of disinfectant. None of it means anything.

But I do remember things.

I remember a voice, from a long time ago. A woman’s voice.

‘Oh, he’s a fast healer, that one,’ I remember her saying. ‘He’s a fast healer, all right…’

I don’t remember who she was, or what she was to me.

But she was right. I
am
a fast healer. Cuts, scrapes, bruises… I’ve always healed quickly. Quickly and cleanly.

I dressed in the clothes I’d got from Sainsbury’s – underwear, trousers, shirt, jacket, shoes – then I transferred the contents of Ryan’s jacket to my new jacket and stuffed the old clothes into the rucksack.

A final look in the mirror, then I flushed the toilet and left.

As the train rattled and hummed through the darkness, I gazed through the window and tried to think about things – what was I doing? where was I going? what the hell was
going on? – but I just couldn’t do it. It was all too big. Too confusing. Too much to think about. And I was so tired. I just wanted to close my eyes and drift away… just for a moment…

I closed my eyes.

I didn’t know where I was when I woke up. The train had stopped at a station and now it was just sitting there – humming and murmuring, hissing and moaning, not going anywhere. I looked out at the platform. There weren’t many people around. No station staff. No uniforms. No men in suits. I looked around for a station sign, but I couldn’t see one.

The train groaned for a moment, something hissed… and then it went quiet again.

I sat there for a minute or two, listening to the ticking silence, then I got up, walked down the aisle and got off the train.

As I left the station and started walking, I still didn’t know where I was. I think it was probably Romford or Ilford, somewhere like that. One of those
ford
places. Somewhere near London, but not
in
London. Not that it mattered. The way I saw it, if I didn’t know where I was, neither would anyone else.

The streets outside the station were busy with traffic. Cars, taxis, buses, vans, lorries, motorcycles, bikes. People were moving, going places. Going home, going out, going somewhere.

No one cared about me.

Why should they?

I kept my head down and kept walking. Down wide pavements of grey-white concrete, past closed shops and noisy pubs and greasy little kebab places. Past bus stops and nightclubs, taxi ranks, wine bars…

I kept moving, kept going.

Away from the town centre, into the outskirts. Past black-glassed office blocks and leisure centres, past beggars and skateboard kids and girls dressed up for the night…

I walked.

The pain in my stomach dulled to an ache.

The rain kept falling.

I kept walking.

Into the night.

I walked for a long long time.

Until, eventually, after walking forever, I finally reached Paradise.

The Paradise Hotel was seven floors of dull grey concrete on the outskirts of a dull grey town. I didn’t know how I’d got there, and I didn’t know if it was a good idea to stay there or not, but I was bone-tired and wet, and my stomach was hurting, and I just couldn’t walk any further. But, most of all, I needed to be on my own. I needed to start thinking about things. I needed to do something.

Without giving it too much thought, I opened the hotel doors and went inside.

It was a fairly big place, and fairly smart. Smoked-glass doors, a dark-carpeted lobby, pillars and panels, plants in brass pots. There was a bar at the far end of the lobby and a restaurant off to one side. Both were quite busy. Men in suits, women in suits, everyone drinking and having a good time.

I felt out of place.

I’d never been in a hotel before. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know the procedure. So, for the next five minutes or so, I just stood in the doorway – glancing at my nonexistent watch now and then, as if I was waiting for someone – and I watched what was happening. How it worked. Where people went. What they said.

Then, when I’d worked it all out, I smoothed back my hair, straightened myself up and crossed the lobby towards the reception desk.

The young woman behind the desk was sleek and well dressed. She had a thin face, a false smile and slick blonde hair. As she watched me crossing the lobby, I wondered what I looked like to her. You’re just an ordinary young man, I told myself. You’re wearing an ordinary jacket and an ordinary shirt, and you’re carrying an ordinary briefcase and an ordinary rucksack. You’re ordinary, that’s all you are. That’s what she sees.

‘Good evening, sir,’ she said. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I’d like a room, please.’

It was easier than I thought – the procedure.

She asked me questions, I answered them.

‘How many nights?’

‘One.’

‘Single or double?’

‘Single.’

‘Smoking or non-smoking?’

‘Non.’

‘Newspaper in the morning?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Which one?’

‘Any one.’

The only tricky part was when she asked me for a credit card. I had credit cards. I had Ryan’s and Kamal’s credit cards. But I didn’t want to use them. Credit cards are traceable. I didn’t want to be traced.