Breakdown (15 page)

‘

We're going to have to go to the chambers.'

‘What's the chambers, Quinny?'

‘Not going to talk about it down here.'

‘I don't believe it. How could you lose the cable?'

He lowers the smoking rag, points. A cable's been capped off. He didn't lose it. It never led anywhere.

‘Sorry,' I say.

‘We go back,' says Tarquin.

‘All the way?' I ask.

‘Nah, we'll take junctions that lead to a chamber.'

‘How will you know?'

‘I'll know.'

We set out again. The light's put out. The crawling and the darkness begin again.

‘But how will you know?' I hiss from the back.

‘Trust me.'

We crawl on, winding back down the tunnel. We branch sometimes into other tunnels. At each junction we take there's a blast of stale, unGodly air. A musty smell that gets mustier. And there're rats.

At one point we stop. Tarquin lights the rag. We see them lined up against the walls – huge, eyes flashing in the light, quivering noses. They don't seem afraid. They snuffle on up the cable shaft, then turn and snuffle back.

‘Some of the boys eat them things,' says Lenny.

Tarquin puts the rag out again. ‘Let's try and get out of here,' he says.

We keep forking into fresh tunnels. I'm hopelessly lost. The stench gets stronger. ‘What's that smell?' I say at last.

‘Chambers.'

Suddenly ahead of me Lenny stops, whispers, ‘Quinny says to shush.'

We stay there, quiet. Then I hear them. People.

There's no pan banging, no shouting, just quiet voices. ‘Who are they?' I hiss.

‘Shush.'

Lenny slides back a little, until he's up against my face. He grabs my hand.

‘It's roguers in one of the chambers,' says Tarquin very, very quietly. ‘We're going to have to wait.'

‘What're they doing there?' I whisper.

‘Them chambers is under shafts that lead up to the streets.'

‘So we can get out?'

‘Yeah. But the roguers drop things into them too.'

‘Things?'

‘When we go out ganging, some of the crew don't bring back all the spoil. They drop it down into them chambers and roguers collect it through the shafts.'

I get it.

‘But there's other things that got dropped down into them chambers too.'

‘What?' Something drips on my hand.

‘In them long ago times.'

‘What sort of things?'

‘Shush. Later.'

We lie with the rats and the cables, and our hearts pound. We lie there a very long time. I want to cough. I want to put my hand over my mouth, but Lenny's holding on to it. I struggle to suppress the cough. At the same time I'm trying to pay attention. I can hear them in the chamber talking. Voices – two, maybe three. Silence for minutes. Then a voice again.

We lie there listening, waiting. Hours, cold and dark. I think Lenny's fallen asleep all curled up in my arms. I stroke his head, sadly. When we're out, I'm going to leave him. For a second my heart cuts. I imagine it different. If there really were a place. Somewhere far away. If we could be together. Me, Tarquin, Lenny. If we could carry on journeying – just the three of us – towards that somewhere.

‘Help others as much as you can,' said Nan. ‘But don't take them on. Only the strong survive. And the weak ones know it. They'll drag you down. Don't show them your secrets. Starvation makes monsters of us all.'

After a long time with nothing except the shuffle of rats and the drip of something, Tarquin whispers very quietly, ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Sorry?' I hardly dare breathe it out.

He leans in close. ‘For everything.'

‘It wasn't your fault.' I try to shush him, terrified we'll be heard.

‘Sorry for taking you back to Games City.'

‘You didn't have a choice,' I reassure him, hoping he'll stay quiet.

‘Sorry for switching on you.'

‘Sshh, it got us out.'

‘Sorry I didn't believe.' His breath tickles my ear.

I flinch.

‘About the cottage.'

I feel a sudden impulse to tell him I lied. Tell him I didn't trust him either, that I was just trying to save myself. Just like him. And was that so wrong?

‘Can we be friends?' he murmurs.

My heart skips suddenly.

‘Properly. Like on the same side?'

So he knows I'm on my own side?

‘We'll need to be – once we're out.' He's leaning in so close.

If we get out.

‘OK,' I mouth, staring into the darkness.

‘You know, Careem and that.'

I know.

Pause. Solid blackness. He shuffles slightly, seems to draw his jacket up over his head. I feel his arm go round me. He pulls me in close until the jacket covers us and muffles all sound.

‘I'll watch your back, try and take care of you if they come,' he whispers into my hair.

‘OK.'

‘Me and Len ain't got many friends in Games City. It won't make no difference to us.'

‘Why?' Suddenly I want to know about him and Lenny and Games City.

‘My mum come over from France, down the tunnel from Sangatte. We was trying to get far away like everyone.'

Those strange words. A sudden guess. ‘Your mum was French?'

‘Yeah. We was stuck in that tunnel and people was dying. I was so scared. I hate being underground.'

I unlace Lenny's fingers from mine and pull the jacket tighter around us.

‘The smell.'

‘How old were you?' I whisper.

‘Maybe eleven. My mum was ill. She was carrying Len.'

‘My parents died too,' I say in a really low voice. ‘When I was little.'

I find his hand in the dark. We sit there holding onto each other.

‘Sorry,' he says.

‘What happened then?'

‘We got to London an' she give birth, but she didn't last. Len wasn't nearly a year when she died.'

‘And you took care of him?'

‘Since then. I carried him down me front.'

I smile and remember how Lenny, too, is carrying something precious down his front.

‘I tied him on with cloth and fed him and joined Careem's gang. I was 'bout thirteen then.'

I don't ask why he joined. I don't need to.

‘I was useful 'cos I spoke French and could run messages and deal with his business down the tunnel.'

I want to ask about France and if it's as wasted as we hear and if anyone still lives there, but I don't interrupt.

‘And Careem sent me down that tunnel time after time and I went 'cos of Len. But I hate being underground. Can't breathe sometimes.'

His grip on my hand tightens.

‘And I wouldn't never have turned on Careem, till he turned on Len.' He presses his lips right on my ear. ‘He knows that. We had a deal. I work for him and tell him straight what the French do,
la jeunesse Française, les gangs qui contrôlent les frontières
–'

I don't speak French, but I like the sound of the words. I like to hear him whisper them.

‘An' he'd make sure Len was OK.'

I try to imagine what life must've been like for him, with a kid to raise and having to go back down into the tunnel where you got stuck and people died and remembering your mum.

‘Nobody in Games City helped me. They don't like foreigners. They didn't like me and Len.'

‘We can be friends,' I promise and I mean it, although I don't know how we can, when I'm going to leave him.

‘So I don't owe nobody nothing – no loyalty, no nothing.'

‘I had my nan,' I whisper. ‘But she's gone now, and I don't know what's going to happen.'

‘We'll get there to that cottage you got,' says Tarquin. ‘Be OK then.'

And I don't know what to say.

‘We'll have to risk moving soon. Them roguers might have dropped off. They might stay there all night waiting for spoil to come in. But we need to get out and away before Careem sets up barricades.'

‘OK.'

‘So be very quiet.'

I wake Lenny. Cuddle him. Shush him. Think of Tarquin and being underground and his fear of dark places.

And Nan. ‘Find Orpheus. He can lead you out of the darkness. Follow him.'

We crawl slowly towards the chamber. After a few metres Tarquin stops. We lie listening. Only some distant dripping. We crawl forward again.

At last we get into the chamber. Must be the chamber. The stench is unbearable, stuffy, choking.

Tarquin starts to work his way round the walls. Damp concrete. Soft slimy coating.

‘Gonna have to light the rag,' whispers Tarquin. ‘Or we won't find the rungs.'

Lenny whimpers.

‘Shush.' I hold Lenny close.

‘Don't look, Lenny. Promise?' whispers Tarquin.

He strikes the flint. There's a spark. I can't see anything. He sparks it again. The oil rag catches. I look around. A cocoon of light in the darkness. Tarquin waves away the smoke. We're in a circular chamber. I can't tell how big. We're huddled up under some shaft. It goes up and up above us.

And all around are human bodies. Limbs flung out at every angle. Bones. Old corpses, shrivelled, dried and thin, in rotted clothes.

I clutch Lenny to me, press his face against my side. The oil rag smoulders. It doesn't flame up the way it should. I look at the walls. I want to retch.

‘C'mon,' whispers Tarquin. ‘Got to get up there.' His voice doesn't shake. Just a slight hesitation. I remember Nan's words: ‘Strong on the inside, holding your fear to yourself.'

I'm glad he can. It helps me hold mine back.

I look up. Rungs in concrete. Black as black. My heart thumps against my ribs. I shiver like I'm about to break sweat.

‘We gotta climb,' says Tarquin. The oil rag goes out. ‘Shit,' he says. The blackened shapes on the walls wink into nothingness. How're we going to climb up there? Blind like moles.

‘Hang on.'

Something rasps and the oil rag lights up again. A flickering halo. ‘Grab on these,' says Tarquin. Rusted ladder treads. Dank shaft. Curling shadows. Something slick and dark on the walls.
Shrunken eye sockets, peeling scalps.
I won't look. I've got to step over them. I hold Lenny's face against me. Underfoot something shifts, creaks. I focus on the ladder. Guide Lenny there.

Tarquin hauls himself up on the metal and then the oil rag goes out completely.

‘You got to use the metal hoops, Lenny.'

‘OK.' Lenny's voice is so faint. I think he saw the bodies.
Sprawled one on top of the other, lengths of bone, shreds of clothing.

I pull Nan's coat tight around me. In the darkness Tarquin lifts and helps Lenny up from above. ‘I'm going first,' he says, ‘and you're following and she's coming last.'

‘OK,' says Lenny, still very faint.

I'm right behind Lenny. I hang on tight to the metal rungs. Cold steel. My hands start to ache. Keep moving. Next rung. I can't flex fingers. I'm gripping too tight.
Those pale skulls, lips pulled back, teeth in bony jaws
. The rungs are caked with thick layers of something slimy, flaking. I hold on to them. I hold on tight.

We climb. Tarquin goes slowly. He hangs on each bar, testing it, testing the ones above, knocking them clean with his hands, rasping his feet on the ones below.

I get used to hanging on to the rungs and pushing my head flat against Lenny's feet. My shoulders aching.

And then from below there's a shout.

It echoes up the shaft, distorted words, unrecognisable.

But I know what it means.

Somebody's discovered us.

Oh God. Dear God. Somebody is down there.

Desiccated corpses, bones of a hand, fingers intact.

‘Hurry,' hisses Tarquin.

Quickly we climb in darkness. We put hands around ankles in the pitch black and guide feet to rungs. We slip on the metal. Tarquin swears in the pit of his throat. He's cursing, cursing God, cursing himself.

Great lumps of debris fall on me. They touch an elbow, brush my hair. There's a silence till they hit something beneath.
Empty eye sockets, ribs sticking out, carcasses all rotted away.
I imagine the fall below. I'm hanging over a precipice.

Sometimes the rungs shake where the concrete's been loosened. Lenny doesn't speak. ‘Just hurry,' hisses Tarquin.

Once when I put my hand up too far, I felt Lenny hanging on to Tarquin's leg. I want to say something to make him feel safe. I can't say anything.

Caved-in faces, taut grins, white bony skulls, plates separating.

The shout comes again. It's louder.

I hear Tarquin banging against something. Fist on metal. Are we at the top?
Dear God, please let us be at the top.
I hear him swearing again and again, searching around. I touch Lenny's leg. I whisper, ‘Going to be OK.'

‘OK.'

‘Just hold tight.'

‘OK.'

‘It'll be OK.'

Below, the shouts are louder.

Suddenly there's a dreadful clang and rush of air. So cold. Dust whirls in at speed. My eyes sting. I can't look up. My eyes. I look away. Beneath me, that chasm. Vertical. Dark. I squint back towards the light. The hunched shadows of Tarquin and Lenny loom huge. I narrow my eyes even more. Tarquin is already half out. He drags Lenny after him.

Blindly I push up on Lenny's legs. I try to keep my eyes open. His dark shape wriggles. He slides into a ball of pale light.

And hands are reaching down for me. Holding me tight. But I can feel the rungs shaking below. Don't let the void beneath touch me.
Don't let those leathered faces, those sightless eyes near me.
I'm up the next few rungs. I'm coming out of some kind of manhole into a deserted street.

I'm almost out.

There's a shout.

‘C'mon,' says Tarquin. He brushes debris from my hair.

‘Please hurry, Missa,' says Lenny.

I am hurrying. My legs tremble. I don't want to miss my step and somehow slip back into the shaft.

I want to be careful. They heave and tug at me, as if they are midwives birthing some reluctant newborn.
Something touches my leg.
They anchor their arms around me.
Something touches my leg.
I scream. I kick.

They roll me and pull.

I kick again. The thing lets go. ‘
There's something there
,
'
I shriek.

I'm out.

It's night. There's a very faint moon, as thin as a nail clipping. It hangs in the sky. Grey clouds chase at it.

‘
Run
,
'
I scream.

‘Get up. Move,' yells Tarquin. I can see him clearly against the sky. He's scanning the street.

I raise my head. I'm on my feet. I kick the manhole cover shut.

‘Can't we lock it?' I call.

Movement a long way off. Something wailing. Pans. Dogs howling.

‘Just run,' yells Tarquin. He grabs Lenny.

Dogs. Pans. The manhole cover.

‘Melissa, run. They're coming.'