The Bunker Diary (26 page)

The lights come on.

The empty lift comes down.

The day passes.

The empty lift goes up.

The lights go off.

All my life I’ve never really felt
like I belonged anywhere. Home, school, the street … wherever I’ve been,
it’s never seemed right. The street was OK while it lasted, but it was never
really for me. I don’t really have what it takes for the street. I got away with
it for a while, but I know it would have found me out in the end. Home was always mixed
up. Even when I was little, before Mum died, I never really felt happy at home. And
school was even worse, especially after Dad got rich. The ordinary kids didn’t
like me any more because they thought I was rich, the rich kids didn’t like me
because they thought I was ordinary. I never knew where I was. And now here I am, stuck
in the depths of this cold white bunker …

And you know what? I finally know how it
feels to belong somewhere.

The three of us stay together most of the
time now. We’ve moved all the mattresses and blankets into my room, all the
sheets, everything. I don’t know if it helps, but at least it
gives the impression of being warmer. We lie around all day, huddled up in this tiny
room, not doing much. Saving energy. Saving heat. Surviving.

Our skin is getting wrinkled and yellow. Our
muscles are thin and stringy. We’re cold all the time. We should have taken the
others’ clothes. They wouldn’t have minded. Dead people don’t need
clothes.

Sometimes, when we’re not too cold, we
talk. It passes the time.

FRED
: We should have
kept the dog.

ME
: What?

FRED
: The dead dog, the
Dobermann. We should have kept it. Put it in the fridge. We could be stuffing ourselves
with fried dog now if we’d kept it.

ME
(giving him a look):
Christ, Fred …

FRED
: What? Are you
telling me you wouldn’t eat a chunk of fried dog right now?

ME
: Well,
no … but –

FRED
: It’s no
different to eating anything else. Chicken, cow, pig … it’s all just
meat. Flesh. Food. Energy. It’s all the same. (He grins) We should have kept Bird
and the others too. Bird would have kept us going for months.

ME
(smiling):
You’re an animal, Fred.

FRED
: We’re all
animals.

JENNY
: I’m not an
animal.

FRED
(gently): Yes, you
are.

JENNY
: I’m
not.

FRED
: You are.

JENNY
: Not.

FRED
: Are.

Jenny, smiling, punches Fred on the arm.
Fred cries out and grabs his arm, pretending he’s hurt. He topples over and rolls
around on the floor, writhing in mock agony.

We watch him for a while.

Eventually he stops, grins, and just lies
there on the floor.

We’re all silent for a while.

Then:

JENNY
(quietly, to me):
Are you scared?

ME
: I don’t know.
I suppose so. Yeah.

JENNY
(to Fred): Are
you scared?

FRED
: No.

JENNY
: Why not?

ME
: He’s too
stupid.

FRED
(giving me the
eye): You’re lucky I can’t be bothered to get up.

ME
: Yeah?

FRED
: You want to know
why I’m not scared?

ME
: Not really.

FRED
: I’ll tell
you why. (He props himself up into a sitting position) I’ve been in worse places
than this before. I got out then, and I’ll get out now.

ME
: Places like
what?

FRED
: You don’t
want to know.

JENNY
(to Fred):
What’s the scaredest you’ve ever been?

FRED
(grinning again):
Well, there was this one time … 
I was staying with some
friends out in the country somewhere, I can’t remember where it was. It might have
been somewhere in Wales, or maybe Cornwall. Somewhere like that. Anyway, we were in this
old stone cottage right out in the middle of nowhere, and I was in bed one night, fast
asleep, and all I can really remember is suddenly waking up and seeing a monkey sitting
at the bottom of my bed.

JENNY
: A monkey?

FRED
: It was just
sitting there. Staring at me.

ME
: Which one was
it?

FRED
: What?

ME
: Which one of the
Monkees? Davy Jones? Or was it the one with the funny hat?

FRED
(laughing): Now,
that
would
be scary.

Of course, Jenny doesn’t get it.
She’s never heard of the Monkees. So then I have to explain who they are (a 1960s
pop group who had their own TV series), and I have to explain why I know anything about
a 1960s pop group (my dad loves them, he’s got all their records), and by the time
I’ve done that, my monkey/Monkee joke isn’t funny any more.

And then we start talking about something
else …

And the time drifts by.

It’s too tiring to write. Too
depressing. It’s bad enough feeling like this without having to write about it.
I’ll tell you one thing though – I’m sick of being hungry. It doesn’t
actually hurt any more, it doesn’t cause me any violent suffering. In fact, the
physical pain is hardly worth mentioning. Hunger is a longing rather than a suffering.
But it’s there all the time, boring away deep inside me like a worm. I hate
it.

It’s a hard feeling to describe.

Think how it feels when you haven’t
eaten for a while. Think empty. The pit of your stomach. The back of your throat. Dry
and empty. Think of yourself shrinking.

Think a hundred times worse.

I don’t think we can last much
longer.

I think of you.

You and You.

I think of you, comfortable in your nowhere.
Doing nothing. Existing, reading this, killing me. I’m never getting out of here.
Never going to burn you. I give you what you are.

I think of You.

Whatever it takes, whatever it
takes …

Promises.

Body. Air. Food. Water. Blood.

Eternity.

You think about that.

I ate some pages from the bible. Stupid
thing to do. Ripped them out, tore them into strips, chewed and swallowed them. They
tasted papery. A bit inky. Not the greatest taste in the world, but as soon as the pages
hit my stomach, my hunger exploded like you wouldn’t believe. I started wolfing
down more, stuffing the pages into my mouth two, three, four at a time.

And then the cramps set in. Stomach cramps.
God, it hurt so much. I thought I was dying.

Spent the rest of the day suffering.

Sick, diarrhoea, sick …

Tip for the day: never eat a bible when
you’re starving to death.

08.00: the lights come on.

09.00: the lift comes down.

I’ve got so used to it, I don’t
have to look at the clock. The hour is ingrained in my body. The sudden sterility of the
lights, the silent click, then 60 minutes later the metallic sound of the lift –
g-dung, g-dunk
 …

As dependable as the rising sun.

So when the lift didn’t come down this
morning, it felt like the end of the world.

Imagine how you’d feel if the sun
didn’t rise. Imagine that.

The three of us gathered in the
corridor.

‘Maybe the clock’s wrong,’
Fred suggested.

‘The lift
is
the
clock.’

He knew what I meant.

We stared at the closed door. Solid metal,
silvery dull.

‘Maybe it’s broken,’ Jenny
said. ‘Lifts are always breaking. My dad got stuck in one once. They had to wait
for the fire brigade.’

‘I don’t think He’ll be
calling the fire brigade.’ I looked at Fred. ‘What do you think? Is it
broken?’

‘How the hell should I
know?’

We stood there for a while, just staring at
the closed door, making the occasional comment.

‘Maybe it’ll come down
later.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Doesn’t really matter
anyway …’

‘No.’

Of course, it
does
matter. The
lift might be broken. And that could mean something, although I don’t know what.
Then again, it could be that He’s just playing His stupid games again. Giving us
something to think about. Shaking us up.

Seems a bit pointless though.

I mean, compared to what He’s already
done, and what He could do, it’s a pretty crappy kind of game. Hardly worth the
bother, really.

On the other hand – and this is what really
matters – it could mean that He’s not up there any more. Maybe He’s gone.
Just got fed up and left. Or He could be ill. Or He could be just pretending.

Yeah, that’s more like it.
That’s a good game. Playing possum. Playing dead. He makes us think that
He’s gone, and when we try something –
BOOM!
 – ha ha, fooled you all!

Very funny.

I’ll have to think about that.

Talk it over.

First, though, I have to sleep. All this
activity has tired me out. Standing up, walking, talking, writing … I’m
exhausted.

Slept for a few hours. I don’t seem
to dream any more. Not that I remember anyway. It’s about ten o’clock at
night now.
The lift still hasn’t come down. I’m so cold, I
think my blood has frozen.

We’ve talked about the
possibilities.

What does it mean to us if the lift is
broken?

What does it mean if it’s not?

What does it mean to us if He’s
gone?

What does it mean if He’s only
pretending?

There was a lot to talk about.

Options, risks, outcomes.

Hopes, fears, maybes.

Optimism, pessimism,
don’t-get-too-excitedism.

It was hard work.

1) because we’re all half-dead and
can’t think clearly.

And 2) because we have to assume He’s
still up there, watching and listening.

We used pens and paper to start with, but it
was so time-consuming, so incredibly frustrating and tiring, that in the end we gave up.
Instead, we covered ourselves in a tent of sheets and whispered to each other. There was
a chance He’d gas us, or turn on the water, or the noise, but it was a chance
worth taking.

Nothing happened.

We talked things through. From optimism to
pessimism and back again. Finally we settled on somewhere in the middle.

We’re going to wait.

Fred was against it at first. He wants to
know if He’s still up there or not, one way or the other. Right now.

‘If He’s not there we can do
something. Do it right now. We don’t have time to wait.’