The Concrete Grove (14 page)

“Hello,” says Hailey, moving her hand, trying to catch the bird on her palm. “I won’t hurt you.”

The bird flies backwards, gliding like a smaller dream within the larger dream she inhabits. It opens its red beak and unfurls a long, thin tongue or proboscis. Like a soft, hollow tube, the tongue unrolls, growing longer and longer, until eventually it reaches the floor, its end scraping in the dust. More hummingbirds join the first, flying from other nests, some of which are located high overhead. The walls no longer contain any trace of concrete; they are all dark brown, an armoured layer of bark. The floor has turned to vegetation. The roots crawl and writhe, like snakes, around Hailey’s feet. Weird insects burrow beneath this mulch, their bodies displacing the earth and making small heaving tracks across the ground.

“Where am I?” It seems like such a huge question. The answer must be equally as large, perhaps so big that the universe cannot contain it.

The birds form a circle around her, like the flipside of a Disney cartoon, where the magic animals arrive to help the princess. But these birds, she knows deep inside, are not here to offer her aid. They are trying to warn her, or perhaps to scare her away. They are the harbingers of something else – something large and old and terrible. Like the small fishes that feed on a shark’s back, these things co-exist alongside the monstrous, and by doing so have become like tiny monsters themselves. Their beauty is not joyous; it is terrifying. It is the beauty of decay and degradation, the empty grandeur of destruction.

Hailey does not know where this knowledge comes from. It is just sitting in her head, waiting to be accessed.

“You’re old, aren’t you? So very old.” Her voice echoes within the tree-chamber. When she glances away from the birds, once again inspecting her surroundings, she sees that she is now standing at the centre of a small grove of tall oak trees. She knows they are oaks because she recognises them from school, when she and her classmates did a nature project and had to draw the leaves of different species of tree – oak, maple, pine, willow. The oak tree was her favourite: there is something mysterious and majestic about the oak. It is one of the bones of England.

The trees lean in towards her, as if attempting to pass on some secret knowledge. They grow as she watches, dwarfing her, becoming the likeness of what they used to be, thousands of years ago, when this land belonged to nature and contained some kind of indigenous power. But man came along and dug up the land, shattered and fragmented whatever power was buried here, and poisoned it.

“Is this home? Is it where we belong?” She isn’t sure if she means her family or everyone else, perhaps she is referring to all of humanity. “Is it where we started? Where we’ll end up?”

The trees shudder, as if her words have made an impact. Then, slowly, they draw back, moving away. Leaves fall like solidified tears upon the ground. They turn dark as they tumble, crisping as if they are being dried out in an oven. The fat roots slither across them, folding over the fallen debris, crushing it and turning it to compost. Great slabs of concrete erupt through the mat of knotted roots and branches, noisily reclaiming the space, raping it and making it unfit for anything but human habitation. The only animal corrupt enough to live here is man.

Suddenly Hailey understands everything. Then, just as quickly, she realises that she understands nothing. She begins to cry but doesn’t know who – or what – the tears are for. The trees diminish, shrinking, shedding their leaves, going to ground. The hummingbirds take frenzied flight above her head, performing wild, graceless loop-the-loops and almost crashing into each other in their haste. The sound of their wings is that of a million little heartbeats; their vibrant colours are like paint splashes in the air.

Far off, somewhere deep within this ravaged primeval forest, a beast cries out in the throes of either hunger or despair.

CHAPTER TWELVE

L
ANA USED TO
look forward to the weekends. She remembered a time when everything in her world was stable, and she worked part-time at a solicitor’s office in Newcastle. She was the best legal secretary in the firm, commanding a higher salary and better benefits than her peers, and the senior partners thought a lot of her.

Then Timothy had gone spectacularly off the rails. He had invested all their money in a long-distance haulage business that was actually part of an elaborate front for human trafficking, and the world she had so carefully created began to fall apart. It took less than a year for her loving husband to turn from a responsible family man, a respectable investor (or so she’d thought, before he threw in with gangsters) and property developer, into a murderer and a suicide.

It had taken such a short time to fall a great distance. But was the distance really so great? In all honesty, was the difference between family man and vengeful, paranoiac killer so huge? Sometimes, when she remembered him caressing her, whispering his desperate plans for their future into her ear, she thought there was hardly any difference at all.

Weekends these days were much the same as the rest of the week, apart from the fact that Hailey did not have to go to school. Hailey usually stayed in bed until just before noon, watching her DVDs and reading her books and magazines. But now she could no longer do that – her television was gone, the DVDs were useless without a player, and only the books remained.

Today they were both up and ready before nine o'clock. Lana was dressed in jeans and hiking boots, with a good fleecy jacket she’d bought years ago, in more affluent times. Hailey was wearing a pair of battered charity-shop Nikes, her best skinny jeans, and a man’s padded coat that looked so big on her frame Lana suspected she’d either stolen it or been given it by a mystery boyfriend.

Tom had said that he would pick them up at ten, and even though Hailey showed no interest at all in the planned day trip Lana felt as excited as a schoolgirl preparing for a first date. She knew that she was using this as a distraction from her troubles, that Tom’s unexpected arrival on the scene had offered her a smokescreen behind which to hide everything else. But she didn’t care; she was happy – albeit a muted sort of happiness – and she would allow nothing to spoil that feeling. Even if it was just for a day.

Self-delusion
, she thought,
is often just another coping mechanism
.

She heard a car horn blaring outside, and when she rushed over to the window she saw Tom’s car parked in the bus lay-by across the street. She waved but he didn’t see her. He was staring straight ahead at a figure that had just stumbled through a narrow ginnel along Grove Lane and was making its way slowly and awkwardly across the road in front of the block of flats in which she lived.

“What is it, Mum? Who’s that?”

Lana stared at the figure. “I’m not sure, honey. But he looks drunk.”

“Or stoned,” said Hailey.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Lana felt a formless fear moving at her core. This was the kind of thing she hated most: social terrors in the early morning, or the middle of the day. At night she could almost accept this kind of behaviour, or at least convince herself that she could deal with the threat by locking it out. But during the hours of daylight, when the world was meant to be bright and without shadows, the sight of a junkie staggering about in the road was akin to a personal insult.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get down there before that idiot causes a commotion. Tom’s waiting. We don’t want him to have any hassle.” What she really meant was that she didn’t want him changing his mind and driving away.

Their footsteps sounded hollow as they hurried down the stairwell, and they both moved with a sense of urgency, as if something were pursuing them. Lana felt fingers of terror brush along her spine, and was prompted to look back over her shoulder. Dusty shadows quivered down the stairs. She looked away, feeling absurd that she should be so afraid.

Lana burst through the doors, tightening her grip on the cooler bag she’d slung over one shoulder. The other hand clasped her handbag, and she wished it contained something she could use as a weapon. Mace. A pair of nail scissors.

The man was now standing in front of Tom’s car, weaving on the spot like a listing galleon. His hands were raised and grasping, as if he were trying to grab handfuls of fresh air.

“I know him,” said Hailey, slowing down as they crossed the road and approached the mini roundabout. “It’s that junkie – what’s his name again?”

Lana reached out and grabbed her daughter’s hand, dragging her towards the car. Tom had seen them. He opened the driver’s door and set one foot outside. “Everything okay?” His voice was quiet; the slight breeze took it and lifted it above the rooftops, carrying it away like a scrap of litter.

Lana nodded. “Hurry, now.”

“Banjo!” Hailey stopped dead in her tracks. Her hand slipped from Lana’s grip.

“What are you saying?” Lana spun on her heels, keeping one eye on the unsteady fool who was still standing directly in front of Tom’s car, staring into the windscreen but clearly seeing nothing outside the theatre of his own head.

“That’s his name: Banjo. He always hangs around here. Went missing a few days ago – I remember somebody was asking around for him, wanting to know if anyone had seen him. He’s just a harmless druggie dude.”

“Come on. Let’s just go.” Lana tugged the girl across the road, to the car. Tom was now fully out of the vehicle. He was torn between watching the junkie and greeting the two women.

“Who the hell’s this?” He half smiled, half grimaced.

“Just some local druggie,” said Lana. “Let’s get in the car.”

Tom nodded. “Nice to see you, too.” The smile grew, making his face look younger, cleaner, nicer.

Lana shook her head. “Sorry. This place. It spoils everything.”

Tom opened the rear door and then walked around the back of the car to open the passenger door. He stood, balanced in a moment where he was not quite sure who would sit where.

“Fuck!”

Lana turned towards the front of the car, the direction in which the expletive had come from. Banjo was now weaving so violently that he looked like he might fall down at any minute. His feet remained fixed on the ground but he was now bending forward at the waist, as if performing a weird little dance. He was thin, snake-hipped, and able to manage a wide range of movement. It looked strange, like the beginning of some drug-fuelled urban dance recital. His fingers moved like pincers. He had long, dirty nails. They looked sharp as knives.

“
Fuck!
” He screamed the word this time, white foam flecking his lips. “Gerroff me!” His face was pale, bloodless, and his lips had peeled back from his teeth to give him a feral expression. “
Fnugh!
” Speech was deserting him; his throat was convulsing too violently to produce language. Lana watched in fascination as his Adam’s apple bobbed like a ping-pong ball caught in a python’s gut.

“Oh, shit. Get in the car.” She glanced at Hailey, who by now had moved around to the other side of the vehicle. She was closer to Banjo than any of them. “Get in, Hailey. Get in now.”

“Wait a second, Mum. We should call an ambulance, or something.”

Banjo leapt, pushing himself forward like a giant cat attacking its prey. His lower body slammed into the bodywork, and he rolled along the car’s left wing. This gave Hailey enough time to back-pedal, and Tom moved his body between her and the gibbering junkie. He stood firm, hands clenched into tight fists.

“Hailey!” Lana ran to her daughter, pulling her away from the car. She fumbled inside her purse for her mobile phone and thumbed the emergency number.

“Just stay back,” said Tom. “Keep the fuck away.” He took a single step backwards, stumbling slightly.

Banjo was wailing now, like a baby demanding food. His mouth was lathered in foam; his eyes were weeping blood. His hands were still raised in front of his face, and he turned his palms inward, twisting his thin fingers into hooks. Then, still moaning wordlessly, he began to claw at his cheeks with those long, guitar-picking fingernails.

“Oh my God. Do something. Shit, do something!” Hailey’s voice had risen to such a high pitch that it sounded like she was singing.

Lana screamed into the phone: “Grove Court! There’s a man killing himself, send help, now!” The operator tried to calm her with words she could barely even hear, and she just yelled her request over and over again in the hope that it would be answered. “Send someone now!”

Everything seemed to freeze apart from Banjo, and what he was doing. The others just stood there and stared, incapable of anything but watching the horror as it happened.

Banjo’s fingernails had gone in deep. Lana saw flashes of white tooth or skull amid the red, and the man’s cheeks already hung from his face in fine tatters, like thin slices of Parma ham. He had stopped crying and worked now in silence, raking the loosened flesh away from muscle, the thick muscle away from bone.

The man slumped to his knees, his hands still working furiously at his ruined face, as if controlled by an external force. His fingers pushed through into his oral cavity; Lana could see them wriggling in there when he opened his mouth in a gurgling scream. He tore away the flesh, hooking his bottom lip between finger and thumb and tugging it like a fattened maggot from a feast of rotten fruit. By the time the sirens were audible, wailing across the estate like a bunch of harpies, he had taken off half of his face.