Bad Dreams (36 page)

Right now, she felt as if there was a dog inside her, gnawing at her insides, trying to get out of her body. Its teeth were tearing inside her guts, pushing out. The dog was going to eat its way out of her, and she would explode.

In her ears, the noises she was making sounded like a dog’s growls.

Still nobody came.

* * *

Brian and Monica had not seen much of each other after they split up, but since she had become President of the Students’ Union, she had been almost completely out of his circle. Once, at a meeting, they had faced each other over a negotiating table. He knew she had been silently hurt that he had sided with Vice-Chancellor Jackson against the students petitioning for a more open assessments system, and he had felt mildly guilty, remembering the days when he would have been on her side, arguing a good deal more heatedly and violently than she did, and to much less effect. She had been a sharp student, and now, as a post-graduate with a year’s sabbatical to discharge her duties as head of the Union, she was an even sharper politician. And she still had that hair.

After talking to Cazie Bruckner, they had had lunch together – with Jason – in the Refectory, and talked inconsequentially. Without probing, he had found out that she was not emotionally involved. With probing, she had got a good idea of the succession of Debbies who had traipsed through his bedroom in the last few years. She told him he was starting to show his age, and he was not even hurt.

‘…and you’re wearing a tie.’

‘A present from Jean. Last Christmas.’

‘It doesn’t look so bad.’

‘I think so.’

They did not talk for a while, and Jason filled in the gap in the conversation with a long story about his schoolfriends’ slug-eating activities. Brian lost the thread, and got interested in Monica. She had slight smile lines around her mouth. He mentally calculated her age – twenty-three, twenty-four? Once, he had thought of lining her up as Wife Number Two, but she had not wanted to go along with it. That proved, he supposed, what a smart girl she was.

She was the only student he had ever slept with whose grades he had had to mark down to prevent him being accused of favouritism. Debbie, for instance, might have a great tongue but was stuck with a typical third-rate mind and would be lucky to scrape a C Minus this term.

‘Jason’s going to a party this afternoon,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to drop him off. Want to come by?’

Her lower lip was slightly moist, which he found intensely arousing. She recognized the line, recognized the opportunity for an afternoon with him.

‘And Debbie?’

‘Who?’

She laughed once, cynically, and shook her head. ‘Brian, you don’t give up.’

‘It’s one of my better qualities.’

‘Whoever told you that?’

‘No one.’

‘I’m not surprised. Jason has more shame than you.’

‘Wha’?’ Jason frowned, not understanding.

‘It’s nothing, Jase. Auntie Monica was being silly. I hope
you
don’t eat slugs.’

‘No, they taste horrible.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Uh… I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I might ’criminate myself…’

‘What?’ spat Monica, laughing.

‘Television,’ said Brian. ‘Jean lets him watch all day. He’s fluent in cliché. A year ago, he got obsessed with
Neighbours
and started talking in a ’strine accent all the time. Thank God that’s over.’

‘Can we go to the party now, Daddy?’

‘Sure. Monica?’

‘I have to be in my office. There’s a UGM at four, and I’ve got to explain myself on a couple of points.’

‘Some other time?’

‘Maybe.’

Brian stood up to go, helping Jason on with his hat and scarf. Monica reached out and stroked the boy’s cheek, then put her hand on his arm.

‘Brian,’ she said, ‘I want to thank you for today. You’ve helped a lot.’

‘All part of the service, ma’am. I’ll just slip back into my Clark Kent disguise and leave without making a fuss. Take care.’

‘Yeah. You too.’

At home that afternoon, while Jason was splashing in an indoor paddling pool at his party, Brian started thinking seriously about Monica, remembering. He could not tell one Debbie from another in his mind now, but every detail of Monica was sharp. Her long, warm kisses; her gentle, expert fingering; that strange goulash recipe; her clear, perfect singing voice, unexpectedly coming out when she was distracted.

He phoned Debbie’s flat, but hung up before the third ring. He did not know how he felt about anything.

* * *

The Campus Radio Collective meeting had been going on for too long, and Eddie Zero was beginning to feel an ache in his drainpipe-jeaned knees from leaning slumped against the wall because all the chairs in the tiny office were occupied by people with seniority. This was not doing his red velvet teddy-boy jacket any good, and he did not think anything else was going to come out of it either. He examined the shine on the toes of his winkle-pickers.

Posie Columba, chairperson of the collective, was announcing the new schedule for the station. She had not got to Eddie Zero’s Rock ’n’ Roll Rebellion Show yet. Just now, she was outlining her plans to devote every weekday for the next month to a World Music Festival she had been organizing with her friends Achmet and Zorrino. Achmet thought Lloyd Price was a building society, and Zorrino could not tell The Ventures from The Chordettes.

‘This is the sort of cutting edge thing CR should be promoting,’ Posie said, her
okay-yah
voice sandpapering Eddie’s ears. ‘It’s authentic, yah, and it’s the wave of the future.’

She actually had said ‘yah’ and expected people not to laugh at her. No one had laughed at her, and he managed to pass off his own snort as a cough. She looked at him with too-narrow eyes, and went on with her spiel.

Eddie stifled a yawn, and amused himself by imagining he was the Masked Mangler, star of a slice ’n’ dice movie in which a collective of campus radio jocks are killed off one by one in ways appropriate to their programmes. Funkmaster Dee, the worst-dressed white boy Eddie had ever seen, would be plugged into a sound system and booted to death by the throb of his own dance albums. Psychedelic Pstan, who never played a track less than three-quarters of an hour long, would be juiced up on hallucinogenics and dipped, in his squiggle shorts and big red glasses, into a vat of steaming chemicals at the world’s first Acid Bath Party. Shaggy Andy, who was a folk traditionalist, would be flayed alive by country craftsmen who took a pride in their work and stretched his skin over the bole of their mandolins to get a better sound. And Posie would be forced to drink a gallon of water from each of the Third World countries she reckoned were musically in the forefront of civilization, and then be rotted from the inside by 57 different varieties of horrible disease. He would let Achmet and Zorrino off only if they agreed to clean up the mess.

They had argued about music all year, and Eddie was fed up with it. All he wanted to do was unleash some real rock ’n’ roll onto the airwaves, and let the kids out there develop an appreciation of genuine musical genius. His pantheon was Buddy, Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck, Ritchie, Little Richard. Everything else sucked. Posie said he was ‘a throwback to the pop mentality’ and called him an imperialist racist for writing off African and South American music as ‘ear-jerking crap’. What kind of colour was Harvey Fuqua, bitch?

‘Every day of the week, we’ll spotlight a different country, right?’ Posie said, cheeks red and shaking with teary enthusiasm. ‘Monday, Zimbabwe. Tuesday, Brazil. Wednesday, Gabon…’

‘Posie, when are you going to fit in Antarctica?’ he asked.

The girl frowned again, and made a tent with her porky fingers.

‘What kind of music do they got in Antarctica?’ said Funkmaster Dee, trying to sound as much like a fifty-year-old black pimp from Detroit as is possible for the teenage Caucasian son of a Coventry vicar.

‘If you can’t be serious, we’ll have to propose a motion to censure you, Eddie.’

‘Oh, please, Hot Mama, don’t censure me. Anything but that.’

Posie smiled a mean, devious smile, and told them all when their slots were.

Eddie’s show was between two and three
A.M.
on Fridays.

* * *

Rote had shown them how to black up like the SAS. Clare felt strange in her balaclava and heavy coat. She was used to colours.

She and Thommy sat in the back, with Cazie and Rote’s three soldiers. Rote was up front, with Derm. Derm was driving. It was an anonymous van, dark green and unmarked. Rote had made sure it was parked around the campus for a few days, to get the security people used to the sight of it. Rote had turned up at Cazie’s in it, and Clare wondered if it might be stolen.

Thommy had got some speed to take earlier, but Rote had seen him give her some and forbidden them. He had slapped Thommy with his open hand and told him not to act like a prat.

Clare was afraid of Rote, but agreed with him about Thommy. This was no time to be out of your head. She could not help but feel good, seeing the glint in Thommy’s eyes as Rote hit him, the glint that meant he was too chicken to hit back. Thommy was free with his hands usually – he must have been a bully at school – but Rote was in a different class altogether.

Last night, after the meeting, Rote had taken her upstairs and they had fucked. Thommy had not been happy about that either. Clare was not sure how happy she was about it, in fact, but she had had to go along with it. Once in the sack, she had been able to give up thinking and just get into the fucking. This morning, she had bruises, blue weals up and down her thighs and angry red dots around her nipples. No wonder Rote was so concerned with the protection of animals; he was one.

They drove out of town, towards the campus. There was a double carriageway, but it was practically empty. Clare felt fear and excitement in the pit of her stomach. Her breasts hurt.

With a trace of self-disgust, she realized that she was almost turned on. She squirmed a little on the hard bench, as if her arse were itching. Thommy was oddly withdrawn, sober. Clare’s mouth went dry, as she realized she did not know which she would be fucking tonight. Thommy or Rote.

For once, Cazie was quiet. She looked strange with her face streaked commando-style, and a black beret pulled over her ears. There were snailtracks of white on her cheeks. Clare realized the girl was crying.

The soldiers were like robots. Two men and a woman, switched off when not in use. They came with Rote. It was funny. They did not even talk about animal rights or press campaigns like the rest of STWAA. They were only interested in doing damage, in hurting people. In a week, they had not even told anyone their names. Security, she supposed.

The van stopped.

‘We’re here,’ said Rote, from up front. ‘Get ready.’

Clare tensed, aware that she would need to go to the loo in the very near future. She ran over the plan in her mind, as Rote started putting it into action.

Rote got out of the van. One of his men made sure the back door was unlatched. Rote walked up to the double doors of the Chem Building, keys in hand. His soldiers had jemmies and boltcutters in case the keys were a bust. But they did their job properly.

‘Now,’ Derm said.

They all piled out of the van in an orderly fashion. Clare pushed against Cazie, and could feel the girl shaking. Rote’s woman shoved them both, and they went with the team. Rote had the door open, and counted them all inside. Derm stayed at the wheel of the van, lying quiet on the front seat. It was properly parked. No one should get curious.

Inside the building, Thommy and Clare got out their torches and, in silence, made their way down the corridor towards the sealed environment. The further they got from the glass doors, the better Clare felt. Once they were swallowed by the complications of the building, there was no chance they would be seen. It was dark, but familiar. The place was just like every other building on campus, a beehive of lecture halls, offices, store-rooms and laboratories.

Rote had done his homework. They made no false turns. UCC had obligingly put up a notice detailing their contributions to the University, marking out the laboratory where they were carrying out their research. Clare knew rabbits were being tormented in the facility, but it struck her now that she had never heard exactly what they were suffering for.

Rote opened the first sealed door, and then the second. The air did not feel any different inside the laboratory, although it was supposed to be purer. Clare was studying History; she did not know anything about the procedures here.

‘Where are the animals?’ said Thommy, his voice squeaking a little, like Mickey Mouse.

‘There.’

Rote took Thommy’s wrist, and pointed his torch at a sign.

ANIMAL ROOM.

The door was wooden, inset with a wired glass window. It was locked. Cazie’s source had not furnished a key for this one.

‘Smash it,’ said Rote. His male soldiers stepped forward. One tested the handle, tapped the wood around the lock, and nodded to the other. The second man aimed a lightning-fast martial arts kick at the indicated spot. The door shot inwards, and slammed against something. Orange wood showed through white paint where the door had splintered.

There was a chattering and growling inside the Animal Room.

‘Get the cages, and let’s get out.’

Something shot out of the Animal Room, and struck Clare full in the chest. It was harder than any of the blows Thommy had ever landed on her. She fell backwards onto a fixed table, slamming her lower back against a hard edge.

The thing was still on her, clinging to her shirt. She felt points of pain on her breasts. Her torch was gone, and she could not see the thing. It could not be a rabbit. Rabbits do not have claws. It was making noises like a horror movie monster. She grabbed the furry creature, and pulled it away. Her shirt – and her skin – tore. The thing had fishhooks in its feet.

Clare felt the dampness spreading in her jeans. She thought she might have snapped her spine, but she could still kick and fight so she must be all right. Her back hurt like a bitch though.