If I Could Fly (20 page)

‘It’ll be dangerous,’ he says. ‘You could end up like Dair.’

I look at Alfie. I don’t feel quite so brave any more. He reads my expression.

‘You don’t feel sleepy or anything, do you?’ Alfie is poking my arm. ‘You’re very quiet.’

‘Wide awake,’ I confirm.

‘Don’t decide yet. I’ve thought of something. A bit like flipping a coin,’ he says. ‘Come on.’

Alfie doesn’t wait for my reply. He is already hurtling down the slide, jumping off the end and running to the swings. I want to point out to him that my entire future can’t be decided by something as mad as a game of heads and tails. It’s a silly idea.

I lie on my belly and slip down after him. By the time I reach the swings, Alfie is like a pendulum in
motion, rising higher and higher.

‘It’s easy,’ he says, legs extending and folding in a rhythm. ‘We both go as high as we can and if you’re the first to loop the loop, you stay, if not, you go.’

‘You know I’ll want to be the first,’ I point out, excited by the challenge. ‘Which is a clever way of making sure I stay.’

‘Not just clever. Genius,’ says Alfie with a grin.

‘I’m not promising.’ I sit on the black rubber seat, taking hold of the chains either side and pushing off the ground with my feet. It feels great to be in the air, the momentum increasing with each swing. Our legs work in synchronicity and very soon, at the top of each curve, we are level with the bar. It won’t take much more effort to send the seats into a 360-degree loop. Alfie is laughing like a lunatic and, despite everything, I’m giggling too, feeling the rush of wind through my hair, the coldness making my teeth tingle. I’m not thinking about The Decision, or that this might be the last time I get to go wild with Alfie. I’m not weighing
up the benefits of being an eternal child. With each swoop, I’m ascending higher and higher. Soaring like an eagle. I have never felt so exhilarated, happy or free.

‘Stand up,’ he says, nimbly tucking his feet under his body and pulling up whilst in motion. I copy him, with more difficulty. It seems to make us move even faster.

‘Ready?’ says Alfie as we travel in reverse. We seem to pause for a nanosecond, suspended in the sky. I give him the thumbs up sign with one hand.

‘
WAAY!
’ we both yell as the two swings start to drop. They curve and ascend together, but this time, there is no judder as they start to falter. Both of us are moving in a complete arc and in a moment we are above the bar, upside down, staring at the ground. Our stomachs lurch, our bodies brace, our lips drop and leave our teeth exposed like white horseshoes. A split second later, we are descending again, hands and feet braced in a star position. We allow the swings to lose momentum and come to a gradual stop.

Furball hops over to us and stands on her hind legs,
her nose twitching at both of us in turn. I jump off the swing and pick up for a cuddle. She nestles softly into my neck for a moment, allowing me to stroke the side of her belly. But then her back legs begin to scrabble against me impatiently and her throat makes a strange, growling noise.

‘Hey, what’s up?’ I ask her. She continues to brace against my hold so I put her down, very gently. She runs a few paces, then looks behind at me. Her tail is moving from side to side like a mini windscreen wiper.

‘She’s telling me something,’ I say to Alfie. ‘What is it?’

‘Just rabbiting on, as usual,’ he replies.

Suddenly, she takes off at full speed, runs out of the playground, through the fence and into the undergrowth. Flashes of brown and white tell me she’s sniffing about under the bushes, on her own little mission.

And, watching her, I realise several things: that my thoughts are clear (it must be the rush of blood to my
head), that my choice has been made and that my leg is hardly hurting at all.

There’s one other thing I’m aware of. Alfie has turned away from me and is rubbing his eyes with his sleeve.

It feels like flying. We are flamingos, treading water with wide strides, about to take off. Our feet are barely touching the ground. I am following Alfie’s lead, a few paces behind, along pavements, across roads, past shops and churches and through parks. Where cars are parked in our path, we are leaping over them. It is almost effortless. My body seems weightless, my joints as flexible as rubber. There is no friction, no pain, no fear.

This is free running, Crease, but not as you’ve ever imagined in your wildest dreams.

Alfie says it’s best for me to avoid blending with objects as it can hasten disconnection from my ‘real’ body, so I am learning the art of ‘spiriting’ – travelling at speed over the terrain as lightly as a summer breeze.
The only sensation is one of air shifting as I move through it. And the
thump-thumping
of my heart, so loud it seems it wants to burst out of my chest. I have begun a race, but there are no other competitors. There is a finish line, but I may reach it too late. I am here and I am there. There are forces pulling me in both directions but the forward momentum is the stronger. We are moving north and have already lost the smell of the sea.

I am kannika seed, carried on the wind.

I am steam from a mangrove swamp, swirling along the forest floor.

I am Calypso, rising.

Little children are spilling from a school ahead of us, carrying rolls of art-work under their short arms, felt-tipped fingers clasped around lunch-boxes and papier-mâché models of angels. Some wear wings made of wire and netting and have tinsel haloes on their heads. They sound like a family of macaques, each trying to screech louder than the other.

Alfie and I weave round them, over them, and feel the buzz of collective energy, like a force field. A lollipop man waits patiently in the middle of the street for a wriggling blue and black centipede to cross in front of him. Alfie can’t resist flicking his yellow lollipop and making it spin as we pass. The poor man looks accusingly at the children and then all around in confusion.

I catch up with Alfie and waggle my finger at him. He just shrugs and grins, but the moment of fun is soon forgotten as we press on with our journey. I sense the urgency building with every minute that passes.

Everything feels as if it is moving past us in fast-forward mode. There are glimpses of fairy lights in house windows, a Union Jack flying from a mast, an oversized reindeer waving a hoof from the step of a convenience store.

We have reached the most northern part of the town, where the tarmac and ordered grid of houses end and the wide fields begin. Some still have maize and
barley crops lying flat and black. There was no proper harvest because of the virus. It looks as if every acre has been sprayed with chemicals. One rectangular field has an untidy pile of straw bales at one end, stacked unevenly, their plastic casings ripped and flapping.

There is no sign of livestock anywhere. Beyond the orange mesh security fence, I count at least three tractors, abandoned on the edges of half-ploughed fields. The landscape looks heavy and sad. In the far distance are the downlands, and I feel myself shiver. On the other side of their gentle green slopes is my home zone: my house, my mother, my father, the situation I left behind, and my worst nightmare.

‘Are we going the right way?’ asks Alfie, sensing my unease. I nod without making eye contact. He reaches across for my hand, which he squeezes tightly. His feels cool, despite our exertions.

We are looking down on the motorway which weaves away from the town and runs from here all
the way to the Scottish border, like the spine of the country. There are still restrictions on journeys out of, or into, different zones. The four lanes look eerily empty – just the occasional white van, lorry or official-looking car is passing along slowly, observing the speed limit imposed last year to save fuel.

I recognise this place. We are near the car park where Mr Carter, the ice-cream man, unwittingly took me on board. There is no sign of his van today, nor of any other visitors. The gate across the entrance has a sign on it which reads
Keep Out. Infection Zone.
There is rust on the chain securing the gate to its post. It hasn’t been opened for a long time. The thick metal links won’t keep us out, I’m thinking. We can’t be locked in, restricted, controlled. But where I’m going there are different kinds of chains. I can almost feel their weight as I imagine them coiling round me.

‘Wait,’ I say to Alfie. There are sudden, violent tremors vibrating through my body. I gasp in anxiety. ‘What’s happening to me?’

‘Sooty, this is all new. I’ve never helped anyone go back before,’ Alfie replies. He looks wide-eyed and frightened.

‘You don’t have to come.’ I’m hugging myself to disguise the shaking. ‘I can retrace my steps from here.’ I’m putting on a brave face, but the thought of never seeing Alfie again is making white-hot flames burn my heart.

‘I know it’s stupid –’ he shrugs – ‘but I’ve never left the zone before. Just what you need – a guardian angel with agoraphobia.’

‘Hey. You’ll be fine,’ I try to reassure him. ‘And, whatever happens, so will I.’ At this moment, I don’t believe it. But Alfie sighs and holds out his hand to give me a high five. Mine meets his and they stay clasped for several seconds. With our hands touching, I can’t imagine life any other way. As I make myself release my fingers, I notice the energy between us. It seems to say that together we are strong – and that makes what I am about to do even harder.

‘We should head for the hospital in your zone – that’s the most likely place you’ll be,’ Alfie says.

‘They don’t take kids there.’ I remember now. ‘That’s why I was sent to our hospital for treatment before.’

‘But with your injury, you’d be an emergency. Think, Caly. Where is it? It’s really important.’

I’m shaking my head. My mind’s a blank.

‘They’re always named after kings or queens or presidents, or things like faith, hope, religious people . . .’ Alfie is racking his brains.

Then it hits me. ‘St Francis. That’s what my mum said in the garden. “Take care of my child, St Francis.” I thought she’d switched faiths or something. But it’s the name of the Accident and Emergency hospital. That’s it, Alfie. That’s where I am.’

We exchange a glance. ‘Right, then,’ he says.

‘Alfie?’ I look at him. He looks back, hopefully. ‘Laces.’ I point at his trainers, which are almost completely undone. Before Alfie can react, I bend
down and tie them both really tight. ‘Double knots,’ I tell him. ‘Or you’ll go bum over bonce.’

‘Nag, nag.’ He shrugs, with quite a big sniff.

‘We have to speed up,’ warns Alfie, grabbing my hand and pulling me down the slope that falls away steeply from the car park. We aren’t keeping to the mud-smeared footpath, but descending the steepest part of the hill. The tufts of tall grass and clumps of thorny bushes don’t slow our pace. We’re in the air more than on the ground, each step launching us forward like Olympic long-jumpers.

‘
Waay!
’ I can’t help exclaiming, as we leap a stile in a high wire fence and land several metres beneath on a spiky carpet of straw.

A lazy winter sun, low in the sky, is staring at us through its wide, unblinking eye. I’m running to catch my own shadow, which is as faint as smoked glass.

Across acres turned to mud, over hedges and a
swollen stream, full of dead, floating fish, past the tree with roots like a fat man’s legs, around the deep wood, along the road to nowhere, through a recreation ground, under the barrier on the edge of town, back into my home zone – the journey that first took me more than a day has been completed in minutes. I feel breathless with the shock of it.

Alfie and I stand for a moment, getting our bearings. The observation tower lies due north. There’s the trading estate to our right with its large, grey warehouses and small roads connecting them. We should navigate our way through them to the centre of town. But my tremors are getting worse and I’m shaking from head to foot.

‘Will you wait for me?’ I ask Alfie. It’s a massive ask, but I need to know the answer. ‘When I die properly, we can be together always.’