Sleepwalkers (15 page)

‘Hello, Mary,’ said Anna. She didn’t bother to offer a smile that wouldn’t be returned.

‘Oh bloody hell.’ Mary walked back into her flat, Anna following her and shutting the door behind her. ‘I don’t know if he’s in. Never bothers to tell me. If he is, tell him his Dad wants to kill him.’

‘Will do,’ Anna replied cheerfully and headed the other way to the last door along the short corridor. It was shut, but she
expected that. She knocked. No reply. Then something banged. And then there was a shout. A young man’s voice.

‘WHAT?!’

Anna entered. Inside, standing nervously in front of a desk with three computer screens on it (and a load of computer gadgets that meant nothing to her, or to most people) was a young man, nineteen years old. He was dressed trendily, his hair was wild and his skin was that white, pale tone you get when you’ve been inside for weeks at a time. His eyes were always flicking about, his mouth twitched, his hands were never still.

‘Hello, Terry,’ she said.

Recognising Anna, he smiled, relieved.

‘Oh, hello. Sorry. It’s just, when someone knocks, you know, all polite and formal, I get bit nervy.’ He paused, frowning. ‘You look like shit, Miss.’

‘Don’t call me Miss. You know it winds me up.’

Terry grinned. ‘So. Come in, sit down.’

The room was trashed. Empty pizza boxes and Chinese take-away cartons littered the floor.

‘I don’t think I’ll risk it. Haven’t had my jabs.’

‘Still got that teacher’s sense of humour, I see.’

‘Shut your face. How are you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Still crashing stock markets?’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I read in the paper that someone recently hacked into MI5. Turned all their files into pictures of cartoon characters.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s a waste of your talent. Like getting expelled from school
just before your exams. Like not bothering to go to college when a certain teacher works her arse off to get you a place.’

‘Yeah but it’s a shit-load of fun. Seriously, you look awful. What’s the matter?’

Anna didn’t reply immediately. She looked around, but there really was nowhere to sit. She wasn’t surprised. She’d visited Terry once every few months since he got himself thrown out of school and the room was always a tip. He’d become her ‘cause’, but she’d made little progress. He was clearly immune to her best intentions.

‘There’s a boy in my class,’ she began.

‘Found someone new to save? I thought I was your special project.’

‘You were, but you’ve been deposed.’

‘Wow, this one must be seriously tragic.’

Worry clouded her face again. ‘This boy, I thought he was in trouble. I thought it was his dad, I thought it was all of that stuff, but now … now I don’t know.’

She reached into her handbag and pulled out the camera that she had found in her flat. Despite the frayed wires it looked cool and sleek. She held it out and it hung between them like a dead mouse.

‘What is this?’ she asked. ‘I found it inside my television set.’

Terry took the camera. He stared at it, ran his hand along its smooth edges, held it close to his eye. ‘Inside?’

She nodded. ‘It’s nothing, right? It’s normal.’

But Terry didn’t reply; his focus was consumed by the camera.

‘I don’t know anything about how a TV works, about anything electrical, really. I’m sure that’s meant to be there, yes? I just keep imagining things at the moment. A few days
ago, everything was so straightforward. But now I’m scared. All the time. Please Terry. Tell me. Is that normal?’

Terry never took his eye off the camera, but his reply was the cancerous confirmation that Anna had feared.

‘No. No, this ain’t normal.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s cool. It was in your TV?’

‘Yes.’

He went to his desk, pulled out a set of tiny, electrical screwdrivers. ‘And you think this is cos of some school kid?’

‘Yes.’

Terry tried to open the box, but failed. For some reason this seemed to please him hugely.

‘You and a kid. Sticking it to The Man. Who’d have thought it? Well, Miss, for this, I’m gonna have to wash up a mug.’

*

Toby had convinced himself that his natty new shirt really would make a difference. He entered the gym with his hair flicked back and watched the girls dancing in the middle with their cool, bored expressions. At this, his confidence did waver slightly, but he wasn’t going to fall at the first hurdle. There was a glitter ball and some silver streamers to hide the most obvious bits of school equipment, but the school disco was still a fairly bog-standard effort. What it lacked in presentation, it made up for in noise.

Toby bobbed over to a long table strewn with cans of coke and packets of crisps. He opened a can, took a big gulp and enjoyed a burp. Then he looked around. At the far end of the room, an older boy was pouring vodka into the punchbowl, unable to hide his excitement. Toby watched as the boy’s buddy
tasted the concoction and almost spat it out. They doubled over in hysterics. Toby looked away, worried they’d see him watching. Across the room he saw a couple snogging next to the fire exit. The other kids in his class were clustered together across the room, laughing and joking. Miles away.

He tugged at his shirt, suddenly uncomfortable. He looked down at the scuffs on his shoes and rubbed them on the back of his trousers. And as he did so, he remembered the time he entered the school before this one. He remembered how he looked at the indifferent, hostile faces of his new classmates and knew that it would all be just the same. His hand ran up and down his forearm, feeling the scars hidden beneath the shirt. He recalled the bullies at the school up in Newcastle who hung his clothes from the school windows. They had fluttered like flags against the bitter north-east wind while he, naked, shivered with cold and shame, unable to retrieve them without exposing himself to everyone. The teachers didn’t bother to hide their smiles as they enjoyed the cruel japes at his expense. A new tune started playing and although Toby didn’t know it, everyone else did. Suddenly they were all dancing while he clutched his warm can of coke, watching them.

He didn’t last long. As the kids continued to throw shapes on the floor, Toby slipped out of the room. A cheer went up and for a moment he thought it might be about him. But it wasn’t; a girl had accidentally spilled a drink down her top and the boys were leering. Of course. Nothing would ever be about him. He walked away, but stopped in the corridor. Outside, some kids were running around maniacally. They seemed crazed. He looked back at the disco, then at the quiet, cold corridors of the school. They had all been told that these
were strictly off-limits tonight. He found a set of stairs, away from everything.

The door at the top wasn’t locked, and Toby pushed through it. The night air greeted him; he liked the bite. The roof of the school building was made up of two tiled, pitched roofs with a central lead box-gutter between them. It was wide enough to walk along. Toby went to the edge of the roof and looked down. Below him he watched the banshee kids charging about, enjoying a rough game of British bulldogs. Further back, two boys lay on the grass, sharing a joint. One of them noticed him and nudged his friend.

Toby shuffled closer to the edge. He let the tips of his shoes peek over the drop.

Below, the two stoned kids stood up and started waving to him. Something about the wave wasn’t encouraging. From where he stood, with the cool wind pushing and pulling at him, their arms were directing him down.

‘I could jump. I could, you know,’ he said, quietly. He looked down at the boys and saw them pointing at him, encouraging others to share their view. He saw kids pouring out of the building. They were shouting things at him, but the wind brushed the noise away.

‘I might. I’ve done it before.’ He stared down at them and strange, disconnected, jagged memories stirred up. A bridge, barbed wire, freezing water, hunting dogs that snapped at his feet as he ran. The images blurred as the cold wind blew around him. Below, a crowd had formed. They were waving at him and instinctively he raised his hand in response. Hello. The swirling breeze changed and suddenly he could hear their shouts.

‘Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!’ Their faces came into focus. The waves and smiles were taunts and jibes. He could see that some of them were filming him on their mobile phones.

‘If I did, what would you do then?’

‘Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!’

‘I will. I can.’ He edged further forward. The hysterical mob below cheered him on.

‘And it won’t hurt. Never does. Not until the morning.’

‘Jump! Jump! Jump!’

‘And then you’ll see.’ Toby breathed in the cold air. He closed his eyes for a moment, let his head fall back, wrapped up in delirium. His foot pushed towards the void.

But then the door behind crashed open and a gasping teacher – Mr Farlow – sprinted forward and grabbed Toby by the collar, yanking him backwards to safety. Toby crashed to the floor, jolted. He looked up, stunned to see this panicked teacher staring over him.

‘Jesus, Toby. Are you crazy?’

Toby looked up at the strong, athletic man who towered over him, and he shrank under his gaze.

‘I …’ He couldn’t manage any more. Instead he burst into tears. The teacher didn’t say anything else, just stood over him. Toby assumed he was waiting for him to stop sobbing so he could bollock him some more. But he couldn’t stop the tears.

Toby was still crying as he lay in his mother’s arms, curled up on the sitting-room sofa. She held him tight to her and whispered soft things into his ears. He responded in turn, hugging her tight, squeezing his eyes shut against anything and everything. He heard his father enter, but he kept his eyes
shut and Michael left soon after. He lay there, cuddled up against his mum for the rest of the evening. He’d let them down again. He’d probably have to change schools. Again. He tried to think of something positive. He was still trying when he fell asleep in her arms.

*

Terry had two sets of blinds on each window. That way, he explained to Anna, it was impossible for anyone to bug him using the windows’ vibrations.

‘Who would want to bug you?’ said Anna, and his shrug reminded her of their days back at school when he was her brilliant, surly and near-unteachable pupil. She’d wanted to be the one to inspire him and put him on the right track. He’d responded by setting fire to a classroom. That should have been the end of it, except that once he’d gone he sent her an essay – three months overdue. The quality, the sheer insight and maturity of it, stunned her. It belied everything about him. And it showed that he cared. They’d become ‘friends’ though the word didn’t suit their relationship. She would implore him to do more with his life and he would mock her sincerity. After their last visit she’d promised herself that she’d stop bothering with him. But then Toby appeared.

They’d been sitting in his stuffy room for hours, staring at a computer screen. He’d type things and say words that she didn’t fully understand. She’d wait, hoping for an explanation, slowly getting bored and tired and irritable. On the plus side, Terry had shown Anna just what you could do with a computer, an internet connection and some know-how. He had always impressed her – his mind was a furnace – but Anna was surprised by his application, the calm methodical approach
he showed. When she commented on it he sniffed and made some sarcastic comment about getting a good grade. But the truth was he had only ever been good at things which interested him. And everything that Anna showed him about Toby was fascinating.

Terry was obsessed by conspiracies. He would link anything he found on his screens to an anecdote about 9/11, about the Illuminati, the New World Order, about the way you could find Masonic symbols on the dollar bill and city-centre architecture. Everything, according to Terry, was about someone, somewhere up there who planned our demise and control with infinite detail. It had been a constant source of discourse between them.

‘Yeah, well,’ Terry would sneer, ‘you’re one of those drones who think that conspiracy theories are nerdy.’

‘Well, come on—’

‘See, they’ve got you programmed just as they want. Make it so anyone who questions the status quo is a wally. Genius, when you think about it.’

‘Oh, I see. You’re the great visionary, are you?’

Terry turned away from the computer and faced Anna directly. He cracked his knuckles and made a small sigh, as though he were dealing with a child.

‘You’re clever, right?’

‘I like to think I’m doing okay.’

‘You buy ready-meals, don’t you?’

‘What? Yes, I suppose so.’

‘You don’t think they’re that good for you, though, do you?’

‘Well, no.’

‘But you buy them all the same. Why’s that?’

Anna didn’t have a reply handy and Terry kicked on.

‘You watch TV most nights, soon as you get in probably. But there’s nothing good on any more, is there?’

Anna didn’t reply.

‘Your life is flooded with American culture. Your interest in the news is half-hearted. You’re more concerned with celebrities. Even if you think you’re above gossip magazines, you’ll find yourself checking out the front covers when you see them in the supermarket. You buy whatever is advertised or recommended by ‘lists’. You vote for identikit middle-of-the-road governments, who all support business and corporate growth. You live in fear of your neighbours, of strangers, of young people, and you think you’re always in imminent danger; the end of the world is creeping up on us through climate change or terrorist attack. And, most significantly, you do not believe that there is anything that you can do to stop this. Congratulations, Anna Price, your programming has been correctly installed.’

And with that, he turned back to the computer.

‘What’s that all supposed to mean?’ she replied, irked by his confidence. ‘How does me watching the telly prove that there’s some evil Mr Big out there? It’s silly.’

‘You just don’t want to admit that you might not be in control.’

‘I know I’m not in control, I just don’t believe anybody’s that organised to have some master plan for world domination.’