Sleepwalkers (27 page)

Ben tried to hide the unease he felt. He looked around; no one was near them. Anna and Terry were on the other side of the street, a few yards ahead.

‘Do you?’ Toby asked. His hand still clutched at Ben’s sleeve.

‘Yeah, yeah I do.’

‘And loads of other things are coming back too. The things I did, the things they made me do. Is that the same with you too?’

Ben nodded. He didn’t want to talk about this. About knives and hammers. He shivered.

‘It’s sort of like,’ the boy continued, ‘sort of like now we’re free from them, they can’t keep it all stuffed away. It’s all coming back up.’

Ben nodded again. He saw that Terry and Anna had stopped and were waiting for them at a street corner. Terry caught his eye and made a discreet gesture – we go that way next. Ben nodded to show he’d seen it, then felt another pull on his sleeve.

‘If you don’t want to talk about it, then I’m totally down with that.’

Toby hurried across the street on his own, leaving Ben behind as they’d agreed. He joined Anna and they walked on, a new couple. Ben walked alone for a while. Dark memories stirred within him. He tried to think about Carrie instead, to calm himself, but he couldn’t picture her face. It was like she was falling away, as though she was just a dream too and he would soon lose her forever. No, he thought to himself. Never, never, never.

They reached the building a couple of hours later. Ben stared at it from the opposite side of the road – a grand, rather beautiful facade. From the outside, it looked deserted. Stained by soot, pollution and pigeon shit, its white front was now dirty grey. What would once have been a fine set of double doors was now a steel shutter, covered in graffiti. The windows were
also boarded up, similarly tagged and paint-splattered. Cars roared past. Maybe a couple of hundred years ago this was a cobbled street with trams or carriages, or some such. Now the road was wide enough to suck through speeding trucks. Official notices were stuck to the building’s door and to the lamp posts outside: a date for its destruction.

Terry grinned at Ben as dust and grit caught in his eye. ‘Nice, eh?’

He led them around the block to the back of the building and pointed out a metal fence, which looked intact but had been cut at the sides so you could pull it up and slip underneath. The back was worse than the front – rubbish was strewn all over the place, asbestos had been dumped along with smashed glass and other detritus. Ben spotted a bloody syringe amongst the debris.

At the back of the building was a set of stairs, leading down to a basement. There was a sturdy padlocked chain holding the gate in place but Terry revealed that this was a facade – someone had sawn through the lock so that you could pull it open with ease. Once done, Terry carefully replaced the lock as he found it; to anyone not in the know, this place was a fortress.

At the bottom of the stairs he banged three times against the sheet metal. It seemed an age before someone called out from inside.

‘What?’

‘Daz, it’s Terry. And some mates.’

No reply.

‘Oh don’t be a cock, open up!’

A pause, and then the noise of a drill or something, an
electrical whirring. Another pause and then the sheet metal was pushed open – a young man, thin with blond rasta dreadlocks, peered out. His nose, eyebrows and ears were pieced and his earlobes swelled with large African wooden discs. He wore beads around his neck, a brightly coloured mohair jumper and baggy green corduroy trousers. His toes peeked out beneath the trouser’s turn-ups – bare feet. He stood half in, half out of the doorway, squeezed against the metal sheet.

‘Hey, man,’ he said warmly, then glanced at the others, offering a much cooler nod.

‘We need a place to stay, Daz.’

‘Yeah?’

‘They’re all good, I can vouch for them,’ said Terry. ‘They’re in the shit, need a place to disappear for a bit.’ He pointed to the sky, as though something up there was threatening them.

Daz frowned. ‘They don’t look the sort, Terry.’

‘Do they ever, man? It came after them, you know how it is.’

‘True words, my brother. True words.’

Anna glanced at Ben – what were they talking about? Ben shrugged back at her, equally lost.

‘So come on, Daz, don’t leave us hanging.’ Terry’s voice had changed slightly – from the scowling yoof to a more furry twang.

‘How long do you need?’

‘How long till we get world peace?’

‘I hear you. Come on, brothers and sister.’ Daz’s teeth were crooked but his smile was warm and infectious. He pushed the metal sheet a bit further open and gestured for them to
come inside. ‘You don’t want to be out there, it’s well nasty, eh?’

‘It’s okay for us to come in?’ said Anna.

‘Of course. Anyone’s welcome. Not like it’s ours, is it?’

‘All possession is theft, Miss,’ said Terry with a wink. ‘I’d have thought you’d have known that.’

Daz led them inside and the metal shutter slammed back hard behind them. He started to screw it back in place using a small electric drill – it was done in a matter of moments. Ben had expected dripping walls, crumbling concrete and rubbish on the floor – an extension of the debris from outside. He was surprised, therefore, to feel warmth, and see wall lights illuminating corridors which were carpeted and clean. It looked almost like an everyday, working office except for the posters, paintings and murals on the walls: a clenched silhouetted fist on a blood-red background, ‘Love not H8’, ‘We Are Not The Enemy’, ‘I Didn’t Vote’, ‘Who Would Jesus Hate?’ – these and the word No! (with its obligatory exclamation mark) painted in every variety of shape and colour imaginable, lining every inch of every corridor. Daz led them deeper into the building, past various empty offices. Through the glass, Ben saw overturned desks and scattered papers in some, while in others empty chairs were set in circles, as though ready for a meeting.

‘What was this place?’ he asked.

‘Local council offices,’ replied Daz with a yawn. ‘Sorry, I’m not really a day person. So, um, the council owned it but wanted something more central, more swanky and corporate. Liggers. They moved out, we moved in.’

‘We?’ prodded Anna.

‘Uh-huh,’ said Daz. They had reached the centre of the
building. Stairs wide enough for three people to walk side by side led up and down, and there were also two lifts. Someone had written the word ‘Heaven’ next to the ‘Up’ button and ‘Washington’ next to the ‘Down’. The lift pinged and the doors opened with a complaining screech.

‘The lift’s been a bit temperamental ever since Marco tried to get his piano in and bashed the doors. We had to drag the thing up the stairs, but you know what those Brazilians are like about their music.’ He held the lift door open and gestured – after you. After a rather obvious hesitation, everyone got into the lift. A ping and a shudder, and the lift started to climb.

‘So are there many people living here?’ Anna asked.

‘Hard to say,’ Daz replied. ‘Folks are coming and going all the time. I thought you guys would like Serita’s rooms – she’s gone off travelling and we’re not expecting her back for six months.’

‘Nice,’ said Terry. ‘Where’s she gone? India, South America?’

‘Sierra Leone,’ said Daz with a slight glare. ‘She’s not a tourist, man.’

‘Right,’ Terry said, and everyone was quiet for a bit.

‘How come you have power?’ asked Toby.

Daz was pleased with the question. ‘There’s a guy called Alan, got an engineering degree from Oxford. He rewired the place, connected us to the grid. Every now and then some suit out there gets grumpy and tries to cut us off, but Alan always finds a way to get the power back. We had gas for a while, but that’s gone now, the bastards. Still electric cookers do the biz and we’ve got wi-fi now.’

‘Wicked,’ smiled Terry.

‘Yeah, it’s secure, password-protected so you’ll need—’

‘Don’t worry about that.’

‘Oh yeah, you’re one of those, aren’t you?’ said Daz.

‘Daz doesn’t like anything new,’ Terry told them. ‘He’d be hugging trees if he could.’

‘No, no,’ blushed Daz. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? I’m where I’m needed. Can’t kick the system out in the forest, can I?’

Terry patted his heart with a clenched fist. ‘Right on, brother.’

‘Oh fuck off,’ said Daz, but he was grinning. He smelled of stale incense.

He led them out of the lift into another corridor, this one daubed with huge red letters: ‘No Logo!’

They walked on, passing more right-on quotes on the walls on both sides. Anna nudged Ben. ‘Could this place be more of a bloody cliché?’

Daz must have heard her. ‘What did you say?’

‘Oh. Nothing, just how, it’s really very kind of you … Darren,’ says Anna. Daz looked at her, confused, then burst out laughing.

‘No, no, it’s not Darren, I’m Daz – you know, like the detergent – whiter than white. Name stuck cos I was always such a goody two-shoes.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Anna. ‘Does everyone have nicknames in here then?’

‘This isn’t a cult, honey. Whatever do you think we are?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this.’

‘You like it?’

‘I … yes,’ she said uncertainly.

‘We’re just a bunch of people who have found each other through the same ideology. We won’t play the government’s game. We don’t do taxes, don’t do ID cards, don’t do plastic. We’re a community of believers in a different way of living.
We’re just a group who all looked at the way the world was and thought, we don’t fit in. So we organise protests from here – try to stir up the students or the unions, you know. We’re not running away, we’re just … on pause while we work out a better way forward.’

‘Cool,’ said Toby.

‘We march, we protest, it’s like …’ he tried to find the right words, his hand waving in the air, ‘it’s like that book,
War of the Worlds
. We’ve built our own little world in here, hiding from the invaders, waiting for our turn to reclaim the streets.’

Terry slipped between Ben and Anna as they followed. ‘If there is hope, it lies with the proles,’ he said with a smirk.

Daz didn’t seem to hear this and walked on, finally stopping at a door which was painted red and green. Across it was daubed the words
don’t trust anyone over 30
. Ben stared at it and then looked at Daz.

‘Hey, don’t get all steamed up, I didn’t write it.’ Daz pushed the door open and switched on a light to reveal a small, square room with a door leading off it. The windows were barricaded shut, so the only light came from the sterile strip lighting. The walls had all been painted in rich greens, gold and scarlet. Indian Gods had been drawn next to naked dancers who twirled and writhed around them. Ben nodded politely, but inside he was groaning. The carpet was faded and singed with small burns.

‘Home sweet home,’ announced Daz. ‘You’ll need some bedding, but it’s dry. Don’t try to open the window or take down the shutters. We don’t want anyone knowing we’re in here. There’s another room through there and a communal
shower down the corridor. Let us know when you’re moving on. Good luck and may the force be with you.’

And with that, he was gone. Ben looked around.

‘I’ll get us some sleeping bags and a kettle,’ he said. ‘Some pillows and some basic foodstuffs.’

But Terry wasn’t listening. He went to the other door, opened it and peered in. Ben saw another room, identical in shape and space but this time daubed in swirling purples and aquamarines.

‘You stay in there, Miss, we’ll share this other one,’ Terry said.

‘Thank you, but you’ve got to stop calling me Miss.’

‘Yeah, yeah. So, shut the door, Toby.’ Toby did so.

‘Maybe I could get us a camp stove,’ Ben continued. ‘A can opener, some basic cutlery …’ He stopped talking when he realised that everyone was staring at him.

‘So, Ben,’ said Terry, in a tone that wasn’t entirely friendly. ‘Fancy telling us everything about you?’

‘Might take a while,’ Ben replied.

Terry slipped down against a wall and folded his arms: I’ve got all the time in the world.

‘Alright, sure. I’ll tell you what I know.’

Ben leaned against the wall, stared at the grotty carpet and told them about his wife and children. He talked quietly about his dreams and his nightmares, about the aches and pains that would come and go. And, more falteringly, he told them how he became more confused and less trusting. He didn’t tell them about the violence he’d meted out, but he hinted at a past that troubled him and actions which he did not wish to speak of. He told them about running, about the dead men
in the van (although he alluded to a crash which had enabled his escape) and of his hunt for his true past. After a moment’s hesitation, he told them that he was once a soldier, about the differences in his old life and the man he now believed himself to be.

Toby would occasionally interject with ‘Me too!’ or ‘Yes, yes, just like that!’ adding his own experiences, with Anna giving a calmer, clearer explanation of what they thought had happened to him. As Ben talked the mood became quieter, a little sombre. It was clear that, as much as they knew, they still knew nothing.

‘And that’s sort of it, I suppose,’ said Ben, a little awkwardly. He looked at the others, unsure what more to say.

It was Terry who spoke first. ‘You didn’t say what your dreams were like.’

‘Well they were … I don’t know … just … dark, scary, me doing stuff that I wouldn’t do, you know?’

‘What stuff?’

‘I don’t remember any of it clearly enough.’

‘Yeah you do,’ Terry replied. Ben looked at him and saw the challenge in his eye.

‘I’m not a threat to you.’

‘Why are you saying that?’ said Anna.

‘You know what Toby dreamed of?’ asked Terry. ‘We do. Every bloody detail. They did terrible things to him, shitty, fuckedup things and he’s told us all about it.’ He spat out the last three words to make his point. ‘Now what did they do to you?’

‘It’s okay, Ben,’ said Anna. ‘You can tell us.’

‘I’m not making it up, I just can’t, I don’t … the details aren’t …’

‘Did they hurt you?’ Anna asked.

‘No, of course not,’ said Terry. ‘They didn’t hurt him. He hurt them.’