The Boy Who Could See Demons (19 page)

She nodded. ‘Did you feel bad for those people?’

I started to cry. Anya reached out and touched my arm. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘Did you see what happened to the policeman? Did he get hurt?’

I nodded and wiped my eyes.

‘Alex, was your daddy a policeman?’

‘I want to go lie down now,’ I said.

‘Did you see something on TV, Alex? About a policeman?’

Her voice was starting to sound very far away. I stood up and my legs felt like they were made of melting ice cubes.

‘We’ll talk later,’ Anya called after me, and I hoped she would just forget everything she had asked.

I said nothing and went upstairs to my bedroom. For some reason I knew Ruen would be there. As soon as I opened the door Woof ran out barking, then hid behind my legs and whimpered. I leaned down and stroked his head and I could feel he was trembling. I straightened and walked into my room.

‘Hello, Ruen,’ I said. He was Ghost Boy and was sitting in the chair by the wardrobe as usual, his arms folded tightly like he was in a right huff. I smiled to myself.

I sat down on the bed and waved at Woof to come in, but he stood in the doorway looking at Ruen and growling. Eventually he whimpered and went downstairs. I thought of the photos Anya had showed me.

I glanced at Ruen. ‘I want to tell you something.’

He looked up. He actually appeared a bit nervous, like I was going to tell him to go away. The knot that Anya had made in my stomach started to get smaller and I smiled at him.

‘I want to say thank you,’ I whispered.

‘You want to thank me?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I stood up then, feeling better by the minute. After a few moments I was bouncing on the spot, thinking of our house. ‘Thank you thank you thank you! Our house is fan-flipping-tastic! How did you do it? Where did you find it?’

His mouth hung open a bit but he didn’t speak. I stopped jumping and started to cry again. He looked very confused. I sat down on the floor and held my face. My head felt like it was going to burst.

‘I’m really, really sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to be ungrateful or horrible. I just …’ Really quickly my heart went from feeling ripped up like an old newspaper to feeling really warm, as if someone was hugging it. When I looked up, Ruen had vanished.

‘Ruen?’

There was no one in the room but all of a sudden it seemed to fill with light, as if the sun had walked inside, and there was a smell of strawberries. I didn’t know what was happening. I just felt happy. And for some reason I thought of Granny, which made me cry again because I hadn’t thought about her for yonks. This would make Granny happy too, I thought, Mum and I moving into a new place. I was really, really young when she died but I remember her begging Mum to move into her house because she didn’t like the thought of us being alone. She used to shout at our neighbours too and they wouldn’t even shout back, they were so scared of her.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew I was in bed with all the covers over me and it was no longer sunny. I looked over at the chair and saw Ruen sitting there. ‘Where did you go?’ I said, but he didn’t answer.

I rolled upright. All the pictures of the house came back into my mind and I started smiling again.

‘Ruen, I don’t even know enough words to say thank you for this.’

‘You don’t?’

I shook my head. ‘There aren’t even enough words in the whole of the dictionaries in the whole world to tell you how grateful I am. In fact, I’m more grateful than a whole field full of grated cheese!’

He looked at me as I started going on about grated carrots and great big sausages and Alexander the Grateful. He wasn’t smiling his Alex Is Stupid smile but I didn’t care.

‘How about
showing
me how grateful you are?’ he said.

I stopped laughing. ‘OK. I’m grateful
this much,’
I said, stretching out my arms. ‘No,
this
much,’ and I ran to one side of the room and slapped the wall and then ran to the other side and slapped the other wall, ‘times a billion.’

Ruen stood up. ‘Can I make a suggestion?’

I nodded. He looked around. ‘Find yourself a pen and paper.’

I searched my wardrobe for my sketchpads, then eventually found one under my pillow. The pen I picked up had been chewed up by Woof but after a few minutes I discovered a permanent marker in my sock drawer.

‘OK.’

Ruen sat down again and made a triangle with his fingers, the way he always does when he’s deep in thought.

‘I’d like you to write down the following questions, and, when I tell you, I’d like you to ask them to Anya.’

‘OK,’ I said, and he started to talk.

16

THE BITTER SIDE OF FREEDOM

Anya

The weather has taken a turn for the better and I’ve started spending lunchtimes sitting on the grass in front of the City Hall, watching new blood circulating through Belfast’s veins. It’s still stunning to me to see my homeland so transformed, to see faces from all over the world walking through its streets. Even the hallmarks of globalisation make me feel relieved that the world has remembered Northern Ireland, and for the first time since I moved back I feel assured that my decision was the right one. I considered relocating back to Belfast when Poppy was about to enter primary school in Edinburgh. On the day that I had to decide, two car bombs exploded at an army barracks in Lisburn, about ten miles away from Belfast. The second bomb was deliberately targeted at medical staff treating those wounded from the first bomb. For me, the issue was no longer just about culture, about feeling a part of a nation, or whether my daughter could tick three nationalities or just one. The issue was about protecting her. Enough was enough.

Still, my return home has coincided with the beginnings of real peace in this land. Better yet, old friendships I thought I had for ever crippled with the move to Scotland have proved stronger than ever. My best friend, Fi, soldiers across the Albert Bridge every lunchtime to catch up with me, determined to make sure I stay put in Belfast this time round.

I arrive at the City Hall on the dot of noon after a morning spent consulting a new patient’s parents about their son’s dissociative identity disorder. A handsome, polite thirteen-year-old boy, Xavier is heir to his father’s multimillion-pound fortune, excelling at private school, and is also a national chess champion. The problem is, Xavier has twenty-two different identities – a creation of personas usually developed in the wake of abuse or trauma, or chemical imbalance, and often a very disturbing illness for those who are close to the patient. The personalities can be of various ages, genders, temperaments, dialects and disposition. Coexistence is becoming increasingly difficult for Xavier’s identities, and some of them are severely depressed. He has no history of suffering physical or sexual abuse, no drug problem. He has a loving, supportive family, who are heartbroken to learn that their beautiful boy is extremely ill. Cases such as his remind me that the biological factors of mental health are foremost, and that medical intervention is necessary. Michael, of course, would disagree.

I spread my coat on the grass, tuck my legs under me and make a start on my sushi. Ten minutes later my phone bleeps with a text message.

Meeting with the boss brought forward – sorry honey! Meet up tomorrow? Will bring CAKE! Fi xx

As I get up to leave, I spy Michael sitting cross-legged on the grass beside the Titanic Memorial. He is eating a packet of macadamia nuts, wearing a white polo shirt instead of his standard bottle-green jumper. He catches sight of me approaching and jumps to his feet.

‘Dr Molokova,’ he says, leaning in to kiss my cheek. ‘Ursula’s stretching the leash a bit far today, isn’t she?’

‘Can I join you?’ I say.

He looks around him. ‘I’m alone, aren’t I? Have a seat.’ He pats the space on the grass beside him. I hesitate, recalling the tension between us at the review meeting. Still, I am anxious to ask Michael about demons and all things pertaining to the supernatural dimensions that Alex continually invokes in constructing his fantasies. Michael has mentioned previously that he trained as a priest, before having a breakdown of conscience and switching to a career in social work. I think there’s more to it than that, but I don’t ask. I opt for a spot a little further away than indicated and sink down. The grass is warm and soft. For a moment the sensation of sitting is so intense that I want to fall asleep. Michael holds the bag of macadamia nuts in my direction.

‘Would you like one?’

‘Are you trying to kill me?’ I hold out my talisman and give it a jiggle. He rolls his eyes.

‘Oh yeah.
Allergies
. What, do you break out in a rash?’

‘Something like that.’

He looks at me intently, carefully folding the plastic bag neatly into eight, before popping it into his shirt pocket. ‘No, seriously. How bad is it?’

I take a breath, quickly recalling the last time I experienced anaphylactic shock. I was newly qualified as a child psychiatrist, chairing a symposium at Cambridge for the British Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists. I hadn’t had a reaction since I was in my teens, and so I’d been careless when it came to the catering. The chocolate cake had ground hazelnuts in the base, the chef admitted later. No more than a handful. Still, that delicious slice of chocolate cake was enough to start a reaction in just a couple of minutes. First, the familiar tingling sensation around my gums, then into my teeth. A feeling of dizziness. It was the metallic taste in my mouth that made me start to panic. But by the time I grabbed the person at the table next to me to tell them to phone a doctor, my airways had swollen so badly I could barely breathe, never mind talk.

I tell all this to Michael. When I’m finished, he unzips his briefcase, takes out a packet of antibacterial wipes and scrubs his hands. ‘Just in case,’ he says. I’m flattered by his attentiveness.

‘I wanted to ask you about some of the religious undertones of Alex’s descriptions,’ I say carefully. ‘Do you have a minute?’

He nods, his eyes lingering on my talisman. ‘Shoot.’

‘OK, so I’ve treated a handful of kids who’ve claimed to see demons, angels, what have you, but none of them have ever described the spiritual world with the depth that Alex has. There’s a specificity to his descriptions that I need to explore. You’re Catholic, aren’t you?’

‘Recovering,’ says Michael with a wink. ‘Doesn’t make me an expert but I’ll see what I can do. Define “specificity”.’

‘Alex told me that Ruin is a Harrower.’

‘A
Harrower?’
Michael says, frowning.

I tell him about my meeting with Alex a few days previously.

‘You say Ruin is a demon, Alex,’ I had asked gently. ‘What does that mean, exactly? Does that mean he’s bad? Does he work for Satan?’

Alex had glanced to a spot next to the window, leaning towards it as if he was receiving instructions.

‘Of course,’ I tell Michael, ‘I’ve seen a similar kind of attentiveness to imaginary friends before. But it was what he said next that astonished me. I mean, he’s
ten
.’

‘What did he say?’

I reach into my pocket and bring out my mobile phone. ‘I recorded it,’ I tell Michael, hitting the tab on the screen. In a couple of seconds Alex’s voice is audible over the blare of city traffic. He speaks slowly, with many breaks.

‘A Harrower is a job title bestowed upon the kind of demon that’s closest to the top of Hell’s hierarchy,’ he says, pausing to take another attempt at pronouncing ‘hierarchy’. He continues. ‘After which is Satan and his advisors. Whereas many demons are tempters, like worker bees, assigned the common task of fishing impromptu ideas and suggestions in the rivers of human weakness, hoping someone will take a bite, the more educated and experienced demons carry out the tasks of developing temptations into hobbies, habits, and into small axes that will eventually fell the whole tree.’

There is a break on the recording as I let Alex recover from such a wordy description.

‘Why a tree?’ I hear myself say.

Alex pauses, then attempts another metaphor.

‘The ultimate goal of a demon is to take away choice. Choice makes for a very messy universe. Kind of like a garden that is left unattended for all the weeds to scatter wherever they want. Choice leads to all the bad stuff in our world. So we want to stop it.’

‘We?’ I ask.

I remember how Alex had glanced at the same spot. ‘Sorry, I was just repeating what Ruen said. Shall I continue?’

I make a note of the ‘we’ and ask him to carry on. He coughs loudly.

‘We see the removal of choice as a noble purpose. We have devised many methods to this end. Every demon’s existence is dedicated to the fulfilment of his or her role, for which he or she trains for hundreds or even thousands of mortal years. Every demon who has any sort of role in the human realm, even a role as menial as tempting or discouraging, is a scientist, steeped in millennia of knowledge on human frailty. If a demon fails to achieve his or her purpose at any time, the punishment is severe.’

Alex stops. ‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’ he says to the spot by the window.

‘What is?’ I ask. He turns to me.

‘If a demon fails, he’s chained to the bottom of a pit a billion miles beneath the sun for a hundred years, and
then
he has to do his training all over again.’

I nod. ‘I’d say that’s harsh.’ I refer to my notes. ‘What is a Harrower?’ This term clearly has great importance for Alex, and I want to know all the meanings he has attached to it.

Alex looks down, as if listening, then returns his gaze to me.

‘What is it, Alex?’

‘Ruen wants me to repeat his own words, as if he’s talking now. Is that OK?’

I nod and watch him carefully. He blinks a couple of times, then opens his mouth to speak.

‘I am a Harrower. My job is to go in after the barriers have been broken, after the action has been taken, even after regret has sunk its fangs deep into memory, and then I rake the soul until it is ripe for the seeds of doubt and hopelessness for which no human language has adequate lexicon. I could give you a thousand translations of “anguish” in the various tongues of the human realm, because all of them differ, and yet none of them come close to capturing its complexity. This is because there is no translation for the kind of work I perform. Nobody needs to be taken to Hell to experience it. We just grow despair inside the soul until it becomes a world in and around a human.’