The Bunker Diary (7 page)

After I’d put the note in the lift I
stayed in there for a while, staring up at the camera. I knew it was pointless, but I
did it anyway. I was feeling all gripey and irritable and I couldn’t think of
anything else to do. So I just stood there, staring up at the camera, waiting to see
what happened. Nine o’clock came and went and the lift didn’t move.

‘Go on,’ I said to the ceiling.
‘Beam me up. I promise I won’t do anything. I just want to see you, have a
little chat.’

Nothing happened.

I smiled. ‘What’s the matter?
Don’t you trust me?’

Nothing.

I waited another minute, then sighed and
stepped out. As soon as I cleared the door, the lift started to hum, and I immediately
jumped back in again.

It stopped humming.

I looked at the ceiling. ‘I suppose if
I push this too far you’re going do something unpleasant, aren’t
you?’

The silence was beginning to annoy me.

‘All right,’ I said, stepping
out. ‘I’ll catch you later.’

As I walked down the corridor I heard the
lift start up. The door closed, the hum hummed, and the lift went up. I went to the
bathroom, ran a cold bath, and got in fully dressed.

Now it’s nearly lights-out time. My
clothes are still soaking wet and I’m lying under a blanket, shivering. I think
he’s turned the heating down. Vindictive bastard.

But at least I’m clean.

Jenny’s been quiet all night.

Anja hasn’t shown her face since this
morning.

Fred’s making the occasional howling
noise.

I’ve had an idea about the camera in
the bathroom.

No new clothes, nothing to read.
Fred’s still out of action. I’ve solved the bathroom problem and been
electrocuted.

When the lights came on this morning I
showed Jenny my bathroom idea. It’s so simple I feel like an idiot for not
thinking of it before. Jenny tried it out first. When she came back she was grinning all
over.

‘How was it?’ I asked.

‘Brilliant.’

Her face was radiant. It was wonderful to
see. I wanted to stay there soaking it up, just bathing in her joy, but it made me feel
too
good. It was almost embarrassing.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I suppose
I’d better go and give Miss Snooty the news.’

I went along to Anja’s room, knocked,
waited for her to answer, then went in. She was still in bed. The room smelled bad. Her
eyes were all puffy and her hair was knotted and dull.

‘Yes?’ she said.

There was a packet of cornflakes on the
floor and a big chunk of bread on her bedside cabinet.

‘Yes?’ she repeated.

‘How are you today?’

‘What do you want?’

I glanced at the bread. ‘Midnight
snack?’

‘I was hungry.’

‘You
can
eat with us, you
know. We’re not savages.’

‘Did you want something?’

I held up the sheet I was carrying in my
hand. ‘Privacy.’

‘What?’

I showed her the head-sized hole I’d
torn in the sheet. ‘You just slip it on,’ I explained, ‘like a poncho.
You can go to the bathroom, have a wash, use the lavatory, and he can’t see a
thing.’

‘Is that it?’

I looked at her. ‘I thought
you’d be pleased.’

‘Ecstatic, I’m sure.’

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I
stared at her. She was lying quite awkwardly, kind of scrunched down low in the bed with
her knees raised and one arm under the blanket. The other hand was fiddling nervously
with the silver necklace round her neck.

I sniffed the air, looked round the room,
then looked back at her.

‘What?’ she said.

‘I’ll be back in a
minute.’

I left her room and went down the corridor
into the kitchen. I looked in the sink, then in the cupboard, then under the sink. I
stood there for a moment, looking all round the kitchen, then I went back to
Anja’s room. She was sitting up straight with the sheet pulled up tight to her
chest.

‘Would you mind telling me what
you’re doing?’ she snapped.

‘Where is it?’

‘Where’s what?’

‘The washing-up bowl you’ve been
peeing in.’

‘The
what
?’

She was trying to sound disgusted and hurt,
but it didn’t quite work.

I sighed. ‘The washing-up bowl from
the kitchen is missing. My bet is that you’re hiding it under your sheet.
You’ve been peeing in it, haven’t you? I can smell it from here.’

‘How
dare
you?’

I suddenly felt very tired.

‘Listen, lady,’ I said, ‘I
know it’s not nice being watched all the time, but we’re all in this
together. Think about what you’re doing. You pee in the washing-up bowl, you empty
it out in the bathroom, you put it back in the sink. We wash our plates in the bowl, we
eat off the plates, we get germs from your piss, we get sick, we die. Is that what you
want?’

Her face was bright red. ‘I was going
to –’

‘No, you weren’t. Look, you
can’t just think about yourself all the time. You can’t just hide away in
here and hope that everything will go away.’

Her eyes blazed for a second, then she
looked down, ashamed. ‘I’m scared.’

‘We’re all scared.’ I
picked up the poncho/sheet and threw it on the bed. ‘If you need to use the
lavatory, use that. And make sure you wash the bowl thoroughly when you put it
back.’

God, this place is getting to me.

After the lift went up this evening I spent
some time staring at the closed door. Staring and thinking. Thinking and staring.
It’s a hell of a door. Smooth, silver, grainy, solid, sealed. No gaps at
the side, no gaps at the top, no gaps at the bottom. No markings. No
flaws. No scratches.

After staring at it for a while I got a
saucepan from the kitchen and gave the door a good hard whack. It didn’t do any
good, but it made me feel a bit better. I hit it a few more times, then kicked it, then
dropped the pan and slapped the door with both hands. A bolt of lightning shot through
my body and knocked me to the floor.

The door was electrified.

That was two hours ago.

My hands are still tingling.

Tomorrow is Sunday. I’ve been here a
week. Seven days. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime, other times it feels like no time
at all.

Memories come and go.

Home, the house we lived in before Mum died.
Dad. School. The station, the subways, the big metal sculpture at
Broadgate … it’s all gone for now, another world, another planet. Light
years away. But the little things … I still remember the little things.
Half-formed memories of growing up, little stories, myths. Moments. Street things.
Timeless things. And things that aren’t so timeless. Like last Sunday morning. I
can still remember the feel of the platform under my feet, the smooth grey concrete,
cold and flat. I can feel the weight of my guitar digging into my shoulder. I can hear
the
dong
of the E-string as the guitar bounces against my back. What else can I
hear? Sunday morning sounds. Pigeons scuffling about. Early morning traffic. The big
platform-guy’s steel-tipped shoes clack-clacking on the concourse. Bully-boy
shoes. Clack clack. Clack clack. Clack clack. Then
the sounds fade, the
film in my head jumps forward, and I’m in the back of the blind man’s van.
The van lurches on its springs and I know he’s climbed up behind me and I know
I’ve been had, but it’s already too late. He grabs my head and clamps a wet
cloth over my face and I start to choke. I’m breathing in chemicals. I can’t
breathe. There’s no air. My lungs are on fire. I think I’m dying. I
struggle, lashing out with my elbows and legs, kicking, stamping, jerking my head around
like a madman, but it’s no good. He’s strong, a lot stronger than he looks.
His hands grip my skull like a couple of vices. After a few seconds I start to feel
dizzy, and then …

Nothing.

Next thing I know it’s seven days
later and I’m still sitting here thinking about it. And what’s really
annoying is I’m no wiser now than I was then. I still don’t know where I am.
I still don’t know what I’m doing here. I still don’t know what he
wants. I still don’t know how to get out. I still don’t know what the future
holds. I still don’t know what I’m going to do.

I can’t stand it.

I hate it. Even this, this stupid notebook,
this diary, whatever it is. I despise it. I mean, what’s the point of it anyway?
Who am I writing
to
? Who are you? Why am I talking to you? What are you going
to do to help me?

Nothing.

Less than nothing.

If you exist, if you’re reading this,
then I’m probably dead. Because if I ever get out of here the first thing
I’m going to do is burn this notebook. Burn
you
. You won’t exist
any more. But then …

Just a minute.

If I get out of here and burn you, if I
delete your existence, does that mean you won’t
ever
have existed?

Shit, that’s hard thinking.

Let me think.

You
have
to exist now. Otherwise
I’m dead.

But I’m not. And neither of us knows
how this is going to end …

So that means …

Shit.

I can’t be bothered with it.

I don’t feel well.

I’m going to sleep.

It’s sometime in the afternoon.
I’ve had really bad diarrhoea all day. My mouth is dry and my belly hurts.

I can’t get out of bed.

No energy to write.

Later, evening.

I’m still in bed. I don’t know
what time it is. I’ve been asleep. I can hear the others talking in the kitchen.
Jenny, Anja, Fred. It’s a comforting sound, but kind of depressing too. I feel
left out. Everyone’s finally talking to each other and I’m too sick to be
there. It’s not fair.

Fair doesn’t come into it.

Later still.

My stomach seems to have settled down.
It’s still hurting a bit, but it’s not too bad. Just a dull ache, deep down
inside me. I haven’t had to go to the bathroom for a while, which is good.
Constant diarrhoea is a really shitty thing to have. No joke. Diarrhoea, bubbling guts,
bad smells … 
very
bad smells. This room absolutely
stinks
.

Jenny’s been bringing me bowls of soup
all evening. Hot soup, hot milk, cold towels. I keep telling her I don’t want to
eat anything, but she keeps on bringing it anyway. Just in case,
she
says. Every time she comes in she tries not to wrinkle her nose at the smell, but she
can’t help it. I don’t blame her. It’s a nose-wrinkling smell.

I’ve insisted she sleeps somewhere
else tonight.

‘But you need looking after,’
she said.

‘Whatever I’ve got might be
catching,’ I explained. ‘Who’s going to look after me if you get
ill?’

‘Well …’ She wrinkled her
nose again. ‘I suppose I
could
sleep in the room next door.’

‘At least you’ll be able to
breathe.’

She smiled awkwardly.

‘Look,’ I said.
‘I’ll leave my door open, OK? If I need you, I’ll knock on the wall.
And if you need me –’

‘I’ll whistle. I’m a good
whistler.’

She whistled, just to show me what she
meant. Then she picked up the tray of cold soup and left.

Fred popped in a while ago. He says he
still feels like shit, but he thinks he’s over the worst of it now. He
doesn’t look too good. He’s lost a lot of weight. His eyes are kind of
watery and his nose is all runny. He looks like someone who’s just getting over a
really bad dose of flu. He didn’t say much, just asked me how I was doing, hoped I
was getting better, that kind of thing. It felt odd at first, being alone in a tiny
little room with this grizzly-bear-sized man. It made me feel a bit edgy. A bit cramped.
After a while though, after I’d realized he wasn’t going to eat me or
anything, I started to relax a bit. I talked to him. I asked him how he was doing, what
he thought about things – escaping, getting out, that kind of thing. It was kind of OK,
just the two of us, talking about stuff. Strangely
relaxing. At one
point he even smiled at me. He’s got surprisingly nice teeth. Smaller than I
imagined. Whiter too.