The Folded Man (8 page)

And your recorder? Thing taped under your chair?

Saves me carrying it.

Ian laughs. Ian's face bloody splits.

Well look at us, says Ian. A cripple with his opportunity, a kingmaker before him. But you know, lies aren't becoming, Michael – that's what
our
mam said. And my quarrel's simple, really. Few lads saw you come in. Not talking them no-neck meatheads on door either. And these lads reckon he's got a shop in your city. Pills and rest. Reckon he used to go ambient. Might still be freelance. Doesn't care who he works for, does he? Council lads, council coppers. Lads in my industry. Decent CV by all accounts though.

Brian's wheelchair squeaks. Soft fibres crushed from left to right.

I don't know anything about that, says Brian.

Course you don't, son. But throw a cushion long enough, Michael, and the zip'll hit someone in eye.

I mean, I don't get what you're saying.

Not saying a lot. Just wary of that cunt aren't I? Enough that you both snuck your ways in here. Still. He'll be wondering where you've got to.

Brian nods.

Expect he will. Anyone left to see out there?

Ian looks at his watch. Taps it.

Aye, a few, he says. Some enterprising bastard turning car plant machinery into walker tech. Ian plays his poker face. The hook, the line, the sinker.

Really? says Brian, the reflex getting the better of him. So much so that for that split second, he thinks, Fuck Noah and Garland anyway.

Ian reaches over the desk with a card.

Take this with you. Want to talk to me again, call this number. It's a redirect, so don't be put off if it throws your call around a bit. Suffice to say I've had files wiped off that thing under your arse.

Brian pockets the number. Rocks in his chair and turns clockwise. Tick tock. Time running slow, running thick.

Oh, and wheels?

Brian doesn't turn back. He's on the way from the room by this ramp. It's dark out, now. Dark and grisly – the air gone wet.

What would you have done, if you saw that sand-coon smiling at the end of our city's tower?

Brian stops. Thinks. Watches the dust roll across the floor.

Why?

Just want to know. That people-dust in your eyes. The smells. Your seven-year-old brother cut up and bleeding in your hands.

Brian says, I would've done nothing. I wouldn't have been able to reach.

 

Back in the house that Ian built. Into this home where you're easily lost.

Into a house of eyes – a room of seats and enduring stares. Down that central aisle. The hush loud while the man on stage rants and raves about this and that.

Brian sees Noah back in his place. He stops short of his feet and whispers, Miss me?

Noah ignores him. Brian stops still.

Ships in the night, Brian says.

Piss off, Noah goes. You've gone and diddled us. Told you to stay bloody put, didn't I?

There's sweat on brows, on stage and off. Brian's meat is burning with itches and stress. He should've remembered nylon mix never sits well over split skin.

But they're on to us. Have been since we got here –

I know.

They know about your council chums. Jobs you done. That Garland's a lobbyist. And they've wiped our tape –

I know. I know. Just shut up. Tell me what happened later.

We should get off.

No. Camera at one o' clock. Don't look at it you daft bastard. It's aimed at the pair of us –

Clapping explodes behind them. It rolls side to side, back to front.

This last few and we're out, says Noah, raising his voice now.

A fat man lolls off stage to cheers and more.

Just don't leave my sight.

Brian eyeballs his lap, his tie like a fat arrow to all that's wrong.

The clapping picks up again as there's some introduction, some chatter.

And on the stage, the staring man – the man from the toilet – walks out.

Brian stares and stares and stares.

Turns to Noah with, My days, that's him.

Hello, says the man above. Thanks. Thanks –

It's a pleasure, the man says, holding up
his hands. Cheers. But you'll stop clapping when I
say I need some help. Not got long, so I
won't beat around the bush. Oh, and I'm
Colin. It's really good of you to listen so
late in the evening – and after so many great ideas
, too.

Brain stares and thinks and panics.

He's smaller up there on the stage, this Colin, and doesn't so speak loudly either. When he does it's to say something too fast. Obviously not a natural like these others. Doesn't seem interested, even. The tie too straight. The shoes too shiny. Like only earnestness got him this far. Like only a louder mic could take him further.

Probably many of you held public contracts before the renationalisation programme, Colin says. And we all know it stung. I mean . . . I mean you've had these grants – the 2016 grant for one – but tokenism hasn't helped. Doesn't build stuff, right? Your satellites are breaking up, phones networks gone, cables degrading, roads falling to bits. Things aren't great. Which . . . which I guess is why you're all here.

Get on with it, someone shouts.

Well, I've come a long way, Colin says. Haven't done this much, either. But I've come a long way to say this, which I also haven't really done before. And it's going badly, right? Yeah, properly badly so far.

I need help. Materials and investors. Same kind of things you all want. But I need it for something you haven't seen or heard of.

I'm from a long way off. Asking for investment in something I've seen myself – that only a lot of brains together could build.

So what I'm asking is, what if we build links with other worlds? I don't mean scattering out to space, or rockets, or anything else. I mean closer to home. I mean alongside our own – parallel to our own? Cooperation and trade, a network of resource pathways. Because it's my belief we'd become stronger widthways. It can't just be about running the long length of time.

People are looking between themselves, baffled, and asking who the hell this guy is. No warm up or setup. No pitch. And now this nonsense.

People start laughing.

And somehow Colin grows bolder. You'd prefer me to talk about space, would you? Not the spaces between? Chat on to you in the numbers you know, the maths you live by. But I'm here to say it's more than that.

Colin holds up a box and opens it. A little steel box it looks like. He points inside – it's empty.

Me, I found a fuel, a gate, a chance. Found a chance for all of you.

And the laughter turns to booing and jeering. To a pantomime –

Colin the man who's brought an idea nobody can believe in.

Brian staring up at Colin, this man, the staring man, who asked Brian for luck in a toilet and needed it.

But somebody's interested. Somebody someplace. Because all of the cameras, all of them studding the auditorium walls, are turned and trained on the skinny young man – the man with a beard and his box – on the stage.

7.

The cameras. The shot. The screams.

The cameras. The blood. The panic.

The cameras. The wound. The scramble.

The cameras. The hands. The chaos.

The cameras.

The auditorium.

The end.

Brian was close enough to see. The bullet went in and the bullet back came out. So fast, too – the jacket shoulder bursting, black curtains twitching, this gangly man going spastic on the floor. And now, Noah has pulled Brian's head down and close; pushed his face towards his knees.

Colin is fully splayed, down and out on his stage above.

And everybody is running under harsh house lights – harsh and white, the crowd in fragments.

Brian babbles. Brian wants to shit. Brian shouts.

Noah's behind now, his rough hands on the foam handles. Up the ramp with Brian on point, the pair of them dodging men as they hurdle chairs towards the doors, some tripping, some smashing their mouths on the next chair along.

More shots, that smell of animal fear. Noah shoves his head down by Brian's shoulder, sprinting, all his weight against the chair and the angle of the slope. You can hear his breath punctured when his feet catch their grip.

Noah pushes Brian through bodies in flight. All the while, Brian screaming, Out the way, out the bloody way.

Into the lobby, and more shots ahead. Plaster swirls in a fine powder, grey and loose. It's the doormen this time, pistols over their heads, as a hundred men tear-arse towards doors only built for the width of two. That noise and fear; confusion and fights; the selfish gene, the ruthless escapes –

Stop here and you'll catch men trampling to avoid the crush, their hands on others' scalps. You'll see how turned ankles can make piles of men.

Into the night, dozens and dozens of feet over the gravel. The bastards all sprint on to the car park, kicking up loose stones which skip into bodywork.

Only Brian and Noah are caught short by the doors on account of Brian's chair. Elbows rain from all places – men on men over men. Noah has his arm creased around Brian's head, some kind of fleshy visor. And then people are going over the wheels, a wonder there aren't fingers caught in the spokes. Stuck fast. Stuck sure.

There's a squash as the force behind begins to build. The pressure swells as more bodies funnel up at the back. Suddenly Brian comes free, fast, while Noah stumbles – the pair of them exploding into cold northern air like corks from the fizziest bottle.

 

Drive. Just drive, shouts one of them to the other. Both of them caught hard between the buzz and the bite. The driver. The passenger. The chair slung in the back. The murder they saw, a shooting they survived.

Noah's shaking. Brian, too. Drive. Just bloody drive. First gear, not reverse – fuck! Reverse, out, front wheels spinning and kicking up chips.

Noah is shaking. Noah's jaw flaps loose and fast. This motor-mouth giddy and halfway to screaming. The adrenaline's really going. Plus don't forget, only a single headlight's working –

Noah pulls away. Out. Faster cars pulling round them. What did they do here?

Light me a bloody fag, says Noah, manic. Light us a pair of bloody fags will you –

And Brian lights up, passes the cigarettes. The car on the road – out among the black cars and white vans, headlights, tail lights. Round Flouch roundabout and back on Woodhead. Past that bombed out pub and round the cracks.

Noah winds his window, nudging forty, scarcely ­braking. Harsh drags and strong smoke.

Giddy up, you bastard, he shouts.

Shouts and starts to laugh.

Another mile and calmer by then, the rain coming down harder now. It's raining so hard, in fact, they can hardly see – just the road out front and the wet black, squinting out. The wipers grind over windscreen glass, the motor ringing loud – a grim metronome. Bang to the left and to the right. Bang to the left and to the right.

That was fucking insane, says Noah, still grinning.

What do we do?

Back to Manchester, says Noah. Home and safe.

He spoke to me, didn't he?

Who?

The staring bloke – Colin.

Lad who got shot?

Aye.

Eyes forward. Jaw set. Back to their city as fast as you like. Back home with memories to keep. Silent for the bleak winds and bitter night. Thinking of poor Colin, arm blown out. Of what to say about it. Baths and blood and hair and meat –

Coincidence, you think?

Bloody hope so, says Brian.

Poor bastard.

And Ian had his say-so, did he? His tuppence?

All sorts.

Another mile, another two. Three more because Noah is stubborn like that. They pull over for some tosser driving up their arse with full beams on. Low cloud, rolling cold. And Brian tells Noah about the note and the nationalism. How they wiped his recorder and gave him a number. Noah listens to everything, foot still heavy.

Quiet again for a few minutes. Then Noah, eyes in his mirrors, under his breath:

Spectacle, that was.

What?

Spectacle. Operatic. It was like a Greek frigging tragedy.

Brian squeezes his fists. He turns his gaze sideways on Noah.

Who shot him, Noah?

Noah sighs. Huffs nearly. God knows, he says.

Why aren't you arsed?

Why all the questions, kidder? You seen one go down, you seen them all. Bastard had it coming probably.

Seemed harmless though. Harmless.

Noah shrugs.

Wrong place to put a foot wrong, then. Just makes you wonder –

Wonder what?

If that crap he spouted held a little water – I mean, the cameras caught it. Says to me they knew it were coming.

Brian shakes his head – he can't shake the image. Things don't sit right. His stomach's in knots and his mouth's dry. His meat is throbbing.

Like a hit?

If you want to be a drama queen about it. Must've pissed off the wrong people someplace.

He spoke to me.

You said.

He stared at us.

Noah laughs.

You look a dreamboat. I would've too. Whole room did.

But things aren't right. The things Ian said – he saw through me, didn't he?

Mate. Come on. Paranoia is that. We get back, call Garland. We adapt. We got what we came for. Ian isn't arsed about you.

No? Well a card with his digits says he is. Says I'm involved. And I reckon you need to call Garland before home.

Get yourself a mobile, did you?

No, and I'm not saying –

So button it and chill out, right? I'll speak to Harry, see if his lot know owt. End of the day, a bloke got himself smoked – and shitty while that is, it isn't our business. Garland wants what we went and got. Pays me, gets your nouse and mine, and we go home. Job well done, cash down, etcetera. And you – you go back to vegetating with your soldiers on telly, pockets full, nose fuller.

And Ian?

What about Ian? Forget about bloody Ian. Buttered you up a treat for a Billy-bullshitter, didn't he? Bin that business card too. Jokers and cranks, all of them. Won't do anything for you, Bri. I promise. Small fry, aren't they? Yorkshire ponces.

Brian sniffs. Feels that drip. His guts still tightening and squeezing.

It felt like news, though, Brian says. Like something bigger happening. Them lads and their rifles on the way up there –

Rhetoric always does you daft bastard. Maybe I were wrong bringing you out this way. But see, this just says there's a heart under that bonnet, doesn't it? I were wrong about them and all – all that crap about the future of our fair city. Simple as. Silly kids with grand plans. Can say what we're all thinking about this country but no substance after that. Needs more syrup, that kind of plotting. Same revolutionary shite you'll get in any pub – any white van ten years back. A shade of piss-poor terrorism I should've seen through.

Only they shot somebody, Brian says. We saw it. They just bloody shot somebody. That's bloody substance. They've got people watching them – council didn't raid that auditorium, did it? And they shot somebody dead.

They did, son. They did –

And now we're going home. Just like that.

Home to thrones in baths. Bunkers and
drug labs
.

Just remember, Noah says. As many drugs as you like.

But there's a problem with Noah's old car. It's not having it. The car's falling to bits in the wind and rain. And there, by the carcass of a phonebox, on the lips of a hill, their metal husk flashing between the ribs of the moors, the second headlamp gives in – it flickers out.

Darkness. Old-school, horror-book dark. From white cats' eyes to nothing out front – only red dots from far-away vehicles in the mirrors.

Noah swears. Noah keeps on swearing. He punches the wheel.

This bastard car, he says. This bastard, bastard car.

This bastard car that stops in a lay-by – stops sharp and savage. This bastard car getting panel-beaten under so much rain. The endless static. Mother Nature's own signal and noise.

Noah whips his seatbelt off since it wasn't fastened properly. It rolls away and slaps the plastic.

No worries, he goes, got a spare in the toolbox.

You're a real handyman, says Brian.

Noah dips under the steering column, pops the bonnet after struggling with the release catch.

Bloody thing, he says, the bonnet wobbling. To Brian: Stay put and wrap up while I sort it.

Brian nods, still catching breath.

Now, Noah's round the back with the boot up, rummaging in his tools. A wet wind cuts through the car.

Brian takes this chance to fish out a baggie. He dips his front-door key in the sniff and back to his nose.

 

The boys are in their lay-by. Their lay-by on the hill.

Noah, he's clicking the light on and off, concentrating. The new bulb works, but only just. A piss-weak yellow beam catching reflective signs ahead.

You're not still sulking, he says to Brian.

Eh?

Not sulking, are you?

No, says Brian, eyes rolling. But a man was shot. All that –

Noah tosses Brian his notepad. You've seen worse, I promise. Bigger fish, anyway. Just shut up for five and have a gander in there.

What for?

A library of bullshit is what.

Brian looks. The reluctant kind of looking. He leafs absently through these sketches that Noah made in the auditorium. Noah's sketches with crosses through. Question marks next to circles.

Them prats yapping on up there, giving it all
that, says Noah. Mostly plant hire companies aren't they?
These are old JCB parts, never you mind precision engineered –
there's nowt in any of it. Any of it!
Chatting shit, them lying bastards were. Sheep-shagging bastards. You
could crap out half what they're saying they can
build. Go on, look.

I just think we need to get off, says Brian. Get home –

Look at this one, Noah tells him, ignoring him, pulling Brian back a few pages. Make sense of that, you'll get a biscuit.

Brian guesses it's meant to be a half-track from the sketch. Some sort of truck cab converted to manage bigger loads without a trailer. Bigger loads like field guns, maybe. Saves on diesel that way, or so say the notes.

Noah breathes through his nose. He fingers the page.

Half these joints couldn't bear loads, he says. And this idea's from a respected engineering firm, apparently. Doesn't add up.

No? says Brian.

No, goes Noah. I mean maybe there is something else going on there. But that doesn't matter to us: Garland's going to lay eggs when he finds out half his competition don't have a bloody clue what they're on about.

So why did we bother?

Same reasons anybody bothers with anything. The cash and the fanny.

But you didn't hear him, Brian says. It's like he's planning a coup.

 

Pulling out with one light. You look left and you look right. Careful though: with one light down when it's this dark, you'll look like a motorbike from a distance.

Half a fag goes out the window. Movement. Brakes –

Stop. From the right, two speeding cars shear an edge off the nearest corner. They kiss the apex and shift down for the hill in front, the second so close it's a shadow of the first. Spray goes everywhere. Black cars, their tyres bobbling along the cats' eyes.

Behind them, another car, its lights out – erratic on the centre line – follows. This car's arse-end waggles on the exit and accelerates hard. Doesn't take much to work out it's in pursuit.

Noah looks at Brian. Out through the wet glass.

Dickheads, he says, shaking his head. Get cracking, shall we?

One light, Brian thinks.

And as they climb another incline, rain turns to hail turns to snow. Liquid goes to solid in a hundred metres or less. Not surprising, not this high, not in these hills, but you feel it. You'd say,
Rough out.

Brian watches the wipers at full pelt. Noah's hard over the wheel, his length making him into a kind of tight curly-cuh.

Hard hills, these, for an old man of a car. To get anywhere, and especially up the hills, you need the momentum first. It's momentum they don't have much of.

Then at the top, eventually, a left, a right, and the lads – just as they're yawning – see the red together.

The red cuts through the sleet, turns it into a cloud. Orange on, orange off. Bright against the slate and the water – actually it's bright red everywhere you look. The two of them are so tired and wired in this red light and smoke.

Noah slows. Noah swallows. Nobody's laughing now. There's none of that shining wit now. The smell hits then, clutch smoke.

There's a smell and the sound of gears still engaged. Of unconscious feet jammed on accelerators.

Closer, where it's louder, where the rain seems wetter, they see a hole in the wall just by there. Dry stone walling punched clean through and blasted out. The car down there on its nose, tail lights up, hazards on. Bits all over; tempered glass winking from the gravel.