The Folded Man (9 page)

Screaming, the vehicle is. Squealing – revving and revving and revving.

Noah and Brian edge past. They crawl past. Rubberneckers them both – the smoke thick and given shape by the red light.

Poor bastard, says Noah. Not a place to park is that.

Shit, says Brian, noticing at last –

A purple Transit. You can tell in spite of the night.

So Noah just belts it. Drives on hard.

No more of your paranoia trips, Brian, he says. No –
shh
– don't say a frigging word.

Brian doesn't believe it. Brian is stunned.

We can't leave it like that, he says. That's just happened. Them two cars – we can't be leaving it.

Noah's car nudges forty. Forty-five.

One thing for me, Brian pleads.

Noah's very quiet.

Noah?

Old buddy, old pal.

Noah, you prick. I just had to make out like some bugger blew my leg off in Afghanistan. Had Yorkshire pricks poking guns in my face. Humiliated in a room without a view. Lost in all your big man shite, the one-up-man-ship and whatever the hell else. Saw some poor sod get shot, just so you had an easier ride. So you'll turn round and go look in that wreck. Least you can bloody do. One thing for me.

So Noah stands on the brake pedal; stops them on a penny. It makes the third time this evening.

Noah grabs Brian by the cheeks and shakes his face.

One more thing for you, he says, the spit stringing at the corner of his mouth. You're a bloody drip you are, son. Stop bleating and remember that if you open cans you eat the worms.

Brian does know. But that Transit, or a Transit just like it, has been everywhere. Waiting, parked, following him bloody everywhere.

Please, Brian says.

One thing for you, Noah says again.

There, high up in the sleet and under the slate, Noah cranks reverse. He crunches it; bloody mashes the car into gear he's that wound up. He sends the car backwards till the engine's good to burst. He lets the car go a few metres more and throws it into a sloppy J-turn. Movie-style; a belly-in-mouth manoeuvre, a clever-clever sort of stunt.

Round and straight and back towards the red air. The red air and the broken wall. The stalker van on its nose, rear doors tilted slightly towards Manchester.

One headlight to light the way on the A628. Not a single other way back.

 

On account of Brian's tail, Noah gets out on his tod. On his tod and back into the wasteland. He throws a tatty blue cagoule over his jacket – never one for style, of course, but a big fan of function. He bounces down the embankment to the broken van. Noah all bandy and agile through the slop, the mud, the grass. Around the stones scattered wide by the impact. This strong man so used to climbing buildings. So used to leaping up walls and glass and metal to paint his pictures.

The van's dug in hard. Really dented – a write-off, if we're honest. He bends down by the driver's door to look. Bends down, looks in, and falls backwards.

Brian waits in the car – patient, patient Brian. Patient Brian who can't mount kerbs or staircases. Patient Brian who can't stand firm. Patient Brian who waits endlessly for cheques and sex and proper legs.

Bang the horn if you need owt, Noah has told him. Just keep that bald bloody head of yours down – like a lighthouse, that is.

The red light turns off, the red sky
gone with it. Through the rain, Brian hears metal pull
over metal; something like door handles and sliding fixtures. The
traffic far away. The rain over glass. This dark and
stormy night. Brian's face streaming with watery shadows in
the passenger seat.

Our Brian with a wet finger in the bag of sniff – a naughty sherbet dip to blunt it all.

Two, three, four, five minutes tick by on the analogue. He gets to feeling alone.

Another five notches on the clock, and Noah crests the embankment, his head cowed against the weather. He rounds his wrecked car and opens the boot. Silent even there. It's odd for him, this man of so many words.

Noah bundles himself into the car, soaked through – and not just with rain. Noah's sweating hard, coughing.

He starts the car and rams the heaters to full whack.

He stinks of vomit.

What's going on? says Brian.

Nothing. Just let me think.

The smell gets everywhere.

What was it?

Shut up!

Noah pulls away, over-revving, stuck in first till Brian near as changes up himself.

Brian gags.

Tell me, Noah.

So Noah does. Noah just says it flat –

Head was off, wasn't it. Wet bits all over the cab. Picture of some little girl stuck to the windscreen.

The prickling skin, the goosebumps, the water in your eyes.

Driving back fast. Hanging corners tight. The Beetham memorial column soon tearing the sky – Manchester on fire with lights in the basin below as they bear down on dead reservoirs and damned villages.

Who was it?

Your man. That Colin.

And
none of this will end well.

8.

Home again, where no hearts live.

There were a thousand locks before his chair – before a bath, maybe a tug. Certainly a joint. Anything to get himself off to sleep.

But first, before any kind of bath, he sits. Sits and sweats; back with the screens and their dead pixels. Back in his castle while the rain comes sideways. Getting on now as well, isn't it. A long night it's been, stretching itself longer now. Monday in the early hours. Let's turn on the telly, see who or what's been bombed, and where.

He skins up a last joint. It's to help him take stock and kill the last hour. Something mindless like that. Food if he can be bothered – dial L for Lamb – though he's not really hungry owing to the dread. Maybe telly if he can find the remote. Maybe more of these soldiers at war if he can stomach it.

Maybe nothing. Maybe a noose on the stairlift –

It all drifts. Time slipping, him with it. Thoughts of the staring man, head in bits, wet bits and chunky bits. That shot – the auditorium as it erupts. The feeling you can't go back and switch yourself off. The regret he didn't say no. That he said anything at all.

Thoughts then of Noah's last commandment. Noah who smelled like sick in the car, and who warned Brian to stay in for the next morning.

Be there, he'd said. We sort this then.

What's to sort?

Sort this mess.

What's to sort?

Straighten our stories.

Noah!

Brian swears again. Brian back with his monitors, gasping for a smoke. He flicks his monitors on and presses rewind. He kicks back. Traces an imaginary line between the corners of the ceiling. The feed from the day runs backwards on the left screen, the right screen pulling live pictures in but not recording.

In the corner, on now, the telly blares about its dead soldiers and bad debt.

Brian concentrates on the monitors as best he can. Divert the gaze and it's easier to forget. A good time to concern yourself with things you might've missed.

And on that screen the odd cars pass and people stutter along. Nothing untoward, in structure or in form. It's easy to spot the odd moments, these days. Even with the recording going backwards, he can tell after so much practising; after all these years of staring and waiting. Because at this speed, six times standard playback, and even though it's running backwards, it's the lighting that talks. Because in 2018, in this time after postmen, your front gates rarely swing.

The facts: if you see the lighting change, it's your gates open. That's when you pause. When nine times out of ten some smackhead comes up the path to buzz the doors and run their mouth. When you ask him to read the stickers and the warnings. When he turns and goes.

But no, nothing.

Just Colin. Colin. Colin. Colin. Like that.

Colin, Colin – Colin. The dead stranger staring for always.

Brian's stomach tightens. He's panicking
and stoned. A real bad crowd, a right bad shower
he's met tonight. And you, Brian, looking at half
a reflection in the monitor – you with this meat for
legs with no sea in sight. This was you as
well. Opportunities like getting off your wide, widening arse. Buttered
you up, didn't they – buttered you up and stuck
a sharp one in you.

Back home, here, panicking at
the core of his world, safe behind the cameras and
the deadbolts. And then, an idea:

He has a way
to survive this. A way through. The old way. The
way he knows better than any other.

He still has
hair while there's none on his head.

Brian laughs.
Brian gets the scissors out. He grabs a spare elastic
band for tradition's sake. A bit of spit to
keep it neat.

Brian has other hair. Brian undoes his
belt.

 

Brian has the broken sleep of a troubled man.
Never the calm of the just. But the bad night'
s sleeping you can get used to. Some dreams, you
can't.

That same damn dream – the sweat and the
sounds. Apples and worms; taut cables and cars. Post-its,
post-its, poems. Half a man parked in a car
by the lamp post.

Setting off hard –

And then a
woman. A woman looking down from a watchtower. A watchtower
in a nest of sharpline. A spotlight turned across a
field.

White out –

The sea, then. The shore. The watchtower
a lighthouse now, somebody shouting through a megaphone:

You're
too close to the shore, Brian! Come back!

Somebody rustling
closer. Whispers and peace.

Sitting on a knee, a knee by the sea, bobbing. Soft hands in curly hair. The same voice:

You're useless. Worthless. Wish you'd never bloody happened. A deviation. Aberration.

Whispering, rocking gently.

You've ruined everything. My little –

White.

Fade up to a city across the water. A skyline of old Mancunian towers, some buckled.

 

The morning comes and the speakers sing – the tannoy ringing in this carcass of a house.

Ding dong.

It's still Monday.

A visitor, sir, the tannoy says.

Three times the tannoy says that, each a little slower than the last. It isn't a dynamic system, though – nothing so flash. The messages are recorded; speakers are wired to the entry buttons and really you'll only ever hear that one message.

A visitor, sir.

Brian with light through his lashes. A hand over rough stubble on his chin and fod.

Ding. Dong.

All.

Days.

The.

Same.

Brian swears and pulls the fallen blanket around him. Still wearing his smart trousers – still stained and scuffed with that moorland grit.

He turns the monitors on for a look. The entrance cameras burn white – still set to IR. He switches this, prods at that. Mutters stuff.

Then into the link microphone: Who's there?

Presently the man comes together on his screen. He
has floppy hair and smashed-glass teeth – this
bloke grinning up at the cameras like a moron. The
epaulettes say official business, council most likely. Bloody pissing down
outside. Rain on the tarmac comes across the speakers like
hard static.

Name's Kenneth, Mr –

Kenneth?

From the North
West Ambulance Trust.

Day we on?

Um, Monday sir. You'
ve a skin appointment with Dr Abbas at the CHU.
Ten AM.

Sorry?

My name's Kenneth, Brian. I'm
with the North West Ambulance Trust.

I'm not in,
says Brian. He clicks to wide-angle outside. Kenneth's
big old pig sitting there, turning over. This one's
a tracked field cart with a red cross and a
red crescent up its side. Really heavy weather. Probably the
wettest in weeks.

Sir –

I told you bastards I don'
t speak to any of you 'cept Diane, and she'
s the sharpest pain in my arsehole as it is.
Take me for a bloody mug?

Sir –

Plus I don'
t recall any appointments, and if I had any, Diane
would've showed up first.

But sir, I –

Buzz off,
will you? Take that bastard uniform and your tractor and
hop it.

Diane Kadam has been deported, Brian.

You what?

Seems her husband was funding ideals and nasty ­ideas the
council don't tolerate.

Brian stares –

I'm your case officer now.

–

Monday, bloody Monday.

 

The pig's ride falls on the wrong side of smooth. Brian sits up front, Kenneth driving. In the back, a tin rolls from top to tail, sticking on old spilt liquids or pinging off the seat fixtures when they hang a sharp corner.

These tractors do nowt for your piles, Brian says. Nowt in it for any of us. Gets right on my tits. Can't smoke. Can't eat. Probably can't soil yourself in here case the council cries foul. And you're all calling this a bloody ambulance now, are you?

Two miles in, and Kenneth's patient smile is wearing thin.

Big boys don't cry, Kenneth says. These half-tracks did their time when we needed them – seems a waste to give up on the old dears now.

Just saying, goes Brian. Mess they've made of our roads.

Rivers of blood need their mops, Brian.

You'd know, would you?

I saw my share.

Well, like I meant it. Just saying.

If you don't like it, you could join the emigrants and shoot east for the warm.

That right? And get myself cancers for bothering?

Just an idea wasn't it. If it's bad skin you've got –

Don't make assumptions. You don't get out of here on my kind of meal ticket. No job. No work in this place anyway. Specially not for cripples.

Moan a lot for someone who's so looked after, don't you? Used to have pubs open all day for people like you.

What the hell do you know about me or what I think?

Just think it can't be much worse with the sun on your back is all. Damp gets you in the chest, doesn't it?

Brian thinks of home. The meat for legs and the ­chances lost. His Thursdays without Diane –

Life without Diane – without that brolly shaken up his wall. Back to bare bulbs and tinnies for breakfast –

The rest of his life with this tail for a bottom half.

Everything gets me in the chest, Brian says, with his eyes filling. Everything.

He looks down at the meat. At the absolute principals of cause and effect. He sniffs.

Now you want a nice conversation, Ken, you let a bastard like me smoke out your windows.

But Kenneth shakes his head. Eyes
front. Not on your nelly, sunshine. Not by the hairs
on my chinny-chin-chin.

Then get me in this doctor's face and on my way.

In the chest.

 

Ashton, anyway. They get there after a fashion.

Ashton is the town that turned into the city's main market district after what they did to Salford. It's deathly quiet except on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, when the buses roll in and the day's best deals roll out. Ashton's the town that rose from a fire that gutted everything in 2004. Ashton, a monument to the city and the way it swallows up the past – the way it grows outwards or simply makes everything else grow in.

The fire was the best thing that happened, the locals might tell you. Because proper markets come far and between.

The sheen's off it now, course. The enamel is cracked. They threw the Metrolink through here before they binned the timetables and then the trams, and now when you pass the decaying station you kind of hold your breath – it's an essay on the council's messy policies in very few words. Suburban Manchester left to the worms. The main railway into town where the worst kind of people do their business – usually Wilber gangs bartering over people they've caught that week. The brothels across the road doing a fine trade.

Brian and Kenneth, they cross a roundabout by a shattered dual carriageway. A gentle incline and overgrown weeds roll out in front. They pass through a gated checkzone with cameras for sides, and into the bays where the CHU has a sign to go with the acronym. CONSOLIDATED HEALTHCARE UNIT, it says. 500-point words down the side of the main office. Signwritten by amateurs who couldn't afford the neon.

In the quiet, in Kenneth's pig, Brian's preoccupied with Noah and Colin and death. The calls and the sorting. Still stuck in yesterday – in last night. Sick as a parrot because he's meant to be home, isn't he. Meant to be waiting for the door and the skinny man fresh from his bunker. More drugs. Success stories and cash. Rewards. Garland happy. A bit of talk about the man they saw – Colin, who got shot twice in a night. Whose face came off in his cabin –

Unloaded, refolded. Brian, the origami man, back in the chair. The lumpiest man you ever saw.

And Kenneth wheels him to the entrance, whistling some tune or other. About all you'll hear of music since nobody has the disposable income to afford frivolities like instruments. With the internet off, it's pretty hard to listen to anything, either.

Brian, well he makes out like enough is enough. Kenneth says to him, I can wait, or you can grab a train back and brave them Wilbers. 'Cept there aren't any trains today, so actually it's best you're nice.

 

It's not a new building – hardly a building at all if you're pedantic – but for a temporary structure it's obviously been round a while. Close enough to the satellite towns to the east of Manchester, and not Stockport, which burnt for six savage months at the height of the riots. Course, there's the odd scorch mark you can't paint over. Bits of it coloured with big stains; bits where the glue's gone and panels are flapping about. Many ramps – ramps ­stapled over steps owing to some kind of rehabilitation programme for the amount of smashed infantrymen coming home from the fronts.

When they go inside and see the faces, they both remember Ashton CHU is also the borough sex clinic.

Kenneth nudges Brian. He opens his hand and rubs his thumb and forefinger together.

Give, he says.

 

So on account of sex, this place is where latent guilt and responsibility meet – where people of all years and no obvious symptoms collide.