The Tankermen (13 page)

A crash of metal close by made them both jump. Jed tried to see through the bodies, but they were packed too tightly together. They put their heads cautiously out the cage door and peered back along the walkway. Jed whispered a lengthy curse: his bike had been tossed down through the trapdoor, and as they watched, his jacket and the two crash helmets were flung on top of it.

They ducked back into the cage as a tankerman’s boot appeared on the top step of the ladder. ‘What’ll we do now?’ mouthed Finn in terror.

‘Try and blend in with the scenery,’ Jed muttered grimly. He backed up close to a cage wall, closed his eyes and dropped his head. His red beard stood out like a flashing beacon. Finn edged towards the far wall, checking that there was no animal there that might bite him, no bare metal he might stick to, and hunched over, trying to look as sick and defeated as the other victims. He faced the door and looked out between half-closed eyelids.

Two tankermen moved down the walkway, emitting bursts of speech. One came to the door of their cage, but his glance inside was so perfunctory that Finn thought he couldn’t possibly be searching for intruders. Then they left by the trapdoor, and Finn and Jed almost tripped over each other on
to the walkway, where they watched in horror as the door slid shut. They heard the pincers screw it into place.

‘Great,’ said Jed, ‘great. Now we can all cark it together. What fun.’

Finn went to his father’s side. ‘I’m still here, Dad. If we can get out of here I’ll get you some water, but right now it doesn’t look good.’

Finn’s father said nothing. Above them the noise of the tanker faded.

Jed heaved his bike up on to its stand. He assessed the damage quickly, then glanced up at Finn. ‘No way will we get this out of that hole.’

Finn climbed the ladder and began to feel all around the trapdoor’s edges while Jed went back to the cages to continue his body count.

‘Jed!’ Finn didn’t know what he’d touched, but he could hear the screws scraping in their sockets, and there were no tankermen visible through the grating. He jumped off the ladder and watched as the door dropped out of the ceiling and slid to the side as before.

Jed came back around the corner of the cages. ‘Hallelujah. Let’s go and get some help for these people. I counted seven alive. Better make it eight, just in case—’ His upper arm brushed the metal framework and stuck fast to it.

‘Jed!’ Finn heard himself cry out.

Jed struggled, getting his knee stuck and then his leg from knee to ankle. ‘Better make that nine, mate,’ he said softly.

‘Oh, Jed, you dork,’ said Finn piteously.

‘Crikey, it hurts.’ Jed’s voice was strained and he bowed his head. ‘Goes right through you. Go and get help, mate. I don’t know who—someone who can switch off the power in this thing.’

‘But Jed,’ Finn almost shouted, ‘it’s the same problem as
before! Without you, no-one’ll believe me!’

But Jed had enough to deal with, it seemed. Terrified, Finn scrambled up the ladder, then stuck his head down through the hole. ‘I’ll close this so they don’t come down again.’

Jed lifted his head and gave a painful nod. ‘See you soon, hey, Finn?’

‘Sure,’ said Finn. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ He ran his hand along the side of the trapdoor, triggering the closing mechanism. He tightened the screws. Then he was running, expecting to smash into some kind of glass wall at the entrance to the cutting. But he felt as he ran the tickle of cool evening air on his face, and as he burst out, a fantastic freedom from the blinding light and the hideous tingling. He heard the rock snap shut behind him, and he was pelting down the road under the street-lamps, his mind racing ahead of his feet.

Finn walked fast, to keep a dreadful shivering from taking him over. He looked desperately at the faces of the Thursday night crowds, trying to hold their beaming good health and happy drunken laughter steady in his mind so that his memories wouldn’t unhinge him. Still, little flashes got through—his loose hair carried the rotten-meat smell, which made him gag, and the voices of the trapped creatures—soft flappings, tiny moans—sounded through all the gaiety around him. He felt old, older than anyone he saw.

He found himself at Wynyard Station, staring at the ticket he’d bought. Strathfield. He hadn’t thought about it, just asked for it and tendered the right fare. Okay, Strathfield it was.

He only had to wait five minutes, and then he was on a train rumbling underground out of the city centre. He would just touch down for a few minutes, tell Janet there was hope,
grab some water and food and get going again. He couldn’t bear to think of leaving Jed and his dad stuck down there a second longer than was necessary. Maybe Janet could give him a lift back into town—no, that would mean getting Alex up. Maybe she wouldn’t mind, just this once, if he explained it to her? How much should he tell her, though? How much would she believe? Finn fidgeted on the seat, willing the suburban stations past one by one.

Then he was stepping off the train into air so fresh and clean he felt guilty being allowed to breathe it. To be out here in the coolness, lungs full of spring air—what a luxury that must seem, to those people down in the tankermen’s cellar! Freshened by his rest, he hurried down the exit stairs and ran through the quiet streets.

His home street was shadowy with trees, a leafy tunnel. Low brick and sandstone walls contained gardens that displayed their owners’ years of care in the deep plush of the lawns, the sharp corners of the clipped hedges, the flowerbeds solid with blooms. The houses sat low on their blocks with an unmistakable air of belonging, their curtained windows showing rims of warm light. Finn remembered running away from all this, the smugness of it, the way it never changed. Now his eyes took it in anew, eyes that were used to the narrow, thickly-peopled Kings Cross streets, eyes that had witnessed the tankermen’s cellar. He wanted to bury himself in this neat grid of wide streets, lose himself in their comfort and safety.

His dad’s house was the same as the rest, its screened front porch bathed in gold light. Janet was ironing, and another woman sat in a lounge chair with a newspaper in her lap, staring into space. As Finn walked up the path she looked down at him, and he recognised her slimness, her brown-ness, her cropped head, and the energetic way she started out
of her chair.

‘Don!’

‘Mum! What are
you
doing here?’

‘Oh!’ Janet put the iron on its stand and came to the screen door behind Finn’s mother.

‘Janet called me in Bangkok—I came home a few days early.’ His mum put her arms around him. He realised with the usual surprise how much littler she was than he, and lifted her off the ground so that she wouldn’t say anything, just laugh and struggle. When he put her down again she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘How did you get so filthy? And smelly, too,’ she said, sniffing. ‘Spend the night in an abattoir or something?’

‘I’ve found Dad.’ He turned to Janet. Her eyes were fixed on him, and he could tell she was hoping against hope he had some news for her. The bad warred with the good, and he hugged her as he waited for one or the other to spill out. She too seemed small and slight in his arms.

‘Is he alive?’ she managed to say into his ear.

He drew back. ‘He was, when I left him—just. I have to get back to him with some water.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s trapped. There’s a whole bunch of them, nine or ten, plus a lot of dead people, and animals . . .’ A memory of the cage wall he had pressed up against to avoid detection dropped across his eyes with dreadful clarity, making him gulp and pause.

‘We need the police, then, and ambulances—the Police Rescue Squad?’ His mother was halfway to the phone already.

‘Wait, Mum. Wait till you hear the whole story.’ Finn found himself staring at a bottle beside Janet’s iron. ‘STILLED WATER’ Finn read on its side. He picked it up
and turned back to the two women.

‘Have we got time?’ said Janet. ‘Come into the kitchen and get a proper drink, Don,’ she added distractedly, taking hold of the water bottle.

‘No, I’m not going to drink it. I just need . . .’ Finn scowled down at the label: DISTILLED WATER. I just need time to think about it, he thought. He pulled it from Janet’s grasp and took it into the kitchen.

She clicked her tongue impatiently and followed him. ‘Can you tell us where Richard is? Please. I mean, we’ve been worrying ourselves sick over here. Please don’t play games with me.’

‘I wouldn’t, Janet. I’m just scared you won’t believe me, either of you. I was just going to let you know I’d found him and then get straight back with some water.’ He glanced from one mother to the other, across the gulf his knowledge had opened up between them and him. ‘I have to sneak in, you see. If we bring in a whole bunch of policemen and stuff, they’ll just blast away at them and it’ll be a bloodbath. They don’t like cops. They might be dim, but they know cops are their enemies.’

‘Who are these people? How did you get mixed up with them?’ His mother stood in the kitchen doorway, looking appalled.

‘They . . . they’re . . . I guess they’re criminals. They dump poison into the drains. They’ve got a hideout in The Rocks. That’s where they’ve got Dad. And Jed, my friend. He’s stuck down there too, now, on these cage things. Oh, God . . .’ Finn brought the plastic bottle down on the kitchen table with a frustrated thwack. It all sounded so ridiculous, so melodramatic.

‘The Rocks. Okay. Whereabouts in The Rocks?’ said Janet firmly, pouring soda water into a tall glass and handing
it to Finn.

‘In that cutting down by the—’

‘The Argyle Cut? That’s hardly a hide-out.’ His mother looked deeply sceptical. ‘Every tourist and his dog goes past there, day and night.’

‘Let him finish, Stella,’ said Janet evenly.

‘Not the Argyle Cut. That big cutting, down by the piers. You know, the big one with the bridges over it—’ Finn started gulping the soda water, turning away from their unbelieving faces.

‘In
the cutting? What do you mean? In the
road?’
His mother frowned.

‘In the wall. There’s a kind of doorway.’

‘A secret panel or something?’

‘Sort of. You have to go in holding on to these guys’ truck. Hitch a ride in, you know? Gran told me—’ He stopped, feeling a little hysterical. No, he musn’t tell them about Gran on
Paradise Row
—there was quite enough crazy stuff for them to take in without that.

‘Gran?’ Janet and his mother looked at each other. ‘You told Gran about all this?’

‘Well, she seemed to know—at least, I think it was her. She sent me a message, this afternoon—’ Only this afternoon? It seemed like days ago.

There was silence. His mother stared at him, her hands rising to cover her mouth.

Janet said softly, ‘Sweetheart, you do
know
your gran died on Tuesday afternoon?’

Finn stared at her, unable to take in the words. Then he turned to his mum, who nodded, her eyes filling with tears. She scrabbled in the pocket of her shorts and brought out a tissue. ‘It’s partly why I came back. Mum dying, and you and Richard missing. I couldn’t think what was going on—everything
falling apart and me thousands of miles away,
holidaying
, for god’s sake!’ She wiped her eyes and nose.

Finn sat down at the kitchen table, the empty glass in one hand and the neck of the water bottle in the other. He felt about ready to give up. His own tears assembled under his eyes, ready to flow, but he swallowed hard, forcing them to disperse again, clamping his gaze on to the bottle label. STILLED WATER. His mind went silent all of a sudden, and then a whole series of loose impressions fell into place: his father whispered ‘still . . . war’; Jed muttered ‘If they can’t stand fresh air—’; the bank-vault door sealed itself behind the tankermen, like the door of a decompression chamber . . . The suits: they were not for protecting the tankermen from the slush they were putting into the drains—they kept the air out. They couldn’t stand fresh air; they had to wear the suits, like diving suits, only with some kind of gas or fluid
inside.
And the stuff they were pumping into the ocean—well, Finn thought he might have a vague idea what it held, and FinCom would be able to provide the details. Foul brown-black oil, shot through with putrid matter, harvested from whatever animals the tankermen could gather, shot through with . . . Finn took a deep breath and felt his scab-crusted chest protest. Shot through with dividing cells, that fed on the stuff, that grew in it, that grew, eventually, into creatures with pincer hands and clumsy gaits.

And the only weapon he had against them was in his white-knuckled hand. Pure water, guaranteed free of contaminants.

‘Where can we get a crateload of distilled water? Do 7–11s sell it?’

Janet looked at him very suspiciously before answering. ‘I’ve a lifetime’s supply in the shed, from before we got the water purifier.’

‘Enough to revive nine people, and have plenty to splash around besides?’

‘Probably.’ She laid her hands on the table and looked closely at him. ‘Don?’

His mother, too, was regarding him like a stranger. ‘What’s going on in your head, son?’ She pushed her tissue back into her pocket.

‘I think I know how to get those people free. And I think I know what to do with those things in the suits.’ He stood up. ‘But I’ll need help.’

Janet and his mum exchanged glances. ‘Well, of course,’ said his mum nervously. ‘Whatever we can do, we’ll do . . .’

‘We’re going to this place, I take it? This cutting?’ said Janet.

‘Yes. First we go up to the Cross and then over to The Rocks.’

Janet checked her watch. ‘Well, I’d better see if Heather and Mike across the road would mind taking Alex.’ On the way to the phone she unhooked the key to the shed door and tossed it to Finn. ‘You fetch the water and put it in the car.’

‘We’ll need packs to carry it in,’ Finn said to his mother. ‘Top shelf of the hall cupboard. And knives, sharp ones.’

His mother baulked. ‘Knives?’

‘Don’t worry—we won’t be stabbing any
people.’
The screen door clashed shut behind him.