The Cut Page 12

  ‘It gets trashed night after night. Kids come up with bricks just to have throwing contests, Damien. Don’t you listen to the buzz in the town?’

  He’s silent for a moment, blowing smoke at the Rover’s windscreen. Then he says, ‘I want it to be worthwhile, our coming here.’

  ‘What you want doesn’t count for shit.’ I don’t know why I say it, but I have. It’s out.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ Marcie offers from the back seat. ‘And find me another drink.’ She belches loudly, and follows through with a suspiciously wet gurgle which she almost manages to suppress.

  ‘Look, whose idea was it to come here?’ Damien snarls. ‘If it hadn’t been for me you’d be sitting at home watching vids and drinking coffee.’

  So he thinks of himself as our liberator. Give me a break.

  ‘I need some air,’ says JJ, and he swings himself out of the car. His feet crunch glass as he surveys the car-sized hole in the glass wall.

  Sighing, I get out to look at him. He’s running his hands through his hair, and when he turns to look at me, his eyes are wild, red-rimmed.

  ‘I – don’t think we should have done this,’ he says worriedly.

  ‘Bit late now.’ I slam the driver’s door behind me, and come round to put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Look, we won’t be long. No one will ever know we were here. The crusties and glue-heads hang around outside with their fires. No one comes in. And no one cares about this place. It’s practically condemned. It isn’t even alarmed.’

  He thrusts his hands deep into his pockets, breathes the chilly night air through the gash. ‘Why did we come here?’ he asks.

  I shrug. I haven’t really thought it through, not the way he wants me to. It’s something to do, isn’t it? The way I see it, people of our age get blamed for everything, so we might as well start doing some of it.

  That’s as close as I’ve ever got to a proper reason, and it hits me there, in the purplish, echoing halls of the dead shopping centre. The idea that I’ve always suffered through the antics of the stupid, and I always will, so I might as well enjoy myself.

  Things like – all through school, when we’d be plagued by the antics of those few Fallies who’d slipped through the net. They, losers with no hope of a GCSE, torched the three chemistry labs with bunsen burners and acid, which meant we had to bus it out to Canterbury for practicals. No wonder most of the top people only got Cs. And there was the time the motor bikes were burnt, out on the cricket pitch. The groundsmen couldn’t repair the razed turf in time, so the season was cancelled – and, since they never admitted to it, the whole school got a letter home explaining the situation and begging for more School Funds. I’d just got a girls’ cricket team together for the very first time, which turned out to be worth nothing.

  All blamed, all punished. There’s no point being young if there isn’t someone out there, somewhere, who thinks you’re appalling – and if they’re going to think that anyway, then you might as well take advantage of the headstart.

  The engine suddenly changes note – I hear a shriek from Marcie, and a brief, heartfelt, ‘Oh, shit,’ from JJ.

  I run forward. I slam my fist on a ton of metal that’s disappearing fast from us.

  The driver’s door swings open as Damien careers down the main precinct. He clips the corner of the inert escalator and the door shears away with a scream of metal. By some miracle, it hangs on at one hinge, clattering behind the car like a broken wing, and the drag temporarily slows him down.

  JJ and I are in pursuit, but the Rover is accelerating again. All I can hear is the tortured roar of the engine as the gears are crunched up and down and back up again. Marcie screams and screams. Choking exhaust fumes billow in the mall.

  Damien, with an audible whoop of delight, swings the Rover round the corner by Boots, and we run after him, our feet slipping and sliding on the marbly surface. My shoes weren’t made for this, and I’m slowed down by pulling the too-small suede coat around me where it won’t quite hold together.

  The car slams into the façade of Woolworths. The doors vibrate as if bombed. Incredibly, there is little damage – those glass doors are tough.

  JJ and I are pounding along the precinct, and we get ten metres behind him just in time to see the reverse lights come on. JJ pulls me out of the way – so hard that the coat rips – just as the Rover screeches into reverse and then pounds forward again, a huge metal battering-ram, smashing open the entrance to the store like an eggshell. It ploughs on, hitting a display stand of CDs with a crash that echoes up through every hall and balcony of the place.

  JJ and I crunch our way into the store. There’s a light flashing above the entrance, strobing red. Something tells me that it’s not an intentionally silent alarm. Someone has been here before us.

  Damien, not looking at all shaken, gets out of the car and manages to push the door back into its hole. He spreads his hands. ‘Load up, kids.’

  JJ lunges forward, but I hold him back. I kick aside a fallen video-stand and look in at the car window. I don’t know quite why, but I lean down to Marcie, still slumped in the back seat.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She looks up at me from somewhere deep within her own world. ‘Yeah. Fine,’ says a small voice.

  ‘Come on.’ I offer her my hand. I’m aware that JJ is looking at me uncertainly, and Damien just with contempt. I grab Marcie’s slippery hand, and pull her up.

  Damien, casually, is stuffing CDs into various pockets. Most of the time he doesn’t even bother to look what they are.

  ‘Damien –’

  ‘Fuck off, Bel.’ He grabs a disc from its box, frisbees it towards me. It whizzes past my ear.

  ‘Listen to me!’ I’m angry now, and I can feel the heat rising to my aching head. ‘I chose the car, I’m driving the car. We do what I say tonight.’

  Another low-flying CD buzzes my head.

  ‘Try and assert your authority, Bel,’ he says. ‘It’s amusing.’ He storms over to me, slams me up against the record counter and grabs me by the collar of Imelda’s jacket.

  His eyes are brown, deep, quite abstracted, and his sleek face glistens with an unnatural wildness. ‘You listen to me. I saved your life tonight. D’you realize that? I sorted things out for you.’

  ‘Yeah, and you took your time.’ I’m aware that my voice isn’t quite steady any more. ‘A couple of seconds later –’

  ‘And you’d have been fucked. In every sense. I know.’ Damien grins. His crooked teeth look huge, hideous under the strobing light. ‘You owe me, Bel. You owe me your life.’

  Now JJ moves, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him. ‘Just leave her,’ he says quietly. He says it like a request, not an order. I’ve taught him nothing, it would seem.

  He taps Damien lightly on the chest, as if he wants to push him but hasn’t got the bottle. Hell, that’s worse than a full-scale push.

  ‘And what’s it to you?’ Damien snarls. He catches his breath, seems about to say something, then says it anyway. ‘We know why you’re so moody tonight.’

  JJ steps towards him.

  I frown for a moment. There’s something about what Damien’s said which disturbs something deep in one of the dusty cabinets of my mind. It was almost as if he wasn’t sure if he dared say it or not. For the moment, though, I’ve got other concerns.

  Their threats, the potential violence, seem to sublimate into a dark, black-purple cloud and hang in the air between the racks and the Pay Here signs. Marcie’s tugging at my sleeve, but I’m sure I can hear a distant commotion, like sounds outside a pub at night.

  ‘Come on,’ says Marcie. ‘I wanna drink. Let’s have a drink.’

  I’m definitely right. Clattering feet and raucous shouts are echoing through the hall outside. I’m sure that I can hear someone coughing, painfully, again and again. There’s a distinct sound of breaking glass.

  And now our faces, in unspoken unity, have turned towards the shattered entrance of the shop.

  It
sounds like an army of darkness arising from the shadows. Only it’s coming from above us.

  Even Damien is looking now, his hands frozen above his spoils. His mouth opens wide.

  We’ve moved to the glowing, red shell of the doorway. I can see shadows up in the balconies of the next level, half hidden behind the spidery plants and other trails of foliage. The clanging and shouting grow louder and louder, and so does the coughing.

  At the top of the frozen escalators, the shadows start to resolve themselves into figures. Under the purple lights, I can see a flicker of combat jacket, white dreadlocks, swirly tie-dye. Behind, a couple of leather jackets.

  I’ve realized that the coughing is not coughing at all. It’s the sound of two hungry-looking dogs barking again and again.

  There are, as far as I can see, about five or six pairs of feet descending the escalators with the security neons glinting in their eyes like alien, robotic light.

  Damien draws breath quietly behind me.

  ‘What are they?’ JJ murmurs.

  I hear the soft click of Damien chewing on nothing, as he gets his mouth round the answer.

  ‘Fallies,’ he says grimly.

  Chapter Thirteen – Force Majeure

  It is three o’clock on Sunday morning and I am sitting in a very small room with a white light shining in my face and a tape-recorder going beside me.

  I’m not saying anything. I’m listening to the rain.

  It was just three hours ago at Ashwell Heights.

  *

  ‘What’s this, then? Looking for Santa’s Grotto?’

  The leader is a tall, blond guy with stubble in an army jacket. His hair’s twisted into stumpy dreadlocks whose shape reminds me of root ginger. He speaks in a rough-edged town drawl, the Fally voice.

  ‘No way,’ I say to him, folding my arms, opening my eyes wide in my usual challenge posture. ‘Saw him last year, asked him for a life. Did I get one? Did I hell.’ I keep my voice light, keep a grin that’s friendly and not knowing. You never know, humour might defuse this one.

  They’ve met us at a point halfway between Woolworths and the escalator. Well, they’ve exchanged a smile or two among themselves. They carry various odours: a pungency, maybe petrol or meths; scented smoke; the meaty dampness of dog.

  There’s Dreads, with his twitchy hands and his army fatigues. Behind him, two leather-jacketed skinheads, one chewing, the other grinning. Grinner’s holding a well-fed looking Alsatian on a leather lead.

  Behind Chewer and Grinner, there’s a boy in denim and a purple tie-dye shirt. He’s got a trowel-thin face, dripping with oily black hair. He’s holding the other dog – it’s a skeletal creature with white, rune-like scars etched into its fur, and it’s straining at the string.

  Then, behind him, higher up on the escalator, there’s the only girl of the crowd. One side of her head’s shaved to little more than stubble, with spots poking through, and the other’s a cascade of well-nourished hair, the colour of blackcurrant. Her arms are folded over a clashing patchwork coat. Her face is striking for three reasons. First, she’s staring at our group, her bright eyes filled with amazement. Second, she’s got royal blue lipstick. And third, the whole right side of her face is scorched with a bright, crimson birthmark.

  No obvious sign of any weapons, at least. I’ve got my hands in the pockets of Imelda’s jacket, and my hand clasped round the knife. Just in case.

  Dreads sees the Rover sitting among the chaos in the smashed shop. He sees the flashing light of the dead alarm and grins. ‘Been busy. What a way for nice little kids to spend their time.’

  I shrug, aware that I seem to have appointed myself spokesperson. Why’s Damien so quiet now?

  ‘Well,’ I say quietly, ‘nothing on telly, the theatres are closing, the British novel’s dead. What’s your excuse?’

  Dreads doesn’t grin this time. He comes right up close to us, looking me up and down. He’s trying to work us out, I can see that. It must be obvious that the coat I’m wearing is expensive, but he must be wondering why it’s ripped and why there’s nothing on my legs. His eyes sweep over the rest of us. I imagine him looking intently at us all. JJ, cool in his checked shirt (also borrowed from Imelda). Marcie, quivering and hollow-eyed, mermaid-like. Damien, sleek and arrogant, a dark shadow in his private-eye coat.

  ‘We’ve had this planned for weeks,’ Dreads says quietly. ‘Weeks.’ He’s shaking with suppressed anger.

  ‘Look,’ I say to him, ‘you keep out of our way, and we’ll keep out of yours. Deal?’

  Birthmark steps forward, places a hand on Dreads’ shoulder. Her nails are long and black, and her left index finger is inlaid with a bright jewel. She seems to carry some authority.

  ‘Why don’t you get off home?’ she says. She’s got a deep, rounded voice with a few edges knocked off. ‘Back to Mummy and Daddy and your nice houses.’

  Damien starts forward, but my arm’s in his way.

  ‘Hey, we don’t want any trouble,’ I say quietly, but I’m aware that Birthmark’s crisp, blue eyes – might be contacts – have fixed on Marcie. She stares at her for what seems like a long, long time.

  Behind us, the red light flashes again and again and again, like blood, giving us all birthmark hues on our flesh.

  The dogs growl quietly.

  Birthmark nods to Dreads and the two of them retreat for a conference in the shadows behind the escalators.

  Grinner and Tie-dye each pay out more of the dogs’ leads, and the ugly mutts skitter forward, straining at the leash. I feel my heart pounding. I don’t want to get too close to that meaty-mouthed Alsatian with its yellow fangs.

  Chewer spits out his gum. It hits the floor, sticking there in a pool of saliva, like some mutant limpet.

  ‘I think,’ says JJ softly in my ear, ‘that they’ll want the car.’

  I give him a brief, admiring glance. It’s an idea that had occurred to me, as well. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘I can’t see Damien agreeing,’ he suggests quietly.

  ‘Too true.’

  They’re strolling back towards us, the girl looking strangely noble with her emblazoned tribal mark, and Dreads just edgy.

  Birthmark narrows her eyes. ‘Don’t I know you?’ she says to Marcie.

  Marcie shakes her head so hard I think it might fall off.

  Well, that’s really going to convince her, I think grimly. My mouth is dry with beer, just starting to get that clogged and cabbagey taste. I want to swallow but I don’t dare.

  ‘No,’ says Birthmark quietly. ‘Perhaps not.’ She turns her eyes away from Marcie, and Dreads follows her gaze, uncertainly. Birthmark’s hand droops over Dreads’ shoulder.

  She stares at me. I swallow hard. It hurts.

  ‘I don’t know you, either,’ says Birthmark. She glares right through JJ. ‘Nor you,’ she adds thoughtfully. She slowly lifts her hand from Dreads’ shoulder, and her jewelled finger glints red as she extends it towards Damien.

  Oh, no.

  ‘But I do know you,’ she breathes softly.

  *

  And then she said to Damien that she knew him.

  The light is even brighter now in my eyes, making my eyes sting and my face glisten with sweat.

  It all seems like another world. Out there in the darkness, in the chemical-coloured light.

  I can just hear the sea swishing quietly at the edge of existence. I wonder if the future-ghost in her silver cape is out there, somewhere, picking up my thoughts on her mental plane.

  *

  Damien backs off.

  This is ridiculous. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I say to her. ‘So what if you do know him?’

  ‘I know him.’ She’s looking at me, now. Her voice is glass-hard, her blue-painted lips spitting out the words. ‘I’ve seen him on the estate. With his father.’

  It hits me then that the Fallies know more about their enemy than we could possibly realize. They must have been watching Jeff Ash for weeks. They must know that he – and Jon
Archard, hell – are ready to evict everyone from Ferris Court flats and blow the whole lot sky-high.

  From behind us, there is a loud crash and a screech of wheels. The Rover has turned, and Damien’s at the wheel.

  Marcie’s shaking in terror and JJ looks uncertain. Someone’s got to move.

  In front of us, Tie-dye and Grinner are looking round, uncertain as to what they should do.

  I grab Marcie and yell to JJ, just as an angry Birthmark and Dreads start running towards us. Somehow, we’ve piled into the car.

  ‘Go, Damien, go!’ I scream at him.

  He revs the engine to give us a good impetus. Fumes billow in through the smashed window, and there’s an acrid smell as the clutch starts to burn.

  Some reflex makes me pull my seat-belt on. Conditioning, no doubt, from years of being a good little girl in public. Or do I just think it’s safer?

  The Rover hurtles right towards the escalator, and the Fallies scatter. For a split second, the Alsatian, growling and slavering, is scratching at my window, and then the car swings and it’s gone. We’re screaming along the precinct and we scrape the edge of the escalator, before hitting an open plaza filled with tables.

  Somewhere, now, an alarm is going off. Behind us, I can hear shouting, barking. The Fallies are in pursuit.

  Shops whizz past in the purple light. JJ, remarkably calm, directs a sweating Damien from the back seat. ‘Not down there, it’s the stairs. Keep going straight. Round the edge. Don’t hit the tables.’

  I have to suppress a giggling urge to yell, Where’s the crystal?

  Damien’s slowed down, because we can’t find a way out of the plaza. We have to drive round the edges because white tables are clustered like giant mushrooms in the middle, and there’s no room between them.

  There is (a) the stairs. No go.

  Or there is (b) back the way we came. Blocked by Fallies.

  Jesus(’) shit.

  *

  I stare into the light, and the tape churns on beside me.

  It is vital that I recall exactly how it happened.

  *

  Damien takes slightly too long to turn the car around.