Simon Lelic - The Child Who

‘Tim? Is that… You! What the hell are you doing here?’

Leo accelerated. He started bounding up the stairs two by two.

Archie, the photographer, took fright. He did not wait for Leo to explain but dived from the light switch on the landing back towards his apartment door. He tripped, on the cord of his dressing gown, and fell through the doorway. He landed with a yelp just as Leo scrambled to the threshold.

‘What do you want? What are you doing here?’ Archie rolled onto his heels and hands. He scrabbled backwards as Leo advanced.

‘The photographs. The ones you took of my family. I need to see them.’

‘But how did you…’ Archie collided crown-first with a wall. His hand slipped beneath him and he crumpled once again onto the grubby carpet. He reached for his head and screwed up his eyes. ‘Ow. Fucking ow .’

Leo hesitated. The man in front of him was a mess. Beneath his robe, which was hanging from one shoulder and gaping across his girlish frame, he had on boxers and a vest: the type Leo wore, and that made even Leo feel old. His eyes were slits and his skin pale. Symptoms of spending too much time in a darkroom, Leo would have said, had he not seen the man looking perfectly healthy the last time they had met.

‘What’s wrong with you? Are you okay?’

‘No. I’m fucking not.’ The man shuffled until he was sitting, shifting his weight onto his backside and hooking his arms over his knees. He hung his head. ‘I’m fucking dying. What the hell do you want?’

‘I told you, I… Look. Really. Can I get you something?’

Archie laughed, as though tickled by his impending wit. The laugh turned into a cough. ‘Some morphine, maybe. A replacement head. Even a Bloody Mary might do the trick.’

A Bloody Mary? Leo took another step. He leant and he sniffed. ‘You’re hungover?’

‘Actually, scratch that.’ Archie pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. ‘Just the thought of vodka makes me wanna…’

Leo dropped beside him, grabbed his dressing gown and shook the man straight. ‘The photographs! Where are they!’

‘Ow! For fuck’s sa—’

‘I don’t have time for this! I need the photographs now .’

‘Seriously! The decibels! I told you, I’m fucking dy—’

‘I DON’T CARE.’ Each word seemed to strike like a blow. Leo tried standing, meaning to drag the photographer upright. ‘STAND UP. STAND UP!’ He hauled but the man was like a ton of sleeping cat. ‘I’M NOT GOING TO ASK YOU AGAIN! STAND UP! I SAID, STAND—’

‘Okay!’ Archie reached a hand to the wall. He started to claw himself vertical. ‘Just stop shouting, will you?’ He found his feet and dragged a hand across his pallid face. He blinked.

‘The photo—’

‘The photographs. I heard you. Just give me a minute. Okay? Five fucking seconds.’

He looked left, right, then stumbled deeper into the apartment. Leo followed. At the doorway to the living room, he stopped short, marvelling at the scene beyond. It was carnage. A battlefield, with the casualties yet to be removed. There was a girl curled between ashtrays on a flammable-looking sofa, and a man strewn across an armchair. Beneath Jimi Hendrix posters sagging from the smoke-stained walls, record sleeves vied with beer bottles for floor space. There were patches, too, of visible carpet: person-shaped, suggesting not all of Archie’s guests had failed to make it home.

‘I told you I’d delete them. Didn’t I?’

Leo turned. Archie seemed to be searching for somewhere to slump. He settled for a spot furthest from the daylight that was seeping through the blinds, in the shade of a gargantuan rubber plant.

Archie was right. Leo had forgotten. Not forgotten: he had not believed what the photographer had told him in the first place. ‘Did you?’

Archie shrugged, shook his head. ‘Nope.’ He extended a foot, prodded a laptop beside the coffee table with a toe. ‘They’re on there. Help yourself. But hey! Mind the carpet!’

Leo, in his rush, had toppled a highball. The liquid inside merely merged into a pre-existing stain.

‘It’s not working.’ Leo was kneeling now, pressing, holding, prodding the computer’s on button. He looked at Archie, who had his eyes closed.

‘The battery’s buggered,’ the photographer said. ‘You need to plug it in. But seriously!’ At the sound of clinking beer bottles, Archie opened his eyes and raised his drooping head. ‘You’re making a mess!’

Leo knocked over another bottle as he lunged for a power socket. He ignored Archie’s remonstrations and beat the plug into the wall.

‘What’s the password?’ Leo said, when the screen on the laptop prompted him. ‘Archie! What’s the—’

‘Jimi!’ Archie snapped back. ‘That’s i, m, i, all lower case.’

Leo typed two-fingered. ‘And the folder. Which folder? Jesus, Archie, there’s hundreds of—’

‘The date! They’re sorted by date. You’re really not helping my headache, you know. I should call the fuzz or something.’

Archie grumbled on but Leo stopped listening. He was searching the photographer’s hard drive, which was mercifully better organised than the man’s living space. Kneeling over the screen and working his fingertip clumsily on the touchpad, Leo located a directory that was arranged by month. He found February, and then the week, and then the day of their trip to Dawlish. He clicked again, twice in succession, and the screen was filled with thumbnails of his daughter. On the village green carrying her ice cream. In the parlour choosing the flavour. Outside, on the pavement. Emerging, further up the street, from the clothes shop with Meg. In her seat, on the train, marvelling at the sea.

Leo dragged the computer to the top of his thighs and leant his head in close. His daughter. Image after image of his daughter and in not one of them, it struck Leo, was Ellie smiling. He reached a fingertip to touch his daughter’s cheek. He felt instead the coldness of the laptop’s screen.

‘You were on the train,’ Leo said. ‘You were taking pictures of us even before we got there?’

Archie was a ball on the floor, his eyes shut once again and his nostrils pressed into the carpet. ‘I was following you,’ he mumbled. ‘You went by train. Er -fucking- go .’

Leo scrolled again through the thumbnails, focusing on the images of his family crossing the green.

‘How do I enlarge these?’

Archie did not answer but Leo had worked it out for himself. He double clicked an image, scanned it, closed it again. He checked another, and then another, and then another. There was nothing, no one. He zoomed in, then reset the image. He opened another, zoomed, panned out again. A beard. Anyone with a beard. Anyone who looked even remotely like the man Megan had seen at the—

A face. Masked, almost, by an upturned collar, a beanie pulled low over the eyes. Leo zoomed. He stared. And he heard the voice.

Not exactly beach weather is it, Leo?

This was harder.At least before it had felt like they had been through the worst of it. Their oxygen had been cut off and, after the initial panic, they had submitted to asphyxiating slowly – not without pain but numb to it. Now, waiting, it was like they had been instructed to take a deep breath while someone worked on fixing the supply. They had no idea how long it would take or whether it could even be done. All they knew for certain was that this was their very last gasp.

Leo, for the first time in a while, was attempting sitting. He beat the table, drumming out his fretfulness through his fingertips.

‘Leo.’

Megan was standing beside the sink, her arms around her middle and her back to the room. In front of her was a plastic milk bottle and a mug of half-made tea. Either she had forgotten what she had been doing or she was drawing out the ritual for as long as possible.