David Mathew - O My Days

Okay, Dott says under his breath.

Roper is chosen. The yoot stands up from the table, pen in hand. I hope Dott isn’t going to make him stab someone; that wouldn’t be fair—everyone is getting along famously these days and I feel like a chump even to admit it. No. With a haunted look on his face Roper does something else. In full view of everyone including the Cookery Gov, he staggers over to the walk-in storage cupboard, inside which is the chest freezer, the washing machine for our pinnies and towels and the fire alarm. We don’t see him do it, of course, but I hear the click of a cigarette lighter’s barrel turning.

The Cookery Gov asks, What you doing, son? Get out of there. And he follows the yoot inside.

Seconds later, if that, the fire alarm has been activated. Clamorous and sharp, the sound bounces through the ovens’ misty exhalations.

You’ve got some fucking explaining to do, son! shouts the Cookery Gov.

I stand up. We all stand up. There will have to be an evacuation of the entire building. But we are in a workshop and things aren’t so simple as walking away. It doesn’t matter if the fire has reached our toenails, the equipment will still need to be checked before we can taste freedom. Or comparative freedom anyway.

Tools away— now! the Cookery Gov shouts; and we are all bounce and action as we replace our ladles, spoons and chopping knives to the shadow boards on the wall, where they’ll be locked behind glass for easy inspection against the threat of theft. With most of us up to scratch with our washing-up anyway, this performance doesn’t last long. The Cookery Gov moves from oven to oven, almost gracefully, like a ballerina, secure in his position in a time of trouble, turning off the ovens in case we’re out of the Education Block for some time and the food burns.

Charlie One—Screw Vincent—she comes to the door and unlocks it; swings it open. Tools secure, sir? she asks the Cookery Gov.

Secure. It was Roper. It’s a false alarm.

We still have to get you out, sir, she tells him.

We file and bustle past, all nine of us bar poor old Roper, who looks solemn and dejected, confused and utterly drained. He looks like he’s pissed his pants—literally. There’s a dark stain at his crotch, which might be sweat (my own grey clothes are similarly stained), but is more likely to be the consequences of abject fear.

I’ll fucking have you, son! the Cookery Gov scolds the poor weak-minded little gibbon. See you before Number One Governor, any day soon. You’re off the course.

Down the stairs, wriggling like worms in salt with the learners from the other classrooms, and then, in the stairwell, joining the other landing’s human cargo and contributions to the melee. Through the holding area, with both sets of metal- barred doors open wide—a clutch of screws at either portal—and blissfully, thankfully, into the daylight chill. I walk with Dott. We will head back to our respective Wings. We have minutes.

You helped me escape from the ship, Dott says. I’ll always be grateful to you for that. I can help you escape from this prison.

No you can’t, Dott. I’ve done my history, bruv, a long time afore you got here. No cunt has ever escaped . Not even in the really old days, when it’s a women’s prison and they still hang people. No one gets out those gates.

Who said anything about gates? Stop being so literal.

Why? You got a trampoline in your cell, have you, Dott? Bounce me over the walls? You’re chatting shit, cuz! As usual.

For the first time in a while Dott appears rattled. I would have thought, he says, by now you’d stop this silly charade of blokeyness. Open your mind!

Why? So you can steal a couple of days away from me again?

A mere demonstration, Billy-Boy. But you saw it, didn’t you? You saw the desert.

In a dream—yes I did. It was a dream . But I decide to stop pretending, and galling as it is, I know once again Dott is not chatting shit. The desert is real. And I am real. And Kate went there, and Dott was there. I was there too.

A screw barks his orders: Move along, lads! Quick as you like!

We are strolling at the speed of old men on unimportant errands: stretching the time at hand as stringy as it will go.

Takes courage, but I say it: How did I help you off the ship?

You repaid my gift of life.

The rose? You grow me, you say.

Right. A drop of water, a second drop, a drop by day for God knows how many days. I was starving. Delirious. There on that second oasis—just grass.

What did you drink?

Nothing. A drop of water every second or third day, with your permission, but those were moments that tested my faith. Walk slower.

Impossible, I tell him; and I’m saying this word in response to both the claim and to the command that Dott’s made. No one survives without water.

I did. I thought I was gonna die out there, Billy; but I was determined. I caught a scavenger bird once—it came for me in the night, probably thinking I was dead. I wrung its neck and that alone made me strong. Just the killing of it. Should’ve taken that as a sign, shouldn’t I? Kindness was never going to work for me, Billy. I killed the bird and I ate it over days; maybe a month. I had no way of tracking time while I was waiting for you to grow. I licked the feathers clean for you, Billy—to stay alive. To wish you alive, too. It was faith.

I know that, Dott. Faith but not reason. You were overdosing on the sun; you were delirious—you said it yourself. You weren’t thinking straight.

You know who you are, Billy, he replies. You just can’t see the whole picture yet. You will. I built you from clay, dust and grass. You’re like me. And you told me you’d find me or I’d find you. And you found me.

Wait, Dott. You came here, I tell him. That means you found me.

No. You were born, Billy—on your estate. You think you can’t remember but you can, if you try hard enough.

Being born? Of course I can’t remember!

You can . And I was waiting for you to arrive, kicking and screaming into the world, Billy. I even prayed for you and for your mum, the night she went into labour. I watched you grow up on that estate. It was me who convinced your dad to leave you. You didn’t need him.

I stop walking. You did what? I demand.

He was violent. I didn’t want to risk him hurting you, so I thought I’d do the right thing for you by getting him to leave. To tell you the truth, he didn’t need much persuasion. He all but had his coat and hat on anyway.

To my astonishment there are tears in my eyes. What you do? I ask Dott. Mind control? Beat him up? Threaten him?

Money.

You paid him? And he went?

Move along back to your Wings, lads!

Dott and I start walking again—shuffling rather—and Dott’s saying, attempting philosophy, I think, Every man has his price.

I don’t ask what that price was; I don’t want to know.

Dott is continuing: You see, I thought if I was kind and good I’d be able to get older again. I was scared of getting younger again; going through that horror again.

Again? I ask.

This isn’t my first time round the block, Dott tells me. Every time I go around it’s different, but it’s still full of terror and angst.

So how old how old are you?

Who knows?

Come on, please, Dott.

I don’t know! Dott protests. Maybe I was there for two thousand years before I was dragged out of the desert. Two thousand years has a nice ring.

We have spoken quickly, like speeded-up records—we have lived the last few minutes in FF. Double arrow, pointing east. But I want to go double arrow pointing west: I want to Rewind. Let’s start again.

Two thousand years. Can it be Dott’s simply plucked that number from the air? It has such weight, that number; it tinkles bells inside my skull. Talk of faith, implications of devotion, a desert, it all sounds Biblical. And although I know I’m probably going to regret it, I say it anyway.