Rob Ewing - The Last of Us

It’s cold. Straight ahead: a kitchen with one fluttering torn curtain. We see Alex and Duncan out the back, through the window. They don’t see us inside.

All the shelves are pulled out. The kitchen floor has a broken centre. Mostly it’s a mess: dried-dirty plates, tins, crisp packets. There are hundreds of small empty cans of something called Indian Tonic Water. Then up on the kitchen table, lots and lots of tins of dog food.

There’s teddies, sitting on the seats around the table. Then at the middle of the table there’s a framed picture – of a man, a lady, a boy, with plastic flowers beside it.

Calum Ian points at the boy in the picture with the sharp edge of his knife.

‘Knew him,’ he says. ‘His name was Rory.’

There’s a camping stove on the floor. It’s gone black. Maybe it went on fire? The wall beside is also black, but that’s different, the black is from spots of mould.

We go through the kitchen. In the hallway Calum Ian shushes us – then Elizabeth calls, ‘Hullo? We want to help. To become friends.’ Then: ‘Are you very hungry?’

There’s the smallest sound.

‘Door – there.’

We open the door. It creaks loud.

The room’s dark. The curtains are hanging off their rails. The mess here is worse than in the kitchen: hills and forests of rubbish. A part of the corner of the ceiling has the paper peeling.

Our eyes get used to the dark. There’s a stick-tree in one corner. As my eyes get stronger I see that it’s a Christmas tree gone down to bare branches.

In another corner there’s a nest. Only it’s not for a bird, it’s for a person. The nest is made of duvets, dressing gowns, sleeping bags, clothes, and even, I think, a big blue flag. It all looks filthy. On the floor around are thousands of sweet wrappers and bits of silver foil.

There’s a face: very dirty, with white eyes. Watching us, from a hole in the side of the nest.

Calum Ian doesn’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. Elizabeth gets us to kneel down, to get ourselves small. Then she holds out her hand. The dirty face goes further into the nest. Then reappears.

‘You’re all right,’ Elizabeth says. ‘You’re all right to be feeling curious. What’s your name?’

The dirty face just stares.

‘Mine’s Elizabeth,’ says Elizabeth, and she gives the rest of our names. ‘Is anybody with you? Maybe your mum or dad? It would be a very big help if you could tell us if there’s adults. We definitely need to find adults.’

The dirty face just looks.

‘You on our side?’ Calum Ian demands. ‘You should be, and now you’ve got to talk, so give us your name.’

The dirty face disappears. Elizabeth puts her hand up to Calum Ian’s mouth. Slowly the face comes back.

From deep in the nest she’s found something.

She throws it. Calum Ian falls away, annoyed, or scared.

But it’s nothing. It’s only small: a key fob.

Elizabeth picks it up. The key fob is pink, blue, with a smiling cartoon girl’s face. Mairi, it says underneath.

Now we remember her. She did have a big brother called Rory. Both of them had dark hair, dark eyes. She liked to show off, I remember, by dancing in the playground.

‘Come on to hell,’ Calum Ian says. ‘Rory’s little sister never looked like that. ’

We look at Mairi. She’s more of a dirty broken toy than a girl, thinner than the thinnest of us, which is Alex or Duncan. I think I remember her being in P2. If it isn’t Mairi, then it’s hard to imagine who else she could be.

‘Where’s your brother?’ Calum Ian asks, then he spells out the letters, first in words then using his fingers to write in the air. ‘BROTHER? Tha? Yes? Did he get sent AWAY? Did he get put in the Community Centre?’

Mairi stares at us like we’ve come from space.

‘Where is he? A bheil Gàidhlig agaibh? Or English? A bheil an t-acras ort? ’

After a bit she points at the door we’ve come through.

‘Outside?’

She shakes her head.

‘ A-staigh? In the house?’

She nods.

‘Up the stair?’

She shakes her head.

‘Downstairs? That other room next door?’

She nods.

Next door is also dark. It has the worst smell. It’s another living room: only instead of a coffee table in the middle there’s a mound. Elizabeth opens the curtains. We see that the mound is a pile of clothes and cushions. The mound is topped with fairylights all in a spiral.

At the very top, on a pink pillow, there’s a face drawn on paper. It has shells for eyes, tinsel for hair.

‘Like our Last Adult,’ says Elizabeth, of the mound.

Around the edges are things which Elizabeth calls mementos, though they’re really only toys. There’s an Action Man and a green teddy-snake. There’s some food: cornflakes on a plate. The flakes look mouldy.

Mairi has now come out of her nest. She’s in the hall, still too timid to come close to us. Calum Ian stands the same distance apart from her, nervous as well.

‘Your brother under there?’ he asks. ‘You bury him?’

Mairi doesn’t seem to hear. But then she nods.

‘When did he die?’

Mairi doesn’t nod or shake her head.

‘Same time as everybody else? Later, then? You lived together for a while? He survived beside you?’

Mairi nods – a tiny nod, but definite.

‘He died after. What happened?’

At first I think she doesn’t understand. Then she points to her mouth.

‘He was hungry. No, he was sick. OK. What got him to be sick? Did he get toothache? His mouth? Did he eat something that made him sick?’

Mairi doesn’t look sure. Instead she points to the mound, and keeps pointing until we get to the bit that’s warm in the warmer-colder game.

‘The box?’

She nods very strongly.

The thing she means is a shoebox.

We open it, and inside there’s purple silk material and Christmas decorations. Also, a drawing – of Mairi, in a dress, with individual fingers drawn like flowers.

Her brother is in the drawing as well. He’s standing alongside, but with his eyes closed.

Also in the box is a mountain-picture calendar. The days gone past are marked with crosses. Except that the last day crossed goes all the way back to March 5th.

‘Can’t have died then. That’s not possible.’

Mairi moves her lips without talking. The hushed word she’s saying is: Yes.

‘That was three months ago… that’s too long. You can’t have survived on your own for that long.’

Mairi looks like she doesn’t care if we believe or not.

It’s strange to see another home owned by kids. Mairi’s home is far, far messier than ours. And also darker – they didn’t collect batteries for light-ups. Also, there’s no radios, no room full of clocks. It looks like they didn’t have as good routines.

It looks like they didn’t have so many good ideas.

Duncan comes in, and looks shocked by Mairi, in fact he can’t stop looking. Alex must still be outside.

‘She doesn’t talk English, or Gaelic,’ says Calum Ian.

Mairi has finished three packets of our crisps. She goes out of the room then comes back with something from her nest. It’s a naked doll.

She creeps in behind Elizabeth’s feet on the floor and curls up to stroke the doll.

‘She stinks,’ Duncan says.

She doesn’t hear the rudeness of it: but instead, still lying on the floor, she puts a hand forward and begins to play with the lace of Elizabeth’s shoe.

Elizabeth tries to lift her up, but Mairi won’t allow it. She fast-crawls back to the door and watches us from there. Her eyes dart to see us all.

With her patient voice Elizabeth says, ‘You have to come home with us Mairi, because we’ve got a better place. You’ll be safe and sound there. We’ve got toys. We’ve got films. Have you a favourite?’