Gary McMahon - Silent Voices

It’s a doper , he thought. He’s stoned and doesn’t know where he is.

He relaxed slightly, more sure of himself now that he could put a name to his fear. Drug users had been known to break into the Needle to shoot up or smoke crack; kids sometimes came here to fuck; once or twice the most desperate transients had even popped in for a night’s sleep.

“Show yourself. Come into the main space here, and I’ll escort you off the premises. If you do not comply, I will be forced to call for police back-up and you will be arrested.” He thought that he sounded like some sad old rent-a-cop: a pathetic character in a shitty movie. “This is private property. You are trespassing.”

The figure stumbled back into view. It was thin, unsteady on its feet, and had now turned to face the doorway.

“That’s right. Just come through here and we can sort this out the easy way.”

Brendan flicked his wrist to bring the torch beam around, so that he might highlight the figure. The man stood framed in the doorway, his clothes dirty and ragged, his hands clutching the shattered wooden frame, and his face a white featureless mass hovering above his narrow shoulders.

“Shit.” Brendan stepped backwards, almost tripping on a pile of something directly behind him. “What the fuck?” The torch beam danced across the walls, striping the figure as it advanced through the doorway and into what used to be the main entrance hall, but was now just a vast space filled with junk.

The man moved slowly. His arms hung loosely at his sides. His bloated white head was rigid, locked facing forward. He had no eyes. No mouth. Just a tattered white mask, an image from a nightmare…

…and then Brendan realised that the man’s face was bandaged. He was limping; he wasn’t drunk or stoned, but injured. He dragged his feet across the filthy floor, twisting his hips awkwardly and moving towards the sound of Brendan’s voice.

“Are you okay, mate?” Brendan no longer felt threatened. The man was unwell. He had clearly come here to hide his infirmities away from the world. Cursed with his own medical condition, this was a reaction Brendan could understand — he empathised with the man’s desire to hide, to lock himself away from a mocking world.

He remembered the names he’d been called at school: Rashback, Beam-Me-Up-Spotty, Dot-to-Dot … and a hundred more, each worse than the last. The skin across his shoulders and the top of his back cried out in sympathy; his pain reached out to this other man’s agonies, like a hand across a chasm.

The man with the bandaged face made a low, soft sound, somewhere between a cry and a sigh.

“It’s okay, mate. I won’t hurt you. Come on; let’s get you out of here. I have food and drink back at the cabin.”

The man reached out a hand and it flailed in the air like a damaged bird.

Brendan grabbed the hand and tugged, helping the man across the detritus-covered floor. Close up, the bandages were surprisingly clean. They looked fresh, as if they’d been recently applied. Somebody somewhere was looking after this man, and they were making sure he kept his dressings clean. That was something, at least; it meant that he wasn’t completely alone in the world. There was someone to tend to his most basic needs, to treat him like a human being.

Brendan guided the man towards the door, feeling invisible eyes upon him as he turned his back on the interior of the Needle. He always felt this way, as if the building itself were watching him, waiting for him to slip up. He’d overcome his surface fears, but other terrors ran deeper, caught in the blood and the marrow. Some terrors could never be beaten, no matter how hard you fought against them.

“Come on, mate,” he said, as they left the building and returned to the relative safety of the night. “I’ll put the kettle on and we can have a little chat. Have you been living here?”

The man allowed himself to be led but he did not reply. He walked in silence, unable or unwilling to communicate. His hand was limp; the fingers felt boneless. His lumbering steps carried him wherever he was taken, and he acquiesced without as much as a whimper of protest.

Just as they reached the security cabin, Brendan heard the sound of a car engine as it cut out and tyres simultaneously coming to a halt on the gravel beyond the hoardings. He stopped, patted his companion on the arm, and left him there as he approached the front gate to the compound. Who was this so late at night? Drug dealers, using the place for their transactions? He stood at the gate and peered through the railings. There was a black 4x4 parked a few yards away where it had driven off the edge of Grove Street to stop just outside the pool of street light, and someone sat behind the wheel staring at the tower block. All he could see was the dark outline of a man or a slim, mannish woman: short hair, square chin, sunken patches where eyes should be.

Brendan turned on his torch and pointed it at the vehicle, trying to illuminate the person inside. The figure moved quickly, as if panicked, and the engine started up again. The tyres spun on the gravel, and the vehicle reversed at speed, heading towards the southern edge of Grove Crescent.

Some terrors , he thought again for no apparent reason, can never be beaten .

“WHAT HAPPENED TO you?” Brendan was making tea. The camping kettle had boiled on the small portable gas-powered hob, and he’d poured it into two large mugs along with some long-life milk and teabags. He stirred the cups, waiting for the milky water to turn dark, and then he scooped out the bags and dumped them into the plastic carrier bag he used to collect his rubbish.

His guest sat at the small table in silence, staring at the wall.

“I know you, don’t I? I’ve seen you before.” Brendan picked up the mugs and carried them to the table. He placed one in front of the bandaged man and sat down in the plastic chair opposite. The furniture in the security cabin wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was practical.

The man didn’t move. He just sat there. The bandages were wrapped tightly around his head and there were slits left for his eyes, nose and mouth. What little skin was visible looked raw and shiny, like badly healed scar tissue.

Scars.

That was it. Brendan suddenly knew who this was sitting in his cabin.

“You’re Banjo, aren’t you?”

The man twitched slightly at the sound of his name. He tilted his head sideways and glanced at Brendan, as if he’d suddenly realised that he was not alone.

“You’re the junkie… sorry, the bloke who escaped from the fire at that gym on Grove Street. I read about it in the papers. That loan shark Monty Bright and his mate died. You were seen in the area before the fire started, and everybody said you must have started it.”

Banjo’s eyes were shining. He looked like he might be crying.

“Did you? Was it you that started the fire?” Brendan remembered the news reports of Banjo scratching off his own face in the street, and his subsequent disappearance from hospital. Because of an eyewitness stating that Banjo was back in the Grove on the night of the fire, it was assumed that he’d been the one who burned down the gym, and that he had run from the scene when the sirens started.

Banjo turned his head away, glancing at the far wall. He couldn’t make eye contact; there was something he didn’t want to communicate.

“It’s okay, man. Let’s just get some hot tea down you. And a sandwich. Do you like ham and cheese?” He stood and crossed the room, retrieving his lunchbox from the bench near the window. He took out a small cling-filmed package, unpeeled the wrapping, and handed Banjo a sandwich. “There you go. Here — have them both.” He took out the second sandwich and handed it to his guest.