Gary McMahon - The Concrete Grove

“Do you owe this man — this Monty Bright — a lot of money? I mean, if it’s a small sum I might be able to help.” He was testing her, pressing her buttons, seeing how far she would go. Trying to figure out exactly what she wanted from him.

“I don’t want your money, Tom. I want your friendship.”

“I suppose that’s something we both need,” said Tom. “My wife… she’s lost to me. She’s a paraplegic. I’ve tried my best, but there’s nothing there. Just a shell of what we used to have. All I am is her carer; she doesn’t need a lover these days, just somebody to keep her clean and feed her medicine.” He smiled, but it was as bitter as the coffee.

“My turn.” Lana did not move from her spot on the carpet. “I borrowed three grand from Bright. Now, with his fucking criminal rate of interest, I owe him twenty grand. It’s like a game to him: he enjoys having people in his debt. I think it’s his drug, the way he gets his kicks. Fuck knows, he doesn’t need the cash. He’s loaded.” She shook her head. Fingers of black hair came free and plucked at her cheeks.

“What is this,” said Tom, “ Quid proquo ? Tit for tat?”

Lana laughed, throwing back her head. Rogue sunlight caught in her hair and was held there, amid the thick black tresses. “We’re a couple of fuck-ups, aren’t we? Real class acts.”

They had moved together across the room without Tom realising. One minute there was space between them, the next they were almost touching. Holding his mug in one hand, he raised the other to waist level. Lana did the same, opening her fingers and reaching for him. Their hands met, the fingers entwining, forming a knot that he felt might never be broken.

“Is this what we want?” His voice cracked. “I mean, do we really need more problems than we both already have?”

Lana sighed. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

But the decision was taken from them; it had already been made. When they kissed, it came as a surprise. Tom knew it was happening, but it shocked him just the same, like a tiny electrical charge. Her tongue was warm and smooth. He licked her perfect teeth; she snapped her jaws together, pretending to bite.

They did not move apart for a long time, and when finally they did, the damage was already done.

HAILEY WENT TO her room early that evening. She was tired, washed-out. Her stomach felt oddly empty, as if she hadn’t eaten for days, and her throat was parched. No matter how much water she drank — and she had consumed at least a litre of the stuff since returning home from school — she still felt thirsty.

She lay low down on her bed with her arms by her side. Her bare feet hung over the edge of the mattress. There was a breeze coming in through the open window and it felt good against her body. She was naked. She didn’t know why she had not put on her pyjamas, but it had something to do with a vague yearning to feel the air on her skin, allowing it to breathe.

Tomorrow was Saturday. Apparently Tom was coming to take them out for the day, to Hadrian’s Wall. Her mum had seen him earlier today, and they had discussed the outing. She said that Tom wanted them all to be together. In fact he had insisted that Hailey come along.

Hailey knew that Tom was married, and that his wife was ill. Her mother had let it slip, and then tried to lie her way out of the situation.

Tom wanted to fuck her mum. It was obvious. The way he looked at her, with hungry eyes and his lips slightly parted. He’d looked at Hailey the same way, when she had first met him. He probably wanted to fuck her, too.

She wondered about his wife: whether he still slept with her, or if her condition denied him a sex life. Maybe he was sick of masturbating, and saw her mother as a viable receptacle for his desires.

Hailey smiled. These thoughts — illicit, virtually obscene — were new to her. Never before had she considered such things. She’d kissed a couple of boys, one at a school party who had been all hands, and the other on her way home from school just for the hell of it, but still she failed to see the appeal of tasting the spit and enduring the clumsy touch of a classmate. Some of the girls in her class talked about giving blow jobs and hand jobs, and one or two of them claimed to have gone all the way with their boyfriends. Hailey suspected that most of them were lying, just to give the impression that they were grown up, women of the world instead of blinkered little girls from the estates.

She smiled, reached down and stroked her flat belly. It pulsed softly. She liked the sensation: it was erotic, how she imagined the touch of a grown man’s hand in the same place might feel — a man rather than a silly schoolboy. Somewhere deep inside of her a door had opened, and the woman she would soon be was peeking out, taking stock, getting things in order before she stepped across the threshold.

It started to rain. She turned to face the window, the gap where the curtains had not been fully closed. Street lights. Rain. Shimmering on the glass. The sight was like a promise of beauty, but one from which she was separated, as if by physical barrier.

She closed her eyes and fell into sleep as if it were a hole in the ground. One second she was awake, the next she was dreaming.

SHE IS STANDING before the Needle, still naked. The ground is wet beneath her bare feet but the rain has stopped. Lights move beyond the unbarred upper storey windows of the tower block; unstable figures move within the spots of illumination, waving their hands like stage magicians.

She walks towards the building, feeling the cold air as it caresses her skin. Her legs feel long, lithe, and her nipples stiffen because of the chill. She enters the building through the front door, but is not aware of doing so. She simply takes another step and she is inside, standing in the foyer. The concrete floor has cracked open in several places, and thick, gnarly roots poke through the gaps. Large patches of wall inside the foyer are covered in thick swathes of bark; it feels like she is standing inside a hollowed-out tree.

The sound of humming is everywhere. She looks up and around, at the branches forming a lattice across the shattered concrete ceiling and the rough bark that covers the walls. Hummingbirds have made strange conical nests. She moves towards one of the walls, reaches out and touches the bark. It is hard, rough. One of the nests is within reach, so she runs her fingers over it. The nest is made of human hair and what look like finger bones — she can make out the gristly knuckle joints. A tiny blue hummingbird flies out of the hole at the narrow end of the cone, and then it hovers before her face. Its wings move faster than she can see; there is just a blue-grey blur, a glorious vision of rapid movement. The hummingbird’s eyes are black. Its beak is ruby red.

“Hello,” says Hailey, moving her hand, trying to catch the bird on her palm. “I won’t hurt you.”

The bird flies backwards, gliding like a smaller dream within the larger dream she inhabits. It opens its red beak and unfurls a long, thin tongue or proboscis. Like a soft, hollow tube, the tongue unrolls, growing longer and longer, until eventually it reaches the floor, its end scraping in the dust. More hummingbirds join the first, flying from other nests, some of which are located high overhead. The walls no longer contain any trace of concrete; they are all dark brown, an armoured layer of bark. The floor has turned to vegetation. The roots crawl and writhe, like snakes, around Hailey’s feet. Weird insects burrow beneath this mulch, their bodies displacing the earth and making small heaving tracks across the ground.

“Where am I?” It seems like such a huge question. The answer must be equally as large, perhaps so big that the universe cannot contain it.