Pat Barker - Another World

The wind crawls over the river, making it go goose-pimply. His arms too. It’s getting colder, he wishes he’d brought a coat, but it was so hot on the beach, he thought it would go on being hot. To take his mind off shivering and being cold, he looks up the river, counting the bridges. Redheugh, Railway, Metro, High Level, Swing and Tyne, all their lights reflected in the water. It’s getting dark. Crossing the road, he cuts through the back streets to the railway station.

Where the first thing he sees is two policemen. He can hardly believe his eyes, but there they are, and not going anywhere either by the looks of them, just standing there with walkie-talkies crackling on their chests. They can’t be looking for him, it’s too soon.

He strides confidently across to the arrivals and departures board, but the columns of figures baffle him. He thinks there’s a train to York in forty-five minutes’ time, but he isn’t sure and daren’t attract attention to himself by asking. There aren’t any other kids his age on their own. He’ll be all right for a few minutes, but not for forty-five, if he hangs round that long the police’ll start asking questions. Can’t go for a coke because he daren’t spend any money, can’t go into the W. H. Smith’s because they’ll think he’s going to pinch something. Probably the safest thing’s to go to the gents and just hang about in there.

‘Hello, sonny,’ says the man at the next stall. ‘You on your own?’

Gareth looks down and thinks, Shit , because the guy isn’t peeing, he’s playing with himself.

‘No, me dad’s in the short-stay car-park.’ A glance at his watch. ‘Christ, he’ll murder me.’

Gareth zips up and gets out of there so fast he practically leaves scorch marks on the tiles. It’s like Digger’s brother said: ‘I’ll be buggered if I let a pervert poke my bum.’ Everybody laughed when he said it and so did Gareth, though it took him a week to get the joke.

Ticket office. There’s a woman in front of him and she’s taking ages. Gareth’s jogging up and down as if he wants to go to the toilet, which he certainly doesn’t. At last she folds a fiver into her purse, fumbles her tickets off the counter with big clumsy pink fingers and goes. Thank God.

‘How much is a single to York?’ Definitely a single. No way is he ever coming back.

‘Nine pounds, eighty pence,’ the woman says.

‘Half fare?’

‘Yes, half fare.’ A shrewd look. ‘Does your mum know where you are?’

‘ ’Course she does. I’m going to see me grandma next week. Me mum wasn’t sure what the fare was.’

Again Gareth gets out as fast as he can. He’s running out of the station when he bumps into one of the cops. A solid wall of black chest with crackles and voices coming out of it.

‘You all right, son?’

‘Yes, I’m just going home.’

They look at each other. ‘All right, mind you do.’

Gareth doesn’t stop running till he reaches the river and by that time he’s so out of breath he feels sick. He bends double like runners do when they’ve lost a race and waits for it to pass. So far running away’s been a total failure. Probably he’ll just go home. He’s not giving in, though, he’s only going back to plan and do it better next time. But he goes slowly, dragging his feet.

The river’s on one side of him, the fenced-off works on the other. There are pictures of Alsatians on the tall railings, which are surmounted by coils of barbed wire. The wind whistles between the boarded-up buildings. He finds a stick and drags it along the wire, trying to make the Alsatians bark, but there’s no sign of them. The street lamps are on, but there are still patches of intense darkness that Gareth withdraws into whenever he hears somebody coming, but they’re on the main road. There aren’t many people. Everybody’s in their homes or in the town centre. Nobody lives down here. Shot Factory Lane, he reads on a street sign, and turns into it, more to find out where it leads than because he thinks it’ll take him nearer home.

When he was running away he felt as if he could walk for ever, but now he’s going back his legs ache. He sits down on the kerb, takes the sniper out of his pocket, winds him up, and sets him crawling. He can’t crawl very well over the cobbles, he likes the rough ground, but the spaces between the cobbles are too big. Gareth finds a patch of gravel in the entrance of one of the works and lies down to watch. The sniper stops almost immediately. Gareth winds him up again, being extremely careful not to overwind, keeping his ear close to the belly so he can hear the exact moment to stop.

He puts him down, kneels beside him and is just about to slide down and rest his cheek on the ground when he sees he’s not alone. There’s a girl, standing with her back to the wire, watching him. A girl with a long skirt and hair down past her shoulder, and as soon as he sees her Gareth knows this is the girl he saw on the cliff. She can’t be here, it’s not possible.

He feels like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car. It seems safer to pretend nothing’s happening, to stay where he is, and anyway he can’t run. Can’t run, and there’s no point. She wouldn’t have to run to catch up with him again. He pretends to be watching the sniper and his tongue feels big and dry inside his mouth, the way it did on the beach, and the moment doesn’t pass. Goes on. And on. He waits for the next tick of his watch, and it doesn’t come.

No point taking the car. He won’t dare park it anywhere, and it’s easier to go on foot. Nick cuts through the estate — deserted — then crosses the main road and runs down the slope on to the riverside path. Here the wind howls through gaps in boarded-up factories, and thrums on the barbed-wire fences that surround them. Scraps of polythene, paper, cloth, all kinds of wind-blown debris, caught on the barbs, snap as gusts of wind shake them, go quiet, snap again. Like the irregular thudding of his heart, extra systoles, little peaks and troughs of anxiety traced out on a cardiograph of barbed wire.

He’s frightened, and the more he thinks of Gareth wandering round this area at night the more frightened he gets. Gareth’s not a street-wise kid. He thinks he is, because he spends all day playing Street Fighter in his bedroom. He wouldn’t last five minutes with some of the kids on this estate.

Fanshawe’s empire this, shrunk to insignificance. There’s his name in blistered paint on a notice-board inside the gate. And more barbed wire. Nick’s never seen wire like it, the barbs must be six inches long if they’re an inch. Anybody trying to get through that would be ripped to shreds. Still no Gareth. He’ll just go to the end of the lane and then turn back. Sooner or later they’re going to have to face telling the police.

Nick rounds the corner and sees a child’s body lying on the ground at the far end of the lane. He breaks into a run, then slows down, heart bulging in his throat, as Gareth sits up and turns towards him.

‘Where on earth have you been?’

Gareth says nothing, just starts to cry.

Behind him the little soldier, face blank and resolute, crawls out of the circle of light into the dark.

Miranda lies stiffly under the sheets, as if she needs somebody’s permission to move. She hears Dad’s heavy steps on the stairs, followed by Gareth’s, lighter and quicker. A murmur of voices. She can’t hear what they’re saying. Something’s going on, but she can’t be bothered to get up and find out what it is.

The curtains are open, and the speckled glass glows where the moon catches droplets of rain. Miranda gets out of bed and looks out over the garden. It’s raining hard now, there’s a smell of roses and damp earth. She gulps the cool air down. It’s difficult to recapture the heat of the beach that afternoon, the hard brightness, the sharp edges of shadows on the sand.