Jenni Fagan - The Panopticon

EXPERIMENT — 2. US — 0.

‘Time of death — 8.27 a.m.’

The ambulance man says it quietly upstairs, but we can all fucking hear it. None of us are allowed up there. Dylan’s just back. Steven’s in. Brian’s in. John’s in. Shortie’s shaking like fuck.

The ambulance man takes a big plastic bag intae Isla’s room and I am still crying, but I dinnae care. I feel like someone keeps battering me. Every bit of my body aches.

There are cups of tea on the dining tables — and packets of chocolate biscuits.

‘Have another cup of tea, Anais,’ Angus says.

‘No.’

‘You’re in shock. You need sugar.’

‘I want tae see Isla,’ Shortie says.

‘No, you cannae go up, Shortie. I’m really, really sorry, but we need tae let these men do their job. Okay?’ he says.

Shortie won’t let go of my hand. The two ambulance men come out with a long black bag but no stretcher.

‘Where’s the stretcher?’ I ask.

‘They dinnae need one,’ Joan says quietly.

‘Put her on a fucking stretcher!’

My hands are shaking like fuck, adrenaline is making me buzz and there’s flashes of faces on the walls. The ambulance men stop and look down over the balcony. The glint’s in the room, it’s dense as fuck. The staff can feel it, and we can feel it, and the fucking ambulance men can feel it — we are ready to take them all out. Every last one.

‘It’s okay.’ One of the ambulance men stops and speaks over his radio to someone outside. ‘Can you bring in a stretcher, please, Jim?’

Joan opens the front door.

‘Anais, do you want tae sit down in the office?’ Angus asks me.

I shake my head.

‘Thanks, Jim, bring it up here,’ the ambulance man says.

The stretcher is laid out on our landing. The ambulance men lift Isla carefully onto it. She’s straight now, her back is straight, and she’s not being taken out like the rubbish. I want to wrap her in something soft, take her a pillow and a teddy.

Angus stops shoving a mug of tea at me and puts it on the table, and the ambulance men walk the stretcher along the landing and downstairs. Shortie is crying so hard her face is red. Brian’s in the telly area staring at a blank screen. His programme is normally on just now. He has a wee pile of biscuits by his side. Joan opens the front door for the ambulance men and follows them out.

My skin is hot.

It is teatime, and I am in the train station. I just scored some grass and I am walking past a missing-persons poster, and a face is looking out from a photograph and the name reads Natasha MacRae, fifteen years old, and all the commuters are just walking by.

Click, click, click.

People dinnae want to look. They dinnae want tae see. Nobody will ask.

‘Where did Tash go?’

‘She just went.’

‘Went where?’

‘She just went, Your Honour, got in a car.’

‘Who was driving?’

It could have been anyone. It could have been some sick cunt with a space in his sex circle. It could have been the devil, or the experiment. Probably it was just an average psychopath, Your Honour.

Disappearing. It happens when you blink. It happens as you write down the registration number for a car pulling away. It happens when you ask for the payment and the guy reaches into his coat, and you just know in your bones he’s not going to pull out money. It is happening right now as the ambulance men secure the stretcher with straps, so they can lift it onto the ambulance.

I have to go.

The roof has been discovered. Angus knows we come up here, but Joan doesnae yet. We need this roof, it’s the only place the watchtower cannae see us. I keep imagining Isla and Tash, petals in their hair — kissing on the island. Laughing. Till death do us part. Then her hand, just open like that. And somehow now all I can see is Teresa, an empty bath, her kimono on the floor, and I really need tae drink until I cannae see anything any more.

‘I knew you’d be here.’ Shortie sticks her head out the window.

She climbs out onto the turret roof, takes my hand. She’s chewed her nails off. Her fingers are stubby and raw. She tries tae put her arm around me. I’m rocking, just enough to hold the shrinking back.

Down in the car park, the resuscitation equipment is brought out. They put it away and the ambulance waits with its back doors open. One of the medic guys is talking to Joan. He smiles and pats her on the arm. The ambulance looks like some square metal ladybird — throwing its wings right back, ready to fly away.

Shortie clenches and unclenches her fist. Her jaw is white and tight. That lump in my throat is so big I cannae breathe. I’m wheezy. There’s a knot in my gut that’s been there how many years? It’s moving up as well. I lean forward and retch. I retch and retch, but it’s just liquid. Shortie holds my hair.

Police arrive and the next staff team drive down in their cars. There’ll be a changeover now. Today’s team will inform the relief staff of Isla’s death. Her social worker will arrive soon. They will write down words on files. Isla will lay in the morgue on her own and we will not be allowed to go and hold her hand.

SHORTIE COMES BACK from the shop with a wee bottle of Bacardi.

My mouth tastes of bile. I accept the bottle and drink half of it straight.

‘This is gonnae break Tash’s heart when she comes back,’ she says firmly.

Dinnae say anything, not one word. Shortie begins to cry. We sit up here, away from everyone — lunch comes and goes. Eventually we smell dinner cooking. Cars are pulling in and leaving downstairs. More police arrive, then the lab woman.

‘That’s the one that done my swabs.’

‘They always call her in,’ Shortie says.

Sun pulls itself across the fields. Stars come out and we throw our crisps at the wood pigeons nestling in the eaves. They’re right fat bastards. Noisy as well. I can recognise three new birds on sight. The small tawny owl, starlings and a kestrel. The kestrel’s out just now. It hovers over the farmer’s field, then swoops.

Shortie climbs back in the window and disappears down the turret. I stand up on the edge of the ledge and look down. That’s all it takes — just one step forward.

‘Here, Anais, take this.’ She re-emerges, panting, and shoves her duvet out the window.

I take it off her and wait until she climbs back out, then I wrap it around the two of us like a wee nest tae snuggle in. She giggles.

‘What?’

‘We’re like two fucking chicks, waiting for somebody tae come along and feed us.’ She grins, then she’s crying again and I hold her in as close as I can.

The staff are shouting for us outside. Angus has not told them that we keep escaping up here. He’s a good guy, one of the best I’ve met in care. Downstairs Brian is slinking out the front door, then he’s away — running over the fields.

‘What’s that?’ Shortie’s looking out.

‘What?’

‘Listen.’

I listen. It’s a hoot, just faint, then another. Britney glides across the fields, her white-tipped wings are glowing in the moonlight. The staff are still shouting and the wind is picking up.

‘We better go back in,’ Shortie says.

It’s even more baltic in the turret — I touch the stone wall and it’s like going back in time, like this building has always been here and it doesnae care. It’s freezing: our breath curls out, wisps like ghosts, curling away from us. We stand staring at them for a second, then Shortie leans forward and kisses me on the mouth, and I kiss her back. We scuff downstairs holding hands.

In the main room the blue light’s already on, and the night-nurse is on duty.