Jenni Fagan - The Panopticon

‘He’s a lucky laddie. What’s his name?’ he asks as he goes into his kitchen.

‘Jay.’

He comes back out with a welding gun-type thing and plugs it in tae heat it up.

‘Ye might get a wee burn, is that alright?’

‘Aye. It’s fine.’

‘Jay that’s inside? He’s no out for ages, Anais. His door’s marked — d’ye ken that? He owes a fucking wadge ay cash out, and no tae nice people. Can you not meet a nice laddie? A banker, no some wee piece ay pish fae round here.’

‘A banker?’

‘Or ken somebody straight!’

I must look confused. Barbie has got her tits out and she’s go-go dancing in the reflection of the baubles, and I can remember laughing with Teresa, I can remember that. Jay’s probably just not telling anyone he’s out, if he’s in that bad a debt. I’m not saying anything.

Fuck! The heat on my leg is unbearable, and the gun buzzes and everything’s far away.

THERE’S WEE WITCHES on the inside of my eyelids when I blink. They are always the same ones — they’re quite cheery like, until they turn. If the experiment put an implant in my head, could they see the witches?

Sometimes I close my eyes when I’m tripping and I can see wee Pac-Men eating the dark, turning everything fluorescent.

Get into the lift, press down. My ankle is red fucking raw fae that burner — but nae tag. Nae fucking tag! My arms feel grimy. I should have wore a coat, cos it’s so fucking cold, but I dinnae, I never do. I dinnae wear coats or extra jumpers, cos it never looks as good.

My T-shirt is damp. I mind sleeping rough last year, and when I ran out of clothes I robbed a clothes line, but because it was winter all I could find was rows and rows of frozen jeans, and frozen jumpers and knickers and towels. I unclipped one pair of jeans and carried them away like a cardboard cutout.

It’s all buzzing too loud: the light in the lift and Isla and Teresa and Tash, all telling me — what?

The lift pings open. Four doors just stand there. A darts commentator is making his low speech in someone’s living room. An audience claps. It smells like Fray Bentos pie on the landing. Teresa wouldnae let me eat processed food, apart from the only thing I can cook — Kraft macaroni. She would make an exception for that. Usually she got all organic stuff from the butcher. He would bring us chickens, or steak and chops — when he came around for his shags.

Hands shaky, and my legs. I just want tae get in bed with Jay, and watch cartoons, and smoke myself blind. I keep feeling like I’m gonnae pass out, cos I’ve had too much, but I want more. I want to forget.

I tap on the door, but there’s no answer — tap again.

‘Alright, Anais?’

Spin around. It’s troll. Troll Mark, who sells the shan wraps.

‘Alright.’

‘Jay’s expecting you, Anais, has he not answered? He’s fucking wasted, ay. You are looking great, by the way!’

He passes me a wee bong; it’s neat, really pretty green glass. I drag hard on it — and my spine goes numb.

He knocks on the door five times, then twice more.

‘Man, you’re growing up!’ he says.

‘Aye.’

‘Have another smoke, finish it!’

I inhale again, twice, hold it, then drag the last bit of the bong. My throat is burning and my legs are heavy as fuck. He knocks exactly the same way again, and I see it then. A big deep cross gouged into the door — somebody’s done that with a big fucking knife.

‘It’s marked?’

I turn around and the door is open and nobody is there.

‘Aye, it’s fucking marked!’ He slams his fist out and drags me in.

SLAM.

The hall is black; fear in my gut, I want tae go, need tae fucking go — now! He pushes me against the door and there are voices down the hall, and I dinnae ken what was in that bong, but it’s all falling away, the floor, my legs.

I’m being carried down a hallway. I know it’s a hallway because it echoes the way they do in the high-rise flats when there’s nae carpets on the floor.

The living-room door opens and it’s bright and there’s four guys. Four. One, two, three, four, and Mark makes five. One bald guy comes right up to take a look at me. He opens my mouth.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck!

‘I need tae use the bathroom,’ my voice says. I cannae-fucking-breathe.

‘Dinnae waste your time, Anais. The door’s fucking locked.’

Shit! My heart pounds. Dinnae let them know you’re scared, try to smile — maybe I’m just reading this wrong.

‘Sit down, have a smoke?’ The bald guy shoves a joint in my face.

Try to focus. Who’s in here? Count. There’s Mark, a skinny guy in a tracksuit, the bald one, an Asian flashy bloke and a short stocky bulldog fiddling with a webcam.

‘Nice ay ye tae help Jay oot with his debts, hen. You must be a right good girlfriend, ay?’

The windows are covered with bin liners, and I know for fucking sure Jay’s in his cell. He’s in his fucking cell. I’m woozy, shit! There’s the floor, underneath me. I’m lying back against the wall, but I’m still dropping back, back, back. I can hear them, but I cannae lift my arms now, not even an inch. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

‘What did you give her?’

‘Everything: smack, roofies. She only smoked half, but she was fucking pickled anyway.’

I’m shrinking — there are colours everywhere so I cannae see clearly, but I can hear everything in here, I have crystalline audio vision.

Whoooompf. I need tae not float like this, along the ceiling, cos that strange wee body down there — I’m sure it belongs to me.

‘D’ye like movies, hen?’

The bulldog’s pulling my T-shirt off and I’m numb — the experiment are here. Watching, and they are clever and I am nothing.

‘D’ye hear that, lads — she likes movies. Nod your fucking head, hen. D’ye like movies, ay?’

‘Take her fucking bra off.’

‘Hit my fucking hand away again, hen, and I’ll rape your arse so fucking badly you’ll bleed for a fucking week, ya fucking cunt!’

Black. No colours. No light.

‘She’s gone.’

‘She can still hear — look, she’s listening.’

I’ve got a brand-new bike. It’s red and the wheels go round. If you were a flying cat, would you eat the eggs of kestrels?

Zip rips my gut — intae lurch.

‘Turn her fucking over.’

‘Fucking cunt bit me.’

‘Turn her fucking over!’

THERE ARE CASKETS made out of bamboo and they swing along the forest roof.

The trees are tall and thin and there isnae a lot of leaves up there, so you can clearly see that each casket is open, and the bamboo’s woven in wide circles so you can see through them. Each contraption is about six and a half feet long by two feet wide. It’s the best way tae rot a corpse — did you know that? A bamboo cage at the top of the trees.

‘It’s very comfortable, Anais, you should join us.’ Teresa smiles down at me from a lovely old bamboo cage.

‘Where’s Isla?’

Teresa points along. There’s Isla, her mouth’s open. A centipede crawls out.

‘Mother Teresa?’

‘Aye?’

‘I dinnae feel well.’

‘You’re not well, Anais. Not at all. Dinnae be scared. You’ll stop breathing soon.’

Her kimono sleeves are so wide. Each inch of silk costs more than the person who made it can earn in a year. She’s holding my bone cigarette holder, and smoking, and reading a book — she flicks her ash and it falls all the way down through the trees.

My neck is getting sore looking up. John’s in the basket next tae Teresa. She’s shifting her kimono so he can see her tits. He begins to wank frantically.

‘Nae offence, Anais,’ he shouts down.