Alexander Stuart - The War Zone - 20th Anniversary Edition

Finally, I get to where I want to go, I lower myself into the bush by the stone slit, holding everything, bracing myself and the damp branches to minimize the noise. Down below, the beach huts glow in the sun, looking less ropey than they do usually – hard, distinct shapes to fall on to. Would it hurt very much? I’d like to know how it feels, I’d like to see myself splodged all over their peeling paint and weather-stained roofs.

I can’t hear anything, that’s what worries me. The seagulls have stopped, I can’t hear the sea up here and whatever insects there might be have shut down suddenly or died or are colluding with Jessie and Dad to make my presence known. That’s what worries me – I can’t hear them, I can’t hear what they’re doing inside. Are they listening for me now, do they know I’m here and are crouching together, waiting for the moment to surprise me, ridicule me, make me the fool, the criminal?

I look. I press my eye to the slit and look. It’s real. It’s nothing. They’re in there together, two strangers, my sister and my dad, people I don’t know. I know every line on their bodies but I don’t know them. Jessie has her back to me. Dad’s face is wrinkled and shadowed, he needs a shave, I could touch that skin, tear it like the rubber mask it is.

I’m outside. Outside again. They’re in there and they’re kissing, or anyway he’s kissing her, that’s why I haven’t heard anything, nothing to hear. They’re in that shithole and they are kneeling, shins buried in the scummy torn mattress, bodies pressed together, praying in the half light, eating each other’s faces, slobbering and sucking, spit running down their chins. Jessie’s got her jeans on but they are half off, rumpled around her knees, her knickers a bit above, the crease marks visible even by the light in there, ugly grooves cut into her skin, the elastic somehow making everything seem a mistake – her body, her life, this.

Dad’s still got his shorts on, but his T-shirt is off, spread on the mattress behind Jessica, presumably to lie down on, to create some kind of a barrier between them and the spongy, infected foam. He’s clutching at Jessie’s back, shoving her shirt up, forcing the flesh into two vertical folds which he holds as if he wants to hurt her, he must do, she doesn’t have that much flesh to spare.

And then someone comes. A voice calls a dog, whistles, ‘Here, boy! Come here!’ Tensing, I duck down, shrinking into the bush, willing the animal not to come near, not now, not after all this. I put the camera down, not even sure if it’s of any use – even if this arsehole goes away – they haven’t said anything yet, I won’t get any kind of real image in there and maybe all they’ll do is mumble and fuck, it won’t mean a thing.

It’s a man, not anyone I know. I can just make him out as he steams up the hill, bloody singing to himself now, the dog nowhere to be seen. He’s about ten years older than Dad, his face is craggy, dull, I wouldn’t want him to be my father, and his hair is long, almost on his shoulders, he looks ridiculous. He’s nothing, he’s not important to me, so long as he goes away. The dog is still out of sight, but it could be anywhere, it could be nosing about right in front of the shelter – there’s a whole area I can’t see from here. I can imagine it, cocking its leg by the entrance, scenting something odd inside, sticking its mutt in, seeing them there with those puzzled dog eyes, baring its teeth, ripping my father’s balls off with one swipe. And what are they doing, Jessie and Dad? They must be every bit as alert as me, more so. Are they pulling their clothes on, nervous, excited? Or are they frozen like me, waiting for this to pass, knowing it will, it must?

The man walks by, his pinky-brown trousers taking the steps cut into the earth like clockwork, his hand slapping the dog’s coiled chain-link leash against them as he climbs. I never see the dog. It must pass out of my line of sight because I hear him shouting – decades later – while I’m still keeping covered, warning it not to go too near the edge.

Time passes. I cannot move. My life can just end here, that would be fine. There’s nothing. I’m nothing.

I force myself forward. I have to be strong now, if only because I need something to get me from this moment to the next. They are doing what they’re doing and I can stop them, I believe that, but whether it matters any more is something else. Don’t think, just move – move arm, move leg, get back to the crack in the concrete, my window, made for me. Lift the camera, turn it on, I don’t care if they hear me, I don’t give a shit, I could whistle a tune, blow snot through the slit, this is playtime, we’re all mad.

They had pulled their clothes back on, but they must feel safe now. Safe and scared. Turned on, I don’t know. Maybe they don’t care either. I don’t even use the camera properly, I just point and shoot blindly, but they carry on anyway, caught up in their own little world, their own little performance in the middle of a shithole.

My sister talks. I try to listen, to know what she’s thinking, but it’s just mechanical, an instruction: ‘Don’t! Bend back a bit, you’re hurting me.’

Her body seems at odds with my father’s. Each time one of them moves, it seems to throw the other one off. ‘Kneel,’ my father says. He seems to be having trouble balancing. He pulls his shorts off, getting them caught on one foot. His prick doesn’t seem so surprising this time. It just looks ridiculous, it just makes my stomach turn.

I must be sick, watching this. I must really be sick. I shouldn’t be here. Whatever they’re doing, I shouldn’t be here, but it’s my right, I’m part of this too, I want to know what to think when I burn them in their beds, when I smash the camera down on their heads.

‘Your stomach’s going,’ Jessie says, quite nastily. She’s right, it is. She pulls her jeans back down. She could get out of them, but Dad stops her, makes her keep them rolled halfway down her legs.

‘Turn over, OK?’ he says.

She twists, turning herself with her hands, keeping herself up so she’s kneeling in front of him, hands on the ground, off the mattress, looking my way for a moment – does she see me?

He shuffles closer to her, moving on his knees, planting his legs firmly on her jeans, recoiling for an instant when he kneels on something hard, her jeans buttons or maybe her keys, I hope they dig straight into his fucking nerve. He forces her legs apart, although they can’t go far, pulling her to him, his hands on her hips, maneuvering her bottom so that that stick prick ducks down between her cheeks.

‘And you still don’t eat enough,’ he tells her, pushing, shifting his weight from one knee to the other, working on her, leaning forward over her. ‘Otherwise, you’re fine.’

I feel dizzy. My ear throbs, a muscle in my neck pulses. I can’t breathe, but when I do it’s fast. Everything is different from how you imagine it to be. I can’t see, but I know what he’s doing, where he’s going.

She doesn’t answer him. Jessie’s mouth is open, half grimace, half pant, like a dog, like her eyes, which are wide open, button bright, like the bitch she is.

The camera falls because I don’t have the guts to jump. It’s like everything else: disappointing. I chuck it out but it’s no distance, it falls back in and knocks against the side of the hill, not even rock. It hits earth and bounces a bit, then comes to rest still in one piece behind the beach huts, where I hope some fucker finds it.

Istart back to the cottage, which is not my home, which is one more cell, another shithole, but I turn, hesitating, thinking I should storm right in there and confront them with it, see the look on their faces as they try to pull apart, dog on dog, I know what it is now – except I wouldn’t know what to say and I don’t have the strength to hurt them as much as I want to, there isn’t that much strength in the world. I can see them dead but I don’t know how, all there is in front of me is a blurring pitted grass field, no gun or knife or brick, I need someone to lay the weapon out for me, guide my hand, show me what to do. I can’t even walk, I just stumble, not wanting to go anywhere. There is no one. I am totally alone, I realize that, and one day I’ll die. I just wish it could be now.