“What’s wrong with it?” Coe says through his bared teeth, then tries a shout, which sounds flattened by padding. “What’s the matter with my voice?”
“He wants to know what’s wrong with his voice.”
“So you heard me the first time.” Perhaps he shouldn’t address her as if she’s a child, but he’s unable to moderate his tone. “What are you saying about my voice?”
“I don’t know how old you’re trying to sound, but nobody’s that old and still alive.”
“I’m old enough to be your father, so do as you’re told.” She either doesn’t hear this or ignores it, but he ensures she hears “I’m old enough for them to pass me off as dead.”
“And bury you.”
“That’s what I’ve already told you and your colleague.”
“In a grave.”
“On Mercy Hill below the church. Halfway along the ninth row down, to the left of the avenue.”
He can almost see the trench and his own hand dropping a fistful of earth into the depths that harboured his wife’s coffin. All at once he’s intensely aware that it must be under him. He might have wanted to be reunited with her at the end – at least, with her as she was before she stopped recognising him and grew unrecognisable, little more than a skeleton with an infant’s mind – but not like this. He remembers the spadefuls of earth piling up on her coffin and realises that now they’re on top of him. “And you’re expecting us to have it dug up,” the policewoman says.
“Can’t you do it yourselves?” Since this is hardly the best time to criticise their methods, he adds “Have you got someone?”
“How long do you plan to carry on with this? Do you honestly think you’re taking us in?”
“I’m not trying to. For the love of God, it’s the truth.” Coe’s free hand claws at the wall as if this may communicate his plight somehow, and his fingers wince as though they’ve scratched a blackboard. “Why won’t you believe me?” he pleads.
“You really expect us to believe a phone would work down there.”
“Yes, because it is.”
“I an’t hea ou.”
The connection is faltering. He nearly accuses her of having wished this on him. “I said it is,” he cries.
“Very unny.” Yet more distantly she says “Now he’s aking it ound a if it’s aking up.”
Is the light growing unreliable too? For a blink the darkness seems to surge at him – just darkness, not soil spilling into his prison. Or has his consciousness begun to gutter for lack of air? “It is,” he gasps. “Tell me they’re coming to find me.”
“You won’t like it if they do.”
At least her voice is whole again, and surely his must be. “You still think I’m joking. Why would I joke about something like this at my age, for God’s sake? I didn’t even know it was Halloween.”
“You’re saying you don’t know what you just said you know.”
“Because your colleague told me. I don’t know how long I’ve been here,” he realises aloud, and the light dims as if to suggest how much air he may have unconsciously used up.
“Long enough. We’d have to give you full marks for persistence. Are you in a cupboard, by the way? It sounds like one. Your trick nearly worked.”
“It’s a coffin, God help me. Can’t you hear that?” Coe cries and scrapes his nails across the underside of the lid.
Perhaps the squealing is more tangible than audible. He’s holding the mobile towards it, but when he returns the phone to his ear the policewoman says “I’ve heard all I want to, I think.”
“Are you still calling me a liar?” He should have demanded to speak to whoever’s in charge. He’s about to do so when a thought ambushes him. “If you really think I am,” he blurts, “why are you talking to me?”
At once he knows. However demeaning it is to be taken for a criminal, that’s unimportant if they’re locating him. He’ll talk for as long as she needs to keep him talking. He’s opening his mouth to rant when he hears a man say “No joy, I’m afraid. Can’t trace it.”
If Coe is too far underground, how is he able to phone? The policewoman brings him to the edge of panic. “Count yourself lucky,” she tells him, “and don’t dare play a trick like this again. Don’t you realise you may be tying up a line while someone genuinely needs our help?”
He mustn’t let her go. He’s terrified that if she rings off they won’t accept his calls. It doesn’t matter what he says so long as it makes the police come for him. Before she has finished lecturing him he shouts “Don’t you speak to me like that, you stupid cow.”
“I’m war ing ou, ir—”
“Do the work we’re paying you to do, and that means the whole shiftless lot of you. You’re too fond of finding excuses not to help the public, you damned lazy swine.” He’s no longer shouting just to be heard. “You weren’t much help with my wife, were you? You were worse than useless when she was wandering the streets not knowing where she was. And you were a joke when she started chasing me round the house because she’d forgotten who I was and thought I’d broken in. That’s right, you’re the bloody joke, not me. She nearly killed me with a kitchen knife. Now get on with your job for a change, you pathetic wretched—”
Without bothering to flicker the light goes out, and he hears nothing but death in his ear. He clutches the mobile and shakes it and pokes blindly at the keys, none of which brings him a sound except for the lifeless clacking of plastic or provides the least relief from the unutterable blackness. At last he’s overcome by exhaustion or despair or both. His arms drop to his sides, and the phone slips out of his hand.
Perhaps it’s the lack of air, but he feels as if he may soon be resigned to lying where he is. Shutting his eyes takes him closer to sleep. The surface beneath him is comfortable enough, after all. He could fancy he’s in bed, or is that mere fancy? Can’t he have dreamed he wakened in his coffin and everything that followed? Why, he has managed to drag the quilt under himself, which is how the nightmare began. He’s vowing that it won’t recur when a huge buzzing insect crawls against his hand.
He jerks away from it, and his scalp collides with the headboard, which is too plump. The insect isn’t only buzzing, it’s glowing feebly. It’s the mobile, which has regained sufficient energy to vibrate. As he grabs it, the decaying light seems to fatten the interior of the coffin. He jabs the key to take the call and fumbles the mobile against his ear. “Hello?” he pleads.
“Coming.”
It’s barely a voice. It sounds as unnatural as the numbers in the answering messages did, and at least as close to falling to bits. Surely that’s the fault of the connection. Before he can speak again the darkness caves in on him, and he’s holding an inert lump of plastic against his ear.
There’s a sound, however. It’s muffled but growing more audible. He prays that he’s recognising it, and then he’s sure he does. Someone is digging towards him.
“I’m here,” he cries and claps a bony hand against his withered lips. He shouldn’t waste whatever air is left, especially when he’s beginning to feel it’s as scarce as light down here. It seems unlikely that he would even have been heard. Why is he wishing he’d kept silent? He listens breathlessly to the scraping in the earth. How did the rescuers manage to dig down so far without his noticing? The activity inches closer – the sound of the shifting of earth – and all at once he’s frantically jabbing at the keypad in the blackness. Any response from the world overhead might be welcome, any voice other than the one that called him. The digging is beneath him.
Peep (2007)
I'm labouring up the steepest section of the hill above the promenade when the twins run ahead. At least we're past the main road by the railway station. "Don't cross-" I shout or rather gasp.