Pauline farts. It’s a sudden, loud burst of sound. Pat is rocking. I wonder if I could find her lithium and put it in her vodka.
‘Do you still see Professor True?’
‘Gave him the grater last Tuesday. He likes it rough, that man does. He misses your mum though, even now. I can get him off, but she really meant something to him. He misses that. She had the touch, did our Teresa.’
There’s a pipe on the table and from here I can see that the dungeon room has been repainted black and there’s a large cat-o’-nine-tails on the wall.
I bet the experiment tune into Pat’s flat every fucking night.
23
THERE’S A GAP at the back of my drawer, where I can drop the socks down and my hands are wee enough to get them back up. I stuff them down the gap, pull the drawer right out and look. You cannae see anything. I’ve put all the cash Pat gave me in one sock. It is two hundred and forty quid. The wraps and all the gear are stashed in there too.
Tash is on the landing. She’s wearing a skirt and make-up, and her hair is down and curly. She’s got more colour in her skin because she’s been on the sunbeds, and she’s wearing big hoop earrings.
I go out onto the landing.
‘Have you ever heard of Frida Kahlo?’ I ask her.
‘Nope — is she in care, like?’
‘No, she used tae be a painter.’
‘I’ve no heard of her. How?’
‘You look like her.’
‘Good-looking, was she?’
‘Aye.’
‘Anais — Helen cannae make it today. It’s first thing tomorrow now, okay?’ Angus calls up to me.
‘Okay,’ I say.
I feel deflated now. Helen’s such a waste of space. I’ve seen her four times since she’s been back, but she is still doing less than fuck-all to help me prove I didnae kosh PC Craig. She thinks I did. That’s the fucking thing.
Isla and Tash walk away down the stairs.
‘Where are youz going?’ I trail behind them.
‘Up town.’
‘You could stay in and watch telly with me?’
I sound like a fanny.
‘It’s Friday night!’ Tash says.
I watch them walking away. Isla’s not happy. John reckons she almost cut an artery yesterday.
‘Are you alright, Isla?’ I call after her.
‘I suppose.’
They walk through the lounge and out the front. Fuck this — I run out and catch them on the drive.
‘Anais, your feet are bare!’ Tash laughs at me.
‘I can give you some cash.’
‘I dinnae want your cash, I’ll make my own,’ she says.
‘You dinnae want tae go,’ I say, and for some reason I’m almost crying. I dinnae know what the fuck is wrong with me. Even as I’m saying it, I feel like an arse. Tash is just looking at me.
‘We could play Monopoly?’
‘Anais, calm fucking down — the staff are looking.’
Tash tucks my hair behind my ear and I give her a kiss on the cheek.
‘Sorry. I’m just … I dunno. Are you taking down the registrations?’ I ask Isla.
‘Always.’ She lifts a pad.
‘Will you be warm enough?’ I ask.
‘See you, Anais.’ Tash says like I’ve totally lost it.
They walk away.
Everyone else is in the telly area or out. I want to make popcorn and snuggle up and watch a film, but Shortie’s out as well. I don’t feel like sitting in the lounge on my own tonight, not with the experiment — up in the watchtower, tapping on the glass. Trudge upstairs, put on my Chinese slippers and a hoody, and head for the roof.
It’s so quiet up here. Malcolm’s wings haven’t moved for ages. He’s given up. I’m giving up. I wish he’d fly over and take me to Paris. Imagine arriving in Paris by flying cat. That would be class!
Dinnae think. Not about penises. Not about Pat. Think about super-powers; of all the super-powers, flight’s the best one. Invisibility is okay, but it wouldnae really be all that — like you could eavesdrop, and watch people, and steal things I suppose, but you can do most of that anyway. Fuck telepathy. I get that on acid — it isnae fucking cool. Shapeshifting is a bit 1960s. Flying’s the one: like in my flying dreams. I’ve not had one of those for yonks.
The fields go out for miles all around the Panopticon. The branches on the trees are bare, but there’s still leaves on the ground. Somewhere a cow moos and birds flap up from the woods. It’s like that documentary I watched yesterday after getting wasted with John. We both watched it in the dark, and shared a family-sized bag of crisps.
The documentary was about all these dead bodies in the rooftop of the forests, encased in bamboo cages. In the documentary, people looked up, and right above them in the treetops were all these bamboo cages and each of them had a body inside it — decaying in the breeze.
‘What the fuck is that?’ John had asked.
‘Dead bodies. Up in trees,’ I said.
I handed him the crisps.
‘I’m gonnae have a whitey,’ he said and fucked off up to the toilet to be sick.
I watched the rest on my own. They put the bodies up in the treetops because of the high oxygen content. All that air speeds up the rotting process, then the corpses decompose quickly to feed the soil, return to the earth and make it rich and fertile. I liked it — I watched the whole thing, even the credits.
Pull my hoody up. Brian’s walking back across the fields. Wonder where he’s been. I lie back and watch the sky. My heart aches. It’s every day now this ache, this need to get the fuck away. My tag’s bugging me. I went by Fat Mike’s, but he was at the dogs. I’ll go again. I wonder if the experiment have a little gadge typing it all up — everything that happens to me. Maybe they’re faxing back reports, every sixty seconds.
Anais Hendricks’s eyes looked to the left — 11.06 a.m.
Anais Hendricks inhaled — 11.07 a.m.
Anais Hendricks took a long shit — 11.13 a.m.
Anais Hendricks is bored — 11.17 a.m.
What if there was no experiment? What if my life was so worthless that it was of absolutely no importance to anyone?
‘Alright, ya radge!’ Shortie sticks her head out the window and climbs out.
‘Hiya.’
I’m happy. Happy to see her. Happy not to be sitting here like a Norma-no-mates all night.
‘Did you go and see that monk-guy for your identity crisis yet?’ she asks me.
‘Not yet.’
‘How’d they ken you’re having an identity crisis anyway?’ she asks.
‘Dunno. It started when I was like eight. I told Teresa eventually.’
‘What, that you were having an identity crisis?’
‘Aye. Like a nervous breakdown, but not.’
Shortie leans back on the turret. She begins to skin up, and the wind keeps blowing her baccy away. I cup my hands around it so it’s protected.
‘How did you know that’s what it was?’
‘I don’t know. I looked in the mirror and there was this wee lassie who didnae smile, and when I met her eyes I felt embarrassed and awkward — like I’d just intruded on a stranger.’
‘That’s normal,’ Shortie says.
‘I used tae bite myself.’
‘You should have bit other people.’
‘I did.’
‘So what did you say tae Teresa?’ she asks.
‘I told her I didnae know who I was, that I thought I was insane.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said: You’re eight, you’re not fucking meant tae know who you are. That’s how I started surfing in the lift shafts.’