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!’
33
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.
The canopy of baskets sways. The monk is there. So’s Jay; he’s become a skeleton, but I know him by his shoulder blades.
‘Why?’ I’m croaking it out, but he cannae hear me. ‘Why the fuck did you do that?’ I try again.
The twins are playing with a feather headdress and a bouncy ball. Their basket is a double; it’s taller than the others, so they can stand up and play clap-a-hands.
I’m so tired. Lie down and stare up, my eyes are getting heavy.
‘Is it alright tae go tae sleep?’ I ask Teresa.
‘Aye. Just give intae it. Dinnae fight it. Just let go, Anais.’
Her teeth are gone.
I’m sinking into the foliage on the forest floor, and a giant centipede crawls across my stomach, but I dinnae care. I dinnae feel it, I dinnae feel its feet; just a tiny pin, jabbing into my forehead. Then another. It hurts. It’s fucking sore! I open my eyes. Someone is dropping something on my head, sharp enough tae puncture my skin. I touch where one has hit me and, when I take my fingers away, there is blood.
A basket above me is shaking — it’s Tash. She’s shaking her cage and her moustache unfurls — it curls right out through her bamboo cage and all over the sky until it’s dark. It hooks itself around the moon and drags it out the sky.
She’s shouting.
‘Wake up. Right fucking now, Anais. WAKE the fuck UP!’
Dry eyes, sour mouth — there’s burnt spoons on the floor and black bags taped over the windows and the room fucking stinks.
Where are they?
Push myself up. Fuck, I can smell vomit, it’s on my hand. Top lip’s burning, coldsores, cankers in my mouth; my tongue is huge, swollen, and I’m shrinking.
Get up, get fucking up! They’re not here, they’ve gone, the webcam’s away. Shit, retching, lean over. Stop. Stop it! Get fucking up: now, Anais. One foot up, then the other one, use the wall. There’s my jeans. Pull them on — fuck, it hurts! Wrap my arms around myself and sink down, sobbing.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! Stop crying, get up, finish pulling your fucking jeans on. That’s it, pull them up, dinnae touch the bruises, dinnae stop; get out the fucking flat, now. I rip one of the bags off the windows. Look — there’s still a world down there, there are matchstick prams and Lego dogs. A wee speck of a laddie swings a lead.
Jay. I hope someone kills him.
There was five of them. There was five. There was a webcam. There was five. It’s one of those where a lassie looks all fucked up and underage. Fuck! I can smell them. I can smell them on me. Piss rises up from my jeans.
Toilet. Pull light on. Nobody’s in the flat now, just me. It’s just me, but I need tae go now. One minute, though. One minute. The water’s cold in the taps, my hands are shaky as fuck. There’s a tracksuit top on the floor. Pull it on.
Clever experiment.
I fucking, hate!
I was dreaming of Teresa — she was giving her old punter a hand-job and John was watching and wanking.