Garbage Man (24 page)

The mirror showed her who that person was.

She had lost weight trying to stay as skinny as the other girls. After finding the job in East Putney and quitting the money-grabbing modelling agency, she'd found it impossible to put the weight back on. She remembered how she'd looked when she studied herself in the mirror of the bedroom in her parents' house. She hadn't been fat then, but she'd had curves and a fuller bust. Now her ribs showed just a little too much. The gentle, attractive mound of her belly had become a definite concavity - still desirable in the world of modelling but a difference she didn't welcome. And yet, there seemed nothing she could do about it. She tried to eat but the hunger wasn't there. Her skin had taken the grey out of the city air. Her sweat smelled stronger, sourer than when she'd lived at home.

These things were a source of constant anxiety but her skin told other stories. Tales not necessarily about the lonely single girl trying to make it in the world of fashion. The bruises on her wrists and ankles never quite had the time to fade now and so she wore clothes with sleeves that draped to her hands or fingers. The whippings were more for show than for pain but occasionally the leather did leave weals. Sometimes the marks took several days to disappear.

She no longer had any pubic hair and the hair on her head had been shorn to a crew cut allowing her to wear a variety of wigs. Before she'd left home she'd always worn clip-on earrings, not having any desire for the real thing. Now she had piercings in places she would never even have considered. The one consolation was the balance of her bank account. All of a sudden she had savings. Soon she would move to better accommodation - she promised herself a nice place on her own nearer the centre of the city. She'd clean herself up. Get pretty again. And then she'd get back into the kind of work she'd always dreamed of doing. She had enough experience now to shop around for the right kind of jobs.

Just a little more money and she'd move on. She'd move
up
.

The mirror was straight with her. More honest than she was being with herself about where her life was headed. It was one thing she couldn't ignore. There was no disguising the changes. She was a different kind of girl now. She was a different kind of animal.

Her phone rang and she flinched at the sound. It could only mean one thing: more work. She grabbed it out of her handbag and pressed accept. No one spoke.

‘Yeah?' she said.

‘Agatha?' It had been a familiar voice once but now, like her own body, she barely recognised it.

‘Mum.' She had no idea what to say. ‘How did you get this number?'

There was something wrong with her mother's voice.

‘You've got to come home, poppet.'

‘Don't start this. I'm never coming back.' Her mother was trying not to cry.

‘You've got to. You've got to come back.'

‘Listen, I'm nev -'

‘Yes, you are, Agatha. You're coming home right now. Donald's . . .' The tears Pamela Smithfield had been holding on to escaped. Her next words came out as a kind of howl. ‘. . . gone missing.'

***

Delilah held Ray's head against her breasts as they lay beneath the oak tree.

She liked him unshaven, his stubble scratchy and prickling to her skin. She liked the smell of sebum that came from his unwashed hair and the sourness of his underarms. From all of him came a musky fuck-odour. She'd smelled it the first time they'd come to the secret clearing. Since then, the more sex they'd had, the stronger the smell became. It was as though his hormonal system had responded to her at a chemical level. The more they touched each other, entered each other, the more of this smell he produced and the more magnetic he became to her. Even when they weren't together she could smell a trace of him. She never wanted to lose it.

Ray had changed in other ways. He was more of a man. Still a feckless dreamer. Still a person who found it hard to live in what other people called the real world. Inside him, though, something had hardened, locking another thing deeper inside. She sensed a fear in him and she knew not to ask him about it. Not yet.

Spent, he dozed beside her. They'd brought sleeping bags to the clearing so that they could spend the night outdoors. Now the weather had turned a little cooler, the bags were ideal for day-time trysts too.

Ray twitched, making her jump.

He sat up and she saw in his eyes the hidden thing that had returned from sleep with him. It faded quickly.

‘Shit.' He said.

She touched his arm.

‘What is it?'

‘A dream, thank God.'

‘What happened?'

Ray looked around at the oak trees as if gauging their strength.

‘Do you think we're safe here?' he asked.

‘Completely. No one knows about this place. No one else has ever found it.'

He wiped his face with both hands.

‘That's not really what I mean, D. I thought it was coming here. Coming for us.'

‘What was?'

Ray rubbed his forehead hard and shook his head to clear it.

‘Sorry. I'm still half asleep. Or stoned or whatever. You know that feeling when you think you've woken up but you're still dreaming? That's how I feel.'

‘Are you scared?'

‘I'm fine. Just need to arrive properly. Is there any water left?'

She passed him the canteen and he took several small sips. Then he lay back against the tree and put his arm around her.

‘I love this place, D. Being here with you, it's like being on a better planet. A place that only you and I understand.'

‘I feel the same way.'

‘Did you bring other blokes here before me?'

She held her breath for a moment. They'd known each other long enough for this.

‘My first boyfriend brought me here when I was fourteen. He was three years older than me and that seemed like a lot back then. I didn't tell my parents about him. At school, the other girls were jealous. Boys my age wouldn't come near me when they realised who I was seeing. His name was Simon Pike. Everyone called him Spike. He'd already left school and had a job in what used to be Manny's Spares and Repairs. I had a thing for all that grease and grime.'

‘Dirty girl to the bone, aren't you?'

‘To the marrow, Ray. Anyway, he brought me in here a few times. It was Spike who put the ammo box here but there were other things in it back then. The first few times he was nice with me, took it slow. I lost my virginity right here under this tree. It wasn't bad, really.' She paused, remembering. Not smiling. ‘Pass me the water, would you?'

Ray handed her the canteen. She could tell he knew there was more to the story and she was glad.

‘We came here one Friday evening after he finished work. He didn't even go home to change. Just took off his overalls, washed his hands and brought me here. It was like he was in a hurry. We made love and then he stood up. I heard some laughter in the bushes and I realised straight away what he'd done. Either he'd bet his mates he'd do it while they watched or they'd paid him. I never found out. They'd all been drinking hard when they walked out into the clearing. Spike was angry, so I suppose they must have promised to stay quiet so I wouldn't know. The funny thing is, I wasn't that angry. I knew they'd watched us and, from the looks on their faces, they'd enjoyed it. That made me feel good. I must have been born kinky, I suppose.'

She watched Ray's face. He could have laughed or commented but he didn't. Again she was pleased. She continued.

‘They raped me. Spike tried to stop them but not very hard. In the end he just joined in. By the time they'd all had a go, the first one was hard again. It took hours before they were finished. You know what the worst of it was?'

Ray shook his head, watching her carefully.

‘If they'd suggested it to me, if they'd let me have a drink and if they'd just asked me, I probably would have said yes. But for them, the pleasure was not in the asking, it was in the taking, the forcing. It was after dark when they left me. I heard Spike being sick a little way off. Back then, I really believed it was me he was disgusted with. He'd fucked me and he'd hated it so much it made him ill. That was what made me so introverted for so long, thinking I was the kind of girl that made men puke.'

She checked Ray's expression again. It was his opportunity to tell her that she didn't have that effect on him. He didn't take it. She already knew how she made him feel and he knew it. Nothing needed to be said. They were good together. She was falling in love with him.

‘I squatted under this tree and their sperm poured out of me onto the dirt. It just kept coming and coming and I remember thinking “I'm going to be pregnant and I won't have any idea who the father is”. But I didn't get pregnant and all those billions of sperms died here on the ground. It was that that brought me back here in a way. This was the place where I'd faced men and survived. This was the place where their power had fallen into the ground, impotent and wasted. This was my place, not theirs. I used the dirt where

I'd squatted to perform cleansing rituals on myself. And then I fell in love with the outdoors. I'd rather be outside than in the most beautiful palace in the world.'

‘What about the Goth image? It doesn't really fit, does it?'

‘No. But it keeps people from getting too close.'

‘Hasn't worked with me, has it?'

‘It's worked perfectly. You saw through my disguise. You're worthy of me.'

‘I'm not so sure about that.'

She seized his face between her palms and looked into his eyes.

‘Ray. No matter what you may think of yourself, I can see who you really are and who you can become. I wouldn't have told you any of this if I didn't have the greatest trust in you and the greatest belief.'

‘D, I've dropped out of college. I don't have a job. I spend every day stoned and I waste most of the hours of daylight playing video games. I'm not worthy of anything.'

‘I could slap you for saying that. I believe in you, Ray. You're only like this because you're afraid. When you conquer your fear, you'll be capable of anything.'

‘What fear?'

She put a finger on his heart.

‘The one you have locked away right here.'

His tears came from nowhere. It was as though her finger had pressed some kind of release mechanism. He knew she was a real witch then, a powerful white witch with the keys to open him up. He turned his face into her breasts again and wept there until his tears rolled onto her belly.

When the tears finally stopped he told her everything. He told her about the garbage man.

Part III

‘Respect your mother and father above all things . . .'

Statement taken from Mason Brand's journal, dated September 21
st
, 2001

17

Together, Ray and Delilah watched for the garbage man and his followers.

They looked for signs of him in the back alleys of Shreve and along the winding pathways of the Country Park. Sometimes Ray drove them to the local tip and recycling centre where they threw small bags of rubbish they'd brought from their homes - merely as a reason to be there. All the while, they watched the skips and bays for signs of movement.

Telling Delilah about what he'd seen felt like a confession. He'd been surprised by her reaction. She'd listened closely and nodded from time to time as though she understood something he did not. She seemed to draw meaning from what he said as though interpreting a dream for him. She was silent for a long time after he finished. When she finally responded he was terrified she was going to tell him he was a psycho and she never wanted to see him again. He compared this fear to the feelings he'd had for Jenny. Not even the jealousy he'd felt at The Barge had been as strong as the fear that Delilah might no longer want him. Before she said a word he realised he loved her.

It had started out as fun, a kind of accident.

And now, well, here they were: pleasantly, nakedly tangled in her bed. She was explaining Gaia theory to him and almost welcoming the rise of a new supernatural force. He wasn't fully concentrating; he wondered if he had the guts to ask her to marry him. He didn't, it appeared. Not right at that moment. But the idea was now never far from his mind, the unspoken words lingering around his lips.

‘It's such a privilege to be alive now,' she said, stroking his shoulder.

‘What do you mean?'

‘In times like these. When elemental forces are manifesting on our plane.'

‘Huh, I thought that was the cabin crew handing out the headsets.'

She cuffed him over the head.

‘It's a new era, Ray. The long-awaited age of Aquarius.' He reached to the bedside table to retrieve a Marlboro and her matches. He lit the cigarette, took a pull and passed it to her.

‘Isn't the age of Aquarius meant to be a time of peace, love and harmony?' He asked.

‘Sure. But these things never come without a struggle. This is the dawning. The garbage man and his kind are some kind of message to us. A catalyst perhaps.'

‘But they . . . you know . . . they're hungry.'

‘I'm not saying it's going to be pleasant. Change never comes without pain. Things are not born without the agony of labour. But afterwards . . .'

‘What then?'

‘Who knows? That's up to us, I suppose. We've gone fairly far astray. Look at how we live these days. It would take a hell of a wake-up call to get people to change. Even a little bit. Everyone's too comfortable and too removed from the outdoors. They've forgotten how to touch the Earth.'

‘You're losing me now, hippie-chick.'

‘I'm serious, Ray. You need to understand this.'

‘It's a little difficult to take it all in.'

She stopped caressing him.

‘Yeah? Well make the effort.'

‘Ok. Sorry. But, come on, D, what do you mean by “touch the Earth”?'

‘Almost exactly that. Living in a house with double glazing and central heating, and sleeping in a bed raised up from the floor, and buying food in packets instead of growing it or hunting it; all these things disconnect us from the Earth.'

‘But why should that matter? We're all still healthy - healthier than we've ever been. Besides, wherever we go, the Earth is all around us. We can't get away from it.'

She regarded him with a playful contempt.

‘I don't have to explain this to you, you know. Not if you're not interested.'

He thought about it.

‘I want to understand. I'm just playing devil's advocate for a moment. I mean, I see myself as fairly broad-minded but do you think anyone else will listen when you start talking about connecting with the Earth? If you can't persuade me, what hope have you got?'

‘That's easy enough. It won't be me explaining it. It'll be your friends. The ones I haven't met yet.'

Ray knew she had a point. No one was going to listen to a voluptuous Goth girl - except him of course - but they might listen to a thundering, man-shaped tower of scrap and living tissue. Especially if he was backed up by the ‘friends' Ray had seen.

Or maybe the prime minister would simply call in the army and blow it off the face of the Earth everyone was so averse to touching. Destroy it, like people did with everything else they were too stupid or too lazy to understand.

He was still puzzled though.

‘When the one I saw with Jenny bit off her toe, it was
ravening
. Do you think it would have stopped before it killed her if we'd just let it carry on?'

‘Absolutely not. It wouldn't have left a scrap of her.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I don't
know
for certain but I'm fairly sure. This thing -
these
things - it sounds like they start out as small groupings of waste. I bet they don't survive long if they don't consume living things. But if they get enough of what they need, they grow up like the one you saw coming out of the landfill. God knows what that one's had to eat.'

‘Then they're evil,' said Ray. ‘Predatory, carnivorous, evil beasts. We've got to stop them.'

Delilah pushed him away.

‘You can't mean that. They're not evil, Ray. Are bears evil? Or lions or crocodiles? All of them are capable of killing people and many of them do. But does that make them evil? They're just trying to survive.'

‘Maybe,' he said.

He took the cigarette back and smoked it quietly. She watched him.

‘I haven't convinced you, have I?'

‘To a degree, you have. But you haven't seen the bloody things, D. Maybe they're not actually evil but how will they know when to stop . . . adding to themselves? What if they don't? Ever?' He turned to look at her. ‘What will happen to us?'

He knew she would try to make light of it. She wanted a future with him too - he could read it in her face. As glad as he was of that, he began to experience a clean and simple dread. Here was something real and valuable, right here with him now. Real love. He recognised it because his mind and body were hard-wired to recognise it. Upon the strength of this emotion, the lives of human beings were built. But with this wonderful, joyful thing - intertwined with it - came this new possibility, the possibility that he could lose it all before he'd had the chance to truly be part of it. He couldn't accept the cruelty of it.

But whatever witticism she'd hoped to use never came. Perhaps she didn't want to dishonour what they were feeling with jokes and avoidance of the truth. She took the cigarette away from him and put it in the ashtray, still burning. She slipped down the bed a short way so that their heads were level. She held his face and kissed him. He gave himself to the kiss without thought. Lost himself to her.

What choice was there?

***

The canal towpath was overgrown with weeds only just beginning to die back after the long summer. Nettles leaned in from both sides of a narrow green corridor, kept open only by the regular passing of walkers and fisherman. On the walks Kevin and Jenny had taken since he'd moved in, they'd seen kingfishers, woodpeckers and even a few grass snakes. Over the last few days, however, the incidence of any wildlife seemed to have diminished. He assumed it was the onset of cooler, shorter days making the animals less active.

They kept away from Shreve Country Park. Kev didn't want to be anywhere near his old home and he'd assumed Jenny wouldn't want to run into Tamsin. She'd protested, though.

‘Why should we change our routines? What's she going to do?'

‘It's not that, Jen. I need the space for a start. And I could do without a nasty confrontation. I want some time to get my head together, plan something for us.'

She hadn't pushed him further.

Now, as they walked in single file to avoid nettle stings, Kev felt that all things were in place, life was simple and good. He reached behind and Jenny took his hand for a few paces. Not far beyond, the path broadened. On their left was an ancient hedgerow and on their right, growing out of the canal, were crowds of rushes. As soon as there was space, they walked beside each other. Kev put his arm around her shoulder.

‘I've been thinking, Jen. Why don't we move? Somewhere that's got countryside all around it. Miles and miles of land and trees and rivers and hills.'

‘What's wrong with Shreve?'

‘Nothing's wrong with it, as such. But what have we got? We've got a stinky, silted up old canal. We've got a reservoir disguised as a park. And we've got one of the biggest landfill sites in the country. The rest of it is industrial estates and council houses.'

‘What about all these fields?'

‘Yeah, but we've had to drive to get here. And all this land is cultivated. I want to go to a place where you look out the window and it's wild. You step outside your front door and you're surrounded by nature. Untouched. As it was meant to be.'

‘What about your sports car?'

‘I'll flog it.'

‘What about your wife?'

‘She could use a good flogging too.'

He watched Jenny's smile and thought that it was reserved somehow. A little cautious. He stopped walking and turned to her.

‘Listen to me, Jen. This is not one of those situations in which the husband has a long-term mistress but never leaves his wife. Tamsin is out of my life forever as far as I'm concerned. She'll do everything she can to take half of everything I've got but I don't care about that if you don't. I want to be with you, Jen. Full stop. End of story. Start of new book. Whatever we've got - love, money, dreams - let's take it all and go somewhere we can enjoy it. Somewhere beautiful. I don't know how it's happened but being with you has opened me up to seeing the world in a different way. I feel alive like I never did before.'

If he'd expected a teary, joyful acceptance of his outpouring, he didn't get it.

‘Is this the “something” you've been “planning”?' She asked.

‘I suppose it must be. I didn't really know what it was until it came out.'

‘Look, Kev . . .'

Jenny trailed off and looked away.

He'd hoped that it would go so much better than this. That she'd be keen to escape with him. Escape what, though? Was that all he'd come up with in the time he'd been thinking about all this? Was he just finding a way to run away from it all? To avoid it?

‘Jen, I'm sorry. Maybe this is all too soon. I just thought. . . I mean I really believed that we were . . .'

Jenny wasn't listening to him any more. She was staring at something in the rushes. He was about to lose his temper with her for taking no notice when he realised that her face had drained pale.

‘Jenny, what's wrong?'

The rushes were shifting, rustling. Something in the canal was making them do that. Something large and heavy. Jenny was backing away.

‘Babe, hold on. It's probably just -'

Her scream, disgusted and terrified, cut him off.

He stepped in front of her to see down from her angle into the rushes. Something writhed there, trying to heave itself up from the water. Its movement reminded him of a seal or walrus that was close to drowning. The thing had no grace of movement. It merely rolled and floundered,
pulsated
almost, in its attempt to be free of the muddy canal water and the clinging reeds. He had the feeling he'd seen something like this, something he could make no sense of, before.

But this was no déjà vu. Down in Shreve country park that morning, months ago now, the dogs had attacked something similar. This coiling, juddering shape gave off the same rank odour of effluent and trash. This time there was no mistaking the facts. It really was moving. The thing was alive and independent in its own right. Unless someone was playing a practical joke on them - he wanted so much to believe that was what this was. The thing's movement was so jerky and so mechanical; it could easily have been some kind of home-made machine. He glanced around hoping to catch sight of someone with a remote controller, someone else with a hand held camcorder. They were alone.

And the thing was making progress. Part of it was on the towpath now. Shit. What was it? He could see eyes. Too many of them and none of them the same. He could see skin and animal pelts. He could see polythene bags of various colours, wrinkling and stretching taut as the thing heaved itself up. And then he saw an opening that could only have been a mouth. And in it he saw two horizontal, parallel knife blades, one in the upper part of the opening and one in the lower. The mouth hole closed and opened again. A shearing sound came from the blades.

Finally, Jen spoke in a whisper:

‘Run, Kev.'

‘What?'

‘RUN.'

***

They slept as they lay when it was over, tangled, sticky, elated. But Ray knew they'd both felt the first wounds of impending heartbreak. Their love, their lives, were fragile. Never more so than now.

A scream woke Ray. His eyes flicked open and he listened. For a very few seconds he was able to indulge the idea that he might have dreamed it. He'd dreamed so many in the last few days. Then he heard another. The first had been fear. This one was pain. Delilah was awake too by then. They both jumped out of bed.

There were other screams now, further away. Shouts of panic and shock nearer by. The sound of people running in the street. Ray looked out of the window as he zipped up his jeans. For a moment he was absolutely still. Delilah joined him.

‘Fucking hell,' he said. Delilah was more specific.