Sin City (19 page)

I put the phone down quickly. You're not allowed to see the doctor unless you're really ill. It's to do with bombs again. Sister said if they spent less on bombs and more on health, every patient could see a doctor regularly and she'd have less to do herself.

I remember now, the number's 6-3-something, so I dial the 6 and 3, hear a lot of buzzing and a sudden louder click.

“This is a recorded message. The main swimming pools are closed at present due to unusually low temperatures. Should you wish to swim in our luxury indoor heated pool, then please …”

“Hallo,” I say. “Is anybody there?”

The same message starts again. “Closed at present due to unusually low temperatures.” I'm shivering already. That cold jet's getting colder, blowing like a wind. I try another switch to turn it off. Loud blaring music fills the room. There's music on the TV set as well, but different, quieter music – a woman and three men whispering with a band. The two musics get mixed up, keep colliding in my head. I put my hands over my ears to try block the noise out. I'm shivering so much, my ears shake with my hands.

“Carole, please come back.” I'm talking out loud, but nobody can hear me. I can hardly hear myself. Perhaps Carole's gone for ever, left me here alone. I've got to speak to Sister, ask her what to do. I pick up the other phone, the red one by the bed.

“Should you wish to swim in our luxury indoor heated …”

I mustn't cry. The tears will stain the sheets and Carole says they're satin like Marilyn Monroe's. I don't know who she is.

Perhaps I'll write to Sister. There were postcards in that folder, postcards of the Gold Rush. I think they're free. Sister pins her cards up on the notice board, so they'd see my name every time they passed it, the patients and the nurses. I couldn't disappear then.

I fetch my pencil and a card, but I don't know what to write. I've never written to anyone before. In the end, I just put “We've arrived.” The card looks empty still.

My writing's very wobbly as I sign my name. The pencil's shaking with the cold and you need smaller hands to write well. I've never liked my hands. They're rough and badly shaped as if nobody had time to smooth them down or finish off the fingers. Carole's hands are plump, but very small.

I'd better go and look for her. I can't stay here alone, not all night, not when it's so cold. I could also post the card.

I think I'll put my Crimplene on. I feel safer in a frock I bought at Beechgrove. It makes me feel it's not so far away. I button up my coat, fetch my other shoes, the brown ones from the jumble sale. I like the Beechgrove jumble sales. They always have a Cake Stall with every sort of cake.

I close the bedroom door, take the stairs quite slowly. I can't feel my feet at all now, and I wouldn't want to fall. It's so quiet outside, it's like a shock. I stand in the corridor, trying to hold the silence in my hands. I'm not so frightened now, without the noise. There's nobody around, but a sign says “elevator” and I remember that's a lift because Carole wrote it down for me, and also “restroom”. There's a lady in the lift and I ask her where the river is.

“River?”

“Yes, my friend's gone on a boat ride. I've got to find her.”

We've reached the ground floor now. The doors are opening and the lady's walking through them without answering me at all.

I ask again, but only for the exit. Once I get outside, I'll probably see the river for myself.

No … I can't see anything but lights. I'd better stop. I'm blinded. They're so bright, it's like the daytime, except the sky is black. There's not a lot of sky left. It's mostly filled with buildings, very tall and grand ones, which keep flashing and blurring as if I've left my glasses off again. My eyes hurt with the colours, which are changing every minute. There are signs as well, and letters, but I can't read what they say because they're shivering and spinning and I'm not sure if I'm ill or not. Sometimes with the pills, you see lights and even pictures which the doctors say aren't there.

I stand by a palm tree, hold on very tight. I mustn't start walking until things have settled down. I take a few deep breaths, but the signs and colours won't keep still. I think they're really there. I'd better find a side-street, somewhere quieter.

I take a few slow steps. It's very cold, almost colder than the bedroom and I haven't any gloves. Carole must be frozen on a boat.

I walk on down the side-street, see a lady standing in a doorway.

“Excuse me, please. I'm looking for the boats.”

“How d'ja mean, boats?”

“Well … my friend said a boat. I think she did,” I add. If I'm ill, I may have got it wrong.

“Did she mean the Paddlewheel?”

“Is that a boat?”

“It sure looks like one, yeah. It's a big entertainments centre – you know, hotel and casino and all the kiddies' rides – skeeball alleys, video games, carousels – all that sort of thing. Or she could have meant the Showboat. That's built like a model of a nineteenth century riverboat – real cute. It's quite some way, though. You'd better take a taxi.”

I thank her and walk on. I haven't any money and I'd feel frightened in a taxi. Walking warms me up a bit and the streets are very empty, once I've left that big one with the lights. I'm looking for a pillar-box, but there doesn't seem to be one. Perhaps they don't have them over here. They may even read your letters first, like they used to do at Belstead.

It's snowing.

No, it can't be. I must be seeing things again. Carole said Las Vegas has no winter and the summers are so hot you can't go out after ten o'clock in the morning or you simply frizzle up. She said they don't have snow and not much rain. But it's been raining since we got here and now it's turned to snow. I can feel the flakes falling on my face, see them filling up the sky. Perhaps it's artificial snow. I wish they'd turn it off.

I start to run, back the way I've come. My shoes keep slipping off and my fingers hurt with cold. At last I see the lights again. Everything is whirling – snowflakes, colours, letters and my head. A huge hotel is glittering on one corner, silver letters written on the glass. I try to spell the words out: “PEACE,” “JOY,” “GOODWI …” I choose the door with “PEACE” on it, push it open.

I'm hot now, boiling hot. I'm in a huge big room with crowds and crowds of people playing all those games we saw before. Everybody's smoking like at Beechgrove, but fat cigars which smell. There are lots of different noises in my head, clatterings and clangings, constant whirrs and buzzes, horrid jangly music. I've never been this bad before. Perhaps I need new pills.

There's hardly room to move, but I find a corner, press myself against the wall. It must be a party because everyone's dressed up. There's a woman in an evening dress and a black man in a white fur coat which goes right down to the ground.
My
coat is fur, the Friend said, though it's rubbed away in patches and the fastening doesn't work. I brush the snow off, edge along the wall. I'll never find Carole if I stay in this one corner.

The music's getting louder. Perhaps it's the music from my room which I've brought with me in my head. I squeeze through all the people, reach another room. A band is playing on a stage – five men and two blonde girls. No, one. The same girl doubled. I shut my eyes, blink hard before I open them again.

Still two, exactly the same in every little detail; not just their silver dresses and their scarlet shoes, but their hair and mouths and noses, their shape, their height, their hands. I feel very scared. I think I'm seeing double. That happened once before because I changed my drugs. Everything was blurred, but always two of it. These two girls aren't blurred, though, but very clear and sharp.

I'll have to see a doctor, not here, but back in Beechgrove. They may send me for shocks. We all had shocks at Belstead, even children. A Dr Asif gave them. He wasn't well himself. I used to hate the shocks. When they wake you up, you're someone different, but you can't remember who.

Someone's speaking to me. I think it's someone real, though I may be hearing voices. A face looms up, a kind face.

“Aren't they great? They're absolutely identical, you know. They were born like carbon copies, but it takes some work as well. I mean, they both have to diet and make sure they stop at exactly the same weight, and if one goes to a beauty parlour, the other has to follow and have just the same deal – same shade of colour-rinse or same half-inch off the ends. They say they've both got a mole on their right inside-thigh – exactly the same size and in exactly the same spot. Isn't that something? I've seen twins before, of course, on stage, but never two as close as that.”

“Twins?” I say. I feel a little better. We had twins in Beechgrove once, in Carlton Ward – Joan and Vera. They said Vera wasn't ill at all, but they refused to be split up.

“Can I get you something, Ma'am?”

A waitress has come up to me. She's forgotten to put her skirt on and is wearing just her tights with a jacket on the top. I walk away so I won't embarrass her. I've got to look for Carole.

It's very hard to look. There are too many people and a lot of them just push. One man almost burns me with his lighted cigarette. The slot machines keep spitting out their coins. The noise goes through my head. There isn't any air, only smoke. Coloured lights are circling from the ceiling so that people have green hands and purple faces. “Win a car!” the signs say. “Win a colour TV set!” “Win ten thousand dollars!” I'd like to win, so I could give them all to Carole. She feels stronger when she wins things.

I walk all around the lounge, but I can't see any sign of her. I find another exit which leads into the street. It isn't snowing now. Perhaps it never was. There are puddles, though, with lights and pictures in them, and a tall glass building which bends and trembles as shadow-cars drive right through the glass. There are quite a lot of real cars splashing me with water as I walk along the street. The street is made of lights. Some of them have broken and spilt out onto the pavement in fizzy pools like Lucozade. I wish I weren't alone.

Suddenly I stop.

CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS.

It says “CIRCUS” eight whole times in different places. I'm counting all the letters, white letters and pink letters and huge red ones, higher up. My heart is beating very fast. I found a book called
Big Top
once. It was lying on a table in St Joseph's. I don't know how it got there because we weren't allowed books like that, not happy ones with pictures and no prayers. I didn't steal it, just looked at all the pictures – elephants and tigers, acrobats and clowns. I liked the clowns the best.

There's a clown in front of me, so huge he's like a giant, taller than the buildings. The palm trees only reach his waist. Each foot looks bigger than a car. He's holding a lollipop which is like a big red wheel. He's made of lights and his body is a notice board. “FREE CIRCUS ACTS” it says. Circuses cost money. That's what grown-ups always said when I asked if I could go. “FREE”, I spell again. The clown is pointing to a pink and white striped tent. No, it's not a tent. It can't be. It's far too big and solid.

I walk up to the entrance which is very grand with flags. There isn't any queue and no one's taking tickets. I hope I'm not too late.

I push the doors, look around. It's no different from the place I've just been in. The same flashing lights and rude machines, the same pale and angry people sitting at the tables playing games. I rush up to a waitress. This one has her skirt on, but it's the shortest skirt I've ever seen seen, not decent.

“Circus?” I gasp out. I'm so worried that I've missed it, I can't form proper sentences. “The clown … Big top …” I start again. “Free circus acts, it said. Out there on that …”

“Yeah.” She points. “Up on the first floor.”

The escalator has broken, is jammed with people walking up. I join them, step off at the top. I can't see anything. Only heads and heads and heads. Guns are firing all around me. It must be war again. I struggle to turn back, but I'm not me any more. I'm just a crowd, a crush of fighting bodies. A pushchair-wheel runs over my left foot. I swallow tears of pain. I trip on something. Impossible to fall. Too many people pressing round me like a wall. Nobody is whole, though, only feet and backs and elbows; bits of broken faces, gash-red mouths, sockets with no eyes in.

“Let me out,” I whisper.

No one hears. Everybody's pushing. There isn't any circus, only humans with clown faces, eating eating: bags of crisps exploding in their mouths, popcorn showering from a chute, black ice cream foaming into cornets.

“Help,” I say. “Please help me.”

A little boy with monkey eyes is staring. I try to smile, but my face is stiff and dry. If I smile, it might crack and split apart. I may simply smash to pieces like a cup. Now he's got a gun, the monkey-boy, a gun as big as he is. I think he's going to shoot me. I shut my eyes, hear the bangs. No pain.

A long time passes.

When I look again, things are clearer. It isn't war. The guns are only toy ones; guns for shooting dolls off stands, guns for smashing clowns. There are darts to throw as well, and balls to roll, and hammers to hit moles with when they pop up from their holes. I watch a man kill seven moles. He's laughing as they die.

“Carole … ?” I say it very softly.

There's no Carole here, no river. There
is
a stage with wires and a trapeze, but it's dead and dark and empty, and everything costs money, even killing moles. I pass a mirror, stop. I've shrunk – gone very short and squat, as if someone's squashed me down and I'm oozing out both sides. I take a step towards the glass. An ugly dwarf waddles up to meet me, face flattening like a tea-plate.