The Bunker Diary (17 page)

Bird rolled his eyes.

I really hate that bastard. It’s not
just him, although he’s bad enough, it’s everything he represents. Commuter
man. Suit man. Business man. Always moaning and whingeing about something, never
satisfied. The train’s late, it’s too cold, I’m so
tired
.
They’re all the same, like full-grown babies in suits. Toys in their briefcases,
trains instead of bikes, wives instead of mothers, beer instead of
milk … you know what I mean? It’s like they’ve grown up into
nothing more than twisted children. They’ve taken their childhood, taken all the
nice stuff, and turned it into crap. It really annoys me. I don’t know why, it
just does. People like Bird, I see them every day … I
used
to see
them every day, when I was busking around the station. I used to see the way they looked
at me, like I was nothing, a piece of shit. And I used to think – I could
buy
you. I could buy everything you own forty times over, so don’t look at me like
that.

And I think that’s what sickened me
the most. I hated the way they turned me into one of them.

Back to the table.

So Bird’s rolling his eyes at me,
giving me that piece-of-shit look, and it’s really starting to annoy me. I’m
about to say something to him when Jenny tugs at my hand and whispers something in my
ear.

‘What?’ I say.

‘Tell Him you’re sorry,’
she whispers.

‘I just did –’

‘No, not Bird.’ She glances
upwards. ‘Him, The Man Upstairs.’

I look at her. ‘Sorry?’

‘That’s what He
wants.’

Bird leans across the table.
‘What’s she saying?’

I ignore him. I can’t stop smiling at
Jenny.

‘Hey,’ says Bird, slapping his
hand on the table. I glare at him. His face is ugly and red. He says, ‘You yapping
to your girlfriend or talking to me?’

I lean across the table and punch him in the
head.

Meeting adjourned.

I’ve done what Jenny suggested.
I’ve apologized to The Man Upstairs. I wrote another note. It wasn’t hard.
It’s easy to say sorry, especially when you don’t mean it.
Please
forgive me for trying to escape
, I wrote.
I promise I won’t do it
again and I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. I realize it was a
selfish thing to do. I’m genuinely sorry. Please don’t punish us any
more.
Linus.

I put the note with a shopping list and
placed it in the lift.

I felt like a little kid sending a note to
Santa. He doesn’t believe in Santa, this little kid, but what harm can it do?
What’s he got to lose?

Note to The Man Upstairs: if you
are
reading this, please ignore the bit about not meaning it when I said I
was sorry. I
am
sorry. Really. I was only pretending when I said I didn’t
mean it. I was just showing off. You know, trying to act tough.

OK?

Of course, if you’re
not
reading this …

I’ve spent the whole day wallowing in
self-pity. I don’t know what’s brought it on all of a sudden. Nothing
terrible has happened, nothing out of the ordinary. I just woke up feeling really
shitty. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. In fact, I quite like
feeling sorry for myself. It’s got a warm, kind of snuggly feel to it. And
it’s not a bad thing to feel, is it? I don’t think it is. As long as you
keep it to yourself, I think self-pity is fine.

Of course, strictly speaking, I’m not
keeping it to myself. I’m telling you about it. But if I accept you as me for the
moment, then I think I can just about get away with it.

And if I can’t?

Who cares?

The funny thing is, the more I feel sorry
for myself, the less deadly it all becomes. Yes, it’s crap. It’s unfair.
It’s unbelievable. Unbearable … well, no, it’s not unbearable.
Nothing’s un
bear
able. Unbearable means unendurable. If you can’t
endure something, you’re dead. If it doesn’t kill you, you’ve endured
it. Isn’t that right? It can’t be unbearable. As long as I’m alive,
I’m bearing it. And even if it
does
kill me, what will I care? I’ll
be dead. There’ll be nothing to endure. Unless, of course, there really
is
a place called Hell.

Now there’s a scary thought.

Eternal fire and damnation, devils,
pitchforks, hot coals … Jesus, imagine
that
! You spend all your life
laughing at the idea of Heaven and Hell, and then you die, thinking that’s the end
of it, but it’s not. There really
is
a Hell. It’s true, after all.
It’s
true
. And you’re there, getting all burned up and cursed by
the Devil, getting your eyes poked out by screaming goblins …

How annoying would
that
be?

There’s another way of looking at
it.

Let me think a minute.

Right.

Actually, this isn’t anything to do
with Hell. It was something else I was thinking about. I was thinking how unfortunate I
am. How unfortunate to be plucked from nowhere and stuck in this shit-hole with no
prospect of ever getting out. I was thinking – I must be one of the most unfortunate
people in the world. And then I
really
started thinking about it.

OK, I told myself, forget about the others,
just pretend you’re on your own down here. It’s just you. And then ask
yourself, Am I the most unfortunate person in the world?

Think about it.

Theoretically, it must be possible to make a
list. You start with the luckiest person in the world, the person who has everything
they could ever want and more, then you work your way down through all the seven billion
or so people who live on this planet until eventually you get to the most unfortunate
person in the world. The unluckiest, the unhappiest, the one whose life is worse than
everyone else’s.

But then you’ve got a problem.

You’ve got this person, the most
unfortunate person in the world, the person who’s right at the bottom of the list,
OK?
But just above this person, you’ve got the
second
most unfortunate person in the world. Now think about it. Which one would you rather be?
The most unfortunate person in the world? Or the second most unfortunate person in the
world? I know which one I’d choose. I’d go for the first one, The Most
Unfortunate Person in the World. At least I’d
be
something. I’d
have a title. I’d have something that no one else had. I mean, who the hell would
want to be The
Second
Most Unfortunate Person in the World? Second is nowhere.
Second is nothing. No one wants to know about second. And there’s the problem.
Because if being The Most Unfortunate Person in the World gives you something that the
Second Most Unfortunate Person in the World doesn’t have, then you can’t be
The Most Unfortunate Person in the World, can you? But then, if the Most Unfortunate
title really belongs to the Second Most Unfortunate Person, that means
they’ve
got something the new Second Most Unfortunate Person
doesn’t have …

And on and on and on.

I can’t remember what I was thinking
about now.

It doesn’t matter.

Whatever it was, it’s made me feel
better.

When the lift came down this morning there
were two bags of food on the floor. We were all pretty hungry but we had no way of
telling if it was drugged or not.

‘I’m not touching it,’
Bird said. ‘I’d rather starve than go through all that again.’

I looked at him. He glared back at me for a
moment, then looked away. There’s an ugly red welt on his cheek from where I hit
him. I wish I hadn’t hit him. I don’t regret it, but I regret
all the crap that comes with it – the friction, the inference, the
possibilities, the reaction … the bruised knuckles.

I should have remembered Pretty Bob’s
advice.

Bob’s a born fighter. He told me once
that fighting is all about attitude. Hit early, hit hard, fight dirty. Cheat. And the
thing I really should have remembered – if you’re going to hit someone in the
head, don’t use your hands. Hands are fragile. They break. If you’re going
to hit someone in the head, use a stick, or a brick, or a guitar, or your head. Heads
are hard and heavy. They hurt people. They surprise people. People expect a punch, they
don’t expect a head butt.

I hadn’t used my head.

‘Someone’s got to try the
food,’ I said. ‘We can’t just stand here staring at it all
day.’

Jenny said, ‘Why don’t we draw
lots?’

‘What for?’ said Bird.

‘To see which one of us is going to
taste it.’

‘Not me,’ Bird snorted.

‘Chrissake,’ said Fred, stepping
forward and reaching into one of the bags. He pulled out an apple and sank his teeth
into it. Half the apple disappeared in one bite. We stood there watching him. He chewed
noisily for a while, swallowed, then ate the rest, core and pips and all. Without
pausing, he reached into the bag again and selected a packet of cheese. Ripped it open,
tore off a chunk, and stuffed it in his mouth.

‘Hey,’ said Bird. ‘Slow
down.’

‘You want some?’ Fred said,
offering the cheese.

Bird backed away. ‘Just take it easy.
Leave some for the rest of us.’

Fred grinned. ‘He who
dares …’

‘Don’t eat it all,’ I
said.

Fred stopped chewing and stared at me.
‘You what?’

I looked him in the eye. ‘Don’t
eat it all. Save some for Jenny. She needs it more than you.’

He carried on staring at me for a long
moment, his eyes hard and vicious, and I thought for a moment that he was going to crush
my head or something. But after a while he just nodded his head, winked at Jenny, and
gave me a cheesy smile.

‘No sweat,’ he said. He dropped
the cheese into the bag and picked out some chocolate and a loaf of bread. ‘Give
me fifteen minutes with these. That should be enough. If I’m not lying on my back
jabbering at the moon in fifteen minutes, then get stuck in, OK?’

‘Thanks.’

He stuffed a chunk of chocolate into his
mouth and started off towards his room, keeping his eyes fixed on me as he went. He was
still smiling, but it was the kind of smile that shrivels your heart. As he passed me he
leaned down and spoke quietly in my ear. Two short words. ‘Watch it.’ And
then he was gone.

The food was fine. No drugs, no weirdness,
just a nice full belly. It looks like Jenny was right. He just wanted me to say
sorry.

It baffles me.

I’ve been lying here for the last two
hours trying to work out if it means anything. I apologize, He gives us food.
What’s that all about? Does it mean He’s got a weak spot? Is He a sucker for
good manners? Or is He trying to
train
us? I don’t think so. I
don’t think it means anything. I think He was probably going to feed us anyway.
The food coming down this
morning, the morning after I apologized,
that was just a coincidence. He’s just toying with us. Give and take. Good and
bad. Hot and cold. The food wasn’t a gift or a reward or anything …

Or maybe it was.

Maybe that’s His thing, punishment and
reward. You know, like we’re rats in a cage and we have to learn which buttons to
push. Push the right one and we get some food, push the wrong one and we get
whacked.

Maybe that’s it.

I don’t know.

I’m fed up thinking about it, to be
honest.

I’m fed up thinking about
anything.

And I’m fed up talking to you, as
well. It’s like talking to a brick wall. I mean, what do you do? Nothing. You just
sit there saying nothing and doing nothing. You make me sick.

God, I want to
do
something.
Anything. Dig a hole, smash down the wall, blow something up, hit someone,
anything …

I just want to
DO SOMETHING
!

11.30 p.m.

Sorry.

Two days of food, two days of peace and
quiet. Normally I like a bit of peace and quiet, but this isn’t normal.
Nothing’s normal any more. This isn’t a relaxing sort of peacefulness,
it’s dull and deadly, like everyone’s given up hope.