The Physics Of The Dead - A Supernatural Mystery Novel (11 page)

“Where do the Flyers go, Hart?” asked Bowler, quietly. The sound of it was like a child's question. Hart snorted.

“Different frequency. Higher frequency. That's why they go up, my friend, and not because that's where Heaven is. Because we're energy, Bowler,
energy
. We're leftover energy from our lives, something that can't be snuffed out. Hell, maybe we're not even us, maybe we're just our memories, or something that
thinks
we're us, the ghost of an
idea
. But either way, we're just
energy
. Not souls, not
chi
, not ghosts, just
energy
. That's all. The Foyer, here, it's not because we're bad people, or because we're being punished, this is just where we ended up. If we'd died on a Tuesday, if we died wearing blue, if we died having a big steaming
shit
maybe we wouldn't here, who knows? This is how our deaths fired us off, how they set up our afterlife, and it's no more influenced by the way you live your life than the colour of your hair or whether you're double jointed; it's just the way it is. It's just what we happened to
get
.”

Bowler looked him slowly up and down, jaw locked, bottom lip tight. Contempt.

“Sarah was totally right about you.”

Hart's index finger came up, the smugness temporarily rocked. Bowler had stung him with that one, hit him on a sore spot. But he'd been trained in this. Trained to think on his feet. He rallied magnificently.

“Far from it, my friend. I just don't take the fairy position on this. You know what
really
causes the madness here, Bowler? What really makes the madness the biggest threat?” He had his finger right by Bowler's face, but Bowler didn't even notice it. He was staring at Hart with undisguised hatred. This was probably the moment, Bowler would think later, when he truly began to see Hart as a coward.

“It's the boredom.” Hart continued hotly, letting go, releasing,
unloading.
“It's the
boredom
. Those two are worse than anything. Frustration comes from hope, so you can watch that. It's hard, but you can do it. But boredom has to challenged, has to be taken on and beaten, and you have to be able to initiate
change
to do that.” Hart was actually curling his top lip as he spoke. He looked like a snarling dog. It looked repulsive. “You have to be able to change things, to have some influence. And we have none here, Bowler, none. Despite your hippy pretensions, you'd better learn that fast.” The finger wagged closer to Bowler's face, and Bowler reflexively whipped up a hand and slapped it away. Some part of Hart's brain registered this with a small amount of surprise-and Bowler actually jumped slightly at himself-but Hart himself carried on regardless.

“Sarah doesn't realise that I DO want to get out of here, but I'm being smart about it,” Hart said. “I'm avoiding the frustration. But I'll tell you why I want out of here Bowler. It's not to get to Heaven; this place proves beyond a doubt that it doesn't exist. It's for that
change
.” Hart's finger lowered as he lost himself in his vision, eyes widening, and, it seemed to Bowler, Loosening.

Later Bowler would think that not only had he never heard Hart talk about what he actually
did
hope, but how it was the only time he'd ever heard him do so. The change in Hart's demeanour was so odd, so clearly visionary, and so utterly at odds to the Hart he usually saw. Even through his anger, Bowler found it fascinating to see.

“It's to find the way out of here,” continued Hart, eyes darting around as he spoke, “So we can go to the
next
Foyer. And in there, maybe we can find others on our frequency, and then show
them
how to get out too. So we spread it, and we can keep moving. So we can keep having constant change. No more frustration. No more boredom.
Change,
Bowler. That's the best we can hope for! New things. That is the very best we can ever hope for, and you need to know that.” He was back in the room now, attention focused on Bowler, back to being the usual realist he was, but no less animated. “Because unless you want to end up like The Beast-or like your best
buddy
Mark-then you need to just ACCEPT that, and stop thinking like Mary
Poppins
!”

Hart snapped out this last part, and they stood there in silence, breathing heavily and staring into each other’s eyes. It was Bowler's move, this slightly newer Bowler that didn't back down so easily, and Hart found he didn't want him to. There was something raw here, and it was like heroin. It was dangerous, but Hart wanted it. And if he'd have been aware enough to notice, he'd have felt his left hand shaking gently.

But Bowler's next action surprised Hart very much indeed. He began to smile. And it wasn't a smile Hart had ever seen on his friend's face before. It was a cruel smile. And Hart suddenly realised that-somehow, he didn't know in what manner yet-Bowler now had him.

“Well, Hart,” he said, actually taking a small step backwards, and folding his arms, talking with a slow confidence that was also totally new. “You've not really answered my questions, and what you're saying isn't making too much sense. You see...we can't influence change? But what was it you said to me? '
I never thought that it'd work
,' or that it hadn't '
been tried before
?' Or that I'm '
the luckiest
Checkin
there's ever been?
' Who was it that made those things happen Hart? Who made that change? You...or at least, the man you were a year ago.” The smile widened, turned into a grin. “But then, that's how
people
sometimes change, isn't it? Nothing for years, and then all at once...you just change. Things build up, then they fall over, all at once. And you end up different. You end up afraid.”

Hart said nothing, but had gone slightly white. Silent from confusion and surprise, and from what Bowler was saying. Who was this before him? Where was Bowler?

“Or maybe it was me. Maybe I made you lazy. Maybe it was the other way round; fear was motivating you, and then you got me. And
then
you got lazy, and then you got scared. I don't know. But anyway; here's another question for you.” He unfolded his arms, and pointed a finger upwards. The grin was now a smirk, and it looked no better on Bowler than it did on Hart. “If the Flyers, as you say, are going on to another frequency-another Foyer, if you like, the next one across, as you've said-why do they go up? The Foyers wouldn't be on different…I
dunno
...planes, is that the word? We know that, as THIS one is on earth. It's in Coventry, for God's sake. So there's not going to be another Foyer in space, it's not going to be above THIS Foyer, is it?  It'd be next door, wouldn't it? Especially if you're planning on hopping from one to another.”

He stepped in close to Hart again, closer than before, whilst Hart just stayed silent, lips tight and white. Bowler spoke gently now, and slowly. He was feeling it too. That rush. Bowler had never had it in here before, in fact had always avoided confrontation, and this was his first taste of what it felt like in a world without communication, without true excitement, without common change. He revelled in it, and it took him away much faster than it did Hart. “So why do they go up,
hmm
? They'd just go across, wouldn't you say? But they don't. They go
up
.” He punctuated this last point with a mocking finger point to the sky, then didn't
didn't
move for a few seconds. Neither did Hart.

 Bowler slowly raised his arms into an exaggerated shrug.

“Let's say I do believe in fairies, Hart. Fine. So…you tell me. Why do they go
up
?”

Hart whispered something.

“Didn't catch that, Hart. What?”

“I said 'fuck you,' ” repeated Hart through gritted teeth, now glaring at Bowler through eyes that were moist.

Bowler blinked-he had never heard Hart say the F word, not once in all the time he'd been there, it just sounded so awkward and wrong coming from him-and then burst into gales of laughter, doubling over at the waist and roaring.

And Hart turned and walked away without a word, through the
Ikea
coffee table and the
DFS
settee and the plasterboard wall, and left Bowler alone in The Polish Guy's flat, hysterically laughing and slapping his thighs. Meanwhile, the Polish Guy looked at his watch, stood, and headed for his secret box, the one hidden behind the boiler.

***

“That was my Granny's favourite bench, you know,” says Bowler, pointing at a metal construction across the street. They are stood opposite the Godiva statue outside Cathedral Lanes mall, where, in a few years' time, the public will no longer be overshadowed by the plastic canopy currently above their heads. The locals will decide that it is an eyesore, and demand that it be taken down. Bowler has always thought it one of the city's more interesting features, but apparently everyone else will think otherwise. “She used to people watch, she said. Even though she had cataracts.”

It's the first thing he's said since they left the train station, the first thing he's said since he let the train doors slide shut in front of him. Since he watched the train rumble and begin to move, a huge metal mass gathering speed and pulling away. Since he watched it leave, clenching his fists and his jaw and screaming to the heavens, since he turned and walked off the platform without a word.

Hart couldn't blame him. Hart thinks that maybe he shouldn't have warned Bowler-because Bowler NEEDS to go through it, needs to know-but at the same time, he couldn't let anyone go through that without prior knowledge. And as he’d already said...everyone does it in the end. But Bowler, he thinks, needs to do it sooner. Bowler needs to know how things work. He needs to abandon the ideas Hart can already see forming in his head, as they will only make his time harder. Hart does not think these things without sympathy for his companion. But sympathy does not change the way things need to be.

“Whenever I took her shopping, she always insisted we sat on that bench,” says Bowler. “She used to say it was her knees hurting, but they were fine the rest of the time. I knew she just wanted an excuse to make me sit there for an hour. I never minded.” He falls silent again.

Hart thinks for something to say, and the best he can come up with is:

“Do you want to sit on it now?” Bowler doesn't look at Hart; he keeps staring at the bench.

“Yeah,” he says, after a while. “Okay.”

They cross the street, waiting first at the zebra crossing with the other people-partly out of habit, and partly because being in the path of a car is something that Bowler still instinctively avoids after a lifetime of doing so-and fortunately, as it is a weekday afternoon and not a
saturday
, there is still no one sat on the bench, no other old ladies, no other gangs of 17 year old
goths
or
chavs
to take it. They stand in front of it for a moment-Hart not wanting to sit first-and then Bowler sits, suddenly flopping down in it as if his strings have been cut. Hart gently follows.

They people watch. Hart thinks he sees Mark skulking around by the side of Alders, but he says nothing. It isn't the time. Bowler has a lot on his mind, and it's best to let him lead. It is his time.

“I think...it's the not sleeping that is the worst.” says Bowler, picking at his t-shirt. Hart knows Bowler could rip a hole in it and it would be fine again, eventually, just as he knows Bowler is wrong. Not sleeping is very
very
bad indeed, but it's not the worst. Another reason why Bowler needs to ride the train. He needs to go through it ALL. But again Hart says nothing, letting Bowler continue.

“It's all bad enough, but you never get a break, no time off. You can't be physically tired, but your HEAD...” Bowler says, bending over and holding his, elbows on thighs, and when he speaks next his voice is muffled by his forearms. “You just never get a break. Never.”

You've been here a week. Let's see what you think in a year,
Hart thinks, and this is one of the incidents that makes him think he's made a mistake with Bowler. Because if he ever needs to get away-if Bowler really becomes unhinged-Loose Bowler would always follow Hart. The thought is deeply disturbing.

Bowler mutters something, and Hart has to ask him to repeat it. It turns out Bowler had said two words.