The Wall (12 page)

3) Torch.

The size of a marker pen, doctored with a few strips of packing tape around the middle, like a belt with a dangling end. The idea is that I’ll be able to put the loose flap of packing tape in my mouth and cast some light ahead of me, but still have both hands free for crawling.

4) Map.

It’s easy enough to find one on the web and print it out. Not so easy to locate my start or end point. After studying it night after night, rehearsing in my mind the route the girl took to walk me back to the tunnel, I draw on, in pencil, an educated guess as to where I think I might emerge, where I expect to find the flying cake bakery, my path along the main shopping street, and the three turns that should take me to the girl’s house.

The map is only a safety net. I’ve committed as much of it as I can to memory, and plan not to look at it anywhere in the open. I can’t risk being seen reading a map.

The last thing I do before putting it in the bag is to rub out my route.

5) The scarf.

6) The flip-flops.

7) Four plastic bags.

Plain, with no writing or logos.

8) Football kit.

To be placed over the top of numbers 1 to 7, in case Mum glances in the bag before I can get out of the house.

I don’t feel any fear until the moment I find myself standing on top of the dumpster, about to climb into the building site. The fringe of splinters sticking up from the top of the hoarding is the first thing to remind me that this isn’t just an adventure, a lark. The feel of that jagged wood sticking into my flesh comes sharply back to me, sparking off a chain of half-forgotten memories: the sour, eggy smell; the enveloping darkness; the clammy soil against my palms; my breathless gasps echoing ahead of me like water slithering down a plughole.

I thought I’d remembered my fear, but it’s clear that the truth about going under The Wall has slid away. The memories I’ve been carrying around are like an outline, a dot-to-dot of the real thing, and only now, near the entrance to the actual tunnel, about to go through, do I feel the image filling itself in. Up close, the sheen of excitement evaporates, giving way to a sickening sensation in my throat and belly. This was fear: dark, fierce and chilling.

I knew my resolve was bound to falter at some point, and I prepared myself for this moment with a short loop of invented footage, staged like an interview: my father, looking out at me, telling me to be brave and carry on, telling me I’m doing the right thing, reminding me how much I owe the girl and what it would mean to ignore this debt. I stand there on the dumpster with my eyes closed and watch it once, twice, three times. When my eyelids pop open, I’m ready to carry on.

Seeing how high it is from the dumpster to the top, I realise I can’t get over the fence carrying the bag on my back. With the added weight, I won’t be strong enough to pull myself up using just my fingertips.

I lower the bag off my shoulders and swing it like a pendulum, back and forth, until each swing is up to shoulder height, then with all my might I toss it upwards. It hits the top, teeters, then clatters down noisily on the other side. I didn’t design the package for such a long fall, and it seems unlikely it will have landed undamaged. I should have chosen better. The jar of honey was a bad idea.

I hoist myself up on to the fence and, without pausing to look at the demolished house, climb down to examine my bag. I yank the zip open, pull out the decoy football kit and chuck it aside. As I feared, the honey jar has smashed. The only other breakage I can spot is the bag of sugar, which has split.

There’s no time now to worry about the honey, or to clear up the mess. I quickly strip, toss my clothes to the ground, and put on the outfit I bought at the charity shop. A sticky streak is smeared across one thigh, but I look OK. I look ready for the other side.

I lift the bag on to my shoulders and hurry towards the tunnel, grabbing a quick glance at the demolished house. It’s still there, just how I remembered. I knew it would be, but I have to check. Even when something’s real, and right in front of you, it can still be hard to believe.

The hatch is squarely in place over the hole. Was that how I left it? Did I move it back into position after I climbed out? I can’t remember. Footsteps criss-cross the area – people have come and gone – but when, I have no idea.

I shunt the metal aside with two hands and lie on my belly, staring down into the darkness. There’s nothing to see, and nothing to hear. If anyone is down there, they are still and silent. My nostrils take in a dank, sour waft. I haul the bag towards me, lower it as far as I can into the column of black air and let it drop. I can hear the glass of the honey jar shattering further. The sound of it reminds me of the torch, which I have stupidly left in the bag.

I hurry, knot by knot, down the rope to the bottom of the hole, and scrabble through the bag in search of the torch. If it is broken, the whole thing’s off. I can’t go through the tunnel again in the dark. Not for anything or anyone.

As soon as my fingers find the ridged metal in its packing-tape wrapper, I grip and twist. A beam of light springs into my face, dazzling me, and for an instant I am disappointed. My last chance to back out has gone.

Moving as fast as I can, I take up the position I practised in my bedroom, on all fours, with the bag hanging down under my stomach, the straps across the backs of my shoulders. This way it won’t snag on the roof of the tunnel as I crawl. I put the torch in my mouth, gripped by its home-made handle, and look at the narrow void ahead of me. Twinkles of dust swirl in the feeble beam of yellow light. The tape in my mouth is bitter, rough against the tip of my tongue.

It occurs to me that if I hadn’t found this tunnel, I’d never be under the ground like this, surrounded by soil, until I died. This is where you go when your life is over. This is where they put my father.

A memory spirals into my mind of his funeral, of picking up the spade from a conical pile of soil; tossing in my three spadefuls; the
thunk
,
thunk
,
thunk
as the sods of earth landed on the coffin, each one a little less woody than the last; planting the spade back in the soil for the next person; only my mother ahead of me, a long queue of mourners behind; to one side, a row of soldiers in full uniform, heads bowed, armed.

It strikes me that it’s cold down here – pleasantly so at first, a relief from the sun – but if I stop moving, or get stuck, this temperature won’t seem so kind. I don’t know if I’m more afraid of the tunnel or of the place on the other side, but as I begin to crawl, I sense a new kind of fear settle into me, fear like a bite of lemon, sour but also sweet, repellent but delicious. I feel this fear embrace me, focus me, calm me. It tells me not to worry or speculate or count or guess at my progress. I just crawl, without a thought in my head other than the act of crawling.

I have a torch. If anything creeps towards me, this time I’ll see it. I still hear occasional chirrups and squeaks, the odd fluttering of tiny feet, but nothing comes into view.

The idea of The Wall, somewhere above, makes me tingle with excitement. All that concrete is right on top of me, as solid and impenetrable as ever, yet I’m almost magically passing through to the other side with nothing to stop me.

As I shunt myself forwards, the tins of food swaying and clanking under my belly, I notice a new thing about the tunnel. The smell isn’t constant. For one puzzling instant I get a waft of coffee, then, later, cinnamon.

A splintery scrape against my shoulder gives me an explanation. The ceiling props are made from packing crates: planks of wood, buried deep underground, still clinging to a trace memory of their previous life.

Sooner than seems possible – I feel as if I’m barely halfway through – I see the knotted rope looming into the pool of light ahead of me. I accelerate and reach out, needing to confirm with my hands, in this strange, untrustworthy light, that the rope really is the rope.

I slip the bag from my shoulders and unzip it. The honey jar is shattered into several pieces, the lid still neatly screwed into a jagged ring of glass. Sticky, golden goo has filled one corner of the bag and smeared itself over several of the tins and both bags of pasta. Roughly half the sugar has leaked away through the split, but the rest is salvageable.

I take out my four plastic bags and pack the food into them, smearing off the worst of the honey with my hands. I put the flip-flops into the least sticky bag and, using my cleanest fingertips, wrap the girl’s scarf around my neck.

Using a wooden ceiling prop I try to scrape my hands clean, making a row of honey stalactites, then I reach for the rope. I climb as quickly as I can, leaving everything at the bottom, and push the trapdoor aside. I’ve decided that if anyone is in sight, I’ll close the lid, sit tight for a while, then try again. I’ll give it three tries – maybe half an hour or so – then I’ll give up. This is the plan. These are the limits of courage I have set myself. If I do turn back, I can just lift the food out of the tunnel and leave it there. Someone will find it; someone will eat it.

But now, thinking of the boys who tried to attack me, who might be up there looking out for me again, I remember that the tunnel seemed in some way to be theirs. If I leave any food in or near the tunnel, these are the people who will get it. Maybe even the boy who spat on me, the boy who looked like he was ready to kill me. Did I really want to leave a present for him?

Perhaps he’d see the text on the labels and know where it was from, and wonder if someone from the other side had come to help. Perhaps . . . no, I couldn’t imagine my way into their heads. I will never know what those boys think, beyond that they despise me and would be happy to watch me die.
They
know who their enemy is: me, and everyone like me.

Under the bins I can see distant feet walking along the high street, but the alley is empty. I drop down and hoist up the four bags, one at a time. Before my last climb, I switch off the torch and stash it at the honey-free end of the bag.

Crouching at the tunnel entrance, I push the hatch back into place. Before standing upright I look in each direction once more – towards the street; towards the chain-link fence; up at the apartment windows above me; along the spray-painted edifice of The Wall – then I loop my sticky hands into the plastic bags and set off.

With the cap pulled low
and my chin angled downwards, my face is obscured from the view of anyone taller than me. I choose my pace carefully, fast enough to make quick progress, slow enough to appear unhurried. I look around casually and infrequently, as if I’m familiar with my surroundings and know where I’m going.

At the alley exit I glance up at the flying cake bakery. This is my lighthouse, the only landmark I know, the beacon I’ll be relying on to get me home. The same old man, sitting on the same plastic stool, is positioned in his doorway, still fiddling with the same cigarette lighter. He catches my eye for a moment, but doesn’t seem surprised or interested.

I turn right and walk, struggling under the weight of my bags. The plastic handles cut into my fingers, but with the load distributed evenly on both sides, there’s no relief to be gained by swapping hands. The muscles across the top of my shoulders feel like taut cables pulled almost to snapping point.

I decide to allow myself a quick pause every couple of minutes, and to use these rests as the moment to look up and gauge my position. While on the move, I just force myself onwards with my head down.

First rest: still on the main street. On my left, a man with no front teeth standing behind a cart arrayed with soaps, wallets, toothpaste, batteries and a heap of cellophane-wrapped remote controls. Distorted music blares from tinny speakers behind his head – a high, mournful, slippery voice. I vaguely remember the look of the stall. Still on course.

Second rest: same street, in a gap between a woman selling small, gnarled aubergines from a wooden box, and a shop festooned with brightly coloured ankle-length coats. I avoid looking at the aubergine woman, sensing that I’m being watched. Up ahead is the first turn-off to the right. This is the one marked on the map, but it feels too close to the tunnel, and doesn’t look right. I decide to keep going.

Third rest: the next junction. There’s a food shop on the corner selling cheese, milk and yoghurt from a glass-fronted fridge out on the street. I think I remember this, turning here, with the girl. A man hovering in the doorway wearing tight, pale jeans says something in my direction and takes a few steps towards me, so without looking up I gather in my bags and hurry down the side street.

Fourth rest: dusty crossroads in the residential quarter. This is different from my pencilled route, which involved a quick left-right at a T-junction, then a fork. Two men shove past carrying a long bundle of copper pipes. They almost knock me over, but I duck out of the way just in time. My cap falls off, but I get it back on fast. Bad idea to stop here. I take the left turn.

Fifth rest: my mental map has dissolved now, bearing no relation to the place around me. Is this the second of the two quick turns? I allow myself only enough time to get some sensation back in my fingers, then take a right, plunging blindly on.