Текст книги "The Wall"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

He forgot. I was not afraid of him.

I sprung from my chair and wrenched the handset from his fingers, pulling it as hard as I could. It stretched and strained and then the phone flung from the wall, taking plaster and paint with it. It took him a second to respond, his face suspended in disbelief, but when he did, it was like all our fights were wound up into this one action. He pulled his arm back and slammed me hard with the back of his hand. I flew through the air like a scrap, clipping my temple on the corner of the kitchen table and crumpling to the floor. But I pulled myself back up, bracing myself. The world was spinning, but I wasn’t going to go down so easy.

My mother was wringing her hands, standing by, watching him hurt me. Help me, I thought. For once! Don’t be afraid of him. Help ME!

Paulo gripped the phone. The numbers spun in front of my eyes even though they were still. All the control, all the stifling stiffness, was gone. He shrugged it off like a shroud, revealing the cruel twist of a man beneath. He was going to kill me. I could see it in his eyes—they were a swirl of empty black, ominous, terrifying.

He kicked me in the stomach hard and I fell backwards to the floor again, my head half-hidden under the chair. He clapped the chair out of the way. Telephone raised, ready to strike. He had me pinned.

I had the ridiculous thought that this was a very bizarre way to go, beaten to death with a telephone. My mind conjured up the vision of my death plaque. Here lies Rosa Bianca. Killed by a telephone. If only they hadn’t put her on hold for so long... A laughed slipped out between my lips. Of all the stupid things to do. His eyes were dancing. He licked the corner of his mouth. He would relish this. The humor was instantly eroded and all I could feel was a numb, stepped-on panic.

I couldn’t scream—they would hear me. And I would never let him see me cry. I closed my eyes, flashes of Joseph circling me with his big, strong arms, our son laughing and watching light dance against the timber walls, green hills and trees. Trees everywhere. I’m so sorry.

The dull bang of metal hitting flesh, and mostly bone, disturbed us both. We looked up to see my mother’s small, brown face, her eyes tired but defiant. Just there in the corner of those eyes, I could see me. I gasped as a small trickle of blood worked its way from her eyebrow down her cheek.

She raised the kitchen pan in her hand and struck herself in the face, hard. It would be comical if it weren’t so frightening. She looked at Paulo, her eyes stony. Then she ran for the front door, unlocking it shakily, her hands struggling to grip the key.

She turned to me, and said, “Run, Rosa,” and then she walked out the door screaming, “Help! Help! He’s beaten me. He’s going to hurt my baby!”

Lights were going on. People were stirring. Soon there would be sirens.

Paulo let go like my skin was on fire. The situation was turning on him and he cowered away from me, eyebrows knotted. A chunk of slick, black hair snaked down his forehead. I saw him for what he was, a small, petty man who had no heart and therefore should have no place in mine. I felt a small amount of pity for him. Very small. His life was over.

“You know, it didn’t have to be this way, Paulo,” I said as I stood unsteadily. I carefully took two steps backwards, holding his gaze, and then I bolted out the back door. The flimsy screen slammed several times. Creak, bang, creak, bang.

I heard him mutter, low and desperate, “I know.”

I ran down the side, picked up my bag without breaking stride, and turned away from my old life for good. Goodbye, Mother.

Why do we go around in circles? Wasn ’t I just here? Nothing changes. Nothing ever changes.

I ran. Tears streamed down my face. I failed. I couldn’t save either of them. I hadn’t even asked my sister’s name. I ran through the list of things I’d wanted to say. You’re a grandmother. I’m safe. I’m working hard. I love you. I miss you. I need you. All of it sitting in my stomach, scrawled on a crumpled-up piece of paper, the ink seeping into my veins.

Could I let it go? She didn’t want me. So maybe I could stop worrying about her now. I shook my head, answering my own question. No. It wouldn’t be that easy.

The night air was piercing, like it was part acid cloud. My puffy eyes made it hard to focus, hard to see the dark shapes I needed to follow. I tightened my hair and wiped my nose with my sleeve, a streak of snot pulling across my face and hardening there. I was at the gate to Ring Three now. I crept up to it and carefully wrapped my fingers around the iron, remembering rust stains on my school jacket, a life that didn’t belong to me now, and probably never really did. I breathed a sigh of relief when it opened easily.

Following the curved line of the concrete wall for a while, I then made my way into the street and snuck past several houses. I kept my eye out for my old house but I couldn’t find it without the purple-and-yellow curtains. They all looked exactly the same.

I stole down a street, hugging the unsheltered curb, feeling more and more like I shouldn’t be here and how I couldn’t wait to be home. A mechanical creaking stopped me in my tracks. It sounded like a giant door pulling open, then glass shattering and muffled voices. I froze. There were very few places to hide. I padded into the front lawn of one of the houses and tried to mold into the shape of the Pau Brasil tree, noticing the lined-up bins on the curb in front of every house. What day was it? Wednesday. Bin collection.

“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath.

It was getting closer, inching its way towards me. I watched as a giant, mechanical arm lifted bins to the opening and shook. A man followed the truck, picking up the different recyclables and emptying them into compartments in the base of the truck, below the mouth meant for garbage. I’d never seen it done before. It was so early, 3AM. What an awful, bottom-of-the-rung job.

A man sidled up to the boxes, picked them up awkwardly, and bouncily walked to the truck, whistling as he went. The driver stuck his head out the window and yelled at the man intermittently, or maybe it was a boy. He was short and thin. He moved like he wasn’t collecting garbage. This boy was taking a stroll through a flowered field, sweeping his hands across the blooms, and looking up at the sky. It was clear he wasn’t taking what he was doing very seriously. The man in the truck yelled at him over and over, his hairy arm gesticulating and banging the door. But the boy seemed unperturbed, walking out of sight, snapping his hand together like a talking mouth, wobbling his head and imitating the driver. I tried not to laugh, covering my mouth with my hand. The tears were drying up now.

The truck was one house away and I prayed the headlights would not cast their light on me. My feet were quite obviously sticking out from the thin trunk. I cursed the ineptitude of the tree for being such a poor shelter. My feet were in sneakers; they would know I wasn’t from here. My eyes, my clothes, they would know straight away.

The truck lurched forward, squeaking to a stop at the house I was standing in front of. The headlights illuminated the front door. I knew they would see me. I held my breath and stood on the tips of my toes, trying to press myself further into the bushy foliage and pathetically thin trunk. I should have run. I’d had time. But the boy loading garbage had distracted me and now it was too late.

Metal clashed, glass clinked against glass, and the truck moved. The headlights weren’t shining on me anymore. But the boy was still there, picking up some loose bottles that had spilled out of an overloaded box.

“Make sure you get everything, boy,” the driver growled impatiently as he rolled to the next house.

“Yeah, yeah,” the boy replied, shaking his head.

I looked down at my feet to see a green glass bottle had rolled under my tree.

The boy picked his way up the path, collecting bottles and sticking them under his arm. I moved around the tree, trying to stay out of sight. Thinking, This is it… I’ll be caught and it will be for nothing.

He got to the front door and turned around. I held my breath. A few more steps and I would be safe. Keep moving, I willed. Don’t look under the tree.

He was just off the path when he stopped suddenly, like a thought had occurred to him. He turned around and marched straight towards my hiding place. He leaned down and scooped up the bottle at my feet. He stopped way too long, staring at the dirt. No, he was staring at my shoes. My lungs burned for air.

I relaxed. Gave up. I inhaled deeply. There was no way I could escape this. The boy would call the man in the truck, who would alert the neighbors. I would be up on the center podium tomorrow and my mother would have to watch as they cut my heart out, slit my throat, or did whatever horrible punishment traitors received.

I let out a sigh and closed my eyes, fists clenched, thinking maybe I could punch him, do some damage before I was dragged off.

My thoughts went to Joseph. I was so selfish for wanting to come here. My heart clenched and jolted. I would never see him again. I would never see my son again.

“Soar?” I opened my eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?” A sharp whisper emitted from a dark shadow of a face. I knew that voice.

I peered into it, trying to pick out the features, dark brows, dark eyes, my height. Then he smiled.

“Rash.”

The word escaped my lips like a soft wind.

I gripped both his hands with my own, hard, feeling his skin, his pulse, making sure he was real. They were the same as always, rough, cool. My mouth moved quicker than my brain and the words tipped out of me like a barrowful of dirt.

“Yes, it’s me. Look, we don’t have much time but I’ve come from the outside. There’s a settlement. If you want to come with me, I’ll take you. It’s so much better there. You can be free, safe,” I blurted out in one breath.

Rash watched me, absorbing my words, absorbing me. He looked the same but there was a new sadness behind his twinkling eyes. I wondered how he had ended up here, collecting garbage.

He smiled broadly and that smidge of sadness disappeared like a mirage. He squeezed my hands back fully, the complete action of a friend, a brother who had never let me go. I felt a stitch being sewn, my heart pulling itself back together. “I can’t go. I have a promising career sorting through other people’s garbage for the rest of my life,” he said with a wink. He pulled my ear close to his mouth and whispered, “Let’s get outta here.”

I shivered from the warmth of his breath and smiled.

The driver of the truck was now really worked up, thumping the side of the truck in a temper. “You hopeless good for nothing idiot. Get over here before I chuck you in the compactor.”

“With charming coworkers like that guy, why would I even think of leaving this dream job?” he whispered, and my heart swelled. “Coming!” he shouted to the driver.

He tried to move but I jerked him back. I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t believe he was standing in front of me.

“I’ll need those back,” he said warmly, his eyes resting on our joined hands.

I nodded and released him, feeling instant pain at the separation. I whispered, “Meet me at the gate for Ring Eight at 3:45 AM. Can you get away?” I asked.

“Hey, for the ghost of Construction Class, anything!” Rash said and he sidled away casually, without looking back.

He may have been useless as a laborer but he could act. He slipped naturally back into his garbage-collector role like nothing had happened. And like that, an old ache eased. It lifted and left a tiny, white scar behind as a reminder, but one of my ghosts was freed.

I stood there, waiting for the lights of the truck to recede into the distance. Filled with new energy, I weaved through the shadows like I was air and light. Rash, I found Rash. How he was here, I couldn’t fathom but I’d found him—he was coming with me. I would let this good news cradle me against the grief that was threatening to destroy me, the grief of losing my mother, twice.

I stole my way through the gates without incident, noticing for the first time how empty the streets were. Even on a quiet night there were usually a few police patrols strutting down the pavement, talking loudly and being generally obnoxious. Where was everybody? My feelings of joy at finding my friend were coated in a sap of suspicion. Dust swirled up my nose as a vague breeze swept across the ground. The air never moved very far in here.

I hoped the Spider Careen retrieved would have some answers for us. I prayed her rescue had gone smoother than my own.

Ring Eight—the end of the line in so many ways. It was the end of Pau Brasil; it was the end of life for its inhabitants. For me, it was the end of Woodlands. I would never come back here.

I waited in the shadow of an empty bin on the curb. I would have to wait for at least an hour so I hunkered down on my knees and rested my back against the side of the bin. It was empty but the stench of past garbage was almost too much. I took my breath in small bursts through my mouth, wondering what they did with all the rubbish.

I lifted my hand to my face gingerly, feeling the bulge where Paulo had struck me throb under my fingertips. Paulo. I smiled darkly. By now, the police would have him in custody. Maybe that’s why there was no one in the streets. They were all attending the disturbance I’d made in Ring Two. It seemed unlikely. There should be more, I was sure of it.

I watched as two men in police uniforms set themselves up in a little shed that rested against the outer ring. They must have been on watch and had just changed shifts. They began to play cards on a flimsy table the man had carried in under his arm, talking loudly. There was an older, heavy-looking man with big, muscled arms and stringy hair that fell in a flap over his balding head. The other had a small snip of a face and when he spoke, his voice matched it perfectly, whiny and full of pinched resentment.

“Didn’t you want to go?” the older man snorted.

“They said I couldn’t go, bad legs,” the snip said, slapping his thigh. “There’s a lot of walking, y’know.”

“Sure, sure,” the older one said, punching the whiny one’s arm. “You’re just worried the scary Survivors will getchya with their magical powers.” He wiggled his fingers at the young one like he was casting a spell.

“Shut up! You’re not going either—what’s your excuse?”

“Too old,” he said and went quiet for a while. I shifted on my haunches. “Ha! I win. Another round?”

“Why not? Nothing going on around here,” the younger one shrugged.

I tried to put this together, not that it was hard. This puzzle had flat edges and only two pieces to match up. If the police were not here, they had begun their search for the settlement. Only I didn’t know how long ago they’d left and whether they’d found anything.

After about an hour of watching and listening to this back-and-forth conversation, which mostly consisted of the big one teasing the whiny one and the whiny one, well, whining, I started to wish they had caught me or that the bigger one would slap some sense into the snippy man. He complained and carried on about every single thing. How hot it was during the day, how cold it was at night, how his leg ached in varying temperatures. It seemed to me it ached in every temperature. I was about to stand up and offer to amputate it for him when I saw Rash leaning against the gate, looking for me.

It didn’t take him long to see me crouching behind the bin, rolling my eyes. He walked towards me and my heart started to pound. He would expose us both. But he walked straight past me without casting me a shadow of a glance and made his way up to the policemen. They had a hushed conversation and he shook hands with the older one. They walked away from their post.

Charm can get you quite far it seemed.

The dark mischief walked towards me with his beautiful grin. I felt my own mouth lifting. He was here. He was real.

“How did you do that?” I asked in wonderment as I took his hand and let him pull me up.

“Oh, I just told them I saw an old man had carked it in the house around the corner and he had some nice stuff.”

I was disgusted but relieved at their greed.

I took both Rash’s hands and shook off the grotesqueness this place was steeped in with a shudder. I stared at my friend. My ghost. He returned my stare and then cupped his hand to my face; it felt like he might pass right through me like smoke. When I saw his eyes, the disbelief and happiness reflected there, I realized I was a ghost to him too.

“Wow, Soar.” He traced my jaw with his finger. “No scar.”

I took his hand between both of mine. “Not on the outside anyway.”

“I guess you have a pretty interesting story to tell me,” he said, flashing his white teeth and winking.

I laughed quietly, touching my stomach. “I certainly do, but not now.” I pulled out the spare gloves and booties from my pack, my fingers brushing the toy train I had shoved in there the morning I’d left my son. My heart squeezed uncomfortably. “Put these on,” I said, bounding towards the wall, feeling light as a feather and as heavy as a block of lead sinking to the bottom of a lake.

I’d lost my mother and gained my friend. But loss is loss. It wouldn’t be so easy to exchange one for the other. My grief would follow me.

But for now, I had to show Rash how to climb the wall like a lizard.

Rash took to climbing fairly easily, swearing under his breath at how unfit he was when he slipped. But he didn’t slip much. We got to the top and looked back at Pau. I was about to say something meaningful. To say farewell this place I’d called home for sixteen years when Rash gripped my wrist and held up my hand, making it wave jerkily. “So long, suckers!” he said, way too loudly, and swung himself down the other side, shimmying down the wall impressively quick.

I smothered a giggle, rolled my eyes, and followed. Finding the wall a bit slippery with morning dew, I slid down the last part of the wall and landed on my butt in the mud.

“Graceful as always,” Rash said, extending his hand. I slapped it away and was about to make a snide comment about his lack of gentlemanliness when I heard footsteps coming towards us. Careen’s face appeared, floating in the half-light, illuminated by her handheld. A dark figure walked beside her. Tall and lean. They were muttering to each other. Even at their hushed tone, I could hear a melody in his voice. It was familiar but in a removed kind of way, like an overheard conversation. The voice grated. It grazed the edges of my memory and tried to pull something reluctantly to the surface.

I ran at Careen and jumped, knocking her to the ground in a fierce embrace. She was shocked to say the least. “What’s wrong with you?” she exclaimed, but her voice was relieved and she responded to my affection with a squeeze, our chests squishing together.

I shuffled backwards. “Sorry, I’m just glad you’re ok,” I muttered, embarrassed, realizing we were being watched by a stranger. The figure chuckled lightly, a sound that rang bells in my ears. I shook my head to clear it.

“Where’s your mother and the baby? And who’s this?” Careen said as she lurched towards Rash threateningly.

I scrambled to my feet and put myself between them. Rash stood there with his hands up, smirking. “Hey. Settle down there, lovely lady. I’m a friend,” Rash said. He leaned over to me and whispered, “Are all the Survivors this gorgeous?”

Careen’s head snapped towards me questioningly.

I rattled out the quickest response I could, blurting out too many details and not enough, laughing hysterically as I explained how Paulo had tried to kill me with a telephone. The dark figure lurked in the background, swaying from foot to foot like he was going to run at me. I squinted at him as I spoke, but I couldn’t make out a face in the squandering light. “She wouldn’t come,” I said, starting to sob, the pressure of my failure wrenching my insides. “She didn’t want me.” I was pathetic.

Rash and Careen put their arms around me. “It’s ok, you tried,” Careen said soothingly.

“Yeah and you got a great consolation prize,” Rash said.

“You’re hardly a prize,” I snorted.

“That’s the spirit!” he said, elbowing me in the ribs playfully.

“Ouch.” I was so sore from my scuffle with Paulo.

“Whoops, sorry,” he said sheepishly.

Careen touched my ribs again and I winced. Her voiced sounded terribly serious when she said, “I think he broke a rib, Rosa. Can you walk?”

I was confused. I’d been walking, running for hours. I was walking right now. I took a deep breath and again felt that sharp, strangling pain I’d taken to be my heart breaking. Careen ran her hand along my jaw and up to my temple. “You probably have a concussion too.” Her words seemed far away. I felt fine. I focused on the shadow man.

He was silent, too silent, and it bothered me. I took the torch from my pack and walked towards him, my legs jabbing out from under me like they weren’t my own.

“And who’s this?” I asked suspiciously. Something about him didn’t sit right. I flicked the torch on, the stream of light blinding. His eyes were tightly shut as the brightness showered his face. I lowered it a little so he could see. So I could see him.

He opened his eyes and smiled nervously. I drew in a breath and it poisoned me. My heart refused to beat.

Finally, I held the missing piece of the puzzle. But as I placed it in its rightful spot, the picture shook and changed. Old realities shifted, confusion dominated. Suddenly, half my life made a whole lot more sense but just as surely, the other half of my reality split open spectacularly.

He blinked and opened his mouth to speak.

Don ’t speak.

Shadows darkened and light penetrated. Could you feel insane with rage and full of joy at the same time?

One blue eye and one brown.

The world was spiraling down or I was plummeting through the earth—I couldn’t tell. But as I fell to the ground, shock and exhaustion pulling me under, one thought pushed its way to the surface like an oily bubble and burst.

My life, my whole life…

My father was a Spider.

This book is for every woman who’s been beaten down, has got back up and said ‘this is not going to define my life’.

It’s for those of you who had the strength and courage to say ‘it was not ok’ and I won’t let it happen to anyone else.

And for those who aren’t there yet, just know you are strong enough; you can do it, and one day if you want to and when you’re ready, you will.

It takes enormous strength to endure and strength to fight back, I am in awe of each and every one of you.

Daughter of a Malaysian nuclear physicist father and an Australian doctor mother, Lauren Nicolle Taylor was expected to follow the science career path. And she did, for a while, completing a Health Science degree with Honors in obstetrics and gynecology. But there was always a niggling need to create which led to many artistic adventures.

When Lauren hit her thirties, she started throwing herself into artistic endeavors, but was not entirely satisfied.  The solution: Complete a massive renovation and sell their house so they could buy their dream block of land and build. After selling the house, buying the block and getting the plans ready, the couple discovered they had been misled and the block was undevelopable. This left her family of five homeless.

Taken in by Lauren’s parents, with no home to renovate and faced with a stressful problem with no solution, Lauren found herself drawn to the computer. She sat down and poured all of her emotions and pent up creative energy into writing The Woodlands.

Family, a multicultural background and a dab of medical intrigue are all strong themes in her writing. Lauren took the advice of ‘write what you know’ and twisted it into a romantic, dystopian adventure! Visit Lauren at her website:

www.LaurenNicolleTaylor.com.