Silent Voices (18 page)

“Get off me,” he cried, shutting off that other noise – the one that made him sound as if he’d lost his mind. “Get the fuck off!”

Who the hell was I trying to hurt? Not him – not the kid.

As the figures released him and backed away to give him room, he got to his knees and stared at them all. The ref was shaking his head, Erik Best was smiling, and a few of Best’s heavies were trying to stop the Polish corner crew from climbing into the ring. Marty held up his hands and stared at them. The white wrappings were coated with blood.

Nobody can hurt Marty
, he thought, recalling the years of self-damage, of extreme body conditioning, and the insane physical tests he had put himself through before the age of thirty.
Nobody hurts Marty... not even Marty.

Best stepped forward and bent down, trying to be heard above the clamour. “That was some fucking show, marra,” he said, grabbing Marty’s shoulder. “But I think we need to get you out of here before it all kicks off.” He squeezed Marty’s arm, earnestly.

Marty nodded. With Best’s help, he stood, feeling shaky and ill. The egg-shaped creature was no longer in the ring, and when he glanced beyond the ropes, at the people being herded away from ringside, he caught no sight of it anywhere in the vicinity.

“Quickly. This way.” Best guided him to the edge of the ring and lifted the top rope. Marty stumbled through, falling onto his knees as he hit the dirt on the other side. He looked up, staring at one of the ceiling lights. The bright spot held his gaze; it pierced his skull, burning into his brain, and once again he saw the terrible stunted image of a grinning Humpty Dumpty. He closed his eyes and twisted his head to the side, trying to rid himself of the horror.

Some kind of fracas was occurring off to his left. Marty could not hear clearly, just a dull roar, as if his ears had popped under pressure. He opened his eyes to see, and was just in time to catch the fat Polish man in the Kappa tracksuit forcing his way through the crowd. Marty blinked. His ears felt as if they were stuffed with cotton wool. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he realised that things were not right. Then, just before someone grabbed him by the back of the neck and dragged him away, the Polish man hit Marty hard in the side. The impact was dull, yet it burned briefly. Marty moved in slow motion, glancing down at his left side. There was a shock of red there: a stain. The stain was moving, blooming like a flower. Spreading across his left side...

That was when he realised that he had not been punched. He’d been stabbed.

Sound rushed back into his ears and he pressed his bandaged hand to the wound. The tips of his first two fingers slipped easily between the edges of the cut, and they went in deep. The blood was warm. He felt no pain.

“Jesus,” he said. He looked back up, towards the hanging light fixture near the ceiling, but saw only the incandescence of the bulb. Then he looked back at his hand. His fingers were red and slick. There was a white halo around them, from staring too long at the light.

“Get him over here,” said someone he’d never seen before. “Now!”

Erik Best was charging around the Barn like a bull, clearing out the rest of the crowd and directing his men to grab hold of the Polish contingent. The fat man was lying unconscious on the ground at the foot of a broad timber post. Someone had wrestled one of the other corner men onto his back and was slipping in a couple of punches to his kidney area. Two other men in suits had pinned the last Polish man to the wall, where they were taking turns to hit him in the gut.

Marty was being walked quickly by three men towards the opposite corner of the Barn. Doc, an old guy in a shabby grey suit, was laying out medical equipment on a plastic bench beside a low wooden table. He was smoking a cigarette and his hands were shaking. Carefully, he placed a scalpel, syringes, scissors and various dressings onto the flat top of the bench.

Marty was forced to lie down on the table, strong hands pushing down on his chest. He still could feel no pain – the rush of adrenalin was probably masking it, but he knew the numbness wouldn’t last for long. Soon his left side would be in flames.

He opened his mouth. His lips were dry. “Is it deep?”

The doctor looked up from where he was inspecting the wound. “Yes, but it isn’t fatal.”

Erik Best appeared at the side of the table. “Can you fix him up, Doc?” His face was shiny with sweat.

Marty was drifting in and out of a dream. None of this was really happening; it was like a play or a movie. He’d fallen asleep in front of the television.

“Not a problem,” said Doc, peeling off a pair of rubber gloves stained with blood and putting on a clean pair fresh from the sterile packet. “The wound’s located far enough forward that it’s missed his kidneys. Luckily, because it’s on the left side where it
might
have happened, it doesn’t seem to have hit the liver. Higher up, though, and it would have got his spleen.” Doc grinned around his cigarette. “I should really make a larger incision to explore the wound, but I’m happy enough with my diagnosis that it won’t be necessary. This is basically your textbook loin wound. I’ll use lignocaine to anesthetise locally, clean it out, and then I’ll chuck in some ethilon sutures to stitch him back up.” He smiled again, a man happy with his work.

“Quit the shop talk,” said Best, glancing around to look over his shoulder. “Just fucking patch him up, marra.”

The Barn had grown quiet now, as most of the onlookers had been moved outside. They would be inside the house by now, quaffing Best’s champagne and talking about how close they’d been to real violence, true bloodshed. There would be a lot of fucking going on afterwards, and Marty hoped they felt satisfied with his performance.

Marty watched in silence as Doc jabbed him with a needle, then, after what seemed like hours, the man began to apply the sutures. He was still smoking his cigarette – or had he lit up another? – and the entire process had taken on a surreal air.

So this is what it feels like?
he thought. He’d often wondered, and had even known a couple of people who had been wounded by blades in the past.
It’s not so bad. I’ve gone through worse.

“You did good,” said Erik Best, leaning down close to speak. “You gave them what they wanted. You entertained those fuckers.” Marty felt a soft, hot gust of breath against his cheek. He smelled Erik Best’s halitosis. “And that’s what it’s all about – entertainment.”

Best was grinning.

Marty nodded. He felt high, as if he were on heroin.

“And don’t worry about those Polish fucks. We’ve taken them away, and they won’t be coming back.”

Marty nodded again. “Humpty Dumpty,” he whispered.

“What?” Best’s face loomed large in his vision, like yet another monstrous image from his butchered past. But, thank God, it was not oversized and egg-shaped; thank fuck it did not belong to a monster.

TWENTY YEARS AGO, BEFORE THE MONSTERS WERE REAL

M
ARTY SITS IN
his room, listening to music. The volume is set low so that his father won’t hear what he calls ‘that stupid crap’ and come in with his fists swinging. The tape is a recording of a Simple Minds album. Marty can’t remember who gave him the cassette, but he likes the tunes... there’s something about them that suggests the kind of freedom he yearns for but will probably never achieve.

Marty gets off the bed and walks to the window. He looks out over the estate, watching the slow movement of clouds above the Needle and the way the stars seem so far away, yet at the same time close enough that if he reaches out he could grab one. It’s a feeling that echoes the way he feels inside: that weird distance that isn’t really a distance, not a physical one. He struggles with the notion, and then puts it out of his mind.

He checks himself out in the mirror on the wardrobe door. He is wearing a pair of stretch Geordie Jeans and a thin woollen sweater. It was his birthday outfit, and already he is outgrowing the garments. He pulls a bodybuilder pose, bending his arms and tensing his biceps. Even at ten years old, he is aware of the changes taking place in his body. His father has not been as quick with his fists lately; he watches Marty with a new kind of awareness, especially when he is wearing just a T-shirt or wandering around in his skivvies.

Before long, Marty thinks he’ll be strong enough to take on his old man. He has already begun to condition his body, like the fighters in the martial arts magazines he buys with his pocket money and smuggles into the house. But he has gone further than those guys; he causes himself real pain, genuine damage. He has a sharp penknife he uses to cut the flesh of his forearms, and he holds his fingers against the flame of a lit match.

It’s not so much that his father hits him, but more about the way the bastard treats Marty’s mother. He knows that his father beats her at least once every two weeks – sometimes more often, if he’s been drinking a lot. He rarely leaves marks, but there was that time last summer when they had to tell everyone that his mother had fallen down the stairs. She had two black eyes and her top lip was split and swollen. The skin around her jaw was red and tender to the touch.

If his father does that again, he thinks that he might kill him. He could use the penknife. It would be hard work, because the blade is so small, but it’s sharp, and Marty has taught himself how to use it.

Outside, someone lets off a firework. Marty turns back to the window, drawn by the sound, and he watches the brief flaring of red and blue lights in the sky. The lights splutter and die as they fall back to the ground. Their flight is over before it has even begun.

“I hate you,” he whispers, not even knowing if he means his father, the estate where he feels so trapped, or even himself. Sometimes he even despises his mother for being so weak, for not running away from the man who so casually and regularly abuses her.

He thinks about the silly tree house he and his friends are building. The Three Amigos – the name was Simon’s idea, after some film he read about in a magazine, a comedy about rubbish cowboys that’s supposed to be coming out next year. Marty isn’t really into funny films, but Simon said that Steve Martin is in this one, and Marty laughed himself ill at the one the American made about the mad brain surgeon, even though he only understood something like half of the jokes. He remembers they watched it on video one Sunday afternoon at Simon’s place, when his parents were out at the pub. Simon likes movies; he knows an older kid who works on the local video van and gets him all the latest ones pirated for free.

Marty is more of a reader than a watcher. He loves his books. His father, of course, hates books. He thinks that only poofs read. So Marty keeps all of his novels and short story collections stashed away at the back of the cupboard, covered by some old blankets his mother was going to throw out. He loves fantasy –
The Hobbit
is his favourite, but he’s managed to get most of the way through
The Fellowship of the Ring
and he’s proud that he understands a lot of what’s going on. Some of it’s a bit tricky, and a lot of the words are new to him, but he’s plodding on as best he can, making use of his dictionary if he gets really stuck on anything.

He likes Strider. He wants to be Strider, even though he knows that it’s just a book and none of it is real. But inside his head, it’s all real: in there, where nobody else can see him, he fights orcs and dragons and kicks the crap out of his dad on a regular basis.

He opens the wardrobe and takes out a light jacket, just in case it gets cold outside later on, during their all-night vigil. He doesn’t really believe that anyone – bigger kids or roaming adults – is going to wreck what they’ve built, but that isn’t the point, not really. The reason they’re all meeting up when their parents have gone to bed is because they need to be with each other. There’s a connection between the boys that goes deeper than friendship. They are like brothers, linked by blood. Their parents don’t give a damn, so they each give a damn about the other. Together, as part of the gang, they are strong. No one can hurt them.

He sits back down on the bed and waits for his parents to stumble up to bed. They won’t be late tonight because they’ve been drinking all day. His mother uses vodka to block out the pain and pointlessness of her life, and his father chugs down gallons of beer because he wants to drown what he is.

Marty is untroubled by these insights; he has them all the time. He’s a bright boy – much more intelligent than the teachers at school are willing to believe, and probably as well-read as anyone five years older than him. But it isn’t wise to put his brains on display, so he keeps them covered by an illusion show of brute force and disinterest. He plays the game, makes sure he never gets above average marks for his schoolwork, while all the time he is reading ahead, and filling his notebooks at home with the work he does on his own.

Marty knows that this won’t get him anywhere. He is trapped here, in the Grove, just like his parents and their parents before them, but there is no reason why his mind cannot be allowed to roam free, exploring the boundaries of the world written down in books.

Before long he hears his parents climbing the stairs. His mother is giggling and his father is whispering too loudly. They’re talking about sex – or, more specifically, his father is telling his mother that tonight he’s going to ‘take her up the shitter and make her squeal’. Marty feels like crying. He barely knows these people, and has nothing in common with them apart from that they all share a house together. He’s a prisoner, like the Count of Monte Cristo. He is trapped here, in this hell, and outside the window is yet another, much larger hell. All he can see for miles and miles is variations on the same theme. Somewhere out there, the devil is waiting, and by reading and learning he is keeping him at bay.