The Merman (2 page)

‘I'm freezing,' said Gerard. ‘Is there somebody who can give us a bit of juice?'

The lads in the scooter gang would often siphon off petrol for him when he ran out. Peder, Gerard's right-hand man, took out a length of plastic hose, stuck one end into the tank on his Dakota and started siphoning petrol into an empty soft drink bottle.

‘Can you hold the bag?' said Gerard, handing over the carrier bag the kitten was in. ‘Open it,' he said.

Peder opened it.

‘And now the petrol, please.'

Gerard was handed the bottle, took a sniff, wrinkled up his nose and then poured its contents into the carrier bag. The kitten let out a little shriek inside. ‘Now give it a bloody good shake, Peder. I want that damn cat to be completely fucking marinated in petrol. Otherwise it'll go out in five seconds.'

Peder gave a little giggle, uncertain of what was going to happen.

‘You're not going to do it, are you?' he asked. ‘Gerard, for fuck's sake, you can't set fire to a kitten in a carrier bag. There'll be an explosion.' Gerard giggled back. The trailers giggled. That was what they were expected to do.

‘Of course I'm going to fucking do it. I said I was freezing, didn't I?'

‘Okay, then let's move,' said Ola to the others. ‘Move further away, lads. A definite risk of explosion here... '

There was not a person in sight. The woman in the kiosk couldn't see anything from her angle. It was a Saturday night in February, and a couple of inches of snow had fallen that afternoon. Then the rain had come and transformed everything into slush. People were staying indoors, watching light entertainment programmes or the feature film on TV. Robert was with Mum. Dad had recently disappeared again and would be away for nearly a year.

I went over to the cycle rack to fetch my bike. I did not want to become a witness to something I would be sorry for. I saw Gerard tie up the carrier bag and I remember thinking, he's not going to do it. Not even Gerard is that sick.

He placed the bag down on the asphalt, took the soft drink bottle that was still a quarter full of petrol, and carefully poured out a thin fuse line over towards the fence. The trailers were worried now; you could see it in their movements, as if they were itching.

‘So you're gonna do it?' asked Peder. He had pulled up his top lip to expose his teeth in a wolf's grin. He was enjoying this almost as much as Gerard, but he would never dare to do it himself.

‘I fucking said so already. I'm freezing, innit.'

The kitten was stirring around in the bag. Perhaps it was starting to get low on air, perhaps it was starting to panic. A slender paw was sticking out of the plastic. She was trying to claw her way out.

‘And just what the hell are you staring at, you fucking bitch?' asked Ola.

It took a few seconds before I realised he was referring to me. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the bag on the ground, the way it
was writhing and pulsating, like something being born from a soft egg.

‘Nothing,' I said as I inserted my key into the lock and started to walk towards the road.

‘That fucking slimy cunt,' I heard Peder continue. ‘Her and her fucking retard brother in the class for mongs. You can't even tell whether she's a boy or a girl. No tits, not even any hair on her cunt. And she bloody stinks. I don't think they've got a washing machine at home. Maybe not even a shower.'

‘Will you shut up?' said Gerard. ‘Give me the lighter.'

He didn't care about me. As far as he was concerned, I could have been made out of thin air. He had hardly ever seen me, even though we had been in the same class together since primary school.

I carried on towards the pedestrian crossing. The smell of petrol stung my nose. They were going to kill it, I thought, and there was nothing I could do.

They're going to kill him and there's nothing I can do. They're going to kill him and there's nothing I can do
. That was a new earworm now, going round and round as if a radio had got stuck in my head. My lungs were about to explode. The shouting from the woods rose and fell, sometimes louder, sometimes softer. I didn't see any teachers. Not even the caretaker, who went round with his rake and wheelbarrow with a grouchy expression. Where were all the adults? L.G., the playground supervisor, the security guy? Then I remembered: it was a teacher's birthday. They were having cake in the staff room.

Faces looked up at me in surprise as I ran like a madman, as if I was fleeing from a murderer or a wild animal that had escaped from a circus. Pupils on their way back to their classrooms, mostly Year Sevens and Year Eights in their jackets and down-filled body-warmers. Had they come from the woods, had they seen what they did to him, and sneaked off because they didn't want to be witnesses?

I could taste blood in my mouth now. Someone was laughing at me: a girl from Morup, who was also called Ironing Board, just like me. Everywhere fallen leaves on the asphalt. The colours were
almost soaking up into my eyes. A week ago there had been a storm and the trees had dropped the remains of their autumn apparel. Red leaves. Yellow. Like blood and tattered entrails. More faces ran past like water, some from my brother's year, the ones who usually were nasty to him, calling him a mong and a retard, or ‘pissypants' because he could not control his bladder out of pure fear, but now doing something else, on their way up to the common rooms to hang up their coats and head off to the next lesson. Further away, by the car park, a teacher stood talking to a parent. But I didn't even have time to call over to them, and anyway the distance was too great, they wouldn't have heard.

Past the gym and the plants. Two Year Nines came along, each with a lolly in their mouth, avoiding eye contact with me. I could hear my brother's voice now, very clearly, he was really screaming, like an animal being slaughtered. I had never heard him so terrified before. I wondered where Tommy was keeping himself. Why wasn't he running up to me? Then I remembered: he hadn't been at school since last Wednesday. Presumably he was ill or maybe he was helping his brothers with their boat. I had rung him every day, but no one answered...

They were going to kill it, and there was nothing I could do
. I don't know why the cat was on my mind again. It had been last winter, shortly after Dad had disappeared again. Yes, I did know why. I didn't want to deceive myself; didn't want to be like Mum and just stick my head in the sand. I knew why I was running. I knew why they had singled out my brother. Gerard had figured out that I had blabbed. That morning there was a note in my locker. It said that L.G. had found out what had happened last winter, that Gerard had to go up to the headmaster's office, that it must have been me who had blabbed and that they would take it out on Robert.

I remember how I had walked away from the kiosk with my bike, very leisurely so as not to get Peder and Gerard het up. They're like animals, I had thought; if I started to run it could trigger their hunting instinct.

‘Oi, Ironing Board, come here a minute.' It was clear who Gerard was talking to. For some reason he had decided to notice my presence. ‘Or whatever the hell your name is. I said stop.'

I halted mid-step. He might be serious, I thought: after nine years in the same class together, after thousands of hours of lessons in the same classroom, despite having posed in all those class photos together, maybe he never had learnt my name. It was entirely possible, and would explain an awful lot.

‘I want you to pay attention to this,' he said. ‘And if I want anyone to have it confirmed, like somebody who isn't here, who might be doubtful, who claims I would never do it, then I'll tell them they can ask you. You get me? Ask Ironing Board, I'll say. She was there. Like a witness, you get me?'

He smiled at me, all friendly, as if this was any run-of-the-mill matter of confidence.

‘I can't rely on Peder and Ola. They just say what I tell them to say. Everybody knows that. So that's why I want you to watch. Stand over here.'

I put down the kickstand on my bike and went over towards him.

‘That's enough,' Gerard said matter-of-factly. ‘Don't come any closer, you really do reek, just like everybody says.'

I was maybe five metres from them. There was another paw sticking out of the carrier bag, scratching at the ground. The mewing was a bit quieter now.

Are you really gonna do it?' asked Peder again. ‘You're fucking nuts.'

‘What do you think, faggot? That I'm some kind of animal torturer? No way.'

Gerard suddenly no longer seemed to care about the cat. He took a few steps to the side, took a piss out into the evening darkness, tapped out a cigarette from a packet of Prince, put it in the corner of his mouth and started flicking his lighter. Only a few feeble sparks came out, like those from a damp sparkler.

‘You thought I'd do it, didn't you?' he asked.

Peder laughed. ‘Well, yeah, what the hell was I supposed to think? You poured petrol over it.'

‘Honestly, do I look like a guy who tortures defenceless animals? Do I? Ola, what have you got to say?'

Gerard looked almost concerned. You could sense uncertainty spreading among the trailers.

‘Dunno, really.'

‘
Dunno
? So you have no opinion?'

‘Same opinion as you.'

‘And what opinion do I have, exactly?'

‘Like I said: dunno.'

Gerard shook his head, disappointed.

‘Shit, I'm freezing,' he said quietly. And then he turned to me as he managed to produce a flame with his lighter: ‘What are you looking at, you fucking bitch? Did I say you could look at me, huh? Who the hell gave you permission to do that?'

I was down in the woods now, the cat memory had vanished. I followed the path among the birch trees, stumbled over fallen branches, over a root that was sticking up, carried on past the mound of stones where Robert would play on his own when he was in his upper years of primary school and I couldn't protect him because I had started Year Seven and was in a different part of the school complex. I remembered how I used to search for him there in the afternoons. He was only ten and was always on his own. The other kids had gone home or else were having fun with their mates in the playground. He used to sit on a big rock in his worn discount jeans and look at me as if I were a messenger from a distant planet. His wispy hair that fell over his forehead. The eczema on his hands that kept getting worse, even though I helped him to rub cream into them every day. His glasses, almost always broken and held together with tape. I had to cajole him to get him to come away from there. That was when things were at their worst at home, and if it had been up to my brother he would
have slept in the woods overnight – maybe even lived there for the rest of his life...

I carried on up the little hill and stood at the top. It was completely silent now. I could no longer hear the shrieks. In the distance behind me, the schoolyard stood deserted. The ceiling lights were on in the classrooms; I saw silhouettes of people sitting down at their desks.
There is always a beginning and an ending. They've killed him. It's not what they wanted to do, but that's what happened, the stakes were raised. And I wasn't able to protect him, I wasn't there when he needed me
. My heart was pounding as if it were an animal trying to escape from my chest, to claw its way out, like the cat had wanted to claw its way out of the carrier bag last winter... Gerard's face had looked almost resigned as he crouched down and set fire to the invisible fuse of petrol. It must have gone very fast, and yet I remember it as if it had lasted several minutes. The fire must have reached the bag in just a few seconds, but in my memory it wended its way over the asphalt like a long, luminescent snake, over towards the wriggling, mewling bag. There was an explosion, but it wasn't particularly loud, more like a banger, sort of like a miniature firecracker.

‘Bloody hell,' said Peder. ‘I didn't think you would do it.'

‘I said I would. I'm freezing... Take a look at the fucker!'

I hadn't known until then that it was trussed up. Each pair of legs was bound together with wire. And it was still trying to run, limping round in a little circle as if it were chasing its tail. It looked like a little burning carousel. The noise it emitted was reminiscent of a whimpering infant. Flames rose up from its fur, as if it were electric. You could hear the plastic melting, it sort of fizzled around the cat's fur. Its ears were like two pointed wicks on lit candles. The cat opened its jaws, and it looked like it wanted to say something. And for a moment that's what I actually thought: that it wanted, to say
stop
, or
what are you doing, have you gone completely mad?
in plainly comprehensible language. But instead its mouth and tongue began to burn, and then it grew silent. It did not emit any more sounds, just ran after its own tail, in an ever-decreasing
circle, like a small, fiery swivel chair, and you could hear how the plastic was melting into its skin, how its nose and eyelids were melting, and then came the smell of summer, of barbecues in the garden, of charred meat from the back garden, that scent of food and smoke that hangs over Falkenberg long into August after the last holidaymakers have gone home. Finally it simply lay down. Collapsed under its own weight. Its nose had fused with the plastic somehow, it was lying with its mouth open and panting. Staring straight ahead, wild-eyed, because its eyelids had been burnt off. Loud wheezes came from its windpipe, like those from mine as I stood on the brow of the hill looking down over the woods. Staring and blinking away tears, staring again, alert to the slightest movement among the trees.

I went down the slope. Not a single movement anywhere. Had they let him go? Was he in his classroom right now, reading aloud from the remedial maths book, where everything was far too easy and so difficult for him for precisely that reason? Had they suddenly let him go when the bell rang? I knew that wasn't what it was, yet I couldn't help hoping, wishing, just as I had done my whole life, trying to wish and hope away everything terrible, like trying to change the course of events by sheer will.