Taken Away (15 page)

His attention was almost immediately snagged by the TV. At first he just blinked at it, trying to figure it out. Then he was over and touching it – the flickering screen, the sides, the back – tentatively at first, then with genuine, almost scientific interest.

‘Gracious,' he murmured. Bill and Ben were on, those crazy twins. Dom tapped the glass of the screen and peered at the figures moving across it. ‘A laterna magicka of some sort?' he whispered. ‘A picture show in miniature?'

He turned shining eyes to me, his enthusiasm for TV overwhelming everything else.

‘Sit down,' I snapped. ‘Just sit down, and shut up, and let me think.'

He glowered again and turned back to the telly. He peered into it one more time, pressing his face to the glass the way people do at aquariums. Then he reluctantly went to sit at the opposite end of the sofa from Nan. He regarded me with tightlipped concentration, his hands folded in his lap, far too grim and upright to be Dom.

Dom.
Where was he? Had I lost him?

It happened all the time, didn't it? All the time. People were snatched away, and they didn't come back. Gary Halpin's brother, for example – snatched away at the age of seventeen. Smeared along the side of the Tonlegee Road, his bike a scattering of parts. Grandda Joe – he just fell down dead. Alive one minute, dead the next. Nan – still here, but snatched away nonetheless. It happened all the time, and holy water and Latin and all that
Hammer House of Horror
bullshit didn't bring them back.

I had to get that thought out of my head somehow, so I slammed my palms down onto the arms of the chair, raising twin puffs of dust and making Dom jump.

Nan muttered but didn't wake up.

‘Where's Dom?' I said. ‘What have you done to him? How do I fix this?'

His face darkened. ‘There is no
Dom
, Lorry. There never was a Dom. Why can't you remember? The old lady remembers.' He gestured at Nan. ‘The little girl knows. Why don't you?'

I gripped the arms of my chair very, very tight.

‘I want. To talk. To Dom,' I said.

He looked me up and down, pity not quite winning out over anger. ‘What have they done to us, Lorry?' he asked quietly.

‘There's no
they
. There's just
us
. There's just Ma and Dad, Nan and Dee and
us
!' I leant forward, appealing to whatever I could find of my brother in there. ‘Dom,' I hissed. ‘Wake up. Please! Fight him, Dom.
Please.
'

He tutted in frustration and looked away. This made me want to hit something, so I clamped my teeth shut and sat very still for a moment, throwing bolts and turning locks all down through my body, not looking at him. Eventually, I was tied down enough to speak to him again. He was watching me with frowning impatience.

‘Dom,' I said.

He grimaced.

‘Dom! Why is this happening? Why?'

‘
Why?
' He spread his hands in exasperation. ‘Are you only asking that
now
? All that time in the grey, were you not constantly asking why? I was!
Why
did they hurt me?
Why
did they take you away?
Why
did they send me to that place?' He searched my face, finding only incomprehension. ‘You didn't want to go, Lorry. They took you from me – but you didn't want to go. Don't you remember? Say you remember!'

I shook my head. His face fell, his desolation and sense of loss so obvious that I actually felt sorry for him. He lowered his hands. He looked so betrayed.

‘How could you have forgotten?' he whispered. ‘You were screaming. You tried to hold on to me, but they pulled you away. They had to do it again and again, because each time they dragged you off, you'd get free and come running back to me. They were big, though. Big men, so much bigger than us. And there were more of them than you could fight, and eventually they took you away. I was hurting so much that I couldn't help you.'

He put a shaking hand to his throat and his eyes focused inwards, remembering. ‘Then the pain stopped, and the choking, but I couldn't move my arms and legs anymore. I kept thinking,
Please let him hold my hand.
I wanted so desperately . . . ' His voice hitched and he had to take a second. ‘I wanted so desperately for you to hold my hand, to give me a hug. I couldn't understand why they took you away. And then they sent me into the grey, and the world was
gone
. And after a while the soldier came, another big man, just like the others, with his anger and his noise, and he was in the grey with me and I was running and running. For years, it seems. But I never
forgot
!' He glared up at me then, his eyes black as night, and this time he was accusing me, all the pity gone from his face. ‘I
never forgot
, Lorry. I spent all that time
remembering
and
waiting
and
where – were – you?
'

‘I was
here
. I've never been anywhere but here! Listen to me. Maybe . . . maybe you
were
alive once . . . ' His eyes widened at that and he glared at me. ‘Maybe there was a Lorry too, once. But I'm not him! And you're not my brother!'

‘Take that back,' he whispered.

He was gripping the sofa with tremendous pressure, his face and body rigid with anger – or perhaps with terror; it was hard to tell. I was stunned to see mist beginning to rise from his shoulders and hair.

‘
Take it back
,' he cried.

‘Dom!' I whispered, pointing to his hands. Blossoms of frost were beginning to radiate from his clutching fingers, spreading in glittering patterns across the fabric of the sofa.

He didn't seem to notice. All his attention was focused on my rejection of him. He had begun to shake with rage. There was a rim of hoarfrost developing around his lips, where his angry breath was condensing. It was his anger; his anger seemed to be dragging the heat from the air. I could feel it now, emanating from his corner of the room like a door opening onto a black void. The angrier he got, the colder it became.

You can't freeze a tomato.
My dad's voice came to me sharp and clear, as if he were in the room. He'd told me that at Christmas.
You can't freeze a tomato.
Somehow the freezing process bursts all the cells in a tomato's flesh and, though it looks alright while frozen, it damages the way the tomato is held together. And when it's defrosted, the tomato falls apart.

Stop it!' I said, beginning to panic for the damage this might ‘be doing to my brother's body. ‘Stop!'

‘She knows me!' he screamed, pointing at Nan. ‘Explain how she knows me!'

When he lifted his hand, it left a perfect five-fingered frostprint on the sofa cover.

‘Calm down!' I shouted.

He made a dive for Nan. I think his intent was to shake her awake.

‘Lady!' he shrieked. ‘Tell him! Tell him you know me!'

‘Don't touch her!' I dived for him and wrestled him away from her, yelling in pain as my hands made contact with his frigid flesh. I dragged him backwards and we landed on the floor, my arms wrapped around his chest. His attention switched instantly to me and we were suddenly grappling with each other again, scuffling on the dirty floor like street thugs. ‘Calm down!' I yelled. ‘You're hurting yourself! You're hurting
Dom
!'

It was like wrestling frozen stone; there was no yield or give to his flesh at all. I just hung on, my arms around his chest, as he struggled to get away from me. I don't think he intended to hurt me or even to fight me. But I had grabbed at him, and our blood was high, and he just wanted to get away. He elbowed me hard in the ribs and it was like being hit with a sledgehammer made of ice.

‘Lemmego!' he screeched.

‘Just calm
down
! You're hurting yourself!' My head smacked the floor as we rolled again, and I saw stars.

Then I was hauled up by my collar, my father's voice an unaccustomed bellow in the already overcrowded space. ‘What the
hell
are you doing?'

I'd never before experienced my father's physical strength, and it stunned me to be jerked bodily to my feet and hurled into one corner while my brother was similarly manhandled to the other side of the room. I rebounded off the wall and stood breathless and dishevelled, my burnt hands tucked into my armpits, my hair hanging into my eyes. Our father stood in the middle of the small room, a hand held out to each of us like the referee at a boxing match. He didn't know which of us to be looking at, so he swivelled his head between the two of us.

‘What. The
hell
. Are you
doing
?' he repeated.

Dom glared at him from the opposite wall, eyes black, skin pale and marbled blue, and I was raging suddenly, at my dad, for being able to stand there and ask what the
hell
we were
doing
when Dom was dying in front of his eyes. I glowered at him, all kinds of words knifing through my head, none of them making it past the blockade of my throat. Dom just loosely clenched his fists and said nothing. Dad's fury morphed very quickly to exhaustion and disappointment. He flung up his hands in despair, then covered his eyes.

‘Jesus,' he sighed.

Nan's voice surprised us all. ‘You always were a hot-headed little man, Francis.'

She was still huddled up on the sofa, in the exact same position she'd been when asleep. But she was smiling up at Dom in clear-eyed amusement. Dad looked at her, and he seemed to reach the end of his tether. He shook his head, his face crumbling, and waved at us in shaky dismissal.

‘Get out of my sight,' he croaked.

‘Dad,' I said.

OUT!' He didn't even look at me, just pointed at the door. ‘

As Dom and I left the room, I heard Nan say, ‘Ah, they're just lads, David. Let them blow off their steam.'

Dad said nothing that I could hear, and I didn't look behind me as I led the way to the room that I now shared with this thing called Francis.

LITTLE GREEN PILLS
TO COMBAT THE COLD

I SLAMMED MY WAY
into the bedroom and just kept moving. If I stopped, I'd die. I'd scream. I'd explode. Why couldn't Dad see? What was wrong with them that they couldn't bloody
see
! Dom was the colour of chalk, his eyes were pitch-black, frost was bloody well coming out of his
mouth
! Why couldn't they see?

I prowled from one side of the room to the other, my fingers dug into my scalp, my eyes so wide they hurt. If it wasn't for Nan and Dee, I'd have thought I was imagining it. Hah. Yeah. That was great: a senile auld wan and a wee girl who thought fairies lived under the stairs.
Super grounding in reality there, Pat. Oh God.

I spun on my heels in the centre of the room, pulling my hands down my face. Then suddenly I was launching myself at the furniture. I flung myself at the wardrobe first; a two-fisted thump against its dark wood that had me recoiling instantly, my burnt hands held high over my head, my face contorted in pain.
Shit.
I turned and kicked the dressing table. This hurt my foot, and I hopped backwards across the room until I clattered into the bunk. The bunk. The damned
BUNK
.

I grabbed the side-rail and shook the whole bed, repeatedly jerking it towards me and banging it violently against the wall. I think I got about three or four really good bangs in before Dad bellowed up the stairs. I'm not sure what he said, but
this is the last straw
was loud and clear in his voice.

I stopped, clinging to the side-rail of the bunk, my cheek resting on my forearm. Panting, I waited for the old man to hurtle up the stairs and maybe give me the first thrashing of my life. But I heard no more from him, except his footsteps retreating down the stairs and the clattering of the pipes as he filled the kettle.

I bowed my head in defeat, resting my forehead against the cool metal of the battered rail. The sweat of anger still burnt on my face, but the rest of me was freezing, and I began to shiver with cold. There was an arctic draft sweeping over my back and shoulders, and I knew exactly where it was coming from.

Dom was behind me. While I had been raging about the room, he had come quietly in and shut the door. Now he sat on the windowsill, his knees drawn up, his head leaning on the glass. He was looking down into the garden, his eyes narrowed against the light. He was heavy and still, and the cold rolled off him like an incoming tide. I may as well not have been in the room for all the attention he was giving me.

What was I going to do?

For lack of any other ideas, I crossed to the dressing table and got myself a jumper. And a cardigan. And a scarf. I pulled them all on, keeping an eye on Dom as I did so.

‘What age are we?' he asked, still looking into the garden.

Sixteen in August.' ‘

He blinked at that. ‘Five years,' he said in disbelief.

‘What?'

‘We've been in the grey for five years.'

‘Dom, what's the fecking grey?'

‘The grey, Lorry. You know . . . ' He moved his hand about. ‘Just . . . the grey. When everything . . . ' He looked about him, gesturing at the walls, the ceiling, me. ‘When everything . . . faded out.'

I squeezed my temples, but didn't bother reminding him that I'd never been anywhere but here, full technicolour all the way. ‘I think you've been gone a lot longer than five years,' I murmured, thinking of his reaction to the TV. ‘Can you remember anything specific? What year was it when they took Lorry?'

He just shook his head, little shakes, a nervous movement, over and over, his mouth working, his eyes roving the landscape below. Eventually he squeezed his eyes shut against the light and rested his forehead against the glass. ‘I remember them taking you. That's all – and then the grey . . . being in the grey – and then the bad man chasing me, on and on. That's all. Before that we were happy. You and me, May and Jenny.' He thought of something and his eyes shot open. ‘That old lady, the one who knows me. What's her name?'