The fire
escape rattles and sways precariously as I land; the panic swirls
up, making me attempt to sprint off before I’ve made it to back to
my feet and I careen face-first into the railing. I know I’ll feel
the after-effects of that impact tomorrow, but right now the
adrenaline’s flowing thick and firm through my bloodstream. I might
as well have taken the balaclava off and played it like I was one
of the hostages; this is exactly how you’d expect someone who just
escaped the clutches of a gang of murderers to look.
As I’m
clambering upwards, an odd sense of foreboding begins to diffuse
into the panic. I can’t quite place where it comes from until I’ve
clattered up another couple of stories, and I find that there’s
nothing above me but sky. My blood freezes. My eyes dart around for
the helicopter. Without knowing that I’m doing it, I throw myself
back down to the level below of the fire escape, where any eyes
that might be in the sky won’t be able to see me. I crumble into a
heap as I land, and, once more, I bash into the side of the
railing. Groaning, holding my forehead, I scan the clouds through
the gaps in the railings. No helicopter, yet.
I guess I
must’ve taken the ‘escape’ part of ‘fire escape’ too seriously. I
hadn’t thought about the fact that I’d have to make a mad dash
across the rooftops to reach the car park; I just assumed that once
I got to the top of the railings I’d be home free, or near-enough
at least. I must’ve got so caught up in this idea of writing my own
destiny that I thought I could bend not just other people but
reality itself to my will, and move the car park onto the near-side
of Marks and Spencer, where it would be better suited to my
needs.
I curl up into
a ball and put my face in my hands. It seems dumb that after going
through all of this, after
doing
all of this, I can’t take
one more leap into action, but I can’t. My free will is spent, and
all I want to do is hide here in the foetal position and wait for
the police to come and collect me, or my parents to come and rescue
me, or maybe God. My chest starts to judder. My gloved hands claw
uselessly at my face. I close my eyes, peering into the silence for
the sound of rotor blades, or booted feet, but neither is here yet.
Nor can I hear the sound of Freddy and Sid, which can mean only one
thing: both of them must’ve braved the rooftop dash.
This thought
spurs me back to my feet, but my resolve soon tries to buckle when
I peek over the top of the building. It’s the same no-man’s land
that I anticipated. And yet there’s nothing left to do but wait
here or go over the top.
So just fucking do
it!
My feet
scramble against the side of the building as I try to drag myself
up onto the roof. No sooner am I up than I’m off, streaking across
the gravel with the mac flapping behind me like the cape on a
particularly low-budget superhero and the breath pumping out of me
like the engine on a steampunk train. I vault over an air-vent,
though not with the casual elegance that the word ‘vault’ implies,
and, barely able to maintain my balance, careen off the side of the
building and land with a
WHAM
on what is, thankfully, not
the pavement but another section of roof just a few feet closer to
sea-level. Panting lustily, I crawl towards another air-vent and
press my back against it, ears still craning for the helicopter.
It’s a regrettable coincidence that the blood pounding through my
eardrums sounds eerily similar to the sound of rotor blades. I
suppose if the helicopter
is
overhead I’ll be fucked
regardless of whether I stay here in the relative cover or take
another plunge into no-man’s-land.
So just fucking do
it!
I tuck my chin
into my ribcage, say a few prayers, and sprint. As I weave past a
chimneystack the car park suddenly bursts into view. There’s barely
a second into which to react, to decide whether to jump up to the
top level or dive through the gap between the bars and the wall
into the level below, and ten feet of wide-open air and a
three-story fall ready to punish bad decision-making. I choose the
latter.
My pelvis
clangs against the metal bars, bringing my lower half to an abrupt
and agonising stop, but the momentum from the jump keeps the upper
half of my body going and my face plants straight into a car
bonnet. The car breaks out screaming as my legs swing up over the
top of me and for the third time in as many minutes I fall,
crumpled, into a heap on the floor. The hooting of the car alarm
injects a further dose of urgency into my bones. I crawl like a
crab around the bumpers of two cars and duck behind the front wheel
of some four-wheel-drive monstrosity, out of the sight of both
anyone who happens to be lurking in the car park and any helicopter
pilots who might be trying to peek in through the railings, to
nurse my wounds.
While I’m
pretty sure that, in this day and age, no-one hears a car alarm and
believes that a car is actually being stolen, I’m also pretty sure
that this particular day is not my lucky one. Sure enough, karma
wraps a leash around the nearest pedestrian’s neck and drags him or
her towards the scene of the commotion. As the alarm suddenly dies,
I can hear footfalls approaching.
‘There’s a
dent in the bonnet,’ a male voice calls, apparently to someone a
long distance from him. I can hear him circling the car I
headbutted. ‘Hmm…’ he muses to himself. Internally I debate whether
I’ll be able to unzip the backpack and tease out the revolver
without him hearing, but the answer is obvious. I hardly dare to
breathe, let alone start fiddling around with the bag. What will I
do if he
does
come a-looking, though? It’s not like the
hostages, where I had threats of calling on them in future to hold
over their heads. There’s nothing to stop this guy running down to
the police the second he sees me in my outlaw get-up. Shit; I can’t
even see him yet and I’d bet a sizeable portion of the cash in my
backpack that he’d be able to throw me in a headlock and drag me
down to them himself.
If he spots
me, then, I guess I’ll have to kill him.
Could
I kill him? I
mean, it’s not his fault that I’m backed into a corner, but the
fact remains that I’ve got a choice between a lengthy prison
sentence, or murder – and a slightly smaller chance of a lengthy
prison sentence. Is a stranger’s life worth my own freedom? What if
it only ends up being for a few more hours?
The man is
skirting around the back of the four-by-four, now. Looks as though
it’s time to find out where I stand on the murder question. As his
shoes clack against the stone floor, my hand creeps around my
backpack. He can’t be more than two footsteps away from my line of
sight. One footstep. My fingers clasp the zipper, ready to tear
open the bag and tear out the gun before he’s had a chance to-
‘Come the fuck
on, David!’ A female voice screeches. ‘We’ve got an hour until
we’ve got to be at my mum’s to pick up the kids, and you’re running
around playing Sherlock fucking Holmes! Let them figure out how
their own car got dented!’
Jesus, it’s
not even his car? This guy needs to take note of what happened to
the curious cat. He’s taken another step closer to me. I can see
the shadow of one of his shoes stretching underneath the car, and
the top of his balding head through the driver’s side window. My
diaphragm freezes. The air goes slack in my throat.
‘OI!’ the
woman screeches again.
‘Yeah, yeah;
I’m fucking coming,’ the fellow moans back. Their footsteps tap
away into the distance, and when the sound finally disappears I let
out a series of desperate, explosive breaths. I can’t be far out of
heart-attack territory now.
As I’m
stumbling down the last floor’s worth of steps, with my gloves, mac
and balaclava removed, the soot wiped off my face using spit and my
hair ruffled into something approaching a style, I smile to myself.
He’ll never know that his wife or girlfriend’s nagging saved his
life.
As I come
through the doors connecting the car park to the Eldon Square
shopping centre, praying that the cameras will see me as just
another face in a faceless crowd, I can’t help but wonder:
Did
she save his life? Would I really have killed another
human being, just to save my own skin?
Reality’s
drawing too close. I need a world in which the murder victims wear
Stormtrooper masks. I need a world where the protagonist, me, is
labelled ‘good’ by default. I need to go to the cinema.
Of Mice and Men who
Watch Too Many Movies.
‘Don't let
yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out
on in 30 seconds flat.’
Robert DeNiro
LOOSE ENDS
Liz’ reaction
when she opens the door is not exactly surprising, considering the
toll that the day’s shenanigans have taken on my face.
‘What the hell
happened to you?’ she asks. Either the look or the tone alone
would’ve told me that she has no sympathy for my predicament –
opting for both was overkill, plain and simple.
‘What happened
to friendly greetings?’ I return, with an unconvincing attempt at a
grin. Her face and tone remain the same as she replies:
‘I figured
that I might as well dispense with them, seeing as you’ve pretty
much dispensed with me entirely.’
I give up on
the grin.
‘I know. I’m
sorry,’ I sigh in an overly dramatic fashion. ‘For a lot of things,
actually.’
Her eyes
narrow. She puts her hand on her hip.
‘
What
things?’
Suddenly I
remember the police officer from the Metro.
‘Could I – erm
- could I just come in for a bit?’
She turns and
walks away in silence, but she leaves the door ajar. I take this as
a mark of acquiescence and follow her upstairs. I’ve seen her room
a thousand times – I practically lived here for the first semester
of my second year, before it became clear that Charlie wasn’t going
to murder me in my sleep, and was, in fact, quite entertaining at
times – but right now it feels like occupied territory.
‘So,’ she
says, eyeing me suspiciously. The other hand is on her other hip as
well, now. She’s standing over by the window, so that the bed forms
a barrier between us. ‘Would you rather start with what happened to
your face, or what you’re sorry for? Or are the two
intertwined?’
‘I got
mugged,’ I say. I don’t add anything else for a while, partly to
allow the news to sink in, partly to buy myself some space in which
to think of an answer for the second, more difficult question, and
partly to give her time to start feeling sorry for me. ‘Some guy
tried to take my wallet and I, stupidly, refused to give it to
him.’
No answer.
‘So he threw
me to the floor and stamped on my head a few times,’ I add, by way
of explanation. She opens her mouth, but it takes a while for any
sound to follow the movement. She must be choosing her next words
carefully.
‘So – uh – why
didn’t you just hand over your wallet?’ she says it in a
purposefully non-accusatory tone, but the underlying sentiment is
obvious. Refusing to hand over the wallet is out of character for
me. The me that she knows, anyway. She smells a rat. The fact that
the only response I can give to this query is a weak shrug doesn’t
exactly cover the scent, but I’m too burned-out to come up with any
more off-the-cuff cover stories today.
The exhaustion
that’s been relentlessly chasing me ever since I walked back into
the freezer and saw that the thermite hadn’t worked finally catches
up. I pirouette onto the bed and lean my neck back so I can gaze up
at her. One thing I always loved about Liz was that she has a
perfect face to look up at, especially when your head’s resting in
her lap. Most faces look ghoulish and threatening from below, but
not hers. The barbs of a wild, sudden urge to confess everything to
her jab into my sides. I could take the world’s disdain; I could
take the papers calling me a monster; I could even take my parents
thinking that I was the one who pulled the trigger on that hostage,
if I could confess it all to her right now and know that she’d
still love me.
‘So why didn’t
you just hand over your wallet?’ she asks again. The underlying
sentiment has now worked its way into her tone. For a long time I
don’t answer; I just lie there, staring at the bottom of her chin
like a besotted tween, wishing that somehow she could make the past
go away.
‘I did it
because I’m sick of being a coward. I’m sick of being too afraid of
what other people might think of me or what they might do to me. I
wanted to -’ I draw breath, and it rattles with the snot and
juddering diaphragm of someone about to start sobbing. ‘But now
I’m-’
I roll over
and jam my face into her duvet.
But now
you’re fucked
.
I’d give ten
years of my life, right now, to feel the soft pressure of her hand
on my shoulders. Thirty if it turns out that I’m going to be
spending them in prison. All that she gives me, though, is that
same icy tone:
‘You know what
you sound like?’ she asks. I don’t answer, partly because I’m still
trying to rein-in the sobs, and partly because I know she wants to
answer the question herself. ‘You sound like someone who fucked
some other girl, and regrets it.’
That might
be the first time I’ve ever heard her swear
, I think to myself.
The shock of it cuts off the burgeoning tears, and I sit up in one
sudden, purposeful movement.
‘I didn’t
cheat on you,’ I say, blankly, burying the last lurking shadow of a
sob. It’s true, in the strictly physical sense of the word. ‘I just
took you for granted. No, not even that. The opposite of that.’ I
fear that I might be blithering now. ‘I always felt as though
meeting you was the end of my script. Do you know what I mean? Like
the rest of my life is just the end credits and the happily ever
after. The proposal, the wedding, the kids, the job that buys us a
second-hand Audi – after that moment, all that other stuff was
already written, and I was just waiting to live it.’