Richard felt himself floating in a vast, star-filled cavern, totally calm; and when the memory rose up, he held still instead of screaming, knowing he was strong enough to watch.
It is a world of giants, the adults, and they do not seem to realise how confusing it all is. The plane travel is wonderful, then boring, seeming to last for days. He plays games on his pad, sleeps, eats food he does not like, knowing Father will shout if he leaves any behind.
"Twenty-one countries," says the lady in uniform, "in twenty-five days. Even I don't do that."
He has no idea how to reply, or quite what the words mean, but at least she is friendly. Then there is A ripple moved through him, a tightening of his stomach, but then her hand was on his shoulder and he relaxed, calm again.
"Tell me. Go back to just before the time you were afraid."
– Father's presence, big and comforting however much it frightens, because this is Father, strong and unbeatable, around whom the world revolves. The whole trip has been a chaos of dislocating sights: corridors and rooms, smiling faces looking down on him, fake-cheerful voices, adults chivvying him along, their words without sense.
There is the clinic and the grinning dog on the wall, the cartoon dog called Timmy he has seen before. Big hands press his shoulder blades, urging him forward, and he feels the grown-ups might trample him like the elephants they saw yesterday or the day before, those legs longer than he had expected for such round, heavy creatures with amazing trunks that Father said were prehistoric or something like that, and if only Father would hold his hand while the smiling men and women showed them round all these places but there was grown-up work to do, Father said so, which was why everything was a jumble of adults who The hand on his shoulder.
"Closer to that time, Richard. To just before the fear started, and you can tell me about it now."
– do not notice when he slips away by sort-of accident, staying behind when they turn, continuing into the shining white place they had partly explored. Somewhere a toy had squeaked, so perhaps there are other children here, boys and girls he can talk to and maybe play with. He goes through the big doors that slide back with a whoosh, the air feeling very cold as he steps further inside.
There is a chair beside the raised – thing – that looks like a metal bed with a curved glass casing over it. Climbing up, he is able to stare inside.
She is very pretty, the sleeping girl beneath the glass.
For a long time he wonders whether he should try to waken her, but if she's tired or maybe sick then that would be a bad thing. So he climbs down, and moves to the next one in the row, wondering if it's a boy or girl inside and whether they'll be awake. He is just about to climb up when voices sound and he crouches down, shaking, wondering what will happen if they catch him, and how much Father will shout when he finds out.
There are six of them, two of them sort-of white Her fingertip made him pause. Then her question came.
"Tell me more about sort-of white."
His voice seemed to speak by itself: "Like Chinese, but I was young."
"And the others were white?"
"No, the other doctors were black."
"Like me?"
"No. They were dark. So were the others."
"What others, Richard?"
"In the big rooms. Offices. Wearing suits."
"So… Tell me about the doctors. What happened next?"
He returned to the star cave, then the dream. -and the glass raises up, one of the bed-things, and he can see the boy inside has no clothes, which seems funny, and he's lying there while the doctors get things ready, a trolley with metal stuff on it, and those tubes from the ceiling dangling over the boy, and something is not right which is why he is frozen and his mouth opens wide in a scream as the first doctor raises his hand and it's shining when he, when he, when he Hand on his shoulder.
"Just breathe, and breathe, and step outside yourself as if you're watching a movie of what you did, watching yourself in the scene, that's right, and tell me what happened next."
I am watching crouched down, trying to hide, screaming without sound when the shining metal descends and the skin splits open, everything inside so liquid with globs of stuff and twisted things like pipes inside his body. I stumble away, knocking against a bed or something but the monsters, the doctors, are too busy to notice as I run, too scared to say anything, swearing I will say nothing if only I can get back to Father because otherwise they will cut him as well as me chop him up slice us up cutting and slicing and cutting and Hand, the dream fading, only the star-filled cave and a feeling of soft ease.
"Sleep now."
Drifting.
[TWENTY-THREE]
Josh travelled by Tube, smiling at fellow passengers. Back in his hotel room, he exercised and showered, got changed, packed a few clothes and toiletries in his gym bag – but leaving the rest, making no assumptions about Suzanne wanting him to stay the night again – and carried the bag out to his car. Then he drove into the heavy traffic, feeling relaxed: he was in a travelling armchair, when you thought about it, and the speed he moved at was irrelevant. The slow stop-start progress made him calmer by the minute.
Wow. Suzanne.
Some forty minutes later, he pulled up in front of her place, used the keychip she had lent him to get through the ground floor entrance, then jogged upstairs to her flat. There, the door opened, and she smiled at him.
"Hey."
She hugged him. There was a tremble inside her, different from before.
"What is it?"
"I'll tell you in the bedroom."
Not a lover's promise.
"All right."
Richard was sitting in the lounge, watching a straightplay movie, interactive decisions set to default paths. He looked up.
"Hi," said Josh. "You feeling better?"
"I think so."
"OK… Er, I need to put my bag away."
"Come on." Suzanne tugged him.
In her bedroom, he put down the bag.
"The kid looks calmer."
"He doesn't consciously remember what he talked about in trance. I'm inclined to leave it that way. But if it surfaces by itself, then that's all right too. So long as the emotion isn't overwhelming."
"Emotion?"
"He was younger, so there are missing details, things he didn't understand. As near as I can make out, he accompanied his father on a trip to Africa. I'm not sure whether his mother was still alive at that time. I am certain she wasn't with them."
"Africa."
"He was in a lab. There were local and Chinese doctors. What he saw them do to children… it's been buried deep by fright, fear for himself and for his father, because of what he saw. All his anxieties… it was never really a fear of weapons."
"It wasn't?"
"Call it a generalised fear of scalpels."
"But scalpels aren't… Oh."
"He saw them slice open living kids."
"Virapharm labs?" His fists trembled, forearms becoming bands of tension. "Broomhall's running virapharm labs?"
"There was a bulldog symbol on the wall. It comes from Tyndall Industries Medicales. Hence Timmy, for the children's wards and drugs."
"Tyndall? But virapharm… Outright criminality isn't their style. The kid's confused."
"Not about what he saw," said Suzanne, "however little he understood. One country's illegality is another's modus operandi. Did I mention there were Chinese doctors among the Africans?"
"Chinese influence… That does sound like Africa. You're not sure which country?"
"No. Poor Richard was flying all over the place with his father. It was a confusing time, even before he… saw what he saw."
"Shit."
He was shaking, unable to help it. Soft flesh splitting open and the boy's head exploding into mist because he was swinging the rifle up and Josh had to shoot and he hated himself for the way he "Tell me, Josh."