*
Alison stood in the kitchen, her hands over her ears. She’d been in this situation countless times before: on her own, in the kitchen, trying to block out the sounds of the TV, which Val always turned up too loud. What could be more mundane, more banal? Except that tonight there was a crucial difference: tonight, the sounds coming from the television, the sounds she was trying to ignore, were her own mother’s screams of distress.
They were awful sounds. Keening, animal howls coming from thousands of miles away: from somewhere in the depths of a cave in a corner of the Australian rain forest, captured as digital information and beamed faithfully into Yardley via the television’s speakers. This latest ordeal would have taken place several hours ago, of course, but that was little consolation to Alison, who was having to live through every moment of it now, in real time. Sometimes when the screams died down she could hear the chortling host intervene with comments like ‘OK Val, here comes the next lot!’ or ‘Ooh, these are nasty little fellas all right, aren’t they?’ But otherwise there was no respite from her mother’s lacerating, inhuman screeching. How long had it been going on for, now? No more than a couple of minutes, surely. But she wasn’t sure that she could stand it any longer.
‘Selena!’ she shouted towards the living room. ‘For fuck’s sake turn it down.’
The TV was muted and a few seconds later Selena came into the kitchen. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s finished. They’ve gone over to the adverts.’ She saw that Alison had been crying, and took a Kleenex out of her pocket. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Let’s clean you up a bit.’
‘Fuck,’ said Alison, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. ‘That was rough.’
‘She didn’t cope too well, did she?’
‘Of course she didn’t fucking cope! That would have been her worst nightmare. She’s claustrophobic for a start.’
The cave into which Val had been made to crawl had been no more than two feet high, and not much wider. Once inside, she had been told to lie on her back, and then the entrance had been sealed with a rock.
‘She also has nyctophobia.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Fear of the dark. And entomophobia.’
‘Fear of … insects?’
Alison nodded. ‘The silly cow. She should have fucking … told them.’ She grabbed another fistful of Kleenex from the box, and blew her nose. ‘Were they all over her? What were they?’
‘I don’t know — cockroaches, mainly. And some spiders.’
‘Shit. She hates spiders.’
‘It’s over now, Al. She’s got through it.’
Selena took Alison in her arms and held her close, and for a while they just stood like that, not moving, beneath the glare of the kitchen’s strip lighting. Selena waited for Alison to relax, to soften beneath the embrace, but it wasn’t happening.
‘She was here,’ Alison said eventually. ‘This time last week she was here with me. A week later she’s in the Australian jungle and someone’s buried her alive and she’s got spiders crawling into her mouth. I mean, what the fuck …? What happened to us this week?’
Whatever it was that had happened, it was soon over. At the very end of that night’s episode, the show went live to Australia, where it was now eight o’clock in the morning. It was time for the first of the celebrities to be voted off. Forlornly, Alison and Selena sat on the sofa, wielding two mobile phones and a landline, repeatedly punching in the number that was supposed to save Val from expulsion. But they were wasting their time (and money). She was, by some margin, the contestant with the fewest votes, and just a few minutes later she had left the camp and was being ushered into the makeshift outdoor studio where she would have her final interview with the two hosts. Sitting down beside them, she looked tired and skeletal. Her eyes were blank with shock and exhaustion. Her skin was grey. When the interview was over, she was directed to walk across the little suspended wooden bridge to the spot where her car and driver would be waiting. The cameras followed her as the programme’s theme tune played out. To Alison, her mother looked older and more frail than ever. Her stoop was worse. At the far end of the bridge, Alison could glimpse Steve, holding out his arms in expectation. He greeted her mother with a brief, amicable hug. The credits came to an end and Alison turned off the TV.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘That’s that.’
She poured a glass of wine for herself and another for Selena, who looked at it doubtfully.
‘I should really be getting home in a minute,’ she said.
‘Well … Just one more. Won’t do you any harm.’
Forty minutes later, the telephone rang. It was Val, calling from Australia. She was back at the hotel, crying down the line. Alison tried to comfort her at first but it soon became clear that all her words of reassurance (‘No, really, you came across very well … Everyone here’s been rooting for you …’) were beside the point. The point being that Steve had dumped her. Apparently, while the celebrities had been in the jungle, all their partners and guests had been taken out on organized day trips, and in the process a romance had developed between Steve and Jacqui, Pete’s aunt. This afternoon they were flying up to Cairns to spend a few days surfing together.
‘I’ve got to stay here for another week,’ Val said, between snivelling breaths. ‘What am I going to do, all by myself?’
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ said Alison. ‘I can tell you what you shouldn’t do.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Go online, or read the papers.’
She hung up when it became clear that her mother was too tired to speak any more. Selena had overheard most of the conversation and was already fuming with sisterly indignation.
‘Has what I think just happened, actually happened?’
‘Yep. I should have warned her. I should have warned her about that fucking creep. Next time I see him, I’m going to get him on the floor, and give him such a kicking …’
‘Can I join in?’ Selena asked. ‘I’m pretty good at kicking. I’ve got two good legs, for a start.’
Alison gave a long, grateful laugh, and instinctively reached out to touch her friend on the cheek.
‘I don’t suppose you could stay the night?’ she said.
*
Perry Barr — Handsworth — Winson Green — Bearwood — Harborne — Selly Oak — Cotteridge — Kings Heath — Hall Green — Acocks Green — Yardley — Stechford — Fox & Goose — Erdington — Witton — Perry Barr.
Shit!
Did you say that out loud? Did you scream? Why are they all looking at you?
Must have dozed off.
— Yardley — Stechford — Fox & Goose —
Same thing. Same images. Same sensations. The darkness, first of all. The knowledge that the roof is just above your head, that you can’t move. And then the noises. The scurrying noises, as they empty the first load on to you, from somewhere up above, through some hole in the rock.
No sleep again last night. Not a wink. This seems to be the only place you can sleep now. But you don’t want to. As soon as you sleep, you hear them again. Feel them crawling. Up your legs, inside your trousers, down the front of your shirt. Oh fuck.
— Fox & Goose — Erdington — Witton —
Two months now. Two months since you got back. Two months and no change. Nothing. Same old shit, day after day.
— Witton — Perry Barr — Handsworth —
Doctor says it’s only a matter of time, a matter of waiting, but what does she know? All they do is give you pills anyway. She doesn’t understand. Nobody understands, knows what it’s like. ‘Look on the bright side,’ for fuck’s sake.