Final Cut(27)

Anyway, I said I thought I’d wanted to be a vet once, or a doctor, and he said I should look into doing GCSEs, or a BTEC or something. I could talk to Dr Olsen about it.

When we reached Victoria I seemed to know the way and when we got on to the main road it felt like I’d been there before, too. At the station the stink of exhaust fumes and fast food hit me like a train, and when I saw the sign for the toilets – they’re down some stairs – I knew exactly what they’d look like. It came back to me in a rush: I used to buy drugs down there, that was where I used to hang out.

Aidan came over with the tickets, but I couldn’t go to Deal now, I was getting too close to who I was here. He followed me through an exit at the back. Outside, it was all posh cars, Bentleys and stuff, on one side of the road, and on the other it looked like council flats. Then we were in front of an Italian restaurant, next door to a place that did dog-grooming. Between them was a metal gate that led up to some flats, three or four floors of them. There was a panel with all the door buzzers and without even thinking I pressed the one for thirty-two. My heart was beating so hard, but when it opened I went up, and Aidan came, too, even though he kept asking if it was a good idea. When we reached flat thirty-two, the door was ajar and I could hear music. It stank of cigarettes and dope, but we went in anyway. It was disgusting; the walls were yellow and peeling and there was rubbish everywhere. There was a bedroom with a tatty mattress on the floor, then a disgusting kitchen, and in the room at the end of the corridor I could see a folding table and on it there were drugs and plastic bottles, bags of powder and some scales.

There were two men sat on a sofa, and a girl between them who looked like she was nodding out. As soon as he saw me, the one on the right stood up and said, ‘You!’

Who? I wanted to say. Who am I? But he looked like he wanted to kill me, it was dangerous, he’d probably have a knife or something, and when Aidan came in he got even angrier.

I kept looking at the girl on the sofa, and I knew that’d been me once. And the mattress on the floor next door. I’d slept on it, I’d fucked on it – or been fucked, I don’t remember it being something I wanted.

I was frozen to the spot, even though I knew I had to get out, but Aidan pulled on my arm. ‘Come on!’ he said, and then he said my name, Alex, and the guys started laughing. ‘Alex?’ said the other one. ‘So that’s your name now, little Sadie?’

We ran, then. Back down the stairs. I didn’t know whether they were chasing us or not, I just knew we had to get away. But at the bottom I saw someone on the other side of the street. She was looking straight at me, and somehow I knew she was the one who’d been my friend, the one who might know who I was and why I ran away.

‘Wait!’ I shouted, but she ran away. I tried to catch up with her, but it was no good, she disappeared down a side street. Aidan shouted after me to stop. He asked who it was I was chasing and I told him the truth.

‘I don’t know.’

I knew he’d ask, then, and I was right. ‘And who the hell is Sadie?’

He sounded almost angry. But I didn’t tell him. I’m never telling anyone, not even – no, especially –Dr Olsen. Like I say, I’m on my own.





Now





16


I remember that day, the day a memory came from one place and led me to another and I walked straight into the shooting gallery I hadn’t previously known existed. So I know it’s worked before, and that means surely it can work again. It’s like picking up a track at the edge of the forest, following it, going deeper in. Even though I want to know, I’m nervous about what I might find in Daisy’s home. Lightless, Bluff House seems even more desolate; it glowers resentfully in the dark. I go round to the far side, where there’s a garden, separated from the land by a low wall and some hedging. A washing line is strung diagonally across it from a pole in one corner, and in the other, battered and decrepit, is the caravan.

I switch on my camera and attach the light unit, then film for a moment. But when I put it down, something’s wrong. The van appears almost pixellated, as if I’m still looking at it through the camera’s lens. I blink and shake my head, but it’s no better, and when I step towards the gate that separates me from Daisy’s van it’s like I haven’t moved at all. It’s as if I’m floating, an inch outside my body, above and to the left, watching myself as I unlatch the gate, invisible.

This is wrong. It’s like déjà vu, except more intense, like something terrible is about to happen. I glance round but there’s no one there; Bluff House remains in stoic darkness.

I breathe deep. Nothing will happen, I tell myself. It’s a short-circuit in the brain, that’s all, and it’ll pass. Dissociation. Dr Olsen warned me this might happen occasionally, way back then. But it’s not until I lift the camera to my eye and begin to film again that things go back to how they really are, as if they’re in front of me and I’m in control of my body once more.

The van sits at a strange angle, half off its support, sinking into the mud. What’s left of the paint is streaked with blood-red rust and there’s a crack across the front window; the wheels are so corroded they look almost moth-eaten, flimsy as gauze. The door hangs off its hinges; the steps that would once have led up to it have long since disappeared. There’s a brand name inscribed above the window: Pegasus.