Desolation (3 page)

“No problem.” Peter lifted one end of the chest and dragged it through the hallway. “I'll put this in the living room.”

Cain entered his new home and closed the door behind him.

The hallway was large and bright, lit by a roof
light. It was painted entirely white, and hung with contrasting black and gray landscape paintings, surreal, beautiful scenes of dead trees reaching ragged fingers for the viewer. The floor was a pale timber, scored here and there with deep scratches. Three doors led off from the hallway, and Cain was stunned at the scope of his new home. At Afresh he had lived in one room—bed, settee, books, small bathroom leading off to one side. Here, faced with three doors, he felt a sudden rush of panic. What if he got lost?

The second door on his left swung inward again and Peter peered out. “Like it?”

Cain could not speak. His throat felt hot and hard, and he was afraid that if he opened his mouth he would cry. He had cried a lot in his life, but he did not wish to shed tears in front of Peter. He could not say why. Perhaps now, alone in the world, he did not want to appear weak.

“I chose the pictures myself,” Peter said. “I love dead trees. They're so filled with expression. It's as if shedding their leaves opens them up to view. What do you think? Do you like dead trees?”

Cain glanced at one of the pictures and nodded.

“Forgive the scratches,” Peter continued, tapping the floor with one foot. “Vlad used to tear the tires from his wheelchair wheels just to make as much noise as he could.”

“Vlad?”

“The dead guy. An old Russian circus performer, so he said. Broke his back falling from the trapeze. Vicious, horrible bastard he was. Nickname.”

Cain wanted to explore his home, but something
kept him motionless. He was a tree waiting to be swayed by a breeze, and the breeze was his own freedom. He had not yet fully grasped it. His father was still there in the background, a shadow standing beside him, holding him still and not for a second allowing him to bend.
Pure Sight
, a voice whispered, and it was not the Voice. It must have been his father muttering in his mind, come to haunt him now that there was a home to haunt.

But that was plain crazy.

He's dead and gone
, Cain thought, and behind one of the dead tree pictures he saw his own terrified reflection.

“So can I have the tour?” Cain asked.

“Absolutely! You'll love this place, Cain, believe me. I've never been to Afresh, but I've been places similar. And not to belittle it, but . . . well, you'll be free here. Never alone.”

Cain frowned at that—
How does he know!?
—but followed Peter through the door on the right.

“Bedroom. Big, bright, great views, it even has a small balcony facing out into the back garden.”

“It's nice,” Cain said. And then he smiled at his understatement. Nice? It was
luxurious
. The bed was a large double, white sheets and duvet already folded back. The iron bedstead was glossy black, setting off the cream of the walls and carpet. The sloping ceiling was dotted with a dozen inset lights. One entire wall was composed of glass sliding doors, leading out onto a balcony with decorative wrought-iron railings and potted plants softening its harsh lines. Fine net curtains were held back from the windows by metal hooks, affording a view
out onto the large back garden and the houses in the next street. The sun was just striking the windows, splashing the floor and already moving in toward the bed.

“It's fantastic,” Cain said.

Peter shrugged. “Thanks. New carpet. Vlad wore out the old one. There's a TV in the cupboard there, remote's on the bedside table.”

“Where's the bathroom?”

“En suite. Let me show you.”

The bathroom was small but perfect, containing a shower stall as well as a bath and lit, like the hallway, by a roof light.

Peter took Cain back through the hall and into the living room. This was furnished with various pieces of new furniture, none of it exceptionally expensive but all tasteful and functional. The kitchen was open plan, separated from view by a flowering plant climbing a network of stainless-steel wires. The units were glass-fronted, displaying a whole range of cooking and eating utensils, and one cupboard contained a welcome pack of food: tea bags, biscuits, bread, sugar, rice, pasta, some jars of sauce. A door led out to the hallway. And there were more paintings, this time stark representations of animals set against muddy brown backgrounds. Nothing detailed or intricate, just a few white brush strokes revealing enough form and shape to identify. It took Cain until the third painting to realize that they were all depictions of extinct animals.

The living space was large enough to accommodate a dining suite as well, which sat below the wide
dormer window facing the street. The walls held yet more paintings, but if they were by the same artist as the others, he or she was extremely adaptable. These images were more abstract, mostly constructed of many-angled shapes interconnecting or hovering within a hairsbreadth of touching, all of them black-and-white.

Through the large window Cain saw the cathedral as promised, and in the distance he could make out the mountain between office blocks and chimneys. He would sit here and eat breakfast, letting the early-morning sun stream in to keep his toast warm. Perhaps the window would be open, letting in birdsong from where birds would roost on the roof around him. He would be alone, but alone with his new life. At Afresh he was never really alone, but he had felt empty and useless. Here, free, he would be able to revel in his own company.

The dreams
, he thought,
the dreams might still be there
. But he would face them. Standing in his new living room, he promised himself that he would not take a sleeping pill tonight. The Voice had given them to help, but now it was time for Cain to help himself. He had spent far too long since his father's death relying on other people to take care of him.

“It's wonderful,” he said. “I never expected it to be like this.”

“Well, I admit the outside is a bit of a mess,” Peter said.

“No, no, I just never thought I'd have somewhere like this.
Live
somewhere wonderful like this. Such
a blank canvas.” Cain trailed off, aware that he sounded like a child in a toy shop.

“I've done a lot of work on it,” Peter said. “Vlad left it in a hell of a shape. Contentious old bastard.”

“How did he live here?”

“Sorry?”

“How did he survive? The stairs? The cupboards on the wall in the kitchen? The shower? You said he had a wheelchair.”

For a second—an instant so brief that Cain may have imagined it between blinks—Peter seemed enraged. But then he smiled that humorless smile again and shrugged.

“Well, I helped him. He paid me. Up the stairs, down the stairs. He could stand, just, when he really wanted to, and in time he may have been able to journey up on his own. But most of the time he chose to stay in the chair. He was . . . awkward.”

“Eaten, you say?”

Peter raised his eyebrows. “So it's said. Strange . . . they never even found his wheelchair.”

Cain walked back through to his bedroom, opened the sliding doors, and stood on the balcony. He glanced down into the garden, hoping to see some of the other residents down there, but it was home only to insects, birds, and bees. The garden itself was somewhat wild, but weeds were kept down and paths and paved areas were well maintained. It looked like a place where he could be at peace. Sit and read. Enjoy being alive. Even at Afresh that was something he had never done.

“I like it,” he said.

Peter had followed him through and was standing
at his back. “Good. I'm pleased. And I'm glad my talk of Vlad didn't put you off. And anyway, it's not as if he actually
died
here.”

Cain turned around. “It wouldn't have bothered me if he had.”

Peter's smile faltered just for an instant, and Cain was pleased.
You're your own man now
, the Voice had said.
Time to make your mark on the world
.

Peter left him the front door key and a phone number to call if there were problems. And when the landlord closed the door behind him, Cain ran from room to room, in and out, kitchen living room hallway bedroom bathroom, back again, filling the flat with himself so that it came to know him.

He opened the dormer window above the dining table and, leaning out, watched Peter cross the street. The landlord stood on the pavement for a few seconds, chatting with two children who may or may not have been the ones from earlier. And then he walked into the unkempt garden of the house named
Heaven
, prized the corrugated iron front door to one side, and vanished within.

Cain went to the shops. There were a lot of things he needed, and he had the money that Afresh had given him to start out on his own. There was a bank account, his father's money sitting there waiting to be claimed—he had not died a poor man—but for now, Cain did not wish to dwell on such affairs. He had a new life to find first. Then he could pick up the loose ends of his past, confront them, and end them.

He did not see anyone on his way downstairs. He passed by Flat One, wondering whether Sister Josephine was praying in there even now. He had passed Flats Two, Three, and Four with no idea of who was inside, and after Peter's allusion that every occupant was odd, Cain found the silence strangely loaded. There were peepholes in each door, and he wondered who was watching him pass by, the lens distorting him into someone new. Perhaps he would knock on Heaven's door on the way back from the shops, ask Peter the truth.

He left the house.

The front garden fell silent to mark his passing, whether in reverence or disdain Cain could not tell. Probably neither, though ignorance was worse. As he closed the gate the spiky bushes rustled, the bees began to hum, and he was back in Endless Crescent again. The vandalized sign now read wrong; he was not Nowhere. For the first time in his life, he was somewhere he truly wanted to be.

He bought a bottle of wine, an Indian takeaway meal, and a packet of fruit jellies. He planned an evening of indulgence to mark the start of his new life. He felt that was more positive than celebrating the end of the past.

The past . . .

Cain's father had never been good to him, though perhaps he was too mad to be truly bad. He had seen Cain as a project, his own subject for experimentation. Cain had tried his best to block those many terrible memories, and they had receded into his dreams, driven underground by his
efforts at Afresh. The physical evidence of his past—the impossibility of what had happened to him—was locked away in the chest. He would never open it again, but he knew that he could never lose it completely. Having independence was another step toward creating a whole new life for himself.

Still, those dreams.

Walking back from the shops, Cain took time to really assess the neighborhood. The buildings were a surprising mix of styles and periods, ranging from Victorian town houses—much like the one housing his new flat—to brand-new modern executive homes; five bedrooms, large gardens, and four-wheel-drives in the double garage. There were clutches of council houses mixed in with unique self-built homes. A terraced street backed onto a court of luxury apartments. It gave the whole area a surreal atmosphere, as if it had never known itself, nor what it wanted to be. A young businessman in a sharp suit walked along the pavement, talking into a hands-free telephone wrapped onto his ear. Cain nodded, but the suit was too busy to reciprocate. Minutes later, a gang of youths approached and asked if he had a light. Cain shook his head, unnerved, and they drifted off with a polite “Thanks, mate.” Halfway home, he decided to sit and watch people pass by. He used to enjoy doing this at Afresh, but there the strollers were mostly mad.

He found himself outside a small park—little more than a fenced-in area of grass and shrubs, and some tattered play equipment—and sat on a
bench dedicated to “Dear Jack.” The takeaway meal was going cold, but he had a microwave, and besides, the air this afternoon smelled so much fresher knowing he did not have to return to Afresh that evening. No more day passes, no more weekly evaluations, no more prodding and poking, no more trial journeys, no more mornings with the Face smiling down as he woke up, no more evenings with the Voice asking how he was, where had he been, whom had he seen. His time spent at Afresh since his father's death—years, though he had lost track of just how many—was a good time in his memory. He had been treated well and, for the first time in his life, allowed to join in with the community. Interaction was good, they were always told. Whether he had actually
wanted
to join in, he was still not sure.

The street where he sat was quiet, salubrious, well kept. The few houses facing the park were all slightly different, extended and renovated versions of the same original plan. The cars in their driveways were new, high-performance models. His father's house had been a little larger than any of these, isolated out in the country. That's where they had found Cain.

A man went by walking his dog. Cain smiled, and the man averted his eyes and hurried on, tugging the dog on its leash so that its nails skittered across the pavement. Cain opened his fruit jellies and started eating. He had developed a liking for them at Afresh, and they were still the only sweet he remembered ever having tried.

A woman approached, searching through her
handbag, muttering to herself and cursing, quietly at first and then louder. A few steps away from Cain, she dropped her bag. Its contents spewed across the pavement; lipsticks rolled, tissues fluttered, notebooks and pens and purse collided and stuttered into the gutter. A mobile phone spun on its end and then hit the ground with a crack.

“Fuck!” The woman squatted and began gathering her belongings. She did not appear to be aware of Cain's presence.