Wildlife (24 page)

Roger tries some other words: ‘Whatever humanity I have left,' he says, ‘I'm willing to give to you.'

Anka smiles. ‘Better. Do you want to go to the cinema with me?'

‘What about the launch, the Wild World?'

‘Fuck it,' says Anka, standing up and taking hold of Roger's chair. ‘Fuck the Wild World. Let's just go. We'll get jobs. We'll get a flat. You can monitor my eating. We can go InterRailing. Let's just be normal. It'll be great.'

‘Fine, but what about my body?' says Roger. ‘We'll never be able to make love.'

‘You can finger me. I'll teach you how to find my clit.'

At the mention of her clit Roger turns round and looks nervously at Anka. She's above him, pushing his chair along, laughing. She is light-hearted. She's saying, ‘What do you fancy seeing? I reckon something with Johnny Depp. Once we're settled down, Roger, I'm going to eat food and watch films that have got Johnny Depp in them. I may even start fancying him a little.'

‘Personally,' says Roger, turning to regard the street he's being pushed down; a grey, buildinged, peopled, weathered strip. ‘Personally, I'd rather we went to a musical, maybe
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
. Something fun.'

‘Fine,' says Anka. ‘Whatever you want, Roger.'

From nowhere a figure steps out in front of the wheelchair. Anka tuts and tries to move round.

‘Oh no you don't.'

It's a man. He's tall, dressed in a shellsuit. Fluorescent pink. Likeable clumps of facial hair float unevenly around his mouth and cheeks.

‘You two,' he says. ‘You're both late as it is, and now I find you striding off in the wrong direction. What's going on?'

‘We're going to watch a film with Johnny Depp in it,' says Anka, causing Roger to perform a large and deliberate cough. She corrects herself: ‘I mean, we're going to see a musical.'

The man starts laughing. He grabs the handles of Roger's wheelchair and then continues to laugh his head off. ‘Very funny,' he's saying, pushing Roger back in the direction of the football stadium, the red carpet and the photographers. ‘Very, very funny.'

‘Get off him,' shouts Anka, trying to stop the guy but succeeding only in trotting alongside the wheelchair. ‘You're pushing him too fast.'

The man is still chuckling to himself, muttering, ‘Johnny Depp. That's a classic. Imagine. Johnny Depp. That's an absolute classic.'

WHERE THE RED
carpet meets with the pavement, a cameraman bends down onto one knee. He allows the autofocus to do its thing and a second later the camera clicks and flashes. You could take the camera off this guy. You could hook it up to a laptop via a USB. You could stare at the photo. You could stare at this split second.

You'd see Anka Kudolski being dragged by one of her thin arms onto the red carpet. You'd see her head bent down in struggle, a swathe of blonde hair shielding her face from the lens. It's the guy in the pink shellsuit dragging her. He's pushing Roger Hart's wheelchair aggressively with his other hand. You'd see Roger's face frozen, his head turned and staring with wide objecting eyes. Roger's large, round head, with the computer mouse stuck in the top of it and the thick black wires coming from his ears. You would see all of this. All of this would be in foreground.

Zooming in a little, beyond Roger and Anka, you'd see cameramen going mental, frantically pointing lenses in the direction of the two of them, shouting at them, gesturing
to them with mad hands, faces begging them to stand still and be photographed. Beyond the cameramen, you'd see Janek Freeman. He'd be a little blurred, I expect, but instantly recognisable in his black beanie, pulled down to his defined eyebrows, his navy blue tank top, his handsome face, his ears; red wires pouring from both of them. He's getting out of a black cab and being greeted enthusiastically by a green shellsuited blonde. She'd have one hand on Janek's shoulder, gesturing that he should walk the red carpet and pause to be photographed. You'd notice in the photograph that Janek looks scared, that he's trying desperately to touch fists with the girl but that she is having none of it. Beyond Janek's taxi, at the very back of the photograph, is a Mitsubishi people carrier. The young man you'd see getting out of this people carrier has perfectly white hair. You'd recognise him straight away as Joe Aspen. You'd see he's wearing a billowing white shirt, the cuffs and collar undone. You'd think that his face looked hot, that Joe looked tense. Perhaps he's tired from carrying that travel seat, you might think. You can't make out much of what is inside the seat; just grey fur, dead yellow skin and a pair of shining black eyes. You'd see that Joe, too, is being greeted by a shellsuited twenty-something. You'd see her excruciatingly precise red fringe. You'd see how she tries to snatch the travel seat from Joe and how he prevents this by clenching his fist.

ONCE INSIDE THE
stadium, Anka, Roger, Janek and Joe are ushered into a cramped, windowless room next to the banqueting suite.

Joe recognised Janek the moment the two of them were dragged from their respective cars. He looks a lot like his Wow-Bang avatar, what with the beanie. The two take seats at opposite sides of the tight, grey-lit room; Joe sees to Sally while Janek covers his eyes with his fingers.

Anka steers Roger's wheelchair next to her seat. She straightens his various wires affectionately, running the back of her hand against his cheek. ‘What the fuck –' she says. She was going to say ‘– are we doing here?' but she can't be bothered. ‘What the fuck are we doing here?' is not a question Anka can be arsed asking any more.

The four people sit in silence.

After a while, the door unlocks with a click. A young man is pushed into the room. The door is slammed and locked once more. Joe recognises the young man straight away as former pop star Asa Gunn. He smiles at him,
recalling their recent meeting in Manchester, but the celebrity's face contains only anxiety and nerves. No recognition at all.

‘Hello,' says Asa Gunn, addressing the floor, or perhaps the briefcase that he holds timidly with both hands.

‘All right, mate,' says Joe, placing Sally into the travel seat and rising to shake the ex-pop star's hand.

‘Your wrist!' Asa Gunn exclaims as he takes Joe's hand. ‘You're not wearing one of my bracelets. In fact,' he quickly scans the room, ‘none of you are!'

Asa Gunn drops to the floor and opens his suitcase. Within seconds he's standing up, carefully offering a wet-looking, red-and-yellow bracelet to Joe. It's shining under the strip light, it's glistening.

‘I make them out of my veins,' says Gunn, gesturing that Joe take the bracelet from him. ‘Since I accidentally retired from the world of pop, this is what I do. I make jewellery out of myself. I sell it on the Internet. But today is my comeback. That's what's so great, I think. We make comebacks.'

Having handed the vein bracelet to Joe, Asa Gunn lifts up his pink T-shirt a little to reveal several large scars, jet black and barely healed, just below his ribs. He turns round to show them to Roger and Anka but he gets distracted. ‘You've got wires coming out of your head. Are you like me?'

Roger glances up at Asa Gunn. Roger is desperate not to speak. Words are gathering round his brain like nails round Semtex. He succeeds in saying nothing. He just hunches his shoulders and blinks.

‘What do you mean?' says Anka, bluntly. ‘What are you on about?'

‘You,' replies Asa Gunn solemnly. ‘You are so very thin.
When I was a pop star, my friends were very thin like you. And late at night in posh hotels they liked to flash their limbs at me. One time, a girl removed her pretty green dress for me, and she completely disappeared. Or rather, she was just a sad grey face that floated round the room.'

Janek Freeman jumps to his feet and screams in rhyme: ‘I was a normal boy with a bass guitar, I played on a stage with American stars. I fell in love with a girl called Life. I stuck it in and it felt so nice. What the fuck are we doing here?'

Everyone ignores Janek's outburst. He has the air of one that should be ignored. Like a drunk tramp, a boring teacher or a total psycho. Also, everyone can hear the tinny music coming from his red MP3 player and assumes it would be futile to address him.

Joe, having tied Asa Gunn's vein around his wrist, drops Beak onto the floor so he can have a wander around. Joe is feeling strong. The more he watches Janek panic, the stronger he feels. Whatever happens, he's thinking, whatever we're doing here, I'm going to be fine. I'm gonna take care of Sally, Dolly, Beak and Sam the Man. I'm going to be fucking fine. He watches calmly as Janek babbles in rhyme about the fun and funky fuck festival of a life he's just dying to lead. He watches as Roger suppresses the pointless words that are desperate to explode from his arsehole, his nostrils, his ears and his mouth. He sees Anka holding her wrist with her finger and thumb, trying to work out how thin she is, and whether she was right to smash the other Anka's head against those toilet tiles.

In the centre of the room, Asa Gunn inspects his jet-black scars. ‘I used to be famous,' he whimpers.

The door to the room opens and there is a brief yet fairly collective sense of relief.

‘I was wondering when you'd turn up,' says Joe, smiling up at the doorway.

‘Thank fuck,' says Anka. ‘Thank fuck you're here. What happened to our front-row seats?'

In the doorway, Life has the look of someone who has been let down. She is awkward inside her beautiful red dress, upset beneath her immaculately styled golden hair. She has the look of a bride abandoned at the altar, as if she would like to rip her dress off here and now and pull at her hair till it's ruined.

‘I'm sorry,' Life says, her accent more Scandinavian than ever, almost completely stripped of Englishness. ‘I didn't understand. I've been fooled. I've been used and so have you.' Life starts to cry. Joe can't believe this. Of all the people he has met, Life is one he could never imagine weeping. In the two years they were lovers, she never cried once. She was always so happy. He puts baby Sally to one side, stands and holds Life by the shoulders.

‘It's all right, Lie,' he says, reassuringly. ‘Whatever it is, I'm sure it's fine.'

‘It's not fine, Joe,' she weeps. ‘That's the amazing thing. It's not fine at all. They've made a fool out of me.'

Life is really letting the tears flow. She has tears round her thick red lips.

Janek rips off his beanie and pulls himself to his feet by his curly brown hair.

‘Hip to the hop, don't stop the rot,' he cries, his voice shredded with fright. ‘I'm so laid-back I'm motherfucking snoozing, I'm born to win, you won't catch me losing . . . What am I saying?' he shouts, staring psychotically at Life
as she weeps uncontrollably. ‘Promises are panes of glass. Let me love you up the ass. Promises are panes of glass. Let me love you up the ass!'

There is no time to consider replying to Janek. Because Roger's face just explodes with words:

‘Allow me. Allow me,' he blurts. ‘It's all wank. It's all total bollocks if you think about it. All us young people wandering around, moaning, getting fucked up. It's a snoring waste of time, all of it, a boozing, boring waste of time. We do not eat rats or cats or dogs, this is not the French Revolution, we do not wave flags, we do not stand together, we do not mutter to each other in gutters and we should not be miserable, we should not be the miserable ones –'

With the help of Joe, who holds down his flailing arms, Anka succeeds in regagging Roger with the knickers.

‘Perhaps you'd like a bracelet,' says Asa Gunn timidly to Roger once he's fully gagged. Roger growls at the former pop star, biting down hard on the underwear.

‘Who?' says Anka, turning to Life angrily. ‘Who is using us?'

Sally starts crying now.

‘Come on, Life,' shouts Anka. ‘Tell us what's going on.'

Sally stops crying the moment Joe puts her over his shoulder. He shakes his whole body gently and the baby is calm. He touches Life on her shoulder.

‘Lie, it's OK, I'll look after you.'

Hearing this, Life, too, stops crying. She stops abruptly. She stops because she knows that Joe can't look after her and because, in any case, she doesn't need looking after. Above all, Life Moberg knows that you can't go back, you just can't. Whatever emotions you feel for those held
prisoner in your past, you cannot set them free. She sniffs a snotty sniff and wipes her eyes. She exhales. She runs a hand through her golden hair and approaches Asa Gunn with an air of professionalism.

‘I'm afraid you won't be performing today after all,' she says. The ex-pop star is instantly upset. ‘I wasn't as powerful as I thought,' Life continues. ‘I was deceived and I'm afraid I didn't have the authority to hire you. I'm sorry, Asa.'

Asa Gunn looks at his wrist, wrapped in his own veins. ‘So no comeback?' he says, quietly. ‘No comeback.' Ten seconds pass like knife-wielding teens on stolen bikes until, quite suddenly, Asa bites down hard on his bottom lip before opening the door and charging through the group of ironically shellsuited goons, screaming, ‘No comeback! No comeback!' and he is never heard of again.

Life pulls the door shut then turns to Anka and Joe. ‘I thought I was in control. I thought I was living the life, you know, the dream.'

‘Who?' blurts Anka, as if she's not sure what the word means. ‘Who's in charge?'

‘You don't get it,' says Life. ‘You don't get anything. All this stuff about the Wild World. It's us. I mean literally, you and me, Roger, Joe, Janek. The Wild World is us.'

DOWN ON THE
pitch, the players are emerging from a tunnel situated in the corner of the stadium just below the banqueting suite. Some of them wave at the cheering fans; others stare down at the scrolling turf, deep in concentration.