Tunnels

Rebecca's room was filled with the heavy rumble of Monday morning traffic, car horns hooting impatiently from the streets thirteen floors below. A slight breeze ruffled the curtains. She wrinkled her nose distastefully as she smelled the stale stench of cigarettes from Auntie Jean's nonstop smoking the night before. Although the door to her bedroom was firmly shut, the smoke nosed its way into every nook and cranny, like an insidious yellow fog searching out new corners to taint.

She got up, slipped on her bathrobe, and made her bed as she trilled the first couple of lines of 'You Are My Sunshine.' Lapsing into vague la-las for the rest of the song, she carefully arranged a black dress and a white shirt on the top of the bedspread.

She went over to the door and, placing her hand on the handle, stopped completely still, as if she had been struck by a thought. She turned slowly and retraced her steps to her bed. Her eyes alighted on the pair of little silver-framed photographs on the table beside it.

Taking them in her hands she sat on her bed, looking between the two. In one, there was a slightly out-of- focus photograph showing Will leaning on a shovel. In the other, a youthful Dr. and Mrs. Burrows sat on stripy deck chairs on an unidentified beach. In the picture, Mrs. Burrows was staring at an enormous ice cream, while Dr. Burrows appeared to be trying to swat a fly with a blurred hand.

They had all gone their separate ways — the family had fallen apart. Did they seriously think she was going to stick around to babysit Auntie Jean, someone even more slothful and demanding than Mrs. Burrows?

'No,' Rebecca said aloud. 'I'm done here.' A thin smile flickered momentarily across her face. She glanced at the photographs one last time and then drew a long breath.

'Props,' she said, and threw them with such vehemence that they struck the discolored baseboard with a tinkle of breaking glass.

Twenty minutes later she was dressed and ready to leave. She put her little suitcases next to the front door and went into the kitchen. In a drawer next to the sink was Auntie Jean's 'cig stash.' Rebecca tore open the ten or so packs of cigarettes and shook their contents into the sink. Then she started on Auntie Jean's bottles of cheap vodka. Rebecca twisted off the screw caps and poured them, all five bottles, into the sink, dousing the cigarettes.

Finally she picked up the box of kitchen matches from beside the gas stove and slid it open. Taking out a single match, she struck it and set light to a crumpled-up sheet of newspaper.

She stood well back and chucked the flaming ball into the sink. The cigarettes and alcohol went up with a satisfying whoosh, flames leaping out of the sink over the fake-chrome faucet and the chipped floral tiles behind them. Rebecca didn't stay to savor it. The front door slammed, and she and her little suitcases were gone. With the sound of the smoke alarm receding behind her, she made her way across the landing and into the stairwell.

* * * * *

Since his friend had been spirited away, Chester, in the permanent night of the Hold, had passed beyond the point of despair.

'One. Two. Thre…' He tried to straighten his arms to complete the push-up, part of the daily training routine he'd started in the Hold.

'Thre…' He exhaled hollowly and sank down, defeated, his face coming to rest against the unseen filth on the stone floor. He slowly rolled over and sat up, glancing at the observation hatch in the door to make sure he wasn't being watched as he brought his hands together. Dear God…

To Chester, praying was something from the self-conscious, cough-filled silences at school assemblies… something that followed the badly sung hymns, which, to the glee of their giggling confederates, some boys salted with dirty lyrics.

No, only nerds prayed in earnest.

… please send someone…

He pressed his hands together even harder, no longer feeling any embarrassment. What else could he do? He remembered the great-uncle who had one day appeared in the spare room at home. Chester 's mother had taken Chester to one side and told him that the funny little twig-like man was having radiation treatments at a London hospital, and, although Chester had never set eyes on him before, she said he was «family» and that that was important.

Chester pictured the man, with his Racing Post pamphlets and his harsh 'I don't eat any of that foreign filth' when he was presented with a perfectly good plate of spaghetti Bolognese. He remembered the rasping cough punctuating the numerous «rollies» he still insisted on smoking, much to the exasperation of Chester 's mother.

In the second week of car trips to the hospital the little man had gotten weaker and more withdrawn, like a leaf withering on a branch, until he didn't talk of 'life up north' or even try to drink his tea. Chester had heard, but never understood why, the little man had cried out to God in their spare room in horrible wheezing breaths, in those days before he died. But he understood now.

…help me, please… please…

Chester felt lonely and abandoned and… and why, oh why, had he gone with Will on this ridiculous jaunt? Why hand't he just stayed at home? He could be there now, tucked up warm and safe, but he wasn't, and he had gone with Will… and now there was nothing he could do but mark the passage of days by the two depressingly identical bowls of mush that arrived at regular intervals and the intermittent periods of unfulfilling sleep. He had now grown used to the continual thrumming noise that invaded his cell — the Second Officer had told him it was due to machinery in the 'Fan Stations.' He had actually begun to find it kind of comforting.

Of late, the Second Officer had mellowed slightly in his treatment of Chester and occasionally deigned to respond to his questions. It was almost as though it didn't matter anymore whether or not the man maintained his official bearing, which left Chester with the dreadful feeling that he might be there forever, or, on the other hand, that something was just around the corner, that things were coming to a head — and not for the better, he suspected.

This suspicion had been further heightened when the Second Officer slung open the door and ordered Chester to clean himself up, providing him with a bucket of dark water and a sponge. Despite his misgivings, Chester was grateful for the opportunity to wash, although it hurt like crazy as he did it because his eczema had flared up like never before. In the past it had been limited to his arms, only very occasionally spreading to his face, but now it had broken out all over, until it seemed that every inch of his body was raw and flaking. The Second Officer had also chucked in some clothes for him to change into, including a pair of huge pants that felt as if they were cut from sackcloth and made him itch even more; if that was possible.

Other than this, time tottered wearily by. Chester had lost track of how long he'd been alone in the Hold; it might have been as much as a month, but he couldn't be sure.

At one point he got very excited when he discovered that by gently probing with his fingertips he could make out letters scratched into the stone of one of the cell walls. There were initials and names, some with numbers that could have been dates. And at the very bottom of the wall someone had gouged in large capitals: I DIED HERE — SLOWLY. After finding this, Chester didn't feel like reading any more of them.

He'd also found that by standing on his toes on the lead-covered ledge, he could just reach the bars on a narrow slit window high up on the wall. Gripping these bars, he was able to pull himself up so he could see the jail's neglected kitchen garden. Beyond that there was a stretch of road leading into a tunnel, lit by a few ever-burning orb lampposts. Chester would stare relentlessly at the road where it disappeared into the tunnel, in the forlorn hope that maybe, just maybe, he might catch a glimpse of his friend, of Will returning to save him, like some knight- errant galloping to his rescue. But Will never came, and Chester would hang there, hoping and praying fervently, as his knuckles turned white with the strain, until his arms gave out and he would fall back into the cell, back into the shadows, and back into despair.

26

'Wakey, wakey!'