1983

‘Everything -’

Silence -

‘About the Wolf.’

Michael Myshkin looked up at me. He said: ‘But you already know.’

I swallowed.

‘I told you,’ he said.

I fought tears.

‘A long time ago.’

I took a pen from my pocket. I wrote four words on the back of her photograph. I held it over him.

Myshkin looked up at the four untidy words:

I REGRET WHAT HAPPENED .

He began to cry.

I leant over the bed. I took his huge shoulders in my hands. I held him. I put my head on his chest. I listened to his heart. I held him in his dumbness -

In his dumbness and my blindness.

In both our tears.

I said: ‘It’s not too late -’

‘I still see the Underground Kingdom. It is evil and an animal place; a kingdom of lost corpses and children’s shoes, mines flooded with the tears and blood of the dead -’

‘Other times,’ I whispered -

‘A dragon howling at the burning skies and the empty churches, while local mobs search me out -’

‘Not your fault,’ I said -

‘For I was the Rat Man, Prince of Pests,’ he cried. ‘And I, I could have saved her. I could have saved them all. But -’

‘Never mind,’ I shouted.

Michael stopped. He was looking over my shoulder.

I turned around and there they were -

Stood in the open doorway:

Mrs Myshkin and Mrs Ashworth.

I let go of Michael. I stood. I started to speak -

Mrs Ashworth stepped forward. She slapped me hard across my face:

‘Rot in hell,’ she spat.

I nodded.

‘We’re all going to rot in this hell…’

I nodded.

Mrs Myshkin holding Michael -

His straps in one of my hands;

Michael rocking back and forth in his mother’s arms -

The photograph of Hazel Atkins in my other hand.

‘This hell,’ Mrs Ashworth shouted again.

Mrs Myshkin whispering: ‘Why didn’t you say, Michael?’

Michael looking up at me from his mother’s arms -

Trembling and blinking through his sores and his tears;

He looked up -

Blood on his face. Tears on his cheeks -

His face as beautiful as the moon, as terrible as the night;

He looked up. He blinked. He screamed: ‘He told me not to!’

I turned away. I turned back to the doorway -

‘This hell!’

Dick was standing there, panting. ‘Boss -’

Michael Myshkin screaming over and over: ‘He told me not to!’

Chapter 53

Tuesday 7 June 1983 -

‘Do not let us fall into the trap -’

60 miles an hour -

‘Of voting for a schoolyard bully -’

70 miles an hour -

‘Or we will deserve to live on our knees.’

80 miles an hour -

‘Mr Scargill warned yesterday -’

90 miles an hour -

‘People will have to stand and fight -’

100 miles an hour -

‘Sooner or later.’

Foot down -

Everybody knows; everybody knows; everybody fucking knows.

The hate nailed to the shadows of your heart -

The fear stitched into the fat of your belly -

Hate and fear, fear and hate -

Putting hate and fear and fear and hate -

Putting them together and getting -

The Kingdom of Evil.

The key in your pocket -

The key to the Kingdom -

D-2 .

You pull in behind the Redbeck Cafй and Motel. You park in the empty car park -

The Fear here -

The dogs barking, the waiting over -

The Wolf near.

You get out. You lock the car door. You run across the car park -

Puddles of rain water and motor oil underfoot;

You run across the rough ground to the row of disused motel rooms -

The broken windows and the graffiti, the rubbish and the rats;

You run along the row towards the door -

The door banging in the wind, in the rain.

You stop before the door:

Room 27.

You pull open the door -