When We Were Rich Read online

  I’m going to miss it.

  Before he can even get out of the car, the train starts to pull out of the station.

  Sorry, Colin. But it’s not the end of the world, is it?

  * * *

  At King’s Cross, he makes for the Piccadilly line southbound. He lets one train pass because it is just too full, commuters spilling out of the doors. Then there is an announcement. The Piccadilly Line is running late because of a fire at Caledonian Road. There is normally a train every minute or so, but now it is one every seven or eight minutes. Colin walks along the platform, trying to find a spot where there are fewer people. But the train, again, is too crowded. He manages finally to board the third, finds a seat and lowers himself into it, clasping his laptop with both hands, resting it on his lap in front of him.

  Colin rarely feels excitement, but today he is jacked up and fizzing. This is the game that will finally cement his reputation. Probably land him a big promotion with Sony, certainly some shares.

  As the train leaves the platform he idly reads an ad for life insurance, then one on how to send money back to Poland at a low price. He can smell the perfume of the woman next to him, something like apples, something like cloves.

  He starts to think of what to get Roxy for a birthday present. It is three weeks away. Then he thinks of the leak in the roof, then the flowers that are blooming on the windowsill at the front of house, then Roxy’s breasts last night in the moonlight, then he tries to focus back on Clash of the Serpents again and the presentation.

  The train rocks him back and forth. He finds it soothing.

  There is an ad in the carriage for retirement homes. It makes him think about his mother. What he did for her. What she did to him. What she didn’t do for him.

  The apple-and-cloves woman has a mirror out and is fixing her make-up. Three people are reading books. Colin thinks of getting his own out, Stephen King’s Song of Susannah. But they will be at the station soon. It seems hardly worth it and anyway he has lost his place in the book.

  His breakfast is repeating on him. He tastes burnt bacon on his tongue. His mind goes blank then drifts back into focus. Relieved that he won’t be late, he tries to remember a joke Roxy told him yesterday. He can tell it to his friends over a celebratory lunch.

  A guy shows up for work. No, that’s not it. A guy shows up late for work. That’s it. So the boss yells, ‘You should’ve been here earlier . . . no, the boss yells, ‘you should have been here at eight-thirty’ And the man replies . . . what does the man reply?

  It’s a good one, he thinks, it will raise a laugh if he can remember it. Now he tastes a cornflake in his mouth. Which is odd because he didn’t have any cornflakes that morning. Must have been from last night. Did he have a bowl? No, but he picked at some out of the container. That must be it then. Ten to nine. The noise of the train, now it is in a tunnel, is deafening, almost drowning his thoughts.

  He glances at a sallow-skinned man sitting a few seats away from him. Barely a man at all, more a teenager. He looks very sad and very angry. He is bent forward almost double. His head is down but his eyes are looking up. He seems frightened and arrogant at the same time. His eyes keep scanning the carriage from the overhanging ledge of his black eyebrows. His knuckles are red as if he had recently hit someone.

  Curious, Colin keeps his gaze on him and the man catches his eye. Colin smiles, involuntarily, out of embarrassment. The man briefly smiles back. Then the man straightens up and looks along the carriage. He closes his eyes.

  Puzzlingly for Colin, there is a white flash, which he thinks at first is some kind of problem with his eyes, like spots before them. Then there is a sound that is so loud, he cannot hear it.

  The carriage seems to expand and contract. He is thrown forwards and sideways. Then he observes with a calm detachment that he is miraculously outside the carriage.

  There is a wall of noise like radio static. He feels he has been punched in both ears, or is deep underwater. There is an acrid smell of chemicals and burning rubber and singed hair.

  Everything goes black and he thinks he has suddenly gone blind. When his vision returns he laughs in relief.

  And the man replies, ‘Why, what happened at eight-thirty?’

  That’s it.

  Colin is beginning to understand that there is something wrong. The smell is overwhelming. Not apples and spice now. Cordite and overcooked meat. He looks down at his legs. One of them, strangely, is not there. The other is twisted backwards on itself.

  There is a woman who appears to be an Asian since she is wearing a sari or something like that, he presumes she is an Asian, some kind of Asian, she is whimpering or something, he sees blood pumping out of her thigh.

  He takes her hand. It will be all right love, it will be all right.

  She looks at him with wide, wide eyes and something like love comes from them and he loves her too, loves everyone, loves life at that moment.

  She starts to cry – softly, as if only mildly upset by a small inconvenience.

  There there, he says. There there.

  The blood is still pouring from her leg. He can hardly control his hands they are shaking so much, but he manages to get his tie off, it is the first time he has worn a tie to the office, it’s a nice one, Roxy bought it for him, it is made of silk and it is green like China’s eyes sometimes but not really there are no such things as green eyes Frankie told him Frankie told him.

  He manages to get the tie round her naked, splattered leg, and tries to tie it as tight as he can, using his pen, which is somehow still intact in his top pocket, to twist the tie. The woman’s bleeding seems to be arrested.

  Black again. When he comes round, someone is beside him and is tying something around his own legs, leg, legs.

  Leg.

  He remembers a moment long ago when Frankie was playing him at table football. For the first time ever, he beat Frankie.

  One of the high points of his, of his, of his.

  His ears seem to clear. Around him, the sound of screams. Shouts. A lump of pink and red in a blue summer dress. He glances back into what he thinks must have been the carriage. It looks like what was left of the tower after nine eleven nine eleven.

  Then there is something in his field of vision so terrible, something like organs or offal, that he cannot help but look away, and cannot register what it is so he does not look again.

  He gets out his phone to send a text to Roxy but cannot think what to say.

  Something has happened.

  He takes out his mobile phone but it is smashed to pieces.

  The pain is now intense, more intense than he could ever think possible, it is like angel’s wings on fire inside him. His mind is full only of pain now or rather his body has taken over his mind, he has no mind.

  He drifts out of, then back into, consciousness. Eventually, ghostly uniforms manifest around him, smart and shining, holy heralds. Someone says he needs Colin’s clothes for forensive purposes for forensic purposes, forensic porpoises, Roxy loves dolphins she wants to swim with the dolphins one day.

  Colin asks if he can keep his clothes because he likes them and they’re cutting them off with what, scissors, of course scissors. They put them what’s left of them in a paper bag. His tie is ruined. The meeting is going to be postponed. Where is his laptop anyway? It doesn’t matter it’s all backed up on C . . . on C . . . on CommVault, EVault, NetMass, Acronic, Arkeia, CommVault, EVault, NetMass, Acronis, Arkeia, CommVault, EVault, NetMass, Acronic, Arkeia . . .

  Someone making a joke in the darkness.

  If my boss gives me grief about being late, I’ll tell him where to get off.

  The woman who speaks has a face covered in blood, but otherwise seems okay. Apart from that hole in head that hole in her head hole in her.

  Someone else laughs, what’s funny?

  Why, what happened at eight-thirty?

  The pain hits again, twice as bad, ten times as bad. He faints, faints deeper, deeper still and then the bl
ack suction of the ocean floor is pulling him to the dark opening which spreads wide to take him in as he tries to swim away, weakly, weakly. It seems too much trouble to swim; very gently, Colin allows himself to sink and then, with strange relief, to dissolve and merge with the border that he is now faintly, then sharply, aware of, the vague shimmering line which transforms the deepest and most hopeless iteration of midnight blue into a perfect, unremitting and indifferent black.

  * * *

  Frankie has taken the day off to visit London Zoo with China – at last. The summer heat has cooled the housing market that week, and there’s not much on in the office. He has taken China out of school. When you’re paying the fees they don’t make such a fuss about it. He is determined to finally give her a day out with him, after promising so often for so long. Instructed by Veronica, he has dutifully switched his phone off, resolving not to check it until the two of them leave.

  Frankie hasn’t been to the zoo in twenty years and finds himself, to his own surprise, excited by the prospect. China holds his hand with a soft firm grip. Her shoulder-length brown hair, less curly than it was, is woven into two pigtails. A white smear of sunscreen daubs her forehead. Frankie reaches across and lovingly massages it until it disappears. China ignores him, concentrating instead on a Nobbly Bobbly ice lolly which is gradually disintegrating and rendering her hands and mouth sticky and red.

  She finishes the ice lolly and carelessly drops the stick on the ground. Frankie shakes his head in disapproval, but says nothing, picks it up, puts it in a recycling bin, and finds a wet wipe in his pocket. He bends down and cleans China’s face and hands. He is, as always, astonished by her effortless beauty, the smallness of her podgy hands, the wideness of her eyes, the reach of her eyelashes, the pink and white button of her nose. She is wearing a red gingham dress with a white collar, now stained with crimson, and red StartRite sandals stitched with white daisies. Frankie tries to wipe the dress, but only spreads the stain. He tuts and gives up.

  There is barely any queue, it being a Thursday morning, and they pay and walk in through the barriers. China starts to skip and Frankie joins in next to her, feeling foolish, but enjoying himself all the same. China giggles and after a few seconds they come to a halt outside the entrance to the Reptile House.

  What would you like to see first, China Girl?

  I want to go to the gift shop.

  There’s plenty of time for that later.

  I want to go to the gift shop now.

  Don’t pout.

  I’m not.

  China. There’s lions here. Gorillas. Tigers. Penguins. Everything. What about the penguins?

  Gift shop.

  Frankie’s eyes slide around the area past the entrance, fishing for something that will distract her from the five pounds in her pocket that Flossie gave her to spend. He sees a sign erected immediately beyond the Reptile House that reads ‘Giants and Dragons – This Way’.

  They have dragons over there, says Frankie, mock-excitedly. And giants.

  Look at this house, Daddy. It’s for reptiles. What a reptile?

  Snakes and lizards and that. You wouldn’t want to see them. What about the meerkats?

  I want to see the snakes and lizards.

  But it’s a lovely day! Do you really want to go into the dark? It’s creepy in there.

  Can we go to the gift shop instead then?

  Frankie gives up.

  Okay. Reptiles it is.

  They enter through the arched 1930s facade, with the green lettering. Inside it the walls are dark green, the floor is stone. It is cool, almost cold. China lets go of Frankie’s hand and rushes toward the first glass case in front of her.

  Daddy! Look!

  Inside there is a nine-foot black mamba, in a space marked with ropes and brushwood and old tin sheeting. Its head looks wet, as if oiled or moisturized, but its body unnaturally dry. Its tongue flicks out, forked and spindly. China takes a small step back.

  Urrgh.

  Frankie watches the slow coiling and uncoiling of the snake, mesmerized.

  Is it dangerous? asks China.

  Oh yes. It could kill you easily. It’s poisonous.

  It looks happy.

  It’s true – the expression on the face of the snake is of calm satisfaction. Frankie smiles mischievously.

  It’s just seen its dinner.

  The snake is looking directly at China, who gives a shiver.

  A delicious little China-snack. A Chinese takeaway.

  China giggles and runs away beyond the glass case into the murk of the corridor beyond.

  It won’t catch me!

  Frankie follows her. He catches up with her staring into what seems to be an empty glass box. Then he registers that it is festooned with empty snake skins.

  What are these?

  Frankie reads the information plaque.

  The snakes shed their skins every year and then grow new ones.

  Why? asks China.

  Frankie rummages in the frayed satchel of his vaguely remembered school lessons for solutions.

  They grow out of them. So they sort of burst out and then grow new ones.

  Wouldn’t it be funny if we did that too.

  We sort of do. I read in the paper the other day that we get a whole new body every seven years.

  Do we? For real?

  Yes. Our cells are always dying and growing again. And after seven years there’s not a single cell left that’s the same.

  So I’m going to get a new body soon?

  Not for a few years.

  And will it be exactly the same?

  The same, only different. New.

  Will you get one too?

  Yes.

  Good, coz you’re all wrinkly.

  She thinks for a moment.

  How can you still be you, if there’s nothing of you left?

  Frankie considers this, trying to concoct a plausible answer, but China has run off again, this time to the anacondas and boas. She stops in front of an immense carpet python, body the thickness of a car tyre.

  Daddy. It’s so big.

  Frankie, like China, is astonished at the terrifying size of the thing, a great coiled death-rope.

  Is it poisonous too?

  Frankie reads the caption.

  It suffocates its prey and swallows it whole. Guess what, China? It can swallow a whole deer.

  Stop joking me!

  It really can.

  Yuck, she says cheerfully. That’s horrible. It must get terrible ingidestion.

  Indigestion. Yes, I dare say.

  Can we go to the gift shop now?

  Don’t you want to see the dragons?

  There’s no such thing as dragons.

  But there are. They have some here. And giants.

  China’s eyes go wide, daring to believe it for a moment. Frankie picks her up, feels the warmth of her small body against the chill of the inside air. Hugs her just for gratitude and joy.

  You’re squeezing me too tight. I can’t breathe.

  I’m an anaconda!

  Stop it! You’re scaring me.

  Sorry.

  Frankie releases his grip.

  Show me the dragons then, says China.

  Okay.

  They’re not true, are they?

  Come on. Let’s have a look.

  Still holding China in his arms – she is so light and smells of soap and cake and strawberry toothpaste – they head out into the bright sunlight. He sees to his left a symbol for gorillas and in front of him a sign for ‘Dragons and Giants’.

  Can we see the monkeys first? says Frankie.

  That’s because there’s no such thing as dragons and you know it.

  You’ll see.

  They walk over to the gorilla enclosure. China is walking beside him now. They hold hands, hers tiny, nested in his palm. They walk past the mandrills, China giggling at their rainbow behinds, until they reach the gorilla cage. Frankie looks for the gorillas but can see nothing. China stands
next to him. The cage appears to be empty.

  Are they in there, Daddy?

  Maybe not. They might be sleeping.

  They are about to walk away and go to see the giants when suddenly there is an immense thud against the glass in front of them. China squeals and even Frankie takes a step back.

  Shit! mutters Frankie.

  An immense gorilla, maybe a hundred kilos, with sullen, intelligent, malicious eyes, gazes at them reproachfully. Frankie and China stare back. China holds Frankie’s hand very tightly. Then the gorilla relaxes his gaze, bored, sits down and starts picking vaguely at his toes.

  I don’t like it.

  It can’t get out, says Frankie, nevertheless shaken at the force with which the gorilla had thrown itself at the barrier.

  It might break the glass.

  No, says Frankie, uncertain nonetheless. The thing is so huge.

  I’m scared.

  Don’t be silly.

  I’m not being silly! It’s scary. And ugly.

  Fine.

  They make their way out of the gorilla enclosure. They have walked in a circle and the sign advertising dragons and giants appears again.

  Right. Now I’m going to show you a dragon.

  I bet you don’t.

  How much do you bet?

  I bet you a kiss and a cuddle.

  Done.

  He puts his hand out and she shakes it solemnly.

  They follow the signs that promise giants and dragons. A notice reads, ‘Beware! A dragon may be watching you.’

  Underneath is written ‘These reptiles are intelligent. A dragon has sensed your presence.’

  A few yards further on a sign announces the Dragon’s Lair.

  It’s not true, is it Daddy? says China, hesitating slightly.

  Don’t you want to go in?

  Not if there’s real dragons.

  Scaredy cat.

  There aren’t, are there?

  Let’s go and see.

  He takes her hand and coaxes her through the doorway. To the left is a poster, explaining the behaviour of the Giant Komodo Dragon. Frankie stops and reads it.

  It says here they have more than fifty kinds of bacteria in their spit. If they bite you, you die a week later.

  Where is it? I can’t see it.

  Frankie turns and stares at the glass.