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I don’t coo like a pigeon this time. Torturers don’t do that sort of thing, do they? I just climb right up and knock on her window. It’s the dead of night – it takes her a while to wake up. Then she reaches up and pulls the curtain open. She has that sweet look of dreams – soft, warm skin that’s been crumpled against a pillow, a slightly confused look in her eye. I get a sudden desperate urge to be her, to have the innocence of not knowing what’s gone before and what’s coming in the future. To just live life as it happens.
She frowns at me, then opens the window. ‘I’m tired, Will. Is this important?’
I nod and clamber in. She yawns and falls back against the pillow. I sit at the end of her bed; I pull one of her soft, warm blankets around myself.
Claire sits up again. ‘You look awful. You’re shivering. You’re . . . Will, what are you wearing?’
I look down – I am wearing socks that have been dirtied by the road, pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt. My socks have holes in them.
I shrug eventually. ‘I was in a hurry,’
‘A hurry.’ She is looking at me suspiciously. ‘Why? Not the dreams again?’
I nod. Then I shake my head. How can I explain? I suddenly feel very old. Very alone. Maybe it was a bad idea to come here. I don’t want to infect Claire with my misery, with what I know. I don’t want her to turn on me, and yet I’d be disappointed if she didn’t.
‘Will? Tell me. Tell me what’s up.’
‘It’s kind of the dreams, but worse than that,’ I say carefully. ‘I had them again, but they’re not dreams. They’re who I am. I’m one of them. One of the Returners. Not even one of them. I’m evil, Claire. I’m the devil. I saw myself. I saw who I am. They were real, Claire. They happened. I was there. I was there . . .’
The tears that would not come before are streaming now. Self-pity? I despise myself even as I cry. Claire puts her arms around me; I pull away.
‘I don’t deserve your sympathy,’ I manage to say. ‘I want you to hate me. I want you to despise everything about me.’
I realise I mean it – it would make me feel better. My revulsion with myself is not enough.
‘OK.’ She’s teasing me – I can tell from her eyes.
‘I’m not joking. This is serious, Claire. You have no idea how serious.’
And suddenly I am afraid. Afraid I might hurt her, like I’ve hurt others. I edge backwards. ‘I should go.’
‘Will.’ She folds her arms irritably. ‘You’ve woken me up. At least have the decency to tell me why.’
I swallow. My throat is parched. My eyes fall on a glass of water on Claire’s bedside table. She follows my gaze and hands it to me. I drink it immediately; the water is cool and soothing. I don’t deserve it.
I take a deep breath. ‘The people,’ I say. ‘The people who’ve been following me. The Returners. They lied to me.’
‘Of course they were lying,’ Claire says, rolling her eyes. ‘OK, Will. Look, I know things aren’t easy for you at the moment, but come on. There’s no such thing as a Returner. I don’t know who these people are, but they are just one big lie; they really are. You have to tell someone about them. Maybe . . .’ She frowns, her brow creasing gently. ‘Have you thought about going back to that doctor?’
My eyes narrow. ‘You mean the shrink?’
‘Doctor,’ she corrects me. ‘He was nice, wasn’t he?’
I don’t say anything for a moment or two. The disappointment is too great, like the plug has been pulled out and I’m running down the plughole. She thinks I’m mad. I thought she understood. I thought we were friends again.
I have no friends.
I have no one.
I steady myself. I concentrate. I breathe slowly. I allow my blood to freeze; that way I am safe.
‘Interesting theory,’ I say, a new edge to my voice, ignoring her comment about the shrink, ‘but you’re wrong. They do exist. They are Returners and I’m one of them. Only I’m not. I’m different.’
‘What do you mean different?’
‘I’m the bad guy.’ I say it flatly, no emotion. It sounds like I’m talking about a film.
Claire raises an eyebrow. ‘The bad guy?’
‘I’m the devil.’ It’s strange – it feels almost as if I am showing off. As though I am proud of this fact.
Claire looks at me curiously, then sees that I’m serious, that I’m not smiling. She opens her mouth, then closes it again. A few seconds go by; they seem to last for ever.
‘The devil?’ she asks eventually. ‘What do you mean exactly?’
‘I mean,’ I say, ‘that I’m the one who causes suffering, not the one who suffers. My dreams . . . they aren’t dreams. They’re memories. I remember now. I have killed people. I have tortured people. I am the devil.’
I feel strangely calm.
‘You kill?’ Claire looks at me sceptically.
‘The lines of people,’ I say quietly, as though I’m talking about something utterly mundane. Detachment. Complete detachment. It is not me, it does not matter, it is nothing. They are nothing. Everything is nothing.
‘I could smell the ash. And I thought I was with them, one of them. I thought that’s what it was. But I wasn’t. I was the . . .’
Her eyes are on me, staring. They make me feel uncomfortable. ‘The ash? What ash? What lines?’
‘At the camp. I was at Auschwitz. I wasn’t a prisoner, Claire.’
‘You weren’t?’ She looks scared now. It’s sinking in. She will understand soon. She won’t be able to look me in the eye. It will make what I have to do easier.
‘Yan’s brother,’ I say. ‘I’ve been stealing his money. I didn’t know I was doing it, but every day I’ve been beating him up and taking a fiver from him. Every day.’
‘You’re the one who’s been beating up Yan’s brother?’
I nod.
Her eyes are wide, clouded. She is trying to make sense of the nonsensical.
‘That’s you? You’ve been doing that to him?’ She is incredulous. She is outraged. ‘It’s not enough that bigots have been scrawling graffiti on their house, putting bricks through their windows? You’ve been beating up that poor boy? You?’
I nod. It feels strangely cathartic to confess. I need her judgement, need her to hate me.
‘And you really don’t remember?’
‘I do now.’
‘The whole family have been so worried,’ Claire says. ‘They tried telling the school but no one listens to them.’ She shakes her head bitterly. ‘Because they’re immigrants.’
She lets the word hang in the air for a few seconds. Then she rounds on me again. ‘He . . . won’t talk about it. They tried not giving him money but the . . . you, I mean . . . It made it worse. He came home with a broken nose.’
She isn’t talking to me; she is talking to herself. She edges backwards, catches me looking at her and flushes. Then she stands up, goes on the offensive, to hide her embarrassment. I can see it all now, can see every reason for every action. How? Because I have seen it all before? Because I have lived so many lives?
‘And it was you all along? Jesus, Will. Do you know what it’s done to him? To the family?’
‘No. Anyway, I came to say goodbye.’
‘Goodbye?’
‘I’m going away. I wanted you to say sorry. To Yan’s brother.’
Claire looks angry. ‘Tell him yourself tomorrow. Don’t run away, Will. Face up to it.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’
‘You can’t just run away from what you’ve done. You think that’ll make it OK? It won’t. You have to make amends. You have to face up to what you’ve done, pay the price.’
‘No, Claire,’ I say, a shade of anger slipping into my voice. ‘There’s another thing. Before I go.’
‘Yes?’ Her voice has lost any trace of warmth, of friendship. It is as though the sun has gone in. I shiver.
‘Yan,’ I say. ‘He didn’t do it.’
‘I know. Everyone knows. Everyone except . . .’ She stops herself just in time from mentioning my father and Patrick.
‘They planted evidence,’ I say. ‘A knife. To make it look as though it was him. I heard them talking about it.’
‘Heard who?’ Claire gasps.
‘Dad and Patrick.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘Yeah. Well, anyway, now you know.’
‘But that’s not enough. You have to tell someone official. You have to say that in court. You have to.’
‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I have to go. I’ve done all I can, OK?’
I clamber on the bed and open the window.
‘You haven’t done all you can. Yan’s still in prison.’ Her bottom lip is sticking out, like it used to when she was younger and having a hissy fit because she wasn’t getting her way. On impulse I lean forward and kiss her, right on the mouth. She is soft. She is warm. For a second I feel complete, I feel like a person, like there are other possibilities, another way . . .
But there is no other way. I know that.
‘Bye, Claire,’ I say. She says nothing – she is too surprised to speak. I haul myself out of her window and clamber down the wall.