The rain in Manchester it falls down and down and it never stops. Under the ground it’s the same – drip drips, so regular, splashing now. Those ones are warm drops. They’re coming from my tongue.
Neil still here and I’m taking him around the tunnels. Show him where we live, that’s what Gonzo told me to do. Neil at my heels, battering my ears with his big voice, but I’m busy wondering why it was me chosen to give the tour and not the others. Small Child Fox had a bad face about him when he handed over the torches. His hands looked like little red paws they were blushing so much. Small Child Fox the tunnel expert, Small Child Fox the man with the torches, but Gonzo just shook his cheeks a big fat ‘No.’ I was having to look at my shoes, at the mattresses, at the cellar tiles, because I knew Small Child Fox was trying hard to act dignified.
And this is what Neil said:
‘You mad experts living down here underground like some sort of cult. Don’t you ever see daylight? Takes a desperate man to live down here! You strange nuts welcoming a man off the street, as if he were your brother! What in Jesus do you fuckers do down here?’
And this is what Gonzo said:
‘We make TV.’
Neil slapping his thighs, his chest, his face at this (and his body odour puffing everywhere). Neil rolling about shouting ‘Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant! Caveman telly! You nuts are infectious!’ Neil’s voice crashed off the wall tiles and blew the wet from Sad Clown’s eyes. But the others in the room, they weren’t paying attention to Neil one bit. The others were just hearing this one word: TV. They were hearing the word TV and salivating on cue, salivating just like that – salty drips splish splashing the stone floor. Everyone glad they didn’t have to give this strange man a stupid tour of the tunnels, all of them happy to stay, except Small Child Fox. That fox’s nose wrinkled up all leathery when Neil and I crawled out the door.
Small Child Fox a Watcher like me. The others need so much to create their stories in our little cellar that they wail and beg Gonzo to let them make them Today, but not me. I drip from my tongue for different things. More pleasure in watching TV than making.
Now the present, always the present. This is me leading Neil through the narrow passage towards Under Exchange Theatre, that big clearing under the city. Shadows, syringes, silence don’t scare me, not Today. My head it can’t stop jumping, eyes rattling, just waiting to see the show. Neil holding the torch like a baseball bat, stomping ahead through the darkness, even though it’s me supposed to be taking him. Neil excited too – such a novelty for him being down here. He keeps muttering Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! like Jesus will pop out from the black and Neil’s ready to crack him one against the bricks. One thing about Neil, here, scraping these walls with his rough hands: the passages feel smaller with him.
Neil is that chunk of salami you find in your fridge. He says, ‘Where’s that rat girl? That weird woman. She live with you? She looks like a rat. What she called? Rudolph?’
And that makes me uneasy.
‘Quiet little feller, aren’t you? The rats nicked your voice box?’
I want to say yes, I like it when it’s very still and it feels like a dead country with just me around. I want to say no, no rats down here, not with Small Child Fox and his traps. I want to do more than have this squeezing feeling tight tight in my throat, whenever Neil stares my way.
‘Mind you, if you have the nutters you mess about with for company…’
He skips ahead banging walls and dodging drips. That bottle of pills rattles in his pocket.
‘How does a teenager become an expert on the tunnels of Manchester? What are you, seventeen and a half? Seventeen and a half! At your age I was sneaking into pubs with my cousin’s leather jacket.’ I’m imagining Neil strutting about with a leather jacket floating next to him. The bouncer ID’ing them at the door. The leather jacket sailing to the bar, brushing dust off its shoulder. Neil stuck outside trying to buy whiskey off tramps.
Now we’re under the Town Hall. Not long until Exchange Theatre, when it all widens up. I pause still, let Neil explore. Give me some space. I’m waiting for the brickwork to get fuzzy, for the edges to blur, for the air to fizz. I’m waiting for that special yellow tinge. I’m waiting for the others to start their work. I can’t wait for it all to begin.
‘What are you stopping for, kid? This your idea of a tour? You small-legged kids with your half fucking ages.’ Neil got his hands on his hips, watching me like I’m a dog in a bush. Neil sweeping first the rubble with his torchlight, now at the roof that curves over us like a rainbow, but all the time I see him perfect. The glow is coming. Yellow tinge, this warm flicker growing brighter behind him. I feel it pulling me towards Royal Exchange like my body’s on a rope. That big space only metres ahead, under the theatre, under the streets, under the sewers. A great room like a brick clearing in a forest. That is where it happens.
And all the while the yellow light, still dull but getting bright it’s coming around the corner. I like it bright, I need it brighter. Yellow light dragging me sucking me so strong and I’m running fast fast I know this place so well I’m dodging stones and holes and rat traps without looking down. Follow the fizz, get to the fizz, nearly at the fizz. Only thing halts me is this: clatter slap ow fuck shit. Neil flat on his hands. He shakes his head like a plumber.
‘Christ. Slow the fuck down!’
And I’m torn: fizzing lovely perfect light pulling me, but I help Neil to his feet. Can’t leave him here, can’t make Gonzo angry. Neil bent over resting his wrists on his knees, because he’s scraped his palms all nasty. His odour ripples against the tunnel walls.
‘Kids like you this day and age shouldn’t be fucking homeless. You’re not mental like the others. What the Jesus happened to make you run about down here?’
And I want to tell him. This is what. This fizzing. This light. This only happens here. Only colour up there in the city is grey. But I must look like a mole come out the wrong hill, because Neil shaking his head all sympathetic.
‘These nutters you live with…’ He pauses to breathe, then forgets to breathe, swallows a pill instead.
‘…in that cellar. Small Child Whatsit…Retarded Pixie…Sad Clown. They aren’t people. They’re mentally ill. What a bunch of… have you opened your eyes and seen them? All those people living in a room the size of a box! Retarded Pixie! You can’t live with a bloke who calls himself that.’
And I’m finding myself nodding like a puppet in court, but that fizzing it’s getting louder and the glow it’s lapping at my back like a matador’s cape. I’m backing away from Neil towards the light, I’m going so quick – long steps – don’t care if I fall.
And this is what I say:
‘Me Small Child Fox Sad Clown Old Shorty Retired Pixie William Shakespeare and Gonzo. They make TV and I like that TV and that’s what we have.’
Neil silenced. He watches me backing away from him so fast, I can’t help it. I must look like a silent film. And now he laughs, that’s all he seems to do. Neil laughing, holding his sides. Then, forgetting his scraped hands, he slaps his thighs and drills his feet an inch into the ground. Neil howling back there hooting so much, I’m feeling those howls rush up push me in the tummy twist me propel me quick and the fizz is carrying me onwards onwards can’t stop I’m sprinting walls shimmering as I fly until Wham! Here is the clearing. This is the show. It has begun.
Under Royal Exchange is this big space, a planned-for-but-never-used tube stop, before they decided people like Neil preferred trams. It is under the theatre of the same name. The underground line would have gone from Piccadilly to Victoria, with stations here and at St. Peter’s Square. The tunnels are now, in theory, sealed. I can’t do a tour speech like Small Child Fox, so I won’t.
Neil’s caught me up. Neil swinging his torch charging about testing his echo echo echo. Neil kicking loose bricks like a boy broken into school on Sunday. But Neil’s not the show. I’m watching for the signs, hoping for the voices to come.
The walls now throbbing light, you wouldn’t believe it. Just like daytime underground, though not like the Manchester day, brighter than that. Got the light, yes, that’s the first bit, but the light is nothing without the voice.
‘Jesus, you got some room down here.’ He’s peering at old notices left for workmen, thinking his eyes have adjusted to the dark.
I’m standing in the corner, of the room, my back all cold against the bricks, while this hot yellow strokes me like a sunny patch in a spare room. I know it’s coming, this nice lovely beautiful indescribable warmth tickling the webbing of my fingers. I am the watcher. The Watcher has to wait, oh it’s worth the wait and I’m dribbling while I wait. And here, louder and louder, that fizzy white noise crunching round my ears like crisps until ping! Perfect! Quiet! Yellow. Still.
And the voices of the others they climb inside my head. It feels funny like a squelching up my neck, but I am never afraid. The voices, they are a perfect imitation. They talk loud and boom. My head is a church for them. I wonder if they know they speak in my head. But hush, no thinking now, TV is switched on!
And here they are, so clear! Listen!
(Retired Pixie): ‘All right, gents, lovely, I’ll begin. This is what I have today. George Eliot.
(William Shakespeare): ‘Right, yup, fine, gotcha. Nice. George Eliot. Wrote Middlemarch didn’t she?’
(Retired Pixie): ‘Spot on, William. Here’s the idea…’
(Old Shorty): ‘She?’
(William Shakespeare): ‘(sigh) Yes.’
(Old Shorty): ‘She?’
(William Shakespeare): ‘Yes, you deaf …’
(Old Shorty): ‘Forgive me. I presumed She was a He.’
(William Shakespeare): ‘Good God, man! You illiterate old fool! You senile disgrace!’
(Old Shorty): ‘Well, if you will carry on like …’
(Retired Pixie): ‘No! Gents! Please! The old man’s right! That’s the whole point of it! George Eliot, a He!’
(Small Child Fox): ‘In Serbia, you tell transsexual from normal lady: their hands, so big like this!’
Oh yes yes that’s it, that’s the premise for number one scene, and oh yes I’m chuckling away just eager for this! And here it comes: red, blue, green dots swarming like flies in fancy dress. Flies building the scene, settling, grouping together to make the picture. A table, two chairs, two women. Flies not even flies anymore, they’re packed so tight they’re blocks of colour, and already I’m shuddering with tickles.
This is what the flies have made:
A pleasant table dressed with an ornate cloth, floral design. There are plenty of scones, a white pot of raspberry jam, dollops of clotted cream. A dainty little dish marked ‘butter.’ Some thoughtful maid has picked a daisy, which brightens the centre vase most considerably (oh I could reach out and grab it but I know it’s made out of flies). Emily Brontë and George Eliot are enjoying their afternoon tea such a lot that the clock hands are simply racing.
‘My dear friend,’ smiles Brontë as she butters a scone. ‘I am not one to speak on the matter. However, I felt so fatigued after Wuthering Heights that I thought I should die! One can only imagine how poor Charlotte felt during the composition of…’
Emily stops. She has been interrupted by a clink and a gasp. George Eliot has lifted her hand from her lap. It is a large hand, a giant hand, a novelty foam hand, the kind worn by spectators of American sports. ‘#1,’ says the novelty foam hand.
George Eliot has endeavoured to lift her teacup to her lips but, alas, the 12 inch pointing index finger has knocked Earl Grey into her lap. Her rather bulky lap.
‘Oh George,’ tuts Brontë, averting her eyes. ‘Messy transsexual.’
And oh this tea party shaking my knees and my tongue doing figure eights in my mouth! I’m closing my eyes opening closing opening can’t focus just heaving to the fireworks in my stomach. My toes dancing about in my shoes like they’re wanting to crawl right up my shins up my legs into my hair to see the show. Nothing matters now I’ve seen that. That is TV.
But stopped. Zipped like air sucked into a box. Neil has swooped through Brontë’s face, which mushes at the touch. Neil standing in front of me. Barks gibberish in my ear. The tingles drain from my legs – there they are gasping on the floor. The glow dims: coloured flies pull apart, and the scene is erased like vandals sponging over a painting.
Neil’s barks gaining sense like I’m tuning a radio.
- crackle – one word – crackle – two words – crackle – ‘…Not a tour, Leni! It’s hardly a bloody tour when you stand in the corner like some autistic! Show me these damn tunnels and stop hiding…’
That’s what I hear of Neil. He paces about like a lion’s in his stomach and he’s feeding it pills. Now gets his face right close up to mine and I’m smelling Gonzo’s wine on his breath. His eyes dull and sharpen. They keep me in focus.
‘Did you see them?’ I ask, and there’s the shivers coming through my mouth. My voice fills the silence like a friend.
Neil slamming my shoulder like I’ve brushed an electric fence.
‘Course I did, kiddo. Course I did. Hairy little fuckers. One went straight through my legs. Gonna chisel out a brick to bash them with. What’s this? Air raid shelter? You not get scared down here? What’s this way? I want to see under the Arndale Centre. Let’s get under the Arndale and steal ourselves a hifi. You’re a shit guide, kid.’
Emily Brontë and George Eliot: hairy little fuckers.
And I’m leading Neil through the passage towards Piccadilly, following the old-new-never-touched tube line. Market Street’s above us. The glow has dimmed but we still don’t need torches, and that’s what keeps me excited. I know I can walk back run back tear away from Neil into Royal Exchange and watch again. Neil jumping, clambering ahead, doesn’t care about tripping anymore, he’s shouting things at this new tunnel we’re in that’s as wide as a road. Fuck me fuck this wow Christ amazing unreal I cannot fucking believe this shit, and he’s yelling at walls, lobbing stones, gawping at the roof and the ground. This is what I’d say about Neil: he thinks of the outside when he looks at the underside.
And me feeling this smile spread across my face, because now it’s this tunnel that’s brightening. That glow from behind must be following me. That light knows I need more. The fizz swallowing me right up, dunking me in yellow, I can hardly breathe. The party flies buzzing in from all angles to build another picture.
(Old Shorty): ‘Moving on from George…uh….George…uh…George…’
(William Shakespeare): ‘…Eliot. Eliot. Come on, man, come on…’
(Old Shorty): ‘…Moving on from George…uh George Eliot. Once, cor! Years ago now, we had a lad round the corner, Betty Elphick’s lad I think it were, he played football.’
(William Shakespeare): ‘Bleeding hell. Yes? And?’
(Retired Pixie): ‘Let him speak.’
(Old Shorty): ‘Used to play football. Preston North End. This was, let me see now, the early seventies. Well, he played… was it Deepdale, the ground?’
(William Shakespeare): ‘Never mind the name of the bleeding ground. Does it make any ounce of difference knowing the name of the damn ground?’
(Old Shorty): ‘Deepdale. He took a good free kick, Betty’s lad. They used to say, “That Betty’s lad,” I forget his name now. “He took a ruddy good free kick.” Well, he spent years and years practising, you see. He took free kicks Monday to Friday, nine until five, and then a game on a Saturday. On Sundays he wouldn’t say a word: not to us, not to Betty, not to no one. And do you know? He kept that routine, and never once deviated, for seventeen years! Well, he retired at 35 and the free kicks, well, that skill of his weren’t useful anymore. He never spoke a word after. Not one thing. Just couldn’t communicate with anyone after he stopped.’
(Retired Pixie): ‘The old man’s lost it.’
(William Shakespeare): ‘No he hasn’t.’
Oh yes! Yes! Yes! That’s making me sparkle, even if I don’t know what it means. The shivers, they’re knocking my knees tock tock together again. Neil, feet away, his mouth it’s yabbering up and down but no sound coming out. My ears aren’t for him. My ears are tuned inwards. I’m glancing about me looking for it and yes! There he is, man in an old fashioned tracksuit, millions and millions of flies swarming down to make a ball by his feet. The man is far down the tunnel. The flies build a cardboard defensive wall (for training purposes). And I know what Old Shorty has made. This is The Man who Communicates by Free Kicks.
‘Can you see the footballer?’ I’m asking Neil, but I can’t hear myself. The footballer exhales. He’s young, but look at his shabby face. He stares at the ball, then at me, then at the ball again. He strikes it bittersweetly with his left foot. The ball curls around the wall. It zips past my ear.
‘I’ve wasted my life!’ cries the free kick.
That man communicates perfectly and so melancholically with free kicks, and oh it’s sent me gliding my mouth is dripping I’m shaking that was good. But it’s too quick , already over – the glow dimming, the outside world coming back cracking crack cracking… ‘Christ alive! You strange bloody kid. Stop bloody stopping! We walk ten feet, I look back and… come the hell on!’
I must be breathing too hard. The TV flies are swooping right into my eyes. Neil shaking me like I’m a dead clock. ‘Get going! What’s all this? Don’t have a fucking seizure down here. Anybody here? Anybody down here owns this bloody kid?’ But I’m smiling and this smile, this happiness that no one in the world can have, must be the only thing stopping Neil from dragging me back home. I’m letting go so light I’m floating in Neil’s arms.
Someone’s tapping me on the shoulder. I open my eyes. A lady.
‘Please! It’s my son! He was over there by the pet food. My son! I only took my eye off him for a second. Please! There are so many people! He’s only five.’
Neil holding me, gawping at my face, then towards the woman. I know he can’t see her – flies circling, still building her hair. Her eyebrows are panicky. She’s screwing up her hands in her cardigan, but I’m giggling because Retired Pixie is talking through me. I only need to open my mouth.
‘It’s all right, madam. He mustn’t have gone far.’
Neil trying to shake me to my feet but they’re gone all dangly.
‘What have they done to you? Somebody! Anybody! Move with me. Get your legs going, you stubborn little bastard.’
‘He’s only five. He’s only five and he was by the pet food. We needed grapes, and the grapes are over there. I must have turned and…’
Neil’s holding me under my armpit so I’ve got an arm free to reach her shoulder. My sleeve is ‘Happy to Help.’
There’s this clipboard I’m holding and it’s buzzing, tingling, just freshly made in my hand.
‘Everything should be fine, madam. This happens so often here on busy days, you would not believe it! Could you describe him?’
‘Madam? Madam? Get on your feet. Jesus, you’re heavy when you want to be.’
‘Oh my,’ she says. ‘I…well…he’s…well he’s five years old…he has…’
She takes my clipboard.
‘I’m not an artist but he sort of looks…I suppose…his eyes…does that…does that … does that help at all?’
She thrusts the clipboard in my face, the colour drained from her bitten lips.
And this is what she’s drawn: a stick figure with a stick body, two small stick arms, two longer stick legs. A big round circle with dots for eyes and a single pencil line hair. An upturned mouth.
‘As…As you can see. He’s very sad from being lost.’
‘Right,’ I’m made to say. ‘It’s just that… with that drawing…I mean…what colour hair?’
‘Oh!’ yelps the woman. ‘Found him!’ She grabs this boy. The boy is a four foot piece of paper. He has stick arms and legs. His huge pencil head makes it difficult to balance. He’s very relieved from being found.
Wow, how I’m tingling at that!
‘Philip! You had me worried sick! Never, you hear me? Ever, do that again!’
Mother and child disappearing and those flies swerve off them one by one. The beauty of that mother and paper child. Look at them, their trail washes over me, making me so light I can float, I will float, I am floating, because god choke choke Neil’s holding me by the neck. Neil’s nose touching mine, his blood vessels exploding like hot worms.
‘Where are your fucking parents, Leni? What are you? Get me out. Get me back to that room right now.’
Coughing of my throat drowns him out and yes, that’s a way of dimming the glow. All warmth and fizziness gone. Blackness around. Our two torch-lights splat like horrid spots on the ground.
Neil putting me down slapping me on the back, getting the coughing out and hitting his head even harder.
‘Christ, man. Threatening kids. Threatening kids. Beating up kids.’ Even wiping my nose and straightening my jumper, and for a moment, for just a little moment, I’m hearing a wobble in his sound.
‘This isn’t for you. We have to get you out of here. Me and you, we’re getting out of here. This isn’t a place for…’
But a flicker ahead catches Neil’s eye. I’m following his stare towards a separate light, just as warm as before, but this one’s real. A person, a woman come to this passage. Rudolph Giuliani. Rudolph Giuliani edging towards us, twitching her little nose. My heart hits my ribs, so strange to see her out of the cellar! But I know that look on her face. Rudolph Giuliani looking all warm and fizzy. A glow. Rudolph Giuliani with an unmistakable smile. I was thinking the only watchers were me and Small Child Fox, but here she is with a mother’s eyes.
And I feel Neil watching her. I know his lip is curling. I imagine this moisture going down his throat. I feel sick. Neil staring at her like he’s changing his mind.
Now back. Back in the cellar with and the others. Light bulb buzzing above, but not even the bad electrics can strangle the groans of the men. The room is dense, there’s this suffocating weight to it, always like this after TV. The others all here in this tiny place. Small Child Fox, Retired Pixie, Sad Clown, Old Shorty and William Shakespeare, lying stretched out with their hands over their eyes. The sickness mists off them like smoke from a gun. Gonzo gone.
Neil chucking down torches, which thump off Small Child Fox’s mattress and clatter to the floor. I bet that made the fox feel even worse.
‘You bunch of fucking nuts. What are you putting into this kid? Transsexuals? Children in a supermarket?’ Neil giving little kicks, but it’s not these kicks that are hurting. These words tumbling out of Neil and punching each man in the stomach. Every ‘free kick,’ ‘transsexual,’ ‘lost child,’ reminds the men of their work and makes them moan. And I’m feeling this same nausea climb up my throat, like the smell of his words are stuck in there and you’re closing your eyes just pleading for it to pass.
‘Footballers? Clotted fucking cream?’
And it’s ‘God ah no please, Mr. Neil,’ like our dinner’s gone rotten in our mouths.
But I remember Neil staring at Rudolph Giuliani like that, and that stare crept over like it was finding a place to burrow inside. I just got this feeling that Neil’s going to be with us a while.
