NINETEEN
I’m still trembling as we head downstairs. The man sticks nearby, holding my upper arm, keeping me close.
“You’re new here, I guess?” he says.
I nod, weakly, swallow, try to say something and find that I can’t. I should be running; I should be doing everything I can to tear myself away from this person. But I’m paralysed.
“I’m Jonah,” he says.
“K … Kyle,” I respond.
He smiles. “You OK, Kyle? You’re not going to do anything silly now, are you?”
I shake my head unsteadily. I don’t understand what’s going on. Being a prisoner would be one thing, but this is much scarier. His smile is troubled, almost anxious. He shows no sign of having just tried to murder me.
He squeezes my upper arm more tightly, carefully meted-out strength. “It’s a bit disorientating when you first get here,” he says, amiably.
I start to wonder if I imagined the whole thing. But then he reaches forward to open the fire door and I see again the knife in a tan leather holster, strapped to his back. The world rocks around me, my mouth fills with cotton wool. Jonah catches me as I stagger backwards. His hand rests against my back.
“Don’t worry, lad,” he whispers. “Bit of a scare, that’s all.”
He leads me back to the bar and when we get there my heart stops. There’s three more of them, sitting on the leather furniture, waiting with Farah and Chiu. One of them, a small, plump, muscular man with feral eyes, is playing Uno with Chiu. I lock eyes with Farah and I can see the tension in her body, her calculating look. Chiu glances up, but then looks back to his cards. I can tell he’s scared, but he’s concentrating hard on the cards in order to keep himself under control.
Jonah claps his hands together. “Well, well! It’s a party!”
“This is Farah and Chiu,” one of the other men says – a tall, athletic man with long legs, bare arms and a narrow, mournful face. “We found them in the bar.”
“I can see that,” Jonah says, glancing at me like we’re sharing a joke. “Funny how you lot always search the bar first, isn’t it?”
The man playing cards rearranges the glasses in front of him self-consciously. “We didn’t know what to do with them, so we waited—”
“Right, right,” Jonah snaps. “Of course you did.” He turns to me. “Kyle, I want you to meet my friends. A more feckless bunch of layabouts you’ll never set eyes on.” He pauses again, like he’s waiting for us to laugh. “This black javelin of a man is Ose,” he continues after a moment. “And the chunky little Sherman tank here is Levi.”
Ose nods, holding my gaze, sizing me up.
“Wotcha,” Levi says, with only a cursory glance.
Jonah turns to the last man, sitting silently in the armchair with a glass of something golden in his hand. “The sickly-looking fellow here is Tongue.”
“Tongue, tongue,” Tongue says, nodding and jabbing his thumb to his chest.
“You’ll have to excuse Tongue,” Jonah adds. “He came to us as damaged goods and he says not a word except ‘tongue’.”
“Tongue,” Tongue agrees.
Chiu looks up from his cards, intrigued. “Broca’s region?” he says. “It’s part of the brain, I read about it. This happens if Broca’s region gets damaged.”
“Tongue! Tongue!” Tongue nods, with sudden enthusiasm.
Jonah laughs. “Well! That has made him happy. And you’ve taught us something that we managed not to learn in all the time we’ve been here.” He heads behind the bar and inspects the bottle that the others must have left out. He whistles softly. “Twenty-five-year Macallan? Lads, this is the good stuff.”
He takes down a glass and pours the liquid to the very top.
“Tongue,” Tongue agrees with satisfaction.
Jonah drops heavily on to the sofa next to Farah, sandwiching her between himself and Ose. There isn’t enough space but he doesn’t seem to care. Ose does his best to make room, although he, in turn, is limited by the arm of the sofa.
Jonah takes a large swig of the whisky, swills it in his mouth and then spits it back into his glass. “Gah!” he gasps. “No eating or drinking in this world, I guess you figured that out by now? I still miss it though. I drink the idea of whisky. I drink to remember.” A cold smile breaks across his face. “Get it? Drink to remember?” He looks at me impatiently. “Sit, sit down,” he says.
I slump into the remaining armchair, opposite Tongue.
“You OK, Kyle?” Farah says, guardedly.
“We’re fine,” Jonah answers for me. “Bit of a misunderstanding, that’s all.”
I catch the question in Farah’s look and turn away. I keep thinking about the way Jonah looked at me when he pressed the knife against my chest. No compassion, no regret.
Why did he change his mind?
“So … tell us about yourselves,” Jonah says with false joviality. “What brings you to this god-forsaken place?”
We exchange a look, me, Farah and Chiu. What can we do except play along?
“I fell off a roof,” Chiu says.
Jonah grins appreciatively. “Ha! Wonderful. What a way to go!”
