The Sunlight Pilgrims Page 2

  On behalf of Gunn and Vivienne MacRae, I want to say a huge thank-you to all of our faithful customers—it was my family’s privilege to shine a light in the dark here for over sixty years and there is nothing we would rather have done. Running such an extraordinary cinema would not have been possible without all of you. Babylon was our family business but it was also our home. May the film reels (somewhere, for all of us) play on!

  With Gratitude,

  Dylan MacRae

  Lights flash outside the peep show next door. He puts his hand on the glass foyer door and steps back into the dim. Dylan has an image of his mother in his head—she is sitting in the front row wearing a miner’s hat with a lamp on the front, reading in a circle of light but keeping the darkness always close enough to touch. They keep playing. These little film reels in his brain. He wants to go upstairs and find her jumper and put it on, so he can smell her and sit down in the front row and drink all the gin left in the cellar, but he’s sure that would be a bit Bundy or some other random psychopath who had issues with their mother. He has no issues, he just misses them both more than he can take. He picks up the deeds for the caravan, the address, his bus ticket. He grabs her suitcase and pulls the old Exit door closed behind him.

  It is so cold on the city streets that his skin stings and reddens; he needs to buy warmer clothes, some kind of winter boots. His throat is so tight and constricted it is hard to swallow. He checks his watch and there is still over an hour before the bus leaves, so he heads for the river—he wants to see it before he goes. Red lights flash on and off, lighting up the pavement as he walks away from Babylon. He wants to turn around, but for the very first time in his life there is absolutely nowhere to go back to. With each step forward the road behind him disappears. That’s what it feels like. Just one step back and it would be an endless plummet. His shoes click on the wet pavement. His breath curls on the air. He is going to go along by the river even though it takes longer because for once in his life he has left with time to spare. Ornate lampposts with wrought-iron fish at the bottoms of them sparkle with frost. It is way too early in the year for it to be as Baltic as this, they’ve only just hit November. He cannot remember it ever being this bad and they are saying this is barely the beginning. He turns onto the main street, then heads along by the river toward Victoria. Bridges are lit all the way along the Thames and four naval ships sluice through black water. He runs down steps and stands at the edge of the water. He holds the key to Babylon out and drops it into the river. Somewhere nearby a busker plays the trombone and he walks quickly back into the city and he doesn’t stop until he emerges up into Victoria: newsstands are covered in headlines: Maunder Minimum / European Financial Collapse / Ice Age / Gunman at London Zoo / The Big Chill— a group of drunk hens queue to top up their Oyster cards and they shiver, barely dressed. Dylan heads through the forecourt and out to the bus station; he boards his coach as the doors hiss closed. He sidles along the aisle, stooping as low as he can to avoid banging his head and shoulders on the bus ceiling. It is hot. Damp. Smelly. Passengers swerve out of his way. A little boy stares at him, quite clearly afraid. Dylan is grateful to spy two empty seats at the back; he takes the aisle seat so he can at least stretch his legs out. The door to the toilet cubicle behind him has a red ENGAGED sign and there is a sound of vomiting, and in between retching a man repeats the same two words.

  —I die, I die, I die!

  It appears to be the only words of English he knows. Dylan shrugs off his coat and puts it in the overhead storage space, glad that it is warm in here. The bus speeds up—it whirrs along, ribbons of light blur past the window: hundreds of cars, snitches of snatches; fat arms wearing gold bracelets; a jeep blares its horn; a woman smears on lipstick; her dog barks at the back window; four soldiers nod their heads to music. All these people on the move in a strange corporeality. A man appears in front of Dylan and he has to stand, let him into the window seat, settle himself back down. There is an unwelcome particularity to the man’s odor (camphor, stale sweat, cheap deodorant) as he rummages around and finds a giant bag of Thai chili crisps. He offers one to Dylan.

  A shake of the head.

  —Did you see the news today, mate? Crisp-Man asks.

  —Economic collapse?

  —Nah.

  —Gunman at London zoo?

  —Not that one.

  —Sinkholes?

  —Nope, though one opened up in Yarmouth yesterday.

  —Did someone finally take out a contract on all the pedos in Parliament?

  —No, it’s an idea, though, innit?

  —Was it a video of a tiny baby horse? Seriously cute? I saw that one, it was amazing!

  —Are you taking the piss?

  Dylan grins, oddly cheery now he is on the road and going somewhere new.

  —It’s only a bloody Ice Age, mate, that’s the front-page news today!

  —Yeah, I did see that. Dylan nods.

  Crisp-Man glances behind them, then leans in toward him and lowers his voice. He uses a crisp to punctuate each point and his nose has two lumps where it’s been broken.

  —The earth strikes back!

  —The Empire Strikes Back?

  —No, the fucking empire has always struck back, now it’s the earth’s go. It’s had enough of our bullshit, we’re broken. All the way down to the bone. If human bones were rock, that’s what it would say right through the middle—broke-as-fuck-idiot-cunts-exterminate-exterminate. Only civilized thing we can do is nuke ourselves.

  Crisp-Man takes a big mouthful of crisps and crunches on them while holding his hand out like one of those exterminators that Dylan used to watch on reruns on telly up in the attic, while it rained outside and lights from the peep show flashed on and off.

  —That’s a bit excessive, mate.

  —Excessive!

  The guy’s voice rises to a high crescendo and a boy in front of them looks back and Crisp-Man tries to smile reassuringly at the kid, which clearly freaks him out even more. Crisp-Man attempts a whisper.

  —I can’t take much more, mate, I tell ya. If this is it, if this Ice Age is because human beings are acting like a fucking cancer on this hereof beautiful planet—I, for one, think it’s not before time.

  —Hereof?

  —Yeah, fucking hereof. Hereof from now leave the earth in peace.

  He gestures at the other passengers, who all look carefully away from his rising voice. The guy reaches into his bag for a hip flask and swigs vodka down; he pulls out max-strength painkillers, pops three, then chases those with a few Pro Plus; he offers the box to Dylan, who puts his hand up.

  —No, thanks.

  —We’re a race of zombies fucking the earth into oblivion. Fucked-up. Beheading people like it’s bingo! Look, Mum, see me on the internet with this bloke’s head in my hand and a big-fucking-knife! Say cheese! Woo hoo. It’s fucking trigger-happy time mate. That shit’s a medieval bloodbath. They act like they’re some kind of superior breed of murderer, like they’re murdering for Him upstairs so that makes them holy murderers. Or they’re murdering for governments so they’re hero murderers. Or for the police so they’re legal murderers. It’s all the same shit. Murder’s murder. Whichever way you dress it the fuck up. I’m telling you…Or they’re murdering for governments so that’s A-okay. It’s all the same shit! I’m telling you, we have had it. You know what they’re saying—it’s the end of times, that’s what it fucking is.

  Dylan tucks his hair behind his ear and his fingers hover where his thick polo neck is bobbled, picked at the cuffs—he is clearly just a cuff picker sat next to a crisp muncher in what appears to be the end of times. Along the motorway, trails of yellow and orange light race each other onto a bypass where a dark shape stands on the edge of a bridge. The figure raises an arm. Dylan glances back but he cannot see the shape anymore. Behind them the sound of vomiting is replaced by a steady spitting—then silence.

  If someone is nearly dead back there.

  If they are.


  Dylan is tempted to stand and declare—There’s a dead man in the bog, abandon bus, abandon the fucking bus! Call an ambulance, call his family! The passengers would turn around as one being, all hairdos and noses and fists and feet as they dealt with him. Then they’d be right back to their magazines and bags of sweets without even a rumor of emotion. The toilet cubicle is silent. Crisp-Man eyes him up. His gaze slides over Dylan’s Chelsea boots, faded jeans, polo neck, his squint-nose and the height of him. The bus engine hums loudly as countryside begins to appear—dark outlines of watermills and chimneys, and in the middle of the road they drive around a roundabout where a dining table has been set up with place mats and flowers.

  —Total madness. I’ve seen it all now. It could be one of them programs—they’d call it Dinner on Location.

  It’s a guffaw then—Crisp-Man—pleased with himself and more inventive than anyone might think. Looks like meat on legs but something is inside that rubbery dome—probably just a little drunk guy on a bicycle, cycling around, but he has a point, or two, to make. Dylan nods in some kind of a response and the guy grins widely at him.

  —I’m on the oil rigs again, six weeks on this time, winter or no winter, I need the money for the missus. She goes to Brussels for lipo and that; lipo on the brain she has. New tits. New nose. She’s had her sagging moaning face dragged up around her ears. I own it, though. I own that nose. I’m telling you, it’s mine!

  Dylan unwraps a bar of chocolate.

  He’s never owned someone else’s nose, not someone else’s sagging moaning face, certainly hasn’t—not even an eyelash. The roads are sparser and the heater filters on and on and the air is too hot. Sleep announces itself as a heaviness—a fug that he falls into—a density to it that makes it a struggle to rise back up, and the engine drones louder until noise becomes everything—night-lights shine down and distort the passengers’ features while traffic signs and roadworks fly past the window.

  Even in the dark there is a clear outline of mountains. It was freezing in London but this is like the Arctic. Dylan climbs into the back of a cab with tartan seat covers and shows the driver an address and they make a U-turn. He wraps his arms around himself, already shivering as they drive out of the station past big Georgian houses, then what looks like a park and city streets, the last he imagines he will see for some time. The scenery turns into suburbia until eventually a bridge rises—defiantly lit. The driver turns the heating up but it barely warms the back of the cab. Dylan peers up at the bridge and pulls his coat tighter around himself—look at that: what a feat of engineering! The bridge is built on a solid suspension system with metal joists that crisscross against a wide tidal estuary. As they drive onto the bridge there are flashes of crisscross, crisscross, crisscross, the shadows flicker over the driver’s face. The car thuds over each section and the rhythm is relaxing. Roll-thud, roll-thud, crisscross, crisscross. Out on the sea there is a huge cruise liner and farther out what looks like oil platforms, and then a lighthouse flashes somewhere along the coast. A few seconds later another lighthouse appears to flash back a response, a little yellow light and a circle around it—right out on the water.

  The cab motors up a hill. It leans into curves and dips on narrow roads so that Dylan gets butterflies. Mountains rise up on either side of them, some so big and craggy the car feels tiny on the windy roads. There are no streetlights out here. The headlight beam picks out features as they turn corners; occasionally a traditional croft house or bothy is lit up, way out in the middle of a valley. What must it be like to open your front door to all that vastness each day? Dylan leans back, tired now, and after an hour or so they drive past a row of industrial estates with warehouses and Japanese car showrooms filled with four-wheel drives. The cab takes a sharp turn down a country road and through two wooden gates. Dylan takes out his wallet and removes four notes. He pays the driver and takes the receipt out of habit. She chews gum and drives away with her window down and one hand raised. A nice gesture in the dead of night.

  He can make out actual planets, the skies are so clear.

  This caravan park is so—quiet.

  Dylan looks up at millions and millions of stars, clusters and trails, and as he turns around in a circle he finds the entire Clachan Fells region is surrounded by vast mountains. Hemmed in. When he looked online he could see Clachan Fells as a spine of land in between the sea and farmland, but he imagined it flat. He follows a route through the caravan park that seems right even though he couldn’t get the address properly on his phone app.

  Of all the places Vivienne could have picked.

  The caravans are mostly quite big, not like the picture of the one his mother bought. An ambulance is parked outside one mobile home, an ice cream van outside another. Some have lights flickering behind their curtains, the sounds of televisions or people talking. There is a ferry link near here that will take him up to the islands so he can scatter their ashes. That might take a week or two, then if he can sell the caravan maybe he could go somewhere warmer, Vietnam or Cambodia.

  Dylan walks up through a car park, passes a caravan with gnomes fishing outside.

  What was Vivienne doing here?

  He tries to imagine his mother walking up this slope, chain-smoking, wearing a headscarf and winkle-pickers and huge sunglasses. She took three trips away last year, saying she was going to meet a film collector who had lots of rare reels, but on at least one of those trips she came here to buy a place for him. The doctor must have told her, long before she told him. She knew they were going to lose Babylon a year ago. After Gunn died, she must have been sure she wouldn’t last much longer either. All those trips she made to the hospital without telling him, it makes him angry. She never gave him the chance to look after her. She took away the last thing he could have done. She didn’t want him to see her sick and deteriorating, so she’d come home in between trips to the hospital and sip gin and watch The Wizard of Oz in Cinema 1, wearing old paisley-pattern pajamas. The woman was hard as fucking nails. A glint materializes under a car and he crouches down to find a large frog. He scoops it up. The glassy white throat thrums and a clear membrane slides down each luminous eye. A fine black slit stares back at him, and wide pads move up and down on his palm. It pulses in his cupped hands like a heart. He places the frog carefully on the verge beneath the car and keeps walking, faster now because his ears are numb and he feels even taller next to these caravans, like he is a giant who has come here this late at night so he can peer through windows and rearrange the sleepers’ dreams—blow new ones into their ears through a glass pipe.

  A sign for Ash Lane is almost totally covered by briars. He pushes them back. There are five caravans on either side of a small lane. Each caravan is silver, bullet-shaped with a big bay window at the front. The first one has a sign outside that swings in the breeze: Rose Cottage. It has a crooked chimney. The air smells clean and pure with a hint of wood smoke. His caravan is no. 7 and the gate to it is rusted shut. It is more dilapidated than the others. A BMX bike with a pirate flag flapping on the back of it leans on the neighbor’s porch. A girl with black hair appears at the window and he is about to raise a hand but she is already gone. Dylan steps over the gate to no. 7. Thistles snark his coat as he makes his way along the tiny path and up a slumped set of porch steps. He lifts the mat and, in between moist soil and wriggling slaters, there is a key. He picks it up and puts it in the lock and twists. His fingers are numb; he blows on them and tries again. He can’t remember what the deed said—maybe it was Needs cosmetic attention.

  The door swings open.

  He flicks the light on and steps into a hallway one footstep wide and long. Dylan pushes the door directly in front of him and it opens on a clean-looking white shower, loo, sink. He opens the bathroom cabinet. There is only paracetamol. He has a horrible feeling that his mother could be sitting in the bedroom right now, drinking gin. He did see her body but it seemed she was only sleeping, and he had so many pints before he got there that the whole thing has beco
me hazy like a film he saw when he was tripping one time. A bad one. The kind that follows you around indefinitely.

  Dylan stoops to get through the bedroom door. He can stand upright but his arm doesn’t even extend halfway before he touches the ceiling. There is a double bed with brass knobs on the top and bottom headboards. Vivienne’s sketchbook is on the bedside table. It used to sit next to Vivienne’s bed or she’d sit sketching in it outside. Sometimes he’d wake up to find her drawing him. She must have brought it up here when she bought the place and left it for him to find. He picks it up, turns it over, slips it into a drawer. He opens the curtains and the bedroom has a view of mountains and endless skies.

  He places his hand on the window.

  It is only one step back through to the living room, a long thin room with an old square television with a big dial on the front. It makes a satisfying click when he switches it on. He places the suitcase down and scrolls through the fuzz on the telly until a channel mangles into life. The screen slinks away to the left, then there’s a dot. Dylan sits on a blue flowery armchair and rests his hand on the arms. He switches on a Hawaiian-lady lamp, which is sitting on the wee Formica table next to him, and in the kitchenette in the corner there is a two-hob worktop Baby Belling. Fake-wood paneling adorns every available space, including the ceiling, and there is a gigantic painting of a plow horse in a gold frame on the wall. It paws the ground, come-hither long lashes frame brown eyes looking coyly at him.