The Pink Cage Read online

  From time to time, Jazz took it upon himself to comment on my random ballers. It was irksome. After all, it wasn’t as if Jazz waited for the waxing of a new moon to move onto his next conquest.

  “Whatever bug is up your ass, get rid of it.”

  “You think you’re shit hot in those clothes of yours. Well you’re not. You have no idea how wrong you look. Freaky Friday, that’s what the regulars call you. They all lay bets on who can get it on with the albino chick. And they don’t buy that crap about your mother being Scandinavian either.”

  It was unusual to hear Jazz utter so many sentences in one sitting.

  “Whatever, Jazz. You’re just jealous.”

  Jazz drove fast. The air in the car filled with beats, the sort of meat-market crud he knew I hated. At least it drowned out the silence.

  We both hovered at the door of Jazz’s bedroom. I ran my fingertips along the contours of his face. Despite hours at the gym, a trace of fatboy pudge lingered on his cheeks. As my hand reached his hair, he shook it off.

  “Come on, Jazz. I want to play.”

  He reached out and put his hands on my shoulders, manoeuvring me so that I was pinned against the wall. In that moment, he towered above me. His fingers dug into my flesh. This was something of a departure from our usual drill.

  “Do you know why Jenny broke it off with me?”

  “She realised Depêche Mode wasn’t a fashion label.”

  “Because of you.”

  I figured he was due one his biennial rages, so I decided to ride it out.

  “‘Your head is full of Astrid, I can’t compete.’ That’s what she said. Not that you care. You don’t know what it’s like to love someone.”

  His voice remained level, but it crackled with menace, incipient thunder. His face was very close to mine, close enough for me to see that it was set in granite lines. Rock formations sprang to mind: igneous basalt sandstone limestone sedimentary quartz mica feldspar metamorphic. His breath was hot; the scent of sweet and sour chicken lingered.

  “If I wanted to get your attention, I’d have to do this.”

  He thrust his tongue into my mouth. No time to react, no time to think. I was only aware of the hardness of the wall behind my back and the treacherous leap of my body as it arched towards his. I pushed him away. Chips and vodka churned in my stomach. My shades became dislodged and perched on the edge of my nose. The rock formations in my head gave way to a verse of the Aeneid, the same verse over and over, Dido and Aeneas, Dido and Aeneas.

  Rattled, I shouted “What do you think you’re doing, you twisted fuck?”

  “Isn’t that how you like it? Scuzzy and skanky.”

  I moved to adjust my shades; my hands shook and they fell to the ground. Without them, I was naked. My eyelids fluttered, captive hummingbirds attempting to take flight. Jazz leaned over and picked up the shades. His hands were gentle as he put them back onto my nose. My eyes stilled and locked with his. I kept forgetting how big his eyes were. They were warm, chocolate brown orbs.

  “You ruined it for me, Astrid. She’s the sort of girl I should be with.”

  The menace had drained from his voice, his words were now directed at his shoes. I saw him in our kitchen that first day; geeky and lost.

  “She was right, you see. About you. You keep getting in the way. I don’t know why I’m even telling you this. You’re not going to understand.”

  “What a wonderful plot for a Greek tragedy, Jazz. Perhaps you should gouge your eyes out with sticks. And while I would love nothing more than to indulge you in your little fantasy, I’m afraid I must try and get some kip before my journey to Cabbage Patch Land.”

  I stretched my hands above my head, affecting a yawn. Jazz turned away. The door of his bedroom shut with an emphatic click. I went to the studio and yanked clothes out of my rucksack: a plain white T-shirt, jeans and my favourite jumper, worn into a faded comfortable nothing shade as a result of frequent washing. My glasses were still on the coffee table. I gave them a quick clean and put them on. It was a relief to be rid of the red top; the label scratched my neck. I retrieved my overcoat and ran my hands over the fine grey wool. It was an heirloom from my mother. My iPod was in one of the pockets; I fished it out and sat on the black leather couch, drawing my legs into my chest and resting my head on my knees. The couch doubled as a pull-out bed, but I made no move to set it up. The taste of Jazz was still in my mouth. My eyes closed and soothing Bach took me to a dark, deep place; an ice fortress. A place first discovered in the pink cage.

  The gates were not high, but I couldn’t climb over them. They stood between two red brick walls and were made of grey convoluted metal bars. I traced the metal with my finger, following the patterns it made as far as I could. The bars were the same colour as the sky. At the top, the metal turned into words. I didn’t know what they said: they were up too high for me to see. There were spaces between the bars, but they were too narrow to squeeze through. The gates clanged shut after the car drove through them. I listened to the scrunching sound the tyres made until I couldn’t hear it any more. My hands wound around the metal. It was cold and hard and my fingers burned, but I held on until hands pried me loose. There were red marks on my palms, from the metal. I didn’t make a sound. Vikings never cried out when they were wounded in battle.

  The two steps leading from Jazz’s apartment get me every time. Under normal circumstances, I could prevent a major spillage, but with a rucksack weighing me down, I didn’t stand a chance. As my legs began to give way, a hand gripped my arm. Jazz stood behind me. He was still wearing his Prism clothes.

  “Christ, Astrid, you know I’m supposed to bring you.”

  “Didn’t want to put you out, seeing as I keep getting in your way.”

  From the depths of my overcoat, my phone emitted a jangling mishmash of sounds. “My taxi awaits.”

  He shook his head.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of fighting?”

  I didn’t respond, just turned and clattered down the stairs, my back straight. From a distance, I heard the door slam.

  The Twelve Labours of Hercules

  The Cabbage Patch Kids were hard to miss. As I strode through the departure area, squinting at pillars, I almost tripped on a phalanx of canes.

  “Oh there you are,” said a penetrating, nasal voice. “Sorry, I suppose we are a bit in the way.”

  A figure separated itself from the madding crowd and bustled towards me.

  “Cliona Smith,” she said, pumping my hand. “We spoke on the phone.”

  I looked down at a squat body. Her bristling dark hair was cut in an almost military crop. Her thick glasses reflected the airport’s lights and her jaw jutted outwards. Something about the set of her face was familiar.

  “Not late, am I?” I said.

  “Well, not exactly. Could everyone move to the right in case more people trip over us.”

  Another figure floated towards us, a greyish creature with hair the colour of dust. He hovered next to Cliona, resting a hand on her shoulder.

  “This is Kim,” Cliona said.

  The figure stepped forward and gave me a dishcloth handshake, his fingers making the briefest contact with mine.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  He was nitrogen: colourless, odourless, tasteless. We moved towards the group, whose canes tapped in unison. Two men were conducting a fierce, clamourous conversation. Their wrinkled apple cheeks and white beards gave them the appearance of prophets, but I sensed they lacked the required wisdom. They were so similar in appearance that it was impossible to tell one from the other.

  “God, it’s early, isn’t it?” said one.

  “Yeah, too early for me eyes to be open,” the other one said.

  “Your eyes are no good to you open anyway.”

  Their la
ughter came in gusts. Kim tapped them on the shoulder and they turned around.

  “Guys, Astrid’s here,” Kim said.

  “Howya?” the two men said with one voice.

  My hand was pumped again. Their identikit heads bobbed up and down; wide grins split their faces in two. Two names hovered in the air, Tom and Eamonn, but failed to attach themselves to either one.

  “Haven’t you lovely long fingers,” said one, giving my hand an extra squeeze.

  His crony guffawed. I snatched my hand away.

  “And here are the other two,” said Cliona.

  “How’s it goin’?” said a deep voice.

  I turned towards the voice and came face-to-face with a latter-day Roman God; guitar case slung over his shoulder, built like an exclamation mark, a battered face topped with crisp black curls. He wore a glaring high-vis jacket and a bilious-green sports top, but I could get over that. The tightness of his jeans led me to wonder what lay beneath. A sharp, musky smell of sweat rose up from him, 99 percent testosterone: just the way I liked them, with that little element of edge.

  This guy had an easy grace that Jazz, with his iron-pumping and his no-carbs diets, could only dream of. He was tall enough to dwarf Jazz and no doubt he met Jazz’s scuzzy and skanky criteria.

  “Well, now that everyone’s here, we’ll proceed to check-in,” said Cliona.

  Ave, Caesar. I resisted the urge to click my heels together.

  “Astrid, will you take Mia?”

  I caught a glimpse of a nymph-like creature, hidden behind the other bodies. Cliona thrust her towards me.

  “Take her?” I repeated.

  “Yes, yes, we have to get going.”

  A small hand attached itself to my arm. I turned around and saw dirty blonde hair falling into blank blue eyes, a long red skirt and an almost-transparent white blouse. I also saw that everyone else was gone. There were no markers, just grey walls and blinking signs that hovered beyond the reach of my erratic eyes. Two fingers of pain jabbed at my skull. I loped forward through the sea of blank faces, trying to spot the red jacket Cliona was wearing, pulling Mia in my wake. Her weight slowed me; her pink suitcase was almost as big as she was. For such a tiny creature, her grip was vice-like. Bodies brushed against me. I pushed past them. Had to keep going. Trolleys appeared out of nowhere, unexploded landmines lying in wait. I stepped around them, yanking Mia’s arm.

  “Sorry, could you slow down?”

  The voice at my shoulder was like a wisp of smoke. Ora’s voice was a foghorn in comparison.

  “Can’t. Have to keep up with the others.”

  As I spun her around a corner, the jacket appeared, a lighthouse beacon in a dark sea. The next moment, my face crunched into a solid wall of flesh.

  “Nice to meet you again,” said that deep voice.

  “Oh. Sorry,” I mumbled.

  It was a mercy he couldn’t see my flaming cheeks. Blushing created an interesting raspberry-ripple effect on my skin.

  “You might as well introduce yerself properly so, seeing as you’re trying to cause me grievous bodily harm.”

  A stream of laughter gurgled out of him.

  “Astrid Johnson.”

  “I’m Johno. Nice to meet ya.”

  I reached for his hand and shook it. His fingers were long, with knobs of bone that pressed into my skin. Not girl’s fingers these. Not like Jazz’s. The pressure of his hand was firm, but not crushing. Cliona shattered the moment.

  “Try to look where you’re going, Astrid. You can’t fling people around the place willy nilly.”

  Her voice was weighed down with umbrage.

  “Guiding is a serious responsibility. It’s important for blind people to feel secure. Isn’t that right, Mia?”

  Mia looked down at her suede boots.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

  Pity I had to relinquish all sharp objects.

  Check-in was the first flaming hoop to be jumped through. I flung my bag onto the conveyer belt, then Mia’s, since her twig arms were incapable of bearing the weight. After that, the metal detector lay in wait. As I marched Mia towards it, something slapped into me. It was a piece of luminous tape.

  “You have to sort of zig-zag through the barrier,” said Kim.

  We joined the shuffling line, let ourselves be shunted forward. The two guffawing cronies stood behind us, with Johno, Cliona and Kim forming a triumvirate at the head of the pack. Kim murmured something in Cliona’s ear. She gave a short, barking laugh.

  “Reckon I’ll start mooing in a minute,” I said to Mia.

  “What?” she said, in a vacant voice.

  “You know, cattle.”

  We were now at the top of the line. A man in a high-vis vest was bearing down on us.

  “Never mind. Get out your passport.”

  I unearthed my own passport from the cavernous pockets of my overcoat. The high-vis man gave it a cursory glance before turning his attention to Mia. She didn’t have her passport in her hand, as I expected; she was rummaging in a pouch which ran in a diagonal line across her body. I snatched the pouch and burrowed through it. My hand connected with it in an instant. I plucked it out and handed it to the high-vis man.

  “D’you need any help, love?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, stalking past him.

  The others were already through. I quickened my pace, to ensure they didn’t elude me again. When I reached the metal detector, I yanked off all my metallic objects, while Mia stood beside me, unmoving.

  “Aren’t you going to put your stuff on the belt?” I said.

  She said nothing.

  “Haven’t you ever flown before?”

  “Not without my parents,” she almost whispered.

  Ye gods.

  “Right.” I moved over to her. “The tray’s in front of you. Put your bag, coat and jewellery onto it.”

  She did so, with agonising slowness. Then I propelled her forward, through the detector. As I followed her through, the beeper sounded. A friendly frisk from one of the airport staff revealed coins in the pockets of my jeans, change from my taxi.

  “Shit,” I muttered, lowering my head in a vain attempt to cover my scorching cheeks.

  By the time we were finished, the others were already making for the gate, their canes beating out a steady rhythm. I followed them, tugging Mia along with me. Every vein in my body was screaming for coffee, a double espresso for courage.

  “Any chance of a pit stop?” I asked.

  “Maybe when we find the gate,” said Cliona.

  We walked over to the display. Kim, the sighted stooge, offered to scan the blinking screens. At least he had his uses. I yanked Mia through a maze of corridors and escalators. When we reached the gate, thankfully there was a coffee stand.

  “I could murder a cup of tea,” said one of the guffawing cronies.

  “I know, yeah, it’s like a three-ring circus around here,” said his friend.

  “There’s no time, we have to board,” Cliona dictated.

  An orderly line of people were snaking towards the gate. I looked at my watch. 9.35am. Flying had never been such a Herculean labour before. But then every other time, Jazz was there with his butterfly touch, steering me through the maze, making hurdles disappear. Still, I was able to manage without him. My eyes work just fine, St Geoffrey.

  There were corridors everywhere. Long corridors that looped around, like the model train-set Matthew had shown me once. My feet made an echo as I walked along them. The echo came from the ceilings, which were as high as the cliff on the beach at home. The air in the corridors was dry and hot and smelled of cabbage and polish. It crept into my nose and made me sneeze.

  The corridors were full of light, but it wasn’t the light of a sunny day at home. It b
ounced everywhere and I couldn’t escape from it. It was even on the floors. The light came from thin lamps that dangled from the ceiling. When it was quiet, they buzzed. Sometimes I passed bigger girls in the corridor, who held sticks in front of them. The sticks made tapping sounds. I heard them everywhere. Sometimes I walked to the sound of the sticks: tap-tap, tap-tap.

  When I looked at the floors, I saw my face. Some of the floors were speckled grey; some were covered in red and cream squares. The walls were almost white, but not quite. If I dragged my feet on the floor, my shoes squeaked. Sometimes I tried to skid along it, or hop on the red squares, but they always stopped me. They said I might hurt myself; I didn’t know why. So I counted the squares instead, red then cream. There were statues in the corners. It was hard to tell if they were men or women because they all had long hair and wore robes. The pink ladies said they were called Our Lord and Our Lady. I guessed it was because the statues belonged to the school. The corridors were divided by big, heavy doors. They all had panes of glass in them, as if they couldn’t decide whether to be doors or windows. The handles were made of metal and there were pieces of metal at the bottoms. They were heavy; too heavy for me to push.

  I knew why there were so many corridors; they needed them for all the rooms. The rooms were big, with white or green walls. There were no books or samples, just a lot of objects. There were so many rooms. More rooms than in our house in Wexford, or the other house in Dublin. More rooms than I had ever seen before.

  I attempted to sink onto the seat. Across from me, Johno’s long body was welded into a window seat, hemmed in by Tom and Eamonn. I had to content myself with sitting beside my new shadow. Kim and Cliona settled themselves in front of us.

  Kim hovered over Cliona as she strapped herself in.

  “All right?” he asked.

  “At least we got everyone through without a hitch,” Cliona replied. “You know what these airlines are like. And there appear to be some loose cannons in the bunch.”