I think about Scotland quite a bit, about the cage, doing the outer circuit and cleaning the range, making porridge and digging the potatoes, killing and plucking the chickens. And I think about Celia and the book she was reading with me.
In the book the main character, Ivan Denisovich, is a prisoner. He’s serving ten years but even when he’s served his time he won’t be allowed home because people like him are exiled when they are released. I thought that exile meant you had to leave your country and you could go anywhere – somewhere in the sun, a tropical island, say, or America. But exile doesn’t mean that; it means you are banished to a specific place, and guess what, that place isn’t in the sun and is no paradise, it’s not even America. It’s some cold, miserable place like Siberia, where you don’t know anyone and you can barely survive. It’s another prison.
And now I’m free. I don’t want to be exiled.
And I want to see Arran so much.
So much.
I know if I go there, they’ll catch me and maybe hurt Arran too. But I want to see him and I keep thinking that if I sneak up to Gran’s house in the night or leave a message for him somewhere and arrange to meet him it might work. But I know it won’t. I know they’ll catch me and it’ll be even worse than before and I should never try to go back to Arran, never, but then I feel like a coward for not trying.
Ivan Denisovich’s full name is Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, which is a killer name, though Denisovich means son of Denis, which spoils it a bit but shows he’s just an ordinary guy, I suppose.
If you speak to a person in Russia, you wouldn’t call them by their first name alone. You would use their first name and their patronym, so you would say, ‘Ivan Denisovich, pass the salt, please.’ And he would say, ‘You certainly like a lot of salt on your rice, Nathan Marcusovich.’
I think of Marcus Axelovich quite a bit. I think he probably likes a lot of salt on his rice too. And then today I realized something amazing. I like thinking of my father and I know I’d think of my son if I had one. I’d think of my son a lot. So I know Marcus is thinking of me.
The wood’s a good place: quiet, no dog walkers, no people at all. It’s interesting just sitting still and listening to what goes on. There are few sounds, the occasional bird not calling but sorting through leaves, stuff like that, but this wood has deep pockets of nothing when there are no sounds at all and I love sitting in those pockets.
My head is clear of noise here, like it was with Celia. No hissing at all. No electrical equipment buzzing in my head.
And sitting in those pockets I begin to believe it … I have escaped.
I started running again today. Celia would be pleased with me, though I’m slow so she’d probably not be that pleased. And I’m doing press-ups. Can’t even manage seventy, though. I don’t know how I’ve got so out of condition in a few weeks. I wonder if it’s the tattoos doing something to me, but maybe it’s just that I need more food. My ribs are sticking out.
It’s getting dark now. Another day nearly over.
When I was with Celia the days flew by, yet the years crawled. I was up at dawn, then exercising, doing chores – never enough time for the chores – and answering her damn questions, and more running and fighting and cooking and cleaning and learning witch names and Gifts and times and places and then back in the cage before I knew it. Now it’s the opposite. The hours won’t budge. And yet the time I’ve got before I’m seventeen seems to be slipping through my fingers, and I’m just sitting here watching it dribble away.
Another day dawns. I used to like dawns but now they are just the start of another slow, shivery day. I’ve just remembered Ivan starts his day all shivery. I’d like to have that Ivan Denisovich book. I know I wouldn’t be able to read it by myself or anything but I’d like to hold it in my hands or put it inside my shirt against my chest.
I do have a book, though. It’s an A–Z that I stole when I was leaving London.
What a great book! A book I can read. I look at maps and they make sense.
I stole it cos I knew I’d have to find the address of Bob, the man Mary told me about. The man who can help me find Mercury.
Muggy and rainy again. I’m watching telly and drinking tea. Well, not really watching telly, but it’s on and I’m trying to analyse the sound in my head. There’s a hissing in my skull, that’s the nearest I can describe it as. It’s not a sound in my ears, it’s in my head, to the right upper side.
This is the same as the hiss from mobile phones, but much quieter. I never got any hissing with Celia. She didn’t have a mobile. But when the Hunters came I could hear them hissing.
There is no hissing in the woodland here.
Just had a shower. There’s a load of shampoo, soap and stuff in the bathroom. And there’s an electric razor, which is a nightmare and hacks bits off my chin, but I can heal quick enough so I use it.