Phoenix and the Bag Man

Chapter 7: The Phoenix Voice

There was a knot of people on the pavement. I pushed bad-temperedly through them. I could feel the bag on my shoulder catch against them.

"Hey you!" someone shouted. I glanced round but didn't stop my progress. A woman, brown wool coat, scarf around her head, canvas shopping bag, staggered backwards, lost her balance and sat down suddenly on the ground, dropping her bag. Petticoat showing. People bent to help her up. She was old. Right then, hunched over, walking quickly and tensely, hands in pockets, my face hidden, pushing by people on the pavement, I was exactly whom I despised. I turned into the mall. I started to worry about CCTV cameras but self-pity and self-loathing made me careless, a fountain-head of anger welled up inside me and somewhere at the back of my head a voice said 'bring it on'. I didn't care what happened to me, what people thought of me, I just wanted to assert me, I wanted people to notice me and see my anger. My wound hurt. I stopped in front of an electrical store, a wall of TVs filled the window, all of them switched on, pictures moving on their screens but no sound could be heard from any of them. Some had sport on, some a news channel, others some daytime soap. I glanced round. A security guard was watching me from the other side of the concourse. Sod him, I wasn't doing anything wrong. I turned back to the TVs. The screen that swam first into my field of vision was showing the outside of a familiar building. With a sudden rush of panic I realised it was the burnt house. The camera zoomed in on an upstairs window. Phoenix was standing in the window. She was speaking and I could hear her odd faraway voice. She looked sad but there was a smile in her eyes.

"Don't be angry, Mic," she said. "You couldn't help it."

"Couldn't help what?" I shouted.

"You alright, son?" I turned my head over my shoulder. It was the security guard. Despite his question he didn't sound at all concerned. He had a radio in his hand. I realized I was standing pressed up against the shop window my hands either side of me pressed against the glass, palms outwards. I looked back into the shop. The image on the TV was gone. There was another scene, other people. I realised it was the soap opera playing itself out. I dropped my hands, leaving sweat marks on the glass and turned round. I looked up into the face of the security guard and I saw at once a flash of recognition visit his watery pale eyes. He began to lift the hand holding the radio. I didn't think. I ran.

When I looked back I was nearing the end of the concourse, and I was thinking where to go next. The security guard was running after me alright, radio to his ear, but he was no sprinter. Ahead of me double doors led to a car park. I dived through them and down into the dark layered belly of the building. Car tyres squealed on the shiny concrete floors. I had no idea whether I was below, at or above ground level. I looked around just as the doors crashed to announce the arrival of the security guard.

"Oi!"

I didn't answer. I had spotted through railings at the far side an outside road two levels down. I ran for it. A family loading a people carrier with bags stared as I passed. I heard doors at the further end of the car park swing to. Another security guard. This was one was younger and faster. I reached the barriers at the side of the building and climbed over into a dead space full of rubbish. Another set of barriers separated me from a dual carriageway. I climbed up. Traffic thundered past, there was no pavement. A gap in the traffic appeared which I judged might let me reach the central reservation. I went for it. From the centre I looked back, the two guards were peering over the barrier, one shaking his head, the other busy talking into his radio. Horns were blaring at me. I made my way across the other carriageway and climbed the far barrier to a further cacophony of horn blaring, and dropped down a bank to a side road which led off I knew into a maze of terraced streets. Then the question which had been banging away in the back of my mind presented itself as I jogged away, winding down from the mad panic of the last few minutes.