A World of Other People by Steven Carroll Page B

free of Iris and stands gaping at the pram, the screen across the front of it and the screaming baby in the cosy, confined world of its cabin.
    ‘Jim?’
    Her sudden and urgent call catches the attention of the mother who turns to see, for the first time, the rigid, intense figure of a uniformed airman standing no more than a few feet from the pram. From her baby. And he’s mad, she can see that. He’s got the eyes of a murderer, and as much as the woman with him yellsat him, trying to get his attention, he ignores her. Or doesn’t hear her. He’s beyond hearing. Beyond recall and on the verge of exploding. And it is just as the mother is about to rise, to wheel the pram to safety, the screams of the child now turning heads in the park, that Jim shouts at her, and the words erupt from him with a guttural savageness that he barely recognises as his voice, as if some monster were talking through him.
    ‘He wants to get out! He just wants to get out, you stupid woman!’
    And just as he is about to step forward the mother rises and swiftly ferries the pram and the baby away, and both Iris and Jim watch as the pram disappears along the path and the screaming gradually fades and the morning returns to dreamy stillness. Or it would, except that everything has been shattered. And just as the baby’s cries had begun to turn heads, so too has Jim. And Iris, for the first time, is aware of having become a spectacle.
    She stares at him, eyes wide, eyes that suddenly say who are you?, then leads him to the bench that the mother, until a few minutes before, had been happily seated on. He slumps and buries his head inhis hands. He’s gone still. He’s a statue. She drops beside him, staring at his immobile form, saying to herself this is where I came in … this is where I …
    She reaches out and strokes his hair and feels his body convulse. The statue is crying. And she waits until the tears subside, and when they do she speaks softly and slowly.
    ‘Jim. Jim, is it over?’
    And he looks up and takes in the park as if seeing it for the first time that morning.
    ‘Yes,’ he says, still looking round the park, the heads that had turned in his direction now minding their own business again. ‘It’s gone.’
    They sit together saying nothing, he wiping the tears from his eyes, she taking his hand and silently repeating this is where I came in … this is where … And when she finally speaks again it is with that air of vacancy she’s noticed in those who have just survived a bomb explosion.
    ‘What was it?’
    He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Was it the screams?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Not the noise?’
    ‘No.’ And he turns to her with a deeply puzzled look in his eyes. ‘What happened?’
    She shakes her head slowly and almost smiles. ‘I was hoping you’d know.’
    He gazes once more around the park, that deeply puzzled look still in his eyes. And when he speaks it is almost as though he is telling her a story. Or about a dream he had.
    ‘I’m flying through cloud. So much cloud. There doesn’t seem to be any end of it. One of my engines is on fire. Then the cloud breaks and I’m flying over open country. There’s a full moon. A big moon. It’s like somebody has turned on a big light. Suddenly I’m in a country field, and there’s an explosion. Then everything turns black.’
    He pauses for a moment, staring ahead, then turns to her.
    ‘That’s it. Every time. It stops there. There’s something on the other side of that darkness. But what is it?’ He stares at her intently, as if she just might know. ‘It’s like the story with the missing page,’ he adds, the faintest smile on his face.
    ‘But it’s the one you’ve got to find. Or it’s going to keep happening, again and again. You know that.’
    He nods and there’s a faint raising of the eyebrows. ‘How?’
    There they are again, eyes as intense as the times, staring straight back at her. But also inviting her in, saying show me how,