Arkady Read online

  ‘Patrick Langley’s Arkady is a strange trip — luminescent, jagged and beautiful. A debut novel that twists, compels, descends and soars. I highly recommend it.’

  — Jenni Fagan, author of The Panopticon

  ‘Arkady is a utopian project: not the top-down kind that never works, but the bottom-up kind that (in this case anyway) works so well it reclaims something of the world. It’s hand-built, beautifully, from loose memories, salvaged people, and wild blooms of the psychogeographical sublime. Tense, vivid and humane, this novel gives us not only a dark future but also – over the horizon, past the next riverbend, through that hole in the fence – a chance of saving ourselves from it.’

  — Ned Beauman, author of Boxer, Beetle

  ‘Langley’s invented metropolis was a joy to spend time in. In my visual imagination, it looked as if it had been half-painted by L. S. Lowry and finished off by H. R. Giger. And the ambience was a little bit Stalker, and a little bit Tekkonkinkreet. But then at the heart of it all was this complex, tender relationship between brothers, and Langley’s writing – which somehow managed to be both unembellished and evocative.’

  — Sara Baume, author of A Line Made by Walking

  ‘The Romulus and Remus of a refugee nation embark upon a drift across livid cities, liberatory canals and compromised occupations in a parallel present mere millimetres from our own. Langley gives to the reader the taste of the Molotov fumes and the bloody heft of the personal-political in this propulsive, acid fable, a dérive for the age of urbex. How can the orphaned subject escape the surveillance state? Read on to find out. We, also, are in Arcadia.’

  — Mark Blacklock, author of I’m Jack

  ARKADY

  PATRICK LANGLEY

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  I. ANOTHER COUNTRY

  II. LESSONS

  III. A FLOATING HOME

  IV. THE RED CITADEL

  V. FIRST LIGHT

  VI. THE WHITE BIRD

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  I. ANOTHER COUNTRY

  A fan stirs the room’s thick heat as the officers talk. Jackson wags his legs under the chair and watches his shoes as they swing. The officers speak about beaches. A pathway. Red flags. The story does not make sense. When they finish it, Jackson looks up. The door is open. It frames a stretch of shrivelled lawn and a column of cloudless sky. Colours throb in the heat.

  ‘Do you understand?’ the woman asks.

  ‘We are sorry,’ says the man.

  Blue uniforms cling to their arms. Black caps are perched on their heads. Jackson peers into the caps’ plastic rims, which slide with vague shadows and smears of light. The officers mutter to each other and swap glances with hooded eyes. The breeze through the door is like dog-breath, a damp heat that smells faintly of rot.

  ‘Where’s my dad?’ asks Jackson.

  The man’s thumb is hooked through his belt. He stands like a cowboy, hips cocked.

  ‘We don’t know,’ he sighs. ‘Our colleague saw him a moment after. We’re sure he’ll come back soon. You have a small brother? We take you to the place, and you tell him. Tell him your father is coming back. We’ll find him. I promise. Right now.’

  They are staying on the side of a mountain, a short but twisting drive away from the nearest coastal town. The hotel is enormous. From a distance it resembles a castle, its high walls strong and stern, its red roofs bright against the mountain’s grey. The valley below is dotted with scrubby bushes and half-finished breezeblock homes. At its centre, a dried-up riverbed runs through copses of stunted trees: a jagged path connecting the hotel to the town.

  Frank is in the crèche with the other toddlers. They crawl and stumble on the floor, slapping primary-coloured mats with chubby palms. Jackson glances at the sprinkler outside. Threads of water glitter like glass until they shatter and fall. He asks the woman when the children go home.

  ‘When does the session finish, you mean?’ she asks. She is English. Her eyes are the dull blue of cloudless skies. ‘Is everything alright?’

  Jackson’s brother is in the far corner, a monkey teddy in his hand. He is wearing his robot pyjamas; his smile makes Jackson smile.

  ‘You can come back at five o’clock, if you like,’ the woman says. ‘We have a painting class. Do you like art? You could do a jigsaw?’

  Frank smacks a beat on the monkey-doll’s stomach. Thump-thump!

  ‘The one in the corner,’ says Jackson.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘He’s my brother.’

  The woman smiles at Jackson, briefly narrowing her eyes. ‘He’s very good,’ she says.

  The swimming pool is white and blue. It hurts Jackson’s eyes to look at it. In the evenings, before dinner, his mother will swim for a while and then relax on a lounger, sunglasses masking her eyes, and read a book while their father plays tennis, goes walking, or naps. Today a strange woman has taken his mother’s lounger. Her legs are bronzed and dimpled, with blue worms squiggling under the skin. Her lips are the colour of cocktail cherries, sticky and red.

  ‘You alright there pal?’

  The man is on a lounger. Gold things shine at his knuckles and neck: he is either a king or a thief.

  ‘Here on your own?’ The man is from Jackson’s city. That voice. ‘Where are your parents?’ He is wearing skimpy Y-front trunks, the kind Jackson’s mother calls budgie smugglers. His tanned skin shines like oiled meat. ‘You speak English? Española? Where are your parentés, your grandays persona? Big people, you know?’ He chuckles. ‘Mum? Dad? Parents? No?’

  A waiter appears with a tray. On his tray is a bright blue drink in a tall glass shaped like a space rocket. A wedge of pineapple, skewered on a toothpick, glistens in the sun. The woman places her hand on her heart and – ‘Ah!’ – her teeth flash as she gasps.

  ‘My man,’ says the man on the lounger, clicking his fingers. ‘Over here.’

  The woman slips the fruit into her mouth.

  ‘Of course,’ says the waiter, smiling. The red splodge on the pocket of his shirt is the hotel’s logo: a mermaid sitting sadly on a rock. ‘Another beer, sir?’

  Everyone smiles.

  The budgie-smuggler shakes his head. ‘This boy,’ he says, ‘he’s been standing there for the last five minutes. Hasn’t said a thing.’

  ‘I see,’ the waiter says.

  A crucifix hangs at the waiter’s neck. His nose is long and straight, like a statue’s. He is tall and strong and has very white teeth but his eyes are too close together. ‘Hey lil’ man,’ he says, walking over, smiling so wide the creases reach his ears. ‘You looking for your mother? You want me to try and call her?’

  Jackson squints. Sweat pours down his forehead and stings his eyes. ‘She doesn’t have a phone,’ he says. ‘People call her all the time and she hates it. I went to tell Frank, but he’s playing with a monkey.’

  The waiter frowns and sticks his lower lip out. ‘There’s no monkeys here.’

  Jackson explains about the crèche.

  ‘Ahhhhh, sea sea sea – your baby brother! I remember now.’ Spanish people love the sea, they say it all the time. ‘Well, let me think.’ The waiter taps his chin with a finger. ‘Ah, I saw your father this morning. He bought a snorkel from Reception.’

  Jackson nods. ‘That was before.’

  When the waiter squats beside him, the muscles on his lower legs bulge. He smells of lemon peel, soap, and sweat.

  ‘Why don’t you come with me,’ the waiter says. ‘We’re gonna do a search. I’m sure she’s not far.’

  Jackson rests his elbows on the marble bar. He worries the rim of an electric-blue beer mat until the cardboard frays to powder. The room has the feel of a mountain cave: cool, dim, secluded, and
quiet. The only other people are an ancient couple with crepe paper faces, baggy earlobes, beige-and-white clothing and shapeless velcro shoes. They sip white wine and stare at nothing. Ferns with sword-like leaves stand guard at the circular tables.

  ‘Detective work is hard,’ the waiter says. ‘You wanna eat something? Drink something? On the house.’

  ‘Whose house?’

  ‘My house,’ the waiter says. ‘You never heard that before?’ He gestures at the windows, the room, the bar.

  ‘It’s a hotel.’

  The waiter grins and wags a finger at Jackson. ‘Very good,’ he chuckles. ‘Very good!’

  The high glass shelves are lined with bottled spirits, clear, brown, red and green liquids doubled by the mirror behind them. Jackson stares at his reflection. His freckle-dusted skin is tinged with red. His hair is so blond it looks white. He imagines it isn’t a mirror but a window into a separate room in which another young boy is sitting. The waiter hands Jackson a narrow glass crammed with ice and coke. Bubbles prickle his nose as he drinks.

  ‘Good?’ the waiter smiles.

  Jackson nods. The ice hurts his teeth but he doesn’t stop drinking. Soon he has drained the whole glass.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the waiter says, lifting a wall-mounted phone to his ear. ‘We’re gonna find her. I call my father now. This whole hotel – he owns it. Big man,’ the waiter says, puffing his chest out, ‘sitting in his big office, like this.’ Jackson laughs. ‘He will know. He knows everything.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Well,’ the waiter says, ‘not everything. He’s not God.’ He rolls his eyes in a silly way. Jackson catches sight of himself in the mirror. He hisses and bares his teeth.

  The waiter talks in Spanish on the phone. Jackson turns the glass on its side. A cube of ice slides across the marble in a puddle of melt. He places the cube in his mouth and presses it against the inside of his cheek with his tongue.

  The waiter scrunches up his face. ‘Qué?’

  Jackson listens to the voice at the other end of the line. Not the words, which he can’t understand, but the noise they make, a raspy buzz. It sounds as though a wasp is trapped in the handle, trying to get out. The ice cube burns the skin of his mouth and the meltwater pools in his gums.

  ‘Qué?’ the waiter says, louder.

  The trapped wasp screams and falls suddenly quiet. The room feels different, as though the temperature has dropped, or the furniture has rearranged itself around him. Open-mouthed, the waiter stares at Jackson, phone loose in his hand. It buzzes again: he ignores it. He sways a little on his feet, as though hit by a gust of wind.

  ‘Hostia,’ he says.

  At dusk, the woman from the crèche sets up a camp bed in the brothers’ room. Her name is Melissa. Earlier today, she spoke to Jackson in a laughing, sing-song voice; tonight, she seems wary of him. She shoots frequent, worried glances in his direction when she thinks he isn’t looking. He catches her gaze for the hundredth time and scowls.

  ‘Are you… okay?’ she asks. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  Jackson is on his bed, legs bent, hugging his shins. ‘Why do people keep asking me that?’ The afternoon has been a blur of faces, bodies, rooms. Strangers materialise out of nowhere, shuffle him from place to place, and ask him how he is, how he’s feeling, what he needs. Melissa looks surprised. ‘Because they want to help you,’ she says.

  She peels off Frank’s nappy and lowers him into the bath. Jackson watches from the doorway as she scoops the clouded water over Frank’s shoulders, legs, and head. She uses less soap than their mother and does not sing. Jackson wants to tell her to stop, she’s doing it wrong, his mother will do it. But he says nothing.

  A soft knock on the door: a tray is ushered in, from room service. Melissa places it on the bed in front of Jackson. She tells him to eat. Instead, he watches the cheese on the cheeseburger stiffen and cool to yellow plastic. He pushes the plate to one side and lies face down on the duvet, eyes open, not moving his limbs.

  ‘How about we play a game?’ Melissa asks.

  Jackson does not reply.

  ‘TV, then. Say if you want it off.’

  There are fields and rivers, butterflies and vines. A man in a baby-blue shirt and a funny hat stands by a waterfall, talking of networks of life. Jackson watches the shapes and colours move. His body feels hollow, like an emptied glass. Tilting his head, he looks outside. Molten orange and smoky purple stain the sky. The crickets have begun to sing. They fill the valley with clicks and whirrs, a chorus of tiny machines.

  ‘Is he back yet?’ he asks.

  Melissa is sitting on the floor with her back to the bed, picking at a salad with her fork. She turns off the TV and places her hand on Jackson’s shoulder.

  ‘He’ll be back soon,’ she says.

  Later, once the lights are out, stars appear in scattered patterns above the valley. Frank sprawls in his cot like a starfish, legs and arms pointing in different directions. His skin is as pale as dough. Melissa’s bed creaks every time she moves. She makes a tent of the duvet and stares at her phone, buttons clicking as she types, the screen’s halo pale on her face and hair.

  Jackson shuts his eyes. He wishes he could press a button to make himself sleep. Instead he twists and turns in the sheet, wrapping his body up tight like a mummy until he can barely breathe. There is noise beyond the window, not just the crickets but the sound of the mountains, the roads, the sea. It sounds like people whispering. It sounds like somewhere else.

  He wakes at the creak of the opening door. It feels as though no time has passed but he knows he must have slept because the light in the room has changed. Melissa is asleep. Tentacles of brown hair crawl across her pillow. Frank is sleeping too, his pink mouth slightly open, like a flower-bud.

  Jackson’s dad is in the doorway, blocking out the light. His presence sends a jolt through Jackson’s body, a shudder of fear and relief.

  ‘Who are you?’ his father asks. His voice sounds crackly and thin, as though a radio is trapped in his throat.

  He has not changed since Jackson last saw him, early this morning. His swimming trunks are yellowed with dust, his polo shirt is dark with sweat, and his sandals look scuffed on his sunburnt feet.

  Melissa twists in her creaking bed and glances sleepily at the door. Jackson’s dad tells her to leave. She gathers her stuff in her arms, an awkward bundle of phone, clothes, toothbrush and skin cream, and slopes into the corridor, head lowered like a scolded dog. The door clicks shut behind her. She doesn’t say goodbye.

  Jackson’s father stands beside the camp bed, his face blank. He looks like a mannequin: lifeless, immobile, eyes empty and dull. Jackson grips the sheet so tight his knuckles ache. The air tastes thin and metallic as it slides into his lungs. His dad sits heavily on the bed. Wrists on his knees, head bowed, he stares unblinking at a patch on the floor. His mouth is slightly open. He stinks of sweat, of sea, of himself. Jackson desperately wants him to talk, to say something, anything – to tell him that policemen are liars – to laugh – to scruff his hair. Instead, he wraps Jackson up in his arms and holds him so close Jackson’s ribs hurt. Damp breath roars in Jackson’s ear. His arms go limp, his body numb. He stares at the ceiling, about to cry, but the tears don’t come. His father rocks back and forth. The crickets’ screaming begins to fade. Light grows stronger on the curtains: luminous blue.

  Jackson spasms and kicks the cover, which clings to his clammy thighs. He must have fallen asleep again. The crickets have fallen silent. The room hums with yellowish light. Through the windows he sees low mountains, which shimmer on the valley’s far side. Sunlight pours like honey down the crags.

  ‘Dad,’ says Jackson, rubbing his sleep-crusted eyes. ‘Are you awake?’

  His dad summons a long, gruff noise in his barrel chest: hmmmmmmnh. Normally his father is tall and solid, like a tree. Now he is a worm, limply draped across the floor.

  ‘What happened? Where’s Mum? Why are you on the floor?’

&nb
sp; His dad inhales sharply but doesn’t answer.

  Frank chucks the monkey at the bars of his cot. He lifts his fat wrist to his mouth and sucks it with a thoughtful expression. He cries out, panicked, then smiles a heartbeat later. Sitting with his back to the headboard, Jackson bites his knee. He forces his front teeth down until it feels like the skin will rupture, and blood will gush into his mouth.

  His dad staggers to Frank’s crib. His eyes are sunken in their sockets, ringed with dark: he doesn’t appear to have slept. In his hand is something wadded and white. It isn’t a napkin or a tissue but their mother’s linen shirt, crumpled up and jewelled with sand.

  Slowly, as though underwater, his dad leans into the crib. Frank squirms. He whines and mewls as his dad lifts him, patting him on the back. Frank doesn’t like it. He squirms even worse.

  ‘Put your arms through his legs,’ says Jackson. ‘You’re doing it wrong.’

  His dad doesn’t seem to have heard. He paces circles in the room, singing snatched fragments and jostling his son. Frank’s pyjamas shift as he wriggles and kicks: soon he will slip and fall.

  Jackson rushes forward just in time. He grabs his brother in both arms, cradling his weight, and lowers Frank to the carpet: he looks up at Jackson and howls.

  The police return later that morning. They ask for Jackson’s father, who does not want to talk. He grits his teeth and rambles wildly, his crisped hair standing on end. The police persuade him down the corridor and into the lobby. Families mingle in swimming trunks and jazzy towels, straw hats and strappy vests. Some drag cases on screeching wheels. Others jab each other with pool-noodles, laughing as they parry and stab.

  Jackson’s dad prowls amongst them, yelling at people and walls. The officers ask him to please calm down. ‘I will not fucking calm down.’ He keeps saying it, over and over, putting the swear-word in different places each time. ‘I will fucking not calm down. You haven’t found her – you haven’t fucking found her.’