Page 80 of The Man Made of Smoke

John looks at the bottom shelf now.

The first box file is back where he replaced it earlier. But his attention is drawn to the seven others beside it. The final one fits in perfectly. It’s as though a part of him knew how much work would be required when he started—how much space he needed to leave—if not quite how long it would take to do so. That last box was slid into place four years ago. He hasn’t touched it since.

He takes it down now.

Opens it slowly and takes out a piece of paper.

I’m sorry, James, he thinks.

I always assumed you were dead.

James

August 2001

The man whistles quietly as he drives.

James stares out of the windows of the camper van, eager for sensation but also overwhelmed by it. His gaze darts here and there—one side then the other; up through the windscreen—watching the woods outside the vehicle flashing past. There is almost too much for him to take in right now. The trees at ground level form an intricate brown-green blur of texture. He has become so used to his world being static—living in the center of a universe that turns around him, if it moves at all—that it is a shock to find himself in motion.

This is the first time he has left the farm in over three years.

James doesn’t remember much of those years. There is too much pain, too much horror, for him to recall any of what he’s experienced in detail. But the man has absorbed him into his world by increments. He made him dig the graves before he made him bury the bodies afterward. He made him listen before he made him watch.

He made him take photographs of his own.

James thinks of the image he has in his pocket right now: of the boy in the back of the camper van when the man brought him back to thefarm yesterday. James has never taken part in the killing itself. The man has been waiting for him to be broken before trusting him to do that. But that boy is waiting in the end pen back at the farm now. And tomorrow morning, he will be James’s first.

The man continues to whistle as he drives.

James has no idea where they are going today or why. What does it matter? The man is God, and he will reveal himself when he is ready. They drive through woodland and then join the motorway. It is difficult to keep track of time, but it’s perhaps an hour after they left the farm when the man finally indicates and takes a turning off the motorway. They drive into a rest area car park and come to a stop. The man unclips his seat belt. He indicates for James to do the same.

James’s heart starts beating a little harder.

This can’t be real, can it?

Outside the camper van, the air is as fresh as it has ever tasted, and the slight rush of the breeze suggests a landscape he might run in forever. He pictures a kite trailing in the blue sky behind him—and then gets distracted. Because there are people here! The sight of themall aroundcauses him to blink in surprise. Aside from the man and the boys, he hasn’t seen anyone since he was taken from the beach. He’s been in a different world. But now he’s back in the real one. As he turns to look, this way and that, it feels as though everything is turning around him instead, and the sensation makes him dizzy.

This can’t be happening!

“Nobody sees,” the man tells him. “And nobody cares.”

He slams the camper van door.

“You’ll see.”

And then the man sets off for the building at the end of the car park. James follows dutifully behind. But the man must be wrong, he thinks. He’s going to wake up from the nightmare after all. He looks down at himself. He is thin and disheveled, unwashed. He knows there are bruises on his face. And he still remembers enough of the real world to believe that someone must notice those things.

Because despite the man’s best efforts, he has never quite lost hope.

Even after everything he has gone through, there is still something ofhimleft inside. A part of him that believes he might mean more to the world than the man has tried to convince him. A part that wants to go home. That hope is small and fragile, like a faltering pilot light in his heart, but it is there. He isn’t brave enough to challenge the man alone, but if someone were to ask him if he was okay, or approach him and offer to help, James would tell them everything in a heartbeat. He still has just enough courage left to do that.

And surely someone will.

A young man is smoking a cigarette outside the hotel at the side of the car park. James stares across at him as they walk, willing him to look up. And then he does! James’s heart flutters as the two of them lock eyes.

Notice me, he thinks.

Please.

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