Part 3 (1/2)

My torch beam swayed over the climbing frame and out the window on the other side, sending shadows into the corridors. I directed it down into those bouncy b.a.l.l.s, and just before the beam hit them, while they were still in darkness, they s.h.i.+vered and slid away from each other in a tiny little trail. As if something was burrowing underneath.

My teeth were clenched. The light was on the b.a.l.l.s now, and nothing was moving.

I kept that little room lit for a long time, until the torchlight stopped trembling. I moved it carefully up and down the walls, over every part, until I let out a big dumb hiss of relief because I saw that there were b.a.l.l.s on the top of the climbing frame, right on its edge, and I realised that one or two of them must have fallen off, bouncing softly among the others.

I shook my head and my hand swung down, the torchlight going with it, and the ball room went back into darkness. And as it did, in the moment when the shadows rushed back in, I felt a brutal cold, and I stared at the little girl in the Wendy house, and she stared up at me.

The other two guys couldn't calm me down.

They found me in the ball room, yelling for help. I'd opened both doors and I was hurling b.a.l.l.s Looking for Jake, By China Mieville out into the creche and the corridors, where they rolled and bounced in all directions, down the stairs to the entrance, under the tables in the cafe.

At first I'd forced myself to be slow. I knew that the most important thing was not to scare the girl any more than she must have been already. I'd croaked out some daft, would-be cheerful greeting, come inside, s.h.i.+ning the torch gradually towards the Wendy house, so I wouldn't dazzle her, and I'd kept talking, whatever nonsense I could muster.

When I realised she'd sunk down again beneath the b.a.l.l.s, I became all jokey, trying to pretend we were playing hide-and-seek. I was horribly aware of how I might seem to her, with my build and my uniform, and my accent.

But when I got to the Wendy house, there was nothing there.

”She's been left behind!” I kept screaming, and when they understood they dived in with me and scooped up handfuls of the b.a.l.l.s and threw them aside, but the two of them stopped long before me. When I turned to throw more of the b.a.l.l.s away, I realised they were just watching me.

They wouldn't believe she'd been in there, or that she'd got out. They told me they would have seen her, that she'd have had to come past them. They kept telling me I was being crazy, but they didn't try to stop me, and eventually I cleared the room of all the b.a.l.l.s, while they stood and waited for the police I'd made them call.

The ball room was empty. There was a damp patch under the Wendy house, which the a.s.sistants must have missed.

* * * For a few days, I was in no state to come in to work. I was fevered. I kept thinking about her.

I'd only seen her for a moment, till the darkness covered her. She was five or six years old. She looked washed out, grubby and bleached of colour, and cold, as if I saw her through water. She wore a stained T-s.h.i.+rt, with the picture of a cartoon princess on it.

She'd stared at me with her eyes wide, her face clamped shut. Her grey, fat little fingers had gripped the edge of the Wendy house.

The police had found no one. They'd helped us clear up the b.a.l.l.s and put them back in the ball room, and then they'd taken me home.

I can't stop wondering if it would have made any difference to how things turned out, if anyone had believed me. I can't see how it would. When I came back to work, days later, everything had already happened.

After you've been in this job a while, there are two kinds of situations you dread.

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville The first one is when you arrive to find a ma.s.s of people, tense and excited, arguing and yelling and trying to push each other out of the way and calm each other down. You can't see past them, but you know they're reacting ineptly to something bad.

The second one is when there's a crowd of people you can't see past, but they're hardly moving, and nearly silent. That's rarer, and invariably worse.

The woman and her daughter had already been taken away. I saw the whole thing later on security tape.

It had been the little girl's second time in the ball room in a matter of hours. Like the first time, she'd sat alone, perfectly happy, singing and talking to herself. Her minutes were up, her mother had loaded her new garden furniture into the car and come to take her home. She'd knocked on the gla.s.s and smiled, and the little girl had waded over happily enough, until she realised that she was being summoned.

On the tape you can see her whole body language change. She starts sulking and moaning, then suddenly turns and runs back to the Wendy house, plonking herself among the b.a.l.l.s. Her mother looks fairly patient, standing at the door and calling for her, while the a.s.sistant stands with her.

You can see them chatting.

The little girl sits by herself, talking into the empty doorway of the Wendy house, with her back to the adults, playing some obstinate, solitary final game. The other kids carry on doing their thing. Some are watching to see what happens.

Eventually, her mother yells at her to come. The girl stands and turns round, facing her across the sea of b.a.l.l.s. She has one in each hand, her arms down by her sides, and she brings them up and stares at them, and at her mother. I won't, she's saying, I heard later. I want to stay. We'replaying.

She backs into the Wendy house. Her mother strides over to her and bends in the doorway for a moment. She has to get down on all fours to get inside. Her feet stick out.

There's no sound on the tape. It's when you see all the children jerk, and the a.s.sistant run, that you know the woman has started to scream.

The a.s.sistant later told me that when she tried to rush forward, it seemed as if she couldn't get through the b.a.l.l.s, as if they'd become heavy. The children were all getting in her way. It was bizarrely, stupidly difficult to cross the few feet to the Wendy house, with other adults in her wake.

They couldn't get the mother out of the way, so between them they lifted the house into the air over her, tearing its toy walls apart.

The child was choking.

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville Of course, of course the b.a.l.l.s are designed to be too big for anything like this to happen, but somehow she had shoved one far inside her mouth. It should have been impossible. It was too far, wedged too hard to prise out. The little girl's eyes were huge, and her feet and knees kept turning inward towards each other.

You see her mother lift her up and beat her upon the back, very hard. The children are lined against the wall, watching.

One of the men manages to get the mother aside, and raises the girl for the Heimlich manoeuvre. You can't see her face too clearly on the tape, but you can tell that it is very dark now, the colour of a bruise, and her head is lolling.

Just as he has his arms about her, something happens at the man's feet, and he slips on the b.a.l.l.s, still hugging her to him. They sink together.

They got the children into another room. Word went through the store, of course, and all the absent parents came running. When the first arrived she found the man who had intervened screaming at the children while the a.s.sistant tried desperately to quiet him. He was demanding they tell him where the other little girl was, who'd come close and chattered to him as he tried to help, who'd been getting in his way.

That's one of the reasons we had to keep going over the tape, to see where this girl had come from, and gone. But there was no sign of her.

Of course, I tried to get transferred, but it wasn't a good time in the industry, or in any industry.

It was made pretty clear to me that the best way of holding on to my job was to stay put.

The ball room was closed, initially during the inquest, then for ”renovation,” and then for longer while discussions went on about its future. The closure became unofficially indefinite, and then officially so.

Those adults who knew what had happened (and it always surprised me, how few did) strode past the room with their toddlers strapped into pushchairs and their eyes grimly on the showroom trail, but their children still missed the room. You could see it when they came up the stairs with their parents. They'd think they were going to the ball room, and they'd start talking about it, and shouting about the climbing frame and the colours, and when they realised it was closed, the big window covered in brown paper, there were always tears.

Like most adults I turned the locked-up room into a blind spot. Even on night s.h.i.+fts when it was still marked on my route I'd turn away. It was sealed up, so why would I check it?

Particularly when it still felt so terrible in there, a bad atmosphere as tenacious as stink. There are little card swipe units we have to use to show that we've covered each area, and I'd do the one by the ball room door without looking, staring at the stacks of new catalogues at the top of the stairs. Sometimes I'd imagine I could hear noises behind me, soft little pudda-thudda s, but I knew it was impossible so there was no point even checking.

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville It was strange to think of the ball room closed for good. To think that those were the last kids who'd ever get to play there.

One day I was offered a big bonus to stay on late. The store manager introduced me to Mr.

Gainsburg from head office. It turned out she didn't just mean the UK operation, but the corporate parent. Mr. Gainsburg wanted to work late in the store that night, and he needed someone to look after him.

He didn't reappear until well past eleven, just as I was beginning to a.s.sume that he'd given in to jet lag and I was in for an easy night. He was tanned and well dressed. He kept using my Christian name while he lectured me about the company. A couple of times I wanted to tell him what my profession had been where I come from, but I could see he wasn't trying to patronise me. In any case I needed the job.

He asked me to take him to the ball room.

”Got to sort out problems as early as you can,” he said. ”It's the number one thing I've learned, John, and I've been doing this a while. One problem will always create another. If you leave one little thing, think you can just ride it out, then before you know it you've got two. And so on.

”You've been here a while, right John? You saw this place before it closed. These crazy little rooms are a fantastic hit with kids. We have them in all our stores now. You'd think it would be an extra, right? A nice-to-have. But I tell you, John, kids love these places, and kids . . . well, kids are really, really important to this company.”