by Stuart Evers
Anneka feels dragged in her wake, the sensible one brought along for support and ballast, the one to put the pieces together on the way home; but there is nothing sensible about any of this. Sensible would have been to stay home; sensible not to risk it; sensible to say, no Lissa, if my dad finds out . . .
‘See?’ Lissa says. ‘Look, told you!’
Just over the brow of the hill, a house, but not the kind expected; Anneka having imagined something forbidding, old-fashioned, a manse or twisted farm building. Instead a building that looks gusted from one of the luxury estates over the other side of town. It is an awkward wedge shape, its roof peaked at a reflex angle, large windows, a vast extension that does not quite match the rest of the property. It looks placid, sleepy almost, but as she nears, Anneka sees its scratches and nicks, the welts it has accumulated.
Windows are splintered, curtained or boarded; the panelling is peeling, verdigrised, filth-lashed. There are cars and bicycles abandoned outside, people smoking on a roof terrace whose wooden surround has been broken and breached in several places. There are roof tiles missing, the guttering has become unmoored and rusty stains stripe the stucco extension like mascara tears. The kind of house you see on the television: the scene of a murder; a cult’s residence after the poisoned punch has been served.
By a clutch of motorcycles, they stop, watching the halfway-open front door. They can hear music, they can see disco lights bounce against the sacking draped over the picture window, they can see ripped wallpaper etched with graffiti in the hallway; a picture of a seascape askew, a knife slash running diagonally across it.
Lissa lights another cigarette, passes Anneka the box of Embassy. Anneka takes one and lights it, blows out the match, and then it comes, a warm flood of sensation, down from the shoulders, fairy-lighting her back, settling in the sacrum. Something Lissa described: a feeling she had the first time she’d ridden the bus to Manchester alone. Unencumbered freedom, a sense that the outside world was connected, was cheering her on, that all the traffic lights were saying go, go, go, that all the lampposts were exclamation marks.
Feeling it now, having felt it before, once before, that weightlessness of liberation; the time Anneka swum away from her father at the seaside, refusing to be shadowed by him, kicking away from his grasping, protectorate hands.
A bus. The sea. The howl of that, the thunder of that. What did it matter how.
‘Shall we, Lissa?’ Neka says.
6
On the far side of the cowsheds, unsighted from the farmhouse, a two-berth caravan occupies the former paddock. A relic, the caravan, late-fifties design: once white with aquamarine trim; now dirt-drifted, its windows the colour of dust. For years forbidden territory; the children told not to approach, to leave well alone.
On weekends and in the holidays, Nate sneaks to the caravan and imagines himself a woodsman, whittling things from tree bark and bits of lumber, listening to a transistor radio. His space. His dominion. He can defend it if he wants. He has three knives. Were a burglar to come, a prospective squatter, he’d gut them like a fish, a skill he’s developed down on the brook, his quarry taken home, his father impressed at his deft work.
Sometimes Anneka comes into his bedroom and babies him, cuddles him like he’s a toddler; sometimes she ignores him for days. At school he has his pals, he has his football; at home he has the caravan. No one asks him where he goes. No one asks what he’s up to. His parents are in the living room and he should be in his room, but instead he is at the caravan, looking for possible assailants.
He thinks about cutting the Achilles tendon on Chris Birch’s right ankle. He thinks about Chris Birch in pain. He thinks about Chris Birch telling him to stop. He thinks about Chris Birch in an England shirt. He thinks about Chris Birch and has to leave the caravan.
With three knives in his backpack, he walks down to the main road. It is dead dark and it takes time for his eyes to adjust. He stops at the bottom of the track and takes the knives from the bag. Across the road is a huge oak tree, heavily girthed. He throws the first knife and it falls to the ground yards from the tree trunk. He throws the next knife harder, but it flies past the tree.
An hour later, he is still throwing the knives across the carriageway, trying to get one to stick in the trunk. He thinks of Chris Birch when one finally goes in. The satisfaction of that, the knifepoint deep in the bark.
7
Though her accent hasn’t changed since the move north, she uses the same slang as her adopted home: butty, slat, ay up, blart. A small step to integration. Girls and boys impersonate her sometimes, good-natured mainly, good-natured because Lissa is her friend and won’t take that kind of shit. A science teacher used to speak to her in cockney rhyming slang, the whole class laughing; Anneka laughing along to prove she could see the funny side. When ‘Come up and See Me’ made Number One, the PE teacher called Anneka Cockney Rebel for a whole year.
When she told Tommy some of this, about the gentle ribbing, he shifted on his chair in the hide where they sometimes still met.
‘People always look for something to pick upon,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky it’s just an accent.’
No one had told her that Tommy boarded, that he was only home one weekend in three, that the promise of ‘all the fun they would have together’ from her father would be condensed into brief meetings in the hide, lunches at the Carters’, the odd day during the holidays. They walked the pathways, they fished hopelessly in the brook, they made up games their siblings could not understand. They were always in the throes of farewell or welcome, bridged by a solemn exchange of I miss you and I’ll write, though neither ever did. Each meeting was like collecting a picture postcard: the excitement of the image and such a small space for messages.
He changed, inevitably. His accent had been modified, his deportment corrected, his moods altered. He could be priggish; patronizing in all new ways. Once she was telling him about the technicalities of the Viking 1 launch and he’d stopped her mid-train.
‘Where did you learn all of this? I mean, do you even understand it?’ he’d said.
‘Of course I do, you arsehole,’ she’d replied.
But these disagreements were rare; mostly he wanted to regress, fall back into old routines. She did not introduce him to Lissa. She did not talk of friends, and neither did he until he turned fourteen or so, a distraction, she thought, from looking at her breasts.
Nothing of that sort, not since the Secret Touching Game as children. Not quite brotherly, but not quite not. Lissa told her she should fuck him; get it out of the way with someone she trusted, and the thought appalled. Could not imagine him undressing; could not imagine her undressed before him. She wishes now, perhaps, she’d done exactly that: she’d be less shaky, less apprehensive, of the man she’s sitting with, if she’d done this all before.
The man has a hand on her thigh, an accent the same as hers, a name she can’t quite remember. He is a student from London and is staying with a friend who has sloped off with Lissa to neck. Neka looks around the room to locate her, finds her in the darkest corner of the room. Relief at that, and then to the right of them, she sees a man who looks just like Tommy.
‘Everything all right?’ the man with the hand on her thigh says.
‘Yes,’ she says.
She watches the man who looks like Tommy and she is sure it’s not Tommy. She hasn’t seen him for a few months, but it’s not Tommy. Too tall, and he would never be seen in T-shirt and ripped jeans. The not-Tommy is smoking a large joint, laughing. Not the way Tommy laughs. Too loud. She has never seen Tommy amongst men. But even so, not him.
‘Thought I saw someone I know, that’s all,’ she says.
There are cigarette burns in the sofa’s arms, her fingers in them like she’s holding a bowling ball, the airy itch of the foam, the wire struts cold on her fingertips. A drink in the other hand, the man’s hand on her thigh.
‘Do you miss it?’ he says. ‘Home, I mean.’
It takes h
er a beat to follow the conversation: accents, accent, the South and home.
‘Sometimes,’ she says. ‘Less and less these days.’
He takes a sip of his drink. Name forgotten. Remembered. Sam. Friend of the red-headed man kissing Lissa in the darkest corner of the dining room.
‘I couldn’t live anywhere else,’ Sam says.
‘You think that,’ she says, ‘and then you move and you wonder what all the fuss was about. Dirty streets. Bomb threats. Strikes. I don’t miss any of that.’
Word for word her father. Words like sick in her mouth, washed down with vodka, the vodka not making her appreciably more drunk, keeping her just the right side of reckless.
‘But it’s life,’ Sam says. ‘It’s a cauldron, a melting pot, a fiesta and a wake. It’s everything, the city. It is life.’
‘There’s more than enough life here,’ she says.
And she kisses him, and it is wild, it is the taking of the bus alone; it is the swimming in the sea. His tongue is in her mouth, her tongue is in his, the curiousness of two open mouths pressed together. A hand straight on her breast, no lead up, a straight grab and instinct saying move the hand, but not moving the hand. Knowing Sam will say let’s see the garden lights, let’s go find a room.
He stops the kiss, keeps his hand on the breast.
‘Shall we go upstairs?’ he says.
The bus-sea thunder. The disco lights saying go, go, go. His hand in her hand, dragging her up from the sofa and her laughing. Walking through the rubble of the dining room, the upended table and the ripped carpets. Walking through, the man who is not Tommy looking at her. The man who is not Tommy staring at her as she crosses the room. The man who is not Tommy putting a foot towards her, then stopping, then turning away.
‘You know him?’ he says.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘His name’s Tommy. Posh lad comes here every Friday to buy dope from Tolly. Sells it on to his boarding-school mates. Arrogant prick.’
‘Never met him before,’ she says. ‘I think he might be a friend of Lissa’s though.’
Tommy looks at her and she looks to the floor. She takes Sam’s hand and leaves the room, Tommy’s eyes following her, two hot coals on her back.
8
From outside the side entrance he can hear the argument, the volume of their voices, the television getting louder, Natasha presumably trying to hear her programme over her parents’ fighting. It has the desired effect, the row stopping, replaced by the distorted sound of a television turned up to its maximum. Natasha turns the volume down as Drum knocks on the door. He waits, Daphne or Carter. Natasha, possibly. He knocks again, louder now. He could let himself in; he has been invited after all. But he waits until Carter opens the door, his eyes bloodshot and looking unsure as to why Drum is there, then remembering.
‘Welcome to the madhouse,’ he says. ‘Inmates always gladly received.’
The evening is warm enough to sit out, but Carter shows Drum into his study rather than out onto the veranda. End of summer, another hot one, and into autumnal retreat already, whisky to drink now rather than beer or wine.
‘We haven’t done this in a while, have we?’ Carter says.
‘Not for a couple of weeks, no,’ Drum says.
‘Feels like longer than that.’
Carter hands him a tumbler of Scotch, Drum sits on the Chesterfield, but Carter remains standing.
‘Salud,’ he says. ‘Good health and happiness!’
Carter takes out his cigarettes and lights one. Soon they will be forty. Soon their children will leave home. Soon they will be old. Carter does not look old. He is cast in amber; he is stalled at his early thirties. There is no grey in his hair, no hair in his nose.
‘How are you?’ Drum says.
‘I’m well,’ he says. ‘As well as can be expected in this house. If it’s not Daphne it’s Natasha. And if it’s not Natasha it’s Tom back from school, acting the fucking idiot.’
He downs his Scotch and pours another few fingers.
‘How about you?’
‘Annie’s staying over at a friend’s house tonight.’
‘You let her?’
‘She’s sixteen, that’s what Gwen says.’
‘What I was doing at sixteen,’ Carter says. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
He smiles that smile, he sits down on the Chesterfield opposite Drum, shakes his head.
‘I’m just joking with you, Drum,’ he says.
Carter is silent for a time, stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray. He leans in to Drum, uses the lowest of his voices.
‘You’re okay?’
‘Yes,’ Drum says. Though the twist in his gut says otherwise, the sense that his body is being overworked, dealing with too many things at the same time.
‘Good,’ Carter says. ‘Because I’m not. Or at least that’s what Daphne says. Says I’m not right in the head. That I’m acting strange.’
Carter laughs.
‘Daphne saying I’m acting strange. Would you credit that?’
He has been acting strange, he has been taking something, can tell when he’s been taking it. Something prescribed or perhaps not. Making him manic. Making him hectic.
‘Does she know?’
‘About Eileen? No, of course not.’
‘You’re sure?’
Carter drains his drink, Carter pours another. How many drinks, how many had already.
‘It’s not that,’ he says. ‘She’s not that perceptive.’
Carter looks at Drum, his blue eyes bloodshot. He crushes out his cigarette.
‘I punched Tom last night,’ Carter says. ‘Not a slap, a proper punch. The little bastard was giving me lip about something, can’t even remember what. And I just thought, that’s enough. I’ve had it with you. And wallop. Landed him one on the chin.’
Drum must look startled. Drum must look appalled. Drum must say nothing. Drum looks at his friend and does not quite recognise this man, the look upon his face: anger, spite and vengeance.
‘It felt good, Drum. The way he looked up at me. A new kind of respect. Fear, yes, but respect too. I apologized of course, blamed work, blamed stress. Tommy said he understood. And I think he did. One day he’s going to come for me, you know? I know that. It’s healthy. You always want a shot at the king, right?’
Sometimes Drum wanted to punch Carter. To knock some sense into him. No chance of that. No hope of that ever occurring.
‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ Carter says. ‘But I’m glad I did. I’m so glad I did.’
9
Even through the weight of boot, Neka can feel the deep pile of the carpet; its giving luxury after the hard stomp of the landing’s floorboards. It is a different kind of room than the ones she’s frantically scanned in search of Lissa, one of both utility and comfort: a fridge and small electric oven set against a flock-wallpapered wall; a series of unvandalized paintings above them; a large flickering television, either side of it tall speakers playing Abba’s ‘Fernando’. On the couch, someone is lying, difficult to tell who, in the television dark.
‘Lissa,’ she says. ‘Is that you?’
Like she’s playing hide and seek. A childhood game in a stranger’s house. Lissa there one moment, gone the next. Last seen wearing. Last seen with a red-headed man. Coming ready or not.
‘Tolly’s downstairs,’ a man’s voice says. ‘Second on the left.’
It’s a voice as warm as the room, a depth to the voice, a richness, plump as pillow.
‘I’m looking for my friend,’ she says.
The man sits up, face lit in flickering blue and grey. He wears a kind of smock that makes it hard to see where he ends and the sofa begins. Creases of fat pucker at his neck, jowls flap, cheeks shine bloated and smooth. It is an attractive face; attractive because of the heaviness. It feels to Neka like it is his correct face, his natural face. Not like Sam, kinder than Sam. Sam with the hands and the yesses to her nos.
‘It’s just me here,’ he says. ‘Maybe I’m your friend?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘We’ve not met before.’
‘We’ve not met?’ he says.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘You’re sorry we haven’t met?’ he says.
His laugh is surprising light, childlike. The turntable clacks back its arm and restarts ‘Fernando’. Deep inside the rumours now. At their heart. And relaxing in the warm room, feeling everything suddenly clearing, vacating. An urgent need to urinate, something unpleasant in her guts to expunge, Sam to wash away.
‘No,’ she says, ‘I’m sorry, I just really need the toilet.’
The light laugh and something thrown at her feet: a single key on a Ferrari key fob.
‘Use mine,’ he says. ‘That door there.’
He points to the right of the television and there is an unnoticed door, one summoned perhaps just for her benefit.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
She unlocks the door and walks into a large bathroom. A fragranced candle burns on the cistern, casting purple shade over a jacuzzi-style bath the shape of an oyster shell; his-and-hers wash-hand basins; a wall of framed family photographs beside a spotless rectangular mirror. She looks at herself in the glass and feels herself pleat inside, the back of her mouth watering like it’s raining there. She vomits into the sink, the female one with the carefully arranged creams and products surrounding it.
Her sick is pink from vodka and black; it looks acid, like it could burn through the porcelain. She runs the tap, the pink scattering as though panicked, and vomits again. It feels like she could expel everything; her pelvis, her liver, her kidneys. Turn herself inside out. Vomit until she’s dead on the floor; her father later to identify her exsanguinated body, weep over her disobedience, grab her lifeless shoulders and shake her, ask her how she could be so stupid.