by S K Sharp
‘Did I?’
‘Bloody hell, Kat! I … At the party, I thought you were trying to get him to leave you alone. That’s why I …’ The vague look on Kat’s face tells me that if she remembers what happened at the party at all, it’s in a fleeting kind of way, shapes and shadows and feelings, the detail stripped by time. But I remember the look on her face as she walked away, after I told her what I thought of Gary, and finally it makes sense. ‘Christ, you must have thought I was a right idiot.’
Kat takes a large gulp of wine and raises her glass to me. ‘I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.’ She tops us both up. ‘Uncle Arty. It’s weird. I always wondered. The way he disappeared without a word.’
‘Did you?’ I eye her through my wine. Arty Robbins’ disappearance was the talk of the street for weeks, and of course I knew all about everything because I was going out with Declan, but Kat never talked about it back then, not once.
‘I used to wonder if someone had done him in. I mean, not seriously or anything, but …’ She shrugs and dismisses the thought with a giggle. ‘So, you had to go and talk to some policeman about how you and Dec sloped off in secret that night to have sex?’
‘That’s about the size of it, yes.’
‘Christ, how embarrassing!’
‘It’s not like he asked for details. To be honest, he didn’t seem all that interested; more annoyed. And frankly a bit of a jerk.’ I give her a hard look and try my best to mimic Detective Scott’s voice. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Jason Bit-of-an-Arse Scott. Miss Walker, you were observed to leave the party shortly after ten. Can anyone account for your whereabouts for the rest of the night?’ The wine is a warm fuzz inside me. I have to snatch my glass away before Kat tops me up again. ‘You should have seen his face when I told him about the porno magazine I found under Declan’s bed. He went bright red.’
Kat snorts into her Chardonnay and splutters, ‘A what?’
‘I told you the next morning!’
But she’s laughing and coughing both at once, and gives me a helpless look, and I suppose: why would she remember, after all these years?
I can’t stop thinking about Declan, though, locked up in some prison cell. ‘I don’t … I don’t know what to do, Kat. I want to help him, but …’
‘Nicky, I know he’s my cousin and everything but … You don’t owe him a damned thing.’
‘I don’t know.’ I don’t understand it but it’s there. ‘Because it’s not fair. Because … because I remember. Because I know he didn’t do it.’ I see the look on her face. How? How do you know? How can you be so sure? And I can’t explain it – I just know. I know this man. I know who he was and I know Declan couldn’t have done something like this.
Kat doesn’t voice her question. Instead, she reaches out and takes my hand. ‘If you need anything, anything at all.’
I feel so helpless, and at the same time there’s something huge inside me – some great old weight from long ago, something I’ve buried deep – and now it’s starting to stir.
‘So.’ I wipe my eyes. ‘That night. You and Gary … I remember you telling him there was someone else. God, for a bit I even thought maybe you were breaking up with him and that’s why he went so mental. Then I thought you were winding him up to make him go away.’
‘Gary wasn’t my first.’ An empty look flits across Kat’s face – some faded hurt she still carries even after all these years.
I start to mentally catalogue the boys at school. I can’t help it, sifting through the ones I saw with Kat, searching for sly looks that I missed the first time which might give them away. I don’t think it matters, but it keeps my memory busy.
‘No one from school.’ It’s like she’s reading my mind. She smiles and makes a wry face. ‘It was desperately embarrassing and he was a dick.’ The laughter vanishes from her voice. Whatever this is, it still hurts her after all this time. ‘Christ, I thought I’d forgotten all about him.’
I think that’s a lie but I’m not going to pry. I know exactly what it’s like to be haunted by a memory that I’d rather wish away. ‘I never knew,’ I say instead.
‘All my boyfriends had to be such secrets.’ Kat forces a smile. ‘You must remember what Mum was like. I could literally have dated an angel and she’d be like I was doing threesomes with Satan and Genghis Khan. God! Who’d ever want to be a teenager again?’ She sighs and then she laughs, and after a moment so do I, and the weight sloughs off me as the years fall away between us like they always do; and a part of me is sitting in Kat’s room in Byron Road and we’re sixteen again, whispering about boyfriends, Kat petrified that her mum will find out whenever she’s seeing someone.
‘Your mum was a bit of a nightmare about that.’
‘Amen. You know, I do kind of remember Gary going all testosterone-crazy alpha-primate on me, wanting to know who it was so he could beat them up or something. I suppose he thought he was being noble. Although it was a long time ago so maybe I’m remembering it wrong. Water very long under the bridge.’ She puts down her glass and hugs me. ‘Oh, Nicky. It must have been so hard, having to talk to the police about Dec after all this time.’
‘I didn’t want to leave him,’ I say.
‘You did what you had to do.’
I want to cry. Not because I’m unhappy but because Kat is simply the best; because Kat knows me well enough to understand exactly what I mean; because I don’t need to tell her how much I miss what we had, Declan and I, because she already knows. Because when I asked her once if she thought I was crazy for walking out on Declan, she told me yes, she did, but that she loved me just the same either way, and it didn’t matter if she didn’t understand. That’s why Kat is my rock. The memories I have of us together? All good, every last one of them. That’s why I love her.
There’s a shuffle of footsteps outside the door. It clicks open and Gary walks in. Fifty-three years old now, with a paunch and thinning hair, tie and tailored suit, and it’s so hard not to laugh when I can still see him so clearly at eighteen: half goth, half punk, half biker, with his tough-man facade like he was Adam Ant’s dandy highwayman; and that stupid battered old van of his, which always stank of weed. I thought he was such a plonker. Largely, I still do.
He stops dead as he sees the empty bottle of wine on the table.
‘Riiiight.’ I don’t know what it is that Gary does except that he works in banking and makes a lot of money. He cocks his head. ‘Cancelling our reservations tonight, are we?’
I get up as he takes off his jacket and puts down his briefcase. ‘It’s OK. I can go.’
‘No, you can’t!’ Kat beams at him. ‘Bring us another bottle, lover. And fetch yourself a glass. Nicola has news, and you’re going to need one …’
Gary looks from me to Kat and back again. ‘She didn’t win the lottery, did she? Tell me she didn’t win the lottery.’ He winks. ‘She only keeps me for the money.’ It’s a terrible joke, not even a little bit funny, but I suppose this is Gary’s way of trying to be nice by not ignoring me. I don’t know why he bothers. He must have worked out by now that I never liked him, and never will.
‘And don’t you forget it!’ Kat goes to him, takes off his tie and kisses him on the cheek. ‘There’s another bottle of ’donny in the fridge and you know where to find the takeaway menus. While you’re at it, you can guess who’s dead.’
‘Please tell me it’s Boris Johnson?’
‘Arty.’
Gary stands stock-still, looking blank.
‘Uncle Arty. Arty Robbins. Cousin Declan’s dad. Cousin Declan? Nix’s ex? Your mate?’ Gary still looks blank. ‘Oh my God. Uncle Arty who disappeared back in 1985, you lump! The night of that party in the Shelley.’
‘Oh! Oh … shit!’ Gary looks at Kat, and then he looks at me and back to Kat, like he’s waiting for the punchline to a joke.
Kat cocks her head. ‘The police reckon he was murdered!’
Gary stares. We have his full attention.
�
��Well, don’t just stand there like a lemon!’ She drags him towards the kitchen and I hear them whispering, Kat telling him about Arty Robbins and Declan’s arrest. When they come back with another bottle, Gary gets out a tablet and starts looking things up on the Internet and telling Kat everything he finds, while Kat sets about ordering food. I’m happy to fade into the background, content to watch them. Whatever I think of Gary, he makes Kat happy, which really ought to be enough.
The first time I saw Gary Barclay – really saw him – was a month before the party. It was a Saturday and Declan and I had just had our first proper argument. I was stomping my way home, thinking about what he’d said and what I’d said, and what I should have said, the way you do, and then thinking that maybe he didn’t really love me after all even though he said he did, because … because I was sixteen and you think stupid things when you’re sixteen. I remember I passed the Shelley and its smell of stale beer, and turned the corner into Byron Road and heard Adam Ant singing ‘Stand and Deliver’, quiet and tinny, coming out of a white van parked up across the street. The window was rolled down and there he was: the infamous Gary Barclay.
Looking back, I suppose he was quite handsome, with his Morrissey quiff – this was 1985, after all – and his cheekbones, and his slightly frilly white shirt with enough buttons undone to show off a few curls of chest hair, and his silver chain with one of those half-a-broken-heart pendants that everyone seemed to have back then. I remember staring at him in his van but he was too busy watching the drama down the street to notice me. Two police cars were parked outside a house at the corner of Tennyson Way. Four policemen were at the front door, two of them wearing caps, not helmets. They were arguing with someone in the doorway. I remember thinking I could keep walking and pass by on the other side of the road and maybe hear what they were saying, but then the policemen barged their way inside and that was the end of it. It was the gossip of the street for a couple of days. I never knew whose house it was, and Gary lived on the estate, so it wasn’t his, but I remember the look on his face, how intently he watched it all.
The memory circles me back to Declan and to Arty Robbins. Someone killed Arty Robbins on the night of 9th June 1985. If anyone knew the dodgy characters who lived around Wordsworth Park, it was Gary Barclay. Then I think of the look I saw on his face just now, as Kat told him about Arty being murdered. Like he knew something that was a secret and didn’t know whether he should say. Which gets me thinking: what if Arty was up to something that the police never discovered? This was the Eighties, after all, the decade of music and money and cocaine …
No. Arty Robbins had money because the Eighties was also the decade of the estate agent.
The doorbell rings, making me jump. Gary fetches bowls and cutlery from the kitchen while Kat spreads takeaway Thai across the lounge table. They talk about work, the idle chit-chat of a couple who know each other’s routines inside and out – a check-up, a catch-up – and then Gary tries to be polite again by asking me what’s going on in my life. The answer, as usual, is nothing apart from this whole business with Declan’s dad; but for the sake of having something to say, I tell him I’m thinking of finding a friend for Chairman, which gets Gary very confused, until Kat explains that the Chairman I’m talking about isn’t the Chairman of the Trustees at the British Library.
‘The Chairman is your cat?’ Gary asks this with alarmed relief, which I guess is understandable, given that the last thing I said was how I was thinking of visiting some local shelters to see if I could find him a suitable companion. ‘Oh! But he’s so friendly!’ He looks at Kat. ‘You never told me he had a name.’
Kat pokes him. ‘Of course he has a name, you lump!’
‘What? His name is Chairman Cat?’
Kat and Gary have never been to my flat, so how does Gary know my cat?
‘Chairman Mao, you idiot.’
‘You call him Chairman—’
‘How do you know my cat?’ I ask.
Kat makes a guilty face. ‘You remember that time you were away for the weekend and I said I’d feed him? I sort of … forgot I had another thing. Gary covered for me. He’s an angel. Sometimes.’
I cringe inside at the thought of Gary in my flat, but what am I going to do?
‘Chairman Mao?’ Gary still looks confused. ‘Your cat is called Chairman Mao?’
‘Chairman Mao.’ Kat makes it sound like Chairman’s miaow.
‘Also, he likes to sleep on chairs,’ I say, and try not to wince at how lame that sounds when I say it out loud.
‘Nicky, if you ever want to get away again, just say. I promise I’ll check my diary first next time, and if I come over early, Lump here won’t even notice.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘but Mum has a spare key and—’
‘What’s the new one going to be?’ asks Gary, butting in. ‘Comrade Cat? General Secretary Purr?’ He smirks, like he’s said something clever.
‘Cat Jong-un,’ I tell him, which makes him splutter into his wine and Kat howl. ‘Or Sun Cat-sen. I think I like that one better.’
‘Not Miewsolini?’ Kat offers.
Gary rolls his eyes. ‘You can’t call a cat Mussolini!’
‘Miewsolini.’
‘Oh! I get it! So … Like, Fidel Catstro?’ Which I have to admit isn’t bad.
Kat gives an appreciative nod.
‘Or Adolf Kitler,’ says Gary with a snort. ‘Or … Miaoschwitz!’
Silence. There’s the Gary Barclay I remember: the Gary Barclay who always had to cross a line, who always had to take everything one step too far and ruin it for everyone. The Gary that Kat dumped at least three times, and three times I sighed with relief.
We both look at him, stone-cold serious.
‘Not funny,’ I say.
‘You can’t name a cat after a Nazi,’ says Kat. ‘And we’ll pretend you stopped there.’
‘Oh, right, but Mussolini is fine!’
‘Miewsolini. And she’s not calling it that. She just said so.’
I move as if I’m about to get up. ‘I should go.’
‘I don’t know. I mean, looking at it from the mouse’s point of view …’
The Gary who always had to double down instead of admitting he’d made a mistake.
‘You’ll be looking at it from a sleeping-on-the-sofa point of view in a minute.’ Kat comes over and refreshes my glass. ‘I apologise for being married to an orang-utan.’
A part of me desperately does want to go. Gary always sets me on edge, like there’s something wrong about him. But Kat is my best friend, and we don’t see each other nearly as much as I’d like. I settle back onto the sofa.
‘That night in 1985,’ I say. ‘How much do you remember?’
Gary glances at Kat. ‘Not much. Why?’
I should leave it alone. Kat’s right, I’ve done what I can. I should go back to my quiet life and forget about Declan. Only I can’t. And I don’t want to. And I don’t know why, but I think I have to try and help him, despite everything. Is it simply because I know he didn’t do it?
‘We went for a walk in the park,’ says Kat. ‘Just after you left with Dec. Talked for a bit. One thing led to another and here we are.’ She makes a sweeping gesture at the room around her, then snuggles up to Gary and pecks him on the cheek.
Gary shrugs and looks sheepish. He asks how Declan’s holding up, and says maybe it’s no bad thing that he finally knows what happened to his dad, but how terrible to be a suspect. Kat rambles through who might have done it – not that she has the first idea – and Gary frowns and shrugs and clearly doesn’t care. He asks if Declan needs the name of a good solicitor, and then suddenly Kat bursts back into life.
‘Hey, you know what? We saw Nicky’s dad on our way back to the Shelley. Don’t you remember?’
‘Not really,’ says Gary.
‘I almost freaked! Remember? I tried to hide behind a see-saw.’
‘Yes!’ Gary goes all wide-eyed. ‘I do remember. But … It wasn’t Nicky’s dad
we saw, it was Arthur Robbins!’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘It was! You said so.’
Kat shakes her head. ‘You barely knew who Arty was.’ She pokes him. ‘I know it was Nicky’s dad because I remember thinking that if he saw us then Mum would hear about it and I’d be so dead.’
‘I could have sworn you said it was your uncle,’ Gary mutters. ‘To be honest, all I remember was some bloke in a dark jacket. I suppose it could have been anyone, really. I mean, it was … dark.’
‘It wasn’t Arty Robbins,’ says Kat.
I hardly hear, but Kat’s right. It wasn’t Arty Robbins, because Arty Robbins wasn’t wearing a dark jacket at the Shelley that night.
I ransack my memory. I can see it all, as it was, that night inside the Shelley: the table covered in food, the women in their dresses, all big hair and shoulder pads, the prints on the walls of those stupid paintings of dogs playing poker … Half the men in the pub were wearing dark jackets. It could have been anyone.
The morning after. Kat’s mum in the doorway, Kat at the top of the stairs. We sat in the park for a bit. You know. Because of … Kat’s mum looking over her shoulder up the stairs. You did, did you? Until nearly midnight? When you knew that Nicola’s parents were looking for her?
Nearly midnight … But it was definitely past midnight when I saw Declan leave his house, which means it wasn’t him at least. And I’m so relieved I could hug them both, and how stupid is it that I feel this way?
And then I remember the mud on the sleeve of Dad’s jacket.
8
Monday 3rd to Wednesday 5th February 2020
Kat was with Gary while I was with Declan. I never knew but it’s so obviously true, and now I can’t stop thinking about what else happened that night. I don’t even know why it matters so much, but it does. I think it matters to Kat, too, judging from the way she looked, and from the way Gary watched for her reaction. I suppose it’s because of her own father, Arty Robbins’ little brother. I never really knew much about him because he left before Kat was even born and she never talked about him back then. Her mum married again, long before Kat and I ever knew each other. Stephen Clarke, and he left too, just after Kat turned fourteen. Kat never did have much luck when it came to dads.