by S K Sharp
I nod.
‘I wish I had your memory.’
I look away. ‘No, Declan.’
‘I can’t even picture him any more.’
I put my bowl back on the table, half eaten.
‘Too spicy?’ asks Declan.
‘I’m not that hungry tonight. You really don’t remember anything at all?’
Declan takes our half-finished bowls back to the kitchen. ‘I remember thinking about you, about seeing you. The party itself? Not really.’ His words dissolve into the scrape of cutlery on china and the clatter of the dishwasher. ‘Afterwards, I remember seeing you at the window. Then at the back of the Shelley – I have this sort of sense that I hung out for a bit with Gary, maybe?’ There are tears in his eyes when he comes back to the sofa, and yet he’s smiling. ‘It was all so stupid. We were all so fucking stupid.’
‘We were young.’ I don’t know what else to say. The young don’t have a monopoly on stupid.
‘Nix …’
‘Declan, something happened at the Shelley after we left. Do you remember, I told you about the policeman who was at my house?’
The way he looks tells me that no, he doesn’t remember it at all; but there’s something he wants to ask, and it’s a struggle, which means I don’t think I want to hear it.
‘I remember seeing you there.’ He’s smiling, lost in a memory; has to force himself back to the present. ‘I don’t know. The only thing I remember about the rest of that night, to be honest, was thinking about us. What we’d done.’
He gets up and leaves the room for a minute and then comes back with an old faded photograph. I recognise the faces from the party. Arty Robbins is in the middle. His dad beside him, Vincent Robbins, and his stepmum, Madge. Dave Crane has his arm around Arty Robbins’ shoulders, giving a big thumbs-up to the camera. Mum lurks in the background, wearing one of Vincent’s aprons. Her smile is forced, like she really doesn’t want to be there.
‘Kat’s mum took pictures. She gave them to Mum. The police took most of them but I found this stuck behind a drawer. Look at them. Arms around each other, all smiling for the camera. One big happy family.’ He laughs bitterly. ‘What a charade! Vincent and Aunt Madge couldn’t stand each other, and Aunt Madge hated Dad, too. Blamed them both for Uncle Daniel running away. Dad was always Vincent’s golden boy.’
‘The police asked me about him,’ I say. ‘Your Uncle Daniel. Whether I saw him at the party.’
‘Uncle Daniel? Why?’
‘I don’t know.’ I pick up the picture and look at it. I didn’t see this moment that Chloe Clarke caught forever; it was obviously taken before the party started: people seen across the room, the roar of a hundred voices far too loud for me to hear what any of them were saying. Like seeing Mum talking to Arty Robbins, spitting fire, telling him to keep his son in check …
If that’s what it was.
Back in Declan’s flat, we watch each other now. Another silence, but this one feels dangerous in a different way. I want to kiss him.
I should go.
‘I’ve got ice-cream in the freezer. Home-made gooseberry-and-elderflower.’
I should say no, but I nod. ‘Yes, please.’ He goes to the kitchen and rummages in the freezer, then comes back with two bowls, each with three perfectly formed scoops.
‘Electric ice-cream scoop.’ He grins as he puts them on the table and then goes back to the kitchen, fetches a bottle of sherry and pours a drizzle into each bowl. ‘Just a touch.’ He sits beside me and I feel how close he is. ‘I keep thinking about who could have done it. I can’t stop. I suppose that’s what happens when …’ He makes a face, then suddenly he crumbles and all the bravado falls away, and he’s scared and small, a middle-aged man with nothing much to show for himself, staring into the abyss. ‘Dad was an arse. You know he was. Other people knew, too. It was all coming out, what he really was. Could have been – I don’t know. Could have been anyone, for all I know. But everyone was in the Shelley. I don’t know who it could be, Nix.’
Not everyone. Not Kat and Gary, for example. ‘Declan—’
‘They sent someone to take a statement from Mum. While I was locked up.’ He seems to shrink into himself, clutching the bowl to his chest. ‘Nix, the thing is … she told them I was at the Shelley all night. She told them I never left the party. Like, at all. I don’t know why she said that. Maybe that’s what she remembers, I don’t know. But the police know it isn’t true and … I remember Dad coming back to the house and … and I think there was a fight and you were hiding and … But I don’t remember!’ He’s almost in tears.
‘You really don’t?’
He shakes his head, and I want to hold him, hold him tight and never let go and make it all like it was. I put down my bowl and take his hand. ‘Hey.’
He puts his other hand on mine and squeezes. ‘I’m sorry, Nix. I shouldn’t have asked you over but I’m desperate.’ He pulls free and pushes the photo from the Shelley towards me. ‘I was hoping you – well, with the way you are …’
I turn towards him and he slumps into my arms. I hold him, stroking his hair. ‘You didn’t do it, Declan.’ Inside, I’m melting.
‘I know! But … I was hoping you’d remember something.’
I don’t. That’s the thing. Nothing that helps. I remember so much. I remember everything and I still don’t understand what happened that night. I can’t piece together the fragments and I don’t know which bits matter and which bits don’t. It’s like having a head full of jigsaw-puzzle pieces, but not all the pieces; and there’s more than one puzzle, and I don’t know which pieces go together, and whenever I try, the picture doesn’t make any sense.
But I can’t say that to him – not now, not like this.
‘I’ll help you. I promise.’
‘Then tell me what really happened that night. Tell me what you remember.’
So I tell him.
9
Sunday 9th June 1985, 10.15 p.m.
Standing outside the Shelley, I have to spell it out in small, simple words before Dec gets it: Let’s go to your place. So that’s what we do, because half of everyone in Byron Road is at the party right now and I can’t see any of them going home any time soon, particularly Dec’s mum and dad, which means we’ll have Dec’s house to ourselves for ages. We go up to his room and I forget all about Kat and Gary and about Mum and Dad. Dec’s hands are all over me, making me tingle on the outside and molten in the middle, but when he starts pushing his way up under my shirt, I stop him and pull back, even though by then I really don’t want to.
The curtains on the bedroom window are open. I close them, feeling his eyes on me, how intently he watches me.
‘What did you want to talk about?’ I ask.
‘Huh?’
‘Yesterday. In the alley. You said—’
‘Oh. Yeah.’
He looks crestfallen and starts glancing around his room, although I can’t imagine what help he thinks he’s going to find in the unruly scatter of clothes on the floor or the shelf cluttered with its handful of ragged-edged books, or the poster of Ian Rush, or the old record player with its careful stack of LPs propped against the wall beside it.
‘Thing is …’ And I think: Here it comes, and the butterflies that are already filling my stomach are fluttering for all they’re worth. He takes a deep breath and then looks me in the eye and out it blurts: ‘I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t stand it any more. I can’t live here. Not with … I don’t know where I’m going to go and – Jesus, Nix, I don’t know what to do, because I can’t stay, I just can’t, but you’re the best thing I’ve ever had in my whole life and … and I want you to come with me.’
I reel away, bewildered and hurt because I know something’s been brooding away in there for ages, but Dec’s never said anything like this, not even slightly. ‘What do you mean you can’t stay? What’s going on?’
‘Everyone thinks my dad’s so great, like the sun shines out of his arse with his minibus fo
r the school and his open house at the Shelley, but he’s not. He’s fucking not. He slaps Mum about. He always has, but last week he put her in hospital. It’s been going on for years. You remember that time I was off school for a week with a broken arm? He did that.’
I shake my head, speechless. This isn’t how I saw the evening panning out.
‘He didn’t like the way I talked to him and so he broke my arm. Last week, when I had to take Mum to the hospital because she’d dislocated her wrist? That was him; and she won’t do anything, just says it was an accident and he didn’t mean it and he’s sorry. But he isn’t, and I don’t want to be here when it happens again – I just don’t. I have to get away, Nix. Before I go crazy!’
He swallows hard and looks at me with eyes full of hope and tragedy, like he’s sure I’ll say no, because what he’s asking is completely mad; and because, sure, I don’t get on with Mum and Dad like we’re best friends, because who actually does, but they’re not that bad, not run-away-from-home bad, nowhere near, and it’s not like they hit me or …
I remember the bruise I saw on Mrs Robbins’ face this afternoon. I can’t say I’m even surprised. It’s shocking to hear, but now that I think about it, it’s not at all surprising. Despite his whole respectable-businessman lifestyle, there’s always been something a bit wrong about Dec’s dad.
‘Bloody hell.’ It’s all I can think.
‘I know it’s stupid.’ He looks away and there’s a space between us that wasn’t there before, and I don’t like it, not one little bit.
‘I can’t just … go!’ I can’t believe I’m saying no.
‘Yeah. I know.’ He tries to smile.
I reach out and touch him, trying to close the hole between us.
‘I told you I was out of school because Mum hurt her wrist and I had to help her out. Truth is … my Aunt Eileen called. She said she was having some sort of emergency and needed Mum’s help, and Mum couldn’t drive, so she asked me to take her; except when we got there, Aunt Eileen wasn’t having an emergency at all. She knew what had happened. She knew all about Mum and what Dad was doing. She told Mum that if she didn’t get away then he’d put her in the hospital again, sooner or later, because that’s what men like him do. Or worse. Mum wouldn’t have it. She got angry, and she and Aunt Eileen had this huge argument and …’ He shakes his head. ‘I can’t stay here, Nix. I just can’t.’
I lean across the bed and wrap my arms around him, holding him tight, but he’s not there, not really. It’s like hugging a dead thing.
‘I don’t want to lose you,’ he says.
‘But couldn’t you stay at the Shelley? With your granddad?’
Dec breaks away and looks at me like it’s the most absurd, ridiculous, preposterous idea ever – like I’ve suggested that he live on the moon. ‘Last place I’d want to go.’
‘Or …’ I don’t want to say it because I don’t like it, but better than him running off to Kathmandu or something. ‘Your aunt lives in Clapham, right? It’s still London. We could still see each other.’
He shrugs. ‘At weekends and stuff, I—’
He stops, because right then we hear the front door open downstairs and the clomp of heavy boots across the hall.
‘Crap! Dad? Shit!’ Dec’s eyes turn wild. ‘Hide! Shit! What’s he doing back here?’
‘Oi!’ A shout from below. ‘Where are you?’ Footsteps on the stairs now.
I look around the room, flailing for where to go. The wardrobe looks flimsy enough to collapse if I climb inside, so I drop to the floor and start to wriggle my way under the bed. As I do, I see a moment of sheer panic flash across Declan’s face. ‘Not there!’
Too bloody late. The footsteps have reached the top of the stairs and there isn’t time for anything else. I squirm as deep under the bed as I can go, until I feel something scrunch on the carpet beneath me. An exercise book or a magazine or something. Then the door opens and all I can see are an angry pair of boots and a scared pair of feet by the bed.
‘What the fuck you doing back here?’ Arty Robbins spits the question with enough violence to make me flinch.
‘I got bored.’
‘Who else you got here?’
‘No one.’
‘No one?’ The boots step into the room. ‘Seen your mother?’
‘Dad, she was with you—’
The boots move again, another quick step forward and jerk and I hear the wet CRACK! of a slap. Dec cries out. His feet disappear and I feel him crash onto the bed on top of me.
‘Liar!’ Dec’s dad bellows and his boots stomp to the bed. They look like cowboy boots, old brown leather, a little scuffed. There’s a design carved into them, some sort of snake. If I had to guess, I’d say a rattlesnake. ‘Vincent saw you last week. You took her to Aunt fucking-can’t-keep-her-nose-out-of-other-people’s-business Eileen, didn’t you?’
The bed heaves. I see Dec’s feet as he’s dragged off the bed and slammed into the wardrobe.
‘Where is she?’
‘I dunno, Dad! Maybe she’s gone, OK? Maybe you finally did it. Maybe she’s finally had enough, you know?’
Another CRACK! as the wardrobe shudders. Dec cries out again. Then a second time, WHACK – like Dec’s dad gave it a quick thought before he decided that one smack in the face wasn’t enough. Dec crashes onto the floor and I can see him now, blood running from his nose, his dad pinning him, both hands pressed over Dec’s face as though trying to crush his skull, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so scared in my whole life.
‘You tell me where she is or I swear to God—’
‘I don’t know! She said Aunt Madge—’
‘Madge? Fucking Marjory?’ Arty grabs Dec by the collar, hauls him up and throws him back onto the bed. ‘Your cousin and that trash-mate of yours. Barclay. What about them? Where are they?’
Gary? What on earth does Dec’s dad want with Gary?
‘At the party? I don’t fucking know!’
‘Not here?’
‘No!’
‘No, I bet I know exactly where they are.’ He idly opens the wardrobe door and slams it with enough force that the whole room shakes. ‘You’d better be here when I come back or I will put you in a fucking hole, you ungrateful little shit!’
Arthur Robbins, parish councillor, school governor and pillar of the community, stamps out of the bedroom with his son’s blood on his hands. I hear him clomp down the stairs. The front door opens and crashes shut. I’m shaking, too scared to move in case he comes back. I count slowly to ten and he doesn’t, but I still don’t want to even breathe.
I’m half lying on some magazine, so I shuffle it out from underneath me, an excuse to stay hidden for another few seconds. On the cover, a naked blonde with perfect teeth and sunbed skin and pumped-up boobs smiles back. A Penthouse, which sort of breaks the spell, especially when I think of the look of panic on Dec’s face as I started shuffling under here. I ought to be mad at him, because really? A porno mag? But I can’t be, not after what just happened.
I squeeze out into the open and leave the magazine behind. Dec’s on the bed, curled up, fists clenched so tight that the skin over his knuckles looks like a balloon ready to burst. He has blood smeared across his face where his nose is still bleeding. There’s a bloody hand-print on his shirt. He’s not crying because boys don’t do that, not in front of girls, but I can tell that he wants to. I sit beside him and reach out a hand. When he turns to look, I see he’s got a busted lip, too.
‘Jesus, Dec.’
I suppose I thought he didn’t really mean it about running away. I know plenty of girls at school who talk about it. They say they hate their parents but that’s just for a day or two because they’ve been told they’re not allowed to go with their best friend to the Montreux Festival in Switzerland or something. It’s not … not this.
Dec gets up. He opens the wardrobe and looks at himself in the mirror there, as though he’s not quite sure who he is. There’s blood all over his face.
&nb
sp; ‘I’m going – I’ve got to clean up,’ he says. ‘You can … you know. Go back, if you want. To the Shelley.’ The way he says it, like it’s nothing special, like his dad has done this before.
I feel my heart tripping along. I get up and go to him. Touch him again, as though trying to make sure he’s still real. ‘It’s OK – well, not, but … we’ll make it work. Whatever happens. I promise.’ The words seem clunky and awkward as I force them into sentences but they feel true, too, odd and deep and powerful.
I watch him walk out, then hear the taps in the bathroom as he cleans himself up. I want to run away and be with him because I love him, and love is all that matters; except my parents love me too, even if they’re not very good at it some of the time, and I can already hear Dad telling me how stupid it is, and Mum saying how I’m throwing my life away. And of course, I’m not going to run away, because it is stupid and I have no reason to, except … Except that I love him, and everything at home is shit and …
I start to cry. It takes me by surprise. One moment I’m standing by the edge of the bed and then the next I’ve started to shake, and it actually takes a moment for me to realise there are tears coming out of my eyes. It won’t be the same if Dec goes, and so I want to go with him, but I can’t, I just can’t.
I won’t let this happen. I won’t.
His face doesn’t look as bad when he comes back. His nose and lip are swollen and he has a twist of toilet paper shoved up each nostril, which makes me giggle.
‘Nose-voles,’ I say. Dec looks at me like I’m mad, so I guess he never used to watch The Goodies. He comes and puts his arm around me.