by Kate Long
‘If I could just find this damn earring,’ said Gemma.
I reached towards the bottom end of the bed and found a mobile phone with a broken screen and a book about archaeology. There was also a ball made out of rubber bands, plus two unfletched arrows and a headless soft toy. The toy, a rabbity thing, I recalled Walshy finding stuck on a spiked railing on his way home from the pub. He’d dismembered it for its squeaker, sawing into its neck with a bread-knife, while I’d scolded about some child somewhere crying itself to sleep. He’d just squeaked back at me, annoyingly.
I was aware of Gemma climbing off the chair and opening the wardrobe door. Right under the end of the bed was a video camera Walshy’s dad had sent him so he could try and get one of us on You’ve Been Framed. God knows what footage was on there now. Best not to think about it.
As I backed out from the under-bed space and gulped some air I realised I’d been taking these little shallow breaths, not wanting to take in lungfuls of Walshy and his train of girlfriends. All those dead skin cells piling up.
‘Looks as though we’ve drawn a blank on the earring,’ I said.
‘They were a present from my mum,’ pleaded Gemma. ‘Sterling silver. I can’t go home without them.’
I got to my feet and started to push the various displaced items back under the bed. The magazines slid into place obediently, but the shin-guards got jammed and I had to shove. When I moved the cigar box, it rattled. I thought, Cigars don’t rattle. So I opened it.
‘Oh, wow!’ Gemma’s voice was excited. ‘Oh, yes! I don’t believe it – yes, I’ve got it. I’ve got it, Chaz. See? It was hooked in the hem of this sweater he’d rolled up and shoved at the back . . . he used to let me wear it sometimes. Oh, that’s brilliant. It’s not bent or anything. Thank God. Phew. See, I’m sticking it straight in my earlobe then it can’t go anywhere. Excellent. OK, now, all we’ve got to do is put everything roughly back, there’s no need to be tidy. In fact, if we were, that’d probably just confuse the hell out of him. What have you got there, Chaz? You need some help? Like I say, just kick it under, yeah? God, I’m so relieved.’
Her voice carried on and on, happy and high, but I wasn’t listening. What I was looking at was a box of me.
Even from the drive I could see the back garden was in a worse state than ever. That central pile of debris, broken wood and old furniture, was now of bonfire proportions. The grass was long, the bushes near his fence were squashed out of shape and the fence panels themselves were really sagging; I’d have to look into getting them propped up from our side. I could see he’d still not taken the cat-flap out. ‘Trouble is,’ Eric had said last week, ‘when you’re decorating, everything looks worse before it looks better. And the inside needs straightening before the outside.’ Which was true, except why bother doing up a place you’re only renting? ‘Because I can,’ he’d replied. ‘Because I want it nice for me and the lad.’ Well, I could understand that. It gets you down, living in a hole.
As I rang the front doorbell, a Cabbage White butterfly landed on a knackered old wall unit and spread its wings wide against the sun.
For a minute or two I heard nothing, then Kenzie’s small shape appeared through the frosted-glass panel. I saw him run from one side of the hall to the other and back again, like a man on the deck of a storm-tossed boat. Eric came up behind him and lifted him out of the way.
I thought, I so need you to invite me in. If I could have half an hour even, standing with a coffee in his kitchen, or sitting in the lounge where I’d last seen Mr Cottle stiffening among his Carol Vordermans. Trivial chat was what I needed. Tune my head back into everyday matters. I wanted to rest my eyes on a pair of nice muscly arms. And there was something else at stake, too: Charlotte had been getting at me lately, asking why I was providing all this free childminding for a man we barely knew. (She barely knew. I saw him plenty.) She said, ‘Do you not mind that he just sees you as a babysitting service?’ I said, ‘It’s hard for him. I have your dad down the road, Maud and Ivy at a push. He has no one. I’m doing a neighbour a good turn, that’s all.’ But her words had niggled away. Twice I’d asked Eric to take Will while I popped out, and each time he’d been ready with an excuse. He was taking Kenzie to a birthday party, they were late for a hair appointment. OK, these things happened – I’d had to say no myself one afternoon when Will’s shoes fell apart and we were forced to make an emergency dash to Bolton. The fact remained, in all the weeks I’d known Eric, for all the talks and cuppas we’d shared, I hadn’t actually set foot in his house yet.
The door opened. ‘Karen!’
‘Are you busy?’
‘Well, you could say. I’ve just this minute finished knocking plaster off the ceiling in the back bedroom, and it’s everywhere.’
‘Oh.’
‘We’re in an absolute state. One of those jobs you think, Oh, it’ll be easy, this, and then you get intae it and you wish you’d never started. Dust, filth, awful. Is it in my hair?’
‘Can’t see any.’
‘My baseball cap must’ve caught most of it. Anyhow, I’ve done the worst, it’s pretty much all off, but there’s a load of tidying up. Poor Kenzie’s been stuck in the front room all morning with only the TV for company.’
Obviously I wasn’t stepping over the threshold today. I thought fast. ‘You’re going to be around all morning, then?’
‘Aye, I’ve to scrape it up and bag it—’
I grabbed Will’s shoulders and thrust him forward. ‘Look, I really need you to have him for an hour. I need to go somewhere.’
‘Honestly, Karen, I would if I could—’
‘I have to go now.’
‘He’ll only get himself filthy . . .’
‘I’ve got an emergency.’
‘Why? What’s up?’
My head was ringing with garbled snatches of panic: that vile greetings card, I must make sure when I went back that I buried it deeper down the bin, didn’t want anyone seeing that when they took out the nappy sacks. And in six hours Charlotte would be home, I had the house to tidy and the bed to make up and all her foods to get in, her Edam slices and her Tunnock’s Tea Cakes, and how long would it be before we rowed about Will, how long before she started picking holes in the way I’d been feeding him or dressing him or our night-time routine? Which suddenly broke a dream I’d had last night that I’d found Pringle dead under Will’s bed, and I was trying to squeeze the corpse inside a little sandwich bag without him seeing. Then I remembered a true scene, Mum holding Chalkie’s body, wrapping it in a towel after Dad brought him home from the vet’s and that was the first time I’d seen my dad cry – what a shock because till then I’d thought tears were the preserve of us children and I couldn’t believe a grown man could weep. Snatches of angst my mind compressed into a few seconds, like the dial of a radio tuning up and down the different stations. I heard myself say, ‘It’s Pringle.’
‘You what?’ Eric’s gaze swept over me.
‘He’s swallowed poison.’
‘Eh?’
My face bloomed with heat. Why in God’s name hadn’t I just said I needed a break? That it was his turn to babysit? Just bloody take him, Eric. Take him and let me go.
‘I put some slug pellets in a dish on the kitchen shelf and he might have eaten some so I need to pop him to the vet’s for a check-over. They do an open surgery on a Saturday morning. I can’t take Will, it’d be too upsetting for him. But if I get up there straight away . . .’
‘Slug pellets?’
‘We’ve had an outbreak round the sink. Yesterday there was a great big brown one climbing over the drainer. I thought it was a splash of gravy till it moved.’ That bit was true.
‘Sounds odd. How are they getting in, Karen?’
‘Where the pipes come through? No idea. Now’s not the time, I need to shift.’
‘I didn’t even know cats liked slug pellets.’
‘Normal cats probably don’t. Pringle’ll have a go at anything, remember.’
Will, bored with waiting, ducked past him and tottered down the hall, Kenzie following. I had no option but to finish, and run. ‘Anyway, I’ll be home soon as I can.’
I turned my back on his doubtful frown and began to sprint down the path, my mobile bumping in my cardigan pocket.
No one else looking into this cigar box would know what it was about. Any of Walshy’s girlfriends might have opened it and seen only a collection of rubbish, maybe trawled from the bottom of a car-door pocket or tipped out of a rucksack lining. The sticker off an apple I’d made him wear on his forehead like a bindi, a jellybean we’d kicked all the way back from town, a beer mat I’d doodled flowers over, a flyer for a band we’d been to see at the union. In one corner was a tiny shrivelled bit of green that I recognised as a clover he’d split for me to make it four-leaf, and I’d told him cheating like that would bring bad luck. There was a red button off my coat sleeve – I’d wondered where it had got to – and a stripy feather I’d picked up near the Walls, that was quite recent.
I put out a finger and stirred the contents round wonderingly.
‘I really hate untidiness, don’t you?’ said Gemma from a hundred miles away on the other side of the room.
Steve met me on the corner of Aspull Road, between the church and the chippy. He roared up on his Kawasaki like some cut-price Hell’s Angel and sputtered to a halt on Saint Mary’s car park. Watching him dismount was a spectacle in itself. Since I’d last seen him ride he’d invested in a full set of leathers and they were clearly on the stiff side.
‘You walk like John Wayne,’ I said as he drew near.
He gave me the thumbs-up and began to lever his helmet off his face. After an effort it came free. ‘You what, love?’
‘Nice outfit,’ I said. ‘Are you not cooked?’
‘A bit. Aw, this is champion, though. I can’t believe you’re up for it.’
His face was bright with anticipation. I held up the bag containing my own helmet and he nodded approval.
‘There’s a spare jacket for you in the pannier, and gloves if you want them. Now, I won’t go too fast. The main thing is—’
‘Go as fast as you like.’
He raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘OK, whatever. Main thing, like I said, is don’t be scared. I know what I’m doing. Only you have to remember to lean when I lean – you know, see the corner coming up and lean into it the way I do. Well, you’ll feel me go. You’ll have your arms round me.’
‘Oh, I will, will I?’
‘Course. How else are you going to stop from sliding off?’ He saw my expression. ‘OK, you can hold on to the grab rail if you want. But you still have to lean.’
It took me a while to get the helmet fastened, and I had to remove the leather jacket halfway through and then put it on again because it was too snug round the shoulders for me to move my arms. The gloves I waved away. I nearly said to Steve, This must be what it’s like to be mummified. But there was no speaking any more. Like a bloody scold’s bridle, this helmet was.
He motioned me to get on the bike, so I did. Once astride I felt as well as heard it start up, the vibrations from the engine running right through me and making my teeth rattle. Or that could have been nerves. The seat felt slippery under my bum and I fought against the constraints of the jacket to reach the rail behind me.
And then we were off. Before I’d even got myself into position Steve was steering us through the concrete bollards of the car park entrance and bumping onto the main road, into a stream of traffic.
At first we went pretty slowly because we were following a bus and a lorry. But the bus halted to let off passengers, and there was a sudden surge of power as Steve swung the bike out and round, then overtook the lorry, nipping past where a car would never have risked it. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, we were coming out of Bank Top and about to join the bypass.
‘I thought you weren’t so keen on the bike,’ Steve had said when I rang him. ‘What’s changed your mind?’
‘Can’t explain,’ I told him. That’s the difference with an ex, I suppose. No need to make up fancy lies for Steve. All I understood was a sudden desire to be outside and travelling very fast, tarmac blurring beneath the flesh of my knees, the wind thundering. Blow the badness out of my head. Feel as though, for a few minutes anyway, I was on the verge of escape. We turned onto Grimstone Lane and then he put his foot down. The Kawasaki shot down the straight and under the motorway bridge, then up, climbing towards Rivington and the countryside. His hips pressed back into mine as the bike angled to the incline.
‘This is fantastic!’ I said, knowing he couldn’t hear me. I wondered how fast we were going. I craned my head to see the speedo and the needle was hovering on 60. Not that fast, then. It’s just that you felt so exposed on a bike, connected to the contours of the road in a way you weren’t in a car. Ahead of us were the colours of the moor, browns and greys and greens and purples, merging into a grey-white mottled sky. I wanted to ride into the horizon, ride and ride.
‘Sod you, Jessie sodding Pilkington!’ I yelled into the engine’s drone. ‘Sod you and whatever it was you wanted!’ What could my birth mother be after? Perhaps she was dying and she wanted to try and make her peace with me. Perhaps she had an inheritance to pass on, or another horrible family secret she wanted to dump on my shoulders. Perhaps she’d got religion. I couldn’t imagine what would make her suddenly pursue me when less than three years ago she’d slammed the door in my face. Whatever it was, I wanted no part of it. ‘Bitch!’ I yelled. ‘If you come after me or mine, I’ll make sure you regret it!’ Then I took in a deep breath, filled my lungs and howled into the fabric of the helmet. I howled till I had no breath left, till my lungs were emptied. The wind was drumming round us, fierce and cooling. I took another huge breath.
Time passed, I have no idea how much. My head was now giddy with too much oxygen. But I became aware of Steve shifting and half-turning to me, trying to tell me something, and I spotted the dip in the road ahead and the tight left bend immediately following it. ‘Lean,’ I remembered him saying. I nodded to let him know I’d seen it, I was ready. As we approached, fields and stone walls whipped past us. The bike seemed to speed up till we were nearly flying. Then we swooped down and into the curve, and without even thinking I let go of the grab rail and fastened my arms round Steve’s body, holding him tight as I could. Because of the leathers it wasn’t a normal hug, there was no warmth to it. This was more how embracing a tree might feel, stiff and solid, an up-and-down trunk shape. Impersonal. We angled together as a unit, slanting ourselves against the bend and balancing out the bike’s momentum. Round the bend, the road curved right – another lean, to the other side – and then we were on the long bridge, zipping over the reservoir with shimmering water stretching out on either side.
This was the direction of home, though. Was my time up? Surely not yet. I bet you’ve had enough, haven’t you, Karen? I imagined him saying. Shall I take you back to Will, let you get your feet on solid ground again?
No, I urged him silently. Please don’t let us be going yet. Please let me stay out here just a little bit longer.
But to my joy, instead of heading west, Steve flicked the indicator then turned and headed off round the bank of the reservoir and back up the hill into moorland again. Telegraph poles blipped past. A flock of birds peeled away from the hedgerow. Without taking his eyes from the road he lifted his arm and gave me the thumbs-up. I signed it back.
Way in front of us, over the horizon, clouds piled high and clean. We were zooming away from trouble, into green space.
I never wanted it to stop.
I guess my head was at least half-full of Will, as it usually is on the drive home. I tend not to say a lot anyway till we’re on the M62. Usually Daniel witters on about the latest biochemical discovery or some piece of weirdness that’s been in the news, and I do my decompression thing and turn slowly back into a mum. Today my thoughts were also whirling with the discovery of Walshy’s box, and w
hat it might mean. Essentially the question was, did he have similar collections for his other girlfriends? But I’d pretty much been through his under-bed supplies with the attention of a forensic scientist and I hadn’t come across any. And if he didn’t, must that therefore be a sort of proof that I was special to him in some way? Maybe even that he was a little bit in love with me? If he was . . . Jesus. How was I supposed to feel about that? Mixed up, that’s what. Churned, like a washing machine. Excited. Amazed. Appalled.
Because even though our pre-Christmas fooling filled me with shame and horror, that couldn’t dampen the fizz still between us, the little shiver that passed across the room sometimes. However I’d tried to hide it, there was something, undeniable. Even when he was at his most irritating. But what about his take on it? What if that night had really meant something to him? ‘You know, Chaz,’ he’d once told me as we trundled round the supermarket together, ‘you’re the only person who understands me.’ I’d dismissed this as blether because at the time he was wearing a Bill Clinton mask and also he stank of beer. But none of us ever knew what Walshy really thought about anything because he just talked bullshit and flirted all the time. Under all the posturing there might be any number of emotions we’d never guessed at. Imagine if he was burning for me all those months, since the snog, or even before that. It made my chest squeeze with anxiety to remember.
Again I played back that drunken walk home, the out-of-nowhere kiss on the front step, the fumble on the stairs and then on his bed. Only the bleep of his phone saving me from myself and making me leap up and run to my own room, lock the door. Tramp that I was. Shame on me. At least, thank God it was the holidays now, and an end to temptation. But what about next term? Where did I stand?
True to form, as we passed over the Pennines it started to rain. Daniel turned on the windscreen wipers and upped the volume on the radio to compensate. ‘Isn’t She Lovely?’ sang Stevie Wonder. Isn’t she shabby, more like. Isn’t she devious, shifty, cheap. I fought to banish those images, to focus instead on Will and how pleased he would be to see me. ‘Mummy’, he’d call me, for definite. We’d been training him up using the photo album. There wasn’t going to be any more confusion there. Mum was also on at me to start his potty training and get his hair cut, go through his wardrobe, have his hearing checked. Plus apparently I hadn’t to make the letterbox ‘talk’ to him again because he’d trapped his fingers in it after I left last time. I knew there’d be a barrage of demands as soon as I walked through the door. But this is a mother’s world, chores and tasks stretching off to infinity. It’s what I signed up to.