by Luan Goldie
Elvis has to go to the hospital again next Tuesday. He needs to see a special ear doctor about why he can no longer hear anything in his right ear except for a buzzing, which sounds like the time bees swarmed near his old school and everyone panicked because they did not want to be stung, but Elvis ran outside to try and spot the queen. The ear doctor does not smell like coffee and does not look like anyone from ER or even anyone from Casualty. She is not that friendly either, and when he last went she poked him with a strange thing that she would not let him look at. Each time he tried to turn his head and see the strange thing she gave him an angry face, which made Elvis think of Lina.
Elvis misses Lina sometimes. He misses her pink fringe and the shiny pink polish on her toenails that reminded him of the inside of seashells from Margate. He did not go to her funeral but George helped him write a message in a card and send it to her family, who he said were very upset that she died in the bad explosion. The card had a white dove on it and a silver cross stuck on the front, which was not real silver but cardboard. Elvis liked it a lot because even when the card was in the envelope you could still feel that it was a cross.
Elvis takes a dark green felt-tip pen and draws the cross. Then he changes to the blue felt-tip pen and draws some zigzags around the cross. The zigzags are exactly the same as the ones Tristan Roberts had shaved in his hair. Elvis would like to have some zigzags shaved into his own hair. He had asked Alan, who comes every second Thursday to cut everyone’s hair, but he said no because that would take too long and Elvis’s hair was too thin and ‘not afro enough’ for it to look good.
Elvis does feel sad sometimes and also a little bit scared. Like when the alarm goes off at the Waterside Centre because someone is fighting with the people that work here. Each time this happens Elvis thinks maybe another plane has crashed and exploded. Once Elvis cried because he was on washing-up duty and his friend Archie was keeping him company but also telling him a sad story about pandas becoming extinct because Chinese people were eating them. Elvis stopped concentrating on the washing up and the water ran over the brim of the sink and all over the kitchen floor. He cried because he would get into trouble, but also because the way the water splashed as you walked in it was exactly like the wet floors of Nightingale Point that day. Elvis then had to go and see Sonia and her ugly puppets to talk about his feelings.
He closes his notepad and puts the lids on his felt-tip pens.
George says that Elvis can leave the Waterside Centre whenever he feels ready, as London is full of perfect flats waiting to be filled with Elvis’s perfect new things. But he does not want to move today, or next week, or even next month. He looks out of his window and up at the two planes that crisscross the sky. Maybe one day he will be ready to move out and try again.
One Month Later
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Chapter Thirty-Three ,Mary
Instead of returning home with the food shopping Julia sent her out for, Mary walks towards Nightingale Point. It’s a silly thing to do – the walk takes her almost an hour, the plastic handle of the bag cuts into her fingers and she knows her daughter will be panicking at home.
When she reaches the gloom of the field in front of the towers she sits on one of the benches that line the path. The shopping bag sags at her feet. The cold of a thawing chicken touches her foot and her fingers explore the slightly damp wood of the bench, pockmarked with cigarette burns. On the other side of the field police cordons are still in place and the council have erected hoardings that cut the space in two – the before and after, the living and dead. The destruction had smouldered for days and even now, a whole month on, it still occasionally lets out a puff of dust as the remaining parts of it are brought, slowly, to the ground. The breeze carries the smell of ash and rotting flowers.
What’s the point of all those flowers and teddies and football scarves sitting out here, being battered by the weather? All these messages of condolence made public for everyone to see. When will everything be removed? Who will take responsibility for such a task? Surely it’s not rounded up with the normal rubbish. All those heartfelt messages scrunched into bin liners.
There are lights on in Barton Point, the sparse signs of life. Mary had read most of the residents don’t want to move back there, and who could blame them?
With Sandford Road still closed to traffic, it’s quiet and dark on the field. The only noise is distant; the only signs of life in those faraway windows. She takes in the still darkness, but swears she can see movement coming her way. She is not sure at first, has to squint as a man walks across the grass. There is something familiar in the slump of shoulders, the thin frame, something safe and earnest in the walk.
‘Mary?’
It’s Harris. She had called him as she stood outside the supermarket in tears, desperate to see him and tell him her decision.
‘I knew I’d find you here. Please, let’s not talk here.’ He puts out a hand but she rises without its aid.
They walk to a pub, far from the estate. Inside it’s empty except for a large group of cackling women on a night out, all in party hats and pink sashes. Mary listens to their laughter and wonders if she will ever feel like that again.
‘Tristan will be leaving hospital soon,’ Harris says.
The women explode into laughter again and Mary loses the thread of what she wanted to say. What is she doing here? In a pub surrounded by people enjoying life. She’s acting like nothing ever happened. That’s the problem with her and Harris. They don’t take the real world into account; when she’s with him she forgets about everything else. And it was fun back then, but look where it led them.
‘Mary?’
There’s a shade of tiredness across his face, but he seems brighter than usual today, his smile comes easily each time she looks at him. He tries to take her hand but she pulls it away and curls her fingers around the glass of Coke.
‘Tristan’s doing really well,’ he says, ‘though he seems to have fallen in love with one of the nurses. He thinks he has Stockholm syndrome.’ Harris laughs. ‘He’s quite a character, isn’t he? And inspiring too. The physiotherapy is gruelling, it really is, but he gets through it somehow. Every day he’s there trying again. Makes me think back to when I was first diagnosed with my illness, I was an absolute wreck. Then I see this young boy facing up to challenge after challenge and it …’ He shakes his head, lost for words. ‘Well, you know him much better than me. You know what a great kid he is.’
It almost makes Mary smile, to hear Tristan described in such an un-Tristan-like manner.
‘But things are far from okay, Mary. He’s got quite serious hearing loss, severe eye damage on one side and it will take him months before he’s walking again unaided. And even then it’s not guaranteed, they may still need to amputate his foot in years to come. Tristan won’t even entertain that idea.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘They told me.’
Every few days Mary calls the hospital and speaks to Olisa, a young, discreet nurse who Mary helped to train a few years ago. Mary is still on long-term compassionate leave and can’t quite bring herself to go into the hospital as a visitor, to face her colleagues and have their condolences pressed upon her. The cards they sent, through John and Julia, were bad enough, the odes to losing one’s husband, one’s soul mate.
‘I worry more about Malachi,’ Harris says. ‘He seems to be drowning in this.’
‘He’ll be fine.’ But this information scares her, for she knows how prone Malachi is to dark moods. How in the past he has blamed and punished himself for everything that has gone wrong. Just like his mum.
‘He’s far from fine, Mary. He’s not eating well or sleeping much. Up all night. Sometimes I hear him leave the house, and he stays out for hours. I lie there worrying. Or he lays out in the garden all evening smoking. I don’t know him like you. I don’t know what’s normal.’
‘He likes to be by himself. I told you he’s quiet.’
‘His girlfriend was kill
ed.’
‘I know. I was there when he found out.’ She had read about Pamela in the papers. It broke Mary’s heart to see the little blonde head smiling in a photograph next to all the other victims. When Pamela had come for dinner that day at Mary’s, she drank diluted juice from a plastic cup and picked all the green vegetables from her meal. She was a child. It’s too cruel.
‘Malachi is blaming himself,’ Harris says. ‘Thinks he could have saved her, somehow, yet he didn’t even know she was in London at the time. He’s tearing himself to pieces over this.’
He’s too young to carry so much guilt around.
‘I spoke to one of the counsellor’s at my school; they said it sounds like post-traumatic stress. He needs help. I know he goes to the estate at night, and that he sits there looking at it, this big, empty space where his whole life once was. It’s not healthy.’
She should never have left him. She was meant to be there for him.
‘I do try with Malachi,’ Harris says, ‘and he talks to me sometimes, we get on well, but I don’t know him. He needs you. Mary, please. Talk to me.’
‘I told you I can’t be there for him now, or Tristan. I need to look after my own children. They are grown-ups but they still need me.’
Harris nods.
The partying women continue to laugh and Mary finds it hard to deal with the fact people are having normal conversations. That life for others is ticking on like nothing ever happened.
‘We have agreed that Tristan will stay at mine till the council rehouse them. It makes sense with the hospital so close and, of course, I have the space,’ Harris says.
‘You don’t have to do this, Harris. You don’t have to take them in and disrupt your whole life because you feel obligated.’
‘I don’t feel obligated. I actually like having Malachi with me. I like them both a lot. And I feel like I can help.’ He raises his glass to his lips, then places it back down without taking a sip. ‘Though Malachi keeps telling me how particular Tristan is about cleanliness. I’ve cleaned out my study for him, even got the duster out. What have the council said to you?’
Mary shrugs. She hasn’t heard anything, but then she forgets she is homeless. It doesn’t feel like she’s truly lost anything. She still expects to walk back into her flat in Nightingale Point at any time, to find it intact, the spiral fly-catcher on the kitchen ceiling, a plate of prawn skewers in the fridge, and the folder with her passport and marriage certificates.
‘Tristan’s going to need a lot of support, a lot of care. That’s another reason why I thought it would make sense if you moved in too.’
‘I can’t believe you’re asking me this, that you’re asking me this now.’
‘We need to start rebuilding our lives, Mary.’
‘No, it’s my life, Harris. Nothing has changed for you.’
He straightens his back and looks across the table. ‘Actually, everything has changed for me. Everything.’
‘Do you realise what we’ve done?’ she says finally. ‘Do you realise that I sat in your car, thinking about divorcing my husband, while he was about to die?’
The hens stop and look over, but Mary doesn’t care. ‘Every time I’m with you I can only think about what we did wrong. And now all this has happened. Up shit creek without a boat.’ She closes her eyes, places her left hand across her forehead. She needs to refocus on why she came here today, what she needs to ask him. ‘Harris, no one else can know about us.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Malachi knows, so that means Tristan does too. But no one else needs to.’
‘Is that why you called me?’ His face changes, that rare flare of anger that reddens his cheeks and makes him look like a stranger. ‘You want me to silence the boys for you?’
She closes her eyes to his anger and nods.
‘And your children?’ he snaps at her. ‘What about them? They must suspect?’
‘No. I told them you’re a friend from the hospital. They can’t deal with this too. They have other things to think about.’
‘So do the boys.’
A waitress approaches their table cautiously with two full plates. She looks of school-age. ‘Did you order the burger and beer deal?’ But as she speaks she realises her mistake. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
Mary watches the girl scuttle off to the hen party’s table, where she is met with smiles, normality, life.
‘Mary?’
This time she allows Harris to take her hand and with the other she wipes her eyes.
‘What about us?’ he asks.
‘It’s over, Harris. It has to be.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Chapter Thirty-Four ,Tristan
The boys hover around the bed in order of importance, headed, of course, by Ben Munday, who sits on the one plastic chair drinking the cup of orange juice that Olisa left for Tristan.
‘Good to hear you’re getting out soon,’ Ben says. ‘You’re the last one in here.’
The stitches on the left side of Tristan’s face pull as he smiles. ‘Two more days. I can’t wait. The food in this place is driving me crazy. How you been?’
‘Okay. Still in the hostel, though.’
‘Shit, man. I’m sorry.’
The other boys all drop their heads for Ben, who, like Tristan, lost his home in the crash and is now at the mercy of the council.
‘Be good to have you back in school,’ Sayeed, one of the younger boys, says. ‘It’s boring without you. No one is challenging these teachers.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Ben interrupts. ‘He can’t go back to school like this, all disabled and shit.’ He indicates towards the mass of bandages covering Tristan’s foot.
‘You’d think so,’ Tristan says, ‘but I’ll be back in September. My foot’s fucked but my brain’s fine. Actually, I’m looking forward to having something to do again, some normality.’
Ben laughs. ‘Yeah, right. I give you a month before you’re back to bunking off, sitting on the wall with us.’ He strokes his beard and adds, ‘If we had a wall.’
‘Nah, things are going to change for me when I get out of here. Need to focus a little more.’ Tristan has been giving this some thought, making plans for the future and setting himself a couple of life goals.
Ben sniggers. ‘My brother says the same thing every time he gets out of prison.’
The boys laugh and Tristan does too, but he also feels he has to press his point, to share his newfound ambitions, hoping it rubs off on them. ‘I’m done wasting time. First thing is quitting the weed.’
They all burst out laughing again and Ben leans forward to nudge Tristan’s arm, which, while playful, actually hurts. ‘The only time you go a day without smoking is when you can’t find me.’
‘Nah, I’m telling you, that stuff is killing my brain cells and I’m looking to get some GCSEs next year. I don’t know why you’re laughing, Sayeed, you know I’m top set for everything. Once I get focused, it’s on.’ Tristan claps for extra emphasis and watches as Sayeed, who is bottom set for everything, confirms the claim with a nod.
Ben clears his throat and asks, ‘Is it true, what the papers said?’
‘About what?’
‘That the retard saved you? Carried you out? I know how the papers lie and stuff.’
‘Elvis? Yeah, man. I should be dead. He picked me up and carried me out. Like a real-life hero.’
They snigger a bit and Tristan feels irritated by it. Why can’t they see what he did?
‘And you can’t say that R word anymore, man, it’s 1996. That’s pure offensive.’
‘Well,’ Ben puts a hand on his chest, ‘soon as I saw that explosion, I ran. Ran and didn’t stop to look back or nothing. I was out of there.’
Ben is one of the most feared guys on the estate; it’s hard to imagine him running from anything.
‘But you were still outside on the wall,’ Tristan says. ‘If you’d been inside the block it was different. You had to help each other.’
<
br /> ‘I don’t have to do anything,’ Ben snaps. ‘I don’t owe anybody my life.’
‘Elvis could have left me in there. I could barely walk. Or see. Or hear. The pain was making me hallucinate and shit.’
The boys all exchange looks, confirmation that it’s getting too deep, too heavy.
‘Elvis stayed with me,’ Tristan says, more adamant this time, as if they don’t get it. ‘Stuff was collapsing in there, it was dark, it was crazy. The smoke was choking us both. But he didn’t run. He stayed with me and got me out.’
‘After how you did him that day?’ Ben says. ‘Spitting on him’
Tristan nods.
‘Man, if I was him I would have left you there. That’s how I know that brer ain’t right in the head.’
‘He’s fine in the head,’ Tristan says. ‘He just isn’t a coward.’
*
Olisa’s got on a reddish lip-gloss. It really suits her.
‘So, Mr Man,’ she says, ‘today’s your big day, huh?’
Tristan fusses with the plastic-covered remote to stop staring at her mouth.
‘You all packed?’
‘Yeah, took me all of two minutes,’ he says.
She pulls her head back and looks at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘Why are you sad? You’ve complained every day about being stuck here, and now it’s time to leave you’re sulking.’
‘I’m not sulking.’ He’s embarrassed by how sulky he sounds.
Olisa leans next to him and he admires, for what he knows will be the last time, her impressive bosom. ‘You’ll be fine. Get out of here and get on with your life.’ Her voice is soft but determined, and Tristan wonders how often she has to give this pep talk.