by Ryan Casey
“Best get a shower though,” Grace said. She wandered past Ashley, keeping her naked front to him as the butter in the frying pan started to sizzle. “Don’t want to be a Smelly Belinda.” She moved with her back towards the bathroom door, eyes firmly on Ashley, tits and smoothly shaven pussy on show.
Ashley smiled. Felt a warmth between his legs, but also felt his stomach sink a little. Because as she moved in through that bathroom door, her front still to him, he knew why she was moving in the way she was. She was hiding the scars. Hiding the hexagonal scars on her back. He often caught her looking in the mirror at them with blushed-faced disgust. And she did everything she could to avoid talking about them, prevent Ashley seeing them. She’d even slept with a t-shirt on the first few nights of her return from hospital just to stay covered up.
As the shower started to spray against the bathtub, Ashley placed four thin pieces of unsmoked bacon on the hot butter pan. It sizzled upon contact, the fumes of the charred meat hitting his nose instantly and making his stomach churn with hunger. He felt himself smiling. He’d grown so used to just not having any breakfast at all when Grace was gone. But she always insisted it was the “most important meal of the day.” And smelling this bacon right now, so juicy, so delicious, she was probably right.
The doorbell rang at the other side of the room.
Ashley stopped turning the bacon over as the frying pan sizzled the meat. Strange. Maybe it was Mr. and Mrs. Wisdom. Or one of Grace’s friends—they’d all started flurrying around since the media dropped their suspicions of foul play with regards to the “Grace Wisdom Mystery.” He left the pan to fry the bacon and walked over the cold tiles of the kitchen area of his flat. He grabbed a black v-neck t-shirt and some beige shorts from the edge of his bed, just to cover himself up.
The doorbell rang again. And again, in really quick succession.
“Alright, alright,” Ashley called, his skin pricking up with heat. Really got on his nerves when people couldn’t just wait a few seconds. He got close to the door, the sound of the water of the shower still spraying in the background, then he removed the latch.
The bell rang another time.
“Alright,” Ashley said, a bit louder this time as he yanked the door open. “What is…”
He halted. His voice froze when he was who it was.
She shouldn’t be here. Not right here outside his flat.
But the look in her wide eyes. The state of her hair, curly, unseen to. To think of it, it didn’t even look like she was wearing any makeup, which was a rarity in public for her.
“Susan?” Ashley said. His heart pounded. He listened behind him. Listened as the water of the shower hit the sides of the bathtub. Listened as Grace—Grace who he’d got his life back on track with—stood just a door away. “You can’t…You can’t be here. You can’t—”
“I need to talk to you,” Susan said. Her voice was strained. Her bottom lip was shaking. In her hands, pushed up against her black leather jacket, she was holding a bunch of papers.
Ashley stepped up to her. Checked the corridor behind her. Nobody there. Good. Nobody could see her here. Nobody could suspect a thing, not again. “We’re fine now, Susan. I—I’m thankful for your help a few weeks ago, but we’re—”
“You need to check the news,” Susan blurted out.
Ashley frowned. Pulled back a bit. “What do you mean ‘check the news’?”
Susan gulped. Rubbed her hands against the back of her papers.
“Saturn,” she said. “It’s…It’s giving birth.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Let’s—let’s make this as quick as we can. I need to get back.”
Ashley hadn’t been expecting to find himself sat in Costa Coffee this Friday morning. And yet here he was, sat right by the window, the smells of coffee strong and the click of “aspiring writers’” fingers hitting their MacBook keys all around him.
He hadn’t been expecting to find himself sat in Costa Coffee. He especially hadn’t been expecting to find himself sat opposite Susan Vickers.
Susan had her hands wrapped around a coffee carton, as if she was trying to absorb some of its warmth regardless of it being quite a warm day outside. Warm enough to have Ashley sweating after he’d jogged out of his flat and down the steps towards Susan’s car. Warm enough to have his heart pounding.
Or perhaps that was just the running away from Grace while she was in the shower. Which was stupid. And would require a lot of explaining. Fuck. After they’d seemed to get everything on the right track again, too. Just when things were making a turn for the positive.
“Come on, Susan,” Ashley said. He didn’t have a coffee. He wasn’t planning on staying very long. “You owe it to me to explain what it is you want to talk about. This—this about Saturn giving birth. What’s this all about?”
Susan went to take a sip of her coffee then decided against it. Instead, she slapped down a printed-off sheet of paper on the brown wooden table and pushed it over towards Ashley.
Ashley grabbed the side of the paper and lifted it up as the buzz of voices and the clinking of coffee cups and whooshing of machines continued in the background.
The print-off was from the BBC. The image caught Ashley’s eye first. It was a blurry close-up of a hexagonal black shape.
“So that’s the hexagon we spoke about,” Ashley said, laying the paper back down. “I don’t see what—”
Susan pressed another print-off on the table.
Ashley sighed. He bit into his lip and looked outside the window at the passers-by with sunglasses and already wearing their summer shorts at the first sign of sun. He looked for Grace. Looked, just in case. Even though she couldn’t possibly know he was here with Susan.
But there were other things that “couldn’t possibly” be the case when it came to Grace. Like her very survival. So he looked up the street, down the street, around the cafe. Just in case.
Then, he looked back at this new sheet of paper.
The image on this one was similar. Another dark hexagon. Only this time the hexagon was brighter. There was a small light in the middle of it, also hexagonal-looking in shape. At the top of the print-off, the headline read: Is This Saturn’s Sixty-Third Moon?
Ashley looked back up at Susan. She was watching him closely with her wide, bloodshot eyes. She had purple bags under her eyes. Or perhaps they were always there and her over-application of makeup usually hid them. But it was strange in itself. Strange for her to come to his flat and force this information on him. It must’ve really concerned her.
“Look, Susan,” Ashley said, leaning back and sliding the print-offs back in her direction. “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, and—and I appreciate your help, but this, it’s…Me and Grace. We’re working through it all. And things are getting better. This, about Saturn and its moons and…I was in a rough place when I was obsessing about all this. Things are better now. Grace is better—”
“I’m happy about that,” Susan blurted out. If she was happy, her rigid face certainly didn’t show it. She fumbled around the table and lifted her coffee cup to her face for a quick second, placing it back down on the table, keeping holding onto it like her life depended on it.
“Thanks?” Ashley said. The thought of drinking coffee in all its bitterness made him want to hurl. He didn’t do much coffee-drinking these days. Not since Grace had fallen. It reminded him of her too much. Their early dates in various coffee shops around Preston. The smell was already getting to his head. He wanted to get back. Needed to get back.
He pushed the chair back, it squeaking against the dark tiles of the floor. “I need to—”
“I got it wrong,” Susan said. She looked directly in Ashley’s eyes. Her lips were shaking, sealing shut the second she finished speaking.
Ashley frowned. Scratched at his itchy scalp as a chubby cleaner bustled past with a Stepford Wives-esque grin on her face. “What d
id you get wrong? Because—because the way I see it, everything’s…everything’s okay.” He thought back to Grace’s triple stillbirth. As much as he didn’t like thinking back to it, he remembered. “Well, not okay. But better.”
Susan planted another set of papers onto the table in front of her. These didn’t look like the news story print-offs like the other two. No, these were photocopies. Photocopies of the sorts of books that Susan had piled up in her living room, scattered around the floor. Books on ancient mysteries, rituals, astrology. Weird books.
Ashley raised a hand before Susan could open her mouth. “Susan, I’m not in a mood to be—”
“I—I was looking at the wrong text. I mean, it could’ve been the right text, but…but there’s more theories about Saturn. More—more scriptures.”
Ashley rubbed his tongue against his furry, unbrushed teeth and suddenly felt rather stupid standing there in nothing but his t-shirt and shorts, like just another wishful thinker. He started to walk away. He had to get out of here. Away from Susan. Away from Susan and all her wild theories. Everything was on the mend. Everything was working out.
“It’s been written,” Susan said, raising her voice. A few youngsters clicking away on their laptops turned around, clearly the music in their earphones not quite loud enough.
Ashley ignored her as well as he could. Walked away. Walked past the tables of kids on laptops, old people with coffees, the whooshing of the coffee machine.
The strong coffee smells.
Grace.
He needed to get back to her. Needed to get things back to normal.
“It’s been written about—about three miscarriages.”
This time, Ashley stopped. It felt like something heavy had sunk to the bottom of his stomach. Like the staring eyes and the whispers were directed nowhere other than Susan and her loud mouth, than Ashley and his desperate attempts to walk away.
He turned back around. Looked at Susan as the rest of the cafe looked with him, then at him, then back with him again. Her lips were shaking even more now. She held onto her coffee with one hand and these new papers with another. Her eyes were droopy. Apologetic, even.
“What did…What did you just say?” Ashley asked.
Susan shook her head. Sniffed up. “I’m—I’m sorry,” she said. “For being so frank. But—but it’s been written. About Saturn. About Saturn’s three miscarriages. About what it means. About…about what’s next.”
Ashley could feel his heart thumping underneath his black v-neck t-shirt. He could taste sweat on his lips too, as his face burned, the entire coffee shop feeling like it had come to a standstill to watch this…this whatever the hell it was occurring by the window.
Ashley wanted to go over to Susan. He wanted to walk up to her and shake her and tell her to fuck off for good for bringing up Grace’s stillbirths and trying to link them to astronomy in some way. To ancient myths. Instead, he stood there and bit his tongue. Because he’d been the one to go to Susan in the first place. He’d been the one to open this Pandora’s Box. And he was going to have to just walk away if he really wanted to close it.
“Just…just hear me out,” Susan said, rustling her papers around, other customers frowning at her and teenagers giggling like she was some kind of crazy person. “I—Just listen to me. Listen to what I have to say. Then you can—”
Ashley shook his head. He stood his ground and shook his head. “It’s over, Susan. Whatever…whatever ‘this’ is, it’s finished. Grace and me, we’re working again. And we have things to do today. People to see. Places to go. A life to live.” He emphasised those last words a bit more than the others. Felt a little harsh for doing so, but if it kept Susan from fucking up his newly salvaged relationship, then harsh it had to be.
Susan shook her head. Her lips shook some more. She kept tight hold of her coffee cup.
“I’m…I’m sorry, Susan,” Ashley said. And he really meant that. She was a nice woman. A real spark of light that would no doubt lead a very happy life herself when she got her priorities straight.
But he wasn’t her priority. He wasn’t her little project. Not anymore.
He took a deep breath of the strong coffee fumes and held his head high as he walked past the staring eyes behind the counter and towards the sunny outdoors.
He didn’t once turn back to look at Susan, but he knew she’d watched his every step.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Ashley rushed as quickly as he could back up the busy main road towards his block of flats. He considered getting a bus back, but it was only ten past ten, which meant the bus wouldn’t be in town for another twenty minutes or so. Besides, if he rushed back, he could tell Grace he’d just been for a walk, or a jog—something like that. The stench of sweat reeking from his body certainly backed up that theory, as did the tension in his legs as he power-walked back to his flat as quickly as he could.
As he saw the top of the grey flat block emerging up ahead, he thought about what Susan had said. Something about Saturn and its three miscarriages. But no. All of that astrological stuff was bollocks. It’d been a way of Ashley reaching out and trying to find answers for Grace’s sudden return—her unexplained survival—when he’d most desperately needed them. But he didn’t need those answers quite so suddenly anymore. He realised that not every question needed answering. The only thing that mattered was that Grace was back, she was alive, she was acting better again, and they were going to make things work.
The hexagons. The weird seizures. The stillbirths…
He felt the skin on his face tingle as he panted, approaching the car park of his flat.
All that nonsense was in the past. Now was the time for moving forward. It had to be.
He cleared his throat and wiped away some of the greasy sweat from his forehead as he pushed open the outer door to his block of flats. He took the stairs, jogging just to make himself more out of puff when he finally returned. More evidence to back up the fact that he’d been for a run. And nobody had seen him in town. Nobody had seen him with Susan. He hadn’t recognised any faces in the coffee shop, so they hadn’t recognised him.
His heart pounded as he jogged up the echoey solid steps, which reeked of piss.
Nobody had recognised him. He had to believe that.
He reached the second floor and fumbled around the pocket of his beige shorts for his keys. Fuck. His keys. Had he even taken any keys with him when he’d disappeared with Susan? He could’ve sworn he had. He must’ve left them inside. He’d have to knock. Knock and explain himself to Grace. Knock and—
“Hey, buddy! Nice gear.”
Ashley’s stomach sank. So too did his shoulders, and probably just about every other muscle in his body. He turned around, his heart pounding, the taste of phlegm strong in his mouth.
Steve Wisdom, Grace’s brother, was walking from the opposite end of the corridor towards Ashley. He was holding a bundle of red flowers under his arm. Instead of the usual police attire that Ashley was accustomed to seeing Steve in, he was wearing a white shirt with the top button undone. He was a big man, but this shirt was at least two sizes too big for him. It was badly tucked into a pair of black trousers, the zipper only halfway up.
Ashley took a deep breath as he stood outside the door to his flat, Steve getting closer and closer. What was he doing here? What interest had he really shown in his sister since she’d returned?
“Hi—Hi Steve,” Ashley said. He cleared his throat. Wiped some sweat off his head with the biceps area of his black v-neck t-shirt.
“Taken up running?” Steve asked, looking Ashley head to toe.
Ashley nodded fast. The closer Steve got, the more he could smell the chemical tang of gel emanating from his slicked-back hair. “Yeah. Just down the road.” He panted a little harder for show. “Just down the street and back again.”
Steve raised his eyebrows and nodded. He stepped up to the door of A
shley and Grace’s flat. “Always meant to take up jogging myself. Do enough walking in the day job though, I figure.” He looked at Ashley. Smiled.
Ashley wasn’t quite sure how to react other than smile back himself. He felt frozen to the spot. Steve was never one to act ridiculously amicable unless he was right about something or other. But he wasn’t in his uniform. And he was holding some flowers. He’d been distant from Grace since her return from the dead. Distant and without contact. In fact, Ashley could remember very clearly the last words Steve had said to him in that police station.
“I’ll find something. I don’t know what yet, but I’ll find something.”
“Anyway, you going to let us both in?” Steve said, tilting his head towards the door, his hair completely rigid as the gel gripped it to his head.
Ashley wanted to ask Steve why he was here. Whether he’d found something. Or whether he was just here to finally make up with Grace. The latter Ashley doubted. But then he wasn’t wearing his uniform. His smile looked strangely legitimate. It was unlike anything Ashley had ever seen from Steve, and he’d seen a lot of weird shit over the past few weeks.
Ashley cleared his throat again. He raised his fist and knocked on the wooden door of his flat.
“Not take a key?” Steve asked.
Ashley shook his head. He could feel his throat tightening as he kept his fist elevated at the door. “Don’t…don’t like it jangling around when I’m running.”
Steve laughed. Looked down at his feet. “Ah yeah. Running. That was it.”
Again, Ashley was completely unsure of what to say. Was Steve fucking with him? Did he know something? No. What was there to know? Ashley wasn’t hiding anything. Nothing at all.
“Bloody hell, that sister of mine. Takes her time, doesn’t she?”