by Luca Veste
Twelve
The WhatsApp message arrived as a ping of noise. Simply a notification on my mobile, which I glanced at, then ignored.
That’s how we live our lives now. A series of moments, interspersed with mobile phones vibrating or dinging away to let us know what is happening around the world. We’re instantly contactable. When the world ends, we’ll find out from a breaking news notification, I imagine.
I ignored it, thinking it was something as innocuous as a Sky or BBC news banner. An email from a sender I didn’t need to immediately check. A message from a friend that I didn’t immediately need to see.
I didn’t wonder when I’d changed from the Matt Connolly who would snatch up his phone at the slightest bit of noise. I can’t imagine being that way again.
Outwardly happy. Ordinary. Nothing special.
My phone buzzed on the desk – a call from Chris coming through. I ignored it, trying to concentrate on my work. I could call him back later.
You never know the moment your life changes forever. Not until later, when you can look back and pinpoint it. Say, that’s it – that’s when it all went wrong. Until then, you’re just battling against the tide. I sometimes tried to look back and see if there was something before that moment that predicted what was to come later. Some thread on the tapestry of my average life which had come loose, begun to fray, threatening to tear the whole thing down if something inauspicious was caught on it.
Memory is never the same for everyone.
An event happens and six people can experience it differently when they remember it later.
That’s what I feel. We all have a certain version of events in our heads. What happened and what our individual part in it was. We imagine ourselves as the hero. The one who made all the right decisions.
I remember the quiet.
I remember the hours afterwards, as I washed my hands again and again. Never able to make a difference to the way they feel. I was already changing the way it unfolded. I could feel myself doing it, but my mind was working alone.
I remember.
I think.
The cacophony of silence would lie there on the edge of my consciousness forever, I imagined. The blurred images, never crisp and clear. I could never escape the silence. It would always be with me, like a dark passenger.
It was already fading away a day or two after that night.
Becoming memory.
My memory.
Fractured.
I remember it in flashes. Every detail a little different each time. A millisecond of change that makes me question the whole. Sometimes I wonder if it happened at all. Whether I had dreamed the entire thing and that’s why no one would talk about it.
Then I remembered Alexandra’s face in the days that followed and know that couldn’t be the case.
I knew I could ask and find out for certain if what I remembered was reality or not. That would fill in some gaps. Large, open spaces of recollection that weren’t there.
Although doing that would take something from me. I was almost pleased to have something intangible of my own.
I would never ask the question. Chris was the only one who could, or would, answer me now. Alexandra was gone. Stuart had drifted away. Michelle was a stranger. Nicola . . . I’d rather not open that wound with her. She had been adamant from the beginning that we should never talk about it again.
Instead, I turn the flashes of memory into a narrative and write my own version. Every night a different outcome. Every night a victory.
And every night, that same crushing feeling of reality.
I didn’t need to wonder at when my life changed.
I lived it every single day.
It was when I killed someone.
I picked up my phone, saw the message waiting, then ignored it. Continued working for a short while, then sat back in my chair and looked outside to the garden. Earlier in the year, I’d been able to sit outside and work in the heat. Now, the leaves from a neighbour’s tree were lying on the ground, being whipped up by what I knew would be a biting wind. Magpies landed on the tree as I stared and I instinctively saluted.
It was late morning and the second cup of coffee was already wearing off. I’d slept fitfully the night before, which was the norm of course, but that morning I was still a little more tired than usual. I could feel the pressure in my temples, the stabs of pain behind my eyes, as looking at the flickering of a laptop screen began to grate after an hour or two.
The sound of music in my ears, emanating from the speakers on the almost-new laptop I’d bought on finance a few weeks earlier. I’d created a playlist of over four hundred songs twenty-four hours after it had arrived. A day of procrastination, as I put off some job or other. As long as there were enough songs, there would never be quiet again.
The message waited to be read.
Deacon Blue gave way to Childish Gambino, as I continued to type. An eclectic shuffle, even for the streaming app I’d downloaded. I wasn’t fast, but the words filled the screen at good enough tempo – mostly in the right order and correctly spelled. Working from home was the dream, no matter that it was becoming increasingly more difficult to find regular paid jobs. It was too easy now to build your own websites using templates and stock images. I had enough of a reputation by then to keep ticking along though. And some extra work was always available for someone who could do the fancy design stuff I could do.
My workspace was a little sparse, but I’d decorated it as best I could. A few framed posters on the wall, a bookcase holding the novels I’d read years earlier, the clothes maiden in the corner. It wasn’t a standard home office. Instead, I was in what should have been the dining room, but I’d converted it when I’d moved in a year earlier.
When we’d moved in.
My phone buzzed again on the desk so I stood up, taking the phone with me as I left the office/dining room, and entered the kitchen. Flicked on the coffee machine and began scrolling.
I didn’t read the message straight away, looking at what else my various apps had decided I needed to know about first. More bad reports from two different sources of news, a football manager’s thoughts on a previous game, a new friend request from someone I’d never heard of on social media.
I read the WhatsApp message as I stirred sugar into an already sweetened coffee. Dropped the spoon on the kitchen counter as the words began to blur and blend into one another.
‘Stuart . . .’ I heard myself say, before I placed the phone down next to the discarded spoon and leaned back, a hand across my mouth. I closed my eyes and shook my head.
It couldn’t be true.
The message had been scarce on detail, but it had said enough. Sent from Stuart’s mobile phone, but written by his sister.
Matt, it’s Stephanie, Stuart’s sister. I’m not sure if you’ve heard the news (and I think you would have been in touch if you had), but in case you haven’t, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. Stuart died suddenly last Saturday. I know you were friends for a long time, but you perhaps weren’t in touch with him lately. He’s had some issues, but this has still come as a shock to the family. The funeral is on Friday at 4 p.m. I know you were close, so it would only be right to have you and the rest of his oldest friends there.
It ended with details of where the funeral was taking place and more platitudes. I wanted to read the message again, but I knew it wouldn’t change at all. The details would still be the same. Outside, the magpies squawked at each other, but I didn’t salute this time. It seemed too late. The coffee was sitting untouched on the side, so I risked a swig to give me the energy to keep standing. My mouth burned a little at the taste, but I pretended it had given me a jolt of something.
I picked the phone back up and saw the missed call from Chris. Called him back.
‘Chris?’
There was a pause, an exhalation, then his voice came through. ‘Alright mate.’
‘Is this real?’ I said, knowing the answer already. Knowing Chris w
ould already know. I could hear it in the two words he’d said. We spoke often enough for me to recognise that. He was pretty much the only person I still spoke to, if I thought about it. At least that friendship hadn’t died yet. ‘I can’t believe it. Do you know what happened?’
‘I don’t know anything more than what you probably got told,’ Chris replied, tension in his voice. Sadness too. ‘I’m guessing there’s more to it, but I don’t know right now. I’m with you. Wasn’t expecting that at all. Unbelievable.’
I shaped to say something, but couldn’t find the words. Instead, I walked back into my sham of an office and sat down. ‘I didn’t even know he was ill or anything.’
‘I don’t think he was,’ Chris replied, a voice in the background talking, seemingly asking a question that was quickly shushed. ‘I’ve only just told Nicola. She’s as devastated as we are. We haven’t spoken to him since . . . well, it’s been a long time.’
‘Died suddenly – what do you think that means?’
‘Could be a number of different things . . . heart attack – not very likely at our age. Stroke, probably the same. Accident or something? I don’t want to think of the obvious . . .’
I brought up a new browser window and typed in the name. Looked at recent news reports, clicking on the first one that came up. ‘So, you haven’t heard from him at all lately?’
There was a pause, then Chris sighed again. ‘No. It’s been months. Not since he moved to that new job. He stopped replying to messages and voicemails. That must be about five months or so.’
‘More like eight or nine, I think.’
‘You?’
I shook my head, as I continued to read. ‘No, not for about as long. I was . . . I was leaving him to it, you know.’
The news report on the screen was a little sparse on detail, but it told me enough.
POLICE NAME MAN FOUND DEAD ON MERSEYSIDE RAILWAY LINE
‘I can’t believe we didn’t know sooner,’ I said, scrolling down and finding his name in the report. Seeing it there, in black and white, brought him to mind instantly. Not as I’d known him recently. When I’d first met him, aged eighteen and a curly mop of blond hair perched on a soft-featured face. The disarming smile. ‘It didn’t happen that long ago, but you know, still. All it says was he was found dead near the train line south of the city.’
‘Hit by a train?’
‘That’s what it says. Police aren’t treating it as suspicious. You don’t think he . . . you know? That’s usually the case when they say it’s not suspicious and hit by a train in the same article though.’
‘I hope not. He never seemed the type to do that to himself. I suppose we never really know what’s going on in people’s heads though. What they’re hiding and that.’
‘We should have known about this.’
‘It’s not like we kept in touch with him and whoever he was with lately,’ Chris replied, a defensive tone creeping into his voice. ‘We’ve all kinda moved on. Working hard and all that.’
‘Didn’t stop us keeping in touch, though.’
‘That’s different, you know that.’
I sniffed an agreement and tried to find more information online. I stopped when I realised it would probably take a little more than a simple Google search to find more. It could wait. ‘Seems like he was back in the area,’ I said, leaning back in my chair, rubbing my eyes with my free hand. ‘He was found close enough. It says they don’t think it was suspicious. You’d think if he was back around here, we would have heard something from him. It’s not like him not to want to see us.’
‘It’s been a tough time. Maybe he didn’t want to see us. Dredge up the past, you know.’
Silence grew as I turned over the details in my head. Before reading the message, I’d been planning on doing a few little jobs that needed sorting out – a new layout for a website that dealt with designing kitchens, a couple of proposals for some other clients – but now it seemed a redundant exercise.
‘Are you going?’ Chris said, and for a second I assumed he meant ending the call. Then I realised what he meant.
‘Of course, aren’t you?’
Another long sigh. ‘We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.’
‘We have to be there. He was our friend.’ Even as I said the words, I could picture Chris’s face. His roll of the eyes, small shake of the head. That was the way he always reacted when I was right – which with him wasn’t often. No acceptance. Just a roll and shake. That was his way. A small smile that you’d miss if you didn’t know to look for it. I’d known him for over twenty years, which was longer than anyone else in my life outside my family. He was more than just a best friend.
‘I just don’t know what to say to them. We never really met his family. And he never really talked about them.’
‘We knew him, mate,’ I said, feeling grief like a weight on my shoulders. It was waiting for its moment – a dark cloud of despair hanging over me. I tried to recall the last conversation we’d had. Whether there had been a remark or even a look that I had missed. It hadn’t been that long, but then, memory could play tricks on you. ‘That’s enough to . . . I don’t know . . . pay our respects to his family? We were close to Stuart. It’s only right.’
I waited to hear the inevitable snort of derision, but Chris was silent. Eventually he seemed to relent.
‘Okay, I’ll speak to Nicola. I’m sure she’ll want to be there too.’
And that was how it began. A simple message. A few lines about the death of an old friend. An invitation and a condolence.
Only, I knew as I sat back in my chair and tried to think about Stuart once more, that it seemed like I’d been waiting for something like this to happen.
Something that would bring us all back together.
I tried working, but couldn’t concentrate. Instead, I sat in my chair for a long time; wanting a cigarette – despite not smoking for well over a decade now – eyes closed but not falling asleep. Listening to music.
Waiting for tears that never came.
I stayed that way until I couldn’t ignore the hunger any longer. I ate a meal that contained more calories than I needed. Ran on the treadmill to burn them off. Watched television for a while, then went to bed.
Apart from the news about Stuart, it was a pretty normal day.
Thirteen
I slowly came to full consciousness, a voice purring softly from the outskirts of my mind. It was always the same way: a few moments that resemble panic, as my body protested about being awakened.
I’m lying in a bed. It’s a double. There’s a window to my right with dull winter morning light struggling to penetrate through the curtains. The noise was coming from the radio, which sat on the dark oak bedside table situated six inches from my head. Through sleep-encrusted eyes, I could see red numbers staring back at me. 8:00. I watched as it clicked over to 8:01 and closed my eyes again.
There was a moment when the dreamlike quality of the morning made me think for a second that I was still asleep. That I was still in the middle of the same nightmare I seemed to have every night.
The cold, the dirt, the blood.
I waited for the shove in the back, which would never come, to hit me. It was the same way every morning. The absence of something seemed to only make it more noticeable. I used to be a heavy sleeper – a bomb going off outside wouldn’t have stirred me. I would have made the worst guard dog this side of Cerberus. Now, I barely slept.
I remembered looking at the time when it had said 4:32 a.m. A noise from downstairs had made me stiffen. The now-familiar whirl of anxiety and worry quickly followed. When no one came up the stairs and murdered me in my bed, I must have finally fallen asleep.
Every morning was the same. The radio would go on, I’d wake up and promptly close my eyes again until my body would respond and move. Even against its protests of just a little more sleep.
Sometimes I would lie there for over an hour. Awake, but only conscious; the rest of me still refu
sing to move. I didn’t have that luxury that morning.
It was the day of Suart’s funeral.
It was the day I would possibly see everyone again. I’d seen Chris many times in the previous year and Nicola less often. The rest . . . the rest of them had become strangers.
Even Alexandra, I thought. I hoped she’d be there, but also felt nervous about the idea.
None of it mattered. Stuart was gone.
He had been my friend, but I hadn’t been much of one to him.
Since his sister’s message, I’d learned that, as I thought, ‘not being treated as suspicious’ was basically newspaper-speak for ‘he did it to himself’. I couldn’t imagine Stuart ending his life – not the Stuart I’d known, so surely it should have been suspicious.
Then I remembered the nightmare and realised I didn’t know any one of my friends as well I’d thought. Had no idea what any of them were really capable of anymore.
It meant the body had been released to the family and a funeral had been organised within a week. I guessed that his parents were religious and wanted to ease the path into paradise as much as possible.
I remembered a film about purgatory and decided if they were religious, I probably needed to stay away from them. I wouldn’t be able to deal with the barely constrained anger and sadness they’d hold.
Then, after, a gathering. A ‘wake’ of sorts. I hoped to be out of there by then. I don’t think I could cope with the platitudes and questions.
I wasn’t feeling like much of a friend that morning.
I crawled out of bed, showered and took the only suit I owned from the wardrobe while the towel was still wrapped around my waist. It was still in the plastic covering from when I’d had it dry cleaned after the last time I’d worn it. That was a year or more ago – some wedding in the family – and I hoped it still fit. I decided to put off the inevitable worry that would come of everything feeling a little looser than it had before and slipped on a pair of lounge pants and T-shirt, took a shirt from its hanger and went downstairs.