The Day She Died

by Catriona McPherson

  “Don’t they stink?”

  “Honk to hell,” said Gizzy, “so I’m stuck with it.”

  She stood showed me the face of the cloth she’d been holding against the floor. It was the dark grey of a drowned mouse.

  “Pigs,” she said. “Filthy pigs.” Then she turned the cloth over to the clean side and started on the nooks and crannies of the fireplace wall.

  It wasn’t so bad. Bit of bog roll for the toilet seat instead of the cloth of horrors and I could just about believe that I was really cleaning. And it was nice to think of the families rolling up here next week for half-term, kids hitting the beach with their buckets and spades, grannies and granddads sitting on the benches in ten layers of fleece, watching them. And nothing that any of the last lot had left behind made them out to be filthy pigs, as far as I could see. I found shells and dried seaweed (nothing worse, thank God) in the bedside drawer in one van. Cleared them away and hoovered the sand out, but I lined them up on the outside sill of the big end window. Only wished there was a starfish to prop there too. I took the soy sauce sachets and half-empty ketchup bottles out of the cupboards like Gizzy had told me—“no one wants secondhand cup-a-soups,” she’d said. I laid out the trays with the two shortbread biscuits, two teabags, two nondairy creamers, and three paper straws of sugar: the Warm Scottish Welcome, it was called in the leaflet, and I folded the ends of the toilet rolls into points and stuck them with gold labels embossed Where the sand meets the sea, which was bound to make you start thinking about where the sewage emptied every time you unpeeled one.

  Then I came to Moormist, one of the vans up the back near the trees. The living room was neat and bare, but there was a stack of shortbread, creamer, and teabags in the fruit bowl on the breakfast bar. There was a toothbrush and razor in a cup in the bathroom, and a pyramid of nearly finished bog rolls on the cistern. And though the main bedroom was empty—beds smooth, blinds down—in the tiny room at the end of the passage, like quarters on a submarine, one of the four bunks was being slept in.

  It was heaped with blankets, piled high with pillows, and on the floor at its side was a book—a diary, it looked like with its black vinyl cover—and a necklace. Except the diary wasn’t a diary at all, it turned out when I went back for a closer look. It was a printed book, old-fashioned, thin paper, tiny wee writing—not English—and it had a bookmark in it.

  When I saw what the bookmark was, I turned to stone. A strip of photo-booth pictures, just the same as the ones I’d seen before. The two of them, arms around each other, eyes shining, big grins. It looked like love to me.

  But what did it mean? If this was Ros’s book and necklace, if this was her hideaway, why had she not cleaned up after herself before she left? And why did she need a hideaway at all, if she had accommodation? I thought of an answer immediately. If Steve was right, it was easy: she needed somewhere to meet Becky. But why would they not use a bigger bed than that bunk then?

  I cleaned and straightened, dished the nest back out between all four bunks, put the cup back in the kitchen and the razor and toothbrush (for her to sweeten her breath and shave her legs?) in the black bag I was dragging round with me.

  I stuffed the three cloths—reeking now—back in the bucket, hefted it and the Hoover down onto the grass and then, with the bin bag over my arm and Ros’s book and necklace in my other hand, I stepped into the darkness.

  I was crouched over between the Calor bottle and the rubbish bin, turning the water back on, when I heard someone running towards me, heavy footsteps and ragged breathing coming through the dark. I thought it was Gus, looking for me. My mind leapt to the kids, the cops, some new disaster, but the outline of the figure was wrong. I crouched lower, pulling myself into the shadows, and heard him jump up on the metal step to pound on the door.

  “Jaroslawa!” he whispered. “Jaroslawa!” And then a stream of words. Polish words. It was Kazek. Maybe he knew that this was Ros’s hangout, and when he’d seen the lights on, he thought she was back again. I kept as still as a corpse, scared to move in case the bin bag crackled.

  “Jestes tam?” he was saying, weeping and raging at the closed door, his voice a rasp. Maybe he was the reason she went away. Maybe he was off his head or his meds and he drove her away from her job with the flexible hours and her friend who needed her. He was sure as hell frightening me.

  He had stopped talking, stopped pounding. I think he turned and slid down the door; I heard his trainers squeak on the metal grid of the step anyway. He was less than five feet away. If I put my eye to the gap between the gas bottle and the van wall, I could see him. Then I thought—if I could see him, he could see me! And I dropped my head, letting my hair fall forward to hide my face.

  But still something was gleaming, shining bright and pale on the ground beside me. I reached for it and pulled it into my lap. Ros’s book. The pages were edges with silver and suddenly I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t known as soon as I clapped eyes on it at her bedside. A soft black leatherette book with silver-edged pages? It was a Bible. And not a necklace either, but a rosary.

  I stood, without thinking.

  “Kazek?” I said.

  He started and his boots scraped loud on the steps. “Jaroslawa?” he said, standing.

  “No, sorry, it’s me.” I walked towards him. “But you’re right, you know. She didn’t go home. Look.” I held the book and the beads out towards him and he snatched them from me, kissing them and speaking hurried, wretched words.

  “You,” he said at last, raising his head. “Help me?”

  Fifteen

  Which shows what a Sherlock I am. I’d got just about everything wrong that I could have so far. But I was right about one thing: Kazek was scared shitless, and scared people aren’t scary.

  “Jaroslawa?” he said, like a cracked record. “Dead, jess. You try make happy not cry. Good woman.”

  And just like that, it made sense. He hadn’t meant to say, Hey, my girlfriend’s gone, but you could take over, sweet cheeks. He meant, It was kind of you to say she wasn’t dead and stop me grieving. Thank you.

  “It’s too complicated,” I told him. “I thought you meant Becky. She’s dead. I never meant that Ros was. I’m sorry.” But, of course, he didn’t understand me. Anyway, he had moved on.

  “You?” he said and pointed to the bucket and the Hoover, both lying on their sides on the grass, I could smell the stink of the pine cleaner; the lid must have been loose and now it was seeping away. “Key?” he asked, miming, pointing at the door.

  I opened it. If he needed to see for himself, that was all right by me. But he didn’t go round calling her name and searching for her. He went straight to the kitchen, dragging a chair, climbed up and felt along the top of the cabinet, down behind the cornicing and pulled out a packet wrapped in a Morrison’s bag with the bunny-ear handles tied together to keep it secure. He kissed this too, like the Bible, and held it against his chest for a minute; then he climbed down and put the chair away.

  “Oh, right!” I said. This wasn’t Ros’s place after all! I opened the bin bag and fished about until I found the toothbrush.

  “Thank you,” said Kazek and put out his hand.

  “No!” I pulled it back and dropped it in the bag again. “God, that’s vile.”

  “Jednorazowka?” he said, scraping a finger down his face, through the beard.

  “Yeah, but it’s filthy,” I told him. “You’d get germs.”

  He was still staring at the bag, like he really wanted that manky old toothbrush and Bic back.

  “Where’s the rest of your stuff?” I said. I pointed to his coat and trousers, mimed folding clothes. He shrugged and held out the legs of his jeans showing them to me. “That’s it?” I said.

  He held out his arm to me, slapping the thick fabric of his jacket sleeve. It was sturdy, right enough, solid in fact, but it had shrunk and buckled, and it was too tight a
cross his back to button closed. Not really that warm then. And not waterproof either: the fake leather bit across the shoulders was cracked and flaking, as if it had been …

  “Oh Jesus!” I said. “You borrowed that tumble drier in the carport down there?”

  “Jess,” he said. “Tumble dry!” He swept an imaginary cloak—

  tarpaulin, in fact—around himself with a crackling noise. Then he shrugged and smiled at me. “Nie chce znowu zmoknac?” he said, and even though he didn’t mime I knew what he was asking from the look on his face, sheepish and hopeful. He wanted to stay in the caravan, like Ros used to let him do. But Ros did the books and she knew when the vans were free. For all I knew, Moormist would be full of kids in wetsuits by tomorrow.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But here.” I took out my wallet and gave him a twenty.

  “Thank you, jess,” he said.

  “Jessie,” I said, pointing at my chest.

  He laughed again. “Jessie-Pleasie!” Then he took a last look round the van and headed towards the black square where the door stood open onto the night.

  “Hang on,” I told him. I was 85 percent sure this was okay. “You can come back to the house.” It took a bit of miming, but he got it eventually. Started shaking his head as soon as he understood what I was trying to say.

  “No way,” he said. “No tell Gus King. No way, José.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  And he treated me to another long splurge of slow, loud Polish that might as well have been whale song. But I had another plan anyway.

  “Wait here then. Ten minutes.” I held up both my hands. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Any problems?” said Gizzy. She was at her desk in the office, and it might have been my imagination, but it looked like her desk lamp was turned so the light hit the water metre square on. She’d have seen that I hadn’t been tempted then.

  “No, fine,” I replied. “Do I chuck these cloths now or wash them?” One look at her face told me all. “I’ll just rinse them then.” I planned what to say while I stood at the sink, wiping the bucket, squeezing the cloths. “It’s lovely here,” I said when I returned. “I suppose you’re full up for half-term next week, though?”

  “All but one,” she said. “How?”

  “My friend from work was talking about getting away with her grandkids. Not far, just a break. A view of the sea, she said.”

  Gizzy was clicking through screens on her laptop. She spoke absentmindedly. “Sea views are the first to go,” she said. “The one that’s left’s a woodland setting.” There were a few trees up the back near Moormist right enough, but a woodland setting was stretching it.

  “Is it you who thinks up the names?” I said. “That’s lovely: woodland setting.”

  She looked over the tops of her specs. “That’s not the name of the van. The van’s called Foxleap. You should have been checking the list by name. Oh my God, I might have known it was too good to be true, you waltzing in just when I … ”

  “Aye, aye,” I said. “Sundown, Cliffview, Moormist, I know. So I’ll see you tomorrow, eh? I’ll just head off home then.” I scuttled away before she could tell me to leave the master key.

  He was right where I’d left him, waiting huddled in his shrunk jacket, still holding his Bible and rosary. He followed me as I crept about with my torch, peering at the van signs, trying to stay on the quiet velvety grass and keep off the gravel where our footsteps crunched loud enough to drown out the sound of the sea. Foxleap, when we finally found it, was nicely tucked away—I suppose that’s why it was empty—and I was pretty sure no one heard me turn the key and ease the door open. Inside, it was the usual monument to beige, but Kazek looked around it like he’d just checked into the Ritz. Then he turned to me and spoke really slow and quite loud, as if maybe I’d understand Polish if I just would give it a go. He raised the Bible and waved it in my face, holding it so tight that it bent into a curve, trying so hard to tell me something he wanted so much for me to know.

  “Wasting your time with me, pal,” I said. “I’ve had it shoved so far down my throat I could shit it. Didn’t work then, won’t work now.”

  “English,” he said. “I try. Jaroslawa no leave me. Never. No way. Wojtek no leave me. Never no way.”

  “Who?” I said.

  Kazek opened the Bible at the front cover and showed me the two words printed there. Wozciech Zajac.

  “Gone,” he said. “Bad man. Frighten.”

  I looked at the words and back at his face.

  “Let me get this right,” I said. I pointed to the Bible and then to Kazek, raising my eyebrows. He shook his head, pulling faces. Then he did a mime that that would have made my mother drop dead if she’d seen him. He put his hands out to the sides and let his head loll, pretty good crucifixion pose, then he rolled his eyes and blew a raspberry. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He jabbed his finger at the two words and then held his hands together in prayer.

  “Right,” I said. “This is somebody else’s? That’s his name written there? Wozzy … ”

  “Wojtek.”

  “Got it. Where is he?”

  “Gone,” said Kazek. “Bad man.” Then he gave up and broke into Polish again.

  “But you kissed it,” I said. “I’m confused.”

  “Confused,” said Kazek. “No shit, Jessie-Pleasie.” I laughed again. He was weird, filthy, stank like a dead dog, had scared me badly twice, and was probably going to lose me my job in the next day or so—but I liked him. Even when nothing made any sense at all, I felt like I knew where I was with him.

  “So, Ros?” I said. “Jaroslawa? And you?” I made a kissy noise and fluttered my eyes.

  “No!” said Kazek. “No way. Friend, jess? Friends.”

  “So tell me this then.” I took the photo of Ros and Becky back out of the Bible. “Ros and Becky?” More kissy noises.

  He raised his eyebrows, thinking about it, then shrugged. “Nie wiem,” he said. “Maybe. She is dead? Dead, Becky, jess?”

  “She is,” I said. “She killed herself. Ros went away and Becky killed herself. And now you need to move on, right? Find a new place. You can have a couple of nights here, but then you have to go.”

  He shook his head. “No way Jaroslawa leave me. Friend, Jessie-Pleasie. No way.”

  “Why are you talking like Tarzan and Jane?” said Gus. It was gone nine by the time I got home. Home! Back to the cottage, finding him in the kitchen, polishing shoes, newspaper spread all over the table. Paolo Nutini on the Fisher Price tape deck. I’d said: “Hiya. Missed you. Tea? Hungry?” Now I laughed.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said to him. “I will speak in whole sentences from now on, like I’m sitting an oral English exam.”

  “Aye, whole sentences of total mince,” he said. “How’d it go?”

  Obviously the thing to mention was finding the Bible and meeting the crazy guy, sneaking him into an empty van, and lying to my boss. That was the headline news of my first day. But I couldn’t forget the definite sound in Kazek’s voice. No tell Gus King. No way. And I couldn’t imagine how Gus would take it, anyway. Would it be like the bathroom bin? Like the baby monitor? One more way to piss him off and have him tell me I hadn’t and change the subject and play the Becky card until I couldn’t tell up from down? I shook myself. Where the hell had all that come from? What I meant was I was probably going to piss him off anyway when I started in on Ros and Becky, so why piss him off for no reason too.

  Instead, I told him about Gizzy and the water-free cleaning, about the woodland setting and the warm hospitality and he listened and smiled, still working away at Dillon’s shoes with a toothbrush, cleaning right into the stitching.

  “Sorry,” I said, in the end. “You must have heard this before. From Ros, I mean. Or passed on from Becky.”

  He kept on scrubbing, but his smile fell away. “
Ros didn’t hang out with me,” he said. “And Becky didn’t tell me anything. I was a spare leg with that pair, Jess.”

  Which was a brilliant opener to what I wanted to say. The kettle was nearly boiling, and I took the chance to steel myself, have a quiet pep talk, plan how to deal with him going bananas if it turned that way.

  “This is just a thought,” I said. “It wasn’t even mine. It was Steve at work.” He looked up. “Is there any chance that Becky and Ros were more than just friends?” The red started under his sweatshirt collar and climbed his neck in splotches. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from it. “Cos,” I went on, “I know things weren’t great between you and that might explain why Ros would take off—a breakup, you now—and that might explain why Becky could get so bothered about her leaving too. And maybe the reason she … ran around—sorry; that’s not a very nice thing to say—was because she didn’t want to think she was what she was, and maybe the reason she didn’t take the pill or whatever was like some kind of denial too? And Steve even said that she might have had trouble with the idea of babies and it might explain the depression.”

  There was a long silence. The toothbrush moved slower and slower until it stopped. He put Dillon’s shoe down beside the other one and lined them up like for inspection in the army.

  “Who’s Steve?” he said, at last.