Fifteen Bones

by R. J. Morgan

  Cold meat and rice would usually shudder down my throat like sick in reverse, but this felt like comfort, and I ate slowly, savouring the dancing flavours.

  “Where’s your mum anyway?” Robin said.

  “Who knows.” I pushed the box over to her. “Everyone’s buying in Norbury, and she’s waiting on a cancer patient.”

  “Charming,” Robin said. “Oh, my actual days, who gave you this? It ain’t paste.”

  “This … this girl at school. It was her birthday.”

  “You couldn’t lie down.”

  I smiled. She was too excited to interrogate me. It was tempting to tell her to just stop being so silly and force her to go outside. It was difficult to not think of gangs as something that only existed if you allowed them to exist, and that if Robin walked out of here, nothing would really happen to her. Gangs were like fairies, or voodoo: if you just stopped believing in them, they would go away.

  “Yeah, but Tinker Bell don’t usually come back and slash your face, you get me?”

  “Did I say that out loud?”

  “God, you’re weird.” Robin shook her head. “But I haven’t spoken to anyone in days so I’ll take what I can get, innit.”

  I looked up into the hatch and remembered Isaac’s camera. “Did the camera work?”

  Robin shook her head. “Nothing. Not a damn thing. He keeps everything out of view of the window.” She put her head in her hands. “There’s nothing from the pizza place either. I’ll never get anything against him.”

  “You’ve got the guys on camera dealing drugs,” I said.

  “There’s no use curing ninety-nine per cent of the plague when you only need one rat to infect everyone. But I’ll get him,” she added, looking up. “Even if I die trying.”

  By nightfall it was clear my parents weren’t coming back and Robin slept in their bed, until she changed her mind and climbed in with me. Man, she really did reek. My hair was shedding all over the place.

  “We’re like a pair of badgers,” she said.

  “Royalty,” I said and she laughed. “Robin, what’s going to happen to us?”

  “We have to keep everything normal. We have to lay low. You have to go school. We can’t risk Social coming round.”

  “Bloody social workers,” I said.

  “Social workers are amazing,” Robin said, and I immediately felt guilty and childish. “I can’t go to school, it’s Pip-Pop Day. I haven’t written anything for it.”

  “Pip-Pop? What the hell is that?”

  “Hip-hop but with poetry.”

  “Take one of them poems from your grey book, they’re well good.”

  “Stop looking through my stuff!”

  “I like your stuff,” Robin said.

  I struggled out of bed. The moon was a glow through the bedsheet curtain. I went through mine and Isaac’s stuff and found our projector. I hooked it up to my computer and aimed it at the sheet.

  “What are you doing?”

  I didn’t answer. I let the waltz play as the pale dancers dissolved on to the sheet. “The Royal Ballet,” I said. “It’s not live, but it’s good enough.”

  Robin reached for my hand and I sat beside her in bed. She touched the soft skin of my wrist, tracing the cuts on my arm until she reached the nine lines I’d scored into my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

  As Robin fell asleep on my shoulder, I couldn’t sleep thinking about what would happen to her.

  In the dead of night, I thought I heard a noise.

  My bedroom door opened and closed itself. I turned and heard the unmistakeable sound of a rake key.

  I pressed my hand over Robin’s mouth. The house creaked as heavy footsteps treaded the floorboards downstairs.

  “Someone’s here,” I whispered.

  I took my hand from her mouth and she rolled out of bed.

  A noise came from the stairs. Robin stood on the chair and pointed desperately at the window. I refused to go. As the footsteps came nearer, she relented and hauled me into the attic. She closed the hatch without a sound. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the window let in enough moonlight to see her face. Her eyes were wide; her fist was pressed to her teeth.

  My rabbit heart beat into the floorboards. At my feet were smashed bricks, the chest, and the discarded pickaxe.

  We heard doors being opened, one by one, then footsteps entered my bedroom.

  Robin looked at me and drew wild circles around her face to say: Do not let him see you.

  I felt him stop and look around. A knock came on the hatch, once, twice. Another knock. I heard him drag something across the floor. Another knock: small, as if made with a knuckle. He threw open the hatch. Robin scrambled away. I grabbed the pickaxe and swung at him with a great yowl. I missed and planted the axe in the floorboard, barely missing my own stupid foot.

  “Who the hell are you!” he yelled as I toppled backwards. “Get down here!” He balanced on the chair but couldn’t lift his weight into the hatch. He swatted at us like a caged bear. “That dizzy bitch is up there, ain’t she?” He took another swipe.

  “Leave us alone, Marcus,” Robin said.

  “You better show yourself at the meeting, Robin.”

  “They’ll kill me, Marcus.”

  “I’ll drag you there myself. I’m not taking a hit for you.”

  He climbed down from the chair and out of sight. I heard a small whirr, like the winding of a clock. He appeared beneath the hatch once again, playing with a lighter.

  “I will smoke you out, Robin.” He flicked the lighter. “One … two…”

  Robin prised the pickaxe from the floorboard and aimed it at his head. “Put that down.”

  “Don’t, Robin,” I said.

  He grinned up at me. “You’re going to let her do the dirty work, are you? Just like your granddad,” he said, “soft as shit. He used to do everything I told him to as well.” Robin shot me a glance.

  “Shut up,” I said. My voice was squeaky.

  The Beast roared with laughter. “Who’s this queer, Robin? Scraping the bottom of the barrel. Christ.”

  “Don’t talk to him like that,” Robin said, adjusting her aim. “I got you right between the eyes.”

  “You en’t got the balls for it.” With a great yell, he heaved himself up and grabbed her ankle.

  She fell to her knees, raised the pickaxe, swung, and plunged it into his shoulder. He yowled and stumbled from the chair. He pulled the axe from his shoulder with a piercing cry. The axe left a deep, bloody crevice. He staggered across the room, disorientated by pain and rage, and hit the window. He rolled in agony against the windowpane. I looked at his huge shoulders, his barrel stomach, and his handprints, bleeding across the sheet. The glass wouldn’t hold his weight. I let out a cry but it was too late. The glass shattered and fell from the wall. The Beast stumbled, seethed, and fell to the garage roof with a smash.

  We climbed down from the attic and edged to the window. The Beast was howling and squirming on the roof. Robin grabbed my arm and mouthed, “Run.”

  We ran from the house and down the long road. Robin turned down a narrow side street and I followed. She stopped suddenly and leaned against a car. The door opened. She looked wildly around to see if anyone was watching us.

  “What are you doing?”

  She slid into the car.

  “You know how to steal a car?” I said as she flung the passenger door open.

  “Oop,” she said, reaching under the seat for the keys, “racist.”

  The engine revved. I panicked. “Do you know how to –” we screeched off and sped down the road, “– drive?”

  There was no response.

  I strapped myself in. “Slow down, we’ll get stopped.”

  “Slow down and we’ll get caught. What were you thinking!” she screamed. �
��I have a plan, Jake.”

  My knees locked together. “I’m going to have a heart attack.”

  “Well, that’s one way out.”

  “Robin. We have to call the police now.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve done terrible things. I’m guilty. I’m an accessory. Every night, I’ve gone out running, running until I want to die, cutting my feet, throwing up. I throw up in my dreams. It’s like I’m throwing up concrete. It’s killing me. Being pure evil. It slayed me. It’s like it’s killing me.”

  I nodded and wanted to tell her that I understood but I couldn’t find the words.

  The engine screeched like a wounded animal. We sped past the park, the boarded-up shops, the underpasses. At the lights, Robin braked so hard we lifted out of our seats.

  “He knows who you are?”

  “I … think he must do.”

  She slammed her hands on the wheel. “­—you stupid cracker!”

  “I wasn’t thinking.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “Don’t … just don’t panic,” I said a little louder. “Don’t panic. We’ll get nowhere by panicking!”

  “Hush up, will you? You’re like a horse.”

  “Horse?”

  “Horses are scared of everything.”

  “I’m scared of horses.”

  Robin rolled her eyes. “Jesus.”

  “We could tell the police now.”

  “That’s our house, Jake. My mum lives there. I’m not telling the police nothing until I catch him out on a deal with his stupid, stupid gang.”

  “Robin, slow down. You’re going to hurt someone.”

  “I know exactly where we’re going,” she said, her fingernails white on the steering wheel.

  We drove down a long road that had been carved through a housing estate. The roads became wider, the shops smaller, the traffic heavier. The old buildings were beautiful and the new ones ugly. The streets were alight and alive.

  Brixton.

  “Robin, you are sick. You’re a sick, sick person. Don’t you dare stop here.”

  “What happened here?” She took the left turn so sharply I had to grab the dash. “What happened?” She screeched left again. “You’re a zombie, you know that? I see you. I see you in your sleep. Crying, kicking and screaming. You’ve got the devil about you. You’re dead inside.”

  I turned to throw up, but my body was too weak to do it.

  “What happened here?”

  The knives came out, screaming down my face. I fought them before I realized they were my own godforsaken hands. My hands. They’ll be the death of me. They belong to someone else.

  When I woke up to myself my face was burning and Robin had stopped the car. Her lips hung as she breathed through her nose, her neck expanded, her shoulders braced. I got out and slammed the door. This was worse, because I was alone and in the middle of Brixton. I put my hand on the street sign and threw up over the scrap of grass. My sick was acid, and throwing up felt like setting myself on fire. I let out a guttural wail that brought Robin rushing out of the car.

  “Oh my God, Jake, what happened?” Her face was ashen. “What happened?”

  She crouched beside me and held my shoulders, shaking them with her strong hands to make me look at her. When I finally looked into her eyes, she was crying. “Jake, tell me what happened here.”

  “Are you crying?”

  “Jake, what’s wrong with you? What happened to you?”

  “Nothing happened to me.”

  “Jake.”

  “This is none of your business, Robin.”

  “But why are you so miserable all the time?”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “Why are you so ill?”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “Why don’t you eat?”

  “Because,” I said, trying to get away.

  “Because, why?” she pleaded. “You can write your sketches and your jokes. You can make a name for yourselves, you and Isaac. Go to Edinburgh one day.”

  I shook my head. “We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  I shook my head.

  “Jake, you can’t give up on yourself. You can work this out. You can do anything you want.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  “Isaac,” I said. “Isaac is dead.”

  Robin pressed her hands to her mouth. “How?”

  “A car hit us,” I said. “He died and I survived.”

  “Jake,” she said softly, “is that where you got that scar?”

  “If it wasn’t for the paramedic –” I shook my head “– I would have died too. I was screaming, ‘Help him, help him.’ Isaac was in the middle of the road. He was twisted up and the paramedic was, like…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. All I said was the truth. “I hate that I survived.”

  “Well,” Robin said calmly, “you didn’t, did you?”

  “Don’t talk to me.” I went to the car. “What do you know about anything?”

  Robin followed me. “Do you think it was your fault?”

  “I know it.”

  “Jake, he was old enough to look after himself.”

  I shook my head and got in the car. “He was only eleven.”

  “Eleven?” Robin said as she got in the driver’s seat. “But I thought you were in school together?”

  “We were. We were inseparable.”

  “So he was younger than you?”

  “No,” I said.

  Robin was quiet. She seemed to be watching the lights of the cars, her eyes flitting back and forth. “This happened four years ago?”

  “Four. Almost five,” I said.

  “You’ve been like this for five years?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Where did it happen?”

  I shook my head.

  “You should go there.”

  “Not in this lifetime.”

  “In counselling they take you to the place where it happened, so you can see what actually happened, not what you think happened.”

  “I know what I think. I’m sick of people telling me what I think or what I’m supposed to think.”

  Robin started the car. She tapped something into her phone.

  We turned into a small dark street lined with brownstone cottages. The car stopped and I pressed back into my seat in horror, speechless and unable to fight for myself.

  “You … had better turn this car around.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Jake.”

  “You had better turn this car around, I swear to God.”

  “It wasn’t your fault he died, Jake.” Robin got out. She went around the car and opened my door. “You didn’t push him.”

  “What are you talking about?” I pulled at the lock on the door.

  “You didn’t push him,” Robin said. “I need you to say it.”

  “You knew all that already? You read my stuff.”

  “I just wanted to read your poems and then I found everything else.”

  I didn’t know why she was so upset. All I knew is that I had scarcely been so angry.

  “Please come and see the road.”

  I clamped my eyes shut and thought of all the things she must have read. All my poems, all my prayers, my suicide notes. I couldn’t fight her as she dragged me out of the car. “Jake,” she said calmly, “you asked me to do this. You asked me to not let you end up like your granddad. All alone. Just an empty shell of a man. You looked me in the eye and you said, ‘Don’t let me end up like this.’”

  “God, I didn’t think you’d take it seriously,” I mumbled.

  “You talk about Isaa
c like he’s still alive. Like he’s just angry with you or something. You keep calling him.”

  “I do not.”

  “You talk to him. I’ve heard you.”

  “I do not.”

  “You do, Jake.” Her voice quavered and I couldn’t stand that she might cry again. “Why do you think he’s going to answer you?”

  “I don’t. I’m not insane. I was there. I saw him die.”

  “But why do you call him? Why do you think he’s going to answer?”

  I took a breath. “Because it can’t have happened.” I scratched my patchy head. “I know it happened. I’m not mad. It’s just illogical. Why would he have died? We had things to do. He was the nicest person on Earth. And I’m not saying you can’t die if you’re nice but I’m just saying it doesn’t happen, that’s all.” I stopped and tasted the cold air. I had never heard that thought out loud.

  I looked out at the road. It was the strangest feeling, like shrinking. The road boiled to a sudden stop. I traced the tarmac until I was sure I was looking at the spot where he fell. I held out my hand. People walked down it every day and had no clue that the ground had opened up here and killed the one person who made the world bearable.

  And she was right: the road was much smaller than I remembered.

  The air was ice. My ribs and throat ached. My palms, rough, scraped at my cheeks.

  In drama club, a boy called Jesse, a beautiful kid by anyone’s standards, was wearing his hair down when he usually had it up in a girly ponytail. I’d often looked at him and wondered what it would be like to stroll around looking like a perfume ad. You wouldn’t want for anything your whole life. Girls would ask you out. Imagine.

  In a daze and without any thought I said to Isaac, “I prefer him with his hair down.” Talking to Isaac was like talking to myself. It was so natural I did it without thinking.

  Isaac turned, slow, beaming. Delighted. “Ooooh,” he lisped in an effeminate voice, “you like ’im wiv ’is ’air down, is it?”

  The teacher gave us a glare. “Shuddup,” I said.

  But it continued all lesson.

  We were in pairs, improvising a set where someone accuses someone else of stealing their shoes and wearing them.

  “Uh, those are my shoes,” Isaac said.