Fifteen Bones

by R. J. Morgan

  “No.” I looked at my trainers. “They’re mine. That’s why I have them on.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” We both laughed. “Tell you what else I like,” Isaac said, “that Jesse with is ’air down.”

  I laughed each time he said it but was surprised to find that it bothered me.

  That evening I convinced Isaac to come and see a film and afterwards we went back to my house, even though my parents were away. We came back in the dark and I became worried about gangsters hiding behind cars or lurking in gateways, so I walked down the middle of the road. Isaac joined me. I told him I’d liked the film and Isaac said he liked that Jesse with ’is ’air down. I told him shut up. I nudged him, and that was it.

  The car hit us. Two tonnes of metal versus two kids half the size of poor Matt Manson.

  I felt the cold ground and tasted blood. I watched the eyes of swerving taillights. I saw Isaac twisted in the road. I saw his eyes close. I saw the ambulance. I saw the paramedic hover over me, his eyes wide, saying, “Jesus.”

  I saw his parents, their mouths drawn in horror. They would never speak to me again.

  I really wished the doctors hadn’t told me he’d broken his neck. He was dead, but he was also broken, paralysed.

  I missed Shiva because I was in intensive care, and I didn’t get to say goodbye.

  The wind was wet. I stepped into the road. In my mind I had pushed him into the path of a car, but on this narrow road, any car would have hit both of us. Headlights grew behind us, the driver beeped and Robin stormed at him, “Back up. Back up! We’re busy!”

  “You back up!”

  “I’ll back UP YA LIFE!” Robin yelled. The driver backed down the road. I couldn’t help laughing at how quickly she calmed down.

  Kind Doctor Kahn once told me that the only other animals that commit suicide are dogs. She had seen it with her own eyes. She had asked me if I knew dogs were bilingual, and I said, yes, I knew that. Wild dogs don’t make that weeping sound when they cry; domestic dogs have learned to do it to communicate with humans. She said I was very clever for knowing such a thing. I said everyone knows that. She said very few people know that. She said that dogs find a way to express grief, but crying isn’t grief. They’re bilingual, did I understand? Yes, I said, dogs are highly evolved parasites, but she said that wasn’t the point she was trying to make, and I said talking about dogs killing themselves is a messed up thing to tell a depressive, because it’s probably the most depressing thing in the world and of all time.

  Dogs don’t really kill themselves. They waste away. I don’t believe everything people tell me.

  “I don’t think you believe everything people tell you,” Robin said.

  I flinched. “What was I saying?”

  “You speak to yourself all the time,” she said.

  I stretched out my legs and my knees clicked. I liked the sound.

  There was a sudden breeze. The rain stopped. I slowly walked back to the car and sat in the passenger seat.

  “Hard, innit,” she said.

  I nodded. “I lost everything.”

  “I know.”

  “Social Services got at me. My mum’s never forgiven me. They took me away from my family.”

  Robin climbed into the car. “Social Services don’t investigate kids, Jake. They were investigating your parents.”

  I looked at her.

  “They were trying to help you. You almost died because your mum and dad weren’t looking after you.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? Why should you take all the blame? They didn’t look after you. And they still don’t.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I swear I’ve never let anyone tell me to shut up as much as you have without punching them right in the face. But I’m telling you, Jake, your parents neglect you. And they might be ill or stressed or whatever, but they still have to look after you.”

  “You’ve only known me for a week. You don’t know anything about me and you don’t know anything about my parents.”

  “I knew in five minutes. Page one of the bad parent handbook: teaching a child criminal activity.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Obvious, innit.” She spread her hands out like a magician’s. “It’s why I can drive.”

  “Stop talking.”

  Robin started the car. “Leaving you to look after a baby, not providing enough food or a safe space, and being so neglectful they don’t even notice their child is … dying.”

  “Who’s dying?” I picked at the knees of my pyjamas.

  Robin reversed out of the road so as not to drive over the spot where Isaac was killed. I tried to contain my thoughts. It took so much concentration I couldn’t even blink.

  Robin smiled. “We could go Scotland if you want.”

  “We could go to Scotland,” I snapped. “To Scotland. You go to places.”

  “All right, we could go … to Scotland.”

  “Right, I’m going to drive to Scotland with someone who thinks Edinburgh is somewhere near Kent.” I shook my head. I could barely look at her.

  We turned out of Coldharbour Lane. Brixton was mine again, a living space, and I was grateful for that feeling. I began to feel sleepy, the lights in the car went off and Robin pulled over and looked anxiously in the mirror. “Shit, man, we gotta bounce.”

  “Why?”

  “I did nick this car.”

  “God, Robin! I’m not running through Brixton in my pyjamas.”

  “We won’t be the first,” she said, “and we won’t be the last.”

  “We can’t walk home,” I said. I thought about what I had said to Darscall, and I saw the fury in the Beast’s eyes as he looked down at me. “We can’t go home.”

  “What choice have we got?” Robin said.

  I stood cold in thought. There must be somewhere we could go but the world had become so small. She was right, we had no choice. We had to go back. “Jesus, Robin, we can’t go back there. It’s too dangerous.”

  “You got any friends, have you? Lovers? A secret set of parents squirrelled away somewhere? Who’ll sew your fucking socks and make porridge and listen to all your stupid problems or something? No, you don’t. No one does. This is how it is, Jake. You get the shit kicked out of you in a house you have to go back to. Welcome to the world.”

  “There … we could … we could try …”

  “Did Jake break? Did I break him? Yes, he’s broken.”

  “Will you stop your incessant jabbering for one second?” I pressed my hands to my mouth. The solution was unthinkable but we had no other choice.

  We walked to Isaac’s house. I hadn’t seen his family since the accident. I didn’t know if they still lived there. I didn’t know if they would retch upon seeing me, fly into anger, call the police, break down in sobs, or perhaps welcome me with open arms. I didn’t know.

  The house was nestled in a beautiful row of Edwardian houses on Shakespeare Road. The front door was a calm teal colour with a black knocker and I remembered how much I used to like this door. I put my hand to the knocker and froze. I couldn’t wake a peaceful house, return as a reminder of the horror they had endured.

  I looked at Robin, freezing and tired, took a deep breath and knocked. The lights came on and the door was opened by Rabbi Kaufman. He was just as I remembered him, large and bearded, with big arms and a broad smile, despite being woken in the dead of night.

  “We got lost,” I said.

  “Jake!” He drew me into a hug. “And who is this?”

  “Robin,” Robin mumbled.

  “Robin, how pretty,” the rabbi said as he ushered us in. “The bird of Thor! A majestic and fearless bird. How I love robins!”

  Robin smiled.

  “Jake!” Mrs Kaufman said from the top of the stairs. “Oh, is that you?” She was sli
ght and graceful still, with an incongruously loud voice. She didn’t look any older, but there was a darkness somewhere behind her eyes, a sadness, as if a light had been turned out. “Jake, you’re so thin. Joshua, look how thin he is. Well, I’ll get you something to eat right away. Look how thin you are.”

  “She thinks you’re thin,” the rabbi said. I smiled.

  “It’s not healthy,” she said. “It’s not good for a man.”

  “Leave the boy,” the rabbi laughed. “Do your mothers know where you are?”

  “Yes,” we said.

  We sat down at the kitchen table. Mrs Kaufman was already cooking. She handed us a cup of tea and a ham omelette each.

  “Thank you,” Robin said.

  “We don’t want to be any trouble,” I added.

  “What a pretty broach,” Mrs Kaufman said, looking at Robin’s spider broach.

  “Jake gave it to me,” Robin said. “It’s my favourite thing.”

  They cooed admiringly and drew lines between us with their eyes. “Are you … ?”

  “No, no,” I said.

  “No, no.” Robin’s eyes widened. “God, no,” she said, long after the point had been made. “No, no, no. God. Imagine. God, no.”

  Shoshana, Isaac’s sister, shuffled down the stairs, sleep slowing her movements. The last time I saw her she was an awkward, skinny kid with braces. Now she was long-limbed and curvy, with big curly hair and a glowing, beautiful face. “Sosh,” I said.

  “Jake,” she said, “what’s happenin’. You look terrible.”

  “Cheers,” I said. “You look nice.”

  “Yep, puberty has been quite a success. Nothing too drastic.” She clicked her teeth and pointed to her chest. “All present and correct.”

  Her parents laughed guiltily and looked away.

  “Well, congratulations,” I said.

  “Cheers,” she said. “Right, I’m going back to bed. I thought this was going to be one of your desperate converts with their mad eyes and dying ovaries.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” the rabbi chuckled.

  “Night-o.”

  “Was that Isaac’s sister?” Robin said. “She’s funny.” She read the sudden silence. “Sorry, should I not have said his name?”

  “No, no,” Mrs Kaufman said with a smile. “We say his name all the time. Isaac would have liked this. Isaac would have found that funny. Isaac would have…” She smiled but couldn’t keep talking.

  My hand wrapped over my mouth and I started to cry. It didn’t come with panic. I didn’t hallucinate or feel faint. Instead I felt the warmth of Mrs Kaufman’s hand rubbing my back. “We have certainly missed you, Jake.”

  “Don’t tell him he’s thin,” the rabbi said.

  “I wasn’t going to say that,” Mrs Kaufman said, “but look how thin he is! He needs looking after.”

  “Don’t start that again, mother dearest,” Rabbi Kaufman said with the gentlest of laughs. “He’s a fine young man.”

  We were ushered upstairs and Robin was shown into the spare room. Rabbi Kaufman asked gently if I would like to sleep in Isaac’s room. “We kept it the same,” he said, “but not in a creepy way.”

  He opened the door. All of Isaac’s things had gone but the brown furniture and the blue wallpaper and the mounted toy aeroplane I was always so jealous of were still there.

  As I climbed into his bed I sobbed a great deal, but I managed to keep quiet so I didn’t disturb anyone.

  It didn’t take long for Robin to scurry into the room and climb into bed with me. I wiped my eyes. “What do you think he meant when he was, like, don’t start that again?” I whispered. “She was, like, we need to look after him and he was, like, don’t start that again. Did you hear it?”

  Robin shrugged with one shoulder. “They tried to get custody of you.”

  I sat upright. “What?”

  “It’s in your mum’s stuff.”

  “Jesus, Robin, you’re like the world’s weirdest cat burglar. You’re like a gateway Jeremy Kyle.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Robin said. “We’re the same person.” She smiled and this immediately stopped any anger I felt.

  I ran my hand down the wallpaper with its tiny pictures of rodeo cowboys. “It is weird, isn’t it. He seems so young now.”

  “Nothing weird. It’s a tragedy. All you need to do is remember him in, like, a better way.”

  “I’ve been trying to.” I turned to her. “Since I got out of hospital I’ve been editing our stuff so it’s perfect. I’ve just got this one scene I can’t get right. I can’t edit this corpsing out. Look at it.”

  Robin watched the twenty-second clip. She laughed as Isaac so carefully approached the apple pie and again as my laughter cut across the soundtrack.

  “You should keep it in,” Robin said, “it’s funny.”

  “No, it ruins it.”

  “It doesn’t ruin it. I love it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Now, we need to get some sleep. I imagine I’m going to have to pretend to go to school tomorrow or else they’ll call Social Services. They seem like proper parents and all.”

  “They are. And they have normal conversations with their kids.”

  “I know!” Robin turned to me again. “Did you see that girl, just cracking jokes in front of her mum and dad like that? And she was fit. And she had nice skin.”

  “I know, and did you see how the kitchen was full of food and pots and pans and shit like that.”

  “I know, and did you see how there wasn’t no condensation on the windows or bits of food and shit all over the floor.”

  “I know, and guess what they do in the evenings?”

  “What?”

  “They all sit around and have a meal together. Every day.”

  “Every day?”

  “Every day. We should cut our losses and stay here.”

  “You should stay here. I bet they’d let you, and you don’t owe anything to some gang and you certainly don’t have to go to some sort of trial tomorrow and try and prove your own innocence.”

  Robin turned over. She was like one of those fairy-tale mirrors, you could only say so much before the face faded.

  “Don’t go to that meeting. If you got jumped I’d be really … I’d be really devastated.”

  “If I don’t go, I’ll lose face.”

  “But that’s better than losing your actual face, Robin.”

  She looked around the room and her breathing slowed. She turned and put her arm around me. It made me squirm but I let her. “You’re right,” she said quietly, “I won’t go.”

  “Good,” I said.

  The rain came down in sheets and I liked the way it sounded on the window. “Goodnight, Ise,” I said, and I was so thankful to not be trudging through the bowels of Brixton that I feel into a deep, peaceful sleep, and I didn’t wake until morning.

  The Kaufmans cobbled together uniforms for us from Isaac’s sister and brother, and from Isaac’s old shirts, which I still fitted into. I saw the rabbi glance at Mrs Kaufman to remind her to keep a lid on the things she desperately wanted to say.

  They drove us to school and Robin giggled as she walked towards the gate. “Check me out, going to school.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m getting my arse out of here before anyone sees me, then I’m going back to yours.”

  “It’s dangerous there.”

  “I’ll stay out of sight.”

  “CRK-K-K-K,” someone said excitedly as they pushed by. Robin dipped her head but then she looked up, slowly and suspiciously, in a way that made my stomach heavy. “Jesus.” Her eyes widened. “He wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to you.”

  “Robin, I can explain.”

  Sweat shone on her neck. I had never seen anyon
e become so angry, so quickly. “Talk fast before I slap that dumb look off your dumber face.”

  “Darscall was attacking me. It just came out. I just said that I knew the Beast and he left me alone. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Oh, you didn’t know what else to do? After everything we’ve been through, you thought you’d dabble in affiliating yourself? You’ve seen me being maimed by the crocodiles so you thought you’d dip a toe? Well, I’m going to have to go to that meeting now, aren’t I, because they’ll come after you like dogs on heat.”

  “No! God, no, you don’t have to do that.”

  “You stupid, ignorant cracker, you pasty t—”

  “Don’t call me a tourist.”

  “You—”

  “Don’t call me a tourist.”

  “Tourist,” she said.

  “I am not a tourist. I’ve been arrested. I’ve been in hospital. I am a danger.”

  “To yourself,” Robin wheezed. “You got arrested to save you from yourself. You know what happens to tourists? Here? Do you know?” She leaned in and spoke slowly. “They get cut open, hosted and sold for scrap, Jake. That’s what happens.” Her voice was low and slow, and so threatening I retreated a few steps. “I found the barbiturates you hide under your floorboard. I don’t even know how you got hold of them, but they’re gone, so now if you want to kill yourself you’ll have to do it with sleeping pills like everyone else, with a ninety per cent fail rate and in screaming fucking agony.”

  It left me so cold I couldn’t speak until she started walking away. “Robin, I’m sorry.”

  “Stop saying my name, you dick.”

  “You can’t go to that meeting, you don’t know who the snake is.”

  “No,” she held out one hand, “but I know what the youngs are up to in that pizza place.” She held out her other hand. “And I know what the Beast is up to –” she put her hands together “– and as soon as one finds out about the other…”

  I didn’t dare speak.

  “Pwcch!” she said. Her hands blew apart.

  “Robin, you can’t be serious. If you plan goes wrong and they catch you, they’ll eat you alive.”