by Sarah Wray
‘Fuck off, dickhead! Why don’t you get a job and some money? Then come back and take the piss out of me, yeah? And you’re not complaining when you get free stuff out of it, are you?’
‘Look.’ I need to change tack, stop this escalating. ‘I just want you to leave me alone. Stop coming to my home. There’s nothing I can do. I’m truly sorry for what’s happened. It’s terrible but it isn’t my fault.’
No answer.
‘And stop following me and calling me. Or I will go to the police.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself, love. No one’s following you. You’re not that important. I’m pretty sure you’ll be hearing from the police again yourself soon.’ Paige laughs and looks round but no one else is laughing this time.
‘Oh boo hoo,’ says Paige, putting her face close to mine.
‘Leave it, P. Please just leave it, yeah?’ Kat puts her hand on Paige’s arm.
‘Why should I leave it? Why should I? And why are you crying?’ The last question is directed at me. Paige’s shoulder is pulled back like she’s thinking about hitting me. ‘You didn’t know Kayleigh. What’s it to you all of a sudden?’ She waits for an answer.
‘How can it not be anything to me after all this, the past few weeks and months? How can it not? You’ve made it about me!’ I realise I am pointing.
‘Yeah, well, like I said, you don’t know her, so don’t talk about her, yeah? It’s none of your business.’
A low voice from the back of the group, barely discernible. ‘Says you.’
Silence.
Paige slowly turns her head around to the side. ‘You fucking what?’ Her face is an ugly grimace, the branch of a tree casting a shadow across it, fracturing her features.
Kat is breathing quickly, panicky. I can see white clouds puffing from her mouth. ‘Please-please-please just leave it. Everyone just stop it.’ She stares straight down at her feet, shuffling them from side to side.
The voice, a boy, less aggressive. ‘You’re causing all this drama, Paige, but you’ve only just started hanging out with us this year. We’ve grown up with her. So let’s just leave it, yeah? Kayleigh’s still gone, and well, it don’t look good, does it, after today, and none of this is going to change it. She don’t need this and neither do we.’
I can’t tell if ‘she’ is me or Kayleigh.
‘Oh, shut the fuck up, dickhead! Was she your girlfriend or something? Or did you just want her to be?’ But there’s a tone to Paige’s voice. Something has struck a chord.
‘He’s jealous of your husband.’ She gestures back with her thumb, coming towards me again.
The boy starts to walk away, back towards the swings. ‘She might have been dragged from the river today. Show some fucking respect, Paige.’
I can see him shake his bowed head, kicking his feet into the ground. Kat follows him in silence and the others start to drift towards their friends, murmuring among themselves. They’re not interested in me anymore, and they’re backing away from one of their own.
Quietly, I address Paige so the others can’t hear. ‘I saw you at the beach, remember. I haven’t forgotten.’
She takes a step towards me but then stops.
I go right up to her, can feel her breath on my face. ‘Just leave me alone, Paige. I don’t want any trouble, but just leave me alone.’
I walk away, reluctant to turn my back, but I have to do it anyway. I’m getting away. It’s over. Then, something wet hits the back of my head. I reach up; it’s just a clod of earth, wet and slimy.
‘Pisshead,’ I hear her say. I realise I am snaking from side to side when I walk. But I haven’t been drinking at all. I just need to lie down.
I look back and Paige is already walking away, back towards the group. I can’t hear any of them speaking now. They’re disappearing into the darkness again.
Thirty-Two
Monday, 16 November
I try to open my eyes, but there’s only a chink of light getting in somehow. I can’t see anything but bright white. I wonder momentarily if I am dead or dying, and a panic sets in. A hand on mine, soft and warm; in an instant I have time to process that it’s a woman’s hand. Not Chris’s.
But I still delay opening my eyes. I must have been drinking, fallen asleep at Mum’s. Another of the carers at Mum’s home must have come in. I can feel that my legs are bare and I am under the covers. I’ve gone too far. My hand instinctively goes to my head and there’s fabric there, a bandage.
‘Becs, it’s me, Jeannie. Everything’s OK. You’re in the hospital but I’m here with Julie. From the caravan park.’
I open my eyes and try to prop myself up on my hands, but the light’s too bright and my head is throbbing.
‘Shhhhh, you need to rest,’ says Jeannie. The figures emerge now.
‘What’s going on?’ I finally manage to say. I see Julie wincing at me. My face must be a mess.
‘Well,’ Jeannie looks at Julie for reassurance. ‘I think you, er, fell. Well… we don’t know. That’s what we need to establish, but Julie found you near the entrance to the park and you were unconscious, on the ground.’ She puts her hand to her mouth, restraining tears.
‘How are you feeling, love?’ Julie offers me one of the plastic cups of tea that she’s holding in her hands. I refuse, but Jeannie has already jumped in to try to stop me taking it.
‘A bit soon, I think.’ I force a weak smile.
I’m able to pull myself up a little better now, pushing through the pain to get upright. Jeannie fusses and plumps the pillow.
‘What happened?’ She’s staring intently at me, waiting for an answer, giving me no space to think. I remember now, being at the park with Paige and Kat, and the other teenagers, then walking home. Arriving at the caravan park.
The fog lifts and I remember what happened yesterday.
‘Is there any news? On the body?’
Julie opens her mouth to speak but Jeannie shuts her down with a look.
Then Jeannie just looks down at me, shaking her head. ‘How have you come to be in this state, Becs?’
‘I’m just really tired, I guess. I think I fainted. Sorry. I was feeling a bit woozy earlier in the day. I probably didn’t eat enough – you know what I’m like. Sorry.’
Julie presses her lips together. She knows that’s not true: she served me the chicken dinner.
Maybe I fainted from hitting my head after the fall at the caravan. Or maybe Paige came after me, followed me to the caravan park.
‘Don’t be sorry, love,’ Julie says. ‘Had you been drinking? Taking something? I mean, Jesus Christ, you don’t just fall down in the street. Or in the caravan park, in your case, as luck would have it.’ She looks across at Jeannie. ‘You could have got run over or anything.’
Jeannie’s shaking her head again. I can’t tell her where I was; what happened. She’ll think I’ve lost it again. ‘Chasing shadows’ was what she said before. It stuck with me. I don’t answer her anyway, feigning another wave of headache. ‘You couldn’t get me some water, could you, Jeannie?’
‘Um, yeah, I guess. Hang on, let me check with the nurse whether you’re allowed anything. Don’t drink anything until I’ve checked with her, right? Right.’ She points at Julie this time, before heading out into the hall to stalk a nurse down.
Julie rolls her eyes at Jeannie but in good humour. ‘You sure you’re alright?’ she says, sitting down and slurping one of the teas, looking at me over the rim. ‘Are you sick of being asked that already?’
‘I’m fine. Sorry for the commotion. I’m sure you’ve got stuff to be doing at the caravan park.’
‘Not really. ’S dead this time of year anyway, as you know.’ She rolls the gum she’s chewing over her teeth with her tongue.
The thought of the tea and the chewing gum together makes me queasy.
‘You gave me a right old scare, you did. I thought you were a goner when I saw you lying there. Was just nipping out to the all-night garage. You could’ve caught hypothermia lying
there like that.’ She adds, trying to sound casual, ‘Did you have some trouble with someone? On the park? Or wherever?’
‘No, sorry, Julie. Nothing like that. Like I said, I was knackered and I’m probably not looking after myself as well as I could. I mean, you know what I’m like. I’m sorry; I don’t want to cause any trouble at the caravan site for you. I really appreciate you letting me stay there. Honestly, I do. I had a couple of drinks and I probably shouldn’t when I’m feeling like that.’
‘Did you?’ She narrows her eyes. ‘I noticed you’ve not been drinking as much lately, that’s all.’
‘I have my blips.’
She’s still twisting the gum and has an eyebrow raised at me. I can tell she doesn’t believe me. Maybe she saw the wire at the caravan, across the door. Perhaps people have been talking in the club.
She snaps out of something. ‘Suit yourself. I’m not having a go at you, love. This isn’t about the bloody caravan park. There’s barely anyone stopping there but you anyway.’ She’s rocking back in the plastic chair now, balancing it on two legs. ‘I just thought it was funny how you’d managed to somehow fall and hit your face and the back of your head. I mean, how do you manage that? Hey, I’ve been as pissed as the best of them, but I either end up flat on my face or flat on my arse – both is a bit of a feat!’
‘I’m an idiot, Julie. Sorry, it won’t happen again.’
‘What’s that, then? You won’t pass out again? Or you won’t get clobbered again? Not sure you’re quite in control of either of those things, are you? You come to me if you need anything, you hear me? And stop saying bloody sorry, will you! I feel like a flaming priest.’
Jeannie’s back now, carrying a small cup of water. ‘You’re fine as long as you sip it. Don’t guzzle it, the nurse said; you might be sick.’
Julie’s getting up to go. Jeannie’s probably getting on her nerves, fussing around. ‘I’m going to get off, girls. And think on what I said, yeah? Pop into the club and see me when you get back on the park, right.’ She winks at Jeannie. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll only give her a lemonade, I promise.’
‘What’s she on about?’ Jeannie says, after Julie’s left.
‘Come on, she’s alright really. She looks out for me.’
‘Right. And don’t be going in there getting pissed again when you get back, right? Well, you’ll be staying with me anyway, so that solves that.’
I hear someone tut from behind the curtain in the next bed. ‘Language, please,’ an elderly man’s voice says.
Jeannie and I both stifle a laugh.
Jeannie sits reading a magazine. She offers one to me, but I couldn’t focus. I’m on edge. About the body they found in the river. About how I ended up here.
‘Are you alright?’ Jeannie lowers the magazine to her lap. She shoves a grey pulp sick bowl at me.
I bat it away. ‘I know you mean well, but will you just leave it?’
She looks hurt, but makes light of it and pretends to read the magazine.
‘Never mind me. Are you alright anyway? After the other night? At the takeaway.’ I try to inspect her lip from afar, but there’s no sign of swelling or bruising now. I feel shame that I didn’t even think of it when I saw her at the house yesterday. ‘I did mean to ask, I meant to send a text, Jeannie. Sorry.’
Usually, she’d berate me for this, freeze me out for a bit, but she relents. ‘Hey, don’t worry about it; it wasn’t much in the end. Little cow.’
‘What did Dan say?’
‘I told him Angela headbutted me by accident when we were dancing about and being daft.’
We both laugh.
‘Hey, and while we are on the subject, since you don’t reply to my texts… What was all that about in the takeaway? Do you know those lasses? You seemed to know the owners?’
‘Please. Not now, Jeannie. I feel like death warmed up. I can’t think straight with all this going on.’
Jeannie shifts her tone. ‘I could have gone to the police, you know.’
‘They’re just daft kids, Jeannie.’
‘Still.’
‘Why didn’t you, then?’
She looks up at me. ‘Because I know you don’t want me to.’
‘Correct.’
Jeannie doesn’t let things lie. ‘But after this, Becs, I mean – it could be connected.’
‘What, me falling over?’
‘Yeah, you “falling over”.’ She does quote marks with her fingers in the air.
‘They’re kids, I’ve told you. It’s nothing.’
Jeannie tuts and goes back to her magazine. ‘To be continued,’ she says.
She knows not to push it just now.
Could it really have been Paige? I picture her face, twisted with aggression and spite. She was so angry.
I remember the argument with Paige; the mud hitting my head. I remember feeling weird in the park, like I’d been drugged. The fall outside the caravan. The sound of a car, headlights, tyres on gravel. Or is that everything running together? My memory is gloopy. I have a hazy memory of a push to the back, something hitting the back of my head. Am I confusing this with what happened at the park?
‘Jeannie, I’m sorry for worrying you. I’d had a few drinks; I’m sorry for all this.’ My voice is cracking. If I tell her I had been drinking, she will be less suspicious.
Her phone beeps in her pocket.
‘Shit, that’ll be Dan. Not meant to have these on in here, are you…’ She reads the message; her hand goes up to her mouth. She looks at me and straight away jumps out of her seat and hugs me, clutching tightly at the back of the nightgown I am wearing. For once I don’t mind and I put my arms around her too.
After what seems like a long time, she takes a breath. I don’t want her to speak.
‘It’s her, Becs. I’m so sorry, but the body… it’s Kayleigh.’
At first we just sit there for a few minutes. Neither of us wants to face it; what it means, what happens now.
I grab her phone and load up the Courier news site. It’s slow, the wheel spinning and spinning.
Confirmed: River body is Kayleigh Jackson
The headline is the first thing that screams out at me. Jeannie manages to get the cardboard sick bowl in front of me just in time to catch most of the vomit that bursts out.
I play the video anyway while she faffs with the bowl and shouts for a nurse, before she can stop me.
The police tape again, the tents, the white suits. The same reporter.
‘The police have been informed that a body found in the river yesterday, in an industrial area on the edge of Shawmouth, is that of missing teenager Kayleigh Jackson.’
His eyes stare into the camera, out at me.
The script is a familiar one; I’ve heard it countless times before on TV, the radio, in the paper. I feel like I am watching a play that I’ve seen rehearsed over and over again, so I know the next line in my head. I fill it in in advance. But the line is wrong. Instead of saying, ‘Police say there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death,’ the newsreader says, ‘Police are still appealing for witnesses to come forward as they continue their enquiries into the disappearance, and now death, of Kayleigh Jackson.’
I can’t get the image of her out of my head. Floating in the water. Or left there, dumped on the side of the river? Would she have decomposed? I close my eyes, but the picture just gets clearer: white, bloated skin, chunks missing, hair floating or tangled in weeds.
I am sobbing in great heaves into Jeannie’s chest, my breath causing my face to overheat.
‘Sh-sh-sh-sh. I know. I know.’ She strokes my hair, carefully avoiding the wound at the back of my head.
‘She was just young, Jeannie. Remember when we were that age? Ellen, Ellen.’
She squeezes me even tighter then, so that it almost starts to hurt.
‘What did he do, Jeannie? What did he do?’
Thirty-Three
Wednesday, 18 November
They gave me some sleepin
g pills at the hospital and I took one, sometimes two, every time I woke up. I switched my phone off. I don’t know if I dreamt all the knocking at the caravan door, so hard it rocked. If there were really journalists banging at the window, shouting my name.
I dreamt of being at the river, where Kayleigh was found. I was trying to save her, but we were being dragged towards rapids. She got pulled under, her head hitting a rock. I couldn’t breathe in the dream or when I woke up. I couldn’t get to her in time.
Julie used her key to let Jeannie in in the end. It would take a lot for Julie to agree to that. I think they thought I was dead. Jeannie put me in the shower physically, force-fed me coffee and toast. She wants me to go and stay with her. I’ve told her I’ll think about it.
My legs feel weak. But the sleeping pills are wearing off now. I’m coming round. The sickness and anger are coming back.
I am walking towards the house. There are a few cars parked there, journalists I assume, leaning on them. I expected there to be more. They’ve probably been called back to the office now, given up or had their budgets cut, another story demanding their attention.
Someone’s thrown red paint across the windows, drying in plasticky rivulets down the glass.
Three journalists crowd around when I am opening the door, but I zone out. It’s not hard anymore. It doesn’t feel as if they’re really there.
‘Rebecca, do you have any comment to make?’ ‘Do you have a message for Kayleigh Jackson’s family?’ ‘Who do you think did this to your house?’ ‘Is your husband guilty, Rebecca?’ ‘Rebecca! We can offer you a fee for your story.’
I stop to take some deep breaths when I get into the house, my back against the door. But they’re slapping it hard from the outside, so I go into the living room. I don’t put the lights on and I make sure the blinds have no gaps.
The house feels emptier than ever; there is a grey, lifeless tinge to everything. I expected to collapse into tears when I got inside. But it’s something else that is welling inside me. My teeth grating, everything tensing up. I feel like I could explode, smash. How could this have happened? Hiding away in a caravan and cowering in my own home?