Andy stood up too and whispered in Liam’s ear. He then broke down into a fit of giggles.
“Well they were holding hands,” Liam said, laughing with Andy. “That’s why you believe her, and not me. Just you wait till I’m right. When none of them year sixes come back maybe then you’ll believe me.”
Don’t say that,” I said. I could feel myself getting hot and angry. I tried to get up, but while I was pushing myself up from the ground Liam pushed me back down and walked away with Andy without looking back.
At least I wasn’t going to get into trouble for talking to Liam after lunch, as I had no intention of talking to him whatsoever. For a second, I thought I might have to, as Mrs Palmer had us working in pairs on a junk-modelling project. Even worse, we were asked to make rocket-ships. Normally I’d work with Liam on those kind of things (our potato-printing artwork was awesome), but I couldn’t think of anything worse than having to stare at his ugly, podgy face. Plus, with us working on rocket-ships he’d probably think they were for the alien fleet to attack with, or something stupid like that.
“Liam, Tom,” said Mrs Palmer, and I feared that she’d throw us together, but maybe she saw the way my face screwed up and took pity on me as she said, “I’m keeping you apart after this morning’s performance. Liam, you work with Brian, Tom, work with Daniel.”
I’d barely spoken to anyone else since John went missing, so in some ways it was nice to talk to Daniel Richardson. We kept on the subject of our junk model pretty well, suggesting ideas to each other. It was nice to work on something together properly, as Liam would normally go blundering ahead. I looked round and laughed to myself when I saw that he’d managed to stick two of his fingers together with the glue.
Daniel had been casting glances at Mrs Palmer for a while, and when she was talking to some of the girls (yuck) at the other side of the room he said, “So have you heard anything about John?”
I shook my head.
“I heard someone say he might have been abducted.”
Not aliens again. Liam was spreading rumours all around the school, it seemed, when it was supposed to be our own private investigation. “Did Liam tell you about his alien idea?” I asked.
“Aliens? No! Who made that up!” Daniel could barely stop himself from laughing, and his raised voice made Mrs Palmer look over, so we hurriedly started holding pieces of junk next to each other to make the main body of our rocket.
“So, you’ve not heard anything?” asked Daniel again.
I shrugged and tilted a fizzy pop bottle at an angle to see if we could use it in our model.
When we were let out for class at the end of the day Will was already waiting with Aunt Anne on the playground.
“See!” I said smugly to Liam.
“Don’t be such a bighead. You think you’re so cool, but do you know what? You’re not.” And with that, he swung his elbow down and caught me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. He looked round and gave me a ‘don’t tell’ look.
I couldn’t if I’d have wanted to and took the lift home with Aunt Anne in silence.
“How come you never told me you were going up to big school today?” I said to Will as we walked in through the front door.
“Big school? Only babies call it that,” laughed Will. “You’re on drinks duty.” He ran upstairs and left me to get us some squash. First of all, though, I went to see if Chappie was okay. He was asleep. His drink bowl was empty, so I tipped a glass full of water into it to top it up, then I made drinks for Will and me.
Carefully carrying the drinks upstairs, I thought about how angry Liam had been. Had I been unfair on him? I couldn’t see how I had. His idea had been wrong, that’s all. As I got into the bedroom, I saw that Will had already put the N.E.S. on to play Punch Out.
I glanced out of the window, feeling bad for hurting Liam’s feeling, even though he’d been the one who elbowed me in the stomach. Maybe he felt as bad as I did. I looked all around outside until my eyes fell on the tree. I’d forgotten about it until I saw the oak tree’s branches swaying, but there had definitely been something under the tree earlier, and if it wasn’t Chappie, which I had originally thought, then what was it?
“Hey Will,” I said.
He stared at the screen and dodged to the left as he pressed the buttons on the joypad.
“Will,” I said.
“I’m busy.”
“Come check something out with me.”
“No.” He leaned to the left then ducked, but his character, Little Mac, was getting a bit of a pounding on screen.
“Please,” I said.
“Later,” he said, and tapped furiously at the buttons as Little Mac got to his feet. I stood by the door and watched him win the fight, but then he started the next one without even turning to look at me, so I figured I was on my own.
“Where are you off to?” asked Mum as I was putting my shoes back on again.
“I left something outside when I found Chappie this morning.” I lied.
“What did you leave out there?”
“My goalkeeper gloves.” I have no idea why I said that, it was the first thing that came into my head. Maybe it was because the football was sitting by the doormat, so I was thinking of football, but couldn’t say football, because it was right there, and, well, she could see it.
“If you had your gloves out there why ever did you take them off and get your hands all stung, you daft little monkey?”
“Um… Chappie doesn’t like me stroking him with gloves on.” This was true.
“Okay, well go fetch them and come straight back where I can keep an eye on you, and for Christ’s sake don’t go falling into the nettles. You’re stung up badly enough already. I should probably put more lotion on your hands.”
“Can it wait until I come back?” I asked.
Mum nodded, and I sprinted out of the house.
It was probably going to be a load of rubbish anyway, that’s what I told myself as I entered the field. Maybe something the people working on the road had thrown over the dyke and it had come to a rest by the tree. Maybe a polythene bag had blown from the yard across the field and got stuck at the base of the tree, and it just looked bigger because it had all torn open. But the closer I got the more I started to dismiss all of the boring possibilities. There was definitely something that looked red, the same colour red as our school jumper.
It was torn in loads of places and there were patches of a much deeper red all over it, and mud smeared haphazardly on the front. I picked it up without ever thinking that I should leave it as some sort of evidence. I had to know if it was his. I looked into the neck as the label inside, and sure enough, sewn on with red cotton was a name tag that read ‘John Glover’.
I looked down at the ground by the tree. There were footprints. I bent down to look closer, but only got a waft of that maggoty smell that always permeated from the ground around the tree. The footprints pointed towards the tractor. I followed them. The corrugated iron I’d lifted the other day had a footprint on it too, and beside it a large red circular stain, with a smaller partner beside it. John had been here, and he was hurt. I looked around the tractor, but there was no further sign of him, so I kept walking in a straight line from the tree. I tried to imagine where he’d come from, but I couldn’t make any sense of any of my thoughts, but surely there was only one place he was heading: to the farmhouse. He’d escaped from whatever beast had held him, fled across the field, and was on the way to our house to call for help; that was the only possible answer.
But he’d not made it there.
Had the beast given chase and reclaimed him?
I followed the quickest path out of the field onto the track that led to the farmhouse. Surely that was where John would have gone.
Then I saw it. The gap in the tall nettles beside the ditch on the other side. He’d run, and he’d fallen in, and now he needed my help.
I dashed over as quickly as I could, his jumper still in my arms, and looked down.
It was him. John. Lying there, on his side his feet lost beneath a blanket of nettles. His face was down, but I knew that haircut. Mum wouldn’t let me have mine shaved at the back like that.
“John,” I said, in a whisper, like I was scared of waking him up. I got in closer and bent down and said “John,” again but he still didn’t react. It was too quiet. I couldn’t hear any breathing. I couldn’t hear the wind rushing through the grass anymore either. Everything was completely still. I swear I could hear my blood flowing into my heart, and it being pumped around my whole body. I edged into the ditch, closer to John, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“John,” I said. He was cold. I shook him a little, in the same way I do Will when I’m sent to wake him, but there was no stirring. I pulled on his shoulder and his body fell onto its back. His mouth fell open and his skin was white apart from around the neck where it was all purple and blotchy, and there was a large wound on his forehead.
“John,” I said. I tried again, only louder this time, and I kept saying it until I was almost shouting it, but he couldn’t hear me, and he would never hear me no matter how loud I shouted it.
I don’t know at what point I clambered out of the ditch and ran, but that’s what I did, all the way home, still shouting out John’s name, and then Dad was shaking me and all I managed to do was point to where I’d run from.
Later there were police but by then I was inside again, and Mum had put a blanket around me even though it was hot and I was drinking tea that I don’t really like and it had about five sugars in it but I drank it anyway and then I wanted more and I wanted to go back outside to see what was going on but I couldn’t even move or tell Will what happened when he came down; even though he was asking me questions, I didn’t know how to work my mouth properly to answer any of them.
PART TWO
NOW
Charlie’s used to death. He overcame the death of his mother with maturity. After the accident, when she was lying in the hospital bed, unresponsive, I never told him that everything would be all right.
I remember the horrified look of the nurse as I explained to Charlie, who was seven at the time, that his mum’s brain was dead. That meant that she wouldn’t be waking up again. We were going to turn off the machine, and he’d have to deal with that.
Together, we cried, but I never told him that it was all going to be okay. I was never going to give him false hope. Hope is a castle on the sand, and it’s only a matter of time until the tide turns.
Ridiculously, I did hold out hope for a miracle. I clasped my hands together when they switched off the life support. So, when the heartrate monitor flatlined, when the castle collapsed, I broke all over again. That’s what being brought up with lies will do to you.
And don’t think I gave him any of that crap about going to a better place either. The only place other than here is worse, much, much worse.
Friday 22nd June 1990
Idon’t know how I got into bed, but I knew it was much later because there was football on the telly. Will was sitting on the bed and as soon as he saw that I’d opened my eyes he shouted, “Mum,” and she must have floated upstairs because I didn’t hear her feet on the steps at all and there are three that are creaky.
She sat on the side of my bed and started stroking my hair. My forehead felt clammy and my hair felt all yucky with sweat, probably because I’d been under the duvet in the middle of a hot June day.
“Are you okay, Thomas?” she said, and I didn’t know what to say.
“Do you want something to eat?”
I shook my head.
“You really should have something. How about a nice ham sandwich?”
I shook my head again.
“What about a big bowl of chicken soup?” And that sounded like the best idea in the whole world.
While I was sitting at the kitchen table, (and getting to the kitchen had felt like an incredible effort) slurping some soup from the spoon, Dad came in, and P.C. Wade was with him.
Dad put his hand on my shoulder, and I jumped a little. “P.C. Wade would like to ask you a few questions.”
I nodded and pushed the soup bowl away from me. I’d eaten about three quarters of it without really tasting it.
“So, Thomas, you know me from school,” said P.C. Wade.
I nodded again.
“I need to ask you a few questions about… what you saw this morning.”
I said, “Yes,” and he held his notepad and pen out ready, but he didn’t write down anything after that question.
He asked me when I first saw the body and I told him about going out to look for Chappie, and then I suddenly remembered how poorly Chappie had been in the morning, so I got up and checked on him. He was drinking water from his bowl and he seemed to be alright, so I sat down again. P.C. Wade wanted to know if I’d moved the body at all, and I said that I had, because I thought I could wake him up and he shook his head and started to write.
“When you came in, your parents say that you were holding a jumper. Where did you find that?”
“It was by the tree.”
“Did you know it was John’s?”
“I looked at the label.”
“How did you know where to look for the body?”
“I saw blood nearby, and I followed it in a straight line.”
“Did you disturb anything else?”
I couldn’t think. I wanted to retrace my steps. I was struggling to believe that any of this was real. “Can I go out and see him again?” I said.
“We’ve removed the body,” said P.C. Wade.
“Oh,” I said, and I got down from the chair again because I figured that there wouldn’t be any more questions. P.C. Wade left a few minutes later after having one of those whispered conversations with Mum and Dad outside the front door.
“Whatever did you want to see the body again for?” Mum said when she came back in.
“Because I ran away and left him before,” I said. “It felt wrong.”
Upstairs, Will was sitting on his bed cheating at Battleblade Warrior.
“Good book?” I said.
“Not bad,” he said and put it down.
“So, what happened today?” I said.
“I don’t know. They told me to stay out of the way.”
“Didn’t you see anything?”
“I was watching out of the window, but I couldn’t see anything.”
“Did you see them take the body away?”
“No. Mum kept giving me jobs to distract me. There were loads of police down there. They had cars on the bypass and police Land Rovers on the drove and on the field.”
“Did they say what happened?”
“No. He’s dead, that’s all I know.”
“I never thought that would be it.”
“Be what?”
“That he’d be dead. I always thought we’d find him, or he’d come home.”
“Me too.”
“Thomas,” called Mum from downstairs.
I opened the door and called back.
“Your uncle Rodney’s here. He wants to see that you’re okay.”
“Tell him I’m fine,” I shouted back.
He came creeping up the stairs a second later. For a tall man he was incredibly light on his feet. It must have been all of the acting. “My dear boy,” he said as he saw me. He kept moving closer, until he was looming over me. He bent down and wrapped his arms around me in an awkward hug. “What a terrible, terrible thing for one so delicate as you to experience.” He let me go, and I edged back into the bedroom, where Will was looking up at us secretly over the top of his book.
“And the poor boy was dead when you found him?” asked Uncle Rodney.
I didn’t want to talk to him about it. He didn’t even know John. I nodded but said nothing.
“Such a tragedy. Life is a precious thing, and a young life all the more precious.” He came forward to hug me again, and he held me for about half a minute without either of us saying
a thing. When he let go, somehow, he had a chocolate bar in a blue wrapper in his hand. “For you,” he said, and handed it to me. It was a ‘Stratos’ bar, and with that he went back downstairs.
“Do you want it?” I said to Will, who was still peering over the top of his book.
“You don’t?” asked Will
I shook my head and held it out to him.
Will took the chocolate bar and tore the end of the wrapper off. He took a bit, and before he finished swallowing his mouthful he said, “What did he look like?”
I couldn’t answer right away, and it wasn’t until after he’d taken another mouthful and then gulped it down noisily that I answered, “Like John… only… different.”
“Different how?” His voice sounded like his mouth was gloopy with chocolate.
“You know, like the wax works in Great Yarmouth, how they look like real people, but they’re not?” We been on holiday there the previous summer. The beach was nice, and there were some good rides in Joyland, but the waxworks were creepy, and half of them were of people I’d never even heard of.
“Yeah.”
“It was like that, only not. He looked a bit like a wax work, only he wasn’t, he was real. It was like he wasn’t actually there.”
“I’ve never seen a dead body before,” Will said.
He was the lucky one, I thought.
Saturday 23rd June 1990
Iwas woken by the sound of someone shouting my name. I didn’t recognise the voice. It wasn’t Dad, or I would have been up straight away. It wasn’t Mum’s soft shout either. It was a sad, desperate shout, and it lured me out of my bed.
When I was on the stairs, I heard another shout, but this was definitely Mum’s voice, “You stay up there, Tom.”
As I stopped, not knowing what to do, I heard it again, “Tom”.
I had to go see. I came to the kitchen door and went to push it, but someone was leaning up against the other side.
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