The Beauty of the End

by Debbie Howells

  Knowing I have what I came for, I hesitate in the doorway, not wanting to leave such a loved house so untidy. Glancing at the bookcase, right at the back, I catch sight of a notebook.

  Curious, I slide it out, flicking quickly through its pages with building interest, before slipping it in my pocket. As I pick up my old law book, I notice that the photos I saw last time have been taken, most likely by the police—all except one that they’ve missed, that’s been knocked off the bookshelf onto the floor.

  It’s that same photo of a woman holding a baby and I pick it up, this time looking more closely at the woman’s face, too shadowed to make out her features as she looks down at the baby. Strange, irrational recognition flickers, just for a second, before it’s gone.

  I lay it on top of the law book, feeling my skin prickle, but it’s not with cold. It’s the chill of unease, from knowing the police could come back at any time. I’m walking out to the kitchen when something else sends a shiver down my spine.

  While I’ve been searching the study, someone’s been into the kitchen and fed the cat.

  I tell myself that I’m mistaken, that there’d been food in the bowl when I came in and I hadn’t noticed. That there’s probably a good neighbor, aware of April’s absence. Or maybe the police filled it—unlikely but not impossible. But unease follows me, as in a hurry, I lock the door, hide the key, and cross the garden, feeling the air seeming to stir into life, the stillness of earlier gone.

  With a new sense of urgency, I stride across the garden, clambering over the hedge and in my haste, getting caught up on brambles, relaxing slightly only once I’m in the field, away from the cottage and making my way back to the lane. But as I climb over the gate and walk down the lane towards my car, I hear another car in the distance, drawing closer before it slows down behind me. Tense, I force myself to just keep walking, trying not to run, not wanting to draw attention to myself, aware of how isolated I am, discovering a new, paranoid fear.

  But this time the car passes, my heart slowing as I realize no one’s after me. I find my car, climb in, lock the doors, glance in my driver’s mirror. See nothing, rationalizing with myself as I drive away. I’ve nothing anyone could want. I have a set of client notes that no one other than April knows about. Apart from that, I’m of no interest to anyone.

  It’s only in the safety of my room, after a shower and a glass of whisky warm my blood, the curtains drawn against the darkness, as I study the pages of April’s notes that I see the faintest, breath-on-glass trace of a pattern.

  As I read more, suddenly my mind is razor sharp, so that I skim through them at top speed, making my own separate rough notes while the pattern grows clearer and, at last, I have something.

  All the women in this group of clients were in the later stages of pregnancy when they met April, and in the most chilling of coincidences, each woman’s baby had a life-threatening illness.

  I can only guess at the significance of this, unsure whether it’s merely coincidence. I try to imagine what it’s like, at what for most parents is a time filled with hope, expectations, joy, instead to be agonizing over a future that might not happen, about the medical interventions that may or may not help.

  In the midst of the hardest time these women had ever known, April was the person to whom they turned. Most likely still is—when I check the appointment dates, some are recent. Opening her diary, I find the same names penciled in over the coming days.

  Slowly I put the diary down. I need to talk to all of them, for no other reason than if they don’t know what’s happened to April, they should be told.

  * * *

  I’m up early the next morning. After a cold shower cuts through the bleariness of my hangover and brings faint color to my cheeks, I pull on jeans and running shoes before I go out, just to walk. It’s by chance I pass a news stand. As I glance toward it, the headline screams out at me:

  WOMAN SUSPECTED OF MURDER—BRYAN NORTON KNEW HIS KILLER.

  Underneath, there’s a photograph of a man. Picking up the paper, I study it more closely, feeling my skin crawl, as a host of ugly, unwanted memories spiral to the forefront of my mind.

  It’s a face that I saw just once, a long time ago; that I’ll never forget. Age has blurred his sharp features, the cruelty in his hooded eyes, but nausea rises in my throat. If what Will’s told me is true, that this man is April’s stepfather, it changed everything.

  22

  1991

  The longer April was absent from school, the more I convinced myself my concern for her was warranted. April was clever. She deserved good grades, but if she wasn’t careful, this close to the exams, she’d mess it up big-time. And no one seemed to care except me. There was absolutely no self-interest involved in what I was doing, I decided. If she’d moved away, then I’d just have to live with it, but if she was ill, then I could help her by lending her my notes.

  Not sure where to start, I gathered together all my courage and tracked down Emily, one of April’s friends, who, during one of her rare appearances at school, was having an elusive smoke behind the bike sheds.

  “Excuse me,” I said tentatively as I crept up behind her.

  She leapt up and threw the cigarette onto the ground, then stood on it. “Fuck it, you made me jump.” She shook her head in disgust. “What d’you want, Noah? I just wasted a perfectly good cigarette.”

  Up close, I could see her lashes were clogged with mascara. She glared at me, and I noticed how dull her hair was, unlike April’s, which always shone as though she polished it.

  “Sorry. Only, I was wondering . . . I haven’t seen April. . . .”

  “What’s it to you?” said Emily suspiciously, picking up her cigarette and lighting it again.

  “She’s in some of my classes. And she’s missing all the practice papers for the exams.... I was just worried. That’s all.”

  Emily inhaled deeply.

  “I haven’t a frigging clue. We had this row and I haven’t spoken to her since.”

  “Well, can’t you find out?” I persisted. “You’re her friend, aren’t you?”

  She exhaled a long breath. I watched in fascination as the coils of smoke slowly rotated in the air.

  “Not really. And I won’t be seeing her again,” she said finally. “My mum won’t let me, anyway.”

  “Why?” I was curious. I couldn’t imagine anyone telling Emily what to do.

  “Her brother’s a shit,” said Emily shortly. “Like, he really is. And her stepfather’s done time.”

  “Just tell me where she lives,” I said stubbornly. “And I won’t tell anyone you told. I promise.”

  “You really that fussed?” she frowned at me. “Can’t imagine why. She’s with that Pete bloke—you know that, don’t you?” She looked at her watch. “Shit, I should be in English.”

  She took another drag, examining her nails as I stood there, refusing to budge.

  “Eighty-three Magnolia Way,” she said eventually, without looking up. “Down the north end of town. Don’t fucking say I told you.”

  She threw her cigarette into a patch of grass, where it smoldered until she stepped back and ground it out with her heel.

  * * *

  There was no time to waste, not with this new piece of knowledge burned into my brain. With my school bag stuffed with notes for April, as soon as school was over, I set off.

  Eighty-three Magnolia Way sounded pretty, I thought, in my naivety picturing a street similar to ours, homey and friendly with neat front gardens, because that was all I really knew.

  Vaguely heading toward what I thought was the north end of Musgrove, I realized it was a different route from the one I usually took. I was half hoping that fate would take a hand and I’d just stumble across Magnolia Way, but of course it didn’t work like that. Just as I was despairing of ever finding it, I came to a corner shop with crates and newspapers stacked high outside. As I hesitated, wondering whether to go in and ask, a woman came out.

  “Excuse me.” Th
e words were out before I could stop them. “I’m looking for Magnolia Way. Is it near here, d’you know?”

  She paused, not looking at me. “I’ll say. Everyone round here knows Magnolia Way.” I didn’t like the way she said it.

  “Could you give me directions, please?”

  This time she properly looked at me. “What’s a boy like you going there for? Or need I ask. . . .” She laughed, a harsh, hollow sound. “If you’ve any sense, you’ll turn round and go back where you’ve come from. That’s all I’ve got to say. Now if you don’t mind . . .”

  She started to walk away.

  “Wait!” I called after her, but she shook her head and hurried down the street.

  I stood there watching her scurry away still muttering to herself, when a voice spoke from behind me.

  “Down the end, turn left, first right. That’s Magnolia Way.”

  I turned round. A young man, unshaven and in ripped jeans, leaned against a lamppost, grinning crookedly. Then he took a swig from the bottle he was holding. “Who are you looking for?”

  “Thanks,” I said hastily and started walking.

  “Hey! Not so fast . . .”

  I could hear him lurching along behind me and, praying he was too drunk to keep up, broke into a jog, reached the end, turned left then right. And as my heart sank, wished I hadn’t.

  * * *

  There was nothing remotely pretty about Magnolia Way. In fact, it was the most dismal place I’d ever seen. For the first time in my fifteen years, I registered how privileged I was. As I ventured tentatively along the street, reading house numbers, I noticed piles of stinking rubbish littering the tired, pissed-on patches of grass outside front doors. Someone’s skinny cat yowled as it fled from under a car, and only now and then was the grimness broken by a tidy patch of garden or freshly painted window.

  It seemed the cruelest twist of fate that someone as beautiful as April had been born into the midst of such squalor. Either that, or a celestial mistake. Suddenly my heart leapt as I considered that Emily had given me the wrong address, her idea of a sick joke. But I didn’t know for sure. What if April was here and I’d walked away?

  Feeling less and less safe the farther I walked, I kept going, telling myself that April did this every day and that if she could do that I most certainly could do it once.

  I’d got as far as number seventy-nine when I heard it. It was a horrible, high-pitched wailing that broke off for a few seconds, then started again. As I walked, I listened, sickened, as it got louder, and I fought the urge to turn and run for my life. But I kept walking, unable to tell which house it came from.

  Then behind me, I heard footsteps, turned to see a man. Rough and disheveled, he was ugly in every sense of the word, in the sharpness of his face, how his eyes were lit like burning coals as he glanced up and down the street, in his manner as he shoved past a woman pushing a stroller as he came toward me.

  I walked faster, wanting to get away from him, checking the numbers on the houses, as the awful wailing grew quieter, until I reached number eighty-three. Heard the noise coming from inside.

  Glancing behind me, I saw the man leaning against a lamppost, his eyes narrowed as he watched me. Shaking, I took a step toward the house. Even though he didn’t move, I just knew he was dangerous.

  As I pushed the door open, I took a final glance in his direction, just as he spat onto the pavement and turned to stride away in the opposite direction. Filled with relief, I stepped inside.

  “Hello?” I called out, noticing the bolts were bent and locks broken. “Hello? April? Are you there?”

  My heart was pounding. After my encounter with the man, I was more worried than ever about April.

  I took another tentative step, then froze, as from somewhere close by I heard a dog bark. The faint, wailing noise stopped.

  As I ventured farther in, the first thing I noticed was the stink. Of cigarettes, left where they’d been ground into the worn carpet; of old food and rubbish. Trying not to gag, I turned in to what appeared to be a sitting room, where it got no better. I just stared, horrified, that people could even live here, least of all April. This was no place for a goddess. The wallpaper was ripped in places, the carpet dirty, and everywhere I looked there was stuff—takeaway boxes, beer bottles, piles of clothes, all of it strewn without a thought.

  “What . . . are you doing here?”

  The whisper was so faint, for a moment I thought I’d imagined it. I spun round.

  Slumped on the floor against the wall, she was bent double, her arms clasped around her knees. She looked terrible, her beautiful hair lank and her face bleached of color, as though the blood had been drained out of her.

  “I was worried. You haven’t been in school.... Are you okay? What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

  But I knew she wasn’t okay. I started to panic.

  “What’s happened? You’re hurt. . . .” I was out of my depth, but I stepped toward her, desperate to help, but having no idea what to do.

  “Go away,” she muttered, closing her eyes against what looked like a wave of pain.

  “There was a man,” I said suddenly. “He was coming here. I’m sure he was. Did he hurt you?”

  She shook her head, muttering something I couldn’t make out, and as I watched with horror, she started to shake. Then her eyes seemed to roll up and disappear into her head, as she slumped forward.

  23

  Of course, there was no telephone. After I tried several times to stir her, I took off my jacket with trembling hands, carefully spreading it over her, before running up the street in search of a phone box. The first one I came to had been vandalized, the handset ripped out, leaving a mess of frayed wires. I couldn’t see another. Desperate, I ran back to the corner shop I’d passed earlier, where I burst in and pleaded with the owner.

  “Please, sir, can I use your phone? A friend of mine’s been hurt, really hurt. She needs help, sir. Please . . .”

  I don’t know if he’d ever been called “sir” before, but something in my rushed, heartfelt plea convinced him and his look of hostility gave way to one of mistrust.

  “In here.” He beckoned me into a small, gloomy office. “Be quick. And don’t go trying no funny stuff.”

  “I won’t, I swear, on my life,” I told him, having no idea what he meant and using words I’d never used before, but then this was like nothing I’d ever done before.

  My hands shaking, I dialed before he could change his mind.

  * * *

  I waited with April for what felt like hours, but in reality could have been no more than fifteen minutes, crouched on the floor beside her while she drifted in and out of consciousness. Each time she came to, murmuring words I couldn’t make out before lapsing into silence again, I’d panic, desperately searching for signs of life, from the slightest flutter of her eyelashes to the pulse in her neck, overwhelmed with relief when I found it.

  As the distant sound of a siren reached me, I leaned toward her. “It’s okay,” I told her quietly. “Help is coming, I promise. You’ll be okay. . . .”

  Her eyelids fluttered open as another wave of pain racked her face. “‘You shouldn’t be here, Noah. . . .” Her voice was so quiet I could barely hear her. “It isn’t safe. . . .”

  In spite of everything, I felt my heart swell. She cared. In spite of her pain, she was concerned for me. But before I could reply, there was a knock on the door, followed by a voice.

  “Hello? Anyone there?”

  I was already on my feet, then in the hallway, filled with relief. “Quick. She’s in here.”

  * * *

  I stood back after that, while they carefully checked April over, then very gently lifted her onto a stretcher and took her out to the ambulance. Then they drove away, leaving me there alone.

  Now that April was on her way to the hospital, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, running until I couldn’t breathe, then slowing to a walk, feeling a mixture of emotions engulf me. Elation that I�
��d helped her, but mostly horror at how much pain she’d been in. I was no closer to knowing what had happened to her than when I started out. But I’d gathered one important, precious piece of information from the ambulance driver. I knew which hospital they’d taken her to.

  The next day at school, I made a point of finding Emily.

  “You what?” she said when I told her what had happened. Instead of being worried, as I’d thought she’d look, she seemed vaguely impressed.

  “She’s in the new hospital, the one that’s just opened.” I didn’t tell her I was planning to visit April. I didn’t tell anyone, just watched the clock on the wall slowly tick, wondering why today was the longest day ever.

  * * *

  I’d been to hospitals before, when my mother was ill once. But it had been years earlier and my hazy recollections didn’t prepare me for the countless busy corridors and several floors of exotically named wards, like Alaska and Costa Brava, which did nothing to take away from the fact that it was bleak.

  After asking several nurses, eventually I found April. I paused in the door of the ward, staring at the bed at the end by the window, shocked at how small and young she looked. Having come all this way, I hesitated as I looked at the families flocking round the other beds, suddenly not sure I should be there. But then April turned her head toward me and her eyes lit up.

  With each step, as I walked toward her, my awkwardness was back. By the time I reached her bed, it had practically paralyzed me.

  “Sorry.” I’d noticed the bedsides of the other patients, laden with cards, grapes, flowers. April’s was pitifully empty. I looked at the starched white sheets covering her. “I should have brought you something.”

  “It’s okay. Thank you, Noah—for coming here. And for . . .”

  April looked away and a tear rolled down her cheek. Suddenly less awkward, noticing a chair against the wall, I pulled it over to her bedside.