The Slaughter Man

by Cassandra Parkin

  “Do you want the radio on?” Joe suggests. “Pick a station, any station. Seriously, anything’s fine. When we were kids – your mum and me, I mean – our parents always used to have Radio 4 on for long journeys. No music ever. So whatever you pick’s got to be better than that.”

  (She’s so fragile. She wasn’t meant to overhear the conversation between her mother and Joe, but she had listened in anyway. So we try not to put any pressure on her over things that don’t matter.

  It’s okay. I’m her wicked uncle, remember? She can sleep till noon every day and eat biscuits in bed. I won’t mind.

  To be honest, I don’t know any more if the no-pressure strategy’s right or not. Her mother’s voice was wobbly. I mean, that’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s what I tell parents to do…

  We’ll be all right, Joe said. I promise.

  But, you know, if she wants to eat nothing but sandwiches for a few days or if she doesn’t shower for a week, if you could just let her… Actually, forget it, whatever we’re doing isn’t working so do whatever feels right to you, it’s got as much chance of helping as anything else.)

  It takes her a minute to find her way around the touchscreen of her uncle’s dashboard. What should she choose? She has no idea what Joe would like. How’s she supposed to pick something that will satisfy them both? Is this some sort of test, a way of finding out more about her? Or does he want some background noise to fill the silence?

  In a mild panic, she picks the local BBC radio station, just in time to catch the weather forecast. Rain, rain, rain, and traffic disruption at a junction on the motorway they’re currently crawling down. Have they passed it already, or is it still in their future? She taps the screen to bring up the map, and pulls the focus out so she can see where they are.

  “Thanks,” says Joe in surprise. “God almighty, though, an accident at a junction, we could be here for hours. Why can’t people drive more carefully?” He sighs. “Looks like this is going to be a long one, sweetheart. Sorry.”

  Her parents have always had a million pet names for her and Laurel, shared indiscriminately between them, but sweetheart has never been one of them. Another reminder that she’s moving forward in time, whereas Laurel is forever frozen. She clenches her fists.

  “Are you okay? Do you need to stop?” She shakes her head. “Don’t worry, it’s not a problem. There’s a services coming up pretty soon, look. We’ll stop there. Don’t worry,” he repeats, as if she might explode into panic at waiting another fifteen miles before she can get out of the car, and she’s appalled by how little they know each other. The news bulletin ends and a woman’s voice, sweetly processed and flawlessly tuned, pours out a song about a boy who wasn’t worth it, and her plans for moving on.

  In the days before, she and Laurel had had a system for car music. One of them synced their phone to the car, and then each person on the journey chose a song to stream, strict rotation, no complaining about anyone’s choices. Now, she watches from the corner of her eye as her uncle whispers the words to the song to himself and curses at the other drivers.

  (She sleepwalks, her mum said to Joe. She usually goes to Laurel’s room, but sometimes she goes downstairs. We make sure we take the keys out of the doors so she doesn’t go outside. I don’t know if she might stop wandering when she’s with you, but just so you know. And sometimes she – she could hear the tears in her mother’s voice, and felt herself flush with the shame of it – it’s not her fault, she can’t help it, but sometimes she wets the bed. I wish she’d come and get me when it happens but she doesn’t, she cleans up after herself. If you can’t deal with any of this it’s okay, say so. And Joe’s voice, bewildered but tender, I’ll manage, I promise. Let me do this for you. Please. You’re dealing with the worst thing that’s ever happened to either of us. I can cope with a bit of extra laundry.)

  The miles of road tear past the window, each marked out in a dozen ways, keeping track of where she is in the world. She can watch the red and white sticks in the hard shoulder, see the numbers on the lamp posts change, track the remorseless crawl of descending distances on the road signs as they grow nearer to strange towns and cities, then sweep past them, making room for new places at the bottom of the boards. Joe tailgates other cars in the fast lane, dives recklessly into implausible gaps, then takes a deep breath and forces himself to slow down again. She sees the same frozen food lorry over and over, the smiling ice-cube on the back doors leering towards her, then receding. She doesn’t want to fall asleep, knowing she’ll have to wake herself up again as soon as they reach the service station, but her eyelids are growing heavy. She used to keep herself awake by singing along to the songs and planning her next choice, but today the radio’s making all her choices for her and her voice is trapped somewhere deep inside. She bites her lip and wills herself into alertness.

  “Are you doing okay? Do you want me to pull onto the hard shoulder?” It’s not only the sudden bursts of speed that make Joe such a terrifying driver; it’s the way he pays attention to everything but the road. She shakes her head. “Nearly there now, sweetheart. Sit tight.”

  She doesn’t want to stop. She doesn’t need to stop. If anything she’d prefer not to stop, because she’s still not sure she’s doing the right thing and a stop is a chance for her to change her mind. But none of this is her uncle’s fault. He’s got no way of knowing what’s happening inside her head. She wonders whether it would be nice or weird if she patted his arm.

  The exit approaches and they take the sharp curve leading to the service station car park. Joe approaches it too fast and has to slam on the brakes.

  “Bloody dangerous way to build a road,” he mutters.

  The curve in the road is there to force the drivers to slow from seventy miles an hour to twenty in the space of a few hundred feet. She knows this, so why doesn’t he? Without thinking, she turns to look at Laurel so they can share this moment of superior knowledge, but finds only her own reflection in the window looking back at her.

  The service station is loud and confusing, and she’s spent too long cocooned in her own home and has forgotten how full-on the world can be. She takes a deep breath and tells herself she can do this. Joe hovers close to her, as if she’s five years old and might suddenly bolt out in front of the traffic, and points her unnecessarily towards the Ladies.

  “I’ll meet you here by this…” he waves vaguely at a vending machine where an animatronic parrot guards a clutch of two-tone plastic eggs and squawks to attract passing custom. “This horrible thing. Okay? If I’m not here I won’t be long, so don’t wander off.” She nods. “You’re sure you’ll be okay? I mean, I don’t think they’ll let me in there with you.”

  If she wasn’t using all her energy to hold herself together against the noise and crowd and brightness, she might laugh. What does he think’s going to happen to her? She’s seventeen, the same height as her mother, almost an adult; he can’t possibly think she needs his help.

  The Ladies is warm and smells of floral disinfectant and pink soap. Washing her hands at the basin, she sees there’s an open back door at the end of the row of cubicles.

  Let’s do the Long Lost Twins, Laurel whispers to her from the mirror.

  Willow keeps her eyes carefully down, concentrating on soaping between her fingers. She won’t look. There’s dirt under her nails. She wishes she had a nail brush.

  I’ll go out of that door. You go out the main entrance. We’ll meet in the lobby. Long Lost Twins; their single twin-based party piece, the thing their friends begged them to do on every trip into town. How can it be that they’ll never do it again? A flicker of movement in the back doorway grabs her throat and squeezes it tight with treacherous hope, and she can’t stop herself from looking.

  The crow stands strong and unafraid in the doorway, as if he has every right to be there. He turns his head to one side, then the other. His thick black beak, made for jabbing and tearing at dead flesh, transfixes her.

  “Mum! Look!”
A little girl standing at the washbasins, humming to herself as she diligently soaps her arms as high as her elbows, sprays water across the floor as she points. “A bird!”

  “A crow,” her mother says.

  “He’s friendly!” The girl laughs with pleasure. “Is he coming in?” She crouches low and makes an encouraging noise. “Come on in, little bird. Don’t be scared.”

  He’s not a little bird, Willow thinks frantically, he’s a great big bird, and he’s not afraid of you or anyone, and he’s here for me, he’s come for me – no, that’s stupid, it doesn’t mean anything—

  The crow glances at the row of washbasins.

  “He likes the taps,” says the girl’s mother. “Crows like shiny things.”

  “Do you like shiny things?” The little girl tilts her head and her voice grows squeaky, as if she’s trying to entice an even littler child to be her friend. “Do you?” She fumbles in her pocket, produces a silver coin. “Would you like this shiny thing? Here, you can have it.”

  No, Willow thinks, don’t encourage it, please.

  She wants to run, but she doesn’t dare look away in case it comes after her and tangles its feet in her hair. The crow takes three hops towards her. She wants to scream, but she can’t force the sound past her lips. Then it spreads its wings and flaps clumsily upwards, up towards her face.

  Crouched on the closed lid of the toilet seat with her feet drawn up, Willow’s caught between shame and terror. Stop being so stupid, she tells herself fiercely. You’re pathetic. It was just a bird. Get up and open that door and walk out. Right now.

  But every time she tries, she thinks of the bird’s outspread wings, the rush of air as it moved towards her, and she’s paralysed.

  This is ridiculous. Joe’s waiting by the parrot. She’s been in here too long already. If she doesn’t make it out soon, he’s surely going to decide she’s too much like hard work, and take her straight home. She wants to get better, she does. She doesn’t want to be the girl who can’t open a door because she’s afraid there might be a bird on the other side of it. A bird, for God’s sake. People eat birds. She has to stop being so useless.

  She manages to raise her hand to the lock, but she can’t pull it open. A faint scratching sound outside sends her scurrying for safety.

  Because even if she does manage to make it out, how will she ever explain what happened?

  “Willow?” She doesn’t recognise the voice of the woman who calls her name. “Sorry, I’m looking for a girl called Willow? Willow, are you in here? Are you okay or do you need some help?”

  Call back to her.

  She opens her mouth. Nothing.

  “Willow? Sorry, everyone, I’m looking for a girl called Willow. I’m going to knock on the doors and if it’s not you, could you say – no, sir, I’m sorry but you can’t be in here.”

  “Willow?” Her Uncle Joe, sounding more panicked than she knew a grown man could. “Willow, are you all right? Where are you? Oh Jesus, there’s a back door. Why the hell is there a back door?”

  “Sir, you can’t be in here, this is a Ladies toilet. Go outside and wait and I will come and tell you—”

  “No, you don’t understand, she won’t answer you even if she’s in here. Willow? Please be in here, please. Willow, are you all right? Are you shut in? It’s all right, it’s me, I promise everything’s fine. Just make a noise, bang on the door or something.”

  This was a mistake. She ought to be back at home, where she’s safe. She’s not ready for this, not for any of it. This is more noise than she’s used to and more people than she’s used to, and she knows she can’t stay in here for ever but she doesn’t know if she can face going outside and seeing them all looking at her. They must be picturing a little girl, someone small enough to lock herself in by mistake. What will they think when they see she’s a teenager? Will she be in trouble? She deserves to be. She’s nearly an adult. She ought to be able to do better.

  “Willow?” He’s right outside the door.

  Come on. Make an effort. You can do this.

  She slides off the toilet seat and kneels on the floor of the cubicle. Closer to the ground, the smell of detergent is overpowering. She can feel it soaking into the knees of her leggings.

  “Willow. Is that you?”

  She slides her fingers out through the space beneath the door. After a minute, she feels his hand rest over hers. She takes a deep breath.

  “What’s going on with her? Is she too little to talk or something?” The woman is sounding suspicious now. There is an interested hush as everyone pauses in their busy journeys to enjoy the drama.

  “No, it’s not that, but she finds it hard to speak sometimes.”

  Please, Willow thinks, please don’t tell everyone what happened. I don’t want to come out and walk past all these people and have them knowing what happened to Laurel.

  “And she’s your niece.”

  “Yes, my niece. She’s staying with me for a bit.”

  Willow senses the change in mood, as a roomful of strange women begin to form their own judgements.

  “Look, I tell you what.” Joe sounds suddenly determined. “If you could get everyone out of here for a little while.”

  “This is a busy service station, we can’t close the—”

  “Just this bit then. Please. For a few minutes. Give me a few minutes to see if I can talk her into coming out. Then we’ll be out of here.”

  “I’m not sure I can authorise that.” The woman sounds as if she’s beginning to suspect there is no niece at all, that this is some strange plot concocted by Joe as a means of getting access to the women’s bathrooms.

  “Please. Give us a few minutes. She has anxiety, she’s been having treatment for it.”

  “Oh. So should we call a doctor? Look, I’ll put the signs out but I can’t leave you in here on your own. The cleaner will need to supervise you and see what’s going on. This is a women’s bathroom and you’re not supposed—”

  “I know, I know, I’m not supposed to be in here. Thanks for letting me. We’ll be on our way as soon as we can, all right? Thanks, everyone, I really appreciate this.”

  She can hear the sound of retreating feet as the tide of girls and women recedes. There’s a scrape of plastic against tiles that must be signs going out, declaring the area closed for cleaning. Then Joe’s kneeling outside the door once more.

  “Willow? Can you open the door? You don’t have to come out or anything.”

  She wants to ask him if they’re alone. She doesn’t think she can stand the gaze of strangers.

  “It’s all right. There’s no one here but me. Well, there’s a bunch of people round the other side of the cones, but this bit’s only us.”

  The lock’s stiff, or maybe her hands are clumsy with guilt. It takes her several tries to slide it back. The door falls open.

  “Yay.” Joe gives her a cautious smile. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to know what the inside of the Ladies looks like, but I think I’ve pretty much seen what there is to see now.”

  You shouldn’t make jokes like that, she thinks, remembering the woman who works here, who already suspects Joe of planning some unspecified crime.

  “I tell you what, you get more mirrors than we do. And it smells nicer. The floors are still a bit gross, though. Shall we stand up? That’s better.” He pats her kindly on the shoulder. “You okay now? What happened?”

  She’s so ashamed she can hardly look at him. All she wants is for this moment to be over.

  “Okay, so that was a stupid question. Right, let’s do Yes or No… Were you being sick or something?” She shakes her head. “Did you get locked in and panic?” She shakes her head again. “Someone frightened you?”

  Can we please stop this, she thinks desperately, and shakes her head again. Suddenly Joe’s eyes gleam with mischief.

  “You frightened someone else? You were summoning a demon? You’re on the run from the FBI? You were overcome with a sudden urge to murder someone and you had
to hide until the feeling went away? Work with me here. We need a good cover story or they’ll get suspicious. Okay, you can tell me later. Let’s get out of here. Are you ready?”

  She glances towards the noise and bustle of the exit, and feels her insides squeeze tight.

  “I know, I don’t like the look of it either. They’re not too happy with me to be honest, I think they think I’m some sort of pervert. And that animatronic thing in the lobby looks possessed. If they make us stay and explain we’ll be here for hours. So shall we run out the back door instead, and drive off and pretend none of this ever happened?”

  Like criminals, they creep towards the open back door and peer out.

  “Coast looks clear,” Joe says. “There’s the car. See it? Good. Now, you ready? You sure? Okay, then go, go, go, go, go!”

  Laughing and clumsy, falling over grass and kerbs and their own feet, they flee across the tarmac to the safety of the car.

  “There,” says Joe, and starts the engine. “And they say running away from your problems doesn’t solve anything.”

  I’m not supposed to run away from my feelings, she thinks. I’m supposed to stay with them and try and talk about them.

  Fuck that, she thinks, and smiles.

  “Jesus,” he says in surprise. “You look so much like your mum.” They rejoin the motorway. The car behind them brakes and flashes its headlights. “So how long do you think they’ll leave half of the Ladies toilets closed off before they realise we’ve legged it?”

  Willow feels a small spark of happiness. It’s the first time since The Day happened that she feels normal. Within ten minutes of setting off from the service station, she’s asleep.

  CHAPTER FOUR