Things We Have in Common

by Tasha Kavanagh

  No one was around, so I said, ‘Alice was in Gary’s van’ to test how it sounded – to see if it sounded any more possible out loud than it did in my head. It didn’t. It sounded even crazier. It was all crazy. I mean, why was everything that was happening so close to me? It was so confusing, I couldn’t even think – like there was so much stuff it wouldn’t fit in my head. And the more I tried to think, to make any sense of it, the more tangled up it all got.

  When I looked back up at the telly, Alice’s parents were on. They were sitting at a long table behind microphones, police in uniform standing behind them either side. DI Grayson was there in his dark grey suit. Her mum looked different to how I remembered her. I’d only seen her a few times through the windscreen of her silver Audi. She was always smart, with perfect make-up and orange waves of hair sprayed into place, looking out at the world like she knew her daughter was better than anyone else’s. Maybe that’s mean of me, but that’s how she looked – sort of through people. On the telly, though, her hair was flat with dark roots showing, her face pasty without make-up. She was clenching a tissue in her fist and kept dabbing at her eyes with it.

  I’d never seen Alice’s dad before. He was tall and had silver hair and his face was grey and papery like he’d had no sleep, his jaw muscles tensing as the cameras started to flash. ‘Alice is our angel,’ he said. ‘She loves to sing. She always sings when I play the guitar, even if she’s somewhere else in the house.’ He started to smile thinking about that, but couldn’t hold it together, and then he clamped his hands to his face, pressing his fingers into his eye sockets. Her mum huddled against him. Then he took his hands away, sniffing, and said, ‘She’s a happy kid. She’d never run away.’ I could see the effort it took for him to look into the cameras. ‘Please . . . if you know something, please come forward.’

  I closed my eyes. My chest ached and I got a massive lump in my throat seeing Alice’s dad like that, because it made me think about my dad and how the last time I ever saw him he’d held the tips of my fingers in his and looked at me like he’d give anything to be able to stay with me, only he didn’t have anything left to give. I used to imagine that instead of going to school the next day like I did, I’d gone to the hospice and climbed into bed with him and held him so tight that when his heart stopped beating, mine stopped too and that together our bodies just vanished into thin air, so we were nothing and nowhere, just gone.

  I felt dizzy going back to the room. Coloured blobs were swimming in front of my eyes like the stuff in my lava lamp. I realised I’d left the popcorn back by the telly on the little table next to the chair. I didn’t go back for it, though. I didn’t want it.

  It was dark in the room. There was just the yellow light from the bathroom. I could tell from Mum’s breathing that she was asleep. I got the new toothbrushes and toothpaste, brushed my teeth and washed my face, then took my jeans off and got into bed. I left the bathroom light on because the sound of the fan was nice. I didn’t want to be in silence. With the fan, I thought I’d be able to imagine I was in a spaceship in some galaxy far away, cruising through space. I closed my eyes and tried to picture myself sitting on the Enterprise, not doing anything much, just putting in coordinates to alter course slightly and looking out at the vast blackness. What kept coming into my head, though, was that policeman’s hand gripping Gary’s arm as he led him out through the front door. I wondered how many other neighbours had seen us being taken away. I thought, I bet they all rushed indoors to write about it on the Help Find Alice Taylor Facebook page. It’d be all over that by now, wouldn’t it? Then I took off my fleece because I was hot and felt something hard in the pocket.

  It was little Bea. China Bea.

  I took her out and held her, kissing her and whispering to her till she was warm. I was so happy I had her with me. It meant that all the time DI Burke had been leaning over me and shouting, raining her spit on me, little Bea had been there, secretly helping, giving me the courage not to break down and tell her about you. Realising I had China Bea with me felt like an omen, or at least like a message from you.

  I wished I could talk to you. I wished I could pick up the phone and say How are you? What you doing? and Did you see the news? I imagined you saying Yeah and how sad it was seeing Alice’s parents and then asking me if I was OK because you’d guessed how seeing Alice’s dad like that would’ve made me think about my dad. We’d talk about decorating your house again then, and I tell you my idea for the kitchen – shiny white cupboard doors with a black floor and red blind, with black and white chequered tiles and red accessories like jars and a kettle. I can feel you smiling at the other end of the phone, your eyes shining because secretly you think it’s cute when I talk about the two of us decorating your house, even though you have to pretend it’s not appropriate for us to be friends. And then I say, I’ll come and see you soon and Give Bea a kiss from me and when you say bye, I say, Samuel, you know you asked me if I believe in fate? Oh right, you say, Yeah, I remember, and I say, Well, I do – I do believe in it.

  Obviously I couldn’t phone you because I didn’t have my phone or even your number. So I did a Vulcan mind-meld with you instead. I closed my eyes and whispered the words over and over, thinking of you lying in that warm tangled bedding surrounded by pink flowers, your hair all messy and your shirt done up wrong, whispering with me . . .

  Your mind to my mind

  Your thoughts to my thoughts

  Your mind to my mind

  Your thoughts to my thoughts . . .

  And the more I whispered the words – over and over, round and round – the more weightless I got till I was floating in neither my mind nor yours. Then I saw my hand reach out in front of me, except it wasn’t my hand – it was yours – moving the pink curtain in your mum’s back bedroom to one side and looking past the reflection of you in the glass, down over the black garden.

  Breakfast was amazing. It was laid out all along this sort of bar that was in a semi-circle, and there were booths to sit in round the edge of the room and tables in the middle with nice purple chairs the same colour as the carpet.

  I was glad Mum hadn’t come, even though I knew I shouldn’t be. She’d said she couldn’t face it. I’m not sure whether she meant she couldn’t face eating or seeing other people. Both, probably. But if she’d been there, she would’ve looked at all the things I was putting on my plate and thought it was disrespectful or something, as if enjoying a free breakfast meant I didn’t care about Gary. She’d have tutted and gone, I don’t know how you can eat at a time like this, Yaz. I answered her in my head as I trapped a chocolate croissant in the silver tongs: Actually, quite easily, Mum. I’m starving.

  I took anything I liked the look of as I went along with my tray, adding two normal croissants and a white crispy roll with four sachets of apricot jam and some mini butters, a peach yoghurt, a bowl of fresh tinned peaches, a boiled egg and some cake, then carried it over to one of the booths. Breakfast got even better when I saw the Hot & Tasty Breakfast Menu propped between the salt and pepper and a girl in the Premier Inn outfit coming towards me with a notepad and pen. I ordered a full English with fried eggs, chips and tea.

  It was so nice sitting there on my own, eating that fry-up, I can’t tell you. The eggs were perfect – runny and warm, but not so runny that any of the white was like ectoplasmic goo – the sausages were the fat juicy kind, and they had bottles of ketchup and brown sauce, so you could have as much as you wanted without having to arse about with those stupid sachets that only have enough sauce in them for one chip.

  I think it was finding China Bea and doing the mind-meld that’d cheered me up. It felt like everything was going to be OK, and I remembered Dr Bhatt’s words ‘Because it will feel like the sun is coming out . . .’ I know he meant it’d feel like that when I got thinner, but the sun didn’t have to come out just because of getting thinner, did it? It could come out for lots of reasons. For example, if Alice was at that second walking through her front door. I thought if
that happened, Gary’d probably get compensation for everything he’d been put through – maybe enough even for me to get my own flat somewhere. And he’d definitely give me money for that. And then I could buy somewhere near yours and get my Havanese puppy and meet up with you in the park and tell you how, when I first saw you, I thought you were this bad man that was going to take Alice and we laugh about it and you say something like, You’ve got one hell of an imagination, Yaz, and then we catch each other’s eyes. You look away of course, all shy, but I put my hand on yours and then, without even turning back, you close your fingers round mine and our dogs start barking because they’re so happy we’re together at last.

  I made a butter and apricot jam croissant for Mum, wrapped it in a napkin and took it back to the room. She’d opened the curtains and was sitting on her bed, looking out through the white net curtain at the car park.

  ‘I got you this,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ she said, taking it, but she didn’t eat it. She put it on the bedside table.

  I sat down next to her. ‘What you going to do?’ I said.

  She sighed and looked down at the tissue in her hands. ‘Go to Watford police station,’ she said. ‘That’s where he is. Maybe they’ll let me see him, I don’t know.’ She looked out of the window again. ‘But I’ll tell them we need some things from the house. They can’t expect us to live in the same clothes day and night.’

  ‘I saw the news last night,’ I said. ‘They didn’t say Gary’s name. They didn’t even say they’d arrested anyone – just that a man’s helping them with their inquiries.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ she said, glancing at me, but I could see the corners of her mouth going down like she might get upset again. I rubbed her back. ‘It’ll be OK,’ I said.

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No,’ she said and blew her nose in the tissue. She looked at me again. ‘I don’t want you to. It’s been bad enough for you already. And I’ll probably end up sitting there having to wait for hours on end anyway. Why don’t you go into town or something? Take some money.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, thinking of you of course. ‘If you’re sure.’

  When I got to yours, the windows upstairs were all open.

  I hadn’t seen you for a while and, even though I knew you hadn’t meant what you’d said the last time I was there, I wasn’t sure how you’d react when you saw me. I thought if you were still pretending you didn’t want to see me, I’d say I had to tell you something and I’d tell you about Gary getting arrested. I thought I might even say that I knew it was you that took Alice if the moment was right and that you didn’t need to carry on saying I shouldn’t be your friend to protect me because I’d made up my mind that I liked you anyway. I thought you’d have to let me in then.

  Bea started barking in the hallway and you appeared at your mum’s bedroom window.

  ‘Hi,’ I called up.

  You didn’t say anything. Then you disappeared. I waited ages. I thought you weren’t going to come down at all, then finally I heard you saying something to Bea in the hallway and the door latch turned.

  You were wearing jeans and a black T-shirt that had Guinness written on it, spattered with white paint, and you were wiping your hands on a rag.

  ‘Oh, you’re painting,’ I said, bending to say hello to Bea.

  ‘I told you not to come back,’ you said.

  I stood up again. ‘I know,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got something to tell you.’

  You didn’t say anything. You didn’t move, either. You were waiting for me to tell you there on the doorstep, I think.

  ‘I can’t tell you out here,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just can’t,’ I said. ‘Can’t I come in?’

  I followed you with Bea into the kitchen. Everything downstairs looked the same, but I could smell the paint.

  You filled a glass at the sink and gulped it down. ‘I should’ve worn something old,’ I said, even though I couldn’t have anyway because the police weren’t letting us into Gary’s house, ‘then I could’ve helped you.’

  ‘What do you want to tell me?’ you said, rinsing the glass and putting it on the draining board. You turned to face me, leaning back against the sink.

  I chewed my cheek because now I was in your house I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea bringing up Alice again, but you were waiting for me to say something and there wasn’t anything else. ‘It’s about that girl,’ I said slowly, watching you. You scratched at some food stuck to the worktop. ‘You know, the one that’s missing?’

  ‘Oh, right,’ you said, not looking up.

  ‘Did you see they’ve arrested someone?’

  You stopped scratching and folded your arms. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well . . . I know him.’

  You didn’t say anything. You just kept looking at me and suddenly I didn’t have the balls to say about it being Gary, so I said, ‘I mean, I don’t know him well or anything – he’s our plumber. It’s just . . . he was at our house the other day and he kept looking at me in this creepy way, so when I heard it was him, it really freaked me out.’

  You scratched the side of your head. ‘So you thought you’d come round here and tell me?’ you said.

  I shrugged. ‘I know it sounds stupid,’ I said. ‘I just got scared. I didn’t want to be on my own.’

  You looked at me for a bit longer, then put the milk that was on the worktop in the fridge. ‘Well, you’ve got nothing to worry about now then, have you? If the police have arrested him.’

  I shrugged again and looked down. ‘I know,’ I said. Bea was sitting at my feet, looking up at me like she wanted a fuss. ‘I just got scared.’ I chewed my lip and wished I was wearing clean clothes, because even though I’d had a shower after Mum left, I felt dirty. I stroked Bea’s head and thought about saying how I hadn’t got anywhere else to go, but I thought that might sound a bit desperate so I said, ‘I wanted to see Bea.’

  You didn’t say anything. You were wiping the worktop with a tea towel.

  ‘I won’t get in your way,’ I said. ‘I promise. And I could help. I could take Bea out.’

  And then I knew what I’d said had worked because you shook the tea towel out and hung it over the back of one of the chairs without saying anything, and then you sighed and ran your fingers through your hair. ‘Well, you’re persistent,’ you said. ‘I’ll give you that.’

  I smiled at you. I said, ‘Can I see what you’ve done?’

  On the way upstairs, I said, ‘It’s good the police have caught him, though.’

  ‘He might not have done it,’ you said, half over your shoulder.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ I said. I thought it was an odd thing for you to say because surely you wanted everyone to think he had? And then I got a funny feeling that maybe you weren’t just taking me upstairs to look at the redecorating – that you were taking me up to tell me something like, As it happens, Yasmin, I know he didn’t do it because I did and now I’ve told you, I’m going to have to kill you too.

  You didn’t say that, though. You said, ‘I mean, it’s possible he’s innocent. The police do this all the time – get the wrong guys. ’Specially when they don’t have any idea. They haul in every Tom, Dick and Harry just to make it look like they’re getting somewhere.’

  You went into the back bedroom. It was empty except for long shreds of wallpaper all over the floor, a stepladder, paint pot and paint roller in a tray and an old radio that was on the windowsill next to your Drum. You’d done one wall and half the one opposite the window.

  ‘How d’you know?’ I said.

  You went over to the tray and picked up the roller. ‘I’ve just been around,’ you said, ‘that’s all.’

  I watched you roll the roller up and down in the paint tray a few times. Then I said, ‘You went for white, then?’

  ‘Stone, actually,’ you said. ‘Shouldn’t have bothered stripping the paper, though.’
>
  ‘Why?’

  You looked at it all round our feet. ‘Because it didn’t want to come off. Took me all bloody day yesterday.’

  Bea waddled into the room and stood looking at me. I went over to the open window, remembering how I’d looked out of the same window the night before, only through your eyes. It’d been dark then, but now in the daylight, I could see for miles. Between the bushes and trees at the bottom of the gardens I could see bits of the railway line that goes to Euston, and beyond that, fields – some of them with horses in.

  ‘Nice view,’ I said and then my heart suddenly stopped because they’re always saying that on those house programmes, aren’t they, when people are looking to buy or sell? They always say paint in neutral colours, too. Colours like ‘Stone’. I hadn’t thought of that before, but it was obvious, wasn’t it? Especially as you’d been living somewhere else before your mum died. Somewhere further north. You might want to go back there.

  I picked a bit of fluff off the windowsill and rolled it under my nail, and in the silence watched the cat that’d jumped up on your fence when you’d caught me in your driveway. It was making its way gingerly over the pile of ash and charred wood near the barbeque. I watched your reflection in the window too, painting the wall, your T-shirt going up every time you reached up with the roller, showing your back.

  I said, ‘There’s something else I need to tell you.’

  You carried on painting.

  ‘I do know that girl – Alice.’

  You turned and looked at me, and I turned round too. ‘I know I said I didn’t,’ I said, ‘but I do. She’s in my class.’

  You rolled the brush in the paint tray but I could tell you were listening carefully.

  ‘I dunno why I told you I didn’t,’ I said. ‘I felt bad, I suppose. Because I’m sort of pleased she’s gone.’

  You kept rolling the brush, but you still didn’t say anything.

  ‘I know that’s a horrible thing to say,’ I went on, ‘but she wasn’t very nice. She used to bully me. She was always calling me names, like saddo and freak. She even spat at me once.’