by Luke Walker
She didn’t return his smile and Stu tried to think of a way around this. There wasn’t one and that was close to a relief. It meant he didn’t have to think up any lies Kirsty would never believe.
He crossed to the kitchen and pulled the door shut.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I just know something’s wrong and I know you’re not telling me what it is.’
Kirsty hadn’t dropped her arms and there was something so horribly severe in her posture and her lack of smile that Stu wanted to lower his eyes from hers, to stand abashed like a scolded child.
‘I told you. It’s just a few beers with Will and the others. I told …’
‘I know what you told me, Stu. But what aren’t you telling me?’
Stu gazed at his wife. Behind her, the dinner plates were still in the sink. Usually, he’d wash them, give the kitchen a clean up after putting Lucy to bed. Not tonight, though. Not enough time if he was to get to the pub by eight.
‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it?’ Kirsty said and finally lowered her arms. They hung by her sides for a moment, then her hands linked and twisted together. She didn’t seem to be aware of touching her wedding ring. ‘Something happened a couple of days ago.’ She wouldn’t look at him. ‘When you came in from work on Tuesday, I knew something had happened then.’ Her eyes rose to his for a fraction of a second and it was long enough for her to spear him with a look.
‘Is there someone else?’
The words were beyond insane; the idea, nonsense. Stu floundered for a reply, loosely aware that doing so made it appear as if was stalling. With a huge effort, he forced the words out.
‘Christ, no. Shit. There’s nobody else. This isn’t about that.’
She sniffed back her tears. ‘So it’s just you and your mates in the pub?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Stu.’
Her words weren’t a shout. Even so, they possessed more power and more anger than Stu had ever heard from Kirsty before. He stared at her, tasting the words, the truth, but unable to let it out. Fear swallowed those words. Fear for his wife and their normal life. Fear that the truth meant their normal life was finished.
‘If this is just a drink with your mates, why didn’t you ask me if I wanted to come?’ she said.
He floundered again, aware as he spoke that he should have thought of this.
‘I didn’t think you’d fancy it. Plus getting a babysitter and …’
‘That’s such bollocks. Any other time, you’d want me there. I know they’re your mates more than ours. I know you’ve been mates with them for years and I don’t care about that. I like them. I see them with you, and I know you like to see any of them sometimes on your own, but this still doesn’t make sense. You’ve specifically not asked me if I want to come out. Why?’
Her anger had been replaced by hurt and confusion. Both were worse than anger.
Stu closed his eyes for a moment and discovered a new emotion. Relief. He hadn’t lied to her. Not exactly. Even so, he hadn’t told the truth and he shouldn’t be too surprised that she’d known something was wrong.
‘This isn’t about anything like that. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s about something I heard and something Karen saw, and a phone call Mick got and Will’s drawing …’
The words trailed away. Behind Kirsty, the last of the day’s sun had become dusk. Outside the open window, the breeze played over dead leaves.
‘What did you hear?’ Kirsty said and Stu crossed to her. He held her, hands linked around her waist. She resisted for a moment.
‘I’ll go out tonight, speak to the others and find out what’s going on. As soon as I get home, I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘What did you hear?’ Kirsty said again and Stu knew there was no way around this, no way to get out of it. Kirsty never let go when she had hold of something. He knew that like he knew he didn’t want to see any of his old friends.
He said the words as if they were weighed down with an anchor.
‘A ghost. I think I heard a ghost.’
Twelve
Will placed the four pints of lager on the table. ‘This place hasn’t changed in the slightest,’ he said.
‘Sure it has. They cleaned the toilets for a start,’ Mick replied.
Will sat; Karen placed a soft hand on his leg and he welcomed the touch.
‘All right. Other than cleaner bogs, it’s pretty much the same.’
He glanced around. From their table close to the windows at the front of the building, he had a fair view of the whole pub. There was a small crowd at the bar although he imagined it would become busier later. Three staff served them quickly, another fifteen or twenty people sat at the few tables and in the long line of booths built into the opposite wall. He studied the floor, glad to see it hadn’t changed from the same scuffed wood he’d known years ago. Still faded, still sticky, still pretty manky.
Good. So it should be.
He held back his smile, sipped his lager and watched a few people pass by on the pavement. The temperature had dropped in the last couple of days; his breath had been visible once or twice during his and Karen’s walk here from his dad’s house and he’d concentrated on that rather than saying much to Karen. Despite the chill, the young men outside seemed not to notice. They wore their smart shirts and trousers and didn’t care about the cold. Will looked away, feeling abruptly old and tired.
The clock over the bar read 7:45. It was either time to start talking about it or time to just drink and drink and pretend none of this was real. He gazed around the pub again and then at the long seat upon which Mick and Andy sat opposite him and Karen.
‘We filled this dump, didn’t we?’ he said and wished he hadn’t. It was too early for nostalgia.
Karen laughed. ‘Yes. When we weren’t old enough to be in here.’
‘And the beer was cheaper,’ Will said.
‘And all this were fields,’ Andy said and laughed. Will forced out his own laugh, aware it sounded as fake as Andy’s had. He sipped his lager, Karen did the same and silence fell over their table. Mick tapped his fingernail against his glass and glanced at the doors as they opened. A woman entered and Mick looked away.
‘He said eight, didn’t he?’ Will said. He knew the answer but some words had to fill the silence.
‘Yeah. Thought he would have been here by now,’ Andy said quietly
‘Probably helping Kirsty put Lucy to bed,’ Karen muttered.
Will drank, and without conscious thought, he ran a hand over the side of his jacket. Mick caught the movement.
‘The picture?’ he asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Can we see it?’
Will reached for his jacket and Karen pulled his arm back.
‘Wait until Stu gets here. Best if we all see it together.’
Will lowered his hand from his jacket and nodded, unable to meet her eye. Mick took a large swallow of his drink, set it down and grinned.
‘A bag of peanuts if any of you can tell me the name of the guy who worked here who all the girls fancied,’ he said.
Karen let out a little laugh. ‘Jimmy Eccles. God, I haven’t thought of him in years. He had a cracking arse.’ She eyed Will, grinning around her glass.
‘That guy?’ Will said and gave Mick a quick look. Mick dropped a wink that was fast enough for Will to wonder if it was genuine. He swallowed the urge to silently signal his friend he was grateful for such a meaningless topic of conversation.
‘He looked like a bell end,’ he said. ‘With his designer stubble and his leather jacket.’
‘And his nice arse,’ Mick said and Will flicked beer foam at him.
‘You’ve got me to fantasise over,’ he said to Karen and she thumped his arm.
‘Yeah. Fantasise you wash the dishes and stop pissing on the toilet floor.’
‘Or wash the floor and piss on the dishes,’ Mick said.
Relaxed for the first time in t
wo days, Will laughed. He caught Andy looking at him and a flash of a thought that they shouldn’t speak of what had brought them together lived and died in a heartbeat.
‘We really going to wait for Stu?’ Andy asked and Will’s laugh fell away.
‘Probably should,’ he said.
Andy tapped on his glass as Mick had. He spoke without any emotion.
‘Why did you phone me, Karen?’
She frowned. ‘When?’
‘When I was on the train. You called me.’
Her frown deepened and she drank her beer for a moment. ‘To say hello. To see how you were.’ She shrugged. ‘No big reason. Why?’
Will knew he should keep his eyes on Andy’s, keep in control rather than let the lie show on his face and in his downturned gaze. Even so, he couldn’t look from the table and his beer.
‘Really?’ Andy murmured.
‘No. Not really,’ Will said and forced his gaze up to Andy’s face. ‘Stu asked us to call you.’
‘Why?’
Will glanced at Karen. She nodded.
‘He was worried you wouldn’t come back,’ Will said and wished it sounded even a little less shitty to say such a thing.
Andy remained still for a moment. A slow, unwilling smile trickled over his face before he let out a harsh laugh.
‘Well, I’ve heard funnier one liners,’ Mick said. Andy ignored him.
‘I wondered if that was it. What’s it been? Eleven, twelve years since we all lived here, since we did this.’ He waved a hand, encompassing the pub, encompassing Dalry, Will realised. ‘And he hasn’t changed. Still the one in charge of all of us. Sad thing is, he was right. On the train, I was about three seconds away from getting off it and getting on the next one back to London.’ He sighed, a weary breath that trembled from his mouth.
‘Why didn’t you?’ Karen asked.
‘How could I? Not with all this. Not when it comes to you lot.’
Mick cackled and clinked his glass on Andy’s.
‘Not when I keep seeing the flat I lived in when I was a kid,’ Andy whispered.
Mick shifted in his seat but didn’t speak.
‘We should wait for Stu,’ Karen said quickly and Will kept his mouth shut. Something had come to their table in the last few seconds; something made of why they were back. And if Andy wanted to tell his story, then he would tell it whether Stu was here or not.
‘I’m seeing it like I see this table, all you lot, the windows. It’s all real, not like I’m just thinking about it or looking at a photo. It’s completely real. And it’s a rough place. I mean, a proper dump. The sort of place you see in films about drug dealers and dodgy bastards.’ Andy’s gaze remained fixed on his pint. Will stared at the bubbles in his friend’s lager and wanted to be anywhere else.
‘There are broken windows and graffiti and all that everywhere. The lifts are broken and I can hear screams from upstairs. So I go up there; the screams are coming from my old flat. Number nineteen.’ Andy laughed hollowly. ‘I go down to it and there’s a guy in there, raping a woman. He tells her to give him a blowjob or he’ll pour petrol on her face.’
‘Christ,’ Mick whispered. His fingers were wrapped around his glass tight enough for his knuckles to have turned white. Andy still hadn’t looked away from his drink and Will wondered if his friend could still see the pub and the people around it.
‘I run into my old flat, smack the guy with a plank of wood and another guy comes out of the kitchen and hits me with a baseball bat.’
He took a deep swallow of his lager and wiped foam from his lips.
‘It’s happened a few times. I only had the balls to go into the flat the last time. I came back to my own flat when the second guy hit me.’
Will realised he was squeezing Karen’s hand only when she winced and eased hers from his.
‘Sorry,’ he said. She gave him a distracted smile and rubbed her fingers.
‘What would have happened if you hadn’t come back to your own flat?’ she said to Andy and he shrugged.
‘God knows. They probably would have bummed me.’ Will heard the forced humour in the words just as he’d seen Andy’s forced smile. ‘They looked like the sort of nasty bastards who’d do anything to anyone just for the hell of it.
‘The question is what has that got to do with Geri?’ Mick said.
Will flinched, unable to stop it. Mick saw the movement.
‘Come on, man. We have to really talk about her sooner or later. This is all about her, isn’t it? I mean, I get a call from her; I hear her crying and then I hear myself telling her to cheer up. Stu hears her calling his name inside his head. You get your drawing, whatever it is, and Karen sees her at school. What’s Pateman’s old flat got to do with her?’
‘You say that like the rest of it makes sense,’ Will said. His hand trembled as he reached for his drink.
‘None of this makes sense,’ Mick shouted and stared at the people on the closest table when they glanced at him.
The pub doors opened and Stu was there. He stood, framed by the doors. Illumination from a streetlight ran ahead of him onto the dirty floor.
Silence, long and thick, span out. Then Will was up, arms outstretched to embrace his friend.
Thirteen
They encircled the table, the pub busier now, louder. The background music had increased in volume and they needed to raise their voices to be heard. Surprising herself, Karen welcomed the noise. It all made the pub feel like a pub should on a Friday night. Months had passed since she and Will had been to a pub on a weekend night, but even so, the noise, the bulk of people and the smells of different drinks all joined together to make everything feel as it should be for friends in a pub on a Friday night.
‘How’s Jodie?’ Stu asked Mick.
‘Good. She’s good. Getting fat. You know how it is.’
‘As fat as you?’
‘Not quite. Working on it, though.’
Stu squeezed the flesh on Mick’s chest. ‘You could do with one of her bras,’ he said.
‘Na. She won’t let me wear her underwear, anymore.’
Stu laughed and lifted his beer. ‘Cheers, all. Good to see your asses again.’
The others lifted their drinks and a mutter of cheers ran around the table. They tapped their glasses together, and for a second, Karen let herself feel happy. It passed and a suggestion of fear took its place.
‘Lucy all right?’ Andy said.
‘Yeah. Fine. Almost lets us sleep for a whole three hours these days.’
‘Kirsty?’ Karen said.
‘Yeah. We had a few words before I came out.’ He paused and appeared to consider. ‘I had to tell her the truth about tonight. She didn’t believe it was just a drink and a get together.’
He dropped his gaze from Karen’s and sucked his teeth. He took a long swallow of his beer and nobody broke the silence.
‘So, what’s the scores on the doors?’ Stu said, placing his glass down. ‘We all okay?’
Karen noticed a look pass between Mick and Will. She leaned forward, resting on her elbows.
‘We’ve done all that, Stu. The catch up.’
‘Without me?’ he said, pretending hurt.
‘Afraid so. We need to talk.’
At once, all his pretence vanished. He looked scared and tired. ‘Yeah. I know.’
Will slid the folded sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket and didn’t open it. ‘This was in our house yesterday and it isn’t one of mine.’
‘You sure?’ Mick said and Will raised an eyebrow, still holding the sheet. ‘No, I mean, maybe it’s like that writing thing.’ He mimed writing in the air. ‘You know. Those fruits who think if they hold a pen to paper, then something comes through them and writes. It’s not them writing. It’s someone else.’
He dropped his eyes and chewed his lower lip.
‘Automatic writing?’ Karen said.
‘It’s not that,’ Will said.
‘Yeah, but hang on a sec.’ Andy raised a
hand. ‘It could be. Say you were in a trance or something like that. You wouldn’t know you did it, right? You could have drawn that and not even know it.’
Will’s jaw clenched and Karen mentally told him to calm down. With great care, he unfolded the sheet of paper.
‘You know my stuff. How I draw. My style.’ He swallowed a few times before he managed to get the rest of the words out. ‘That isn’t how I draw at all, so even if I did draw it without knowing it, it still means it’s someone else’s work.’
Every line of the drawing had imprinted itself on Karen’s mind since the day before. Even so, she stared at the image with the same sense of wonder and fear as she knew the others felt.
The girl at the window. The building. The grounds around the building. And the day, summer in all its glory, all its warmth and colour soaked into the paper through simple ink. The naked blue sky, the streaming yellow, the trembling in the air as heat rose from the ground, baking as it flowed upwards.
The girl at the window. Her face. Her smiling face, full of love, full of hope. The gun in her hands.
Mick leaned back into the seat, hand over his eyes but not before Karen had seen all the colour gone from his face.
Stu reached a shaking finger to the figure at the window and touched the lines of the face.
‘Geri,’ he said. ‘Jesus Christ.’ He stared at each of them. ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
Karen felt the weight of her one word and wanted to take it back, to deny what she was looking at.
Geri. What is it? What do you want?
The face at the window, framed by her red hair. It was like looking at a photo.
‘It’s her.’
Stu withdrew his finger and rubbed repeatedly at his mouth. Will folded the paper and didn’t put it back in his jacket.
‘Let’s talk,’ he said, facing the table.
Andy barked a mirthless laugh. ‘Fine. Let’s talk. What the fuck are we doing here? What the fuck are we doing in Dalry? What’s this about?’
‘Chill, Pateman,’ Mick said and Andy rounded on him fast.
‘Chill? Bollocks. This isn’t just mad. It’s impossible. It’s …’
‘It’s true,’ Karen said. ‘And you know it.’
‘How can it be true? Geri’s dead. She’s been dead for best part of ten years.’