The Killing Jar

by Nicola Monaghan

‘What will happen, Kez? Just what is that bastard capable of?’

  I looked at the floor. ‘How’s yer fingers?’ I asked him. He held them out for me to look at. They were healing a bit, but he had problems bending some of them.

  ‘I’m worried about you,’ he said.

  ‘I can look after me-sen,’ I told him.

  He moved his mouth towards mine. I pushed him away so’s he had to steady his-sen. He let out a yelp as he had to grab onto the frame to stop from falling and it hurt his damaged hands. ‘I just want to help you,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. We sat there for a minute and I looked round me. The moon and the streetlights were sharp as blades cutting through the dark air. It were beautiful. I wondered if it were really beautiful, or if it were all in my head. I wondered what else was going off inside my head, and how I could tell what was real and what wasn’t no more. ‘The best way yer can help me is by getting lost,’ I said to Rob.

  ‘Fine,’ he said.

  Rob climbed down the kiddies’ plaything. He couldn’t make a quick getaway cause his hands held him up. When he got to his feet on the concrete below, he stormed off. I watched him go.

  I looked round the park. It were typical of round here, broken glass all over and the swings twisted round and round the top of the iron frame so’s no one could use them. I wondered where kids played these days. I sniffed the burnt air and closed my eyes, pretended I was somewhere else.

  EIGHTEEN

  A couple of weeks on and I was thinking about what Rob’d done, the risk he’d took coming to see me. I have to admit, it made me feel good about me-sen. I must of been smiling at this cause Bek clocked me.

  ‘What’s tickling you?’ she said. And I couldn’t help but smile broader thinking of Spiderman with his handheld phone, sitting on top of the kiddies’ climbing frame. Come all the way to the depths of Broxta to try and save me. ‘Come on, tell me,’ she said, slapping me all gentle on the arm and reminding me how we were thick as you like with each other before. So I came out with it, told her about Rob.

  ‘He was nice ter me and had a nice smile,’ I told her.

  ‘And what happened?’ I felt me-sen cloud over when she said this, and she must of seen it in my face cause she said, ‘What happened, Kez? Tell me.’

  ‘Mark,’ I said. I didn’t elaborate. Didn’t need to.

  ‘And he came back?’ she said. I nodded. ‘Did you sleep with him or something?’

  ‘No.’

  We were quiet then. Bek looked at the joint she was rolling, pretended she had to concentrate even though we both knew she could of rolled up in her sleep.

  ‘Do you love Mark?’ she asked me, licking at the Rizla. I watched her tongue flick over the edge of the paper, like some creature catching flies.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Then I’d steer well clear,’ Bek said, and I nodded.

  The door flew open then, Mark appearing in the room. I knew right away he’d been listening in, from the look on his face.

  ‘So you bin seeing that posh nob behind me back?’ he said. I stood up and he came over, sticking his chest out towards me like we were about to have a fight.

  ‘He just turned up outside. There were nowt I could of done about it,’ I told him.

  ‘But yer went out to meet the bogger,’ he said.

  I couldn’t answer that with owt, cause I had. I never should of been so stupid as to say owt about it, not in the house where Mark could listen in. I didn’t know what he’d do next. Truth was, like Rob’d pointed out, I wasn’t sure what he was capable of, not even when it came down to me or Jon. He fingered the hammer round his neck. Bek licked her lips and shuffled in her chair. Then Mark turned and walked out. I heard the front door slam.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said.

  ‘Fuck doesn’t even begin to get there,’ Bek said.

  I made some tea and tried to watch telly but I couldn’t concentrate on owt. Bek tried to help me. She said I should have a puff of brown to calm me down. I said no, but I showed her where Mark’s stash was, let her help her-sen. I must of been on a death-wish that night, talking in the house about seeing Rob, then giving away some of Mark’s best shit. I felt fluttery, like I got the next day after I’d been wasted on pills. It wasn’t a nice feeling. I knew it were a lottery now, how things’d pan out. If Mark’d gone out and done some rock, or been drinking like he sometimes did, I’d be for it when he got back. If he’d had some brown he’d fall asleep and forget about it.

  I chewed at my nails. Bek paced about. Jon came in, out on it. I don’t know what he’d took cause he hadn’t got it off me. Normally I’d of freaked out at him but all’s I could think was what Mark’d do when he got in. Jon was so mashed up he didn’t notice the mess me and Bek were in.

  Mark came back close to midnight and we were all in bed. I heard banging about downstairs and knew it wasn’t good. Then he stomped up to our room and stormed in. I could smell whisky coming out his skin. It were like the smell filled our tiny bedroom as he slammed the door shut.

  ‘Bitch,’ he said. He knocked some of my make-up and my hairbrush down off the dressing table with a sweep of his hand.

  ‘Nowt happened,’ I told him.

  ‘Yer met wi-him. And you would of liked summat to happen, that much were obvious from yer little chat with yer mate,’ he said. And he opened up a drawer and pulled out some of my knickers and started pulling them apart at the seams. ‘In’t much point yer having these, is they?’ he said, scowling at me, all animal again. I sat calm as I could cause I didn’t want to do owt to inflame him.

  ‘Look what I fount,’ he said. He pulled summat from the drawer. It were Morph.

  ‘Fucking put it down,’ I said.

  ‘Never had yer down as such a sap, our Kez, keeping summat crappy like this,’ he said.

  I lost it then, couldn’t see owt cept the glint of wings under glass. I launched me-sen at Mark. ‘That’s mine,’ I screamed. I could hear my voice, all screechy like a banshee. Mark held Morph away from me with one hand, and pumped the other fist into the side of my face, catching my eye then my forehead. It were a hard punch and by rights I should of been knocked out. I gritted my teeth, though, I’d took a few punches in my time. I wobbled round like a losing boxer and I couldn’t see much, felt sick as owt. I heard a clink as Mark put down my prized possession, then I saw his hand go back again, and braced me-sen for a second punch what didn’t come.

  As my sight came back to me I saw Mark standing over me with his hammer raised above my head. This is it, I thought. I’m going to die. My boyfriend who I’ve known since I was nine’s going to kill me, wipe me out with a hammer round my skull. But I didn’t scream or try and run. I felt calm. I thought – bring it on.

  This look came over Mark’s face. I can’t describe what it were like, maybes I can’t remember it proper. I was dizzy as fuck. He dropped the hammer and fell on his knees. ‘Jesus Kez, what did yer mek me do?’ I could hear my breathing then, in and out shallow and short and fast. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘Fuck, I’m sorry.’

  You’d think I would of got up and ran off if I’d had some sense, and I can’t explain why I didn’t. All’s I know is the only choice I had was to take him in my arms and hold him close. You can’t choose who you fall for, and you certainly can’t control the way they behave, specially if they’re into the kind of shit Mark was.

  ‘I love yer, yer know that don’t yer?’ he said. Thing was, I did. I hate all that, it makes me sound like one of them abused wife types and I’m not. But Mark did love me, in his own way. His own way was a bit psycho, that’s all.

  We fell asleep like that for a bit, lying on the cold floor, wrapped up in each other. A draft on my neck woke me up though. I touched Mark’s shoulder and he jumped up from his sleep, alert and ready to kill if need be.

  ‘S’all right,’ I told him. I walked him over to the bed and we both got in. I made him lay on his side so’s he didn’t choke on vomit. I lay in front of him and he squeezed me
tight to him. Too tight. He didn’t fall asleep right off.

  ‘I’ll never gerr-over it, yer know? It’s goin-ter piss me off fer good,’ he told me.

  ‘That I went to talk with Rob? Are yer daft or summat?’

  ‘Nah, not that. I know deep down nowt went off wi-im. I’m talking about Tyneside.’ I didn’t say owt then. What could I say? I just let Mark squeeze me tight as he liked. ‘I should of bin yer first,’ he said. And things slotted into place. Why he’d gone so mad over nowt with Rob, who must of reminded him of Phil with his posh manners and nice accent. Why he’d took it further and made sure Phil died. It were Mark’s revenge, not mine. He’d duped me into helping him, made a prat out of me. I gritted my teeth at this second punch in the face, but this one really knocked me sideways. I thought about the money in the garden. And summat else this time too. The poison what I’d buried there first, all them years ago, and what I could use it for if I was pushed to.

  Mark laid his head on top of my chest. I could feel his pulse racing, and the cold metal of his hammer resting next to my bare skin. I was mad as you like, but it were fucked up, cause when I looked at his face, all peaceful with sleep, all’s I could think was how I loved him. He’d not hit me before, never, and I was confused. I was a big open cut, the slightest touch making everything hurt and throb, and I don’t mean where he hit me, but inside. Your heart, I spose you’d call it if you were a sap and I’m not, but I don’t know how else to explain. I let me-sen fall asleep, hoped I’d wake up and find out it’d all been a dream. Not just that night, and Mark’s punch, but my whole fucked-up fucking life. Everything since before Mrs Ivanovich’d topped her-sen.

  I woke up in the middle of the night with my face throbbing. Mark’s head was still laid on my chest, and I got me-sen up from under him and his hammer with more than a little difficulty. I was scared of waking him up cause I didn’t know who he’d be. The gentle tender Mark he was before he fell asleep, or the violent drunk who’d stood over me about to crack me on the head with a hammer a few minutes before that. He didn’t wake up though. I snuck downstairs and took a bag of peas out the freezer, shoved them on my face. I remembered advice I’d seen on the telly, about how if your finger or hand gets cut off to bring it to the hospital wrapped in frozen peas. It made me smile, in spite on it all, imagining people going down to casualty with fingers wrapped in frozen peas.

  Someone was moving about above me, and I held my breath as I heard footsteps on the stairs. But it were Jon, coming into the kitchen, looking half asleep and still out on it.

  ‘What were all that row about last night?’ he said, walking in a few steps. He stared at me close. ‘What the fuck’s wrong wi-yer face?’ he said. He came right over then, and I shied away as he tried to get a proper look. ‘Jeez-uz,’ he said.

  ‘It in’t no biggie,’ I told him.

  ‘Did Mark do this ter yer?’ he asked me. I wanted to lie, but couldn’t, not to my brother, so I didn’t say owt. I placed the peas back on my face so’s he couldn’t see, but he moved them away. He winced. ‘Was it Mark?’ he said again. He took my silence as a yes. ‘I’m goin-ter kill the fucker,’ he said.

  ‘It in’t worth it,’ I told him.

  He started pacing then, up and down the room. I tried to explain how this wasn’t going to be for ever, this shitty house and the close and the stupid estate we lived on. But it were impossible to explain without giving the game away, and I’d learned my lesson about saying shit in the house. He started chucking stuff then, the toaster, and a dirty plate what was sat on the worktop, then all the cutlery out the top drawer. He was making a right racket, and I was shitting it that Mark’d hear and come down, then Jon’d go for him and someone’d get killed. But Mark must of been dog tired from our fight and the booze, cause he didn’t wake up. Duggy did though, and came running through to the kitchen like we were on fire or summat.

  ‘What’s going off?’ he said. And he saw Jon reach for the mugs on the draining board, then clocked my face and must of worked it out. Jon kept repeating, ‘I’m goin-ter kill him. I’m goin-ter kill that bastard,’ over and over. And all’s I could see was Jon ending up on the wrong end of Mark’s hammer.

  Duggy went up to him then, and started saying all this stuff in a soft, calm way. Jon turned towards him, and I thought he’d go all psycho into him, but he didn’t. He listened, and breathed more normal, stopped throwing stuff. Duggy put his hand on Jon’s shoulder, got him to sit down at the table and talk.

  ‘I hit him too,’ I told Jon.

  ‘That really in’t the point,’ he said. And he slammed his hand down on the table.

  ‘Listen to her, Jon,’ Duggy said. He kept using his name like that, and his voice was different to the way it were normally. I looked at him and wondered where he’d learned these tricks. It were, I don’t know, professional’s the closest I can get to describing it. I looked back at Jon and he was calmer again. Whatever way Duggy’d learned to do this, it were impressive to watch.

  ‘Mark sleeps wi-a hammer round his neck. And don’t think he wouldn’t use it on yer,’ I told Jon.

  ‘Yeah, that’s as maybes but d-ya think he wun’t use it on you?’ Jon said, and he had a point. We all went quiet.

  ‘It’s complicated. Things between adults,’ I said to Jon.

  ‘Yer reckon I’m a kid then?’ Jon said, his face all screwed up and his eyes flashing. ‘Bout time yer noticed I’m all grown up over here,’ he said.

  But I didn’t see Jon as a grown up. I spose you could ask who I was to say, given I was just a baby me-sen. Jon might of been six-foot summat and broad with it, but he was only twelve, which is no age at all. He was in this big rush to grow up, but I didn’t want him to have to, not like I had. He didn’t have a clue how to handle his-sen, not really. Didn’t have the first idea about psychos such as Mark.

  ‘Mark’s a dangerous bloke,’ Duggy told Jon. His accent sounded posher than it normally did and I think he noticed me look at him funny, cause he shot a nervous glance in my direction, then back at Jon, and carried on talking with his normal Nottingham drawl. I didn’t know what was going off with Duggy. The truth was, I thought he was harmless, just some posh kid faking it, and didn’t see owt past that explanation. Didn’t have no reason to. Not at that point.

  ‘Damn right he’s dangerous. Please mate, just leave it,’ I told Jon. He looked up at me, a frown knotted across his forehead. ‘For me?’ I said.

  Jon sighed and rolled his eyes. ‘All right. I’ll leave it,’ he said. He didn’t look happy about it at all.

  ‘Go to bed,’ Duggy told him. ‘I want ter talk ter Kez about summat.’ And Jon did what Duggy’d told him to, just like that. As the door sighed shut behind him, I turned to Duggy.

  ‘Just who the fuck are you Duggy Bryant?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t know what yer getting at,’ he said.

  ‘I think yer do,’ I said. And I caught his eyes in mine and held them there. He stared me out and didn’t flinch.

  ‘What yer goin-ter do about Mark? Yer can’t go on like that,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve got plans,’ I told him.

  ‘Yeah plans. How many times do gells like you say that kind of shit?’ he said.

  ‘What do you know about gells like me?’ I asked him. Duggy shrugged. He smiled up at the ceiling and I could of cracked him one, he looked so fucking cocky. He didn’t have the first clue.

  I walked out and left him to stare at the ceiling. He could preach to that, I decided. I went into the dining room and slammed the door. I took the rainforest books down from the shelf and leafed through them. How much more could I pilfer into my suitcase before Mark noticed summat? Would I ever get away from this shithole?

  I thought about this one insect Mrs Ivanovich had caught. It were this beetle thing. She put it in the killing jar and it took ages to die. She said it were cause the chemicals needed topping up in the plaster, but I’d only just done that and I don’t think it were. It seemed like that little bogger wasn’t ever
going to give up. It flew at first, but kept hitting the sides and being knocked back to the bottom so it gave up on that approach. It climbed the jar walls instead, getting a bit further, then a bit further each time, but always falling down to the plaster in the end. I watched it struggle for ages, and my eyes welled up. I didn’t cry though. Mrs Ivanovich’d taught me you don’t cry over insects and I always did what she told me. But all that effort, and even if it’d ever got to the top there was a lid on the jar. Course, the poison got to it first in any case.

  I sat at the table with my head in the rainforest and I cried. Some on it were for Mark hitting me, and the way he’d stood over me ready to mash my head in with the hammer after. But it were mainly cause I didn’t know what Jon’d do next. I wasn’t convinced by his promise to leave it, he was a right hot head, too much like me, and I thought there’d be more to come on it. It were other stuff too. The baby what I killed. Mam and Bek and Mark all living dead thanks to the poppy. Phil cold and buried in Wilford Hill.

  I thought about how beautiful my brother was and that made me cry too. The mix of race was a powerful thing, he was all muscle and height but with the fine features and high cheekbones what my mam gave to both on us. His eyes were hazel-green, his skin the colour of coffee. When I thought hard about it, he was so beautiful it made me sob, and bring my breath in sharp between. I wondered who his dad was. A dark figure came into my head, summat from my childhood. But with it came another thing, a cold jolt. It made me stop crying and sit up sharp. I couldn’t remember what’d happened with this man, or if he was just summat my head made up.

  The bogeyman.

  The ten-o’clock horses.

  The things we put inside the heads of kids so’s they’ll do what they’re told.

  I got up then, and went upstairs. I needed to be warm and held tight in bed. Even if it were the worst bogeyman of all holding onto me. Even if I knew that.

  NINETEEN

  I got woke up the next day by Mark kissing me all over my back and neck, like I was in some messed up version of Sleeping Beauty. He was picking up my hair and dropping it and it tickled a bit.