by Anne Cassidy
‘No.’
‘It could be shock. The tea will be ready in a moment,’ he said and turning to the man in the tracksuit he added, ‘Put two sugars in, will you?’
‘I don’t take sugar,’ Rose said.
‘It’s good for shock.’
‘Who is that?’
Rose pointed at the man in the tracksuit. He turned round at that moment.
‘Area Manager. On call,’ the man said and pointed to a beeper attached to a belt on his waist. ‘I was running nearby when I got the call. There’s an official response to an incident like this and I’m part of it.’
He pushed a steaming mug at her and she took it.
‘Drink the tea, Rose, and I’ll be back soon,’ the policeman said.
He left and the Area Manager turned back to a computer and started to tap at the keys. Rose sipped the sweet hot tea. She grimaced at the syrupy taste. The clock on the wall showed that it was 8.35; forty-five minutes since she had seen Ricky Harris on the bridge, his blood spreading on to the walkway.
Four passengers had come up the stairs behind her. One of them, a bald man in overalls, had pushed past them and squatted down next to Ricky Harris. He’d used his two fingers to feel for a pulse but quickly began to shake his head. Then Rose and the others had edged along the bridge past the body. When they came to the blood Rose had looked upwards as though she was on a tightrope. She had taken one narrow step after another and could hear the voice of the man in the dark overcoat behind her calling the police. By the time they got to the other side she thought she could hear sirens but it probably wasn’t anything to do with them because no one came for what seemed like a long time. Then everyone, the ambulance and the police and the man from the railway, turned up at once.
Some frantic questions followed. Had anyone seen anything? Rose was the only one to say that she had. The others were allowed to go but her policeman, the one on the bike, took charge and guided her into the ticket office and wrote down everything she said.
She put the half-drunk mug of tea down.
Any contact with the police made her feel uncomfortable. There’d been a lot of police around during those first weeks when her mum and Brendan, her partner, had disappeared. Smart-looking men and women in uniform with long faces and no answers. Rose had often felt distracted during the times when they were giving her and Joshua information. She’d stare at their hats, their earpieces, their flak jackets, their belts that seemed to hold everything; baton, gloves, flashlight, knife. Sometimes there was even a stun gun. The police it seemed were ready for every eventuality.
Except when her mum and Brendan vanished. They were not ready for that.
Her shoulders softened and she felt the old grief sweep across her chest like the brush of a feather. It hurt less now, a distant reminder of those deep dark days when the loss was angry and raw. She crossed her arms so it looked as though she was hugging herself.
Her mum and Brendan. She hadn’t seen or spoken to them for over five years. The police thought they were dead. She half believed it herself. She had pictured a hundred different places they might be but always, in the end, she came back to believing that they were gone. Now she’d seen this boy face down dead on the ground. Was that what had happened to her mum? To Brendan? The notion made her rock back and forward. The man in the tracksuit looked round. He seemed startled so she made herself slow down, keep calm. She counted her breaths. She tried to hold herself still and firm. She didn’t want her emotions tumbling out like tangled-up fabrics bursting out of an old clothes box. She had to hold them in. She’d managed to hold them in for five years.
‘You all right, Rose?’
The young policeman’s hand was on her shoulder. His hair looked untidy but stiff as if he gelled it.
‘Can I go now?’ she said, standing up, patting down her clothes, picking up her violin case.
‘I’ve managed to bag a car so I can take you home.’
‘I can walk from here,’ she said.
He shook his head decisively.
‘You’ve had a shock. I want to see you safely home.’
‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see the actual – you know – stabbing. I didn’t even know the guy well. I didn’t even like him. The truth is I couldn’t stand him, you know, so it’s not like I’m upset.’
But her voice was rising and had in it a hint of hysteria.
‘Come on, someone’s died. Anyone would be upset.’
He looked disappointed with her. He expected her to be sad but it wasn’t his fault because he didn’t know about her life. She had no sorrow to spare.
But she realised there was no point in trying to be huffy with him. She followed him out of the ticket office, past the other police officers. They stepped over the crime-scene tape and pushed their way through some young kids who were watching the drama.
‘The car’s over here,’ he said, peeling away from her across the empty road.
She followed him in silence. As they drove away from the station she spoke, her voice sounding scratchy.
‘You can just leave me at the top of my street.’
‘No, right to the door, I think,’ he said, giving her a sideways smile.
Squeaky voices were spilling out of the radio. The roads were busy and the car had to stop several times at crossings and traffic lights. She noticed that the policeman still had his bicycle clips on. She stared at them.
‘My name’s Henry Thompson,’ he said.
She looked away and stared out of the window. As they got further from the station the streets became darker and emptier, the houses bigger and the roads more leafy.
‘Your mum and dad must have a few bob. These are posh houses.’
She didn’t answer. She hated the word posh. She thought of Ricky Harris and his nasty comments to her. Now he was dead. She concentrated for a moment to see if she felt anything now but nothing came. Was she that cold?
‘I live with my grandmother.’
‘I’ll come in if you like and fill her in on what’s happened.’
‘I can do it myself. I’m not a child,’ she said.
‘Sorry! You’re right. But you’ve witnessed a terrible thing.’
‘I’ll tell my grandmother myself. I’m seventeen. I don’t need anyone to hold my hand.’
‘Are you always this challenging?’
‘Yes.’
‘Here we are,’ he said.
The car pulled up outside a detached house. Rose had the car door open and was out in a second. The front of the house was lit up, as it usually was.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said, moving away from the car.
‘I’ll contact you tomorrow, about making a statement down at the police station,’ he called.
‘Mm …’ she said, turning away, pushing at the gate.
She walked quickly up the path. Looking round she could see that the police car was still there waiting for her to go inside. She huffed, opened the door and felt the familiar feeling of gloom that settled on her whenever she went into Anna’s house. She could hear music playing from inside: orchestral, Schubert perhaps. It sounded sombre and yet racy at the same time. It fitted her mood.
She closed the door behind her and stood for a moment in the hallway and looked around. She wondered what the policeman would have thought of this house. It was the kind of place you might see in a magazine. She had certainly never been inside a house like this until she’d come to live here. The hallway was as wide as a room and the parquet floor was glowing with polish and had oriental rugs dotted here and there. A huge hallstand with a large vase of flowers on it stood to one side. The stairs swept upwards in an ‘L’ shape and were carpeted in royal blue.
Rose took her jacket off. She let it lie over her arm. There were no hooks for her to hang it on. Take your clothes up to your rooms, dear. Anna wanted no sign of Rose in the common areas of the house. All her things had to stay in her rooms. Rose’s bag never hung over the banister, her iPod never sat
on the coffee table, her school things never lay on the kitchen worktop.
The music was coming from the right of the house, her grandmother’s drawing room. She pictured Anna sitting in her armchair. Sometimes she had friends in there but often she was alone. She would have her eyes closed while listening to the music with one arm stretched out like a baton conducting an imaginary orchestra.
She wouldn’t hear Rose come in. She never did. That’s why it was all right for Rose to leave her make-up on. In the evenings Anna liked to be alone. She had made that clear often enough. Not that it was any great loss to Rose. Time spent with Anna was always difficult. One wooden conversation after another, Anna invariably asking her about her plans for university. Rose could almost see her doing mental arithmetic calculations. How soon would she have done her duty with regard to Rose? How soon until Rose could live somewhere by herself so that Anna could resume the life she had when Rose had been at boarding school, or the life she had had before Rose had been forced on to her.
Rose had no interest in spending an evening with Anna but tonight it would have been nice to come back and spend time with someone. To sit in the kitchen with a hot drink or a sandwich and talk about what had happened at Parkway East.
She went upstairs to her rooms. The first one was a small study. There was a desk and a swivel chair. On top sat a computer screen and keyboard as well as masses of her school files and papers. On the other side of the room was a large chair opposite a wall of shelves on which sat a television, a CD-player and a number of books and CDs and DVDs. Through a door was her bedroom and en suite. She dropped her coat and put her violin case on the bed, took out her laptop and laid it on the duvet.
She looked around. These were her rooms but they had Anna’s name written all over them. She always felt like an intruder. They’d been decorated and furnished by Anna. They were cleaned by Anna’s cleaner. They were inspected, from time to time by Anna herself, checking up on her property. It felt like a hotel suite. She suddenly couldn’t bear to spend the night there.
She went into the en suite, ran some hot water in the sink and washed off the black make-up and then coated her skin with cream. She changed into her pyjamas, pulled on some slipper socks and shoved her feet back into a pair of lace-up boots. She put her laptop and mobile into a rucksack and pulled a fleece out of her wardrobe and put it on. Then, she closed the study door and went downstairs.
In the kitchen she opened the fridge and took out a drink and some cheese, then grabbed a box of crackers from the cupboard. She put these things in her rucksack. She opened the back door and stepped out into the garden and closed the door quietly behind her. She followed the garden lights for ten, twelve, fourteen steps until she came to the laurel hedge that shielded the outbuilding that had become her studio. It was an old brick structure that had once been used as a garage and had been big enough for two cars. Now it had fallen into a kind of pretty disrepair with Amazonian plants climbing up and over it. When it became clear that Rose was coming home from boarding school for good to go to the local high school, she had set her eye on this building as a special place for her. It could be her art studio, she had said to Anna, hoping against hope that she would agree. Somewhere she could work and it wouldn’t matter if she made a mess.
Anna had been pleased. She had even given her a hundred pounds to do it up and allowed her to have a broadband connection. When Rose had finished and asked her to come and look she’d said, Very nice, dear.
Rose walked around the laurel hedge and was surprised to see a light coming from the window of the studio. She’d been in there earlier in the day. Had she left the light on? She tutted. The music from the house was still in the back of her head. It sounded like it was reaching some kind of crescendo. Had someone broken in? There was nothing much to steal. Her art books and drawing materials. An old sofa that Anna had allowed her to take from the utility room, pillows and a duvet she’d bought. A brilliant wicker chair that she’d found on a skip and half a dozen giant cushions she’d bought along with some pictures she’d found at a boot sale. There was a small fire and a kettle but it was all old stuff, or second-hand, taken from Anna’s kitchen with her permission.
She stepped forward again and placed her fingers on the door. She listened. After the events of the day she felt rattled and edgy. She didn’t need this. She just wanted to go into the studio and relax, listen to some music, check her emails, eat and drink and maybe doze off to sleep.
Pushing the door gently, Rose looked inside. It was the small lamp that was on, the one she used to read. It gave off a light yellow glow as thin as mist. She let the door open further.
There, lying on the sofa, was the figure of a boy. He was still, his face visible; his eyes shut, his mouth slightly open.
She’d seen a still boy a couple of hours before at the railway station.
This wasn’t like that, though. This boy was asleep.
She felt her chest fire up at the sight of him.
This was a special boy. Her stepbrother, Joshua Jackson, who she hadn’t seen for five years.
THREE
Rose closed the door quickly behind her, pulling it shut so that there was no strip of light to be seen. She put her rucksack down on the floor. In seconds she became anxious. If Anna knew Joshua was here, in her home, there would be trouble, a lot of trouble. She would almost certainly lose the freedom she had gained over the last months, the agreement they had made about her leaving boarding school to go to the local high school. She opened her mouth to speak to him, to wake him, to shoo him out.
But then she found herself looking at him, fast asleep on the sofa. The boy that she hadn’t seen for five years.
Why not leave him there? Anna was safely settled in her room. There was no reason why she would come out into the garden. None at all. Rose slipped her feet out of her boots and sat in the old wicker chair with her legs doubled up underneath her. She folded her arms and nestled against a cushion and looked at Joshua.
He’d emailed her one day the previous spring. Since then they’d kept in touch. Now, though, he was here in flesh and blood.
He was lying on one side facing her, his chest barely rising and falling. Her eyes travelled along his body. He was still wearing his jacket over a sweatshirt, jeans and plimsolls. On the floor beside him was a huge bunch of keys and a screwdriver. She frowned. Had he brought it along to fix something?
Years before, when they lived together, Joshua had made a habit out of bringing old things home and fixing them. She remembered finding old clocks on the kitchen table and a number of pairs of roller skates in the living room. That and a variety of wheels, handlebars and frames from old bikes that people didn’t want any more which sat in the garage or the hallway or in Joshua’s room much to the annoyance of her mother. That boy of yours, her mother would say to Brendan, he’s a magnet for junk!
The first day they moved in Rose had been shy of the tall eleven-year-old boy who carried in his belongings in cardboard boxes. She’d watched from the top landing as the front door was hooked back and Brendan (who she had met) and Joshua (who she hadn’t) walked back and forth to the van bringing their stuff with them, piling it along the hallway so that there was hardly any room to get past.
‘You know Brendan?’ her mum had said to her a couple of days before.
She’d nodded. Brendan was nice. Her mum hadn’t known him for long but Rose liked him better than the previous boyfriend who stood back as she passed him and never allowed anyone to touch his laptop or phone. No one. Ever. Brendan was easy-going and was always forgetting his things; his mobile, his BlackBerry, his wallet, his book.
‘He’s having some trouble with his landlord so I’ve said that he and his son can stay here for a few weeks until they get a new place? Is that all right with you?’
Rose had shrugged. Why not?
Her mum gave her a sideways hug, squeezing her shoulders tightly.
‘Mum, you’re breaking my bones!’ she’d said but she was smil
ing.
When Brendan and Joshua had finally unpacked their stuff into the house at Brewster Road the four of them went to Pizza Hut and celebrated. Rose looked shyly at Joshua, who had his own mobile phone and loads of computer equipment piled up in the corner of the box room. He was so grown-up. Like the boys from the big school. His voice was gravelly and his hands were as big as Brendan’s. On the way home from the restaurant he asked her which programmes she liked to watch on television and whether she liked music.
‘I play the violin!’ she said. ‘What do you play?’
He laughed. ‘I play PlayStation!’ he said.
At first she found it odd him living in her house. He always seemed to be in the toilet when she wanted to go or he was watching some sport on the television when she wanted to watch something else. Or he was making a noise in the box room while she was practising the violin, banging and shifting things around. Once she popped her head in his tiny room and saw him red-faced trying to find a place for all his stuff.
‘This room is really the TARDIS,’ he said. ‘It’s bigger than you think.’
‘Only in the Time-Space-Continuum,’ she said quickly.
He began to laugh. She stood still for ages watching him, her violin almost touching the floor, then she began to laugh as well.
‘Why don’t you get one of those high-up beds? Then you can put all your stuff underneath it,’ she said.
He looked at her.
‘You know what, Rosie, that’s brilliant,’ he said slowly. ‘That is one great idea.’
‘My name’s Rose,’ she said, miffed.
Brendan and Joshua made the frame for the bed. It took days while large lumps of wood were carried up the stairs and back down again to be sawed up in the back garden. When it was finished Rose looked in amazement at the platform bed reachable by a small stepladder and the desk and computer equipment underneath. Behind the door, hidden from most people’s view, was a wheel with some of its spokes warped.
Once the bed was up it was clear that Joshua was staying for good.
It was three happy years.