by Amy Bird
But where is the crime here?
27 February 2007
DC Pearce was even at the funeral. Not visibly, of course. But I know what they do, the police. I’ve seen the films.
First, they lurk at the back of the church. So all the time during the service, when I was sitting at the front with Adam, I knew we were being watched. I stopped myself holding his hand, like when Dad died, although I did pat his thigh when he made an exploding noise like a suppressed sob. The readings were made real to me again, like at that earlier funeral, by the replacement of ‘Christ’ with ‘Adam’. Or just He. When Dad died, and God left with him, the vicar told me directly in the funeral sermon that ‘He will guide us, our saviour, our all’. I knew he was right. Adam was my saviour, now I’d lost my father on earth and on high. I realised it, that day, in church. But the vicar was wrong about us all sharing Adam. He was just mine. At Helen’s funeral today, the vicar knew about Adam too. ‘He will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death,’ he said. And, ‘For to me, to live is Adam and to die is gain.’ I forgot about DC Pearce for a while. But then Adam read a piece straight to me, about sheep and staffs and anointing him with oil when we are sitting down with his enemies. I tried to deter him from sending me messages when DC Pearce was watching, but he ignored my mouthed warnings and continued. I could feel DC Pearce writing notes at the back. He must have been hiding behind one of the pews at that point, so that Adam couldn’t see him.
I know their tricks outside, too. They stand on the edge of graveyards, watching, waiting for the culprit to do something that will give them away. I tried to throw the earth in the least triumphant way possible. That took a lot of self-control, but my back was prickling with his eyes so I had to. Adam didn’t know we were being watched, so I told him. He looked round to see. He is so naïve and uncorrupted. I told him that looking was a waste of time, that the watchers were hidden, and that the thing to do was just look innocent. He said he was innocent. I said we all, really. But he got the message, because he looked down gravely at the earth, and didn’t look up again until all the ground was filled in. I did the same. I wanted to make sure Helen was well and truly buried.
After the funeral we went into the rose garden, me and Adam alone. I kept a respectful distance behind him as he went in, but I knew he wanted me there, because when I finally closed the distance between us, he was smiling. He said he wanted a moment alone, before it was time for the wake. It’s a good phrase, wake, in these circumstances, when it is Adam’s time to be awoken. I told him that, in the garden. He didn’t hear me, because he carried on fingering a rose. They weren’t very good roses – more thorn than flower. Like Helen. Adam didn’t hear that either. So I took his hand and told him he was not alone. He slapped me on the back and told me he was grateful. Then he said we should go and get awoken. He laughed as he said it, like it was a joke, but we both know how serious it is, for us, for our future.
I knew too that he was thinking back to my parents’ funerals, Mum’s first, then Dad’s. To the time afterwards, when I went back to his house with him and his parents, when we knew I’d be staying there, for a while. I wanted to suggest that I could now reciprocate, that he could come and live with me. Or I could come and live with him. But that either way, he wouldn’t be alone. I knew he knew that offer was there, if he wanted it, though, so I didn’t need to voice it. And then wouldn’t have been the time.
At the wake I kept my distance from Adam, so that DC Pearce wouldn’t suspect. That’s a mistake novices make at funerals – if they’ve been having an affair and murdered the spouse so they can be together, they send each other bright-eyed looks when they think no one is looking. Then they disappear into the bathrooms and fuck each other. When they get out of the cubicle, they find the police there, and suddenly the game is up.
So instead, I spoke to a boring girl in a red beret that made her look like a fat pixie, while we ate lobster quiche. I think her name was Nicole. We didn’t talk for the whole wake, because she vanished for a bit, but then I spotted her again with Adam a little while later, without her beret, so I waved. Neither of them waved back. I moved onto the beetroot crisps, alone. Save for DC Pearce, of course.
28 29 February 2007
No, it’s not a leap year. But I wanted a secret, hidden day, an extra day, for Adam.
[Should I really be calling it a secret day? Won’t that put readers off, when this is published as my story? No. No I think they will like it. A sense of discovery. They are real voyeurs, these readers, and I am their agent of provocation.]
So here, in this window between time, this day of my creation, I am thinking back over some other, hidden moments, that are just our own.
- The time in Mr Hughes’ maths class when Mr Hughes made fun of the answer I’d written on the blackboard, and while I was up there embarrassed and ashamed at being exposed as stupid, Adam caught my eye and rolled his eyes in the direction of Mr Hughes. Suddenly I knew that I was protected. It was much better than a public display of support because it meant I had the courage then to stand up for myself. I told Mr Hughes what I thought of him, and I got detention, but it didn’t matter, because Adam was there with me. In spirit.
- The time I went round to his house, before I started living there, and his mum showed me up to his room, and I asked what he was up to. He said he’d been having a wank, and I was welcome to grab my own magazine and sit in the corner with it, if I wanted, but really it was a private activity. So I did what he said. Adam himself didn’t masturbate, but he was probably tired. He just looked at me. Everyone at school was really pleased for me when they found out, because they kept coming up to me and asking, ‘So you really went over to Adam’s house and wanked in a corner?’ Then they laughed unreservedly when I said I had. They sat next to me at lunch, and everything, asking me questions. Adam let me have my moment of glory, and didn’t try to sit next to me. That was fine. I knew we’d have more private moments. I guess this is a more public moment, less secret, but nobody was in the room with us. They didn’t know the atmosphere. He told everyone in our residential unit about in Feltham too, once, the night I had the worst beating. It was only an hour before we were due to be locked up. None of the wardens noticed because Marco and his gang didn’t touch my face. That night, Adam had to hug me with my hands. I enfolded myself in his arms, although he wasn’t physically there in my cell with me. No one was. He kept me from the precipice. I have him to thank.
- Adam’s birthday in Feltham. I made him a card, and I signed up for cookery so I could bake him a cake. Marco’s crew called me lots of names I’d never heard of, but he ate a piece, when they weren’t watching, and said it was all right.
- My birthday in Feltham. Adam remembered, which was sweet of him.
- The night before Adam started his first job. I knew he would be nervous, so I went over there to calm him down. He didn’t have the big house in West Hampstead, then – that came when he started living with Helen. He was just living in a grotty basement flat in Streatham. We bonded while I ironed his shirt for him. The iron made a hole in it, but it wasn’t even big enough to put a finger through, plus it was hidden when you put a jacket on. Adam didn’t make a fuss. He said he knew I was trying to help. He needed his sleep, though (lots of it – it was only 8 p.m. when he started yawning) so I left him to it, went back to the car wash, for the night shift.
- The day I told Adam I’d moved to North London. I know he really appreciate being told that, despite moving in with Helen, he wouldn’t lose my friendship, because he went silent. At some moments, there is just so much emotion that you can’t speak. I stayed on the phone, silently communing with him, until he felt ready to hang up.
- And of course, our biggest secret moment yet. The one so secret, that Adam doesn’t even know we shared it. And he must never know we shared it. He must think we have come together naturally, not know I was the one who made him cry. [I’ll need to edit before I send this book to publishers. Somehow, he mustn’t know it
’s him. Or maybe, maybe this book is secret too, always. A shared moment in time with Adam. Do I want to publicise it? It would be hugely successful, I know that: but what price sharing our lives in that way? What of the retribution, the loss of friendship? Perhaps, by then, we will be so close, and I will be so acclaimed, that he will brush it off, as we lie next to each other, in the rose garden. Or more likely, not. Perhaps publish another book first.]
So many more moments to come, now that Helen is gone. Adam will be so grateful, to have me.
1 March 2007
Spring. Hope. Birth. Death gone, only living. Apparently.
2 March 2007
I’ve been wondering whether I should have a book launch. Not for this book, necessarily, which has already had its launch, in the event itself with Adam. And I suppose book two already had its anti-launch, with Adam and Helen’s wedding. But book four, whatever that is, that needs some kind of exciting launch event. Some kind of gathering. Adam will need to be there, of course, to see my glory, to know I am worthy of him. I’m not sure who else. My publisher, yes, whoever that will be.
Parties are so difficult though. I have not had one for over twenty years. Mum and Dad tried, when they were both still alive, when I was eleven. They put in a lot of effort. Even though Mum was already ill, she did hand-made invitations (a bit shaky), sent them round the class list I drew up for her, and I took them in to give them to my class mates. Everyone was so pleased to see them – they grinned and whispered to each other in delight.
The day of the party, Dad blew up balloons and tied them to chairs. Mum baked a cake. I made a ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ game. Then we sat there, in a line, facing the door. At 3.30, Mum said it was early yet. At 4 p.m., Dad said that people often take a relaxed view of timings, and they were probably still wrapping up my presents. At 5 p.m., Dad leant across from his chair and ruffled my hair. ‘We love you, son,’ he said, as if that was ever in question. Then at 5.30, he had to leave the chair to hug Mum who was crying. Dad didn’t cry. Or rather, the moistness in his eyes didn’t escape. It only started escaping after Mum died. Then it never stopped escaping, until he did. Later on, after there would definitely be no party, I found the cake in the bin. Wasted, when it was still fresh. Tucking me into bed that night, Mum told me as she did every night, after a story about the disciples, that it was important to remember that God loved me, and that God is love. The fact she protested so much should have been my first clue that belief in that particular deity was misguided.
If I had a book launch, I worry it would go the way of that party. Me sitting on a chair facing the door, waiting. Like Feltham all over again. And this time, unlike the last party, Mum and Dad wouldn’t be there either. Just me and piles and piles of books and a cake.
But, no, this is stupid. I’m forgetting the main thing. Actually, no – TWO main things. First, my books when they are published, when they find their proper audience, will form a profound and moving account of a brilliant man (Adam), drawn by an honest and skilful narrator (me). They will change the world and my world will change to include Adam’s reverence. Second, the party wasn’t really a disaster. Not when you remember the reason behind it. Adam had organised his own party on the same day. He’d just somehow forgotten to invite me. It was to be a surprise party. He was really embarrassed about it, I know, because he couldn’t tell me himself. I heard from someone else, afterwards. They asked how my party was, then began laughing. When I said it was fine, they laughed even harder. Then Adam came along and they all shouted, ‘Adam, Adam, tell him about YOUR party.’ He smiled slightly and said, ‘Yeah, sorry, mate.’ Then they all went away, still laughing. All the way through English they were still laughing, the rest of them. They laughed as they handed me notes that said, ‘Loser.’ They laughed as I got sent out of class for disrupting my fellow pupils. So nobody ever told me about the surprise party bit. I worked that out for myself, as I stood outside in the corridor, alone.
5 March 2007
Too busy at work, what with Jimmy leaving, and DC Pearce always there. Pearce has left a video camera, I know it, to spy on us. I just can’t see it – he’s too clever for that. Or at least he thinks he’s clever. He thinks that the cigar smoke he surrounds himself with is like a fog of wisdom, giving him strength, that the spare tyre of doughnuts round his waist keeps him afloat, when really it just makes him piggly ignorant.
But outside work, there is living to be done. I went to mine and Adam’s local. Or rather, the pub I know he likes, in Hampstead – the Garden Gate. I had a feeling he would be there. He wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. I had a pint with him anyway.
7 March 2007
Tonight I went to the pub with physical Adam. You know, bar stools are great. Because you can sit so close up together, and your legs touch, but it’s okay, because you’re at the bar. Stayed at the bar ages and ages and Adam said such deep things. He told me that when you love someone, the world ends when they die. He said that when you love someone with your whole heart, there is nothing left of you to give. He said it’s like being in the grave with them, when they die. I’ve heard people say all those things before, like they’ve all learnt to say them, but with Adam you could tell they all came from the heart. Even more than it did with Dad.
I gave Adam my advice.
It’s possible that I shouldn’t have done. But, you know, what with the bar stools, and the shandy, I felt liberated.
So I told him this: love your friends as you have loved your wife. See them not as friends but as you life’s true companions. Hold them dear to your heart and soon that heart will mend, with them ingrained.
He said I should be a poet.
I needed him to know it wasn’t just lyrical fancy. So I did that thing with my little finger, where you crook it and get the other person to crook their little finger in your crook, like a friendly version of a lobster fight. I tried it once on him when we were kids, because my mother used to do it with me, but he wouldn’t then. And he wouldn’t now. At least not at first. I kept my finger crooked for him, all evening, though, in case he wanted it. Just when I thought he was rejecting it, was about to lower my finger, he raised his little finger and crooked it within mine. Very briefly, but long enough for me to understand.
‘We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we, mate?’ he said.
So much.
‘After, you know, the break-in, and after Helen, I need a mate like you. In my grief, over Helen, you know. We always need to protect each other, don’t we? Be there for each other?’
And I thought: This is it. This is where he says he wants me to protect him for always, and I should move in with him so we can be permanently together.
But he didn’t.
So I did.
And he laughed. Said he didn’t want us cramping each other’s style with the ladies, once he has got over his grief, if he ever feels that way again. And the conversation moved on, to work, to cars, to movies. And Adam spotted a table that had become free, so we surrendered our lovely bar stools and moved.
I’m beginning to wonder if he has read book two at all.
8 March 2007
The thing with Adam is that one minute you can be the centre of his universe, and the next you are not even in his solar system. He spins far, far away and doesn’t return your texts or calls.
Maybe he is coming to terms with having turned down my offer to loive with him.
Maybe he is rereading book two.
I need to confront him about that.
10 March 2007
Texted Adam to see if he wanted a drink. He didn’t reply so I went over to his house anyway. He wasn’t in. I considered letting myself in, to wait for him, but it’s too soon after my last visit. His brain might connect the dots. So instead, I just sat outside.
He didn’t come home all night.
I had to go straight into work from there this morning.
He still hadn’t replied to my text by this evening. And he still wasn’t home tonight
.
I came home to sleep in my bed. Otherwise, when I do see him again, I will look abysmal. But I am worried. Where is my shepherd?
11 March 2007
Perhaps I should call the police?
Perhaps he is with the police?
Perhaps I should call the lawyer.
Apparently the lawyer is out of the office on business. That is not very helpful.
I tried calling Adam’s office too. Apparently he is on compassionate leave. They uncompassionately said that it was none of their concern if he was not at home – he wasn’t due back until the next day. He’d just buried his wife, they told me, like I was a stranger to him. Still, they are not to understand our closeness.
12 March 2007
Adam has resurfaced.
A taxi deposited him at his house, tonight, with another person. A she person. Probably a colleague, having a quick drink after working late. She went into the house too, then the taxi lurched away.
They did not see me.
I rang the doorbell.
They did not hear me.
I did not wait around. I just wanted to know that he was safe.
13 March 2007
But is he safe? Adam should be worried about gold diggers. He is a rich man, now. The house on Narcissus Road is worth a lot of money. When I first moved to London, I looked at the estate agents’ windows round there to see what I could afford to move into, with the money still left from my parents. There was nothing less than half a million pounds. So I came to the North Circular. Closer than I could be, still too far away. Particularly when he is ignoring me. I texted him again about book two. He still hasn’t replied.
14 March 2007
‘Do not abandon your flock, my Lord!’
I bet he never got a text like that before. Let’s see what he says.
15 March 2007
Five-star review! From Adam!
He has definitely read book two, because he said in his text: ‘Yeah, sorry never said – was really brilliant. You should definitely get it published. Five stars from me! See you later. A.’