by Sant, Sharon
‘But there isn’t anywhere else private to go,’ she finishes for me. ‘I know. This is fine.’ She sits against the wall and opens her sandwich box.
‘Was the frog lesson fun?’ I ask.
‘No, but at least I didn’t get kicked out again.’
I drop beside her and hug my knees to my chest. I don’t say anything. She starts to unwrap her lunch. ‘What have you got today?’ I ask, just to break the awkward silence.
‘Egg,’ she says, pulling one apart to show me.
‘I don’t think I like egg.’
‘It was all we had in. I hadn’t had chance to get the shopping.’
‘You do the shopping?’ I stare at her.
‘You don’t expect my dad to do it, do you?’
‘Well… I don’t know.’
‘What’s your favourite?’ she asks.’
‘My favourite what?’
‘Sandwich.’
I think for a second. ‘Chicken salad with mayo.’
‘Ok,’ she says, ‘close your eyes and think about chicken salad and mayo. Really think about it. Think about how fresh bread feels all squishy and sticky around your teeth so that you have to prise it away with your tongue, about the lettuce all crisp and cold, the chicken a bit salty and sweet with the mayo…’
While she says this I have my eyes shut and I try to imagine eating it, feeling the tomato burst on my tongue and all the flavours mingling.
‘How’s that working for you?’ she asks.
I look at her. ‘That’s the best sandwich ever.’
She laughs. ‘You want some crisps with that?’
‘No, I’m full now.’
‘Cool.’ She takes a bite of her lunch. She looks much happier than when I left her earlier. In fact, I’m still trying to figure out what looks different about her. I see it more plainly than ever now but I have no idea what’s changed.
‘Sorry I got you in trouble earlier,’ I say.
She shoots me a sideways glance and swallows her bread. ‘You seem to be good at that.’
‘I just wanted to make you laugh.’
‘You did. It’s just a shame Mr Bauer didn’t find it so funny.’
‘To be fair,’ I say, ‘if he could have seen me he would have done.’
‘No, he would have given you detention too.’
‘You got detention?’
‘After school. I think I got off pretty lightly, though.’
‘How long?’
‘Only thirty minutes.’
I think about thirty minutes. Another half hour I have to wait by myself at the end of school.
‘No need to look so miserable,’ she says. ‘You can come and wait with me but just don’t talk.’
‘But if I don’t talk I might as well be alone.’
‘At least someone knows you’re there, though.’
‘Maybe. But I think I’ll wait outside, just in case.’
She shrugs. ‘If you want.’
‘You want to do something after school? I understand if you don’t –’
‘Yeah, I do. That would be good,’ she says quickly.
‘Great. Where do you want to go then?’
She’s thoughtful for a moment. ‘You still haven’t decided what you want to do about Raven.’
I’m just about to reply when she holds a finger up and looks sharply at the opening of the alleyway.
‘Who’re you talking to?’ Matt says as he stands with his arm hanging off Ingrid.
Bethany’s mouth works silently for a moment. ‘I was on my phone,’ she says finally.
‘You’ve got a phone? Is it made out of wood and pebbles?’ Matt snipes and Ingrid snorts. Bethany doesn’t say anything. ‘Well, you can clear off, freak,’ he says taking a step towards her. ‘This spot is ours.’
Bethany glances quickly at me as she scoops her leftovers into her lunchbox and snaps the lid on. She sidles past Matt and Ingrid, who seem to be doing their best to fill the space and make it as hard as possible for her to get away, and I follow her. Even though they’re being vile to her, she shoots Ingrid the most pitying look as she passes by and I see Ingrid shrink back a little, sort of freaked by it. I’ve seen that knowing look from Bethany before, it’s like she can see right into your soul. I think that’s why people don’t like her, it’s almost like she knows too much about you. It makes you feel kind of guilty, I suppose.
Then we’re out on the open yard. Bethany swings her bag onto her shoulder. She gives me a tiny knowing look, and heads back into the building, and all I can do is watch her go and think about how long it is until the end of school.
I wait for Bethany by the gap in the fence. I watch the kids file out when the home time bell goes. The air is full of voices and laughter, but then there’s a lull until the detention kids follow a while after, their conversations more subdued. It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life when she finally shows. She squeezes through the hole in the fence without a word and we walk together in silence until the slope of the fields puts us out of view of the school yard.
‘Have you been ok?’ she asks me.
‘Of course I have,’ I say. ‘What did you think was going to happen to me?’
She shrugs. ‘Just asking. It must be boring hanging around for me.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I say. The sun is starting to sink low but it’s still bright and casts a glow that sets fire to the gold bits in her hair as she walks. For a few seconds I can’t look at anything but that. ‘It’s not like I can go and hang out with anyone else,’ I add quickly.
‘I suppose not,’ she says. She rifles in her bag and pulls out a packet of crisps. ‘Do you want to do the remembering thing?’ she asks as she opens them.
‘It’s ok, you can eat them. I’m not sure if I like salt and vinegar anyway.’
‘So, did you decide about Raven?’
‘It’d cost too much money,’ I reply.
‘I thought about that,’ she says in between crisps, ‘I could get a job.’
‘Where?’
‘Paper shop.’
‘No way. There’s not a parent in this village who will let their kid have a paper round after what happened to me. Old Bert’s having to take the papers out in his car.’
‘I know,’ she says giving me a knowing smile. ‘That’s why he’ll snap my hand off when I offer.’
‘What about your dad?’
‘I don’t have to tell him. It’ll only be for a week or two while we get enough cash to pay her.’
‘He’ll notice you gone every night, surely?’
‘As long as I get back to do his tea, he won’t care.’
I think about this for a moment. ‘Ok, what if you do the paper round and save up and she’s useless?’
‘We won’t have lost anything by trying.’
‘Other than a lot of money.’
‘Who cares about money?’
‘You don’t have much,’ I say.
‘I have enough.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t want you to do it.’
‘Who made you the boss of me?’ She stops and turns to face me. ‘If I decide to get a job, then I get one.’
‘It’s just…’ I don’t know how to say what I want to tell her.
‘Nothing will happen to me,’ she says, guessing what’s in my mind. ‘What are the chances of two kids being killed the same way on the same road doing the same job?’
‘Maybe you should tell that to all the parents.’
‘Parents freak out about stuff like that, it’s what they do.’ She starts to walk again. ‘I might as well go and see Bert now, I’m already late and it’s on the way home anyway.’
I follow quietly. That new Bethany is with me again and I don’t know what to do with her.
The bell tinkles at the door of the paper shop and we go in. It’s gloomy and smells of dust and dried tobacco, just like it did on that last night when I picked up my papers. The shelves where Bert keeps emergency stocks of stuff like teabags and bre
ad look like they haven’t been cleaned for years. Mum never bought food from here; she always drove to the supermarket on the ring road no matter how late it was. At least that’s something still in my memory.
Bert seems doubtful. He looks at Bethany through his one good eye as if he thinks she’s a lowlife, just like the kids at school do. I never noticed adults do it before.
‘The bag is heavy, and it’ll be dark as the nights draw in,’ he says scratching his head through his thinning hair.
‘I don’t mind,’ she replies brightly. ‘I’m stronger than I look and I don’t get scared by the dark.’
‘Are you sure? A young girl on your own?’
‘I’m sure. We live in a pretty safe place, after all.’
Not that safe, I think, but I don’t say anything.
‘What about your dad?’ Bert asks, frowning. ‘He won’t be coming in asking after you, will he?’
‘No, he says he doesn’t mind me bringing a bit extra into the house,’ she replies.
I’m actually impressed how good she is at lying. Bert’s gaze flicks to the bound up piles of papers that have just arrived and then back at Bethany again.
‘I suppose I could give you a trial,’ he says with a sigh.
‘Will you pay me, even though I’m on trial?’
‘You’ll get paid, don’t worry.’
‘So… you want me to start tonight?’
He nods. ‘Why not? Come back about five.’
‘Cool.’
I follow her from the shop. She stops outside and peers at the cards in the window. When she sees the one with the medium’s number on she roots in her bag for a notebook.
‘Raven. Cool name,’ she says writing down the woman’s details.
‘Stupid name if you ask me.’
‘That’s because you have no imagination.’
‘That’s because I’m dead.’
‘How long do you reckon it’ll take me to do the round?’ she asks, ignoring my last statement.
‘Depends on which half of the village he gets you to do. Hour, maybe hour and a half. It’s too big to do it all by yourself.’
‘But if I can do it by myself maybe he’ll pay me double and I won’t have to do it for as long.’
‘That’s crazy. You can’t do the whole village by yourself.’
‘It’s not that big.’
‘No, but it’s still a lot of papers. It’d weigh a ton.’
‘You managed ok.’
‘Me? I didn’t do the whole lot myself.’
‘No, but you’re not exactly muscley, are you?’
I’m about to snap a reply when I see her smile a little.
‘Ha ha.’
‘If it makes you happy, I’ll just do the one lot and see how that goes.’
‘I wish I could help you,’ I say, staring down at the floor. I feel like such a loser right now.
‘You can,’ she says. I look up at her and she’s smiling again. ‘You know the quickest route around so you can show it to me.’
I think about the quickest route. I decide to show her the safest one.
Four: Raven
‘Actually, I think Bert’s a bit tight making you do this. He should do the papers in his car and let you look after the shop while he’s gone.’
Bethany shoots me one of those looks that I’m getting used to, the one that says I haven’t thought through what I’ve just said one bit. She’s leaning to one side, trying to balance out the enormous weight of her paper bag, and looking at the laminated list of addresses by the light of her torch. ‘As if he’s going to do that.’
‘Just saying…’
‘He doesn’t even know me. He’s not going to trust me alone with all the money in his till.’
‘He knows who you are,’ I remind her, ‘he asked about your dad.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘That’s not going to help either.’
I wonder what she means by that but it doesn’t seem the time to ask.
‘It would help if you could remember this list,’ she says. ‘We’d be much faster if I didn’t have to keep stopping to look at it.’
‘Sorry,’ I shrug. ‘It’s just gone out of my head. I do remember that it gets easier once you’ve been on the bit with the new houses – you dump loads of papers there and your bag’s lighter,’ I explain, almost as an apology.
‘It’s the long way around, though, this road,’ she says.
‘Yeah, but –’
‘There has to be a quicker way.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘There is.’
‘Where?’
‘Yarrow Lane’s quicker.’
‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘This is stupid,’ she says dropping the bag to the floor. ‘This bag weighs a ton, the sooner I can empty it the better. Let’s go the quickest way.’
No!’ I almost shout at her. ‘I’m not taking you there,’ I say, trying to get my voice under control again.
‘If you don’t, I can still figure it out myself eventually, so you might as well.’
We stare at each other in silence. I can see that she’s not going to budge and I finally have to give in. ‘Right, ok. But we are going to be careful.’
‘Nothing is going to happen to me there. I’ll look out for cars and all that talk of it being haunted is just stupid. Ok?’
I nod. ‘Ok then.
‘Thank you,’ she says, pulling the bag back onto her shoulder. She looks a bit like a sapling holding the weight of a vulture the way the bag is bending her to one side. We start to walk again.
‘This is a lot of work just for me,’ I say. ‘I don’t understand why you’d want to do it.’
She glances at me quickly and then turns to face ahead once more before she answers. ‘I’ve got nothing else to do. Same as you said before, it’s not like I can go hang out with anyone else, is it?’
‘But,’ I say, ‘if this woman does figure out why I’m still here and she knows how to sort it, then I suppose I’ll go… wherever it is I’m supposed to go.’
We’re both quiet as soon as I’ve said this; you can almost see the question mark hanging in the air.
‘We’ll just have to see what happens,’ she says eventually.
The moon disappears behind a bank of cloud so that the only light is the white streak of Bethany’s torch. Yarrow Lane is deserted and silent, the same as always. Almost always.
‘Can you show me where it happened?’ she asks quietly.
I look at her. ‘You want to see where I died?’
‘Yes. Can I?’
‘What for? Isn’t that a bit creepy?’
She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. It just feels important.’
I walk ahead and look for the place. ‘Here…’ I call Bethany over. She comes over and stands next to me. We look down at the ditch together.
‘This is it, then?’ she asks. Her voice is quiet but it still seems to echo through the trees. ‘This is where you died?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s nothing here,’ she says, ‘where are all the flowers? You always see flowers where there are road accidents.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I suppose people have forgotten me by now.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she says, ‘it wasn’t all that long ago. What about your mum? She would leave some.’
‘I think it would make her cry too much to come here. I’m glad she doesn’t.’
She’s quiet for a moment. Then she says, ‘I feel like I should do something to mark the spot.’
‘It doesn’t need marking, I know it,’ I say. ‘It’s like there’s a part of me still in the soil and it draws me to the right place without me even having to try.’
There’s a movement in the shadows, just out of the reach of the torchlight. Bethany sweeps the grass with the beam and we see the fox with her cubs dive out of sight. ‘They must live nearby,’ I say. ‘They’re always here when I come.’
Bethany turns the light back to the di
tch as if she hasn’t heard me. ‘Did you bleed a lot?’ she whispers.
‘I think so. It looked like a lot to me.’
‘You can’t even tell anything happened here,’ she says.
She drops the paper bag and pulls her front door key from her pocket. With her weight against the old tree that overhangs the ditch, she holds the torch in one hand and, with her key in the other, slowly makes a series of jagged marks in the trunk. I watch as it takes shape.
David
Around my name she carves a heart.
‘Thank you,’ I say. It’s such a tiny phrase for such a massive thing.
She turns to me and smiles as she puts the key away. I think her eyes are shining wet in the torchlight but I can’t be sure. ‘Nobody will ever forget now,’ she says.
By the time the last paper has gone through the last letterbox it’s seven-thirty.
‘I really need to get home,’ Bethany says.
‘Will your dad be missing you?’
‘He’ll be hungry,’ she says. ‘I should have gone home and cooked first and then come to do this.’
‘Don’t you get sick of looking after him all the time?’ I ask as we stride back towards her house.
‘It’s just me and him now. It doesn’t matter if I get sick of it or not.’
‘Don’t you have any other family?’
She shrugs. ‘Mum hadn’t spoken to my grandparents for years, not that I remember them.’
‘Were they from the village?’
‘Yes, but they moved away.’
‘People don’t usually move away from here.’
‘I don’t know what happened, but I think there was a lot of trouble when she married my dad; they didn’t approve of him and there was a massive bust up. Perhaps that’s what made them move.’
‘What about your dad? Has he got family?’
‘He has some family, down South. We see them sometimes, weddings and funerals and stuff, but Dad doesn’t really like them much.’
‘Beth… did your dad ever…’ She looks at me sharply, as if she knows the next question and doesn’t want me to ask it. ‘My mum remarried eventually,’ I say, changing the subject. ‘Perhaps your dad will. It might get you off the hook a bit.’
She rubs her arm, deep in thought. ‘Perhaps.’
‘How did your mum fall down the stairs?’