by Guy Johnson
‘Work,’ she thinks, as she chooses a new lipstick in Boots, popping it into her basket next to the packet of tights and the tin of Atrixo. She likes the advert where the dried-out brown leaf becomes all new and green again. She imagines that the cream does the same to her, making her old self younger again.
‘Youthful,’ she muses, continuing to think in single word sentences, as she heads to the check-out and pays for her three items, handing over three crumpled pounds notes.
‘Coffee,’ is her next consideration, as she steps back onto the high street and heads for Acre’s-the-Bakers for a drink and a pastry.
There is a sense of luxury in the air, as she glides along, stepping over the bakery threshold, picking up her tray and sliding it along the counter, placing her order as she goes. She doesn’t seem to notice that the tray is sticky, the coffee a little bitter, the pastry that she chooses a little too dry. Sitting in the corner, sipping her drink, running her right index finger around her plate, gathering crumbs, she dreams about the evening, wondering if he’ll be clean shaven, or wearing the shirt she bought him. She even thinks about the smell of cigarettes and aftershave lotion that comes off him, of the warmth of familiarity it arouses, the comfort, the…
‘Love,’ she thinks, but this sets off a different thought, and suddenly she’s down another path. Thinking about her husband, the kids and her life. And her secret. Thinking that she really wants it all, but knows she can’t have it.
‘Home.’ A sobering thought, that makes her gather up her bags and head back to her reality for a few hours until…
‘Tonight.’
She has the excuse ready that she uses every time – she’s accompanying her friend Suzie on her Avon round.
‘Why don’t you do it too?’ her husband keeps suggesting, and she’s tempted to say yes. It would provide her with a stronger excuse to slip away from the family at night. Yet, it might also raise more questions: where were her products; where were her earnings? So this little lie about the friend is better. Even if he does keep asking about this Suzie, so she’s had to make up a few lies about her as well.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she tells him, putting him off again.
And now she is getting ready. The kids have been fed and are glued to their rightful place in front of the television. And her husband is with them, equally full and sleepy with lager. She’s had a nice warm bath and smells of Imperial Leather, her skin soft and soap-scented. She’s put on her best underwear and popped on her dressing gown. Her dress hangs on the outside of the wardrobe. A navy, polka dot number; he won’t notice – this man she’s meeting in secret – but it’s important to her. However, before she slips it on or does her make-up, she needs to dry her hair.
That’s when it starts.
The end.
And, because it happens so quick – in a flash - the only way I can retell it is in slow motion. Slow, agonised motion.
She slides open the drawer where the hair drier is kept.
Unwinds the lead that has been coiled around the snout where the air blows out.
Takes the plug and pushes it into the wall socket.
Clicks the switch, allowing the electric current to connect with the mechanism.
Runs her hands through her hair, leaving her fingers and palms wet.
Then, she hits the ‘high’ button and there is a ‘puck’ sound in the air, which fills with a sudden burning smell and that’s it.
That’s the end.
No screaming, no bolt of lightning, no fires.
‘A faulty product, Mr Buckley,’ the husband is later informed. ‘It might not seem the right time, but later, you might want to consider if you want to take action. Take it up with the manufacturer. Go back to where you bought it.’
But he won’t. Of course, he won’t. It wasn’t a normal purchase, as such. Dad hadn’t bought it for Mum; it had simply been ‘acquired’.
A faulty product, from Dontask.
How many had Dad handed on to other, innocent punters, not really thinking about the quality? What did he say when people tried to get a refund for something that didn’t work?
‘You pay your money, you take your chance.’
And he’d stand his ground, unless the complainant was bigger than he was. Then he gave in, but it was very rare.
You pay your money, you take your chance.
So, there you have it.
‘That’s not what you said last time,’ Roy Fallick said, charging forward into the circle of people that had surrounded me in the playground. ‘Or the time before!’
The others looked at him, then back to me, wondering what was going to happen next. Would I bite back? Did I really dare, what with Roy’s reputation for violence?
‘You said she was killed in your kitchen, then you said the heater fell in the bath, didn’t you? You’re a fucking liar, Buckley! A fucking liar!’
I did. There was no denying it. I’d said all these things. But there was some truth in all of them. Just a bit. I could have explained myself. I could have told him how I wasn’t quite ready. How the truth was much harder to deal with. How killing her again and again was somehow the easy option. But Roy wouldn’t understand that. None of them would. So I said nothing.
Instead, I did something that I’d never done before - I fought back.
Afterwards, I wasn’t sure if something snapped, if something new was released into my system. In any case, I spoke to Roy in his first language – I charged into him, took him by complete surprise, and, with one simple but forceful shove, I pushed him onto his back. As I walked away – not running, but keeping calm – I heard him crying and knew there would be hell to pay. He’d fallen onto some stones and later I understood he’d been badly bruised and even got some cuts. But I’d humiliated him, and in front of other people he had bullied. So, he’d have to regain his title, his dark stature.
Yes, there would be hell to pay.
And there was – hell was exactly what occurred.
But just for a moment I was on top – I had defeated the bully. I had reduced my arch-enemy to a snivelling heap, and it had been so very satisfying.
I did try to visit Nan Buckley - or at least her replacement - one more time. I went to Beverley Courts at the end of January and knocked on her door. But there was no answer. I held open the letter box and peered in. And then I knew for sure. The flat was empty. Just the carpets left. She was gone. Gone for good. And I thought that was it. But it wasn’t.
A month later, a postcard arrived. Addressed to ‘Sean’. Della picked it up, read it out and then tossed it away: there was no one in our house called Sean. But something clicked in me and I took it back out the bin. Sean. That was me, that was the mistake she’d kept making with my name.
It was a picture postcard and the scene on the front and the postmark told me it was sent from Harrogate. From way up north. As well as the name and address, there was also a message.
‘Dear Sean, just to let you know I’ve settled in well. I know you meant well. Take care of yourself.’ It was signed ‘Sylvie,’ with the word ‘Nan’ in brackets afterwards. There was also a postscript:
‘P.S. I’ve opened a bank account.’
And that was it. But it was enough. It was the happiest ending I could have hoped for. The happiest ending I’d had in quite a while.
10.
‘Oh great,’ was Della’s reaction, when she saw me in it.
The coat. The replacement one Dad had bought me.
‘Terrific.’
‘Leave him,’ Ian had warned her, gently, still in Dad-mode. It seemed to be a permanent thing, like Della’s inverted expressions.
‘Cos it’s not embarrassing at all,’ Della continued, confirming my assumptions, folding her arms, expelling a humph.
We were getting ready to visit Mum.
Having got me to do it once at Christmas, Ian had pushed the idea repeatedly, until I gave in again on the first weekend of February.
Dad’s reaction to the wh
ole Nan Buckley episode made me reconsider his gesture with the coat. He hadn’t got mad; he’d just come across as a good man and it made me look at the new parka differently. Made me accept it for the apology it was. And it felt like I needed protecting again, that I needed a new layer to shield me, now that Ian was exposing me to things. Things I didn’t want to face; things I didn’t want to believe.
Dad had cut his drinking back too. Less lunchtimes and evenings in the pub and less empties in the morning: all were evidence of this.
So, as a recognition, I started wearing the spanking new, navy parka. Plus, being February, it kept me warm.
‘Come on then,’ Della muttered, heading out the front door. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
As we left, I looked back at Dad, to see if I could catch his eye, and tempt him to join us. He was sitting in the front room, on the good furniture. Just sitting, not doing anything. But he didn’t look up. And so we went without him.
After we’d got to the top of our road, we turned right, went up St James Road, then turned right again at the top, in the direction of the crematorium. I had so many memories of that walk, of that road. Nan Buckley. Her replacement, Sylvie. The funeral. And now this – visiting Mum, after months of telling myself and others that she no longer existed. Giving her countless brutal endings she had no chance of recovering from had been a waste of time: like it or not, I was going to have to face her. Face what she’d become and where they’d put her.
Before we reached the crematorium, we passed a house on our right: derelict, with corrugated aluminium panels covering the doors and windows, weeds growing as high as trees in the garden. I caught a glimpse of someone in there: a flash of blond hair and a red jumper. I knew who it was. I’d sneaked in there a few times with him, messing about. It smelt damp inside, there was broken glass and a staircase with missing treads.
‘You alright?’ Ian asked me, catching me staring back, as we walked on.
‘Yes,’ I told him, but I wasn’t.
I didn’t want to go back into the ruined house, but I did want to see the person I’d caught a brief snatch of. See, me and Justin had fallen out again. And this time it was different. This time it felt like something had changed.
That something had changed him.
‘Come on,’ Ian said, using his encouraging voice, patting my back through the padding of my crisp, clean parka, and I allowed him and Della to lead me on, through the crematorium gates, whilst my head was somewhere else completely…
It wasn’t to do with the money Justin stole, or the fact I sneaked it back.
We never mentioned that; it was like the one action cancelled out the other, like it never happened. And just days after my breaking into Justin’s house and stealing it back, he was calling round for me again. There was one difference, though – Justin wasn’t allowed in our house at all anymore, what-with-him-being-a-thief (Dad, Della, Ian, Auntie Stella and even Uncle Gary.) I thought Dad might ban me from being friends with him altogether, but that wasn’t mentioned. So, when he called round, I had to talk to him on the doorstep and, if we were going somewhere, he’d have to wait there whilst I went and got my coat and joined him again.
On the last day we were friends, he’d turned up with Tina, wondering if I wanted to go swimming. It was a Saturday in January. When I asked Dad, he said no, I couldn’t go somewhere like that with him. Only to his house or a park. Not somewhere where there was money, he shouted out and Justin pretended not to hear.
‘Let’s go to Jubilee Park,’ I suggested, like it was my idea, like it was something I was eager to do. Justin shrugged, looked down. ‘But not with Tina,’ I added.
He turned and walked off, saying nothing.
‘I’ll be ready in ten,’ I hollered after him, wondering if he’d come back.
Quarter of an hour later, he turned the corner into our road again and we headed off to the park.
It took about half an hour to reach the park. It was in the centre of town, tucked behind the shops. It was a huge area, split into different parts and surrounded by an ancient stone wall. The main entrance took you straight to the cricket green, with its white wooden hut and scoreboard. A path took you alongside it to the right, past a church that sat in the centre of the park. It was built of flint stone and was always closed up. I’d never seen anyone go in or out. Beyond that, there was another green for picnicking, then a bowling green, which was fenced in by a thick, low evergreen hedge. Adjacent to this, on the left, was a small aviary of colourful birds. They were looked after by the park keeper, whose red-brick house was just behind. We went left at this point, past the public loos, to the play park area. This was where Mum always took us. She’d make sandwiches, boil some eggs, bring a flask of tea and she’d sit on a bench, whilst the three of us ran about. She made everything from home, apart from the crisps, which were peach-coloured, prawn-cocktail snacks from Marks and Sparks that used to melt in your mouth. Food from Marks and Sparks; a rare treat we always eagerly relished.
Me and Justin hadn’t brought any food, but he’d bought a quarter of midget gems from a sweet shop on the way and I’d bought six chocolate spanners from the same place, so we had a picnic of sorts. The play park had a roundabout, a tall slide and swings that were tyres on chains. We sat on the latter, swinging gently, scuffing the toes of our shoes along the ground, as we ate our sickly lunch. I did feel a bit sick after four spanners, so I swapped them for some of Justin’s gems, like the change might even things out in my stomach. I was about to eat them, when two bigger boys entered the park and got on the roundabout.
‘Come on,’ Justin said, a bit edgy, jumping off his tyre and walking ahead. ‘Let’s go to the top.’
The top was my favourite place in the park. There was a big hill in the park, with a path that twisted all around it, taking you up and up, until you reached another little park, which had grass, a couple of benches and a view of the whole town. It had a railing all the way around it, separating it off, making it special. The pathway up to it had walls of bushes either side, which had hiding places in them, if you knew where to look. Ian had hidden in here once from Mum, when I was about five, and she’d gone mad with worry looking for him, getting other people in the park to help her and everything. On the way home, she’d told Ian that he wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week once-your-father-finds-out-about-your-little-prank! But I guess Dad didn’t find out, cos Ian was sitting all over the place the very next day.
We had to walk past the older boys on the roundabout to get to the start of the path and, whilst Justin just looked ahead, I turned round. They were staring at us. There was something else too. I recognised them. One of them was Roy Fallick’s so-called step-brother, Clint. The other… I didn’t place him straightaway, but it came to me later. Much later, when it was too late.
As we made our way along the winding path, up to the top, I thought about the time Ian hid himself again and remembered something else about the day.
We had all been playing in the park, just before Ian had run off. Ian and Della were on the roundabout; she screaming, as he made it go too fast for her. I was on the slide. I loved it, even though I was small and it seemed so big, so high, and so fast.
Mum was on a bench, sat with our picnic stuff. And then, just for a brief moment, another woman joined her, started talking to Mum. I’d forgotten about this; put it to the back of my mind, because it didn’t really matter. But, years later, as me and Justin were heading for the top, I remembered it again.
I remembered it differently.
The woman – a stranger to us – had sat next to Mum. Then Ian had disappeared, and the woman had gone too. That was always my memory, but now it had a new bit. Now I remembered something extra: she wasn’t a stranger, we knew who the woman was.
‘Race you!’ Justin was saying, suddenly ahead of me, breaking into a sprint. I joined in, trying my best, but I knew he’d beat me. He always did.
We were the only people at the top and that was how I liked it
best. It was quieter up there, like you were in the clouds and they had muffled out the noise of the world below. We’d been up here once, alone, and Justin had taken the opportunity to suggest we got our wotsits out, just to look, he’d said. After his solo exposure at Christmas, that didn’t come up this time. Instead, we stood up on one of the benches and looked all around us.
Because it was still winter, there weren’t any people playing cricket, but we saw some kids starting up a football match on the green. The park keeper was heading out of his front gate towards them. There wasn’t anyone playing bowls or having a picnic either. Just a few people walking about, some with dogs on leads. On a bench, near the locked up church, a man sat all by himself. He had a cream mac on and Justin said he was called Old Mac, strangely enough, but not because of his old coat; it appeared it was just his name.
‘He’s a tramp my dad knows,’ he explained, his eyes moving on, looking back to the play park.
The older boys we’d seen before had moved on and we couldn’t see them anymore.
‘Come on,’ Justin instructed and he was on the move again. Something bugged me, I couldn’t say what, but something felt a little wrong. Not enough to say, but just like a little feeling in the core of my stomach. ‘Coming or what?’ Justin insisted, as I’d stalled, thinking.
‘Where to next?’
‘Why did you hide that day?’ I asked Ian, breaking from my thoughts about Justin and the park. We were getting close to the crematorium by then.
‘What day?’
‘In the park,’ I said. ‘When I was five. You ran off. Hid for ages. In Jubilee Park.’
‘When?’ he asked, walking ahead, not looking at me or Della. ‘I don’t remember.’
We were opposite the crematorium entrance by then; all we had to do was cross a road and go through a gate.
I wondered if he was lying. If I remembered, surely he did? I had only been five at the time; he would have been eight or nine, his memory stronger than mine. Maybe it needed jogging a bit more? So I gave him a bit more to go on: I gave him a few more details.