by Sarah Butler
A bored-looking policewoman in a black shirt and a bulletproof vest with a radio attached stood by a set of narrow metal steps, absent-mindedly kicking at them – right foot, left foot, right foot. When she looked up and saw Stick she brought both feet together, as though standing to attention. She had neat black cornrows, just visible under her hat, which, as he approached her, Stick saw was beaded with drops of water.
He stepped up to the tape, held the slippery wet plastic between his finger and thumb.
‘You’re not to cross that,’ the woman said.
Stick stared at the ground. Mac: two grass skirts over his shorts; coconuts gaffer-taped to his T-shirt; a pair of pink plastic sunglasses. ‘I was his best mate,’ he said.
Her hand went straight for her radio.
Stick shook his head. ‘I’ve already talked to them. I don’t know anything. Is this where—’ He tried to picture Mac with a knife in his chest, falling.
‘Do you want to come out of the rain?’ The woman nodded towards the caravan. ‘Have a cup of tea or something?’
‘Is there blood?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Blood.’ Stick pointed.
‘They’ll have taken samples of everything.’
‘So why’s this tape still up?’ He plucked at the plastic.
‘It’ll be down as soon as they’re ready for it to be down. I said you’re not to cross that.’
The grass was thick summer green, with bright clumps of dandelions. Stick pictured Mac stumbling backwards, hands against his stomach, blood gathering between his fingers.
‘Did he have a fight then, or what?’ Stick asked.
‘I’m afraid I don’t have that information.’
‘Everyone loved Mac.’ Stick heard his voice catch and coughed, pretending he had something in his throat. ‘No one would kill him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Stick looked at her. She had dark eyes and a pretty snub nose. ‘Are you?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘So tell me what happened.’
She gave him a half-smile. ‘I’m afraid we don’t know yet. We’re trying to get as much information as we can. That’s what this is for.’ She pointed at the caravan. ‘Maybe you could help? Encourage people to come and talk to us?’
‘I missed my stop,’ Stick said. ‘I fell asleep on the bus. If I hadn’t missed my stop I’d have seen him, wouldn’t I?’
‘We’ve got victim support leaflets inside. There’s a number to call if you want to talk to someone.’
‘Why’d I want to talk to someone?’
‘It’s hard to come to terms with something like this. It can help to talk it through.’
‘I just want to know what happened. Is there a number I can call for that?’
‘We’re doing our best, you can be sure we’re doing our best.’
‘Fuck’s sake.’ Stick kicked at the metal steps so they rattled against the pavement.
If Mac was there he’d be chatting up the policewoman, getting her to tell them about police stuff – fingerprinting, CCTV, forensics, profiling. Stick glanced past her to the rectangle of tape. Who would kill Mac? He could imagine someone wanting to kill Ricky, or his dad, but Mac?
‘You have to find whoever did it,’ he said, looking her straight in the eyes. ‘You have to.’
She nodded. ‘Patience and hard work, that’s what my boss always says, patience and hard work.’
‘Stick!’ Lainey was standing at the top of the caravan steps, a shiny black bag hugged to her chest like a teddy bear. She wore a dress the same colour as the daffodils, tight and low cut. There were big smudges of mascara around her eyes.
‘Stick!’ she shouted again, and waved, then half stumbled down the stairs and pulled him into a hug, her breasts pressed against his chest. She smelt of sherbet and strawberry lip gloss, and she was crying – he could feel it shaking through her, hear her sniff into his T-shirt.
‘I came down cos I didn’t believe it.’ She pulled back and gestured towards the caravan, shaking her head, her breath coming in short gasps. ‘Mac’s—’
‘I know.’
‘He can’t be—’ She twisted a yellow plastic ring around and around her finger and stared at Stick. ‘He was there.’
‘Where?’
‘Yesterday. In the bar. He was there.’ She held her hands out as if she could see Mac and was touching him on both shoulders. ‘I kissed him.’ She started crying again.
Stick stood with his arms against his sides, looking at Lainey’s bag so he didn’t have to look at her face all screwed up and wet.
She took a big, shaky breath in. ‘It’s my fault,’ she declared.
Stick shook his head but didn’t say anything.
‘I – I wouldn’t go back with him. And then we started fighting about Spain and Spanish girls, and I don’t even know, I was that pissed. And he went. And so it’s my fault.’ She started crying again.
The policewoman had moved away and was looking towards the backs of the row of houses like she wasn’t really listening, though he’d bet she was.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Stick said. He sounded like a robot. Lainey just kept on crying.
The tortoiseshell cat had settled itself in the middle of the blue-and-white police tape rectangle, stuck its leg in the air and started licking at its fur. Stick bent down, picked up a stone and threw it. He missed and the cat took no notice.
‘What are you doing?’ Lainey was staring at him, her breath still coming in little hiccuping sobs, like she was trying not to drown.
‘I don’t want it licking its arse there.’
‘You can’t throw stones at cats.’
‘Shoo,’ Stick shouted at the cat. ‘Fuck off.’ It looked at him for a brief moment, then went back to its cleaning. ‘I said fuck off,’ he shouted, louder. He could see the policewoman at the edge of his vision, hand on her radio.
‘Stick.’ Lainey touched his arm.
‘I told him to wait,’ Stick said and then walked up to the caravan and punched it, hard, with his right fist. Hurt like fuck. Ridged metal against his knuckles. If Mac wasn’t such a stubborn bastard he wouldn’t be dead. They’d be past Birmingham now, halfway to Kent.
‘It’s not your fault either,’ Lainey said.
Stick punched the caravan again.
‘Will you knock that off?’ A different policewoman stood at the top of the steps. Stick glowered at her. ‘You’ve got something to tell us, come on in,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, scoot.’
‘I’m not a dog,’ he snapped.
‘And this isn’t a punchbag.’
Stick slammed his foot into the ground.
‘He’s upset, Miss,’ Lainey said, sniffing.
‘I still don’t need him here kicking off.’
‘I wouldn’t be here if you’d tell me what fucking happened,’ Stick said.
‘You need to leave.’ The policewoman walked down the steps and stood in front of Stick.
‘Fucking pigs,’ Lainey snapped.
‘Now,’ said the woman, quietly.
‘We were leaving anyway. Come on, Stick.’ Lainey tugged at his arm.
He followed her, away from where Mac had died, and the whole way back home he kept thinking, did it hurt? Did he struggle? Did he shit himself? Did he cry? Was there a point when he knew that that was it? What the fuck did it feel like to stop being alive?
7
He kept the TV on all night because every time he turned it off his heart started racing and his breath got tangled in his throat and he felt like he would explode unless he opened his mouth and shouted, or got out of the house and ran. Plus his mum was up and about again, fussing at the plugs, and the TV covered up the noise enough that he could stop himself going downstairs to help her.
Morning arrived, lightening his room through the curtains. Stick shut his eyes so he didn’t have to look at anything, and tried to work out if he’d slept or not. Not, he decided. At some point his mum kn
ocked on his door to say she was going to work; she wished he’d stay in the house, just for the next few days; if he had to go out would he take his phone? Stick lay on his back and nodded and eventually she left.
The news came on the TV – protests in Greece; protests in Syria; Olympics tickets; pensions crisis. He flicked through channels until he found The Simpsons and closed his eyes again. They should be in France by now, bleary from a night in the car, trying to find a bacon butty for breakfast, unfolding the map to remind themselves which way to go.
You can’t just lie around moping, Mac would say. Stop being pathetic, he’d say. Get up and fucking do something. Stick tried to think of something to do. An episode of The Simpsons later he decided he’d go and buy flowers for Mrs McKinley.
There were two rolls of money sat at the top of his sports bag: fifty pounds, and three hundred euros. He pulled the rubber band off the euros and flicked through them. He and Mac had gone to the post office on Spring Gardens last week and exchanged grubby English twenties for clean, glossy notes – green, orange, blue, red. ‘Hard-earned cash,’ Mac had said to the woman at the counter and she’d smiled like she didn’t believe him.
Stick rolled the euros up again and shoved them back into the bag, put the pounds into his pocket and went downstairs. He opened the fridge and stared inside but there was nothing he wanted to eat – it was as though his stomach had disappeared along with Mac.
He wanted nice flowers, not the sad-looking ones in the newsagent’s or a bunch with a Tesco’s label, so he got the bus into town, walking the long way round so he didn’t have to go down Paget Street. In a shop filled with buckets of flowers, the air thick with scent, he told the man – man! – at the counter that he wanted a big bunch, something that looked classy. He hadn’t realised flowers could be so expensive, but he handed over thirty quid and got the bus back. People looked at you different if you were carrying a bunch of flowers – like you were a good person.
He sat downstairs with them on his lap, careful not to crease the purple tissue paper or squash the petals. With his other hand he flicked through his phone to the photo: Mac and Lainey, Aaron and Malika, lit up for a second. Mac, fat-faced, red-cheeked, a pair of pink sunglasses propped up on top of his head. Mac squeezing Lainey’s shoulder, his mouth open, top teeth showing. Stick stared at him. What had he been saying? Probably something stupid, but he wished he knew.
At school, Stick’s art teacher once got them to make a camera out of a shoebox with a tiny hole in one side. A photograph is a physical thing, he kept saying. The film holds the reflected light from whatever is in the image – it’s a mark, from the world. Stick had rolled his eyes and sniggered with the rest of them, but he remembered it now, and wished that he’d taken a picture of Mac with a shoebox camera, not his shitty phone. A digital image, the teacher said, was just a collection of pixels, just lots and lots of tiny squares, and if you blew it up enough then the whole thing would fall apart. It’s not physical, he kept saying, it’s not the same.
Stick took the stairs up to Mac’s flat. To Mrs McKinley’s flat. The closer he got, the more he thought about turning back, because what was he going to say? Through the double doors the corridor was dim and quiet and empty. It felt longer than normal, like it was an optical illusion that you could never get to the end of. Except, of course, there he was, standing outside the blue door with its locks and its doorbell and its sticker with flowers round the outside and Strangers are just friends not yet made printed in blue swirly writing.
As he rang the bell, Stick suddenly thought that there must be fingerprints; Mac’s would still be on the door. Even with visitors and police and whatever, there’d be one, rings within rings like the inside of a tree. If he had white powder and one of those see-through sheets, he could lift one of Mac’s fingerprints and keep it.
Mrs McKinley opened the door and made a strangled kind of a noise, her hand darting to her mouth and her eyes widening.
‘Mrs McKinley.’ Stick swallowed. He glanced into the flat, half expecting Mac to barrel out of the kitchen, a coconut in one hand, a knife in the other. ‘I brought you these.’ He held out the flowers.
Mrs McKinley looked at them as though she wasn’t sure what they were and then she reached up a hand and stroked Stick’s cheek, her fingers cold on his skin. He stepped back, but she took hold of his arm. ‘Come in, come in. He’s just left.’
‘What?’
‘Rob.’ Her whole face looked puffy, like she’d had an allergic reaction. ‘Family liaison officer, he said that’s what they call him.’ She sounded drunk. ‘Nice man. A bit thin.’
Inside, the living room was stuffed full of flowers. Every surface, it seemed, had a vase or a wine bottle or a pint glass full of them. The smell make Stick’s head spin.
He looked down at his flowers. Waste of thirty quid. And how was a bunch of flowers supposed to help anyway?
She took them though, held them against her chest and smiled. ‘Everyone’s so good,’ she said. ‘They all come. Bring flowers, and little plastic boxes of food. Make cups of tea.’ She let out a sigh. ‘I can’t eat anything.’ She paused. ‘Do you want to take some food, Kieran? There’s so much of it.’
‘You’re all right, Mrs McKinley,’ Stick said. ‘Mum works at Tesco’s, doesn’t she? She gets discount.’
Mrs McKinley nodded. She was still holding the flowers, her fingers worrying at their petals. She’d ruin them, but Stick couldn’t think how to say so, and it didn’t much matter.
‘Are you— How are—’ Stick felt himself reddening. ‘I just came round to—’ He was trying not to think about Mac, but he was everywhere. Mac stood at the window eating biscuits straight from the packet. Mac with his Wii, dancing round the room like an idiot. Mac with man flu, lying on the sofa with a duvet, screwed-up tissues spread around him.
‘Should I put those in water?’ he managed to say. He took the flowers off her and went into the kitchen. A bottle of vodka sat on top of the fridge next to an empty plastic bag. The sink was crowded with glasses. He found a jug in a cupboard, filled it with water and shoved the flowers in. It wasn’t big or heavy enough to keep them straight so he propped them up against the wall and then turned and looked through the hatch. Mrs McKinley was standing in the middle of the living room staring out of the window. She didn’t move, didn’t turn and look at him, didn’t cough or check her phone or touch her hair. She looked like a statue. He should make her a cup of tea, go back in and say something to her, take her arm and get her to sit down. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do anything except back out of the kitchen, quietly open the front door and walk down the corridor, his heart up near his throat, telling himself he was a cunt, a coward, a twat, but leaving all the same.
When he got home, the TV wouldn’t turn on. Stick flicked the living-room light but nothing happened. The fuse box was in the understairs cupboard, behind a pile of empty cardboard boxes and the gazebo they’d used for his nan’s sixtieth the year before. Stick threw everything out into the hallway and got the torch from its hook on the door. He pressed the trip switch down and heard the phone beep, the fridge whir back into life.
Mrs McKinley was probably still standing in the living room, waiting for him to come back in. Or she was looking for him, shouting through the flat, out into the corridor – ‘Kieran? Kieran?’ Or maybe she hadn’t even noticed. Maybe someone else had turned up and she’d forgotten he’d even been there.
Instead of stepping back into the hallway, Stick pulled the cupboard door shut, turned off the torch and dropped it onto the floor. The place smelt of old shoes – dust and rubber and stale feet – and it was hot, or at least Stick was sweating, damp patches starting under his arms and across his back. He opened his eyes as wide as they’d go, so that his eyeballs felt like they could fall out of their sockets and into his lap. His left side pressed against the soft fake fur of his mum’s winter coat. His right arm just touched the rough wooden slats of the door. If he stretched out either foot he’d h
it the Hoover.
They would put Mac in a coffin and nail it shut. There’d be a funeral and a grave, a stone with his name on it and then nothing. ‘You fucking bastard,’ Stick whispered into the fusty cupboard air. ‘You’ve gone and ruined everything.’
He’d freaked out once in a lift, when he was a kid – suddenly unable to breathe and terrified he’d never be able to escape. He could feel the same sensation coming now, like a slow, creeping burn. The walls too close. The ceiling too low. The Hoover looming up towards him and his mum’s coat like some kind of dead animal, hot against his arm. Stick scrunched his eyes shut but all he could see was Mac falling face forwards onto the grass, and a figure standing over him. As he reached for the door he thought of Mrs McKinley standing in her flat, wondering where he’d gone. He deserved to feel shit, so he shoved his hands under his armpits and lowered himself to the ground, sat in a tight, curled ball. His head felt like it would explode, his brain coming out through his eyes, his nose, his ears; his lungs would close up and suffocate him to death. Get the fuck over yourself, he told himself. Mac’s dead. Mac’s fucking dead and you can’t even make his ma a cup of tea.
When he finally opened the cupboard door and unfolded himself back into the hallway, Stick had made up his mind. He chucked the boxes and the gazebo back under the stairs. They’d left bits of rubbish on the carpet – scraps of cardboard, a leaf, a speck of dried mud. He tried to brush them to one side with his foot but they wouldn’t shift.
He wrote his mum a note – Gone to Spain. Will call. Don’t freak out – and positioned it on the little table in the hallway. Then he lifted the black sports bag off his bed, picked up his keys, and left.
The car coughed and spluttered but started. Stick did a fast three-point turn, and drove down the worn-out tarmac of the cul-de-sac, right then right again, past the school. The steering wheel cool under his hands. He didn’t look up at Mac’s flat but accelerated past the fenced-in garden at the front of the block, past the neat red-brick houses, past the Clarendon with its ugly walls and scratty wooden benches, hard over the speed bumps. He only stopped, brakes squealing, for the bus, which was taking up the road. A woman with headphones turned to look out of the back window at him and he held her gaze until the bus heaved itself down the road and round the corner.