The back door rattles. Mum’s home. Peter stands up. I look sideways to see him grab his pipe and lean against the kitchen worktop. The hair that covers his bald patch hangs forward over his eyes, but he doesn’t touch it, only smiles at Mum as she comes through the door. I turn my head to see her wide eyes flicking between the two of us.
‘Peter, darling,’ she says, ‘whatever are you doing here so early?’ She drops her bags on the table and fiddles with her hair, looking in the mirror by the back door. ‘I really wish you wouldn’t surprise me like this, I’m not remotely prepared.’
‘I’m on earlies this week,’ he says, ‘and my shift’s ended. Thought we could go for a drive or something.’ He stands in exactly the same position, legs crossed out in front of him like a ski slope, back against the counter, and he sucks on his dry pipe. I don’t know why Mum hasn’t noticed it’s not lit. ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘Rachel here’s been taking care of me, haven’t you, sweetie?’ Finally he smoothes his hair back across his head with a steady hand.
All the food from the larder is out, stacked on the floor around me, and I sweep the dusty corners of the cupboard, glancing over my shoulder to see Mum checking her face in her compact and dabbing her lipstick with a hanky. She stops mid-action and looks at me.
‘Whatever are you doing, Cinders? And change out of your school uniform before it gets dirty.’
In the larder I brush all the crumbs, cobwebs and hollow woodlice into the dustpan. It’s even hotter in the cupboard than in the kitchen. I turn to Mum and say, ‘I’m not hungry. Is it OK if I go to my room and do my homework?’
‘Do what you like. As long as you clear that lot up first. I’m not putting everything back after my day at work. It was hellishly busy.’
‘Oh, my poor darling,’ Peter says as he slides over to Mum and puts his arms round her waist, pressing himself to her. ‘Did all those ladies queuing for their groceries give you a hard time?’
Mum swipes him with her hanky and pretends to struggle away. ‘You terror. Just because I’m not arresting bank robbers and duffing them up in the cells.’
Peter draws her close and tries to plant a kiss. Mum shakes her head from side to side a couple of times, but she’s smiling, so Peter puts his hands on both her cheeks to hold her steady then kisses her on the lips.
It’s silent for a bit, and so I re-stack the larder, clanging the tins on top of each other. Behind me I hear Mum and Peter moving into the sitting room and I turn to see their backs as they go through the door. Mum holds his hand and leads the way. She walks sort of slinky like a little girl. Then I hear the clunk clunk of her shoes as she kicks them off. I imagine her sitting in her favourite position in the lounge: legs stretched out on the footstool with the seam of her tights stretched over her toes, the material dark from the damp inside her shoes. She’ll have an arm flung in a loose semicircle over the top of her head.
‘Bring some ice through, will you, sweetie?’ Peter calls.
‘And make sure you take your books upstairs with you,’ Mum adds. ‘They’re all over the dining-room floor, you messy little princess. The house is in such a state. It looks like there’s been an intruder.’
I clear my schoolwork from the dining room and take it into the kitchen, where I finish stacking the cupboard. Mum and Peter are giggling. Then the noise stops. The back door’s still open from earlier when Mum came home but inside the house the air doesn’t move, like I’m stuck in hot jelly. I look into the garden at the grass and flowers still lush. It hasn’t rained for ages and the garden won’t stay looking so nice for much longer. Next to the sink, the potatoes and their skins have turned orange. I throw them all in the bin – if Mum doesn’t see I’ve started then she’ll probably forget all about food tonight.
‘Ice,’ Mum calls from the sitting room.
I get the ice tray from the freezer. It’s metal and solid. My fingers stick to the aluminium container as I pull the lever to break the cubes apart. The handle is jammed with the cold and the squeaky noise makes my teeth go funny. Daddy used to hate this ice tray, so he taught me how to use it. Mum and her friends call me ‘Big Chief mixer and chiller of drinks’. I run the hot tap, holding the tray under the stream. The water scorches my skin but the metal warms and unglues my fingers. Too hot and too cold at the same time. I wonder if it would be worse to die in a fire or from cold. I know you go into a kind of sleep when you’re freezing, but fire’s probably quicker, and if the smoke gets to you first, it would be painless. Ice cubes rattle into the sink.
As I walk into the lounge, Mum slides off Peter’s lap and sits back in her place on the sofa. Her hair is messy and she prods at it with her hands, but it doesn’t make any difference. After I leave the room, she shuts the door behind me.
Girls at school say Peter’s good-looking, and they ask if I fancy him, but I don’t know, I’ve never had a boyfriend. Most of the girls in my class are going out with someone. Melanie Blacksmith’s boyfriend is seventeen. He left school last year. He waits for her outside the school gates in his white van. I saw the back doors open once as she climbed in, and there was a mattress and a dirty duvet on the floor. She smiled at me as she shut the doors, then he sped off and did a handbrake turn at the junction. I thought about her rolling around in the back of the van next to his tools, and how cross she’d be, but when I saw her again she boasted that they’d smoked pot and had sex.
Sometimes her boyfriend’s older brother waits with him at the gates. His name is Mike and he’s nearly twenty. He has a motorbike, and keeps asking if I want a ride. I tell him I prefer to walk. Last time I refused he took someone else. She came to school the next day with love bites on her neck, but they looked all blotchy as the cover-up she’d used was the wrong shade.
Dad’s old study is my bedroom now. I used to sleep next to Mum’s room, but since I moved, if I hear her and Peter at night it’s through several walls. Mostly though I stay under the covers and lean into the side of Nanna’s old desk, the one that used to be in the hallway. It’s like a piece of Dad has stayed in the house, which is just as well as he’s getting married again and his fiancée is already pregnant. In his last letter Dad said that money will be tight from now on, and I should ask Mum if I need new clothes. There’s about enough room in here for my bed and the old desk. ‘Perfect,’ Mum said when we got everything in, ‘this room was made for you.’
In one of the desk drawers are Dad’s old fountain pens. I like to leave them in their places on top of the leaky ink circles so it looks like he’s recently put them there, even though they roll out of place when I shut the drawer. There’s a writing pad too. The top sheet is heavily lined, and I slide it under the cartridge paper to keep my writing in straight lines. Apart from Dad, I write letters to my guardian angel. I ask for new school shoes with a wedge, hair that doesn’t frizz in the rain, more time with Mum on her own and a change from eggs on toast for tea. Sometimes I ask my angel to come and visit me, even if it’s only in my sleep. When I hold a page up to the light, the sun shines through the watermark.
Dad’s left some of his clothes too, and Mum wanted to throw them away. I said I’d look after them in case he ever wants them back. I’ve put them in the airing cupboard that’s in the corner of my room to keep them safe and dry. Mum never looks in there. There’s a little chair in the cupboard that I use to reach the top shelf. Sometimes I like to sit on it and shut the door, and when everything is quiet I can pretend that the world has disappeared.
16
A STRAND OF PLATINUM HAIR
I wander the field, sit in the caravan and allow the damp to move into my bones. By the time I get back to the car park, night has set. A sickly mist haloes the bulb of the tall street light, and underneath is the same huddle of cars as before. I bang my hands together, blowing into the hollow between my palms, and glance at the warmth and safety of my car waiting to take me home, to another kind of hell. I pause and check my phone for a signal to see if David has called by holding it high in the air, but this i
s a dead spot. On the other side of the car park, bodies are close together, then faces turn to me and one separates.
A man walks towards my car. From his solid pace and the way his skull sits heavy and low on his neck, I can tell it’s the same man from two weeks ago, the one who opened the door as I sat in my car. Closer, and what’s left of the light illuminates a dusk of features: his eyes, nose and mouth are all too small inside the frame of his big head, as if he’s been crafted from bad stock. He looks directly at me and I set my eyes with his. Neither of us smiles and there are no words of welcome or reassurance, no room for pleasantries in what will be this most intimate of exchanges.
We face each other for several long seconds in a duel of anticipation. The man is a good head taller than me and I arch my neck to meet his face, as I imagine I will do later when we are skin to skin, if it’s him and not someone else. God, let it be someone else.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he says, and turns swiftly, ‘make up your bloody mind.’ He stomps back towards the group of cars, his breath in frantic clouds like a racehorse on its starters, until he disappears into the black void between the two ends of the car park.
‘Wait,’ I say, and go after him, meeting him in the darkness.
‘Well, c’mon then,’ he says. He stands tall and holds a straight headmasterly arm in the direction of the cars. I expect him to say, ‘Don’t worry, we’re all nervous the first time,’ but instead he says, ‘Bloody hell, you look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’ I walk past. He follows a couple of beats behind, and I quicken my step to keep the same speed so we don’t have to walk together.
About eight people stand around one vehicle – mostly men, but a couple of women too. A figure with his back to me walks into the trees. Perhaps he’s had enough for one night. Several cars have their headlights on, and the group of watchers is cast in a close cloud of light. Outside, the rest of the world disappears. Eyes swing up and down my body. I am goods. They move aside to clear a pathway to the car where a woman sits on the passenger seat with the door open and her legs sticking out as she adjusts her suspenders. The tops of her stockings are a red nylon lace, scratchy and fussy – the white sugar of erotica. Good idea, I think, less to take off. She stands up and walks away, scrabbling in her bag for her mobile. A man joins her and they get into another car and drive off. I wonder if he’s her husband and what they’ll do when they get home. They’ll have put something in the oven on a timer before they left. A ready meal they got at the supermarket. Then later some sleeping pills.
The group of people stand in silence around the car. In the middle of their huddle, I pull my damp coat close to hide my shaking legs and stare at the ground. I wait. Someone jingles keys in their pocket.
‘Well . . . d’you want to get in the car then?’ The man who brought me over bends the front passenger seat forward so there’s room for me to climb in. He smiles at me with the stretched grimace of a boardroom photo. I’m freezing but my face is red hot and I’m glad it’s dark so no one can read my thoughts. I begin to get in but the man grabs my coat by the scruff of the neck and pulls me back. The jolt is a shock. ‘You won’t need this,’ he says, ‘the heater’s on.’ I breathe deep to stop the tears and take off my coat, handing it to him. He passes the coat to another man – more elderly – who folds the garment and lays it as a butler would over his arm, the action gentle and considered. His eyes smile, and I picture him with a Christmas hat on and a grandson on his knee.
I clamber into the back and sit on the blanket spread across the seats. The material is checked and fluffy, man-made, the cheap kind used to protect seats from animal hair and mud. The dull interior light blends all the colours in the car to various shades of yellow. The engine ticks over, its vibration steady, and the tremor travels through my thighs and up into my chest and head – the only thing moving through the stone of my body.
The man who brought me over gets in the car and closes the door. ‘That’ll keep it warmer. You can get undressed now,’ he says.
‘I’m soaking wet.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘What should I take off?’
‘Might as well do the lot.’
He folds the passenger seat down as far as it will go and perches on its back. Our feet touch and I snatch my legs into the opposite footwell. There’s just enough room to slide off my boots and socks, and I roll down my jeans, which are wet from the field. The denim jams at my ankles so I have to shuffle the jeans up a little to get a grip on the tubes of fabric. My jumper and T-shirt peel away, and my hair dries a little and dances in static. I calm the strands down with my hands. Finally my underwear and then, when there’s nothing left and nowhere to hide, I sit with my arms crossed at my chest and my feet on tiptoe. I don’t look up at the man, only at his legs. Miniature spears of fabric from the rug jab into my skin. Still sitting on the back of the seat, the man unzips his trousers, and with his penis in one hand he takes a condom from his pocket and tears the packet with his teeth, pinching the rubber tip to roll it down over himself. At least he’s using protection. But then I don’t really care. This functional pause makes what we’re about to do belong to someone else. It helps. I inhale. Then I panic.
‘I don’t want to any more,’ I say.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
The man moves towards me, pushing my shoulder with a steady force down on to the seat. I lever myself back by my elbows until my spine is flat. A damp animal smell rises from the itchy material. Three trees of air freshener dangle from the rear-view mirror and sway with the movement of the car. The man checks out of the windows, wipes off some mist and leans across to the front of the car, putting the screen heater on full-blast to clear the fog. Then he turns to watch my legs. Hot air blasts the glass and it’s all I can hear above my pulse. Outside the car it’s dark, but there’s the occasional movement – shapes coming nearer. Faces.
Fucking morons, I think. I don’t look again.
It’s over more quickly than I could have hoped, and as the man pulls away from me I realize he hasn’t looked at my face once since we got in the car. Now he’s coughing into his hand and zipping himself up, but I can smell him on me; his sweat and breath have penetrated my skin. I am porous. I let all of him in.
In the seat well is a packet of baby wipes, and several have been used and discarded on the floor. I don’t bother. My clothes are still wet and it takes longer than usual to put them on, but I use the time to absorb the climate of the car: the vegetable smell of damp, the smooth area on the back seat where someone smaller than me usually sits. Some of the figures outside have moved away, some still watch. A man’s face looms closer to the glass for a second but I keep my eyes down.
My socks are too much hassle in this small space so I scrunch them into a ball and put them in my bag, at the same time wondering if the dead man knew this went on so close to his caravan. I slide my boots up bare legs inside my jeans and the leather is cold against my skin. Seamus’s skin had once been brand new, a mother would have bathed and powdered him. Pieces of him still exist close by. He was being processed by the woods before the police took him away.
As I get out of the car, the man who has my coat holds it open and guides in my arms. I thank him and he smiles. ‘No, no, thank you,’ he says. He leans closer to my ear and whispers, ‘Nice cunt.’ I swivel round to him, teeth bared as I jam my fingers into fists. He’s small so I’d have a good chance of punching him to the ground. When he was down, I could kick him and use my keys to stab him in the eyes. The impulse transfixes me, but instead of acting on it, I allow the acid of his comment to infuse, then turn and walk towards my car, passing a man in the shadows who sits with his head out of view. All I can see is the bottom of his scruffy coat and old, too-big trainers. He holds a can of beer in his hand. A briefcase is at his side.
The street light recedes, darkness folds around me and I disappear. Across the empty night travel the edges of a conversation. I recognize the voice of the m
an with whom I’ve just been.
‘Nah, we don’t get all the same channels as you. We’re on cable. It’s cheaper and we get our calls thrown in for the same price.’
As I get in my car my hands have lost their strength and I can’t start the engine even though I’m desperate to leave. Snippets of events turn over in my mind. They come at me in jolts, like concussion, with no thread or timing: my unpainted toenails, the rhythm of the swinging air fresheners, the man’s phlegmy cough into his hand. The strand of platinum hair stuck to the blanket: long and straight, not mine.
A car sweeps away from the group and pulls up at my side. The window opens and a face looms forward into the light. I see the flash of his smile. Then recognition.
Alex.
Dear God, it’s Alex.
The man who, since joining our ranks, has initiated and fed the current of illegal dealings now filling David with such vitality. He saw me only a few hours ago in the woods – how stupid of me not to have thought he could still be here. My concern that he may tell David where he’s seen me has now become a terror.
We sat together at my dinner table only weeks ago. He ate the food I cooked. His wife tried to be kind but I wouldn’t let her.
Again he has witnessed the worst of me.
The Liar’s Chair Page 16