by Frances Vick
‘Mmmmmph,’ said Tony.
‘Who knew being a mother would be so hard?’
‘I did,’ Tony replied. ‘That’s why I’ve never given birth.’
‘Idiot,’ Mum said fondly.
‘Still, toughening up might be a good idea for him. St Columbus.’
Tony really wanted him out of the house, didn’t he? David tiptoed up the stairs and then came back down them noisily. When he opened the door to the sitting room, Tony’s annoyance was very gratifying.
‘Mum? Oh, hi, Tony. Great-grandad’s suitcase? The one with his initials? Would I be able to have it?’ David was all diffidence.
‘Of course, darling, if I can find it, yes. Why?’
‘Oh.’ David looked at the floor, then into her eyes with frank emotion. ‘Well, you know we’re studying World War Two in history?’ He saw his mother’s expression flicker. She didn’t actually know much about what he did in school. She left that to his father. ‘Well, I remembered that that was his demob case. I’d like to take it into school to show people…’ He watched his mother’s face radiate pride, watched Tony squint suspiciously at him. ‘If that’s OK, I mean?’
Of course it was OK.
A few weeks later, using the same brow crinkle, he cornered his mother when she was alone. Could he possibly keep the suitcase? – ‘It just feels… right that I should have it. It was so precious to him and’ – he played his trump card – ‘after losing all my drawings—’
‘Darling, we’re so sorry about that—’
‘Well, I feel ready to start drawing again? And keep them in his case? It feels right to keep precious things in it now. Does that make sense?’ David had recently realised that using the phrase ‘Does that make sense?’ elicited a gentle, sentimental response from women. It was something only a sensitive, serious boy would say.
Later he took the precaution to stencil ‘Precious Memories!’ on its side, complete with an exclamation point. When he showed it to his mother, she thought it was lovely. After that he really didn’t think she or anyone else would rummage through his things – not when he was so sensitive, not when it had taken him this long to get his confidence back. Nevertheless, he always made sure to tape one of Jeanine Finney’s long hairs across the clasp whenever he shut it, just in case. That way, if the hair was broken, he’d know it had been opened. Happily, this hadn’t yet happened, and David still had all fifteen of Jeanine’s hairs in a sealed envelope. He’d stolen her hairbrush from her backpack last year while her back was turned.
Now, with the sweat drying on his shoulders, and the psychic echo of ‘Pinball Wizard’ in the air, David’s shaking fingers took up Jenny’s Post-it note. He closed his eyes, cupped his hands around it, felt the adhesive strip, still sticky new, like something just born. He brought it to his face, inhaled. Winter cold, cinders, bike brakes and cigarettes. Then he opened his eyes, unfolded it, sat cross-legged and gazed, listening to its story:
7.55 8.14 8.19 9.10
Times.
Train times? Where’ve you been? I’ve been worried…
It had to be train times. Trains that ran that regularly always went somewhere major too. She was taking a train to the city.
He closed his eyes again. Heard her voice again.
Mum?
Where’ve you been?
Mum?
I’ve been worried.
He heard the laugh of the TV again, smelled the cigarette smoke. In his cupped, shaking palms, the note shivered like a living thing. When he opened his eyes, they were wet.
The Significance of this was almost too much to bear.
He folded the note so as to preserve its careless folds. Then he took a deep breath and upended the contents of ‘Precious Memories!’ onto the carpet: ‘New’ items merged with ‘Pending’ and mixed with ‘Always Significant’. Everything had to be assessed and arranged again; Jenny’s note had changed everything. The chewed biro he’d taken from the Chinese man’s notepad? That had no chance of making it into ‘Always Significant’ now. The flake of rust from Mr Jackson’s car could stay in ‘Pending’, because he’d collected it the day he’d stabbed Francis, so it had some relevance. The photograph of a laughing woman feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square he’d found in the graveyard had no place at all. He burned that carefully over a candle and flushed the ashes down the toilet. What to do with this badge that had fallen off Jeanine Finney’s bag last summer? Flush that down the loo too. And what about this paper bag of grass cuttings from the graveyard? He’d collected them last August after happening to see Tony and Mother leaving the Rose and Crown together. Tony, slightly gin-coherent, had fallen flat on his wide arse in the narrow doorway, got wedged in. Like Winnie the Pooh stuck in Rabbit’s burrow, he’d had to be pulled and pushed, pried loose, and, having absolutely no sense of his own absurdity, he had been furious. The memory of his lank comb-over falling over his furious flushed face, the way that even Mother had to laugh at him, and the limp he affected for the next few days, all added up to one brilliant memory. Was it truly Significant, though? He decided to keep the grass in ‘Pending’, along with a swatch of red velvet he’d found in the graveyard. For some reason the velvet seemed important.
The compass automatically went into ‘Always Significant’. He placed it next to the Post-it note with great reverence.
Later, staring at himself in the mirror, he thought about Jenny, and he waited to get hard, but he didn’t, which was a relief. He never ever seemed to get hard, and it used to worry him, but not nowadays, not after the Porn Hub experiment. He strongly suspected that all that stuff was overrated.
41
The next day, Thursday, David took his position behind Jenny’s house again. He’d borrowed his father’s waxed poacher coat and arranged it around the damp hollow of the rocks for warmth. He even brought a hot drink in a flask and some binoculars that had night vision, but he didn’t need to see them to know what was going on: both voices were raised in intensity, but, frustratingly, lower in tone. He decided to risk getting closer, and, once again, hid behind the bins underneath the kitchen window.
‘… Do it if you’re going to do it! You’ve been umpteen times, and—’
‘We need it! I said I’d get it and I’ll get it!’ Jenny shrieked. With the gruffness gone, her voice rattled with an unpleasant echo of her mother’s vibrato. ‘He owes us—’
The woman said something then, something that David couldn’t catch, and then Jenny was out of the door; she was only a few feet away from him, and her breath was raspy, angry. He heard the tired squeak of bike wheels, and cowered further into the shadows.
‘Jen!’ the mother whined.
Jenny muttered something to herself as she got on her bike.
Her mother shouted from the kitchen. ‘Jen!’
‘Oh fuck off,’ Jenny hissed under her breath, and pushed off on her bike.
‘Jenny!’ The woman came to the door. ‘Don’t though. Come on, love, just stay here.’
‘I’ll be back in a few hours.’
‘But—’
Jenny sped off then, on her wheezy bicycle.
David hunched in frustration. He couldn’t get up and follow her without her mother seeing him looming up from behind the bins, but if he stayed here much longer he’d lose her. The woman stayed in the doorway, smoking, sighing. Eventually she went back inside, and David heard her on the phone.
‘Kathleen? She’s gone again. Mmmm.’ Smoke leaked out of the open window, rested on the heavy air, made his eyes water. ‘Ros doesn’t still live round there, does she? No? Can anyone keep an eye out for her? She’s, yes, she’s got it in her head that—’ Then the kitchen window shut, and the woman’s voice was quashed into a blur.
After a minute, David risked getting up. He dusted off his knees, stretched feeling back into his feet, and, keeping to the shadows, went back to his own bike. If he made good time, there was a chance he could catch up with Jenny. He knew where she was going – the train station – the Post-it n
ote had told him. But after that? He had no idea. But even her poor excuse for a mother thought it was dangerous.
Danger danger danger pulsed through his mind as he skirted the village, heading towards the cycle path that bypassed the centre, ran through the woods, and ran parallel to the main road. Through the gaps in the trees, he could keep an eye on Jenny, racing along the smooth, empty road and, whenever he saw her, his head pounded Danger. When he briefly lost her at the roundabout he almost shouted in frustration, then his mind gripped grimly onto determination – help her help her help her protect her – and he followed his instincts; he found her again, saw her lock her bike outside the train station, saw her trot through the open barriers, and disappear through the doors of an idling train. With no thought, David followed, dodging into the carriage behind just as the doors began closing with a jolting beep. From the carriage ahead, he could just make out the back of her head, her cascading hair, one jerking, nervous foot in the aisle.
David was used to secrecy, to not being noticed. He watched, he planned, he stayed removed. That’s how he liked things. Now, as the train pulled away, he marvelled at his impulsivity… he’d never jumped on a train before. He’d never been out of the village at night before. He had no ticket, and no money to pay for one. If the ticket inspector came along he was screwed… he’d be told off, Jenny would hear it, turn and see him. And even if he got away with it on the journey there was no guarantee that he would on the journey back. He was trapped in this train carriage, speeding towards an environment over which he had even less control. He didn’t like the city. He didn’t like crowds. He didn’t like… too many new things converging all at once, overwhelming him, and suddenly he felt panic; he tasted tears. I must stay calm and I must stay calm… but no calm came. He switched mantras: Man up man up man up. He’d heard this phrase on one of the soap operas he made himself watch every now and again. Tough-looking balding men with working-class accents told each other to do that all the time in pubs. He shuffled next to the window, hunched into his coat. Someone had scratched ‘NO SURRENDER!!’ on the toughened glass, and these words hovered over his reflection as he stared at himself. Man up man up man up. By the time the train drew into the city station he felt calmer. Older. He hadn’t surrendered to panic.
He waited until she’d left before getting up himself, and followed the halo of her hair through the station concourse, out through a side exit, and into the unfamiliar, dark streets. Jenny walked quickly, confidently cutting through alleys and underpasses, and David soon lost his bearings completely, and panic rose again, just a little, but no, he had to not lose her. Man up!
But where is she going?
Man up!
And how will I get back? And… No. No. Focus. Breathe. Everything will become clear. Everything was happening for a reason. He just had to remember that: No Surrender... never surrender to fear.
She skirted the city centre, walked through a dark, dank covered market and past a derelict pub called Pretty Windows. Then she was walking up a steep hill, past more pubs, mean little off-licences and evil-smelling halal butchers, her pace only slowed when she came to a pub – The Fox. She hovered by the door, looking into the bar, while David edged into the little park opposite, kept to the shadows and watched. Then she broke into a trot, through the park (passing only a few feet away from him) to a small dilapidated terrace crouching behind the mouldering walls of a once-grand church, disappearing into the dark alley running between two of the houses. From behind him, the church clock struck eight.
He sat on a gravestone, closed his eyes, letting the quiet in. Breathe in and slowly out and wait for a sign. And there it was, the tiny scratching click of a key. The slight sticking of a door yielding to a shove. She was at the back door of one of the last two houses. He gave her a few minutes to get in, and then moved silently towards the alley and onto the grassy mud, and tucked himself into an alcove by the neighbour’s garden wall.
Half an hour later, he heard the door again; he shuffled further into the alcove, and, once again, she passed by, breathtakingly close. She held a carrier bag and was swinging it in tightly controlled little jerks, smiling to herself.
David let a minute go by before following her, and this time he moved more slowly, letting her get more of a head start, because he was sure she was going home now, back to the station and going home. He loitered outside a shop, debating buying a chocolate bar – he could keep the wrapper in ‘Precious Memories!’ – but then he remembered he had no money, and so he moved on.
At the end of the street, the windows of The Fox shone dimly. As he got closer, David could make out a man, a wiry man in a baseball cap and a polo shirt that clung to a burgeoning belly. He slouched insolently in front of the door, blocking it, clutching a half-empty pint glass in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. To David’s eyes, he looked exactly like one of those pugnacious bald men in that soap opera, and he slowed, stopped, because this man was frightening. He didn’t know why, but he was. This wasn’t a man he wanted to get too close to.
The man let out a sudden bark of laughter. He let his glass drop and shatter on the pavement, and David could see that the man had caught someone, someone passing by, and wasn’t letting go.
Jenny.
The fabric of her coat ripped. David winced. The man grabbed her harder, with both hands now, and Jenny, struggling, was pushed up against the wall. The weak streetlight that shone through her hair, making her glow, tinged his face a sickly yellow. Once again, David retreated into a nearby doorway, watched.
‘Got there, then?’ The man had a smile like a shark. He reached for the carrier bag.
‘Nothing.’ She tried to move it quickly behind her back, but the man grabbed it with such force that the bag ripped and a photo album flopped out onto the ground along with a money belt designed to clip around the waist. Both grabbed at the money belt at the same time, and Jenny’s face was filled with fearful rage, as the man’s smile flickered like a faulty light bulb. He won the battle, waved the money belt in her face with one hand, pushed her against the wall with the other.
‘Robbing me then?’ he said.
‘It’s ours,’ Jenny replied.
‘Not this.’ He waggled the money belt. ‘This isn’t, is it?’
‘It’s—’
He hit her then, one short, sharp punch to the stomach. She doubled over.
‘You don’t get a fucking thing that wasn’t yours to start with, not a fucking thing. Tell Sal that!’ he told her.
Jenny, gasping, was trying to straighten up. She stood crookedly, still winded from the blow to her stomach.
‘Don’t milk it either. Barely touched you,’ he told her.
‘We want our photos,’ she managed.
‘Well why didn’t you take them when you left?’ The man looked at her with amusement. ‘If they’re so precious, why didn’t you take them then?’ He glanced down at the album, put one foot on it, and dragged it towards him.
‘I don’t want them.’
He smiled then, almost lovingly. ‘Why’d you come back really? Miss me, did you?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘I think that’s what it is. I know you.’
‘Fuck off!’ She tried to hit him, but she was weak, small, afraid. He caught her fist in mid-air, twisted her wrist until she sagged a little against the wall.
‘I’ve not missed you, I’ll tell you that. You or her. But if you take any of my stuff again, I might have to pay you a visit…’
‘You owe us. It costs money to move,’ Jenny managed. ‘We need furniture and all that.’
He shrugged. ‘Should’ve thought about that before you left.’
‘Marc, come on, please?’ she said, and David, hidden, shared her painful shame and winced… begging from this man. Pleading with someone so obviously beneath her. She’d hate herself for this later. ‘I’ll never come back, just help us out this once—’
His face hardened. ‘No.’
Then, with the desperate sw
iftness of a cornered animal, Jenny lunged for the money belt, grabbed hold of it, tugged. David could see the surprise in the man’s face, anger that she was still fighting, and whipped the belt away with one hand, using the other to pin her up against the pub wall by her throat. He stared at her, almost lovingly, and whispered something while he dropped the money belt, stepping on it to keep it safe, and slowly, slowly, put his other hand around her neck. David watched her shadow lengthen against the rough bricks, her toes barely touching the ground, and her eyes large and resigned like a rabbit caught in a snare. When she made a brave attempt to kick him in the balls, the man tightened his grip further until her feet were dangling a clear two inches off the ground, trainers swinging fruitlessly. He brought his face in close enough for a kiss.
Man up man up man up! David’s frozen limbs twitched. His brain told him to move, to save her, and he lurched from his doorway. He heard himself shout something, but it wasn’t a real word, and he ran into the middle of the road. A car swerved, beeped, stopped only inches away from him. Through the car windows, past the red face of the shouting driver, he could see that the man had released her, letting her drop to the pavement like a doll.
‘… off the fucking road!’ screamed the driver. ‘Blind? Off the fucking road!’
David got off the road, ran to the shadowy park. Over his coarse gasps he could hear the driver still shouting about him. ‘See that? Standing there in the middle of the road’, and the car obscured Jenny; he couldn’t see what was happening.
Another car, forced to linger behind the first, beeped angrily. Another voice started to shout. By the time both men had stopped shouting, and both cars had moved, Jenny had gone. The man – Marc, that was his name – Marc and Jenny’s mother must be Sal – picked up the money belt, pulled up his T-shirt and wrapped it around his hairy mound of belly. His face was grim, angry. He kicked at the photo album, dragged it over the tarmac, over the kerb and into the road, until it’s limp pages flopped into the clogged drain. Then the outer door of the pub opened and two drunk women came out, all hilarity and unlit cigarettes, and the man was all smiles. He lit their cigarettes, laughed, stayed on the doorstep flirting with them both. After ten minutes or so, they all went back in the pub, the man with a proprietorial palm on both women’s jiggling behinds. The door closed, and the street was once again silent, as if the man had taken all the chaos and noise with him. As if the man was the noise, the chaos.