by Nancy Tucker
“You shouldn’t say that,” said Linda from behind me.
“What?”
“That.” She got up and pointed.
“Why not?”
“It’s really rude.”
“That’s not rude. This one’s rude.” I went to the other end of the wall and pointed to a shorter word, scrawled sideways in letters that got bigger as it went on. She tipped her head to see, her plaits falling in straight lines toward the floor.
“Oh yeah. That’s really rude,” she said. She couldn’t read it.
The fizzing made me feel like a can of paint, like my insides were squeezed into a tight metal case. I knew if someone had pressed down on my head my guts would have sprayed out and coated the walls in words and shapes. I jumped up and down and then I yelled, a bird squawk shaped by a grinning mouth. It bounced around the room and came back as an answer. I was beating with energy, pulsing in places I didn’t know I could pulse, hunger and excitement and red-hot fury, lava in my belly, straining against my skin. I ran to the end of the room, pushed myself off the wall with my hands and feet, ran to the other end, pushed myself off, back and forth and forth and back, and every time I got to a wall I thought, “I can run up this wall, run onto the ceiling, run right round the room with my feet on the walls.” Da’s marble banged against my leg through the fabric of my pocket. My breath was coming in gasps and my feet were getting lazy, throbbing from bouncing me off the walls, so I wound to a stop in the middle of the room like a wind-up car all out of wind. My legs quivered and my chest ached and still I seethed in my belly. I pulled up my dress, squatted, and peed. The seething hissed out of me and trickled toward the rotten patch in the middle of the floor. It smelled stale and secret.
When I finished peeing I stood up with my legs apart like a toddler. I hadn’t pulled down my underpants. They were soaked. I felt softer. Warmer. Linda’s face was whiter than the walls underneath my scribbles. I went out of the room, and she followed without speaking. We crunched through the glass on the downstairs floor and out onto the scrubby patch of earth where Steven had been handed to his mammy. I turned back to look at the upstairs room. I couldn’t see my wall writing from outside, but I knew it was there.
I am here, I am here, I am here. You will not forget me.
There was a rumbling noise coming from the streets that got louder as we got closer, the noise of shoes on pavement and voices chanting. At the top of Marner Street we saw them, a crowd of mammies and das and kids, walking with signs held high above their heads. The signs said things like MAKE THE STREETS SAFE AGAIN, SAVE OUR TOWN AND SAVE OUR BAIRNS. They were painted in big letters on bedsheets and folded-out cereal boxes. When the crowd got really close I saw Steven’s mammy at the front. She had her arm linked through Betty’s mammy’s arm and was holding a picture of Steven against her chest. I could tell Betty’s mammy was pleased she was the one standing at the front with Steven’s mammy. She was crying the sort of tears you only cry because there are people watching and you want them to see you crying. Steven’s mammy wasn’t crying. She did have shoes on. I wondered whether there was still meat rotting in her kitchen.
The crowd reached the top of the street and me and Linda were swallowed into its middle. They were chanting, “Find the killer, lock him up, make him pay for Steven’s blood.” I joined in. I shouted until my throat hurt. The man beside me gave me his sign, written in big letters on an opened-out cornflakes box. He was going to lift me onto his shoulders, and I wanted that, because I wanted to be high up, like a bird or a star, but when my body was in front of his face he made an “ugh” noise and put me back down. He wiped his hands on his trousers. My face burned. I felt cold between my legs. I pushed through the crowd, away from the man. I held the sign high above my head and screamed into the wind. Find the killer, lock him up, make him pay for Steven’s blood. My sign said, AN EYE FOR AN EYE AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.
When we got to Vicky’s house everyone went inside. Me and Linda had got to the back of the crowd, and we didn’t catch up quick enough to get swept inside with the others. By the time we were at the garden gate the front door had closed. I went up the path to knock it but Linda pulled me back.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Knocking,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I want to go in,” I said.
“You can’t. We haven’t been invited.”
“Don’t care.”
“You can’t go in places you’ve not been invited.”
“Who says?”
“Mammy.”
I rolled my eyes right back into my head. “Honestly, Linda,” I said. “Your mammy’s not God, you know.”
I went the rest of the way up the path and knocked the door very loudly. Vicky’s mammy opened it with a jug of squash in her hand and a flustery look on her face.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You left us behind,” I said.
“What?” she said.
“We were doing the marching as well. Everyone else came in here but we got left behind. On an accident,” I said.
“I don’t think that’s really what happened,” she said.
“Well don’t worry,” I said. “We’re here now.” I stepped forward so she had to let me past, and Linda scuttled in after me, staring at the floor. Everyone was in the lounge, the mammies on couches and chairs and the kids in a clump by the window. The mammies all looked round when we came in. Donna’s mammy said, “Oh, hello, you two,” and Vicky’s mammy said, “They just turned up,” and Mrs. Harold said, “Nice to see you girls, come on in and get something to eat,” and Vicky’s mammy looked like she was going to scream.
It had definitely been a good idea to come in. Vicky’s mammy had laid out cakes and sausage rolls and corned beef sandwiches and lemonade on a table in the corner. It was one of the best party teas I had ever seen, like the ones Steven’s mammy used to do for Susan’s and Steven’s birthday parties. I suddenly thought that if Steven’s mammy never stopped being sad about Steven she might never do a party tea for Susan ever again. I hadn’t thought of that before. It made me feel very cross about everything. I filled my plate so full that Vicky’s mammy tapped me on the shoulder and told me off for being greedy, and then me and Linda sat on the floor with the other kids, eating the food and drinking the lemonade. Steven’s mammy was sitting on the couch with Vicky’s mammy on one side and Donna’s mammy on the other. As I watched, Vicky’s mammy rubbed her arm and said, “How are you doing, love? You’re being ever so brave.”
“Yes,” said Donna’s mammy, putting her tea down so fast the cup nearly tipped over and curling her whole arm around Steven’s mammy. “You poor, poor dear. Such a hard day for you.”
Steven’s mammy nodded and said, “Mmm,” and looked as if she wanted to hit them. I knew how she felt. When bad things happened to you, people always said things like “Poor you” and “You’re so brave,” and it was meant to make you feel better but usually it just made you feel worse, because you didn’t want to be brave and poor, you just wanted the bad thing not to be happening. It was like when I was the only one in Class Four who didn’t have their mammy or da come to watch the assembly, and Miss White said, “Mammy and da not here, Chrissie? Poor old you,” and I kicked her shin so hard she got a hole in her tights. She wanted to stop me being in the assembly after that, but she couldn’t because then there would have been no one to say my lines. Or Linda’s.
The mammies were just doing their normal gossiping when Steven’s mammy made a splutterish crying noise and suddenly everyone was flapping. I leaned around Donna to see.
“What’s the matter, Mary?” asked Mrs. Harold.
“It’s not him,” she said.
“What’s not?” asked Vicky’s mammy.
“It’s not him,” she said.
“What do you mean?” asked Donna’s mammy.
Steven’s mammy lurched forward and pulled a newspaper from the shelf under the coffee table. I stood up on my knees to see, but the stupid mammies were crowded around in a thick clump that blocked my view, so I had to go and stand on the other side of the table and look over. The newspaper had a picture of a little boy on the front, and above him it said, MONTHS AND NO ARREST: BABY STRANGLER STILL AT LARGE. Steven’s mammy was batting the page but she had her head twisted away, her chin digging into her shoulder. A vein in her neck stuck out like a purple worm.
“It’s not him,” she said.
“Oh God, it’s Robert,” said Robert’s mammy. She put her hand on her chest and panted. “That’s my Robbie.”
“How the hell did they manage that?” said Vicky’s mammy.
“They were in the photo together,” said Robert’s mammy. “It was at the school fete. There. You can see Steven’s arm. People said they looked like twins.”
“So they cut it in half and used the wrong boy?” said Donna’s mammy.
“Lazy sods,” said Vicky’s mammy. “How long would it have taken them to check?”
“They were probably rushed,” said Mrs. Harold.
“That’s my Robbie,” said Robert’s mammy.
Steven’s mammy was making a wheezing noise. She had let go of the paper but her hands were clawed like she was still holding it, and tears were coming down her cheeks in sheets. I went to the tea table, picked up a fairy cake and a napkin, went back to the space in front of the mammies, and held the napkin out to her. The mammies stopped twittering. Steven’s mammy looked at me, took the napkin, and pressed it against her face.
“Thank you,” she said.
“That was nice of you, Chrissie,” said Mrs. Harold. Everyone seemed quite surprised that I had done something nice. I put the whole fairy cake into my mouth and tried to swallow but it wouldn’t go down. Vicky’s mammy had to come and slap me on the back. It came unstuck from my throat and I spat it into my hand, mushed up and gluey. I held it out to her.
“I don’t really want this anymore,” I said.
“Oh, Chrissie,” she said, screwing up her nose. “That’s horrid. Go and throw it in the bin.” She pushed me into the kitchen. I didn’t like her calling me horrid. I stepped around the bin and pasted the chewed-up fairy cake sponge into the gap between the fridge and the oven, just to teach her a lesson. I could hear her in the other room, picking up teacups with a clink-clink sound.
“Honestly,” I heard her say. “She wants a good slap, that kid.” I knew she was talking about me, and I went back into the lounge.
“No I don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what, pet?” asked Mrs. Harold.
“I don’t want a good slap,” I said.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Harold. “I don’t think—”
“That’s not something I want at all,” I said.
“I think perhaps—” said Mrs. Harold.
“No one wants a slap,” I said.
“Of course you—” said Mrs. Harold.
“Slaps aren’t good, anyway,” I said.
Steven’s mammy stood up in a slow, heaving way, like her body was a mountain of wet sand she was having to mush into a castle. All the other mammies flapped and twittered, and I decided I didn’t care enough to carry on nagging about the good slap. I didn’t think Vicky’s mammy would really slap me, even if she thought that was what I wanted. She was too scared of me. Most people were scared of me, at least a little bit. Just how I liked it.
Someone said Steven’s mammy shouldn’t go home by herself, and everyone looked at Betty’s mammy because she had been making sure everyone knew she was the one looking after Steven’s mammy when we were marching. She got flustered, probably because she knew if she took Steven’s mammy home she wouldn’t be there for the gossip that would start as soon as Steven’s mammy was out of the door. I could see her searching for a reason not to go, but she couldn’t find one in time, so she left looking fed up. I thought she would probably dump Steven’s mammy at her gate and run all the way back.
“Poor lamb,” said Donna’s mammy as soon as they were out of the door. “What a thing to happen.”
“Of everyone, they mixed him up with my Robbie,” said Robert’s mammy.
“Makes you mad, doesn’t it?” said Vicky’s mammy. “When they catch him, whoever it is that did this, you can bet they’ll get his picture right. Won’t be mixing him up with any other murdering bastard.”
“She’s so thin,” said Mrs. Harold.
“She is,” said Vicky’s mammy. “I took round a stew but she probably never touched it.”
“Yes,” said Donna’s mammy. “I took round a shepherd’s pie and a chicken casserole and a coffee cake and some soup for the freezer.”
“Oh,” said Vicky’s mammy. “Well. That was nice of you.”
“I’ve not taken any food yet, but Robbie drew a lovely picture for her. I took that,” said Robert’s mammy.
“Did you?” said Vicky’s mammy.
“Yes,” said Robert’s mammy. “You know, I think it was just what she needed.”
I sort of thought if your kid was dead then a picture drawn by a kid that wasn’t dead might not really be what you needed at all. But then I didn’t really have any kids, so I didn’t really know.
“Awful smell when I was there,” said Mrs. Harold. “Really putrid. I said to her, ‘Mary, would you let me clean the place?’ but she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t even let me into the kitchen to make a brew.”
“Been speaking to the kids, haven’t they?” said Vicky’s mammy in a secrety voice. She jerked her head at us in case the other mammies had forgotten what kids were. Vicky and Linda were blowing bubbles in their lemonade and laughing, and I pretended to be doing that too, so the mammies wouldn’t know I was listening. “Came asking for Harry the other day. Harry! ‘You do know he’s five?’ I said!”
“And Donna,” said Donna’s mammy. “They came this morning wanting Donna. Seemed to think she must have seen him that morning but wouldn’t say why. Sent them away with a bit of a flea in their ear, I did. ‘We were at my mam’s all weekend,’ I told them. ‘She couldn’t have seen nothing.’”
Then the other mammies all had to take turns saying the police had been to speak to their kids too. Bad temper grumbled in my guts. I wished Donna hadn’t been at her nana’s that weekend. That meant she definitely wouldn’t be going to prison.
“Seeing Robbie’s little face in that picture . . .” said Robert’s mammy. “That’s made me upset enough to die, that has. That’s just made me upset enough to be sick. Really.”
“Jennifer,” said Donna’s mammy sharply. “Die or be sick. It’s very much one or the other.”
“Well, that’s all very well for you to say,” said Robert’s mammy. “You’ve not had the shock I’ve had. His little face looking out at me . . . It makes you think, doesn’t it? The worst thing about this isn’t Steven dying. It’s not about burying a little boy. It’s about burying an era. All those times we let the kids play out and thought they were safe, didn’t think a thing like this could happen in the streets. That’s what we’ve really lost. Our innocence. What happened to Steven—that’s just the way we lost it.”
She stopped talking just as I had started to think she was going to carry on forever, droning and droning like the vicar on Sundays. The other mammies looked at each other with faces that said, “What was that all about?” and “Why did she say all that?” and “Do you think she’s actually gone mad?” and then Vicky’s mammy said, “I think it might be best if you didn’t say that sort of thing in front of Mary, Jennifer.”
It started to get dark outside and Vicky’s mammy started clearing away the food in the way people clear away food when they have decided it’s time for other people to leave their house. Robert’s mammy was looking at the paper again. I thought she was probably
going to slip it into her handbag, so she could show some other people the picture of Robert-not-Steven and tell them how much it made her want to die and be sick. She seemed quite a lot more interested in the picture of Robert than she did in actual Robert the kid, who was licking one of the plug sockets on the wall.
“Shall we go handstand wall?” I asked Linda when we got outside. It wasn’t really properly night yet, and the dark coming down was the summery kind, pale and baggy.
“Can’t,” she said. “It’s nearly dark. Mammy will be waiting for me at home.”
I put my finger and thumb around a pouch of skin on her arm and pinched. “‘Mammy will be waiting for me,’” I said in a making-fun voice.
She carried on walking, rubbing her arm. “You’re sometimes not a very nice best friend, Chrissie,” she said.
I watched the corners of her mouth drag down in sad little pleats. “I am your best friend, though,” I said. She scrubbed her fist across her eyes and looked like she wasn’t very sure. My heart did a little trip. “You’re my best friend,” I said. “You’re always my best friend. And I’m a good best friend, really. Way better than anyone else. I’m always making sure other people aren’t mean to you. And no one else wants to be your best friend anyway. So I am still your best friend, aren’t I?”
“Yeah,” she said. She sounded a bit tired.
When I got back to the house I called for Da. I had hoped he might be on the couch, drinking beer. He wasn’t. I thought he was probably dead again. Missing him was a smoke burn in my middle: a small round hole, black at the edges.
In the bathroom I ran water into the tub. It came out in a hot sputter, brown from the rust inside the taps. Steam rose up and wetted my face, and I peeled off my dress but kept my underpants on. When I climbed in, the heat made my skin sting. I rubbed the sliver of soap across my arms and legs, and the hairs curled like pinworms in milk. I took my underpants off in the water, smeared them with soap, rinsed them and put them over the side of the tub to dry. My hair was getting matted at the ends, so I wetted it and tried to pick apart the worst clumps.