by Nancy Tucker
“Don’t expect I have,” said Linda’s mammy. She swept the aisle between the pews and Robert’s mammy waited for her to ask what it was that they had been saying. When she realized she wasn’t going to, she followed her again.
“About why they’ve been asking all these questions to the kids? You have heard, haven’t you?”
Linda’s mammy carried on sweeping. “It’ll just be gossip,” she said. “Not worth hearing.”
“They’re saying it must be a kid that did it,” said Robert’s mammy. For a moment, Linda’s mammy stopped sweeping and held her brush on the floor. Then she carried on. “Did you hear me? A kid that did it?” said Robert’s mammy.
“I heard,” said Linda’s mammy.
“Awful, isn’t it?” said Robert’s mammy. “Really chilling. I’ve felt chilled to my bones since I heard.” She didn’t look very chilled to her bones. She looked how kids look when they come to school on their birthday wearing a birthday badge—puffed up and pink. Linda was at the other end of the church, tidying the box of Sunday school things, so she couldn’t hear the mammies, but I was right behind them, crouched between two pews. I hunched down low so they wouldn’t see me.
“Of course, you’ve got to wonder . . .” said Robert’s mammy.
“Not got to,” said Linda’s mammy. She was sweeping over the same patch she’d been sweeping for a while, though it was clean now.
“You’ve got to wonder,” said Robert’s mammy. “I’ve been racking my brains, but I don’t know the older kids. I don’t have an older one like your Linda—and it must have been an older one, mustn’t it?”
I had taken off my cardigan before we had started tidying the knee cushions. It was hanging over the back of the pew closest to Linda’s mammy. She picked it up, shook it out, and held it in front of her.
“Do you have any ideas?” asked Robert’s mammy. Linda’s mammy folded my cardigan in half and dropped it back onto the pew. She went to the cupboard to put the broom away.
“Linda,” she called. “Come on. We’re going.” Linda trotted to meet her, and I followed them out of the church and down the road. Linda’s mammy was holding on to Linda’s wrist and walking fast. When we got to the top of Marner Street she turned around to look at me.
“Go on. Away with you,” she said.
“But I want to play with Linda,” I said.
“Linda’s coming home with me.”
“I’ll come home too, then.”
“No, Chrissie,” she said. “You’ll not come. It’s not your home.”
She pulled Linda down the street. I watched them get smaller and smaller until they went up the path to their house. By that time they were so far away I couldn’t see if Linda turned to look at me or not. When I had been crouched between the pews in the church her mammy had swept clouds of dust over me, and I could feel it then, settled on my lungs in a powdery film.
* * *
• • •
There were lots of hours to fill when I was trying not to be at the house for too much time. When it was light I played out, with Linda and William and Donna and now with Ruthie. The others went home at teatime but I stayed out. I stayed out until it was dark and my eyes were heavy, and then I snuck into the house, up the stairs, and into bed with the covers over my head.
On Saturday I was sitting on the grass in the yard of the Bull’s Head by myself, because it was teatime and everyone else had gone home. A man came out to smoke, and I looked up and saw it was Da.
“Da?” I said. He had to squint his eyes to see me.
“Chris?” he said.
“I thought you were still dead,” I said. His hands were being lazy and he couldn’t get his smoke to light, so I went and held it still for him. The flame licked the end and glowed it orange.
“Cheers,” he said. He sucked it for a long time. “Just came back, didn’t I?”
“When?”
“Just now. Last week, week before maybe.”
“Why didn’t you come and see me?”
“You know. Sorting stuff. I was going to come and see you now. Today. Just popped in for a quick drink.” He sat down on the step and I sat in front of him. Da always told me the first thing he did whenever he stopped being dead was come and see me. He didn’t even stop to put his bag down anywhere, he just came straight to see me. That was how much he missed me when we weren’t together.
“Why didn’t you come and see me straightaway?” I asked.
“Jesus, Chris. Give me a break. I’m seeing you now, aren’t I?” I dug my chin hard into my chest. If he had been there sooner I wouldn’t have got sick from the Smarties because he would have been there to protect me.
“How’re you keeping?” he asked. “What you been up to?”
I lifted my chin, stuck it out toward him, and looked at his eyes. “I’ve been in the hospital,” I said.
“What?” he said.
“Mam gave me tablets in a Smarties tube. She told me to eat them all up. I nearly died.”
His hand went to his chin. Rub, rub, rub. Scratch, scratch, scratch. He put his smoke back in his mouth, then he took it out and ground it under his shoe. When both his hands were free he put them in his hair and clenched and unclenched his fingers so the skin on his forehead tightened and sagged.
“I had to be in the hospital for days and days,” I said. “They had to suck all the stuff out of my belly. If they hadn’t done it quick enough I would have died.”
“Don’t tell me this, Chris,” he said. He stood up, and his hair stood up too, in sharp spikes. “Please. Please don’t tell me.”
“But you can help me,” I said. “You’re alive now. I can keep you safe so you don’t get dead again and you can take me away.”
“No I can’t,” he said. His voice sounded like a window with a crack that was letting in rain. “I can’t.”
“But you said you would. You said next time you saw me you would. You said.”
“I’m sorry, Chris,” he said. He turned to go back into the pub and I tried to follow him, but he pushed me away. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t,” he said.
“Are you going to die again? Is that why?”
“For fuck’s sake,” he said. “Stop with the fucking dead thing. You’re eight years old, Chris. You’re too old to believe that. Stop.”
There was a fly crawling up the doorframe. He crushed it with his fist, leaving a smear of blue-black body on the white-painted wood. Normally I loved looking at dead things. When we found dead birds in the playground I poked them with sticks, spreading the gooey insides across the ground while Donna and Linda and the other girls squealed. I only looked at the squashed fly long enough to see that one of its wings had come away from its body and was stuck on its own, like a tiny piece of stained glass. Then I looked away.
“Mam never gives me any food,” I said. “I’m so hungry. Sometimes I think I’m going to die from being so hungry.”
“Stop telling me,” he nearly shouted. “I can’t be listening to this.”
“You said you would take me away,” I said.
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said. He went into the pub. I ran to the wooden fence at the end of the yard and kicked it so hard one of the boards cracked. My cheeks were hot. I wanted to go in, fight my way through the sour-smelling men, and find Da.
“I never believed it,” I wanted to shout. “Not once. Not ever. I always knew people couldn’t come back after they were dead. Even Jesus probably didn’t really come back after he was dead, he probably just stayed really quiet in the cave so everyone thought he was dead then jumped out to give them a shock. I never thought you were dead when you went away, and I never thought you came back alive when you came back to see me, and when I killed Steven I knew it would be forever, not just for a day or a week or a month. I knew he would never come back, and that was what I wanted. A
nd the next person I kill is going to be dead forever too, and the person after that and the person after that and the person after that. I’m going to kill so many more people, and they’re all going to be dead forever, and that’s what I want.”
It didn’t matter that I had believed it about Da being dead, or that I hadn’t really realized Steven would never come back. I hated the feeling of other people thinking I was stupid more than almost any other feeling in the whole world. I didn’t want Da to think I was stupid. I looked through the back door for a long time, watching dark man shapes wind and twist around one another. I couldn’t see Da. I felt itchy and twitchy, like there were centipedes crawling over my skin, and the centipedes’ feet were made of needles. I didn’t want to be by myself. I wanted Linda. She knew how rotten it felt to have other people think you were stupid. I went to her house and rang the bell.
“Can Linda come out?” I asked when her mammy opened the door.
“No,” she said.
“Can I come in, then?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“They’re about to have their tea,” she said.
“What are they having?” I asked.
“Stew,” she said.
“I like stew,” I said.
“You’re not coming in, Chrissie,” she said. “I don’t want you playing with Linda anymore. You need to go home. To your home.”
She moved her feet on the mat, and for a moment I thought she was going to come down onto her knees and hug me, like she had done before the first day of school. I wouldn’t have minded that. I might have quite liked it. She stepped back into the hallway and closed the door. I stood still, thinking of the things I could have said if she hadn’t already closed the door.
“You can’t stop me and Linda playing together. We’re best friends. You can’t stop best friends playing together. That’s basically against the law. You can’t stop me coming round. I’ll wait until you’re out, until it’s just Linda’s da here, and then I’ll come back. He’ll let me in. You can’t make me go home. I don’t have a home. I just have a house. You can’t make me go there.”
My throat felt stretched and sore with all the words. I rubbed it and squeezed it and then I kept my hands still, resting in the place where my heartbeat scrabbled. Blood skittered under my fingers and words skittered around my head.
I am here. I am here. I am here.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
* * *
• • •
When I left the house the next morning the world was made of bright white light and I was made of noise. It wasn’t fizzing—not like the fizzing I had had before, not sherbet anymore. It was a gritty rumble, biting me at the bottom of my belly, gnawing at the place where my body turned into a secret. Like a tiger growling. Like a flame licking. I had sparklers in the ends of my fingers and the tips of my toes and the sparkling made me run the fastest I had ever run, but it wasn’t snap-bubble-whizz, it was groan-grumble-roar. I stared at the top of the street as I ran up the hill, and it looked like someone had poured blue paint into the jaggedy hole left by the rooftops jutting into the sky. I had to squint to see clearly, and when I squinted I sparkled even harder. My body wasn’t lectric. It was lava. Step-stamp-stump. Tick-tick-tock.
I got to the shop just as Mrs. Bunty was coming out to put the sign on the street. When she saw me her hands went straight to her hips.
“Come on now, Chrissie,” she said. “Enough of this. You know I’m not going to let you in to pinch things.”
“Not going to pinch anything,” I said. “I got coins.”
She laughed, which sounded like a turkey gobbling. Her chins wobbled, so she looked like a turkey too. “And I’m the Queen of Sheba, am I?” she said.
“No. Obviously not. But I have got coins,” I said. I pulled them out of my pocket and held them right up to her face.
“Who’d you nick them off, then?” she asked.
“No one. Got given them,” I said.
“By who?”
I thought of Da, staggering out of the pub as I walked toward the house, taking hold of my elbow with a hot hand. He had reached into his pocket and taken out the clatter of coins, pressed them into my palm, and said, “Here, take this, it’s all I’ve got, take it and get yourself something to eat.” When he staggered back into the pub I heard him go to the bar and ask Ronnie for another drink. So it wasn’t all he had. It was all he had left over after he paid for the things he actually cared about.
“No one,” I said to Mrs. Bunty. “I didn’t pinch them, though. They’re mine. And I want to buy some sweets.”
She would have liked to tell me I wasn’t allowed, but then the vicar came in to buy a newspaper and she had to pretend to be nice so she wouldn’t go to hell. I took the big jar of lollipops off the counter and tried to twist off the lid. It was stiff and my hands kept slipping.
“You want some help with that, lass?” asked the vicar, reaching out.
“No,” I said. I gave it one last tug and it moved.
“My,” said the vicar. “Strong hands you’ve got there, eh?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve got very strong hands.”
I bought a lollipop and a bag of jelly babies, even though I didn’t like lollipops or jelly babies. Mrs. Bunty took my coins as if I had peed on them. I wished I had peed on them.
When I got to Ruthie’s house I went up the garden path and rang the bell underneath the door number. No one answered at first, so I rang again and again until the beautiful woman came. She wasn’t looking her most beautiful. She was still in her nightie and dressing gown even though it was past breakfast time, and her hair was coming out of its curlers in yellow worms. Her face was the color of old washing-up water.
“Oh, hello, Chrissie,” she said. Ruthie came out of the lounge and ran into the back of her legs, hitting her so hard she nearly fell on top of me. That was typical Ruthie, I thought. Always making the beautiful woman’s life worse. She was dressed in a puff-sleeved cotton dress patterned with red and white checks, and her feet were stuffed into frilly white socks and red leather shoes. Her doctor’s case was red too, and she was carrying it by the handle, so she matched from head to toe. There were even red ribbons in her orange hair, making her head look like fire.
“Can I take Ruthie to the playground?” I asked. When Ruthie heard “playground” she clapped her fat little hands together and pulled on the beautiful woman’s arm. Every time the beautiful woman wriggled away Ruthie got hold of her again and pumped her hand up and down.
“Please, Mammy! Playground, Mammy!”
“Get off!” she nearly shouted, wrenching her hand out of reach. Ruthie looked shocked, and I was shocked too. It was the first time I had ever heard the beautiful woman even nearly shout. Pink rose in her cheeks and spread down her neck.
“Sorry, Ruthie,” she said, stroking her hair. “Sorry, angel. Naughty Mammy getting cross. Naughty, shouty Mammy.”
“Can she come, then?” I asked. The beautiful woman looked out into the street, at the cars whirring along the road and the beer bottle shards glittering in the gutters.
“It’s sweet of you to ask, but I’m afraid Ruthie hurt her knee this morning. While she was playing in the garden. It’s quite a nasty scratch. I think perhaps she’d better stay inside today.”
The beautiful woman did that quite a lot: made up stories about why Ruthie couldn’t come out to play. Ruthie’s knees were bare under her dress, and we all stared at them. On the left one there was pink line the size and shape of a paper cut. Even Ruthie looked at the beautiful woman like she was mad.
“We’re only going to the playground,” I said. “I’ll hold her hand. There’s no roads to cross.” The beautiful woman peered out of the door again. I thought she was probably wishing for a clap of thunder or a small earthquake—some proper r
eason to keep Ruthie in. The sky overhead was sea-glass blue and the earth wasn’t at all quaky, and as the beautiful woman looked at the beautiful sky she shuddered, bent forward, and made a gagging sound. When she straightened she was even more dishwater-colored. She pushed Ruthie toward me.
“Yes. Yes. Of course. Do take her. Have a lovely time, Ruthie. Be careful. See you soon.” She ran up the stairs and into the bathroom. We heard her being sick. I thought if I had had to look after Ruthie every day I would probably have been sick too.
When we passed the playground Ruthie pushed the gate, but I pulled her back by the collar of her dress. “Come on,” I said, taking her wrist in my hand. “We’re not going there.”
“Playground!” she whinged. She tried to wriggle free, but I was too strong for her.
“No. No playground,” I said. She looked like she was revving up to scream loud enough that the beautiful woman would hear it from four streets away, so I stuffed a jelly baby into her mouth like a stopper. She was so surprised she didn’t do anything for a minute. Then she chewed and reached out her hand for another.
“More,” she said. I showed her the bag.
“Only if you keep walking and don’t make a noise,” I said.
The alley houses looked even more half there than usual against the perfect sky. When we got to the blue house Ruthie sat down on the scrubby grass outside.
“Tired,” she said. She flopped over so she was lying on the ground. I looked at her orange hair, coiling between blades of grass. Like a tiger. Like a flame.
“Come on,” I said. She didn’t move, so I took the lollipop out of my pocket and waved it in her face. “Do you want this?” She nodded and tried to grab it, but I pulled it out of her reach. “Only if you follow me.”
Once she was through the door the toes of her shoes scuffed straightaway, and dirt crept up the white of her socks. She was very quiet, even though she had finished the jelly baby in her mouth. I pushed her in front of me on the stairs to make sure she got up to the top without falling. The upstairs room was brighter than the rest of the house because of the light coming in through the hole in the roof. The wet patch under the hole had spread. I remembered squatting and peeing there. Ruthie walked in and looked up at the hole. She laughed a high, tinkling giggle. “Look!” she screamed. “There’s a hole! A hole in the sky!” She sat down on one of the couch cushions next to the wet patch and began unpacking her doctor’s case.