by JT Lawrence
“Mama,” said the car guard outside Pick n Pay. “You shouldn’t be shopping.”
Usually, unsolicited advice from random strangers made me bristle, but I took his point. I felt like a whale waiting to be harpooned, and not in a fun way. Leaning over to strap Charlotte into her carseat was practically impossible. Okay, I said to myself on the drive home—no more grocery shopping. I had already given up on picking toys up off the floor at home, even though I’d trip over the blasted things and swear in a way that would make a sailor blush.
“You said a bad word,” Charlotte would say.
Get used to it, I thought, and gave her some juice in a pink cup. Later that day, the contractions began.
Scott arrived late at the birth clinic, but he was still in time to be sworn at and generally berated. He accepted it with good grace, and when I screamed in agony and effort for the last time before the baby arrived, Scott clutched my hand and wept.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry.”
I hated that Megan had made her way into the intimate confines of the delivery room, and hated Scott for crying when I was the one in agony. But when I saw our beautiful new baby boy lifted, pink and squalling, I forgave Scott, and I told him so.
“Can we make it work?” he asked later, still holding my hand.
I was feeding the baby—Josh, we had named him. I looked up at my husband.
“Yes,” I said, and I believed it. “I think we can make it work.”
It felt like the start of a new life. Charlotte stopped her problematic behaviour, Josh was demanding but sweet, and Scott and I were tender with each other. He cleaned the entire house before our return, and his kindnesses no longer reminded me of Megan. I felt that I could eventually let her go. I even deleted the Instagram app from my phone, but not before having one last peek.
"Who is that?" asked Charlotte, making me jump. My fright jolted Josh, and he stopped feeding and started wailing.
“No one,” I said, dropping my phone and trying to get Josh attached again.
Charlotte picked it up and looked at the screen. “Meggie!”
I gestured impatiently for her to hand the phone over, but she wanted to look at the selfie of Megan holding a bundle wrapped in a blue receiving blanket.
“Meggie has a baby?”
“Yes,” I snapped, snatching my phone away. Of course, Megan was already back to her pre-pregnancy weight and grinning as if looking after a newborn was all sunshine and roses.
Charlotte’s eyes welled up with tears, ready to throw a fit.
“Don’t you dare,” I said. I couldn’t get the picture out of my head for the rest of the day.
When Josh turned a month old, Scott arrived home with a bouquet of roses and a gold-foiled bottle of bubbly. I froze and searched my brain. Was it my birthday? Mothers' Day?
"Oh," I said, guilt rising. "Happy anniversary."
He kissed me and told me we had lunch reservations at the new underground Japanese restaurant I'd been wanting to try. He'd organised a babysitter for the kids—his boss's daughter. Before I could argue, he stormed me with his thoughts.
"Lesley’s great with kids. She babysits for loads of people at the office. If this works well, we can go out more often. It'll be good for both of us. You always say you feel we never do anything anymore."
It was true; I was craving a night out. I had been attached to Josh 24/7 for over a month, and I was ready to have a couple of hours out with Scott and a bottle of Cap Classique.
“I just feel nervous about—”
“I know,” he said, leaning in for a hug. “But we won’t be able to avoid nannies and babysitters forever.”
The boss’s daughter brought over books and a slab of chocolate. Lesley Johnson was slightly overweight and had frizzy hair. I liked her immediately. Within minutes Charlotte was introducing her to every stuffed animal she owned, and Josh slept in her arms.
“Ready?” asked Scott.
We had a wonderful lunch and a little too much bubbly before we realised our phones had no signal in the underground restaurant.
“Get the bill,” I said. “I’ll go outside so long to check my messages.”
I stood in the sunshine and lifted my phone, checking the signal. No messages. I had escaped the relentless demands of my life for ninety golden minutes, and it felt good. Scott came out into the warm afternoon light, smiling.
He kissed me, and I felt connected to him again. His phone started ringing. Scott looked at it and frowned. “It’s my boss.”
I was instantly sober.
My phone beeped with three missed calls from Lesley. I looked up and saw the fear on Scott’s face. He held the phone in one hand and pulled his hair with the other.
"What?" I shouted. I tried to book an Uber, but my hands were shaking too much. "What?"
“Johnson wanted to check if everything was all right.”
“Why?”
“He said Lesley just called to ask if you had a sister. He told her you do.”
My whole body went cold. I couldn't focus on anything. We had to get home.
Scott booked the Uber, and I dialled Lesley, but she wasn't picking up. When we pulled up, I was in such a hurry to get out of the car that I tripped and cracked my knees on the tarmac, grazing the skin. Reality seemed distorted: the trees in our front garden were electric green, and the sky felt like it was falling in. I couldn't get enough oxygen into my lungs despite my hyperventilating. We finally reached the front door and yelled for Lesley, who was shocked to see us in such a state. Hair standing on end, knees leaking blood.
“Where are the children?” I shouted. I didn’t wait for her to answer. I ran into the house and checked Josh’s cot. It was empty. “Josh?” I screamed, as if he would reply. “Charlotte?”
Scott was on the phone, panic-stricken. "It's an emergency!"
“Where is Josh?” I asked an ash-faced Lesley. “Charlotte?”
“Your sister took them for a walk,” she said.
“My sister?”
Lesley pointed at the photo of Megan and me on the wall. Sisters.
Things began tumbling into place. The neat bump, the immediately flat stomach. The bundle of blankets in the picture with no trace of a baby's face, arms, or legs. Megan’s pregnancy had been a lie, but she had told the truth about one thing: she hadn't been after our money, after all.
11
Red Scribble
Weeds fought their way through the cracked concrete slab only to wither and die. It was that kind of apartment building.
Dilapidated, abandoned, but not empty. Clues from former residents and passers-through remained, together forming a messy shrine to honour lives gutted or smashed off-course by the things that had taken place within the vandalised walls. Memento Mori.
K wasn’t spooked; haunted buildings didn’t frighten him. He had learnt early on that humans were infinitely scarier than the spirit world. It was one of the reasons he didn't charge for his side-hustle of paranormal investigation, despite living on the breadline. He didn’t like it when people were frightened, especially children. He hated the idea of kids being scared.
K made his way through the small block of flats, sweeping his torch before him to avoid tripping over debris and garbage. Years ago, a fire had disembowelled half of the building, destroying the pipes and wires and other arteries that kept it alive. No one lived in Anvil House after that, and the remaining furniture had been looted or smashed up to be used as firewood. Squatters and drug addicts came and went, but no one ever stayed. A pervasive sense of malevolence cooled the air around K, and his breath turned to whirling grey mist.
K didn’t make use of paranormal activity sensors or any other ghost-busting paraphernalia. He didn’t need it. The doctors said his brain was damaged, and while he believed them—he had seen the x-rays, the scans, the MRIs with their cold blue lakes of defective grey matter—he didn’t conceive of the head trauma injuries as a handicap, but as a superpower. Of course, he never told
the neurologists that; he didn’t want to get locked up in some bleak asylum. He had his methods of keeping his demons under control, but if he were to end up alone, in a straightjacket, he didn’t fancy his chances much. Chasing ghosts was one way to stay sane in an insane world. That was another reason he didn't charge for his work. It benefited him as much as it did the person who sought him out. In most cases, he reckoned he needed the job more than the person trembling on the other side of the phone.
There was a sound, and K stopped in his tracks, listening. He guessed it was a lead pipe being struck in the distance. He shone his flashlight around, saw nothing unusual, and continued his slow investigation. The air got colder as he made his way towards the centre of the building. A feeling was drawing him further and further in; an emotional magnetic force. An invisible rope looped around his waist and squeezed his stomach as he made his way down the cliff face. The floor might have appeared horizontal, but K knew better. When he reached the epicentre of the cold energy, he stood in what used to be a family room. How did he know that, when there was no furniture? Nothing at all except some cracked syringes in the corner, and a bloodstained mattress at his feet that made his skin crawl. K took a deep breath, and then another. The rope felt too tight, and it made his stomach ache. What was it with this room? His mouth turned dry, and he became dizzy. He leaned against a dusty wall for support, and then he saw it. A built-in cupboard on the wall opposite, with large, irregular holes in place of the two handles, like empty eyes. The space beneath the eyes formed a gaping mouth. To some children, it might have looked like a monster, but to K, it was an old friend. A flashing light cut into his head, a razor memory: his father smashing his head with something dark and heavy. He had been knocked out, cheek-on-carpet, jaw unhinged. The cupboard face had kept him company. He was there when K lost consciousness and again when he woke up, as if keeping vigil.
K felt blinded as the brutal memory bit into him. Back pressed up against the wall, he slid down, and the floor came up to meet him. This was the room. He used to live here. Of course, there was a blur of other homes, too; dozens of them. K’s father was forever moving the family around to dodge criminal charges and social workers. It’s why no-one took K away when he was hospitalised over and over again for blunt-force trauma. Different cities, different hospitals, different people asking the same questions.
He’s a clumsy boy, his mother used to say, breathing out a seemingly constant stream of tobacco smoke. He’s forever falling out of trees.
K blinks away the claustrophobic images and focuses once more on his breathing.
Broken teeth, surgical screws in his jawbone and femur. A cheek so scarred, the other children called him Frankenstein. He had two older sisters, but they disappeared. Eventually, K ran away, too.
He sat there, trembling, waiting for the ghost to appear. Hoping the ghost would appear.
Young, beautiful, long black hair, the caretaker of the neighbouring building had said. But she’s angry.
“Why are you angry?” he asked the cold air that had now seeped into his bones. The ghost didn’t answer. K lay down on the concrete and slept.
He dreamt of the ocean, which he had never visited before. Dreamt that there were words written in the sand. Instead of washing the words away, the rising tide added more and more. K couldn't make out what they said. When he woke up, he smelled gunpowder and blood. He began to search the thin walls. The bulb of his flashlight flickered. On the wallpaper of the flat next door, a name was written in red felt-tipped pen. It was at the height of a child and scrawled in loopy, immature handwriting.
Julie Manchester.
K snapped a quick photo, then read the name out loud. It had a ring to it, a tinny taste of familiarity. Did he know her? His childhood was mostly a blank. The doctors called it traumatic amnesia dissociation. His brain, battered into a survival state, buried his most painful memories. Sometimes one would try to surface, but K felt his psyche choke it before it bloomed, before it had the opportunity for its roots to cut any deeper.
K grasped the image of the red scribble like a lucky charm all the way home.
Julie Manchester.
It was easy to find her, triangulating various social media sites. He zoomed in to a photo he found and immediately felt guilty for invading her privacy. It was a public profile picture, but he couldn't help sensing he was intruding. He was, after all, studying the face of someone who had no idea he was doing so. He glanced at his watch, a cheap gadget he’d bought off a street vendor. Wristwatches had the habit of stalling the moment any kind of phantom appeared, never to recover. His latest cheapo was still ticking away—it was almost ten p.m.—confirming his suspicion that, despite the scent of gunpowder and blood, the ghost had not made an appearance at Anvil House while he was there.
Despite all odds, Julie Manchester agreed to meet him the next night. It was easy enough to comply with her demands: a crowded place with closed-circuit cameras and tight security. The Paradiso Casino was perfect. She sent him a text before she arrived, and when he felt his phone buzz in his jacket pocket, he thought she had decided against the meeting. Instead, it was a message saying her best friend would call the police if Julie didn't answer her phone in half an hour.
K set off the metal detector walking in; he always did. The bolts in his jaw weren’t going anywhere. Sighing, they patted him down and let him in, and he ordered an iced tea at the cheap and cheerful bar. He probed his broken teeth with his tongue while he waited. You never get used to broken teeth.
When he felt Julie Manchester’s gaze, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He turned in his chair and looked at her.
“You look just like him,” Julie said. She looked unnerved. Too fragile.
“Like who?”
“Like your father.”
K grimaced; it felt like a vicious punch in the stomach. The air left his lungs. “You’re pale,” he said. “Can I get you something to drink?”
She picked at her coal-coloured sleeves. “I’m not staying.”
“Okay. I understand.”
They stared at each other.
“Don’t you remember me?” she asked.
“I remember your eyes.” Violet irises that peeked out from under a dark fringe. He saw a picture in his mind of a frightened child, hiding under a table.
Julie crossed her arms tightly, as if she was cold, and threw her long hair back with a shake of her head. She took a step forward. “There were others, you know?”
The ache from the sucker-punch spread to K’s lungs and heart. His mouth was dry again. “Other what?”
Julie kept quiet for a long minute. “Isn’t that why you asked to meet me?”
“I’m sorry,” K said. “I don’t remember much about … growing up.”
Julie glared at him, then her expression softened. “That makes sense, I guess.” The walls at Anvil House were thin.
The bartender gave K a suspicious look, but he didn’t care.
“Who were the others?” He didn’t want to know the answer, but it was his father who had brought them together, and he had to bear witness, no matter how painful it was.
“Anyone,” Julie said. “Any young girl who he could convince to go into your flat. Into his bedroom.”
K tried to swallow the burning blockage in his throat, but it wouldn’t go down. “How many?”
Julie shrugged. “All I know is that I wasn’t the only one. He used to tell me about the others.”
K's lips turned down at the corners; his body flooded with toxic guilt, like poisoned oil in his veins. Nothing he could say would ever make any of it better. He apologised, anyway.
Julie sighed and let her thin arms fall to her sides as if surrendering. "Wasn't your fault. I told my parents, and they didn’t believe me. How were you supposed to know?”
“I’m not like him,” said K.
“I know,” said Julie.
“Were we friends?”
Julie smiled for the first time. “You were my
only friend. We used to climb onto the roof together. We’d eat Eskimo Pies.”
“Eskimo Pies?”
“The other kids in the building had bikes, so we’d be left behind. We’d walk to the café on the corner and buy Chappies and Eskimo Pies.”
The knowledge filled a long-empty part of K. He imagined the cold vanilla popsicle on his tongue, the warm, rough roof-tiles against his back, and the animal shapes in the shifting clouds. His childhood wasn’t a vacuum, after all. Julie had imparted terrible knowledge, but also a gift.
"We should—" K said. "What I mean is, would you agree to press charges against him? Against my father?”
Julie’s mouth fell open. “God. You really have no idea.”
She was right. He didn’t even know his real last name, never mind his father’s. “I know a lot of things,” he said. “I just don’t know about my family.”
“Your father’s dead,” Julie said.
“Oh.”
For the first time in hours, he felt his shoulders relax. His stomach stopped hurting.
“He was killed by a woman,” Julie raised her eyebrows. “No prizes for guessing why.”
The pieces began to fall into place. The ghost had been drawn to the nucleus of K’s father’s evil—Anvil House—and in so doing, she had drawn K there, too. The red scribble.
“The woman,” he said. “Did she—”
“She tracked him down. Shot him a few times and saved a bullet for herself.”
K felt the invisible rope around his torso loosen; he unclenched his aching jaw. He glanced down at his watch. “It’s been half an hour,” he said. “Your best friend is going to call the cops.”
Julie smiled. “There’s no best friend. I just wanted you to think I’d be missed if you did anything to me. You could have been anyone.”
K sensed her vulnerability, her hunger. He would be her friend.