Hideous Beauty

by William Hussey

  “Thank you, I won’t forget this.”

  And then he’s gone and I’m alone in the flat.

  A clock ticks, a radio plays. Someone downstairs starts a washing machine. I exhale. There’s one door here I haven’t tried. With the keys still tight in my fist, I wander down the hall. I almost feel like I should knock, show some kind of respect, I don’t know, because I’m about to experience a part of El that maybe he wouldn’t have chosen to share just yet. I turn the handle and step inside.

  His smell hits me first. Almost every library afternoon, I’ve found an excuse to lean over, showing him some passage or drawing in a book, just so I can drink in this smell. It’s hard to describe: the citrus of his deodorant blended with his own natural El-ness. I paw at the wall and find the switch. A single bulb plinks on.

  Drawings and paintings everywhere. Not a bit of wall left. El has made himself a cocoon, and it’s papery and perfect. Aside from his smell, my senses catch the dustiness of his pencils and a sharp sting from the turpentine he uses to clean his brushes. The tiny room is overwhelming. So many spiralling colours and images: a teenager in a red coat swinging on a branch, her mirror-self caught in a puddle; our school at twilight, something creeping and monstrous at the windows; a prison cell holding a little girl, her pudgy hand reaching between the bars, something white and broken in her palm.

  My eyes drift to his bed, neatly made. I want to fall into it, roll myself in the sky-blue sheets, but I have to get to the hospital. There’s this neat built-in wardrobe in the corner where I find fresh T-shirts and a hoodie. I’m about to grab one of each when I realize my own black T-shirt is also smeared with blood. Will he mind? Trembling slightly, I take a canary yellow T – because El doesn’t do black – and quickly change.

  I press my hand to my chest. The shirt almost swamps me and it’s garish and I love it. I can’t help lifting the collar and breathing him in. I can’t help kissing the fabric. Yes, I’m that pathetic. I carefully fold the spare clothes into El’s gym bag, and I’m heading out of the room, when I see another drawing at the head of his bed.

  I drop the bag. Zombie-walk across the room. Place my fingers against the yellow sheet tacked to the wall. It’s me. Gangly, gawky, klutzy, freckly, bedheady me, and somehow he’s caught me exactly as I am and has made me beautiful. I put my fist to my mouth and breathe slowly through clenched fingers. This is how he sees me. Beautiful. And then I realize how I’m positioned, smiling downwards, my eyes cast at whoever is sleeping in the bed below.

  And I don’t think any more.

  I know.

  I know I love him.

  No one’s up by the time I get home from Gemma’s party, so I manage to creep into bed unnoticed. In seconds, I’m asleep, and for the first time since I lost you, El, I dream no dreams of you.

  Opening my eyes the next morning, I raise a hand to the sunlight pouring through the window. I yawn, stagger upright, and stumble across the hall into the shower. Bullets of warm water drum my back. It feels good. But it was my need to feel good that got you killed, and so I turn the dial until the water scalds me raw.

  Stepping out of the tub, I rub an oval in the bathroom mirror. I wonder what you’d say if you could see me now, El? My skin has this blotchy texture and the circles under my eyes are as bad as Mike’s post-chemo. I cinch a towel around my waist and head back to my bedroom.

  It stinks. Half-eaten sandwiches and mouldering bits of fruit circle my bed like offerings made to a mummified pharaoh. I dry myself and search my drawers for a fresh T-shirt. I’m about to pluck out the inevitable black when a swatch of yellow catches my eye. It’s the shirt I borrowed the day of Julia’s accident. My fingers shake as I tease it gently from the drawer.

  The yellow T hasn’t been washed since that day. I can still see the sweat stains under the armpits. As I pull it up to my face, I pray to the god I don’t believe in, and maybe He answers, because your smell is here. Oh, El, you’ve no idea how many hours I’ve spent ransacking this room for something that still held a trace of you. How did I miss this?

  It’s only when I catch the time on my Superman alarm clock that I break free of memories. 12.47 p.m. Crap. I place the yellow T-shirt back in the bottom drawer, promising myself that I’ll vacuum-seal it, so your smell will be preserved forever, then pull on the usual black T-shirt and jeans and race downstairs.

  No one’s about. I grab the post from the kitchen table and flip through bills and postcards and junk mail, throwing everything down again when I’m done. Nothing from the mysterious journal-sender. Perhaps the Gemma drawing from yesterday will be the only time I’ll ever hear from him. The idea scares me – because without him how will I ever find out what happened? – and so I push it away.

  I make myself some toast and a cup of tea. I’m guessing Mum and Chris are on one of their mummy–son outings, probably slagging you off and swiping through Tinder in search of a safe replacement. It’s nice outside and I decide I could do with some air. I grab my jacket just as Dad comes puffing through the front door. I try to shoulder past him but he grabs my wrist like he’s about to judo flip my ass.

  “Hold on, Dylan.” He’s blocking the door, and unless I want to drop-kick my old man I have to hear him out. “You should know you really upset your mum yesterday.”

  “Oh really?”

  “You were rude.”

  “I slammed a door.”

  He breathes through his nose and his gaze flits to the ceiling. “I understand you may have overheard a private conversation between your mum and your brother. That was…unfortunate.”

  “No fucking kidding.”

  “Dylan,” he barks at me. “I’m sure they meant well.”

  “Oh, did they? Because it sounded to me like they were doubting my relationship with the person I loved most in this whole shitty world. That Ellis was somehow not good enough for me.” I laugh like it’s the best joke I’ve ever heard. “I was in awe of him, Dad. Do you even understand that? I was in awe of him, because he was so far beyond good enough it isn’t even funny. The fact that he would even settle for someone like me—”

  My dad’s face turns this awful shade of red. “Don’t sell yourself short. That boy—”

  “What? You shook hands with him the night I came out. You congratulated us. Was that all a lie?”

  “I don’t care that you’re gay,” he mutters, “and you can choose to believe that or not. But gay or straight, your mum and I – and yes, even your brother – we only want what’s best for you. And this, what you’re doing now, giving up school, throwing away your future, do you think it’s what Ellis would have wanted? Because I didn’t know this amazing kid you’re talking about – I never got much of a chance to know him – but I’m pretty sure he’d be appalled to see you like this.”

  Future? My future? Strangely, that isn’t something I’ve even thought about. All I can concentrate on right now is finding out who left you to die, El. Anything beyond that is just a blank.

  I thrust my face into my dad’s. “You don’t get to tell me what El would want. Not ever. Now will you please get out of my way?”

  He looks like he’s about to start in on me again, but then just sighs and stands aside.

  “Dylan,” he says as I pass, “there is something you should know. I’d rather you heard it from me.”

  But right now, I don’t want to hear anything my dad has to say. I put my head down and storm out of the house.

  I’m halfway along the drive when I consider calling Mike. But no, that’s monumentally selfish. He’s probably wiped out after the party. And so I make a decision: I’m going to the lake. Heading back there is asking for trouble, I know, but I slept soundly last night, and that feels like a betrayal. With images of the lake fresh in my mind, I won’t sleep so easy tonight.

  As I walk I think over what Gemma said: People like Ellis will always be vulnerable, just because they won’t play the silly games that everyone else plays – to fit in, to be popular, to feel wanted. They’re to
o brave for that. Too fucking brave to be anything less than what they are.

  There’s an ugly truth to this I don’t want to acknowledge. You were always facing down what people thought of you, El, and though they were forced to turn away when you called them on their bullshit, they still thought it. Is that why you died? Because when you were most vulnerable someone who couldn’t accept you held your life in their hands? For some reason I think of that couple in the hospital the day of your aunt’s accident, the ones with the sullen eyes, and I wonder what they would have done if they saw you drowning.

  I reach the lake and wander slowly down to the shore. Resting on the shingle there’s a small collection of flowers. I hunker over and examine a few of the tributes. One arrangement of purple, yellow and white has a card from Julia that simply reads, Rest well, Angel boy xxx. I know the name of these flowers now. Violas. It was you who planted them outside the flats, bringing beauty like you always did.

  A huge bouquet to one side demands attention. I squat down because the writing’s so small: In memory of a truly amazing teammate. With love, Ollie x. It’s heartfelt and touching and weird. I think back to last night and Ollie’s behaviour at the party. What is going on with him?

  I spend the whole day at the lake. Memories don’t invade; I don’t really think about much at all, and feel as guilty as hell about it. The sun’s setting when I drag myself to my feet and start towards home.

  Lights are on in the sitting room. I slip through the front door and I’m heading upstairs when Chris comes out of the kitchen.

  “Hey, bro,” he says, a carrot clamped between his teeth. “Mail for you.”

  I tear back downstairs and grab the envelope from him. No postage this time, hand-delivered. But the same packaging and the same unidentifiable handwriting.

  “When did this arrive?”

  “S’morning. I meant to tell you, but you were still asleep.”

  “You fucking idiot!”

  He looks at me like a stunned rabbit, the carrot making circles in his mouth. My mum comes out of the kitchen, wondering what’s wrong. I don’t give her a second glance.

  Outside again, I open the envelope as carefully as I can and slip out a single yellow page. The next second, I’m calling Mike.

  HINCHCLIFFES. The neon buzzes above my head and the lack of an apostrophe, as usual, bugs me. Everyone knows that our local self-styled businessman-guru is an only child and unmarried, so I don’t care how many charities he funds, how many floats he sponsors in the Ferrivale parade, or how many drug runners he has operating across town, his punctuation is atrocious.

  As we shuffle forward in the queue, I shoot Mike a concerned glance. He came running over as soon as he got my call but last night is clearly telling on him. Under our phone lights, he examined the new picture I’d been sent from El’s Moodles and Doodles book – this time a drawing of Bradley Hinchcliffe, the sharp nose, small eyes and ferrety mouth so familiar from local newspaper coverage of a million ribbon-cuttings. Only El had drawn Bradley’s mouth to resemble a leech-like hole, a disgusting dripping cavity ringed with needle-sharp teeth. From out of this alien mouth, gluts of white powder fall like snow over Ferrivale.

  In a few short sentences, I told Mike about that day at your aunt’s and my theory as to why Bradley might have wanted you out of the picture.

  “I think it must be someone who was at Gemma’s ‘wake’ party,” I said. “The journal-sender, I mean. They assumed from what happened last night that we’ve ruled Gemma out, which pretty much confirms our theory about them not knowing who rescued me. They’re using the journal pictures to help us identify suspects, but it’s just guesswork on their part. They don’t know for sure, so they send us the next most likely suspect from El’s drawings.”

  An idea then popped into my head. Could it be Ollie? It would fit in with his ultra-protective behaviour at the party… But something about that didn’t ring true.

  “So from what you say, this picture might indicate that Bradley Hinchcliffe had a grudge against El and that he’s our lake suspect,” Mike said. “We can pretty much rule him out for the porno perv or whoever frightened El at the dance. Someone would’ve noticed if he’d been hanging around the school. Okay, so what’s the plan?”

  It’s a pretty terrible plan, but it’s the only one I could come up with, and so here we are, at the front of the queue – and for the first time in our Hinchcliffes history, a bouncer is barring our way.

  “IDs.”

  Crap. Neither Mike nor I look eighteen and we’ve both left our IDs at home.

  “Um, we don’t really want to come in, necessarily.”

  The man-mountain gestures with two fingers and the people behind us start funnelling past. “Oh yeah? So you’re just turned on by the queueing part then?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “But me and my mate… Well, we want to buy some… You know…”

  He looks down at me and breaks into this huge grin. “Now you are yanking my chain. Look, little boys, run on home, will you?”

  I’m at a complete loss when Mike pipes up. “Hey, that notice above your door? Your premises’ licence to sell alcohol?”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s a legal requirement that the person nominated to sell alcohol must be clearly identified on the sign,” Mike says, parroting something he’s probably picked up from Carol’s work as an events organizer. “As you will see, Mr Hinchcliffe’s name is currently hidden by a huge dollop of bird shit. That means you are in breach of the law, and if I call the cops, they will shut you down. So unless you want to get a ladder and some marigolds and start scrubbing?”

  “You cheeky little—”

  A hand reaches up from behind the goliath. “It’s okay, Tommo. Let them in.”

  Tommo moves aside and Bradley Hinchcliffe himself beckons us inside. Reaching the cloakroom, the small, sleek, well-dressed figure stops and indicates a girl behind the counter.

  “Talk to Yaz here,” he says. “She’ll sort you out.”

  He’s about to move on when I catch the sleeve of his immaculate pinstripe.

  “We’re not here for that,” I tell him. “Mr Hinchcliffe, I want to talk to you about a boy who died.”

  Bradley hesitates, then shrugs and leads us through the painfully purple heart of his club, past the glittering bar and private booths, across the slightly sticky dance floor and beyond the DJ box. People barge and jostle us but it’s only 9.45 and the banter’s friendly. One girl tries to grab Mike and twirl him but he offers his apologies and keeps pace with us. My heart is hammering. Scenes from a dozen Hollywood gangster movies flicker through my head: scar-faced henchmen hauling traitors into the presence of cat-cuddling mafia bosses, bodies stuffed into trunks and dropped off piers. What have I dragged you into, Mike?

  Hinchcliffe opens a leather-padded door and ushers us into his office. Then, while we stand in audience, he rounds a big glass desk and sinks into his chair.

  “So what’s this all about?” he asks casually.

  And suddenly I’m not one bit scared. Fuck this guy. Fuck him for what he did to you and Julia that day, El. “I want to know if you had anything to do with the death of Ellis Bell.”

  He steeples his fingers and looks up at us. “Who?”

  I take out your drawing and smooth it down on the desk.

  He grins. “Nice likeness. What is this?”

  “You must have known Ellis,” I say. “Your runners sold your shit to his aunt. Exploited her for years before El showed up and put a stop to it. Not good business for you, him sticking his nose in.”

  Bradley twirls his finger. “Right. I know the name now. The lad who drowned in the lake a couple of weeks back? Yes, my girlfriend read about it in the Chronicle.” He cocks his head to one side. “Wait a minute, were you the boyfriend? Oh, kid. Well, you have my condolences, of course. But let’s see, you think because this Ellis got his aunt sober, I what? Tampered with the brakes of his car or something?”

  I shake
my head. “The brakes were fine. But I think it’s possible that you held a grudge against El for losing you a customer. Maybe a good enough grudge that, if you happened to be near the lake that night, you’d happily watch him drown.”

  Bradley rocks back in his chair, laughing his arse off. “Oh, but you are pure entertainment, kid. Better even than Netflix…” He clicks his fingers at me. “What’s the name?”

  “Dylan. McKee.”

  “Oh yeah. Your dad’s that probate solicitor in town. I’ve chatted to him once or twice, felt like I was drifting in and out of a coma. Okay, Dylan, so I’m going to tell you two things, but first I am going to make a prediction. Are you ready for this?”

  I nod, though my insides are churning, like one of those razor-teethed leeches is going to work in my stomach.

  “Prediction: when you hear my two little facts I will offer you a free night in my club, all the booze you can drink, and you will take my offer and say, ‘Thank you, Mr Hinchcliffe, you’re a gentleman. I’d like that drink now.’”

  Mike laughs and I almost join in.

  Bradley allows us our moment, then begins: “Little fact number 1: if I was this big bad drug lord you seem to imagine, then I probably couldn’t care less whether Ellis’s aunt continued to buy my shit or not. She would be an infinitesimally tiny speck in a very large operation. Certainly not significant enough for me to hold a grudge. Moving on, little fact number 2… Now are you watching very carefully, Dylan?”

  He retrieves a remote control from the desk drawer and, rising from his chair, moves towards us. Honestly, Mike and I could take him easily, and I’m hardly the Immortal Iron Fist, but there’s something about this guy. He reminds me of one of those wicked imps in old fairy tales, the ones you can sell your soul to without even realizing it.

  Bradley thumbs the remote and the TV on the wall blinks into life.