“This is it?” she asked finally.
Max had forgotten just how sharp Charlie’s voodoo stare could be. “Thought you said you weren’t looking for anything.”
“Oh, no. I’m not. It’s just… this is him. All that’s left, I mean. Max was always so full of life, and now he’s a cardboard box.”
Max snorted. “I am not a bloody cardboard box.”
Charlie glanced at him, and the look said shut up. May didn’t notice a damn thing. She looked where Charlie looked, and her eyes went straight through him.
“Do you want anything?” she said to May, probably just to distract her. “Because honestly, it’s just taking up space.”
May laughed, a harsh couple of barks before her hand hit her mouth and she quit like flicking a switch. He wasn’t sure if she was trying not to cry or just trying to stop her face from making any more noise. With a cracked and crooked smile, she shook her head. “I used to say that about Max.”
Charlie glanced at him—and this was a very unusual look for her—but maybe he detected just a sliver of mischief. “Well, he is just the box now. And far be it for him to change his ways.”
“Oi,” he protested, but he might have been smiling.
May reached in and took the T-shirt out of the box. Even by his standards, the thing was rank, smelling of sweat and dirt and Murphy’s. Max almost remembered using it to wipe up beer from the floor. Something about being very drunk and trying not to be a fuckup. May smelled it, winced and started laughing again.
“That’s very him. Could I…?”
Charlie made a complicated gesture with her shoulder Max was pretty sure only women could do. “You’re welcome to it.”
May smiled.
“Thank you,” she said and shoved the nasty rag into her handbag. “I should probably go. I’ve taken up a lot of your time.”
Charlie hedged no words. “Yeah,” she agreed, shoving the box back under the sink beside the neat, careful bottles of bleach and window cleaner.
May made it all the way to the outside hall before she turned back.
“You know, I did come for something,” she blurted. “And it’s stupid. Max proposed to me, before we…. And I took it badly. But he had these rings, they were his grandmother’s? I don’t know what I thought, coming here. I just wanted to see them again.”
“I knew it,” he hissed, lingering at Charlie’s shoulder.
Charlie didn’t move, just shrugged yet another of her entire dialect of shrugs, one hand waiting to push the door closed. “Never saw them, sorry.”
“I didn’t expect you would have. I just needed to spill my guts to a stranger.” May smiled, that tight, perfect little smile she’d caught him with in the first place. Only, looking at it now, he couldn’t catch its old charm. “Thanks for the shirt. And for listening.”
“You’re welcome,” Charlie nodded. “Goodbye.” And then, without ceremony, she closed the door, tossed the lock back and stared at him, arms crossed. Max ignored the tiny thrill shooting through him.
“She looked in all my vents,” Charlie said.
“Yeah.” He rocked on his heels, and he was grinning like an idiot, he knew, but May hadn’t seen him. She’d looked right through him, at the wall, at Charlie’s alien sorting methods for tea and sugar, but she hadn’t seen him.
Charlie saw him. Charlie glared right at him. She made him real and solid and here.
“Why did she look in all my vents?”
“Our vents.”
“Max.”
“Get a screwdriver.”
*
Pushing the loose vent to one side, Charlie dropped the little tin Batman lunchbox on the carpet between them and sat down.
“So,” she said.
She had That Look. Not the angry look, which was small blessings, but the look he hadn’t yet figured out.
Max sank down on the carpet opposite her, out of reach of the screwdriver, just in case.
“It’s my Emergency Stash. Stuff I can’t have stolen.”
Charlie just kept frowning down at the masked avenger with that look on her face, kind of colorless and unhappy—and sure, Robin’s outfit wasn’t the height of taste, but it’d been the eighties. Not much for it.
“You can open it if you like,” he tried. “Mostly it’s just papers and shit.”
Charlie still didn’t move. “Nobody came for this?”
“Sure. Just now.”
“An ex-girlfriend.”
Max shrugged. He tried to read her face, but didn’t get very far. As far as readable faces went, Charlie had a visage right up there with cave rocks—dark, unpleasant and very far down.
“Well, who would you rather? Leland? Leland doesn’t know his arse from his big toe.”
She glanced up at him and then flipped up the stubborn, crusty latch on the box. All kinds of haywire papers sprang up at her, bits of loose money jutting up around part of an old, deflated football. Looking at his trinkets, Max smiled, but when he glanced up he found Charlie’d gone dead pale again.
He wanted to ask her—ask her why, maybe. Why that look? Why so sad? But he couldn’t figure out how to make sense of it, how to put the words in order, and Charlie didn’t say anything, so Max didn’t either.
He watched as Charlie methodically took stuff out and sorted it, pulling loose bills to the side, smoothing them out and settling them back down. She stacked the paperwork all together and neatly matched the corners; pulled out a ticket from the World Cup he’d been to as a boy from between two photocopies of old credit cards; and last removed his football, fortuitously signed by his absolute hero, more or less on total accident.
And then, all the way in the bottom, wadded up in an old cloth napkin, she lifted out his grandmother’s rings.
Charlie didn’t say anything for a long while, just turned the rings over and over in her hand. When she did look up, it was to put the rings down and climb to her feet.
“These can’t stay,” she said, halfway to the kitchen.
“What do you mean, these can’t stay? It sits in the vent—it’s not bothering you.”
With an almighty crash—Charlie dumping all his dented up, ugly silverware and miscellanea into the sink—she came back carrying the box labeled Max’s Shit.
“Your parents probably think it’s lost. Look at this thing. You’ve had it since what? First grade?”
Charlie sat down. Pulling a smallish, padded envelope and a marker from the box, she scribbled old rings on the envelope, dropped the bands inside and wadded up the wax paper adhesive strip cover to toss through his knee.
“So, what?” Max asked. “You’re sending it back?”
Charlie eyed him. That look, he knew. That look meant he’d said something daft.
“What’s this?” she asked, holding up his football.
Sometimes, talking to Charlie, he got the idea he might be walking straight toward an invisible minefield. Just the same, Max grinned. “That was the 1998 World Cup. Well, the ball’s not, that’s mine. But ’98, Dad got a hold of a couple of tickets somehow and—”
“So it’s important.”
“Well, sure it’s important. Since when has France ever won anything?”
“I mean to your father.”
“Oh.” Max found the trap like he found all of Charlie’s traps—staggering head first into it. “Yeah. I guess so.”
She held up the envelope. “And these rings?”
“My grandmother’s. Yeah, okay, you’re right. You’re a saint and I’m an awful corpse for never even considering how my worldly goods might be distributed,” he said. He was smiling, but Charlie didn’t look up, just wrenched down the corners of her mouth a little more. He thought maybe she hadn’t got it.
“Hey,” he tried again, but he didn’t really know at all what to say. “Joking, yeah? I really do think you’re a saint.”
She snorted. The tension broke.
“A pissy saint. You want to send your…” she squinted at the foremost piece
of plastic, “very expired green card?”
“Nah, pitch it.”
Charlie dropped it, reached for the next stack of papers. “Your bank accounts still open?”
“I don’t know.”
In went the photocopies of his bank cards. His lease went sideways. The photocopy of his birth certificate the same. Then, down to the crumpled fifties and the deflated football, Charlie tossed the football in and reconsidered the closed up envelope of rings.
Max watched her sorting through the last dregs of his life, shamed and awed by the way she went to take care of his parents—single-minded, prying up the adhesive again to put the money in with the probably very valuable rings. Like this was the only way anyone could think to do it, when five minutes ago May would have been in here and off with everything if given the chance.
Max reached out. His hand touched her arm and stayed there, solid.
“Hey, leave it,” he said quietly. “It’s just more trouble for them. They’d never get it changed over into proper money. You keep it. Have your own emergency stash, yeah?”
Charlie looked down at her arm. Max followed her gaze and abruptly, his hand slipped through her elbow. But Charlie pretended she didn’t notice, just nodded and shrugged and went to get the tape.
She came back with a roll of heavy packing tape and an empty tin of mints. She folded up the money around his old green card, covering up the little picture of him smiling as pretty as he’d ever been, and without a word, dropped it back into the vent.
Max stared. He watched her go from the vent to marking out the address he recited for her, like she’d not done anything out of the norm.
But she—she’d changed everything. She’d just… just gone and put him here like he belonged. Like he existed. Charlie’d planted that flag down in the sand saying Max is here and left it without even a backward glance.
As if he were a given, she’d folded up his life, gentler than he’d ever seen anybody touch a bit of plastic, and kept it for safekeeping.
“Let’s start over,” he blurted.
Charlie straightened, frowning. The sharpie drooped, making a dot at the end of Donegal. “What?”
He grinned. A little bit daft, a bigger bit hopeful, he held out a hand. “I’m Max.”
For a long second, she stared at him like he might have grown something awful out the side of his chest, before finally she figured him for serious and reached out.
“Charlie.”
She smiled. Just a little. Just the barest tilt up at the corners of her mouth as she shook his hand, but her whole face changed, lit up from the inside like nobody else he’d ever seen. In the face of that smile, bits of Max went misty.
Holy shit, he caught himself thinking, tendrils of him still holding her hand. I’m kind of fucked.
*
Then, just like that, the tide of blokes began.
Just an off thing the first time. A guy she knew came over to the flat sometimes. They watched TV, drank beer. And when the blighter left, he kissed her goodbye.
When Max finally saw the back of that guy, he’d been close to ecstatic. He figured, no more milquetoast, bespectacled, bland little blighters milling around his flat, eyeballing his shelves and the new couch which, all right, his closed credit cards couldn’t pay for but he did pick out. Questioning why this and why that and doesn’t seem like the usual kind of apartment. I mean, I didn’t mean that, just that you live kind of like a bachelor, don’t you? I don’t know, it just feels like a guy’s apartment.
Only, it wasn’t the last of them.
Max sat on the couch eyeing the latest moron milling around the flat, questioning the wall of fucking gorgeous handmade shelves he’d spent weeks at, saying, “A little heavy, isn’t it? For the room, I mean. But you too, I guess. How’d you ever get it up those stairs?” And somewhere between wanting to punch him in the throat and listening to Charlie avoid answering most all of his questions, Max decided this was Not Okay.
So when the guy sat down right the hell on top of him, he shoved an arm through his chest and spilt the whole bottle of beer down his front, watching it puddle in his lap like a piss stain with remarkable satisfaction. And even when the guy ran home with shaking hands and Charlie shouted for an hour and put a toaster through his head, well, Max felt okay.
*
The next time, Max woke up to see Charlie getting ready. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, putting a new face on, wearing a slinky thing that a year ago he’d have said he’d die happy to see her without. Black and beckoning, that dress was made for puddling around the ankles of beautiful women.
And normally, Max would be only too happy to get up and make a nuisance of himself. He’d undo ties where he could find them, smudge makeup, maybe hide a very important shoe. He’d try to talk her out of it, anyway. Only, when Max heaved himself upright and swung his legs over the bed, he smashed his face raw and misty on something that wasn’t there.
Charlie turned from the mirror, looking at him, all made up for whatever stranger would be showing up at the door today, and she didn’t say a word. Behind the paint, her lips looked gray.
“Charlie, what the hell?”
Her mouth moved, but he couldn’t hear her. She pointed. This time, he read her lips. “Salt.”
“Jesus fuck, Charlie! Why the hell would you do that? We have an agreement! Unspoken, yeah, but an agreement just the same. Charlie. Charlie!”
But he couldn’t hear her and she couldn’t hear him either. Charlie shouted in that way she had—the one that wasn’t actually shouting but still felt like getting fucked raw by sandpaper—and all he could do was watch her face, thinking you’re beautiful and fuck you, too.
When the bloke came, he could just see him around the bedroom door. Charlie smiled at him. She didn’t look angry at all. And then she left.
*
Max beat himself bloody against the salt. And he hurt—hurt worse than the metal, because at least the metal only burned. Trying to get through this was like running headlong into a brick wall, over and over and over again, but he kept on doing it, because he had to… to…
Because he had to get to work, goddammit. Jesus God, could he get any later than this? Boss would have his fucking head, no doubt. Max swore, kicking the covers off when they tangled around his ankles and face, trying to smother him back into submission. Hauling those pipes yesterday really must have taken the piss out of him. Jesus, was he knackered. Could hardly move his legs this morning. Felt like trying to walk through cement.
With one last good kick, Max shoved his way out of whatever the hell was holding him down: duvet, sheets, pillows, maybe a woman. Whatever it was, he didn’t have time for it. He staggered into the bathroom and, Mother of God, the place was a right fright. Probably he should tidy up before the mold went and took over everything, but hell, when? He’d have time to clean when he died. Maybe.
Grabbing the soap, he did a clumsy job at lathering and pulled the razor down his chin. One stripe. Two. Uneven stubble still cropped up behind the blade, duller than shit and he’d just opened it the other day. Except when he pulled it down for the third time, it scrabbled over his fingers and fuck. Max jerked away, and the duller-than-shit razor tore a great bloody line down his jaw.
Fuck. He’d never catch the end of it—late because he shaved half his face off. What was he now, thirteen years old? And where the hell were his towels? He needed to find a towel. He needed to get up. Had to get himself off the floor, couldn’t let it stain. Needed…
Needed to find whatever the hell kept ringing.
“You’re dead, Mulligan. Dead. You knew how important today was and you fucking blew it.”
Consciousness in…
Consciousness never quite out.
Max stumbled toward the bed and ricocheted off the brand new brick wall someone’d come and built around it. He hit the floor, mushroomed out in a cloud of mist and lay there, staring at the ceiling.
“Your sorry corpse…”
&n
bsp; Max staggered himself upright. His head hurt. He felt sick. Duvet-sick… no, what the hell was duvet-sick? No, something about… salt. A girl. He didn’t have time for this shit; he had to get to work.
“You hear me, Mulligan? You’re fired.”
Flickering, Max resorted the jumble of his limbs, got his head on straight again. The answer-phone sat like a dark little rock on the end table, no light for messages. Only, he expected the light to be on, somehow. Max stared at it, trying to see something that wasn’t there. And the longer he looked, the dizzier he got, until finally he started thinking he needed to shave again, and Max wrenched himself out of the bedroom before the whole miserable cycle could start again.
He had the warm drips down the back of his neck again. Fuck.
Fucking Charlie. Why’d she have to go and do that with the salt? What the hell did she think she was up to? Trapping him. Like he could follow her. Like he could set a foot out of this goddamn flat of his anymore.
No. Not this goddamn flat of his. Not anymore. Just like it also wasn’t his goddamn beer, Max decided, sliding through the wall into the kitchen. But he’d sure as hell haunt that, too. Try to trap him with salt. He’d show her.
Had to get to work. Had to look marginally presentable. Important day.
Max reached through the refrigerator door and pulled out the memory of a beer—his beer, mostly rotgut, not that awful, artsy shit Charlie bought. His stereo had gone—fucking Leland, probably—but it didn’t matter much. Max closed his eyes, picked a tune, and listened as the first, blistering, awful, perfect chords filled the flat.
And then he bled all over the fucking carpet.
Dead, Mulligan. Dead. You knew.
Only, it didn’t help. The damp seeped into his neck, down his back, dripping constantly over his face. Everywhere hurt like an open bruise. And he drank. Drank one ghost beer after another, awash in the memory of utter, fucking abandon. Got shitfaced on air, slurred his way through three songs at the same time, tumbling against the walls and anything between them.
*
Many dozen memories of beer later, Max lay sprawled on the floor, drunk and sponging brain matter into the carpet. The surrealism of it—the sheer fucking incomprehensibility of dying at twenty-eight, killed by a goddamn fall against the sink like some kind of crippled hag—lent a nicely hallucinatory quality to the whole situation. Come midnight, through swimming vision, he’d made a face out of the cracks in the plaster.
Dead on Arrival Page 3