Grow

by Luke Palmer

  I take several deep breaths until I’m calm enough to support my own weight again, and with a hand against each wall for support, I make my way down the hallway to the kitchen and sit heavily in a chair.

  When Dana comes in, a towel curled around her head, she finds me in the same pose. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I borrowed some of your clothes.’ She looks idly at the bag of salad on the sideboard, tosses it to one side, then sniffs the air.

  ‘Is something burning?’

  SIXTY

  We spend the evening eating lightly charred pizza in front of the TV, not speaking much. I try not to, but my eyes keep drifting across to her, stretched out on the couch in a pair of my old joggers and a hoodie. Her hair has dried curlier than it usually is, and in the soft light of the TV and the glow from the fire (she was amazed we had a working fireplace and insisted on using it) it shines a deep amber around her face.

  She smiles at me from time to time, but her attention is on the screen: an old film about some people who keep meeting on a long journey – I’m not really paying attention. She laughs at the jokes in it, and when she does, her eyes light up in a way I haven’t seen before. I’m used to angry Dana, or anxious Dana, and I know the determined, fulfilled Dana from the garden, but I’ve never seen this Dana before. I think she’s relaxed. Maybe even happy.

  When the film ends, she throws the remote at me, ‘Next!’

  We move on to the second half of some comedy quiz show. I go and get ice cream.

  When I come back, she pulls her legs up and makes space on the sofa, then pushes her bare feet underneath me. The clinking of our spoons and the audience’s laughter fills the room.

  While I fill the dishwasher and tidy up, Dana goes upstairs. When I walk into my room, she’s stepped out of the joggers and is taking off my hoodie.

  ‘Oi! Get out, perv!’

  I back out quickly and shut the door. ‘I… I thought you were in the bathroom. Sorry.’

  ‘You can come in now,’ she says, a few seconds later.

  She’s wearing a pair of my boxers and an old T-shirt. It looks very different on her than it does on me.

  ‘What do you think?’ She turns around and strikes a pose. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Er… nope. No. That’s fine.’ I try and fail miserably to look anywhere in the room but at her.

  She notices. ‘Josh. You’re sweet. But not now. I—’

  ‘Oh. God. No. Of course not. I didn’t—’

  ‘Have you got a blanket? I’ll sleep on the sofa.’

  ‘No, you stay in here, I’ll go downstairs.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. Yes. Yup.’ The sleeve of my jumper is caught on the door handle. I yank it free. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Thanks for tonight, Josh. We’ll go to the station tomorrow. First thing.’

  I look blankly at her for a moment.

  ‘The police?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Yes. Of course.’

  ‘Good night, Josh.’

  ‘Yes.’ I don’t move.

  ‘Goodnight hug?’ She holds her arms out, takes a step towards me.

  ‘Er… OK. Yeah.’

  I stand awkwardly in the doorway as she approaches and winds her arms around my waist. I put mine over her shoulders and try to apply the lightest of squeezes.

  She looks at me, her hands still on my waist. ‘So, good night then.’

  There’s a ringing in my ears as she stands on her tiptoes and brushes her lips against mine, then I’m standing on the landing looking at the closed door.

  SIXTY ONE

  I wake early, still dressed in last night’s clothes. I watch some TV for a bit and make myself breakfast.

  Dana comes down in my dressing gown after about half an hour and puts some bread in the toaster.

  ‘Sleep well?’ I ask.

  ‘Brilliant, thanks.’

  I put another round in for myself and we sit and munch toast for a few minutes.

  ‘Do you mind if I grab some clothes from my room?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course. You stink.’

  The curtains are still closed and the bed unmade, still heavy with sleep. There’s a light, delicate smell, a bit like shampoo. I get some jeans and a T-shirt from my drawers and change quickly, aware that I’m trespassing in some way. Which feels ridiculous; I’m in my own room.

  As I’m pulling the T-shirt over my head, Dana’s head appears around the door.

  ‘Oh, too late.’ She smiles. ‘You saw me, thought I’d try and perv on you.’

  Then it disappears again.

  She calls from the landing, ‘Can I borrow some of your mum’s clothes, do you think? I’ve only got my school uniform. And I’m not wearing your stuff out of the house.’

  I’ve not been into my parents’ room for a long time. Mum’s room, I mean. It’s neater than I’d imagined it to be. There are a few things flung on a chair in the corner, a few pairs of shoes by the wardrobe, but the bed is made, and there’s just one book on Mum’s bedside table.

  Dad’s bedside table hasn’t changed. There’s his alarm clock, the clay dish bought on holiday when I was six where he keeps – kept – his change, and the little stand for his watch that I made him years ago in DT; two pieces of wood with a pretty awful mortise and tenon joint, all gloopily coated in varnish, but he’d used it every night.

  I must have been standing in the doorway for a while. Dana shoves me in the back. ‘Something plain, yeah? I don’t want to look like an old woman.’

  I find a black pair of jeans that look OK, a T-shirt and a thin, yellow jumper. Mum doesn’t really dress ‘young’ but I guess this stuff is fairly neutral. I hand it all to Dana, who takes it into the bathroom. ‘Not falling for that trick twice. I want a lock this time.’ She winks through the gap in the door as she closes it.

  Just like my old joggers, when Dana puts the clothes on, they’re transformed. She gives me another twirl on the landing. ‘OK?’

  ‘Yeah. Fine… Yeah.’

  ‘I hope you’re not getting into me in these clothes, Josh. That’d be weird.’

  I smile back at her. I think we both know we’re buying time; trying to keep everything normal for as long as we can. Just the two of us.

  Until we know we have to go. Back out into the not-normal world.

  And try to save it.

  SIXTY TWO

  There’s a back way to get to the police station, and we agree that the extra half an hour it will take is worth it. I haven’t told Dana about Carl turning up last night, but she knows he’s looking for her and that there are probably others on the lookout too; the types of characters we really don’t want to run into.

  As soon as we step outside, the mood between us is suddenly different. Dana walks fast, her chin deep inside her coat collar. Getting somewhere quickly without being seen is probably something she’s used to doing. I have to jog every third step or so to keep up.

  ‘We could go past the garden, if you like?’

  ‘Not now. After, maybe. When it’s done. Then back to yours if that’s alright.’

  ‘Sure.’ Mum has already confirmed she’ll be away a second night.

  After forty minutes or so of walking in silence, of speeding single-file down footpaths and alleyways between houses in quiet streets, of hot-footing it along stone tracks that wind eventually down towards the centre of town, all the while seeing no one, we get to the much more public bit that we can’t avoid. Luckily, this Saturday is market day, and a whole group of pet-food stalls, bakers’ stalls and others will line most of the route to the police station on the other side of the town centre.

  As we round the corner onto the normally quieter end of the high street, we join a throng of people. I feel relieved that we can blend in with the crowd and achieve a kind of anonymity. But Dana tenses. Her arm, which she has had slipped through mine for the last five minutes, is plunged back into her pocket. She puts her head down and charges forward through the sea of people. Following in the wake of a
ngry heads and occasional ‘oi’s behind her, I know that we’ll be spotted soon if we carry on like this.

  I grab her arm and pull her into a side alley, behind a pair of large bins. ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Let’s just get there, alright?’

  ‘OK. But you need to slow down a bit. You’re drawing a lot of attention to yourself.’

  ‘For God’s sake stop looking at me, Josh. It’s your problem. No one else’s.’

  The glare she gives me could nail me to the brick wall we’re standing next to. I stare back at her, trying not to show how much it hurt.

  ‘Sorry.’ She softens a little. ‘I’m just nervous. I lash out sometimes.’

  ‘I’d noticed,’ I smile, trying to diffuse the atmosphere. ‘I’m nervous too. But we’ll get there. We’ve got another five minutes, and there’ll be crowds all the way. And then it’ll be done.’

  ‘Yeah, OK.’ We head back towards the street. ‘Josh?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I do like it, you know?’

  ‘Like what?’

  We’re standing at the end of the alley when she grabs my hand. ‘When you look at me.’

  She doesn’t let go, and we slip back into the flow of people.

  As casually as possible, we pass between the rows of market stalls with their blue-striped awnings and tables full of products; cellophane bags done up with red tape, gloves and hats in baskets, crates of light bulbs, ten-packs of tights. I’ve never been so alert to the sights and smells as my head darts this way and that. I bridle a few times as a shaved head emerges from the crowd, and I try to match them with the images of the other men I saw just a few months ago in the upstairs room of the Crown – the men who loom at me in my dreams. But these men don’t match those pictures: they are men pushing prams, walking with their wives or girlfriends, or escorting their mothers around the stalls.

  I stop in my tracks as one man, who’s angry look I think is aimed at me, turns to the small girl who is holding his hand, ‘The toilets are this way, love. Can you hold on a minute?’ And just like that, his anger melts into concern. I need to relax.

  ‘Josh?’

  I don’t recognise the voice. Not at first.

  It belongs to a man with a kind face, standing behind a market stall of bagged-up pet food. But there’s a kind of reaching look in his eyes.

  ‘It is Josh, isn’t it? How’ve you been, Kid?’

  He’s wearing a blue jumper. It’s the same unravelling blue jumper he wore when we first met. It’s Dan. I flashback to what Carl said about him not running away. The nightmare visions. But Dan looks … fine.

  ‘Erm, I’m OK thanks. You?’ As soon as I heard my name called, I felt Dana’s hand slip from mine. Now she’s nowhere to be seen. Maybe that’s for the best. If Dan sees us together, who knows what will happen next.

  ‘Can’t complain, mate. Can’t complain. John, you OK if I have a quick break, mate?’

  John is a short, black guy in a denim jacket. He gives Dan a nod, then goes back to selling bird feed to a woman next to me. Dan shuffles around the stall, wincing a bit, and it’s then that I notice the large white cast that runs from his left foot all the way up to his thigh. It’s even bigger than Jamie’s was.

  ‘Is that what Carl—’

  His eyes look panicked. There is the slightest shake of his head. ‘It’s a bit sore today. It doesn’t like the cold I don’t think.’ He raises his voice a little, makes sure John can hear him. ‘Bloody foolish of me, falling down those stairs like that.’

  Catching on to his meaning, I join in. ‘Oh. That’s awful. Er… Sorry to hear it.’

  John looks away from the growing queue at his stall, looks at Dan. ‘Two minutes?’

  ‘Thanks, Boss.’ Then, to me, ‘Mind if we sit down, Kid?’ Dan picks up a crutch from behind the stall and gestures with it towards a nearby bench. ‘I can’t lean on this thing for too long.’

  ‘Sure, yeah. Fine.’ I think I see the back of Dana’s head. She’s fifty yards or so down the high street. It’s OK. I know where she’s going.

  ‘Look, Josh,’ Dan begins, placing himself heavily on the bench. I perch on the other end. He leans in and his voice drops. ‘If you happen to see him, Carl I mean, can you tell him I’m alright?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘It’s just, John offered me this job, and it’s alright actually. Doesn’t change how I feel about … you know … things. But I don’t want him thinking badly of me.’

  I’ve never heard a less convincing statement, but I let it go. Other things to worry about. ‘Is that why Carl … your leg?’

  ‘Don’t know. That and some other stuff. I asked a few times about this whole plan. Maybe I did a bit too much asking. Just all seems a bit … much. I mean it’s just a kid, isn’t it? He’s what, your age? Not that I don’t agree that something has to be—’

  ‘Yeah, of course, Dan. I’ll pass that on.’ I can’t stand the hollowness of his voice. Is that what I sound like?

  ‘And I suppose I should apologise to you, too. For not … you know, with your dad and everything…’

  ‘Oh.’ I’m struggling for words. Should I let on? His loyalty to Carl, despite everything, suggests I shouldn’t. ‘Well … it’s OK. I guess. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Thanks, Josh. You’re a proper hero.’ Dan goes back to sounding jocular, friendly. ‘So what’s he got you running around with today then? Suppose you can’t say much about it really, can you?’

  ‘No, not really.’ My discomfort must be pretty clear by now. One knee won’t keep still.

  ‘I won’t keep you, Josh. Good to see you though. Maybe see you about sometime, back at the Crown maybe?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’ I stand to leave.

  Dan heaves himself back onto his one good leg. He’s wrapped the handle of his crutch in cloth bandages, like Jamie did, but I can see his left hand’s all sore where it’s been rubbing.

  ‘Vaseline,’ I say, pointing to it.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘For the hand. Happened to a friend of mine recently. He said if you put Vaseline on your hand it doesn’t rub so much. Have to keep changing the wrapping on the handle though. Otherwise it gets all manky.’

  ‘Oh, right. Thanks. I’ll give it a try. Nice to see you, Josh.’

  I watch Dan go, lumbering back to John’s stall, giving his boss a friendly wave.

  Turning back down the high street, I move quickly past the shoppers. There’s something about Dan’s loneliness that’s upset me. I guess it upset me that first time, at the Crown. But I was too busy then with feeling like a man, like I was being accepted. Like I was standing in a kind of spotlight. And then with feeling like a caught rabbit when I realised it was actually the headlights of a truck coming straight for me. Dan is a man who’ll grab at the first human contact he can find. Funny that the people he did find were people who have no interest in human contact at all. The opposite, in fact.

  I’m in a kind of reverie when I feel a hand on my arm. I almost jump in the air. But it’s Dana. Just Dana, who’d been waiting for me in another alleyway between buildings. And she smiles at me.

  ‘Well done for getting rid of him. Come on.’

  A few moments later, and we’re standing at the wide entrance to the police station, its rotating door quietly turning.

  ‘Ready?’ she asks.

  ‘Ready.’

  Inside, it’s darker than the street and instantly feels strange, despite how recently I was here. I suppose it’s the kind of building that shrugs off familiarity and always manages to look inhospitable. A female officer is sitting behind the glass screen. She looks up as we come in.

  I try to sound cheerful. ‘Hi, I’d like to­—’

  ‘Hang on. Start again.’ The officer flicks a switch and there’s a tinny squeak as the microphone on my side turns on.

  ‘Hello, I’d like to change a statement I made last month, please.’ I hear the echo of my amplified voice, coming back at me through
her microphone to the speakers on my side. It’s like having a conversation with someone on the other side of the world.

  ‘What statement? Do you have a case number?’

  ‘No, it was an accident involving a cyclist. I was involved.’

  ‘Right, that doesn’t really help. Were you the cyclist?’

  ‘No, but they thought I might have caused it. The accident.’

  ‘And you don’t have the case number?’

  ‘No. I don’t know if there was a case number. I don’t know if …’ I can see where this is going. My plan to talk to a familiar face – to make this easier – might not work after all.

  ‘Do you know the name of the officer involved?’

  ‘No, sorry. She was about your height, maybe a bit taller? Dark hair?’

  ‘PC Reynolds?’

  ‘Yes. I think so.’

  ‘She’s not on today. Can you come back in the week?’

  ‘Not really, it’s…’

  Dana pushes past me, her hands clutching the edge of the desk, her mouth close to the microphone. ‘We have some information about an attack someone’s planning against someone in town. Against a group of people I mean.’