by Susan Gee
‘I’m not like you, Mum,’ he said to himself, but the one thing he did understand was the despair. He understood the hurt of not being understood.
He could almost taste the betrayal. He wanted to hate Maggie, but he knew that he never could. He was too much like his dad. He just loved the wrong person. It made more sense to him now and he wondered if it hurt his dad like it hurt him; if it kept him awake at night and left him aching.
*
Jacob walked back, past the cinema where Mrs Vincent worked. She used to let him in for free when he was with his mum on Tuesdays, when it was quiet. He remembered how it felt, as though they were doing something wrong. The feeling was exciting and he’d spend the film checking back at the usher to see if they’d come over and make them leave.
As he stared over at the cinema, he remembered seeing Jayne there once, standing outside with a see-through umbrella in the rain. It didn’t feel right that she was never going to be there again. He felt empty inside. He couldn’t stop thinking about Maggie and the way that she looked at Matty. If he asked her about it, she’d only accuse him of spying on her again. He was losing her. Some things didn’t change, just like this place. The cinema had the same metal ashtrays on the back of the seats and the orange seat covers that he remembered from when his mum used to bring him. The music that was piped from the tannoy was an organ version of a song that was vaguely familiar. That was probably why he liked it. The past was safe. It never changed.
Mrs Vincent used to spend a lot of time with his mum. They used to talk for hours and he knew that Mrs Vincent wasn’t happy, just like his mum wasn’t. Perhaps Mr Vincent was a bad person and perhaps his sons were the same. He wanted only good things for Maggie, but at that moment he wanted Matty Vincent to turn out to be rotten to the core. He wanted her to see that his smile wasn’t for her, it was for anyone stupid enough to be taken in by it. Jacob wanted him to hurt her so much that she would come back to him and bury her face in his chest and sob. He wanted her back where she belonged.
Someone coming out of the cinema stepped in front of him, and he heard himself mumble and stutter, but they didn’t blink or apologise. He was invisible. He’d always been the same. Maggie never used to notice him until she needed something – fifty pence for ice cream or his homework to copy. She would turn up and sit with him though, drinking tea and eating cake if she didn’t feel like going home. Maggie would whisper her secrets in his ear and he’d feel like he could do anything. When her cousin and her uncle came to live with them, she was always knocking on his door so that she could get some space. Now she felt like a stranger. A nothing, a nobody, a ghost.
He would have loved to sit next to her in the cinema more than he would like anything else in the world, but he knew that it was never going to happen. He wondered if Matty’s mum still worked there and if Matty got free tickets if he wanted to take a girl out. It made his neck hot and his shirt itchy. Nobody else could make him feel so alive and so sick at the same time as Maggie could and the thought of them together made his head hot with jealousy.
As he stared through the large windowed doors, he saw her: Mrs Vincent. She was small and petite, a neat little woman with a tiny waist and big brown eyes. As she walked from behind the counter something sparkled at her feet. She walked across the carpet with her focus on a man sitting in the corner on one of the chairs and Jacob’s eyes moved down to the red shoes that she was wearing. A ruby-red pair of shoes that glittered under the lights. Jacob started to walk away from the cinema not knowing what it meant. They were just like the shoes that Maggie’s cousin had worn.
White light from a car’s headlights shone in his face as it turned the corner onto the road just as a couple stopped underneath a lamppost to kiss. The light shone over them, illuminating them in their embrace. Jacob walked past and caught sight of their thick wet tongues sliding in out of each other’s mouths like a pair of mating eels and wondered if somewhere else Maggie and Matty were doing the same.
He felt alone. It was always the same, even before the stuff that happened with his mum. He’d always felt like a stranger, even though he’d lived here his whole life. It was the way they’d always treated him, like he didn’t belong. He belonged here more than any of them. He was a part of this place. They said it was good to be different, but all he’d ever wanted was to fit in. It was just confusing, Maggie and Matty, those shoes. It was as though everything was too noisy and too bright and he just wished he could switch it all off and retreat into beautiful darkness. To fall inside himself and be alone.
He walked into the phone box on the corner without thinking.
‘Hello? Yes, police please. I’m phoning about Jayne Hargreaves. You need to speak to Matty and Billy Vincent. Their mother’s got the same red shoes and I think they were involved in what happened to Jayne.’
Jacob put the phone down and ran from the phone box. He didn’t feel bad. If they had something to do with it then they deserved what they got.
28
It was a day later when Maggie came round. He heard the squeak of brakes and wondered if she was going to ring the bell or just leave the bike there. He went to the door before she could go.
She smiled. ‘Thanks for the bike. Sorry I kept it for a while.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he replied.
‘You OK? You look annoyed.’
‘Just tired.’
‘Yeah, me too. What you been doing?’ she asked.
‘The usual. What you up to?’
‘I’ve got something on later. Nothing major. Just boring stuff.’
Jacob nodded. He knew what she’d got on. She just didn’t want to be with him, because she was going to see Matty Vincent again. It was obvious.
‘I’m sick of it,’ he said.
‘I know. It’s been snowing forever.’
‘Not the snow. Here. I’m sick of it,’ he told her.
‘Sometimes it surprises you. It’s not all bad. There’s good things.’
Jacob swallowed. ‘One day I’ll go and never come back. Somewhere better. The countryside maybe. Away from here.’
Maggie looked surprised and he knew it was because he didn’t usually talk like this. It felt good though. He wanted to tell her everything he felt about her and that he knew all about her and Matty. If he could he’d say something nice about her too, but he didn’t. He always messed it up when he tried and he’d learnt to say nothing at all.
‘Have you heard anything new about what happened?’ he asked.
There was a look in her eyes that she used to have when she’d come around after his mum had gone. Her eyebrow was raised as though she was hungry for something. The silence could be awkward, but it didn’t last. It never did with Maggie, because she always loved to talk and never needed him to reply. That’s what he liked about her: she was so free. She didn’t care what she said, not like him.
Maggie pouted. ‘I needed some fresh air. That’s why I brought the bike back. Just to get out for a bit. Do you fancy a walk?’
He shrugged as though he wasn’t bothered either way, but as he went to get a coat, he couldn’t hide the smile.
He didn’t say bye to anyone, just shut the door behind him.
‘Things will work out,’ he told her. He said it as much to himself as he did to her.
‘I guess,’ she replied. ‘Thought you might have needed the bike.’
‘Only an idiot would ride one on this ice.’ He tilted his head as if remembering something. ‘Oh yeah, sorry.’
She laughed.
‘Fair comment. Anyway, you can’t just abandon me to the Vincents. We’ve not hung out for ages.’
'Thought you got on,’ Jacob said, trying not to look like he cared.
She squinted. ‘Let’s not talk about them.’
Jacob was glad, but there was a part of him that wanted to know exactly how she felt about Matty Vincent. He knew what he’d seen. He wondered if the police had been round there and if she’d heard about it. He hoped so. They con
tinued in silence with only the sound of the snow under their feet. He thought about putting his arm around her like Matty did, but he pushed his hands deep into his pockets instead. Sometimes he’d like to be a bit more like Matty – just enough that he could do some of the things that he could never seem to do himself. It didn’t matter. He and Maggie had their own thing. As she hummed a song that he’d never heard of before, Jacob felt that this moment was theirs and if the world stopped now, he wouldn’t care. He’d be happy to stay here with her like this forever. There wasn’t anywhere else he’d rather be.
‘That idiot from the theatre lost all my stuff. Can you believe it?’ she told him.
‘Right.’
‘It feels good just being outside tonight. You know what I mean?’
‘Shall I walk you back over the common?’
She laughed. ‘Why?’
‘It’s dark.’
‘Who’s going to look after you though? I’m faster at running than you.’ She laughed. ‘But if you feel like it, you can.’
He swallowed and tried to laugh too, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t help staring at her pale skin under the moonlight. Jacob walked slowly even though he knew that he shouldn’t be out without telling them where he’d gone. He pictured his stepmother looking at the clock on the mantle as the second hand ticked around and around, sitting in the same chair that his mother used to sit in. There were comfier seats in the room, but she always chose the hard-backed chair, as though she was punishing herself. He wondered if his stepmother only sat there too because she knew that it was her mother’s favourite chair. His mother used to sit by the open window as the breeze made wisps of hair dance over her expressionless face.
If his dad had been out late, she’d turn her head away when he kissed her as though she could smell the deception and pretend not to notice the shimmer of lipstick on the crease of his mouth. He changed before she left, but they didn’t talk about that. It was easier to pretend, than admit they were living a lie. Maybe if they’d just faced up to what was happening, things would have been different for all of them. Maybe she wouldn’t have ended up at that place. Maybe she’d still be here now.
His mum had attempted to ignore the past to make it disappear, but it always bobbed up to the surface, uglier and more decayed than before. They were both trying to make sense of something that was beyond understanding. Maggie was suffering because of what happened to her cousin. Both of them were ruined by the things other people had done, and dealing with it in their own ways.
‘Let’s just stick to the road then,’ he said.
The wind teased Jacob with hints of Margaret’s perfume and he wondered how they could be so close, yet still so separate. She had no idea who he actually was, just like he never really knew his mum. How could she know him if he couldn’t tell her how he felt?
As they walked towards the distant lights from the housing estate, Jacob wondered what it would be like to live with Maggie, far away in their own little house. He thought about the homeless boy in the tent and the way the Vincents laughed as they threw stones at him. If Maggie had seen that she wouldn’t have wanted to be with any of them. There’s no way that she’d want Matty Vincent’s hands anywhere near her. He wouldn’t be surprised if they’d taken her cousin into the woods that day. He almost hoped for it and phoning the police had been the right thing to do. He told himself that, but he still felt guilty.
‘The bloke in the tent has gone,’ Margaret said as though she knew what he was thinking about.
Jacob nodded, but she wasn’t looking at him.
‘Cheers me up though, knowing those poor fuckers have got it worse than us.’ She laughed. Jacob wondered if he was meant to laugh with her, but he didn’t. Sometimes he didn’t know what he was meant to do.
‘Can you imagine living in a tent in this weather? No way of knowing who’s out there either. It’d be creepy,’ Jacob said, with a glance over his shoulder.
‘Maybe.’
‘Billy was trying to blame him for what happened. Just because he was homeless.’
‘He should keep his gob shut. They just like going on about it,’ she told him.
Jacob could barely feel his feet despite the boots he was wearing. The snow felt like it was never going to stop. His hair was slicked fast to his face and his lips and cheeks were red raw. As the moon started to rise on the horizon, he felt a pain in his stomach. Thoughts from earlier seemed far away and he would give anything to smell the grass instead of the snow and to feel warm crumbly earth in his fingers. The winter was relentless.
Maggie smiled despite the cold.
She put her arm in his and squeezed it. ‘I’m glad you came to the door. I’ve missed you.’
Jacob felt a rush inside. He wondered if this was the moment he’d been waiting for. If she’d finally realised.
‘I didn’t mean to drag you out the other day.’
Jacob hoped that she didn’t take her arm away, just having her touch him for a second had made his throat tighten.
‘I didn’t mind.’
‘And I’m sorry about your bike too. I should have brought it back faster. Thought you were mad when you didn’t ring me afterwards. You’re a good friend. I’ve just had a load on, you know?’
He smiled. ‘Stop being sorry for nothing. It’s all fine. I should have been a better friend. I know I haven’t been round much.’
‘You couldn’t have been any better,’ she replied.
He felt happier than he had done for days, for weeks even.
‘I’ve got something to tell you. That’s why I came around.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘It had to be face to face,’ she told him.
Jacob felt his stomach churn in anticipation. He wondered if the time she’d spent with Matty had made her realise how she really felt about him.
‘We’re leaving,’ she told him. ‘Moving to Scotland. My mum wants to go back. Just near Edinburgh.’
He let the words sink in, but they make him cold. Colder than he’d felt all winter. ‘You’re not going though?’
She smiled. ‘It’s OK. My aunt lives there. I’ve been there a few times on holiday.’
‘You’ll hate it.’
Her face darkened.
‘There are worse places.’
‘You won’t know anyone. They hate the English anyway,’ he told her.
‘They don’t hate my aunt.’
‘They probably do.’
She pulled a face. ‘I’d rather be away from here. It’s sort of in the country. I’m sick of people and I’m sick of this town.’
She’d liked it enough when she was with Matty, but he knew what she meant. He felt the same. He hated that everyone knew his business. He wasn’t going to agree with her though. She couldn’t just leave.
‘It’s a mistake,’ he told her.
‘I want to go,’ she sighed.
‘You can’t. At least you know people here. You won’t know anyone.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to know anyone anymore. A fresh start with new people would be amazing.’ The words hurt, but she doesn’t seem to care. ‘It’s not about you.’
‘No,’ he said, not being able to look at her. ‘It’s not fair just to decide that. It’s your life too.’
The wind got stronger.
‘They asked me. I want to go.’
‘Oh.’
‘The police were round again yesterday,’ she told him as she looked into the distance. ‘I just don’t want to think about it anymore,’ she said. ‘All their stupid fucking questions do my head in.’
He couldn’t help remembering how excited she was before her cousin went missing. All the possibilities that she could see in her eyes that had been frozen in snow. The way she used to be was so different to how she was now. It felt like a world away from here. She was so happy and wild. Nothing like the person she was now, as though all the life had been carved out of her.
‘They’re doing their best.’
He won
dered if they’d gone round because of his phone call. He knew he’d only done it out of jealousy. Now none of them would get to be with her. She was leaving.
‘We’ll stay in touch,’ she told him.
‘Will we?’ he asked. He imagined as soon as she left the town, she’d forget him. She was attractive and interesting. There would be new boys wanting her and she’d soon forget about him.
‘Of course, don’t talk daft.’
‘You’re the only one that knows me here. Me and you are best friends,’ he said. As he said the words, he knew that he sounded pathetic.
I can’t bear the thought of being without you, he thought.
‘I’m never coming back,’ she told him.
She didn’t say anything else. She had warned him enough times, but she let him have some hope that things would get better. Hope was the only thing that they had left.
‘Come for a walk around with me? I want to see it all before I go.’
He nodded and agreed. He always did.
Perhaps because it was the last time that she’d be with him, or because he didn’t want it to end, but every step took a long time and every street was longer and more beautiful than usual. He noticed the darkness of the leaves on the bushes and the old chip paper wrapper frozen solid on the side of the kerb. He saw things that he never usually noticed.
‘My cousin’s changed it for us here.’
There was no expression on her face as she said the words. Maggie never liked being in anyone’s shadow. She’d always said her cousin had everything. It turned out she was wrong.
‘It won’t be the same,’ he mumbled.
‘I thought you might have asked for a kiss,’ she laughed, but it sounded sad, not like it was meant to be a joke. He looked at her lips and could hardly take in air, he felt light-headed and sick. Jacob thought about all the bad days and he knew that this was one of them. He wondered how he was going to cope without her as she squeezed her hands together to keep warm.