by Susan Gee
The streets looked dark and blacker already. He missed her and she hadn’t even gone yet. He wasn’t going to try to kiss her. He could barely breathe as it was. Jacob knew that this emptiness was here to stay.
‘Don’t make fun of me.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ she told him. ‘You’ll forget about me.’
‘I never would.’
‘People do.’
‘I’m not people,’ he said.
His skin felt numb, everything felt numb; he couldn’t feel anything. She’d done it to him again. Jacob opened his mouth, but the wind took his words before they could be spoken.
She stared into the distance and stopped walking.
‘I hear her screams sometimes, when I’m in bed,’ she told him.
He swallowed. ‘You’re just dreaming.’
‘It wakes me up. This horrible screaming from outside.’
‘It’s just foxes. I hear them on the lane too.’
‘Maybe,’ she replied, in a toneless voice. ‘I can’t wait to go.’
Whatever she wanted to say was over. He knew that was it. He couldn’t change this.
‘Keep doing your pictures,’ she said.
He bit his lip. ‘I’ll send you one. Send me your new address and I’ll post you a good one. You can put it up then. So you don’t forget about me when you’re with your new Scottish friends.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks.’
He smiled back. Of course you will forget me, he thought. He exhaled and tried to think of something, anything he could do to help her to stay. He’d do it, without a thought if he could.
‘I was thinking, where did she get those red shoes?’
Maggie looked angry. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Your cousin. I just wondered where she got them from.’
Maggie’s lips went thin. She didn’t want to talk about Jayne, he knew that and yet here he was making it worse. It didn’t matter now though, she was going and he couldn’t stop her. It was going to happen anyway.
‘Why?’ she asked him.
‘Why what?’
‘Why did you wonder?’
‘I just did,’ he told her. He sighed. ‘I think Matty and Billy’s mum’s got the same ones.’
‘So what?’
‘So, it might be something,’ he explained.
‘Something what?’
‘I don’t know. A clue or something.’
‘Shoes are shoes.’
‘I just thought it might be important.’
She took a step forward so that she was almost touching him. ‘Well, it’s not. How many people wear the same shoes?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, lots. Her fucking shoes? This is why I’m glad I’m going. I can’t get away from stupid comments. It’s everywhere and it’s all the time.’
He couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving him and being so angry with him before she went. He knew that he’d messed up. Jacob couldn’t help it happening once it started. The tears came and he started to sob. Maggie looked at him as though she’d never seen anything so vile. That made it worse.
He wanted to stop, but couldn’t. The tears poured down his face, hot snot pouring from his nose and spit that almost choked him.
‘Sorry,’ he stuttered.
‘Just shut up, Jacob. Why can’t you just be normal?’
The words stung. Out of everyone she had always been different. She had never been cruel like the rest of them.
He knew that she’d remember this, of all the times that they were together. Despite the walks they’d gone on and the way he got her laughing until she was nearly crying. This was how she was going to remember him now.
‘Don’t go,’ he said. His voice sounded pathetic. He sounded like every idiot he would have made fun of, if it wasn’t him.
‘I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘What about Matty Vincent?’
‘What?’
‘I saw you together.’
She looked hard and vulnerable at the same time, not in control like she usually was. Everything made her more beautiful to him.
‘What do you mean?’ Maggie said.
‘In Stockport.’
‘He dumped me if that makes you feel better.’
‘What?’
Jacob couldn’t believe it. That Matty had let her go.
‘I told you. There’s nothing to stay here for, not now.’
He started to sob again.
‘Stop it,’ she told him, but that made him worse.
‘Jacob!’
He couldn’t. Years of tears came.
‘I said, stop!’ she shouted. He’d heard her shout before, but he’d never heard her shout so angrily at him. He knew that this was better for her; she could get angry with him and it would make her feel better about going. She must know, she must know that she was the only person he had. There was no one else. She just looked at him like she hated him.
‘You’re all I’ve got. I don’t want you to go,’ he told her.
‘It’s not my fault, Jacob,’ she replied.
As she walked away he wanted to see her leave, but it blurred. Everything about her was hazy. The last moments he got to see her and he couldn’t even see her at all.
‘Fucking hell,’ a voice said from the side of him.
‘Jacob, you dick.’ Someone laughed.
He knew that it was the Vincents, of course, who else?
Billy Vincent laughed. ‘I wish I had my camera.’
‘Maggie, you alright?’ Matty Vincent shouted after her, but she glanced back over her shoulder and kept walking.
‘Wait up,’ he shouted.
Jacob wanted to go, but he didn’t even think he could move. All he could do was stand there on the pavement while Matty Vincent went to her and Billy trailed behind. He knew that was it. He wondered if the police had been round to see the Vincents yet. He hoped not, he wanted them to suffer for a change. It was their turn for something bad to happen to them. He hoped the police questioned them until they were the ones crying.
29
Jacob pushed the bike round to the shed in the garden. It had been out there for a day now and his dad had told him to get it locked up before it got stolen. When he got around the side there was a plastic bag hanging off the handlebars with one of her books inside. The black cover was cold from being outside and in the bag was a fountain pen and bar of chocolate. Jacob thought of all the times that he’d wanted to read it. All the times she’d slammed it shut when he came closer and here it was, finally in his hands. Just holding it made him feel guilty. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed the pages and held it against his cheek.
He stood in the garden and stared at it before he dared to open it. When he flicked through the pages and saw the familiar handwriting, he was surprised at how full it was. Pages and pages of poems, all dated. It went on and on, all written in the same black ink. He read the first line before he slammed it shut. He couldn’t do it – not to her.
When he went back inside with it, his dad was sitting at the kitchen table next to a cup of cold tea. His blue eyes looked watery and he stared forwards as though thinking about another place. Jacob wondered if he knew about Maggie, but he seemed unaware of him even being there.
He’d seen that look before. The past hung over them. His dad used to have cheeks that glowed and eyes that sparkled until they lost Jacob’s mum. Maybe he remembered she was pretty once and that they used to laugh and spend the days in their pyjamas watching films and eating popcorn. Jacob could remember them falling all over each other, laughing and whispering to each other. The memories were like snow in the palm of his hand and it was melting into nothing. He had a sensation that the past was rising up and he was powerless to stop it. She’d taken him out once to the fair. Jacob remembered being excited by the smell of the hot dogs and the screams from the roller coaster, until he realised that they weren’t there for fun.
As the Ferris wheel turned, Jacob stood next to his mum a
nd watched his dad from the pier. He had his arm around another woman’s shoulders and they were smiling. His dad looked so happy that Jacob almost ran over. He pulled to go forwards, but his mum grabbed him by the arm and stopped him. Her lips were thin and the knuckles of her hands white as she gripped the patent white handbag she was holding.
The woman’s red hair blew across her face as his dad leant in to kiss her and then all the lies came together. His mum walked at a slow and steady pace on the long walk home from town. He was tired, but he knew not to ask why they weren’t getting the bus. He just walked next to her without a word, afraid of something that he didn’t understand. She wasn’t like his mother on that walk home, it was like she’d cracked like an egg. Her dad had broken her and Jacob didn’t know how to fix it. Back at home she put him to bed without speaking. The church bell in the distance made a steady chime as the logs on the fire turned to ash. His dad wasn’t the man he thought he was.
Later that night when Jacob heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel path, he wasn’t sure if that was what had woken him or if he’d never been asleep. Through the window, he saw his dad carry his mum like a bride over the threshold. He wasn’t bringing her in though, he was taking her out to the car. The stars were beautiful that night, like a mist across the sky above the fields and he wondered if she saw it too. That was the first time he took her to hospital; she came back that time. Now Maggie was going too. It didn’t feel like anything mattered anymore. As his dad sat there, he looked old. They were both stuck. In a moment, he wanted all of it back again: Maggie, his mum, his old family.
He put his hands on the back of one of the chairs. ‘You OK, Dad?’
Jacob’s dad stared into his face. He had a blank expression as though he was empty too. Jacob had found him sitting downstairs in the dark a couple of times over the last few nights. It was coming up to the anniversary of the day his mum went and it was something neither of them acknowledged, but both of them couldn’t escape. They knew the date and didn’t mention it. He noticed that his dad would take them somewhere on that day, would always want to get out and do something. He understood it. Everything changed that day for both of them. He could hear his stepmother on the landing. Always there in the background, just waiting in the shadows.
Jacob looked at his dad sitting there and he knew that he never wanted this either. He wondered if he’d go back too if he had the choice.
‘I’m sorry things aren’t how we wanted,’ his dad said to him.
Jacob frowned. He wasn’t sure what he meant. There were so many things that weren’t the way that they were meant to be. Jacob wondered if he should hug him. It’s not what they did though. They never had. His mum was affectionate, but not his dad. They used to talk when they’d go out on their bikes, as though the rush of the wind and the exercise made him freer. Sometimes they pedalled so far he’d wonder how they’d ever make it back again. His dad would smile at him as though he meant everything. Now there was nothing from him. He was blank. He felt the coldness of the book in his hand through the plastic bag.
'Maggie’s moving,’ was all he could think of to say. It was all that mattered right now. If they could both just go away from here and start again with Maggie, it could be so much better. He wanted to tell him that it was this house that was to blame, but his dad got up and poured the cold tea down the sink.
‘Right.’
‘To Scotland. For good.’
‘They’ve been through a lot.’
‘I can still ring her,’ Jacob told him, as though he was trying to make his dad feel better. ‘It won’t be the same though.’
‘Sorry, Jacob.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
Jacob wasn’t sure he meant Maggie. The way he said it made it sound like he wasn’t talking about Maggie at all.
‘I’ll drive you to see her, when they’re settled. If you want to go.’
Jacob smiled. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘Just the two of us. Maybe your sister too.’
Jacob nodded, even though he wouldn’t want them to be there when he saw Maggie. It wouldn’t be the same. He thought about telling him that they should do something else. Go out for the day or fishing like they used to. Paula wouldn’t allow it though. She’d do her best to ruin it somehow. It was the first time he’d heard his dad say that he wanted to do something just the three of them. It was always usually Paula first and then him.
‘I’m sorry, Jacob. You’ll find another girlfriend.’
‘She’s not… It’s not like that,’ Jacob stuttered. He wasn’t ready to say how he felt about Maggie.
‘Right, sorry, I just thought you liked each other.’
‘She goes out with Matty Vincent,’ he told his dad. It was awful saying it, but it was true. It was the first time he’d admitted to himself that she wasn’t his anymore. She was with Matty Vincent.
‘That blond lad?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought he saw her cousin?’
‘No. He was never with her cousin.’
‘That’s odd, I think he was, oh well.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘It must have been Maggie he was with. I’m not good with faces. I used to see them by the orchard sometimes when I was walking the dog. It probably wasn’t her. Anyway, I’m going out for a walk, just need some fresh air,’ his dad said. ‘I’ve a lot to think about.’
‘Near the woods?’
‘Yes, the orchard down the bottom. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, poor girl.’
His dad walked out of the kitchen without even looking at him and Jacob knew that they both wanted to escape. This was the way it was now. He stayed on the spot and thought about what his dad had said. If Matty Vincent had been seeing Jayne then it made sense. He wondered if the police had been round to question him yet.
Paula was in the living room when he walked through.
‘Shall I come with you?’ she asked his dad.
‘I won’t be long. I just need to clear my head.’
Her eyes narrowed as she turned to Jacob. He knew that she blamed him for the way his dad was acting. He’d like to tell her that it didn’t matter what she did, she could never erase his mother. No matter how much she wanted to start over, it was impossible. His mother wasn’t in another town or on a plane somewhere like Maggie was going to be, she was gone. She’d created a void that was a part of them and no matter how Paula flirted and pouted, she was just a distraction from the truth. He wondered if she knew it and if that was why she was so awful to him. The front door slammed as his dad left and as he walked past her, he smiled to himself. He smiled because for once, there was nothing she could do about it.
When he went into the hall, he could smell her perfume, the lotion she used on her skin. It was overpowering even before he got close to her. She stepped out and blocked the way so he couldn’t get through.
‘Can I get upstairs?’ he asked.
She put her hands on her hips. ‘What were you two talking about just then?’
‘Nothing, look can I just get past?’
‘It wasn’t nothing. What was it?’
‘Just let me past, will you?’
‘You’ve been saying things to him, haven’t you? I know what you’re like.’
‘Let me past.’
‘Not until you apologise. I won’t have you ruin this for me.’
Jacob couldn’t take it, not today. He couldn’t stop thinking about what his dad had said about Maggie’s cousin. It made sense if Matty was seeing Jayne, that he wouldn’t have wanted Maggie to know about it. Jacob wondered how much he’d have wanted to keep it a secret, how far he’d go to make sure that Maggie didn’t find out about the two of them. He wondered how far Matty would go to keep her quiet.
Usually he would be too worried about what Paula would say to him, about the consequences, but he didn’t care today. He just wanted her out of his face. He wanted to get away from her. He couldn’t believe that Maggie was leaving and if
he could stop her, he would. Jacob started to walk away.
‘I’ve not finished talking to you.’ Her face was hard. She was ugly when she was like that. It was ironic, he thought, how long she spent on her makeup, when her inner ugliness was something that she could never disguise with creams and powders. There was something under her skin that couldn’t be covered up with any amount of foundation and powder.
‘What’s that you’ve got?’ she said, as she took a step towards him with her hand outstretched towards the bag with Maggie’s book inside. Jacob looked at his stepmother and bolted for the door. He wasn’t going to let her do this to him today and she wasn’t going to have Maggie’s book. It wasn’t going to happen. As he ran down the road, he heard her shouting after him, but he didn’t care. He held on tight to the book, knowing that he’d do anything to stop her having it. All he wanted was to get away from her and to stop Maggie from leaving.
30
The sound of footsteps outside disturbed Mr Anderson. He was standing in his front room, thinking about the family project, when Jacob ran past. The window was open and wind teased the net curtains. It was biting cold outside and the temperature of the room was fridge-like. It was how he liked it. Some days Mr Anderson would find that an hour had passed while he’d been stood at the window in the semi-darkness, just lost in thought.
He inhaled and glanced at the sideboard. The next doll was almost ready. The arms and legs were laid out on the wooden surface. Disembodied in a neat line, waiting to be stitched into its clothes. Mr Anderson looked at the pale clay limbs against the dark wood. The legs were slender and delicate. It wouldn’t be long now. The family project was gathering momentum.
He wondered where Jacob was going in such a hurry. The connection they had was undeniable. Jacob was disembodied too, with pieces missing, just like one of Mr Anderson’s dolls. He was a motherless boy with a family that didn’t want him. Mr Anderson licked his lips at the memory of the intricate figure that Jacob had shown him in the library. The boy was special. He could be moulded into something remarkable if he was given the chance.