by Simon Lelic
“What did you do?” Jake asked.
“Nothing! That’s what I’m saying! Forty-five minutes she had me cleaning paintbrushes. I tell you where I’d like to stick those paintbrushes. Right up that skinny cow’s gash.”
Apparently, Scott had tried to reach up the skirt of one of the girls in his class. By the time the girl in question had squealed and Ms. Birch had turned from the whiteboard to look, though, Scott had his hands in the air, a parody of who me? innocence. When he said, “Nothing,” what he meant was, nothing anyone could have proven. So Ms. Birch had given him a week’s detention based on the only charge that would stick: the language he’d used when the girl had accused him, which everyone else in the class had heard all too clearly.
Pete, chortling, changed the subject.
“What we’d burn. That’s what we were talking about. Person, place or thing. Free choice.”
“That’s what you’re always talking about,” Scott replied, looking at Pete. He turned to the bonfire. “And anyway that’s easy. The school. And I’d start it from that skinny slag’s desk, so that the cops or whatever would pin it on her.”
The school. It was so obvious an answer it was almost cheating, but Scott’s slight twist on the suggestion meant it just about counted. Besides, Scott’s suggestions always counted. He’d thump anyone who suggested different.
“You should do it. We should,” said Charlie, who was still trying to improve Scott’s mood.
“I would if I didn’t think you lot were too pussy,” Scott replied, warming his hands against the fire.
“Who’s pussy?” countered Charlie. “Jakey-boy’s the only pussy here. How many girls have you fucked, Jakey?”
Jake glared. “Shut up,” he snapped.
“Come on,” Charlie persisted. “How many girls have you snogged?”
This was something that would come to define Jake’s position within the group. For each of them, other than Scott of course, a deficiency had been identified that the others would return to again and again. So, when Pete was mocked, it was about his appetite. The joke was, if Pete wasn’t burning something, he was eating it. Charlie was ragged about his size. He wasn’t that short but he was shorter than the others, and for Scott and Pete that was enough. Jake’s perceived inadequacy was his sexual inexperience, which Charlie in particular enjoyed highlighting at every opportunity. As for whether Jake really was as inexperienced as Charlie liked to make out, Susanna, at the time, could not have said.
“What’s in the bag?” Jake said, eager to change the subject. But he admitted later that he was also genuinely curious. As before, when he’d looked at it, he was convinced he’d seen the holdall move.
“See for yourself.” Scott was grinning. “Go ahead. Pick it up.”
Charlie and Pete were looking on. Jake was reluctant but in the end he reached for the bag. What was the worst that could happen? He’d seen Scott carrying it himself, so it wasn’t like it was going to bite or anything.
“Shit! Fuck!”
Jake leaped back from the holdall an instant after he’d grasped the handle. Not only had it moved, definitively this time; whatever was in it, he would have sworn, had also screamed.
Scott cracked up. The others, even though they were as baffled as Jake was, laughed with him.
Jake glowered, furious at the feeling he’d been tricked. “What the hell? What have you got in there?” His first thought, he later confessed, was that inside the bag was a baby. Only because of the size, the sound it made. Which just went to show: what happened next: it could have been worse.
“Your face!” Scott was practically crying. “Honestly, Jake. You should have seen your face!”
The others, still laughing along, edged closer.
“Seriously. What’s in there?” Charlie prodded the bag with his toe. Another “scream,” although this time the sound was distinctly feline.
Jake bent closer to the bag. He reached for the zip. “Is that a cat in there?”
“Don’t open it!” Scott leaped forward and hauled Jake back. “Do you know how long it took me to catch that thing?” He gave the holdall a short, sharp kick, hard enough to elicit another wail.
“A cat? Ha! You caught a cat? What the fuck, Scott!” Charlie’s grin sparkled with expectancy. This, right here, this was exactly why Scott was numero uno. He did stuff, thought of stuff, that no one, not even Charlie, would ever dream of. Crazy stuff, hilarious stuff.
“It’s my next-door neighbor’s. Was, rather. It’s called Snuggles or Sniggles or something like that. No, wait. Squiggles. Fucking thing keeps me up all night.” He kicked the cat once more.
“Why’d you bring it?” This from Pete—who, quicker than any of them, had already figured out precisely why.
“We’re having a bonfire, right?” Scott replied. “And if you have a bonfire you’ve gotta have something to toast.”
There was a pause as the others caught up. Then, “Fucking brilliant! Fucking genius!” Charlie was practically dancing with excitement.
“Well,” said Scott. “Who’s gonna do it?”
Charlie stopped jiggling. He looked at Pete.
“Go on, Petey,” he said. “Toss it on.”
“You toss it on,” said Pete back. “Or let Scott. It was his idea.”
“I fucking caught it. I’ve done all the hard work. Come on, you faggots. Man up.”
Neither Charlie nor Pete showed any sign of relenting. They told the police they didn’t want to do it because they knew it was cruel but it was obvious even to Susanna that basically they didn’t have the guts.
“I’ll do it.”
The others turned to face Jake.
“For real?” said Scott.
Jake’s eyes swept the faces around him. “Give it here,” he said.
“No way,” said Charlie. “No way he’s really going to do it.” But like Pete he was wide-eyed with anticipation. They edged closer, and Scott, grinning, handed Jake the wriggling bag.
They crowded around as Jake carried it toward the fire. It was as though they realized the same thing Susanna did, the first time she heard Jake recount this story. After she’d come to terms with her initial horror, she was able to see as well that this moment was a tipping point. For Scott and the others, what Jake did next would decide whether he was truly one of their group: a lifetime member or a temporary guest. More than that, it would show them how strong they were. How far, if they acted together, they could go.
Jake paused when he reached the edge of the bonfire . . . but not for very long. He couldn’t exactly back out now. And actually, when he picked up the bag, when he pitched it into the middle of the fire, he didn’t even feel that bad. He felt sorry for the cat, a little bit. But it was only a cat. And it would die eventually, just as everything did. If anything he was putting it out of its misery. And, on the flip side, he felt good about how the others were looking at him. The admiration they showed: it was real, like he’d exceeded their wildest expectations.
So he focused on that: his friends’ approval. He didn’t look at the holdall as it burned, not after he’d made sure he hadn’t thrown it too far. He could hear it, though. The cat, that is. And, even more than before, the way it screamed made it sound almost human.
* * *
• • •
It is not what he asked her. Adam wanted to know about the plan but what Susanna has ended up telling him is the part that was important to her. The bonfire, the cat, Jake’s fingers around the handles of the bag—it’s a scene she revisits often. It’s so vivid in her memory, it’s as though she was actually there. Some days—some nights, in particular—she would swear that she genuinely was. The only difference in her nightmares is that it’s not the cat she sees burning. In her dreams, rather, it is Jake.
“I know that’s not . . . that you wanted to know about the plan. But that’s how it started. That’s how the
y came up with the idea.”
“To burn down the school.”
Susanna nods and finds she can’t stop. For a moment it feels like she is rocking. “And after that . . . I don’t really know what happened after that. It became like a project for them. A secret scheme. Whenever they got together it’s what they talked about. Working out the details: when to do it, how, in a way they wouldn’t get caught. They realized the building would have to be empty, for their sake as much as anyone else’s. But it . . .” Susanna trails off. There doesn’t seem to be anything more she can say.
“A secret scheme,” Adam repeats. “Meaning you had no idea. Is that right? Nobody had any idea.”
He isn’t expecting an answer and Susanna doesn’t offer one. Of course no one knew. How could they have? And what would they have thought even if they had discovered some detail of what Jake and the others were spending their time talking about? It was just adolescent nonsense, they would have said. Just boys being boys, mouthing off to try and make themselves feel big. Susanna can almost hear herself saying it. Dismissing it, the way she had when Jake was hauled in for fighting. At the very most she would have tried to talk to Jake about it, but he would have fobbed her off with the same explanation. It was just a game, Mum. We weren’t being serious. I mean, is that what you think of me? Do you really think I’d be that stupid?
“Tell me something, Susanna.” Adam perches on the arm of his chair. He leans in. “Do you wish it had all worked out the way they’d meant it to? The plan, the fire, all that. Do you wish it had happened as they’d intended?”
Susanna thinks again of the burning building, of people running from the roaring flames. She thinks of their soot-blackened faces, of the lines drawn by their tears.
She blinks, looks up. And even though she’s always known the answer, she’s surprised when she hears herself say it.
“More than anything.”
9.
Ruth is doing something she would never, ever normally do. Not if someone paid her. It’s Friday afternoon, all her patients have been scraped, drilled and polished, so there’s simply no good reason for her to be sitting in her gloomy little back room doing paperwork. This—checking invoices, writing checks—it’s a Monday job. Fridays are for going out with the girls. A Singapore Sling, a few shots of tequila, and then off to the local meat market for a grind on the dance floor and a snog on the sofas.
Ha.
She wishes.
In her younger days, that was most Friday nights. Most Thursdays and Saturdays too, if she’s honest. Nowadays it’s a civilized G&T with Susanna and Alina, then a slightly tipsy drive home. Sometimes she can get the others to stay for three, on rare occasions even for four, but then Susanna starts to worry about Ruth getting behind the wheel, which kind of puts a dampener on the fun. Although, to be fair, the thing Ruth most feels like doing anyway right now is heading straight home, running a bath and pouring a large glass of Chablis, and dissolving in water that is almost scalding while Alfie Boe serenades her from the stereo.
Rock and roll.
Christ, Ruth. When was it exactly that you turned into your mother? (About twenty years ago is the depressing—and distressingly accurate—answer, because the fact is Ruth is older now than her mother was when she died. Bloody hell, Ruth. Talk about putting a dampener on the fun. You’ve lost that Friday feeling . . .)
And anyway, she will have to go to the pub first because she has already said she would to Alina. Which she only did when she thought Susanna was coming as well.
Alina. God.
Alina’s . . . fine. She’s good at her job and she can be quite dry, which Ruth likes, but on the flip side she’s not exactly a barrel of laughs. And she’s got a pout on her that makes her look like a cat’s bum.
The problem is that Alina’s lonely. She’s got no family here and the friends she talks about don’t, to Ruth, sound like anything more than passing acquaintances. It’s almost as though Alina isn’t able to tell the difference. Ruth is her friend, though Alina treats her more, ironically, as her counselor. Susanna should be Alina’s friend but rather than looking to cultivate that friendship, Alina rubs against her like sandpaper, then complains to Ruth that Susanna “does not like her.” “Well, it’s hardly surprising,” Ruth has said to her. “Try, I don’t know, just being nice to her for a change. You’re allowed to be friends with someone even if you take objection to what they do, you know.”
Because that’s another problem. Alina, part of whose job it is to act as the receptionist and administrator for a BACP-registered counselor, doesn’t, it turns out, believe in counseling. “You listen,” Ruth remembers her repeating after Susanna had tried explaining to her once what being a counselor entailed. “These people. They talk. And you just. What? Are silent?” With Ruth Alina converses in full sentences. Susanna is lucky to get more than two syllables between silences that punctuate her disapproval.
“Well,” was Susanna’s answer. “Basically. Although of course there’s more to it than that.”
She’d lost Alina at “basically,” Ruth could tell. And ever since then, Alina has seemed determined to clash with Susanna on points of principle (“They are the ones to talk, and yet you are the one who gets paid!”), when a woman of her age (what is she? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? More than old enough to act the grown-up) should understand that isn’t what friends do. Hell, Ruth has plenty of friends who take objection to what she does. That’s what it feels like when she catches sight of the condition of their teeth. And though Ruth would love to lecture them about their dental hygiene, somehow she manages to hold herself back. And if she can do it, anyone can. She’s said to Alina, if she really feels a need to vent, she should sign up to Twitter.
Which was a joke, of course.
Which naturally Alina didn’t get.
So, no. The prospect of an evening with just her and Alina doesn’t exactly fill Ruth with joy. So why not get it over with? Set aside the paperwork, pop along for one, then head home and draw that bath. She could be naked and in the company of Alfie Boe by . . .
Ruth checks her watch.
Half past six. A quarter past if she’s lucky with the traffic. After the day she’s had, the week, it’s no less than she deserves.
Susanna, though. Susanna is the reason Ruth’s delaying, much as she would welcome that G&T.
She seemed fine. When Ruth listened at the door—just for a moment or two, just to make sure it wasn’t a bad time to interrupt—she didn’t hear anything she considered out of the ordinary, not that she could hear very much. And then, when Susanna opened the door and the two of them spoke, Susanna acted perfectly normal as well. A little on edge but wasn’t that to be expected? Ruth has never interrupted her before when she’s been in session, mainly because she knows it isn’t something she’s supposed to do. So naturally Susanna would be flustered. Ruth knows how she would react were someone to interrupt her when she was with a patient, and she can guarantee she wouldn’t be as measured as Susanna was. Objects would fly, put it that way. And some of the objects within a dentist’s reach tend to be sharp.
But she worries. That’s the thing. Partly, again, because that’s what friends do. Mainly because of Susanna’s past.
* * *
• • •
Ruth has always known there was something. It was obvious from the day they met, when Susanna first came to view the office. She was evasive, edgy, constantly checking into corners. Ruth’s instinct was to stay well clear, to sublet the room to someone else, but what it came down to in the end was that Ruth liked her. Susanna was clearly a decent woman: kind, funny, honest. To a fault, sometimes, it later turned out. And she was obviously desperate to make this counseling thing work. The space was perfect, she declared, and what she most appreciated was the prospect of not being stuck in an empty building all on her own. Which was another clue, one Ruth cottoned on to even at the time.
&
nbsp; At first Ruth assumed Susanna was running from an abusive ex-husband. Husband, boyfriend, one or the other. Ruth has had her share of degenerate ex-partners herself. No one who hit her but abuse isn’t always physical. Ruth’s first husband, one of three before she finally realized she was better off on her own—just her and Betty and the twins, as she likes to refer to her parakeets, and which she thinks of as her dog’s younger siblings—used to restrict her access to the money she earned. Her money, for pity’s sake! He used to insist it was paid into a “shared” account, for which he held the only checkbook and debit card. He used to give her an allowance, like pocket money: a more effective method of controlling her than physically walking her around on a leash. The craziest thing is not that Ruth allowed herself to be manipulated like that, but that it was a mistake she later repeated. With John, husband number two, and Cliff, her third and final. She’s free now, which on the whole she considers a blessing, but the point is, if Susanna was going through something similar, Ruth would have done everything in her power to help her. What woman wouldn’t?
It was only by accident that Ruth found out the truth. This was . . . three years ago? God, no, more. Five. Obviously it was well established by then that Susanna didn’t talk about her background, so Ruth was aware she considered her secrets shameful. No news there, Ruth thought. What woman doesn’t blame herself when she’s been abused? But then one day in the waiting area, when Susanna was at the desk talking to Alina and Ruth had come out to call the name of her next patient, Susanna had reacted as though Ruth had called to her.
She laughed it off afterward, claimed she’d misheard, and though Ruth realized right away that Susanna was dissembling, she didn’t consider it a particularly big deal. So “Susanna” wasn’t her real name. So what? It made sense that she would change it if she was in hiding. Except soon after that, when Ruth had been scanning the Saturday supplements, she found herself reading an article about the way women are portrayed in the press, about how they’re so often demonized, basically—and there she was. Her Susanna. The photograph they ran looked nothing like her, not at first glance. But the details of the story, that first name, something anyway caused Ruth to lean a little closer . . .
