Stones

by Polly Johnson

  I see it all again: Sam stumbling back to the bed and lying down. His voice whining on, begging me to give him money, and after I refused, starting on me with insults and threats. Then his sudden leap upwards, to grab my arm and pull me down.

  ‘He hurt me,’ l tell Dad. ‘He punched me! He frightened me and I just needed to get away.’

  I swallow it again, all the way down, but it’s all right this time, because they know now. They hear.

  ‘I got away,’ I say. ‘I ran out and stood outside. He called me, but I pretended I was gone, and then I heard him making a funny noise, like a gurgling and groaning. Then there was this big sigh, and the sound of something falling, but I ran. I ran away, and maybe if I hadn’t… maybe he wouldn’t have died.’

  I look at them and wait for them to hate me, but they don’t.

  Dad just says, ‘No. It wasn’t that day. I spoke to him after that. I remember he asked me for money and I put it on the calendar like I always do, and that was the twenty- second…’

  He took a deep breath and mum shushed him, ‘Don’t get upset—’

  ‘Upset?’ Dad gave a little laugh. ‘It’s a little late for that.’

  He turned to me again. ‘I’ve thought about it so much, Coo – blamed myself because I should have known something. After he asked me for the money, I swore I wouldn’t give him any more, ever. And I won’t now, will I? Stupid – I thought maybe it was my fault, because of that.’

  Mum’s face is all screwed up, but he ignores her and goes on looking at me, like it’s just us there. I realise in a blinding flash, that though he’s Dad, he feels the same as I do – that it’s our fault. Maybe it’s both our faults, or maybe it’s neither. Maybe it’s just a thing that happened.

  ‘It wasn’t you,’ he says now. ‘If anyone was responsible, it was me. I should have called round where he’d been staying. You couldn’t have done anything.’

  ‘I doubt anyone could,’ Mum adds, taking his hand.

  We sit there, and inside our heads we’re all counting days. The police said Sam had lain there for three days before he was found. Three days when he was dead, and no one noticed; but not my days. I knew that now.

  ‘Why?’ I say. ‘Why would he just die?’

  Dad pauses. ‘It was his heart they said. At first, because of some… bruises and cuts… they thought maybe he’d been attacked, but he was in his room, and they found out it was his heart. They think he must have had a weakness, and the drinking was too much.’

  My heart is racing like a greyhound. Bruises and cuts? I look at Dad, but there’s nothing to say. It’s all too late.

  ‘I wanted him to stop being like he was,’ I say. ‘I wanted that for Banks too, but I couldn’t change him either.’

  Dad sighs. ‘No,’ he says, ‘sometimes there are people and things that no one can change. Nothing anyone can do.’

  ‘We’re sorry,’ Mum says, ‘really, so sorry.’

  When she says it, that word, something gives. It’s something so small and weak I’m surprised it’s been able to hold the rubbish back all this time. It’s like the tiny bone of a bird’s skull that you can crumble under your thumb, and it crumbles now. Dad’s arm becomes a warm circle that I curl into and relax, and the three of us sit there while the room settles into silence. For the first time, we’re in it together.

  After a while, Mum gets up to make me a boiled egg and some tea. Dad sits on a while longer and then stands. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, ‘everything will work out. It’s not too late.’

  He follows Mum downstairs and I lie back on the pillows watching the room as it relaxes in the fading light.

  42.

  Thought Diary: Stranger in a Strange Land is a best-selling 1961 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians on the planet Mars.

  That’s what it feels like here: Mars. I have the next two weeks off school, and sit around the house until I’m half-crazy. In a way it’s good. My mind is a silent pool where I don’t have to think.

  In the end, when I finally do go back, everything seems strange and unreal. I open the door and wish I had an aqualung. The world feels like it’s underwater.

  Joe doesn’t know I’m coming, so I walk on my own. I don’t see him all morning, but Raven sticks by me, picking sulkily at her black nail varnish and shooing people out of my way as if I was on crutches. Finally, at lunchtime, she nudges me. ‘Joe’s coming,’ she says, and sticks her earphones in. My pulse starts to race when he sits down in the chair next to me. I’m more wound up than one of Mum’s old clocks. Joe lays out his lunch – two bags of crisps and a can of Coke – and grins at me.

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘What could be funny?’

  ‘This whole thing,’ Joe says, pinching a chip from the greasy, uneaten pile on my plate. ‘My father thinks I’m a hero! I came to the aid of a damsel in distress – very manly of me don’t you think? I’ve come out of all this really well, and now I know you’re all right, it’s quite funny. He thinks I was fighting over you – that you’re my girlfriend!’

  I stare at him. ‘Oh really,’ I say. ‘I’m glad it makes you laugh.’

  Joe doesn’t seem to care. His face is pale and still displays bruises, which flare across his cheekbone and round his eye like strange flowers. I’m mystified.

  ‘Why did you do it, Joe?’ I ask him. ‘What was it about really?’

  He looks up at me for a long moment, until some lad going out of the door catches his eye. I snap my fingers in front of his nose.

  ‘Look,’ he says, ‘I went there because of him and what he did. It wasn’t right – you know it wasn’t. Someone had to do your thinking for you.’

  I glare at him. He’s a fine one to talk about thinking.

  ‘He didn’t do anything,’ I confess. ‘What I said – I lied, okay? It didn’t happen. It was me; my fault. You went for the wrong person.’

  Joe looks at me for a long minute, breathing like he wants to belt me one, but then he just sighs. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Okay. But you need to not go there any more. Ever.’

  ‘Alec is the one who needs sorting,’ I say. ‘Whatever you told the police, go back and tell them that. Not Banks, Alec.’

  Joe grunts. ‘I did. I said he attacked me for no reason. I said he was dangerous, but I didn’t mention Banks. The police know about them anyway. They’re going after Alec.’

  ‘Are they?’ I say. ‘What for? Do they know something for sure?’

  Joe shrugs. ‘I don’t know, Coo, but it’s the best thing. You know it is.’

  At the end of the day, I walk Joe home. As we go up the path, he surprises me by taking my hand, but when his dad opens the door, I know why he did it. His dad’s glance drops to where our joined hands are swinging, and he smiles at me for the first time, before going back inside.

  ‘Bye darling,’ Joe grins, and leans down to kiss my cheek.

  ‘Liar!’ I hiss.

  ‘Makes life easier, Coo. If thinking I have a girlfriend means he leaves me alone, then what’s the harm?’

  For a moment I want to argue, but then I look at his relaxed smile, and say nothing.

  Joe shakes his head. ‘If I was going to have a girlfriend,’ he says, ‘it’d be you.’

  ‘Honest?’ I say, and he grins and hugs me.

  ‘Honest. Anyway, girlfriends and boyfriends don’t last. A real friend will.’

  ‘I used to think so,’ I say. ‘Now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘A real friend,’ Joe says, ‘not just someone you grab onto.’

  There’s an awkward silence and then the window curtains twitch. ‘Your father,’ I say. ‘You can’t let him get away with hitting you.’

  He shushes me. ‘Forget it. I can leave home in a year or so. Until then let’s just play a game. Let him think I’m a macho hero; who does it hurt?’

  ‘It hurts everyone. Because you shouldn’t have to pretend,’ I say, but he just smiles. ‘Can we call it quits and be f
riends again?’

  ‘Course,’ I say. ‘I missed you.’

  ‘You, too. That’s good then.’

  As I walk away, the pretence still bothers me, but I don’t have to live his life, do I? It’s just that even the best intended lies have a way of turning out badly. If I’ve learned nothing else, I know that.

  I reach town at a point where I could as easily go home or go for a walk on the beach. I know which I should choose, but I don’t. When did I ever?

  43.

  Thought Diary: Wikipedia: ‘The term “addiction” is used in many contexts to describe an obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence, such as drug addiction, gambling, crime…’ Or rotten tramps! Me.

  I go straight up the promenade towards The Mansion, with the rusty tracks of the railway and its metal fence to my right and the towering wall across the road to my left. The wind pushes like a cold hand against my bent head, all the way to the broad expanse of concrete before the tatty white building, where it dies away.

  It’s eerily quiet; I’d be glad to see even Mad Alec come out now, but nothing breaks the silence. I peer in like a stranger, but see only an old sleeping bag, an empty crate or two and some bent beer cans. It’s deserted. I stand a moment longer and then I hear it – a shuffling and something falling. It’s coming from the side room where the old man used to sleep. My heart starts jumping inside me and I want to run. ‘Banks?’ I whisper, ‘Banks?’ and step in, eyes wide in the gloom. A man turns, loses his balance and puts out a hand, cursing. I’ve never seen him before in my life.

  We look at each other. He speaks. ‘Got any money?’

  His face is narrow and thin like a dog’s, with long teeth and the lower rims of his eyes drooping and red. I put my hand in my pocket and find a coin. ‘This is all I have,’ I say. ‘Take it.’

  The man looks at the pound in my hand and as he moves to snatch it, I see my old bag clenched beneath his arm. The sleeve of a pink sweatshirt is hanging out like a tongue. A mean look comes over his face.

  ‘Clear off,’ he says, and takes a step forward.

  ‘You put that down, it’s not your stuff,’ I tell him, but he lunges at me again.

  ‘You wait until Banks comes,’ I tell him, ‘then you’ll be sorry.’

  I step backwards – one, two, three – until I’m out and walking away. When I glance back, the man is peering at me from the doorway.

  ‘I only wanted to ask if you’ve seen someone!’ I yell. ‘It’s not even your house!’

  He disappears, but a moment later comes back and hurls something, which falls through the air straight towards my head.

  ‘Bugger off!’ he shouts again, but I don’t need telling. I walk away, furious. The man has my bag that Banks was supposed to be looking after. How dare he go in and just take it. He’s like some animal that finds an empty lair, picking over the bones until he knows the owners aren’t coming back. Then he’ll overlay it with his own scent so that nothing familiar is left.

  Once I’m home, I can’t stop thinking about it. I need to find out if Banks is all right. I need to know about Alec and the old man, and I realise now that if they’re not on the beach, or in The Mansion, I have no idea where to look. Finally, just before I give up and go to bed, I remember the Sally Army, and suddenly I’m excited. It takes only seconds to go online and find the number of the local branch, and now I can barely sleep. I want it to be tomorrow right now.

  To my surprise, it’s only a short bus ride and I’m there. In the daylight, my trumpet woman looks much younger. She’s busy pouring tea from a giant teapot and laying out buns. The customers seem to be mostly homeless people, and from my place at the door, I scan their faces. Most of them take their tea and buns to a table and slump over. Some sit silent and some sleep huddled against radiators. The teacups give them a respectable air, but a closer look tells you they are strangers to an indoor life. Their beards are shaggy, their clothes a uniform colour as though whatever they used to be has been faded to grey by the wind and the salt air. One of them is talking to the wall, his mouth moving like an old puppet – gawp-gawp-gawp – out of sequence with the words. Mostly, though, they are quiet, like the survivors of some disaster waiting for a boat to come and take them to a new home.

  An army woman comes over to me. She smiles and asks me in, but I can’t do that. I show her the newspaper with Banks’ photo in it, but she shakes her head. ‘I’m not aware of seeing him,’ she says, ‘but I could have. I’ll certainly look out for him, and ask the other centres if he’s known.’

  I sigh. ‘I just want to know he’s okay,’ I tell her. ‘I want to say I’m sorry.’

  The woman looks sympathetic, but she has no solutions, only her promise to look out. It’s something and nothing.

  ‘I hope you’ll come again,’ she says as she writes down my number. ‘It’s nice to see you. If we hear anything I’ll let you know.’

  There’s nothing to do but go home. I just wish I knew Banks was okay. Right now he’s like the ocean at night – you know it’s there, but even though the lights are coming on you can’t see it and all you know of it is a washing sound somewhere down below, where the cooler air comes up at you with a smell of salt. It sounds like someone sighing in the back room of a house when they think no one is listening.

  44.

  Thought Diary: ‘Like “hobo” and “bum”, the word “tramp” is considered vulgar in American English usage, having been subsumed in more polite contexts by words such as “homeless person” or “vagrant”.’ Wikipedia.

  How is it that time can be elastic? Sometimes years seem to go by while you’re looking the other way, and sometimes – when you most long for it to pass – lifetimes can stretch from a few hours.

  I don’t hear anything from the homeless shelter, and in the end I don’t expect to. Slowly, I move into a new rhythm – no longer doing the things I used to, but waiting for something to put in their place. It’s as if someone took a sponge and wiped out the whole of the last six months. I’m dancing on an empty stage, whistling to no one. At home we’re three now, not four. Sam has become a ghost, but one I can live with. When I do remember him, it’s always the other Sam, the one from when we were small and waiting to become the people we are now. I prefer that Sam.

  Mum and Dad seem better too. Sometimes I catch them hugging in a quiet corner, or hear their voices as a low hum at night. Other than that I don’t do much. It takes a while, I suppose, to forget old habits.

  I can forget what happened altogether now, for the longest time. Forget the way I’m used to feeling. But then, in the middle of feeling happy, I just stop. In the middle of forgetting, I remember. Sometimes I try to put the old feelings back on like a coat, and just for a moment it fits; it even feels comfortable. Sometimes I walk down to the sea and try to remember all the time I spent there with Banks. I sit on the stones and try to imagine him next to me. I might even build a little pyramid and stay until I’ve knocked it down, but it’s not long before I feel cold and want to get up again.

  I don’t see much of Joe, either. It seems like he’s disappeared. He haunts the school corridors like a ghost and never answers his phone, so I just tell myself he’s happy and try not to feel angry. I know how it is, now. When something is important to you, the rest of the world seems to fade away like tinny music in a shop, or the sound of other people breathing.

  By late spring it’s warming up. The year is turning from a long damp spell into the blowy beginnings of something brighter. The streets are full of people in coats, with faces pinched like a lot of old balloons, but they’re glancing up and around more, to where the sky is showing cracks where the sun is showing through.

  We hear from the police that Alec has been arrested a few miles down the coast. They’re going to charge him with the attack on Raven, and maybe other things too. I wonder about Sam and the bruises, but if Dad knows anything more, he’s not talking, and I don’t think I’ll ask. When they went to take him in, Alec went berserk
. He tore into the police like a wild beast until they had to zap him with a taser and lash his arms behind his back. I run the picture through my mind, but instead of feeling glad, I only feel miserable. The policeman tells us he was alone, or at least no one came to his rescue.

  I’ve almost forgotten about it by the time Raven turns sixteen in April. A gang of us are in town, on the way to celebrate. We’ve been shopping for presents and she now looks more like an extra from The Rocky Horror Picture Show than ever, which is mostly for the benefit of a lad called Jake, who wears a leather coat and black eyelashes. If he was the last person on earth I wouldn’t want him, but Raven likes him, and that’s all that matters.

  ‘It’s good to see you smiling,’ she says, and loops her arm in mine as we walk. The evening comes in softly as we push between groups of people with shopping bags, who tear themselves away from the glowing windows where the shutters are now coming down. Then, in the middle of a shopping concourse, one of the girls turns. ‘Hey Coo,’ she says. ‘You got an admirer!’

  They stand pointing, pleased with the joke, but the object of their laughter is now in front of me, swaying on his feet. His hand comes out, shaking.

  ‘Banks,’ I say, and it is.

  He’s wearing a suit jacket made of some hairy material, and his black coat hangs from his shoulders with its buttons gone. He sees me looking and makes an effort to tidy up, smoothing the jacket down with grimy fingers.

  ‘Where have you been?’ I ask him, but he just clears his throat and stares.

  ‘Here,’ he says. ‘Here and there.’

  ‘I looked for you,’ I say. ‘After. You know. I hurt my neck.’

  ‘I saved you,’ he says, and I stand mute for a moment, then nod.

  ‘Yes, you did. I know.’

  Behind me, the girls get fed up and go on. Banks must see me looking because he steps forward. ‘Come for a walk,’ he says. ‘Find that stone.’