by Kevin Brooks
‘Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a relative kind of thing, badness.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Good, bad. Right, wrong. What’s the difference? Who decides?’
‘But what we’re doing – it’s against the law.’
I shrugged. ‘What’s the law? It’s only someone’s opinion.’
She was quiet for a while. I watched a starling alight on the window ledge and scrape its beak against the wood. Beady eyes stared back at me, black and shiny. Then it cocked its head and flew off.
‘But,’ Alex went on, ‘surely some things are wrong. You know, just wrong. Universally wrong.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know … murder, rape, stuff like that.’
‘Whatever anyone does, it’s not wrong to them. Otherwise they wouldn’t do it, would they?’
‘No, but …’
‘It’s only wrong if you think it’s wrong. If you think it’s right, and others think it’s wrong, then it’s only wrong if you get caught.’
She frowned. ‘Is that what you really think?’
I sighed. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I’m just thinking out loud.’
She shook her head. ‘Yeah, well … let’s just hope that God doesn’t exist.’
‘Why?’
‘He’d never forgive us for what we’re about to do.’
‘He would if he was bad.’
We talked on for a while longer, just passing the time, avoiding reality, delaying what we both knew had to be done. Her mum had got an audition, she told me. Goneril in King Lear, a regional theatre production … Is that good? … Better than nothing … Did you see that programme about cuttlefish? … That’s a nice bag. Is it new? … Do you want anything to eat? …
But eventually the subject turned back to the business in hand.
‘Mum’s getting the car back today,’ Alex said.
‘Can you get it for tonight?’
‘Not without her knowing. She’s staying in.’
‘What about tomorrow?’
‘She’s working in the afternoon but I think she’s going out later on. A friend’s party. She’ll be drinking, so she won’t take the car.’
‘How late will she get back?’
‘Late.’
‘We’ll have to do it Saturday night, then.’
‘I suppose.’
We sat in silence for a while.
That was one of the things I liked about Alex. She understood that you don’t have to talk all the time, that it’s all right just to sit there, nice and quiet, thinking together. Most people, they just keep yapping all the time, even when there’s nothing to say. Talking for the sake of it, spouting rubbish. Making noise. What’s wrong with silence? Listen to it, it’s beautiful.
Somewhere up the street a car started up, music booming from the stereo. D-doomp-d-doomp-doomp tss tss tss tss d-doomp-d-doomp-doomp.
Not so beautiful.
I wondered what Alex was thinking about. Me? Perhaps she was wondering what I was thinking about. Who knows what someone else is thinking? You can’t even be sure that anyone else is thinking at all. How do you know? You don’t. You’ll never know. All you can do is assume that what’s in your head is the same sort of stuff that’s in everyone else’s. You don’t even know for sure that anything else is real. How do you know? It could all be a dream. I’ve even thought sometimes that maybe I’m the only thing that exists. Maybe everything else is just there for me. Everything and everybody. All made up, just for me. And when I’m not there, it all just fades away.
Alex burped quietly.
‘Right,’ I said, glancing at the clock. ‘Aunty Jean’s due at four. We’d better get on.’
I removed Dad’s jacket, shirt, shoes and socks, pulled up the duvet so it half-covered his head, then stepped back to take a look. The wound over his eye looked odd – colourless, cold, deep.
‘Alex, did you bring— What are you doing?’
She turned from the open wardrobe. ‘Nothing. I was just putting his clothes away.’ Dad’s shoes dangled from her hand.
‘Just leave them,’ I said, looking around. ‘The messier it is the more natural it’ll look. I’ll have to dress him again, anyway.’
She grinned awkwardly, shut the wardrobe door, and dumped the shoes on the floor.
‘Did you bring those plasters?’ I asked her.
She dipped into her bag and handed me a sticking plaster. I peeled off the backing and placed it over the cut on Dad’s head.
‘How’s that?’
‘Looks all right,’ Alex replied. There was an edge to her voice. She was tense and fidgety, eyes darting all over the room. It was hardly surprising, really. I felt kind of edgy myself.
‘Are you ready?’ I asked her.
For a second I thought she was going to chicken out. But then she nodded grimly and delved into her bag again. It was a big old rucksacky thing with pockets and zips all over the place, big enough to carry a small horse. After rummaging around inside it for a minute she stepped forward carrying a make-up bag.
‘Not too much,’ I reminded her. ‘Just enough to, you know, give him a bit of life.’
She opened the make-up bag and took out a small plastic case, flipped it open and loaded a floppy little brush with pinkish powder. A lick of her lips. A quick, nervous glance at me. A deep breath. And then, muttering something to herself, she bent over the bed and went to work.
I watched her as she applied the blusher to the deathly grey face. Her hands were shaking. I didn’t have to see her face to know she’d have that faraway look of concentration in her eyes, her tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth, little wrinkles on her brow. Just how she looked when we played Scrabble. I couldn’t help smiling to myself. Look at her, I thought. Getting tall now, taller than me. And, you know, kind of curvy. Just look at her. In her extra-large lumberjack shirt and faded black jeans, her funny little pink canvas shoes, her slim, beringed fingers and ears dotted with tiny black studs. Look at that girl. Who else would do that for you? Who else?
My heart sang.
What a ridiculous thing to be doing, I thought, painting the face of your father. It’s like playing with dolls. Playing make-believe. Like the games I used to play when I was a kid. In my room, on my own, making things up. Martyn the Cowboy, drifting aimlessly across the plains. Just me and my horse, riding through the badlands, sleeping beneath the trail of stars. Martyn the Avenger, feared throughout the kingdom. Wrongs righted and villainy vanquished. Martyn the Assassin, cold-eyed and calculating, a hunter. A killer. I don’t remember doing anything, I just imagined things. Fights, quests, journeys. I could go anywhere. Imaginary worlds, a universe of my own. A place where nothing mattered because nothing was real.
I don’t know when all that stopped. You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face: ‘Hey, look, this is what life is.’ And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don’t like you, things you don’t want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don’t understand, feelings you don’t want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics – it’s all rubbish. It’s got nothing to do with anything. It’s all made up. It doesn’t happen like that. It’s not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who’ve already forgotten how to smile …
‘Martyn?’
Alex had stepped away from the bed. She looked pale. I went over and examined Dad’s face. He looked ill, but not dead.
‘Excellent,’ I said.
‘You’ll have to close his eyes.’
I’d seen it done in films. You spread your hand and –
with your thumb and middle finger extended – gently close the eyelids. I leaned over the bed.
‘They won’t stay closed.’
‘What?’
I tried again, using two hands, but when I let go Dad’s eyelids slowly yawned back open. ‘They won’t close.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
Alex peered over my shoulder. I could feel the heat of her breath on my neck. I looked around and pointed to a pair of trousers on the floor. ‘Pass me those.’
Alex reached down and passed me the trousers. I shook them and heard coins rattle, felt in the pocket and pulled out two pound coins.
One on each eye.
‘That’s better.’
‘Don’t forget to take them off when your aunty gets here.’
I grinned.
She almost grinned back. I stepped away from the bed and took another look.
‘What do you think?’
‘He certainly looks ill.’
‘Do you think she’ll notice he’s not breathing?’
Alex wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t know about that, but unless she’s lost her sense of smell she’s bound to notice that stink.’
I went to the bathroom and fetched a load of medicine stuff from the cabinet – aspirins, Night Nurse, Vaporub, tissues, Lemsips. When I came back Alex was standing over by the bureau.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked her.
She nodded. ‘Just a bit queasy.’
I piled all the medicine stuff on the bedside table then smeared a ton of Vaporub all over the place; on the duvet, on the pillow, around Dad’s neck. The pungent fumes wafted in the air, disguising the sweet, musty smell of death. I was still bothered about the lack of breathing.
‘What’s the time?’
Alex looked at her watch. ‘Three o’clock.’
‘We could make a tape,’ I suggested.
‘What?’
‘Just a minute.’ I went to my room and came back with my cassette recorder and the little microphone that came with it. ‘Snoring sounds, breathing,’ I explained, sticking a blank tape in and holding out the mike. ‘You can do it, Alex.’
‘I’ve never heard him sleeping,’ she said. ‘I can’t imitate what I don’t know.’
So I showed her. I snorted, snored, breathed heavily, mumbled. ‘Like that,’ I said, ‘only in Dad’s voice.’
We practised for a while. She got it almost straight away.
‘What do you think?’ she asked.
I nodded, smiling. ‘Brilliant.’ I held out the mike. ‘Ready?’
She breathed in and nodded, and I pressed Record.
Five minutes later we had what we needed. The sound of a sleeping, snoring, snuffling Dad. Alex even added an incoherent mumble here and there for extra authenticity.
When I put the tape recorder under the duvet and played it back it sounded even better – muffled, realistic.
‘First take, too,’ I said. ‘You’ve got this acting business sorted.’
‘That’s not acting,’ she said, panting slightly, ‘that’s just breathing.’
Dad’s bedroom had always been pretty gungy. Smelly, dirty, kind of sticky everywhere. A bit spooky, too. It was like a cave, a secret hideaway, a grotto. Even on a sunny day it was cold and dark. Now, though, with Dad’s body laid out in disguise – perfumed, made-up, artificial – and the afternoon light filtering in through closed curtains, it was an incredibly eerie place to be. Chilling, macabre, like something that belonged in a different world.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
At the door I turned and looked back. There he was. Not dead, just sleeping.
It would have to do.
My room was like a palace compared to Dad’s. Clean and white and odourless. Everything in its place. It was three-thirty. Just enough time for a quick rest before Aunty Jean showed up. I breathed in and relaxed.
‘How do you feel?’ I asked Alex.
‘Not too good, actually,’ she said, rummaging through her bag. ‘In fact … I feel a bit ill. I think …’ She put the bag down and put a hand to her stomach.
‘Are you going to be sick?’
She looked at me, nodding her head.
‘All right,’ I said, going over to her. ‘It’ll be all right. Use the bathroom. Come on.’ As I led her out of the bedroom she started gulping, holding her hand to her mouth.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought … uh …’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘It’s embarrassing …’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘But I don’t want to … uh … it’s so embarrassing … being sick … would you mind going downstairs? … I don’t want you to hear me … you know …’
‘That’s OK. You can shut the door. Lock it if you want. I’ll be in the front room. Don’t worry, I won’t hear anything.’
I got her into the bathroom, shut the door and went downstairs. In the front room I opened the curtains and smiled as the sunlight crept in for the first time since … since when? Since Wednesday. Two days ago. I swept the fireplace, wiped it down with a damp cloth, dried it, then gave it a thorough polish. The smell of Autumn Flowers filled the room, almost hiding that other smell. Almost, but not quite. Cigarettes, I thought. That would help, the smell of cigarettes. I found a pack on the mantelpiece, took one out, lit it and placed it in an ashtray, letting it burn. I sniffed in deeply – not bad. Maybe it would be all right.
Shuffling sounds from upstairs. Taps running. The roar of the toilet flushing. Alex. Being sick.
I crossed to the window and looked out. The same old grey day looked back at me. A fat Jack Russell padded across the road and peed on the back wheel of a white Fiesta, then ambled away. A couple of minutes later Slobman from up the road slouched past the window, mindless indifference hanging from his face. Where was he going? I wondered. Nowhere, probably. He never went anywhere. He just slobbed around. He was ageless. Sometimes he looked like a young man, sometimes he looked fifty. With his tatty old coat hanging open, his Garfield T-shirt tucked into army surplus jogging pants, and his wispy hair waving in the wind, he turned the corner and was gone.
Main road traffic droned in the distance, humming, whooshing, moving. Always moving. Cars, people in cars, going places. But the street outside was still. My street. It branches off the main road, loops around, then rejoins the main road again at the bottom. Like the curved bit of a letter D, the straight bit being the main road. That’s why it’s relatively quiet here, the street doesn’t go anywhere.
The clock was ticking. Quarter to four. Come on, Alex, I thought. Hurry up. Aunty Jean will be here soon. The toilet flushed again. A door closed. I listened for the sound of footsteps on the stairs – nothing. Come on.
I stared out at the mid-afternoon emptiness. Terraced houses with faded doors and faded curtains, alleyways, low brick walls and chipped pillars, paint-peeled gates, raggedy hedges – the look of deadness in the air like nothing-ever-happens. I knew it so well it didn’t look like anything.
Ten to four. The toilet flushed again.
I went over and sat down in the armchair. The armchair. Dad’s armchair. My armchair.
Footsteps creaked on the ceiling. I looked up. What is she doing?
Come on, Alex.
Come on.
At five minutes to four I couldn’t wait any longer. I went to the foot of the stairs and looked up. The bathroom door was still closed. ‘Alex?’
No answer.
‘Alex! Come on, she’ll be here—’
The door opened and Alex popped her head out – head and bare shoulders. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I won’t be a minute. I got some sick on my shirt, I was just wiping it off.’
I didn’t know where to look. ‘Oh … right … OK. It’s just that … you know …’
‘I won’t be a sec—’
And then the doorbell rang.
I could tell it was Aunty Jean by the tone of the bell. It s
ounded terrified. I glanced quickly at the door then looked up at Alex. Despite the sudden race of panic I couldn’t help noticing how different she looked. There was nothing … you know … nothing improper about it. Just a hint of bare shoulder and one bare arm. But somehow it made her look so graceful, like an actress. Like a film star dressing for her big scene.
‘Martyn!’ she hissed.
‘Stay there!’ I hissed back. ‘Keep the door shut and don’t make a sound. I’ll try and get rid of her as quick as I can.’
The bell was ringing again, demanding to be answered. I waited for Alex to shut the door, took a couple of deep breaths, then went and opened the front door. And there she was – Aunty Jean. Stiff, upright, scowling, standing on the step as if she’d been waiting there for a thousand years.
‘Well?’ she said.
Pale winter sunlight had broken through the patchy clouds, glistening weakly on the roofs of parked cars across the street. Aunty Jean’s pancaked face soaked up the sun like blotting paper.
I stepped back and motioned her in with a nervous smile.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Her shiny brown coat rustled as she entered the hall. She was a ludicrous person. Bony, leathery, with sticky-out elbows and bow legs, she looked like a cartoon woman. A crazy old spook.
She removed her coat and passed it to me without looking.
‘Dad’s sick, Aunty,’ I said, hanging up her coat. ‘He’s in bed.’
‘Sick?’ she snorted. ‘So that’s what he calls it now, is it?’
She looped the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and adjusted the hang of her dress. It was the same dress she always wore, a stiff cream-coloured thing with shiny brass buttons. Stiff enough to stand up on its own.
‘No, he really is sick,’ I said. ‘Flu or something, a virus.’
She snorted again. A phlegmy, back-of-the-throat noise, complete with flared nostrils and a curled upper lip. Her teeth were remarkably small, like baby’s teeth. Small and square. I’d often wondered if they were false. She marched into the front room and I followed her, like some kind of weird offspring following its mother.
‘Whooof,’ she exclaimed. ‘What on earth is that smell?’
‘Drains,’ I spluttered, ‘the drains up the road are being fixed.’
