by Kevin Brooks
‘Shhh!’ I said, holding a finger to my lips.
‘What?’ she shouted.
I beckoned her to the door.
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘Do you think there’s enough room?’
I looked in the back of the car. ‘Easy.’
Headlights swept around the corner and a car full of loud music and tough-guys drove past, swooshing too fast through the fresh snow. I went to close the door but it was too late, they were gone. It didn’t matter anyway, there was nothing to see. A couple of young kids and a beat-up old car ... so what?
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get him in and get going.’ One last glance up and down the street. ‘OK?’
‘OK.’
I reached down and grabbed the head end of the sleeping bag, Alex got the other end and we shuffled out the door as quick as we could. Now that the body had loosened up a bit it wasn’t quite so awkward to manoeuvre, but it was sagging a lot more, and that seemed to make it even heavier. The weight strained at my back and I kept reminding myself to take small steps. It’s best to take small steps when you’re carrying something heavy.
The car was parked half on and half off the kerb, tilted at a slight angle.
‘Let him down a second,’ I whispered as we got to the back of the car.
I adjusted my hold, got underneath the bag so I could lift it up easier.
‘I’ll get this end in first then we’ll swing the rest up after.’
Alex nodded, although I’m not sure she heard me. The engine was chugging away, exhaust fumes billowing out into our faces, snow tumbling down, both of us struggling with the weight, gasping for breath. I heard a door slam somewhere but didn’t dare to look. Just get him in, I thought, just get him in and go. I heaved with all my strength and threw my end of the sleeping bag into the back of the car. Thump. Alex lost her grip on the other end and the whole thing started to slide out but I grabbed it just in time and then together we just about managed to shove it back in.
I slammed the doors shut.
‘All right?’ I asked breathlessly.
She nodded, tight-lipped.
‘Let’s go.’
On the way round to the passenger’s door I had that stupid feeling that if I kept my head down I couldn’t be seen. I fought against it and raised my eyes from the ground to risk a quick look up the street, then down. Nothing. Empty. Snow. Streetlights. Curtains closed. No one looking. I got in the car and pulled the door shut.
Alex was reaching beneath her seat, tugging a lever, trying to pull the seat further forward. It wouldn’t move.
‘Shit!’
She pulled harder and the seat shot forward jamming her legs up against the steering wheel.
‘Shit!’
She pushed it back, got it where she wanted it, then grabbed hold of the gearstick with both hands and started shoving it around, cursing intently, her cold breath misting in the air.
‘Get in, get in, bloody thing—’
‘Take it easy,’ I said, ‘there’s no hurry now.’
‘Bloody stupid bloody thing ... there!’ She whacked the car into gear and grabbed hold of the steering wheel.
‘Alex!’ I said.
‘I can’t see anything!’
Snow covered the windscreen.
‘Alex!’ I grabbed her arm.
‘What?’ Her face was red and her eyes panicky.
‘Calm down. There’s no need to rush. Put the wipers on.’
She flicked a switch and the headlights went out.
‘Shit.’
She flicked them on again, mumbling to herself. ‘Wipers, wipers, wipers ...’
I reached across and pulled a lever and the wipers scraped slowly across the windscreen, clearing a hole in the snow.
Alex turned to me, her face cold and frightened.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Just take it easy.’
The iciness melted and she smiled. ‘Sorry.’
‘We don’t want to get stopped,’ I said. ‘It might be a bit hard to explain what we’re doing.’
She wiped a hand across her face. ‘Yeah, I’m sorry. I’ll be all right now.’
The snow was really coming down now, which was both good news and bad news. Good, because it meant there wouldn’t be many people around; and bad, because I didn’t fancy driving through a snowstorm in a wreck of a car, with a dead body in the back, driven by an underage wreck of a driver, with no licence and no insurance.
‘Nice and easy,’ I said. ‘Not too fast and not too slow. OK?’
‘No problem.’
We pulled away with a jerk, accelerated down the street then slid round the corner at the bottom, missing a parked car by inches.
We were on our way.
We kept to the back roads as much as possible. Alex was grim and silent, concentrating on her driving, her head pressed right up close to the windscreen, squinting out into the blurred white blackness. Every now and then she’d press her head even closer to the windscreen and say, ‘Where’s the road? Where’s the bloody road gone?’ I couldn’t tell, it all looked the same to me: road, snow, sky, hedges, trees. It was all just outside. I didn’t have a clue. Alex seemed to manage, though, jerking the steering wheel this way and that, braking, juggling gears, cursing quietly to herself.
I just sat there and stared through the windscreen, letting my mind wander.
Four days to go until Christmas. I tried to imagine what I’d be doing on Christmas Day. In the house, watching television on my own? Watching all those terrible Christmas Specials and the same old stupid films, eating too much, making myself sick? No, I thought. Not this time. By Christmas Day I’d be somewhere else. Somewhere else. Another town, another country, even. Somewhere hot, a beach, palm trees, blue skies. With Alex. She’d be strolling around in a bikini, sipping from a cool drink, and I’d be lounging around doing nothing, getting a tan, dressed in an old straw hat and a pair of long baggy shorts. Then later on I might mosey out along the beach on my own, go for a swim, maybe a bit of surfing—
‘Martyn?’
We’d stopped at a T-junction.
‘Which way?’
I looked out of the window, trying to work out where we were, but all I could see was snow and tall roadside hedges. Left or right? Left looked as if it might take us back towards town. I didn’t know why, it just did. The road to the right looked as if it might be the road down to the pub where Dad had left his wallet that time. The old quarry should be around here somewhere. I wound down the window to get a better look. Snow gusted into my face.
‘Martyn!’
I wound up the window.
‘Which way?’ she asked. ‘I thought you knew the way?’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘If I knew where we were, I’d know which way to go.’
‘Great.’
The inside of the car suddenly lit up and we both turned to see headlights approaching from behind.
‘Shit,’ said Alex.
‘Go right.’
‘Are you sure?’
The car pulled up behind us.
‘Just go.’
She slammed the car into gear and pulled out to the right. I watched in the wing-mirror as the car behind us indicated left and pulled away.
‘It’s gone,’ I said.
We drove on. The further we went, the less sure I was that we were going in the right direction.
‘Where the hell are we?’ Alex moaned. ‘If we carry on like this we’ll be driving around all night.’
‘I think we should have gone left,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘I think I know where we are now. We should have turned left at the junction. You’ll have to stop and turn around.’
She said nothing, but I could tell she was fuming. The road was getting narrower and narrower, thick hedges closing in. There was nowhere to turn.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
Suddenly she stepped on the brakes and swung on the
steering wheel. The car veered towards the hedge.
‘Wha—’
‘There’s a gate.’
I don’t know how she spotted it but she was right. There was a gateway into a field, just big enough to stop and turn around in. She found reverse, shot out backwards into the road, wheels spinning in the snow, and then we were off again, back the way we’d come.
I glanced across and saw her smiling. ‘Not bad,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘Just don’t get us lost again.’
At the junction I told her to drive straight on. The road dipped then rose again up a long steep hill. Halfway up the engine began to shudder.
‘Change gear,’ I suggested.
‘I already have.’
We were doing about 10 mph.
‘Turn left at the top,’ I said.
I could see the tips of cranes in the distance, dim stalks poking up into the night. The quarry. We drove down the hill, past the pub, then up again, the engine moaning at the strain. Along another narrow lane, more tall black hedges, signs warning of concealed entrances. I peered out through the windscreen, looking for the track to the gravel pit. It was here somewhere.
‘Slow down,’ I said.
We slowed.
‘There.’
‘Where?’
‘There, on the left.’
She almost missed it, pulling in at the last moment to stop beside a rusted iron gate.
‘Is this it?’
‘Turn off the lights. I’ll open the gate.’
I stepped out into the cold blackness. The ground beneath my feet was frozen solid. Driving wind blasted snow into my face. I checked that no cars were coming, pulled up my hood and crossed to the gate, opened it, then signalled Alex to reverse through. As she manoeuvred the car I kept an eye out for traffic. There was nothing. No cars, no lights, just the long black ribbon of the road slicing dimly through the barren landscape. Wasteground, that’s all it was. Acres of used-up land, scraped, dug out, exhausted. Just a big hole on the outskirts of town.
I hurried back to the car and got in.
‘OK,’ I said.
‘Where?’
I pointed through the rear windows. ‘Down there.’
‘It’s a bit dark, isn’t it?’
I shrugged.
‘There’s nothing there, Martyn, it’s pitch black.’
‘Just drive,’ I said. ‘It’s straight down.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Trust me.’
We reversed slowly, very slowly, down the track, both of us twisted round in our seats peering out through the rear windows into the gloom. Alex was right, it was extremely dark. No moon, no stars, just darkness everywhere. We inched backwards down the track, the engine making that peculiar high-pitched whine of reversing. There was something oddly comforting about it.
‘How much further?’
‘Not far,’ I said, hoping I was right.
‘If we back into a dirty great hole full of icy water—’
‘Just watch where you’re going, Alex.’
‘I am!’
I thought I caught a glimpse of something. Something blacker than everything else.
‘Stop!’
She stabbed the brakes. The car skidded alarmingly for a few long seconds then stopped.
‘Is that it?’ she asked.
I squinted into the dark. Was there anything there? I shut my eyes, then opened them again. Maybe.
‘Can you see anything?’ I asked.
‘I think so ... just down there?’
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the shadows became clearer. A hole in the ground. Deep. Black. Steep-sided. Big enough to swallow a bus and a bit too close for comfort.
We looked at each other.
‘That’s it,’ I said.
‘Rocks.’
‘What?’
I peered into the darkness. ‘Where are you?’
‘Here.’
I couldn’t see her. ‘We need some rocks.’
‘What for?’
I looked towards the sound of her voice and saw a dim outline standing at the edge of the gravel pit, looking down.
‘Weights,’ I said, crossing over to where she stood. ‘To weigh down the sleeping bag, otherwise it’ll float.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
I followed her gaze and looked down into the hole. Solid ice glinted in the pitch black depths. Alex picked up a pebble and lobbed it over the edge. We waited ... and heard a hollow clatter as the pebble hit the ice, bounced, then skittered across the frozen surface.
‘Rocks,’ I said again.
We scrambled around in the freezing dark looking for rocks. It was still snowing like mad, cold as anything. The ground was uneven, slippery, icy-hard. Dead roots and bits of old machinery jutted out all over the place. And it was dark as hell.
But I felt great. My mind was crystal clear, I knew exactly what I was doing. The cold, the dark, the danger – it didn’t matter. I was focused. I was doing what had to be done. That’s all. I was doing it. For the first time in my life I was really doing something.
After about ten minutes we had a fair-sized pile of rocks. I stooped down and picked out a really big one, lifted it with both hands and heaved it over the side of the gravel pit. This time we heard a satisfying crack – a flat, brittle snap that echoed dully off the walls of the pit – followed instantly by the massive splash of the rock smashing through the ice.
‘I love that sound,’ I said.
Another half dozen or so rocks went over the side until I was pretty sure the ice was all smashed up.
‘That’ll do,’ I said. ‘Let’s get him out.’
Alex opened the car’s rear doors and I reached in, grabbed hold of the sleeping bag and dragged it out. It fell to the ground with a cold thump. I squatted down and unzipped it just a little at the side.
‘Rocks,’ I said.
Alex passed me the rocks and I stuffed them into the bag. A car droned past on the road above us and we both froze for an instant. Twin yellow headlights appeared, lighting up the falling snow, then they were gone. I carried on filling the bag with rocks.
‘What’s the time,’ I asked.
She held her wristwatch up to her eyes. ‘Quarter to eight.’
I put one more rock in the bag, then zipped it up. ‘Give me a hand,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to drag it.’
We both stooped and took hold of a corner of the sleeping bag.
‘Ready?’
She nodded.
‘One, two, three – pull!’
It was a lot heavier now, loaded with rocks, but once we got going it wasn’t too bad, and after four or five big tugs we reached the edge of the pit.
We must have looked like something out of an old horror film; a graveyard scene, mid-winter, the dead of night, two hunchbacks dragging a body in a rock-filled sack across the icy ground ...
I smiled at the image.
A slice of moon had appeared from behind the dark shroud of snow clouds. Silent and pale. For a few moments the quarry landscape was dimly visible. Great mounds of dead earth, hacked-out trenches, flat and barren plains, empty oil drums, machinery remains, rusted cranes, crumbling cliffs. Here and there, nature was reclaiming the land. Clumps of wild grass swayed in the wind and the ground was dotted with dark and squat-looking shrubs. The wasteland was being reborn. It was all twilight grey, colourless in the pale light of snow and moon. Then the clouds closed and the moonlight was lost and everything was black again.
‘Are you all right, Martyn?’ Alex asked quietly.
I looked down into the depths of the gravel pit: the water waited, cold and deep and dark.
‘Never felt better,’ I said.
Then I raised my foot and heaved the sleeping bag over the edge.
Silence.
The wind whistled faintly through the grasses.
A huge kersplash sounded from below.
I listened. Gurgling noises, bubbling, the sound of sinking.
In my mind I saw the sodden sleeping bag drifting slowly down through the deep black icy water. Dad, zipped up and dead, senseless, tumbling in slow motion, sinking down through the cold dark liquid, finally coming to rest among the rocks and silt and supermarket trolleys and rusted bike frames at the bottom of the pit. Motionless and silent, cocooned, unseen in the frozen ooze.
Buried.
Gone.
Not sleeping, just dead.
Back in the car, Alex turned the ignition key. The engine whined, coughed and died. She tried again. Nothing.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It always does this.’
She pulled out the choke and tried again. This time the engine caught and she kept it revving, blue-grey exhaust smoke clouding out into the wind. She jammed it into gear, released the handbrake and pressed the accelerator. The back wheels started spinning. I felt the car slew round to one side and slide back towards the gravel pit. We were going to join Dad in his watery grave ... but Alex kept up the revs and suddenly we lurched forward and were away. No trouble.
Up the hill, through the gate. We stopped. I jumped out and closed the gate behind us, took one final look into the darkness below, then got back into the car.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
We pulled out onto the road and I sank down in the seat and watched the windscreen wipers click-clack hypnotically across the windscreen. Snowflakes fell and were wiped away, fell and wiped away, fell and wiped away – click-clack, click-clack, click-clack. Metronomic. The car was warm, heated by the working of the engine. Warm and close. Dozy. The engine droned sleepily and the tyres whooshed faintly on the snow-covered road. Outside, the blur of hedges and falling snow passed by, back to where we’d come from. I felt a warm glow of comfort. Satisfied, happy, secure.
We were going home.
We’d done it.
I’d done it.
It probably sounds a lot worse than it actually was. What I did. But you’d be surprised what you can do when you have to. You’d be surprised how easy things are. Once you’ve accepted something’s got to be done, no matter what it is, you can usually do it. You just do it. That’s the way it is. And anyway, what did I do that was wrong? You tell me. What did I do? Who did I hurt? I hurt nobody. It’s not as if I broke any commandments or anything. Where does it say, ‘thou shalt not bury thy father in a gravel pit’? Break it down, look at it, analyse my actions. What did I do? Did I kill? Did I steal? Did I commit adultery? Did I covet my neighbour’s ass? Did I honour my father? Maybe not. But why the hell should I? He never honoured me. What it all boils down to is: I never hurt anyone. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Hurt and pain. Physical, mental, whatever else kind of hurt there is. That’s what’s bad. You can do just about anything you want – as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, or anything, it’s probably OK.
