by Ruth Dugdall
“You just moved in?”
I pause, not sure how much to say.
“Um, yes. Last week.”
The man finds a box inside one cupboard, boarded to the wall. He takes the pen from his chest pocket and peers into the box, writing down the number on the dial. What it means, I don’t know. I’m just hoping he’ll go away soon though he seems in no hurry.
“Nice flat. Good view of the marina. Wish I had a view like this.”
He walks back into the sitting room and goes to look out of the window. I can feel my hands flex to fists, the tension inside, from needing to get the man to go away, not knowing how to make that happen. He turns from the window so the sun is behind him; his face is just a dark shape.
“Okay, that’s it, then?” I ask, the desperation coming through in my voice.
The man stands still, the dark shape of his mouth moves.
“You on benefits? Income support, is it?”
Is this part of the form that he’s filling out, do I have to answer? But I’m used to answering questions, doing as I’m told. I just want the man to leave, I’m afraid of what will happen if he stays.
“Jobseekers allowance.”
“No wonder you kids can’t be arsed to work when the government pays for places like this.”
He gives a whistle and I know I’ve made him angry but I don’t know what I can do to fix that.
“I need you to leave now. I, um, I’m expecting someone.”
He hesitates, I think he’s going to refuse. Then he moves towards me. “Next time, have the meter reading ready. Okay?”
I nod, though he doesn’t say when next time will be or how I should take the meter reading.
Finally, he leaves and I close the door, press my back against it, feel my heart thudding in my chest and a tingle all along both arms like there’s an electric current running through me, the only thing keeping me upright.
The flat feels different after the man has gone. Like it’s been invaded, it isn’t a safe place any more, and I’m stung at how easily my few purchases in the kitchen gave me away. I’m doing things wrong all the time, but I’ve no idea how to do them differently.
I look around the flat, and try to see what he saw. It’s bare, that’s the first thing. I assume that other people have phones and computers and lots of belongings, but I wouldn’t know where to start. Does a computer just connect, or would I need help? And who would help me?
I’m a foreigner in my own land with no family to guide me. I can’t cook, can’t even shop. I see buses going to who-knows-where but I’ve no idea how much they’d cost or what kind of ticket to ask for. I’m useless. I slide to the ground, back still against the door, and weep for the prison, wishing I was once again locked within its safe walls.
Later, it’s hunger that forces me to snap out of it, but once I’m out next to the docks, under the sky and its dizzying vastness, I long to be back in the flat. Not at home anywhere. I know I have to push through this, if I’m going to make a life for myself I have to at least try. I go to the Spar, but there’s no sign of Shirl. I buy a can of coke and a chocolate bar, then head for the safety of the aquarium.
Leon barely looks up from his paper as I walk in for my shift. “Hello, son.”
“Shall I clean out the river fish? The glass was looking a bit smeared yesterday.”
“Aye, alright. I know you like them sullen buggers.”
I do like them, I like that the tank is at the back of the aquarium too. I fetch the steps and the cleaning wipes, they have to be used almost dry and it makes it hard to do a good job, but with patience the glass will come up well. The aquarium is almost empty and I make my way along corridors of fish, heading to the carp tank.
In front of the tank is a bench and I sit down while I sort out the wipes, spraying them lightly with water before I start. I’m surprised to hear a man’s voice behind me. I tell myself that it’s okay, that it’s just a visitor and I need to stop being so nervy, and fix my attention on the tank in front of me. I start in the far corner, working slowly in hypnotic circles, watching the fish who haven’t even noticed me, listening to the filters pumping oxygen or cleaning the water or whatever it is they do, a sparkling sound, a thrum in the background. The fish seem happy enough in their glass prison. Or unaware. It’s the carp tank, I don’t know why the bench is here, because these lumbering fish are grey and flat and move slowly around their space, far less interesting than any other tank, at least to most people.
The voice comes closer, then quick feet. A boy, he looks about four, is running down the corridor; his dad is walking several feet behind. The boy taps his fingers on this tank, attracted by the colourful darts of other fish, or the creepy salamander. But no-one is interested in carp, except me. Even the fish are oblivious to each other, seemingly unaware as they bump sides, as if each fish only exists for itself, maybe not even as much as that. Mouths open and close, funnel-like as they suck up the floating debris.
The boy is about ten feet away, gaping at the tank where the salamander lives. I can see it above the water-line, hunched on a log, with a black oily body and yellow markings it looks like some alien from outer space. Its quivering eyes seem to be considering the boy as if it too is stunned by the strangeness of the other. The dad reads aloud the information on the card next to the tank, talking softly, but the boy seems to be only half-listening. I don’t listen either, just to the tone. Educating, but kind. Gentle and instructive. This is what it is, then, what a father is like with a son. Giving information, asking questions, pointing things out.
My dad didn’t take me to museums, his visits were never announced and were always when Stuart was at sea, as if he was monitoring things and knew when it was safe to come around. Mum would be pleased enough to see him, so long as he had something to give. A twenty pound note or a gift for me. He’d get it wrong, usually, a gift that was too young for me or that broke within five minutes. But still, at least he tried.
Unlike, Stuart. I doubt Stuart knows anything about salamanders, and even if he does he wouldn’t tell me. The story he sold to the papers after the trial, tales of terrible and odd things I did as a boy, they were things I couldn’t remember. The tag line was: I wish my step-son had never been born. My own dad simply disappeared. I haven’t seen him in eight years, not since my birthday before Noah died. Dad never came to the trial, so at least he never heard all those things they said about me.
Adam had a different barrister to me, and he made it seem to be all my fault, but I was the youngest so how can that be? So skinny and small, how could I be the evil child the papers said I was? My barrister must have agreed because he never even tried to defend me, not properly. He never shouted, never got emotional. It was as though he’d already lost his case.
The glass is shiny and smear-free. I move my steps and start to work the glass at the other side. The carp continue moving around each other as if not knowing that they are the same thing, relatives or friends. What they look most is bored. One faces me in the tank, opens it mouth showing me a dark disc of oblivion. I wish I was a carp. I can do boredom, I’ve done it for eight years. I could live in that tank and feel safe, and not have to worry about someone recognising me or working out who I am, seeing the evil in my eyes or on my skin.
The boy is at the next tank now, looking at the bulging-eyed frog. His dad stands behind him, a possessive hand on his shoulder, and I wonder if that’s because of me.
“He’s ugly, isn’t he?” says the boy, and at first I think he’s talking about me.
“He’s not ugly,” says the dad. “He’s cool. Different. Come on, Noah.”
And then I have to grip the step-ladder, the world tilts, because of that name, Noah. The coincidence of it, because it’s not my Noah, my friend from the other side of the estate, the boy who fell from the Humber Bridge.
I have this strong need to get out. I can’t stay anymore, not with the carp, not with the boy whose name is also Noah. I need air or I might be sick.
I run past Leon, who is eating a sandwich, it smells fishy like tuna and makes my mouth fill with bile. “Ben? Are you alright?”
But I don’t stop, don’t speak. I have to leave.
I stop outside of the aquarium and heave, hands on knees, but nothing comes. I take a deep swig of air.
Across from where I’m standing there’s a park, next to an ice cream van, both under the shadow of the Orwell Bridge. It isn’t like the Humber Bridge, which towers above, but it’s still high and formidable enough that if someone was to fall over the side they’d probably die. Which is why I don’t look at the water or up at the bridge. What I look at is the park, the two children who are playing, watched by their mother. It’s not like a park I’ve ever been to before, with a swing and a slide, a roundabout maybe. No, this park is something special. There’s a wooden pirate ship with rope rigging set in blue gravel to represent the sea. In the gravel are wooden posts that the children use to hop across, from the safety of shore to the ship, avoiding water.
Noah. If he’d only found a stepping stone, a boat, a rope. Everything would have been different for all three of us.
The mother is helping one of the children – a girl – climb the rigging. I see then that the children are twins, the same size with the same blond curly hair though different as they are boy and girl. I don’t know anything about twins, the mechanics of it, but I can’t stop staring at the two children and wondering how a boy and girl can be so alike when I realise that the mother has seen me. In that second I know what she sees, a weirdo in a hoodie, a lout who doesn’t belong. She sees my strangeness just like the meter man did, like it’s stamped on my forehead. She calls to her children, clutches their hands and glances my way, worried. I’m too old to be hanging out on a kid’s playground. She is trying to work out why I’m here, if I’m a junkie or a paedo.
A shot of anger twists my gut. Maybe I just want an ice cream. Am I really that strange? I haven’t got horns. The man in the van has started to smoke, the smell of cigarette drifts my way, and when the children who are being tugged away resist, ask for ice creams, the mother shakes her head, looking disgustedly at the van. I can see she objects to the smoking, that she’s thinking the man is unhygienic or whatever, but I wouldn’t care about that. I’d love an ice cream but I’m afraid that getting one will make me look stranger than I already do. The sun, which oppressed me in town, feels delicious here by the water, a second layer over my hoodie and jeans. I pull my hood back and run my hand over my scalp, the hair is growing now, I can’t feel my skin or the bony nodules anymore. It feels soft.
There’s a breath, feet pounding the pavement behind me and I cower, twisting my head as the blow falls. But there is no blow, it’s just a jogger running past. No-one will hurt me, I keep telling myself. No-one knows who I am or what I did. Maybe the mother just had to get her kids home for a nap. I’m paranoid, that’s all. The jogger disappears up the track to the top of the bridge, I hear his panting breaths getting farther away.
Now the jogger and the kids have gone I’m alone, apart from the ice cream van, but I can’t see the man inside anymore.
I’m alone, but that doesn’t bother me. I climb up onto the pirate ship. As if it can save me.
37
The Day Of
Ashley was slumped at the edge of the back row, his torch in his pocket, enjoying the opening scenes of The Devil’s Playground in which the young rich couple decide to set up a camera in their own home. The boyfriend doesn’t believe in demons or ghosts, but the girl knows better and so does Ashley. Skilled as he is in interpreting films, he knows the home movie idea is a ruse to spook out the punters, but he’ll go along with it, and enjoy whatever evil force is unleashed.
Getting the job at the Palladium was a coup for Ashley, it gave him a bit of cash, plus he got to see all the latest films. Another bonus was Michaela, the foxy manager. She seemed to like him too even though she was ten years older and already had a kid. When she heard about the teacher’s strike she’d asked if he wanted to do an extra shift, and though he should be revising for his A Levels, The Devil’s Playground had just opened in Screen 3 and that was enough to swing it. I mean, he’d been waiting years for that film and God knows what took them so long, it wasn’t the set, that was just someone’s house and a hand-held camera, even the blood looked fake. Must be some cool effects on the way. Besides, it almost counts as studying when one of your A Levels is Media Studies, and Ashley had plans to be a film director, so this was all research. And he was being paid to do it.
Ashley chuckles to himself as three hunched figures run up the aisle and sneak into the third row, thinking they haven’t been seen. But he’s in a good mood and doesn’t want the hassle of chasing them out, not when the film is just getting going. Let them enjoy it, even if it scares the shit out of them.
It’s no skin off Ashley’s nose.
38
Now
FACEBOOK: FIND HUMBER BOY B
NickyP: This morning on GMTV, Lorraine Kelly was talking about kids these days seeing too much stuff that they shouldn’t and they mentioned Noah’s case. Did you see it?
Noah’s mum: They asked me to be on the sofa. But I can’t blame a horror film for what that evil child did to my son. Normal people wouldn’t be influenced, no matter how many films they saw.
NickyP: I agree. But maybe it was a trigger? The film sounded really creepy, and it was about a young couple who did a Ouija board, unleashed an evil spirit. They said that Humber Boy B was into that spooky shit, that he’d conjured the Devil that day.
Noah’s mum: I believe the Devil was on the bridge with them. I think God was looking away.
Silent Friend: Let’s not make excuses for human evil. It’s time for action.
39
Cate
Cate awoke on Sunday morning, having dreamt that she and Liz were playing by a large bridge, and that Liz had fallen in. Cate had jumped in to save her, but gave up quickly, before she’d even got her hair wet. She swam to the shore and let her sister drown.
She hadn’t thought about Liz in years, but the news that she’d been in touch with their mother had awoken thoughts, shreds of memories. Plus, you didn’t need to be Freud to know that the dream was triggered by her dealings with Ben, reading Roger Palmer’s terrible description of Noah falling from the bridge, but also the statements of other people who saw the boys that day, like the joggers who ran past, the drivers who were too rushed to stop. There were so many moments when things may have taken a different turn, single moments that added up to a boy in the water. If the guy who was working at the Palladium had been more conscientious and chucked them out, if Mrs Patel had called the police about their shoplifting. If the teachers’ strike hadn’t happened.
Cate groaned, rolled onto her side and turned to the window, blinking at the sun that was streaming through the gaps in the curtains. It was a beautiful day and she promised herself she wasn’t going to think about work.
She got out of bed and opened the curtains to let in the sunshine. Amelia was still asleep, so she went downstairs to make a coffee. What she was itching to do was to go to the office, and continue to read through the pile of witness statements, to obsess and delve and think about the case. But it was Sunday, a day off, and these last days of September were turning into a mini-heatwave. She would take Amelia to Felixstowe, enjoy the beach before the weather broke.
“Up you get, Amelia! Let’s not waste the day in bed. Chop chop,” she called from the bottom of the stairs.
Before she’d become a mother, Cate had always disliked Sundays. When she was growing up she hated the boredom. Sunday never had the promise of Saturday, and she and Liz would quickly run out of things to do, especially if it was raining so they couldn’t skate or bike in the street. They’d soon squabble over what to watch on TV until Mum emerged from her bedroom, yelling at them to be quiet. If Dad spent a weekend at home things were different, they would have to participate in rituals like going to church (if
it was Easter or Christmas), the family walk in the park, roast beef for dinner, and the Sunday serial. She was only seven when she knew what her mother refused to acknowledge – that family was a show they put on. And the audience was her father.
Cate sighed, thinking about her mother. She felt sorry for her, really. Even when she was just seven years old she seemed to understand more than her mother, who was always trying to pretend they were a happy family. If she confronted the truth the whole charade of their marriage would be exposed, and she’d have been afraid that if Dad actually left she wouldn’t cope. Coping was something she didn’t do well, and alcohol was her way of not confronting things, blunting the edges of reality.
But it had happened anyway, the family had split and her mother was one of the victims. Cate could only acknowledge this when they were apart though. When they were in the same room it only led to arguments.
Amelia came down the stairs like a princess who had just woken from a hundred-year sleep, dressed in her Frozen nightdress and stretching both arms above her head. On impulse, Cate grabbed her and gave her a huge hug, smacking her on the cheek with a fat kiss.
“Whoa, Mum. You’re in a good mood.”
“Good morning, gorgeous girl. Go and eat breakfast while I pack a picnic. We’re going to the beach.”
The September sun was pleasant as they found a spot near the water. Amelia had brought her loom bands kit and she began twisting the coloured plastic into an intricate shape as Cate settled into reading a book. The world felt warm and peaceful. Like the calm before a storm.
40
Ben
“Hello… ”
He stands in front of me and calls me by the name that died with Noah. On his back is an orange rucksack.
I don’t move, only just manage to call him by his, the only name he’s ever had.
“Adam.”
Adam, my brother. Humber Boy A. He was four years older but not necessarily more culpable. Humber Boy A, who said with a stutter I didn’t know he had that his younger brother made him, suggested, lifted, pushed. Humber Boy A whose father, Stuart, bought him a smart shirt.
