Humber Boy B

by Ruth Dugdall

  Silent Friend: Sometimes violence is the only way. A boy like him will never understand anything else, and if he’d had a few slaps when he was younger he might never have killed your son.

  67

  Cate

  Arriving back at the Great White Horse, almost two hours later than arranged, Cate saw that the place hadn’t changed much. It was she who had changed. The last time she’d stepped through the doors she’d been wearing Doc Martens with red and black striped tights. She was a sixth form student with back-combed hair who worked the bar two nights a week for some extra cash, and to get out of the house for a while.

  Twenty years later, Cate wore a cream linen blouse with black jeans, she’d painted her nails a matt taupe and her hair was straightened and glossy. As if for a date. This meeting with Liz and the attack on Ben had made her nervy, and she’d overcompensated with eyeliner. That at least was the same as when she was eighteen and had just perfected the cat flick. At the bar, where she had previously only ordered snakebite and black, she asked for Grey Goose with Fever Tree tonic and drank it quickly, the ice rattling in the glass as she offered it back to the bartender and asked for a second. This, she didn’t touch. She would take this with her up to Liz’s room. She hoped that the receptionist had passed on her earlier message.

  Cate was just fifty paces away from hearing why her sister had left. Liz had been seventeen when she walked out, leaving Cate the unenviable task of keeping things normal at home, as normal as possible. Prior to Liz leaving their mother drank secretly, but afterwards she did it openly. Her usually controlled anger was given full vent. She seemed to blame Cate – as if she could have stopped Liz from leaving. Her mother’s depression was something they had all learned to weather, and although she had previously had very little time for either daughter, once Liz left the family unit seemed to implode and the depression never lifted. Arguments raged between her parents. Within six weeks Dad too had gone, also suddenly, also without a forwarding address.

  Cate was in her final year of sixth form and, although she tried to concentrate, her grades suffered. The time she spent alone with her mother was the most difficult. She tried to keep the house clean and make her mother eat the food she cooked, but it was all to no avail. Unable to throw good food away she would eat both their meals. She took the job at the Great White Horse, serving fellow students their snakebites, taking on as many extra shifts as she was able to. Walking slowly back home, she grew to be afraid of what she would find. If her mother was asleep in a drunken haze on the sofa it was bad enough. She would have to haul her into bed and make sure she was comfortable, lying awake through the early hours worried that her mother would choke on her own vomit. But if her mother was drunk and awake that was worse. Then she would have to suffer recriminations, the transfer of blame from Liz to herself. Her mother said things that no daughter should ever hear about herself or, worse, about her father. Next morning her mother would remember nothing, or pretended to, and Cate colluded with the act.

  Liz had destroyed the family unit, and never looked back. But now she was here, in Room 3 of the Great White Horse.

  The thick carpet sucked at Cate’s pumps so she felt she should stand still, even the flooring was telling her she shouldn’t walk another step. The light cast creepy shapes up the embossed wallpaper. Cate sipped her drink, the ice cubes knocked her nose. Fuck’s sake, it’s your sister. Knock on the bloody door.

  “Hello?” It was Liz’s voice, no mistake. She sounded just the same.

  “It’s me.”

  The door opened to show Liz. Just Liz, so much Liz, and the same dark hair and blue eyes, but older, slimmer. Cate couldn’t help it, she grabbed her sister, hugging her so hard the vodka glass was pressed between their shoulders.

  When Liz pulled away, looking emotional, she took the glass from Cate and downed it in one. “Share and share alike,” she said, handing the glass back with only ice remaining.

  “I’ll go back down, get us more.”

  “That’s okay, there’s a mini-bar.” Liz opened the small black fridge and took out two little bottles of vodka, two of gin, and the Schweppes tonics. She placed the clinking booty on the table and went to get a second glass from the bathroom. Cate was already re-filling hers as she wandered around the hotel bedroom. The room was large, overlooking Ipswich’s high street, the jewellery shop opposite was a local trademark and the place where Tim had bought her engagement ring all those years before.

  Cate looked around. Whatever Liz did for a living she could afford a superior room. The bed was a four-poster, with dark chunky wood and rich red and russet bedding. There was a pink sofa and two armchairs. Despite all of these comforts, the room was stuffy and Cate couldn’t bring herself to say it was nice. She preferred the modern austerity of Olivier’s room at Novotel.

  “So,” Cate sat on the sofa, next to her sister. They both examined the other, fascinated by what time had changed and what remained the same.

  “You’re not ginger anymore,” Liz said, as if this was the most important thing to say after such a long separation. “More auburn now.”

  “Hmmm,” Cate acknowledged. “Red hair gets darker with age.”

  “Does that mean your temper has mellowed too?”

  “Not according to recent evidence.”

  Liz laughed and it broke the tension, but also made Cate feel sad for all of the anger and resentment she felt towards her, all the years she had not known where she was or why she went. All the laughter they might have shared.

  “Why are you back in Ipswich, Liz?”

  “I’ll get to that.” Liz had clearly thought about how to handle the meeting, she was very much in control. “First, I want to know about you. Mum told me you have a daughter.”

  “Amelia. She’s ten, eleven next month,” Cate replied, deadpan. Liz hadn’t just walked away from being a sister and daughter, she had rejected her role as auntie too. “She’s with her dad this evening.”

  “Your husband?”

  Cate winced, and thought of that engagement ring gathering dust in a velvet box at the bottom of her sock drawer.

  “Mum didn’t tell you I’m divorced?”

  “I’m sorry, she probably did. There’s just been so much on my mind, so many new facts to take on board that I forgot. God, I can’t imagine you as a mother.”

  “Not just. I work as well.”

  “Artist?”

  Liz’s departure had changed Cate’s plans. When September came, Cate’s longed-for escape to art school did not happen. Her mother could not bear the thought of being alone and Cate feared for her safety if she left. With Liz and Dad both gone, what choice did she have? She rejected the place at Glasgow that she had so coveted, and applied through clearing to the local college in Colchester. The courses on offer were limited, not offering the fine art degree she would have chosen, but the one that appealed most was social work. She started the course in September, returned each night to her mother, and worked weekends at the Great White Horse.

  “Not even close. I’m a probation officer.”

  “Oh. I wouldn’t have guessed that one,” Liz said, looking surprised.

  “It felt like a good fit at the time but it’s lost its shine since. What about you?”

  “I’m a nurse. I specialise in cancer.”

  “Oh. Well that’s great. Children?”

  “Nope.”

  They both sat in silence, the mini bottles now all empty, the sun outside casting an orange glow in the red room.

  “Have we finished with the small talk, Liz? Are you going to tell me the reason you left?”

  Liz looked at Cate like she’d slapped her, her face folded with pain and disbelief. “Please don’t pretend you don’t know. I couldn’t bear that.”

  Cate was mystified. “But I don’t know. Why did you walk out of our lives and never look back? What did I do?”

  “What did you do?” Liz repeated, clearly shocked that Cate showed no understanding. “You knew, Cate. You, Mu
m, Dad. You all knew, you all colluded. No-one tried to help me and in the end I had no choice. I had to leave, for my own sanity. My own survival.”

  Cate slammed her drink on the table and placed her palms on her knees. “Okay, enough. What the hell are you talking about, Liz?”

  The sisters stared at each other, the gap of understanding a wide abyss between them.

  “Okay, Cate, if you want to play this game I’ll go along with it. If it makes it easier for you.”

  Liz walked to her suitcase on the luggage rack under the window. She clicked it open and lifted out a wooden jewellery box, ethnic in style, carved with exotic flowers and long-beaked birds. It had brass corners and a small key to keep the contents locked safe.

  “I remember that,” Cate said, as Liz turned the key. “You used to keep it in your wardrobe, and you’d go mental if you thought I’d so much as touched it.”

  Cate’s curiosity was piqued when Liz opened the box and placed it on her lap. Inside was a pile of envelopes, and Cate saw her father’s unmistakable handwriting, bold lettering in heavy black ink.

  “You kept in contact with Dad?” Cate asked. She had not heard from him often over the years, cards at Christmas was about the sum of it, and she felt a stab of old jealousy that Liz was still his favourite.

  “These are old letters. From back then.”

  When Cate’s father left home, just after Liz’s disappearance, she’d assumed he would return, that it was a bad patch between her parents. It never occurred to her that he too was gone for good. She could see how impossible her mother was to live with, had some sympathy with him, but surely he would not abandon them? She knew that she was not his favourite daughter – it was obvious that he loved Liz more, and always had done – but he wouldn’t stay away forever.

  As the weeks dragged on she approached the first milestone without him, her eighteenth birthday. Even her mother had made an effort by staying sober at least most of the day and she returned from a morning outing, unusual for her, producing a gaudy pink birthday cake with a fondant unicorn on top. The cake was intended for a child and Cate wondered if this was how her mother saw her, or merely how she wished she were still. Or maybe it had been the only cake left on the shelf.

  After watching Cate feign pleasure and force some of the cloying sugar into her mouth, her mother, satisfied that she was performing her maternal duties, handed her the cards that had arrived by the morning’s post. Cate opened them without joy. They were from various aunts and uncles who she only saw at weddings or funerals. Wishes and greetings from across the galaxy, it seemed to her then. But her mother had a secret.

  When the cards had been displayed on the mantelpiece she produced something else that had arrived in the post, looking nervous and unhappy as she handed it over. Cate’s heart burned with righteous certainty when she saw the envelope, the line of postage stamps revealing that it had been posted abroad. She had hoped it would be from her dad. In fact, it was from Liz.

  “I wrote to you, from Greece. A birthday card,” she now said. “I begged you to get in touch.”

  “I was angry.” But how had she forgotten? Liz had made contact and Cate had not replied. She had not even read the entire card, but thrown it in the bin along with the remains of the unicorn sponge cake.

  The two sisters considered each other, and Cate saw in Liz the girl she was at seventeen, the sister she had loved so much. Inside something stirred, feelings long since denied. She had grieved for Liz, lost her twenty years ago, and this was a resurrection of sorts. Why then were they not hugging, full of joy? Liz shut the lid of the jewellery box, closing in the pile of letters as if they were soiled and she did not wish to see them.

  “Cate I want you to read these, not now, but when you get home. The police have taken all the copies they need.”

  “Police?”

  Liz nodded. “There’s no going back for me. I want to know if I can count on your support.”

  The bulk of the jewellery box was unpleasantly balanced on her legs and she thought again of her father’s handwriting. She tried to hand the box back to Liz.

  “I don’t think I want to know.”

  But Liz refused to relieve her of the box’s weight.

  “Because you already do. And you always have. So please, can we stop pretending? You have a chance, Cate, to make it up to me. Finally, you can be on my side.”

  At home, Cate got herself another drink before she lifted the lid, carefully removing the envelopes with the tips of her fingers. Some had ripped corners, some were neatly taped down, and she felt some regret at having to tear through them.

  The first letter was dated twenty-five years ago, when Liz would have been just twelve.

  Darling daughter,

  You looked so pretty yesterday in your summer dress. Just like a princess from a fairy tale. If only it were that simple, that you could be rescued from a tower and live happily ever after! But, as in all stories, there is a witch in the kingdom. We must not tell her anything, my darling. I fear it would kill her. And you know how weak your mother is. Keep this safe.

  Dad.

  Cate read on, each letter helping her to finally understand why Liz had never had dates, why she never wanted any boy to call her at home. What Cate had jealously interpreted as a father’s love for his favoured child was actually an ugly, terrifying thing. And when Liz fled, their father had decided to leave too, no longer interested in the family left behind.

  Liz had said that Cate had always known. She believed that Cate had failed her, had wilfully ignored what was going on. And maybe she was right. So now Liz was involving the police, and she wanted Cate to help her. To be on her side, as she put it. Cate put the box aside and buried her face in her hands, not sure if she had the strength. Not sure she could.

  68

  The Day Of

  The four children climbed the steps up to the narrow walkway and then began to make their way along the bridge. Above them, on the road, cars thundered past, ignoring the fifty mile an hour limit. The few drivers who did notice simply saw a group of kids messing around. Nothing to worry about, nothing they would even remember if it wasn’t for what came later.

  On the path the children ran their hands along the steel tubes, the vibrating metal that supported the bridge. The only colours were the green painted steel and the orange warning signs. Looking over the river they could see East Hull in the distance, the flat roof of Hull Royal where all four had been born, the glass turret of The Deep aquarium where Ben had celebrated his tenth birthday. Their lives were set out before them.

  Out in the water, red buoys moved to the swell of the tide, their bells calling out, though there were no boats on the river, just the children to listen to their warning.

  Noah knelt on the gravel to re-tie his shoe lace, then placed his forehead on the dead fish and began to mutter a prayer, but backwards. Cheryl snorted.

  “You can’t just conjure the Devil like that!”

  Noah looked up, black eyes glinting defiantly. “How do you know? It worked for us once. It’s going to happen again. I’m going to ask him to remove the curse. The fish is a sacrifice, in my place.”

  “Bollocks. The Devil’s not going to come to this bridge just for a dead fucking fish, is he? He’s got more important things to do.”

  Noah ignored her, stood against the railing and held the fish, more dead than alive, over the water.

  He wasn’t afraid anymore. It was as if watching the film had made him brave, or at least made him feel there was a force out there bigger and stronger than him. It reassured him, the feeling that someone else was in charge even if that person was the Devil. Noah wanted proof, that there was something out there.

  He thought of his mum, down in London, fighting for teacher’s rights or whatever, but he wanted to do something even more immense. Like save a life. Even if it was just a fish.

  “Throw it then, lad,” Adam said, pushing his shoulder.

  Noah lifted the fish high to the heavens.
One glazed beady eye seemed to consider him, he felt its grey heaviness pulse in his hands.

  “A sacrifice to the dark lord!” he shouted.

  Cheryl doubled over in hysterics. “Who the fuck are you, Harry Potter?”

  Noah hurled the fish over the side, but it landed with a splat on the other side of the barrier, on the concrete lip that jutted over the River Humber.

  “Good one,” groaned Adam.

  “It’s dead anyway,” said Ben.

  But Noah put both hands on the barrier and pressed his body up, his right leg quivering as he raised it to try and swing over.

  “Stop it, Noah!” cried Ben, grabbing the fabric of his T-shirt.

  “Jesus, boy, what the fuck are you doing?” Adam had caught Noah by the belt of his jeans and along with Ben they yanked him back to the safe side of the barrier.

  Noah seemed to give in, started to cry hopelessly, afraid of what would happen now his sacrifice had been rejected. He cried for the dying fish. Because he wasn’t a hero. Because his mum was marching in London and not with him. Just because.

  “Shut the fuck up,” said Adam, calmly stepping closer to Noah. “If anyone should be howling off today, it’s me.”

  “Or me,” said Cheryl, who was leaning against the concrete platform that led to the SOS telephone. She’d watched the whole fish incident without a word, but now she pushed herself up and moved toward Noah. She grabbed his chin in her right hand, squeezed it so his lips puckered.

  “You think you rule the world, don’t you? Think you can control everything, because Mummy loves you. Little brat.”

  None of the boys saw the slap coming, but it hit Noah hard on the left cheek. He reeled, arms circling, falling back against the barrier.

  Adam gaped at Cheryl, shocked and awe-struck, confused by the girl’s sudden brutality.

  “What you chowing at him for? He didn’t do owt to you.”

  Cheryl held her hand, like it was she who was the victim. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  “He did. He ruined everything.” She glanced at Noah, and saw his lip was bleeding where her nail had caught it, then looked at the floor. “Just by existing.”