After He Died
Page 25
‘Don’t overdo it, eh? The guy being killed is bound to bring back old emotions. You need to give them space, deal with them, not fight them off.’
Good advice, thought Cara, but no way was she going to follow it.
‘Thank you for your wisdom, Sensei.’ She bowed. ‘Now piss off and see to your girls.’
Dave gave his warm boom of a laugh, pulled her to him and kissed her forehead. ‘I hope when they grow up they listen to me more than you do.’
Sometime later, dripping with sweat, Cara made her way to the changing rooms and had a long soak in the shower. As the hot water cascaded over her head and shoulders, she thought about Danny. About Sean. Compared their guileless preteen grins with the haunted young men they’d become. A life of addiction stretching before them until both their chaotic lives were brought to a sharp and brutal end.
She slumped to the base of the shower, head on her knees, felt their pain as hers and gave in to her tears.
Later still. Dressed, hair damp, she heard her phone ping an alert from her locker. She pulled it out and read a message from Danny’s sister:
Mum’s holding a vigil thing for Danny tonight at hers. Would b nice if u came. X
Cara sat on a bench staring at her phone and read the message over and over again. Could she face the family? Would they blame her?
All the more reason to go, she thought. Actions have consequences.
Face yours.
40
When Paula arrived home from her visit to the café and pushed open her front door, she registered that a rather large bundle of mail was building up behind it. She closed the door behind her and stared at the pile of envelopes on the floor, as if doing so might magically sort them into separate piles – those she should pay attention to and those she should bin.
She was tempted to just pick the lot up and throw it away. Trouble was, she often received mail regarding the charities she was attached to so she would have to keep it and look through it. But some other time.
She nudged the nearest one with her boot. It displayed the logo of a well-known optician on the front. She couldn’t even be bothered to bend down and pick them all up.
Gin.
That was the medicine that was required.
In the kitchen she threw her bag and her phone on top of the island.
Then she found a glass, got some ice from the dispenser at the front of the giant black fridge-freezer that used to tickle Thomas so much. Ice clinking, she located the bottle and poured herself a generous measure, added some tonic and sipped.
Getting up onto a stool she hunched forwards over the glass of gin, momentarily overwhelmed by a weight of loneliness. She looked around the kitchen. So much space. This room had been her pride and joy when they first moved in. Now, looking around it all left her with was dull ache and souring in her jaw as if she’d eaten something that had gone off.
She took another sip of her gin.
She hadn’t turned to drink when Christopher died and it certainly wasn’t going to happen now. But still.
Another sip.
Remembering that she had still to hear back from Joe, she picked up her phone. Nothing.
Placing the phone beside her glass, she contemplated topping her drink up. But then she heard herself asking Joe about his drinking when they were last in the sacristy, and pushed the glass away from her. She climbed off the stool, made her way over to the coffee machine and switched it on.
She looked at the clock on the oven. It read 20:15 in blue light. If she drank coffee at this time, she’d be up all night. She’d be up all night anyway.
A full cup of coffee warming her hand, she made her way through to the lounge, switched on the TV and curled up against one end of the sofa. A thought of what had happened the last time she’d been in here hit her – an image of Bill half naked. She cringed away from it. Thomas’s brother, naked and aroused. What was she thinking? It would be too easy to blame the booze and she hated it when other people shunned responsibility for their actions. It was simple: she shouldn’t have let it happen.
She ran over that evening with Bill and what happened afterwards. Was there anything she could have done to stop it? Who was her big brother-in-law anyway? Was his talk of always fancying her just a line? Did he want the notch on his mental bedpost? Some sort of sick ‘I slept with my brother’s wife’ thing? He had been rude and dismissive to her all these years, after all. Did he really love her, or was he just being an idiot? Whatever he was, the thought of being alone with him ever again made her feel decidedly uneasy.
Shame made her retreat from her thoughts and she studied what was happening on the TV as if that might scour her brain. Someone was singing. Well, trying to. They did manage to hit a few of the notes to be fair. People behind a desk looked on in judgement.
She turned it over to the news. Hate crimes were up. A woman in a headscarf was recounting how she was abused almost every time she left the house.
Turning the TV off, she stared out of the window. It wouldn’t matter what she looked at in this mood. She was beyond distraction.
Her phone rang in the background. Joe? It had to be. He was the only person who would call her at this time of night. He must be phoning to tell her that he was okay. Just the ringing tone was good enough for her – the effort required in going through to the kitchen for her phone was temporarily beyond her.
The phone stopped ringing. She sighed with relief.
But then it started again. So it wasn’t Joe, she thought, he was always able to take no for an answer.
‘Oh, bugger off,’ she shouted through to it. ‘Whoever you are, bugger off.’
It stopped.
And started up again.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake.’ She pushed herself to her feet and stumbled through to the kitchen. By the time she arrived it had stopped again.
Then it bleeped a text alert. With a sharp shock, she saw it was from Daphne. She grimaced:
Need to talk to you about Bill. I’m REALLY worried. Come over to mine now? PLEASE?
Oh, Christ, she thought. Could this be anything to do with their brief moment of…?
She thought about just going to bed, but if she did that this text would haunt her through the night. What did Daphne know? Had Bill told her? What kind of state was he in now?
Actions had consequences, she thought. It was time to acknowledge hers.
41
Every time Cara came to this part of the city, it gave her pause. Possilburn had a bit of a reputation – much of it exaggerated, some of it justified. It was said that it had become one of the most deprived areas of the city and that had led to all sorts of social problems.
And she acknowledged that having a third of the population classed as underprivileged couldn’t be the healthiest of environments in any sense. When you have wholesale neglect of people by those in authority the results were inevitable in her opinion.
She thought about a young woman she’d had sitting across from her desk that very morning. The poor woman was in her late twenties, had psychological issues and the mental age of a twelve-year-old. In an effort to show willing she’d signed up for a week of work experience in a charity shop. When she got there the charity shop staff said they didn’t need her. The Department of Social Security sanctioned her to the tune of four months of her benefit, as if her subsequent no-shows were her own fault. The poor woman could barely stop crying long enough to explain her situation to Cara.
‘How am I going to eat? How can I…’ In her distress she pulled at her dirty blonde hair with fingers whose nails were bitten down to the quick. ‘I can’t even pay the bus fare to go see my mum.’ Her mother was in a local hospice in the terminal stages of a long illness.
Consciously callous, that’s what the system was, and the people who set it up had a chunk of concrete where their hearts should be, thought Cara. She’d love to get a politician down into one of these areas and get them to live under this system and see how they felt then.
She drew up at Danny’s mother’s house and noted that a group of young men had collected at the end of the path. The only one not in a baseball cap was wearing a hoodie. She got out of the car and walked towards them, informing her posture with confidence, knowing they would respond to that with respect. The law of this jungle: show fear and become a victim.
As she drew nearer she realised her assessment of the group had been harsh. They were a mix of ages, from late teens to late twenties. There was even one man who looked like he could have been in his forties. He was the one in the hoodie.
One of them looked over at her as she approached. She offered him a small smile. He nodded and said. ‘You here for Danny’s thing?’
‘Aye,’ she replied.
‘You’ve just to go in,’ another boy said. ‘You’ve no’ to bother knockin’.’
‘Right,’ she said and went to move past them as they opened up a space for her.
‘Tragic, innit?’ The youth said to her. ‘Danny was a good cunt. Didnae deserve that.’
The rest of them nodded and gave a low rumble of agreement.
She felt a hand on her shoulder just as she stepped into the middle of them and thought, Here we go.
‘You Sean’s sister?’ The young man asked.
‘Yeah,’ she replied, searching his face to see if she recognised him.
‘Stan,’ he replied holding his hand out. He was slim, sharp-eyed, clean-shaven and smiling.
‘Nice to meet you, Stan. How did you know our Sean?’ she asked, after she shook his hand, and moved her own to protect her handbag. He pretended not to notice her movement.
‘He was a couple of years above me at school. A good footballer.’ Grin. ‘No’ as good looking as his sister, right enough.’
The rest of his mates hooted in laughter.
‘Mate, your patter’s pure rubbish,’ one said.
Cara walked up the path to the house as they all began to compare their best efforts at chatting up girls.
Just as she reached the door she heard one of them say, ‘Wait, wait, here’s mine. Was your body made at McDonalds, hen? Cos I’m lovin’ it.’
This received more hoots of derision.
Another said. ‘Here’s one to use at a wedding. Know what this kilt is made of, darlin’? Boyfriend material.’
That was Glasgow typified in one short conversation. Observe the reality of the situation, and then go right back to ripping the pish out of each other. She smiled.
Reaching the door she forced the boys’ banter from her mind. It really wouldn’t do to walk into this house with a smile on her face.
She could hear chatter through the door, as she stood on the doorstep, fist up, poised to signal her arrival. With a twist low in her gut she asked herself whether she really wanted to be here.
She knocked and waited. It didn’t feel right to just walk in.
The door opened and a young woman with long blonde hair stood there. She had on a pair of dark jeans and a pale-blue V-neck sweater.
‘Ah told those wasters to tell folk just to come in,’ she said to Cara. ‘Men, eh?’ She stepped back to allow Cara to enter. ‘Just go through,’ she added. ‘Everyone’s in the living room.’
Everyone was indeed in the living room. All of the seats were filled and there was little standing room. Danny’s mother was sitting in an armchair, with a young woman on each arm and one crouched at her feet. They were all focussed on her, offering support with a gentle touch and low words.
Cara looked around the room, sensing the community here. They were all women. All concerned about the death of yet another young man. She doubted that there would be one of them who hadn’t been touched by a similar tragedy – either in their close family or in the circle of their friends. Suicide, drugs or violence – they were all marked by these things.
Cara noted a small display that had been set up on the mantelpiece. The centrepiece was an A4 image of Danny in a dark wooden frame. In front of it was a single candle.
She looked at the photo. His hair was slicked back and he was wearing the red tie and sweatshirt of his secondary school – the same one she and Sean had worn. She smiled at his gap-toothed grin. A memory came to her – Danny and Sean sharing a bike with no seat. He’d stolen it from the railings at a nearby train station, the owner thinking that if he took the seat away with him on the train it would deter thieves. No such luck with Sean and Danny. It became more of a challenge. They wanted to see if they could both ride it without. Of course, disaster struck. Danny sat on the handlebars, and Sean was peddling but couldn’t see past Danny when he took a right turn. He hit a kerb and Danny fell and smashed his face on the ground. His face healed but the tooth was missing for a few years until he could afford to get a decent falsie.
Cara felt a hand on her arm.
‘Look at him with that daft, big grin.’ She turned to see Danny’s mother at her side. ‘He refused to get a cheapo from the NHS. Wanted one that looked good, you know?’ She gave Cara a hug. ‘How you doing, darling? Thanks for coming.’
‘Wouldn’t have missed it, Heather.’
‘C’mon over, hen,’ Heather took her by the hand. ‘Meet the girls.’
Heather pulled her across the room to her chair and, while still on her feet, announced to the assembly, ‘This is Cara. She was a good sort to our Danny. Helped him out of a tricky situation with that cow of an ex-wife of his when nobody else gave a shit.’
A chorus of ‘Hi Cara’ rang through the room.
‘Can I get you a wee cuppa?’ asked Heather, looking at one of the other women. ‘Get Cara a cuppa will you, honey?’ Then she turned to Cara again. ‘Or would you prefer something stronger?’
‘Coffee with just milk will be lovely, thanks,’ Cara said.
They sat, with Heather in the chair and Cara on the arm, holding each other’s hand. And Cara could see that Heather was straining to hold the emotion back. The black hound was straining at its leash. She could see that she took some warmth from the presence of all the people in the room, while simultaneously wanting to scream at them all to leave.
Heather gripped Cara’s hand tight, closing her eyes as if against whatever thought and emotion warred in her mind. She weakened her grip and then tightened it again as if she’d come to a decision.
Finally, looking up at Cara, her eyes showing a struggle for the peace she thought would forever evade her, she asked, ‘You were the person who found our Danny, weren’t you? You need to tell me everything. Everything, doll, and don’t hold back. I can take it.’
42
Paula sat in her car just down the road from Bill and Daphne’s, listening to the rain as it beat on the roof of the car and washed down the windows, turning the world outside into a smear of light and dark. Stupidly, she hadn’t thought to bring her coat or umbrella. She’d get drenched after five seconds, so she decided to wait until it eased.
But she knew she was really only delaying the inevitable, and felt guilt grip and snarl in her stomach as she imagined the expression on Daphne’s face after she found out the truth.
What did the woman have without Bill? She’d be devastated.
Would she have wanted to know if Thomas had an affair? she thought. Yes. Absolutely. So why should she deny Daphne that same thing. But then could you really describe her and Bill’s drunken, grief-fuelled fumble as an affair? It was over almost as it begun. Perhaps this was one situation where the lie could be, if not white, a smudged vanilla?
Then her earlier unease at being alone again with Bill returned. She became aware of movement. Someone was walking along the street towards her car. Who’d be out walking at this time of night, in this rain unless they were up to no good? She locked the car doors.
Why was she so jittery? But it occurred to her that she had good reason to be nervous. Joe and Thomas had been dea
ling with dodgy characters and very possibly as a result of that people were being killed.
She was on her own, in the dark, and apart from Daphne, no one knew where she was. If something happened to her who would know? She should let someone know where she was, just in case.
But whom? Joe had been out of reach the last couple of days. Not even young Father Declan knew where he was. Was he away on some retreat or was he…? She had an image of Joe slumped on a chair with a bottle of pills in one hand and a tumbler of whisky in the other. She shook her head violently to disperse it.
If something happened to Joe as well…
Who could she call? If Joe wasn’t available, who was? It was a testament to her life. There was no one who would miss her? The weight of her grief pushed down on her. It was a solid thing, its pressure stealing her breath, removing all her energy. She could just sit here. Let the world do its own thing.
But, Bill. She owed it to her husband’s brother to check that he was okay. It must be bad if Daphne was calling her.
She filled her lungs, admonished herself to just get out of the car, put one foot in front of the other. At least she wasn’t homeless and murdered like that poor kid, Danny. She saw him again in that doorway, and flinched from the memory. Saw herself facing Cara and arguing about Thomas’s involvement moments after.
And now, thinking about that dead boy, another mother’s son, she acknowledged that she’d never given a thought to Cara’s grief over her brother. All she had room for in her own head was for her own losses, but here other people were suffering as well.
Sean.
Christopher.
Two young men with their lives ahead of them, now dead. For all the differences that fate and life had presented to them, they were both now nothing but bone and memory.
She’d overreacted. She should apologise to Cara. And while she was apologising she could tell Cara where she was. The woman would think she was nuts but who else did she have?