I held the emotion behind glassy eyes for what felt like a long time, maybe half an hour or something, and the only thing I managed to say was, ‘I miss him.’ If I’d said any more everything would have come crashing out.
Mark handed me the packet of cigarettes.
The air around us was warm but the smell was acrid. The smoke was starting to hurt my eyes and scrape against the back of my throat every time I inhaled.
‘Not Mackie,’ I said. ‘I don’t miss… Mackie. You know, I was talking about—’
‘No.’ Mark smiled, putting an arm around my shoulders and squeezing. ‘No, I got that, thanks.’
I turned around and smoked my cigarette facing the roof of my car.
The helicopter burned in the corner of my eye.
26
‘Hi, darling, it’s me… Obviously, haha!’
After watching Clare’s other video from the studio a few more times by myself, I started watching the others. My clothes and hair smelt of smoke, but I was too tired to think about taking a shower before morning.
The picture of her I had drawn was lying beside my laptop, watching me.
There were so many webcam videos, but the next one I clicked on seemed to have been filmed on Emma’s last birthday. Clare was sitting on her sofa in the living room, wearing a green dress against a golden tan, and her hair cut a little shorter than I was used to.
I was so tired that my concentration was lapsing, and I started the video again after a few seconds, having dozed off against my headboard.
Clare smiled again. ‘Hi, darling, it’s me… Obviously, haha!’
I wished I had known her when she was normal. Or at least, when she had been able to smile like that. I noticed that the scars I was used to seeing all over her arms had been covered with make-up.
‘Your dad is going to make one of these too… I’m a bit of a scaredy-cat with computers and stuff but he says we can email it… We both hope you’re having the best time on holiday! I just wanted to say… happy birthday on your actual birthday, so happy birthday, darling!’
I looked at the date, and it was less than three months ago.
‘We both miss you so much, and can’t wait for you to come back so you can have your presents and…’ She paused, fiddled with her hair and laughed. ‘You know, I’ve done like ten of these and your dad is getting super annoyed that I keep messing up so I should probably try and finish this one.’
I turned the volume down so that Mark wouldn’t hear me watching the videos through the walls. The collage he had made on the floor of the living room was still there, like a perverse family tree. He had kept Mackie’s documents too; he didn’t tell me what he had done with them but I knew he had a fascination with other people’s history. Unlike me, he liked to think of everyone he came across in his work as individuals; he liked to know their stories.
‘When you were first born… and Dad said I shouldn’t tell you this, but I’m going to come clean. When you were first born, I dropped you off the back of a table… Haha, no, really, I did! I came in and I had these shopping bags and I put your carrier down on the kitchen table and…’ She hesitated. ‘It was like slow motion, like I couldn’t get there in time… You just… fell off, and then you were upside down on the floor.’
The hard drive was getting too hot, and I balanced the laptop across my knees.
‘You probably don’t even get why it’s a big deal to me, but when you have kids… Sorry’ – she put up her hands – ‘if you have kids… you’ll get it. I thought I was going to faint and cry and go mad all at once, I couldn’t get over to you quick enough… And you were fine. It was so stupid of me, you were fine.’
It was harder to watch than the video in the dance studio.
Her speech wavered, and she looked up over the camera and laughed, such an unfamiliar sound.
‘Now your dad is looking at me thinking, “Oh God, now she’s going to cry…” But it’s true. I was so scared I was going to lose you and… I suppose why I’m telling you this story is because I’m trying to say that I love you… more than anything, and you’re the best thing in my life, darling. You’re probably rolling your eyes and saying, God, she reads too many sappy books, like you usually do, but it’s true. And I don’t know what I’d do without you. So… have a great birthday and when you get back we’ll party like it’s not 1999, right?’
She wiped her eyes and glanced from the camera to the space above it.
‘OK… Your go? Was that OK?’
The video froze and she was still smiling.
I dragged the cursor back and listened to her saying it again.
… is because I’m trying to say that I love you… more than anything, and you’re the best thing in my life, darling…
I put a hand over my eyes.
And I don’t know what I’d do without you. So…
What Pat had told me in that pub in Victoria made sense. In my job there was never a before and after picture. I had never been able to see how people had got from one place to another in their lives. Not like this.
Your go? Was that OK?
All I could see in her expression was something she would never be able to get back. She had answered the door, I had shaken her hand and thought that her eyes were full of sadness… and now the woman in this video from three months ago might as well have been someone else.
Try not to worry too much. You know, I’m sure she’s fine.
That was what I had said to her that night, before I’d left. I’d actually fucking said that. I couldn’t believe how ridiculous it sounded now.
She’d call if she was.
I knew I had said sorry to them before, I remembered doing so. I hadn’t meant it though, or understood what I was saying.
It was half past three in the morning and I couldn’t look at the end frame of that video any more.
I clicked on the next one.
This time it was Pat sitting on the sofa, still wearing a suit but looking strikingly younger before grief had aged him. He was frowning, the lens was jumping a little, and then he laughed. ‘Clare, it’s a bloody webcam, not Concorde… Look… there, there, press that!’
Clare was laughing as the picture came in and out of focus. ‘OK, OK, I’ve got it!’
‘Getting it?’
‘Got it.’
‘Right.’ Pat gave the camera a thumbs-up and sarcastic smile. ‘Hey, M&M, how’s it going? I think your mum may have tested the memory capacity enough already so I’ll keep it short… Um, happy birthday. Big sixteen… don’t have sex. No, seriously.’
I felt like the biggest dickhead in the world. It had been so much easier to despise him for who I thought he was than feel sorry for him for what he’d lost.
‘Anyway, M&M, we miss you bunches. Really, I’ve bought that motorbike with flames up the side and everything, so you’d better come home quickly, you hear me? Before I take up mountain climbing or something… Good stuff. I love you, it’s obscene how much, quite frankly. So stay safe, not in that way, and we’ll see you when you get back.’ His gaze flicked upwards and he smirked. ‘That’s how it’s done.’
I thought of him calling Emma’s mobile, over and over again so that he could hear her voice.
‘Oh, shut your face,’ I heard Clare say.
‘They call me one-take Pat.’
‘Ha ha!’
Unable to watch any more, I shut the laptop and put it on the floor beside the bed. I looked at the picture for a while, but it inspired nothing. I switched the lamp off but it felt like a futile gesture; I doubted that I was going to be able to sleep.
My pillow smelt of smoke.
The bar didn’t have any windows, and aside from the weak candles the majority of the lights came from the green neon sign in the corner that reminded me of the dodgy places you found in mid-America. Over in a strange adjoining room were a white grand piano and a fireplace, with two old-fashioned patterned chairs.
I sat down in front of the bar, but there was no
barman. When I started looking around one of the two men sitting the other side of the room stood up and walked behind the bar. He spoke with a Dutch accent and was wearing a brown waistcoat.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Just a whiskey, Irish if you’ve got some.’
‘Let me see…’ He turned away and searched the spirit shelf.
While he was looking, I took the opportunity to size up the rest of the bar. The barman had been sitting with a middle-aged man in a crumpled white shirt to my right, and there were two women playing pool to my left.
‘Double?’
‘Please.’ I got out my wallet as he handed me the glass. ‘How much?’
He shrugged. ‘Call it five pounds? Leave it anywhere.’
‘Anywhere? Not… the till?’
‘Man, I don’t work here.’ He spread his hands with an apathetic expression, and returned to his companion.
I left a five-pound note by the till.
Tchaikovsky was playing.
When I turned around on my barstool to face the rest of the bar the two women playing pool had gone. I wondered if someone was on the grand piano, and slid off the stool to go and stand in the archway separating the rooms.
Mark was dancing between the chairs with Clare, a waltz. She was wearing her red ballet dress.
I went to sip my whiskey but it had disappeared from my hand.
‘You can’t take drinks outside,’ a familiar voice said. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’
I looked sideways and the companion of the man in the brown waistcoat had come to stand next to me. It was only up close that I realized it was Mackie.
‘What… What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘This isn’t real,’ he said, smiling. ‘Remember?’
I watched Mark and Clare, dancing around and around and around…
‘She is beautiful.’
‘Hm,’ I agreed.
‘Pity you can’t see her face any more.’
I looked closer. Clare’s face was a grey, empty space. No features, no shadows. Her skin was that of a statue, that thing in her living room.
When I looked back to Mackie I found myself looking at the gap-toothed tribal mask.
‘Fuck!’
I pushed him away and his head lolled from his shoulders. He staggered backwards, his jugular and vocal cords severed and exposed, pulsing blood down his front. With some difficulty, he reached up and pulled his head back on to his shoulders, his voice echoing from behind the mask.
‘God,’ he said, with a mild annoyance. ‘Now look what you’ve made her do.’
Clare was standing right in front of me, and I could see her face again.
I jerked away, tried to push her back but she grabbed the front of my shirt, whirled me around and threw me backwards on to the floor between the chairs. From the floor I could see under the piano: white-skinned feet were pressing against the pedals.
Mark was gone.
Clare stood over me, glaring. ‘I’m so tired of dancing to her song.’
Back under the piano I saw blood running down the legs, on to the bare feet.
‘No, please…’ I backed away. ‘I fucking hate Tchaikovsky!’
She threw a handful of soil in my face.
I woke up, choking, with a hand over my mouth.
There wasn’t any soil. It was seven in the morning and it was still too dark to see the outlines of anything familiar in my room. I could hear that Mark was awake though, wandering around the kitchen with the kettle boiling.
I sat up, trying to remember what the fuck had happened in my dream. All I could remember was Clare’s face, and saying something about Tchaikovsky… something about… feet.
Shaking my head, I switched the light on, thinking about Clare’s face, Clare when she was young…
Mark was singing along to an eighties disco tune in a comedy voice.
I snorted, and remembered him and Clare dancing around a room.
Clare’s face…
Something that had been playing on my mind clicked into place. The thing about Emma that I hadn’t liked, that calculating confidence I had assumed was inherited from her father, didn’t actually remind me of Pat at all. It reminded me of Clare.
Unsettled by the realization, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and switched on my phone.
I had forgotten about the voicemail from Brinks. I didn’t want to speak to him, but I needed to ask him about CCTV footage from around Shooters Hill to try and help clarify what had really happened with Matt and Meds.
I called 901 and listened to the new message.
‘Nic, it’s me. It’s Geoff… Brinks…’
The first thing that struck me was that he sounded even more hysterical than usual. Always a good sign if I was in the mood for entertainment. If Brinks had been into theatre he could have acted out his own one-man tragedy, I was sure of it.
‘I’m fucked, mate, I’m… fucked. I need to see you, please. I need to see you!’
I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. The relentless wailing was too reminiscent of a teenage girl for me to take it seriously.
‘Nic, please call me back, I need to speak to you, please! Please, we need to talk, just talk, I need to talk to someone… I… Fuck, I’m desperate, Nic, I’m desperate!’
My laughter was audible now. Brinks kept on whining, getting higher and higher in pitch until I could barely understand the separate words any more. After a night like the last, this was exactly the sort of thing I had needed to hear.
I didn’t even bother to finish the message before standing up from the bed and slamming open my bedroom door.
‘Mark! Mark, you’ve got to listen this!’
‘Morning…’
I walked into the kitchen waving the phone in his direction, trying to find the option to put it on speakerphone.
‘Something funny?’ he asked through a mouthful of toast.
‘Christ, come here, listen… It’ll kill you! It’ll fucking kill you!’
27
The collage was still on the floor.
When Mark had gone out to meet someone for breakfast, after quoting his favourite parts of Brinks’s voicemail at me once more time, I sat down by the coffee table and surveyed what he had done.
‘I neeeeeed you!’ Mark had shouted from the door. ‘Haha, fucking genius.’
I started laughing to myself again.
Being the pedant that he was, Mark had grouped the photos at the top in chronological order. Any paperwork and miscellaneous pieces were underneath them. When he had felt so inclined he had scribbled a note and put it next to the item with an arrow, so it could be followed up later.
Things like ‘What is this number?’ and ‘Who is this girl?’
I recognized Daisy in one of the photos that had been stuck around the mirror; she and Emma were striking a moody pose and pouting over the tops of their drinks. I hoped she had been nineteen, I thought, with a pang of unease. Emma hadn’t inherited Clare’s habit of writing the place and date on the back of every picture, so they were harder to group.
Emma had won an award at school for taking part in a national maths tournament. I wondered if it had bothered Clare, that her daughter’s natural flair hadn’t been for sports and athletics.
What is this number?
He had bookmarked a page of Emma’s diary. I hadn’t thought anything of it before. She hadn’t written anything about that day; the only entry was the number, on its own. I suppose it did look a little strange, even if it hadn’t seemed extraordinary enough to take notice of before.
I stood up to get the cordless phone and sat back down to key in the number. Outside I could hear hailstones clattering against the windows.
A lady picked up, and said, ‘Hello, Maternity.’
I faltered. ‘I’m… sorry?’
‘Maternity?’
‘I…’ I hadn’t planned what to say beyond this point, and even if I had I wouldn’t have been prepared for this. ‘Sorr
y, which hospital is this?’
‘Er, Royal Free. Sorry, love, are you looking for another department?’
‘This is Maternity?’
‘Yes, love. Can I put you through to somewhere else?’
‘Um… no, no that’s fine. Think I’ve got the wrong number altogether, thanks.’
‘No worries, my dear.’
I hung up but couldn’t get off the floor. Outside there was a clanging sound of the bins being collected, and I blinked myself out of my reverie. I went through a list of names in my head: Danny? Kyle? Matt? If Emma had been pregnant, then whose was it? Had she called them for an abortion or a scan? Had she kept it? Who knew? Who knew and hadn’t told me?
I decided against talking to Jenny Hillier first, on the assumption that she would still be traumatized from our last meeting. It crossed my mind to phone Danny, but I wasn’t sure he would know anything.
Instead, I stood up, took the photo of Emma with Daisy, and decided to go back to the house in Shooters Hill.
Grandma, take me home. It came into my head every time I thought of her now.
Daisy answered the door holding a baby on her hip, wearing jeans and a white bra-top that showed her stomach. She looked surprised to see me and shifted the child on to her other side.
Inside the house I could hear something heavy playing.
‘Well, hello. Couldn’t keep away?’
I stared at the baby.
‘Calm down,’ she said with some scorn. ‘He’s my nephew, I’m babysitting.’
‘I need to talk to you about Emma.’
‘How are you, Daisy?’ she said as she let me inside, answering the question herself. ‘I’m fine, thanks. How are you? Lovely weather we’re having, right? Getting into the Christmas flipping spirit?’
‘Um, sorry. How are you?’
‘Fuck off. Dandy.’
I stood in the same place as last time as she crossed the room to turn Radiohead down to a volume more compatible with discussion, before sitting on the sofa with her nephew on her knees.
Something You Are Page 21
