by Matthew Crow
‘That poor girl,’ murmured Mr Fitzpatrick, a shadow casting over his face.
‘You OK?’ I said.
‘Yes, yes…’ He shook his head a little. ‘Go on.’
‘The only parts of me that I remember clearly are the bad parts. I guess I’m just trying to remind myself that there’s some good in me, somewhere, sometimes.’
‘Where exactly do I fit in with all of this, Claudette?’
I shrugged.
‘Well, I’ve got this book I’m supposed to fill in to help me get better. And I’m meant to set myself these goals and targets and stuff, things I can achieve in the short term and long term and all the type of stuff most people just do without even having to think about it. The problem is I do think about it and I never have anything to put. So, I don’t know… Maybe I could visit you? That could be one of my things.’
‘I don’t need charity,’ he said, looking a bit affronted.
‘Yeah well that’s good, because I’ve got no money and even if I did have I wouldn’t give you any,’ I said and he smiled. ‘I just mean, you know, as a friend. We can talk. You can tell me about your albums, if you want to. I just… need to be able to do something that isn’t inside my own head.’
Mr Fitzpatrick stood up slowly and opened the door to the living room.
‘Time to go now,’ he said, as I made my way to the door.
Assuming his lack of enthusiasm was a polite decline of my offer, I let him walk me to the door, when all of a sudden he cleared his throat and removed his glasses, polishing his lenses with an embossed handkerchief he fished out from under his cardigan sleeve.
‘Wednesdays and Fridays,’ he said, as we made our way to the front door.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Wednesdays and Fridays I’m sometimes dragging my feet a bit. Not much to do those days. Especially the afternoons. If you were to drop by I’m sure I’d be able to spare ten minutes or so.’
‘I’ll check my schedule,’ I said, as I strolled out into his front yard. ‘And thank you,’ I said, shutting the gate behind me, ‘for being nice to me.’
Mr Fitzpatrick smiled and shook his head.
‘Preach,’ he said, as he shut the front door.
9
Elemental
Nobody thought that Mr Darvill had taken Sarah, but everyone knew that he’d had her. One way or another, Mr Darvill was guilty.
They announced the news on television. The report showed Darvill’s bug-eyed photograph from his school entry pass. The reporter talked about inappropriate relations and an imminent statement from the school. Then it cut to images of Darvill’s wife, her jacket hood pulled low over her head, trying to make it through her own front gate through a swarm of photographers all snapping their lenses in her face.
I was dozing on the sofa; Dad was running a wet wipe across the skirting boards.
‘Awful stuff,’ Dad said, scrunching up the cloth and resting it on the edge of the mantelpiece as he stared at the television. ‘Haven’t I met him?’
‘Maybe parents’ evening,’ I said distantly, haunted by his image. ‘I’m late for therapy,’ I said, standing up and collecting my things.
As soon as I was outside I sensed it – the palpable shift in atmosphere that happens when something significant occurs in a place. Others felt it too, and all around me a steady trickle of curious dawdlers headed in the general direction of whatever it was. My bus was due in five minutes but before I knew it I was following them, back down our street towards Stepney Parade.
A small crowd had formed outside the retirement flats, along with the usual array of cameras and police vans. They now seemed as much a part of the town as the promenade or the crap cafés and high teen-pregnancy rate. It’s strange how quickly you get used to something. I almost couldn’t remember a time when we weren’t being investigated somehow – observed and analysed; documented and judged. It was like the crazy thoughts that had plagued my mind in the run up to my manic break were suddenly becoming a reality. There really were cameras everywhere. Our entire presence was being observed by sly, unseen authorities. Somewhere there were bad people. Somewhere notes were being made. Somewhere fingers were being pointed. Somewhere fates were being sealed and decisions were being made over which we had no control.
It was almost a comfort to see the communal madness that gripped the town now that we were all pinned under the microscope of the media and the police presence. Some revelled in the attention, vying to offer a soundbite or stake some claim to Sarah, readily spreading gossip and hearsay, stoking the flames. Others weren’t so brash. They scurried and hid in the shadows, forever glancing over their shoulders. Just as vain as the camera-hogs, they felt that their own boring secrets were floating closer to the surface and were keen to avoid the reveal of the spotlight.
I spotted Adam in the crowd and headed towards him. He wasn’t in his community officer uniform, but still looked on with the authority of a man who could take charge, should the occasion require it.
‘What’s happening in there?’ I asked him, as the police wove their tape into a boxy web outside of the building.
‘That teacher… it’s his mam’s old flat,’ he said. ‘Apparently he’s been visiting more since she died than he ever did when she was alive. At least that’s what Gemma from the butcher’s told me,’ he said, biting into his bacon and egg sandwich.
‘Mr Darvill?’ I asked.
‘Yep,’ he said, as the tape was knotted at the post and the police returned to the van where they donned white jumpsuits.
A drop of yolk fell from the bread and landed in the middle of his T-shirt.
‘Bugger,’ he said, wiping his front with a napkin.
‘I used to see him driving around here all the time even though I know he lives miles away. I used to imagine he was trying to assassinate me,’ I said, moving forward in the crowd.
‘Maybe it wasn’t you he was after,’ Adam said, reaching his arm out and trying to pull me back towards the edge of the crowd. ‘Leave it, Claudette,’ he said, as I turned to meet his gaze. ‘They’ll let us know if they find anything important. You shouldn’t be here.’
When I found out about Mr Darvill and Sarah I put a brick through the laundrette window, because I didn’t know what else to do.
I saw them together in the science room one lunchtime. It was about a month before everything came to a head but I could already feel the deep tremors of a rupture building inside of me. I was focused but confused. The specifics still eluded me. All I knew for certain at the time was that an apocalypse was coming and I was building towards something – a mission, a duty, a destiny – for which I had to make myself strong.
I had gone into the science cupboard looking for a textbook but had stumbled upon a poster of the periodic table and that was that. In my mind it was a sign: whatever my mission was would require intricate study of this colour coded map of letters and numbers. I missed two lessons in a row. The bell didn’t interrupt me, nor did the buzzing of my phone when Dad was trying to call to ask where the hell I was. Someone from school had phoned his work to inform him of my sudden absence. It was the scraping of a chair that eventually broke my trance, and I soon realised Darvill was in the room adjoining the cupboard, marking coursework.
I was still wondering how I was going to get out of there, when I heard Sarah’s voice and heard Darvill answer her. I couldn’t hear what they said but I could hear the tone. Sarah sounded bored, but Darvill’s tone was not one that teachers usually use with their students. He sounded amused and then angry. I looked through a crack in the door. The view wasn’t clear, but I could see him standing over her, one hand on her arm. His face was too close to hers, I thought, and he was whispering sharp words in her ear. She looked him dead in the eye and leaned her neck to one side. And then, with a cautionary glance at the door, he pressed his lips to her exposed neck and put his arms around her shoulders. They stayed like that for a moment and then they left, Sarah first, then him.
&nbs
p; I couldn’t move.
I was utterly afraid.
I didn’t know what to do about any of it.
When I felt too heavy with secrets to contain it any longer, I forced myself to stand up.
I started walking and I kept going, walking and walking to try and make myself feel light again.
At some point after that, my memory goes blank.
By the time I came round it was dark and I was sitting on the bonnet of a police car. Adam was standing nearby. He was in uniform and scribbling something in his notepad, while a policewoman sat next to me and rubbed my shoulders to keep me warm. After a moment I clocked the pharmacy shopfront and the broken glass.
‘What’ve you been playing at, love?’ she asked as I felt myself slip back into the world from wherever it was that my mind went when I blacked out. ‘What’s that she’s saying?’ the woman asked Adam as I whispered the periodic table under my breath.
Silicon, phosphorous, sulphur, chlorine…
‘What you saying pet?’ the woman asked as I clung desperately to the clean structure of the chart that had gotten me into the mess in the first place.
Potassium, calcium, scandium, titanium…
‘What’s she going on about?’ another policeman said from inside the car.
‘I dunno,’ said the policewoman, giving my leg a shake. ‘I think she’s foreign or something.’
Tin, antimony, tellurium, iodine…
‘Claudette,’ Adam said, making his way over. ‘Claudette, can you hear me?’
Iodine… iodine… iodine… iodine…
‘Told you she was foreign,’ the policewoman said as Adam repeated my name over and over again.
‘That’ll explain it then,’ said the policeman inside the car, fiddling with the radio and casting out a net of static over the stillness of the night.
‘She’s not foreign, she knocks about with our Donna.’
‘That’s just as bad if not worse,’ said the policewoman flatly as Adam turned back to me.
‘Claudette… can you hear me,’ he said, lowering his face so that his eyes met mine.
Iodine… iodine… iodine… iodine…
‘It’s xenon,’ he said after a while, holding my face in his hands. ‘Xenon, Claudette,’ he said.
I looked into his eyes and stepped back into myself. It was as if the needle had hit the groove and momentarily I was lucid.
‘Swot,’ I whispered quietly as Adam smiled at the flash of familiarity that crossed my face.
‘Come here,’ he said, holding me tightly to his chest as I began to sob.
Once they realised that there would be no great discoveries made that day at the flats on Stepney Parade, the crowd had begun to disperse.
‘That’s that then,’ Adam said as we made our way towards the sea front. I was by this point twenty minutes late for the bus, which meant I was half an hour late for therapy. Which meant that there was really no point in going. ‘What are you up to today?’ he asked.
‘Therapy,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ Adam said, awkwardly.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, sensing his unease. ‘Everybody feels awkward. Don’t. It’s fine.’
‘It’s not though, is it?’ he said as he ushered me across the road.
‘It’s getting there. At least you were kind to me, when things got bad,’ I said.
‘You weren’t well,’ he said. ‘It was obvious.’
‘Not to everyone. They just thought I was being a dickhead,’ I added. ‘Smashing stuff up and banging on about all sorts of nonsense.’
Adam shrugged and looked around him.
‘I had to talk to someone you know, after Dad died.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Donna just blasted through,’ he said, taking a seat on the bench overlooking the sea. ‘She’s a pain in the arse but she’s tough. She got on with it. Cried the right amount. Laughed the right amount. Remembered him just enough. I don’t know. I just… drowned in it all.’
‘I know,’ I said, sitting down.
‘I was the man of the house and I hadn’t even lost my virginity yet,’ he said with an embarrassed laugh that brought another flush of pink to his cheeks. ‘I have now though, just so you know.’
‘Congratulations,’ I said, ruffling his hair.
‘One of the reasons it’s so hard to get into the police force,’ he said flattening the tangled mass I’d created on his head. ‘Nobody wants a kook with a gun ruling the streets.’
‘I didn’t know that. Isn’t that discrimination or something?’
‘Not if they do it carefully,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’m just saying. I don’t know what it’s like for you. I know things got bad. Things… get bad at times. But I understand, as much as anyone can. And I think you’re brave, I really do.’
‘I think you’ll make a fine policeman one day, Adam. Just so long as Donna doesn’t completely destroy your soul in the process,’ I said and he laughed.
‘Yeah. Well, time will tell,’ he said, and we were quiet for a moment. ‘Anyway, can I give you a lift? To the doctor’s. I’ve got a one-on-one at the gym in twenty minutes, but I could drop you off close by?’
When I declined on the grounds of needing that salty blast of air to clear my mind he nodded and said he understood.
‘If you do ever need anything though, Claudette, don’t be scared to ask. People do care, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.’
‘I know,’ I said, as I made my way towards the amusements.
‘And don’t worry yourself about all the other stuff. There are people whose job it is to sort the world out. You just concentrate on yourself.’
I bought an ice cream for lunch and ate it in the amusement arcade.
I did not want to see anybody, and more importantly I did not want to be seen.
I was so late for my therapy appointment by this stage that no amount of hurrying could rectify it. Better to start box-fresh and raring to go at my second appointment than spend the remaining moments of my first red-faced and apologetic. Besides, Dad would only worry and Donna would only judge me. I figured they’d done enough of that over the last few months. An afternoon off from my bullshit was my gift to them.
Dreamland Amusements was the largest of the arcades that was still open and it looked like a set for a seventies gangster film. The games pinged out prizes that had been preserved behind their glass screens since I was a kid. The neon lights flickered and spun so that once you were inside time ceased to exist. Back in the day it had always seemed the most glamorous and exotic of places. A land of sparkle and luck; of chance and hope. Now the only real link it seemed to have to its given name was a look of constant exhaustion, like it had battled through a fitful evening of nightmares and cold sweats and still had to get up and put in a full day’s work.
I sat alone in Dreamland for almost an hour. I was more than content watching the cartoon fruit spin and stop in odd concoctions. The lights were too bright and the carpet too sticky, but the odd sensation of a room so removed from the outside world – a place where day and night were one and the same, where the same songs played in the same order over and over again – was comforting in a strange, removed sort of way. It was like the world was on hold while I sat on the cracked, leather stool, eking out my loose change for as long as humanly possible.
I was about to get up and leave when I realised somebody was sitting at the booth opposite me.
There was a wailing of notes and then a cascade of coins.
‘Jackpot,’ I heard a voice say, and recognised it to be Ross. I was gathering my things when I saw two men entering. One I didn’t know. The other was Dan Vesper, carrying a small bag. They made their way over.
‘Must be my lucky day, Ross, son,’ I heard Dan say as a hand scooped the shrapnel from the tray of the winning game. His voice was jittery and jagged though not through nerves. He had the energy of an angry beast thrashing against a cage door.
I pressed against my machine so as to n
ot be seen.
Ross groaned but did not object as he watched Dan pocket his money. There was a cold silence that followed and I leaned closer, trying to hear their conversation over the sterile dirge of the music.
‘You owe me,’ Dan said.
‘I’m good for it,’ Ross said, as another coin was slipped into the slot.
‘I know. And now it’s payback time,’ he said.
‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ Ross asked.
‘Work your magic,’ Dan said.
‘What?’
‘Make it disappear,’ Dan said as Ross’s machine sounded out and another shower of coins clanked in the tray. ‘You want a roof over your head then you earn your keep. I’ll be in touch,’ he said. I watched him walk back out of the arcade minus the bag he had entered with, his henchman trailing after him.
There was a lengthy pause, certainly enough time to give Dan an ample head start, before Ross made his way out of Dreamland into the harsh light of day. He was carrying Dan’s bag with him.
I let him gain some distance before I got up and began to follow in his wake, hanging back just far enough to be out of sight, but not too far that I couldn’t keep track.
I followed him across the road, through alleyways and side streets. With each turn he seemed to grow smaller on my horizon, until eventually I was almost running to keep up with him. I followed him across the green and along the estuary bank to the rock pools beneath the pier where we used to take fishing nets to catch minnows. The soles of my shoes slid on the damp stones, but I steadied myself with my hands on the rough, wet rocks.
At first there was no sign of Ross. The tide had been pulled far out and the sun dried the rocks in blotchy patches.
And then, there he was.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, crouched in the pebbles between two overhanging boulders. I had been just about ready to give up my mission and, as much as I was pleased to have secured my prey, hearing his voice made my skin turn cold.
