by C. J. Tudor
“Eddie is fine.”
“Really? You know that, bearing in mind you’ve hardly seen him recently?”
“So you’re saying he isn’t fine?”
“I’m saying, with everything that’s been happening—the fight at Gavin’s party, the Cooper boy, David Hopkins’s dog—he’s had enough upset and upheaval. We always said we were going to give him security and love, and I don’t want to see this hurt him, in any way.”
“If I thought for one minute that any of this would hurt Eddie—”
“What? You’d quit then?” My dad’s voice sounded odd. Kind of sour and bitter.
“I will do whatever it takes to protect my family, but that and continuing my work are not mutually exclusive.”
“Well, let’s hope not, eh?”
I heard the living-room door open and the rustle of clothing.
“Where are you going?” Mum asked.
“For a walk.”
The front door slammed, loud enough to cause the banisters to tremble and a small cloud of plaster dust to fall from the landing wall above me.
Dad must have gone for a long walk, because I didn’t hear him come back. I must have fallen asleep. But I did hear something else I had never heard before: Mum crying.
2016
I sit down in a pew near the rear of the church. It’s empty, predictably. People have found other places of worship these days. Bars and shopping centers, TV and virtual, online worlds. Who needs the word of God when the word of some reality-TV star will do just as well?
I haven’t been inside St. Thomas’s myself since Sean Cooper’s funeral, even though I have walked past it a lot. It’s a quaint old building. Not as big or grandiose as Anderbury Cathedral, but pretty, nonetheless. I like old churches, but just to look at rather than worship inside. Today is an exception, although I am not really here to worship. I’m not really sure why I’m here.
St. Thomas stares down at me benevolently from the large stained-glass window. Patron saint of who the hell knows? For some reason, I imagine him as a cool sort of saint. Not a boring Mary or Matthew. A bit of a hipster. Even the beard is back in fashion.
I wonder if saints have to live completely blameless lives or if you can live like a sinner then just perform a few miracles and be sainted anyway? That seems to be the way with religion. Murder, rape, kill and maim, but all will be forgiven as long as you repent. Never seemed entirely fair to me. But then God, like life, is not fair.
Besides, as Mr. Christ himself pointed out, who among us is without sin? Most people have done bad stuff at some point in their lives, stuff they wish they could take back, stuff they regret. We all make mistakes. We all have good and bad in us. Just because someone does one terrible thing, should that overshadow all the good things they’ve done? Or are there some things so bad that no good act can redeem them?
I think about Mr. Halloran. About his beautiful pictures, about the way he saved Waltzer Girl’s life, and how—in a way—he saved my dad and me, too.
Whatever he may have done afterward, I don’t believe he was a bad man. Just like Mickey wasn’t a bad kid. Not really. Yes, he could be a little shit at times, and I’m not entirely sure I liked the adult he grew into either. But did anyone really hate him enough to kill him?
I stare back at St. Thomas. He isn’t being a lot of help. I am not feeling any divine inspiration. I sigh. I’m probably reading too much into all of this. Mickey’s death was almost certainly a tragic accident and the letter just an unpleasant coincidence. Probably just some malicious troll who discovered our addresses and wanted to cause mischief. At least, that’s what I have been trying to convince myself of ever since the police visit.
The problem is, whoever sent the letters, they’ve succeeded. They have cracked open the box. The one I keep tightly sealed, locked and padlocked, right at the very back of my mind. And once open, Ed’s box, just like Pandora’s, is a bit of a bugger to close again. Worse, what lies at the bottom is not hope. But guilt.
There’s a song I’ve listened to, something Chloe plays a lot and I have grown relatively tolerant of, by some punk/folk singer: Frank Turner.
The chorus is about no one getting remembered for the things they didn’t do.
But that’s not entirely true. My life has been defined by the things I didn’t do. The things I didn’t say. I think it’s the same for a lot of people. What shapes us is not always our achievements but our omissions. Not lies; simply the truths we don’t tell.
When the police showed me that letter, I should have said something. I should have gone and shown them the identical letter I had received. But I didn’t. I still don’t know why, just as I can’t truly say why I never confessed about the things I knew or did all those years ago.
I don’t even know how to feel about Mickey’s death. Every time I try to picture him now all I see is young Mickey, twelve-year-old Mickey, with his mouth full of metal and his eyes full of spite. Yet he was still a friend. And now he is gone. No longer a part of my memories but simply a memory.
I stand and bid St. Tommy goodbye. As I turn to leave I see movement. The vicar. A plump, blond-haired woman who favors wearing Ugg boots with her vicar’s smock. I’ve seen her around town. She seems nice enough, for a vicar.
She smiles. “Did you find what you need?”
Maybe the church has become more like a shopping center than I realized. Sadly, my basket remains empty.
“Not yet,” I say.
—
Mum’s car is parked outside when I get back. Shit. I remember now our conversation about Mittens, aka the Hannibal Lecter of the cat world. I shove open the door, shed my coat on the coat-stand and walk into the kitchen.
Mum is sitting at the table, Mittens—thankfully—is in a cat box by her feet. Chloe stands at the counter, making coffee. She is dressed, relatively modestly for Chloe, in a baggy sweatshirt, leggings and stripy socks.
Despite this, I can still feel Mum’s disapproval radiating outward like an aura. Mum doesn’t like Chloe. I never expected her to. She never liked Nicky either. There are some girls mums will never like, and of course they are exactly the sort of girls you will always fall head over heels in love with.
“Ed—at last,” Mum says. “Where have you been?”
“I, err, just went for a walk.”
Chloe turns. “And you didn’t think to tell me your mum was coming over?”
They both glare at me. As if the fact that they can’t stand being in each other’s company is my fault.
“Sorry,” I say. “I lost track of time.”
Chloe plonks a mug in front of my mum and says to me, “Make yourself some coffee. I’m going for a shower.”
She exits the room and Mum looks at me. “Charming girl. Can’t imagine why she hasn’t got a boyfriend.”
I walk over to the coffee machine. “Perhaps she’s just fussy.”
“That’s one word for her.”
Before I can retort she says, “You look terrible.”
I sit down. “Thanks. I got some bad news last night.”
“Oh?”
I recount as concisely as possible the events of the last thirty-six hours.
Mum sips her coffee. “How sad. And to think, that’s just how his brother died.”
Something I have thought about. A lot.
“Fate can be cruel sometimes,” she says. “Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me, though.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Well, Mickey always seemed like a boy who didn’t have a lot of luck in life. First, his brother. Then that awful accident with Gavin.”
“That was his fault,” I say indignantly. “He was the driver. Gav’s the one who’s in a wheelchair because of him.”
“And that’s a lot of guilt to live with, to weigh you down.”
I stare at her, exasperated. Mum always likes to see the opposite point of view, which is fine, when it doesn’t concern you, your friends or your loyalties.
“He didn’t look
like he was weighed down by anything except an expensive shirt and a nice new set of veneers.”
Mum ignores me, just like she used to when I was a little boy and I said something she considered unworthy of comment.
“He was going to write a book,” I say.
She puts her mug down and her face grows more serious. “About what happened, when you were children?”
I nod. “He wanted me to help him.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said I’d think about it.”
“I see.”
“There was something else—he said he knew who killed her.”
She looks at me with her wide, dark eyes. Even at seventy-eight, they are still sharp and clear.
“Did you believe him?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“Did he say anything else about the things that happened back then?”
“Not really. Why?”
“Just curious.”
But Mum never asks a question because she’s just curious. Mum never just does anything.
“What is it, Mum?”
She hesitates.
“Mu-um?”
She lays a cool, crinkled hand on mine. “It’s nothing. I’m sorry about Mickey. I know you hadn’t seen him for a long time. But you were friends, once. You must be upset.”
I’m about to push her on it when the kitchen door opens and Chloe walks back in.
“Need a refill,” she says, holding up her mug. “Not interrupting, am I?”
I glance at Mum.
“No,” she says. “Not at all. I was just going.”
—
Before she departs Mum leaves several large bags which are apparently vital for Mittens’s continuing harmony and well-being.
Based upon previous experience, I thought all Mittens needed for continuing harmony and well-being was an endless supply of baby birds and mice to disembowel, usually on my bed while I’m waking with a hangover, or on the kitchen table while I’m eating breakfast.
I release him from his cat box and we regard each other suspiciously before he leaps up onto Chloe’s lap and stretches out with barely disguised feline smugness.
I hate cruelty to animals but, for Mittens, I could make an exception.
I leave the pair of them settled on the sofa, purring contentedly (Chloe or Mittens, I’m not quite sure). Then I walk upstairs to my study, unlock a drawer in my desk and take out the innocuous brown envelope. I stuff it into my pocket and walk back downstairs.
“Just popping to the shop,” I shout, and before Chloe can give me a shopping list to rival War and Peace and potentially wallpaper a small room, I hurry out of the house.
It’s a market day. So the streets are already lined with cars that couldn’t get a space in one of the car parks in town. Soon the coaches will arrive and the narrow pavements will become jammed with tourists, peering at Google Maps and pointing iPhones at anything with a beam or a thatched roof.
I walk to the small corner shop, buy a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. Then I make my way across town to The Bull. Cheryl is serving, but Gav is not, for once, sitting at his usual table nearby.
Before I even reach the bar Cheryl looks up. “He’s not here, Ed…and he already knows.”
—
I find him in the playground. The old one, where we used to hang around on hot, sunny days, munching on gobstoppers and Wham bars. The one where we found the drawings that led us to her body.
He sits in his wheelchair, near the old bench. From here you can just about see the glint of the river and the crime-scene tape still fluttering around the trees where they pulled Mickey’s body from the water.
The gate creaks as I push it open. The swings have resumed their traditional position, twisted around the bar at the top. There is litter on the ground, and cigarette butts, some more suspicious-looking than others. I’ve seen Danny Myers and his gang hanging around here in the evenings. Not in the day. No one ever comes here in the day.
Gav doesn’t turn as I approach, although he must have heard the gate creak. I sit down on the bench next to him. He has a paper bag in his lap. He holds it out to me. Inside is a selection of retro sweets. Even though I don’t really feel like it, I take a flying saucer.
“Three quid this cost me,” he says. “From one of those posh sweet shops. Remember how we used to buy a big bag for 20p?”
“I do. That’s why I’ve got so many fillings.”
He chuckles, but it sounds forced.
“Cheryl said you know about Mickey,” I say.
“Yep.” He takes out a white mouse and chomps on it. “And I’m not even going to pretend I’m sorry.”
I’d believe him, except I can see that his eyes are red-rimmed and his voice is a little thick. When we were kids, Fat Gav and Mickey were best friends, until it all started to fall apart. Way before the accident, although that was the final rusty nail in a rotten and splintered coffin.
“The police came to talk to me,” I say. “I was the last person to see Mickey that night.”
“You didn’t push him in, did you?”
I don’t smile, if indeed it is a joke. Gav looks at me and frowns. “It was an accident?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“When they pulled him out of the river they found something in his pocket.”
I glance around the park. It’s not busy. A solitary dog-walker ambles along the riverside path.
I take out my own letter and hand it to him. “One of these,” I say.
Gav leans forward. I wait. Gav always had a pretty good poker face, even as a kid. He could tell a lie almost as smoothly as Mickey. I sense he’s debating whether to tell one now.
“Look familiar?” I say.
He nods and eventually says in a weary tone, “Yeah. I got one. Hoppo, too.”
“Hoppo?”
I let this sink in and, stupidly, for a moment, I feel a familiar childish resentment that they didn’t tell me. Of being left out of the loop.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I ask.
“We both thought it was some kind of sick joke. What about you?”
“The same, I suppose.” I pause. “Except now, Mickey’s dead.”
“Well, it was a good punchline then.”
Gav reaches into the bag of sweets, takes out a cola bottle and stuffs it into his mouth.
I regard him for a moment. “Why do you hate Mickey so much?”
He barks out a small laugh. “You really have to ask?”
“So that’s it? The accident?”
“I think that’s a pretty good reason, don’t you?”
He’s right. Except, suddenly I’m sure he’s holding something back. I reach into my pocket and pull out the unopened packet of Marlboro Lights.
Gav stares at me. “When did you start smoking again?”
“I haven’t. Yet.”
“Got a spare?”
“You cannot be serious?!”
He almost manages a smile.
I open the packet and pull out two cigarettes. “I thought you gave up, too.”
“Yeah. Today seems a good day to break resolutions.”
I hand the cigarette to him. Then I light mine and pass over the lighter. The first drag makes me feel a bit dizzy, a bit sick and a bit fucking fantastic.
Gav blows out smoke and says, “Fuck, these things taste like a pile of stinking Buckaroo.” He glances at me. “But really great stinking Buckaroo, my man.”
We both grin.
“So,” I say. “Seeing as we’re breaking resolutions, want to talk about Mickey?”
He looks down, and the grin fades.
“You know about the accident?” He waves the cigarette. “Stupid question. ’Course you do.”
“I know what people told me,” I say. “I wasn’t there.”
He frowns, remembering. “No, you weren’t, were you?”
“Studying, I guess.”
“Well, Mickey was driv
ing that night. Like always. You know how much he loved that little Peugeot of his.”
“Tore round in it like a maniac.”
“Yeah. That’s why he never drank. He’d rather drive. Me. I’d rather get shitfaced.”
“We were teenagers. That’s what you do.”
Except I didn’t. Not really. Not then. Of course, I’ve more than made up for it since.
“I really went for it at that party. Got stupid drunk. Comatose drunk. When I started throwing up everywhere, Tina and Rich wanted me gone, so they persuaded Mickey to drive me home.”
“But Mickey had been drinking, too?”
“Apparently. I don’t remember seeing him have a drink but then I don’t remember much about that night.”
“He was over the limit when he was breathalyzed?”
He nods. “Yeah. Except he told me someone must have spiked his drink.”
“When did he tell you that?”
“He came to visit me in hospital. He didn’t even say sorry, just started going on about how it wasn’t really his fault. Someone had put booze in his drink and if I hadn’t been so out of it he wouldn’t have had to drive me home anyway.”
Typical Mickey. Always shifting the blame onto someone else.
“I understand why you still hate him.”
“I don’t.”
I stare at him, cigarette poised on the way to my lips.
“I did,” he says. “For a while. I wanted to blame him. But I couldn’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The accident isn’t the reason I don’t talk about Mickey, or why I never wanted to see him again.”
“Then why?”
“Because it reminds me that I deserved what happened. I deserve to be in this chair. It’s karma. For what I did.”
Suddenly I hear Mr. Halloran’s voice again:
“Karma. What you sow, you reap. You do bad things and they’ll come back eventually and bite you on the backside.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
“I killed his brother.”
1986
As well as cleaning houses for people, Hoppo’s mum also cleaned the primary school, the vicarage and the church.
That’s how we found out about Reverend Martin.
Gwen Hopkins arrived at St. Thomas’s as usual on Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m., to mop, dust and polish before the first service at 9:30 a.m. (I guess Sunday rest didn’t apply to those doing the reverend’s work.) The clocks hadn’t gone back, so it was still pretty dark as she walked up to the big oak doors, took out the key she kept on a rack in her kitchen and inserted it into the lock.
