by Ben Cheetham
“Perhaps I can be happy at the factory. Maybe I’ll get to like it in time.” Julian sounded unconvincing, even to his own ears.
“Maybe.”
Julian chewed his lip, like he always did when wrestling with uncertainty. “So you think I should talk to my mum?”
“I don’t see you’ve got any choice.”
Eleanor was right on both scores. All his mum had ever wanted was for him to be happy, and she was the only person who could change his dad’s mind. But the thought of bringing them into conflict sat uneasily on his shoulders. He huffed a breath down his nose. “Why does my dad have to be such a hard-nosed bastard? Everything’s got to be his way or no way at all. Why can’t he compromise just this once?”
“I guess he’s used to getting what he wants.” Eleanor added meaningfully, “Like someone else I know.”
“I’m no way as stubborn as him. I know how to compromise.”
“Really? You mean like when you refused to give it even a chance to see if it could work between us with you at uni.”
Oh man, you walked right into that one, Julian thought. “Please, Eleanor, my head’s not up to this.”
“Well do I at least get to know what all this has got to do with you standing me up?”
“Sorry, I’m not up to explaining that either.” When Eleanor let out a low snort as if that’s what she’d expected him to say, Julian hastened to add, “I will tell you, just not right now.”
“When then?”
“When I’ve sorted out what I’m going to do.”
The line was silent a moment. Eleanor’s voice was softer when she spoke again. “Good luck.”
“Thanks, I’ll need it.”
After hanging up, Julian made his way home, taking his time, thinking over what he wanted to say to his mum. He needed to make her realise he was serious about working at the factory – and for the right reasons, too. Only problem was it wasn’t for the right reasons. He didn’t even know the reasons for it. It wasn’t the path of least resistance – that was university. It wasn’t what he wanted – that was unknown. It wasn’t even out of a sense of duty to his dad. Not really. And yet, he sensed, there was a reason, only it lurked far behind his eyes, seemingly beyond the reach of his conscious mind.
“So what do I say?” Julian muttered to himself. “I want to work at the factory because I hate uni and can’t think of anything better to do.” He shook his head. There was no way that would cut it. He tried to catch hold of his thoughts, but they scuttled away into dark holes like rats in a kitchen. “Fucking fuck,” he hissed in frustration. Ever since he’d heard about Joanne Butcher, everything had been in turmoil. He stopped suddenly as if he’d walked smack into a wall. No, he realised, his brow pinching into a frown, this wasn’t about Joanne Butcher. It wasn’t even about the dreams. Sure, those things had compelled him to return home, but they weren’t what threatened to hold him here. That was down to something else, something more recent, more real. Mia. The name rang out in his mind like a bell. Could she be the reason? He doubted it, and yet from the first moment he’d seen her she’d held his attention like no other female ever had. Not because he desired her more than other girls, but because – because of what? He’d quickly come to care for her. Not like a potential lover or a friend. It was beyond that somehow. He didn’t know where the feeling came from or what it might lead to, all he knew was he needed to be close to her and to protect her with everything he had.
But even if Mia was the reason – and that seemed like a big if – he could hardly say that to his mum. He knew what she’d say if he did – she’d say he was infatuated. And maybe she’d be right, but not in the way she meant. No, he needed to give her something more concrete, less intangible. He needed to do the worst thing in the world – he needed to lie.
By the time Julian got home, he’d decided on the lie. He had a whole spiel worked out about how he’d made up his mind to leave university when he realised the factory was struggling. After all, what was the point of him studying business if there was no business left for him to takeover when he graduated? The business needed new blood, new ideas, a fresh injection of energy and enthusiasm. Together, he and Dad would turn things around.
Of course, if he was wrong about the business he’d have no excuse for not returning to university. But he felt sure he wasn’t wrong. There was a tension about his dad’s face, a kind of fear in his eyes he’d never seen before, not even when his mum first got ill.
Julian’s dad was snoring in front of the television. He crept past him to his parents’ bedroom. His mum was in bed. The slackness of sleep gave her face a symmetry it didn’t have when she was awake. She looked like the mother he used to know, only much, much older. He stared at her a long moment, reluctant to wake her. Then, reaching to gently shake her, he said, “Mum, Mum.”
Her eyes flickered open, glassy, struggling to focus. “Julian,” she murmured. “What is it?”
“I…I…” Julian paused, then tried again. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak the lie, not even a few words of it. Then, suddenly, he was leaning forward and tears were streaming down his face. “I’m so confused, so confused, so confused.” He pressed a hand to his eyes as the words bubbled through his lips.
“Shh,” Christine soothed, drowsily drawing Julian’s head onto her shoulder, stroking his hair. Her voice fading off into sleep, she murmured over and over, “Everything’s going to be alright. Everything’s going to be alright.”
Julian felt the tension drain from him, but although his body craved to follow his mum into sleep he didn’t release his grip on wakefulness. After maybe an hour, he rose and left the room. His dad was still asleep on the sofa, the telly blaring. There was a two-thirds empty bottle of whisky and an empty glass on the coffee-table. Julian covered him with a blanket from the back of the sofa. A plate of pasta had been left for him in the kitchen. He took it to his bedroom, followed by Henry, and ate on his bed, thinking about Mia and trying not to think about her, wanting to be with her, yet at the same time wishing he’d never set eyes on her.
Chapter 9
A little after seven am, Julian’s dad came into his bedroom without knocking, still wearing the previous day’s clothes, and looking hung-over. “Right, Julian, get your stuff packed. If you set off in the next half-hour, you should be back in time for afternoon classes.”
Julian wasn’t caught off guard. He was showered and dressed in a shirt, tie and trousers, his hair neatly combed. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” Robert frowned, noticing Julian’s clothes. “And why are you dressed like that?”
“For my first day of work at the factory.”
Robert stared at Julian as if unsure what to make of him. “Is this a wind up? Are you trying to provoke me?”
“I’m trying to show you I’m serious.”
“Serious about what? Screwing up your future?”
“I want to protect my future. I know the factory’s struggling-”
Robert’s frown turned into a scowl. “Who the hell told you that, your mother?”
“No one told me. It’s obvious from the way you’ve been acting lately.”
Robert was silent a moment, chewing his lip. He sighed. “Okay, let’s say you’re right, let’s say the business is going through a difficult patch. In that case, why would I want to take on a new worker?”
“I’ll work for nothing.”
“It’ll still cost money and time to train you. Listen, Julian, if you want to help me, the best thing you can do is finish university.”
“But what’s the point if-”
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Robert burst out. Putting a hand to his head as if it ached, he continued more quietly, “We’re not going through all that again. This matter isn’t up for discussion. Now change out of those clothes and get packed.”
Julian shook his head. He held his dad’s gaze, trying to appear calm while his heart raced. His dad’s expression briefly seemed to be caught between ang
er and disappointment. Then anger tipped the balance. His voice was cold with it, as he said, “You have two choices, Julian: either you do as I say, or you don’t do it. But whatever you do, you’re not stopping in this house.”
“So you’re throwing me out?”
“Yes, if that’s what it takes to make you see sense. I warned you not to push me on this.”
“Okay, fine.” Figuring he was calling his dad’s bluff, Julian stuffed a few things into his rucksack and slung it over his shoulder. His dad watched impassively, arms crossed. Julian walked past him to the kitchen. He stooped to kiss his mum, who was eating breakfast.
Christine twisted round to look at him in surprise. “Are you going back?”
“No. Dad’s throwing me out.”
Her face drew up into a one-sided frown. She looked past Julian at her husband. “Is that true?”
Robert spread his hands. “I’ve tried to reason with him, Christine, but he’s too damned pig-headed to listen. I don’t see what else I can do.”
Julian snorted at the word ‘reason’. “I’ll speak to you soon, Mum. Take care.”
“Hang on,” Christine said, as he turned to leave. “This is ridiculous. Where will you go?”
“Oh don’t worry about him, he’ll bunk-up with his mates, and when they get sick of him and turf him out, he’ll realise how stupid he’s been about this,” Robert said, with more than a hint of condescension.
Biting down on an angry retort, Julian headed for the front door. Even as he stepped through it, he half-expected his dad to call him back, try to reason with him some more. But he didn’t.
Julian drove around aimlessly. He’d intended to go to Kyle’s, beg a place to kip for a few nights, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so with his dad’s parting remark still smarting in his ears. When his car ran low on fuel, he pulled into a petrol station and filled up. He tried to pay with his bank-card, but it was rejected. He guessed at once that his dad had put a stop on it – they had a joint account, which his dad paid a monthly allowance into. “Bastard,” he muttered under his breath, paying with most of the cash in his wallet.
Julian drove to Mia’s school. He sat hunched down like some kind of deviant, scanning the faces in the playground. Mia was stood alone in the crowd, as if on her own little island. He left the car and called to her through the railings. Although she must’ve heard him, she turned to go into the school building. Sucking his lip with annoyance, he returned to the car. It flashed through his mind to drive out of town at top speed in some random direction, and keep driving until the tank was empty. He didn’t, though. He rolled a joint and smoked away the turbulence in his veins, smoked away the morning. When Mia reappeared at lunchtime, he approached her at the gates.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. She blanked him. He dogged along after her. “Please, Mia.”
“Go away.”
“Not until you talk to me about what happened yesterday.”
“Go away or I’ll scream.”
“Just answer me one question.”
Mia stopped and let out a scream. Other school kids stopped, too, turning towards her in surprise and curiosity. “Hey, what’s going on?” asked somebody.
“Okay, okay I’m going.” Julian backed away from Mia. I’m sorry, he mouthed, before heading to his car. He drove to the bridge and leant over the handrail, wondering what Mia saw when she stood there. The look that came into her eyes reminded him of something, he realised. It reminded him of the way his Grandma Alice had looked all those years ago when she’d burst into the bedroom after the séance. It was the look of someone seeing, or trying to see, into the unknown, the beyond. But who did her eyes search for there? And why did it matter to him? Why did this nobody girl matter so much to him? He wondered if there was a connection between the one and the other. He stared into the water, the water stared back inscrutably, holding onto its secrets jealously.
Julian drove to The Cut. He bought a beer with the last of his money and sipped it slowly, making it last as long as possible. His eyes were never far from the clock on the wall behind the bar. At three o’clock he returned to the school, parking where he could see the gate, but out of the line of sight of a casual glance from the gate. At the end of the school day, when the kids streamed home, he followed Mia in his car, careful to keep his distance. She went straight to her foster parents’ house, speaking to no one along the way. He parked on the busy main-road at the end of the street out of sight of the house. The street was a cul-de-sac, so Mia couldn’t leave it without him knowing. One hour passed, two, three. The street-lamps flickered into life. A girl emerged from the street, walking quickly, head down as if she didn’t want to see or be seen by anyone. She was almost past the car before Julian realised it was Mia, looking so different as to be almost unrecognisable. Gone were the torn fishnets, leather jacket, heavy makeup and facial piercings. She wore a knee-length summer dress that clung to her pencil waist, flat pumps and little makeup other than childish pink lipstick. Her hair was dyed sandy blonde and tied back in a ponytail. It gave Julian a jolt to see her. It was as if she’d found an old newspaper photo of Susan Carter and got herself up to look like it.
Julian lowered the driver’s side window. “Mia.”
She hurried onwards, seeming not to hear. He got out of the car, calling her name again. She started and looked up. A frown gathered between her eyes. “Are you stalking me or something?”
“What’s going on? Why do you look like…like that?”
“How many times have I got to tell you to leave me the fuck alone?”
“Please, Mia. If you’re in trouble, I can-”
Mia’s hiss silenced Julian mid-sentence. She turned away from him and continued walking. He followed her. Her eyes flashed an angry glance at him. “Do you want me to scream again?”
“Scream your lungs out. I don’t care.”
“Why are you doing this? What the fuck am I to you? I mean, you don’t want to fuck me. And we’re not even friends.”
“I…I like you, that’s all. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
Mia stopped and turned to Julian. Her eyes were softer than before, but there was a kind of contempt behind them too. “You’re too late, Julian. The bad thing already happened.”
He shook his head hard. “It’s not too late. You’re still here, still alive.”
“Just because something looks alive on the outside doesn’t mean it’s alive on the inside.”
“Maybe so, but there’s nothing dead about you.”
“How the fuck would you know? You can’t see inside me.”
“Then open up. Show me what’s inside you. It can’t be any worse than what’s inside me.”
Mia snorted, the contempt at the front of her eyes now. “There are no dreams inside me, rich boy. I can’t afford them. There’s nothing inside me but piss, shit and cheap vodka. I’m sick, rotten, like this fuckhole of a town. Can’t you smell me? I can and it makes me want to puke.”
Before Mia finished speaking, she started walking again. Again, Julian followed. “You don’t have to do this. Whatever it is.” Mia ignored him, but he persisted, “I can help. Just tell me how.”
Mia whirled suddenly and slapped Julian, her nails drawing blood. They stared at each other a moment, him with his mouth hanging open, her po-faced. Then she resumed walking away from him. This time, he didn’t follow. Head hanging, he returned to his car. He watched Mia dwindle from sight. He thought about Susan Carter, missing all these years, her parents still not knowing for sure what happened to her. He thought about Joanne Butcher, her maggoty eye sockets, her livid, bloated flesh. “No.” The word hissed out from between his tight-pressed lips. “No fucking way.”
Julian drove after Mia. There was a set of traffic lights ahead on red. He braked, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, muttering, “C’mon, c’mon,” as Mia turned a corner.
The lights changed. He accelerated around the corner. His heart accelerated too. Mia w
as nowhere to be seen. Jerking his head from side to side, he spotted her a short distance along a side street bordered only by a windowless building. She approached a black Mercedes with its lights off. Julian wondered who the hell she knew with a car like that, as she opened the backdoor and ducked inside. He could see two other figures in the car – one in the driver’s seat, the other in the backseat. But the light was too dim to make out their features. They disappeared from sight as the car’s headlights glared into life. As the car pulled out of the street, he caught another glimpse of them. The driver was a middle-aged white man with a dark beard and shades. Big and serious-looking, not the kind of guy you’d want to tangle with, and wearing what looked like a chauffeur’s uniform. The figure beside Mia was a busty woman in a low-cut black dress, thirtyish, red-hair piled into an intricate coil, good looking, but with a hard-bitten edge. Mia was staring out the window towards Julian, but she didn’t see him. She had that somewhere else look on her face again.
The Mercedes headed for the southern suburbs. Julian tailed it at what he thought was an inconspicuous distance, his mind whirring with the possibilities of what Mia might be getting herself into. He pictured Mr Ugly’s snoutish nose sniffing at her. He pictured a tongue emerging like a fat pink worm from thick, leering lips to lick at her. He pictured powerful, hairy-backed fingers closing around her throat. The images passed before his eyes in a sickeningly vivid cavalcade. The Mercedes put on a sudden burst of speed, jumping a red light. He pressed down hard on the accelerator. There was a crunch of smashing glass and crumpling metal, and his neck snapped to one side as a car hit the front end of his car and swung it around.
An electric shock of pain crackled from his neck to his feet, as he twisted his head to watch the Mercedes speed into the distance. When it passed out of sight, a thought struck him like a knife sliding under his skin, that’s it, Mia’s gone and I’ll never see her again.
