by SJI Holliday
‘Fine. I’m just late.’ I scanned the tables, let my eyes settle on an empty one at the back. It was still littered with dirty cups, a plate with a half-eaten pastry and a screwed-up red napkin. ‘I’ll have a croissant,’ I said. I contemplated the thought of a hot chocolate, then decided it might make me feel worse. ‘And a Coke. Please.’ I sat down and started piling up the dirty cups and plates, but before I could finish the waitress appeared and scooped it all onto a tray with a practised effortlessness.
I was busy straightening the napkins into their little clip-holder when Scott turned up with a tray. He’d brought me what I’d asked for, plus a black coffee for himself … he looked like he needed it. Plus a hot chocolate in a tall glass mug. It had cream on top.
I sighed, and started spooning the cream into my mouth. He knew me better than I realised.
He took a sip of coffee and made a face. Either it was too strong or too bitter, or both. Then I remembered he didn’t even like coffee. I opened my mouth to say so, but he silenced me with a raised hand.
‘Look … This is not going to be easy, so I’m just going to blurt it out. You don’t need to say anything …’
I nodded. My raised eyebrows saying ‘go ahead’. I took a bite out of the croissant and the flakes of pastry fell down all over the front of my black top like dandruff.
‘I’ve been sacked …’ He paused, searching for my reaction. I ripped off a piece of croissant and dipped it in the chocolate. This was what French kids did for breakfast, apparently. So they told us in the textbooks at school anyway. Except they had oversized teacups like bowls. Not these stupid long glasses with a handle at the bottom that if you actually used you’d tip the whole thing over. I’d have loved to know who designed those things, with their complete ergonomic disastrousness.
‘Go on …’
He blinked once, then carried on. ‘I, uhm … we …’ Another pause. This time I just stared at him. That creeping feeling of bile burning its way up my throat.
I ripped off a piece of croissant. ‘“We”?’
‘Me and Kirsty …’
He pulled a face.
‘I fucking knew it. Get caught in the stationery cupboard, did you?’
‘Something like that … I’m sorry, Jo. It was one of those stupid things. She was all over me. She never bloody stopped. To be honest, I don’t care about that – I care about my job – getting sacked – I’d been there nearly fifteen years, Jo. I was looking at a massive pension. My career is ruined now. What the hell am I going to do?’
I swallowed, and felt the croissant sticking to the back of my throat. I stared hard at Scott. ‘I don’t fucking believe you,’ I said.
He downed his coffee and shuddered. ‘What?’
He sounded pathetic, like a kicked puppy. I wasn’t sure how to react. How he wanted me to react.
My face must’ve given me away.
He started to cry. ‘What the hell am I going to do, Jo?’
‘To be honest, Scott,’ I said, ‘I couldn’t care less.’
All this melodrama about a bloody job? He hardly seemed to care that he had cheated, but then I couldn’t really be outraged about that, given my own situation. I was just pissed off that he’d tried to turn this all round to be about him, when all I had really wanted was someone I could trust.
He was just another one to strike off my list.
I stood up to leave. ‘Out of interest, Scott – where have you been going every day when you’ve been pretending to go to work?’
His expression was strange and I couldn’t decide if it was guilt, confusion or something in between. ‘I just go walking, Jo. Along the Track …’
34
Making a mental note to tell Gray that Scott had been spending his days hanging about at the Track, I left him there with his empty coffee cup and went to work. It felt like I hadn’t actually done any work in days. With everything that had been going on, I wasn’t really with it. Craig’s face told me I was pushing our friendship too far, but, being who he was, he soon perked up and tried to pretend everything was all right.
‘Could you sort out the travel section today, Jo? There’s two boxes full of new stuff through the back. I was thinking we could get rid of some of the old stuff in a wee sale? What do you think?’
‘S’pose so,’ I said. I walked over to the current sale table, which was looking a bit bare and boring and picked up the pile of ‘How To’ books that sat there. We’d managed to off-load a few, but it seemed that there really was no one who was interested in How To Make Your Own Vitamins. ‘Bargain bucket then?’ I said, gesturing to the dog-eared stragglers.
‘Whatever you think,’ Craig said. He disappeared behind the counter, presumably to start replacing the ‘Last Minuters’ – the small, supposedly quirky or funny books we left next to the till for that moment when you’re ringing up the pile of purchases and the customer suddenly decides that they’d like one. The current bestseller was 18th-Century Tips for Husbands, unsurprisingly bought by women.
I stacked up the last of the sale books and tossed them into the bargain bin – everything a pound. There wasn’t a book we hadn’t managed to sell at that price, even if they inevitably ended up in someone’s recycling bin or the Sue Ryder shop a few days later. The bargain bin was a large plastic tub, and sometimes people treated it like a lucky dip, deciding they’d buy whatever they pulled out. I decided to give it a shake to shuffle up the contents. I didn’t think having all of the How To’s on the top was likely to pique anyone’s interest.
There was no one in the shop, but as soon as I tipped the contents of the bargain bin onto the floor (it was too heavy to actually shake), the bell above the door pinged and a rabble of school kids shoved their way in. I glanced up at the clock behind the till: 12.30. Jesus. I was losing track of time.
The kids liked to hunt in packs, even in the bookshop. They huddled in small groups around the YA fiction – the girls were still interested in sexy vampires, although I couldn’t see the appeal myself. The boys were starting to get into the more adult thrillers. Spies, espionage, running across rooftops with their tops off fighting kung fu warriors. That kind of thing. I liked to keep an eye on their interests. Listen to what they said. Always trying to find them the ‘next big thing’. That was the best part of my job, and the girls in particular loved to talk to me about books – I could even convincingly tell them whether I was pro-vampire or pro-wolf. God, they were gullible. I’d never read books like that. I was much more of a realist when it came to fiction. Gritty, character-led dramas that reassured me that there were people with worse fucked-up lives than mine – even if they were only fictional. I’d particularly enjoyed the trend in Scandinavian crime – brutal, straight-talking stuff set in bleak landscapes. Complete escapism, despite the authenticity of it all.
‘Jo?’
It was one of the fifth years, Katie Williams. Her mum worked in the bakers next door. She was one of a trio. The three of them like triplets, with their willowy figures and flipped-over dark-blonde hair. Skinny legs poking out of too-short skirts, rolled up at the waistbands after they left their homes every morning. Eyeliner and lipgloss hastily applied using a hand mirror round the corner from the school gates. I’ve made them sound awful, but actually they were all right. They seemed to like me, anyway, which was always nice.
I stood up from the scattered books. ‘Yes, ladies?’ I always called them that. They always giggled.
‘Lindsey was wondering if you still had Fifty Shades of Grey …’ Giggles.
I looked from Katie’s face to the other two. One of them had a spot of pink at the tops of her cheeks. The other was looking down, but her shoulders were shaking slightly and I could see she was trying hard not to laugh. Katie had managed to maintain a look of wild-eyed innocence and I worried for her future. She was going to be a nightmare.
‘Oh, it’s for Lindsey, is it? You two have already read it then, I presume? Can’t you just lend her one of your copies?’
‘I got mine from
the library,’ Katie said, deadpan.
‘Me too,’ the other one said, smirking.
I had a feeling there was a wind-up going on here. A bet maybe. I wasn’t in the mood. I marched over to the corner, where we still had a small display of modern ‘erotica’, even though its time seemed to have come and gone, so to speak, and picked up the book, along with the other two in the trilogy. I handed them to Lindsey and she took them. Her cheeks shone like Christmas baubles.
‘Um, thanks,’ she muttered.
The other two looked at me questioningly. They’d wanted a bit of banter. They’d wanted me to tease the girl as to why she hadn’t read them. I wanted to know why they were in the shop pissing about when there was some nutcase getting ready to attack one of their friends up at the Track.
‘Craig will serve you,’ I said, turning back towards the books strewn across the floor.
The three girls shuffled over to the till. Their giggles had gone.
‘Oh, and girls?’ I raised my voice slightly, just enough so the boys in the corner pawing over the latest Lee Child could hear. Their heads lifted in unison, like meerkats. ‘If you need any help working out what to do with a vibrating cock ring, I’m sure one of that lot will be more than happy to help you out.’
The boys dissolved into laughter. All three girls had gone the colour of ketchup.
Craig’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything until they’d all left, a few minutes later. The boys were still laughing, making lewd comments at the girls’ backs as they left. Katie threw me a glance over her shoulder and I rolled my eyes back at her.
‘That was a bit mean, Jo. You know those girls like you.’
‘They were trying to embarrass their friend. Two against one. That’s a bit mean, isn’t it?’
‘You didn’t have to humiliate them, though! Those boys will tell their mates … They’ll make their life hell.’
‘They have to learn. Besides, it’ll be over before you know it. One-day wonder.’
Craig shook his head. ‘Have you forgotten what it was like at school? That Lindsey – she looked nervous enough as it was. She won’t forget that in a hurry. They’re only kids, for Christ’s sake!’
‘They’re old enough to read that book, they’re old enough to learn.’ I threw the pile of books into the bargain bin and the vibration almost knocked over the flimsy fold-up wooden table next to it – the one I was meant to be putting the travel books on. I hadn’t got very far.
‘Right,’ Craig shouted. He never shouted. I took a step back as he marched out from behind the counter to the door, turned the lock, flipped the closed sign over to open. An old woman outside gave him a questioning face and he held up his hand, fingers splayed wide.
She nodded and walked off.
He turned back to me. ‘Right, Jo. I’ve had enough of this. I can’t keep carrying you. Either you talk to me properly, or … I don’t know. Fuck! You were worse than useless on Saturday, you buggered off early on Monday and left Sharon with the bloody kids’ club on her own … Today you come in an hour late and then proceed to go for a coffee for another hour, before you come in, do fuck all, then upset the kids who probably buy more books from us during the week than … Jo? Where the fuck do you think you’re going now?’
I turned the lock on the door, yanked it open, walked out without another word. Those girls had to learn. They had to learn that men are only after one thing.
Sooner they learned that, the better.
35
There are things that I haven’t told anyone. I’ve wanted to, but somehow the time has never been right. I wanted to tell Craig, but I wasn’t sure our fragile friendship could stand it. With Claire, though, it was different. It had always been a love/hate thing. She was one of those friends that you stick with no matter what happens, although I do often wonder if we hadn’t been bonded by what happened to her, would we still be friends now?
I left the bookshop and walked round to Claire’s work. I saw her behind the desk, sitting there alone, face lit up from the glare of her computer screen, and I realised that there was never going to be a good time. I had to get it off my chest.
She lifted her head and smiled when I walked in. I think she was expecting a customer, though, because her mouth twisted into a frown when she realised it was me.
‘What’re you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?’
‘Craig been on the phone crying about me, has he? He’s being a right dick at the moment.’
‘Christ, Jo. You’ve been a mess since you left Scott’s. He’s worried about you. I am too.’
I sat down on the window ledge. Looked out to see if anything exciting was happening on the street.
‘Jo? Are you listening to me?’
I turned back to face her. ‘Look, Claire. This is not about Scott. I need to tell you something. A few things, actually. I’ve been waiting for the right time, but it seems like there’s never a right time … and what with Scott and me splitting up, I dunno … It’s made me want to wipe the slate clean or something. Confess my sins …’
‘Don’t you need a priest for that?’ she quipped.
I ignored her. ‘Remember when you were away at uni and I moved up town for a bit?’
She took in a breath, let it slowly back out. ‘Of course …’
‘Well, you know I ended up in hospital … after I …’
‘You don’t need to say it.’
‘I do. After I tried to kill myself in the bath … and Lisa found me. I wonder what happened to Lisa? I never went back to that flat after the hospital. I came straight back to Banktoun, thought I’d be able to make it work, living here again …’
‘Jo …’ she warned, urging me to get on with it. ‘Why don’t you just spit it out?’
‘I never told anyone why I did it.’
‘I know that.’
‘I tried. I did. I tried to tell Craig, but … well.’
She nodded. ‘He’s happy with Rob, Jo. You should leave him be.’
‘He’s not. I know he’s not. Anyway … I did it because of my gran.’
‘Grief is a terrible thing, Jo. No one blames you for reacting like that. You have to understand, people just want to help you. You could’ve told me this before, you know. I mean, I guessed that anyway. First there was … well, there was what happened to me … And then your parents died, and God, that was just so horrible, Jo … And then finally you seemed to be on track and then your gran died. You know what, if I could go back to uni now, I’d do science and go and work in a lab and find the cure for bloody cancer, because seriously, that is the most—’
I cut her off. ‘She didn’t die from cancer, Claire.’
‘What?’ She’d been knocked off her stride, so sure she knew all the pieces of the jigsaw – then I just waded in there with my sledgehammer and smashed the whole thing to pieces.
‘What did she die from then, Jo? Was it a secondary illness? Did she have a heart attack? Did she—’
‘Shut up, Claire.’
She flinched, and I knew what was coming. But I kept going. My voice loud in the small office. ‘Come on, Claire. Do I have to fucking spell it out for you?’
I could see her eyes starting to glaze over. She was going to bloody fade out, right at this crucial point. Right at the point of my confession.
‘It was me, Claire. I killed her.’
THE BOY
The new house is much smaller than the last. Poky rooms, plain walls. One of the posh-looking ones near the river. He never expected to find himself here. He misses the old farmhouse. He even misses the other boy. It was the first time he’d felt like he had a brother, of sorts.
This is his fifth home in fifteen years.
One more to go before he’s on his own.
It started with the shoebox on the steps of the hospital, although he doesn’t remember that one, of course. He wonders if they ever tracked down his mother. He imagined her on a dirty mattress in a stinking flat full of junkies. He’d s
een it in that film Trainspotting that he and the other boy had sneaked into the cinema to see.
After living in the hospital for a year (although he didn’t really count that as a home), the next was with a young couple who were desperate for a little boy. He only lasted a year. The withdrawal from the smack addiction he’d been born with caused too many problems. Screaming, shitting little rag that he was.
‘But he’s clean from it now,’ he imagined the nurses telling the petrified, red-eyed wretches who’d tried to be his parents.
He’d learned all this much later, of course. From the miserable bitch in the third home – the woman he called ‘mother’ for the sole reason that he’d been brought up by her since he could barely walk.
He got taken away from her when he was ten, after setting fire to her shed.
He never got a chance to tell her that he was trying to save her from her filthy beast of a husband and his collection of disgusting photographs.
He lasted three years in the next house.
An elderly couple whose real children had all flown the nest.
He imagined the old man to be like the old toymaker in Pinocchio, looking for a little companion to while away his boredom.
The woman sat glued to the TV all day. Black and white films. Bottle of gin by her side as she stared at the screen with wet eyes.
The old man told him they were building something to make the old woman happy. A wooden cabinet with a tray. Something to lay her books on, her drinks, her plate of Ritz crackers, which he was never allowed to eat.
At first he let the old man cuddle him. It felt nice, the strong, warm arms wrapped around his back. Feeling the old man’s heartbeat pressing into his chest, synching with his own.
He didn’t even mind when they did it with tops off. It was hot in the workshop. Their clothes stuck to both of their wiry bodies with sweat built up from the wood turning, the planing, the sanding of the wood.
The smell of wood shavings and sticky bodies. The old man’s hairy chest tickling his own smooth skin.
