by Guy Johnson
We all had alibis. That’s what the police wanted to know: did we all have solid alibis? Yes, we did.
Ian was helping Dad out with a job – the police were very interested in that too, asking many questions.
Della was at her friend Melanie’s house, whose mum could verify on-account-of-that-pop-racket!
I was at Justin’s, something I said very quietly, as Dad was there, listening. I wondered if it would come up later: my breaking one of Mum’s rules. It didn’t. Had I mentioned exactly where I’d been - at the derelict house on the edge of the dump - things might have been different. But I didn’t, and my crime against our mother went unpunished.
‘Are we suspects?’ I asked, thinking it was the right thing to say, like something from Dempsey and Makepeace, or Juliet Bravo. Della sniggered, coldly.
‘We just need to clear a few things up,’ a policewoman told me, smiling kindly, not really answering, though.
Mum had been in a funny mood that morning. She wanted us all out of the house; out from under her feet. She positively encouraged Ian to go with Dad, which was unheard of.
‘Why don’t you go with them?’ Mum said to me, almost frightened I might not find something to keep me occupied elsewhere.
‘I might stay in,’ I told her, testing, seeing what she’d say.
‘Thought you might be out with that Walter boy,’ she said, full of hope, taking a pound note from her purse and leaving it on the kitchen counter as an encouragement to disappear. Walter Smith was a boy from my school; I wasn’t friends with him, but he was my cover story for when I sneaked off with Justin. I took the money and headed off.
(‘We could get some Superkings,’ Justin suggested when I called for him. But I had my heart set on some Drumsticks and a bag of Space Dust.)
Della hadn’t needed any incentive to leave the house; she was the first to head off, stating she was hanging out with friends, no names given.
So, one way or another, Mum had the place to herself.
‘Some time just for me,’ she no doubt told the empty place.
We all just reckoned she was planning to spruce the place up; getting us off the premises, so she could have a thorough clear-out. Ransacking the cupboards; chucking away broken toys; lining drawers with old wallpaper; washing nets and dusting the pelmets over the windows; filling the oven up with that deadly white foam; windows smeared pink with Windolene; tea-stained cups soaking in bleach; bathroom gritty with Ajax; kitchen floor sparkling with Flash; carpets peppered with Shake ‘n’ Vac.
But that’s not what she had in mind.
And that’s not how we found the house.
She closed all the curtains up- and down-stairs at the front of the house. And at the back, she drew the back-room curtains and pulled down the kitchen blinds. Giving her total privacy.
She left most of her clothes upstairs – her blouse, her skirt, her tights. Her underwear was in the bathroom, a little circle of it on the floor. Bits of cotton wool, with smears of nail varnish remains on them, were on the bathroom windowsill.
She must have filled the bath up high, as there was water all over the floor, running out of the bathroom and into the kitchen.
Finding her was the oddest thing.
With the curtains closed, the place was dark, shadowy. I tried the lights as I came in, but there was no electricity. Another power cut, I thought at first; we’d had a lot of those during that summer. I opened the curtains in the back room and then, as I went into the kitchen, I saw the long, white extension lead. Plugged into the socket above the cooker, it trailed down over the top of the fridge; a thin, bright white snake against the red and black of the lino. I followed its trail under the bathroom door. Mini water waves slapped against my feet at each tread.
Dad had bought the fan heater home from Red Nanny’s sheltered flat only the night before.
‘It’s packed-in, Anthony,’ she’d told him, using her voice of disgust. I’d gone with him to give Mum a-moment’s-peace. ‘Where was it purchased, again?’
Dad told Nan Buckley that he’d bought it from Covers, a local posh department store, which wasn’t true. Like everything else, it came from Dontask. But it was the kind of thing Red Nanny liked to hear.
‘Well, you can take it back and have them replace it,’ she instructed, so we brought it home with us. As you couldn’t take stuff back to Dontask, Dad had a go at mending it himself.
‘Dodgy connection! Ha!’ he triumphed later, having got the whirry motor going again, filling the front room with unnecessary hot air.
Mum had looked at it suspiciously then; as if she’d known how it was all going to end.
‘I don’t like those things, Tone,’ she’d said, sucking sharply on her cigarette, leaving a lipstick circle on the amber filter. ‘An accident waiting to happen. You sure Doris is ok to use one of those things? You hear such tales.’
‘It’s not clear exactly how the heater got in the bath water, or why she had it going when it was a warm day. She could have had it balanced on the edge of the bath,’ the policewoman explained to us all, kindly, quietly, although you could read something else in her face, like she was searching us for more. ‘Now,’ she continued, opening up a small writing pad and clicking a pen, ‘I just need to ask where you all were this afternoon.’
She would have died quickly, Dad kept reassuring us, like a speedy death was a better one. The shock would have been sharp but the electrics would have blown almost immediately.
‘Out like a light,’ Auntie Stella had mumbled later, numbly.
But I kept thinking of all that water, all over the floor, as if there had been a struggle, and I kept thinking that it wouldn’t have been that quick after all.
‘Mr Buckley,’ the policewoman had asked, once we had all established our whereabouts that afternoon, ‘was your wife unhappy with her lot? It is possible she might have-.’
‘No, no, she wouldn’t have,’ Dad had said, a stretched sound to his voice, like it was getting thinner and thinner, like an old sheet, over-washed, about to rip apart.
‘Or could you or she possibly have any enemies? Anyone who might want to cause your family any harm?’
‘No. No one. No would want to harm my Theresa,’ Dad had said, quietly and they had believed him.
So, now you know.
I lied last time.
No Abba blaring.
No tripping over soggy laundry.
No dishwasher in the way.
But the police, they were there. They were involved.
In the playground, a small crowd had gathered around me to listen.
‘Shit,’ Walter Smith said, when I had finished, his gob open wide to trap wasps.
‘Load of bollocks,’ Roy Fallick responded from the back, shaking his head.
Then the school bell rang and everyone headed off to line up outside our classroom. By lunchtime, interest in me and my macabre tale had all but petered away.
6.
A memory.
We are in a car. Five-of-us. I think. Yes - we are driving at night and there are five of us – but not the usual crowd. Someone is missing; someone has been replaced.
Dad – Dad is missing. Dad has been replaced. `
I’m in the back of the car, sandwiched between my brother and sister. Mum is in the front, driving and the fifth person is next to her. A brand new addition to our family tableaux.
‘Tonight’s our little secret, okay?’ Mum had said to us, repeatedly, fearfully. Terrified that word of what we were doing would get back to headquarters. ‘Dad doesn’t need to hear about this, does he?’
There’s a very dark sky: purple-black. However, there are stars; I remember them. No, not stars – lights. We are high on a hill and we have stopped. I need a wee. Della feels sick. So, we stop the car. Stretch our legs. At night. And there we are, at the top of a hill, looking down on a town.
It looks like a city of stars.
The scene has several soundtracks: distant traffic; my wee making a hissing,
crackling sound as it splashes against a bush; Della making a dry heaving sound, though nothing’s coming out.
‘You’ll be alright, baby. Just a bit of car sickness,’ Mum is telling her.
‘You alright?’ someone asks me - Jackie.
Yes, I think to myself, looking out at the city of stars. How could I not be with that view?
‘What about you?’ I ask. I look at him and he looks tired, has black hollows instead of eyes. ‘What about you, Jackie?’
In my memory, he pats my head, whilst I’m making a zipping up noise with my flies, and then Della finally hurls.
Better out than in, my baby girl.
Back in the car there’s a funny smell in the air – it’s Della’s breath, but you can’t say anything. And anyway, I’m quickly asleep.
And then we are there.
‘We’re there,’ someone confirms. Jackie, I think; yes, it was Jackie’s voice.
I’m awake and look out the window. It’s black-dark now, but I can see some things: a short fat place, a home, with a white picket fence at the front, like in a dream or a pretty picture. But it’s real; I am there.
‘Come on kids,’ Mum and Jackie seem to say between them, blurring in my memory and I can’t tell them apart. They look and sound like the same person. ‘Time to get out of the car. We’re here. We’ve arrived.’
‘Where are we?’ I ask, but Della is sick again, so no one answers.
At least, if they did, I don’t remember.
I don’t remember.
7.
We’d been back at school quite a bit when the attack happened. Harvest Festival had come and gone – Dad gave us three dodgy hair-driers to take, but Della said there was no-way-on-earth she was showing herself up like that, so we ditched them in favour of some tins of marrowfat peas. Half term had passed as well, and it was darker when we walked home from school. November; it happened in November. On a Sunday.
Sundays had always been a traditional day for visiting Red Nanny, or having her visiting us. Mum had never encouraged the latter too much, on account of her having to do all the work even-though-she’s-not-my-mother! So she only tended to come to us on special weekends, like Bank Holidays or Christmastime, and most Sundays Dad would go to her, dragging one of us along to give-your-Nan-a-treat.
But things were still changing, because Mum had gone. Everything is gonna change had been wrapped up with Sorry for your loss and I hadn’t believed either. But it was true. Everything was changing. Day by day – big stuff and small stuff all mixed in together.
Red Nanny and Dad – that changed. Guess it started with us losing Mum.
‘Got a lot of respect for your mother,’ Nan Buckley had said to me once, and it was weird. Got a lot of respect for your mother.
I could see Mum rolling her eyes, arms folded across her chest, with a cigarette in one hand, her face saying pull-the-other-one-Doris.
But I believed her; she meant it. Maybe people just felt different about each other when they got older or were dead; like the rules had changed or something. It had never felt as though she’d liked Mum when she was there. It was as if Nan didn’t quite approve. Like she wasn’t quite good enough for her-precious-Anthony – Mum saying it, all sarky. Nan Buckley was a bit like Mum was when she spoke about Chrissie Tankard, Justin’s mum.
‘You’re more like each other than you think,’ Dad would accuse Nan Buckley, when he thought no one else could hear. Nan would pull a face – one I’d seen on someone else, confirming Dad’s allegation. But now he wasn’t saying anything to her. Another change – he’d stopped visiting her.
‘Go visit her, please,’ he instructed all three of us one Sunday, about a month after the funeral. He handed Ian a fiver and said it was to get some flowers. Ian had given him a long look and then Dad had dug out another crumpled note. ‘Get yourselves something on the way back.’
‘You not coming with us Dad?’ I asked. Pointing out the obvious, Della later stressed.
‘Got things to do, son,’ was all he said. We all knew what that meant, but we didn’t say anything. I just hoped he was nice-drunk when we got in, not salty-stew-drunk.
‘Come on,’ Ian had said, and we’d taken the twenty-minute walk to see Red Nanny in almost silence.
For the first few weeks all three of us visited Nan Buckley, but it got a bit boring. There wasn’t really much to the visits. We took flowers each time and Della would display them nicely, but that was about it.
‘Why doesn’t Dad come?’ I asked on the way home one Sunday, and Ian and Della had just looked at each other, like they knew something. ‘What?’
Ian just shook his head, as if I knew better than to ask.
No more was said.
It could be a bit squashed-in at Nan Buckley’s when we were all there at once. It was even worse if Meals-On-Wheels turned up, which always confused me, cos the lady carried a tray and wore flat shoes, not wheels at all. I always expected her to come along roller-skating, like Michael Crawford on Some Mother’s Do Have ‘Em.
Also, it could be a bit boring; you could spend the whole time thinking about somewhere else you wanted to be.
So, after a few weeks we did a deal and something else changed: it was just me that went to her flat. We all walked together and met up afterwards, but the others headed off towards the crematorium instead. Sometimes I got to keep the fiver Dad gave us; spent it on sweets in the newsagents just before you got to her retirement flat. Nan Buckley never said anything about the flowers we brought her, anyway.
I liked the walk there. The houses that way were very different to ours. The ones down our road were mainly painted. Ours was boring – white, and getting dirty. But there were all sorts of colours – blues, green and yellows. Our neighbours – Mad Barbara and Silent Dan – painted their house a different colour each year. This summer they’d gone-blonde according to Barbara, like she’d had her hair done. The render was bright yellow, with an orange front door. I’d preferred last year’s: turquoise, with a red door.
‘Keeps your spirits up!’ Mad Barbara exclaimed, whenever anyone commented. We all just smiled politely. Everyone knew that Barbara was doo-lally. One year Mum had let slip that it was Dad’s birthday and Barbara had come round that evening with a cake in the shape of a pair of boobs.
‘Think I recognise those,’ Dad had said, and Mum, instead of giving one of her looks, had for once laughed under her hand.
‘Who’s that then?’ Mad Barbara had asked, all innocent.
‘She’s nuts!’ Della had whispered to Ian.
‘She must be if she’s after Dad.’
At the end of our road, the houses changed: they were all red brick and this carried on all the way to Red Nanny’s place. I liked them, though. Coming out of Victoria Avenue, you turned right into St James Road.
Council, was Mum’s single comment if you mentioned that road. Council.
Like it was a bad smell; like shame lived there. But I liked the fact they were all the same, like a blur of red bricks. And the road curved round, so you were never quite sure when it was going to end, not until you were nearly there. I’d liked that too – sometimes it seemed like the road got longer, liked they’d built more houses overnight. Sometimes it seemed shorter, like they had knocked some down. Course, it was just me walking faster or slower, but it made it interesting, like an adventure.
‘How exciting,’ Della had said when I’d tried to explain it, doing that thing where you say the opposite of what you mean, thinking I wouldn’t notice. I didn’t mention it again.
When St James Road finally stopped curving, you were on Red Nanny’s road. It was long and straight and busy with cars, but there was a zebra crossing half way down. You crossed that, walked to the sweet shop and Beverley Courts was just next to it.
On this particular Sunday, things were different again. We nearly always walked there together, splitting just before we got to Nan’s and then meeting up afterwards by the sweet shop. But this time, Ian didn’t come at all; sa
id he had some business to attend to and he left the house ahead of us. So, it was just me and Della. As usual, when we got to the end of St James Road, instead of turning left and walking with me to Red Nanny’s flat at Beverly Courts, Della turned right.
‘You sure you don’t want to come with me?’ she checked, before heading off in the opposite direction, towards the crematorium. ‘And you’ll be alright on your own?’
I’m not sure when the boys started following me – it might have been as far back as our road - but I was only aware of them once Della had gone. Justin and his new friends: Roy Fallick and his soon-to-be stepbrother. Clint, that was his name: Clint Bailey. It wasn’t that me and Justin had fallen out or anything; it’s just something had happened when we’d bumped into Roy and Clint in town that time after swimming; the time I’d run off after Uncle Gary’s car. I wasn’t sure what exactly – maybe they’d shown each other their whatsits, maybe that’s where I went wrong – but whatever it was, they were now hanging out and I just didn’t fit in. There was something menacing about Roy, like whatever he said, however nice, there was something nasty coming next. Something bad hidden. And sometimes you just couldn’t see it coming. He brought something bad out in Justin too: a spitefulness that I didn’t like. So, I’d started to keep away. Started to keep myself to myself.
‘Look who it is,’ Roy called out from behind. I looked back. Della was now a dot in the distance, and the three boys were about ten feet behind me. I still had a five-minute walk to Beverly Courts, so I carried on forward. ‘Oi, Buckley, I’m talking to you.’
I looked back again and decided to stop. I did feel uneasy. Roy had the small branch from a tree in his hand, which he was dragging along behind him, and I wondered where it had come from and what he was going to do. It was a busy road, though, with lots of passers-by, so I guessed they wouldn’t do much to me. And Justin wouldn’t let them, I was certain of that. He might stand there and laugh at the odd insult, but that was it. So, I tried not to worry too much, although I kept walking; kept up my brisk pace.
