Never Ending

by Martyn Bedford

  “Hey, Mikey,” Shiv says.

  He gives her a nod. Gets back to work, even though the piece of furniture is too heavy for him. Apart from the bed and its stripped mattress, his room is bare.

  “Need a hand with that, mate?”

  Docherty. The commotion has drawn Lucy and Helen, too. Mikey says he can manage but Docherty eases past Shiv and Caron and takes hold of the other end of the wardrobe. The boys manoeuvre it through the doorway to join the rest of the stuff. Assistant Webb arrives just then, too late; all he can do is stand and look.

  Caron surveys the room. “Nice one,” she says. “Like a bloody prison cell.”

  Shiv nods. “Exactly.”

  At Walk, Shiv doesn’t try to think about her brother. She has found that the surest way to let him enter her head is not to force things but to clear her mind, to think of nothing at all. To create a space for Dec to fill. Or not.

  Crossing the rough pasture behind the main house, the single file of Walkers are still finding their rhythm. Shiv shutters her eyelids, leaving enough of a crack to see Caron’s green boots directly in front. She shuts out everything else, synchronizing her footsteps with those of her friend. One by one, she lets the distractions surface: Mikey, stripping his room; his bandaged hands; the spider’s web tattoo on Docherty’s elbow; the chafing of the jumpsuit against her skin; the smell of stale sweat from the Salinger T-shirt; an aftertaste of breakfast – each thought neatly parcelled and set aside.

  Her mind gradually empties of everything but the placing of one foot, then the next, on the ground, in time with the drawing of her breath.

  Minute after minute after minute.

  After a while, Dec is there. She’s aware of his breathing, the scuffing of his red Converses in the thick, dewy grass, feels his right hand in her left. They never held hands, that she can recall. Even as small children walking to primary school, Shiv would hold one of Mummy’s hands, Dec the other.

  Shiv wraps up this thought as well; removes it.

  His grip is casual. Ironic. He is making a game out of holding her hand. This is fun and we are unembarrassed. Playing along, Shiv squeezes his fingers. Don’t worry, Dec, I’ve got you. How she longs to give a sideways glance. She daren’t, though – afraid that the touch of his skin, the swish of his feet, the whisper of his breaths, will disperse on the morning air like so many specks of pollen. Besides, she can’t be certain which Declan it is:

  The one in her memory.

  The one in the images projected onto her wall each night.

  The one she sometimes glimpses in the grounds of Eden Hall.

  Worst of all would be to turn her head and see none of these three but the dead brother from her most terrible nightmares.

  At some point near the end of Walk, he is gone. Shiv panics, has the urge to call his name – wonders if she actually has. But none of the others seems aware of her; they plod on, lost in their own worlds.

  She tries (by not trying) to lure him back. No use. She wants him too much.

  At break a couple of days later – Day 13 – Shiv flops down on the ground beside Caron and watches Hensher make his circuit of the clearing, doling out water and muesli bars. When he reaches them, Caron, as usual, tries to wind him up.

  “Assistant Hensher, can I ask you something about these snack bars?”

  “Go on, then.” He sounds resigned to his role as the butt of her daily joke.

  “Are they made with hamster food – or the scrapings from their cages?”

  “Scrapings,” he says, deadpan.

  “Told you.” Caron nudges Shiv, as though they’ve had a bet.

  “And it’s rats,” Hensher adds, “not hamsters.” With that, he moves away.

  Shiv looks at what she thinks of as Mikey’s Hill. Not that he comes here any more – other than during Walk. When Dr Pollard heard about the state of his hands from the log-hauling, she ordered him to be supervised during “free” time.

  That suits him just fine. He wears the yellow jumpsuit all day – not just for Walk and Make. His prisoner’s uniform, he calls it. The staff keep putting his room back the way it was but, each morning, he strips it bare.

  “Are you trying to make them discharge you?” Shiv asked him one time.

  He shook his head. “If they won’t fix me, I’ll fix myself.”

  As usual at break, Mikey remains standing – turned away from them all on the far side of the clearing, hands behind his back, head bowed.

  “What is it with him?” Caron asks, impatient.

  “He thinks he should be punished, not treated. Says it’s what we deserve.”

  “We?”

  “Helen, Docherty, Lucy – you and me – we’ve all got off way too lightly for what we did.”

  “Our messed-up lives – you call that getting off lightly?”

  “They died because of us. Melanie, Declan, Phoebe—”

  “’Zuss, girl, you think Mikey’s right?” She fakes a swoon. “I need to sit down.”

  “You are sitting down.”

  “Then I need to stand up so I can sit down.” Theatrically, she does.

  “Caron, I’m trying to have a serious conversation here.”

  “So, what – you going to turn your room into a cell too? Dress like a convict. Shave your head. That would look quite cool actually.”

  There’s no reasoning with Caron when she’s like this. She steers them onto safer topics, tries to lighten up; all the while, though, Shiv is aware of Mikey at the edge of the clearing. It’s so black and white for him. So uncompromising. Caron might be more laid back, but Shiv knows that this is an act. For all that Mikey is four years younger than Caron and about a hundred times more uptight, there’s an honesty to him that cuts right to the heart of things.

  This is what I did. This is who I am. Don’t tell me any different.

  It’s the voice Shiv has been hearing in her own head and the voice she came here to silence. How else is she meant to live with herself?

  In her first two weeks at the clinic, that voice has begun to quiet. Or be drowned out by the “noise” of her treatment: the hum of DeclanDeclanDeclan that envelops her and which seems designed to erase her brother’s death, replace it with the illusion that he’s alive, and with her, walking beside her every step along the path to recovery.

  “Are you going to eat that?” Caron indicates Shiv’s muesli bar.

  Shiv manages a smile.

  “What?” Caron asks.

  “Dec was always doing that – troughing up anything I didn’t eat.”

  “I do not ‘trough’, thank you very much.”

  “Anyway, it’s hamster scrapings, isn’t it?”

  “Rat. That’s an entirely different snack-based concept.”

  Shiv hands her the bar.

  “You sure?” her friend says.

  “Go on. I’m not hungry.”

  Actually, the idea of food sickens her all of a sudden. Along with the thought that, in a moment, she’ll have to head to Make, then lunch, then Talk, then Write, then dinner, then another night with Declan on her bedroom wall.

  Kyritos

  The day after she danced in the street with Nikos, Shiv was eating with her family on the patio. The sun hung over the bay like a great golden balloon. Its slow descent would mark another day apart from Nikos, another day of failure to meet in secret.

  Dont worry ill think of something, his last text had said.

  Monday evening. They were going home on Friday morning.

  Shiv had little to say at dinner, her pasta lay mostly untouched. Mum and Dad were reminiscing about a previous holiday when a knock at the door interrupted them.

  “It’ll be the concierge,” Dad said, going off to investigate. “Concierge” was what other, less expensive, holiday agencies called a “rep”.

  “Can I fill in the evaluation form?” Declan asked.

  “No,” Mum said. “Not after last year.”

  “Hell-o.” Dad; too loud, too friendly. “Kalimera, kalimer
a.” Then, two sets of footsteps approached on the path that ran down the side of the villa. Dad was the first to appear. “We have a visitor.”

  And there was Nikos.

  For a nanosecond, Shiv must have done the cartoon-shock thing: dropped jaw, raised eyebrows, eyes on stalks. Then she got a grip, composed herself, acted like Nikos’s arrival was the least surprising event in her entire life. She speared a pasta shell and popped it in her mouth. It tasted of rubber.

  “Oh, sorry.” Nikos gestured at the table. “I’m interrupting your meal.”

  “Not at all, Nikos,” Mum said, with her warmest smile. She tapped the dish. “There’s plenty left, if you’d care to join us.”

  “Can we spare it?” Dad said, laughing. “Dec hasn’t had his third helping yet.”

  “Dad.” Her brother looked cross.

  Nikos smiled politely. “It’s OK, thanks. I ate already.”

  He was standing awkwardly, clutching a brown paper parcel in both hands like someone had just given it to him and he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  “So, young man,” Dad said, “to what do we owe the unexpected pleasure?”

  Shiv tried to catch Nikos’s eye, to flash him a warning. If that parcel was for her, if he’d turned up to make some kind of declaration (I realize you may not approve, but your daughter and I…) she would just crawl under the table and die. But he wasn’t looking at her, hadn’t looked at her the whole time.

  “I just came by to give this to Declan,” he said.

  It was her brother’s turn to look panicked. Confused.

  Nikos handed him the parcel. “You said how much you liked mine, so I figured you’ll like one of your own.”

  Shiv recalled Dec complimenting Nikos’s shirt the other day, in the pick-up, then blushing fiercely. He was blushing now as he pulled out a green-and-gold vest. For once, he was at a loss for words. Shiv couldn’t tell if he was pleased or mortified.

  “Actually, it’s an old one I grew out of,” Nikos said, when Mum protested that he really shouldn’t have. “Clean, of course.”

  “Nikos, it’s very kind of you,” Dad said. “Isn’t it, Declan?”

  Her brother looked up, startled. “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thanks.”

  “I hope it fits,” Nikos said.

  “It looks perfect,” Mum said, when Dec clearly had nothing else to say. “They both had such a great time windsurfing with you,” she went on. Shiv smiled inside at the kissed daughter and nearly drowned son that their mother had no idea about. “This one,” Mum said, nodding at Declan, “hasn’t stopped talking about you.”

  Dec shot Mum a furious glance.

  “I had the best time too,” Nikos said.

  “Your English is very good, Nikos.”

  “Mum,” Shiv cut in, “d’you think you could be just a little more patronizing?”

  “I’m only saying—”

  “If we can’t give you something to eat,” Dad said, “how about a beer?”

  Nikos hesitated, flicked a look at Shiv. Please say no. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see him, but the thought of him (them) enduring an evening with Mum and Dad… What had Nikos been thinking, turning up here like this? If he stayed, Mum or Dad were bound to say something that gave away Shiv’s age.

  “That’s nice of you, sir, but I’m meeting with some friends. Beach football. Just a kickabout.” Then, a little sheepishly, “Actually, we could use a couple of extra players … if anyone’s interested.”

  “You hate football,” Declan hissed at her, as they followed Nikos along the narrow track through the sand dunes.

  “Someone has to chaperone you.”

  It was true, kind of. Choosing their words carefully to avoid offending Nikos, Mum and Dad had made it clear that they didn’t mind Declan playing – seeing as he was so keen – but, well, he was only twelve and, much as she didn’t want to, would Shiv mind going along as well? And they both had to be back at the villa before dark.

  Her brother was wearing the green-and-yellow basketball vest. It was too big but, even so, she had to admit he looked pretty cool. “I should warn you, Nikos,” Dec called out, “that Shiv’s even worse at football than she is at windsurfing.”

  “Hey,” Nikos said, “who needed rescuing?”

  “For your information, I didn’t need rescuing, you chose to rescue me.”

  Nikos laughed. “Is that right?”

  “Yes, it is. It was a massive overreaction on your part.”

  The game was already under way, the lines of the pitch scored in the flat sand vacated by the tide. Four motorcycle helmets marked out the goals. Three guys and a girl on one team, three guys on the other – all about Nikos’s age, as far as Shiv could tell. The game paused so Nikos could introduce everyone. Declan joined the team with the girl; Nikos and Shiv made up the other five. Shiv was aware of one or two curious looks being directed at Nikos for bringing them along.

  Just then, she wished she hadn’t agreed to come.

  But once the game resumed everyone forgot about her and Declan and just got on with hoofing the ball about. Shiv wasn’t even the worst player – that honour went to a guy on her team, Nikos’s cousin, Joss. He was shaven-headed, belly flopping out from under his T-shirt, and he cavorted about the pitch like a lunatic.

  “Team joker,” Nikos remarked, when Joss broke up an opposition attack by picking up the ball, shoving it under his shirt and running to the other end of the pitch.

  For much of the game, Shiv could barely kick the ball for laughing.

  The other team won 15–9 (or 14–10, no one was sure) and Declan scored four, celebrating them with acrobatic high-fives with his team-mates.

  “You’re crazy,” Shiv whispered to Nikos, in a time-out. “Turning up like that.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, crazy to see you.”

  “Oh, please. Who writes your scripts?” Inside, though, she was delighted.

  “You handled it well. Little Miss Cool.”

  Shiv pushed her hair back from her sweaty face. “So where’s my present? Dec gets a basketball shirt. What do I get?”

  “You get to see me.”

  “I get to play football with you. You and eight other people.”

  “Let’s sneak off to the dunes then – nobody will notice.”

  Of course he was teasing. In any case, the ball was back and play was ready to continue. For the rest of the match Shiv ached with the thought of them slipping off – and of what they might get up to, hidden away in the sand dunes.

  By the end of the game it was dusk and hard to see the ball. Trainers and sandals were retrieved; water bottles shared out. Eventually, only Shiv, Dec, Nikos and his cousin Joss remained, the golden sand turned to oatmeal grey in the failing light.

  Joss and Nikos had reclaimed two of the helmet “goalposts”.

  “You have a motorbike?” Dec asked Nikos.

  “Moped, yeah.” He pointed out two bikes on the road fronting the beach. “Fifty cc. It sounds like a really cross mosquito.”

  Beside him, Joss stood with his crash-helmet under his arm. His bald head was waxy with perspiration and his thick, dark eyebrows looked like they’d been stuck on.

  “Decalan, maybe one day you plays to Manchester Unite. Yes?” Dec grinned self-consciously. Turning to her, Joss said, “Sheev, sorry, but I think you not ever plays to Manchester Unite.” He patted her shoulder.

  Shiv couldn’t help laughing. “Thank you, Joss. I appreciate your honesty.”

  The four of them headed towards the mopeds; in Shiv and Declan’s case, to the track that branched off just before. At a beachside taverna, fish were being grilled. The drifting smoke conjured up an image of the bonfire at Lackanackathon on Easter Sunday, the flames consuming the effigy of Judas so completely Shiv could have believed she’d imagined him. Just charred scraps fluttering above the crowd, like black moths.

  “I’ll walk up with you,” Nikos said.

  Handing his helmet to Joss, he spoke to him in Greek and then the three of
them were weaving a route through the dunes.

  Shiv scrolled through different, impossible, ways to edit Declan out of the scene so that she and Nikos might be alone. Might lie in the sand together.

  All too quickly the evening was coming to an end.

  They reached the road to the villa. It was almost dark and the outside light glinted off the hire car. They stood around, unsure what to say or do.

  Please, Dec, just go indoors.

  Nikos said goodnight, pulling Declan into a manly hug – Dec, stiff as a shop-window mannequin. Then, with mock formality, Nikos took Shiv’s hand between his.

  “See you around,” he said. Just like that. Then he was gone, fading into the gloom.

  Shiv waited till they were inside, till Dec had gone out to the terrace to find Mum and Dad, before slipping away to the bathroom. With the door bolted, she opened her hand to see what Nikos had pressed into her palm as they’d said goodbye.

  Carefully picking apart the pink tissue-paper wrapping, she eased the gift open.

  It was the preserved remains of the baby turtle that Nikos had passed round on the boat trip and which Shiv had told him was so beautiful.

  10

  At breakfast on their second Sunday at the Korsakoff Clinic – officially a rest day – Assistant Sumner informs them that a group picnic has been arranged.

  “Miss,” Caron says, hand raised, “can I have jam in my sandwiches, please?”

  Sumner, smile fixed, ignores the question. They are to meet on the front steps at noon, where she and Dr Pollard will escort them to the meadow next to the lake.

  The lake. Shiv isn’t going anywhere near the lake. But when she stays in her room past noon, Sumner comes to fetch her.

  “You’ve listened to me in Talk,” Shiv says. “You’ve read what I’ve written in Write. You know why I don’t want to go down there.”

  “And you know why Dr Pollard wants you to.”

  They spread out on tartan rugs around a wicker hamper and a cool box while Sumner and her boss hand out food and drink, plates and plastic beakers.

  Shiv glances at the chain-link fence, with its sign: DANGER: DEEP WATER.