Tattletale

by Sarah J. Naughton

  Abe’s flat is spotlessly clean and tidy (although that could be Jody’s influence) and well stocked with healthy food and the odd luxury. Alcohol, too, but not the strong liquor of a depressive. Reasonable wines and the odd bottle of artisan beer.

  And then there are his clothes. The ones in the wardrobe and those the police returned to me.

  At my worst I didn’t bother with my appearance at all. The clothes I had went unwashed and I certainly didn’t buy any new ones. I’d never have thought to apply perfume. Abe was wearing aftershave when he died and, apart from the blood, his clothes looked clean, the combinations of colours and textures put together carefully.

  And what about the medical evidence? Where are the sleeping pills, the SSRIs, the doctor’s appointments?

  I’m sure Jody means well: she’s just trying to make sense of what seems like a senseless tragedy, but she never actually saw what happened with her own eyes.

  I don’t know, but it feels to me as if he wasn’t depressed. Which leaves me with two options: either he fell by accident or someone pushed him. And if someone did come in after him and attack him when Jody had gone into the flat, then surely someone here must have heard something.

  There’s nothing for it. It’s time to introduce myself to the occupants of St Jerome’s.

  The place is completely silent as I head out onto the landing. I glance at my watch. Midday. I suppose some of them must be at work. But then again, many of them won’t be capable of holding down a steady job.

  My footsteps are wincingly loud on the steps as I pass down the four flights to the ground floor. I have to steel myself to knock at the door of Flat One – whose occupant has been watching me from the moment I arrived. Standing in the shadows, waiting for an answer, I make out quiet sounds all around me, strands of pop music interwoven with the burble of radios, an odd rhythmic tapping, a flushing toilet, the hum of the washing machines beneath my feet.

  When there’s no reply after a few minutes I move on to Flat Two, which is opened eventually by a harassed-looking woman with an inch of white at the roots of her hair.

  I introduce myself and ask if she saw anything the night of Abe’s fall. She says that she was away that evening because her son was on a residential course. I see what has caused the black lines that run all the way down the walls when a disabled boy bumps his wheelchair through the door at the end, and scrapes his way down the too-narrow corridor towards his mother.

  ‘Wait a minute, Dale!’ she snaps. ‘I’m talking.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m sorry for disturbing you.’

  She is closing the door when she sees I am making for Flat Three and calls after me. ‘He was sectioned two months ago. I think they’re going to relet the flat.’

  I thank her and start up the stairs to the first floor.

  The occupant of Flat Four takes a long time to answer and when he does it is with an explosion of indignation.

  ‘I work nights! I cannot bear these constant disturbances!’

  I can’t imagine what night-job vacancies there are for powdered middle-aged queens in silk pyjamas, but when I ask whether he saw anything he practically spits at me.

  ‘Of course I didn’t! I was trying to get some sleep.’

  ‘May I suggest earplugs?’ I say, but he slams the door in my face.

  There’s no answer at Flat Five, though I think that’s where the tapping noise is coming from. I move on to Flat Six and, at my knock, am surprised to hear the yap of a dog. A moment later the door is opened by an old man in a shirt and tie. A Yorkshire terrier the size of a kitten scampers around our feet and I lean over to pat its bouncing head.

  ‘Well, hello! And who might you be?’

  When I introduce myself as Abe’s sister he takes my hand and squeezes it in his warm, dry palms.

  ‘He seemed like a lovely boy. Always had a smile for people. Kept himself nice and smart, not like most of the slobs you get around here.’

  I ask if he saw or heard anything.

  ‘I’m afraid not. I was at the care home and by the time I got back the paramedics were here, and that poor girl, crying her heart out.’

  ‘Jody?’

  ‘Sweet thing, isn’t she? Brings my post up for me and takes Tessy out when I’m visiting Brenda. That’s my wife. Fit as a flea physically, but her poor mind …’ His voice trembles.

  ‘Ah, well, thanks anyway.’

  ‘You won’t get much out of him next door.’ He nods towards the door of Flat Five. ‘He just plays his organ all day with his headphones on. The queer chap complained when he played out loud, which is a shame really. I liked it. Can you hear his foot tapping?’

  He clearly wants to talk, but I thank him and pass on up to the third floor.

  The door of Flat Seven is ajar. This is where the pop music was coming from.

  ‘Hello?’ I call down the corridor.

  ‘Yeah?’ a voice screeches from the depths of the flat.

  ‘Oh hi,’ I call. ‘I live upstairs. Can I speak to you?’

  ‘Come in then.’ The voice is shrill and irritable.

  I step across the threshold and recoil from the smell of rubbish and unflushed toilets.

  A woman is sitting on the sofa, smoking. She is skeletally thin and her skin is almost as yellow as her hair. She could be anywhere from twenty-five to sixty, and she makes no attempt to hide the track marks on her arms.

  I am immediately on my guard. Are we alone in here? If not, will someone attack or rob me? The man who broke in last night? Could he be this woman’s pimp? As she bends to stub the cigarette out onto a pockmarked coffee table I dart a glance around the flat. It’s filthy but seemingly deserted. On the wall is a single picture: of a smiling baby in a blue Babygro. Embossed into the mount is the name Tyler-James and two dates, separated by an achingly short number of months. No wonder she’s a junkie.

  A terrible thought occurs to me. Beneath the hollow eyes and sunken cheeks is a ghost of the attractive young woman she must once have been.

  Could my brother have been screwing her?

  Was that the reason for his HIV test?

  ‘What did you wanna talk about? Not the radio again? If I turn it any lower I won’t hear it, will I?’

  ‘I’ve just moved in upstairs. Did you know my brother, Abe? The man who fell down the stairwell.’

  She lights another cigarette and sucks it hard, making the end flare. Her fingertips are brown and cracked. ‘Yeah, I knew him.’

  As the smoke streams out through her nostrils I try and read some meaning into her words. I know not to push too hard. People like her will clam up unless they think they’ll get something by co-operating.

  The silence stretches.

  ‘I don’t suppose you saw anything,’ I say as lightly as possible, ‘the night he fell?’

  She picks at a scab on her bony knee. Her greasy blonde hair has an inch of black-and-grey roots. ‘Weren’t even here. Couldn’t even get into the building. They thought I was gonna rob stuff. Almost got arrested until that old bag from downstairs come out and spoke up for me.’

  ‘So you didn’t hear anything either?’

  ‘What did I just say?’ Her head snaps up, then her eyes narrow slyly. ‘Is there a reward or something?’

  A pause.

  ‘If there was?’

  She looks at me for a moment, then she gives a cackle of laughter. ‘I still weren’t here!’

  I get up, resisting the urge to brush the filth from her sofa off my trousers. ‘OK. Well, thanks anyway.’

  My feet drag on the trudge up to the third floor. I’d prepared myself for disappointment but it’s getting me down anyway.

  Flat Eight is answered by a swarthy man with a missing arm. Iraqi, perhaps, or Syrian. His eyes are bright and he seems desperate to understand me during our attempts at conversation but in the end I resort to mime.

  I roll my arms for the tumble from the floor above, clap my hand to indicate the impact. The sudden splaying of my fingers at the b
ack of my head, to indicate the head injury, makes him flinch.

  I place a palm on my heart. My brother.

  This he understands. His eyes well with tears and he pulls me into an embrace that reeks of stale sweat and nicotine.

  Just as quickly he pulls away again.

  ‘Sorry, I sorry …’ Evidently he has learned that emotional expression is forbidden in the UK.

  I point to him, to my eyes, to the stairwell. Did you see?

  ‘Blood,’ he says. ‘I see blood.’ That, at least, is a word he knows.

  I thank him and move on.

  The other two flats are empty so I go back upstairs.

  Gazing out of the window at the bleak view I think about the woman in Flat Seven. Like all junkies she is bound to be a liar. Was she having a relationship with Abe? Did her pimp have a problem with it and decide he needed to give Abe a warning? A warning that went wrong.

  I rub my face and let out a growl of frustration. I’m not getting anywhere. Perhaps there’s nowhere to get. Perhaps it’s all just as Jody said it was.

  But there’s one thing I’m sure she’s wrong about. Abe wasn’t depressed. Not properly, not like I was at uni. He might have been tired, or pissed off, or hating his job, but from what I know of my brother, Abe wasn’t the type to do something stupid on impulse just because he was feeling down. Something else happened that night. Something that maybe Jody didn’t know anything about. Or someone.

  Either way it’s something Derbyshire should be on to.

  15. Mira

  She is speaking to the police.

  I have to put my ear to the bathroom wall to hear properly.

  ‘I don’t think Abe had depression,’ she says. ‘I don’t think he jumped.’

  There is a silence as she listens. We both listen.

  ‘But he had no symptoms. You’re only going by what Jody told you.’

  She moves deeper into the flat and I hurry out to the living room and press my ear against the wall behind the television.

  ‘I spoke to his line manager. She said he hadn’t complained.’

  She listens. I hope the police officer is reassuring her that it was an accident, nothing more.

  Then she says, ‘What if someone else is involved?’

  My bladder loosens.

  There is another pause and she says, ‘What makes you think they’d say if they had seen anything? You can’t trust any of them. They’re all crazy.’ She gives a mirthless laugh. ‘You know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of them.’

  My legs go so weak I have to lean against the wall to stop me falling. The child starts to kick and I stroke his foot to calm him. It’s all right. It will be all right. I will not let her find out what Daddy did.

  16. Mags

  When Derbyshire asks me how Abe is, I say, ‘Much the same’. The truth is I have no idea. I haven’t been back to see him, even though the hospital is barely a mile from St Jerome’s. I haven’t even bothered to phone to find out if there’s been any change in his condition, like a normal sister would do.

  Jody, I assume, is there all day, every day. She’s never asked me to accompany her. I guess she still considers this intimate time with her fiancé. Or maybe she just doesn’t like me. I can’t say I’m surprised.

  The wind is howling around the building so I put on Abe’s parka before I head out.

  At the door I pass a woman coming in. I assume she’s one of the other tenants, but when I introduce myself she replies, in a strong Polish accent, that she’s just a carer, for a Mr Griffin on the third floor.

  ‘Ah,’ I say. ‘I wanted to speak to him, actually. I wondered if he had seen anything the night my brother fell down the stairwell. Did you hear about that?’

  She nods.

  ‘Is Mr Griffin with it enough, you know, in his head, to be able to tell me if he heard or saw something?’

  ‘Is not his head is problem,’ she sighs. ‘Mr Griffin morbidly obese. Is in bed all time. Cannot get out. If he hears, and this not likely with television – very loud all day, all day – he cannot get up to see what is happen.’

  I thank her with a little grimace, and she passes through the foyer into the darkness beyond, a pair of latex gloves waggling at me from her handbag.

  There are no cabs out here so I wait at the bus stop, the strip of leg between my trouser cuffs and my Converses getting colder by the second because I haven’t worn socks.

  By the time the bus arrives there’s a crowd of us trying to get on and with no attempt to follow the famous English queue etiquette I only just manage to squeeze in. I’m wedged by an enormous Asian woman in a sari. Her fleshy armpit as she clings to the strap above us is just centimetres from my cheek. It smells of stewing meat.

  Eventually I get a seat and stare out of the window, at the filthy shop fronts and broken windows.

  On impulse I take out my phone.

  ‘Daniel,’ I say, when the voicemail kicks in. ‘It’s Mags. I don’t know if you’re still in the UK, but if so I was wondering if you fancied a drink. Or lots of them. I could seriously do with getting shit-faced – and not on my own for once.’

  I hang up, then spend the rest of the journey bitterly regretting the message. I sounded completely pathetic – and alcoholic. Hopefully he’ll have more sense than to call me back.

  Jody is at Abe’s bedside, in the middle of a hushed conversation with the fat nurse who doesn’t like me. On my approach they immediately stop talking and the nurse waddles off.

  I pretend I haven’t noticed as I join Jody by the bedside.

  Abe’s facial swelling has gone down and my brother’s features are starting to emerge from the puffed, bruised flesh. At the moment he looks a little like our father, and I want to lift his eyelids to check the irises are brown, not that searing ice blue. I can’t of course: I couldn’t bear to touch that waxy flesh. Jody has no such qualms. She is stroking his flaccid cheek and murmuring a song into his ear.

  I watch her from the corner of my eye. She plays the role of devoted martyr perfectly. Did she know Abe had been busy getting himself an STD behind her back? Or perhaps they enjoyed shooting up together. No, Jody doesn’t look like a junkie and there are none of the telltale bruises on her arms. More likely he was having an affair. But surely he could do better than the woman in Flat Seven.

  Though if not her, then who?

  My phone buzzes. Daniel has replied. I’ve booked The Ivy for 8. Hope that’s OK. Stodgy old British food but fun sleb spotting.

  My heart jumps and like a love-struck fourteen-year-old I can’t stop myself replying straightaway.

  Gr8. See you there, I type, a serious frown on my face, as if it’s a professional conversation.

  For a seemingly interminable stretch of time we sit there, in a silence broken only by the machines, our breathing, and the rustling of my clothing as I cross and recross my legs.

  Jody is staring at my brother’s face with such intensity I wonder if she’s attempting some kind of telepathic communication.

  His eyelashes flutter.

  Jody gasps and I admit it’s an uncanny sight. I can accept that the lower brainstem being intact means that he can still make reflexive movements, but without any in-depth medical knowledge I can’t help wondering why a message would even be sent when all conscious thought is gone.

  A sudden and surprising bubble of hope swells in my chest. Perhaps they’re wrong, perhaps there will be a miracle. Abe and I will get the chance to know each other again – this is the gift we always needed.

  ‘Abe?’ Jody leans across my brother’s body, a look of rapture on her face. ‘Can you hear me? Give me a sign, my darling. Squeeze my hand if you can.’

  He gives no response. Of course he doesn’t. He’s brain-dead.

  But that little futile burst of hope has shifted something in my mind. For the first time, seeing her in the full grip of this self-delusion doesn’t inspire contempt in me, but pity.

  She has been through so much, been let down
by so many people, and now, it seems, even by my saintly brother. I can never tell her my suspicions; she must go on believing this fantasy of the perfect romance. Without thinking, I lay my hand on her arm.

  She looks back and smiles at me. ‘Did you see?’

  I manage to smile back. ‘Yes. I saw. I’ll go get us a coffee.’

  The fat nurse is sitting at her workstation outside the doors. I remember that whispered conversation. Has something happened that they’re not telling me? Again that bubble of hope.

  ‘What were you two talking about when I came in?’ I say to her.

  She opens her mouth and shuts it again.

  ‘I’m his sister. I have a right to know.’

  It’s clearly distasteful for her to speak to me, and her lips purse so much she can barely squeeze the words through the sphincter of her mouth. ‘Jody is very anxious that Abe’s life support should carry on for the foreseeable future.’

  The bubble deflates. Disappointment brings a rush of anger.

  ‘You can override that, though, even if I wanted it too, right? You can go through the courts to get permission if the doctors thought treating him was pointless.’

  She looks at me with eyes threaded with burst blood vessels. ‘He’s your brother, Miss Mackenzie.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Jody loves Abe very much.’

  ‘What, and I don’t?’

  ‘Yours is not the typical way of expressing love.’

  My hands close into fists at my side. The nurse audibly exhales as I take the side exit out into the memorial garden and stamp up the steps to the pavement that runs alongside the main road. I stand there panting.

  What the hell were you doing making me your next of kin, Abe? Didn’t the fact that I left you to Dad’s tender mercies tell you that I was a callous bitch?

  I need to go home. I’ll book the tickets as soon as I get back to my computer, and Jody can take over with the doctors. Poor, sweet, kind Jody, the saint to my villain, who will at least give Abe a fighting chance at recovery.