‘When’s the earliest day you can do it?’ I ask.
‘The service?’
‘Yes.’
For the first time, I sense the merest amount of discomfort. It’s only fleeting and then Damien reaches for a ledger on the counter. He flips through the pages and then looks up.
‘I suppose the earliest day would be Friday but—’
‘Two days?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Let’s do it.’
‘There might not be time for a proper notice in the paper.’
‘I wouldn’t worry.’
‘He did pay for—’
‘I’m pretty certain he won’t mind any longer…’
Damien clenches his lips together, but then breaks into a kindly smile. ‘Of course. I’m thinking of you. Sometimes the florists—’
‘Flowers weren’t really his thing.’
‘No, well… in that case, Friday it is. Shall we say four p.m.?’
‘Perfect.’
I take a step towards the door, but Damien continues talking. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a viewing? It wouldn’t be much trouble. Sometimes, people change their minds after a few hours or a day…?’
He’s trying to be kind, but I can’t match his smile. ‘Trust me,’ I tell him, ‘the last thing I want is to see my father again.’
I’m already striding along the High Street before I realise I’m walking away from Dad’s house.
My house.
I wonder if I’ll ever think of it as mine before I think of it as Dad’s. The thought is lost as someone darts across near me, trying to cross the road. He shoots between two parked cars and almost runs in front of a white van. The driver lays on the horn and the pedestrian jumps, before he sidesteps around a car coming the other way. It all happens in a matter of seconds and, as I exchange a quizzical shrug with the white van driver, I suppose it’s a lesson that life continues on. It’s barely twenty-four hours ago that a kid was hit by a car and now someone ran into the road without looking. People are still going to work; children are still playing in the park, or inside on their PlayStations and phones; deliveries are still being made to shops; people are still ordering pizzas and complaining about the weather. All the while, Jo’s little boy lies in hospital.
I should’ve at least tried to be more helpful when she asked Holly and me to help her find the driver. If it had happened to someone close to me, I’d want to know.
Not that there’s anyone particularly close to me.
I have a sip from my bottle and continue along the street. I’ve got to be here for two more days in order to get through the funeral and then… I don’t know. I’m not even sure why I’ve decided I definitely have to have anything to do with the funeral. A sense of loyalty, perhaps, however misguided.
It’s the flash of movement from over the road that catches my eye, maybe even the reflection of the sun from the top of Chris’s head. The neighbour’s son clambers out of the same scuffed black car as this morning and then checks something on his phone before heading for the betting shop.
There’s a strange moment in which I feel as if I know precisely what I should do. I’m a puppet on someone else’s string as I cross the road and then crouch to look at his car. It isn’t quite black like I thought, it’s a metallic grey that’s covered with grime and dust. The scratch along the back door looks like someone’s keyed it, rather than anything sinister. It’s the mark on the bumper that’s harder to figure out. The scrape is deeper and far longer than it first appeared. Someone has used a felt-tip, or something similar, to colour in the lighter parts. There’s also the hint of an indent on the part of the wing just above the bumper – as well as a crack in the glass of the headlights.
I’ve got my phone out of my pocket, ready to take a photo, when the man’s voice comes from behind.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Eleven
I stand, trying to remain tall and confident, as if this is completely normal.
‘Had to tie my shoe,’ I say, lifting my leg in case Chris somehow doesn’t realise what a foot is.
He stares down to me with his eyebrows raised. Even though he towered over his mum, I’m not sure I realised how tall he was this morning. He’s comfortably over six foot and with enough bulk for it to feel like more. We’re in the open, but that isn’t a guarantee of safety.
Chris puffs out his chest, but then he sinks a little.
‘Oh,’ he says, holding up the scrap of paper in his hand, which I presume to be a betting slip. ‘I had to make a quick stop in town. I’m back off home now.’ He looks sideways along the road and, as I take half a step back, he reaches towards me.
I wince and he quickly pulls away.
‘Sorry. I was hoping we could talk.’ His hand remains in the air – but he slowly puts it down to his side, before nodding to the betting shop again. ‘It’s part of the ritual,’ he says. ‘There’s a game on later.’
‘Who’s playing?’
‘United are in Mexico for pre-season.’
‘Is that a big game?’
He holds up the betting slip, with a sheepish grin. It’s only now that he reminds me properly of the lad I once knew. Many things have changed, for both of us, but his smile that slips lower on one side than the other is the same as it always was. I am momentarily that teenager again, feeling smitten and weak at the knees. It only lasts a blink.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he asks.
‘Since this morning?’
He snorts. ‘Since forever. You left and nobody seemed to know where you went. I knocked on your dad’s door, but he didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t know you’d properly left until about a month after you’d already gone.’
‘We weren’t together then.’
‘No… but it would’ve still been nice to know.’
It’s a fair point.
We stand together for a moment, but it’s like being the only two people on the dance floor at a wedding. Too much attention. Too much self-awareness.
‘Can we do this somewhere else?’ I ask.
Chris turns in a circle, taking in the betting shop, the boarded-up shopfront, the overflowing bin and the row of parked cars.
‘Sure.’
I follow as he leads us around the back of the bookies into a car park with a low, crumbling wall running around the edge. It’s hardly scenic, but then Elwood isn’t famed for its landmarks.
Chris perches on the wall and I settle at his side. There’s dust and small chips of cement at our feet.
‘You left…’ he says, as if I’d forgotten.
‘I had to get out of Elwood.’
‘Why?’
I almost laugh as I hold up my hands to indicate the decaying car park and the rest of the High Street beyond. ‘Because of everything.’
‘Your dad…?’
‘Everything.’
He nods slightly, but I wonder if he really gets it. Some people can stay in the same place their whole existence. That’s the life he’ll have and there’s nothing wrong with that. It didn’t take me long to figure out that it wasn’t going to be like that for me.
‘I thought we were okay together,’ he says.
‘We were kids.’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘It’s not like we ever had anything in common. We went to school together.’
Chris slumps; his head hanging, his chin almost on his chest.
‘I was going to ask you to marry me,’ he says, speaking as if he’s apologising.
I turn to him properly, wondering if it’s some strange sort of joke. When he doesn’t look up, it’s clear he means it. I still have no idea of where to begin with a reply. I suppose I never realised how wildly different our attitudes were to all this. I don’t know whether to go with ‘why?’ or a clarifying ‘what?’ Nothing comes and all I manage is a stumbled, sorry-sounding: ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘My grandma was married to my granddad for over fifty years,’ he
says, still not looking up. ‘Their wedding was two days before he went off to war. She didn’t know if she’d ever see him again, but he was one of the ones who came back. When she died, I got her wedding ring – and I was going to give it to you.’
He gulps so loudly that I hear it.
‘When was this?’ I ask.
‘I was going to take you out to the lake. The one where we talked properly for the first time. There was some party and your friend, Jo, had gone off with that guy—’
‘Mark.’
‘Right. You were on your own and we were talking about how we lived next door to each other but had never really had a conversation.’
‘When was this?!’
I’m repeating myself and it’s hard to hide the frustration, but Chris continues as if I haven’t spoken.
‘We were together for almost two years, but then you broke up with me,’ he says. ‘You never really gave a reason. You just said it wasn’t working.’
It’s hard to ignore the angst, as if this has been weighing on him for a couple of decades, and it’s only now he has the chance to get an answer.
‘We were never going to end up together,’ I say. ‘We were kids pairing up in the way kids do. We never even…’ I leave it there, hoping he’ll get it.
It feels like a different me who embraced the madness of believing we would be together with kids, and a house around the corner from where we grew up. It happens all the time, of course. Teenagers look to one another and say ‘that’ll do’ – and that’s the next sixty years seemingly plotted.
The worst thing is that, if Chris had asked me to marry him, there was a time when I know I’d have said yes. It didn’t matter that we were teenagers, I’d have trapped myself just to get out of that damned house.
‘Did you ever get married?’ Chris asks.
‘People keep asking that.’
Time passes, maybe a minute, but he continues to wait.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Not that it matters.’
‘Have you got kids?’
‘Why does that matter?’
‘Just wondering.’
‘You’re married,’ I say. ‘You have kids.’
‘Yeah…’
Chris’s sigh doesn’t make it sound as if he and Kirsty are living in a joyous world of married bliss. It’s hard not to feel sorry for his two daughters. I would bet everything I own on the fact that, when someone asked my father about his home life, he’d give this same intake of air, followed by a large, lamenting breath.
‘What’s with the dent on the front of your car?’ I ask.
He stands abruptly, almost tripping backwards over the wall in his haste. I continue sitting as he towers over me. The reminiscing of moments before has gone with a curt: ‘What dent?’
‘There’s a big scratch on the bumper and a crack in the headlight.’
From nowhere, goosebumps appear on my arms. It’s a warm day, but it doesn’t feel it any longer. I continue watching him and can see it in Chris’s face. He’s like a child who’s been caught opening Christmas presents early.
‘Kirsty was trying to park and she hit a pillar.’ He forces a laugh. ‘How can you not see a post, right?’
‘Fair enough.’
He pauses for a moment before stepping backwards. His shadow shifts so the sun falls across me once more, leaving me squinting into the light.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he says, jamming his hands into his pockets. ‘I’ll see you around.’
He heads along the car park towards the path back to the High Street. He turns to look over his shoulder at me but, when he realises I’m still watching, he quickly spins back and hurries away and out of sight.
I have a sip from my bottle and hold the liquid in my mouth, wondering how close I was to having this life for myself. Wondering how close I might still be.
Twelve
There are three hours to kill before I’m supposed to meet Jo at her house. I should go back to Dad’s – back to my house, but I can’t face it and head to Wetherspoon’s instead. It’s everything I feared, with the sticky tables, old men, and vast range of microwaved food.
It’s also perfect for now.
Time passes, though I’m not sure where it all goes. I sit on my own in a booth near the window and watch as the people of Elwood go about their business. I’ve lived in a big city for so long that I’m indoctrinated to expect a surge through the doors between five and six. People leaving work will pile inside for a quick pint, or some cheap food. There’s none of that, of course. Elwood doesn’t have a rush hour and there is no twenty-four-seven lifestyle here.
I get to Jo’s house at five past seven. I like being that little bit late. If a person is early or on time, they’re working at someone else’s pace. Being late means control.
Jo’s house is one of the places that was built when we were six or seven years old. When it went up, it was the first time I realised fields could be turned into homes. Before that, I think I’d believed that houses existed in a state of always being there. Jo’s is on a small estate that backs onto our old primary school. I’d pictured the houses as brand new, but they’re more than thirty years old now and it’s starting to show. Weeds sprout from the bottom of the wall that rings Jo’s place and her house is covered in the same sort of sooty dust that seems to be everywhere around town.
There’s a cream car on the driveway, one of those nippy little things that mobile hairdressers buy. I have a brief look for any sort of marks on the bumper, though there’s nothing obvious. I’m not sure why I checked.
I have to knock on the door three times before anyone answers. When it does swing inwards, it is Owen who’s there. I only met Jo’s eldest son when he came to find his mum at the bench last night – though he recognises me straight away.
‘All right,’ he mumbles, more a greeting than a question.
The noise hits me like a slap to the face as I get inside. There’s music booming down the stairs that’s blending with a television from the ground floor. There is clutter everywhere; jackets dumped on the floor next to shoes, as well as errant, dirty socks. A vacuum is leaning against the wall, next to an abandoned office chair.
‘Through there,’ Owen says, pointing down the hall as he heads for the stairs. I watch him disappear and then a door slams from above, which slightly muffles the music.
I move along the hall, into a kitchen, where Jo is arguing with a woman who’s dressed in a smart skirt and suit top. The sound of the television pours through from the adjacent room and they’re having to shout to be heard.
‘I don’t want you lot in my house,’ Jo says, with a jab of the finger.
The woman is trapped in the corner, next to the back door, and glances towards me as I enter. Nobody else acknowledges my presence.
There’s a man I presume to be Neil standing a little behind Jo, almost as if he’s using her as a shield. He’s utterly unremarkable, neither short nor tall; fat or thin; attractive or not. If I wasn’t looking at him, I’m not sure I’d be able to describe him.
‘I’m not a police officer as such,’ the woman says. ‘I’m a support officer. I’m here to help with anything that needs doing and also to pass along anything the police might need to communicate to you. Basically, I’m a link from you to them. If you’ve got any questions, I can try to get you an answer.’
‘I’d like to know who was driving the car that hit my son.’
‘I can assure you that we’re trying our hardest to figure that out.’
Jo rolls her eyes. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Zoe.’
‘Listen, “Zoe”.’ Jo makes bunny ears with her fingers, making it clear she doesn’t know what the gesture means. ‘I know you’re young and I know you mean well, but your lot killed my dad. Do you know that?’
Zoe shifts her weight and glances towards me, as if I can offer any help. ‘I’m not sure what to say to that,’ she replies with admirable calm. ‘I can’t change anything that happened in the past
, but what I can tell you is that I’m with you for the here and now.’
Jo’s arms are folded, her mind made up. ‘I’d like you to leave.’
‘That’s absolutely fine.’ Zoe picks up her bag from the table. She’s quite the trooper. ‘I’ll be back in contact if there’s any news.’
Zoe takes herself along the hall and lets herself out. It’s only as the door closes that I realise the cream car was probably hers.
With the door shut, Jo sinks onto the nearest seat. The table is covered with five stacked pizza boxes and a good half-dozen metal trays. She’s still not acknowledging me, as if my witnessing all this was entirely planned.
‘I can’t handle all this, Neil,’ she says, as she puts a hand to her head.
The man slips in behind her and starts giving a shoulder massage while staring at me. It’s a good eight out of ten on the creepiness scale.
‘Any news?’ I ask, being careful to focus on Jo and not Neil.
She opens her mouth and then twists to Neil: ‘Can you turn that down?’
He pauses for a moment and then heads past me. Moments later, the sound of the television goes silent and then he returns and starts massaging her shoulders once more.
‘Ethan’s still in intensive care,’ Jo says wearily. ‘They said I should come home and get some sleep. I asked if I could sleep in the same room as him, but they said they couldn’t do it.’
‘I’m sure he’s in good hands,’ I say.
Neil’s fingers stop moving momentarily, but then he continues as if he hadn’t stopped.
‘I know,’ Jo says.
I start to say something else, but Neil gets in there first. ‘You should have something to eat,’ he says.
Jo’s face turns to a scowl as she flicks him away from her shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t be so tired if I didn’t have to drive you everywhere.’
He slinks away, chastened and embarrassed as he shoots me a glance to wonder if I know what she’s talking about.
‘I need to sit down properly,’ Jo says. She stands and beckons me into the living room.
The Child Across the Street: An unputdownable and absolutely gripping psychological thriller Page 6
