How to Find Home

by Mahsuda Snaith

Igor’s eyes were red-raw around the edges, his lips trembling.

  ‘Forty-four,’ he said. ‘Forty-four.’

  He said it as though the number gave him excruciating pain.

  ‘What’s forty-four?’ I asked.

  ‘The number of men he’s killed,’ Jules said.

  Igor nodded.

  ‘I kill them,’ he said. ‘I kill them all.’

  Big round tears fell down his cheeks, creating white streaks of clean skin against the layers of dirt. I put my hands on his shoulders, remembering what Luca had said to me.

  ‘It’s all right, Igor,’ I said. ‘It’s over now.’

  All of a sudden someone yanked my shoulder back. It was a firm, hard yank that stung down to the bone. Luca was next to me, glasses off, but he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at Igor.

  He pointed his finger at Igor’s face.

  ‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘I knew I couldn’t trust you.’

  Igor panicked. He looked at me, tears rolling, eyes blinking.

  ‘Why’s he looking at you?’ Luca said.

  My shoulder was smarting. I rubbed it gently.

  ‘I was just checking he was all right,’ I said.

  The lights shone in neon beams above Luca’s head. He laughed.

  ‘I bet you were!’ he said.

  Jules rolled her head side to side, stretching her neck muscles. ‘Calm down, Posh Boy,’ she said.

  Luca grabbed Igor by the jacket and lifted him up against the wall.

  ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You’re the one who’s been following me!’

  ‘Forty-four,’ Igor wailed. ‘I kill forty-four!’

  ‘And I’m forty-five, am I?’ Luca cried.

  Igor shook his head.

  ‘My phrrend,’ he said. ‘Loo-ca.’

  Luca pulled Igor towards him, then smacked his body against the wall. Igor winced as his head hit the brickwork. I pulled at Luca’s shoulders.

  ‘You’re hurting him!’ I cried.

  ‘You want me?’ Luca shouted. ‘You followed me and now you’re here for me?’

  He thumped Igor’s head against the wall again. A patch of crimson splattered against the brick.

  ‘Get off, you little shit!’ cried Jules.

  She was pulling at Luca but he wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Stop it!’ I cried, thumping him on the back. ‘STOP IT, LUCA!’

  He let go. Igor fell, shaking his head as he tried to focus. Luca stepped back and put his hand in his pocket.

  ‘No!’ I cried.

  I saw a flash of metal and then Luca’s legs were in the air. I could see the balloons on his socks as a large, thick man in black lifted him away. There were hands on me, dragging me through the crowd. Another bouncer was carrying Jules.

  ‘Wait!’ I cried. ‘I’ve dropped my jacket!’

  He pretended not to hear me, pushing me towards the exit. He was tall with arms like boulders. I scanned the floor for my jacket but all I could see were feet. I thought of the pillbox stuffed in the front pocket, imagining it being crushed under someone’s thick trainers. As the metal caved in so did my heart, denting and then breaking in two.

  The Discovery of Luca the Terrible

  The night after I’d tried to drown myself in the bath my mother found me crying in my room. She’d returned from another party so smelt of Merlot and cigarettes. I remember her stroking my hair clumsily, pulling it by accident and slurring as she spoke.

  ‘You could be happy, Molly,’ she said. ‘You’ve just got to choose it.’

  She’d said it before, when I’d scraped my knee or had fallen out with a friend. She made it sound simple, like choosing a drink in a bar. Just a bag of roasted peanuts and a pint of happiness, please. I tried to believe it. Whenever I felt down I’d think: You’re not making the right choice here, Lara. You’re not choosing happiness.

  But sometimes it’s dead hard to choose it. Sometimes you can’t lift your hand to get the barman’s attention, let alone order the pint. At those times, you can choose happiness as much as you can choose being caught up in a big cyclone and whisked away to a fantasy land.

  The thing was, he hadn’t done it for ages and had been real good to me. So when the Social came to visit a few days before and began asking questions, like if I was happy at home and was there anything I wanted to tell them, I said that I was really great. And of course they looked at our house, with shelves full of books and polished ornaments, and they looked at my mum who was a PR agent and my dad who was a policeman, and they decided that whoever had phoned up about me was just trying to cause trouble for a hard-working, wholesome family. ‘Probably jealous,’ I heard one of them say to my mother. I remember her face straining so hard to stay neutral yet twitching at the mouth. The social workers didn’t see it though, just packed up their things and left. That’s when I realized that the world is blind; we don’t see things as they are but how they make sense to us.

  If I’d known what he was going to do to me later I might have told the Social about the cold salted bread, stones in my shoes, the Stillness Lessons from Mother. I might have told them about what he’d done to me before even though I was trying my best to forget. But then maybe they still would have done nothing. Both he and my mother were untouchable and I knew I couldn’t wait for anyone to help any more. I wasn’t a princess locked in a tower. No knight would come on a galloping horse to rescue me.

  I was the Rubberband Girl, strong and stretchy, with the power to bounce somewhere new.

  So that’s what I did. I cut my hair, changed my name, packed a rucksack full of clothes and rubber bands, and threw all their photos of me in the fire.

  The spell was broken. I didn’t belong to them any more. Lara, the girl they’d brought up, was theirs, but Molly, the girl I became, she was mine.

  Luca was digging in the sand.

  He’d found a bucket and spade next to a sandcastle and was making holes along the beach. It was a child’s spade, so he was on his knees, digging in the ground with short sharp thrusts, showers of sand flying over his shoulder.

  It was night, the streetlamps our only light. Me and Jules sat in a bus shelter overlooking the beach. Except Jules wasn’t really sitting. She was pacing up and down the pavement, then perching on the bench, before jumping up and pacing again. A trail of smoke followed behind her as she puffed on a cigarette.

  The wind was blowing hard against my bare arms. My hair kept blowing in front of my face and hitting my cheeks. After a while I stopped pushing it back and let it blow. I was trying to keep my body still, the way I’d been taught, trying to quieten my mind and forget what had happened. But I could still see it. The force of the knocks. The clash of skull against brick. The splatter of blood.

  We last saw Igor on a trolley being taken into the back of an ambulance. His head was bandaged up, tears leaking from his bloated eyes.

  ‘I kill forty-four!’ he was crying. ‘I kill forty-four!’

  Jules was ready to jump in the ambulance with him but then we realized Boy was missing. All that was left around the lamppost was the old rope, still knotted but with no dog. It was hard to tell if she’d wiggled free or if someone had taken her.

  We marched up and down the street, shouting ‘BOY!’ into the darkness. We gave up after an hour and followed Luca towards the beach.

  Jules was perched on the bench again.

  ‘Let’s get out of here, Molls,’ she said.

  She walked away. It was as if, because she’d made up her mind, I had too.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I called after her.

  She stopped and turned around. She looked at me as though I was simple.

  ‘Home,’ she said. ‘Back to the squat.’

  She rolled her eyes, getting all mardy.

  ‘But how? All our stuff’s in the car.’

  Jules waved her hand as though this was nothing.

  ‘Aunt Janice.’

  I frowned. Jules rolled her eyes again.

  ‘The
fruit loop with the figurines. She’ll help us. Now let’s get moving.’

  Luca had stopped digging and was talking loudly to himself, rocking back and forth, studying the map clutched in his hands.

  ‘I bet she’s petrified, poor little sod,’ Jules said, looking out at the streets. ‘I don’t know why I care, she ain’t even my dog!’ She turned and glared at me. ‘Are you coming or what?’

  The waves were getting louder as they crashed against the shore. I didn’t move.

  ‘Look,’ Jules said. ‘I wasn’t gonna say anything, Molls, but you need to know.’

  Her face was kind of pale under the glow of the streetlamp. She had that solemn expression people have when they’re about to tell someone a relative’s died. She angled her body away from the beach, leant in close.

  ‘That map he’s got,’ she said. ‘It’s a sham.’

  I must have looked confused because she began huffing and puffing again as if I was really putting her out by making her explain it all.

  ‘When we were on the beach earlier, I saw it in his hands. It’s not even a fucking map! Just a load of squiggles and dots.’

  I reached up for the key hanging from my neck. Jules put her hands on my shoulders and squeezed hard as she looked at me with her broken eye.

  ‘You can’t trust him, Molls,’ she said. ‘He’s a liar.’

  Jules thought being a liar was far worse than being psychotic. She didn’t know that I’d lied to her the moment I told her my name was Molly.

  I looked down at the rubber bands around my wrist. Snapping the bands was a trick that diverted the pain in my head to pain in my wrist. I used it when I felt like I was drowning on dry land, snapping it when my mother said I loved ruining things, when someone told me I was lucky to have a policeman as my dad. I realized that this was the exact sort of moment when I’d usually pull it back, take the hit, feel that short rush of adrenaline. But I didn’t feel like snapping it. There was no point hurting myself any more.

  Luca was still rocking back and forth on the sand with the piece of paper in his hands. His trumpet case was strapped to his back, digging into the ground as he rocked. It was like a part of him had broken down, like he’d carry on rocking until he wound down and rusted.

  Jules was waiting for me to move.

  ‘Luca!’ I called.

  He didn’t look my way but got up, moved, dropped to his knees and began to dig again.

  ‘For Lord’s sake!’ Jules said. ‘Have you been listening or what?’

  I got up and walked down the beach.

  ‘Luca!’ I cried.

  I could feel the sand trickling in through the holes in my canvas shoes, cold and damp.

  ‘Daft cow!’ Jules cried as she ran after me.

  The closer I got, the louder his voice became.

  ‘It’s here,’ he was saying. ‘Somewhere here.’

  The wind was whipping up the sand, creating mini-cyclones and spraying it against my skin as I approached. I reached out my hand, touching Luca gently on the shoulder. He pulled back so hard he toppled to the ground.

  ‘Get your hands off me!’

  His eyes were wild, filled with hatred. He hadn’t looked at me like that before. It was the same way punters looked after the act, as if I’d made them do something animal and debased.

  Jules came up behind me, gasping and out of breath. She tugged at my sleeve.

  ‘He’s past help, Molls,’ she said. ‘You saw what he did to Igor.’

  I kept still. Jules kept on tugging.

  ‘I told you once, Molls, and I’m telling you again, he’s a fucking psycho.’

  Luca stood and pointed at Jules’s face.

  ‘Stop calling me that!’ he said.

  It was dark on the beach but I knew Jules’s eyes were round and veiny. The shadow of her body rose on its tiptoes.

  ‘PoINt THAt FiNGeR aT ME aGaiN aNd I’LL BiTe ThE FuCKer OfF!’

  Luca stood there for a second. He lowered his hand and stepped back into the light of the streetlamps, deflated.

  ‘You know what makes us human?’ he said. His eyes kept darting between us, stringing out the tension. Then he raised his fingers to his temple. ‘Mental pain. Not caused by physical threat or hunger but by other people. Animals, now, they only care about survival. Us? We care about feelings. If someone likes the clothes we wear, the car we drive, the stupid words we use. We let other people control us even when they’re fickle, selfish, careless bastards!’

  He flung his spade down. It wedged deep into the sand. I wondered if he was talking about me. It stung me dead centre when I realized he was.

  ‘Don’t care about anyone,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll be a lot better off.’

  He flopped down on the sand, hugging his knees to his chest with his head low as if bracing himself for a collision.

  Jules was bubbling beside me.

  ‘Igor would be a lot better off if you’d cared a little more about HiM,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t be lying in CASuALTY RigHT NOW fOR a StARt!’

  It was a good point but Luca wasn’t in the mood for good points. He clenched his fists. The pill had worn off but there was still a fierce buzzing in my veins and I knew Jules and Luca were feeling it too. They weren’t a good mix right then; they were too volatile.

  ‘It’s all right, Jules,’ I said. ‘Go back in the shelter and I’ll take care of Luca.’

  The lamplight hit and I could see her brow knotting fiercely.

  ‘What are you, HiS MOTHeR?’

  I didn’t reply. I could see her rolling her shoulders back.

  ‘I want to go HOME!’

  She stamped the ground as she said it.

  I looked at her sharply, feeling my throat tense.

  ‘We haven’t got a home!’

  I hadn’t meant to say it all loud and passionate but that’s how it came out. The words stayed in the air like stars in the sky. But they didn’t sparkle, they blazed.

  Jules threw her head back.

  ‘Oh, here we GO!’

  The pressure was getting to me. The universe wasn’t in Jules’s pupil any more but swirling beneath my skin, ready to explode.

  ‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘We’re not houseless, we’re homeless. We don’t belong anywhere.’

  Jules lowered her chin.

  ‘I belong in my SQuAt with a nice beVVy and the telly on high volUME!’

  I looked down; I was swaying from one foot to the other, creating a fortress of sand around my feet. I hugged my body. It felt so heavy, the weight of the universe, but I wanted to keep it there inside me because then at least it would be safe. I heard Jules clear her throat.

  ‘Are you coMing or NOT, MoLLs?’

  When I looked up Jules was right in front of me, squaring her shoulders, leaning her face into mine. I wiped the tears from my eyes. She always said I was too soft.

  ‘No, Jules,’ I said. ‘I’m not.’

  She was so riled up I thought she was going to wallop me, but instead, she took a step back.

  ‘You’ll regret this, Molls,’ she said calmly, as though she was the most reasonable person in the world. ‘Mark my words, you will regret this.’

  Jules turned and marched through the sand, her camo jacket getting smaller and smaller until it was just a green smudge on the horizon. I knew she’d be bitter, taking it all personal. She’d say I’d betrayed her. That I was no better than Donna. I loved Jules to pieces but you’ve got to make your own decisions in life. Otherwise there’s no point having one.

  I dropped down on my knees beside Luca. He had the map in his hand, running his fingers across the page. The lamps cast enough light for me to see that Jules was right; it wasn’t a map at all, it was sheet music. Musical notes wobbled up and down the page, spelling out a tune I couldn’t read. Luca paused and then, as though he knew what I’d seen, folded up the paper and stuffed it into his pocket.

  ‘It’s near here,’ he said. ‘I know it is.’

  The wind blew hard
across the beach, the waves crashing loud and fierce as I tried to remember what it felt like when he’d kissed me on the dance floor. The tingling feeling, the whole room full of love hearts and how we’d floated up in the air. But when I looked around I didn’t see love hearts, just darkness.

  ‘Shall we find somewhere to sleep?’ I said.

  His shoulders were covered in feathers, slick and black, with two giant wings sprouting from his back. He was King of the Pigeons. But then I blinked and the feathers were gone, his wings grey and spindly, one broken right down the middle. I looked above his head, searching for the crown I’d seen when we were on the byway. But all I could see was hair.

  ‘Did you fuck him?’ Luca said.

  It took a moment for me to reply.

  ‘Who?’

  He rolled his eyes like I was playing a silly game.

  ‘Igor.’

  I tried to laugh in a light-hearted way.

  ‘Don’t be daft.’

  He narrowed his eyes, looking at me with a blistering force. I could still feel the pulse of the universe riding through my veins.

  ‘I’m not being daft,’ he said. ‘I saw you touching him.’

  My smile dropped. I shook my head.

  ‘I haven’t left your side since we met him.’

  He laughed but in that unkind way. It was exactly like Stu, cold and mocking.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he said. ‘You just met him this afternoon.’

  I tried to think of a way to explain it all logically to him so that he’d snap out of this mood. If I got the words out in a neat, clever way it would make everything better. But I’ve never been good with words. Not when I’ve needed them.

  ‘They took Boy,’ Luca said.

  There was no point saying anything.

  ‘They’re all following me,’ he carried on. ‘Waiting for their chance. They sent Igor. They took Boy. And you, you’ve been in on it all along.’

  He examined my expression as though trying to catch me out.

  ‘I know what you are.’

  He shuffled on to his knees, pushing his face close to mine. On his breath, I could smell the sweetness of vodka mixers.

  ‘I know what you’ve done.’

  I leant back, my body shivering. My arms were pale and goose-pimpled. The wind blew my hair across my face and I let it stay there, a veil in front of my eyes. Not because I didn’t want Luca to see me but because I didn’t want to see this version of him.