Any One of Us, page 28
“It was never fine.”
“Why the others? Why not just Scott? I mean, Mary? Little Adam Ward? He was always smiling. He was . . .” Ruby groaned, almost shouted like she was trying to shoo the horror away, “he was harmless.”
“We don’t need to dwell on all this. Let’s just—”
“No. Fuck. Fuck off. Tell me why.”
Lauren sniffed, got herself ready. If Ruby wanted the truth, fine, she’d get it.
“It was . . .” Lauren’s eyes were wide, irises floating on the white, lids and lashes well clear of colour. There was nothing like empathy in there now. That switch she mentioned had been flicked. “The first one, Mary, honestly, it was impulsive. After the party. Spur of the moment.”
“What did you do?”
“I followed her. Walked with her. We were talking. I asked if she felt bad, seeing Kendall after all this time. And she . . .” Lauren’s lip curled again, more in disgust than anger. “She didn’t really know what I was talking about. I said we tried. God, I tried so hard. I wanted him to be better. Kendall was meant to be walking in time for the party, so everyone could see. I told her that I . . . I can’t take it anymore, I can’t keep seeing him like that. I said, I explained, Kendall is why I went into medicine in the first place. Everything I’ve done since then has been . . . I just want to fix it. But three surgeries and he’s still in that chair. And everyone saw. Mary said . . . she said, ‘Fourth time lucky’. She was just feeling awkward, making light of it. Making a joke at a time like that? I was pouring my fucking heart out and she made a joke?”
“But how could—”
“There was this big rock, and I just . . .” She exhaled. “It was so easy. She didn’t suffer. And I didn’t regret it. Not even slightly. I felt . . . nothing. Then . . .” Even in the low light, Ruby could see her smile. “I didn’t know I could sleep so well.”
“Then Scott?”
“Yes. Another dose of pure catharsis.”
“And then . . .” Ruby’s chin quivered. “Elizabeth was a mother. She was so kind. And she—”
“Stood there and watched it happen.”
“They were children.”
“Alfie was a teacher. An adult.”
Ruby remembered that afternoon in Will’s spare room, when they’d looked at their full school year photo together. Lauren had so casually planted the target in her head. It was subtle manipulation. Elegant. The man behind the camera. Maybe there was more. Little hints, gentle nudges in the right direction. How hard had Lauren worked to install the idea of finding Alfie? Hard enough to make it seem like Ruby came up with it all by herself. She felt used, like a fool.
His rainbow bookshelf. His new lease of life. His skull smashed open on the—
“I don’t want to hear any more,” Ruby said, scrunching her eyes closed.
“You think I’m crazy?”
“No.” Ruby looked up again. “Just . . .”
“Evil? What’s evil is a police force letting Scott get away with everything.”
Just over Lauren’s shoulder, glowing in the middle of town – the smoke still rose from a tiny speck of amber. The station building burning away. It looked like newsreel footage – a warzone’s pilot light. A deliberate catastrophe that stunned onlookers were yet to understand.
The statement from an anonymous student who’d urged police to take action. That had been Lauren’s fledgling exploration of justice, long before the concept became so tragically distorted in her guilty mind. Then came the snowballing nature of mayhem and violence, which ends up, by the mere fact of its own grotesque existence, justifying itself. Because it’s either righteous, or the wanton acts of a monster. And Lauren couldn’t live with the idea of being precisely the latter.
No. It was simpler than all of that.
“You’re a very bad person,” Ruby said, blaming the shock for making her say obvious, basic, even childish things.
“I’ve never claimed otherwise.”
“You’re selfish. It was all for you. Not for Kendall. He wouldn’t want this. You haven’t made anything better, apart from your own stupid fucking—”
“There’s no point trying to justify anything to you. But keep in mind the kind of person who can stand there and not intervene. Who’s to say what else you’d be capable of? There’s a poster in my room. Marcus Aurelius. ‘And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.’”
That’s where she’d seen them, the words she echoed to Jay earlier this evening – cheeks red from the fire’s heat. And red again with this cascade of explanation. Hindsight so bright it hurts to stare.
Lauren took a step closer, standing over Ruby, the low grey light coming off the wet ground glinting on her eyes. Though they were different now. Still totally devoid of all the empathy that plagued her waking hours, but Ruby noticed something even more unsettling on Lauren’s face. She looked happy. Content. Blinking, soft transitions between lethargic peace and relief as though appreciating some newfound beauty in the world. The way it all seems after an intimate engagement with something you’d never even believed was real.
“Must feel good,” Ruby said. “To turn it off. Dehumanise.” She smiled, recalling last night’s pitch-black conversation. “Ignore the stakes and get the job done.”
“It feels wonderful.”
Ruby’s hand, still keeping the wound at bay, had begun to ache. Ironic that this injury, a low-ranking veteran among countless new entries in the catalogue of pain, hurt so much. And strange to think that Frank Enfield, some big guy from school, was responsible for almost all of them. A seatbelt tugged too tight, a punch thrown too hard and now their turbulent relationship had escalated up into the realms of lethal force. Now, he was dead, in the sea.
Perhaps it would have been better for Ruby to have stood by and done nothing. What injustice had her actions prevented? Who had she saved tonight? Because meticulous Lauren would have had a plan.
“How did Frank know to come here?” Ruby asked.
“We don’t need to speak about this anymore.”
“Tell me.”
This seemed to be a source of regret. As though she was reluctant. It was just a dirty job that someone had to do. Besides, like the virtuous brutality of major surgery, this had all been for the greater good.
“Frank was pretty cut up about Scott,” she said. “I heard him rambling in his hospital bed. Kept saying he was going to kill whoever was responsible. I think he’d lost it.”
“You. You allowed him to escape . . . Why not just kill him there?”
“Look, Ruby, we don’t need to—”
“Why?”
“It was . . . it was too close to home. Too many eyes. And he was a helpful distraction. Sometimes chaos is good.” Another mask on Lauren’s face. Or, no. Wait. This was real. A human being was peering out of that empty shadow with genuine remorse. “I am sorry for lying to you, though.” She actually meant it. And then Lauren sighed and said, “OK . . .”
She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a handgun. Ruby heard Gemma’s voice in her mind. Scott was always armed. And here it was. All three guns accounted for. Despite this dire situation, Ruby’s brain still treated her to a drop of dopamine – like a single tear of joy lost in a vast and churning ocean – the simple, fleeting pleasure of finding an answer to a question.
“That’s Scott’s gun.”
“Yeah.” Lauren looked down at it, turned it over. “Fucking bullies, hey?” She laughed, but it sounded hollow. “I guess, in a way, we’re all Scott’s victims.” She gestured back towards the water. “Especially Frank.”
“You lured him here?”
“I told him that I was responsible, I knew he’d come.”
“You were going to shoot him?”
Lauren nodded at the room behind Ruby. “There’s a window back there. Considering he knew what I’d done, it seemed the safest bet. I was ready. Had him in my sights. But I heard you arrive and . . .” She looked down at the empty sawn-off shotgun near Ruby’s foot. “Well, you know what happened then.”
“And what happens now?” Ruby asked.
“You were right. There were seven names. Frank was the sixth.”
One more to go . . .
Ruby’s remaining blood surged as panic took hold. She’d wondered just hours earlier if this was it. The climax of her incompetence. Of all the things she’d forgotten, was this the one that mattered most? Did she see it happen? Had her name been on the list this whole time?
And she came willingly. She ran here. Ruby had served herself up like an animal without the faculties to even comprehend what slaughter means. What sacrifice awaits. She felt so small, so utterly lost and alone. There was nothing left besides doubt and fear.
“Yep,” Lauren said, with terrifying finality, eyes wide and ready to finish this monumental task. “Very nearly done now. One more.” She held the gun in both hands, nodded at it. Then she gripped the handle, finger on the trigger. And she breathed.
“Please.”
“It was always going to be the hardest.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m so sorry, Ruby. It’s only fair. I know you tried. And I know all the things you’ll say to stop me. But don’t. It’ll honestly be easier if we don’t talk.”
“I . . .” Ruby’s voice was weak, breaking out like she was on the verge of tears. “No . . . I wasn’t . . . I didn’t see . . . I— I didn’t.”
She was hyperventilating, shuffling backwards, back against the wall, heels pushing her back and back but there was nowhere to go. Even with all these reasons, she was still trying not to cry. Mouth stretched out in dismay, like a nightmare’s silent scream that wakes you shaking in your bed. Ruby lifted her jittering hand, setting her life free as she bowed her head and begged.
“Close your eyes, Ruby.”
She did. She tensed every muscle in her body and said, “I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there . . .”
“Oh, I know,” Lauren said, reassuringly. “But I was.”
Ruby looked. And, in one swift motion, before she could say another word, Lauren put the barrel of the gun in her mouth, aimed up and fired.
Ruby turned away and the next sound, the thud of flesh and bones on concrete, was quiet, muffled like something underwater. She felt herself fall to the side, slipping down and saying, “No,” as though it might change reality.
When Ruby opened her eyes, she saw that she was lying down, level with Lauren’s body, spreadeagled on the ground, her head eclipsed by her chest. No movement. No life. As perfectly still as the world beneath her.
Trying to stand, Ruby’s vision narrowed, a sudden head rush as she got onto one knee – left arm slack, swinging, right hand pressed to the wound. But, instead of rising, she tilted and fell. Now she was lying in exactly the same position, but on her other side.
She sighed. It had sapped all of her energy. She manoeuvred herself round, trying to use the wall for balance. But her final attempt was anticlimactic. Teeth clamped, growling for power, Ruby instructed her muscles to move and they simply didn’t. Not enough blood. Or maybe what she’d said was true. She really had lost it. The very thing you need to get back up again. That ability, the courage or resolve or whatever you want to call it, was gone.
She whispered the word “Help,” but not even she heard it over the sound of gentle waves below. Water lifting and dropping, outliving us all with indifference and ease.
It seemed too obvious, too plain, but Ruby felt sad. Not only had she failed, in every conceivable sense, she was also bleeding to death. And no one, not a single soul on this earth, knew where she was.
Right here, ribs on the hard ground, she could hear her heart beating in her neck, pulsing through her skull like she was wearing earplugs. Overwhelmingly loud. A fast and foetal clock struggling against the inevitable weakness of a rapidly draining resource.
She thought about crawling. But, even if she could, she didn’t really want to. She was empty. All she wanted to do now was rest.
Time passed. Perhaps a minute or two. Maybe a week. A year. A thousand long and lonely lives before Ruby realised she had closed her eyes. And that was OK.
No bright and guiding light to walk towards. Just black as the jumbled thoughts of early dreams entered centre stage, taking her by the hand and leading her back in time. Maybe to school. Or to Giles, where she could ride her bike and smile in circles that would never end.
And with her final fading thought, Ruby noticed total silence had, with divine force, driven the tide away. Even the wind had fled. She did not believe in heaven. But still she enjoyed the illusion of its promise when it arrived. At one point, it even felt like she was rising into the air. Carried in the strong arms of some angelic being that she knew, from the bottom of her dying heart, couldn’t possibly be real.
Chapter Nineteen
On the last day of school, students wrote on each other’s shirts. The girls wrote nice things, like, “Best of luck for the future”, or, “I’m going to miss you so much”. Lots of messages about the good times they shared, about staying in touch and hoping college proves just as fun as school had been. Best friends forever. Whereas the boys treated the tradition with far less reverence, employing a more toilet wall graffiti theme – warm wishes interspersed with explicit sexual demands and cartoon genitalia.
But Ruby didn’t know what she should write on Elizabeth’s shirt. Though, it didn’t feel important, because she knew they wouldn’t drift apart. Not like the others. This wasn’t goodbye. Just the opposite. They were greeting the start of a new chapter in their lives.
So, Ruby wrote the word “Love” on Elizabeth’s collar. And that was enough.
They were sitting in science, right at the front of the class. Top set. Ruby was staring idly out of the window, into the courtyard.
Across it, through thick pollen air, clear sky sun, beyond butterflies and hovering bees that sneak in and out of flowers as though they’re not welcome, she saw Scott. He’d been sent out of English and was now standing, arms folded, visibly disinterested in whatever Mr Hunter was saying. Lots of animation, pointing back towards the classroom, shouting about a misdemeanour that must have been extreme even for Scott. He was often getting told off, but this one seemed serious.
“I wonder what he did?” she said.
Turning away from the glass, Ruby faced Elizabeth, sitting next to her at the raised science desk. Her tie was short, white shirt already adorned with handwritten notes, “Love” clean and bold near her neck. She looked good today. Prettier than usual. When Ruby asked why, Elizabeth told her it was for the photo. And Ruby felt sudden anxiety because she hadn’t prepared.
“No,” she said. “That’s not today?”
Must be a mistake. The full year 11 photo had already been taken. A long time ago. This was summer. This was, yeah, Ruby glanced around, it was the last day of school.
“All done,” Elizabeth said.
Ruby looked down at her shirt sleeve. Elizabeth had written on her forearm in stark red ink. Thick marker-pen letters.
“What does it say? I can’t . . .” Ruby squinted at the words but she couldn’t really read them. It was something about being children, having no idea what the future would hold. The message was long and it seemed to be about death?
“OK,” Elizabeth said. She held the red pen up, waved it side to side and smiled.
Then, with dipped eyes, tongue poking out in concentration as though she was applying make-up, Elizabeth placed the thick felt nib on her temple and started drawing a straight line down her face, over her brow, over her wide-open eye, across the bridge of her nose, cheek, ending at her jaw, just below her ear.
“What are you doing?” Ruby said. “Don’t do that.”
She tried to take the pen but Elizabeth snatched it away.
“Wait.” And Elizabeth held it in her fist, gripped it tight like a knife, put the nib on the other side, at her hairline, and drew down again, firm now, dragging it across her skin to create a cross. Then, head flopped to the side, flesh dead and white, she turned to Ruby, as though presenting herself. “See.”
“Stop.”
“It’s fine. Your turn.”
Elizabeth placed her hand on Ruby’s shoulder, gently leant into her space, pen ready, nodding for permission to draw.
“No.” Ruby pushed her off, stood up and stepped away from the desk.
And now Mary was leaning round, from behind Elizabeth.
“What’s the problem?” Mary asked.
Ruby saw that she already had a smudged cross on her face. She looked out the window – Scott had one too. Was that why he was being told off?
“See,” Elizabeth said. “Everyone’s doing it.”
And the bell was ringing as Ruby backed out of the door and ran into the corridor and went through the crowd. She was pushing through the rumble and voices, bumped left, turning. Shoved right, turning back, turning full circle and then outside, up the stairs, towards the expanse. It went on forever. The playground was full. Busy. The criss-cross of uniforms. Pupils all around her, dense, like a sweaty mass of shoulders and chests at a concert.
Someone barged into her. “Sorry,” Ruby said, stumbling.
There were too many people.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I have to go, my dad’s picking me up. Please could I get by?” But no one seemed to care.
Head down, she tried to weave, but she was too small and they were pressing into her and she turned again and again and looked around at the flaring light glistening off the windows above. Flashing. The clouds too fast.
Panicking now, Ruby rose onto tiptoes, spotted the gates. “Please,” she said. “I need to get through. Please. I need to—”
Thud. A man pushed her – a giant – and she tripped, fell to her knees, palms slapping onto the concrete. Cowering lower, she went onto her side and shielded her head. Everyone was here, they could see her lying on the ground.
“Are you OK?” Will asked, kneeling.
“I can’t get up,” she whispered, more embarrassed than anything.
Little Adam had climbed high on the wall, near the playing fields. He leant over and drew a cross on his face. Even Alfie, looking out from a window, standing in his office in the sky – a rainbow beaming behind him. He gave her a quick nod. And then clicked the lid off a red pen. Ruby looked away now.
