She's Not There, page 28
‘When people are dead,’ Xavier was saying. ‘It’s just what you do. I didn’t want …’
He didn’t want anyone to find you, Mayo. An icy, glinting chip, like a knife. It was good, the icy chip, it stopped the creature – it blocked it from rising up. He didn’t want anyone to find you, in case they thought he’d killed you.
‘You hid her,’ he said. ‘You thought everyone would forget about her.’ The chip was burning now: a steady, ice-blue flame.
‘That’s not … Oh Christ!’ Xavier was crying, which was making it hard for him to talk.
‘You left her on her own.’ Please don’t leave me. Her pen marks, cut deep into the paper. Xavier was whispering something. Jonah leaned forward, but he couldn’t hear. ‘You put that smelly carpet on her, and then you left her,’ he said.
‘I didn’t want …’ whispered Xavier. ‘I didn’t want animals … or insects …’
Jonah got a flash of the wriggling bin worms, and the shape of her, under the carpet. His belly heaved and he clapped his hands over his mouth, and the plastic shop-till rolled to the ground.
‘I didn’t just …’ Xavier was speaking more clearly. ‘Joney, I lay down next to her. I tried to … I said her name.’
He said your name, Mayo. His hands were still over his mouth, his fingers were wet with his spit.
‘And I stroked her face. I kept stroking her face.’
You stroked my face, such a tender touch. And when I woke up I could still feel it.
‘And I – I talked about the baby. You know – the test you found.’
I want him to come and hold me, and say he feels sad too.
‘I kept telling her she was my … my Lucy. My precious beloved.’ His voice dropped to a whisper.
Jonah dropped his hands into his lap. ‘Could she … hear you?’
There was no answer, but then Jonah realised Xavier was still whispering. He pushed the curtain aside and peered out, and saw that he had turned away from the Wendy house, towards the carpet. The light was still streaming down from the open rectangle, a pale, dusty shaft. He’s talking to you, Mayo. He’s calling you ‘Baby’. Can you hear him?
Xavier suddenly looked back, over his shoulder, and their eyes met. ‘She died straightaway, Joney.’ His voice was calm now, calm and clear. ‘It didn’t hurt. I looked down, and I could tell from the way she was lying. Her neck had broken.’
‘Down?’
‘Yes. From up there.’ He nodded towards where the light was coming from, and Jonah remembered the Raggedy Man, outside the betting shop, pointing up at the sky. ‘That’s where we were,’ said Xavier. ‘And she fell.’
Jonah remembered the birds, so early in the morning, screeching like crazy, as the planet tilted towards the sun. You fell. Was it the sunrise that made you fall? He saw her tilted by the turn of the planet, her bare feet slipping, her mouth opening, and her eyes – all surprised.
67
‘How long did you stay lying next to her?’ Jonah asked. He’d been thinking about Monday morning, and seeing Violet standing on Xavier’s white van. He’d looked at Violet, not at the van, which was why he hadn’t realised.
‘Until I heard the Green Shop blinds.’ So he’d been there all that time, while he and Raff were having Weetabix. ‘I thought, I must get Em to school. I just – I knew I couldn’t protect you and Raff from it. But I wanted Em to be in school. Before the police came.’
‘But the police didn’t come. Why did you think they’d come? When no one knew?’
‘I thought someone would have heard.’ Heard you scream. ‘The Green Shop Man, or you, even. And failing that, I thought you’d tell someone anyway. When you realised she wasn’t there.’
‘But then you saw us in the playground.’
‘Yes. You asked me about the cricket.’
‘And you didn’t say anything.’
‘I just … I needed to get Dora to her appointment. That was the next thing. Get Dora to the hospital, then deal with it.’ He paused. ‘But then there were more next things. There was always a next thing.’ He fell silent.
‘But you knew we were on our own.’
‘Yes.’ He made the horrible sound again. Then he said, ‘I thought about you all the time.’
‘How could you think about us, and not …’
There was another long pause. Xavier sounded like he was crying. Then he whispered, ‘I came in the night.’
‘What night?’
‘Monday night. I came in through the back.’ Waking up on Tuesday morning, thinking he’d heard her come in, and then the punch of her empty bed. Going downstairs, and seeing that the back door was open. ‘I sat on the landing, listening to you and Raffy breathing.’
‘You were drunk.’ Those eyes, that breath, when he brought round the plums.
‘I was. I was totally smashed.’
Smashed, going through the Broken House, past her body; smashed, on the landing, listening to him and Raff. ‘Why did you go away?’
‘To tell Dora. I wanted to be there when she woke up, and tell her, get that bit over with. And then come back.’
‘But you didn’t tell her. Or come back.’
‘No. She said she’d heard from Lucy. She said you and Raff were coming to tea.’ He paused, and when he started again, his voice was wobbling. ‘So I went to buy the chicken. It was easier.’ A long, shaky sigh. ‘But not because … Jonah, it wasn’t myself I was trying to protect. I was going round in circles. Knowing I must tell, but knowing that once I did, I wouldn’t have any control over what happened to you. Do you see? I didn’t want you to get carted off by Roland’s mother.’ His voice was wobbling and quivering, but Jonah was feeling ice-cold, miles away. ‘I just wanted to cook you roast chicken.’ A whining dog, that was what he sounded like. ‘I thought, I’ll cook them roast chicken, and then … And then I’ll figure it out. Maybe get Dora to let you stay.’
‘You mended the fence.’ He’d remembered the drilling in the night, and the van, driving away.
‘Yes. Which night was that?’
‘The night it rained. You were trying to hide her.’
‘Mate.’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t want you and Raffy to find her.’
‘You didn’t want anyone to find her. Because of Dora. You didn’t want Dora to know. Or Emerald. You cared about them more than us.’
‘I kept waiting for you to tell, Joney.’ He was making that whining noise again. ‘I thought you’d tell someone. Every day. Every hour. I wanted you to. I wanted it taken out of my hands. But you didn’t. I even – I even felt angry with you. I just …’ His crying took over.
‘You made her pregnant. And then you made her have an operation, to kill the baby.’ He shivered. ‘That’s why she stayed in bed. You told her you were coming round, on Sunday night.’ Her face in her mirror, her eyes, her too-thick lipstick. ‘You went to the Green Shop first, and got the mango and the wine, and then you came. Why?’
‘I had to tell her. We had to stop seeing each other. Because of Dora being so ill.’
‘No, why did you bring the bottle of wine?’
‘I don’t know. I thought … maybe a drink together. That she understood and it would be OK. We would still be friends.’
But you got upset, Mayo. Jonah hugged himself hard, remembering that he’d heard her, but that he’d thought it was a dream. Then he remembered the wine again, and the glasses, by the side of the bed. ‘You sexed her, didn’t you? You drank the wine, and you sexed her.’ His fist tightened, and he bashed it against the Wendy-house wall. ‘Why did you do that, when you came round to tell her you weren’t going to sex her any more?’
The sound of Xavier breaking down gave Jonah a shock, jolting him out of his anger. He listened from inside his little house, feeling himself going numb and light again. He remembered a visit to a church. Where? When? Oh, the French holiday, the day they’d gone into the town. An old, sun-baked town, with a green river and a tiny old lady in black hobbling over the bridge. The church had been very big and cool, with stained-glass windows, and he and Raff and Emerald had run off to explore. They’d played with the wax dripping from some thin white candles, and Emerald had kissed a weird statue baby, and they’d all stared into a glass case at what seemed to be a dressed-up skeleton. And then they’d found the wooden cubbyhole with the curtained window. Raff had thought it was a toilet to begin with, but the seat inside was just a seat. They’d played in it for a while, until Dora had come along and told them not to. ‘It’s a confession box,’ she had explained. ‘The priest sits inside, and if you’ve been naughty you go and talk to him through the window, telling him the bad things you’ve done. And then he asks if you’re sorry, and if you are, then it’s all OK. You’re back to being good again.’
Xavier was talking on the other side of the curtain. ‘I loved her,’ he was saying. ‘You have to realise that. I kept … my brain was haywire.’
‘So did you change your mind? Were you going to stay and live with us?’
‘I couldn’t. I wished I could. But how could I? And I thought she realised. You can’t leave someone who’s … who’s …’
Dora. Adora. Adorable Dora. ‘Riddled with cancer’. My darling friend.
‘But she went crazy.’
I heard you, but I thought it was in my dream, and I stayed asleep. If only I’d have woken up. I would have come and hugged you.
Xavier was telling him what had happened next, stopping and starting, and stopping again. Jonah held himself tighter, seeing what Xavier was remembering, his eyes squeezed closed. He saw the sleeping houses behind the orange street lights, with their greasy roofs, and the sky like clay. Xavier opening the door and stepping out into the still-cool air, and Lucy coming out after him, crying, in her red sarong and her unravelled hair. Holding her little red phone, which matched her sarong and her toenails. He saw her flipping it open, saying she was going to phone Dora. And Xavier trying to snatch it; and Lucy jumping back, all wild and snarling, and then her bare feet on the pavement, and his Crocs, running after her, and the street lights switching off and the sudden soft greyness of everything. Slipping through the gap in the fence, slipping through easily, but Xavier having to kick and push before he can follow her. Running along the path, the thorns scratching her legs, and into the big, dark kitchen, where she stops and looks down at her phone. But she hears him coming, and she runs into the hall, and the planet tilts, and the light flows down the stairs like a golden carpet.
Then she’s running up the stairs, her face lit up with the gold, and the birds all go tumbling upwards. It’s so strange being up there, among the crumbly walls, like an olden-days soldier on a castle. She looks up at the birds, feathery, screeching blotches across the candyfloss sky, and then across at their house – yes, and through a jaggedy gap she can see her own bedroom window. And then she hears him, right behind her, on the stairs, and the beam is there … Mayo, don’t.
The beam is wide, but it’s so high up, and Xavier is frightened, seeing her walking across it. He says, ‘Baby! Please, come back!’ But her bare feet keep going, squelching through the bird poo, and she reaches the other side and holds onto the wall. Jonah sees through her eyes now, as she looks over, and sees their little concrete yard, with the plant pots, and the corduroy cushion, and the golden bicycle. Their little life together, Lucy, Jonah and Raff – but she turns away from it and, leaning against the wall, she flips open her phone again.
Xavier is talking about Dora now, saying that she’d taken a sleeping pill and gone ‘out for the count’, but that it would have worn off by then. Jonah sees them both, like he’s watching a split screen: Lucy, up on the beam, the screeching birds and the dazzling sunlight, her face frowning down as she brings up Dora’s number; and down in the Martins’ house, all silent and curtained, Dora’s slack, sleeping face against her pillow in her enormous bed. And then Xavier, in a panic, stepping onto the beam, telling her not to be crazy, not to ruin all their lives. She turns away from him, leaning against the wall, putting her phone to her ear, and she’s safe still, her tummy against the brick. The sun is already hot, and the molecules are scattering the blue light waves; Dora’s phone is ringing, but probably all the way down in their kitchen. Dora’s never going to hear it, but stupid Xavier doesn’t know that. He’s in a panic, trying to stop her from ruining all their lives. He’s across the beam, and he snatches the phone, gripping the wall with his other hand; she turns around again, angry, trying to get it back, and there isn’t enough space for them to be jostling and wrestling like that. And then Xavier manages to lift his arm, and he bowls the phone into the air, really hard, to get it away from her. But she reaches after it, she thinks she can somehow … reaches with both hands, and then her foot slips and her hands grip the air. Xavier feels the shift, and his hand scrabbles for her, finds her locket, but the chain is just a wisp around her neck. It’s so quick, quick as a flash – she’s there on the beam, and then she’s gone. Jonah doesn’t see her falling. Instead he sees the phone, as it arcs, high above, before plummeting, bright red, into the soft earth of the plant pot.
68
‘Are there any actual good people?’ he asked, through the Wendy-house window. They’d been sitting in silence for a while, and he saw Xavier’s head jerk up at the sound of his voice. ‘I mean, good people who don’t do bad things?’
‘I don’t know. There might be,’ Xavier answered. ‘But I think nearly everyone has done at least one or two bad things.’
Letting go of the curtain, Jonah leaned back, trying to think of the bad things he’d done. He’d been getting cross with Harold, and Emerald. He’d called Emerald a cunt. He had lots of fights with Raff. He’d got really cross with him for finishing the can of Coke and had let him go off on his own. Had that been his fault? Or had it been a force moving through him, that he could do nothing about? He was feeling light and numb again, his thoughts drifting in the never-ending space of his brain. But then he heard Xavier getting to his feet: his grunts and the shifting rubble. ‘Come on, mate.’
Jonah looked at the Wendy-house door. His body was full of pins and needles, but he couldn’t bear to move and stir everything up. Instead, he unhooked the checked curtain so that he could see out of the window properly. Xavier, his hands in his pockets, was looking towards the carpet, which was still in the shaft of light. ‘Was it you who lit the incense?’
‘Incense?’ Xavier looked around. ‘What incense?’
‘Can’t you smell it?’
Xavier sniffed the air and shook his head.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Jonah asked.
‘Now?’ He sighed. ‘Now, I’m going to get you home. You and Raffy, and Em. Back to ours. And then.’ He sighed again. ‘And then I’m going to phone the police, like I should have done on Monday morning.’
‘What about Dora?’ Dora in hospital, all bandaged up, like an Egyptian mummy, waiting and waiting for Saviour.
‘You don’t have to worry about Dora, mate. That’s not your job.’
Jonah looked up into the old, crumpled face, which had once been the little-boy face in the photograph. ‘I don’t want you to,’ he said.
‘Jonah, mate.’ He had gone croaky again. ‘Jonah. It’s just – what has to happen.’
‘They’ll take you away. Like they took Roland away. Even though you didn’t actually push her. They’ll think it was your fault.’
‘Well.’ Xavier cleared his throat. ‘It was my fault. It’s all my fault. I deserve what’s coming to me.’ His shoulders rose and then fell.
‘I don’t want them to take you away,’ Jonah said. ‘I don’t want to – be on my own.’
‘It’ll be OK, mate. Ben’s babysitting. I’ve already booked him.’
‘The police might think you murdered her. They’ll put you in prison, for ever and ever, and Dora and Em …’
‘I’ve got to tell them, mate.’ He spoke softly. ‘There’s no way out of it.’
In a sudden panic, Jonah kicked open the Wendy-house door. ‘But it’s too late! Don’t you see?’ He scrambled out and got to his feet, and stood, facing Xavier. ‘They’ll think you kept it a secret because you actually killed her, on purpose!’
‘Who knows what they’ll think. But no more lies. I can’t do any more lies.’ He held out his hand.
Jonah crossed his arms and shook his head. ‘Not tonight.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t phone the police tonight.’ Xavier’s eyes scrunched closed and his arm dropped to his side. ‘I don’t think Dora should find out, straight after her operation.’ Jonah paused for a moment. ‘And I don’t want to tell Raffy. Not tonight. I want him to be happy, and have pizza.’ He stepped closer. ‘Then you could go and see Dora for a while, and come back and put us to bed.’
There was no answer. Jonah uncrossed his arms and placed them around Xavier’s middle. They stayed like that, neither of them moving, and then Jonah put his head against Xavier’s belly, and Xavier put his hand on Jonah’s hair.
‘And then tomorrow Roland will come. You can phone the police after he’s got here.’
‘Roland?’
‘Yes. He’s coming out of prison. Didn’t you know?’
‘Thank fuck.’ Xavier was crying again. ‘I think I did know. But I’d forgotten.’ He wiped his eyes and nodded his head. ‘OK. Tomorrow then.’ He looked over his shoulder. They both looked. The shaft of light had gone.
69
He was back in the Broken House, searching through the rubble, and there was the doll again, lying face down, apart from it wasn’t a doll at all – it was the baby. He squatted down and peered: the dent in its head didn’t look too bad, but it must be dead, a newborn baby couldn’t have survived all these days all alone. Then he realised he could hear a sound, just the trace of a sound, repeating itself. Such a sweet little sound. Its baby suit was filthy, but he could see the yellow elephants on it. He rested his finger in the tiny space between its shoulder blades and felt its heartbeat. Next, it was in the crook of his arm. He looked down into its face, and it looked a lot like its father, Xavier Martin; but then it opened its eyes, and they were just like his eyes, the eyes he saw in the mirror, dark and thoughtful.
