Make Me Clean, page 21
The mound like a cairn.
And then she can breathe; then she is free.
*
When she finished, she had no words to say over him.
She staggered away, and as she walked, she cradled his head to her heart, no real idea of direction but always downhill. Slow progress, her limbs rebelling, shaking. Somehow, she put one foot in front of the other.
Freezing. Naked.
She was the girl who danced for him. She was Salome.
Stumbling and limping until she could barely walk.
She heard water. Her throat raw from smoke and screams, she scrambled forwards, carefully placed the head on the bank, and leaned over to drink, but she pitched forwards into the stream.
The shock brought her back to herself. She scrubbed her body in the icy water, washed him off her face, her hair – she needed to get all traces of him off her – shaking violently, and then she dragged herself out on to the bank and leaned against a tree.
She told herself to keep moving. She berated herself for resting – if she stopped now, she would fall asleep, and hypothermia would take her. But she was too shattered to care. She closed her eyes.
The cold burned so deep she was on fire.
And she rose from the flames. She forced herself to stand. She stretched.
In the tree trunk above her there was a deep hollow. She stood on tiptoe and put her hand inside, wondering if an animal might bite or tear her fingers with its beak. It was empty. And she knew that was the perfect place to leave the rest of him.
She kissed his lips one last time and pushed the head inside – an offering of sorts. She rammed her ruined nightdress in after him.
Then she washed her hands of him.
She walked until she could walk no longer. Down and down.
And then she crawled.
A Basque couple found her early in the morning. She heard them call to her, but she couldn’t stop clawing her way forwards. The man had to jog up to her before she paused.
He leaned over her then quickly stepped away, stunned. She was probably baring her fangs.
The woman took off her jacket and wrapped it round Maria to cover her as the man jabbered into his phone.
The rest was a blur.
People came. Lights pulsed. She was wrapped in a cloak of silver and probed and placed on a bed that moved and loaded and pricked and lifted and…
She woke in a hospital in Baracaldo. Bandages on her hands and feet. Stitches in her face. A metal plate in her ankle tight as a shackle.
She couldn’t answer their questions. It wasn’t only that she couldn’t understand the Spanish, she just could not speak.
What could she possibly say?
She loved him. She killed him. She buried him.
They asked who she wanted to call. She phoned Itzal. He helped her with all the questions.
The police seemed very interested that she’d been found naked, but unconcerned that she was off her tits on drugs – personal use of mushrooms wasn’t illegal in Spain, explained Itzal. It also made sense that she’d taken too much, panicked, and staggered on to a mountain path – that accounted for her injuries. There was no evidence of sexual assault, no evidence of a crime.
She said she’d been travelling, partying too hard. She couldn’t remember where, no. She’d lost her suitcase with her money and passport – no, she couldn’t remember when. No, she’d not been robbed or hurt. Nothing to see here, please move along.
Itzal backed her up. These things happen, he smiled. Stupid foreign New Age tourists. As bad as the hippies dancing naked at Woodstock. Mad dogs and Englishwomen. Ha ha.
Kind people in Spain helped her heal, helped her with new clothes, new shoes, papers to allow her back to Britain. She had to give them an address. She gave them details of her school, begged them not to call her dad. She said there’d been an estrangement. She had been travelling around with gypsies and staying with friends, sofa-surfing. No fixed abode.
They were probably glad to be rid of her.
She was terrified someone would find Joby.
She told Itzal Joby had left her and gone off with some Spanish girl. If Itzal worried where his English friend had disappeared to, he didn’t show it. He didn’t report it. That’s the thing with drugs, it makes you unreliable.
She didn’t mention the burned-out caravan. No one asked her about it.
She decided on London. She felt she no longer had a home in the Midlands and she couldn’t face her dad, or Joby’s community.
Itzal gave her a lift to the ferry port. He tried to kiss her goodbye, but she turned her head, so it was only a peck on the cheek. She was done with all that – romance and passion and desire and wanting.
She stood on the deck of the ferry back to Britain like a figurehead, untroubled by sickness. She may even have laughed.
53
Del calls before Maria sets off for work, informing her that Elsie is out of surgery and it’s gone ‘as well as can be expected, considering’ – a phrase not overly reassuring. Maria plans on going straight to the hospital the following morning, after she’s finished at Balogan’s.
Her nerves are already jangling as she starts to clean and the music coming from the flat next door is louder than ever. She’s pretty sure that no one else lives in the adjacent flats, or they must be either deaf or night workers like Balogan, because the noise from this particular party is off the scale. She tries to block it out, hurrying through her work, keen not to bump into Balogan right now because she can’t deal with the conflicting emotions he stirs up.
The music continues for hours. On a Tuesday night! The pulsing beats are so insistent Maria doesn’t initially distinguish the banging outside. When she becomes aware of it, she realises it’s a different sound, an urgent sound – someone is battering at Balogan’s door. Her heart hammers in response as she hurries to open it.
Cass is bent over, sobbing. ‘Please—’ is the only thing the girl manages to get out before stumbling against the wall. Maria takes her arm, helps her inside, supporting her as she leads her through to the bathroom.
As the girl leans against her, Maria feels her shoulders heaving. She’s tiny, like her boyfriend; she weighs practically nothing.
When she raises her head, Maria sees her face is destroyed.
‘Do you want me to call an ambulance, Cass love? Are you hurt anywhere else? What happened?’ she asks, although she can guess.
There’s only a groan in reply.
Maria carefully blots the injuries she can see with kitchen roll, to avoid damaging Balogan’s towels. As she gently dabs, Cass suddenly lunges forwards and kisses her full on the mouth, then winces. Maria pats her head and continues wiping the secretions away from the battered face.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ slurs her guest, her face twisted with pain and ruined with tears, snot and blood.
She notices the girl’s skinny arms are also a mass of bruises and scabs. She’s a total mess – a swollen eye, scratches across her cheek and eyebrow and there’s a tear in her top which—
Suddenly the music next door abruptly stops. They both startle. The girl looks terrified.
‘If he comes round, I won’t tell him you’re here,’ promises Maria.
The phone in Cass’s jean pocket starts ringing. For perhaps ten minutes Maria holds the trembling girl as they sit propped against the bath together, both wondering what will happen next as the phone trills, stops, then rings again.
Then the shouts start.
‘CASS! CASS!’ He kicks the door to Balogan’s flat.
‘He knows I’m in here,’ she whispers, gripping Maria’s arm.
‘Do you want me to call the police?’
God forgive her, but she’s relieved when Cass shakes her head.
The slams continue. Ridiculously, Maria is concerned for Balogan’s woodwork.
‘Cass, CASS! I’m warning you! I’m calling your fucking mother. I’m doing it. Now!’
The girl springs up, unsteady as a fawn, and bleats, ‘No, Mal!’
Maria has no idea what’s going on.
‘Your mother?’
‘Yeah. He’ll make me go back there. Please don’t let him send me back there!’
‘He can’t make you do anything. You’ve got to leave him.’
‘I can’t leave him. He needs me. He loves me, really he does.’
‘This isn’t love!’
‘You don’t understand. It’s not like that.’
Another kick at the door. ‘CASS!’
Cass stands, stumbles and lurches towards the door, shouting, ‘Please, Mal! Don’t, Mal!’
Maria says, ‘No! Ignore him. Don’t open it—’
‘I’ve got to! He’s my dad!’
Maria is so startled she doesn’t move for a second and then Cass is at the door.
As soon as the door opens a crack, Mal thrusts in, grabs Cass’s arm, and wrenches her out of the flat. As he drags her along the corridor she cries, ‘Please, no, Mal!’
Maria puts Balogan’s door on the latch and rushes after them, with little idea of what’s going on or what she intends to do.
She hurtles into the neighbouring flat, Mal too messy to shut the door behind him. The room is in chaos – takeaway containers, clothes, bottles, a broken chair, drugs in a bag, a discarded crack pipe. No one else seems to be there.
Mal slings Cass on the floor and she lays curled on the filthy carpet as she shrieks, ‘No, Mal! Please, Mal!’ over and over, like a mantra.
He looks up and notices Maria has followed them. His sneering expression does not change, but he abandons Cass and slumps down heavily on the sofa.
Maria stands framed in the doorway, as if she’s on pause.
‘She’s done this,’ says Mal.
‘Done what?’ Maria is playing catch-up here.
‘She did this to herself. She never knows when to stop, do you, Cass? Fucking idiot.’
Cass snivels. She looks up at Maria and says, ‘Just go. Please. You’ll only make it worse.’
And it might have stopped there. Maria might have left them to sort things out between themselves. How could she help Cass? But as she backs away, despite her misgivings about Cass and what Mal might do to her, she spots a black sports bag on the floor next to the sofa where Mal sits glaring at her. The bag gapes open. And it is stuffed with cash – more money than she’s ever seen in her life – so naturally she stares, she can’t help it. And Mal notices her do so.
Maria half turns to go, trying to pretend she’s not seen anything.
‘Wait!’ he snaps.
Maria looks to Mal – and despite herself, her eyes track to the bag on the floor and back up again.
Cass whimpers, ‘Mal, no!’ And both women watch his hand reach down the side of the sofa. He doesn’t take his eyes off Maria as he brings out a gun.
The gun is more mesmerising than the cash.
Mal gurns. It in no way resembles a smile.
‘Move!’ he instructs. He gestures for Maria to get away from the door, but her legs don’t seem to be working.
He stands and takes a step towards her, pointing the gun at her face.
Would he really shoot? If he shoots, would anyone come? Maria considers the possibility, almost like she’s not in the room, almost as if this isn’t happening to her.
Mal walks towards her, kicks the door shut and brings the gun up to the side of Maria’s head, pressing it into her temple. It feels cold, hard, like the gun at Balogan’s. Probably real, then.
She tries to compute the half-thoughts flitting through her mind. Should she promise that she won’t say anything? Should she threaten him with Balogan? Should she beg?
But she can’t move. Any words stay lodged in her mouth, and she stands silent as a statue as Cass pleads, ‘Mal, please. Stop!’
He brings his lips closer to Maria’s ear and asks, ‘You said you work for him, Balogan, yeah?’
With the gun against her skull, Maria makes the smallest nod possible.
‘What do you do for him?’
From the floor, Cass says, ‘She cleans for him.’
‘You’re his cleaner, yeah? You’re only the cleaner?’ He laughs high and nasty. His expression changes and he says, ‘You’re dead.’
As soon as those words are out of his mouth, Maria finally forces herself to move, ducks, lunges and grabs the first thing she can, which happens to be one of the acoustic guitars propped against the wall, and she swings it in front of her to keep him away, which she knows is ludicrous because she’s brought a guitar to a gunfight.
He laughs, probably thinking the same thing, but in that split second when he forgets himself in the laugh, she swings the guitar back around and it slams into the side of his cheek. The wood splinters with a satisfying crack where it connects, and he staggers back, losing his footing over Cass, who’s still curled on the carpet looking up at him, petrified, and he trips sideways, scrabbling like a cartoon animal running off the edge of a cliff before he falls on to one knee.
She smashes the guitar down on his head once more to make sure he stays down, and again, because he’s still holding the gun, and again, for taunting her with the knife that time – each blow a heavy thwack as it connects.
When the guitar disintegrates, and he’s face down on the carpet, she grabs a bottle of tequila from the coffee table and continues hitting him until the gun skitters away.
It’s like hitting Nick – it takes on its own rhythm.
Until he’s still.
And the girl on the floor is quiet at last.
54
She comes back to herself. It takes her a few seconds to feel connected to her body once more. She has a splinter in the palm of her hand from the guitar.
Mal is a sickening mess on the floor. The gun has skittered away under the coffee table.
Maria stands motionless above him, holding the bottle, holding her breath.
Cass unfurls and crawls over to Mal, touching what is left of his face.
Maria galvanises herself, bending to check, as if his lack of movement, given the state of him, might be a vile joke. The two women look at each other, horrified.
Maria notices the stain spreading from his head, bleeding into the floor beneath him. She’ll need to see to that.
A high-pitched noise escapes from Cass. The girl shoves her knuckles in her mouth to stop it and looks up at Maria, eyes huge.
‘Cass. Get up, you need to go. Get away from this. Now. I’ll sort it.’
The girl is too dazed to answer.
Maria takes the girl’s hand and helps her to her feet. She holds her arms and makes herself talk calmly.
‘You need to leave. Just go. You were never here. Okay?’
They nod slowly at each other.
Then, like a robot, Cass walks to the bathroom on wobbly legs.
Maria hurries back to Balogan’s for her cleaning kit. She stands in the hallway a moment, takes a few deep breaths, gathering herself before going back inside Mal’s flat.
She puts on her rubber gloves and starts to wipe down the remains of the guitar with bleach as she tries to make sense of what Cass has just told her.
Her father!
Cass reappears from the bathroom a minute or two later and seems a little more together. She sits on the sofa, folding her feet underneath her like a lamb, and scratches at her skinny arm.
Maria stops cleaning for a moment. ‘Cass, I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m not,’ says Cass. She sounds matter-of-fact.
‘Don’t be sorry. I’m …’
‘But—’
‘I hated him. He was always trying to control me, you know?’
‘But he was your dad?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Eighteen. He had me, like, when he was my age.’
‘He hurt you?’
Cass snorts. ‘Like you wouldn’t believe …’ Her thoughts seem to drift away.
Maria gets up and takes the girl’s coat from where it’s been discarded by the side of the sofa and wraps it around her shoulders.
‘Are you okay? Will you be okay?’
The girl pauses, then nods. ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’
They both sit staring at the floor for a few seconds, then Cass says, ‘What are you going to do with this …?’ She nods to the carnage at her feet.
‘I’ll clean it up,’ says Maria.
Cass unfurls herself from the sofa and steps carefully around Mal’s contorted form.
‘I’m going now,’ she announces. ‘I’m taking this.’ She snatches the bag of drug paraphernalia from the coffee table, hugs it to her belly like it’s a child.
‘Where will you go?’
‘To my boyfriend’s. Me and Mal had loads of fights about him!’ She laughs, coughs. ‘Or to a mate’s – anywhere but my mum’s.’
‘Why not?’
‘No way! Don’t make me go back there! Please!’
‘Of course. No one can make you do anything, Cass. But, why?’
‘I can’t breathe when I’m around her. She so fucking needy! She can’t let me be. Totally toxic. She’s a control freak – worse than him! She hates my boyfriend. She hates the drugs, but she can talk.’ She snorts a sharp laugh. ‘She hates Mal. She hated me staying with him – kept saying what a terrible person he was. What a bad influence.’
She had a point, thinks Maria. She says, ‘It can’t be that bad at your mum’s.’
The girl shakes her head. ‘No! She used to sing with him. She’s jealous of me!’
There’s an awkward silence.
‘Families are complicated,’ sighs Cass.
Maria says, ‘I need to get on and clean this up. Are you sure you’ll be okay?’
Cass considers. ‘Yeah. I’ll be hunky dory.’ She heads for the door.
‘Wait,’ calls Maria, nodding to the bag of cash.
‘Oh God, no. No!’ Cass gasps, shaking her head. ‘It’s not mine. Mal collects for him. It’s his.’ She indicates Balogan’s flat next door. ‘He’d kill me if I took that. I told Mal not to. He was skimming off the top. I kept telling him. I didn’t realise how much – all that in there. But now …’ She trails off.
‘Mal was stealing from Balogan?’
