Love Me to Death Page 11

  The other three walked on towards the main road and when they turned the corner, he walked out of the car park behind the lone girl. She stumbled on the kerb and almost fell in the road. He wondered if she would even notice that he was there. He smiled. Sometimes it was too easy. She was thin and weak. Mr Anderson thought of the harebells on Cage Hill, the tiny purple flowers that rested on a stem as thin as wire: so delicately fragile and easily snapped.

  The girl glanced back and saw him as she crossed the road towards the housing estate and he knew what she was – a lost girl with no focus. He would save her from that life. He licked his lips and thought about the family he wanted and the family that he’d never had, as he followed behind her with the adrenaline building. It didn’t matter if she knew, or if she was oblivious. He realised now that it was just about finding the right moment. He’d been blind. This one was going to be so easy – the alcohol had made her unsteady like a new-born deer and she was his.

  He quickened his pace. She walked faster and he could tell that she wanted to run, but was waiting. Waiting until the time was right. Just like he was. They already had a shared understanding. She glanced over her shoulder and he shouted after her.

  ‘You dropped this! Hello?’

  When she stuck up her middle finger and ran towards the houses it was unexpected. She was fast. No longer unsteady, but graceful, like a deer running through the woods. She went through the parked cars and off towards the gardens – so light on her feet that he could barely hear the footsteps.

  He ran for a few metres, hoping that she’d fall, until he realised that he wasn’t going to catch her up. She was much faster. The girl had more going for her than expected. She could run like the wind. He smiled – opportunities were growing and every day were more chances. He just needed to be prepared. As he walked back through the darkness and down the side streets, he glanced over at the houses. Mr Anderson looked into the windows he passed, seeing all the people inside. There were so many of them and it was just a matter of time before he found an open door.

  14

  Jacob made sure the bin bags were tied up tight as a shadow passed across the pavement. After his mum had gone, Jacob’s dad left her clothes in bags outside the house and Jacob thought of it as he stood there by the gate. In the morning the clothes were scattered on the garden like flattened corpses after someone had ripped open the bags to see if there was anything good to take. They’d left it all behind. He’d picked up one of the jumpers from the garden and hid it under his bed where it was still, hidden in a bag where no one could take it.

  He was feeling down because Maggie still hadn’t brought his bike back. He’d waited in after school yesterday in case she came and when he’d phoned her, her mum had said she was ‘out’. He thought that meant she was coming to see him, but she never came. The thought of not knowing what she was doing was like a tic in his head. He didn’t care about the bike, she could keep it, he just wanted to see her.

  A man walked in the middle of the road towards him, silhouetted against the morning sun, rucksack in his hand. His long overcoat flapped in the wind like his granddad’s used to when he’d come and visit for weekends. Squinting, he put his hand to his forehead to get a better look. It was Mr Anderson.

  ‘Morning, Jacob.’

  Jacob nodded. ‘Hello.’ Jacob was embarrassed. He wondered if Mr Anderson would mention the night he’d gone after him to find the badgers or worse, the library book that he’d taken.

  ‘Good job there,’ he said. ‘I struggle with mine. It nearly kills me doing mine with my back.’

  Jacob paused. He was relieved. Mr Anderson didn’t seem any different to usual. He’d done his best to avoid him at the library, but now he realised that he needn’t have worried.

  ‘Do you need a hand?’

  Mr Anderson’s eyes widened. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  Jacob glanced up at the bedroom window to check for his stepmother. Everything was tied up properly like she wanted, with no splits. She always blamed him in the morning if the foxes had ripped open the bags.

  ‘Your mother would approve,’ he said with an uncomfortable smile.

  Jacob wasn’t used to people talking about his mum. It was only Maggie that did. It felt nice to be able to remember her and his eyes filled up. He turned away so that his neighbour couldn’t see his face.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Mr Anderson raised an eyebrow. ‘Everything alright?’

  Jacob looked back into his pale blue eyes. ‘Thanks for remembering her.’

  Mr Anderson whistled through his teeth. ‘The only good one on this street.’

  Jacob lifted up his head. ‘Not everyone would say so.’

  ‘They’re idiots then.’ Mr Anderson exhaled through his nose.

  Mr Anderson walked round the side of the house towards the back garden. ‘I keep them round here.’

  Jacob felt odd going down the path. Thick green privet hedges stood tall around the edge, making it dark and enclosed. Once you were in, there was only one way out. They used to dare each other to go and touch the back gate, but even Billy Vincent didn’t like doing it, once you got half way down the drive you knew that if the front door opened you were going to get caught. There had been rumours about Mr Anderson’s mother and all the kids were scared of her.

  Jacob wasn’t sure about it, but a mixture of curiosity and his loyalty to his mother took him into the garden. Even Maggie thought Mr Anderson was odd and she’d be impressed when he told her about it.

  Mr Anderson held the big wooden gate open for him. ‘That’s the way.’

  Jacob tried to smile back. The back garden was scruffy and unkempt with old wood and rubbish piled up.

  ‘Can you move some wood for me too?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Jacob could see them piled up by the door.

  Mr Anderson shut the gate and smiled. ‘Great.’

  Jacob looked around for the bins, they were over near the side of the house, far away from the gate.

  ‘The girl you’re with a lot. She’s your girlfriend?’

  Jacob stiffened. ‘No.’

  'Of course not, you’re too young for that.’ Mr Anderson looked over at the back door. ‘Just by the shed with these.’

  Through the window, Jacob noticed a picture on the wall of Mr Anderson’s mother. She was young and slim, dressed in a patterned sundress and sitting outside a café on holiday. Jacob hardly remembered her, but he knew that she’d never looked like that. She was a sour-faced, dumpy old woman who was always shouting. She shouted at milkmen and binmen and anyone who dared to come near her. She popped footballs and threw them back over the hedge if any came in the garden. They told each other if you went into that garden at night you wouldn’t come back again.

  ‘An old picture,’ Mr Anderson said, as he saw him looking. ‘She was old when she had me.’

  Jacob’s mum told him that his mother used to hit him.

  ‘I only remember her a bit.’

  ‘She was a strong woman. I miss her.’

  Jacob was surprised. He didn’t expect him to say anything nice about her. Mr Anderson smiled.

  As he lifted the wood, Jacob’s foot caught on the side of the step and he dropped the plank back on the ground. A cloud of flies rose up from near the fence. Mr Anderson watched as the flies settled back to where they’d come from. ‘Little shits. It’s that compost heap.’

  There was a thick, heavy smell, like rotten rubbish from the back of the garden.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Just leave it here, it’s fine,’ Mr Anderson told him.

  Jacob put it down on the floor. ‘The bins?’

  Mr Anderson nodded. He pointed to the hedge. ‘Are we alone?’

  Jacob frowned. ‘Sorry?’

  Mr Anderson ruffled the hedge with his fingers. ‘I know what she’s like.’

  Jacob glanced at the hedge. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘We’ve got things in common.’ Mr Anderson nodded to him
self. For a second it felt like nothing else existed. That there was just him and the old man.

  ‘Connections,’ Mr Anderson said, as he pointed at himself and then at Jacob.

  Jacob bit his lip. ‘Should I do the bin?’

  Mr Anderson turned to look at him. ‘Sure.’

  As he reached over to the bin lid, he felt something brush the back of his leg and turned around. Mr Anderson’s face was close. He coughed and took a step back. His grey hair glinted in the sunlight like the scales of a fish.

  ‘Unhappy homes,’ he said, as he looked away.

  The distant sound of the church clock chime was muffled by the sound of an aeroplane overhead.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That’s why you took the book. To have some control. I understand it.’

  ‘It wasn’t why.’

  ‘I’ve been in the same boat.’

  ‘It was where Mum was. I wanted to see it.’ Jacob was annoyed and the words came out fast. He felt embarrassed as soon as he’d said them. It was something he hadn’t wanted anyone to know.

  Mr Anderson leant towards him. ‘She told me. About her troubles.’

  Despite his closeness, Jacob didn’t move away. He could smell his breath, like tea and decay.

  ‘Did she?’ Jacob stared at him. It wasn’t something she’d ever shared with him. Perhaps his mother had a real friendship with Mr Anderson. He wondered what else he knew about her, all the times he could have asked, all the things he could know.

  ‘I think she thought I’d understand.’

  Jacob looked him in the eye. ‘She didn’t talk about it to me.’

  ‘You were a boy.’

  ‘We were family.’

  ‘They shut the place down,’ Mr Anderson said. ‘Bad practices.’

  Jacob bit the side of his mouth; he didn’t like to think of what his mother had gone through. He’d read about what happened to the women in there. Electric shock treatments and baths filled with ice to cure them. Thoughts of his mother’s screams made him want to squeeze his head until the thoughts weren’t there anymore. He didn’t want to think of her in that place.

  ‘I think they made her worse.’

  ‘They didn’t make her much better.’

  Jacob suddenly felt vulnerable.

  ‘Vive hodié,’ Mr Anderson replied with a smile. ‘It means live today.’

  ‘Right.’

  Mr Anderson beamed as he took the bin lid off and pulled out the rubbish bag. ‘Nice and tight so the foxes can’t get in.’

  It was what his stepmother said to him every time he did their bins. Jacob glanced up and Mr Anderson tapped the side of his nose and passed him the bin bag.

  Jacob swallowed. ‘These bags are thick. Ours are useless.’

  Mr Anderson laughed through creamy yellow teeth. ‘It’s worth spending extra.’ He threw his cigarette butt down on the floor as Jacob tied the bag up. ‘Can I ask you to do this every week? My back’s not so good. That OK with you, son?’

  Jacob nodded.

  ‘Do you mind if I call you that?’

  ‘Not really.’

  He remembered how his mother used to help him. She’d come back afterwards and kiss Jacob’s forehead with soft lips and skin that smelt of peaches, telling him how it was good to be kind to other people. The thought made his mouth dry. He knew that he would keep doing this. It was for his mother. Something secret that no one could link to her, but him. There was more he wanted to know from Mr Anderson too. He might know so much about her. There could be things that she’d told him that she’d not told anyone else. The thought of it made his heart race.

  He took the bin bag out onto the road with Mr Anderson following.

  ‘Come in for a bit if you want to,’ he said from behind him.

  Mr Anderson walked over to his front door. Jacob thought about his mother and wondered what they used to talk about, what else she’d told him. He looked at the dark garden and thick green door with the frosted pane of glass at the top and walked back up the path. As he took a step inside, Mr Anderson rubbed his palm over the stubble on his chin and motioned at the door.

  ‘Were you born in a barn?’

  Jacob hesitated for a moment before he shut it. He remembered what the Vincents had said about Mr Anderson. That he only worked in the library so that he could get the addresses of any young boys that he liked the look of. It was just rubbish though. Jacob knew what they were like.

  The house was dark. The wallpaper was maroon and the furniture was all heavy oak. It wasn’t much to look at. In the corner of the living room was an open box on the sideboard, with a line of wooden tools inside. Jacob could hear the hum of the television from his house through the walls.

  ‘Want a drink?’ Mr Anderson asked with a nod.

  Jacob shook his head.

  ‘Maybe you’d like water? I don’t have fizzy pop. Or something to eat?’

  Jacob stayed near the door. He wondered if anyone would miss him if he were found in the woods like Jayne. Here and then gone, disappeared under the snow. He looked out onto the garden and he could still smell it, that lingering sweet heavy smell of rotting compost. There was a darkness inside him too: an uncomfortable feeling.

  He imagined the old man’s hands on his young skin and dismissed it. The Vincents were sick. There was something wrong with them. He wasn’t like that and yet he could feel that there was something different – a peculiar air about him that he couldn’t dismiss. He wanted to know about his mother though, and Mr Anderson could tell him things.

  ‘I’m not hungry thanks.’

  ‘I know what they say about me. I’ve heard them. Why would you want to be here at all with me?’

  Jacob looked down.

  ‘You were friends with my mum.’

  ‘Yes, and friends tell each other things.’

  ‘Right.’ Jacob felt ashamed at what he’d been thinking about him. He just wanted someone to talk to.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re not like the others.’

  Jacob looked up. ‘People are stupid sometimes. I wasn’t following you the other day either. I just wanted to go to the woods.’

  ‘Another time, perhaps.’ He looked at him sideways.

  ‘Maybe then.’

  ‘You’ve got your drawing. Everyone needs something that’s just theirs.’ He glanced at tools in the corner and smiled.

  Jacob glanced around the room for a sign of Mr Anderson’s model making, but there were only the tools as evidence of it. Jacob imagined he kept this work private, as he did. They had a lot in common.

  ‘Sorry for taking the book from the library.’

  Mr Anderson smiled. ‘I won’t hold it against you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He pointed to a photograph on the wall of a boy playing a guitar. ‘I had talents too.’

  ‘That’s you?’

  He leant towards the picture.

  ‘I taught myself.’

  ‘Did you write your own stuff?’

  ‘I did. My music’s like open heart surgery. You’re never the same after,’ he told him. ‘One day I might play you something.’

  ‘I don’t play an instrument.’

  He smiled before continuing, ‘I know – well, I’ve not heard you practising anyway. These walls are pretty thin.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And you put up with a lot. Sorry, but that’s how I see it.’ Mr Anderson put his hands up. ‘I’ve said too much. Forgive me.’

  Jacob looked blank. There was too much changing and it was hard to pretend that he was feeling alright. He wasn’t. Since they found Jayne in the woods, he’d lost Maggie. He was tired of saying that he was happy when he wasn’t.

  ‘Other people have got it worse,’ Jacob replied.

  ‘And better.’ Mr Anderson shuddered. ‘Don’t be like me.’ He nodded at the picture. ‘Get on with your dreams. Don’t wait around. I waited too long.’ He smiled. ‘That girl you’re always with?’

  Jacob took a step backwards. �
�We’re just friends.’

  He leant forwards and laughed. ‘I’m not prying, just saying. She seems the type to get what she wants.’

  ‘We’re friends.’

  ‘You’re missing the point.’

  The door banged and Jacob turned to look back over his shoulder.

  ‘We’re closed.’ Mr Anderson laughed as he went to open it.

  ‘Is Jacob here?’ said his stepmother.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Mr Anderson looked her up and down. ‘I asked for a hand. He’s been very helpful. A credit to you.’

  Paula looked uncertain. ‘His tea is nearly ready.’

  Mr Anderson swallowed. ‘I’ll send him back soon then,’ he said and closed the door. He nodded at the wall. ‘Walls do have ears.’

  ‘I’d better go.’

  ‘Come and see me anytime.’

  Jacob sniffed. ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll keep the shed unlocked. You can always go in there if she’s giving you grief. There’s a little fire. You can do your drawings in there.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And of course, you did promise to do my bins? A good helper like your mum.’

  Jacob nodded. What Mr Anderson had said made him want to cry. It was unexpected.

  Outside, Jacob walked quickly past the huge privet hedges. Jacob knew that if he went home, she’d see him upset. He didn’t know where it had come from, perhaps it was the thoughts of his mother or that Mr Anderson seemed to understand him more than his own family did.

  The sky was a light blue with a rolling thick cloud that arched up like a wave. Jacob’s eyes followed it across the sky. The man still left him with an odd feeling that he couldn’t explain, but he’d been wrong about him. They all had. It was his mother who had been right. Bad practices he’d said. The words went around his head. He knew that they’d closed the asylum down a few years ago and it was never re-opened. When his mum came back from there, she was never the same. It had just been a matter of time before it finally broke her.