Love Me to Death Page 12

  Without looking back, he started to walk. His feet took him towards the woods. The air was still and trees stretched out for as far as he could see. He frowned and rubbed his chin as the snow glinted in ridges over the grass. It was beautiful and bleak. Jacob felt the emptiness. As he walked onto the grass that led down to the field, the ground gave way under his foot and snow went up into his trainer. He stepped backwards. It was hard to walk. He thought about the badgers under the ground, in tunnels underneath his feet as he made his way to Jayne’s place.

  Maggie’s family hadn’t left any flowers. He’d expected a marker to be there, something more to prove that this is where she’d been found. He looked from one side to the other. She couldn’t have been behind the trees, because a dog walker had spotted her on his way back from the field. It was snowy and it would have been dark. She’d left the house after 6pm, saying that she was going to dance class. Everyone knew that this way led to the woods. You couldn’t come from the road and not realise where you were going. She must have come this way on purpose. He couldn’t imagine anyone being able to drag or carry her over this ground, it was too difficult to walk on as it was, so she must have gone herself.

  The sun shone brightly over the ridges in the snow making them glint in silver. The blue of the sky and shifting clouds reflected the light making it look strangely beautiful. There were so many secrets. Secrets hidden among the snow. All of the theories that he’d heard didn’t make sense. He thought about where the path led to, if she’d have kept going as it went down towards the river. One way took you behind the housing estate and the other came out near the hotel.

  The wind moved through the trees and he remembered seeing her at Maggie’s house. There was no sign of any footprints. All traces of the investigation had gone, covered by the snow – erased.

  He heard a car struggle as it reached the hill further up the road and bent down to pull a stem of grass from under the ice. It sliced into his finger leaving three red strips that cut deep into the flesh. The little dot of blood from his finger rested pink on the snow and he suddenly felt vulnerable. He shouldn’t be here.

  As he made his way up the hill, he slowed his pace. Someone was stood up by the gate, standing as straight and upright as the posts on the fence to the side of him. But by the time he’d gone back through the trees, the figure had gone. The road was empty as though they were never there at all. He looked back over his shoulder, almost expecting to see Jayne there, lying in the white snow with her hair spread out across the ground. It made him wonder how different things could have been if she had lived. Maggie and him would be hanging out somewhere, getting a bus into town or walking round the streets looking for something to do… but it was irrelevant. He could feel everything he had with Maggie unravelling in his hands and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He tried to make his way up the hill, but the ground was so bumpy that he almost fell a couple of times. He looked back at the path, the tree roots that cut through it and the indentations on the ground, and thought about Jayne in those shoes. It wasn’t right. She just wouldn’t have been able to walk over the path in them. It was hard enough for him to do it in his trainers.

  When he opened the door, he expected his stepmother to be standing there waiting, but she wasn’t. He could hear the television in the living room and he wondered if Mr Anderson was the person he’d needed to talk to about it all, someone who could finally help him make sense of all the mess. He stared at the brick wall and pictured him sitting there in the room beside him with the cup of tea in his hand. As he stared at the patterned wallpaper, he could almost feel him smiling back at him.

  15

  Mr Anderson always locked up on time. It was five o’clock and the women already had their coats on ready to go. He stood and stared at the clock, waiting for the second hand to reach five. He knew that his precision annoyed them. He could feel their annoyance as they waited to leave, all of them, apart from one: Noreen. Noreen was different. He could not get rid of Noreen. Noreen would not quit.

  ‘Any plans for the weekend?’ She smiled and he noticed the dot of pink lipstick that coated the bottom of her front tooth. He tried not to grimace.

  ‘The usual,’ he told her.

  There was silence. He knew that she wanted more. He had observed the way she spoke, these details mattered to her. He found it impossible to believe that she actually did care where he was going or what he might eat, but she craned her neck forwards towards him. He tried to say something pleasing back.

  ‘And yourself?’ He paused. ‘Anything nice?’

  He had heard Kath use that line before to her. Noreen nodded with another smile, looked down and blushed. It was an odd reaction that hadn’t been given to Kath. He wondered if he had done something wrong. There were times when they acted oddly that he thought they could see his thoughts. That would be unthinkable. That wouldn’t do at all.

  She looked at him closely. She was so close that he could see the pores in her skin. Her fat little cheeks reminded him of the buttocks of a piglet. He hadn’t said that out loud, had he?

  ‘Everything alright?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry, I lost my train of thought then. It’s been such a day,’ she said, with a shake of the head.

  It hadn’t. The day had been quiet and ordinary, another uneventful day, as usual. She seemed to be struggling with something and he had no idea what. It was now two minutes past five and he was waiting to unlock his bike. He was very aware that he was no longer being paid to be in her company. This was his time and his paid obligations were over. He wanted to get home.

  ‘I’ve a spare ticket for Swan Lake for tomorrow. My friend isn’t well. I’ve no idea who to take at such short notice though. They’d be doing me a favour by coming,’ she told him.

  ‘They would?’ he replied.

  ‘Do you like the ballet?’

  A strange question, he thought. Did anyone like it? Moving around to music for no reason. He had never understood it.

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘That’s a shame. It can be very beautiful.’

  ‘At least you don’t have to go now,’ he replied.

  She frowned. ‘I’m still going.’

  ‘You are?’

  He looked at his watch. Two minutes was long enough to be polite for.

  ‘Goodnight, Noreen,’ he said as he bent down to unlock the bike.

  She looked embarrassed. She had her eye on something and he frowned. She wasn’t having his bike. It wasn’t worth much, but he always kept it locked. He thought about warning her off, but decided not to. She wouldn’t get far on it if she did take it. She didn’t look like she even knew how to ride one. If she tried anything, he’d easily tackle her.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ she shouted as he pedalled away. He didn’t bother to look back.

  As he rode away, he was pleased with himself. If she had been after his bike then he’d won. He hadn’t even realised she liked bicycles. As he turned the corner, he dismissed her – just another puppet, tied to a string.

  Instead of going left towards his home he went right. He liked to travel around first, to see who was about. It was on these travels that ideas would come to him. With the wind in his hair and the speed of the tarmac rushing under his wheels he thought about a new family. The ice was thick on the side streets as he turned the corner and the roofs of the cars were thick with snow.

  As he pedalled up the hill towards the petrol station he exhaled. A blonde in a blue car accelerated past him, over the pedestrian crossing and flew through the red light. The driver had no care or consideration for anyone, but herself. As she drove faster up the hill, he smiled. It was Jacob Clarke’s stepmother. A real woman.

  16

  At school Jacob sat in the far corner of the playground on an old rotting tree trunk that had been dragged for the kids to play on. It was cold and slightly damp, but he’d pulled his parka down so that he could stay there without getting too wet.

  Maggie hadn’t been in sch
ool for days. At first he’d been worried, but he’d overheard Miss Perkins saying that the family needed time and that Maggie Miller wasn’t going to be in school for the whole week. He felt betrayed that Miss Perkins knew more about it than he did. After all Miss Perkins was the one that Maggie hated the most, her tree-trunk legs and small mouth. Maggie called her Miss Piggy.

  The Vincents were walking up and down the playground. A group of lads joined them. He wondered how they did it. Matty had a smile that brought everyone to him. He was a natural salesman just like his dad. Two girls stood by the field watching from afar. Matty knew it, but he pretended not to notice. Just when they started to lose interest, he threw them a smile that sent them giggling again. He had a way about him that drew people to him.

  Jacob didn’t fit in with the others, just like he’d never fitted in at his old school. Jacob remembered the cigarette cards from his granddad’s collection that he used to bring in to show Maggie. He would sit on his own in the corner of the playground and look at them while the other boys played football on the field. Sometimes he’d show her the ones of freak shows, bearded men and deformed women to make her cringe. He liked to watch her nose curl in disgust while her head tilted with mild fascination.

  Not seeing her made him feel empty. She saw him differently to everyone else. He was just Jacob to her. He remembered how she’d changed when he’d asked about Jayne’s death. She wasn’t the same person that tried to sell homemade lemonade with him in summer. Whatever happened to Jayne had ruined them too. Even the woods were something ugly. No longer the place where they’d nailed wood to tree branches to make tree houses, they were something darker, something evil.

  As the Vincents came past, Jacob looked over at the fence by the common. They’d been told to report anyone suspicious outside school and Jacob wondered if they were worried for Maggie too. He’d found himself watching people all the time now. Every dog walker and jogger that passed, he tried to memorise what they were wearing and how tall they were. It was exhausting, but he wanted to make sure that he’d be the one to solve it so that Maggie would be forever grateful.

  He saw Mr Anderson walk his push bike down the end of the lane to get through the gate onto the common and then on towards Heaton Moor. That was at one, just after the lunch time bell was rung for everyone to go inside.

  Jacob Clarke knew his neighbour was heading back to the library, Jacob often saw him on the old black bicycle, brakes squeaking going through the village. Seeing him made him miss the sanctuary of the library, a place where he could curl up in the corner and escape from them all. As he got to the gate, he turned and waved at Jacob. Jacob put up his hand in return as he cycled away. He was glad that Mr Anderson wasn’t the person that the Vincents had said he was. Perhaps now that Jacob didn’t have Maggie, he had someone else who knew what he was going through. Someone who he could talk to about his stepmother and he knew about his mother too. He hadn’t even been angry about him taking the book. He understood it, he wasn’t as bad as they said. He was OK. If they were wrong about him, then they could have been wrong about everything.

  The Vincents stood at one end of the playground with a satisfied look on their face, a group of lads around them. As Matty finished talking, the group laughed and he glanced over to see if the two girls were still watching and gave them a wink. When he made a joke, he made sure that it was loud enough for them to hear too. Jacob frowned. His jokes weren’t even funny, but the girls laughed anyway.

  Billy Vincent stood slightly back. He’d come into school with a thick red mark on the side of his neck and was quieter than usual. Jacob noticed the way he looked from his brother to the girls too. Billy didn’t like it when his brother gave anyone else too much attention and Jacob wondered if that was why none of his girlfriends ever lasted very long. One of the lads next to him said something and Billy pulled the lapels of his shirt up higher so that the mark was gone.

  The Vincents were like that. They’d come into school battered and bruised from some crazy thing they’d been up to. Last year Billy Vincent made a go-cart out of an old shopping trolley he’d dragged out of the river. The pair of them ended up in a ditch. Billy had ripped a lump out of his forehead when an old tree branch ripped through it and Jacob had thought that he was lucky not to have lost an eye. It was inches away from it. There was no bravado today though, he was subdued for a change. Jacob was glad that he’d been spending less time with them, but he couldn’t help wondering if they’d spoken to Maggie. The thought of it gave him a headache. He wanted to know, but he wasn’t going over to the group. It wasn’t going to happen. Matty walked over to the two girls and one of them bit her lip and blushed while Billy stayed where he was. Billy had that mad look in his eyes again, as he watched his brother chat them up. He glanced over at Jacob and he turned away; he didn’t want to be anywhere near Billy when he looked like that.

  *

  At the end of school, the children poured out of the doors, a mass of noise and navy uniforms. School wasn’t far from Maggie’s house and he didn’t want to see the road from the top of the hill. He was feeling sorry for himself as he made his way down the road towards the library as the wind blew across the snowy ground, sending small clouds sideways along the concrete.

  He walked among the crowd as they spilled over into the road until the main road came in sight where it dispersed into different directions. When he got closer to the library, he found himself alone.

  Maggie used to laugh at him for spending so much time there, even though she knew why he did it. Despite everything they’d been through, he was losing her. She’d been swept away and he couldn’t hold on to her. He thought of a fairground trip with his mum. She’d bought him the most beautiful green balloon. He’d watched it float, up and up, over the trees and sideways out of the field. All he’d had left was the string that he’d held onto so tightly.

  Jacob ran his finger along the spines of the books in the crime section. He pulled out a book and opened it. There were photographs inside the middle section, black and white pictures of rusty tools lined up on a cabinet and the figure of a woman in a white nightdress in the undergrowth. He wanted to turn away, but he wanted to see too. He thought of Maggie’s cousin, laughing in the photograph he’d seen on the sideboard in Maggie’s house and wondered if someone had taken her picture too – if she was going to end up in the middle pages of a book one day. The real Jayne wouldn’t be remembered. Maggie used to complain how she did everything first: go the pub, leave school, get a Saturday job and now this. He didn’t think Maggie would mind this time though. He shut the book with a slam and didn’t notice Mr Anderson behind him until he heard the squeak of his shoe. Jacob turned around.

  ‘Your book has come in,’ he said with a slight smile on the corner of his mouth.

  Jacob felt ashamed for looking at the girl in the picture. The same shame that he had grown used to, the shame of not being able to stand up to his stepmother.

  Jacob tried to say ‘OK,’ but only managed a strange noise.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ Mr Anderson nodded at the book.

  ‘I was just looking.’

  He smiled with a knowing look and held out a large hardback. ‘I’ve already checked it out for you.’

  The book Mr Anderson gave him was on badgers. He was trying to learn as much as he could about them for his drawings. It wasn’t something he’d told anyone about. He’d got a lot of pictures already, but he needed more.

  ‘It’s a heavy one.’

  ‘Lots of pictures.’

  Mr Anderson stared back. ‘A picture can tell a thousand words. So they say.’

  He glanced back at the crime book that Jacob had been reading, but Jacob wasn’t looking. He had already opened his new book. The smell of new pages wafted up as he flicked through it.

  ‘You want a table?’ Mr Anderson asked him. ‘There’s one in the far corner.’

  ‘Aren’t they for staff?’

  ‘Take it. You’re here more than some of
them that work here.’

  Jacob nodded. He was right about Mr Anderson, he was a good man and he was kind.

  ‘I know how you like to spread out your things. It’s quiet over there and it’s by the radiator. Let me know if you want to use it anytime. If I’m in, I’ll sort it out for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Mr Anderson was looking out for him and it felt good. It wasn’t something he was used to.

  ‘Your mum would have been pleased you’ve got a hobby.’

  Jacob shrugged as though it wasn’t true, although he knew that it was. ‘Did she talk about me much?’

  ‘You were the apple of her eye.’

  ‘She liked it here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I.’

  He didn’t know why he was saying that, it just came out. Mr Anderson didn’t seem to care though. He knew the truth. Jacob wondered how much he’d heard through the walls.

  ‘A sanctuary, some say.’

  ‘There isn’t anywhere else to go,’ Jacob replied without thinking.

  Mr Anderson looked in his eyes. His were the coldest blue. ‘There are other places. Close to home. Just knock.’

  ‘It’s good light here,’ Jacob stuttered. Mr Anderson nodded. His mum used to say that he was lonely. She was kind, his mum. He missed that kindness.

  ‘Any good nature books, I’ll put them aside for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You can keep that one here if you want. I can put it under the desk. Saves bringing it backwards and forwards. It’s a heavy one.’

  Jacob was embarrassed that his neighbour knew so much about him. He didn’t like taking books home – he’d come back first thing at the weekend and stay all day. He didn’t want his stepmother to know what was important to him. If she didn’t know then she couldn’t ruin it.