Love Me to Death Read online

  Mr Anderson pointed over to the table. ‘Go on then, before Noreen gets it. She likes to hide in the corner and pretend she’s working.’

  ‘The one that likes you?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The one that follows you around?’

  Mr Anderson frowned as Noreen smiled over at them.

  Jacob smiled. ‘Yeah, that one.’

  Mr Anderson stared at her, as though he had found out a terrible secret. It was so obvious that Jacob wondered how Mr Anderson hadn’t seen it. Mr Anderson stood staring at her and she kept glancing back over her shoulder. Jacob wondered if she’d even noticed that he was there.

  Mr Anderson put a book on the table.

  ‘This is for you. We need to make space for the new stock. It was going to be put up for sale and I thought you’d give it a good home. It’s yours to keep anyway.’

  Jacob saw the title. It was the book about the asylum. The book he’d taken the other day. Before he could thank him, Mr Anderson had gone back to shelving his books.

  17

  Mr Anderson watched Jacob from the library counter. He knew that he’d liked the present. Jacob Clarke’s eyes had widened when he’d realised what book he’d given him and his hands had shook. It was something he’d never managed before, that understanding of someone.

  He could feel Noreen’s eyes on him too. He tried something new. A smile. Not a big grin, but a small smile. As his mouth curled, he looked Noreen in the eye. She flicked her hair and stared down at the floor. He wanted to applaud. There it was! It was curious, but apparently true. Noreen had feelings for him. The boy was right. He had seen the same expression numerous times and yet he hadn’t realised what it meant until now. The understanding was mutual between him and Jacob Clarke.

  He looked Noreen over. The way her fat little feet bulged out of her patent shoes, the way that her skirt bunched up at the back of her leg and stuck to her tights. There was something to be said about the boy. Jacob could help him. He knew things about people and Mr Anderson could use that knowledge.

  He looked at the curve of her hip and the rings of fat where her belly hung over her skirt. She was small. Rotund they called it. She wouldn’t be light, but he could manage her down the cellar steps. He smiled at the thought and she smiled back. The old metal bed was prepared. All it needed was a person.

  He tried to say, ‘It’s hot in here,’ but just ended up coughing and puffing. As he walked through the door to the staff room, he heard the muffled laughter from behind. It didn’t matter what they thought.

  As he looked back over his shoulder, Noreen looked back at him in a strange way. What was that look? It was odd. He slammed the door behind him and went over to the huge window that overlooked the car park. He had perfected a look that seemed to suggest interest, to use for dealing with people that bored him. It was the same look that he used with his colleagues all day. It worked. He ‘listened’ and didn’t listen at all. As he looked out of the window, he felt a calm that he hadn’t experienced for some time. If Noreen had feelings for him, then perhaps he was changing – drawing them in.

  He stared at his reflection in the glass, his face looked distorted; his, but different, like one of his painted figures. He wondered if he could ever be like the others. If things would change when he had a family of his own. In the other room Jacob was sitting in the seat he’d chosen for him, working from a book that he’d picked out. He was influencing them. It was happening. All the hours of study had started to pay off – the months going through journals, the hours of reading and walking among them. It was finally coming together.

  He knew that it was out there now, that moment of truth, like a piece of tiny glass – a shard that had chipped away. It was out there in the world, glinting in the sunshine and then lost again under the dark Stockport skies. He could have it. It was so close. Once his family was complete everything would change for him.

  There was nothing special about Jacob Clarke – just an ordinary boy – and yet they were so similar. He was a prisoner too. The first time Mr Anderson heard Paula shouting, Mr Anderson heard his mother’s voice in it, ordering him down to the cellar. She was so like his mother, not in looks, but in manner – those looks of disdain, as cold as morning mist and that sharp stare. There was a cruelty that ran through her like rings on a tree trunk, something imbedded deep within her that he’d love to cut out. The smell of her food drifted through his window and the sound of her voice crept through the walls, beckoning him to her.

  The creak patent shoes came from behind, as Noreen walked up to him. She inhaled through her nose as though she was trying to say something, but couldn’t, and then it came.

  ‘Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?’

  He almost laughed.

  It didn’t seem to be a joke. She wasn’t smiling – in fact, the opposite. She looked worried.

  Mr Anderson frowned. Surely not. Surely it couldn’t be that easy.

  ‘OK.’

  Mr Anderson watched the way her hands fiddled with the piece of tissue in her hand. Turning it into a long straight piece as bits flaked off it and onto the carpet at her feet like white confetti.

  She blushed and bit her bottom lip.

  ‘I know a great place,’ she replied. ‘Italian.’

  ‘Yes. Let’s do that.’

  She swallowed and looked unsure of what to do next. It was interesting that he could have this effect on her. He wondered what she’d be like after a few weeks in the cellar. What she would look like as she begged? What noises she’d make as she wriggled underneath him like a pig in a blanket as he pressed the thick plastic over her mouth? He rubbed his chin and she instinctively looked down at the floor. She giggled. It was almost too perfect.

  ‘Noreen?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can this be our secret? I don’t want everyone to ruin it.’

  She smiled and bit her lip. ‘Good idea, Simon.’

  18

  On the way back from the library, Jacob saw a flash of blond hair from the back of the park and knew that it was the Vincents. He looked for Maggie, but they were on their own. The swings were coated in ice and the metal climbing frame was edged in snow. He rode his bike towards the back of the park. It was high up and he could see the top of the trees and the industrial estate below. In the distance he could just make out the woods in the distance.

  ‘Alright?’ he asked.

  Billy Vincent shrugged and Matty smiled.

  ‘Up to much?’ Matty asked.

  ‘The library. You?’

  He tried to sound relaxed, but it was different without Maggie. He just wanted to know if they’d seen her. Billy threw a stone at the fence and it hit the wood with a sharp clunk.

  ‘Was the weirdo there?’ Billy said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your neighbour.’

  He could feel the weight of the book in the back of his rucksack.

  ‘He’s alright,’ Jacob told him.

  Billy laughed. ‘You reckon? That paedo?’

  Jacob was annoyed. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that about him.’

  Billy looked at his brother as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Why not?’

  Jacob pulled his bag further up his back. ‘You don’t know him.’

  ‘And you do?’ laughed Billy.

  Matty looked out towards the woods. Above them, the clouds were streaked with an orange glow. ‘Suppose you don’t know anyone really. Not really.’

  Billy punched him in the arm. ‘What?’

  Matty ignored him and looked over at Jacob. ‘Just seen your stepmum walking the dog. She asked if we’d seen you.’

  Jacob looked back over his shoulder. ‘Oh right.’

  ‘Don’t like her much, do you?’ Billy said.

  Jacob shrugged. ‘Not much.’

  ‘She seems alright. Pretty friendly.’ Matty picked his bike up from the floor. ‘Come back to ours for a bit if you want?’

  Jacob
nodded. ‘Yeah OK, I might do.’

  As the two brothers rode ahead, Jacob heard Billy Vincent ask his brother, ‘What did you ask him back for?’

  As they rode back down the road and onto the lane he wondered if Maggie had ever been to their house. He guessed she probably had done. The thought made him grit his teeth together.

  They left their bikes out in the drive and went inside. Mr Vincent’s car wasn’t there and although the twins had left their bikes on the drive, Jacob made sure to put his up against the wall out of the way, just in case he came home. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his temper.

  Their house had an odd smell to it, like onions in a casserole and it was shabby. As well as the twins, there were three other brothers – one younger and two older. The twins shared everything: their looks, their rooms and sometimes their clothes. Matty used to take Billy’s tests for him at school until they got found out.

  Jacob could tell them apart though. Billy was uglier, with the look of the deranged about him. He was paler, as well as younger. Billy looked like he’d had the life sucked out of him and Jacob often wondered if Matty had kicked him in the head on the way out of the womb. Billy was the one to watch out for and Jacob didn’t trust him; he often wondered what he’d do if he was left alone with him.

  Anything bad was always his Billy’s idea. It had taken Jacob a while to notice it. Matty was always smiling, but anything that Billy found amusing usually involved someone else getting hurt. Jacob’s mum would have called him a ‘bad sort.’ He’d seen the way that Billy looked at Maggie too, as though he didn’t like her and it made Jacob uncomfortable. Billy never liked any of Matty’s girlfriends either; he preferred his twin all to himself.

  ‘Your mum in?’ Jacob asked.

  He wasn’t interested in their mum really, it was the dad that he was afraid of. They all were, even Maggie. He had a shock of red hair and a bad temper that would ignite over nothing. When he shouted at them you could hear him from the bottom of the street. The Vincents were always telling how they got the belt or had been given a slap off their dad. Jacob knew that they got more than just a slap. He didn’t need to imagine how bad it was, because he’d seen it: on the bottom of Billy Vincent’s back one summer. A thick red welt the width of a belt. He’d looked at Billy Vincent differently after that.

  The whole family were redheads, apart from the twins who had blond hair and pale eyes that gave Billy in particular the look of the undead. Matty’s tan and longer hair made him look more like a surfer. It was only the mum who seemed normal, a small little woman who always looked deep in thought.

  ‘Did you do the dishes for Mum before we went out?’ Billy asked his brother.

  ‘Yeah, I told you that before.’

  Jacob felt bad. Despite everything, Billy always had nice things to say about his mum. She was the only person that he did seem to care about. Jacob and Billy’s mums used to be friends; they went to church together and for walks.

  ‘Just going out for a walk with Celia,’ she’d say and they’d be gone for most of the afternoon. She always came back sighing and looking worried.

  He knew that his family was messed up, but so was theirs. He would have liked for Mr Vincent to go round and shout at his stepmother the way he shouted at his boys. He would love to see it. It wasn’t a nice thought, but it was there. There were terrible things he would like to see happen to her.

  Jacob waited in the hall for Matty and Billy after they went upstairs. Jacob didn’t like waiting. Billy was the first to come back and even though Jacob didn’t like him, he was glad that he’d come back. Jacob didn’t want to be on his own if their dad came in. Billy smiled.

  ‘We showed that homeless freak,’ he laughed.

  Jacob was uncomfortable. Billy had one eye that was slightly off as though it was looking in the wrong direction and it made him look crazy.

  ‘I suppose,’ he replied.

  ‘Not seen Maggie round here for ages. Have you seen much of her?’

  ‘She’s got family stuff going.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Her cousin.’

  That was the thing with Billy Vincent, he wasn’t the sympathetic type either. ‘That was ages and they didn’t even like each other,’ he said.

  Jacob frowned. ‘It was her cousin.’

  Jacob thought about the way Maggie complained about Jayne living there. The last time he’d been to the house they weren’t even talking. Just because they’d fallen out didn’t mean anything though. Maggie felt bad about it, there was no doubt there. He hardly spoke to his dad these days, but he wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

  Billy shrugged. ‘It’s done with is all I’m saying.’

  ‘Maybe for you. You didn’t know her.’

  ‘Still got her picture on your bedroom wall?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That Maggie picture you’ve got.’ Billy laughed.

  ‘Shut up.’

  Jacob went red and that was all Billy needed as proof, grinning sideways.

  ‘What’s up?’ Matty asked, as he came down the stairs.

  ‘Jacob’s pining for Maggie.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Jacob replied.

  ‘Maggie?’ Matty asked.

  ‘He hopes she’s like her cousin,’ laughed Billy.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jacob replied.

  ‘Her slag cousin, he hopes Maggie’s the same so he can get his end away,’ Billy sneered.

  He didn’t want them to know how he felt about her. It wasn’t something he’d ever said out loud and he was surprised when Matty turned to his brother.

  ‘Pack it in,’ he hissed.

  ‘Well, she was,’ Billy said.

  Matty took a step towards him. ‘Shut it.’

  Billy smirked; he knew he was winding him up and he wasn’t going to stop.

  ‘She’d go with owt.’

  Matty stared at him as though he wanted to hit him and just as he was about to reply, the door opened and Mr Vincent walked in. As it did, Billy’s face dropped. Jacob had never seen that before. At school he’d stand up and take a bollocking without batting an eye. His mum came in straight behind and Jacob decided that was lucky, because his dad looked at the pair of them as though he was wondering whether to go and get his belt again.

  Their mum had a kind voice when she spoke.

  ‘Jacob love, we’ve not seen you for a while. Do you want to stay for tea?’

  Jacob mumbled under his breath, ‘Mine will be ready soon, sorry. I’m about to go.’

  ‘That’s OK, love. Don’t be late then,’ Mrs Vincent replied.

  He thought that she looked sad, as though she was remembering the happier times that she’d spent with his mother when they used to all go to the park together and she’d chat to his mum while the boys played. That was a long time ago.

  Mrs Vincent often looked sad though. There was something that ran deep in Mrs Vincent, as though she had other things on her mind. She didn’t fit with the rest of her family. Like a spare cog that someone had stuck in a wheel that was never really meant to go in.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Vincent,’ he said, to a snigger from behind him.

  He knew that Billy would be making fun of him for that the next time he saw him, but he wasn’t going to do it in front of his dad.

  Jacob stepped outside and felt glad of the fresh air. As the chill of the wind hit his face, he realised how warm their house was. It was suffocating. No wonder Mrs Vincent looked as though she wanted to escape.

  He heard laughter and Mrs Vincent say something about him not having a mother. He felt his eyes start to fill up as he grabbed his bike. He pedalled away as fast as he could before Billy saw him. As he rode down the street the tears started. He wiped them away with the side of his sleeve, but they kept coming. He wasn’t sure who he was crying for. If it was for poor Mrs Vincent, for Maggie, his mother or for himself. Despite that, he was glad to be going home for once, their house gave him a bad feeling. There was just som
ething there that didn’t feel right and he was glad to get out of it.

  *

  Jacob had been walking around for ages, thinking about Jayne and the places he’d seen her before. It wasn’t easy though, the only thing he remembered about her was that he’d see her outside the cinema in the village sometimes and even then he wasn’t sure if that was a false memory.

  He wasn’t surprised to see Maggie sat on the bench, her legs crossed, looking down the road as the cars passed her by. In her lap was one of her notebooks. A bus went past and she didn’t get up. She just sat there, staring into the distance.

  ‘What you up to?’ he asked.

  ‘Sitting. You?’

  ‘Standing.’ He smiled.

  She smiled back. They’d always been that way with each other. It was always easy to talk to her, natural. They had something special. Something that other people couldn’t understand.

  She ran her finger over the cover of the notebook. As more cars moved on towards Stockport he wondered if he should ask her why she didn’t get on the bus, but he already knew why she was there. She was there for the same reason that he used to come and stand by the bridge. He would go and stare at the traffic as it streamed past underneath. The cars so small, flying underneath him so fast that it made him feel dizzy. This was the bench that her cousin was seen sitting on, waiting for the bus to Stockport. It was the last place anyone saw her. Jacob put his hand up to block out the brightness of the morning sun.

  ‘Just wanted to get out for a bit,’ she told him as she slipped the book into her coat pocket.

  He half-smiled, looking over at the houses opposite. The swirls of black graffiti on the bus shelter were like smears across the glass and he pictured Jayne there, sat on the bench staring at them too. He wanted to ask Maggie if she needed to talk, but she started laughing. It was unexpected. She leant forwards.

  ‘I know I’m ridiculous, OK?’

  He frowned. ‘You’re not.’

  ‘Yeah I am. I just keep thinking about her. Matty says I’m just making it worse for myself, but I can’t help it.’

  Jacob didn’t want to hear about Matty. She licked her lips and he wondered if Matty had ever placed his mouth on hers. A pigeon flew up onto the fence.