Love Me to Death Read online

  The snow was starting to come down again. Jacob wished for better weather. In the summer he could go and sit out on the common and watch birds on the pond. He liked to draw the heron from the bench at the side of the bank. Without Maggie he wasn’t even going to get a knock on the door to come out. The Vincents never knocked on for him – not that he wanted them to. It was only ever Maggie that gave him a thought. He’d heard the Vincents shouting down the lane this morning, Billy Vincent getting pulled on a sledge by his brother on their way to field. It wouldn’t be long before they shunned him. He knew he was only there because of Maggie, he wasn’t stupid enough to think they liked him. It wasn’t long after he’d lost his mother that it happened, as though it was somehow contagious. As if his mother’s madness was catching.

  Sometimes he let himself imagine that he’d run away with Maggie, that they’d travel to the sea and work in an animal sanctuary. He knew that once he was old enough, he’d go. He’d go as far away from Stockport as he could get and never come back.

  ‘I think Jacob’s already eaten,’ Paula said to his dad.

  She had a way of doing that. Speaking to him as though he wasn’t there.

  His dad looked over at his plate.

  ‘You haven’t, have you? Paula spent a long time making this for you.’ It wasn’t a surprise for him to take her side as usual.

  ‘No,’ Jacob replied, as he put more food in his mouth to prove the point.

  Paula shook her head, as if to tell him not to bother.

  ‘I like it,’ Jacob lied.

  ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full,’ Paula said. ‘You need to learn some manners from your sister.’ She smiled over at her and Kim smiled back, angelic, perfect, blonde and beautiful. Everything that Jacob was not.

  He’d talked of going vegetarian and she knew it. He didn’t like the thought of eating animals. He tried his best to eat as much as he could and looked away from the small puddle of blood on the side of his plate.

  She knew he didn’t like the food. She knew everything about him. There was never any chance of a secret. She was like a wisp of smoke. Unseen. You couldn’t keep her out. She could slide under doors and get into the creases of the bed sheets so that she could listen to his dreams. She was everywhere. There was nothing that she didn’t know about him.

  She didn’t bother to make excuses anymore and Jacob just accepted it as a part of his life. It was always coming, as certain as Manchester’s rain, it was inevitable. There would be drunks fighting outside the taxi rank, there would be puke outside The Railway pub on a Sunday morning and, for Jacob Clarke, his stepmother would always find new ways to hurt him.

  He had stopped trying to please her. It was pointless. The truth was that it wasn’t anything to do with him; she did it because she enjoyed it and he’d learnt to accept it.

  Paula laughed about a shopping trip she’d taken with Kim and his dad smiled back at them as though it was all he’d ever wanted.

  ‘I always get dragged into Greggs for a cup of tea and end up buying a pasty, she’s not good for my figure.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ smiled his dad.

  ‘It was you that wanted to get cake,’ his sister replied.

  ‘Don’t tell him about the cake too!’

  Jacob looked at their smiling faces. His sister was lucky. Paula had no interest in her. It was him that shouldn’t be here. He was the one that didn’t belong in this family anymore. His dad had moved on and he was the only thing left of the way it used to be.

  ‘Cheer up, Jacob,’ his dad said.

  ‘He’s pining. For that girl. He’s not been out for days.’

  Jacobs cheeks flushed and his stepmother smiled. He made it too easy for her to win. She caught his dad’s eye, ‘Well, there’s your answer.’ She winked.

  ‘How’s the family doing? Have you spoken to Maggie?’ his dad asked.

  ‘No. I haven’t seen her.’

  ‘And that’s why he’s being so moody,’ Paula replied.

  His dad gave him a sympathetic look. He knew how Jacob felt about Maggie. She had been in his life for a long time, since they were at nursery together.

  ‘We’re going out for a bit this evening. Won’t be too late. Will you be OK?’ his dad asked.

  ‘Stop babying him,’ his stepmother snapped. Jacob’s dad looked surprised, but she regained her composure. ‘You’re fine if we go out, aren’t you, Jacob?’ She smiled at him, a sickly smile that he could tell was fake.

  Jacob nodded. He’d given up hope that things would change. Now the only time that he was happy was when she wasn’t in the house. She was here to stay. His dad got up and started to clear the table without being asked. The house ran on unspoken commands now. His mother used to scream out from the kitchen, calling them in to dinner with a voice that always sounded happy and slightly manic, but now it was well-ordered and cold.

  Paula got up from the table and shut the curtains. ‘That’s better.’

  ‘What’s up?’ his dad asked.

  ‘I don’t like them open when its dark. You never know who’s looking in.’

  His dad laughed. ‘The foxes and badgers aren’t interested in us.’

  The dinner had taken longer than usual and Jacob was glad when it was over. After they’d finished, he went upstairs and spat out the chewed up food from his mouth down the toilet. His stomach felt worse than ever. He knew it was because he was missing Maggie. His stepmother was right about that. He was pining. He’d been kidding himself that Maggie was just a friend. The way he ached inside, he knew that she was more to him than that. He’d always known it. It had gotten worse since the Vincents had started coming out with them. He hated the way that she looked at Matty Vincent, as though he was better than anything she’d ever seen. He’d kill for her to look at him like that. If he could have just one day with her adoring him, it would be the best day of his life.

  He had a plan for running away. There was a tent in the loft and a sleeping bag in the cupboard under the stairs that he could use. He’d thought about going down south where his mum was from. It was warm there; he’d looked it up in the library. They had palm trees growing in the front of people’s gardens. He could walk out the door and get on a train. Never come back. He could live off the apples and blackberries that grew by the side of roads. There was food everywhere if you knew where to look.

  The only thing that stopped him from wanting to leave was Maggie. Everything about her was messy – her hair, her thoughts, her mismatched, crumpled clothes – and yet she made things ordered.

  At school she was popular, but she’d sit with him sometimes even if her friends made fun of her. She had her own agenda. She used to write in a black book that she always kept with her. He used to watch as she licked her lips and narrowed her eyes as though she could see something on that page that no one else could. When he’d tried to read it once she’d slammed it shut and punched him in the arm. He just liked everything about her; she was different.

  He wanted to ring her. He was worried who would answer though and couldn’t face the thought of having to speak to her dad. As he pictured her misshapen scruffy jumper, he knew that was as close as he was going to get to her. He wished that he was more like the Vincents, because if they wanted something they just took it. He always had to overthink everything. He should just go round and see her. Knock on the door and ask if she wanted to go for a walk or go somewhere. She was probably desperate to get out of that house. She was always restless, always wanting to be in the fresh air and it felt wrong that she’d been shut away inside since her cousin died. It wasn’t how she was meant to be.

  After dinner he heard the thud of the base from his sister’s room as he sat on his bed and looked out of his window at the grey sky. Snow was coming in again, from the Arctic, a cold front that would cover Stockport in a thick white blanket in a matter of hours.

  He thought about his mother and how one time she’d run outside with her tongue out, spinning and laughing as
the snow started. Flakes had melted in her hair and on her face as she stared up at the grey sky. Their favourite storybook was The Snow Queen. He remembered this, but it was hard to remember her sometimes. He had her picture, but he couldn’t remember her voice, not really. He wasn’t even sure if he knew what kind of laugh she had anymore. The memories had started to blur and he worried that one day she really would be gone, taken from his memory as quickly as she had left his life.

  He looked out of the window and realised that his memories were going; snow was falling on every image, covering them piece by piece, until there was going to be nothing left, but whiteness.

  He had a picture of her, where he was just a baby in her arms and the look on her face made him feel warm inside. No matter how many of his memories faded, that feeling was locked inside forever. It was his to keep. No matter what happened, they couldn’t take it. It was real. It was there. It existed.

  He opened the bedroom window and let the cold air fill the room. So fresh, cleaning the room of all the staleness. He stared at the bare sticks protruding from the trees at the back of the house. His mum told him once that bad thoughts were like poison that festered inside you, but he couldn’t help thinking that it would have been so much better if Paula had been the one in the woods that night instead of Maggie’s cousin. His dad had been blinded; he had shards of ice in his eyes like the boy in his mother’s fairy story. Jacob was the only person in this house who could see things for what they really were.

  Snow fell on the thick privet hedges that edged the garden next door. The tall wooden fence around it kept him from seeing in properly, but sometimes it felt like that house was watching him. When he was in the garden, he felt it, as though the hedge was moving. He could almost hear it breathing sometimes, like it was alive.

  They said that the old woman that used to live there had locked a kid up in their basement just for going to get their ball back. She kept him there for hours. They said that the kid came out with dead eyes, not wanting to talk to anyone about what happened to him. Jacob didn’t believe it, but he kept out of their garden just in case. Betty Anderson had died years ago and her son, Mr Anderson, lived there alone now.

  Mr Anderson worked at the library and that’s where Jacob saw him most. Even though he lived next door, he was never out on the front washing his car or doing the lawn like the other neighbours did. The Andersons’ lawn was unkempt with tall grasses and weeds. He had cats everywhere, crawling all over his windowsills and through the long grasses in his garden. The Vincents said that when he cut the lawn once there were two dead ones hidden in the grass.

  It was the house they’d dare to do knock and run on, but he never answered the door. That made it worse – as though he was watching. Sometimes when Jacob saw him at the library, he’d tilt his head as though he knew the very deepest thoughts of his soul.

  Jacob heard Mr Anderson go out through the back gate and onto the lane. The chill through the window made him shiver as he watched. Mr Anderson slid out of the gate like an eel through water and disappeared through the trees at the back of the house like he did most evenings. He wore different clothes at night too: a black jacket with the hood pulled up and black gloves. He moved differently as well – more determined and with purpose.

  At first Jacob had wondered why he didn’t go out the front like everyone else, until he realised what he was doing. There were badgers in the woods. His mum had told him that they had to be kept secret, because people sent dogs down the holes to kill them. Jacob knew that was where Mr Anderson was going. His mum had told him how much Mr Anderson loved animals. That was why he had so many cats; he looked after the stray ones that no one else wanted. He went out at night when the badgers were out and always looked over the fence first to check that the lane was empty. Jacob knew that he was checking for poachers. After Mr Anderson’s mum had died, Jacob’s mum used to take food round for him. She called him a poor soul, said that any man who loved his animals as much as he did was a good man.

  Jacob wondered if Mr Anderson had a hideout to watch the badgers from. He imagined so. It would be close to the set and covered by leaves and branches. The gate clicked in the wind. He hadn’t shut it properly again. He’d do it when he came back later though, he always made sure it was shut and he always did it so quietly that sometimes Jacob didn’t even notice him come back home.

  Jacob listened as it opened and shut in the wind. He liked the idea of badgers being out there in the woods and Mr Anderson looking after them. As the gate clicked and creaked, he thought how nice it would be to sit in the woods and watch the badgers too. A gust of wind slammed the gate shut with a bang.

  Jacob decided to walk out tomorrow and look for prints in the snow. He might even be able to work out where the sets were if he followed Mr Anderson’s footprints. The thought of it made him feel better. It was good to have a different focus. Mr Anderson was free. He could do whatever he wanted. If Jacob could be the same, he knew that he would be happy too.

  6

  Weeks had passed since Maggie’s cousin Jayne had been found. The initial shock was gone and the town moved back to the usual routine. Jacob thought about it all the time though, he felt it through the absence of Maggie. She’d been the one person to make sense of things. Without her, he was nothing; there was no one else who made him laugh like she did. She had left a void.

  The snow had stopped, but there was a new chill – a coldness that ran through him like a crack in a rock. As the washing machine throbbed to a steady beat downstairs he worked on his drawings. He was getting good. Paula couldn’t take this from him. He had memorised the badgers so that he could recreate one with just a few lines.

  The thought of them out there in the woods beyond the house was comforting. Mr Anderson went out like clockwork every night and Jacob heard the click of the gate when he left. A few hours later he’d hear it click again as he came back. Jacob was sure he was going to watch the badgers.

  His head throbbed. There was something else. A feeling that crept under his skin, slid up through his veins and left his mouth dry and his stomach heavy. It wasn’t something that would go away. He thought of it as bad ink that ran through his veins. Sometimes he looked at his skin and saw it there, as plain as he could see his fingernails or the freckles on his skin: the darkness running through him. Creeping through his body and out of his pores.

  Paula had told him that he had his mother’s blood running through him and there was nothing he could do about it: that one day he would end up just like her. She liked to do that, to let him know that it wasn’t just her dark eyes that he’d inherited. It was there to see, under his pale skin and he could feel it rushing through him. Jacob wondered if other people could smell the badness coming out of him – a creeping, throbbing oddness that his stepmother had shown him was there, as much a part of him as his own organs. He’d feel it unexpectedly, when he was at school or stood in newsagents waiting to pay for his sweets and he knew that it was there behind his eyes and anyone who looked close enough would see it inside him.

  When he was at the library surrounded by books, he was almost free. The coloured spines held promises of other worlds for him to slip inside and he loved it. He memorised the pictures and held them in his mind to go back to later. He could spend hours in the library, researching things and stepping into unknown places. If he wasn’t even brave enough to run, he could draw. He could create a world on paper where badgers sniffed for grubs and birds chased dragonflies through the trees and he could go anywhere he wanted.

  He looked up at the photo of Maggie stuck to his noticeboard. They’d developed it in the photography room at school and she’d grabbed it before it had dried properly and left her thumb print on the bottom of it. The smudge had dried in an arch over the image with ridges from her finger. He liked to touch it sometimes with his own finger as though they were connected. It felt like he’d got a piece of her on that paper. As he stared at it, he realised that he’d done nothing to help her.


  Jayne had lived at Maggie’s since her dad lost his job six months ago and Maggie was always moaning about having to share a bedroom with her cousin. Maggie must have felt bad about that now. He should have been there for Maggie. He felt he’d let her down. He should have been round to see if she needed him or tried to find out what happened to her cousin instead of staying in his room moping.

  He’d written Maggie letters. He’d even put a stamp on one of them and never posted it. It was stupid. This was what he always did, filled his time with useless things. He’d got a book of the things his stepmother had done to him, marking them off every day and filled another line in his exercise book. It was a gamble in case she ever found it, but when it was there on the paper it was like it wasn’t a part of him anymore. It was his way of getting rid of it. He’d started to do it because Maggie wrote in her book too. It was stupid. As though if he did something that she did that they’d be closer, but she’d never show him what she’d written. It was another part of her that he was locked out of. He just wanted to be close to her and the pile of sealed, unposted envelopes were another proof of it. Maggie needed him, but all his thoughts were for himself. He’d been thinking about how beautiful she was and how he missed her and he felt ashamed. Perhaps he was going to end up like his mother after all.

  The alarm clock lit up the back of the bedroom wall with a slight green glow. Somehow he knew that Paula would come into his room tonight and torture him with more cruel words. He’d got a feel for it. He wasn’t sure how it was that he knew, but he did. She had given him a look earlier when he’d brought out the plates after dinner. It was a long stare and a slight smile. He’d felt that creeping dread in the back of his neck and she looked pleased and turned away. So when the handle of the door moved, ever so slightly and the shadow under the door changed to a slightly darker black, he knew.

  He inhaled and waited. Forgetting all the lessons he was never going to go to, forgetting Maggie and her secret notebook, forgetting the sanctuary of the library and forgetting how she used to make him laugh so hard he’d choked on a sherbet lemon once. He wasn’t the boy that his mum used to tell him he was: the boy that could be a truck driver or a fireman if he wanted to. He was the boy who’d once stayed in bed until he’d almost pissed himself rather than get up in the night in case she was there on the landing. He was weak. He had bad blood. He was his mother’s boy.