Love Me to Death Read online

  8

  Mr Anderson first noticed the small yellow tent on his way back home. The day had been tiring and he’d been desperate to get out into the fresh air. He was bloated from the free ice finger buns he’d eaten and his head throbbed from strong coffee and sugar. He’d been for training at Didsbury Library. A suited-up blonde from the university had been brought in to talk about the changing role of libraries. As she grinned through straight white teeth, he’d counted the books on the shelves behind her so that he didn’t have to listen. He’d hated it, stuck in a room of strangers who wanted to talk to him and worse, ask questions! Questions and more questions, not just about the library either – questions about his life! His mother had always told him never to talk to strangers and the whole day had been an ordeal.

  Libraries were supposed to be quiet. They used to be places where people read a book and kept their mouths shut. It wasn’t that way anymore. They were trying to change things. The university woman talked about engaging the wider community and looked at him like she wanted to engage with him too. The rest of the room clapped and smiled at her as though they agreed. It was horrific. To stop her coming over to talk, he’d eaten iced finger buns from the buffet and kept a close eye on the back of her long blonde hair as she chatted to the other people. The icing had stuck to his fingers and he’d licked them clean. Then he’d had another, and another. He’d kept eating. Now he was bloated, annoyed and had a headache.

  He’d managed it though. He’d exchanged some pleasantries, copied conversations and managed to get through the day. They really were stupid. He had even used the time to work on the family project and had found a couple of possibilities. He’d forgotten to laugh a few times and had to pretend that he didn’t understand the jokes they’d told. That suited him though; if people thought he was stupid, then fine – he was invisible and uninteresting that way. They thought they were different, but they were all the same. He wanted to be underestimated, because that made them vulnerable. If he could slip through their lives like water through a sieve and leave no trace then he had succeeded. They filled him with disgust, but he’d left them smiling. They even felt sorry for him. They were pathetic.

  The roads were unusually busy and he’d chosen to go down the old railway track. He cycled hard and the freedom felt good. The feel of the wind on his face and fresh air in his lungs was one of his pleasures and he never tired of it. He rode through the traffic, pedalling until he couldn’t breathe.

  The path was overgrown, no longer used for trains; the tracks had been taken away and the arches of the old bridges were strewn with rubbish. He liked the route though. It was rare to see people down here. He walked this way at night sometimes too, after going to some of the pubs. He’d learnt a lot that way. The pubs always had their regulars and once the drink loosened their tongues, they’d happily talk about everything. He often found himself someone to observe. Textbooks could only tell you so much, but if you really wanted to know who people were, you had to get inside them. The man with the blue shirt wanted to tell him everything, but there was nothing of interest. He could hear the sound of that man’s voice now, before he was silenced. The way he’d panicked, as Mr Anderson pressed the plastic bag hard against his face, until the silence. He didn’t know what he was asking, but he was family now.

  He’d tried to explain what people were like to a woman he’d met at the bus stop, but she didn’t get it, she just didn’t understand. He’d told her straight, people were complex – a river of emotions and chemicals that could be moulded into something special. He’d tried to get her home with him to explain clearly, but she’d refused. He’d been insistent, angry even at her refusal and yet, still no agreement. Her hair was fire-red and he’d imagined how it would look, threaded into the head of a clay doll. In the end, she left before the bus came. The sun was behind her as she ran down the road, the curve of her hips and flowing curls silhouetted against the orange sun. She’d gone out of his life in seconds when it could have been so special. He couldn’t understand people. The times he’d spent in the pubs had taught him how they lied and embellished their empty lives. They couldn’t be trusted.

  He wanted a family that wasn’t soiled by mistruths. So he’d gone out later, when the alcohol was flowing and the tongues were loosened, so he could see the lies more clearly. He’d waited for the right person, but after time realised that no one would meet his criteria. He’d accepted that his family would be perfectly imperfect – like all families. It was a revelation, and that was the day he found the man by the side of the road: drunk and dazed. Laid out in his blue checked shirt and chunky boots like a rag doll on the floor. Blank. Ready. Perfect.

  It was usually deserted this way and he rarely saw another soul – sometimes the occasional couple, holding each other that bit tighter as they walked in the darkness. He liked the thought that someone else could be out there, waiting for him to find them, but it hadn’t happened yet.

  As he cycled along, the bicycle bumped over the rough path and thoughts of family were on his mind. He panted as he rode, legs pumping hard, like a mighty stag pounding across the countryside. He thought about the deer on Cage Hill, the hint of red in their coats and their white tinted antlers. There were two herds at the park: one on the park and one on the moor. They rarely mixed. He understood that. Family was all that mattered. The things in his head weren’t to share with others. He paced the periphery of other people’s lives like a lone stag, watching and waiting for his moment.

  Mr Anderson had learnt to create the right level of solitude to be normal, but not to attract interest. He’d even created a story that worked well – the sad story of his mother and how he cared for her day and night. Nursing her gave him the perfect amount of sympathy. He kept a little lock of hair in his wallet, tied by a single red ribbon that he’d cut off as she slept. He had shown it to a woman at work and she’d softened like wet clay when he told her about his beautiful mother. Moulding them was easy and the story served him well. It was also the perfect excuse to leave their tiresome gatherings; no one ever argued when he said he had to go and look after her.

  When he saw the tent under one of the arches of an old railway bridge, he swerved his bike. The tent was bright yellow: the colour of a canary’s breast. It reminded him of the brightest sun, a light shining through the darkness. He thought about the perfect day he’d spent on Cage Hill. Standing on the mound, overlooking the fields with the yellow sun just peeking over the hills and his mother, a dark figure with the wind in her hair. The breeze made ripples in the long grass and they shook and danced across the hills in sways of yellows, greens and browns. It had been special. It meant everything, this rare trip out. She’d pointed at the tiny people below and the distant buildings like dolls’ houses. As Mr Anderson stared at the yellow tent, all of those feelings came back. It was incredible that he’d searched for so long and then, on that cold and grey January afternoon, he had found it in this ordinary place. It was fate.

  The front of the tent was unzipped and a face looked out of the gap: a boy, no more than twenty. It was his eyes though – eyes that understood isolation and pain. The boy had suffering running through him.

  It was seconds before the boy pulled down the zip, but Mr Anderson felt a connection. Under that cold January sky, he knew that he’d found someone. He needed a home and family, but more than that, he needed Cage Hill.

  Mr Anderson rested his bike up against the arches. He pulled his backpack off and reached inside for the sandwiches he’d made that morning: four small, neatly cut rectangles of perfect proportion. As he walked over to the tent, he thought that the boy should have covered it. He was vulnerable out here on his own, but luckily he was there to look after him.

  He wasn’t ready though. Nothing was ready; the copper wire was still in the packet and the clay hadn’t been moulded. He didn’t have his bag or his knife with him. Mr Anderson dropped the sandwiches on the floor in front of the tent by a couple of empty lager cans, and walked away.
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br />   ‘Some food for you outside,’ he shouted back.

  As he got back to his bike, he heard the sound of a zip. Mr Anderson smiled as he rode back to his house. Not because he’d done something good, but because he knew that he’d found him. There was no need to rush. He would savour it.

  How right that his family was here, waiting in the shadows and he would work all night to get the next figure ready. The wind picked up. It was hard to cycle and his ears and nose were numb. It was the boy’s vulnerability that was worrying. The look on his face stuck with him as he cycled towards home. He pedalled harder. He imagined that thin layer of material between him and the outside world. One piece of bright yellow cloth to protect him. So tragic that he thought he could be safe there. Mr Anderson wondered if there were family photographs in that tent; if there was a curled-up photograph of the faces he’d left behind. Either way, he was alone now, waiting for someone to take him in – waiting for a real family. He imagined the feel of warm clay in his hand as he brought his features to life, the tiny pin that he would use to thread the hairs through the holes. He pedalled faster, the more excited he got.

  When Mr Anderson got home and wheeled his bike into the hallway, he caught a glimpse of himself in the hallway mirror. His cheeks were red and ruddy. The bad weather was coming, too cold for a boy to be alone in a tent, too cold for anyone to be outside. He knew the stories. Sometimes a drunk would pass out on their way home and collapse. They would be lucky to survive the night if they did. If the weather got worse, the boy might not wake up at all. Just left in that yellow tent alone, unclaimed and unwanted. That would be unthinkable. If that happened, he would be unusable.

  Later that night, he sat in his armchair with the curtains open and stared outside into the blackness. The thought that the boy in the tent was only a five-minute bike ride away meant that he hadn’t been able to focus on anything else. He’d got some research from the library on the symbolic father figure, but there was nothing new in it. The findings were simplistic and the research was stale. Only he could recreate meaning where everyone else had failed.

  He pushed the clay in his hand and eased it into place. It was malleable, changeable, ready for his hands to tease it into shape. As he pressed the clay around the copper wire, he looked through the half-light at the wooden box on the sideboard. The needles were set out in size order, sharp and clean – ready for the next material. He thought of the man in the blue checked shirt and wondered how long he’d stayed on Cage Hill before being sealed in a plastic evidence bag in the basement of the police station. Mr Anderson sat in his chair and nodded. He was alone now, but it wouldn’t be long before he had company. The father of his family was waiting patiently for more people and it wouldn’t be long now.

  He thought about the lesser celandine, white wild garlic, blue bells and cowslips up on Cage Hill. The tiny purple harebells dotted in clumps through the grasses. He remembered the twisted trunks of the lime trees that lined the road below, the thick ridges of the old bark and the fat green leaves – all so vivid in his memory. Mr Anderson inhaled as he turned the lump of clay in his hand. As he thought about that special day with his mother, he formed the clay into the body.

  The smell of the cooked corned beef hash drifted in through from the kitchen. It was what he would bring to the boy tomorrow. He would also add a little extra something to numb his senses – an aid to make him more malleable, some pills from the bathroom cabinet.

  He turned on the television to watch the weather report. The swirls on the map were scattered with clouds edged in tiny white lines. As they talked about a big freeze coming, Mr Anderson smiled. The boy would be desperate to come into the warm. By now he’d have enjoyed the sandwiches that were left for him and next time they met, he’d be willing to accept him. He would lead him home and spend time with him – family time.

  Mr Anderson considered taking the next day off work sick to approach the boy, but decided against it. No. He mustn’t. Everything must be correct and in place. The boy could have issues, he couldn’t just go marching up to him.

  Tomorrow should seem as unremarkable as every other day. He would do everything as he always did. Leave for work at the same time, buy a drink from the same woman at the café, sit on the bench in the park and feed the birds the crusts from his sandwiches in his lunch hour. Everything would be the same. Afterwards he would take the boy some more food. Could he offer him a room here? There was another bedroom. He wasn’t sure if that was wise. He had to be discreet, but the thought of the cellar excited him. He would have time to work then and it could last for hours – days even, if he prepared him properly. It was all set up and ready. The thick chains were drilled into the concrete and bolted down. He’d already taken down the radio and turned it up to check that no sounds could be heard outside. It had been fine, just a muffled noise that would be unnoticed.

  The boy needed him and that was all he knew. As Mr Anderson looked out the window, he thought about the boy, waiting out there in the darkness. Christmas was just over and yet, here was one last gift. He wondered if the boy was thinking of him too; perhaps he was sat in his tent thinking about the kind cyclist. Having dreams of a family as the breeze rippled across the outside of the tent. Somewhere across Stockport, Mr Anderson imagined the coats of the deer being ruffled by the same breeze, as they waited too.

  Mr Anderson carefully placed the little figure inside his wooden box of tools. He’d bent the copper wires to make the shape of the figure and stitched material around the neck ready for the clay to be slotted on. It was coming to life. The tufts of stuffing he would wind around the wire to make the final shape of the body were in the box already. It was a delicate process and it took time. When the boy was his, he would mould the face and add the hair. He was itching to begin, but he had to wait – despite the urges.

  He remembered the man in the blue checked shirt, the tuft of hair over his left eye that he’d added to his figure at the end; it had been perfect. The way he stared into the distance and the pursed lips of his final seconds were the snapshot of the purest moment. He looked over at the copper wire and the modelling tools. First things first. One step at a time.

  He smiled to himself and thought about Noreen, how she told him that she’d been going to the shelter at weekends to volunteer with the homeless and wondered if she’d met the boy there on one of her visits. It was all slotting together. Tomorrow, he was going to take that little yellow canary and set it free. For the first time in months things were correct. The boy was going to join the family. Mr Anderson looked at his materials and the curved blade of his modelling knife and pictured it slicing through the yellow tent. He smiled with delight at the new figure he had started to create. If only his mother could see him, she’d be so proud.

  9

  It was hard to keep up with Maggie’s long legs. She always walked fast and today, her strides seemed longer. She almost ran across the pavement towards the woods where her cousin was found.

  It had started to go dark. The sky was streaked with orange and black clouds, flicking upwards in great arcs across the sky. It felt like there was a shroud over the town, as though bad things were about to happen.

  Maggie pushed the hair from her eyes as they walked towards the new estate. ‘The new girl at the chip shop’s pretty.’

  Jacob frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘You should ask her out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean why? You’re funny sometimes. Why not?’

  All he wanted was to be with her, and she had no interest in him. He felt as invisible as glass. As they passed the bus stop where her cousin was seen that day, neither of them spoke. He glanced over at the empty bench where Jayne had waited and imagined her there now.

  The shoes she had been wearing bothered him. They weren’t right for that weather or for a walk in the woods. It was worse that Maggie had worn them too, as though it could have been her that day instead, as though the shoes were somehow to blame. His thoughts kept g
oing back to them. It felt wrong.

  They continued on, down the road near the new estate, past the house with the little black dog. It started to bark as they went past.

  ‘It wants a walk,’ he said, without stopping.

  ‘She should pay someone to walk it then, the tight old cow.’

  ‘Maybe she can’t afford it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t have a dog then. I’m not doing it anymore. She can piss off.’

  He frowned, but he didn’t say anything. They took it out sometimes, but he knew Maggie was upset.

  He wondered if she knew that the dog had been there near her cousin. He imagined that she did. The police had probably told the family. He wished he could have found out something about her cousin, but he had nothing.

  ‘Did you see someone then? On the field?’ Maggie asked.

  She grabbed his arm and pulled it against her and he could feel the softness of her chest through her coat.

  ‘There’s no one there.’

  She pulled her arm away and put her hand in her pocket, as though she was embarrassed.

  ‘Sorry, I’m freaked out. I’m getting paranoid, seeing people that aren’t there.’

  He licked his bottom lip and looked into the wall of black where the fields were.

  ‘Don’t be daft. You don’t need to be sorry. My stepmother won’t even take the dog out at night anymore.’

  He was annoyed with himself for not making a bigger thing out of it. As Maggie looked back to check that no one was behind them he couldn’t see anything. It was probably a dog walker. They always cut through the gap in the fence on their way home, but he didn’t tell her that. He liked her being this close and he knew that they might come into view again in a minute. It made him feel bad about himself, but he couldn’t help it.

  ‘We could go back,’ he told her.

  ‘That’s daft.’

  ‘It’s up to you.’ But he was glad. He would walk all night with her if he could. She patted him on the arm and he resisted the urge to grin.