Kiss Her Goodbye: The most addictive thriller you'll read this year Page 7

  ‘Come on,’ says Leila, and really pulls me this time.

  We leave Mrs Green on the path and walk back the way we came.

  ‘What did you go and upset her for?’ Leila says, because she’s no idea what has just happened.

  ‘She wasn’t upset. She was happy.’

  ‘What’s she on about “just in case”? In case of what? I thought she was the ghost when we came round that corner. What a nutter.’

  I laugh and look at the bulrushes further down the bank, standing on their stick legs on the edge of the water. There are so many secrets here: secrets from the past and secrets waiting to happen. It’s a magical place. The pull of it brought Kirsten here just as it does me.

  ‘The ghost? What are you on?’ I push her shoulder and she laughs. ‘Coming to mine, then?’

  She shrugs. ‘Should get back really.’

  ‘For a bit. It’s not even half four.’

  As we get to the corner I look back. Mrs Green throws one of the carnations on the water and puts her hands together, before she glances back at me. I wave and as she lifts her hand one of the flowers falls out of the cellophane and onto the path without her noticing. If things were different and she’d been my mum instead, then maybe Kirsten would still be alive today, but there’s no point thinking like that. I will go back later and pick up the flower though, because even though Mrs Green will never be my mum, I already know that we’ve got a special connection.

  *

  Back home, I open the front door and put my hand to my nose to mask the smell of the pine-fresh floor cleaner.

  ‘Oh, you’re back, then,’ Mum says. ‘It’s beans on toast tonight so shout down when you’re hungry.’

  She looks at the mud that we’ve left on the mat, but doesn’t ask us where we’ve been. If she was Kirsten’s mum she would have done, but she isn’t: she’s mine. I take off my coat and put it on the stand in the hall.

  ‘We’ve eaten,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, I bought two tins.’

  I look at Leila and roll my eyes.

  ‘We haven’t seen much of you for a while, Leila.’

  ‘Mine’s in half an hour.’ Leila smiles. ‘It’s curry so I can’t stay long.’

  ‘Very exotic,’ replies Mum.

  On the table in the hall is a new photograph of her and Mike and she stares at it and waits for me to comment.

  ‘Come on,’ I say to Leila as I walk past.

  Mike leans forwards off the sofa and waves through the living-room door as Leila wriggles out of her denim jacket and grins at him. I smile too and he doesn’t notice that it’s fake. He just sees what he wants to, as everyone else does.

  When we’re in my room, I shut the door and Leila nods downstairs. ‘Has he, you know? Come into your room again?’ she asks. ‘He seems nice – maybe he just got confused or something. New house and all.’

  She trusts everyone, because she’s not very bright, and I lean in close while she licks an ink stain off her thumb.

  ‘He didn’t. You should have seen what he was doing the other morning.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In the bathroom.’ I nod knowingly. ‘He had his knob out.’

  ‘He never?’

  Leila sits forward, wanting to be shocked, and I could tell her anything.

  ‘He was waiting for me to come in. Just stood there.’

  Leila screws her face up as if she’s tasted something bitter and folds her arms across her chest. ‘Nah, what did your mum say?’

  ‘She never believes anything I tell her. So what’s the point?’

  Leila bites her lip.

  ‘Yeah, I know but—’

  Mum shouts something and her voice rises like a wave up the stairs, but I ignore it.

  ‘He keeps trying to get me on my own.’ I pause. ‘He even took me down to the river the other day and wanted to take photos of me. I wouldn’t though.’ Her mouth is slack and her eyes are wide while she takes it all in. ‘He’s waiting until Mum’s out and then…’ I push her over onto the bed and grab her arms. She struggles into the sheets, while I hold her down, and I realise how weak she really is.

  ‘Get off, will you?’

  I put my hands on her shoulders and wait for her to fight me off, but she doesn’t. ‘Hayley!’ she says, and I can smell the chips on her breath. It reminds me of the way her hair shone by the river.

  I laugh as she tries to sit up, but falls back down again as the wooden headboard hits the wall. I fall on top of her and feel her heartbeat against mine, while she takes shallow breaths, like a fish out of water. She smells of Body Shop perfume and I tilt my head so that our lips are closer than they’ve ever been. She’s so special that I could squeeze her so hard that there’s not a breath left in her. Best friends forever. She pushes me off.

  ‘You’re not funny,’ she says, and moves away, ‘and you should tell someone.’

  ‘Tell them what?’

  Mum walks in without knocking. ‘What was all that noise?’ she says.

  Leila sits back against the wall and looks embarrassed and Mum puts her hands on her hips. ‘I thought the roof was going to fall in. You do know that it’s our twelve-week anniversary today?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Leila says.

  Mum tuts as she leaves and the landing floorboard creaks as she goes into the bathroom.

  ‘Is she OK now?’ Leila asks, after the bathroom door has slammed shut.

  ‘What do you think? Twelve-week anniversary? What’s she on about?’ I twist my finger to my temple.

  Leila starts to whisper, ‘What about the voices?’

  ‘Nah, she’s been all right lately,’ I tell her.

  ‘She always seems dead normal to me.’

  Leila looks me over and I wish I knew what she was thinking. I’ve exaggerated what Mum’s like, but everyone always believes my stories and I know how to keep them going. I’ve got a good memory and that’s the key.

  Leila goes back to rubbing the ink off her thumb and I’ve no idea what she’s thinking. We used to understand each other, but not any more. Sometimes that makes me hurt inside and other times I think I’m the luckiest person alive just to be near her. The thought of losing her makes me tense up. It could never happen though. We’ve always been like one person instead of two.

  ‘I wonder if we’ll still be best friends when we’re old,’ I ask, but she shrugs as if she’s not interested.

  ‘Hey, on Saturday you wanna go to Stockport and nick some make-up?’ I ask.

  ‘I can lend you some money if you need something.’

  ‘I don’t need anything, do I? You’re so boring, come on, I’d rather go with you than Stefan. He spends hours in Frank’s Records. All he cares about is The Smiths.’

  She goes quiet, as she always does when I mention him, and looks up at the New Order poster on my wall. I’ve been listening to ‘Low-Life’ since that day with Kirsten and I wonder if she hears it too from underneath the river. On the days I play it, I feel that she’s happy. I imagine the sound of the songs going deep under the water to tickle her awake when she’s missing me.

  ‘I can’t stand The Smiths and I’m not boring,’ Leila says, after a while.

  ‘Good. It’ll be a laugh.’

  ‘I might ask Barbara, then.’

  I look at her in disgust. ‘What for?’

  Leila shakes her head. ‘She’s all right. You should get to know her.’ She nods at the poster. ‘Her dad knows Peter Hook. She could get you some tickets.’

  I feel my shoulders tense. ‘She’s more full of shit than Daz Granger. Anyway, I can get my own tickets.’

  ‘Come on. We could go for a drink in the Nelson afterwards. It’s good in there. We went after the march last week.’

  I don’t want to go to the pub with them and I don’t want to hear about campaigning from someone who’s still got Sarah Kay cushions in her bedroom. The familiar click and crackle of the foil comes from the bathroom as Mum opens her pills and I can tell that she’s having the bitter pin
k ones. I press play on the cassette player so we can listen to the songs I’ve recorded from the Top 40. I’ve made a whole tape of music that Leila said she likes this year. She’s oblivious though. It was the same with Kirsten. All the times I tried to speak to Kirsten she hardly said a word to me and sometimes she even looked fed up about it. She didn’t know that I used to think about what to say while I lay in bed at night. I always knew that I was going to save her. It would have been nice if she’d shown a bit of appreciation though.

  ‘And still moving up the Charts it’s Tears for Fears with “Shout”!’

  Leila mimes to the music and I close my eyes and breathe in the smell of her White Musk perfume. Kirsten creeps into my head and I try to focus on the song, but I know that she’s near. She’s never far away these days.

  While Leila sings along to the music, I know that Kirsten’s coming. She doesn’t care what’s playing any more. It doesn’t matter. I can’t stop her; she just wants to be with me, and nothing else matters. I’m the only one she’s got.

  9

  Hayley Reynolds

  When Leila goes home, Mike waves at her from the living room, but she goes out without saying goodbye.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ he asks.

  He frowns as the door shuts and I press my lips together to hide the smile. I sit down, while he rubs his hand up and down Mum’s shoulder as they watch television.

  ‘Lion Fish,’ Mike says, and points at fish with long flowing fins on the screen. ‘Pretty, but poisonous.’

  I glance at Mum and back at the fish. The sea is clear blue and I wonder how it would feel to swim there. It must be like being in another world.

  ‘Is this all that’s on?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Amazing what’s hidden under the surface,’ Mike says, ignoring her. I look at the blue water on the screen and shoals of silver fish glinting under the sunlight. I smile, but he thinks it’s meant for him and sits forwards as if we’re sharing a special moment. Mum sits up and puts her hands on her knees.

  ‘I’ve been pondering Torremolinos for a holiday next year. Get the old bikinis out.’ He smiles.

  I turn round to look at him. ‘Why? How many bikinis have you got?’

  That makes him laugh and I join in too. I keep laughing, until Mum flinches when he tries to kiss her. As she gets up to change the channel, I look at his limp hand on the sofa and it reminds me of me: left out in the cold.

  ‘We were watching that,’ I say.

  ‘Fine,’ she says, and turns it back on, but instead of the programme there’s just black and white static across the screen. Mum snorts and hits the side of the television with her fist.

  ‘I’ll fix it,’ Mike tells her.

  ‘Good. You can fix the bathroom lock while you’re at it,’ she says. ‘Leila had a word with me about it.’ She turns to me. ‘Next time, just come to me if you’ve got a problem with him coming in on you.’

  ‘I never said that,’ I say.

  I notice Mike glance at the half-empty bottle of wine on the table and back at her.

  Mike frowns. ‘I always knock, Sandra.’

  ‘And I had a call from college today. They said you’ve not been going.’

  ‘I go. Just not always.’

  Mum looks from Mike to me and back again and nobody speaks. He coughs and puts his hand over his mouth. The sound of the phlegm in his throat breaks the silence.

  ‘You can’t just do anything you want. Next door were asking if the police were here. I hope you’ve not been telling lies again…’ She bats the idea away with her hand as though it’s annoying her.

  ‘It was about that poor girl they found in the river,’ Mike replies.

  ‘She’s not a baby, Mike. She knows what she’s doing,’ Mum says, ‘and you should be on my side for this, or have you forgotten what she said about you when you first moved in?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. She was just lashing out.’

  ‘No, nothing ever matters to you.’

  Mum walks out of the room and goes upstairs. It felt odd to have him stick up for me and I didn’t realise he knew what I said about him when he moved in.

  ‘White wine always makes her nuts,’ I tell him.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he says as he rubs his beard and looks at the bottle. I wait for him to get annoyed, but he doesn’t. Instead he says quietly, ‘I need some fresh air.’

  I follow him outside, even though it’s starting to spit. A flower from the pampas grass brushes against my face and when the security light clicks on, I see the glint of eyes in the bushes by the fence. It’s only a cat, I tell myself, but as soon as it’s there, it’s gone again. The upstairs curtain moves and a shaft of light shines over the garden. I lick my lips and taste the sweetness of the rain.

  ‘She’s keeping an eye on you,’ I tell him, with a nod up at the bedroom, but he doesn’t look up.

  ‘She’s looking out for you too. She’s your mother.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘You need to go to college. It’s a waste otherwise.’

  ‘Of what?’

  He stands there for a minute and stares into the garden. ‘Of what you can do,’ he says, before he walks over towards the lawn and looks out at the trees behind the house.

  ‘It’s a waste of time, more like.’

  ‘You’re wrong. You can do anything you want to if you put your mind to it.’

  The rain comes down harder. As he looks up the night sky is tinged green and the moon just visible through the curled leaves of the maple tree in front of him. While he’s with me, I’m not worried about Kirsten coming and I feel safe. It’s odd. I go back inside and when I stand in the kitchen away from him, my head is sore with everything.

  When he comes back in, he grabs the hand towel and rubs it over his face. The way he does it seems familiar and I wonder if it’s something that Dad used to do too. It gives me an ache and, even though it hurts, it’s a feeling that I like. I don’t want him to stop doing it, but he puts it back on the silver hook on the back of the door.

  ‘I best go and see your mum,’ he says, and walks out, leaving the smell of cigarettes behind him. I pick up the towel and rub it over my cheek, but the feeling has gone. As I sit on the sofa and listen to the murmur of their voices upstairs I don’t like the way he’s made me feel. It’s why I don’t like having him here. He makes me uncomfortable without doing anything. I pick up the bottle of wine and tip it into my mouth. It makes me feel warm, like a hug from the inside, and I decide this must be why she drinks it. A few minutes later, Mike comes back downstairs. He puts a book on the sofa and sits down next to me.

  ‘I thought about you when I was reading it. Think you’ll like it.’

  ‘It’s not one of Mum’s romances, is it?’

  ‘No fear. Short stories. Horror.’

  He puts his elbow behind him, so that his armpit is just by my face. As his elbow stretches to a point, the front of his shirt, still wet from the rain, sticks to his chest and reveals a dark nipple. He yawns. The book lies on my knee, but I don’t pick it up. I don’t think anyone’s ever thought about me when they were reading a book before and it gives me an odd feeling inside.

  ‘You’re wet,’ I say, and touch the front of his shirt. ‘I’m wet too.’ I pull off my tee shirt and let it drop on the floor. As I sit there, in just my vest and jeans, I look forwards so that he can look at me and I know that he will, because my cheap white vest is nearly see-through. This is the way that he’s going to fall. This is how to get rid of him. I just know it.

  ‘Bed,’ he says, as he looks at the ceiling.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘I mean your mum’s in bed. She’s doing her best to understand. It’s not easy for her.’

  I put my hand to my mouth and whisper.

  ‘She’s got one CSE in cookery and she can’t even cook, so how can she understand anything?’

  Our bodies touch for a second and he half laughs as he edges away. I push my boobs together with my arms so that I have
a bigger cleavage. It’s fun toying with him and using all the tricks that I’ve learnt from her and I know that he’ll do anything I want if I carry on, because that’s how it works.

  There’s a creak from the floorboard upstairs as she gets out of bed again. We’re close now and I can smell his musky scent.

  ‘She’ll be upset later,’ he says. ‘She hates arguing with you.’

  He doesn’t know her at all. Before the doctor took her away, she didn’t even want to see me. All she cares about is herself.

  ‘Yeah.’ I pause. ‘I can always tell.’

  ‘You can always talk to me, about college, or anything,’ he says, failing to notice the sarcasm. ‘I know we didn’t get along at first, but I think we’ve put all that behind us now.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘If you’re worried about what happened to the girl at the river, you can talk to me about that too.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Of course. Your mum was very upset. She was only your age.’

  I don’t know what he means. It’s got nothing to do with them. He stands up, yawns again and stretches. I feel a yawn creep into the corner of my mouth too and I can’t stop it.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ he says, with a shudder, as if the yawn has sent tingles all over him. ‘Better not get into more trouble.’ He nods upstairs. He stays there for a second and his eyes flick over me as if he’s not sure what to do and I lick my lips to taste the wine again.

  ‘I mean it, Hayley. The other day you seemed quite bothered.’

  I wait for him to ask me more about Kirsten, but he doesn’t. Nobody thinks it’s me, but every time someone knocks on the door now I think it’s the policewoman coming to take me away.

  ‘Thanks.’ I smile.

  This is his chance to come and kiss me goodnight, but he doesn’t do it.

  ‘Well, goodnight, then,’ he says, and walks out of the room. ‘Not coming?’ He nods upstairs.

  ‘I can put myself to bed, thanks. Watch out for the Lion Fish.’

  He smiles, with his head tilted, and wags his finger as if he’s telling me off, even though he isn’t.

  ‘I won’t offer to tuck you in.’

  ‘Funny.’

  As he walks out I wonder how that would feel. I rub my forehead. My head throbs with all the thoughts I’ve got inside. I stare at the door and think about the police taking me away for Kirsten’s murder, but nobody will. Everyone, apart from that detective, thinks she drowned and I know that it won’t be long before she accepts it too. She can’t prove a thing. No one knows that I used to sit in the undergrowth by the river and wait for her after college, not even Kirsten. It doesn’t feel as if it’s over though – not yet.