The Dead of Summer Page 7

  But Patrick silenced him with a stiff, ‘Quite.’

  We were left in that room for forty minutes. The three of us sat in silence, watching the minute hand of the clock loudly click away each sixty seconds. After quarter of an hour Denis started snuffling and gulping next to me. ‘Look, don’t worry,’ I said with more confidence than I felt. ‘They’re just going to give us a bollocking, that’s all.’

  Denis wiped his snotty nose with his sleeve. ‘What if they send us to prison, though?’ he asked.

  Kyle kicked the table leg in irritation. ‘Stop being such a gaylord, Denis,’ he said. ‘We stole a fucking boat, we didn’t kill anyone.’

  Finally the two coppers came in, shouted at us for ten minutes about wasting police time, stealing, and how if we did anything – anything – at all again, we’d be deeply fucking sorry. Denis and I looked at our shoes the entire time. I heard Denis start sniffing again.

  By the end of that summer, of course, I was to become quite used to dealing with policemen. But back then it was my first time inside a station even, and I was scared.

  Suddenly the bald copper stopped. ‘You’re a cocky little fucker, aren’t you, lad?’

  I followed his gaze to Kyle who was staring insolently back at the policeman. Finally Kyle just shrugged, then looked away. At last they let us go.

  Outside I didn’t say anything to the other two. I was sick to death of Kyle suddenly; sick to death of the duck-murdering, boat-stealing sight of him, sick to my stomach with trying to work out his secrets and his silences. So I left them standing there without saying goodbye, telling myself that Kyle could swivel – I was fucked if I was going to see him again.

  six

  After the boat episode, I stayed away from Kyle for a couple of days. It felt like weeks. I can see you don’t understand, Doctor Barton. Why would I miss someone who behaved the way he did? What could I like about someone like that? Let me try to explain. I had never met anyone like him before. He was so certain of himself, so utterly unconcerned by what others thought of him. He had a confidence and a disregard for the ‘proper’ way of doing things that I found infinitely impressive. And if Kyle showed an interest in something I said, it meant that I was interesting. Simple as that. If he turned away from me, the sun went in.

  Whatever we did, wherever we went, it was always his idea. It was him who knew about the mines under Greenwich, his idea to hunt for a cave where we would, perhaps, live one day, the three of us in our own little underground world. And we were kids, you know? Just kids who don’t cast aside friendships for random acts of madness. When you’re a kid you tend to see the best in your mates. Because at least they’re not as mad as your fucking parents.

  So, a couple of days without seeing them and I was missing Kyle and Denis like crazy. Denis and I never went and knocked for Kyle; it was an unspoken rule of ours, so I had to wait to see if he turned up. Of course he didn’t. Finally Dad gave me a quid out of his dole money and asked me to go into Lewisham to buy a birthday present for Auntie Jam. Ordinarily I would have resented doing anything for the bitch, but it gave me an excuse to get out of the house and walk past Denis’s, to see if he wanted to come with me.

  Nobody answered when I knocked so I walked to the Army & Navy store by myself. The shop was empty. Sadé played over the loudspeakers to no one and the place smelt the way failing department stores usually do; that bright, plasticy smell masking something a bit musty and hopeless. Like expensive perfume on a pissy old-age pensioner.

  Under the strip-lighting and through the aisles of toiletries I trailed, past bath cubes and face flannels and soaps on dusty shelves. Eventually I stuffed a few boxes of talc up my T-shirt and left by the nearest exit. It had been as easy as it had always been, in those long empty school-less days in Leeds after Mum died. I was glad to see I hadn’t lost my touch.

  When I got to Myre Street, the pound still in my pocket, I looked across to No. 33. Kyle’s house always looked desolate, but I knew that didn’t necessarily mean no one was in. The curtains were drawn as usual, the glass perpetually black in the sunshine of those days. When I let myself into our house it was empty. No music playing upstairs, no Dad watching telly, no Janice laughing in the kitchen. The emptiness was so unusual I just stood in the hall, the talc boxes digging into my skin, and listened to it for a while. Everything was perfectly still and I remember thinking how nice it was. As I listened to the empty house I began, as you do, picking out the tiny slivers of sound that constitute its silence. The ticking of the fridge, a radio playing in somebody’s garden, the barking of next-door’s dog. And somewhere, the soft, low murmur of a woman crying.

  What was that? Suddenly it was the only sound I could hear. An almost imperceptible ‘huh-huh-huh’ noise, the whereabouts of which I couldn’t identify. I walked towards the foot of the stairs, my movements drowning it out momentarily. But there it was again. I walked upstairs and it got louder. Thinking it was one of my sisters I opened the door to our bedroom. It was empty and I realised then the noise was coming from my dad’s room. The door was ajar and I pushed it open.

  It took a few moments to work out what was happening. Janice seemed to be kneeling, naked, on my dad’s bed. I stood in the doorway totally bewildered by the sight of her vast, sweaty flesh as it wobbled and heaved spam-like in the midday heat, her breasts swinging almost to her navel, tufts of orange glistening from her pits and crotch. In a sort of stupid horror I watched her bounce and gyrate her massive hips, an angry red groove running across them where her knickers had once been, and wondered what strange madness it was that had led her to this. I thought she was in some sort of terrible trance. Her eyes were closed and she was still making the moaning noise I’d heard from downstairs. I wondered how the hell I was going to wake her.

  Stupid, wasn’t I? Because then of course I saw something brown and skinny wriggling between her thighs. I hadn’t noticed him before because he’d been half-covered by Janice and the duvet, but it was my dad under there, naked and silent under our neighbour’s massive weight. I couldn’t see his face but I recognised him by the hand he raised suddenly, to bat half-heartedly at one of Janice’s pinky-white udders. I knew it was my dad by the wedding ring he still wore then.

  I backed out of the door and down the stairs and out of the house, into the burning midday heat. And though I don’t remember making the decision to go and knock on Kyle’s door, though I only recall my heart thumping and a sort of bleak shame and rage, there I was suddenly, watching my hand reach up and bang the huge brass knocker. Too late I realised the mistake I’d made and could only stare anxiously up at the three storeys of yellow brick, the dark unfriendly windows and high pointing roof, knowing how angry Kyle would be to see me on his step and that it was too late to run away. Then the door opened and there stood Patrick, blinking into the sun.

  ‘Anita!’ he said, as if delighted, and I’m afraid I felt flattered to hear him speak my name. He had that sort of effect on you, Kyle’s granddad. And as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if I dropped round like that every day, he stood aside, smiling, and ushered me in. I forgot all about Janice and my dad then. I had wondered so often about the inside of Kyle’s house that I could only gaze around me in silence, like a kid on a school trip to a museum, overawed by its differentness to anywhere I’d ever been before.

  The hallway was dark after the intense brightness of the street. It was quiet and still with black and white diamond tiles on the floor, a wide uncarpeted staircase and a dank and heavy feel to the air as if it hadn’t been disturbed for years. I’d never been in a house like that before. If I’m honest, I’d never been in a house that wasn’t modern and small and crap like ours and Denis’s was.

  Patrick showed me into their front room and looked at me curiously when I gasped. It was huge. Red velvet curtains hung from the bay windows and behind them the sun burned, bathing the room in a soft, orange glow. Through the gaps in the curtains the light lasered in great dust-infested shafts. It was h
ot and still and thrilling to me. The place was full of antique furniture, the walls covered in gold and green wallpaper. An immense Persian rug covered the floorboards and in front of an enormous marble fireplace stood a china vase full of peacock feathers.

  I stood, gazing around the room until I finally noticed that in front of the window was a large oak table on which lay a small-scale model of a battle scene. Noticing me staring, Patrick smiled and ushered me over to it. Across the fuzzy green hills and valleys were perched hundreds of tiny, exquisitely painted lead figures.

  ‘The Borodino battlefield,’ explained Patrick. I must have looked blank because then he went on, ‘From the Napoleonic war. The soldiers in red are the Russians, the blue ones are the French.’

  I stared at it for a long time. Some of the little soldiers sat atop perfectly rendered horses in various states of charge or collapse, and there were cannons and ammunition carts, bloodstained corpses and discarded bayonets all carefully arranged in perpetual gory massacre. Each soldier’s face was unique in its expression of aggression, fear, or death. On the highest hill the lone, squat figure of Napoleon stood, surveying the carnage below.

  ‘Beautiful craftsmanship,’ said Patrick plucking a tiny figure skewered on a bayonet. ‘Look at the detail!’ He turned the soldier around and showed me where the point of the sword went right through his back, the wound spewing faded orangey-red guts like raw mince.

  ‘Smashing,’ I said, which seemed to please Patrick greatly, and he beamed at me as if I were the most charming and eloquent person he had ever met. I continued gazing around the room. At first glance it was elegant, grand, expensive, but when you looked more closely you realised that everything was a bit fucked. Every surface was covered in crap: spilt coffee, empty cups, stacks of books, broken ornaments, dust. I looked up at the beautiful silk light shade and saw that it was ripped, noticed that the rug and curtains were threadbare and stained, that the chaiselongue sagged where the springs had broken.

  Eventually I turned back to Patrick. I know you’ll think this stupid, but I don’t care, I’ll say it anyway. I turned to look at Kyle’s granddad, standing there in that beautiful chaotic room and I think I started to love him right at that moment. Of course I don’t mean I fancied him, he was past sixty and I was thirteen. It was different from that. I felt an overwhelming jealousy suddenly that he was Kyle’s and not mine.

  He was impressive for his age, tall and handsome in his smart old-man’s clothes and touched I thought with a kind of magic and glamour – charisma I suppose you’d call it. But it was his kindness I loved. I’d only just met him but I sensed that he was the kindest man I’d ever seen. Unusually for me, I felt instantly and entirely at ease with him.

  We started talking. He asked me questions about myself, about school and Leeds and my family. I talked more in those twenty minutes than I probably had to any other adult in my entire life apart from Mum. Eventually I wandered over to a framed picture and picked it up. It was of a woman with curly hair, her arms around Kyle and a little blonde girl. Of course I knew immediately who it was and I froze, unsure of what to say.

  Patrick came over to where I stood and gently took the picture from me. ‘That’s Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘My daughter. And young Kyle, of course.’ His finger stroked the little blonde-haired girl. ‘And this is little Katie.’ As he said the last word his voice was heavy and broken and all fucked-up and even though I didn’t know him at all I wanted to say something, anything to make it better. But there was nothing I could think of to say.

  Outside in the street someone was banging something with a hammer and each thwack bounced loudly off the hot afternoon air. Patrick and I listened to it for a while, and when it stopped suddenly, that final thwack seemed to lengthen and the room and me and Patrick were held within the sound for a while. Isn’t it funny how a moment can expand then hold its breath and just sit still like that, suspended, teetering, and then it passes? Have you noticed that, Doctor Barton?

  ‘You and Kyle are great pals, aren’t you?’ Patrick asked suddenly. I must have looked doubtful but he carried on anyway, in his soft, slightly Scottish accent that made me want to curl up and have a kip on his lap. I can hear that voice still. It mingles with my nightmares.

  ‘I hope,’ he trailed off, looking for the right words. ‘I think Kyle has been very unhappy.’ He looked at me as if I was going to contradict him, but I said nothing. ‘I don’t think Kyle ever got over it. What happened.’

  I held my breath then said, in a whisper, ‘What did happen? What happened to Katie, Patrick?’

  Patrick stared at me for so long that I thought that I had blown it, that I’d said the wrong thing and that he’d ask me to leave, and the pain of it, of being made to leave that house and go home was almost too much for me to bear. But then he whispered simply, ‘I don’t know, my dear. I really don’t know.’

  In the quiet that followed I was dimly aware of floorboards creaking above us, as if someone was pacing upstairs, and also of the sound of faint opera music, a woman wailing something tragic and foreign that wafted down from some far away room, but mainly I was caught up in that silence that fell between us, deeper and darker than any cave. Patrick kept staring down at the photograph and I remember desperately wanting to take one of his big old hands and hold it.

  Then, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  I don’t know how long Kyle had been standing in the doorway and his voice made me and Patrick jump. He was staring, horrified, as if he’d caught me stealing or something. I could only look back at him dumbly, taking in the awful changes in him since I had last seen him. He looked like shit: wasted, fucked, his eyes sunken into his pale flesh, his greasy hair sticking flat to his skull, his bony wrists translucent, snappable.

  It struck me how strange it was that someone could look so physically fragile but could still be so powerful. I suppose people call it presence, or force of personality, but I have never met anyone since who has that ability to alter a room and how you feel in it without saying anything at all. He stood there, a scrawny ghost in the doorway, then he stormed towards us and snatched the photo from Patrick. His granddad reached out and touched his shoulder and Kyle flinched, but that wasn’t unusual. Kyle always hated to be touched.

  Patrick said nothing for a few moments as he stared gravely at him, and then, ‘Where’s your mother, Kyle?’

  It was a perfectly normal question to ask but Kyle looked uncertain suddenly, the mutiny left his eyes to be replaced with confusion. Almost fearfully he looked over his shoulder. Suddenly in the silence the floorboards resumed their creaking above us, while the three of us listened.

  Then, suddenly, Kyle shoved the picture of his family into my hands and strode out of the room and out of the house, slamming the front door behind him. I was stunned. I looked at Patrick, embarrassed suddenly to be there alone with him in that house where Kyle, my friend, wasn’t. Confused, I put the picture down and made to follow him but Patrick put his hand out, restraining me.

  ‘Don’t go after him, my dear,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t follow him when he’s in that mood.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Best to leave him to it.’ He put his hands in his pockets and leant against the table, looking at me conspiratorially. ‘For that way madness lies.’ He winked.

  I stared back blankly.

  ‘King Lear,’ he said, byway of explanation. ‘Do you read much Shakespeare, Anita?’ As if it was quite likely that I did.

  ‘No,’ I muttered and desperately tried to think of something intelligent to say. ‘We’re doing To Kill A Mockingbird at school, though.’ I didn’t mention that it still lay unread at the bottom of my Co-op bag.

  ‘Ah, I see.’ Patrick smiled his sweet, sad smile, and despite not knowing what to say, and knowing that I should leave, and feeling strangely disloyal to Kyle, I smiled back. Patrick went to root through a stack of records in the corner and, pulling one from its sleeve, put it on the old-fashioned record player that sat on one of the dusty antique tables. After
the hissing and scratching of the grooves, an old Sinatra track came on.

  Somewhere beyond the sea,

  Somewhere waiting for me,

  My lover stands on golden sands

  And watches the ships that go sailing.

  I had always liked that song, my mum and dad used to play it sometimes back in Leeds. I liked the way it was happy and sad at the same time. I should have felt embarrassed just standing there in silence while we listened, and ordinarily I would have done, but instead I just thought how graceful and handsome Patrick looked, like an old film star stood there, his thick white hair caught in one of the shafts of light as it spilled through the gaps in the curtains.

  Happy we’ll be beyond the sea,

  And never again, I’ll go sailing.

  When the song came to an end Patrick smiled and there was something in his manner that let me know it was time I was leaving. He came with me to the door and suddenly said, ‘It’s Kyle’s birthday on Saturday. He’ll be fourteen.’

  I felt shocked. Kyle didn’t seem to be the sort of person to have birthdays or even to have a definite, tangible age. I’d always thought of him as ageless, somehow, neither a kid nor an adult, just Kyle.

  ‘We must do something special,’ Patrick continued, and I tried in vain to imagine Kyle wearing a party hat. Just then, as we stood in the big gloomy hallway, a little girl’s voice called down from upstairs and I felt such a quick sharp chill it made my scalp shrivel.

  ‘Daddy?’ The voice was querulous, tearful. I stared, horrified, at Patrick.

  ‘Where are you, Daddy?’ the voice said again. Then, ‘Kyle? Are you there?’