Reconstruction (9 page)

I’m sure she’ll only be too happy to listen to your latest
grievance.

Judy had a routine, same as everyone had a routine. The difference between this routine and the one she’d once had was, this one was imposed on her by other people. A checklist had been drawn up for her – not for her, even; the checklist had already existed when she took the position – and what she was supposed to do was, well, check it off. Do this, then do that. This is the order you do it in.

Which, right there, was life in a nutshell. You did one thing, then moved on to the next. Except you didn’t always – you hardly ever – got to say when you wanted one thing to stop and the next to start.

What had happened to Judy was precisely that: one thing had stopped, then everything else had started. She hadn’t been ready. Still wasn’t. And while it would never have been true to call her a happy woman, she had the trick, in common with the rest of humanity, of painting a different picture when the canvas demanded. Looking back on how life used to be she saw a picture of content, in which even Derek had been a welcome fixture. There’d been a wedding photo on the mantelpiece of the home she’d thought they owned. She’d burned it after finding out about the other woman; burning being the appropriate response, given everything that came after.

First one thing, then the next. That was the order things always happened.

So this morning, after Ms Up-Herself Kennedy’s
only too
happy to listen to your latest grievance
, Judy had mentally torn her checklist up: if Louboodyise didn’t like it, she could complain to Claire; then we’d see which way the wind blew. Claire was a fair woman, with the sense to know that bad luck visited everyone, even those who didn’t deserve it. She’d sense the injustice in Kennedy playing high-and-mighty just because her name appeared on a staff register while others were reduced to mopping and dusting.

He had been in construction. Derek had built things. That, too, was an injustice, when you considered the wreckage he’d left in his wake.

So anyway, where was she? Adjusting the checklist was where; she’d do things in her own order, especially if that meant keeping clear of Louise Kennedy in the meantime – she didn’t trust herself, Judy didn’t, not to give her a piece of her mind; and Louise needn’t think Judy hadn’t noticed that little spectacle by the school gates. The pair of them having a nice little chat: don’t tell Judy there was nothing going on. Something else Claire was fair and commonsensical about. She wouldn’t be putting up with any of that nonsense from the staff, no matter what high-powered job in the City they’d come from.

Run from, you wanted Judy’s opinion. Who surrendered money like that to come and teach in a nursery school? Guilty secrets hid everywhere, and you weren’t telling her Louise Kennedy didn’t have a peach.

So where Judy was was in the annexe, where she wasn’t supposed to be until after she’d done the kitchen in the main building (which was how it worked on the checklist: kitchen, toilets, cloakroom: tick tick tick. Then the floors). And what she’d been doing was examining Louise Kennedy’s desk, in the tiny office up the far end; the office the same size as the toilet it shared an adjoining wall with. It wasn’t as if she expected to find anything revealing – sly cats like Kennedy don’t leave secrets in the open – but that was no good reason not to look. But the desk had been bare. Just registration sheets, a few pages scrawled with indecipherable jottings, and bits and pieces of desk-junk: paperclips rubbers pens pencils, like that. A small collection of pencil-top gonks and gremlins; an occupational hazard of working with children – the things they thought were precious, they sometimes gave away. Even Judy had something: a one-inch plastic bear, moulded to look like it wore a leather jacket and sunglasses. It had come from a cornflake packet: did the child not think Judy realized that? She didn’t even know why she’d kept it, but it sat, anyway, on the table in the corner of her room. But no secrets here. The drawers just held supplies: elastic-banded bundles of crayons and felt-tips; old Christmas cards, ready to be cut up for next year’s decorations. Judy skimmed a few, but they were donated; none addressed to Louise herself. Too sly for that –

Someone entered the annexe.

No: some people entered the annexe. More than one. It was too early for parents and children; too early for Dave too – he was another: timed his arrival to get here with the mothers, though Judy thought that was him being clever; there was something light-of-tread about Dave . . . It must be Kennedy, with company. They didn’t know Judy was here, and she was about to open the door – just march out: this was part of her job, cleaning the office – but stopped. There was a man out there. Judy didn’t know who, but then Judy didn’t know the parents; it wasn’t like they formed a queue to meet the woman who cleaned up their kids’ mess. But whoever it was, Judy wanted to hear about it, so instead of opening the door she leaned against it, ear to the wood, her right hand holding the door tight shut, the way an expert eavesdropper might.

Who are you? What do you want?

You’re the lady?

I’m – who are you, what do you want, this is a nursery
school –
It had the quality of a TV show that had been going on some time, and wasn’t the one she’d been expecting; as if Judy had switched channels in search of a romantic comedy – because what was funnier than romance? – and found instead a brutal moment from a soap opera, in which familiar surroundings became the backdrop to the latest issue: rape, domestic violence, terrorism . . .

My name’s Louise Kennedy. I’m the nursery assistant. Second
in command. And this is Eliot Pedlar. And these are his boys.

Something was wrong. The words fit an ordinary con-text – an inspection; a model parent rolled out, with appropriate children – but when that happened there was preparation involved; extra polishing required. And Kennedy’s voice wasn’t normal. In place of that confident tone – the one that said she was doing you a favour, just breathing your air – something wavered, and nearly broke.

Judy pressed closer to the door.

Maybe you should tell us what it is you want . . . Nobody has
to get hurt . . .

Judy snatched her hand from the handle: what was going on? There was danger behind this door, and if she’d kept to the checklist, she’d be out of its reach – yards and walls away, with iron railings between her and whatever Louise had brought into this nursery.

I don’t know which lady you mean. Who is it you’re looking
for?

One moment Judy was by the door, ear to the wood –

You’re the lady?

– and the next she was falling through it, because her grip on the handle had slipped, or her knee gave way – it was hard to tell the precise order of events; the exact thing that happened that preceded the next thing happening . . . And barely mattered, in the long run. Whatever: she lost her balance. Gravity took control.

She fell through the door.

And somebody shot her.

That moment Louise had noticed – the one in which time slowed, allowing insight into the inner workings of stuff – didn’t stretch far; serious confusion followed the gunshot, and Louise’s main concern was whether or not she was hurt. It was as if a curtain had fallen between one event and the next: she’d been watching the boy, but couldn’t work out whether the gun had been pointing at her when he fired – if she’d been shot it would hurt, yes? But she suspected, from having read a regrettable number of thrillers, that when you were shot, the hurt came later – as if bullet-pain were a subtle social slight; the sting register-ing afterwards, on your way out of the room.

But Louise wasn’t leaving the room, and it wasn’t her he’d shot at . . .

All of this, of course, took no time; noise was still bouncing off the walls, looking for an escape route, and there was screaming from various sources, herself among them. The boy, though, was silent. Only a tremble at his lips betrayed emotion. His eyes were still black depths, fixed on a point behind Louise’s back – the point from which another noise was issuing, she realized at last; a screaming that wasn’t herself, or the boys, or Eliot . . . She turned.

It was Judy.

Something collapsed
, she’d thought, a second before the gun had gone off, and Judy was what it had been: Judy had collapsed through the door into the office, and in falling on to this larger stage had drawn fire from its principal player. She looked like baggage was Louise’s unkind thought, and then her second reaction took over, which was that Judy wasn’t shot at all – only one bullet had been fired, and above the door frame where she now crouched a small round hole had been punched. It was leaking plaster dust, a tiny cloud of it dancing around its circumference. Judy’s screaming diminished all at once, as if she’d come through an inverse of Louise’s journey moments ago, and had worked out, from the absence of pain, that she wasn’t in fact dead.

And just like that, the noise all ceased.

The boy with the gun looked at Louise. ‘I did not shoot her.’

‘I know.’

‘She is not shot.’

Before this could turn into a grammar lesson, Louise knelt by Judy’s fallen form. Judy’s eyes were open, but right that moment she wasn’t seeing anything – they were dark holes; broken windows in an empty house.

‘Judy?’

Then the usual human light filtered to the surface, and Judy’s eyes were hurt, frightened, hateful, confused, shocked . . .

Timmy looked up at his father. ‘Is that lady dead?’

‘Hush.’

Louise said, ‘Nobody’s dead. The gun went off, that’s all. Nobody’s hurt.’

‘But –’

‘Hush.’

Judy moaned something unintelligible, then licked her lips, leaving a faint white sheen on them. Louise sup-pressed a shudder.

‘Wha’ –’

‘You’re okay.’

‘Bitch,’ Judy said, quite clearly.

‘Stand away.’ The gunman again. ‘Stand away from her.’

Louise did as she was told. Judy was no more hurt than a sudden tumble causes.

‘Get up now.’

Judy looked at him murderously, but with more fear than contempt in the mix. ‘What’s going on?’

‘You will get up.’

She did. There was a crazy, graceless stagger in her movements, and her attention was now focused on Louise. ‘What’s going on?’ she said again. ‘This is you, isn’t it?’

Oh, for God’s sake . . .

Louise faced the gunman. ‘What do you want?’ she said.

‘Your phones,’ he said. ‘Your mobile telephones.’

This wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting.

‘Now! On the floor. Put your mobile phones on the floor.’

‘I don’t have one,’ she told him.

‘Yes! Put it on the floor!’

‘I mean, I’ve got one, but not with me. It’s in the other office.’

Do you want me to go and fetch it?
A giggle threatened to erupt.

‘You others. Your phones.’

Eliot said, ‘Mine’s . . . it’s in my car. I don’t have it with me.’

‘You?’

This was to Judy. She was shaking her head too.

‘The boys?’

‘Well, of course not, they’re children.’

‘Children have such things.’

‘They’re
three
,’ Eliot said.

Three adults, two children, and not a mobile between them. Hold the press. Louise wondered why he’d wanted them, and the unwanted answer popped up immediately: he didn’t want them; he wanted them not to have them. So they couldn’t use them. Couldn’t call for help.

Why was he here? What did he want?

‘Against the wall. All of you go there.’

‘Why?’

‘Just go. All of you. Where I can see you.’

Gordy started to cry: a heartbreaking, end-of-his-tether sob.

His father scooped him up one-armed; gathered Timmy closer with the other. ‘Come on. It’s okay. It’s going to be all right.’

Why tell them that? How can you know?
Louise remembered the weeks following the suicide bombings in London, and the countless accounts of the near-misses everyone had suffered: the tube just missed; the change in routine; the five minutes that had made all the difference. And underneath that, the untouchable certainty that terrorism happened to other people . . . But here it was, a happening fact: real, live, now. And she did not know that it was going to turn out all right. It was possible that it wouldn’t.

Judy said, ‘You brought him here, didn’t you?’

‘Judy –’

‘And he’s going to kill us all!’

‘Shut up!’ It made it worse that she’d just had such thoughts herself. She dropped her voice. ‘Think about the boys –’ Eliot said, ‘Both of you be quiet.’ He spoke to the gun-man. ‘What do you want? Do you seriously think any good can come of this?’

‘Against the wall. Please.’

The windowless wall, he meant. Louise reached it with-out consciously covering any ground – were those the last steps she’d ever take? He couldn’t just shoot them, could he? But that was what terrorists did: they perpetrated pointless acts of violence, whose victims were never more than counters on a board game. It was only afterwards that they’d be listed in newspapers, alongside inappropriate smiling photographs. While it was happening, they were less than human; their only purpose, to prove someone else’s point.

Become a person
. . .

She said, ‘You haven’t told us your name yet.’

Judy stared at her as if she were insane. If Louise could have killed Judy with a look, she’d have done so; though admittedly, that might have been self-defeating. She risked a glance at her watch, and it told her time had passed; that it was 8.40; that any moment she’d hear the nursery gates opening as Dave arrived, followed by parents and hordes of tinies . . . She’d been wondering how things could get worse, and there was her answer. There could be more children – more unwitting counters – and this gunman could panic, and start picking them off.

He said, ‘It is not important.’

‘It is to me. I’ve told you my name, I’ve told you all our names. Oh, except Judy’s. This is Judy Ainsworth. She’s our cleaner.’

‘You
fucking cow
. . .’

He said, ‘Please. Against the wall.’