The Burning Girl-4 (26 page)

She was dead to the world, and had barely stirred since she'd final y drifted off for the second time. Thorne knew he would have no such luck. He had scarcely blinked since being woken nearly three hours before by the sobbing.

He watched her sleep and thought about what he'd told her .. .

For a while, he'd been unable to get a word out of her. Every attempt at speech caught in her throat, was strangled by the heave of her chest that seemed to shake every inch of her. He'd held her until she'd calmed a little, then listened as it began to grow light outside, and the tears and snot dried on his arms and on his neck.

She'd asked some of the questions he'd already heard, and others he'd seen in her eyes when she'd spoken about her past. The whispers and the sobs had added a desperation he'd heard before only in the voices of the recently bereaved, or from the parents of missing children.

What could she have done differently?

Why did Jessica burn?

When was she ever going to stop feeling like she was burning herself?

So, Thorne had held on hard to her, and final y given her the only answer he had, hoping that it might serve as the answer for al of her questions.

The tears had stopped quickly after that, and she'd seemed to grow suddenly so tired that she couldn't even hold up her head. She'd dropped slowly down on to the pil ow, her face turned away from him, and Thorne had no idea how long she'd lain staring at his bedroom wal . He'd known it would be wrong to ask, even in a whisper, if she was stil awake .. .

Now, staring up at his cheap lampshade, he wasn't sure why he'd told her. Maybe it was what she'd said in the pub about Ryan. Maybe it was a simple desire in him to give something.

Maybe it was a belief in the plain goodness of fact, in its power to smother the flames of doubt and guilt. Whatever the reason, it was done. Thorne knew he'd moved into strange territory and he wasn't at al sure how he felt about it.

Knowing that he would not get back to sleep, he eased himself to his feet and moved towards the door. Standing on Alison's side of the bed, he looked down at her face. He saw half of it, pale in a wedge of milky light bleeding into the room through a crack in the curtains. The other half was in darkness, where shadow lay across it like a scar.

6 June 1986

We al drove out to a country pub today. The weather was nice enough to sit outside, which was probably a good idea. It was crowded in the pub anyway and I didn't want to put anyone off their ploughman's lunch. I don't think I'm ever real y going to be great with lots of people around.

Mum and Dad let me have half a lager, which was another very good reason to be outside!

There were lots of wasps buzzing around the food, which was pissing everyone off. I kept perfectly stil , hoping that one might settle on me, settle on the scar. I wanted to know what it felt like, or even if I could feel it at al . But Dad was flapping his arms around and swearing and none of them came near me.

Dad had brought his new camera along and insisted on taking loads of pictures. We both smiled like always, like it was perfectly normal and I pretended that I was fine about it so Dad wouldn't be upset.

Afterwards I made a joke about the woman at Boots getting a nasty shock when she developed the photos and Mum went a bit funny for a while.

Ali rang later to tel me she's got to dress up and help out at some swanky dinner party her parents are having. She says she's dreading it. She says there's probably going to be several hardened criminals sitting around trying to make polite conversation and eating Twiglets. That made me laugh and I wanted to tel someone, but Mum and especial y Dad have stil got a real problem with Ali and her family. I don't even tel them when me and Ali are meeting up outside school.

Shit Moment of the Day

In the pub garden, there was a family a few feet away from us, on one of those wooden tables with a bench attached on either side. They had a teenage boy with them, and a girl of four or five, and she stared at me for ages. I pul ed faces at her. I rol ed my eyes and stuck my tongue down behind my bottom lip. I kept trying to make her laugh, but she just looked frightened.

Magic Moment of the Day

I was in the kitchen after tea and we had the radio on. Mum was out in the garden having a fag, and Dad was drying up. The new Smiths single came on, and I was singing along. I was waving my arms around like Morrissey, wailing in a stupid high voice and messing around. When I got to the bit about knowing how Joan of Arc felt, Dad looked across at me with a tea towel in his hand. There was a pause and then we both just pissed ourselves laughing.

EIGHTEEN

If Thorne were to make a list of the places he least liked to be beside, the seaside would come fairly near the top. Admittedly, British seaside resorts were marginal y less attractive than those slightly more glamorous ones in Australia say, or Florida, but even then, Thorne was far from keen. The sea might be warmer, bluer, cleaner, but it had its own drawbacks.

Margate or Miami? Rhyl or Rio? As far as Thorne was concerned it pretty much came down to a choice between shit and sharks .. .

Having said that, what he'd seen of Brighton so far that morning hadn't been too unpleasant. A ten-minute taxi ride from the station to Eileen's house. A five-minute walk from there to the pub.

Thorne's father, and his father's best friend Victor, had travel ed down together from St. Albans the day before. Victor had rung while Thorne was getting ready to go out and meet Alison Kel y. They'd arrived in one piece, Victor had told him. His father was excited, but fairly wel behaved. He was looking forward to a weekend away.

Thorne had wanted to catch an earlier train, but getting himself together and out of the flat that morning had been complicated. Alison had caught him looking at his watch as they'd shared breakfast in the kitchen, and it had only heightened the awkwardness that hung between them, heavy as the smel of burned toast.

What had been said in the early hours .. .

That was far harder to deal with, and certainly to talk about, than what they'd been doing to each other a few hours earlier. The sex had been snatched at and sweaty, the two of them equal y needy, physical y at least.

The morning did its job on them, muggy, thick-headed and cruel. It shone a fresh, harsh light on what was now unsay able Thorne belched, tasting last night's Guinness. Victor laughed. Eileen tried to look disapproving. His dad appeared not to have noticed.

"Sorry," Thorne said. He knew that he was looking slightly rough, knew that Eileen could see it. "I had a bit of a night.. ."

She sipped her tomato juice. "That explains why you got here so late."

By the time Thorne had reached his aunt's house and got a cup of tea down him, there'd been nothing left to do except head off for a quick drink before Sunday lunch.

"It won't be easy to get into a decent restaurant," Eileen said. "They'l al be ful if we don't get a move on."

Thorne said nothing. Eileen had been a life-saver since his dad's il ness had kicked in, but she could be a bit prissy when she felt like it. He hoped she wasn't in that sort of mood.

"Beer or birds? "Jim Thorne said suddenly.

Thorne stared at his father. "What?"

"Your "bit of a night". On the beer or on the birds?"

Thorne wasn't sure which was throwing him more, the question or the way it was couched.

"Maybe both," Victor said. He grinned at Thorne's father and the two of them began to laugh.

Victor was probably the only friend that Thorne's father had left.

He was certainly the only one Thorne ever saw. He was tal er and thicker-set than his father, especial y now, as Jim Thorne was losing weight. He had much less hair, and false teeth that fitted badly, and the two old men together often reminded Thorne of some bizarre, over-the-hil double act.

"Maybe," Thorne said.

His father leaned towards him. "Always a good idea, I reckon. Get a few pints down you and even the ugly ones start to look .. . woss-name .. . the opposite of ugly?"

Victor supplied the word his friend was searching for. "Pretty? Attractive?"

Jim Thorne nodded. "Even the ugly ones start to look attractive."

Thorne smiled. A bizarre double act: the straight man occasional y needing to provide a bit of help with the punchlines. He glanced across the table at Eileen, who shook her head and rol ed her eyes. There wasn't too much wrong with her mood.

Victor raised his glass, as if proposing a toast. "Beer goggles," he said.

"The same goes for women, you know," Eileen said. "We can wear wine goggles." She pointed towards Thorne's father. "I reckon Maureen probably had a pair on the night she got together with you."

Thorne watched his father. They hadn't talked much about his mother since her death. Almost never since the Alzheimer's. He wondered how the old man would react.

Jim Thorne nodded, enjoying it. "I think you're probably right, love," he said. "Bloody strong ones an' al ." He raised his glass until it covered the bottom half of his face. "I was stone-cold sober .. ."

Once the drink had been supped and the glass lowered, Thorne tried and failed to catch his father's eye. The old man's gaze was darting around al over the place.

The pub was old fashioned in the worst sense and half empty, probably as a result. They sat in a tiny bar the sort of room that might once have been cal ed a snug around a rickety metal table near the door. The absence of anything like atmosphere was mostly due to the strip lighting. It buzzed above their heads, washing everything out. It made the place feel like a waiting room that smel ed of beer.

Thorne knew why they'd chosen this particular pub: his father liked places that were brightly lit. He was forever wandering around his house turning al the lights on, even in the middle of the day. It might have been forgetfulness, but Thorne thought that the old man was simply trying to keep the darkness away, knowing it was creeping up on him and struggling to stay in the light, where he could see. Where he could stil be seen .. .

"Who's for another one?" Victor asked.

Eileen shook her head, slid her empty glass away from her. "If we want to get proper Sunday lunch somewhere .. ."

They began to gather their things together bags, coats, hats. As Eileen, Victor and his father moved slowly, one by one towards the door, Thorne checked under the table to make sure no one had left anything behind.

He was wishing he was somewhere else. He was thinking about the case; about Rooker and Ryan and two men running for their lives through a dark wood. He was picturing Alison Kel y and Jessica Clarke; faces on his pil ow and in a drawer beside his bed.

Beneath her chair, Thorne found Eileen's umbrel a. He grabbed it and fol owed her to the door. Now he thought about it, perhaps a day out was a good idea. Feeling like a youngster being dragged around by three, slightly strange, grown-ups, might be just what he needed.

They walked towards the se afront Thorne dragged his heels and stared at things he wasn't real y interested in to avoid getting too far ahead of his father and the others.

Spring was a few days old but hadn't found its feet yet. It was grey -the type of day Thorne associated with the seaside. He couldn't help thinking that the picture would be complete if Eileen had a reason to put up her umbrel a. This was, he knew, a little unfair on the city of Brighton. Expensive and deeply fashionable, with a thriving music scene and a reputation as the gay capital of Britain, it was hardly the typical coastal resort. Stil , prejudice was prejudice, and, as far as Thorne was concerned, if you could buy rock with the name of a place running through it, he was happy to stay away.

As if to confirm his preconceptions, there were people 'sunbathing' on the beach. Several families were encamped on the pebbles, windbreaks flapping around them, the goose pimples visible from a hundred yards. Stubbornness, optimism, stupidity you could cal it what you liked. It seemed to Thorne as perfect an embodiment of Englishness as he'd seen in a while.

"Look at those daft sods," Eileen said. "In this weather!"

Thorne smiled. There were other things, of course, that were even more English .. .

"It's getting bloody cold, if you ask me." Eileen pul ed her coat tight to her chest. "Ten or twelve degrees at most, I should think. Colder, with the wind-chil factor."

The wind-chil factor. A concept oddly beloved of forecasters in recent years. Thorne wondered where it had come from, and if they used it in places where the wind-chil might actual y be a factor .. .

"Wel , here in Spitzbergen it's minus forty degrees, but with the wind-chil factor, it's official y cold enough to freeze the bol ocks off a zoo-ful of brass monkeys .. ."

They moved on, Thorne listening to his father witter on about how many years, how many workmen and how many thousand gal ons of gold paint it had taken to complete the Royal Pavilion, until they reached the restaurant. Eileen put on her poshest voice to ask the waiter for a table. When they sat down, Thorne, who had already decided that he was going to pay for lunch, checked the prices. They al went for the three-course Sunday afternoon special. It wouldn't break the bank.

"This is nice," Victor said.

Eileen nodded. "I normal y cook a big lunch for everyone on a Sunday, but Trevor and his wife are away and Bob's off playing golf, so I decided not to bother. Besides, it's a treat to go out, isn't it?"

Thorne grunted, thinking that, at less than a tenner a head, 'treat' might be putting it a bit strongly. "Shame we won't see Trevor and Bob," he said. Trevor was Eileen's son, and Thorne guessed that he probably hadn't gone anywhere. Lunch with barmy Uncle Jim wasn't exactly a tantalising prospect. It almost certainly explained husband Bob's game of golf, hastily arranged once he'd found out that the dotty brother-in-law and dotty brother-in-law's mate were coming down for the weekend .. .

"I know," Eileen said. "They both said how much they were looking forward to seeing you."

Thorne suddenly felt enormously sorry for Eileen. For having to lie. For the shit she had to put up with from his father. For doing al that she did and getting nothing in return. Thorne couldn't remember if he'd ever real y thanked her for anything. "Maybe next time," he said.