White Goods (48 page)

‘Is she in here too?’ I
asked Adrian, still sat upon Crinky’s bench, scanning the memorial
flowerbeds that were before us, row after row after row of rose
bushes.

‘Who?’

‘Emma,’ I
replied. I wasn’t calling her
Mum.
Just because Dad had gone back to being
Tony
didn’t mean I had
to do the opposite to the others. I was only doing what felt
right.

‘Not sure where she is,
but we might have some photos, back at the house. Chrissie kept
some of his things. I know she would have thought of you. Just in
case. You know.’

He took a
breath; a
Tony-
like breath, one that built up to something.

‘Should’ve finished them
off myself, you know. After that day at the Barley Mow. I warned
them off, threatened them, thought that would be enough. If I’d
known that old Crinky-.’ A pause; a well-deep sigh. I wasn’t sure
who he was speaking to: me or Crinky. ‘Jesus. I should’ve finished
them off. Should’ve broken their necks and had done with
it.’

After that, we just sat
there for ages, in silence. Thinking I guess. Thinking about all
the loss. Thinking about all the missing people: the ones we had a
hope of getting back, and the ones we had no chance of at
all.

The ones who were lost
from us for good.

Adrian’s words
make me realise something too: I wasn’t that connected to him after
all. Yes, there was a bloodline link; there was no denying he was
my grandfather. But his lifestyle, his approach to things –
should’ve broken their necks and had done with
it
– they couldn’t have been further away
from where I belonged. That was a comforting revelation. There was
a certain sense of feeling safer about it; a sense that not
everything had to begin again, had to be rewritten. After
everything, I knew what I
was
connected to; I knew where I truly
belonged.

And we stayed like that
until it was about teatime, when Adrian suggested we headed back.
So, I retraced the steps of my journey, first leaving Crinky
Crunkle behind, then dropping off Adrian at his house, before
completing the last bit on my own, until I was back with
Tony.

Tony,
Uncle
Ian and
Auntie
Della, at 45
Victoria Avenue.

Where I
belonged.

Where I
connected.

Back home.

Ending.

On the day that I finally
understood the truth of things, I took the boy by the hand and made
him face it with me.

It’s strange the places
where you find it, the truth. People like to say that it’s staring
you in the face, or that it’s right under your nose. I’ve never
found it in either place, though. And on this day, it wasn’t
obvious – it wasn’t going to leap out at you, not unless you knew
where to look. Luckily, I had quite a good idea. I’m not sure if I
found it, or whether it found me. But we got there, the boy and
me.

‘
There’s
someone I think you should meet, little Jackie,’ I told him, before
we left the confines of my little clinical room. I knew how to get
out. I’d done it before. If the nurses knew, they never said or did
anything. Besides, I wasn’t considered a danger to the public, just
to myself.

‘
What about
Uncle Ian?’ he enquired, with his little voice and big eyes.
Jackie’s
eyes.

I stopped,
looked at him, my mind muddling. This was
Jackie.
Jackie. My son. But I was
too old.

‘
Nan?’

A question from the little
mouth.

I was
Nan,
not
Mum.
This was a
different Jackie.

‘
Oh, don’t
worry about Uncle Ian. I’ll leave him a note. He’s all grown up
now. He’s forgiven you, I’m certain,’ I told him, mixing my Jackies
up again. But it didn’t matter; the little one hadn’t noticed.
‘Now, if we’re to get out of this horrid place alive, you’ll have
to keep quiet and do as I say…’

I didn’t take
him straight
there.
There was a risk Ian had already raised the alarm, had people
looking for us, or would come looking for us himself. We stayed in
the crematorium till it was darker, shrouded by trees and shrubs. I
could tell Jackie didn’t really like it in there, but I reassured
him there were no bodies, just flowers.

‘
What about
ghosts?’ he asked, eyes wide with the potential of this.

‘
Oh, yes, I’m
sure there are lots of those,’ I said, encouraged by the thought of
company. Little Jackie didn’t look reassured though. ‘You always
used to like things like that. Being frightened. You thought it was
funny. Wasn’t funny when you frightened Ian, though.’

‘
Uncle
Ian?’

The question
brought me back again. I was
Nan,
not
Mum.
I would have to keep up.

‘
Come on,’ I
said, once it was dark enough to move unseen. ‘Let’s go. I’ve
someone special for you to meet.’

All the way, he kept
asking me questions. Where were we going? What time would we be
back? Could we go back now? Wouldn’t people be worried, now it was
night? What was this all about? Was this an adventure?

I liked the last question.
Made what we were doing sound fun, so I went along with
it.

‘
An adventure,
yes,’ I confirmed.

From the crematorium, we
crossed the road and headed towards the dump. From there, we went
past old Crinky Crunkle’s fat, short bungalow, along Church Lane,
across the green next to the Tankards’ place, past the Chequers
public house, turning right into the alleyway that led to the new
housing estate, through that and then onto my road – Victoria
Avenue – with its multi-coloured terraced rows. All the way, the
boy was at my side, keeping up with my hearty pace. He glanced back
a few times, as if looking for a way out, or keeping note of the
route we had taken, but I kept him on track with a few instructions
– ‘Keep up,’ ‘Left here,’ ‘Straight over.’ I said little else, but
it wasn’t needed. He had stopped asking questions and was just
doing as instructed.

As we got closer and
closer, thoughts flushed in and out of my head. Snatches of
conversations; memories like photographs. Blood. I kept seeing
blood. On my hands. On a floor. I had killed someone, I knew. Had I
killed Jackie? I looked at the boy at my side. This was
Jackie.

‘
Little
Jackie,’ I reminded myself, focussing again on the now, trying to
keep my head clear.

But the flashes of blood
continued, washing back and forth across my mind like a red
tide.

It was only when we
finally reached my house that the boy showed any real resistance to
my plans.

‘
We’re using
the back entrance,’ I instructed in a near-whisper, waiting for him
to move again. To get to our garden via the back, there was an
alleyway between two houses that you had to go through. Then, you
turned right, went through our immediate neighbours’ garden, before
you reached a gate into ours. It was a weird set up and it always
felt like we were trespassing, even though we weren’t.

‘
Go on,’ I
pressed, giving his arm a gentle tug, but he was still
apprehensive. ‘Nothing to be afraid of,’ I reassured him; it made
little difference, so I changed tack. ‘After this, it’ll be over,
okay? All over.’

‘
Do you
promise?’ he asked, echoing my quiet tone.

‘
I promise,’ I
hushed.

With that, he nodded in
compliance and we finished the last steps of our excursion: through
the alleyway, across next-door’s garden and into ours. We headed
for the wooden shed at the very end; to the place where I was
certain the truth was hiding.

There was a key to the
shed I’d kept under a stone. I retrieved it, slid it into the
padlock on the door and we were in. I shut the door.

Inside, enclosed, I felt a
wave of something come over me. A memory of pain, of seeing blood.
Not in here; no, the blood had been somewhere else. In the kitchen.
Jackie’s blood. The memory engulfed me, taking me back,
transporting me away from the now.

I could see it
clearly. The truth. For the first time. It wasn’t Jackie. It wasn’t
me. I don’t know where he came from. He hit me first. He must have.
Then my memory is fuzzy again, focussing in and out. But I can see
him. He’s got something in his hands. A small, metal heater, I
think. And he’s hitting Jackie again and again. Smashing his head
in. It wasn’t me, I realise. They said it was me, that I’d killed
him. But I hadn’t –
he
had.

‘
Why are we
here?’ a little voice asked, interrupting my dark
recollection.

I looked at
the boy. At Jackie. It all came down to Jackie, didn’t it? Every
time, he was the root of our troubles. Jackie. But this was
little
Jackie and I
was
Nan;
I had to
remember.

‘
In there,’ I
told him, pointing to the back. There, shrouded by a pile of old,
musty blankets was a huge, rusting chest freezer. I threw off the
blankets, opened its mighty white mouth. The grey seal smacked
apart like a set of thick lips and released a big icy breath into
the air. I still had a hold of his hand, so I pulled him forward,
and pushed that hand into the icy well, where he felt the cold,
harsh reality that lurked inside.

‘
The truth,’ I
announced, not letting go, aware he was now trembling, the terror
eventually manifesting in a wet patch at the front of his
trousers.

When I peered
into the frosty chest, I didn’t see what I was expecting. Not at
all. The body in there wasn’t his. That was where Tony had put him.
Must have moved him. No, the cold-brittle body I had forced the boy
to touch wasn’t my son. It wasn’t even human. It was a goat; they
had replaced my dead son with a goat.
The
Tankards had had a goat. Mandy? Debbie? Some such name, I was
certain.

‘
Tina,’ I
finally remembered, still wondering where exactly they had moved my
son to, where exactly he was resting. But, the goat would do; it
still seemed to represent the truth of things.

I couldn’t tell you
exactly what decided my next move. I couldn’t tell you how I
managed it, either. Physically, or mentally. Hours later - once I’d
thought it through, thought about what I had done - it was too
late. It had happened. But it had to be done, I knew. Jackie had
been the cause of all our troubles. The root of all evil. I had to
bring it to an end.

‘
What you
doing?’ the boy managed, defenceless with shock, as I hauled his
little body up, shoving him sharp, tipping him over the edge of the
freezer.

Then the lid was down and
the lock on the handle clicked into place.

Walking up the
garden path, reaching the back entrance to the house, I paused for
a minute.
What had I just done?
And who was I again?
I
thought: I was
Mum,
not
Nan.
I
had done the right thing. He was Jackie, after all. Wasn’t he?
Looking at the shadow of my house, I squinted, my muddled mind
squinted too. I had just killed him, hadn’t I? Or had I? I thought
of the blood. Saw the kitchen floor again. Saw him with the heater
in his hands. Felt the relief of the truth. It wasn’t me; I hadn’t
killed Jackie after all. It had been
him.

And so I had finally found
the truth, or it had found me. I couldn’t go home, I knew that. I
had to go somewhere else. But, walking away, back across our
neighbours’ garden, down the alleyway, out into the street, I
sought comfort in what I finally knew.

‘
I didn’t kill
you, Jackie,’ I told myself, smiling as I strolled through the
summer night into an uncertain future, finding the image in my head
of Gary Perkins holding the heater, beating Jackie to a silent
pulp, darkly reassuring...

Note from the
author: sequel to White Goods – Mother Stands for Comfort –
expected late 2014/early 2015.

Back to the
Old House – coming autumn 2013

The day that
Seth vanished, Isla remained inside the house they had shared for
over six years and didn’t leave it for nine days.

She didn’t
speak to anyone until the fourth, when she rang the local police to
report him as missing. From day six, messages began queuing up on
the answer-phone: all were for Seth, none for Isla; friends, his
mother Margot, Margot again, and again. Isla simply let the tape
role till it ran out, and the machine rang-on ignored. Each day
when Isla rose, she showered, dressed, ate and kept herself going,
wandering from room to room for a piece of him; a sign that Seth
had existed. Yet, there was nothing. His room was empty: his
clothes, shoes, photographs, postcards, rugs, umbrella, brush, his
letters on the dresser, laundry scattered about the floor: all was
gone. Even his bed was bare: a coarse, florid mattress on display
where his body-scented sheets had been tucked.