Better Left Buried (4 page)

Standing behind the huddle of people waiting to get the bus, I try to catch my breath. My heart is pounding painfully and I feel sick and dizzy. Why? I wonder. I used to run long distance at school and never felt this bad.

Maybe I should have had breakfast. I meant to, but I was out of time. And appetite. I should make more of an effort – after all, skipping meals will hardly make me feel any better. And Mrs Perry is right; I need to keep my strength up.

I resolve to try harder as the bus door opens and a line of people files off. The woman in front of me shuffles forward and flashes her pass at the driver. I dig into my pocket for some change, about to hand it over when someone careers down the aisle, losing his balance as he bolts for the exit. He collides right into me, throwing me against the handrail.

“Steady on, mate,” the driver yells after him.

The man turns and looks at me for a second, that wild tic in his eye. Then almost leaps off the bus.

Him
.

This time there's no mistake. And from the way he slammed into me, no ghost either.

“He's dropped something.” The driver leans over and stares at something on the floor by my feet.

I bend down and pick up the piece of paper. “Hey! You left this!” I yell, jumping onto the pavement and waving it in the air.

He doesn't turn round.

“HEY!” I shout more loudly, taking a few steps after him. “Wait! You've lost something.”

A woman walking a fat little Dachshund gazes at me, but the dark-haired man keeps on going. Acting like he hasn't heard me.

“Forget it,” the driver calls. “I've gotta go. I'm behind schedule as it is.”

I stare up the road, wondering if I should run after him. But I'm late already and Mrs Lucas will be on the warpath. I hesitate, then get back on the bus.

“His loss, love,” the driver says as I pay for my ticket. I find a seat at the back overlooking the street and peer out the window as we pull into the traffic.

Where is he?

As we pick up speed, I crane my neck to look back down the street. No sign of him, even though there's nothing on this part of Guildford Rise except terraced houses and the Methodist church. He must have doubled back, or crossed the road when I wasn't looking.

The bus turns off towards the town centre. I give up. Take a deep breath to try to calm my racing heart. Glance at the piece of paper I'm still clutching in my hand. Plain A4, the kind you use for printing, folded into half, then half again. I open it carefully, expecting a bill or official letter or something like that.

Instead there's a drawing, a network of lines in black biro, intersecting and joining up with one another. Every so often, seemingly random, an X. One with a circle around it. Altogether it makes a strange kind of pattern, like some complex game of noughts and crosses.

What the hell?

“What do you make of this?”

I hand Tony the piece of paper as he sits opposite, tray loaded with a greasy-looking pasty and a can of Coke.

“What's this?” He smirks. “A love letter?”

“You wish,” I say, grinning because I know he's only teasing.

I like Tony. He's worked on the fish counter here for years, yet somehow manages to stay relentlessly cheerful. He was the one who showed me the ropes when I started, patiently explaining things even though I was clearly struggling to take it in with everything going on at home.

“Seriously, what is it?” He smooths the paper onto the table and peers at it through his glasses.

“No idea.” I spent half my lunch break studying the weird diagram while waiting in the chemist for Mum's prescription, but still can't make any sense of it.

Tony spins the sheet around, seeing if turning it upside down will make it all fall into place.

Clearly not. He looks up and shrugs. “Interesting.” He pulls the ring on his can and slugs back half of it. “Where'd you get this?”

“Someone dropped it on a bus.”

Someone. My stomach gives another lurch of worry. Why do I keep seeing that guy? That encounter on the bus was…what? The third time in the last five days? Assuming that
was
him in the newspaper aisle yesterday, and not my imagination.

Who the hell is he?
I wonder again. I still have the sense I know him from somewhere, but for the life of me can't think where.

Tony rotates the paper again, studying it from every direction. I take another bite of my vegetarian lasagne. Wince at the bland rubbery taste and force it down.

“Hmmmm…” he says.

“What?”

“I reckon it's a map.”

“Really?” I frown. “So what are those crosses?”

“Who knows? But this one,” he points to a large upright cross on the intersection of two lines, “I'd say is a church. No idea what the others mean.”

“But there's nothing written on it. No street names or anything. What kind of a map has only lines and crosses?”

“Dunno,” says Tony. “It's a bit weird, I agree. But I came across something similar on a computer game once.”

He traces a finger from one X to the next, following the shortest route through the lines. “Maybe it's so no one can read it. Only the person who made it. You've got to know what it's a map
of
before it makes any sense.”

I swallow another bite of lasagne. Pick up the map. Tony's words make me feel odd somehow. There's something sinister about the whole thing. I'm tempted to just screw it up and bin it.

Instead I refold the paper and stuff it back into my pocket. “Anyway, my time's up. Back to the torture of the tills.”

Tony leans back in his chair, lifting his feet onto my empty seat, and takes another long swig of his Coke. “Could be worse,” he says, with a wink and a chuckle. “You could always be filleting fish.”

By the time I'm home it's getting dark. I let myself into a house full of silence. No sign of Mum and none of the downstairs lights are on. Dad must be working late again.

I creep upstairs and push open the door to their bedroom. Mum is asleep, her head pressed into the pillow. I put the pills I picked up from the chemist on her bedside cabinet then glance at the alarm clock.

Not even half past nine.

I watch her for a while, letting myself remember my other mother, my before-Max mother. The way she sat on the end of my bed each night to chat about my day. Coming to each recital, every concert, clapping so fast and loud I could pick out the sound in any round of applause.

Over on the windowsill I see the flowers Dad bought Mum are wilting, the stalks going mushy and brown. I go over to retrieve the vase, my eyes drawn to the fading light outside. I scan the street briefly, but there's nothing. Nothing but shadows in the dusk.

Calm down,
I tell myself, still nervous and tense from the earlier encounter on the bus. Could it have been coincidence? Seeing that guy so often? This is a small town, but not that small; it's not like you bump into people you know all the time.

And even if it was just chance, why behave so weirdly? Turning on his heels that first time he saw me. Ignoring me when I tried to give him back his map.

Again that nagging feeling that I recognize him from somewhere. But where? Not college, certainly. He's too old. Early twenties at least. Not any friend of Max's that I can remember. Nor any acquaintance of Mum or Dad.

“You're home late.”

I spin round. Mum's pulling herself up in bed, her face smudged and bleary though she's not wearing any make-up. She hasn't worn any since the funeral.

“I did a double shift,” I say, giving her a smile.

“Have you had anything to eat?”

I shake my head. “I was going to make scrambled eggs.”

“We could have them on toast. I picked up some more bread from the corner shop,” she adds, as if she's achieved something monumental. Hard to believe that only a couple of months ago she was managing five members of staff.

As Mum turns on the lamp, I see her properly. My stomach tightens with anguish. She's been crying again.

“Did you have a good day at work?” She summons an unsteady smile.

“Great,” I lie.

She looks relieved and I relax a little. Mum only wants to know that I'm okay; give her too many details and she'll just find more to worry about.

“So you want some?” I ask. “Eggs, I mean.”

Mum nods. “Please. I was going to get up and make myself a sandwich but…” She lets the sentence tail off, as if her lethargy doesn't need any explanation. One trip up the road and she's clearly exhausted.

“I'll bring it up.” I give her what I hope is a cheery look and turn to close the curtains, vase still in my hand. It's then I spot something, at the exact moment the street lights flicker on, deepening the surrounding shadows.

There. Over by the postbox, what looks like a figure standing behind the lamp post. Gazing up at me.

The sound of glass shattering. A wet splash on my feet. I look down at the remnants of the vase, water pooling around it.

“Sarah?”

I glance back out the window. The figure has gone. The street is empty.

I run. Out the bedroom and down the stairs. Throw open the front door and sprint across the drive.

“Sarah?” I hear Mum calling after me. “What on earth's the matter?”

Even as I reach the pavement I can see no one is there.

“Sarah?” Mum's voice fainter now, like pianissimo on a piece of music. I take a few steps towards the street light, but fear lurches out of nowhere and stops me in my tracks.

“Get a grip!” I hiss to myself, curling my fingernails into my fists.
There's no one here. Whatever you thought you saw was all in your mind. There's nothing going on – bumping into that man again was only coincidence.

I stand there, shivering, trying to make myself believe it. It doesn't work. I'm terrified. Overwhelmed.

“Sarah?” I turn around and see Mum is leaning out the bedroom window. “What's the matter?”

I just shake my head. “Nothing,” I call up, feeling foolish. “Nothing at all.”

When Mum's eaten and drifted back off to sleep, I lock myself in the bathroom, determined to calm down. I give the tub a good scrub before turning on the taps, and pour in some of the “relaxing” rose and jasmine bath foam Dad got me for Christmas. I strip off my T-shirt. Try to stuff it in the laundry, but the basket's full again.

I suppress a prickle of irritation. It's no big deal. I'll put a load on later.

As I slip off my jeans something falls out of my pocket. The strange map. I go to toss it into the bin, but change my mind. Unfold it instead, and have another look.

There's something familiar about this, I realize, with a lingering feeling of unease – it reminds me of something. I examine the patterns for a couple of minutes while the water cools, but still can't make any sense of them.

Who uses a map? I wonder. Everyone's got apps on their phone. It's impossible to get lost these days, isn't it?

I give up. Leave the paper on top of the laundry basket as I inch into the bath, trying not to look at how thin my legs have become. I know what people think, that I'm deliberately starving myself, but I'm not. I don't want to be this skinny. It's more that food seems to have turned from something I once enjoyed into something that makes me feel sort of…weary. Even the idea of eating feels like a chore, another thing I have to do to keep going.

Sinking into the water, I inhale the flowery scent of the bubble bath and let the warmth banish the lingering presence of that figure in the shadows.
It was nothing,
I reassure myself.
There was no one there.

But my mind is restless and jittery, and my anxiety resurges as I realize I forgot to do any practice. I let out a small moan of frustration. I meant to go right through the Purcell tonight, drilling myself on the trickier bits of phrasing, making sure my timing is exactly right.

Oh god. I promise myself I'll get up early again tomorrow and go back down to the shed. Squeeze in another hour before my shift starts.

Just four weeks till my audition. After years of working towards this, it seems impossibly close, and the thought makes my stomach clench again. My one opportunity to actually do something with my life, to do the only thing I really love, the only thing I'm any good at. And possibly my best chance to get away from this house, and the heaviness that's descended on us all.

But what if Dad's wrong? What if I don't walk a scholarship? What if I don't get in at all?

I grab the soap, smearing it over every inch of skin. I scrub it off with the rather grubby flannel hanging on the towel rail, then pour shampoo into my hand and lather up my hair.

I will get in,
I tell myself firmly. I
have
to. There's no alternative. I'm not a brainbox like my brother.

Like my brother was.

Leave me alone, Sarah.

Max's voice echoes round my head, so real it's almost as if he actually spoke, and I suddenly wish more than anything that he was right here, right now, so I could talk to him, get all the answers we so desperately need. What was he doing by himself in Sweden when he died? And why didn't he tell us he was going?

But then Max was always secretive about his private life; even as a kid he'd never let you know where he'd been or who with. It's simply the way he was.

Sliding back down, I rinse my hair, letting it float around me. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind of its tangle of thoughts, but a picture of that map appears in my head, like an image burned on my retina.

Lines and crosses, intersecting and joining.

Somehow familiar.

Water sloshes over the side of the bath I sit up so fast, my heart beating a crescendo to the connection surfacing in my mind.