Epitaph (3 page)

Laura Hacket heard her own footsteps echoing in the underpass as she walked. Light, unhurried steps.

She was moving towards the upward ramp when she heard heavier footsteps behind her.

Laura thought about turning to look and see who the footsteps belonged to. She knew lots of people on the estate, especially those who lived near her. There was the old lady who lived across the street with her daughter. Laura spoke to both of them on a regular basis. The old lady had something wrong with her left foot and walked with a stick. She was a big woman so Laura discounted the possibility that it was her purely and simply because her footsteps would have made more noise, and it wasn’t the daughter because she always wore high heels and Laura told herself she would have heard them clicking. She always knew when the daughter was leaving or arriving home because she heard that familiar click, click, click on the pavement.

She wondered if it might be one of her neighbours. On one side there was a family of four complete with their large dog,
Bruno. A mum, a dad and two teenage boys. Laura didn’t speak to the boys much but she sometimes heard their voices when they were playing on their PlayStation. Sometimes she heard shouting coming from their kitchen, too, when she was in her back garden. She didn’t like the shouting.

On the other side there was another family. They reminded Laura of overstuffed cushions. Each one of them was a little on the overweight side. There was the mother with her short black hair, the son with his bright blond hair and his grandmother who had vivid red hair. Laura had never seen the man of the house and sometimes she felt sorry for the boy because he obviously had no dad. No one to play with him in the garden. No one to kick a football about with him. Not that he played much; he was too big for that. All three of them sometimes ambled out into their back garden to cut their grass, trim their hedges and do some weeding but that was about as active as they got. When they emerged, their dog came with them. A little terrier that ran around a lot and barked at the birds that landed on the lawn.

Laura had asked her dad if they, too, could have a dog. She felt left out, what with Bruno on one side and the terrier on the other but her dad had said no. He’d said that it wasn’t fair because they were all out of the house all day. He’d said that Laura would have to make do with her hamster until they moved to a bigger house. Then perhaps – and that was the word he always emphasised –
perhaps
they could get a dog.

So, Laura walked on, convinced now that the footsteps in the underpass behind her didn’t belong to any of the people she’d thought of.

She stopped for a moment to fasten her shoe.

The footsteps stopped, too.

Laura straightened up and continued walking, a little more slowly this time.

Behind her, the footsteps she could hear also moved more slowly.

There were about ten yards left before Laura reached the end of the underpass and, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she suddenly felt as if she wanted to be out of this subterranean walkway. It was dank and musty down there and she didn’t like it any more. Perhaps if the footsteps hadn’t been behind her she wouldn’t have cared so much but she felt the need to hurry towards the light that signalled the end of the underpass.

She began to increase the pace of her steps.

The footsteps behind her also speeded up.

‘Hello, Paul, it’s Mum.’

Paul listened to the first faltering words then stabbed the STOP button and cut off the voice in mid-sentence.

He sat down next to the answering machine, his head bowed.

It was a full five minutes before he could bring himself to reach for the PLAY button again. The familiar and slightly frail voice continued:

‘I just wanted to thank you for that beautiful birthday card,’ it went on. ‘I don’t know how you find them. The words were lovely. I had a little tear when I read them.’ There was a pause. Then a light chuckle. ‘You shouldn’t have put that cheque in, though. I really appreciate it but it was too much.’ Another pause, longer this time. ‘I just wanted to say thanks. I’ll ring again later. I know you’re busy at work.’ The longest pause of all. ‘It’d be lovely to see you again soon. I know you’re busy but, well, hopefully we’ll get to see you and thank you for the card and
the cheque.’ The voice ended but the phone hadn’t been put down. It was as if the caller was waiting for him to pick up at his end.

The message ended.

Paul swallowed hard and looked at the machine, as if he was somehow going to magically see his mother standing there at the other end of the phone. He exhaled deeply, almost painfully. How long had it been since he’d seen her? Six months? Longer?

‘We’ll get to see you,’ she’d said.
We.

She still used the plural, despite the fact that his father had been dead for almost a year now.

The Royal We.

Paul smiled humourlessly.

They said that when men were shot in wartime they didn’t call for their wives, girlfriends or lovers as they lay dying. They called for their mothers. Paul knew that feeling now. He wished his mother was here with him. He needed to see a friendly face. He wanted someone who would just listen to him without judging him but he also feared that time to come when he must confess his failure to her. When he would have to sit down with her and let her know that her son wasn’t the success she had always imagined but that he had failed. But he didn’t want to burden her with that now. Not over the phone either. The news he had received earlier that day was the kind to be delivered face to face.

She would tell him not to worry. That everything would turn out all right. She had always said that to him throughout the years when he’d confided in her and, up until now, she’d been right. Her faith in him had been
well-founded. His father had been similarly supportive when he was alive. The two of them basking in their son’s success at his chosen profession.

Not any more.

Paul thought how much this would have hurt his father. Despite himself, Paul had admired him and was haunted by the fact that he’d never let him know that when he was alive. They were polar opposites in attitude and behaviour but Paul had learned many lessons from his father, albeit grudgingly at times. The main thing that he had respected about the man was his ability to provide for his family. To keep a roof over their heads, no matter what. He may not have been the most communicative person ever to walk the earth, and not the easiest to get along with, but he had his own set of ethics that he lived by and they worked for him. Others might not always have liked him but they respected him and they recognised the code that he lived by and that he had tried to pass on to Paul as his only son.

If his father had been alive now he would have told Paul to go out and look for another job. To prove the other bastards wrong for getting rid of him.

‘They’ll be sorry before you are, son,’ he would have said.

Paul afforded himself a thin smile at the thought.

He listened to the message once again and checked the time it had arrived. Lunchtime. He hoped his mother didn’t ring back now. He was in no frame of mind to chat to her about anything at the moment. Feeling a little guilty he told himself that, if she rang, he’d simply leave it to the machine again.

He listened to the second message.

It was from his optician. His latest appointment had been confirmed for two days from now.

Paul stopped the machine again.

The third message had been timed at just after five that afternoon. About an hour after he’d learned of his redundancy.

‘Paul, it’s Martin. I just heard about them getting rid of you.’

Paul pressed the PAUSE button on the machine, hitting it so hard that he almost knocked it off the table it was perched on.

‘Fuck you,’ he growled in the general direction of the answering machine, his remark directed at the owner of the voice.

Martin Anderson was a year older than Paul. They’d known each other since primary school. Always been close friends, shared the same interests and, unlike so many childhood friends, they’d kept in touch throughout their lives, seeing each other regularly for lunch, drinks or for any other reason that appealed to them. Anderson had started his own photographic business upon leaving college and Paul, during the course of his work, had done advertising for him. But the two men were completely opposite in character and attitudes. Anderson was a cautious, sensible man who had managed to build up a very successful business, father two boys and remain married to the same woman for the last fourteen years. He’d always been scrupulously careful with the money he earned, saving where he could, paying chunks off his mortgage when possible and now he was reaping the rewards. Successful, solvent and comfortable.

At this precise moment, Paul hated him for it.

He listened to the remainder of the message, the sound of Anderson’s voice washing over him.

‘Give me a ring. Perhaps I can help,’ Anderson said at the end of the message.

‘Doubt it,’ Paul breathed.

The next message made him even angrier.

Frank Hacket cupped his hand around the lighter flame and took a deep draw on his cigarette.

He blew out the smoke and leaned back against the wall, the sun beating down on his face. He was sweating, not just from the heat here in the car park of the hospital but because of his recent exertions. It had taken him almost twenty minutes to get an appallingly overweight woman from the back of an ambulance into a wheelchair even with the help of a paramedic.

The woman had complained about her aching joints and her swollen legs and just about everything else. It wasn’t her fault she was overweight, she had told Hacket and the paramedic repeatedly. It was in her genes. She ate for comfort. She’d trotted out all the usual clichés and Hacket had nodded in all the right places as he’d struggled to help settle this human behemoth in the wheelchair that, for one awful moment, he’d feared wasn’t going to take her weight. Once into the chair he had pushed her through the main entrance of the building to her designated destination within, listening the entire way to her incessant complaints.

‘I’m big-boned,’ she’d told him.

Dinosaurs were big-boned, Hacket had felt like telling her as he’d strained every sinew to transport her through the hospital.

He smiled a little to himself. He had to find the humour where he could in his job. For almost thirteen years he’d been a porter here at the same hospital. The incident with the woman was the kind he dealt with every day of his working life. If it wasn’t that, it was mopping up the sick or the blood in A&E, removing or delivering bed linen to the wards and any one of another hundred different tasks that came under his job description.

Hacket wandered over to one of the wooden benches just outside the entrance to MATERNITY and sat down, nodding good naturedly to a nurse as she left at the end of her shift. He watched her walk across the car park and onwards towards the large and poorly maintained hedge that offered a barrier between the hospital and the road beyond. He’d thought about having a word with one of the hospital supervisors concerning the hedge. For a fee, Hacket would trim the hedge for them. Anything to bring in a little extra money but he knew that there were contractors employed to take care of that and the rest of the hospital grounds. It just appeared that they didn’t care too much for their responsibilities. The grass, he noted, also needed cutting.

He took another drag on his cigarette, glancing at his watch. He still had another ten minutes of his break left then it was back to the daily grind until his shift ended. He dug a hand into his overall pocket and pulled out the scratch card, selecting a coin from the same pocket to rub off the circles covering the prizes.

He’d bought the card that morning, just as he did every single day, saving it until this time every afternoon, hoping against hope that when the symbols were revealed he would have won the jackpot but knowing in his heart that his dream would never
come true. People like him didn’t win lottery jackpots. It wasn’t part of the grand scheme of things as far as he was concerned. Even so, it didn’t stop him praying for such a win every now and then, especially when it was a particularly large jackpot. When he thought of what that kind of money would do for him and his family it almost made him weep. He had a mental list of things he would spend it on. The people he would help. What must it be like not to have any money worries, he mused. Those people who said that money wasn’t everything were those who had plenty of it. He sighed and turned his attention once again to his scratch card.

Hacket revealed the first of the symbols, took a drag on his cigarette then proceeded. He raised his eyebrows when he saw that the two he’d uncovered were the same.

One more and he’d have won a hundred thousand pounds.

He rubbed it off.

Nothing. Just as he’d expected.

He sighed and folded the useless card, pushing it back into his pocket until he could dispose of it. He finished his cigarette and was about to get to his feet when his mobile phone rang.

When he saw who was calling his heart sank.