Girl Seven (31 page)

‘He’ll off you, you know. Like,
really
off you.’

Oddly, the knowledge didn’t scare me. ‘Yep.’

‘You stole their money.’

‘I know. Believe it or not, that’s not even the worst thing I had to do to convince them not to kill me. Like I said, I’m not proud.’ I felt sick. ‘But I’m alive, or I
was
. I don’t even know if that was a better option now but, you know, you just choose to stay alive at the time. It seemed a better idea, or maybe it was just a... habit
.
’

Tears sprang to my eyes.

If I wasn’t mistaken Daisy looked glassy-eyed too.

‘You know... I didn’t think anyone would get hurt... and so many people have died.’ My voice kept breaking. ‘And I can’t bring them back. And Noel... Fuck, I can’t even
say
how much I want to make it so this never happened! But it has... and it’s all my fault. But I just wanted to get out of here. That’s all I wanted. I just wanted to go home.’

She sniffed, and slowly lowered the gun.

I wiped my eyes, embarrassed.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Just...’ she said, looking at the floor. ‘Just fucking go.’

I wasn’t sure if I’d misheard her.

‘What?’

‘Go.’

‘But—’

‘Seriously, just go.’ She crouched and slid the gun across the floor to me. ‘Just make it look... convincing, and I won’t even have to lie that much.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, Noel and Ron will
know
I was here, they’ll
know
I will have seen you so... it can’t just look like I told you to scram, can it? If you do this, I’ll call an ambulance and then it’ll look... like this didn’t happen.’

I picked up the gun and stared at her. ‘You want to...? You want me to—’

‘Look, don’t get overexcited, OK?’ She walked away, picked up the bag and slid it across the ground at me. ‘Just shoot me somewhere that’s not... too important. I’m right-handed, if that makes a shred of fucking difference.’

I picked up the bag and slung it over my shoulder.

Daisy raised her eyebrows. ‘Get a move on then.’

Glancing at the steps behind me, ‘Daisy, I...’

‘Don’t say thank you, it’s... I don’t know why, it doesn’t feel
appropriate
.’

I nodded. ‘OK.’

‘Just get it over and done with.’ She shut her eyes tight, her fists clenched by her sides and grimacing. ‘Go on! Don’t tell me when!’

‘OK.’

‘If you come back,
I’ll
do you in. For real.’

‘OK.’

I pointed the gun at her and aimed for an arm, nauseous at the thought of missing my target with her slight and bony frame. She didn’t look tough enough to withstand a bullet, with her blonde side-ponytail and little striped dress. It was like shooting a hummingbird.

My body hurt. Everything hurt. I took a breath, keeping both eyes open. I didn’t fully understand why she was doing this, but I could question it later.

After a couple more seconds, I shot her.

The bullet clipped her left shoulder.

I didn’t see what happened next. I didn’t even see her hit the floor because I ran.

Outside of movies and literature there’s no such thing as foreshadowing. When terrible things are about to happen there’s no foreboding background music or claps of thunder to let us know to prepare ourselves. Everything remains trivial and routine up until the moment it isn’t.

I woke up and found myself staring at a half-finished painting of... something. There were bits of a face, amidst all that colour, but I didn’t have a feeling of it yet. I was hoping that the longer I worked on it the more familiar it would become until I began to care more about the outcome, instead of just going through the motions.

People were the same. Sometimes I invested the work with a simulation of emotion in the vague hope that I would begin to care about the outcome, but I never did. I went through the motions with people too.

It was nearing midday and I felt drunk on sleep.

I righted myself and pulled on a skirt and vest top to go and get some breakfast.

My sister was watching a cartoon in the living room, with a forgotten copy of
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
in her hands.

In the kitchen I found Mum making coffee.

‘Afternoon!’ she said, raising her eyebrows. ‘Sleep well?’

I didn’t know at what age my mother succumbed to stress and stopped being beautiful. Maybe in the last couple of years, when the money ran out and we moved back to England for the last time. She was always tired now. I couldn’t see any time in the future where she wouldn’t be tired, not when nothing seemed to make her happy.

‘Actually no, all I could hear was the real-time episode of EastEnders downstairs. As far as I could tell he was shouting at a girl who was actually called Mercedes. Shouldn’t you or Dad bang on the floor or something?’ I toasted some bread and yawned. ‘Or send an angry note?’

‘We don’t engage crazy people, darling.’

‘Must really suck being so angry all the time.’ I buttered my toast and took it back into my bedroom.

‘Kiki!’ my sister called to me on my way past but I just smiled at her and carried on.

It wasn’t so much a bedroom as a glorified cupboard. There was just enough room for my bed and an easel, with newspaper covering the floor. Not much else. Sometimes I fantasized about setting the place on fire, just to make something happen.

My phone buzzed and I picked it up to see a text from a guy who lived just across the estate.

WHAT U DOING
?
COME OVER
.

Romantic.

It wasn’t as if there was anything else to do, other than lie here and think or wait for the idiot downstairs to start shouting again.

I took a decadent amount of time over my make-up, brushed my hair and shouted to my mum, ‘I’m going out!’

‘Kiki, look!’

‘Maybe later.’ I waved at my sister and smiled. ‘I’ll come play with you later, OK?’

I didn’t even see Mum on the way out, but I passed my father on the stairs, carrying a shopping bag. He gave me a hug and asked me where I was going.

‘Oh, nowhere, just a friend’s house.’

‘OK, sweetheart. Come back for lunch please.’

‘I’ll only be a couple of hours.’

He looked tired. He wasn’t much taller than me and when we hugged I could rest my head on his shoulder.

‘I love you, sweetheart.’

‘Love you too.’

I don’t know why I didn’t look back at him as I said it. There is no such thing as foreshadowing. If there were I would have looked back so I could have seen him one last time, or stopped to play with my sister or say a proper goodbye to my mother. But I did none of those things. I just carried on down the stairwell, avoiding the banister.

Outside I could see the Williams boys from a couple of floors down playing football.

I could hear the guy who lived below us doing pull-ups in his hallway.

It was overcast. I almost couldn’t be bothered to go. I didn’t even really like Jensen that much. For a second I took out my phone and toyed with the idea of sending a text saying I was busy, but figured that two hours of mediocre entertainment would be more interesting than staying at home.

I put my phone back in the pocket of my skirt and as I left the building I walked into the path of a speeding car, which slammed on the brakes as it halted just beside me.

‘Hey, are you fucking blind!’ I shouted through the wind­screen as I stormed away across the road.

I hoped that no one would get out of the car and follow me.

‘Don’t engage crazy people,’ I murmured to myself.

Narita Airport had been quiet – humid and very quiet. I got a bottle of green tea out of the vending machine and waited in the deserted Arrivals area to text Seiko and ask where she was living now. I didn’t tell her that I was here, just posed the question. Most of my other numbers had been deleted, and once the text was sent I turned the phone off, planning to buy a new one as soon as possible.

I wanted to step outside and breathe the familiar air but I went straight underground on to the Narita Express instead, settling for watching the brown and green fields pass outside the window. It had been nerve-racking waiting for my bag to appear on the baggage carousel, but it had reached me without any trouble. Now it was nestled between my feet.

I arrived at Ikebukuro and bought myself a rail pass with the money I’d exchanged at the airport, and stepped outside to turn my phone on again. I’d missed the smell of food here. Even the fast food being sold from vendors was better than the majority of food in London.

Everyone dressed better.

No one was looking at me. Not a soul.

I’d forgotten how refreshing it was to be in a place where you didn’t look so different, where you could just blend in without hassle or stares.

Seiko had texted back.

She was living in Kashiwa, which was about fifty minutes away by metro. She also asked me if I was thinking about visiting.

I realized now that she had replied, now that I had somewhere to go, I was losing my nerve. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her again, if I could stand it. What if she was seeing some guy now, whom she was happy with? Who was I to crash that? Was I just going to hang around at the periphery of her life and hope we could recreate something like before?

I moved into the aggressive sunlight and looked up at the buildings, creeping up, layer upon layer of dormant daytime neon. It was so quiet. Even the busiest streets here were so quiet and calm. No wonder we all lived longer.

Not wanting to do anything drastic that day, I caught a train to Toshima-ku and walked around until I found a local guesthouse with a spare room. There were a couple of Italians talking in the front room but I went upstairs and hid myself away behind my wooden screen. I took off my shoes, relishing the feel of my feet on the bamboo floor, and unpacked my sofa bed to sleep.

My phone was off. What was happening in England wasn’t my business any more, not my problem.

I slept.

The jet lag must have affected me more than I thought because I didn’t wake for over twelve hours. It was nearing six in the morning when I regained consciousness. I blinked and sat up, noticing that I was still in my clothes. I also hadn’t dreamed for the first time in weeks.

I sat down next to my bag and did my make-up in a hand-mirror, before dressing in a skirt and Slayer T-shirt to leave.

The streets were quiet. No pavements. I passed a fruit and vegetable market on my left and said good morning to the owner. Toshima-ku looked like a toy village next to any London borough, but I loved it. I’d missed the sense of being lost among these small unnamed streets.

I stopped at a vending machine and got myself a water and halted again at a market stall to buy a savoury doughnut, before entering the station.

On my way over to Kashiwa I had a long time to think about what I wanted to do. But there was no action plan. I think, looking back, all I wanted to do was see. Once I’d seen, I’d know what to do. The obvious path would reveal itself and I’d follow it, but I needed to see her.

I ate the doughnut on the way to Seiko’s house and stopped when it came into view. I walked back and forth past it a few times to make sure it was the right flat, in a square white and grey building. When I was certain it was hers I paced to the end of the street and waited, just out of sight, for a while. She would have to leave or go to work at one point.

There were no cars here. No breeze. I shut my eyes and just enjoyed the sensation of the sun on my face and the tranquillity in the air.

I am sitting on a mountaintop.

I could hear the words in Seiko’s voice, like the first time she’d taught me.

The nerves in my stomach felt like termites, eating me away.

All I had to do was see her.

Then everything would become clear...

It might have been half an hour, not much more, but there was movement down the road. The door opened and a boy came out, wearing a blazer and yellow skinny jeans. He had a thin face and fluffy hair and he paused to hold the door open and the girl that came out after him was Seiko. I could tell, even from a little way away.

She was thinner, as if she exercised now, with shorter hair and sophisticated adult clothes.

The boy kissed her, they talked, she looked at her watch and the two of them walked towards the station, hand in hand. I wished that I could see more of her face, but I could tell from how she was walking that she seemed happy, relaxed, content.

I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, but I tried to smile as I watched her go, even though I simultaneously felt like crying.

If she had been alone I still wouldn’t have called out.

What I was meant to do had become abundantly clear.

I didn’t hate London, I realized as I watched the land­scape pass outside the window. Not as much as I’d thought I hated it. London hadn’t spat me out yet. Neither had Tokyo, in fairness, but Tokyo didn’t want me; not the me I had become.

At least here I’d have to face it, I’d be forced to think of it every day. I’d see the memories in the buildings and roads and stations and maybe, just maybe, one day, I’d see a familiar face for real and they wouldn’t look at me with anything like relief or forgiveness.

I caught a taxi to the outskirts of Chelsea and walked into the restaurant with a name I couldn’t pronounce, because the sounds didn’t exist in either of my languages. I caught my reflection in the mirror above their bar and I had only a hint of a two-day tan.

I’d paid for the taxi with almost the last of the money I kept for myself. Not that I’d been left with vast amounts in the first place, but most of what I did bring back I put in a bubble-wrap envelope and left inside the door of Madeline Hallam’s care home, along with a very precise letter about whom to spend it on. It wasn’t as if they’d treat the money suspiciously. To them it would be a simple charitable donation, maybe by one of Mrs Hallam’s relatives or a relative of her recently deceased husband.