The Day She Died (10 page)

A minute later he reappeared, clicked the light back on, and smiled at me.

“Okay,” he said. “Here goes.” He turned and pulled something into the room. It was on wheels and was hidden under a dustsheet. “Ready?” I nodded. He swept the sheet aside and stood back. I stared.

It was a pram. One of those old navy-blue monsters with the painted sides and the big wheels. A double pram, both of its hoods pulled right up so it was almost round. Gus beckoned me forward.

“I can see it fine from here,” I told him, and my voice sounded strained even to me.

“You need to look inside,” he said.

“What's in there?” I asked. “Nothing … bad?”

But he didn't know what I meant. Why would he? So I stepped close and looked into the gap.

Except it wasn't a gap. There was some kind of substance there, not quite see-through, not quite not. I touched it.

“Resin,” said Gus. And then something caught my eye. Behind the strip of resin, inside the belly of the pram, a light had gleamed, just for a second. It wasn't a flash, it was a gleam. Slow, measured, as if some creature had opened its eye and then lazily closed it again. I turned as another gleam lit the other side. In its light I thought I saw movement, but it was too far away to be inside where I was looking. I waited. And waited. And just as I was raising my head, a stronger, brighter steadier light shone for a half a second. I missed it. All I knew was that there was more in there than there could be.

“What it's called?” I asked.

“Pram,” Gus said. “What do you think of it?”

“It's hellish,” I said. “In the good way. It's creepy as hell.”

I hadn't offended him. He was trying not to beam, but it was breaking through. So I decided to mention it, while he was smiling.

“Do you know you put the light off when you left me in here?” I asked. I gave him a chance to say sorry, but he just waited. “If I'd have known your sculptures were this creepy, I'd have legged it!”

“The new one's not creepy,” he said, like that was the only thing he'd heard. “But it's big. It's next door.” He was grinning now. “You want to see more? You like it?”

“I really do.” I really did. “Why did you put the light off, though?”

“Well, it's not ready. But I'll tell you about it, if you promise not to tell other people.” He dropped the dustsheet back over the pram. He hadn't turned anything off first; I didn't like thinking about those lazy gleams carrying on in the dark with no one to see them.

He moved to the light switch again.

“Yeah,” I said. “That one.”

“Don't forget the monitor,” he said, nodding to where he'd set it down.

“I get it,” I said. “Fair enough.” And it felt good to see the puzzled look spread over his face. He didn't ask what I meant. Guys never do. Because they don't want to admit they don't know already. And that's another thing therapy makes you forget: guys are just guys. And they hate making mistakes, so if you ask them why they did something daft, they'll pretend they can't hear you. Nothing sinister, nothing deep. Just guys.

In silence, we stepped outside and I waited while he closed the padlock and switched the torch on. We were halfway back when he started talking again.

“It's Dave's house,” he said. “A replica. About three-quarters size. Life-size would have been great, but it wouldn't fit in the byre. I've got the breezeblocks done, skimmed the front, done the doors and windows, done the roof. Can't decide about the porch.”

“What's inside?” I was thinking about the pram again.

“Wrap-around video screen. Plays a video of the rooms. With sound.”

“Empty rooms?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“I thought you said it wasn't creepy.”

“It's not. Well, the breathing is till you get used to it. Dave shot the film and he had a cold. He kind of whistled under his breath a bit too.”

We were back at the garden fence. I looked at the cottage, the orange light over the door, the net curtains turned see-through by the lights on inside. There was a replica of this place inside a barn in the next field. A dead man whistling. Not exactly stale bread in a bog, but not exactly the Mona Lisa.

“How will you move it?” I said. I could see the gleam of his teeth when he smiled.

“Thanks,” he said, and then he laughed at my confusion. “You think I'll need to move it. When someone buys it or asks to show it somewhere.”

He opened the front door to the sound of Dillon sobbing, dry cracked sobs as if he'd been crying for hours.

“Daddeeeeee!” he shouted.

“What the hell?” said Gus, charging to the bedroom. “Did you switch that bloody monitor off when you were touching it?” He slammed the door behind him.

Shame and rage flooded me, both together, so strong I was almost reeling. Then together they ebbed away.

Did I? What did I know about baby monitors? Did I turn it off without knowing? Like he did with the light? Except I was a grown-up and Dillon was a baby. I could have turned the light back on but Dillon just had to cry and cry, just like yesterday, and had no way of knowing why nobody came. How I could do that to a little kid? What was wrong with me?

So I went to the kitchen,
stupid bitch
, to see if there was anything left to tidy up after I'd tidied up earlier when he was bathing them. The table was clear, dishes draining, cloth wrung out and hung to dry on the edge of the sink. I had already washed out some clothes for myself, spun them, and hung them up on the pulley to dry. I could sweep the floor if I could find a broom. Or I could clean out the fridge, check the dates, write a shopping list. I sure as hell couldn't go through and sit down and see what was on the telly and just be sitting there like the Queen of Sheba when Gus came back. Imagine switching off the monitor after what they'd already been through. Except I didn't. I knew I hadn't, and there was one right there on the windowsill, nearly the same design, and there was no way I could have switched it off without noticing.

Maybe the batteries were dead. Finally, something I could do: I could look for new batteries. I slipped the compartment cover off the monitor on the windowsill so I knew what I needed and then eyed the kitchen, wondering which drawer was the Sellotape, cracker prize, spare key, dry biro, and battery store. There had to be one. I found it on the third go, right after tea towels and Clingfilm. All of the above, and hair bobbles and dummies too. And mid-rummage I found the other thing that always ends up there with the foreign coins and chargers for old phones you've flung out. Photographs. Real photo-booth photographs of two girls, one sitting on the other's lap, both mugging and gurning and giving it duck-face for the camera. Gus only had a brother. It was too new a picture to be his mum. So this had to be Becky. One of these dark-haired girls was lying in the mortuary in Dumfries right now, waiting for them to cut her open. I couldn't take my eyes off their shining faces, both of them. Which one was she, and who was the other one? Her sister? They looked enough the same.

“What's that?” said Gus. I hadn't heard him come in. I almost put the photo strip behind my back like a kid would.
Look over there!
And then hide it in the biscuit tin. Something about this guy unhinged me.

“Photos,” I said. “I was looking for batteries for the thingy. In case that was why we didn't hear it, you know? Was Becky a twin, Gus?”

“Becky?” He was giving me his turned-to-stone face again. “What photos?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was thinking about Pram, I suppose.” He crossed the room and took the pictures out of my hand. “How's Dillon?” I said.

He stared at the photographs. “Fine. Just dropped his Spongie. And Ruby wouldn't get it for him. She can be a right wee besom.” He turned the pictures over, looking for dates and captions, I guessed. “I bought the pram at a boot sale.” He took his wallet out of his pocket, folded the strip in half, and slid it in. “Good thinking about the batteries, by the way.” He went to the fridge and opened it. Sighed. Slammed it closed again. “Do you like red wine? How do you fancy a glass of red wine sitting outside looking at the sea?”

Maybe that was as close as he was going to get to saying sorry. Maybe he didn't remember that he had shouted and sworn at me.

“Okay.”

“Getting frostbite,” said Gus. “Should have included that, I suppose.”

“If Dillon didn't suck that blanket away to nothing, I'll take it.” He smiled. “So who is it? In the pictures. With Becky.”

Gus put his hand on the pocket where his wallet was and shook his head, like a dog just out of water.

“God! I was so … I was looking at Becky. I'd never seen those ones before. That was Ros. Her that left. Becky's pal.”

“They could have been sisters,” I said.

“Except then she wouldn't have left and maybe Becky would still be here,” he said. He took a breath as if to say more but let it go. Took another that went the same way.

“Is this a cure for hiccups?” I asked. Gus's laugh was like fresh air, like a cold splash of water.

“I want to tell you something,” he said. “But I'm bricking it. Come out and sit with me.” Maybe he was one of those guys who think saying sorry is the biggest deal on the planet. That would suck. But at least he was trying to say it anyway.

I was glad of the blanket, even over my coat. The wind was stiff and salty, making me lick my lips, making the cold wine taste sweeter than my first sip had in the kitchen, and I drank half the glass as we sat there in silence, listening to the dead leaves of the rowan clattering on the bricks of the path as the wind stirred them, listening to the slack sound of low tide sloshing in the distance, listening to the quiet murmur of
The Big Friendly Giant
on the Fisher Price soothing Dillon to sleep again. It was so long before he spoke that I jumped at the sound.

“I didn't love her,” Gus said. “There.”

“Okay,” I said. “Things were pretty tough, I know.”

“Ever,” he said. “She was—I love the kids and I loved the idea of a family. Making a family. But I didn't love Becky. I didn't even like her very much. And the cops and the undertakers' guys and the folk at the hospital last night are all treating me like I'm heartbroken.”

“I heard you on the phone,” I said. “Trying to talk her down. I saw the state you were in. I see you trying to stop the cops finding out bad stuff about her.”

“I don't want the kids hurt, that's all
that
is. But I didn't love her, Jessie. I'm not sorry she's gone.”

“You're in shock,” I said.

“I would never have left her,” he said. “But all I feel now is free.”

“Okay,” I said again, needing to stop him. I couldn't bear it. That dark-eyed girl, whichever one of them she was, cold and dead and her kids not even old enough so they'd remember her. “You're telling me how you feel. I shouldn't be arguing. I'm sorry.”

“Have I got a free pass to say anything then?” he said. “Get out of jail?”

I could
n't speak. What more could there be?

“When Ruby was born,” Gus said, “I felt love like I never even imagined before. No way to explain it. Same with Dillon.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Yeah,” said Gus. “Bugger all to do with genes. Manky wee space alien screaming his head off in a hospital blanket.
Bang
! It was just like someone hit the on-button.” He took a big drink of his wine, and his throat made a dry, sore noise as he swallowed it. “I thought it was only kids that could do that to you.”

I drank every drop of wine in my glass, right down to the specks of black stuff.

“Do you understand what I'm saying?” he said.

“You mean … you sort of did love Becky, just not as much?” I asked. “Is that it?”

“No,” he said.

I closed my eyes and listened to the sea, to the wind, to the leaves, to
The Big Friendly Giant
, to the buzz of the bulb in the orange light above the door. Kept them closed so that I wouldn't see the world rushing away from me and have to hold on. Anytime I've ever been up high looking down, I've wanted to jump. Or maybe push someone. How can you not? And that's what I felt like then. Like I could fall off the shore into the water. Could pull him over with me, drown the pair of us.

“I think you know what I mean,” he said even quieter than before.

He was sitting close enough so I could feel the heat of his body. Except how could the heat of his body jump over two inches of cold October air so I could feel it? It wasn't that after all. It was just every hair on my arm and my leg all down that side of me, standing up on its own wee goose-pimple mountain, trying to grow long enough to touch him. It was the blood in my brain washing up against that side of my skull trying to float my head over to his shoulder. It was the earth underneath that foot nearest his foot, tilting, hoping to slide my ankle over to twine under his.

“Gus,” I said at last. “Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going home, and maybe after Christmas or something, give me a call and we can go out for a drink.” Go out for a drink and never spend another day apart until we die in our bed on the same night when we've just turned ninety-nine.

“I've got no one, Jessie,” he said. “I'll never make it to Christmas alone.”

And who did I have? Dot and Steve. Father Tommy and Sister Avril. My brother that screened my calls and pretended he didn't. My chocolate teapot of a mum. How did I end up with no pals? When did that happen?

“I need a friend,” he said, mind-reading me.

“Friends,” I agreed. I didn't need any more than that. If I could just see him, feel the ground tilting under my feet, feel all my hairs standing up on end, feel my blood course over to whichever bit of me was nearest him instead of going round and round me like it used to do before he was there, I could wait. I'd rather wait. I'd rather build my reserves for the next bit, in case—like it felt it might—it just plain killed me. Like a frog in a blender. One wild whirl and then gone.