Humber Boy B (22 page)

Trust. She could see from his reaction that Ben trusted no-one.

“So, let’s make a start. What about Adam? He knows where you are, so he’s the first suspect. Would he have any reason to want to harm you?”

“Adam… we were close once. Before Noah died. But he lied in court, he made out he was totally innocent. But… ”

“But what?”

“Well, Adam was just saving himself. Maybe I should have done the same.”

“How could you have?”

“I could have told them about Cheryl.”

Cate recalled that this was the name of the girl who had also been in the vicinity of the bridge that day, Roger Palmer’s daughter. She was framing a question in her head when Ben spoke again.

“I don’t think I know about people.”

“Join the club.” Ben looked surprised and Cate carried on, “The more I do this job, the more unshockable I become. There’s nothing you could tell me, Ben, that would even make me blink. Whatever happened on the bridge that day, I need to know. Because Silent Friend knows you, so it follows that you must know Silent Friend. Let’s work out who it is, and then maybe the police will act. It could be your only option.”

56

Ben

I’m not sure what to do with a girl.

Only from films, or talking with other inmates. People go on dates, they go to museums and see bands together. They go on walks, or for meals, and hold hands and kiss. Stuart never did that for Mum, and neither did my dad as far as I know, so I’m not sure what a good place for a date would be. I know couples go to the cinema but the last time I did that it ended in Noah’s death, there was even a study that said us watching a horror film had something to do with what came later, so I can’t face the prospect of sitting in a dark room with a huge booming screen. I don’t think I’ll ever go to the cinema again.

I can’t afford to take Cheryl for a meal. So I improvise and take her to the best place I know. The aquarium.

Cheryl stares at the carp, her face a perfect mirror of their dumb faces and black-hole mouths. “Sorry, Ben, I’m not really getting the attraction.”

I’m getting it wrong, she isn’t enjoying the date. I need to make her understand, but first I check no-one else is close by. “Maybe because they’re prisoners like I was. And underwater, like Noah.”

I’ve often thought about this, why I feel so relaxed around these fish, and it’s the only conclusion I’ve come to.

Cheryl is still facing the tank so I can’t see her expression. “I saw enough of these when I was dragged out fishing with my dad. I think they’re ugly.”

“They are,” I agree. “Really ugly.”

“Like you.” She turns, pushes herself against me playfully, surprising me so it takes me a moment to understand the game and push her back, against the tank.

She grabs my shoulders, pulling me to her, we stand nose to nose and I can feel her strength, this dancer who has always been athletic when I’ve spent eight years wasting my muscles in a prison cell. I struggle then, uncertain and uncomfortable, but not so hard that I work myself free. I like the feel of her hand on my shoulder, her body close to mine, her face so near I can see the dimple on her chin. Her mouth, opens, her tongue hot and quick in my mouth. How do you kiss? What am I supposed to do with my tongue?

But Cheryl knows. She shows me, moves me, though I’m unsure whether to close my eyes or not. My senses, all alive only to her, see and taste and smell only Cheryl. My brother’s girlfriend.

“Now then, Ben, don’t go scaring the fish.”

I jolt away from her at the sound of Leon’s voice. There he stands, awkward, smiling too, and jangles his keys.

“Ahem, Ben. I’m going to hit the road, or the missus will be on at me for being late for tea. You okay to lock up?”

He’s never let me do this, and I take the keys from him with a mixture of pride and apprehension. It’s a huge responsibility, and Leon is trusting me.

Off he goes, whistling to himself, leaving me holding the keys. Cheryl has a wicked gleam in her eyes.

“Old pervert. He shouldn’t have been watching.”

Cheryl kisses me again, next to the large glass windows, onto a world of water and rocks, all types of fish, swimming amongst floating jetsam, getting along, bumping noses and not minding. Peaceful.

And though she kisses me my eyes are watching the river fish, fish of the Humber, the type that gets hooked on lines or caught in nets, the type that Noah saw as he fell, bubbles from his nose and mouth.

Cheryl lifts my T-shirt from my body and I shiver, warm only where her skin touches mine. She takes the keys from my hand and drops them to the floor, they land with a clatter of metal that reminds me of prison doors closing.

“I’ve never done it in an aquarium,” she says.

“I can’t… what about Leon?”

“He’s gone,” she says, kneeling before me and kissing my chest. My waist. “Don’t worry about him. Think about me.”

And I know that if Leon knew what we were doing, sliding onto the floor under the watchful eyes of the fish, that he’d never have given me the keys. He showed me he trusted me, a sense of responsibility, and I’m abusing it.

But Cheryl has pulled off her knickers, there’s no barrier now, and the possibility of her is close and now and I can’t stop. All these years, no-one to touch, and she’s below me, her skin is all along mine. Legs are laced together, torsos twinned and her lips again, sucking me in, inside. Watched by the fish, I make love to Cheryl. If that is what this is.

I don’t stop until I can no longer move, until my body is shuddering its release and the world, the entire population, could be watching us and still I wouldn’t, couldn’t stop.

She twists to free herself, but I’m drowning in her. What have I done? She is Adam’s girlfriend. More than that, she is the reason Noah died. And now she’s my lover, she’s taken me over.

I need to be free.

She pulls away from me, wadding her dress swiftly between her legs to stop the flow of me from her, and then pulling it back on, smoothing it down.

“What’s wrong, Ben?”

I want to tell her that it’s Adam, who we both betrayed, that it’s the fish with their beady eyes. That it’s Noah, that I should never be happy after what happened, why should anyone want to kiss me? Why, of all people should she and I be together after what we did?

I leave her there. I run from the aquarium in my new red shoes, the keys forgotten on the ground along with my duty to lock the place, and wish that Silent Friend would find me now, get it over with. I don’t deserve it any other way.

57

The Day Of

Cheryl didn’t care that the wet sand was sticking to her thigh, that she was sat in a puddle, that it was cold and her towel was soggy around her shoulders.

Fuck the world, fuck everyone. Why did it always go wrong for her?

She pulled the towel tighter around her neck and told herself it was a cloak. A golden one, fit for an Egyptian queen. No, it was an invisibility cloak that would enable her to do anything and get away with it.

A gust of wind made her shiver, then scowl. She couldn’t control the goosebumps on her arms and legs, or her chattering teeth. Her stomach hurt badly now, there were dragging pains low in her abdomen and she wanted to cry. She wasn’t a queen, or invisible. She was just a teenage girl with no power at all.

Things had been bad since Mum left. Her father was always so busy marking work and looking after her, looking after her too much like she was his project. It had always been just the two of them, suffocating and awkward, so she had been happy when Jessica started coming round. Things had changed for the better. And when her dad said that Jessica was moving in, Cheryl thought this would be the answer to everything that was wrong between her and her dad.

She had experienced a taste of what it would be like to have a normal family. In her imaginings she didn’t say ‘Jess’ but ‘Mum’. When would she be allowed to call her that, would it be just after she moved in, or would they wait for a while?

And Jessica would bring Noah so she would be getting a brother too.

Cheryl couldn’t remember what it felt like to have a mother, but she liked the idea of it. Someone to talk with, someone who had make-up, someone she could ask about boys and why her stomach hurt so badly and if it could be her first period.

Cheryl wanted Jessica to move in desperately.

But then Dad and Jess had started arguing and she’d wanted to stop them, to tell her dad that he shouldn’t shout and get angry because then they’d be alone again.

Last night it had been really bad, and now her dad was so sad. Jessica had said it was over, because she couldn’t do that to Noah.

Do what? Would it be so bad for him to live with Cheryl and her dad? Why was Noah so special, that he could ruin everyone’s plans?

Why couldn’t Jessica see that Cheryl needed her, she really did? More than her dad, even, Cheryl was desperate to have a mum.

And now it was ruined. Noah had wrecked everything.

58

Now

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59

Cate

Cate started the car and began to drive towards town, still unsure if she was actually able to face her sister. She would drive in the right direction, and see how far it got her.

It had been twenty years, she didn’t even know who her sister was anymore. All memories of Liz felt ancient, all tied up with how Liz had been as a child, obedient, quiet.

Though they were only a year apart in age, Cate had always thought of herself as much more independent, she was the one who got a Saturday job at fifteen while Liz stayed at home in her room. Cate was motivated by freedom, but Liz had seemed content to remain a child.

In her teens, Cate had taken on the role of the sensible one, making breakfast for her and Liz, laying a plate and cup for Mum who might not get up until midday.

With Dad working away, it had often just been the three of them in the house, but when Dad was around, everything was different. Mum would be up early, make-up already on, cheerily chatting as she cooked bacon and eggs. When he left again, as he always did, her mask of cheerful domesticity would slip and she would once more disappear into her bedroom. Cate preferred it when Dad was around, though she found it hard to hold his attention for long, she just seemed to be in the way. She told herself that this was just how it was when you were the oldest. She just had to try harder to be good.

Cate had always watched out for Liz, played nurse to her patient, rescued her from the bad guys, and later at school had comforted Liz when she was bullied. Liz was always being bullied; there was always someone who wanted to crush a bit more of her fragility, or who envied her prettiness. Yet even while Cate comforted Liz, part of her was jealous, knowing that what made her a victim also brought rewards.

Later, it was Liz who was first asked out on a date, the first of many. To Cate’s disbelief she never seemed interested. Cate would answer the telephone to hear a nervous teenage male on the line, “Is Liz there?”

“Liz, it’s for you. Some boy.”

She would appear from her bedroom, whispering, “Tell him I’m out. Please, Cate.”

And at first she would. But then she got fed up with being her sister’s social secretary and would answer, “Yep, she’s here – Liz, its some boy for you,” forcing her sister to take the receiver.

Liz would hold the mouthpiece like it was hot, “Hello? No, I can’t… No, sorry.” Always, the hesitant refusals. Cate thought she just wasn’t interested, but then there was Rob, whom she knew Liz liked. He was in Cate’s year at school, and good-looking with dark lanky hair and hazel eyes. He would dawdle after school, walking beside them but ignoring Cate, and she saw how her sister would play with her hair when she looked at him, how she started to put lip gloss on in the toilets after lessons. These walks after school were torture for Cate, who either trailed behind like a spare part or sped up, leaving Liz and Rob meandering behind. Sometimes she would be home a whole twenty minutes before Liz appeared, looking a little flustered and flushed. But then the phone calls started and, to Cate’s surprise, Liz came to her, “If Rob ever calls, I want you to tell him I’m busy.”

“Busy where?”

“Anywhere! In the bath, doing homework. I don’t care – but I don’t want to speak to him.”

“Lover’s tiff is it?”

Liz’s reply was a look of such anger and resentment that Cate was shocked, “Sorry I asked.”

But the next day, as usual, Rob was with them on the journey from school. For several months the pattern continued, with Liz refusing to speak to him on the telephone or go on a date until finally Rob got bored and moved his attentions to Melissa in the year below Liz. From her bedroom across the hall, Cate heard Liz crying for several nights afterwards. She just didn’t understand it.

When she reached sixteen, Cate no longer wanted to be hampered with her younger sister. Liz never seemed to have her own friends, only wanting Cate for company. “These are my friends, not yours,” Cate would tell her. “Get your own mates.” Cate did such a successful job of distancing herself that she was not shocked when Liz failed to return home on her seventeenth birthday. Her presents remained unopened, a cake untouched as evening turned to night. Finally, late, there was a phone call, which Dad answered. She only heard his side of the conversation but it was enough to tell her that Liz wasn’t coming back. That she would not tell him where she was.

To think that they had grown so far apart that she had no idea that Liz was thinking to leave saddened Cate. Over the following days she had gone into her sister’s room and seen the evidence of long-term planning. A row of hangers in the wardrobe. Empty drawers. Receipts for a young person’s rail card, bought two months ago. A bankbook revealing a withdrawal of £900 a week ago. All that time, Liz had been squirrelling away money.

Cate never saw her sister again.

Now, out of the blue, Liz wanted to meet. And Cate knew that, however angry she was for the years of anxiety when there was no news, she was desperate to find out why she left.