Incinerator (28 page)

I went back behind the counter, grabbed a damp cloth and started wiping down the counters, the cash register, the menus, everything in sight. Trying to keep busy so the urge would subside and pass—the urge to rip off this stiff nylon blouse and these shapeless, pocketless
trousers and run home in nothing but my tatty briefs. Leaning time is cleaning time. Thanking time is wanking time. Frying time is dying time …

Andy was back. He was wearing his blazer, the one with the brass buttons and the shiny elbows. He wore it at the Friday morning Max Snax staff training sessions, or when he announced the month’s sales figures, or whenever he gave someone a new pip on their plastic name badge.

He was offering me one now.

“That was exemplary, Finn. Really well-handled.”

“It’s OK, Andy. Don’t bother.” He wanted to reward me for getting rid of customers?

“Come on. Three more of these and you’re a Max Snax Star. That’s a six per cent pay rise.”

If I turned it down he’d know I hated Max Snax, and him, and the uniform, and the job, and he’d hire some other school dropout. But I needed the money. I couldn’t drive, and I could barely read. What else was I going to do? “Thanks, Andy.”

I took it off him. The first hole on my name badge already had a golden stud—you got that on your first day at work, just for turning up. I snapped the new one into the second little hole, and it didn’t hurt much more than punching it into my forehead.

“Keep this up, you’ll have a branch of your own someday.”

The rest of my shift was a deep-fried blur, and as usual I showered and changed before I left. The workplace shower was another reason I stuck the job. Our shower at home was like being peed on by an old bloke with a prostrate problem, but this one at work fired out scalding hot water that came down like a tropical storm. I was the only one who ever used it, and it felt like the one time and space in the world that I ever had to myself.

I stooped in front of the washroom mirror—it wasn’t quite high enough for someone as tall as me—combing my mousy-brown hair with my fingers. I generally kept my hair short, or it would spring up in spikes I could never control. The rest of my reflection I tried not to look at. It wasn’t that I minded how I looked; apart from the kink in my nose where a sparring partner had broken it, it wasn’t such a bad face, according to my dad—triangular, with a big chin that currently needed a shave and a kind of girly mouth. My teeth were pretty straight and even, and my pale skin was clear (this week anyway). But I could never meet those washed-out blue eyes because they always seemed to ask how they’d got here, and whether they’d spend the next twenty years looking out from behind the counter at Max Snax, and I never had the heart to answer.

I stuffed my uniform into my backpack—planning to wash it at home—laced up my running shoes and headed out across the car park, dodging pedestrians as I built up speed. Pushing my pulse to 140, I pounded along the backstreet pavements, heading home.

The street lights were flickering on as I pulled up, panting, outside the house. I stretched as I got my breath back, glad to see I was still supple enough to touch my knees with my forehead. But as my pulse slowed and my breathing found its resting rhythm I realized something was bugging me. The house was dark, as if Dad had gone out. But he usually worked on his writing till I came in from work—my coming back in was his excuse to knock off for the day.

The curtains were already closed. Had they ever been opened? I fished my keys from my backpack and opened the door. As I reached for the light switch I registered something about the silence.

“Dad?”

It was too deep, as if the house was empty; but it didn’t feel empty.

Our house was small—the door opened straight into the living room. The light came on dimly, brightening as it warmed up. Dad disliked the overhead light, and only switched it on when he had one of his fits of tidying-up. Now it flooded the room in the way he disliked, cold
and harsh, and fell on him where he sat at the table. Not sat, so much as slumped, the way I’d seen him once or twice when he’d been to the pub and somebody else was buying.

I paused in the doorway, certain something was wrong, trying to figure out what exactly. “Dad?” It was too cold in the room. He couldn’t hear me—he still had his earphones in.

I’d found him like that before a few times, early in the morning. He’d be resting his head on his folded arms. Now his arms were pinned underneath him, at an odd angle, and he wasn’t breathing. I knew that, even before I consciously worked it out, even before I registered properly that the crown of his head was a sticky mass of blood, and something heavy and bulky lay on the floor by his chair, itself stained with red, with bloody hairs sticking to it.

My dad was dead. He had been sitting at his desk, plugged into his music, and someone had crept up behind him holding his award for
Best Newcomer 1992
, and hit him over the head with it, and kept hitting him until he died. His eyes were open and his glasses had fallen off. There was blood coming from his mouth and clotting in his beard, and pooling on the table, and he was dead. And the house was empty and silent.

NIALL LEONARD
is a drama and comedy screenwriter, born in Northern Ireland and currently living in West London with his wife, bestselling author E L James, and their two children. Among his many television credits, he has created episodes of
Wire in the Blood
,
Silent Witness
,
Ballykissangel
, and
Hornblower
. He has also led seminars and workshops on screenwriting and script editing for the BBC, the Northern Ireland Film Council, and the Irish Screenwriters’ Guild, and has lectured on the creative process at the University of Reading.
Incinerator
is the companion novel to
Crusher
, Niall Leonard’s debut young adult novel.