Something Might Happen (19 page)

I look at him in surprise.

What? he says.

Nothing. Just—you’re right. I know what you mean.

The best thing, I overhear Rosa telling Jordan in the bathroom that evening as he cleans his teeth, is she can see the playground
from there. There’ll be stuff to watch, she won’t be lonely.

Out on the landing, I stop and listen.

Jordan says something I can’t hear because his mouth is full of toothpaste.

And the tree will shelter her, Rosa adds with some authority. It’s always good, you see, to be under a tree.

I go into the bathroom. Rosa is standing naked except for her knickers, school clothes strewn around her on the floor.

She won’t actually be buried under the tree, darling, I tell her. Not right beneath it anyway.

Rosa’s face falls. Jordan looks at me carefully and then at her.

Oh? But why not?

You can’t dig under an old tree. Think about it. There are all these big roots and they spread a long way.

Rosa shoves her hand in her knickers and glances in an agitated way at Jordan. Jordan spits in the bowl and glances back at
her. For a moment they don’t look like my kids at all.

What? I ask them. What’s the matter with you two? What is it?

Rosa is already shutting off from me, staring away out the window. But Jordan wipes his mouth on a towel and turns to me.

She says under it.

What? Who? Who says under it?

Rosa turns from the window and takes off her knickers, then flings them in the laundry basket as if she’s scoring a goal.

Shut up, she says to Jordan. He’s just being stupid, she explains. The thing is, we just want her to be buried in a happy
place, that’s all.

She smiles at me in a cheery way. As if I’m stupid.

She will be, I tell her. I swear to you, she will be.

Rosa shrugs. But Jordan gazes at me and I hate how tired and grey his face is.

You’re a tired boy, I tell him and I hold out my arms and he comes.

Do I have to have a bath? Rosa asks. She bounces a couple of times in front of the mirror, watches the budding pouches of
fat on her nipples jiggle up and down, watching us, too.

Not if you think you’re clean. I nestle Jordan on my lap even though he is too big.

I am clean.

Then don’t have one.

You don’t mind?

Not really. Not today.

Rosa looks pleased with herself.

But will we go to the funeral? Jordan asks me.

I look at his face.

Do you want to?

Yes, says Rosa quickly. Of course! Yes!

And you, I ask Jordan, do you?

Yes, he says.

Then of course you will, I tell them. If you want to.

Mawhinney clears a space for me to sit down. He looks pleased to see me.

Just the person, he says.

He takes an armful of papers and moves them out of the way—and then the files and dirty coffee mugs. The room is more chaotic
and untidy than when I last came here.

Sorry, he says, indicating the mess. We’re getting sick of this makeshift office.

I don’t blame you, I tell him.

Through the window, it’s a bright day, the sea rough and striped with sun.

I say no to his offer of coffee.

Look, I tell him, there’s something I left out, when you first came and talked to us. A small thing, or I thought it was.
But I realise I should have told you—even though I shouldn’t think it will change anything—

Oh? Mawhinney looks at me pleasantly.

I’m really sorry, I tell him. In fact I’m embarrassed.

He smiles.

It’s this, I say. I have a beach hut on the front. I’ve had it for years—

Oh lucky you, he says quickly. They’re great, those beach huts.

I look at him, try to smile.

And hard to come by, he adds.

Well, yes.

I stop a moment. He picks a paper clip up off the desk, smiles cryptically. Why do I feel he’s playing with me?

Suddenly, he tips his head back and laughs. Then he leans forward and touches my arm.

It’s OK, he says. It’s just—I’m sorry, I’ve just spoken to Alex.

What?

I think I know what you’re going to say.

Really?

He just told me—

I stare at him.

Alex? Told you what?

I’m glad you’ve come in. I was about to come and talk to you myself.

I don’t understand, I say. What’s he told you?

That you were there in the hut that night. You and Alex. That you saw Darren—

Darren? Sorry—what—Darren?

Isn’t that what you were going to tell me?

Yes, I say. Well, no. I mean yes about the hut. But no, we never saw Darren.

You can see this foxes him. He puts down the paper clip he’s been fiddling with and looks at me, perplexed.

Darren Sims?

No. Definitely not.

He says you did.

Alex said that?

Well, yes.

Well, I didn’t.

You’re sure of that?

Absolutely. I never saw Darren, I tell him, definitely not. I don’t know when Alex could have seen him either. I mean we were
together all that time.

Now Mawhinney looks displeased.

He told me he saw him outside, he says. That he was outside the hut hanging around as he left.

Well, I say, shaking my head, he never told me—

I have to say, Mawhinney points out stiffly, that this is quite important. I can’t go into details but we have stuff on Darren.
One or two possibly crucial things.

I try to laugh.

But Darren didn’t have anything to do with all this.

Mawhinney looks at me sharply.

I can’t discuss it with you I’m afraid, he says, but I do need to know whether you saw him—

Well, I didn’t.

He folds his arms and looks at the clock.

Would you sign a statement to that effect?

Yes, I tell him. Yes, of course I would.

Lennie’s funeral is finally fixed for next Friday at two. Before then the church has got to be swept and waxed and polished.
Rosa and I go along after school to help, taking Livvy with us.

Polly’s in charge of the flowers. She’s getting them in specially from Yoxford. Which has annoyed Lyn Hewitt, the florist
from Winton’s. White lilies and Michaelmas daisies.
The lilies have got to be cut as late as possible on the Wednesday in the hope that they’ll stay fresh till the Friday.

They won’t, Lyn tells Barbara Anscombe, who relays the information back to Polly. They’ll be brown around the edges by the
start of Friday, you’ll see.

Liv is cutting a tooth and very scratchy, needing to be held all the time, but Rosa’s very good and helpful. She goes around
with a soft yellow duster and does the back of every pew with Pledge and then collects up the kneelers to give them a good
dust-bashing out in the porch.

Everyone notices how helpful she is.

I wish she could be like that always, I tell Polly. Or at least more of the time. I’d settle for that.

Oh, she’s a good girl, Ellie Penniston says. Reminds me of my niece at the same age, such a lovely girl. She died too, you
know, asthma attack.

I’m not dead! Rosa shouts from the porch.

She carries five kneelers at a time back into the church, struggling under the weight. Then she trails a duster over the walnut
chest by the altar.

Not you, darling, I tell her. She means Lennie.

Livvy starts to cry. I scoop her up.

Does everyone know someone who is dead, do you think? Rosa asks me as we stand and pile up the hymn books and prayer books
and watch the pale band of sun slip through the plain glass of the altar window.

Not everyone, I tell her, but many people, I suppose, yes.

Maggie sees us and comes over and gives me a hug. She says she’s glad the funeral’s happening at long last.

It’s like everything’s been on hold for so long, she says. I feel we just need to let go and say goodbye.

Rosa stares at her but no one notices.

I don’t know, says Polly who’s sitting in the choir stalls, going through the rota. I just don’t know if I can face it all
again. Just when life was finally getting back to normal. It sounds selfish, but I feel I’ve had enough grief to last me a
lifetime.

If only they’d caught him, Sally says. You know they’ve been talking to Darren Sims again?

No, I say, I didn’t know that.

Why are they talking to Darren Sims? Rosa asks me. Do they think he’s the murderer?

Of course not, I tell her. It’s too grown up to explain.

In my arms Liv has fallen asleep. Her weight hurts my shoulders. I ask Rosa to get the buggy from where we left it at the
back of the pews. Liv’s cheeks are scarlet and a glittery rope of dribble runs from the corner of her mouth to the bib around
her neck.

As I lay her in the buggy she startles and her fingers fly up and grab at a handful of air.

Alex is opening a can of beans. The kitchen smells of burnt toast. Washing-up is piled in the sink and about a week’s worth
of papers are on the table. He is trying hard to be a father on his own.

I don’t allow myself to feel pity, not today. I ignore the mess and pull out a chair, move a bunch of dirty dish towels off
it and sit down.

Hey, he says, that’s Lacey’s chair.

I look at him.

Joke, he says.

I keep my eyes on him.

I went to see Mawhinney, I tell him.

He looks at me coolly. Oh?

Yes, I tell him.

And?

And I don’t understand—

Don’t understand what? He turns down the gas under the pan.

All this stuff I find you’ve been telling him.

He frowns and pulls the toast out from under the grill. Turns it over just in time.

Really? What stuff?

Yes. Really, Al.

What do you mean, Tess? What stuff?

That we saw Darren Sims. Hanging around The Polecat. Is that what you told him?

Oh that, he says vaguely, yeah, well I probably did.

Probably?

OK. Definitely did.

He gives a little laugh.

Why?

He leans against the counter and looks at me.

Well, he says, slowly as if I’m a little stupid, because I did see him, believe it or not.

And me? You told him I did too?

I don’t recall. Maybe. I might’ve said ‘we’?

You did.

Ah—

According to him you did.

He says nothing, stirs the beans. The back door opens and shuts.

Now that really is Lacey, he says.

But I don’t turn around. I don’t do anything. Behind me, I feel him come in.

Tess is just interrogating me, Alex tells him.

Lacey doesn’t say anything. I turn and look at him. He is standing there holding his keys and a bunch of papers. Something
inside me tightens, curves. I turn back to Alex.

So did you? I ask him.

Did I what?

Did you really see Darren that night?

Alex looks solemnly at Lacey.

Yes, Tess, I did.

And you never said anything to me?

I don’t know, he says, I really don’t remember everything about that night—

I’m telling you, you didn’t.

Do you want me to go? Lacey asks, still standing there.

No, I say quickly, of course not.

Alex puts two plates on the table.

Jesus, he says, I mean maybe I’m the one who should go?

Don’t be so fucking stupid, I tell him.

He blinks.

He butters toast. Scraping butter on, scraping it off.

Come on Tess, he says, what’s the big deal? You don’t
have to protect young Darren from anything. The police are only interested in evidence. But if he was hanging around, then
they need to know.

If, I say and look at Lacey. I fold my arms and watch as he sits down at the table. I am glad to find I don’t blush.

Alex goes to the stairs and calls the boys.

When I left you, he says, when I left the hut to go home. He was waiting on the shingle in the dark. I thought you saw him
too.

Well I didn’t.

OK, so you didn’t. Sorry.

When I came out, there was no one there.

Alex shrugs.

So he’d gone—

Anyway, I tell him then, I don’t see what’s wrong with him hanging around there. I mean, so were you.

SCHOOL WILL BE CLOSED ON THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL
and so will just about every shop or small business in the town.

Alex is hoping that Lennie’s body will be released on the Wednesday and will spend that night and the following one at Sharman’s,
the undertakers in Halesworth. From there it will be collected and brought into town, but it won’t go straight to St Margaret’s.

It will come in down Station Road, Alex says. But, instead of going straight down the High Street in the normal way, it’ll
take a right across Barnaby Green and down Spinner’s Lane before taking the road out past the golf course and up to Blackshore.
There, it will make its slow way along the rough shale track, past the black-tarred, paint-peeling
fisherman’s huts and the chandlery stores, past the ferry and the crumbling harbour walls and the edge of the caravan site
and, finally, across the sand dunes and onto the beach.

Timetables have been checked. The tide will be out, so the hearse will, apart from where it has to skirt the groynes, be able
to travel over firm, damp sand as opposed to the shingle which, the undertaker worries, might play havoc with the tyres.

After about a mile, when it reaches the Tea Hut and the Sailors’ Reading Room it will have to stop because there’s no way
for a car to get up there. Then will come the even harder, even stranger bit. Six men—Alex, Mick, John Empson, Geoff Farr,
Kenneth Peach and Jack Abrahams, with Jim Dawson and (possibly, though yet to be confirmed) Vic Munro standing by as reserves—will
carry the coffin up the steps and onto East Cliff and back along the High Street, cutting across Bartholomew’s Green to the
church.

Most of the town will be waiting, either in the church or outside it in the graveyard. It’s lucky that St Margaret’s—the finest
medieval seaside church in England, the guidebooks call it—is so vast. Everyone can squeeze in. And just about everyone, it’s
thought, will want to.