The Memory Game (4 page)

Suddenly, a
shadow moves across the window. Quick and quiet like a wraith. I’m thinking
maybe the caretaker, but even though I only saw it for a second, it seemed too small
and thin to be Mr Allen. I get up and go to look out of the window.  It
looks like a kid – I can’t see who but they have a short jacket showing their
skinny legs and a too-big rucksack slung across a shoulder. Still hanging
around school after five?  No after-school clubs here; a rural school is
too badly staffed for that sort of torture so the kids go home at three. 
That makes the person still wandering around a
saddo
or a ghost.  I’m going with
saddo
.  I can’t
pop from place to place like ghosts do on the telly, but I can push myself
through the wall and I do. 

As the figure
passes under a security lamp I can see that the rucksack has flowers on it so I
must be following a girl.  I might be dead, but why change the habit of a
lifetime? Her breath unfurls in a white plume as her figure is briefly lit. She
has the tiniest shoulders and an odd, awkward stride, like her boots don’t fit
properly. There’s only one set of footsteps clicking on the concrete path and
the distorted whoosh of the traffic from the road in the distance, otherwise,
there’s cold silence. 

Round by the
back of the kitchens there are huge metal bins next to the fence.  Once,
Matt and
Paulie
chucked a year seven in one of them.
We couldn’t stop laughing because every time the kid tried to get out, he just
slid right back down again. The girl ducks behind one of them and I follow to
see there’s a gap in the wire. She squeezes through it and onto the playing
fields.

 I keep a
good distance but I carry on following.  I’m not sure why, but it suddenly
feels like I’m intruding on her privacy. She’s walking slowly.  She either
doesn’t really know where to go, or she does, and really doesn’t want to get
there. I sort of know how she feels. But then the fields are black as anything
the further you get from the lights of the school, so maybe she’s only walking
slowly because she can’t see where she’s going properly.

At the far end
of the playing fields is another fence. She walks the line of it and I follow.
After a while, she stops and pulls apart another bit of loose wire, then she
ducks through it and out onto the road. What the hell does Mr Allen do all
day?  Not fix fencing, that’s for sure.  Under the yellow glow of the
streetlamps now she turns suddenly and freezes.  It’s Bethany
Willis.  I shrink back into the shadows and she faces forwards again,
picking up her pace. I’m not sure if she knows I’m here but I think she
does.  She glances back and this time I don’t hide. She walks even faster,
and then starts a panicked half-run, her backpack slapping against her as she
goes. I run too. I could shout
,
tell her that she
doesn’t have to be scared of me, but I don’t think it would make any
difference. So I stop running and let her go. I watch her rush down the lane
that leads to the small cluster of council houses on the outskirts of the
village, until she becomes a speck to be swallowed by the dark.

Do I follow
her?  I’m guessing that she lives in one of those houses but I don’t know
which one.  And I feel pretty bad now for freaking her out so much in
assembly. Even if she talks to me, how do I explain that?
But she can see
me.
For a few minutes, I don’t do anything; I just stand there looking into
the darkness. I know she won’t talk to me, but I can’t seem to stop my feet
from starting out on the road after her.

There are only ten houses on this
stretch, overlooking a road and a scrubby field. There’s a lone, skinny horse
standing on the field eyeing me warily. Animals seem to be able to see me, or
if they don’t, somehow they know I’m there. 
Which makes
me even more confused about
Bethany
.
Not that I think she’s a horse or anything. But out of all
the people who are important to me, none of them see me, and this one girl who
means nothing can. The houses are all painted white - at least, they probably
used to be white, though not one of them is any longer.  Now, in the
gloom, they look grey with the feeling of army barracks rather than homes.
They’re grouped in twos that mirror each other.  I could easily get
through each front door and see who lives there but it suddenly seems like a
boundary that I shouldn’t cross so I sit on a wall and stare up at the curtain
covered lights at the windows. She won’t come out again tonight, I suppose.
It’s probably cold out here, though I can’t feel it.  I don’t even see my
breath in the air.  But if I was cosy in one of those houses I wouldn’t
come out, not for anything. And certainly not if I thought a dead kid was
stalking me.

I gave up waiting for Bethany
and came to look at my grave instead.  I wish I could remember how long
I’ve been dead, but it’s hard to keep track of time when the days all feel the
same.  There’s nothing here yet to mark me, so maybe it’s not all that
long. Though, I suppose Mum hasn’t got enough money; I remember when Dad died
it took her ages to get the money together for a gravestone.  She told
Roger about it once too and he just tutted and looked like he cared but I know
he didn’t.  The graveyard looks different tonight than it did on the day
of my funeral, somehow barren and deserted, like all the people buried here
have been forgotten. In the summer it looks nicer, a warm green canopy
overhanging the crooked rows of stones and the lazy buzzing of insects filling
the air. I’ve even hung out here from time to time with Matt, sitting on the
ancient fallen stones by the wall and laughing at stupid jokes. Tonight the
bare branches look sort of
mournful,
at least they do
to me. Mum has put some new stuff on the mound of earth where I am, things that
had been in my bedroom, so I know it’s mine. I think some kids from school have
been here too, there are teddies and flowers and messages from them. I wonder
who left
them,
because I’m pretty sure nobody liked me
enough to buy teddies for me.  I bend down to have a look at a white
fluffy bear.  There’s a card attached to it and I reach for it but my hand
goes through, of course. Sometimes, I still forget that I’m made of nothing
now. I try to read the card, but in the dim light from the road, I can’t make
out the letters. Sitting on the ground, I huddle into my shirt and stare at the
pile of stuff.  I’m not cold, just my soul is, I think.  It’s funny
to think that underneath that plot is a pile of mashed up old meat that used to
be me. I wouldn’t want to see it,
though,
I think it
would be gross.  

It’s so quiet
here that I start to hum, just to break it. The words of
Lucky
pop into
my head and I sing them.

I’m on a
roll,

I’m on a
roll, this time,

I feel my
luck could change…

It doesn’t
matter,
after all, nobody can hear me. It starts off sad, but
then I sort of like it.

Pull me out
of the air crash

Pull me out
of the lake

‘
Cause
I’m your superhero…

I don’t know
how long has passed in the graveyard.  I don’t feel like singing any more so
I curl up and lie next to the toys and gifts and things from my room and watch
the thinnest clouds race across the sky, flitting over the stars, swallowing
the moon and then spitting it out, over and over.  

Now I’m sitting next to Dad. 
Or rather, what’s left of
Dad.
  His stone has
been here for three years. It’s not like the really old ones further over near
the church, where the letters have worn away, but moss is already growing
around the base.  His name still stands out in gold lettering on the black
stone –
Sean David
Cottle
– I can see it
plainly in the moonlight.  I came to look at it on the day of my funeral,
but I hadn’t been for a long time before then.  Mum came down a lot,
before Roger.  I sort of thought that if I didn’t see the gravestone, then
it wouldn’t be true and my dad wouldn’t be dead. I suppose that’s pretty
stupid.

‘Hey, Dad.’

I listen to the
silence that echoes back at me. I wonder where he is now.  I wonder if he
can hear me and see me like I can hear and see everyone else. Why can’t I hear
and see him if he’s dead too? What happened to make me different?

‘I’m fed up,
Dad. I’m sick of wandering around this village all the time like a shadow. I
don’t want to be here anymore. Please talk to me; please say that I get to go
where you are soon.’

I close my eyes
tight and wait for him to reply.

But nothing comes. 

I’m outside Bethany’s
again this morning, waiting for her to come out for school.  I figured I
might try to apologise, if she stops long enough to let me, and then maybe she’ll
talk to my mum for me.  Maybe she even knows about my dad, or she can at
least tell me what’s going on.  I’m not sure what she is or why she can
see me, but it has to mean something. I’m sitting on the same wall as I did
last night.  I tried to talk to the horse earlier but it just looked at
me, blew a great smelly plume from its nose and walked off. Does that mean it’s
scared of me or just bored?

After the
graveyard last night, I wandered over to Ingrid’s house for a while. I thought
about going in, but I knew that Matt was there and I wasn’t sure if I’d like
what I found.  It’d drive me mental, seeing him all over her again.
Instead, I went home to see what Mum and Roger were doing. 

Roger had bought
mum takeout curry.  I suppose he was trying to cheer her up. It smelt good
to me, even though I wasn’t hungry. She didn’t eat much, she just pushed it
around her plate and said sorry but she was feeling a bit sick.  He looked
annoyed but he didn’t say anything, he just took her plate away and chucked it
all in the bin. Then he went to bed and she started crying again.  I sat
next to her for a while and told her that she would feel better soon, but I
don’t know if that’s true.

Later, when Mum
had fallen asleep on the sofa, I checked out my room.  It was a lot
cleaner and emptier than last time I saw it.  A lot of my stuff was
stacked in bin bags piled against the wall, the bed had been stripped and the
curtains had been taken down. I suppose Mum wanted to wash them. I suppose
she’ll want to redecorate it soon. I sat in there for a while, but even that
doesn’t feel like home now that it’s all cleared out.

When I’d had
enough of that I walked the streets and then out to the fields at the edge of
the village.  All the while I was alive I never noticed the amazing stuff
just beyond the tiny circle of my existence.  Like the rabbits I saw
playing, and the badger, and the slug dragging a sparkling trail across a dock
leaf.  Even the streets of the village have their own sort of beauty at
night, still and silent, as if they’re holding their breath for the new day.
And then the dawn.
  The last sunrise I watched was the
one just after I’d died.  It wasn’t the best, to be honest.  This
morning, the clouds tore open and the sun set them on fire in pink and orange
and this time I wasn’t staring down at my mangled body while all that drama was
going on in the sky, I just stood and watched. It’s funny how it takes death to
make you appreciate things like that.

The row of
houses where Bethany lives looks even worse in the grey daylight than it did
last night – you can see just how dirty the paintwork is and how overgrown the
gardens are.  A couple of them at the end look ok.  I hope Bethany
lives in one of them or my mum might not take too kindly to her. 

A cracked yellow
door, the paintwork coming away in strips, opens at one of the middle houses.
It’s probably the scruffiest one of the lot. Bethany
looks straight at me and freezes. I try to smile, but maybe it looks a bit
sinister because she doesn’t smile back, and she seems absolutely terrified
now.  She races down the steps, so fast she almost trips, and then turns
and starts to walk really quickly towards school.

‘Bethany…’
I start to follow her but she doesn’t look round. ‘Bethany,
wait!’ I jog to catch up.  My footsteps make no noise but she walks faster
anyway, even though she hasn’t looked back, like she somehow knows I’m running
after her.

‘Bethany,
I don’t want to scare you, I just want to talk to you.’

She stops, turns
around and glances up and down the deserted lane, biting her lip and fiddling
with the strap of her rucksack. Then she looks at me and opens her mouth like
she might say something but quickly turns around and carries on walking, only
slower now.  I catch up and walk at her side.  She keeps staring
straight ahead as she goes. 

‘I know you can
hear me,’ I say.  I try to grab her arm but my hand goes clean through.
 She doesn’t even shiver and she carries on walking without looking at me,
so I suppose she didn’t feel a thing. My heart feels like someone just ripped
it from my dead chest.  No touching, not even Bethany Willis.

‘Please… Bethany…
just tell me that I’m right, that you can see me…’

She doesn’t look
at me and doesn’t reply.

‘Come on, Bethany. 
Tell me you can see me and I’ll get off your case. I just want to know, that’s
all.’

She finally
stops and looks me straight in the eye. ‘Why can’t you leave me alone?’ Her
eyes are shining, like she has tears in them.

‘I… I’m sorry…’
I stammer. ‘I’m lonely.’ This admission surprises even me.  Bored, I
thought, but I never realised that maybe I was confusing boredom with
loneliness.  Now that I’ve said it, I know it’s true. Seeing everyone else
getting on with their normal everyday lives – curry and
snogging
and messing around in assembly – and me on the outside, no one even knowing I’m
there; it hurts more than anything ever hurt when I was alive.  If there
is a hell, I think maybe this is it.  ‘I just don’t know what to do,’ I
say.