The Messengers (5 page)

We’d walk home together, and he’d sit on the end of my bed and tell me stories about our dad. I would look at Johnny and see myself reflected twice in his shades. Then we’d watch
Home and Away
.

According to Johnny, our dad had walked across America holding two bricks by his fingers, and — although it wasn’t in the
Guinness Book of World Records
because of an error — that was one of the most grueling tests a man could endure. “Once, before you were born,” Johnny said, “we were riding through the countryside in the Citroën, and Mum said to Dad, ‘What’s for dinner?’ and Dad said, ‘Lamb.’ He jumped out of the car, hopped over a fence, picked up a sheep from this field, and stuffed it in the trunk.”

When he wore his parka, my dad could make it look as though his head had turned 360 degrees. He could recall the names of all the kings and queens of England, and every capital city in the world. “He was smart, you see. That’s where you get it from,” Johnny would say. “I got the brick-carrying gene.”

I spent a good deal of my childhood with this image of my dad as a charming, record-breaking scamp. A man who leaped over fences and stored history. A master of optical illusions. Maybe after the head-turning trick, I thought, he’d just made himself disappear. But I could see the love in Johnny’s eyes when he told the stories.

That night, I fell asleep in Auntie Lizzie’s house, imagining Johnny’s weight on the end of my bed, like in the old days. But in my dreams, I felt Peter Kennedy’s big hands on my hips and ankles, the way he’d grabbed me on the beach. In my dreams, I couldn’t figure out if I was scared or excited.

I woke a few hours later to the sound of quick, heavy footsteps on the landing. I half expected Peter Kennedy to smash through my door. I poked my head out and saw the toilet light on across the landing. Auntie Lizzie, in her nightdress, was holding on to Max, who was bent over the bath, puking.

“Robert!” she shouted.

Uncle Robert came out onto the landing in his boxer shorts and a faded T-shirt, his hair genuinely a mess. “Max! What’s going on?” he said. “Have you been drinking?”

“He’s been in the house all night, Robert,” Auntie Lizzie said.

“Is everything OK?” I asked.

Auntie Lizzie turned around, and her expression showed me that it wasn’t. “It’s fine, Frances, yes. It’ll be fine. A spot of food poisoning, probably.”

She turned back to Max, and I caught a glimpse of his face. His eyes were rolling back in his head. He was sick again.

“Oh, God, Robert,” Auntie Lizzie said. “He’s bringing up blood.”

“It’s his stomach lining,” Uncle Robert said. His voice had softened up. He was worried. “Should we call someone, Liz?”

I backed away into the bedroom, took out my kit bag and retrieved the crumpled drawing. I looked at the image of a cat, its neck clamped between the jaws of a dog. I thought back to what Peter Kennedy had said. Surely he couldn’t be right. Could it be
me
doing this? Was I killing Max by not delivering the message? Listening to Max struggling for breath, it was suddenly possible to believe him. There wasn’t much of a decision to make. I slipped on my shoes — still wet from the sea — and went downstairs with the picture.

When I opened the big steel fridge, the light and the cold flooded the kitchen. The tuna salad was still in there, under tin foil. I took it out and made my way quickly through the house and into the cool street.

The pavement still held a little of the day’s heat, and the streetlights looked like honey and lemon Lockets. I wandered around and sucked my lips to make that noise that pet people make. I’d left the front door open, and I could hear Uncle Robert talking on the phone, outright panic in his voice now.
He must be calling the ambulance
, I thought.

“Here, kitty,” I said. I took the foil off the salad and picked out the flakes of tuna, crumbled them between my fingers. “Here, kitty, kitty. Come on. Please, come on.”

I was shaking now. I suddenly had a vision of Max as a little boy, his big shaggy hair. “Come on, you stupid cat!” I shouted into the street.

The cat came out from between two cars, meowing, its mouth so wide I could see its pink tongue. I shook some tuna off my hand onto the pavement, and the cat licked it up. I put out my fingers, and it chewed at the little gray bits of fish. Its teeth were like hot needles, but I didn’t mind.

“There you go, puss,” I said.

I smoothed out the drawing on my thigh and saw the scene for the last time.

A workman in a cap.

A scruffy-looking man in his thirties.

An old woman behind a half-open door, terrified.

A dog, a cat.

“I’m very sorry, but this has got to be done,” I said as I showed the drawing to the cat. I was struck suddenly by how mad this was. As if
this
could kill anything. As if
I
could save Max. The cat lifted one front leg and pawed at the picture, but then got back to the important business of eating its surprise fish supper. I held the picture out until my arm got tired, and I felt a sort of calm come over me. The street was so peaceful. Just the swish of leaves and the hiss of cars from the main road. Somehow I knew it had worked.

The doomed cat walked past me, pressing its body against my shin, like they do. I stood up in time to see Robert stomping out into the front garden in his flip-flops, his mobile phone pressed to his ear. “I called eight minutes ago,” he was saying. “We’re a four-minute drive from the hospital. . . . What? Yes, I understand that, but this is terrible. Our boy is . . . Yes. I know you are. I’m sorry. Two minutes, OK. Thank you.”

He ended the call and put his head in his hands. Then he saw me. “Frances. What are you doing? Are you . . . ? You’re feeding a cat. Frances, Max is very sick. I hardly think this is the time to . . .”

I smiled at him and walked over. “He’s gonna be all right, Uncle Robert. It’s gonna be fine. I promise.”

He looked at me in a sort of dumb shock. It was like all of the fight had gone out of him, and he had accepted that he had no control over the world.
He
didn’t. I put my hand on his arm because I felt sorry for him, and then I walked back into the house and up the stairs. I didn’t rush. With every moment that passed, I became more certain that there was no longer any cause for alarm. Sure enough, when I got to the landing, Max was slumped against the bath with a sopping facecloth on his forehead, and Auntie Lizzie was running her fingers through his wet hair. It looked like he was meditating. Perfectly well, perfectly at peace.

I went to bed, shuddering. The ambulance arrived, then left. I lay there, exhausted and sleepless.

In the morning, I sneaked into Max’s room and sat on his bed. If you looked hard enough, you could see the clues to the little boy he used to be: the windup false teeth on his bedside table, the corner of a wall chart identifying different kinds of beetles sticking out from under his Death Cab for Cutie poster, a box in the corner full of toys. A radio-controlled car with Han Solo sprawled across the bonnet.

“Maxi,” I whispered.

He stirred from his sleep and licked his lips. It was early. “What is it?” he said, squinting.

“I just wanted to make sure you were OK,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you sure?”

“I feel . . .” He yawned. “I feel incredible,” he said.

I smiled and pinched his cheek. “Good. Listen, Karate Kid, will you teach me how to do that mind-control thing sometime?”

“It takes many years to understand the ways of —”

“Knock it off! I’m a fast learner, Maxwell. You’d be surprised.”

“OK, young apprentice,” he said in the voice of a slow-talking mentor. “I will school you in the ways of the kendo masters. But first, I must sleep.”

I pulled the duvet down over his toes, went back to my room, and sat by the window.

I didn’t want to watch what was about to unfold, but I told myself that I had to. I needed to know if any of this was real. As time drifted by, I became more and more certain that Peter Kennedy’s ideas were crazy and that Max throwing up was just a weird coincidence.

The street was fairly quiet but for the wind. Helmstown was at the mercy of the weather, and so far it had been a rubbish summer. There was a van parked at the end of the road, and a workman in a big baseball cap got out, coughing. I couldn’t see the cat anywhere, but I could feel its presence behind the parked cars.

I recognized the crusty guy who came round the corner from my drawing. His dog waddled just behind him. I took a deep breath. The guy was on his mobile, and I could hear him through the window. “For Jesus’ sake, Mum, it’s fifty quid.You’re not gonna miss it. . . . ” Suddenly I hated him.

The dog got a move on and galloped away from its owner. I didn’t turn my head to watch.

My heart was hammering now. I heard the dog barking and the cat hissing. Then the cat screeched once and its voice was taken. Still I didn’t look. Instead, I watched the face of the workman change to horror as he looked over at the developing scene. He began to run toward the noise.

“Milo, no!” the crusty guy shouted. “No! Get off him!”

I heard a front door open, and the old woman came out. I didn’t need to look at her, because I’d seen her in the picture. I’d seen her broken features. “Stop! Stop him! It’s killing my cat! My baby! Oh, God!”

I heard the door slam and then open again. The old woman was too frail to take on the dog. She could barely watch, but she couldn’t look away.

I heard the growl of the dog.

I heard the workman shouting.

The pathetic voice of the crusty guy. “Milo, no! Oh, Jesus! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

I heard the workman’s hand slapping the dog’s hide.

The woman still screaming.

I knew without looking: my picture was complete.

“Let go!” the workman said. “Come on, boy. I mean it.”

The cat landed softly. I heard the gentle thud. There was no mistaking it. The old woman moaned. The crusty guy apologized and then kicked his dog.

“Watch it, you!” the workman said. “People like you shouldn’t be allowed to keep dogs. I saw it happen, so if she wants to report you, I’m a witness.”

But I was the real witness. The witness and the killer. I had seen it all long before anyone else had. I had made it happen.

My plan for the rest of the day was this: to stay in my room and not kill anything. That afternoon, Auntie Lizzie gave up trying to coax me downstairs and came in. She sat at the end of the bed with a small envelope.

“Any news about Johnny?” I asked.

“No. I called your mum today and she said —”

“She picked up the phone for you?”

“Well . . . yes . . . but only because . . . I suppose I just called at the right time of day.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

“She probably wants to keep you out of it.”

“I don’t want to be
kept out of it
. What did she say? Has Johnny been in touch?”

“No,” Lizzie said. She opened her mouth to speak again but didn’t. We were quiet for a moment.

“Mum doesn’t think he’s coming back, does she?” I said.

“You know what she’s like. She hardly ever looks on the bright side.”

“You don’t seem very optimistic yourself, Auntie Lizzie.”

She sighed and took some photos out of the envelope. “I thought these photographs might cheer you up,” she said.

Johnny dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle carrying little old me in his green arms; Mum wearing boxing gloves, pretending to fight little Johnny, who was standing on the sofa at Nana’s house in Whiteslade; Mum, me, and Nana in our cozzies on the beach, pouting like beauty queens. There were a couple taken inside the little shed near Nana’s house that Johnny used as a gym, and I laughed at the one of me hanging off Johnny’s bicep, all the press cuttings and boxing quotes stuck to the wall behind us. There was another little sign hung on the wall, too, and Lizzie put on her glasses to read it. “God Bless This Mess.”

“God bless it,” I said, staring at Johnny and me in the shed. “Can I keep this one?”

“It’s yours,” Auntie Lizzie said. She kissed me on the head and left the room.

That’s when I started to feel the weariness again. It’s the first sign. Your limbs go heavy. I got up from the bed and opened the window, but the fresh air didn’t pep me up much. Then I started to smell smoke, just as I had done before. It smells like the aftermath of a firework. I tried to shout. I wasn’t calling for help. I was just angry and afraid.

I managed to get to the bed before my sight started to go.

When I fully surfaced, I was on the floor, with my sketch pad open. An hour had passed. The drawing was sharper this time, and more disturbing. “Please, God,” I said quietly. In the picture, there was an old man lying still at the bottom of a bath, his mouth open, his perfect teeth bared, his lips dark, the water covering his open eyes. It was difficult to believe something so complicated had come from my own hands. The other sketches in my pad were pitiful in comparison. It was the best, and worst, thing I’d ever done. I threw it across the room and backed away as if the sketch pad were some poisonous creature.

I knew that I needed help, and I knew there was only one person I could go to. Whether I wanted to or not.