Marshmallows for Breakfast (6 page)

I knew what I should be doing, but I couldn't. This was how nightmares began. How I became immersed in a horror I couldn't stop. A moment when the sense of disaster began whispering in my ear, writing across my chest. If I moved, it might become a reality. If I didn't move, I could be wrong. Kids were always being woken up by bad dreams that made them cry. Dreams that drove them out of their beds and into their parents’ rooms. I could be wrong about this.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

Summer rubbed at her eye with the palm of her hand. She was so pale the dark green and blue veins that branched out from her neck and curved over her jaw line stood out like jagged, badly penned tattoos. Jaxon continued to suck at his thumb, his line of sight never straying from my feet.

Even as I willed her to say “I had a bad dream” my heart rate began to gallop. Speeding in my chest, faster than it had when I turned on the light a few minutes ago. It battered in my ears, pounded in my head, drummed in my throat.
Please say bad dream, please say bad dream.

“You have to come to our house,” Summer said, her voice
so weary it sounded as though it was about to collapse under the weight of its troubles.

“Why?” I asked.

Her eyes persisted in staring through me, as her small rosebud lips opened. “You have to come to our house,” Summer repeated. “My daddy won't wake up.”

CHAPTER 5

W
ill he be blue?

Lying on the sofa? On the floor? Was it his heart? Did someone get in the house and do something to him? Did he decide it was all too much and end it all? Will he be cold? How long has he been gone?
These thoughts circled my head like a flock of bloodthirsty vultures as I walked across the courtyard. I'd never seen a dead body before. Why did this have to be the first?

With gentle verbal prodding and coaxing, I'd managed to get an explanation from Summer as to what had happened. Jaxon had stayed shrouded in his silence, his thumb still in his mouth, although he closely monitored my reaction to their story. Summer had heard a noise downstairs when she woke up. She went to her dad's room to ask him what the noise was but found his bed empty. So she'd gone to get Jaxon and, together, they'd gone to investigate. The noise was the television. Their dad was lying on the sofa and the television was on. Summer had shaken him, tried to wake him up to tell him he'd left the television on. But nothing. Jaxon tried. They shook him. They called his name, but nothing. They'd sat down on the floor, waiting for him to wake up, had gone back to sleep beside him, but he hadn't woken up. In the end they'd decided to come and get me. To see if I could wake him up. They'd used a chair to stand on to open and unlock the back door, then had come over to my flat. Used the spare keys— they knew where they were kept—to get in.

Once I'd heard the story, all the while feeling ice-cold fear trickling in a thin, steady stream down my spine, I'd asked the kids to wait for me in my living area, flicked on the tele vision, found some early morning cartoons for them and went to change. I could have worn the jogging bottoms, T-shirt and black fleece that I slept in, but I'd decided to get dressed to give myself time to prepare. To steady myself. With trembling hands I'd pulled on underwear, jeans, T-shirt and a black V-neck sweater. All the while,
You should have done something, you should have done something. You should have done somethingwas
the thought being screamed over and over in my ears.

If I'd just gone over yesterday, talked to him, talked to them, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

Dressed but no less terrified, I'd returned to the living room. The first thing that hit me was the scent of alcohol. It wasn't strong or overpowering, simply a waft of the slightly stale, acidic smell that caught my nose. I hadn't had a drink since I'd moved in, there was no alcohol in the flat, so why did the living room smell of booze? Beer. Yes, beer. I'd glanced at the kids, but they hadn't moved, were sitting in the same position, staring blank-eyed at the television.

I'd sniffed again and it was gone.

After I told their blank faces to wait for me in the flat and that I'd be back soon, I'd started my trip across the courtyard. It was only a few meters, but in reality it was the journey of a lifetime. A journey that would change my life forever. Once I'd seen Kyle's body—a dead body—that would be it. There'd be no going back to the person I was before. That moment would be one of those indelible marks on my soul. Another scar that would never quite heal. God knows what it had already done to the two six-year-olds waiting in the flat.

As I approached, I saw their maple wood back door was
still ajar from where they'd left and I gently pushed it open, taking a deep breath. The house was still as I stepped over the threshold, my heart racing in my ears, a loud drumbeat that drowned out everything. I was holding my breath, I realized as I crossed the wooden-floored kitchen, moving to the far door, the door that led to the corridor. I stopped, forced myself to exhale, forced myself to start breathing. A ragged, shallow in-and-out that resided in the upper part of my chest, it was the best I could do, but at least it was breathing. The stripped wood flooring continued out of the kitchen into the corridor, pointing me towards Kyle. At the end of the corridor was the front door with the chain slung across as security. It didn't look as if someone had broken in. A few steps in front of the front door was the staircase, and in the space between the staircase and front door was another door, which was shut. Closer to where I was, to my left there was another door that was open. I guessed that was where he was. I couldn't imagine the kids shutting the door behind them as they left to get me.

As I moved closer to the open door it occurred to me that I should call the police. But the need to know was stronger than going through the formalities. Once I knew, had confirmed what the three of us suspected, I'd know how to treat the children. I'd think of something to say, some way to protect them until this part was over. I didn't want a police officer, a complete stranger, to tell them. I was a virtual stranger, but not a total stranger.

At the doorway I hesitated, wondering if I should think again. Go call the police. They were trained to do this sort of thing, I wasn't. I was trained to recruit people, not deal with …

Summer and Jaxon's emptied faces came to mind. The hollowness of their stares, the hopelessness smoothed over their expressions. They'd already done this. They had no
choice in the matter.
If they can do it, so can you,
I scolded myself.

The living room was incredibly large. It used to be two rooms—a domed archway marking the wall that had been removed to create one bright airy space. There was a dining area at the back, in the living area there were two sofas and two armchairs, all in a soft- looking burnt- butter leather, arranged in a square facing the television, which was squawking noisily by the window.

I saw the soles of his feet first. On the sofa nearest the door, his feet were facing towards the door, one slightly crossed over the other, the left foot on top. My heart all but froze as I looked at the network of small lines on his feet. I opened my mouth, started breathing heavily, trying to calm myself and at the same time not pitch forwards into hyperventilating. I was on that knife-edge between pure calm and total hysteria. And then it happened. It clicked in. I lost all feeling in my body as I decided to leave. I went to that place, that little corner where I was always safe. Always calm. Always protected. Protected from every nasty little thing in the world.

None of this was difficult anymore because I wasn't scared. I could do this. I had to, so I was going to. I stepped forwards, one foot in front of the other, aware with every step, every move forwards, of the overpowering smell of alcohol that saturated the air.

I continued to take more steps right towards the center of the room until I was closer to the sofa. And, oh, my, God. Oh my
God!

The area around the sofa was crammed with bottles and bottles of alcohol. Bottles and cans of alcohol. Small green flasks of gin, large clear bottles of vodka, amber bottles of whiskey, brown bottles of beer, a few green bottles of white wine, a couple of dark bottles of red wine. A smattering of
cans. Mainly spirits, though. They were like a moat around the sofa. That was why my flat smelled of it—the scent had clung to Summer and Jaxon, hitched a ride on their clothes, twisted itself into the strands of their hair and the pores of their skin. Amongst the sea of booze bottles and cans I could make out the two crescent shapes the kids had made so they could lie down beside their father. Lie down and wait for their father—who had quite clearly and purposefully drunk himself to death—to wake up.

If I hadn't been around they might have stayed like that, curled up beside their dead father for hours, if not days.

My attention moved to Kyle.

He was motionless, frozen in the last position he'd been in before the final gulp that ended his life took effect.

His body was stretched out on the sofa, his back flat against the seat, his head almost tipped upright and to one side against the armrest. One of his arms lay at his side, the other trailed down off the sofa, hanging down amongst the detritus from the night before.

His clothes were rumpled, his light blue shirt tugged out of his sand- colored trousers from, I presumed, where Summer and Jaxon had tried to shake him awake. His skin was the pale grey of clouds before a storm, but not blue. I'd expected him to be blue if he'd been
gone
for a while, but I couldn't know for sure. I stared hard at his chest, watching to see if it rose or not. I stared and stared, but nothing. He didn't seem to be breathing. And there was an unnerving stillness about him. A stillness that was like a smooth, silky sheet of lifelessness that lay over him and the room.

The only way to tell for sure if he was …
gone
would be to touch him. To check for a pulse. I stepped forwards, and unbidden, my mouth flooded with saline. Even though my mind was elsewhere, my body was still reacting as it would in this situation if I was behaving consciously. The smell of
alcohol was stirring up a nauseating brew with fear in the pit of my stomach. I had to force myself not to heave. Once I'd done this, once I'd checked, I could move on. Get on with things. Think what to say to the kids, call the police.

Picking a path through the bottles, I went towards him, stopped within touching distance.

Deep breath.

Do it. Do it now. Do it and get it over with.

My hand shook uncontrollably as I reached out for him, aiming for the grey area of exposed skin just above the neck of his blue shirt. I forced myself to look, to make sure I was touching the right place, and I held my breath even though breathing was the only thing that stopped bile spilling out of my mouth. My fingers made contact with his flesh. Surprisingly, it was warm. But I tried not to think too much about it. A body didn't just go cold, it must cool down slowly as the blood that was warming it up, the chemical reactions that kept its heat constant, stopped. I slid my fingers up, aiming for the point under his jaw.

“Nuugh!”
Kyle murmured suddenly, shrugging off my hand, as though swatting away a fly.

“JESUS CHRIST!”
I screamed inside and stumbled backwards, crashing into a few bottles, knocking over a couple of half-drunk cans and spilling their pale liquid onto the carpet. I kept stumbling until, clear of the debris, I lost my fight for balance and fell, landing hard on my backside.

I sat, chest heaving, staring at him, waiting for him to react to the sound of clashing bottles, to open his eyes, to sit up, to acknowledge he'd just taken another ten years off my life. Nothing. Having scared me half to death, having scared his kids half to death, the bastard continued to peacefully float his way through his pissed up, passed out dreamland.

I sat watching Kyle sleep. His body was like a long muscular thread stretched out on the burnt- butter leather sofa.

In all the time that had elapsed since I found out he was alive—pissed, but alive—he hadn't moved. I'd been back to the flat to tell the children that he was OK. I'd explained to them at length their father was only sleeping. He was very, very tired, a grown-up type of tired that meant it took a lot to wake up. I'd also explained he'd wake up on his own soon, but until then we'd go back to their house and get on with our Monday. They'd watched me with impassive eyes, didn't ask questions, didn't—if truth be told—seem to need my long- winded explanation. They'd only seemed to need to know that he was OK and that they could go home. As they'd moved towards the stairs, I'd hung behind to turn off the television and a glint of green glass peeking out from behind a sofa cushion had caught my eye. Curious, I'd moved towards it, picked up the cushion and found an empty bottle of beer, lying on its side, nestled in the crease between the sofa back and the sofa seat. I'd snatched away the next cushion and found another one. And another one under the third cushion.