The Story of Before (30 page)

Dad handed Kev to me as soon as I stepped into the hall. ‘Your mother phoned earlier on,’ he said, his voice all flat and grim. ‘I’m going to collect her now. Can I trust
you to look after your brother for an hour or so?’

I nodded.

‘And I want to talk to you when we get back.’

I didn’t need to be told what it’d be about.

Kev bawled when Dad left. I could tell it was because of the fight. It wasn’t his usual cry – the screechy, whiny one that made me want to plug my ears and dive
into the hall cupboard. It was more like what you’d call sobbing or weeping, and his eyes were filled with a sadness I’d never seen in him before. It was like he’d just figured
out there were other people in the world besides himself, and he wasn’t the only one who could feel pain. He looked more like Dad than ever, and as the tears streaked down his cheeks, it was
almost like watching Dad cry.

The others had been told to hoover the sitting room and give the place a general tidy up before Mam came back, and they knew from the tone of Dad’s voice not to argue. They didn’t
know about the fight but Sandra said Dad’s nose looked funny and she asked what had happened. I wasn’t in the mood for explaining so I said I’d tell her about it later.

I had a feeling that a lot of things would be out in the open once Mam and Dad came back from Auntie Cissy’s.

I couldn’t calm Kev. No matter how many faces I pulled or toys I showed him or funny noises I made, he continued to cry. After a while, his sobs turned shivery, rippling through his body
and causing loud, shuddery sounds to escape from his throat. I knew the only thing that might make him stop would be to put him in his pushchair and take him for a walk. The appearance of a dog or
a flock of birds was usually enough to have him smiling again. I told the others I was going and they looked relieved; even the hoover didn’t mask the sound of Kev’s crying.

It was beginning to get a bit chilly, but by the time I realized it, I’d reached the top of the lane and I figured it was too late to go back to get Kev’s coat. I knew it’d be
dark soon anyway so we wouldn’t be out for long. As the pushchair rattled down the lane, the sight of a scrawny black cat put a smile on Kev’s face and he finally began to quieten
down.

All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind. I wondered what Mam and Dad would talk about on the car journey home. Would Mam sit there in silence, holding all the things I’d said about Dad
and Liz inside, making Dad ask her what the shaggin’ hell was wrong? Would Dad tell her about the fight on the green, leaving out the bit where Shayne said he didn’t know what his ma
saw in him? Or maybe he’d say nothing and just pretend he’d been horsing around with Kev and that’s how he’d got the bump on his nose. And I thought about how it’d all
be different once they came home. Dad had said he wanted to have a talk.

The truth – whatever it was – was going to come out. I knew it.

Things had gone too far to be kept secret now.

I walked through Churchview Park then out onto the path that ran around the church grounds and, before I realized it, I was heading through the gates of the graveyard. Kev was asleep now, his
head lolling to one side and his arms and legs dangling out of the pushchair like a rag doll. I knew Mam would probably go mad because I’d allowed him to fall asleep so late in the day, but
the poor thing was exhausted from all the crying and he needed a bit of a rest.

The graveyard was deserted. All the Sunday visitors had long gone. Fresh flowers had been left at the graves: cellophaned bouquets of pink roses; bunches of bluebells and buttercups stuffed into
jam jars; wreaths of red and white carnations. The air was soaked with the scent of them all and as I pushed Kev past the rows of grey headstones, it was as if we were cutting through a thick mist
of expensive perfume. I breathed it in deeply, its sweetness rushing up my nostrils, filling my lungs and filtering up to my brain. It made me kind of light-headed and woozy, and my legs wobbled
slightly as I walked deeper into the middle of the graveyard. I turned a corner and stopped beside a tree, its branches like an umbrella over my head. Closing my eyes, I leaned against the thick
trunk, feeling the hard, knobbled bark pressing into my back.

Everything was going to change once I got back home. There’d be no pretending any more. The wave of something bad was almost on the shore now. I could feel it. I could hear it. I could
sense it in the air. It was going to crash down once Mam and Dad came in the door and our lives would never be the same again. Even if Mam hadn’t told Dad what I’d said, she
wouldn’t be able to keep it inside for ever. It would all have to come out.

Kev shifted and gave a little moan. I opened my eyes. It was beginning to get dark and the air was getting colder so I slipped off my cardigan and draped it over his legs. He smiled in his sleep
and I touched his cheek and, at that moment, I pictured Mam’s face the last time she’d held him, after I’d told her about Dad and Liz. She’d said he was ‘the only
one’ and I wondered what she’d meant. Maybe that he was the only one of us who didn’t give her any trouble, the only one she could depend on not to cause her any grief. The only
one she could count on not to make her sad.

I passed by Dick Goggin’s ‘final resting place’, as Bridie called it, with its newly laid layer of fine blue-grey stones and cement vase of red plastic roses at the base of its
headstone. ‘Because they don’t wither, dear,’ Bridie had told me when I’d asked her why she kept fake roses on Dick’s grave even in summer, when she could’ve
picked bunches of real ones from her own garden. They were better than nothing though. Lots of graves had been forgotten about, their headstones casting black shadows across their flowerless stone
beds.

Only minutes had passed since I entered the graveyard, but already a murky dusk was filtering down from the sky, turning the air grainy and making it hard to see. It was time to head for home. A
clammy dampness descended all around as I made my way towards the gates. I shivered. I looked down at Kev. He was still fast asleep, slumped down with his head on his chest. But his legs were bare.
My cardigan had slipped off and was nowhere to be seen. Though I thought about leaving it and going back to find it the next day, I didn’t want Kev to be cold. And it was my fault he
didn’t have his coat in the first place. So I left him at the side of the path and started walking back.

For the first time ever, I was scared in the graveyard. Maybe because it was getting dark or maybe because of what I knew was going to happen once I got home. There was a heaviness in the air, a
dull kind of pressure that made things less clear. My eyes were cloudy and my ears were muffled and the path felt sort of spongy beneath my feet. The light had almost gone and colours were fading.
I thought I could see my cardigan lying at the edge of the path ahead, but when I ran up, it was only a clump of weeds.

Things began to swirl. Shapes swam together in twisting, blurry spirals. And then I could see shadows: waving through the trees, sliding across the ground, slipping in between the headstones.
Kev would have to put up with the cold; I was going home. But as I turned, I saw something.

A movement. A slight shuffle. A figure.

Someone was standing beside a cross.

A man. Rigid and frozen like a statue, his face turned up to the sky.

I slunk down behind a headstone for a closer look.

The shape of him was dark and bulky against the white of the cross. As I watched him, I felt myself drain. After all that had happened, I was tired. I pressed my cheek against the smooth, cold
headstone and knew that he wanted me there. That his presence meant something. Then he snapped his head around and stared at me, the black holes of his eyes holding my gaze. Like he’d known
all along I was there.

He was bleeding me. Of all my thoughts and memories and pictures.

All the laughter. All the colour. All the life.

Then slowly he turned and spread his arms wide. His big black coat opened up and I gasped out loud at what I saw: a dark red shirt; mucky brown trousers; big black boots with straps and silver
buckles.

It was him.

The man in the tree. The one I’d drawn on the kitchen wall.

The one I’d seen the day Kev had been born.

Kev . . .

I felt my insides burning, freezing, burning, my bones scorching raw under my flesh. In a blind dread, I clambered back between headstones and crosses, tripping over a grave edge, falling hard,
scraping my hands and knees. As I crawled back down to the path, the sound of birdsong echoed all around. Sharp and stinging, like poison in my ears.

I tried to convince myself as I ran that the falling darkness was playing tricks with my eyes. That the pushchair really was still there. That I could see it. And Kev too. His little legs
twitching . . . his eyelids flickering as he dreamt . . .

Please.

Please, please, please.

Seconds passed like hours . . . Days . . . For ever.

But I knew.

Kev was gone.

I ran up and down, spinning around, stupidly hoping I’d made a mistake about where I’d left him.

But there was no mistake.

He’d been wheeled away.

Trembling, I tried to find tracks in the dusty grit of the path. But the light had faded . . . Tears swam in my eyes . . . I could barely see.

I didn’t know what to do. The world I knew was whirling round my head like a tornado.

Where was I going? Why couldn’t I do more than run?

I should’ve been screaming. Kicking, yelling, punching. Tearing down the walls. Toppling the headstones and crosses. Unearthing everything in my way.

And then I was outside the graveyard, running past the high stone wall. The dark branches of the copper beech towered above my head, scribbling and scratching against the blue-drained sky.

I reached the churchyard gates and heaved my weight against them.

They wouldn’t budge. The latch was locked on the inside.

I pushed my hand through the bars and tried to flick it open.

It was no use. My fingers could barely stretch to touch it. But the gates had been open when I’d passed them earlier. They were always open. Why were they closed now?

I couldn’t see anything through them but dark shadows.

No life. No movement. No Kev.

I tried to climb over them but they were far too high. And even if I could, what if I didn’t find anything on the other side? I might be wasting precious time. Whoever had Kev could be
halfway to Westgorman by now. Or on a bus into town. Or in a car headed to . . . anywhere.

‘Kev! Kev!’ I yelled, rattling and kicking at the gates.

I kept calling and calling but there was nothing. Not a sound. Just a deep, black, empty silence.

I strained my ears for something . . . anything . . . and then I heard the weak sound of crying coming from . . . from where, I wasn’t sure.

It grew louder and stronger and more familiar, and I almost laughed as I yelled Kev’s name and waited for him to come running out from the shadows of the copper beech to find me.

But my voice, when I heard it, was quivery and strange and I struck my head against the cold bars of the gate when I realized the crying I’d heard was my own.

Help. I needed help. ‘Help!’ I screamed as I ran.
‘Help
!
’

Someone else could do this. I didn’t want to. All I wanted was to sink down into my bed, soft and warm and sleepy, and then to wake up and find it was all a dream. A stupid dream.

What are you talking about?
Mam would say.
Kev’s here. Kept me up half the night, didn’t you, you little monkey?
And he’d snuggle his face into her neck and
she’d squeeze him tight and smile.

I was in the lane now and still I hadn’t seen a soul. I burst out into Hillcourt Rise, my footsteps loud and hard, echoing out over the rooftops. Then the noise of them stopped as I belted
across the green, the grass soft and squishy under my feet.

How could the houses look the same as they always did? With lamplight filtering through curtain cracks, and chimneys puffing smoke into the night sky? I wanted to bang down the doors. Roar in
everyone’s face. Drag them from their armchairs and punch them out into my world.

Didn’t they know? Didn’t they know Kev was gone?

I ran into the cul-de-sac. I slammed into our front door and held my finger on the bell. My eyes were on fire, my mouth was dry. I was sure I was going to throw up.

I fell into the hall when Mel answered, unable to speak. I wasn’t even sure I remembered how to. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘What happened?’ He grabbed my arm
and shook me. ‘What is it? Tell me, Ruth!
What
?
’

I lay on the floor, hugging my knees to my chest. How was I going to say it? How long ago was it? I didn’t know how many minutes had passed. Five? Ten? I’d no idea.

It seemed like I’d known a whole lifetime.

‘What is it? God, Ruth! What happened? Are you OK? Where’s Kev?’ It was Sandra, her hand reaching down to take mine. Her grip was strong and safe. The touch of living flesh
against my own was like a slap that brought me round. She helped me to my feet and I stood facing the two of them, my stomach rolling, my legs shaking, my body not my own any more.

I opened my mouth . . . and Mam came through the door.

‘There you are!’ she smiled, all bright and cheerful. She rustled a plastic bag in front of our faces. ‘Cissy sent over your Easter eggs. Big ones they are, too. They’re
all different but she told me whose was whose, so there’ll be no arguments over them, all right?’ She studied our faces. ‘All right?’

Then Dad came whistling in, swinging his keys around his finger.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Sandra said. ‘Something’s wrong with Ruth.’

Mam looked at me. ‘Right,’ she said, her voice more matter-of-fact. She handed the bag to Sandra. ‘You and Mel go into the sitting room. And no trying to get at the eggs.
They’re not to be opened till Easter Sunday.’

‘But—’ Sandra began, her voice desperate.

‘But nothing! Just put them on the sideboard and sit down quietly. I hardly have to order you to watch television, do I?’