She’s Not There

14

Raff was looking edgy, like the man in Leonie’s backyard. ‘They’re just flowers,’ said Jonah. There were hundreds of them, all over the Broken House fence, staring silently, with their purple spiky eyelashes and their downturned yellow mouths.

‘I don’t like them. They look like Bad Granny.’

Jonah snorted, but Raff’s face was strained.

‘It won’t really fall on us, you know, Raff. It’s been standing up this long, it’s not going to suddenly collapse, just because we’re in there.’

Raff nodded.

‘You can wait for me round the front, if you don’t want to come.’

Raff shook his head. ‘Don’t want to be on my own.’

‘Well, OK, come, then.’

Jonah went first, picking his way carefully along the faint and narrow path that led through the rubbish-strewn vegetation. He looked up at the house, and its boarded-up windows were like blank, daydreaming eyes, and the doorless back doorway was mouthing a silent ‘Oh’. It had been here, all alone, for a very long time now, he found himself thinking, and he tried to remember which fairy tale it was when the prince hacks through the forest to get to the sleeping castle.

Inside it was dark and cool, and it smelt of dust and bird poo. They could hear the pigeons, hundreds of them, bustling and burbling in the rafters. The back doorway led straight into the kitchen, which was reasonably solid, with a floor and a ceiling. There was a hulk of an oven, and two halves of a filthy ceramic sink lying on the floor beneath two taps. The light leaking through the entrance fell on the table in the middle of the room, and Jonah saw that there was an old camping stove on it, along with a metal teapot, a plastic lemon and a cluster of bottles and jars. By the table were two chairs, or frames of chairs, their seats missing, which made him think of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò poem. Two old chairs, and half a candle. One old jug without a handle. These were all his worldly goods: in the middle of the woods. He looked at the huge, square, robot face which had been spray-painted onto the far wall. There was a hatch right in the middle of the face, and he went and peered through it, into the mouldy smelling darkness which had been the dining room. When he turned, Raff was at the table, examining one of the jars.

‘Honey,’ he whispered. ‘Does someone live here?’

These were all his worldly goods: in the middle of the woods. Jonah joined him at the table. ‘Maybe,’ he said. There was a smoke lighter, and half a candle, and a sticky-looking teaspoon. The bottles were empty, apart from one, which was about a third full of a dark liquid. He picked up another jar and opened it, and sniffed. A spice. He couldn’t think of the name. He put the jar down.

‘Come on,’ he said.

The hallway was more hazardous, because most of the floorboards were gone. There was more graffiti, pictures and symbols, and some words, mainly names. To their left rose the staircase, still grand-looking, though one of the banisters had been broken by a fallen chunk of ceiling. Light fell through the hole left by the chunk, and they could hear the pigeons more clearly. To their right, the hallway led to the front door, which would have given onto the street, if it hadn’t been boarded up, and the fence erected in front of it. The door was intact, with its stained-glass window, and there were pegs, still, running along the wall next to the door. There was even a coat hanging from one of them. Opposite the pegs was a side table, with a bowl in it, a china one, and Raff, his fear overcome by wonder, went and dipped his hand in. He pulled out a pair of gloves, but then dropped them quickly, with a quiet screech, brushing a spider off his arm. He ran back to Jonah, and they both looked into the sitting room.

It was huge, much bigger than the kitchen. Jonah knew there had originally been two rooms, but that the wall between them had been taken down. He wasn’t sure, but he thought it would have been in the 1970s, when the house was a children’s home. He pictured it as the children’s playroom, with beanbags, and a ping pong table, and the Wendy house for the little ones. Now it was more like a cave than a room. The ceiling had fallen in, and the ceiling above it, so you could look up through the remaining beams and see the outlines of the upstairs rooms: the boarded windows, the doorways, the fireplaces, and even some patches of wallpaper. The floorboards were gone too, fallen down into the basement, along with lots of bricks and rubble from the upper floors.

Jonah jumped down onto the rubble, and a group of pigeons flapped hastily upwards. It wasn’t too big a drop, but it was easy to hurt yourself, because what you landed on tended to move. It was dark too, apart from the pool of light under the hole in the roof. He turned to help Raff down, and they crunched forwards a little way, until they reached the shaft of light. Jonah looked up.

‘It’s like a swimming pool! We could dive into it!’ That’s what Lucy had said, the day they’d crept in together and taken the photographs. As he gazed up through the remaining beams into the lopsided rectangle of blue, a tiny silver aeroplane appeared. Watching it crawl its way across to the other side, he remembered a film they’d watched on TV one afternoon, a really old film, called Jason and the Argonauts. While Jason tried to find the Golden Fleece, the gods watched him from an airy white palace, in their swishing togas, through a blue rectangle of water.

There was a tiny plop, and Raff said, ‘Yuk!’ Jonah looked down. The gob of poo had spattered just in front of them. He looked up again, to the beam that formed one edge of the rectangle. It was covered with pigeons. He could see their tails sticking out, black against the blue.

Jonah peered forwards into the darkness and saw the bed. It was an olden-days bed, with four wooden posts. It must have plummeted down from the floor above when the ceiling fell in. Had there been someone asleep in it? What a surprise they must have got. Lucy had gone right up to it and taken pictures, but Jonah had kept back. It was just too spooky, with its mattress, blankets and pillows all tidy, as if it was still in use. These were all his worldly goods: in the middle of the woods, these were all the worldly goods, of the Yonghy-Bonghy … Trying to silence the chanting voice in his head, Jonah looked away from the bed and over to where they were heading, the patch of light in the far wall. He whispered to Raff to follow right behind him, and stepped over a big piece of carpet, noticing the noughts and crosses pattern. The rubble rose and fell, sometimes steeply, and he had to keep peering down to check each step. He noticed two ping pong balls, pale, like giant pearls. To his right loomed the Wendy house. She’d taken a picture of that too. ‘Such a dear little house, Joney, and it’s like those Russian dolls, it’s a baby Broken House inside the big one.’ Behind the Wendy house was a piece of concrete pipe. He’d crawled into it last time, but she’d been too big. Now his feet slid among a heap of books, mainly open, like fallen birds. Among the books were more ping pong balls, and a toy train, and a Monopoly board. Further along, a baby doll, one-armed, face down – yes, he remembered that doll, and the feeling of wanting to turn it over, to see its face. He was aware of the bed, over on his left, but he kept his eyes on the ground in front of him. Then they were there, below the hole in the wall that used to be a window. The board that had once covered it was propped against the wall underneath, providing a slope up to what had been the windowsill. It would have been quite easy for Lucy, or any adult, to take a couple of big steps up the board, but it was a scramble for the boys. Raff scraped both his hands on the rough brick ledge, and Jonah hurt his knee. Out in the narrow space between the Broken House and their back wall, they examined their injuries and dusted themselves down. Then they surveyed the wall, which was surprisingly high from this side.

‘How does Mayo get over it?’ said Raff.

Jonah looked at the kitchen chair that had been positioned against the wall to their left. The back of it was broken, but the legs and seat looked in good shape. ‘Like that,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

They got on the chair together, and Jonah gave Raff a leg-up before hoisting himself up. They sat on the wall, their legs dangling against the warm brick, looking down at the familiar cracked concrete, the bright flowers, the gold bike, the corduroy cushion and the watering can. He got down first, lowering himself until he was hanging from the top of the wall by his fingers, letting go and remembering to bend his knees as he landed. Then he helped Raff down, and they let themselves in through the back door.

15

The house was really smelly now, much smellier than the Broken House, and there were lots of fat, black flies. Jonah propped the back door open and opened up the windows, so that fresh air would come in. Then he went to the bin and opened it. The stench hit him full in the face, and he quickly closed it again.

‘I’m thirsty,’ said Raff. Jonah picked a glass up off the draining board, rinsed it and filled it, water splashing on the dirty plates piled up in the sink. He passed it to Raff, and then opened the drawer that Lucy kept the incense sticks in. He took two sticks out of the open packet and the box of matches. Raff glugged the water down and put the glass back on the side. ‘I’m hungry.’

Jonah opened the fridge. He saw a mustard jar, a lime pickle jar, a tomato ketchup bottle and a bunch of slimy spring onions. They really needed to go shopping. Jonah felt cross with her for a moment. Then he remembered his certificate, and pulled it out of his school bag. ‘Look.’

‘I saw you get it in Assembly, dumbhead.’

Jonah found a space for it on the fridge door, amongst the photographs and postcards and all the previous certificates.

WELL DONE, JONAH!

In recognition of your excellent work

on your local history project.

He stood back, and ran his eyes over the photos. They went back to when he was a baby, and even before. There was the one of Lucy in a bikini, which he didn’t like, though at least she had her bikini top on. It had been taken long before he was born, and she was thinner, and her bosoms – no, boobs – looked even bigger, and she was thrusting them out, with her hands on her hips. Her lips were blowing a kiss to the photographer, who was presumably Roland, but it was difficult imagining her being like that with Roland.

‘What special dinner are the Martins having, anyway?’

‘Roast chicken.’ Jonah stared at young Lucy’s face, trying to imagine her being in love with Roland. They had met on a yoga holiday in Egypt. The photo might even be from that holiday, although Lucy had been ill for most of it. Roland had heard her in the night, in the bathroom, moaning, and he’d looked after her. He skimmed all the photos again, looking for Roland. There was one of him when he was maybe a teenager, with his arm around Rusty, his dog. Rusty was looking at the camera, and Roland was looking at Rusty, so it was his profile you could see, with his long knobbly nose and his quiff.

The only other photo with him in it was the one of their wedding day. The two of them, standing on some steps, Roland in a suit, and Lucy in a strange blue dress with a white collar. He was smiling, but she looked serious. She was slightly turned away from him, even though they were holding hands, and you could see her bump, in which a little tadpole Jonah had been swimming around. About a third of the photo had been torn off. Presumably because it showed Bad Granny.

The photo next to it was of Raffy, Baby Raffy, only just born, his stripy monkey toy in his tiny fist. Jonah had given him that monkey, in the hospital. Lucy had been sitting up in her big bed, and someone had lifted him onto her lap, and put the bundle that was Raff on his lap, and Raff’s fierce little face had gazed up at him. Everyone had been amazed at the way he held the toy. ‘What a strong baby! What a strong little baby!’ Jonah got a match out and lit both incense sticks.

‘Maybe there’s some sweets left.’ Raff was looking at the Advent calendar, which was high up on the fridge door, fastened with four magnets at each corner. They’d made it together last year, with pieces of red and green felt. It had twenty-four pockets sewn onto it, and the word ‘Christmas’ across the top. When Christmas was over, Lucy had said she was so proud of the calendar she couldn’t bear to take it down.

Jonah and Raff stepped forward together and dipped their fingers into the pockets. No sweets any more, they’d gobbled them all up, but Lucy’s fountain pen was in pocket number 17.

‘That’s what she was writing with. In the garden,’ said Raff, snatching it from him. Jonah nodded. It had been a present from Dora, along with the heavy, thick-paged book.

Brighter today.

‘Where’s her diary?’ He turned, his eyes scanning the messy room.

‘Here’s her keys.’ Raff used the pen to fish them out from between two piles of dirty plates. Jonah took the keys and looked at her elephant key ring. She was always forgetting her keys. The elephant reminded him of his painting of Ganesha, and the little wise eye. The sweet smell of the incense was filling the air. He put the keys down on the table and noticed the calendar, and the changes he’d made that morning. The first two weeks still so clean and bare, but now, with his dark blue additions, the third and fourth row were looking untidy. He squinted at the word beginning with C, and tried to think what PED might stand for. Then he flicked back to June. Vrischikasana, or Scorpion. A very difficult pose, a kind of handstand, but with your toes coming down to meet your head, like a scorpion’s tail.

June had been busier. Lots of her loopy scrawls. He ran his finger along the rows of numbers, going backwards through time. Dentist. They hadn’t bothered going in the end. He couldn’t remember why. Martins with D. Oh yes, the day they took Dylan round, so he could mate with Elsie. They’d sat on a blanket in the garden, watching the rabbits ignoring each other. Saviour had brought out tea and cake. Rhubarb cake. It had been quite cold.

‘I wish we had a time machine,’ said Raff. He had taken the pen to bits and was examining the little tube inside.

Jonah kept looking at the calendar. Time, a whole month, one circling of the moon, turned into thirty squares on a page. ‘What for?’ he said.

‘To take us to when she comes home. Then we wouldn’t have to keep on waiting.’

‘Or it could take us back to this morning. Before she went out.’ Jonah flicked the calendar back to July. ‘Then we could stop her from going.’ He put his finger under the word beginning with C. It might be Clink. Or maybe …

‘You can’t actually do that.’

‘Do what? Don’t do that, Raff. The ink will come out and go everywhere.’

‘Change things that have already happened.’ Raff kept squeezing. There wasn’t any ink in it anyway. ‘Otherwise everything would explode. There’s no point in going back. Only forward.’

‘But if you go forward you lose some of your life.’ Jonah thought for a moment. ‘Well, not if you came back again.’

Raff nodded. ‘You could go forward, see what’s going to happen, like who gets a certificate in Assembly, and then come back and make a bet on it.’

‘Well, you could bet on a horse race,’ Jonah pointed out. ‘You could put all your money on it, sell your car and your house, because you’d absolutely know which horse was going to win.’

‘Daddy would like that!’

Jonah frowned, looking at the photograph of Roland and Rusty. Rusty had died, ages ago, before the Egyptian yoga holiday. He was buried in Bad Granny’s garden. There was a gravestone, with his name. ‘I don’t think he would. He would think it was cheating. Which it is.’ He looked back at the calendar. PED. On the last day of term. Perfect End Day? ‘And anyway. Once you’ve gone forward, coming back again, you’re actually going into the past. So putting the bet on in the past would make everything explode.’

‘No, because you’d put the bet on in the new time, that came after you went into the future. The bit that nothing’s happened in yet.’

PED. Jonah frowned at the letters, thinking about time travel. ‘But when you’re in the future, watching the horse race, then it’s actually the present, isn’t it? And the time leading up to the horse race must have actually happened, otherwise …’ He closed his eyes, seeing the strange blankness of unwritten time. ‘I think what must happen is that you split into two.’ He opened his eyes. Raff was fiddling with the bits of pen again. ‘So your old self just keeps going, and not putting on the bet, and then your new self …’ He stopped again, trying to work it out. It was incredibly complicated.

‘No such thing as time machines anyway, stupid Peck.’ Raff dropped the pen pieces on the table and left the room.

16

Her clogs were still there, and the umbrella, and the petrol can, and the bag with the swimming things. The stepladder was lying flat, taking up a lot of room. Jonah picked it up and rested it against the wall. Without saying anything, they wandered together from room to room, ending up in Lucy’s bedroom, where the air was still thick with the smell of her body. Raff climbed into her bed and lay down.

‘Why are they having roast chicken?’

‘Because of Dora’s cancer.’

‘She’s had that for ages.’

‘She got better from it. But Em said now she’s really ill and might die.’ Jonah surveyed the room. A big tear in the paper lampshade showed the curly light bulb inside it. The wardrobe door hung open, clothes spilling out, and two of the drawers were sticking out of the high chest of drawers. Lucy’s red silk dressing gown, with the dragon on its back, was hanging on one bedpost, and on the other was that smelly grey cardigan she’d borrowed the day they took Dylan to the Martins’. Her flowery top and denim shorts from yesterday were on the floor beside the bed, and her lacy pink pants were still inside the shorts. There was a dark stain on the cotton bit where her fanny went.

‘Do you believe her?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Mayo said it wasn’t actually that bad.’ Raff kicked the duvet off the bed. His trainers had made dirty marks on the bottom sheet.

‘When did she say that?’

‘I dunno.’ Raff sat up and swung his legs over so that he was sitting on the other side of the bed, facing Lucy’s dressing table, which was just a small, ordinary table with a piece of mirror propped on it. Jonah went and sat beside him, and they both looked at themselves in the dusty, greasy mirror. Jonah looked more like Roland, who was white, with a long, thin nose, whereas Raff looked more like Lucy, with his browner skin and his afro hair, and his huge, golden eyes.

Raff leaned forward and reached for her lipstick, which was lying amongst some lipsticky tissues. It didn’t have its lid on, and was all squashed and melted. Jonah noticed that two of Raff’s cornrows were coming out now. Lucy had put them in weeks ago, nice and tight, so they would last, but nothing lasts forever. He watched Raff putting the lipstick on his mouth, remembering Lucy doing the same thing the night before. The cricket had finished, and he’d gone upstairs to find her. She’d had her back to him, and their eyes had met in the mirror. She’d scraped her hair into a tight knot on top of her head, which made her look weirdly beautiful. ‘That hairstyle really suits you, Mayo,’ he had said. And then he’d said, ‘Lucy, I mean.’ He’d smiled, but she hadn’t smiled back; and her lipstick had been far too thick.

‘What’s up?’ said Raff, with bright red lips.

‘Nothing,’ said Jonah, but the memory had brought a coldness into his belly. ‘You look stupid with that lipstick.’

‘I look cool, bébé!’ Raff turned sideways to look over his shoulder into the mirror and blow a kiss at himself. Then he went over to her wardrobe and pulled out her sparkly fairy shoes. ‘Roast chicken’s my favourite. Why can’t we go to the Martins’? We could leave her a note.’

Jonah had a flash of the Martins’ house: of burrowing into that space behind the sofa and lying there, smelling what was cooking, and listening to Dora and Lucy talking. When they had first got to know them, when he and Emerald were in Reception, they used to go there nearly every day.

‘Or we could just tell Dora to phone her,’ said Raff.

The phone. Jonah turned to the bedside table. It was still there, next to the wine glass. ‘Have you seen her charger?’

Raff had put his feet into the sparkly shoes and was clopping around the room. ‘It’s down there.’ He pointed to the socket under the dressing table. Jonah crouched down, connecting the phone to the electric current. ‘Why didn’t she take her phone?’

‘She must have forgotten it. Like she forgot her keys.’

‘But where is she?’

The phone seemed to be charging. Jonah tried pressing the ‘On’ button.

‘Jonah.’ It was Raff’s very young voice again.

‘What?’

‘Do you think Bad Granny will come and try and steal us again?’

‘Stealing isn’t the right word, really.’

‘Why not?’

Jonah frowned. It was the word Lucy used, when she told the story, but he was sure there was a more grown-up way of talking about it. ‘She didn’t think Lucy should be allowed to look after us. But that’s not the same as stealing.’

‘Will she try again?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’ The phone wouldn’t turn on.

‘Maybe we should tell the Martins Mayo’s not here.’

‘I don’t think we should.’

‘Because of the cancer?’

‘Because they might decide to phone the police. And then the police will tell Bad Granny.’

‘And she’ll come and steal us.’ Raff’s voice had gone all husky. The phone suddenly bleeped. Then it bleeped a few times more, indicating missed calls and messages.

‘Yesss!’ Raff clopped over and pulled the phone out of Jonah’s hand.

‘Raff, what are you doing!’

‘We’ve got a message from Mayo!’ he said, pressing the buttons.

‘They’re not going to be from her, stupid! They’re from people who phoned her! Give it to me! You’ll delete them if you’re not careful!’

Jonah grabbed it back off him. There was a missed call and a voice message and two new texts. He played the voice message first. ‘It’s Dora,’ he whispered. Dora sounded cross and upset, tearful, even.

‘What’s she saying? Is she saying she’s going to die?’ Raff tried to get his ear right next to Jonah’s, but Dora’s voice had stopped.

‘She said, what’s going on, you ignore my texts and then phone me up at the crack of dawn.’

‘Who, Mayo?’

‘Yes. Shush.’ He looked at the most recent text.

Awful in the hospital. Hubby lost it totally. You and me need to sort things out. Come over with boys after school?

‘Let me look.’

‘Wait.’

The earlier one, sent at 11.07, was in a different tone:

Worrying about you is the last thing I need right now.

PLEASE FUCKING REPLY

‘Give it, Peck!’ Raff snatched it.

‘Raff, give it back. I want to look at the old texts.’

‘“Come. Over. With. Boys. After. School”,’ Raff read out. ‘Right, let’s go.’ He kicked the sparkly shoes off.

‘And what shall we say about Lucy?’

‘Say she didn’t want to come. Anything. Come on, fam.’

‘They’ll think it’s weird. They’ll want to speak to her.’

Raff sat down next to him, sighing, but then jumped up again. ‘Hey! I know! Let’s pretend to be Mayo, and write that we’re coming, but she’s too busy!’

Jonah frowned. It was actually quite a good idea, although pretending to be Lucy would be like lying.

‘Come on, Joney! Then we can see Dylan!’

Dylan. Lovely, floppy Dylan. They hadn’t seen him for weeks. ‘OK. What shall I write?’

‘Say, boys coming over now, but I’m a bit busy.’

Jonah typed:

Sorry, I am OK but very busy so great if you could have boys for tea shall I send them over now from Lucy

He showed it to Raff, who studied it. ‘You don’t write “great” like that. It’s g, r and the number 8.’

Jonah made the change, and pressed Send. Raff whooped and started dancing.

‘Put your trainers back on, then. And take the lipstick off.’

‘The Martins don’t care about lipstick, fam!’

It was true. Saviour would laugh, and Dora would tell Raff how glamorous he looked. Watching Raff prancing, he imagined being with Saviour in the kitchen, helping him with the meal; Saviour glancing sideways at him, saying, ‘Penny for them.’ He wouldn’t answer, and Saviour’s brown eyes would get even kinder. ‘That bad, eh?’

‘Not that good,’ Jonah whispered to himself. ‘Lucy’s gone, and we haven’t got any food. But the thing is, I can’t tell you.’

The phone bleeped. Raff came running to read the reply. It was two words:

Fuck yourself.

‘Oh Em Gee!’ said Raff, his eyebrow shooting up. ‘Is it really Dora who wrote that? That is bad swearing, man!’

Jonah felt like crying. He lay down on the bed.

‘Is it because she’s going to die?’ Raff sat next to him.

Jonah pushed his face into Lucy’s pillow. Raff picked up the phone and started pushing buttons. After a few minutes he tapped Jonah’s shoulder.

‘Look.’

Jonah peered at the screen.

I am so soz. Please dont die xxx

‘Have you sent it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Idiot.’ Jonah put his face into the pillow again.

‘Why?’

‘People don’t say stuff like that.’

‘Yes they do!’ The phone bleeped. ‘Yesss!’

Jonah rolled over and watched him frowning at the screen.

‘“Want to see the boys. Tomorrow, not now.” Shit!’ Raff threw the phone onto the bed. Jonah reached for it.

Want to see the boys. Tomorrow not now. All too tired.

Em in bits.

‘But they’re having roast chicken! Let’s just go!’

‘We can’t,’ Jonah scrolled back to look at the old texts. The most recent had been sent on Sunday morning.

Tonight X

Not from Dora. From a number, not a name.

‘What are you doing now?’

‘Nothing.’

‘We need to do something, Peck!’ Raff’s fist bashed at his shoulder.

Jonah stood up, putting the phone into his pocket. ‘Calm down, Raff. Let’s go and have a look in the freezer.’