Dead Time (3 page)

The music was coming from the right of the house, her grandmother's drawing room. She pictured Anna sitting in her armchair. Sometimes she had friends in there but often she was alone. She would have her eyes closed while listening to the music with one arm stretched out like a baton conducting an imaginary orchestra.

She wouldn't hear Rose come in. She never did. That's why it was all right for Rose to leave her make-up on. In the evenings Anna liked to be alone. She had made that clear often enough. Not that it was any great loss to Rose. Time spent with Anna was always difficult. One wooden conversation after another, Anna invariably asking her about her plans for university. Rose could almost see her
doing mental arithmetic calculations. How soon would she have done her duty with regard to Rose? How soon until Rose could live somewhere by herself so that Anna could resume the life she had when Rose had been at boarding school, or the life she had had before Rose had been forced on to her.

Rose had no interest in spending an evening with Anna but tonight it would have been nice to come back and spend time with
someone
. To sit in the kitchen with a hot drink or a sandwich and talk about what had happened at Parkway East.

She went upstairs to her rooms. The first one was a small study. There was a desk and a swivel chair. On top sat a computer screen and keyboard as well as masses of her school files and papers. On the other side of the room was a large chair opposite a wall of shelves on which sat a television, a CD-player and a number of books and CDs and DVDs. Through a door was her bedroom and en suite. She dropped her coat and put her violin case on the bed, took out her laptop and laid it on the duvet.

She looked around. These were her rooms but they had Anna's name written all over them. She always felt like an intruder. They'd been decorated and furnished by Anna. They were cleaned by Anna's cleaner. They were inspected, from time to time by Anna herself, checking up on her property. It felt like a hotel suite. She suddenly couldn't bear to spend the night there.

She went into the en suite, ran some hot water in the sink and washed off the black make-up and then coated her skin with cream. She changed into her pyjamas, pulled on some slipper socks and shoved her feet back into a pair of lace-up boots. She put her laptop and mobile into a rucksack and pulled a fleece out of her wardrobe and put it on. Then, she closed the study door and went downstairs.

In the kitchen she opened the fridge and took out a drink and some cheese, then grabbed a box of crackers from the cupboard. She put these things in her rucksack. She opened the back door and stepped out into the garden and closed the door quietly behind her. She followed the garden lights for ten, twelve, fourteen steps until she came to the laurel hedge that shielded the outbuilding that had become her studio. It was an old brick structure that had once been used as a garage and had been big enough for two cars. Now it had fallen into a kind of pretty disrepair with Amazonian plants climbing up and over it. When it became clear that Rose was coming home from boarding school for good to go to the local high school, she had set her eye on this building as a special place for her. It could be her art studio, she had said to Anna, hoping against hope that she would agree. Somewhere she could work and it wouldn't matter if she made a mess.

Anna had been pleased. She had even given her a hundred pounds to do it up and allowed her to have a
broadband connection. When Rose had finished and asked her to come and look she'd said,
Very nice, dear.

Rose walked around the laurel hedge and was surprised to see a light coming from the window of the studio. She'd been in there earlier in the day. Had she left the light on? She tutted. The music from the house was still in the back of her head. It sounded like it was reaching some kind of crescendo. Had someone broken in? There was nothing much to steal. Her art books and drawing materials. An old sofa that Anna had allowed her to take from the utility room, pillows and a duvet she'd bought. A brilliant wicker chair that she'd found on a skip and half a dozen giant cushions she'd bought along with some pictures she'd found at a boot sale. There was a small fire and a kettle but it was all old stuff, or second-hand, taken from Anna's kitchen with her permission.

She stepped forward again and placed her fingers on the door. She listened. After the events of the day she felt rattled and edgy. She didn't need this. She just wanted to go into the studio and relax, listen to some music, check her emails, eat and drink and maybe doze off to sleep.

Pushing the door gently, Rose looked inside. It was the small lamp that was on, the one she used to read. It gave off a light yellow glow as thin as mist. She let the door open further.

There, lying on the sofa, was the figure of a boy. He was still, his face visible; his eyes shut, his mouth slightly open.

She'd seen a still boy a couple of hours before at the railway station.

This wasn't like that, though. This boy was asleep.

She felt her chest fire up at the sight of him.

This was a special boy. Her stepbrother, Joshua Jackson, who she hadn't seen for five years.

Rose closed the door quickly behind her, pulling it shut so that there was no strip of light to be seen. She put her rucksack down on the floor. In seconds she became anxious. If Anna knew Joshua was here, in her home, there would be trouble, a lot of trouble. She would almost certainly lose the freedom she had gained over the last months, the agreement they had made about her leaving boarding school to go to the local high school. She opened her mouth to speak to him, to wake him, to shoo him out.

But then she found herself looking at him, fast asleep on the sofa. The boy that she hadn't seen for five years.

Why not leave him there? Anna was safely settled in her room. There was no reason why she would come out into the garden. None at all. Rose slipped her feet out of her boots and sat in the old wicker chair with her legs doubled up underneath her. She folded her arms and nestled against a cushion and looked at Joshua.

He'd emailed her one day the previous spring. Since then they'd kept in touch. Now, though, he was here in flesh and blood.

He was lying on one side facing her, his chest barely rising and falling. Her eyes travelled along his body. He was still wearing his jacket over a sweatshirt, jeans and plimsolls. On the floor beside him was a huge bunch of keys and a screwdriver. She frowned. Had he brought it along to
fix
something?

Years before, when they lived together, Joshua had made a habit out of bringing old things home and fixing them. She remembered finding old clocks on the kitchen table and a number of pairs of roller skates in the living room. That and a variety of wheels, handlebars and frames from old bikes that people didn't want any more which sat in the garage or the hallway or in Joshua's room much to the annoyance of her mother.
That boy of yours
, her mother would say to Brendan,
he's a magnet for junk!

The first day they moved in Rose had been shy of the tall eleven-year-old boy who carried in his belongings in cardboard boxes. She'd watched from the top landing as the front door was hooked back and Brendan (who she had met) and Joshua (who she hadn't) walked back and forth to the van bringing their stuff with them, piling it along the hallway so that there was hardly any room to get past.

‘You know Brendan?' her mum had said to her a couple of days before.

She'd nodded. Brendan was nice. Her mum hadn't known him for long but Rose liked him better than the previous boyfriend who stood back as she passed him and never allowed anyone to touch his laptop or phone. No one. Ever. Brendan was easy-going and was always forgetting his things; his mobile, his BlackBerry, his wallet, his book.

‘He's having some trouble with his landlord so I've said that he and his son can stay here for a few weeks until they get a new place? Is that all right with you?'

Rose had shrugged. Why not?

Her mum gave her a sideways hug, squeezing her shoulders tightly.

‘Mum, you're breaking my bones!' she'd said but she was smiling.

When Brendan and Joshua had finally unpacked their stuff into the house at Brewster Road the four of them went to Pizza Hut and celebrated. Rose looked shyly at Joshua, who had his own mobile phone and loads of computer equipment piled up in the corner of the box room. He was so grown-up. Like the boys from the big school. His voice was gravelly and his hands were as big as Brendan's. On the way home from the restaurant he asked her which programmes she liked to watch on television and whether she liked music.

‘I play the violin!' she said. ‘What do you play?'

He laughed. ‘I play PlayStation!' he said.

At first she found it odd him living in her house. He always seemed to be in the toilet when she wanted to go or he was watching some sport on the television when she wanted to watch something else. Or he was making a noise in the box room while she was practising the violin, banging and shifting things around. Once she popped her head in his tiny room and saw him red-faced trying to find a place for all his stuff.

‘This room is really the TARDIS,' he said. ‘It's bigger than you think.'

‘Only in the Time-Space-Continuum,' she said quickly.

He began to laugh. She stood still for ages watching him, her violin almost touching the floor, then she began to laugh as well.

‘Why don't you get one of those high-up beds? Then you can put all your stuff underneath it,' she said.

He looked at her.

‘You know what, Rosie, that's brilliant,' he said slowly. ‘That is one great idea.'

‘My name's
Rose
,' she said, miffed.

Brendan and Joshua made the frame for the bed. It took days while large lumps of wood were carried up the stairs and back down again to be sawed up in the back garden. When it was finished Rose looked in amazement at the platform bed reachable by a small stepladder and the desk and computer equipment underneath. Behind the door,
hidden from most people's view, was a wheel with some of its spokes warped.

Once the bed was up it was clear that Joshua was staying for good.

It was three happy years.

Rose stared at him asleep on her sofa. She'd told him about her garden studio in her emails. When she had texted saying she couldn't meet, he must have come to her. The thought made her smile. She looked him up and down. He was tall, his legs and plimsolls hanging over the end of the chair. His hair was curly and there was a shadow on his jaw as if he hadn't shaved.

He moved and groaned as he did so. His head turned back so that he seemed to be looking up at the ceiling. She remembered again the other boy she had seen lying down that evening. He had been on his front, his face flat against the cold concrete of the walkway, his blood spreading out from under him. Rose wondered what it would be like to be someone in Ricky Harris's family. To have a policeman come to the front door and announce that their son, their brother (maybe even their stepbrother) was dead. She looked at Joshua and felt the loss keenly. She who had already lost her mother and Brendan. How awful it would be if it had been Joshua lying on that bridge. How dark the world would be then.

The tears finally came. Tears for that stupid idiot Ricky Harris who called her
posh bird
and kept on and on at
her in school. Why was she crying for him? A boy who had been nasty to her, who had taken every opportunity to make fun of her. Her form teacher had spoken to him several times and even one of the IT technicians had told him to
lay off
. He had had a girlfriend, she remembered. A thin pale girl with hair extensions. She seemed to walk after him everywhere like a puppy.

Here's your train, posh bird!
were the last words he spoke before encountering an argument on a bridge, a fight and a fatal wound.

She pulled a tissue out of her pyjama pocket, half aware that Joshua had moved and was looking around the room.

‘Rosie?' he said, sitting up.

She dabbed her eyes.

‘What's up?' he said, smiling. ‘Am I that big a disappointment?'

She shook her head and he got up and came across to her. He squatted down in front of her and grabbed her hands.

‘Hey, sis? What's up?'

‘I'm not your
sister
,' she said, the crying getting worse instead of better.

‘Stepsister, then.' He was grinning.

‘Not even a stepsister. Not really.'

‘Well, then, what's up? Why the tears?'

‘I saw someone get killed tonight, that's all,' she hiccupped out the words.

‘Ah,' he said, standing up, taking her hand, pulling her up and hugging her. ‘Is
that
all it is?'

She sat on the sofa next to him and told him all about it.

‘I don't know what to say,' he said, when she'd finished.

‘Me neither,' she said. ‘It's just like being witness to a car accident. It's being there at
that moment
, pure bad luck. Bad luck that Ricky Harris walked across the bridge and got into a row with this guy and one thing led to another …'

‘Awful.'

‘And it's made me think about Mum all over again.'

She meant Mum
and Brendan
but hadn't said it.

‘Dad's
never
out of my mind,' he said.

‘I didn't mean that! Mum's always in my mind! Of course she is!'

She was instantly irritated and moved away from him further along the old sofa, her shoulders stiffening.

‘I know that. I …'

‘I think about her all the time. What I meant was I started to think about the things that happened over those days. The police …'

‘Sorry.'

She couldn't speak. Her jaw felt tight.

‘Hey!' Joshua said. ‘Is this our first argument? I've only been here for ten minutes!'