The Stone Gallows (23 page)

Audrey watched from the living room window. I nodded at her.

She didn't nod back, so I pulled away. ‘It's nice to see you.'

‘Mummy's cross with me 'cos I spilled.'

Yeah, well, kids spill stuff, I thought. Mummy was daft for buying cream-coloured furniture. ‘I'm sure you didn't mean it.'

‘It fell out of my hand.'

I examined him from the corner of my eye. He was a gorgeous kid, with blonde hair and the best of his mother's features. It was possible that in a few years he might have picked up her habit of looking pissed off at anything and everything, but for now he was just a gap-toothed little boy in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans that looked like they had been purchased from BabyGap. ‘What do you want to do today?'

‘
Get Fish!
'

‘Your mum told me that you had seen it.'

‘I did see it. I went with Auntie Lynne and Uncle Keith.'

‘Who's Uncle Keith?'

‘Auntie Lynne's new friend.'

No doubt he was a new boyfriend. In the past six months, there had also been Uncle Graham, Uncle Andrew and Auntie Jill. At least it was his aunt and not his mum. ‘What's Uncle Keith like?'

‘I didn't like him. He kept pinching Auntie Lynne and making her squeal.' He fidgeted in the seat next to me. ‘They took me to see
Get Fish!
'

‘Was it good?'

‘Brilliant. It's really, really funny. It's the best film ever made.'

‘What do you want to go and see today?'

He looked at me like I was crazy. ‘
Get Fish!
'

‘Again?'

‘Yes!'

‘What's it about?'

‘A penguin.'

‘A penguin?'

‘His name's Fish.'

‘Why's his name Fish?'

‘ 'Cos he lives with fish.'

‘I see.'

I didn't. Maybe you had to be five to get it.

‘I want to go and see it again.'

What the hell. It sounded like a pleasant, inoffensive way to spend a couple of hours, and I felt like I could use something inoffensive.

‘You know, I read somewhere that Eskimos eat penguins.'

‘What's an Eskimo?'

‘They're men who live at the North Pole. In igloos.'

I suspected that was perhaps a stereotyped oversimplification, but decided to keep it simple.

‘What's an igloo?'

‘It's a house made of snow and ice,' I said. It was time to move on, or else we would quickly head into “Why is the sky blue?” territory.

‘You hungry?'

‘Starving. Can we go to McDonalds?'

‘I promised your mother that we wouldn't.'

He pooched his lower lip out. Not quite ready to go into a sulk, but definitely less than pleased with the situation.

‘How about Burger King instead?' I asked. ‘Would that meet His Lordship's dietary requirements?'

Strangely enough, it would.

8.6.

‘Dad?'

I fished what seemed to be an entire raw onion out of my burger with thumb and forefinger. ‘Yes?'

‘Do people really eat penguins?'

‘I was joking. I'm not sure if they do or don't. They probably do.'

Possibly because there weren't anywhere near as many fast-food restaurants in the Arctic Circle.

‘Do you think they taste like chicken?'

‘I very much doubt it.'

Mark took a bite of his Whopper, holding it with both hands. A dab of mayonnaise was on his chin. ‘Mum won't let me have a puppy.'

‘She told me.'

‘She's mean.'

‘No, she's not,' I lied. ‘Puppies take a lot of looking after, and you're at school all day.'

‘Yeah, but
she's
home.'

‘Yeah, but
she's
busy.'

Yeah. Watching Jerry and Trisha and Jeremy Kyle.

Mark took another bite. We'd had a minor tantrum because Burger King didn't have any free balloons to give away, but we seemed to have bounced back nicely.

‘Da-ad?'

I swear, you could hear the hyphen. ‘Uh huh?'

‘You like puppies, don't you?'

I could see where this was going. ‘I do. But I'm usually at work all day. A puppy would be very sad and lonely in my little flat, because itwould have nobody to talk to or play with. You wouldn't want a puppy to be sad, would you?'

‘You could get two puppies. Then they wouldn't get lonely.'

‘Yes they would. And my flat's too small. Puppies need to run about a lot. They need exercise.'

‘There's a park near your flat.'

I knew the one he meant. It was a tiny, rancid square of mud, littered with used needles and empty bottles of Buckfast, surrounded on all four sides by major roads. Any puppy going there would either get squashed by traffic or catch hepatitis, if it wasn't doused in lighter fuel and burned for the entertainment of the lurking teenagers. I explained about the roads, but left out the rest.

‘Da-ad?'

‘Yes, son?'

‘Can you get pet penguins?'

‘I don't think so. You only ever see them in zoos.'

‘I bet they don't need as much. . . exercise,' I heard him shaping the word with his mouth, trying it out for size. Clever lad. ‘They don't walk very fast.'

‘I'm sure your mother would be thrilled if I got you a penguin.'

Hell, why not go the whole hog and get him a polar bear? If I was lucky, it would eat Arnold for dinner.

And Audrey for dessert.

‘Da-ad?'

That hyphen again. Enough. I had to get him off the subject of pets. ‘Ma-ark?'

‘What?'

I'd sent him to get napkins while I waited for our meals, and he'd come back with about fifteen straws. As he watched, I picked one up, tore open the top and blew it at him. He giggled. ‘Cool! Can I try?'

‘Sure.'

He blew the straw at a skinny bloke clearing the table next to us. The kid gave me a dirty, why-can't-you-control-your-child-in-public kind of look before moving away. I picked the rest of the straws off the table.

‘Don't blow them at other people.'

‘Why not?'

I decided to ignore the question. Three seconds later, Mark was studying the tray the meal had come on. There was a large sheet of paper lining the tray; on it was printed a picture of two kids in a convertible. The background was deserted country highway and blue skies. Both the kids had shiny, American grins and smooth, zit-free complexions, and you could tell they were just as happy as happy could be. The girl (blonde, naturally) was drinking a can of Coke and the boy had a burger the size of Texas in his hand. An advertising slogan advised us that life was just peachy.

Mark pointed at the girl. ‘She looks like Mum.'

‘Uh huh? You think so?' I couldn't see it myself. But then, the girl in the picture was smiling. Maybe Audrey smiled more when I wasn't around. ‘Listen, Mark, you know how your mum and I don't live together anymore?'

‘Yeah.'

‘How does that make you feel?'

He shrugged. ‘Dunno.'

‘You know that I love you, don't you?'

‘Yeah.'

Say it back, I willed him. He was too busy looking at the girl. Idly he touched her hair with a finger stained by tomato sauce.

‘Mark, do you like it when we see each other?'

‘Yeah.'

I waited, but there was nothing else forthcoming. ‘You know how Arnold is Mummy's friend?'

‘Yeah.'

‘How would you feel if Arnold was your daddy?' I swallowed, feeling dryness in my throat. ‘Instead of me?'

‘Dunno.'

Christ, this hurt more than I ever thought it could. Maybe I was expecting too much from him. They say that children of separated parents mature faster, but it was doubtful he understood that if Audrey had her way then I would be playing second fiddle to Arnold.

Mark looked up at me. ‘Does that mean I wouldn't see you anymore?' For the first time since he had got into the car, I felt like I had his complete and undivided attention.

‘Of course not. We'll always see each other. I'll make sure of it.'

‘Cool.'

It was hardly a tearful declaration of love, but it would have to do.

8.7

Get Fish!
turned out to be pretty good; one of those rare films that's as entertaining for the parents as it is for the kids. The cinema was busier than I expected it to be. A lot of people had used the in-service training day as an excuse to take the kids out, perhaps, like me, thinking that the place was going to be quieter.

The movie finished just after four PM, and I decided to take him home, rather than risk his mother's wrath by pushing my luck. I strapped him into the car and started to drive slowly. After giving me a top-ten of his favourite bits of the film, he went oddly quiet.

‘What's up, Champ?

‘How come you and mum don't live together?'

In twelve months, he'd never asked that. I wondered if it was because he was getting older, or if he was the only kid in his class with separated parents. Somehow, I doubted it. ‘Why do you want to know?'

He shrugged. ‘Dunno. How come?'

‘We. . . we weren't very happy together. And then I was in that car accident and was sick for a while. I had to stay in hospital for a long time so that I could get better. Mummy got used to looking after you by herself and when they let me out of the hospital we both thought that it would be better if I didn't come back to live with you.' I realised what I had said. ‘You and mummy,' I amended.

I didn't want him to think that it was his fault.

‘Why not?'

I tried to think of an answer and couldn't. How do you explain the complexities of adult relationships to a child? Mark didn't have the insight to understand, and I lacked the ability to simplify it so that he could.

Subject change. ‘So what do you want to do on Saturday?' I gave him a warning look. ‘Don't say “
Get Fish!
” '

‘Dunno.'

‘You want to go to Laser Quest? Pizza Hut for lunch?'

‘Yeah!'

Laser Quest was one of those places where you wore an electronic backpack and ran about like a nutcase shooting bolts of light at people you had never met. Great fun. It felt like somebody took a syringe of testosterone and injected it directly into your brain.

‘I might bring a friend,' I said casually.

‘Who?'

‘Her name's Liz. She lives next door to me.'

‘Is she your girlfriend?'

‘She's a friend friend.'

‘Is she nice?'

‘No. She's horrible. I'm scared of her. You better be nice to her or she'll put you in a cooking pot and eat you.'

He smiled. With the gap between his front teeth, he just looked sweet. ‘Does she have any children?'

‘No.' At least, none that I had heard about. ‘She might not want to come anyway.'

‘She can come,' Mark said. ‘If she's nice.'

‘Of course she's nice. I wouldn't be friends with somebody nasty.'

‘Auntie Lynne's nasty.'

‘What, to you? Is she nasty to you?'

He shook his head violently. ‘Uncle Keith said it. I heard him telling her she was a nasty B-word.'

I studied him carefully. ‘Uncle Keith said she was a nasty bitch?'

‘Yeah, but he was laughing at the time. They were both laughing.'

I decided not to pursue the conversation any further, instead making a mental note to ask Audrey whether she really thought her tart of a sister was a suitable babysitter.

8.8.

I arrived home to find the message light on my answer machine blinking. I hit play and listened to about fifteen seconds of static before there was the clunk of a dropped receiver. Second time around, I turned the volume up as far as it would go. I was rewarded with the sound of somebody breathing heavily and a set of high heels clipping along a corridor. There was also a soft ping, as if a lift had justarrived.

At a guess, I thought maybe the call had originated from a hospital.

Liz.

That didn't make sense; she only had my mobile number. There was no reason to give her my home number when she lived less than twenty yards away. I checked my mobile phone for messages just the same. Nothing new. I sent her a quick text anyway –
luking4wrd 2c-ing
u 2 nite
. Three minutes later, my phone beeped as it received a reply. I read it and blushed. I was quickly learning that my neighbour was a girl of many appetites.

So. . . not Liz then.

I picked up the phone and dialled 1471; a computerised voice told me that I had been called at three-fifteen pm and that the caller had withheld their number. With so little information available, I gave up.

Whoever it had been would have to call back.

I spent the next hour cleaning my flat, spending most of my time in the living room and bedroom. Usually I'm fairly relaxed about tidiness, but I felt like I was on a promise and didn't want to jeopardise it by having dirty laundry lying on the floor. I gave up after spending ten whole minutes scrubbing at a stain on the coffee table. Any girl who could eat an out-of-date pork pie for breakfast was unlikely to be discouraged by such trivialities.

The phone rang again and I picked it up. I heard breathing, slightly snuffled, as if somebody had a nasty cold. Probably the same mystery caller that had failed to leave a message earlier. ‘Hello?'

Nothing.

‘Listen, whoever that is, I'm going to hang up and pull the cord out of the wall, OK?'

Silently, I started to count to five. Made it all the way to three.

‘Mr Stone?'

The voice was familiar– not the kind of familiarity of an old friend, but the type where you know that you spoke to its owner recently, but just can't quite remember. ‘Who's calling?'

Whoever it was, they sounded on the verge of tears. ‘Excuse me, is that Mr Stone?'