Another Life Read online

  I remember putting my fist to my mouth and the cold taste of blood on my tongue.

  And Dad.

  Dad would pile us into the car every Christmas and drive around the neighbourhood for a look at the decorations. Mum would make a flask of hot chocolate and we’d cruise slowly down the streets, enamel mug in hand, each turning to gaze and coo through our windows. There wasn’t much spare money then, and Dad couldn’t see the point of taking a Saturday off from golf or watching a game to untangle miles of fairy lights. ‘You see them best from the street anyway,’ he said once. ‘What’s the point in wasting time and money on a view for the neighbours, when we can tour all of theirs for free?’ I guess it did make sense.

  Council estates were always first class at cheese. They went over and above. ‘Don’t know where they get the money,’ Dad would sniff, before shouting, ‘Look, sons!’ at a giant inflatable Santa.

  We always saved the cul-de-sac until last. It was at the back of a sixties close, a long and straight run with boxy detached houses either side. At the end was a large bungalow that could be seen from the moment you turned into the street. Every year, it was the best in show. Legend was that a childless elderly couple lived there, and every December they decorated their house so kids would make a pilgrimage. They wanted to be remembered, even if only in the minds of other people’s children.

  ‘Are you ready, Sal?’ Dad would call as he signalled to turn. Sal was always beside himself with joy. I don’t know whether it was because we were approaching the house or because Dad had singled him out.

  An enormous fir tree stretched up to the top of the telegraph poles, wrapped in fairy lights that flickered. There was the usual stable scene in the middle of the lawn, and scattered around was an audience of green and red elves wearing curled shoes. Above the garage was a giant Father Christmas aboard his sleigh, with bells and presents and a rushing Rudolph. Candy canes lined the path, a snowman stood guard by the door, and in every window were lights of all different shapes and colours. White lights were stapled along the outline of the building, around windows and doors, and if you stared long enough and shut your eyes, an imprint of the house remained. Whenever Sal or I drew a house on paper, it always took the form of the bungalow at the end of the cul-de-sac, the one with all the lights. I wonder if he ever forgot it, like I never did.

  I have a memory of Mum sitting up close to Dad with his arm slung around her, the other holding the wheel. They sit on a leather bench seat, the type in fifties cars, and she rests her head on his shoulder. His collar is turned up, and he nods his head along to the sound of Christmas songs from the radio. Their skin is young.

  But we never had a vintage car, and when I asked him years later, Dad said he’d never had a bench seat. Perhaps it came from an album cover, this memory, or an old movie, or a dream I once had. Still, I remember this scene in my head and could swear on a holy book that it happened, just as I can still recall the crunch of tyres on snow and the smell that would waft out when I’d open a tin of Quality Street on Christmas Day morning.

  I’ll always hope it happened as I remember it did.

  2003

  Anna had a boyfriend when I met her. Or she did at first. Apparently he’d taken off for the summer to Australia, but the details were hazy and I never actually asked. A few of the girls talked once in the staffroom about how they’d never actually seen her with him. One said she doubted his existence. Her friend Lisa had shut them down. ‘They’re on a break,’ she said and refused to divulge the reason. ‘But he does exist.’

  She wasn’t someone who’d care what they thought. I noticed that straight away. I also noticed how she introduced herself to me on my first shift. Even in the unflattering cut of the cinema uniform, she was not someone your eye would pass over. Some of the girls described her looks as crooked, and there was a certain strangeness to her face, a boldness and strength in the way the bones formed behind her alabaster skin. There was nothing petite in how her features knitted together. I’d never seen another face like hers and the subject of her attractiveness would provoke great debate in the staffroom whenever she left it. I never got involved. She looked just fine to me.

  We were propping open the double doors to a sold-out showing. I forget which film. As the end credits began, we each stood against a door, waiting for the audience to file out between us. ‘Hi, I’m Anna,’ she said, putting a hand out for me to shake. ‘You’re new, aren’t you?’

  I think I mumbled as I took her hand. Not many nineteen-year-olds were in the habit of handshakes or introductions, but like I say, she was different. I don’t recall how I got her number, but life is made of small victories you forget.

  The next shift, we were on a break in the staffroom together. I walked into the windowless room to find her at the table, drinking water and reading a book. She gave a brief smile and returned to the pages. A lad named Dave walked in and began describing a girl he’d just served and all the things he would do to her. When Anna didn’t look up, he changed tack, declaring books a waste of time in the age of the internet. Still, Anna ignored him. What do you like in a bird? he said to me, then proceeded to list the attributes he found appealing: big tits, redheads, dirty but not slaggish. I shrugged and said I didn’t really have a type, but I liked girls with a brain. Ah yeah, that sexy-librarian thing, said Dave, leaning back in his chair. Do her so hard over a pile of books that her glasses fall off. He sniggered. Yeah, not so much that, I said. More the reading of the books themselves. Anna had looked at me then.

  You know she won’t shag you, right? they said. We’ve all tried. Total virgin territory.

  Anna belonged to one of those religions that look down on anything normal. Christmas, birthdays, getting drunk, sex before marriage – all off limits. Her boyfriend belonged to this club too. I suppose some might call it a cult, but I don’t want to go that far. Each to their own and all that. Sometimes they put leaflets through my door. Last week, I picked one up from the doormat and looked at it hard for a moment, then crushed it into a ball. I squeezed all the air out of it and made it as small as I could before dropping it into the bin.

  We didn’t talk much at first. We’d be assigned to work Floor together and go into a screen at the end of a film to clear away the popcorn bags and cups. The credits would still be rolling as we cleaned up in the dark. On busy showings, there would be a few of us, sweeping away the remnants of people before others took their place. A couple of the lads would sing along to the credits or play baseball with their broom and an empty cup. They usually did this when there was a girl around. Anna didn’t engage much with their efforts apart from the giving of an occasional smile. She kept herself to herself.

  On the first hot weekend at the start of that summer, though, everything changed.

  A few were going to spend the afternoon at the ruined church in Eastwell, hanging out and swimming in the lake. Anna would be there with Lisa, Dave said. Maybe a couple of the other girls would come too. He asked if I wanted to join them and I said I’d see what I could do.

  Eastwell wasn’t far, so at mid-afternoon on the Sunday, I took out the cold beers I’d bought after my previous shift and put them in a bag, then walked across the fields towards the church. The journey usually took fifteen minutes, thereabouts, but that day had a sticky heat that clung to the scalp. I took it slow. A car passed by on the way, elbows leaning from every window, a chart topper blasting through the speakers. I recognised it as Lisa’s car and wondered if any of the elbows had been Anna’s.

  The church was a fifteenth-century ruin, abandoned and surrounded by gravestones whose inscriptions were too crumbled to read. People said it was haunted. I’d come here once as a kid. Sal and I had jumped from grave to grave, making out details of the dead.

  I heard them all before I saw them.

  Two cars were parked under the trees and they were all sprawled out on the grass by the lake, half naked, shrieking at some joke. The sun was high in a cloudless sky and the water shone like glass.
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  One of them saw me and waved, and they all turned to look. I rubbed my head and gave a sort of nod in reply. She wasn’t there.

  Lisa was shouting at Dave. She had an open tube of suncream in her hands and white streaks along her arms where she had yet to rub it in. He’d thrown a handful of grass over her and the blades were sticking to her skin. She was telling him off and he was drinking a Red Bull and laughing. The rest of them were laughing too. She wasn’t there.

  I took a can from the plastic bag and offered it around. One of the girls reached out to take it and smiled as her fingers brushed mine. She pushed out her chest and crossed and uncrossed her legs. I took my own can and went down towards the water.

  I tried not to think about why she hadn’t come.

  It was a large lake surrounded by trees and a little bridge. The water further out looked dark and thick with weeds. Closer to the edges it was a softer blue, although it was impossible to know the depth without stepping in. There were gentle ripples on the surface of the water and the wobbling line of my own reflection.

  ‘Jump,’ said a voice.

  I turned and saw Anna in the water, out of view of the grass against a pile of rocks. The bottom half of her body was obscured beneath the lake.

  I smiled and raised my can. ‘I would, but …’

  ‘I can wait,’ she said. ‘Although, I am thirsty.’

  She launched herself from the rocks and floated towards me, and I bent down and passed her the can. I watched her take a long sip and saw how black her hair looked when wet.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, handing it back. ‘Now drink up.’

  I nodded at the water. ‘Is it deep?’

  She gave a smile and a quick lift of the eyebrows. ‘Jump in and find out,’ she said, pushing her feet against the bank so that she drifted away.

  I stood and watched the lake for a while. I tried to ignore her as she floated on her back, keeping my gaze fixed somewhere in the distance, but the sun kept catching her skin. She wore a red-and-white striped bikini. Her eyes were closed.

  When I’d finished my beer, I dropped it on the bank and pulled off my T-shirt and shoes. Anna watched as I put one foot in the water, then the other.

  ‘Funny way of jumping,’ she called from further out.

  My smile contorted as the cold water edged up my body. I buried my instinct to scream by sinking under the surface so that I went completely under. It wasn’t deep, four feet perhaps, but through the cloudy water, a jungle of weeds choked the ground.

  I swam until I was close to her, then it felt right to show my face. She was treading water, her chin bobbing on the surface, a strange smile on her lips.

  ‘Do you know what happened to the church? Why it looks like that,’ she said, nodding at the broken stone walls rising up through the trees in the distance.

  I turned to see, despite already knowing how it looked. I willed myself to stop burning. ‘There was a fire,’ I said finally.

  I brushed the water from my face and smoothed my shaved head with my palm. Anna was just outside of touching distance.

  ‘You don’t talk much,’ she said, looking at me.

  A piercing human shriek spread out across the lake and sent a trio of geese flapping from the bank. They flew across the water over our heads. We watched them disappear above the trees on the other side.

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Why speak unless you can improve the silence?’

  ‘I never said I didn’t like it,’ she said, turning to float on her back.

  ‘A-nn-a!’ The long holler of a male voice carried across the lake.

  She waved at the bank.

  ‘You’re needed,’ shouted the voice, and she gave a thumbs-up in reply.

  ‘Wait for me. I’ll come back,’ she said and swam past, brushing her foot against my leg in the invisible world beneath.

  The next Monday, we all went into town after work to the local club. Everyone went out almost every night back then. Friday, Saturday, and Monday when drinks were cheap and the air reeked of karaoke. I don’t know how we had the energy, how we’d work all day and go out all night, but there’s no looking back at that age. All of life is ahead.

  We sat on the white vinyl banquette seating, her leaning back, me leaning forward, everyone else dancing. I remember the music – some hideous garage mash-up – and the flashing lights on the dance floor, and in the darkness I took her hand. For three minutes, we looked at each other, and by the time the song had ended, we were walking up the hill towards town.

  When we reached the deserted car park behind Blockbuster’s, she stopped and said, I’m not going any further until you do. Once, in later years, we argued as to who made the first move. You kissed me, she insisted. I remember it perfectly.

  We remember how we want to remember.

  Early Nineties

  After she’d gone, they packed up Mum’s things. One day it was all there, and the next it wasn’t. Just like her.

  When we were small, Sal and I would play hide and seek around the house. I’d stand at the bottom of the stairs, cover my face with my hands and count to twenty. The house we lived in was a big old place, Victorian, with tall ceilings and dusty corners. It had been a rectory, once upon a time, then left to descend into a slow rot. Dad worked for the owner, doing odds and sods around the estate, and we lived there on a reduced rent. It felt like a mansion to us.

  I’d count with long pauses to give Sal time to hide, and then I’d climb the stairs. He always went to the same place, but I’d make a big show of wondering where he’d gone, lifting the heavy flocked curtains that hung at the windows and opening every cupboard. I’d search the whole upstairs until finally I reached Mum and Dad’s door. I’d push it open and bide my time circling the room, checking the surfaces to see what had moved since yesterday. A little stack of sewing on her desk, a new book open on the bedside table, a forgotten cup of water. I was fascinated by the glass pots on her dressing table, how the sun would strike through the curtains and light them up like a shrine.

  After I’d finished looking, I’d walk to the heavy brown wardrobe and heave open the door. There, behind the folds of skirts and dresses, Sal would be curled into a ball, trying to disappear. I’d climb in beside him and close the door, and we’d lie at the bottom of the wardrobe, Sal running his hands through fabric while I inhaled the scent.

  A few weeks after she’d gone, I suggested to Sal that we play hide and seek. I was too old for it by then, but the days were beginning to take forever and we had to do something to pass the time.

  I counted and climbed, but when I opened the door, Sal was standing in front of the wardrobe with his arms fixed by his sides. I went over and looked in. The lengths of silk and polyester had been replaced with a dark and empty space. It was then I saw there was nothing. The pots, the books, the sewing. Gone.

  We crawled into the wardrobe and shut the door behind us.

  2003

  Anna and I spent virtually every day together that July. I remember it being hot – so hot – and we’d keep the engine running in her stopped car just to keep cool. We burned through tank-loads of fuel, not to mention a layer of skin on our lips.

  You know he comes back in a month, she said once. He said he’d come back in a month.

  I’d nodded and kissed her again.

  After that, we fell into place. We’d meet up before work, or when one finished a shift, the other took a break and we’d head out to the wall behind the bins. I remember the mix of the scent of her perfume – jasmine, the bottle said – with the stale whiff of rotting chips. Looking back, I wonder why we didn’t change location, but we were horny, hungry, young. The bins were close – we’d have wasted time travelling further – and they were private. We just wanted to get on with wanting each other.

  Laura and I never kiss like that. Maybe we did in the early days, but not any more. I don’t expect it, though. There’s a hunger in youth for every experience. Kissing is a new activity and it’s free. You couldn’t keep up
with that hunger, not with twinges in your back and joints that click. I don’t expect it now.

  There was a heatwave across Europe that summer. One of the warmest for up to five hundred years, they said. The water level of the Danube fell so low that Second World War bombs and tanks were revealed on the riverbed. They’d been there all the time, buried deep under the surface, unexploded, deadly, just waiting to be discovered. Closer to home, parts of the motorway melted away.

  The heat always reminds me.

  In the beginning, we found every excuse to touch each other. Anna would reach across and open the glove box in her car, leaning on my knee as she searched for a CD. I’d brush an invisible strand of hair from her cheek. Or we’d lie in the park and she’d put an earphone to my ear and press play on her iPod.

  We spent two nights together. I knew she had a curfew, so it must have been something she’d arranged in advance, probably said she was staying with a friend. I suppose we were just friends. I’ve spent years working it out.

  We were on my bed. An episode of Fawlty Towers played on the black-and-white TV across the room, the picture fuzzy from the Sellotaped aerial. She could recite every line, and I leant my head against the pillow and watched her as she laughed.

  This moment I remember. She must have realised I was looking, because she smoothed her hair and crawled across the bed and kissed me.

  ‘What do you want from your life?’ she said.

  I brushed the hair from her face. ‘Nobody’s ever asked me that.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘My mum probably did.’ I paused. ‘I wrote stories as a kid. She liked me to read them out loud, and after I finished she’d always clap and say I had a gift. Mums are biased, though.’