Jenn Ashworth - Cold Light

‘What time is it, please?’

‘Getting up to midnight. Funny time to be meeting your brother, that’s all I’m saying. You know?’

I ignored him, and drummed my fingers on my knees. Worried about my brother waiting for me in the cold. Imagined him – pacing, hands in his pockets, a parka hood zipped almost over his face.

The heat and the soft vanilla smell of the shampoo the cleaners must have used the last time someone threw up in the back made my eyelids droop. The low chatter of the radio murmured while the taxi chugged through almost empty streets and along familiar roads where we only stopped for the lights. I was almost asleep when the car drew up. I’d calmed down. Maybe sobered up a bit too.

‘I don’t see anyone,’ he said. ‘Shall I wait? Have to keep the meter running though. Still, not like you don’t have the cash.’ He nodded towards the bundle I was letting get hot and damp between my fists in my lap.

‘I’m all right.’

‘Still, you want to put that away. Stick it in your back pocket, and zip your coat up. There’s all sorts out there.’

‘He’s stopped now.’

‘What?’

‘That nonce, the pest. He’s packed it in.’

‘Nothing like it. He’s back in action. Two in the past week. The swimming baths this time, and another one at the back of the playing fields.’ He named my own school, and I shuddered. ‘It’s getting worse. Younger. And the last one, outside the school – he tried to pull her into a car. Wearing a mask, apparently. Where have you been? It’s all over the news.’

I marvelled about how cut off from everything Barbara and I had become in our grief. She’d lost interest in Terry and Donald hadn’t been there to insist on the news. It had been easy enough to slip into our own twilight realm of late-night films and long lie-ins. Barbara watched Donald’s videos until she fell asleep. The real world had retreated to the other side of the alwaysdrawn curtains.

‘That’s thirteen now, isn’t it?’

‘Fourteen. That we know about. I reckon some of them’ll be too scared to tell their parents. Don’t want anyone to know. Ashamed, too pissed to remember, or shouldn’t have been out in the first place. I’m reckoning it’s closer to twenty.’

I thought about this for a moment. Wondered about what it meant. If it was Wilson who was doing it, then he was still alive, still out there somewhere. And if it was someone else – most likely Video Man, or someone like him, then why had he stopped for a while? No one believed the joke about the cold weather, not really. Twenty of us.

‘All right then, I’ll be careful.’

‘There’s police patrolling everywhere. Make sure you don’t breathe out as you walk past them, not unless you want a free ride home.’

He laughed.

‘Whatever.’

‘Your brother not waiting?’ He tapped the meter.

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘I know where he’ll be.’ I poked the money through the hole in the plastic divider that separated him from me. He looked at it, at the meter and then claimed not to have change for a twenty.

‘Keep it. Keep it.’

I slammed the door.

The cold hit me like a hammer. The wind made it even worse. It was aggressive – that cold – hard not to take personally. I shook and held my teeth together as I ran because I knew if I let them chatter I wouldn’t be able to stop. Dark. The trees just black shapes against a black sky. No stars. Half way across the car park I turned, but the taxi had already gone. Nothing. It was so silent. Nothing to distract me, so in my mind I went through the argument I’d had with Barbara again – thought about Donald – paced and cried, thought about Chloe, and Wilson – and then got myself together and headed into the woods.

I didn’t see Carl’s car until I’d passed it. It was at the very edge of the car park, tucked under overhanging trees – two wheels up on the verge. In the darkest corner, where the lights from the main road couldn’t reach. At least getting angry helped me to stay warm. I spun on my heels, marched over and banged at the windows with my fists. Imagined them in there, pawing at each other underneath Carl’s filthy work coat.

Dogging .

The car was still. I leaned forward and cupped my hands around my eyes. Empty. And nothing in the back except for a roll of plastic bin-liners and Chloe’s school bag. The footwells clear of rubbish. I thought about picking up a rock and trying to break into the car. I picked one up from the verge – felt its small heft against my palm – the biggest I could find and just the size of an egg. I could smash the window. No keys, so no way to drive it away, even if I could, but the noise would be satisfying and I saw myself sitting in there, huddled under the tartan blanket until they came back.

‘Hello, Chloe, hello, Carl,’ I’d say. Just the right amount of emphasis. They’d look furtive and a bit ashamed of themselves. I’d have the upper hand. Still, no way of telling how long it would be before they came back.

And back from where? What were they doing?

I let the stone fall and headed along a groove in the soil – more of a track than a path – that led between the trees. I had cried so much over the past few days that the cold along the rims of my swollen eyelids was almost soothing. My fingers were numb. I went quietly, following the track as it curved around tree roots and trying not to step on too many twigs. I could see almost nothing.

It would have been easy enough to turn around and flag down another taxi, but as soon as I left the car park I felt my choices dwindling. All I could do was follow Wilson’s path into the dark down towards the water. Deeper into the woods and at an angle, circling the pond, where Wilson had decided to try out ice skating because of how much fun I’d told him it was going to be.

I nearly walked right into them. Would have done, except Chloe retched suddenly and Carl hissed at her to shut up. Tiny noises, but I recognised them, and stopped. Heavy breathing, and little retching sounds again. I thought he was making her give him a blow-job. On a night like this? I squinted through the dark and the trees and didn’t see anything except the pale moving shape of her coat with the fluffy collar. I kept still as anything, stayed leaning against a tree, trying to hide myself, and listened.

‘Move it,’ Carl said, not whispering, but very quiet. His voice sounded odd, and I realised it was his ordinary voice I was hearing – not the one that he used to talk to Chloe and me with, which was slowed down, drawly, pretend-deep and ridiculous.

‘I can’t, it’s heavy. My hands hurt.’

‘Shut up your moaning, you silly little bitch. Get on with it.’

They were both out of breath.

‘I can’t go any faster than what I’m doing,’ Chloe whispered – and even when she was talking so quietly, I could tell she’d been crying and would be tearing up again soon.

I listened, out of puff but rationing my breath so they wouldn’t hear me panting. There was a crushed Coke can next to my foot – the hole at the top stuffed with leaves and the red and silver pattern on the side almost faded away. I stared at it while I heard them whispering to each other. Time went along. Every minute or so, Chloe would cry out – a little, half-strangled noise of disgust and fear.

It wasn’t a blow-job. They could have stayed in the car for that. Couldn’t imagine them fucking outside and not bringing the blanket. And anyway, why would you? I didn’t know that much about it, but I knew it was freezing. No, not a blow-job then, and the shapes through the trees were bending and moving but apart and not together. I heard the scrape of metal against rock. I knew then. It wasn’t a shock. Twice, he stopped and moved over to her to hit her on the back as she vomited.