Stuart MacBride - Birthdays for the dead

Mr Henderson, we re not talking about a little backtalk, or running in the corridors. In the last six weeks Katie has been in my office twenty times. And given her attendance is appalling, that s something of a record. Quite frankly

So she s a little high-spirited

The headmistress kept staring out of the bloody window, as if I was a badly behaved child.

I stood. Are you actually going to have the common courtesy to look at me when I m talking to you?

Mrs Elrick turned around. She was older than she d seemed from the back: a used-looking face lined with creases, a long nose, her hair thinning at the front. A bruise stretched its way across her left cheekbone, half an inch higher and it would ve been a black eye. Scratches marred her neck four parallel lines, red against the pale skin. For the last three years we have put up with your daughter s lying, and cheating, and coming in reeking of alcohol when she bothers to come in at all the fighting and the stealing, because we know she s been struggling to cope with her sister s disappearance and your divorce. But today I found out she s been bullying the other children. Not just her peer group: the first years too.

That isn t true, the other kids are lying. Katie wouldn t

When I tracked her down she was forcing a girl half her size to eat a handful of mud. The headmistress raised her chin, showing off the scratch marks. This is what happened when I tried to stop her.

Captain Corduroy nodded like a dashboard ornament. It s simply not acceptable.

I grabbed the arms of his chair. SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!

He jerked back, hands covering his face.

The headmistress folded her arms. Well, now we can see where she gets it from.

It s not true, Daddy, they re lying! Katie clutched her schoolbag to her chest like a dead rat. She d dyed her hair again jet black and straight, tucked behind her ears, her big blue eyes puffy and pink, a metal crucifix around her neck. Her white shirt was rumpled and stained, the green-and-yellow school tie at half-mast.

Get in the car. I wrenched open the passenger door.

How can you take their word over mine?

Get in the bloody car, Katie.

Dr McDonald peered out from the back seat. Is everything OK?

Katie slumped into the passenger seat, then turned her smile on the psychologist. Stuck her hand out. Hi, I m Katie, Ash s daughter, really nice to meet you, I love your hair, it s great.

Thanks, I like yours too, it s very goth.

You wouldn t believe what s happened the teachers never liked me in that place, it s a factory for churning out brain-dead drones it s like a complete misunderstanding.

I thumped myself in behind the wheel and slammed the door. Stabbed the key in the ignition. Seatbelt. The headlights cut through the darkness.

Honestly, Daddy, I didn t do anything, it s all

You beat up a girl two years younger than you. Seatbelt!

It wasn t like

I stamped my foot on the accelerator and jerked the Renault out onto the road. Is that what we taught you? To pick on people smaller than yourself? Is it?

I didn t Deep breath. OK, yes, I got into a fight, but you should ve heard her, she was going on about how all the police are fascists and racists and corrupt and why can t you catch proper criminals instead of victimizing real people. And I know for a fact it s because her dad got done for drink driving last week. I was only sticking up for you.

You made her eat dirt.

Round the roundabout, leaning on the horn to shift a flat-cap-wearing corpse in his bloody Volvo.

Katie was staring at me, I could feel it.

What?

You made Uncle Ethan eat dirt. You dragged him out into the back garden and you made him eat dirt till he was sick, then rubbed his face in it.

That was different.

You broke his nose and his arm.

You know that was different! Houses flashed past the car windows as I took the rat-run through Barnsley Street.

And he s not your bloody uncle. Don t call him that.

Mummy called him that. Arms folded, bottom lip sticking out.

Actually, Dr McDonald s voice was a high-pitched squeak from the back seat, could we slow down? I mean it s a twenty zone and we re doing about forty and I really don t want to die in a car crash, so could we please

Does your mother know what you ve been doing? The drinking, the bullying, the fighting? Your teacher showed me letters from the local shops you re barred for shoplifting! My own daughter s a thief!

I didn t

I ve been standing up for you all this time, and you I believed you.

They re lying. They re all lying!

Look out for the bus!

I jerked the wheel to the right as some moron bus driver pulled out without looking. Roared past him. The bastard had the cheek to flash his lights at me. Lying, stealing, drinking what s next: drugs? Or are you already

You can talk! You ve been on drugs most of my life!

Fuck s sake. It s medical, it s different!

It s always different when it s you, isn t it? It s different. It s different. I HATE YOU! She thumped back into her seat: legs crossed; arms crossed; staring out of the passenger window; muscles bulging in her jaw; lips moving as if there was something bitter trapped behind them, trying to escape. A tear ran down her cheek, she didn t try to wipe it away.

Right onto Craighill Drive with its tall sandstone buildings and line of boutique shops.

Ungrateful little brat.

All this time. Playing me for a bloody idiot.

Dr McDonald cleared her throat. I know this seems pretty irreconcilable at the moment, but if you d both just talk about how you really feel, I mean openly and honestly, I m sure we could resolve it?

Katie kept her quivering mouth shut. I didn t say anything either.

I know you don t really hate your father, Katie, you re hurt because

Shut up, OK? Shut up. You don t know me. Nobody knows me.

And that was it. Dr McDonald tried poking her nose in a couple more times, but she was pissing into the wind all on her own.

Katie s boots thumped up the stairs, then her bedroom door slammed.

The hall wallpaper was cool against my forehead, but it didn t stop the throbbing.

Dr McDonald closed the front door. Shifted from foot to foot. Rubbed her arm with a hand. It s a nice house.

Much nicer than a condemned shitheap in Kingsmeath.

I dumped Katie s keys in the bowl in the hall, and made for the kitchen. Fully fitted had it put in new by this guy who owed me a favour. Would have cost a fortune if I hadn t caught him nicking building supplies from a yard in town. The fridge was a shiny grey obelisk in the corner, I pulled out the milk and dumped it on the granite worktop. Scowled at it. You want tea?

Dr McDonald leaned against the door frame. She doesn t really hate you: she s upset and she s lashing out. You ve always backed her up before, but now you re on their side, and doesn t matter if they re right or not, it still feels like a betrayal.

There was wine in the fridge, a bottle of gin too. Been a long time That was the trouble with pills. I closed the fridge door and dry-swallowed a couple of Diclofenac.

Would you like me to go speak to her, Ash?

Stealing, lying, fighting. Pretending my teaching Ethan Baxter a lesson was the same as her beating up little girls.

Dr McDonald shifted her feet. OK, well, I ll go give it a go, see if I can find out what s really troubling her. It s not my field, but if I can get inside the head of a serial killer I can get inside the head of a twelve-year-old girl, after all, they re not all that different

I drank my tea, looking out of the kitchen window at the garden that used to be mine everything turned into silhouettes in the dim glow of reflected streetlight. The jungle gym I built with off-cuts from B the cherry tree Rebecca and I planted that never produced a single cherry; the dog house that hadn t seen a dog in years; the shed that fell down the first two times I tried to put it up