C. Williams - Flowers for the Dead

I follow the road past the red parasols. Just behind the bend, that’s where it should be.

And then it comes into view.

It looks just the same. The door is still painted red, the stone still grey, the front garden filled with sad shrubbery and grey stone tiles, the front room hidden behind large artificial flowers. I don’t think they’ve even changed the curtains. They look like they’re straight from the Eighties.

After parking the car on the side of the road, I walk up to his house and ring the doorbell.

Something moves in the front room. I think the telly is running. Footsteps approach. Then the door is thrown open.

I don’t recognise the person I’m looking at. ‘Sorry,’ I say, instinctively smiling at the strange man. ‘I must have got the wrong door.’

The man looks at me, dark hair and bright eyes in a sunken face. He is wearing a sweaty Burberry shirt, and is still in the motion of throwing on a Barbour jacket, dark green with orange lining. I can tell it used to be fine once. A bad stain sits right on his lapels. His hair is too long for him, and the colour of his skin is paler even than his eyes. He looks like someone who worked out for a while but then gave up on it again, fat and muscles creating a threatening bulk. Even as he straightens his tie, hastily put together, his eyes are slightly unfocused.

‘I was just looking for an old friend, but he must have moved after all,’ I continue. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know where …’

His eyes narrow. Then they widen very suddenly. ‘It’s you! Caroline Wilson, as I fucking live and breathe!’

He’s grinning. I stare at him. Right into those bright, pale eyes. Right at that wide grin. The crooked incisor at the bottom on the right.

No.

This cannot be Jay. He cannot have changed so much. But he’s grinning, and I recognise that grin, as if this old, tired man has stolen it and put it on, stolen it from the young man who drew me flowers on pieces of paper he’d torn out of his books, who took me to a fine art museum on our first date, who’d laugh just as easily as he’d sneer. ‘You’re back! Bloody fucking hell,’ Jacob says and takes a step towards me. His voice sounds scratchy. There’s a smell coming off him.

‘Jacob,’ I say, suddenly out of breath. ‘Hi.’

His eyes are running all over my body. Like I am something he can hold on to. The first friendly face in years. ‘You are looking good, Linny.’

I wish there was any way that I could be saying that back. ‘I just wanted to see how you were,’ I say. My brain still cannot compute that this man could be Jay. ‘I’ve only got a minute, I got somewhere to be, but I thought we … we might … that you could …’

He watches me stammer. He is still smiling, but it is morphing into something smaller. Something bitter. ‘Somewhere to be?’

I don’t know what to say to that.

He steps closer. That must be whisky on his breath. ‘Do you want to come in, Linny?’

‘Listen,’ I say, still completely shocked. The mere thought of going into that house with that man to ask him questions, feeling that door close behind us with a final click, makes my stomach quiver. A public place would be better. A much more public place. ‘I would love to, but I can’t just now. I just wanted to let you know I was back, and that we should catch up some …’

‘Everybody knows already, Linny,’ he says, swaying on his feet, reaching for the doorframe to steady himself. It seems to be a practised gesture.

The moment he realises he’s done it, he straightens as quickly as if someone slapped him, letting go of the doorframe. Trying to stand on his own two feet. He tries for a smile. It is supposed to look harmless, I think. ‘Kait’s texted the whole village. It was a wild night at the pub last night, let me tell you.’

For a moment, I see his eyes clear, see a shrewdness return to his features. He takes another step towards me. ‘The Detective Inspector was all over the place. You should have seen him. Didn’t even have time to stick his hand down some poor young thing’s pants in front of the ladies’.’

My throat is dry. He’s too close. His breath smells sharp. My mouth twitches. I hope he doesn’t realise. ‘Listen, Jacob, I am sorry I made you get up. I really do have to run now, but we should definitely catch up. Maybe in a couple of weeks? Definitely coffee …’

His hand shoots out before I can stop him. His fingers wrap around my wrist. ‘You don’t have to lie, Linn.’

I try to shake off his hand. My throat is closing up. ‘Let me go.’

His gaze goes right through me. His voice drops to a whisper. ‘Is it so bad? Do I really look so bad, Caroline?’

‘Jacob, let me go,’ I say.

He puts on another smile. It tries for jovial but ends up desperate. With a jolt, I remember that expression. That is what he looked like when he had been hurt. When he was about to lash out in return. ‘You are looking lovely, Linn, you really are,’ he says. ‘I hope you don’t swing the other way any more?’

I grit my teeth. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Remember what a good party we had. At mine. That night, before it … you know. Happened.’ His fingers are wrapped so tightly around my skin that his knuckles are turning white. His eyes are going in and out of focus. ‘What a comfort to finally find out why you had broken up with me, wasn’t it, when I saw you with your tongue down Anna Bohacz’s throat for the better part of the night.’

All the air is punched from my lungs. ‘Fuck off,’ I say, pulling my arm away in earnest now.

It doesn’t even seem to register with him. He is still stronger than me. ‘Just checking. Gave me a right shock. And the big O, too, you know. Oliver Dawson. He had even let you pick his perfume, remember? He smelled like something out of Mum’s Chilcott catalogue that night. I think he thought he would marry you one day.’

‘We are married. Let me go!’ Finally, I manage to tear my arm out of his grip. With shaking hands, I turn on my heels and rush to the car. I force myself not to look back even once, my nerves taut as rabbit wire, trying to get out of there as fast as possible. My legs are trembling as I push down the clutch.

When I drive past the house, Jacob is still standing in the doorway. Staring at me. All the will to hurt has vanished from his expression. He looks at the ground, hugging his jacket to his body against the cold.

Do I really look so bad?

My feet won’t stop shaking even as I speed across the bridge and out of the village. My stomach is filled with dread now, heavy, sticky dread. It is a relief to turn onto the dirt road leading up to the hollow, far away from that man who stole Jay’s name, his voice, even his eyes. The voice that used to tell me about paintings we saw in Manchester, paintings and sculptures and weird things that I didn’t think of as art. The eyes that would shine when he painted rainbows onto the concrete of the parking lot, or brim with tears that he wouldn’t let spill as I walked away from him.

I shiver. Driving past the Kenzies’, I glance down their drive. The upper curtains are drawn. I keep driving, stretching my prickling hands. And what was he talking about, anyway? I’d kissed Anna once. Twice, maybe. We’d been stupid. Fooling around. That was all. I run a hand over my mouth.

I know I will have to go back to see Jay once more to ask him about that night. But definitely in a public place. Much more public than his front door, at least. I do not think he would have seriously hurt me, but what do I know about Jacob Mason? I haven’t seen him in nineteen years.

Maybe Oliver would know. They used to be mates, Oliver and Jay, both of them on the swimming team. After it’d no longer been the four of us. Best mates even, I think.