Lost Bodies

by David Manderson

DAVID MANDERSON is a teacher at a college in Scotland. In previous lives he’s been a roadie, a warehouseman and an office clerk. He’s published short stories in anthologies and magazines, and runs regular gigs for writers at a tea-house in the south side of Glasgow. He won a prize for an idea for a novel from the Scottish Arts Council in 2003, and four years later was awarded a Ph.D. for the finished product. It’s his first full-length book.
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Someone was watching her.

She’d felt it for the past few minutes, heat on her neck.

Turning as she was hurrying, looking back along the street.

Traffic, the crowds, men jerking their heads away. That was usual. But this didn’t lift. It was steady, unbroken. A parked car? A window? She couldn’t see – had to hurry -

Running along the pavement, crossing roads not thinking about the way. Half an hour to get to the hospital, that stupid part-time auxiliary job. Social Care, social stress more like - the wee one with her mum, she’d only just got him there in time, and’d had to set off right away.

God it was hard, harder than she’d ever thought, worn out already, a day of work ahead - if only she’d stuck in more at uni – if Graeme hadn’t been such a liar – but it’d been the liar she’d liked –

Waiting, crossing at lights then running through empty stone gates. The open area beyond them overgrown with grass and weeds. She always took this route, over the flat part and along the bank to the hidden bit. Called it a short cut though it probably wasn’t.

Still that feeling like a slow burn on her back, she couldn’t shake it off – but nothing, no-one behind her, no-one unusual, not that she could see. An older bloke staring after her through the railings. A tall one lingering by a building by the gates, looking into a window. Others gathering on the pavement, walking over at the lights.

It could be any of them.

Or maybe it was nothing, she was probably just imagining it. You couldn’t be too careful, with these attacks going on. But no time, the hospital on the far side of the hill, a good ten minutes away, she’d those notes and her photocopying to do, stuff to prepare, that report –

- half-running over rocks worn smooth down a slope, then gravel, hedges, green shadows closing in. Maybe she could stand somewhere for a moment, catch her breath -

But there was something.

Stop – a movement ahead - no, behind.

She’d run onto a narrow strip of grass, more hidden from the buildings along the road than she’d realised. She couldn’t see the traffic - the slope, the trees and the branches of bushes blocking it off. The faint noise of a car alarm from somewhere. And something –

she could feel it rather than see it. Creeping, Not ahead or behind – it was moving, flitting, just out of view, whichever way she –

Oh god it was waste ground, waste ground she’d blundered onto, she suddenly realised, broken stones and bits of glass among the weeds, this old part of the park where nobody ever came. The kind of place where he always did it, it was all over the papers, the women he’d done it to – for nothing, no reason –

Something - no, someone. Behind a bush, the edge of someone’s sleeve. And the side of a neck, an ear. Standing there as if he thought you couldn’t see him. What kind of a man would think that? Some kind of nylon jacket, a light blue material –

- Yes? What is it? What do you want?

Her voice coming out too high, trying to be fierce. Her guts turning to water. It was him, it had to be. Or just some bastard having a joke. Which came to the same thing. That was what the jokers didn’t know. You couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t risk it –

Turning, running, rattling loose pebbles, veering off her usual path into a darker space, the river somewhere near here, the falling sound of water, the distant noise of traffic, but nothing ahead but a crushed-down railing, its spokes pointed straight at her, rotten tree-trunks fallen over it, brambles like barbed wire –

no way through, she’d didn’t know this way, and behind her a kind of thumping, slowing - she looked at the railing, at the trunks. Nowhere to go. She turned.

There he was. So obvious, so clear, and standing quite close, but still half-hidden like he was shy, not quite stepping out from behind a green tree trunk, but she still couldn’t see all of him, even when he stepped out, her eyes misting over, but she knew he was smiling, smiling and coming forward, moving through the branches without them seeming to touch him and she knew now, she knew who he was, her heart going still, her breath stuck in her chest, she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, mouth stopped, throat swelling, frozen –

#

He lifted the tray of pot plants. Carried it over to the low table. Humming to himself, some tune he couldn’t get out his head. Shifted the table with his foot, then knelt.

The wood warm under his knee, the smell of fresh grass and earth coming in the shed door. An electric saw buzzing miles away. The murmur of traffic almost too faint to be heard. The sun starting to beat down out there. Hot even in here, in the shadow. He’d finish this then drive into town, if he could get away for a while.

The saw whined off for a second then whined back, higher.

He leaned forward, slid the tray on carefully: cobweb roots, delicate tubes like veins. The table wobbled on its shorter leg. He touched it with a finger, waited for it to come level. Put his hand in the block of hot sunlight on the floor, steadying himself. Went still for a second, listening. He couldn’t hear it any more, the clinking noise of her trowel from the other end of the garden.

The roar of an engine shattering the quiet, seeming to leap from nowhere all at once, the noise and the oily smell advancing, then turning away with a falter. One of those new two-cylinder petrol-fuelled things by the sound of it: he’d seen them in B&Q. Wires coiled down their arms, gear-handles. Ridiculous, completely over–the-top; he wouldn’t use one of those things if you paid him. Strange, he hadn’t seen anyone round here with one. But there was only one person stupid enough for it.

He glanced over at the door. His power-tools on hooks, planks stacked up against the wall, an old mirror in a brass frame in the corner. Deep shadow up to the door-frame, then dazzling brightness. The high seventies, it’d said on the radio this morning. It had to be pushing eighty out there.

Get a move on.

He sniffed, changed knees, wiped his face with the inside of his sleeve, pulled the bag of compost from under the table. Took the Stanley knife from his pocket, thumbing up the razor. Leaned over the sack pulling its ears together and slit it from end to end. The blade going in like stroking silk; the cut invisible for a moment, then glistening open. The compost inside a smooth trunk wrinkled by its plastic skin.

He pushed his fingers into the slit. Shreds of plastic holding it back, a little vee at the bottom. He cut carefully round it with the razor tip, lifted the little piece. Spread it flat on his palm and looked at it, then chucked it in the corner. The mixture almost black, a little spilling out over the white plastic; a dark rich smell coming out the hole.

He pushed both deep in the softness, and cupped them. Started scooping the stuff out in handfuls, pouring them into the pots, bits of it falling on the table-top, onto his trousers. Clean stuff, somehow, good to work with – didn’t stick except under the nails.

The engine note was going up, he could hear it clearly, the flicker at its heart quickening. Something wrong with it. He knew engines, the good ones and bad ones. They were all flash, those things.

The pots held little cones of earth, soiled fingers poking out their tops.

He brushed off his hands, wiped away sweat, lifted the tray from the table to the ground. Started pushing the earth down, patting it, smoothing it, taking care not to move the bulbs, squeezing and firming it, feeling for the round shapes under the earth, letting his hand open round them. They needed that extra bit of hardness, grip to give them purchase.

And more. His fingers pressing, shaping. Amazing how much you could pack in if you wanted.

He brushed off his hands, wiped away sweat. Too hot to breathe in here almost.

The engine screamed suddenly, cut off with a rattle. A voice groaned and shouted. He shook his head, smiled to himself. The noise of the saw was gone too.

He listened for the ring of her trowel, the thud of earth and stones in the bin-top, in the silence.

Turned his head to the side, took his hands out the pots.

It had stopped.

#

His nipples tightening under his shirt, hardening to points, the soreness deep in the muscle. He stood widening his eyes, seeing white then black. The darkness of the kitchen blinding after outside, and gooseflesh cold. Like stepping inside a cave, all noises muffled.

The electric saw came back, a hornet’s drone. No, it was different, more intense. A trimmer going round someone’s border.

Someone tried the lawn-mower outside, pulling a cord, once, twice. The engine didn’t catch. He moved across the kitchen in his socks. He’d heeled his shoes off on the back steps. Pulled the fridge door open, gulped orange juice from a carton, a sour smell of sweat rising out of these old clothes he wore for the garden. He closed the fridge door and went on up the hall. Stood at the bottom of the stairs, blinking, not moving.

- Anne?

The stairwell with its curtained window at its top. The garden like a garish picture through the open back door, the saw-noise muffled.

- Anne? You up there?

She must’ve dropped the trowel and come in without a sound, walking by the shed, going right past him.

Up the stairs two at a time, setting each foot down lightly. The landing at the top with its three doors. He pushed the middle one open. It scraped and stuck on the carpet. The room dark, the curtains drawn, the grey walls striped with light and shadows. Her shoes on the floor, one on top of the other. She was a shallow bump under the sheet as if she’d shrunk to a doll or model. A creamy smell in the air, some kind of ointment. Bottles and jars on the chest of drawers.

- Annie?...Anne…?

Going over to the bed, leaning over her, keeping his voice soft. It came over her so suddenly sometimes it was better just to leave her. He lifted the cover an inch.

- What’s up? How’re you feeling?

He was ready to put the cover back, tiptoe out. Her hair was over her face.

It moved, the hair belling out. He cleared it gently away, tugging strands up from the pillow.

Black sunken grooves under her eyes, the skin so pale he could see the blue squiggles of veins. The cheeks sagging, the eyes and the mouth closed tight, crushed round it, whatever it was, the pain. She looked twice her age. Her voice a ghost on her breath.

- Feel bad…

Her breathing fast and shallow, water leaking out her eyes, spreading among the wrinkles. Even her hair looked old. He touched her temple with his fingers. Then sat slowly beside her, the bed-springs creaking.

The noise of a trimmer going up and down. Someone else working with a hammer, a tock-tock echoing.

She let a breath out slowly, delicately, through her teeth, as if it was painful.

Grey shadows moving on the walls.

He looked at the bedside cabinet, leaned over, lifted the medicine bottle. Shaking it to make sure, in case any of the pink pills were stuck to the side. Then held it up to the light.

Empty.

#

The hammer sound banging through the house – it could be next door or a mile away. He rinsed the glass at the kitchen sink, letting the water fan over its sides, emptied it and lifted it up to the light. The cold glint dripping off the bottom, the water streaking off the surface in patches.

It was back, as suddenly as ever, no warning, no way of telling how long it would last. It could be a day, it could be weeks. But no chance of getting away now, not unless –

He filled the glass again, left it standing, went to the wall cabinet. Tubs and boxes of tablets and pills. He pushed his hand in over them to the unopened bottle of pink ones at the back.

He clicked the kettle on and went out to the shed, not bothering with his shoes, jumping over the gravel. A cup of tea and her medicine, it might work, it had before. The scatter of compost gone grey already, turned to powder. He shifted the tray of plants to the corner: he’d give them a good soak later then get them into the ground. He stepped out snapping the lock, stood at the top of his drive shading his eyes.

The Campsies to the north, the Old Kilpatrick Hills to the west, the Clyde Basin between them. The whole city down there, Knightswood, Drumchapel, Clydebank and all the rest, spread out like a giant dark cobweb. The city dark, the hills brown with the heat. Two weeks they’d had of these temperatures, and more on the way, they said. You got the view this far along; houses on the other side of the road blocked it a few doors down.

Someone coming. Two women walking slowly, weighed down with plastic bags. He recognised the taller one, the fair head and plump shoulders: Christine Lamont, one of Anne’s friends. Both of them in those floating summer dresses, the woman with her, squat and broad, someone he didn’t know. The two of them trudging flat-footed, their arms pulled down. Talking, of course, not whispering but keeping it light so that you couldn’t hear, the way women did. Their voices coming over the hedges.

Christine Lamont raised her head and saw him, her face jerking open. He lifted his hand in a half-wave, feeling awkward suddenly. The one beside her looking up and staring.

- Lovely day...

They weren’t stopping, just slowing.

- Yes, he said half-laughing, shifting his feet, rubbing his nose. Aware of his socks on the paving stones.

- How’s Anne?

- Fine. Well – yes, fine.

- Nobody’s seen her for so long. It’s like we’ve lost her. Give her my best.

- Yes I – I will, he said.

They disappeared behind the Amins’ hedge, and he could hear their voices again, saying something he couldn’t catch and laughing, the tops of their heads going up and down behind the branches. A nice enough woman in her way, if you could stand her. You wouldn’t tell her any of your business though.

He stirred milk on top of a tea-bag in the kitchen, emptied and refilled the glass again to an inch from the top, clear and clean, fed two pink and two white pills into his palm, and took it all upstairs to her.

#

Helping her sit up, his hands in the soft parts under her arms. She pushed with her legs, moved on her hip. The wetness seeping through the lines round her eyes, spreading down her cheeks. Old hands at this now, the two of them working in silence. Her back rounded, arms hunched in. He put another pillow under her shoulders.

She leaned her head back against the wall, the dark mass of hair and its shadow, pulled her legs up, her hands pushing weakly at the covers. He handed her the glass and the pills. She swallowed each one with a click. He sat with her on the bed, holding her hand.

A car rumbling down the street.

She might be lucky. She might be over it after a good sleep.

The numbers on the digital clock ticking. A siren whining in the distance.

Her eyes had closed, her face relaxed a little.

- D’you want to lie down?

She nodded. The same in reverse: holding her under the shoulders, helping her slide down. He pulled the cover up to her face, her pinched eye-lids trembling.

He crossed to the window, lifted the curtain. A green van with dented sides parked on the patch of road he could just see from here, in front of old Ledbetter’s garden. Whose was that? He’d never seen it before. The sun hard on his back lawn, the flowers bright on his rockery along the side of the house. Some amount of work that’d been, digging out the tiers and putting in the boulders, but worth it. People could see it all the way along the road, the best on the street by a mile.

He turned back into the room. Her breath was snuffling in her nose. Her mouth was open.

###

Copyright © David Manderson 2008