More than a few, come to that.
Never mind,
I thought.
She’ll be home tonight. You can ring her then.
I scrolled through my phone book and selected Mike’s number, but all I got was his voice mail, asking for a message. I didn’t leave one—I couldn’t think of anything to say.
And that was it.
No one left to call.
I sat on the veranda and watched the clouds.
I was still sitting there half an hour later when I saw someone coming down the pathway. The mere sight of another human being—the movement, the color, the flesh of a face—sent a surge of adrenaline rushing through my body
and a stream of panic into my mind.
Who? How? What do I do? Run? Hide? Shout? What?
But even before I’d got to my feet, I realized there was nothing to fear. It was just an old man, on his own, walking slowly down the track. No fear, no panic, no worries. The adrenaline settled sickeningly in my stomach, and I started breathing again.
As the old man got closer, I recognized him as Mr. Butt—the villager Dad paid to keep an eye on the cottage—and the adrenaline began stirring again. I tried to calm myself down—
There’s nothing to worry about…it’s
your
cottage…you don’t need his permission to be here
—but it didn’t work. If I’d been on my own, there
wouldn’t
have been anything to worry about, but I wasn’t on my own, was I? I was with Candy, and she was in bed…
Which made things difficult.
Mr. Butt was about twenty meters away now. I hadn’t seen him for a long time, and I wasn’t sure he’d recognize me, so I took off my hat and stood up to meet him. I’m not sure
why
I thought that’d help, but I did it, anyway.
“Morning, Mr. Butt,” I called out. “It’s only me—Joe Beck.”
He paused for a moment, leaning forward and squinting at me, then he raised his hand and ambled up to the veranda. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t changed his clothes since the last time I’d seen him—and I still couldn’t tell exactly what they were. Some kind of brown jackety thing, a brown outer layer (which might have been a coat), and a shapeless brown hat.
“Who’s that?” he said.
“Joe Beck,” I repeated, “Dr. Beck’s son…Joe. Do you remember me?”
He squinted again. “Joe…?”
“Gina’s brother…I used to come here with my mum and dad.”
“Joe Beck?”
“That’s right. I’m just staying here for a couple of days. Didn’t Dad let you know?”
“Not so’s I recall…” He wiped his nose and peered at me. “You’re young Joe, then?”
“Yeah…I’ll be here for a couple of days. Exams…I need to get some work done, you know…for my exams.”
“Aye…right. Well…” He looked around. “You got enough wood?”
“Plenty, thanks.”
“Plenty there.” He nodded at the woodshed. “Got ‘er chopped up after the storm, couple weeks back. S’mostly dry now.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Aye, right, then…well…I’d best get on back.” He looked over his shoulder but didn’t make any move to go. I think he was probably waiting for me to offer him a cup of tea or something. I stayed silent, hoping he’d take the hint. He looked at me again, vaguely nodding his head, and I was sure he was about to leave, but then I heard a voice behind me—
“Joe?”
—and I turned around to see Candy in the doorway. Her hair was tangled, her skin was flushed, and her nightgown was fluttering in the wind.
“What are you—” she started to say, but then she saw Mr. Butt. “Oh…” she said, glancing from him to me. “Sorry…I didn’t—”
“This is Mr. Butt,” I said quickly. “The man from the village—”
“Morning, Gina,” Mr. Butt said. “You’re looking fine.”
I turned around and stared at him. He was leaning forward and squinting at Candy, his ruddy face creased with a toothless smile.
He can hardly see,
I realized.
He thinks she’s Gina.
He said to Candy, “You’ll need more’n a summer dress today, young lady. You’ll catch your death in that.”
Candy smiled awkwardly and crossed her arms to cover herself up. I wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed or shy or simply uneasy…but whatever it was, it was curiously attractive. For a moment or two, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. But then I realized she was giving me a look—a stop-staring-at-me-and-get-rid-of-him look—and I turned back to Mr. Butt again.
He was still leering at Candy.
“Well, thanks, Mr. Butt,” I said, getting his attention. “It was nice to see you again. Sorry if there was any confusion…you know…with the cottage and everything.”
“Aye,” he said.
“We’ll probably be gone by the weekend.”
“Aye.”
I nodded at him.
He nodded back.
I waited for him to move.
He stood there nodding to himself for a while, and then—with a parting nod at Candy—he turned around and started ambling back up the pathway. I watched him until I was sure he wasn’t coming back, then I turned to
Candy. She was still standing with her arms crossed, but she didn’t look so shy anymore. She just looked freezing cold.
“I think he fancies you,” I said to her.
The faintest trace of a smile warmed her face for a moment, but then the cold and the pain kicked in again, and she hunched her shoulders and rubbed her arms and shuffled back into the cottage.
I stood there for a while, staring after her, picturing her face.
It wasn’t much of a smile,
I told myself,
barely a smile at all—but it happened. You didn’t imagine it. It happened. It was there…
It was
there.
Monday afternoon: She was still pretty ill, spending most of the time in bed, but as the day wore on, I began to realize that she seemed more settled in her sickness. She wasn’t crying so much, for one thing. She had the occasional sob, and at one point she broke down and wept herself into such a state that I almost called for an ambulance, but apart from that she was fairly calm most of the time—just lying in bed, half-asleep, half-watching the TV…a bit sweaty, a bit cold, a bit achy. She was gradually beginning to talk a bit more, too. She still wasn’t saying a lot, but if she was awake when I went in to check on her, she usually managed a few words.
Thanks…
Yes, please…
What time is it?
It didn’t mean much in itself, but it made me feel pretty good. In fact, it made me feel fantastic. I knew that I mustn’t get
too
carried away, because I guessed we still had a long way to go, but I couldn’t help feeling that the worst of it
was over. All we had to do now was keep our heads together for a few more days…
Just a few more days…
And then…
And then
what? I asked myself.
What are you going to do when this is all over? What’s going to happen with Candy? Where’s she going to go? And where are
you
going to go? Back to the old life? Back to how it was? Back to Heystone? Back to school? Back to your bedroom, lying on the floor?
I wished I
couldn’t
imagine it, but I could—I could imagine myself somewhere else, thinking back on now, thinking of
here
as somewhere else…
And it made me want to cry.
Four o’clock: I was sitting in front of the fire, idly burning matches, when I heard Candy’s voice from the bedroom doorway.
“There you are,” she said. “I thought you’d run out on me.”
When I turned around and looked at her, I couldn’t help smiling. She’d borrowed one of my sweaters—a scruffy old thing with extra-long sleeves—and she was wearing it over her nightgown, together with a pair of socks that must have been at least four sizes too big.
“What?” she said, looking at me. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing…I was just admiring your outfit, that’s all. It’s very nice.”
“You think so?” She waggled the sleeves of the sweater and looked down at her feet. When she lifted her leg, the toe of the sock flopped to the floor. She gave it a quick wiggle, then put her foot down and smiled at me. “That’s tired me out,” she said.
I started to get up, but she waved me back down and came over and joined me at the fire. Her skin was still pale and she looked really gaunt, but beneath the surface I could see good things—the light in her eyes, the way she moved, a hint of life…
She groaned a little as she lowered herself to the floor, and I held out a hand to help her. Her fingers were cold—but not
deathly
cold. The touch was coming back. Candy’s touch—the unknown shade, the tingle, the feeling inside…
“All right?” I asked her.
She nodded. “A lot better, thanks.” She crossed her legs and made herself comfortable. “I don’t think I’m
there
yet…I mean, I still feel like crap, but at least I’m not climbing the walls anymore. I just feel as if someone’s been beating me up for the last two days.”
“I know what you mean,” I said, rubbing my belly.
She didn’t get it for a second, then her eyes widened in realization. “Oh God,” she said. “I hit you, didn’t I?”
“Sort of…”
“Did I hit you? I can’t remember…”
“It was more of a well-placed knee.”
“Oh, no…” Her eyes glanced between my legs. “I
didn’t,
did I?”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“I’m sorry, Joe…I didn’t know what I was doing—”
“I know,” I said. “It doesn’t matter—honestly. Forget it.”
She looked at me, half in sympathy, half in amusement. “Did it hurt?”
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“Really?” She smiled.
“Yeah…there’s not many girls get the better of
me
in a fight.”
She laughed quietly. It wasn’t much of a sound—just a gentle laugh—but it felt like a song to me. A really good song. The kind of song that makes you feel funny inside.
“Do you think you can manage some toast?” I asked her.
She nodded. “That’d be nice.”
So I made us some toast and we talked some more…and the song just kept on playing. It was good. Even when Candy began to feel tired and I helped her back into bed, everything still felt OK. She wasn’t
sick
-tired anymore—just sleepy-tired. Worn-out. Talked out. Dreamy.
“Thanks, Joe,” she whispered as I tucked her in.
“You’re welcome.”
When she raised her head from the pillow and kissed me, her lips touched mine with the crystal breath of a snowflake.
Everything
was
going to be fine.
I really believed it.
I
don’t know exactly what happened in the next hour or so. I know I walked out of the bedroom and quietly shut the door, and I know I wandered around the cottage for a while—feeling good, feeling fine, still believing that everything was going to be OK—but I’m not sure how I ended up at the front-room window, staring out at the moonlit woods, thinking about Candy, thinking about me…thinking myself into a hole. Candy…sleeping…Candy…me…Candy’s touch…Candy…me…Candy’s kiss…Candy…me…
The touch was still there.
The touch of her kiss.
I could still feel it, impressed in the memory of my skin—the cold heat, the crystal breath—and I kept wanting to lick my lips, to taste the snowflake on my tongue, but I was afraid that the heat of my breath would melt it…
And that wasn’t all I was afraid of.
Deep down inside, I was afraid of everything. My
thoughts, my doubts, my desires, my lies, my honesty…myself. As I stared through the window, my reflection looked back at me, paling in the darkened glass, ghosting my face to another…another face, another boy…
Another me.
And I didn’t like the look of him. I didn’t like what he wanted. But I couldn’t stop seeing him…I couldn’t stop
being
him.
It didn’t make sense.
I didn’t know what he was. He was me…but he
wasn’t
me. His feelings were wrong and mine were right; but then mine were wrong and his were right…It was madness. It was too many things to know: lightness, darkness, crying, laughing, hurting, needing, hating, loving…
Why does it always have to be like this?
I thought.
Why does it have to hurt so much?
And then my phone rang.
And I was about to find out the
true
meaning of hurt.
I wanted to think it was Gina calling, but even as I pulled the phone from my pocket, I somehow knew that it wasn’t. There was something about the sound of the ring tone…something cold and empty…
I checked the display.
17:27,
it read,
UNKNOWN CALLER.
The phone kept ringing.
I checked the reception.
The signal was fine.
The phone kept ringing, cold and empty, demanding an answer.
Just leave it,
I told myself.
It’s probably just a junk call
or a wrong number or something. Ignore it. Let it ring. Turn it off…
But I knew I couldn’t.
My hand felt heavy as I opened the phone—heavy and slow and unfamiliar. It was as if I was underwater. Steadying my arm, I lifted the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
The line was silent for a moment—not dead, just hollow and silent. I could tell there was someone there…I could hear them breathing. And I
knew
—in an instant—I knew what I’d known all along. I knew who it was. I’d heard that silence before—on the answering machine at home, in Candy’s room…
It was the silence of the other world.
Iggy.
“Still smiling, boy?” he said.
I stared at myself in the window—a shrinking face in a void of darkness. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“You
there?
” Iggy said.
“Yeah,” I muttered, “I’m here.”
“Good,” he sniffed. “What you doing?”
“Sorry?”
“Don’t gimme that
sorry
shit—I said what you
doing
?”
“I don’t…I’m not…I’m not doing anything…”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t—”
“You got the bitch?”
“What?”
“You
deaf?
”
“No…I just…I mean, I don’t know what you want…”
He laughed. “You don’t know what I
want?
Shit—you
put me on the floor, man. You put me down and shamed me. You
robbed
me. What d’you
think
I want?”
I didn’t reply.
“C’mon,
Joey,
” he sneered. “Think about it. Take an
educated
guess.”
I stayed quiet.
He breathed his silence.
I tried to steady my heart.
“Ah, shit,” he said eventually. “I ain’t got time for this. Listen—you listening?”
“Yeah.”
“OK, I’ll say it again. You got the bitch?”
“You mean Candy?”
“Yeah, I mean
Candy…
you got her? Yes or no?”
“I know where she is.”
“You’d better, for your sake.”
“I’m not going to—”
“You ain’t gonna
nothing
—all you’re gonna do is gimme the bitch and walk away, and that’s it. No shit, no questions. Nothing to pay.”
“What do you mean?”
“What d’you
think
I mean? You took what’s mine—I want it back. I’m
getting
it back.”
“I don’t think she wants—”
“Don’t think—just listen. I’m talking to you. Not her. She’s nothing. You hear me? I’m talking to
you.
You gimme the bitch, you walk away.”
“What if I say no?” I heard myself say.
“You ain’t
gonna
say no.”
“Why’s that?”
“Why?” He laughed. “You wanna know why? This is
why…” The line went quiet for a moment. I could hear muffled voices in the background, then some kind of movement, a shuffling sound, like something being dragged across the floor…and then a sobbing voice came on the phone, and my heart went cold.
“Joe…Joe…is that you?”
“
Gina,
” I breathed.
Her voice wept down the phone, “Joe…thank God…He’s got me…the bastard took me and
ummmmff
—”
“Gina!” I yelled. “Are you all right? Where are you? Has he hurt you? Gina…Gina?…
GINA!
”
But she’d already gone. I could hear her being dragged away, her gagged voice fading into the background, and the phone being passed around…and then Iggy’s voice came back on the line.
“Nice girl,” he said. “Very nice.”
“You’re dead,” I hissed. “You’re a dead man.”
And I meant it. If he’d been standing beside me then, I would have killed him without even blinking. Killed him, spit on his body, then killed him again.
I could feel his emptiness inside me.
No feeling.
No heart.
Only his death.
I could see it in my windowed eyes. White in the glass, like mirrors…white in the darkened glass…
A vision in white.
In me…
Through me…
In the woods outside.
White in the dark.
“Joe?”
“Gina?”
“Joe?”
Candy…?
Behind me. She was standing behind me…in the middle of the room…her gowned reflection merging with mine in the window. Her figure…my face. Gina in my eyes…Iggy in hers. The devil in the woods. For a moment I could see us all—me, Candy, Gina, Iggy—drawn together in the mirrored glass, like specters in the dark…
And I was strangely calmed.
Then Candy spoke and the calmness crashed.
“What’s going on?” she said. “I woke up and heard you shouting…who’s that on the phone? Who are you talking to?”
No one, I suddenly realized. I wasn’t talking to anyone. I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t doing
anything.
Gina was in serious trouble, she
needed
me, and what was I doing? Nothing. Just standing there, lost in myself, staring pathetically at shapes in the window…
I screwed my eyes shut and screamed at myself in hateful silence,
Christ, what’s the
matter
with you?…How
could
you…?
Then stopped.
There wasn’t time.
All I could hope for—as I cleared the self-disgust from my mind and turned my attention back to the phone—was that I hadn’t been lost for too long. That I hadn’t missed anything. Because if I had…and Iggy had hung up…
I didn’t want to think about it.
With hope beating hard in my heart, I gestured at Candy to keep quiet and pressed the phone to my ear. The line was still open, thank God. I could hear Iggy muttering
to someone in the background. He had his hand over the mouthpiece. I blocked my other ear with my finger and listened hard, but I still couldn’t make out what he was saying. I thought about turning the phone volume up, but I couldn’t remember where the control switch was, and I didn’t want to risk pressing the wrong button, so I just kept the phone pressed close to my ear and waited.
After a moment or two, the muttering stopped and a smothered silence filled my ear. I heard a scraping sound, wood on wood, like a chair being moved on floorboards. Then silence again. A muffled laugh. And then the silence opened up as Iggy removed his hand from the mouthpiece, sniffed hard, and spoke into the phone.
“Hey, Killer…you there?”
“I’m here,” I said.
“You gonna listen now?”
“I’m listening.”
“All right, listen good.” A dull slap echoed down the line, followed immediately by a stifled cry. I felt a knife ripping through my heart. “Hear that?” Iggy said. “That’s your sister. You threaten me again, and the next time you see her she won’t have a face to slap—OK?”
“Please don’t—”
“OK?
”
“Yes…yes, OK.”
“See, the thing is, Joey, I could lie to you, I could tell you I don’t wanna hurt your sister…but the truth is, I don’t give a shit. You know what I’m saying? She’s meat to me, same as the rest—meat for money. Money for meat. The only thing stopping me from cutting her up and getting
her
to tell me where you are…well, like I said, she’s a nice piece. It’d be a shame to waste it. I mean, she
ain’t no Candy, but she’s still fresh enough to turn a profit. Course, she’d need some encouragement…” He paused to let that sink in, then went on. “You see what I’m saying, Joey? I can’t lose…either way, I can’t lose. You want your sister, I get the bitch—you want the bitch, I get your sister. It don’t make no odds to me…but if I was you, I’d give up the bitch. Cos if she stays with you, she’ll mess you up, and if she comes back to me…well, I’ll have some fun messing
her
up. But that’s just a personal thing, you know? I mean, business-wise, there ain’t much in it for me.” He sniffed again. “So, like I said, you gimme the bitch and walk away, or you say good-bye to your sister. And that’s it—that’s the deal. No strings. No shit.” He sniffed again. “You got any questions
now?
”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t. Anything else?”
I looked across at Candy. She was shivering. Staring at me. Her eyes full of nothing. I turned back to the phone.
“Call me back in ten minutes,” I said quietly.
“What?”
“I need time to think.”
“Shit…are you for
real?
”
“Just give me ten minutes—please? It won’t change anything, will it? Ten minutes, that’s all.”
“You got five,” he said angrily, “five minutes. And when I call back, I want an answer—you want your sister, I want to know where the bitch is. I want an address. I’ll ask you once, that’s all. One question—one answer. Anything else and your sister’s mine.”
After he’d hung up, I couldn’t move for a minute. I didn’t
want
to move. All I wanted was to be somewhere else—a
place where this never happened. I wanted to be the
other
Joe Beck—the Joe Beck who’d never had a lump on his wrist, never gone to the doctor, never got lost at King’s Cross station…
The Joe Beck who’d never met Candy.
I wanted to be wherever
he
was.
“He’s got Gina, hasn’t he?” Candy said after a while.
I looked at her. She hadn’t moved. She was still standing in the middle of the room, still staring at me. Still shivering.
“Yeah,” I said.
She didn’t say anything, just kept staring at me. There was nothing left in her eyes. No questions, no shock…not even fear. Just absolute surrender.
I crossed the room and took hold of her. She didn’t respond, just hung there, limp and lifeless in my arms.
“Come on,” I said, leading her over to the sofa.
She sat on the edge of the sofa and stared at the floor. “God, I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “Poor Gina…if I hadn’t—”
“No one’s to blame except Iggy,” I told her. “It’s not your fault.”
She kept on staring at the floor, speaking as if she hadn’t heard me. “I knew it—I
knew
he’d do something like this. I shouldn’t have let you—”
“Listen to me,” I said firmly. “We don’t have time for this. Iggy’s going to call back in a minute. We need to work out what we’re going to do.”
She looked at me. “There’s only one thing we
can
do—he wants me back, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And he’s got Gina.”
I nodded.
She touched my hand. “You know what he’ll do with her if he doesn’t get me?”
I nodded again, trying not to think about it.
“I’ve been there, Joe,” she said. “I know what it’s like—I can live with it. Gina can’t.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“No, he won’t—he’s not stupid. He might smack me around a bit, but as long as I’m making him money, he won’t kill me.”
“You’re not going back to him,” I said. “You can’t…There has to be another way. There has to be something else we can do…”
“He’ll know if we’re setting him up, Joe. He
always
knows. That’s why he’s still alive. You don’t mess with Iggy and come out on top—believe me. You do what he says…or you lose.”
I knew she was right, but I couldn’t accept what it meant. I couldn’t let her go back to him…I’d never be able to live with myself. But if I
didn’t
let her go…and Iggy took Gina…
No, that was unthinkable. Impossible. The world couldn’t allow it. Not Gina…not ever.
Never, never, never…
Never.
I looked at Candy again, looking at nothing. She was a ghost. I was a ghost. The only existence we had between us was the cell phone in my hand.
I looked down at it.
It rang.
I flipped it open and put it to my ear.
Silence.
Then, “Where is she?”
“Woodland Cottage,” I said.
“Where the hell’s that?”
I told him.
He didn’t ask for any directions, just took down the address, read it back to me, then started talking.
“You’re both there, right?”
“Yeah.”