Both the Kims were in the staff lounge on break, too, and they waded in. ‘There was a girl with them, joining in. That is really sick,’ said Little Kim.
‘Girls are the worst,’ Laura said. ‘They egg them on.’
‘What was it about?’ Blonde Kim asked.
‘Doesn’t say.’ Laura was studying the paper.
‘Probably a mugging,’ said Blonde Kim.
‘I was mugged,’ said Little Kim. ‘Walking home one night when I worked at the bar. Scared the life out of me. He had a knife.’
Blonde Kim gazed at her, biscuit poised. Laura looked up.
‘He said “Give us yer phone and yer money.”’
‘Was he a druggie?’ Laura asked her.
‘Dunno,’ said Little Kim. ‘I just gave him it and he ran off. I was crying, I could hardly walk, I was shaking that bad. It was horrible.’
‘I saw them,’ Emma managed to say, her face heating up.
‘You what?’ Blonde Kim gawped.
‘Before the stabbing.’
‘Oh. My. God.’ Little Kim clutched her hands to her chest theatrically.
‘Where? What? Spit it out!’ said Laura.
Spit it out, Emma, I haven’t got all day. One of her dad’s phrases.
‘They got on my bus. I’ve got to give a statement to the police.’
‘The police!’ Little Kim shrieked. ‘Will you have to go to court and everything?’
Emma shrugged.
‘It must have been horrible,’ Laura said. ‘What did they do?’
‘Just kicking off, you know. Threatening this boy, the one who’s in hospital.’
‘Oh, Emma,’ breathed Little Kim.
She didn’t want them going on about it, she didn’t like it. She set her cup down, still half full, and put her bag back in her locker.
‘Someone’s keen.’ Laura glanced at the clock. Another four minutes.
‘We’re not all slackers,’ Emma tried to joke, but she sounded weird, sort of bitter, and she saw the Kims raise eyebrows at each other.
They could be very cliquey and it had taken her a while to make friends here. She didn’t want to mess it up, but she couldn’t think of what to say now to put it right. Her face glowed; she hated blushing. ‘See you in a bit,’ was all she managed.
As she left and closed the door, she heard them laughing and her eyes stung. Two more days and she’d be off home for the holidays. It would all blow over and things would get back to normal.
Back at her desk, she began work. The forms and the figures, the policy numbers and dates and exclusions were a relief, a place to get lost.
Andrew
Time lost meaning, hours morphed into days, minutes hung slow, poised, paused. Andrew felt there was a membrane between himself and the world. Translucent, invisible. A caul. And any real understanding, any comprehension as to what had happened was there on the other side with everyone else.
They had been to register the death – he knew that, though recalling the event clearly was impossible, like trying to make out writing that had blurred and run in the rain. Rorschach blots staining the paper where letters once processed.
He hadn’t driven, he knew that much; they wouldn’t let him drive, so Colin had taken them.
The woman studied the medical certificate from the hospital and checked the facts with them and then made out the entry in the register in her small neat italic writing. The ink was sooty black.
Andrew felt like he was underwater; everyone’s words took an inordinate amount of time to reach him and half of what they said was incomprehensible. He kept losing his place, as though the co-ordinates had been shifted, the land rippling beneath him and leaving him on a different contour line with no way-marks.
Colin must have driven home too, Val carrying the death certificate and the one for burial, though he had no memory of it.
‘Dad?’
He was on the stairs carrying holdalls up, when he heard Jason. Someone had been to the house, got clean clothes for them, toiletries. His heart burst, soared with joy, and he whirled round, seeking his son, waiting for further proof that this had just been some awful, dreadful mistake. His body hungry to hug his boy, to tell him how they had all been knocked sideways but here he was. Here he was and his life was golden and green and wide with potential.
He stood and waited, holding his breath, his head inclined to catch the faintest echo, eyes shut the better to smell Jason’s approach – a mix of sugar and mint from the gum he was always chewing and the cologne his mother had bought him last birthday. A better option than the Lynx body spray he’d favoured for years.
