Now he’s unconscious, I agree with him: it looks too shady for Uber and a lot of them do have those little dash-cams, but I’m not ringing an ambulance. Fuck that.
Who do I know who has a car?
Flo doesn’t have one anymore. Eddie from Tesco is at work, and I honestly wouldn’t be caught dead driving that thing. Mam and Dad would ask questions, and they live too far away.
I order an Uber, just for me. I text Will.
Coming over its an emergency.
Okay?
It’s a four-minute journey, and I spend the whole time jiggling my leg, chewing my lip. I stand on Will’s doorstep ringing the bell. His car is there, a deep scratch still decorating the door.
He answers. He cut his hair off.
‘I need to borrow your car,’ I say.
‘What the fuck,’ he says. ‘What the actual fuck? Why?’ And then. ‘Don’t you have a driving ban?’
‘My nana is ill, she lives in…’ I shrug. ‘Berwick? And I need to get up there right now.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘You can’t just… I swear to God I remember you telling me you got caught drunk driving. I remember, ’cause you had that fucking BMW, and your dad made you give it back!’
‘Will,’ I say. I put my hands on his shoulders, my fingernails biting into his skin. ‘My nana is ill. And do you know how she got ill? Some cunt gave her loads of ketamine, and tried to rape her. And now she’s at death’s door. From what my mam has told me, this scumbag couldn’t get it up. But he still tried to rape her. And just because she was on ket doesn’t mean she can’t remember that someone tried to stick his flaccid little cock into her, okay? And wouldn’t it be an absolute fucking shitter for him if she posted his picture to her Instagram page, with a warning to women everywhere to avoid this attempted rapist. I’d be shitting myself if I was him, because my nana has a lot of followers on Instagram.’ My breath is ragged. His face is red. ‘So just… give me your fucking keys.’
He gives me his fucking keys. I jingle them in his face and tell him I’ll be back. He slams the door in my face. I drive back to mine. Will’s car smells of weed and sweat. His gym bag is on the back seat.
Dennis is still breathing, still on my garage floor. His eyes are flickering open and shut. I open the garage door, and drag him out, my shoulder popping again when I do. He leaves a patchy trail of blood behind him, like a huge, wounded slug. When the sunlight hits him, he stirs again. I ask if he can move on his own, and he sits up. Unable to stand, he crawls to the car, and we manage to get him into the passenger’s seat. I buckle him up.
It’s quick, getting him to A&E. We get caught by a couple of red lights, and I keep asking him to grunt if he’s alive. He does, and I keep seeing glass in the corner of my eye.
‘You’re my dad,’ I tell him, ‘and you fell off a ladder changing a light bulb in my house, okay?’
‘Dad,’ he says. ‘Ladder. Light bulb. No police.’
‘No. No police.’
He thanks me.
And while there’s a temptation to just push him out of the car and fuck off when we get to A&E, I go in with him properly. I tell the people at the front desk the story – Dad, ladder, light bulb – and tell them I need to go, like now, to pick up my baby from the childminder. They don’t seem suspicious, and bundle Dennis into a wheelchair, and I fucking leg it. I get in the car, and I just drive. I drive till I can’t see the city anymore.
I switch on the car stereo, which is this old, shitty thing. It has a CD player, and no aux cord, so I listen to what I assume is a Best of Johnny Cash, and try to level out my breathing. I try to laugh, pass it off to myself like it’s a joke. Like this is just classic Irina. But I can’t. It’s not funny. I remember the plastic surgeon – how there was no glass in his face either. And Will, how much of that I imagined, dreamt. I could take the fact he lent me his car as proof, you know? That it did happen, that I wasn’t just filling in the gaps.
Jesus, I don’t know.
I keep coming back to the glass. I keep coming back to my boy with glass in his face – in his eye – lying on my kitchen floor. His thin face, his wet, black hair, his cloudy, dark eyes. Bloody and bruised, the colour drained from his olive skin. He looked green.
I keep driving. I drive somewhere I fucking swear I’ve driven before. Somewhere green, somewhere with a little gravel car park, and no CCTV. I get out of the car, and I walk into the green, the sea of trees. I walk for a long time, till I find a dead old tree, with a hollow like a huge, yawning mouth. And I dig. I dig with my fingers.
I should find a skull – and I do. A little cat skull. And a cat skeleton, and a tattered collar with a bell, and tag that says ‘Fritz’ on one side, and a London address on the other, the address of the place I shared with Flo.
I bury the skeleton again, pocket the collar, get back in the car and scream. I smash my hands against the dashboard until my filthy knuckles split.
Either I buried it somewhere else, or there was nothing to bury in the first place. But if there was nothing to bury, then why do I remember it? Why do I remember having pictures?
I burned the bad ones, but I think I saved one of the good ones. Just one of his face. And if I can find it, and…
It’s getting dark. I switch the stereo back on and drive back to Newcastle. It takes me a couple of hours. I go back to mine first. I wash my hands, and change my clothes, and fix my makeup, because I look as pale as a corpse, and I have eyeliner and lipstick all over my face. My hair is wild. I remember looking like this after a night out, once, and Flo telling me I looked like a sexy clown. I snort, and then I laugh, and then I cackle, and smack my head against the mirror. The glass is cold on my forehead, solid. When I pull back, I am still there. I take my makeup off, and I feel cleansed. Calm.
I have a quick few mouthfuls of vodka before I get back in the car.
Henson answers when I ring the bell. He smiles at me, and Will shouts after him, ‘Is that her?’
‘Aye,’ he calls back. I throw the keys over Henson’s shoulder, and they land, with a clatter, in the hallway.
‘Thanks,’ I shout. Will says nothing. Henson steps out of the house and closes the door behind him. He asks if my nana is okay. I blink. ‘She’s dead.’ What a strange question, I think. And Henson looks very upset, and I remember how I got Will’s car in the first place. ‘Oh. I made that up, today. She died, like, ages ago. I just needed a car,’ I say. ‘It’s a really long story, and I just… It’s like private, but it was an emergency, and… You know what he’s like.’ I shrug, and smile at him, trying to be casual, flirty.
Henson crinkles his eyebrows, then raises them, and finally settles on looking confused and annoyed.
‘Why would you lie about that?’ he asks. Fuck’s sake. I try to make myself cry.
‘I really don’t want to talk about it,’ I say. My eyes are dry, but it’s dark and the voice is good.
‘Oh. Christ, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,’ he says. I turn around.
‘No, it’s fine. It was a weird lie, I know. I shouldn’t have, I just… It really is private. I’m so sorry,’ I say.