Before the Fire (11 page)

That was not Mac’s version of events. ‘She says she chucked him out but she never,’ he told Stick once. ‘He left, and then came back and she let him stay, and then he
left again, and came back, and again. It was only when he got one of his other girlfriends pregnant he stopped it.’

‘Maybe we should go somewhere else, just to look?’ Stick said.

She was like a child, he thought, looking at him and nodding.

As she handed the dresses back to the assistant, she said, ‘Will you keep this one for me? I’m going to think about it.’

‘I can hold it back for an hour.’

‘Thank you.’ Mac’s ma smiled, like she hadn’t noticed what a stuck-up cow the woman was, and Stick guided her back outside.

‘M&S,’ he said. ‘It’s just there. They’ll have something.’

‘I’m not old,’ she said, but they went in and did the same thing again, just this time the price tags were less. And this time she did cry, standing outside the changing rooms
in a dress that kind of bagged in the middle, with the whole world looking. Stick stood with his arms suddenly useless at his sides and his face burning. This time the assistant wasn’t a
bitch and when Stick looked at her, desperate, she smiled and stepped in, patted Mac’s ma on the back, sat her down on a stool and sent him off to buy a bottle of water. By the time he got
back her face was blotched red but she’d stopped crying. She took the water but didn’t open it.

‘I’m going to get the other one,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’

‘It’s for Iain.’ She squeezed the bottle so hard it made a cracking noise.

Mac would know what to say. Stick’s mum would know what to say. Probably that girl J would know what to say. He looked about for the assistant but she was talking to another customer.

‘OK,’ he said.

And so they went back to Harvey Nichols. The assistant at the changing rooms was a different woman, smaller and smilier. The other one hadn’t kept the dress back at all, and Mac’s ma
was in a flap trying to find it again. Three hundred quid. It would have been better if someone else had bought it, but they hadn’t.

The woman at the checkout spent ages folding up the dress and then wrapping it in tissue paper, using little bits of Sellotape like it was a birthday present.

‘For a special occasion, is it?’ she said chirpily.

‘It’s for a funeral,’ he said, before Mac’s ma could speak. The woman dropped her gaze and muttered, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s for Iain,’ Mac’s ma said.

The checkout woman put the dress into a posh bag with string handles and rang up the amount on the till. He knew he shouldn’t be letting Mrs McKinley spend that much, but he watched her
fit her credit card into the machine and punch in her PIN and then it was done. Maybe if he told his mum, or Lainey, they could talk her round, take it back for a refund.

Mac’s ma cradled the bag in both arms instead of holding it properly. They walked without speaking up towards Shudehill bus station. Past the big wheel and the spinning metal sculptures,
round by Next, right past Printworks. And there he was: Mac – a girl on each arm, two grass skirts one on top of the other, three strings of plastic flowers, and those fucking coconuts
– turning for a moment and smiling. Stick wanted to run after him, shouting: you cunt, where’ve you been, you scared the fucking life out of everyone. Except he wasn’t there, and
Stick was just looking at a street full of people he didn’t know.

There was a photo in the newspaper the next day. A man with dark hair and a long, sharp nose. Owen Lee. Thirty-four. Father of two. History of violence. Recent divorce. He was
smiling, not at the person holding the camera, but at someone next to him – one of his children, Stick thought, or his wife – but whoever it was had been cut out of the photo. Of course
they had.

Stick read the article three times. There had been an argument on the bus, it said, they had CCTV footage and people who remembered, people who’d seen them get off and the older man follow
the younger across Rochdale Road. When he knew each word off by heart, Stick ripped around the photo and the text and Blu-Tacked it to his wall, in the middle of where the map used to be.

On Sunday morning, his mum had knocked on his bedroom door and he’d opened it to her telling him he’d be late if he didn’t get a move on. She looked past him and he saw her
spot the article stuck to the wall, but she said nothing. Before he left, he prised it off, folded it up and put it into his pocket. His dad’s house – which in reality was Jen’s
house – smelt of gravy and roasting meat and cake.

‘Shoes,’ Jen said in her shiny, overenthusiastic, everything-is-fine voice, and Stick stooped to pull off Mac’s trainers, dropped them one on top of the other.

‘Your dad’s just carving,’ she said. And then, ‘I’m sorry, Kieran. I was so sorry to hear.’

Stick felt for the folded-up newsprint in his pocket and smoothed it between his fingers. He followed her into the dining room and sat down where he always sat, next to Jen, opposite Bea,
diagonal from Rosie. His dad had the end seat, head of the table, the chicken in front of him on its spiky metal tray. Stick avoided meeting his eye.

‘Wing, leg or breast, Kieran?’

Stick shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

Bea put her hand over her mouth and giggled, looking at Stick with goggle eyes. He smiled back at her. They were all right, the girls. Bea talked too much in her posh voice, and Rosie was too
little to say anything that made much sense, but they were all right.

His dad poured him a glass of red wine, nodded at him as he passed it over, as if they had some kind of secret. Stick wanted to knock it over onto the horrible white tablecloth with the fancy
embroidered edges. His dad never used to drink wine before he met Jen.

‘Just the one, yes?’ Jen said. When Stick looked at her she gave him a forced smile. ‘Don’t want to give him bad habits, do we?’ she joked.

Stick drank half the wine in one go. Jen pulled a face but said nothing.

They were halfway through eating when Bea looked up from her plate and said, ‘Mum said your friend got killed.’

‘Beatrice,’ Jen snapped, her face reddening.

Stick could feel his dad watching him.

‘Why did he get killed?’ Bea said.

Stick jabbed his fork into a roast potato. ‘I don’t know, Bea.’

‘Now, Bea, why don’t you tell Kieran about your swimming lessons?’ Jen said, her voice high and forced.

Bea stared at Stick, frowning. ‘Will you get killed?’ she said.

‘Beatrice, will you stop that?’

‘Stop what?’

‘No, I won’t get killed,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

Jen flapped her hand in front of her face, like she was trying to cool herself down. ‘Gary, please.’ She glared at Stick’s dad.

‘More chicken?’ Stick’s dad almost shouted. ‘Come on, girls. Eat up, eat up.’ He clapped his hands. ‘We all know what’s for pudding.’

‘Because I don’t think anyone would want to kill me, that’s why,’ Stick said. Because I don’t wear coconuts taped to my T-shirt; because I don’t mouth off to
strangers when I’m pissed.

‘More potatoes?’ his dad said.

‘But someone wanted to kill your friend?’

Stick had tried to work it out. He’d gone back to Paget Street, walked the route from the bus stop to where the police tape had been. Made himself picture it – the yellow glow from
the street lights, the trees throwing dark shadows. Footsteps behind him. Mac must have turned towards Owen Lee, must have seen his face as the knife went in. And then the blood. Could you feel
blood coming out? You must be able to if there was so much coming out that there wasn’t enough left for you.

‘I do not want you talking about this at the dinner table,’ Jen snapped.

Stick put his fork down and looked at Jen. A thin plastic headband held her hair back from her round face. There were pink patches on her cheeks and blotched across her neck. He picked up the
bottle of wine and refilled his glass, even though he didn’t like the taste. And then he took the piece of paper out of his pocket and smoothed it flat on the tabletop.

‘This is the man,’ he said, turning it around so Bea could see.

‘Your friend?’ she asked.

‘The man who killed him.’

Bea’s eyes filled with tears.

‘Kieran, honestly.’ Jen reached across the table and put her hand over Bea’s. ‘Beatrice, don’t cry. There’s nothing to cry about. The bad man’s in jail
now, honey.’

Stick took a large mouthful of wine. He caught Bea’s eye and winked at her but she didn’t smile. He thought about Owen Lee sat in a police cell with a smirk on his face, refusing to
answer questions. Jen refolded the paper carefully and handed it back to Stick.

Bea sniffed, wiped her hand across her face and then said, ‘I’m a penguin.’

‘Is that right?’ Stick said.

‘At swimming,’ Jen said. ‘She’s in the penguin class. She’s doing very well, aren’t you, Bea?’

‘And in the summer I do a course and then I turn into a dolphin,’ Bea declared. ‘And there’s a show and we all swim and then we get medals. Will you come,
Kiery?’

Stick didn’t say anything and her eyes started to fill up again. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK, I’ll come.’

Jen had made a lemon cake with thick white icing, which Bea and Rosie had decorated with tiny silver balls in the shape of smiley faces.

‘This is to cheer you up,’ Bea said, putting it in front of Stick. ‘Because of your friend,’ she whispered loudly.

‘Smiley,’ Rosie said, pointing at the cake. ‘Smiley.’

Stick thought of Mac that day in the playground, opening his palm to show the tiny silver ball bearings.

‘Don’t you like it?’ Bea’s voice wavered.

‘Course I like it.’ He punched her lightly – maybe not lightly enough – on the arm. ‘I love it. Look.’ And he pulled a clown’s-face grin.

She leaned in towards him, cupping her hand up to his ear. ‘Does being killed hurt?’ she whispered. He felt bits of spit going onto his cheek.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, and then looked at her worried face and said, ‘Not too much, I don’t think. You don’t need to worry about it.’

The cake was sharp and sweet at the same time. Stick ate two slices and drank another glass of wine.

‘Well, you two want to talk.’ Jen stood up. ‘Come on, girls.’ She lifted the wine bottle and took it out into the kitchen, the girls trailing after her. Bea glanced back
at Stick as she left.

And then it was just him and his dad.

‘That was not my fault,’ Stick said.

His dad pushed his chair back from the table. ‘I didn’t say it was.’ He shook his head. ‘Jen’s just – it’s difficult with little ones. She doesn’t
want Bea getting scared.’

‘Can’t hide her from the big bad world though, can you?’ His dad raised his eyebrows. ‘You wait till you’ve got kids,’ he said. ‘You’ll
see.’

Stick and Mac had talked about kids once – Mac wanted five, Stick wanted three.

‘How are you?’ his dad said.

Stick closed his eyes. He didn’t need this. ‘Fine.’

‘It’s hard, I know, but you’re doing great, and it’ll get easier; you just need to take it one day at a time.’

He didn’t want it to get easier.

‘I hear they’ve charged someone?’

‘Can I use your Internet?’ He needed more than a shitty news article. He wanted to find Owen Lee’s Facebook page. He wanted to know what people were saying about him. The court
hearing was still five days away; he couldn’t wait until then. Stick stood up, scraping his chair over the floorboards.

‘Hang on a minute. Sit, sit.’ His dad patted at the table. ‘I want to ask what your plans are. Now the trip’s not—’ He rubbed his finger against his chin.
‘Not happening. I want to know what you’re going to do next. Sit down, Kieran. Please. The Internet’s not going anywhere.’

Stick sat back down, jigged his right heel. ‘I don’t have any plans,’ he muttered.

His dad nodded. ‘Because –’ he drew out the word – ‘I have a proposition.’

Stick stared at the remains of the cake, half the plate just crumbs and smears of white icing, a stray silver ball.

‘How do you feel about working for GC Windows?’ He said it like he was announcing the lottery.

Stick remembered Mac’s ma walking out of the changing rooms in her too-expensive black dress.
Ta da!

‘A trainee post,’ his dad carried on. ‘I’ve talked to John and he’s good with it. Six months’ trial. Chance for a pay rise after that.’ He was talking
quickly, like he was excited. ‘Because I can see college wasn’t right for you. I get that – you want to be out in the world, earning your way. You don’t want to be coming
asking me for money every five minutes.’ He gave a nervous laugh.

Stick folded his arms.

‘And that job with those cowboys over in Gorton – it’s not a long-term solution, is it?’

Plus they didn’t want him back. He’d gone down to the site last week, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, couldn’t stand being at home with his mum fretting
at him, and the cat being sick, and Lainey messaging him, trying to get him to come out. And even though he’d explained about Mac and everything, the head guy had just shrugged and said
they’d got someone else in – ‘plenty more where you came from, mate’.

‘You’ll be shadowing me first, out doing sales, visiting people’s homes,’ his dad said. ‘We’ll have you in the shop for a while, then out with John measuring
up, then with the lads doing the fitting. You’ll get a taste of everything. Like one of those company schemes. No special treatment cos you’re mine.’ He held his palms up and
grinned. ‘But it’ll be good. You’ll do just grand.’ He put his hands down on the table and looked at Stick. ‘What do you say?’

He said no. He said get me the fuck out of here. He said, window salesman, are you fucking joking? He pictured Mac with his chin resting on his fist saying, ‘Yeah, you could do that,
window salesman, why not?’

His dad held his hands up again. ‘I know. It’s sudden. You’ve a lot going on. I mean, Christ, you’re still in shock, of course you are. But I thought it might help, now
things have changed.’

Stick stared at his empty wine glass.

‘You’ll want to think about it.’ His dad cleared his throat. ‘I mean, it’s not an offer that’s going to be there forever. But, yes, take your time.’