Closure (25 page)

He takes out his phone and checks his Facebook account. He browses Natalie Diamond's profile page, a habitual preoccupation. She has been his virtual “friend” for a couple of years, every now and then giving a thumbs-up to a statement or photo he has posted. Her profile photo has changed: a new professional headshot; her hair is big and bottle blonde. She has recent photos of herself in a police uniform – stills from a bit part she briefly played on TV.

He browses for a while, until a burst of laughter leaps from the house. It is his wife's unmistakable roar. He puts the phone away, knowing he has been gone too long and that they will argue later about his antisocial behaviour amongst her friends.

6. The Saturday with the clammy handshake.

He walks towards where he parked his car, making his way through the Aylesbury Estate. The playground is abandoned; teenagers race by on their long-boards; a homeless man rifles through the rubbish bags at the foot of the chute. Then there is a woman in the parking area, loading boxes into the back of a minivan.

His nerves race like he is fourteen again.

He makes his way across the forecourt towards her, rehearsing his words. Natalie is different. The changes he'd watched evolve online are amplified to the naked eye. The extensions in her hair are huge – thick sweeping curls that fall to her shoulders. She wears a tan shearling coat with a matching pair of
UGG
boots.

She stiffens as he nears, but then she recognises him and allows her shoulders to slump once more.

“Well, well,” she says as he draws close, “all my cobwebs tumblin' out the woodwork today.”

“Natalie…” he says, and as they hug he takes her in at close range: the fake tan that runs from her neck down; the hot pink cheeks, eyebrows thin and dark and pronounced. He feels the need to say something worthwhile, something significant. But nothing comes to him.

“Shit, it's been ages. What are you doing 'ere?” she asks, as they break apart.

“I was passing through – from my parents.”

“Oh my word! It's been so long since I've seen 'em. How's your dad?”

“Facing retirement with dignity,” he replies. “Now the two of them are talking about returning to Nigeria. How are yours doing?” He gestures towards the building's stairwell but she shakes her head and tells him her mother died four years ago and she hasn't spoken to her dad in over fifteen years.

“I didn't know they weren't together.”

“They split up the year we – you – went to university.”

“I'm sorry,” he says.

She chuckles. “You sorry? What you sorry for?”

“I'm sorry about everything.”

“We were kids.”

“I'm sorry about your dad.”

“My mum?”

He shakes his head. “No. Your dad.”

Her smiles falls away. “What do you mean?” she says.

“It doesn't matter.”

“No,” she replies, “say what you mean.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything.”

“You keep saying you're sorry. Say what you mean.”

“I didn't do anything about him.”

“You didn't do anything about him? What was there to do? What was there to do about him?”

A middle-aged man, heavy-set and balding, waddles over towards them. He wears an oversized elderflower coloured suit over a white polo shirt. “We all set?” he enquires.

“My dad didn't do anything,” she says.

“Alright?” the man asks.

“Sorry, Scott, this is Ade an old school friend. Ade, this is Scott, my husband.”

“Ade,” he says and shakes the man's hand. His palm feels clammy. Husband. He rolls the word around in his head. Scott is everything he would not have expected her to want.

“Ade and I grew up here, Scott,” she says. “We would spend every Saturday together. He was my best friend.” Her smile is tight and her words are hesitant.

He doesn't want to look at her, or to remember her like this.

“I should be going,” he says and throws a thumb over his shoulder.

“Yes,” she says. “I understand. It was good to run into you though.”

He walks a few metres before she calls out his name. He turns to face her. “Have a great birthday,” she says. “Isn't it your birthday in a couple days?”

“Yes. I'm surprised you remembered. After all these years, Natalie.”

He turns again to walk away.

“Natalie?”

Scott is confused, both by her questioning her own name and the weight of her tone.

He stops. This time he makes his way back towards them. He places an index finger on her nose and presses gently. “Black,” he says. “Black. Black. Black.”

He'll leave it for her to explain it all to Scott.

JUDITH BRYAN
RANDALL & SONS

Randall was napping in the back of the mini-van, squashed between the window and another man's broad shoulders. The man was a Foreign. He smelled of spice and fruit, a comforting smell that infused Randall's half-dream: Janice in a big kitchen, stirring pots; the boys sitting around a table, all of them laughing. Then the man nudged him awake.

The van was pulling up outside Legacy Village. Randall peered out of the window. Tower One loomed above them – the perspex balconies and beige cladding made almost beautiful by a pink sunrise. Forty-eight storeys. His back ached in anticipation of the day's work. It would be the usual: two men per ten storeys and the toppers got whatever was left, sometimes as few as three floors. It was only fair: the electricity was off, the lifts out of order. Less fair was that the boss got to sit on his arse in the mini-van, playing
Viral Vengeance Five
or whatever the hell he did while the rest of them worked.

Randall closed his eyes again. He listened as the boss called the pairs: a lullaby of foreign names, incomprehensible, barely pronounceable.

“Randall. Biggs.”

He opened his eyes with a start. From two seats ahead, he saw a young lad nod at him, jaws moving mechanically around a wad of gum. An obvious work-scheme recruit, he was all knobbly joints, not a muscle in sight. Randall groaned. He
would
get the one Englishman. Randall preferred Foreigns. They were strong and silent.

“Boss, give us a break.”

But the boss said the others were needed for higher up. Randall was a fat bastard and the kid was a kid: they could do one to ten and thank him for the favour.

Randall said, “What use is he if we find Squatters or Ferals?”

Biggs's pale eyes blinked furiously under the brim of his hard hat.

The boss shrugged. “Got your tasers, ain't you? Got your phone?”

Grumbling, Randall collected a kit bag: gloves, crowbars, tasers, e-pad and some cans of spray paint. With a jerk of his head, he led the way into Tower One. Oil-sheened puddles lay in the reception area. Electrical cabling spilled like entrails across the floor.

Straight off, Biggs began to gab. About
Serial Killer Eight
, what level he'd reached and what you had to do to get there. His voice scratched and scrabbled against the concrete walls. Randall made himself count to ten. He knew the lad was spooked. The job
was
spooky the first few times, especially with the distant noise of the other pairs echoing in the stairwell, as though the building was still occupied. Which was always a possibility.

The tenants from Legacy Village had been moved to Jubilee Skyway, and the tenants from Jubilee Skyway had gone to Olympic Reach. Sometimes people clung on. Sometimes, in the weeks between emptying an estate and finishing the refurbishment, Squatters and Ferals got in. It made the job interesting, in a funny kind of way, never knowing what you'd find.

Outside the door of the first unit, Randall made Biggs shut up and listen. He showed him how to clip his taser on one side of his tool belt and the crowbar on the other. “We,” he explained, “are the second wave. Police are the first wave; they clear the tenants. Second wave clears the shit the tenants leave behind.”

The work had got easier over the years. People kept most of their stuff now, however ramshackle. Still, there was the odd mattress, general litter, electrical items. Bash them up, dump them down the rubbish chutes. Sign off on the unit, job done.

Biggs said, “What's the third wave, then?”

“Builders, decorators, proper skilled people. Don't worry about them. All you need to know is B.D.S: Bash, Dump, Sign-off.”

Biggs nodded. “Bash, Dump, Sign-off.”

“Use your crowbar and your boots.” Randall rocked on his heels. He was beginning to enjoy himself, telling Biggs the ins and outs. “It's why they give us steel toecaps: good for bashing things.”

He opened the door into an hexagonal kitchen-living room. Doors to the bathroom, bedrooms and balcony lay on every side of the central space. From the units above came the heavy footsteps of the other pairs, the boom and creak of other chutes.

“Welcome to contemporary, open-plan living.”

He said it with a sneer but he'd wanted a place like this once – back when he and Janice lived at her mum's. They had a toddler already and Janice was pregnant again. Legacy, Jubilee, Olympic – they were all brand new. But she said the flats weren't worth the cardboard they were built with. Open-plan living? What about privacy, she said, and the cooking smells? What about the kids playing near the hot oven? We'll get a microwave, he'd told her, or eat out.

“What about Squatters?” Biggs was looking around, chewing hard enough to crack teeth.

“You understand the classifications, right? Squatters are the big ones, the little bastards are Ferals?”

Biggs nodded. Randall tapped his tool belt. “Hardly get any Squatters since the tasers. Word gets around. One shot usually does it.”

“If it doesn't?”

“We call for back-up.”

Biggs leaned in so close, Randall could smell the minty gum and, under that, the yoghurty taint of the boy's breakfast. “What about Ferals?”

“Tasers. One shot.”

Biggs blinked. Randall could guess what he was thinking:
They're just kids
. It wasn't his fault; he was young and ignorant. When he'd been on the rough end of a Feral gang a few times, he would know better. To Randall's mind, the classification hadn't gone far enough. Ferals were vermin and people should have a right to get rid of vermin.

“My Dad says they're just kids and if people didn't abandon their kids –”

“On this job, I'm your dad, right? And I'm telling you: if my kids turned Feral, I wouldn't wait for a change in the law. I'd cull 'em myself.”

They set to work reducing discarded items to manageable chunks, going back and forth to the chutes. Biggs was subdued. They worked quickly, quietly, communicating in grunts and gestures, like with the Foreigns. When the unit was clear, Randall recorded it on the e-pad. He let Biggs make the mark for the third wave – a red cross on the front door. That seemed to cheer up the lad – shaking the spray can so the ball-bearing rattled, then making a big, sweeping X with a little flourish at the end. Randall noticed how he gripped his lower lip between his teeth. He was reminded of his youngest manoeuvring a tight curve on
Junior Joy Rider
.

They cleared the first, the second, the third floor and started on the fourth. Got a nice rhythm going. Randall decided he was good at showing kids the ropes. He thought he might ask the boss to pair him with a work-schemer again. It would be practice for when he had his own little company: Randall and Sons. One of these days, when his boys were old enough…

Then, in the last unit on the fourth floor, they found a fox trapped under a fallen cupboard. Half starved, it barely lifted its snout. Biggs crouched, wondering aloud what to do. Randall nudged him aside and stamped on the creature's head. Blood and brains burst under his boot. He wiped the mess off with some newspaper.

“B.D.S.,” he said.

After that, Biggs started gabbing again. Faster, louder, higher, about everything and nothing. By the eighth floor, Randall's temples throbbed. Biggs was ahead of him on the stairs because Randall had slowed right down. The relentless flights were taking their toll as much as the lad's ceaseless wittering. So he threw his crowbar out of the window. He shouted, “Oi! Hold up, I've lost me bar.”

He sent Biggs after it, expecting the same fuss his sons made if asked to do the littlest thing. But Biggs went scampering down the stairs, eager as a puppy after a stick. The clang of the metal entrance doors echoed through the block as he went out. Randall rested on the stairs, then decided to keep going; work in peace, for a bit. He wasn't scared of Squatters or Ferals. He had the boots and the taser.

The next unit reeked of urine and stale alcohol – a foul, animal smell. The main room was in semi-darkness, the glass balcony doors obscured by tattered blinds. Randall crossed the floor in three strides and pulled the blinds away. They fell to the floor in a clatter of perished plastic. Something made a reactive skitter. He turned, watching and listening for rats, but the place was suddenly, heavily silent.

Stomping through the unit, he collected the rubbish. The last room, the small bedroom, was bolted. Inside he found a mattress on the floor and another door propped on its side under the window. He kicked the door over. A sudden stink rose up. Someone had gouged a hole, right through the wall. Stooping, eyes watering, Randall peered out. He could see part of the balcony that ran the width of the unit. It was piled with dog mess, mini mountain ranges of the stuff. The door had formed a kind of dog tunnel, to minimise draughts and odours. Smelled like the bloody dog had died out there. He tried to see through to the end of the balcony but to do so he'd have to stick his head out of the hole. Easier to open the double doors in the living room. He stood, shaking his head and dusting down his knees. What kind of person made a hole in their own home – in a
child's
room – because they were too lazy to take the dog for a walk?

“Raze the lot,” he muttered. “Tenants and all.”

That's what Janice used to say, about Olympic Reach. He had paid the deposit without telling her, certain she'd love it once they actually moved in. The flat was smart, modern; two good-sized bedrooms and a small one. They could try for a girl, if she wanted. Look out the window, he'd told her, look at those amazing views.

She said, you can't live on a view, and she'd been right. The units in the Celebration Estates shared the same cellular layout. It amplified noise. On every floor, a dozen neighbours and all the neighbours above and below. They heard every footstep, every whisper, every scream. He couldn't have known; the second wave wasn't invented yet. Eventually, the government decided to refurbish each estate on a six year cycle. That was how long it took the tenants to wreck the place. They turned on each other much sooner. It was like a virus, the violence, and he'd caught it. Bashed Janice around a few times. More than a few. She dumped him, of course.

He needed his crowbar for the door, so Randall turned to the mattress. It was too big to fit the chute in one go but, if he pulled out the wadding, he could do it in stages. With the first handful, he felt something small and hard. He opened his fist. Nestled in the fibres was a toy, the jointed kind that came with Kiddy Meals. This one was a snarling, red warrior. Pull the bits in the right way and it turned into a truck. His boys had collected them.

He bounced the little plastic figure on his palm. He remembered weekend after strained weekend, eating King Burgers while the boys chomped Kiddy Meals and fiddled with plastic tat. No wonder the stairs were a challenge these days. The boys had probably turned into lard-buckets too. He did a quick mental calculation. They'd be about Biggs's age, give or take a year. Free to come and find him, if they wanted.

He put the toy in his pocket, then dragged the mattress into the main room, away from the smell, and continued the laborious job of tearing it apart.

He was about to make his second trip to the chute – wondering what was taking Biggs so flaming long – when something jumped him from behind. Sharp teeth bit into his neck; claws scratched at his back, scrabbling for purchase. He reached round; his hand met fur. He managed to drag the thing off him, heard it yelp, saw its face: bloodied maw of a mouth, bright eyes – unnaturally bright, like a fox caught in headlamps. Tears.

With a shout of horror, Randall flung the creature away. It flew through the air, hit the wall, landed and crumpled on the floor. For a minute, he sat staring at the little brown body. Saw a shaggy mane of… not fur, hair. Not haunches and forepaws but arms, legs, hands, feet. A child
.
A little boy.

Randall jumped up, kicked open the balcony doors, stumbled out, his feet sliding in shit. Nauseated, he leant over the balcony, pulling in air. Far below the ground spiralled, rising and receding. He saw the mini-van, tiny as a Kiddy Meal toy. Tasted salt and iron in his mouth, knew that tears as well as blood wet his face. He never wept. Not even when he went to collect the boys one Friday night and found another family living in the flat. Janice had wanted a divorce but he'd refused. By cutting off the maintenance, he'd thought he could force her to let him come home. Instead, he had forced them onto the streets.

Pain twisted in his gut. If… if they were Squatters… Worse, if his boys had become Ferals… He rubbed his eyes with his fists, rubbing away thoughts of his own failures. Janice threw
him
out. Whatever had happened, it was down to her.

Randall took off a glove and put his hand to his neck, where the child had bitten him. The wound was not deep. He would live. Behind him, he heard a thin complaint. He turned. The child was trying to get up, bony arms pushing against the floor and his shaggy head flopping about. He watched it, trying to understand what it was. Not a Feral, not like the ones he was used to. Which came first, he wondered, the damage or being locked in that room? He wondered how long ago its parents had left and how long it had been alone. Something had nurtured it or it would have died. Maybe a dog or a fox. Maybe the fox he'd killed downstairs.

He remembered the rest of that night after he had lost his family. He was driving back to his hostel when he hit something. Such a bang. He had stopped in a screech of brakes, heart thumping as he stared wildly into the cone of light cast by his headlamps. Eventually, he got out. He saw a fox, dragging itself towards the pavement. Multicoloured entrails stretched like electrical cabling in its wake.

Without warning, he had vomited. But then the confusion he had felt since Janice dumped him cleared. With patient steps, he had followed the fox as it made its awful, slow escape. At last it reached the kerb, lay down and gave a long exhalation. Its entire body rose and fell as it gathered itself for the next big effort.