The Boy Who Could See Demons (21 page)

‘Why?’ I asked at the time.

Edith’s brown eyes had always sparkled when I dropped Poppy off at her apartment, but lately her expression at the door had grown troubled, hesitant to receive my daughter. At my question, Edith’s eyes lowered, her mouth searching for words.

‘She killed one of my fish,’ Edith stuttered, blinking back tears of disbelief. I thought of the large tropical fish tank Edith kept in her small sitting room, filled with small blue flecks and large purple swirls that looked like ribbons, but which Edith had told me proudly were Japanese fighting fish.

‘Swiped him clean out of the tank, like a cat,’ Edith continued, her lips trembling. ‘Watched him gasp for air on the sideboard.’

‘I am so sorry,’ I said, horrified. I turned to Poppy, who was standing by my side, so easily bored that she was already doing a little dance and tugging my arm to leave. I bent down and cupped her small chin, turning her face to mine. I could see Daniel’s face in hers, that high forehead, the dark curls bouncing off her shoulders.

‘Poppy, tell Edith you are very sorry and we will buy her a new fish.’

Poppy rolled her eyes away from mine and continued to dance and bounce on the spot. Edith shook her head at me gravely, folding her arms. ‘There’ve been other things,’ she said. ‘Small things, but strange …’ Her eyes darted down at Poppy as if she was something unclean.

‘She’s only three years old,’ I reasoned, pulling Poppy away from Edith’s legs. She was pretending to claw at her now, snarling and laughing.

‘I’m sorry.’ Edith had stepped backwards into the darkness of her hallway, closing her door for good.

I remember, now, that Poppy had never apologised.

‘
That it should come to this
…’

I glance at Alex on stage, noticing that he has managed to keep his body facing the audience while addressing his fellow actors, his dialogue crisp and clear. I look down at the white hem of my dress bunched tightly in my fists, realising that now, in my forties, I am finally living a normal life. A life without excuses for Poppy’s behaviour. A life without apologies to the parents of Poppy’s classmates who sobbed after she lashed out, pleas to countless GPs to find the right treatment, rejection after rejection to potential lovers because my daughter needed a stability that a new relationship would rupture. A life without Poppy.

And, to my horror, a part of me is relieved.

When the first scene ends, a sudden burst of applause startles me out of the past and back into the room. I give a small jump, holding my hands up as if I’ve just landed in my seat. Michael turns to me.

‘Are you all right?’

The stage clears, the orchestra picking up the theme tune as the wedding procession of Claudius and Gertrude begins to roll from the wings. I rose to my feet. ‘I think I just need some fresh air.’

I make my way towards the exit, past the handbags and bent legs in the pew, through the doors to the stairwell, then taking the steps two at a time to the foyer downstairs. I ignore staff who ask if I want to buy snacks and souvenirs, pushing past a queue bristling at the ticket desk. Outside, I take off my shoes, relieved by the feel of the cold, wet pavement, the indifference of loud, busy traffic. I walk a little distance away from the front doors and lean my head against the cool wall.

‘Anya?’

I turn to see Michael at the entrance, his navy suit jacket blowing open in the wind. He strides stealthily towards me.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ His face is creased in concern. I turn away, anxious for him to leave. I don’t want to have to explain myself and lying makes me fidgety. I fold my arms.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, turning back to him and forcing a smile. ‘I just felt a bit hot, that’s all.’

He nods, but the look of concern in his eyes doesn’t fade. There is a moment where he should get the hint and go back inside. He decisively doesn’t.

‘Alex was great, wasn’t he?’ He grinned, plucking at the thin straws of conversation. I try to return his enthusiasm, but before I can speak I feel a sob form in my throat and my eyes well up. I raise a hand, embarrassed.

‘It’s OK,’ I mutter. ‘Really. Go on, you’re missing the show.’

I glance out at the traffic, relieved by the sweep of cold air thrown up by the stream of cars, the lights of the Opera House dancing on each new shining vehicle. Michael is still standing there, both hands at his sides, watching me. I can make out the lines under his eyes, the slight fuzz of grey stubble around his jaw. I go to say
please
, but he steps forward. I look up, startled by the pain in his eyes. Without a word, he lifts a hand to my cheek. His thumb gently and deliberately rests across the scar inflicted by Poppy. I search his eyes, wondering what he is doing. It is as if he has ventured as close to the line I have drawn between our professional relationship and an intimate relationship as he possibly can. He doesn’t move to kiss me, doesn’t speak. He just holds his hand there, his eyes intense, burning into mine.

After a few moments he lowers his hand and walks back inside.

17

‘REMEMBER ME’

Alex

Dear Diary,

I did NOT do this to myself, but everyone here thinks I did and I am really fed up. I don’t know what happened. I feel so muddled and weird. Ruen wasn’t around at the time and all Bonnie did was scream. An ambulance came and carried me out in a stretcher. There were lots of people in the street but also lots of demons.

All the doctors at the hospital kept asking me, ‘Alex, did you do this to yourself? Did you throw yourself up against the wall? Did you punch yourself in the face?’ and so on, and then when I wouldn’t answer they asked me
why
I did it.

But something even weirder happened tonight, right when I was on stage.

I’ll start at the beginning. It was like the craziest day all day in rehearsals, or I guess not all day but for about three hours before the curtain was going to come up and Jojo was getting sweaty and swearing a lot and everyone kept forgetting their lines. Katie didn’t show up and everyone was worried and finally Jojo sat us down and told us Katie had had an accident and Aoife would be playing Hamlet. I thought about what Ruen had asked me to do to Katie’s mum and felt bad for a moment. He was right. And if I had’ve done what he said, Katie would have been OK.

Then Jojo found out that a casting director was coming, which made her even more stressed out. ‘Her name is Roz Mardell,’ she kept saying, in case we met her and didn’t call her by the right name which would be embarrassing, Jojo said. ‘If she comes up to you, you shake her hand and compliment her on her outfit and mention that you would love to do a camera audition.’ She fanned herself as if she might pass out. ‘One of you could end up in a film!’

I looked in the mirror in front of me.
How amazingly cool would that be
? I thought, and I decided right then that I totally
would
act in films like all Jojo’s famous friends and when I was really famous I would come back to Belfast and run a theatre company for kids, just like Jojo. But then I had a sinking feeling, as if a pit of quicksand had landed on my chest. There was no way I could ever end up in a film. I was just Alex from Belfast with a crazy mum.

Jojo made us all sit in a circle on the stage with our legs crossed and our hands on our knees and chant
‘Um’
, which made me forget the sinking feeling and I started to giggle. Then Liam changed the chant to
‘Dumb’
and someone else said
‘Rum’
and then it became
‘Bum’
, and everyone laughed.

Jojo said she’d hired professional make-up artists and technicians for the night, which really made it all feel real, and then when the orchestra turned up I felt sick with excitement. I know there was over twenty of us in the play but somehow I couldn’t get it into my head that I was a part of something so cool. I had this feeling for a moment as if a warm wave of seawater had just passed over me, as if everything was going to be all right.

And then a second later it was as if another wave washed over me but it was icy cold and I had a thought in my head:
What if it all goes wrong
?

It was just after that thought that I saw Ruen. He was the Old Man then, strutting around the front of the auditorium looking over a big black piano that someone had just wheeled in. I could tell he really loved this one because he kept looking inside it at the strings and running his horrible hands up and down the keys.

When the curtain went up all the nervousness left me. I closed my eyes and told myself
I am Horatio
, and then I forgot about all the stuff that had happened before. I lowered my voice and thought of the way Jojo said Horatio would speak and how important he was at the end in continuing Hamlet’s story.

The orchestra stopped tuning their instruments and all the people who were chatting in the audience went so quiet you would have thought they’d all gone home. But I knew they were there. The lights came on but just slightly. Everyone backstage went tense and nervous.

There were footsteps and shouts on stage. I heard Liam give his line.

Taking over guard duty from you, you plonker. It’s past midnight
.

It was my turn to go on. I looked down at my costume, which was a soldier’s costume with shiny lace-up boots and a combat jumpsuit with labels from where I was meant to have done something brave. I had black marks smeared on my face and a big fake gun on my back. I took a deep breath. I stepped out into the spotlight.

‘Francisco – where are you off to?’ I said loudly. I turned my head to the audience but I could hardly see a single person, even though I knew they were all there. The spotlight was so bright that it seemed there was only me and Liam on stage. The projection of Jojo’s friend appeared on the wall opposite. The projection always reminded me of Ruen because it looked like a real person but you could see the wall behind him. The orchestra started playing and it was loud, like scratchy, screaming violins. I gave my line:
Now I see it with my own eyes, I believe you. It is real
. But when I looked at the projection again it didn’t look the same. The man was wearing a black balaclava now and a black jacket. I wondered if someone had changed the reel in the projector. He was just standing there, holding a gun.

Aoife came on stage then as Hamlet, and she looked at the ghost and reached to touch it.
He is my father
, she said.
He is
my father! O Hamlet, progenitor, warmest father, namesake – tell me why you’re here
.

The ghost turned and faced Aoife. The voice of Jojo’s famous friend filled the auditorium.

I was murdered by that same traitor who has married your mother …

Aoife looked on as the ghost addressed her, telling her to take revenge for his death. She looked scared and clung on to me, and I felt numb.

Remember me, Hamlet
.

I looked at the ghost and he held up his gun. And then it was like the stage and the smoke and the projection of Jojo’s famous friend as the ghost and the audience all disappeared. And I wasn’t even Horatio any more.

Remember me …

Aoife was no longer standing beside me. The stage had disappeared and instead of a black sea of faces, I was standing at the side of a road that looked like it was in Northern Ireland but I wasn’t sure. There was a row of small stone shops behind me and a church and a post office. Some women were pushing prams along the narrow pavement and a little girl in a yellow dress was standing in a shop doorway eating a packet of crisps and throwing some for the pigeons. The road was black and shiny as if it had been raining. There were two policemen at either side of the road, one old, one young. A police car was parked just past me.
It’s a police checkpoint
, I thought. I could see a camera in the back of it pointed at the patrol.

A blue car came up the road towards the checkpoint.
Enjoy them while they’re young
, the policeman on the opposite side of the road said.
Not long before they start borrowing your car and bleeding you dry
. The young policeman spotted the car coming towards them and he walked into the centre of the road with his hand up.

The blue car came closer and I could see two men in the front. The man in the driver’s seat was so small I could hardly see his face over the steering wheel, but as he got closer I saw he was old and bald with a white tuft of hair at the back. The other man’s face was hidden behind a black balaclava. I could feel my breaths getting faster and my heart galloping because I knew who he was.

He was my Dad.

The policeman in the middle of the road shouted something to the older policeman who took out his radio and started talking into it. The policeman in the middle of the road reached for the gun in his holster at his waist and when the blue car stopped my dad jumped out of the car and pointed a gun at him.

It happened so fast I thought I must have missed something. There was a woman pushing a pram nearby and she screamed and ran into the post office and someone came out and grabbed the little girl who was feeding the pigeons and slammed the shop door. Another man just froze, as if he had turned to ice. The young policeman raised his hands.

‘Don’t shoot!’ he said, and his voice was full of warning not fear but I was close enough to see his face, which was sweaty and strained. The older policeman had his gun pointed at my dad and I was very scared. I hid behind a pillar in front of the church.

But my dad wasn’t. He kept his gaze on the policeman in the middle of the road.

‘There’s another patrol nearby,’ the older policeman said, still pointing his gun at my dad. ‘It’s not worth it, pal. You won’t get far.’

My dad turned his head back to the driver, as if he needed to ask him something, and in that split second the older policeman shot at him but the shot missed my dad and cracked the windscreen of the blue car. My dad spun round and aimed his gun and the younger policeman pulled out his gun but my dad shot him first.