The Concrete Grove (13 page)

Tom was glad that he and Helen had never been able to have children. Then, feeling guilty once more, he thought about Hailey, Lana Fraser’s girl. What kind of future did she have to look forward to, trapped on this godforsaken estate? Nobody seemed to care – not the local council, the central government, or the media. The latter were more than happy to demonise the people on estates like this, but they refused to examine the real problems at the root of this kind of behaviour. These sink estates were forgotten zones, dead spots in the nation’s psyche. The public would rather envisage them as the playgrounds of devils than the places where those who had lost everything ended up.

Facts were always difficult to consume; fiction made for a much less complex diet. Tom had learned, and accepted, a long time ago that most people were content to be spoon-fed a simpler gruel. It was easier to keep down, and to forget you had even eaten.

Tom stood on the pavement outside the Grove Court flats, undecided whether he should ring the buzzer or continue running. Part of him wanted to escape, to get away from the emotional holocaust he sensed might be the result of any further association with Lana and her daughter. Yet another part of him – this one stirring, as if roused from a lengthy sleep – reached out towards her, needing her by his side.

“Tom?” Her voice came from behind him. For a moment he was too stunned even to move. “It is Tom, isn’t it? From yesterday?”

He didn’t realise that he was holding his breath until he remembered to let it out. His chest deflated; his throat ached. He turned around.

She was standing on the pavement a few yards away, clutching a blue plastic carrier bag in her left hand. She was wearing a faded denim jacket, buttoned half way up with the neck left open, and her legs were bare beneath a red knee-length skirt. On her feet she wore a pair of battered running shoes. Her hair was loose, messy, and it framed her face like the fur of a hood. Her eyes were lowered, as if she were unable to meet his gaze.

“Hi,” he said, feeling small and weak and needy. “Sorry.”

“For what?” She smiled, tilting her head to one side. She showed him her small white teeth: they were perfect, like lovely ivory sculptures of teeth rather than the real thing. “Why are you sorry?”

“For being here, I guess. I’m not some kind of stalker. Honest. I was… well, would you believe I was just passing?” It sounded pathetic. He felt ashamed.

She laughed, then, her eyes widening, those flawless teeth flashing in the morning light. And all at once he knew that it was okay, that everything was fine. She didn’t think he was pestering her; she enjoyed the attention. “Come on up,” she said. “I was going to make coffee.” She held up the carrier bag, indicating that she had been shopping for provisions.

Tom followed her in silence. He did not want to speak, not yet, even to accept her invitation, in case she changed her mind.

Upstairs he stood at the window as she unpacked her shopping in the kitchen. He stared out at the view: the circular array of streets clustered around the Needle, and the imposing sight of the crippled concrete tower itself. The windows on the lower floors were covered with wooden boards and metal shutters, but those higher up the building, where nobody could gain access, were mostly unsecured. Some of the frames still held panes of glass, others had only shards, like curved and pointed teeth, where kids had shattered them with stones.

The glass of the pyramidal roof was in bad shape. It was unbroken, but birds had desecrated the panes with their droppings to mix with the other general filth. It looked to Tom like there was a swarm of flies gathered around the pointed tip of the skylight, but surely flies would be invisible to the naked eye at such a distance? They were too small to be sparrows or pigeons, and he didn’t know of any birds that were capable of hovering in such a manner. They were almost motionless: just a faint blurring of their wings against the sky.

There was a lot of graffiti on the walls at the lowest levels, where kids had sprayed obscenities and depictions of sexual acts. A few names had been added in a cruder style, almost as an afterthought. Further up, on the south wall, the word ‘Clickity’ had been daubed in dull red paint. Isolated in such a way, it was incongruous, entirely random, yet Tom felt that it must hold meaning to someone. He recalled something he’d often seen on the side of a footbridge over the A1 motorway when he used to travel south regularly for work:
Cigarette Burns
. He’d often wondered what that meant – was it the name of a band, a record label, or something more sinister? He hadn’t thought about the piece of graffito in years…

“How do you take it?”

“Sorry?” He turned stiffly.

“Your coffee. How do you take it?” Lana was leaning across the kitchen counter. She arched her black eyebrows. Her cheeks were pale, almost white at the edges, but small circles of red had appeared at their centres.

“White. One sugar.”

She nodded and slid back into the kitchen.

“What happened here? Where’s all your stuff – the furniture. Where did it go?”

She appeared from the kitchen holding a mug in each hand. The coffee steamed, sending out bitter ghosts. “I owe money to someone and couldn’t pay this month’s instalment. So they sent somebody round to take our stuff instead.” Her smile was rueful, yet behind her eyes he could see what he could only describe as restrained terror. Lana was scared, and trying hard not to show it.

“Who is he, this man? A loan shark?”

She nodded. “His name is Monty Bright.”

“I don’t know the name. Then again, why would I? I don’t know anyone round here.” He took a mug from her hand and sipped the hot coffee.

“I got myself in a bit of trouble. Hailey and me, we needed things.
She
needed things. She’s a teenage girl, how could I deny her?” She drank from her mug, lowering her head but not taking her eyes from him. “I was stupid.”

“I’m not going to judge you, Lana. I know nothing about your situation. I do know that you don’t belong here. I’ll be honest; I did some research on the internet. If that offends you, I’ll leave and you never have to see me again.”

Her dark eyes flashed with anger for a second, but then she smiled. Putting down her cup on the windowsill, she walked towards him, stopping only inches away. “That’s fine. I gave up my right to privacy when the newspapers started sniffing around Timothy. That’s my husband, the one who killed those people.”

“You don’t need to explain anything.” Tom licked his lips. “I’ll take you at face value if you do the same for me.”

Lana turned away, picked up her cup, and stood with her back against the wall. She lifted one leg, placing the sole of her foot against the wall, and blew on her coffee. “Hot,” she said, unnecessarily. Then she took another sip.

“Do you owe this man – this Monty Bright – a lot of money? I mean, if it’s a small sum I might be able to help.” He was testing her, pressing her buttons, seeing how far she would go. Trying to figure out exactly what she wanted from him.

“I don’t want your money, Tom. I want your friendship.”

“I suppose that’s something we both need,” said Tom. “My wife… she’s lost to me. She’s a paraplegic. I’ve tried my best, but there’s nothing there. Just a shell of what we used to have. All I am is her carer; she doesn’t need a lover these days, just somebody to keep her clean and feed her medicine.” He smiled, but it was as bitter as the coffee.

“My turn.” Lana did not move from her spot on the carpet. “I borrowed three grand from Bright. Now, with his fucking criminal rate of interest, I owe him twenty grand. It’s like a game to him: he enjoys having people in his debt. I think it’s his drug, the way he gets his kicks. Fuck knows, he doesn’t need the cash. He’s loaded.” She shook her head. Fingers of black hair came free and plucked at her cheeks.

“What is this,” said Tom, “
Quid pro
quo
? Tit for tat?”

Lana laughed, throwing back her head. Rogue sunlight caught in her hair and was held there, amid the thick black tresses. “We’re a couple of fuck-ups, aren’t we? Real class acts.”

They had moved together across the room without Tom realising. One minute there was space between them, the next they were almost touching. Holding his mug in one hand, he raised the other to waist level. Lana did the same, opening her fingers and reaching for him. Their hands met, the fingers entwining, forming a knot that he felt might never be broken.

“Is
this
what we want?” His voice cracked. “I mean, do we really need more problems than we both already have?”

Lana sighed. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

But the decision was taken from them; it had already been made. When they kissed, it came as a surprise. Tom knew it was happening, but it shocked him just the same, like a tiny electrical charge. Her tongue was warm and smooth. He licked her perfect teeth; she snapped her jaws together, pretending to bite.

They did not move apart for a long time, and when finally they did, the damage was already done.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

H
AILEY WENT TO
her room early that evening. She was tired, washed-out. Her stomach felt oddly empty, as if she hadn’t eaten for days, and her throat was parched. No matter how much water she drank – and she had consumed at least a litre of the stuff since returning home from school – she still felt thirsty.

She lay low down on her bed with her arms by her side. Her bare feet hung over the edge of the mattress. There was a breeze coming in through the open window and it felt good against her body. She was naked. She didn’t know why she had not put on her pyjamas, but it had something to do with a vague yearning to feel the air on her skin, allowing it to breathe.

Tomorrow was Saturday. Apparently Tom was coming to take them out for the day, to Hadrian’s Wall. Her mum had seen him earlier today, and they had discussed the outing. She said that Tom wanted them all to be together. In fact he had insisted that Hailey come along.

Hailey knew that Tom was married, and that his wife was ill. Her mother had let it slip, and then tried to lie her way out of the situation.

Tom wanted to fuck her mum. It was obvious. The way he looked at her, with hungry eyes and his lips slightly parted. He’d looked at Hailey the same way, when she had first met him. He probably wanted to fuck her, too.

She wondered about his wife: whether he still slept with her, or if her condition denied him a sex life. Maybe he was sick of masturbating, and saw her mother as a viable receptacle for his desires.

Hailey smiled. These thoughts – illicit, virtually obscene – were new to her. Never before had she considered such things. She’d kissed a couple of boys, one at a school party who had been all hands, and the other on her way home from school just for the hell of it, but still she failed to see the appeal of tasting the spit and enduring the clumsy touch of a classmate. Some of the girls in her class talked about giving blow jobs and hand jobs, and one or two of them claimed to have gone all the way with their boyfriends. Hailey suspected that most of them were lying, just to give the impression that they were grown up, women of the world instead of blinkered little girls from the estates.

She smiled, reached down and stroked her flat belly. It pulsed softly. She liked the sensation: it was erotic, how she imagined the touch of a grown man’s hand in the same place might feel – a man rather than a silly schoolboy. Somewhere deep inside of her a door had opened, and the woman she would soon be was peeking out, taking stock, getting things in order before she stepped across the threshold.

It started to rain. She turned to face the window, the gap where the curtains had not been fully closed. Street lights. Rain. Shimmering on the glass. The sight was like a promise of beauty, but one from which she was separated, as if by physical barrier.

She closed her eyes and fell into sleep as if it were a hole in the ground. One second she was awake, the next she was dreaming.

S
HE IS STANDING
before the Needle, still naked. The ground is wet beneath her bare feet but the rain has stopped. Lights move beyond the unbarred upper storey windows of the tower block; unstable figures move within the spots of illumination, waving their hands like stage magicians.

She walks towards the building, feeling the cold air as it caresses her skin. Her legs feel long, lithe, and her nipples stiffen because of the chill. She enters the building through the front door, but is not aware of doing so. She simply takes another step and she is inside, standing in the foyer. The concrete floor has cracked open in several places, and thick, gnarly roots poke through the gaps. Large patches of wall inside the foyer are covered in thick swathes of bark; it feels like she is standing inside a hollowed-out tree.

The sound of humming is everywhere. She looks up and around, at the branches forming a lattice across the shattered concrete ceiling and the rough bark that covers the walls. Hummingbirds have made strange conical nests. She moves towards one of the walls, reaches out and touches the bark. It is hard, rough. One of the nests is within reach, so she runs her fingers over it. The nest is made of human hair and what look like finger bones – she can make out the gristly knuckle joints. A tiny blue hummingbird flies out of the hole at the narrow end of the cone, and then it hovers before her face. Its wings move faster than she can see; there is just a blue-grey blur, a glorious vision of rapid movement. The hummingbird’s eyes are black. Its beak is ruby red.