Look at him here.
Elsie had gone back to the memory box, pulled away the ribbon, and was flicking through the pictures. They smelled of Poison, the perfume Tom bought her each Christmas. She could see him at the counter at Boots, dressed in black, hideously embarrassed as he asked for ladies’ perfume. No way he could have bought me lingerie.
In the broken fold-down cabinet Elsie had hunted out the emergency candles. They were old and cheap and kept there for power cuts. She set them in saucers and lit them and soon the wrecked living room glowed almost cosily. She found the half-bottle of brandy she’d stashed away and let her eyes slide past her ruined belongings.
In one power cut she’d sat up all night, terrified. This was before Tom. She had shouted at Craig to wake up. He came blearily to her bedside. “Get the candles out of the cabinet downstairs,” she demanded, sounding scared.
The poor lad (where was he tonight?) hobbled down the stairs. She listened to his every move. He was plunging into the pitch dark. He was being lulled back to sleep in the dark. When he found his way by touch into the living room, he very carefully slid apart the wall unit’s glass doors. Like a safecracker, listening to the heavy, dangerous swish of the glass. And then what he came for went clean out of his mind. He fished around in the cupboard and, instead of candles, produced a folded sheet of paper. Very carefully he returned to his mam’s bedside and presented her with the red electricity bill.
“What’s this, you bugger?” she howled, flapping the paper in the dark.
She hated power cuts. With no lights, no cooker, no telly, she felt abandoned by the world.
Tonight she had to squint in the gloom from the candles. She held the photos up to her nose. Here was Tom. Never photogenic. Craig as a bairn. Ah. He’d kill you for saying this now, but he looked like a little girl, right up until he was thirteen. He was too bonny for a little lad. When he was thirteen the woman in Greggs the baker stared at his long blond hair and asked Elsie what her daughter was called. That was the woman in Greggs with that disease that made her eyes bug out. Craig glared back at her with hatred. Then he went up the ramp in the precinct to get all his hair shaved off at Roots, the unisex salon. He was a proper rough-and-tumble little boy, whatever he looked like.
Now she had a handful of those square photos from the early seventies. The colours were thinning out on these old snaps. On the Polaroids she had from the early eighties, too, the colour was fading. Here was Craig in football kits, in tracksuits...he was never out of sports gear. On school photos he wore elasticated ties, sharply pressed shirts and the baggy bottle-green jumper of the Woodham Comp uniform. Year after year in these pictures he gave the photographer a sickly smile. Look how self-conscious he was, Elsie thought. I never saw that at the time. You always think boys are indestructible. That’s how they go on. Oh, look, in this one he’s at that awkward stage. He was all gawky, his hair fluffed up, his teeth sticking out. He’s got a smile on like he’s messed his pants. And the sweatshirt he’s wearing is one I bought off the market. It says ‘ET Lives!’ and there’s a picture of ET. That funny face of Craig’s above it. He looks like bloody ET — how could I have been so cruel? Bless him!
Elsie started to laugh. It was awful, but it was funny too.
There was a heavy thump from upstairs.
“Craig?” she called, suddenly alert.
Elsie struggled to her feet.
Another thump. It came from her bedroom, directly above her. Well, who would be up there?
She put down the lilac memory box and the empty brandy bottle.
Upstairs he had lit candles of his own. He waited by the bedside. He was setting the timer on the Teasmade, like they always used to when they shared a room. That’s what he used as an alarm clock. Every night he poured the clean water back to go round again.
“Hello, Elsie,” he said as she came into the room. Her bedroom hadn’t been vandalised. She stared at him.
“I was just thinking about you,” she said. “How we were happy. How we used to play.”
He was dressed all in black. He was lanky, skinny, his hair brushed back. He looked neat and sexy as he hadn’t for years. When he smiled at her, the frail light shone on his sharp teeth.
“I’m glad you’ve been thinking of me, Elsie,” he said.
She took a step towards the bed. “Wait,” he said. “Hang on.”
“What is it?” Tears were beginning to roll down her face. I’ve got a complexion like a crab apple, she thought. How can Tom want me back when I look and feel like this? More tears ran in gratitude and dismay.
“We made each other very unhappy, Elsie,” he told her.
“Oh, Tom,” she said. “I was never unhappy with you.”
“No?”
“When you had your problems and everything, it got harder but...you were still the same person.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
There was another silence. Elsie felt like flinging herself on the bed.
“I’ve been going out of my mind, Tom. Someone’s been getting at me. Have you seen the state of the house? They’re destroying it all. They’re taking every bit of my life and smashing it up...”
He shrugged. “Do you know who’s doing it?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. I wish I did. I thought...for a while…just for a bit, that…”
“Did you think it was me?”
Elsie nodded. “Only for a second.”
“Would I really
