Darkside

through the bitter tears, the dark-tempered years and the razor-blade at the wrist, she loved him. While others started to walk away from him in the schoolyard, stopped passing him the ball, whispered as he left a room … Through all that, Yvonne Marsh had loved him like a big anchor on a small boat in a wild sea.

And then she’d started to just … forget.

Forget that she loved him.

Forget that they shared a secret.

Forget even that she was his mother and he was her son.

It happened slowly and in patches, but it happened. And Danny found that he was supposed to be the anchor now. Dressing her, feeding her, watching her, locking her in, following her out, fetching her back …

A boat is not an anchor. Yvonne Marsh was deep beneath the waves with a broken rope that swayed with the tides. Sometimes he could grasp that rope and feel the old tug of her. But, mostly, once his mother’s mind was lost at sea, Danny Marsh was set adrift.

Even Jonas had let go of the line that had tethered him to the rest of the world.

Now, as Danny sat in the little room where he had grown up – where the back of the door still showed a faded poster of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction – he thought about Jonas Holly.

Instead of a secret strengthening their bond, Jonas had been the first to withdraw.

No more fishing, no more crazy dares, no more galloping about the moors. Once, when Jonas had brought an injured baby rabbit to school in a shoebox, he’d looked wary and turned away so that Danny couldn’t stroke it the way all the other kids had.

When Danny had finally summoned up the guts to ask him what was wrong – even though he knew – Jonas had bitten his lip and tried to go around him. Jonas was smaller then, younger by almost a year, and Danny had stopped him with a hand in his chest. Jonas had knocked the hand away, and before Danny realized it, they were fighting. A proper fight. Not some spat over a penalty kick or a broken Tamagotchi – a fight with bruises and blood and kicking and gouging, which went on long enough for teachers to be summoned and then to arrive. Even after Mr Yates the PE teacher had yanked them apart, they had both tried their hardest to lash out with their feet, and Jonas had pulled a handful of change from the pocket of his grey flannels and hurled it at Danny.

Nothing had ever hurt him so much. Not then, at least. Not until the day his demented mother had screamed in terror and threatened to call the police if he didn’t get out of her house.

He could still feel the coin slicing his brow and the feeling of shock and the sheer unfairness of it all. He knew he’d done the right thing. Even if it had been in the wrong way. It wasn’t his fault it had all got fucked up. Why couldn’t Jonas see it like that?

Danny sighed and got up now and looked in the cracked mirror of the wardrobe. The scar was still there above his left eye.

Danny wondered if Jonas still remembered that, at least. He always acted like he didn’t remember anything, but surely the scar would remind him of that? Remind him of being friends, and of what that really meant. It wasn’t just for good times, it was for bad times too. It was about sticking together and sacrifice. It was about doing something for somebody and expecting nothing in return.

Except maybe gratitude.

Danny Marsh stared into the mirror and watched his face fight tears. Despite her inconstant love, losing his mother was like losing the last part of himself that was a blameless boy. There was nobody else in the world he could turn to now. Not even his father, who could not be expected to catch up with reality so late in life.

And Jonas Holly – who owed him everything – had never even thanked him.

* * *

Jonas gave Lucy her stuff. He’d got better at it over the years, but it was never routine to finish the washing up and then plunge needles into your wife’s hip. The little bruises never faded, just went brown and got covered up by new ones.

He looked down at her now, lying curled on her side with her bruised backside exposed, and could hardly bear her vulnerability. He wished Dr Wickramsinghe could be here, wished he could feel what he felt when he looked down at Lucy, wished he could feel the fear that simmered inside him that he never dared show.

She raised her head and looked round at him, a gentle smile on her lips.

‘Stop looking at my bum, pervert!’

Jonas smiled. He pulled her pyjamas back up her hip, then slid on to the couch behind her, tucking his long legs against hers, tugging her tummy towards him so they were touching everywhere. She covered his hand with hers and he buried his nose in the back of her neck. She smelled like fresh laundry.

‘Are you still going out?’ she said softly.

Jonas froze. Why was she asking? Was she planning something? He experienced a moment of pure panic as his memory of that day crashed through his brain like a breaker in a rock-pool. Her half- open eyes and her cold, cold hands, and the lifetime it took for the ambulance to come, while all the time he sat on the floor behind the front door and begged her not to leave him. The memory was so strong that he felt his stomach flip-flop in fear and tears burn his eyes.

He cleared his throat and made a huge effort to sound normal. ‘I don’t have to go.’

‘I don’t mind,’ she said, squeezing the back of his hand.

It sounded like the truth, but who could be sure?

They lay like that for a while and he knew that they were thinking different things in different ways and that a universe separated their minds even while their bodies shared heat.

‘I love you,’ he whispered, so low that if his lips hadn’t been against her ear she would never have heard him.

She paused almost imperceptibly, then said, ‘I love you too.’

* * *

It had snowed and stopped again during the afternoon, leaving just a couple of inches on the ground. The moon was getting big and the fields looked ice blue under its gaze, but in the village itself the snow had been trampled to slush which had then frozen in the dropping night temperature, making for treacherous conditions.

Jonas walked carefully up the street, past the pub and the church and Mr Jacoby’s shop to the school, without seeing anyone.

On the way back he stopped at the shop and looked in the window at the little cards stuck there advertising free kittens and bikes for sale. They made him think of the note that had been left under his wiper, and once again he got that unpleasant feeling of being watched. He turned but saw no one. Then, feeling slightly foolish, he backed into the alleyway beside the shop, where he could not be seen. From there he looked at the houses opposite.

Straight across the road was the Marsh home – a little two up, two down, which he knew was pale green but which looked merely grubby in the orange light of the streetlamps.

There was a light on behind the curtains in Danny’s bedroom – or what used to be Danny’s bedroom when they were boys; Jonas thought it probably still was. Next door to that was Angela Stirk’s house, where Jonas knew Peter Priddy spent every Saturday night that her husband was away. Jonas guessed it was one of her neighbours who had split on him to Marvel, sick of the noise. On the other side of the Marshes was the home of Ted Randall, who grew giant vegetables for the county show, then the Peters’ house, to which Billy Peters had never returned and where Steven Lamb lived now like a replacement … Jonas realized he could travel right down the street with his eyes, naming the residents of each little home, knowing their stories, keeping their secrets.

He saw Neil Randall limping his way home from the pub on the opposite pavement. He wondered what it was like to wake up in the sand and see your leg beside your head, which is what he’d heard had happened to Neil. How curious. How strange. How much easier to tie your shoelaces. Jonas smiled, and felt guilty.

He looked back up the street, but all was calm.

‘Shit!’

The word was accompanied by a scrape and a thud, and Jonas looked across the road to see Neil on his back in the gutter between two parked cars. He hurried over.

‘All right, Neil?’ said Jonas, offering his hand.