Mr Ermey's Funeral Read online

  “You’re welcome, love.” Her mum cupped her drink with both hands. “How are you feeling? Are you hungry? Can I get you anything?”

  Angela shook her head and sipped her tea. “I’m fine.” She took a biscuit and began to nibble. It tasted gritty. They listened to the cars outside her window, and her mum said, “Well, if you need anything…” and got up.

  Failing to notice the two dead schoolchildren standing at the door, Nicola Welch let herself out.

  Angela listened to her mother punch through the TV channels below, the set arguing with itself in muffled anger, then she leaned over the side of her bed and inspected the magazine spillage. She stared at the package, and for a brief, crazy moment considered taking it outside and throwing it into a public litter bin, but instead she grabbed it and tore it open with sore, newly bitten nails. A slim, black diary slid out and landed between her thighs. There was nothing else in the envelope. On the first page, below a stylised illustration of a man in a hard hat holding a trowel, was an inscription in Tom’s scratchy letters:

  Dear Angela, I sincerely apologise for my distracted behaviour of late, but rest assured it bears no reflection on you. You see, I have been troubled by something that makes no sense, or that is just plain nonsense. If you read the entries in this book you will realise I lied to you about how I came to know that Mary had committed suicide. And although I should have told you the truth earlier, once you read this, I think you’ll find the subterfuge understandable.

  So, what’s in here? Well, I told you I’d been dreaming about the old gang, but if you would like to learn more about those times – and gain an unhealthy insight into my subconscious – then look no further. I know I should be telling you all this face to face, but to be honest, I’m sick of thinking about it right now, let alone talking about it. Hence me posting you this. So, sorry it’s not the usual waffle. Love, Tom.

  Angela closed the diary. From below, she could hear a female voice robotically list the ingredients for a lemon chiffon cake. A large vehicle moaned past the window. Once more, she saw herself swinging her feet to the floor, skipping down the stairs – briefly checking out the dessert’s progress on the TV – then heading over to the bus stop opposite and making a small, black, diary-shaped deposit in the nearby litter bin. Life would go on, her boyfriend would be buried, and she could even avoid the funeral, if she wanted – why not? Tom could be shelved, and she could lose herself in revision, in college, in her future. She saw all this, and saw an Angela Welch she didn’t recognise.

  Angela opened the diary to the first entry and began to read.

  4

  He was just starting to brush his teeth when the telephone rang.

  I hope that’s not for me. I really hope that’s not for me.

  His folks had a thing about late night telephone calls, and although they had never voiced any similar concern over ones received first thing in the morning, he suspected they probably had a thing about those too – his folks had a thing about most things. Through the door he could hear his mother, her voice travelling easily up the stairs from the hall.

  “Robin, what on earth can be so important that it can’t wait until school? It’s eight o’clock in the morning. What? Oh. Well even still, this is no time to be phoning. I presume it’s not an emergency.”

  Rita Turner shouted for her son.

  Alex burst through the door, trying to look as concerned as his mother, but only managing to look guilty instead. He trotted down the stairs, resisting the temptation to leap down them as he usually did when everyone was out. His mother passed him the handset. “Don’t be long.”

  Alex waited for his mother to return to her breakfast.

  “What’s up, Rob?”

  “Christ, Alex, your mum’s still a sour old bitch. I thought she might’ve mellowed by now.”

  Not Rob.

  “Who is this?” But he knew it was a stupid question the moment he said it; he recognised the voice all too easily. Only half an hour ago he had been walking through Tithborough woods with that voice laughing in his ears as they followed the river leading back to civilisation. Buddy started to laugh and Alex’s stomach twisted. He suddenly needed the toilet.

  “Listen, Buddy, can I call you back? I’m busy right now.”

  “We need to talk, face to face. You, me, and Tom.”

  “What about?”

  “Mary. What else?”

  Alex squirmed and clenched his buttocks.

  “I don’t think there’s anything to say about-”

  “Bollocks, there’s plenty. It’s Tom I want to talk to mainly, I think he’s the most…troubled by all of this. I just thought you should be there too. Anyway, a little reunion might be nice, don’t you think?”

  There was no time to argue; sweat had started to collect in his crotch and between his buttocks, and the need to go was getting more and more needful. “Okay, when?”

  “Lunchtime. Smokers’ Corner.” He hung up. And just like that, his physical desperation was gone. Alex stared at the phone and dimly noted that the last time he had spoken to Buddy, he would have used the old dial phone, the cream one with the sun-worn finish. He remembered its heavy, greasy handset and the dirty coils of cord; the circular paper insert in the middle of the dial, obscured beneath a scratched, plastic disc; the number neatly inscribed in fading black ink. These details gently tugged at him, and for the first time in his life, Alex Turner felt old.

  He trudged back up to the bathroom and continued to get ready.

  *

  When he told Helen about Buddy’s phone call she simply nodded and said it made sense.

  “Why?”

  “Because when someone dies, that’s what people do. The people who knew the deceased, they talk to one another. The bit where they bury the body isn’t all that important, really.”

  Warm and bright sunlight drenched their side of the road, but a cool breeze lingered. A steady stream of pupils idled along the leafy pavements that led towards school. Like Games class the previous day, this conversation seemed remote, yet instead of thinking about Mary – he would be doing enough thinking about her when he met Buddy – he was thinking about finishing school and, specifically, how little he would use this particular route in a month’s time. The thought was both exhilarating and sad, and for all that, somehow hard to believe.

  Will they actually let me leave this place? he wondered, and not for the first time.

  They passed the rear school gates and started up the field. Freshly cut grass stretched out to the right, towards the pond. Up ahead, the ROSLA block waited, its doors anonymous and functional, its windows dark and grimy. He imagined finishing his last exam, and being led into a darkened basement by Mr Makinson, and possibly that funny-looking secretary of his, the one with all the make-up. Amid the sheeted apparatus, they would explain what really happens when pupils reach the end of Fifth Year:

  This is what we call The Reducer, declares Mr Makinson. He pulls a grey sheet, revealing a large, metal restraining device hinged onto a tank filled with blue gel that pulsates and wobbles. Through the gel’s translucency, Alex can make out millions of tiny razors sprouting from metal arms. Occasionally a few break the surface of the gel, causing little runs of liquid and flashes of metal. The secretary attends to various flashing buttons and levers on an attached console.

  “It has come to our attention that you, my dear Alex, are not quite ready for the real world,” Mr Makinson declares, “and so your parents have agreed that you should be re-instated at our wonderful institution at an earlier stage. Usually this simply means putting you back a year, but in your case – which is rather exceptional – it was agreed that more drastic measures were required. We are placing you in First Year again.”

  He gestures to his machine. “Obviously, certain adjustments need to be made so that you look the part.”

  Alex starts to protest, but his voice is muffled. A tube has been stuffed into his mouth, and another two jammed up his nostrils. He tries to str
uggle, but is completely bound. Wires are attached to his naked body here and there. The secretary pulls a lever and Alex is flung into the writhing gel. A blade tickles his cheekbone and there is a warm trickle.

  “See you in First Year,” shouts the headmaster.

  Alex and Helen entered the building at its nearest corner. Alex noted the small, mechanical arm that held the door in place and shuddered.

  “So I don’t suppose you’ll want me hanging around when you meet your old friend.” Helen’s voice caught a harsh reverberation from the corridor walls, amplifying it.

  “It’s up to you.”

  No, absolutely not. Please, no.

  Helen looked as if she was contemplating the idea. “Best not. I didn’t know Mary. It’d seem a bit false.”

  Alex shrugged, not knowing what to say, but not wanting to screw anything up by saying the wrong thing. “See you in the hall at lunchtime?”

  “Maybe. You never know, Alex, it might be like old times between you two.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Catch you later.”

  Helen disappeared into her registration room. Alex carried on down to the end of the corridor and pushed open a wooden laboratory door fitted with a small window of wire-reinforced glass. All eyes fell on him. Craig’s place was empty. Alex checked his watch.

  “It’s alright,” Mr Roberts said, “for once you’re not late. We’re just waiting for stragglers: there’s a special assembly in the hall.”

  For the second time that morning, Alex’s stomach melted.

  Chapter Nine

  1

  Saturday

  It’s absurd to think that I’ve had a headache for over two weeks, but it’s true. I know this is the first time that I’ve mentioned it, but this is a dream journal, not a health record. So there you go – one long, continuous headache. Granted, it’s grown worse – bad enough to finally mention – but as I’ve had it for as long as I’ve had these dreams, I would suggest that the two are connected. Of course, it could just be tiredness, a hangover from missing out on my eight hours a night, but I don’t think so. (Eight hours? What a joke!)

  I was back at the shelter last night – just like in the first one. Everyone is there. This time, however, we’re nailing a dog to a tree: Buddy has broken its legs – they pulled apart with a sickening crunch – and is holding it against the trunk by its paws, its chest pushed out. It’s a Labrador. I have no idea who it belongs to. It’s tired and doesn’t put up any fight: Alex has broken its jaw so it can’t bite anyway. Mary screams, “STICK IT, TOM, STICK IT.” And that’s my job. My knife hand was warm and wet.

  I don’t think I’ve ever really dreamed about the time we ganged up on David Hartman, it’s always been a dog, a stuffed toy, whatever. And no, none of us stabbed him.

  2

  Just beyond the bin corral and the unstable-looking fire escape, next to the anonymous door that led to the storeroom and cleaning closet, in one of the few quiet and shady parts of school, two pale blue doors opened onto a narrow driveway that led off to the car park and main approach. This was Smokers’ Corner, known also as the kitchen’s delivery entrance. Occasionally the doors would be yanked open and a member of the kitchen staff would appear, making half-hearted threats and warnings; but as the locking bars were so loud and clumsy, anyone with anything to hide usually had plenty of time to do so. Discarded cigarette butts lay strewn everywhere.

  Buddy dumped the remains of his first on-school-premises smoke of the day – his fourth actual – into yesterday’s pile, twisted his shoe on it, then lit another. He dragged hard on the smoke, trying to make it feel like the first one again, but instead of that delicious light-headedness, all he got was an evaporating flavour soaking further and further into him, tasting less and less.

  Pete was halfway through his first, taking his usual half-hearted drags. Pete’s cigarettes seemed to smoke themselves.

  Buddy prematurely flicked ash to the floor and accidentally lost the ember. He was about to re-light when he noticed something that made him toss the hardly-smoked Marlboro and thrust his hands in his pockets.

  Maybe I’m wrong, he thought. Maybe my hands aren’t shaking.

  Just as he always did, Pete played lookout. No one had ever asked him to, and Buddy really didn’t think there was much need for it in this part of school. Apart from the occasional food delivery van and rubbish truck, no one ever came down here during the day, and the men who carried the vats of chip fat, or else emptied the bins, hardly cared if they smoked or not. And as for teachers, well, what would a teacher do if they did catch them smoking? School was nearly over, and the fact that they only smoked here, away from everyone else, was surely a sign of respect more than anything.

  Alex emerged from the side of the gymnasium. “Those things are bad for you, you know.”

  Pete looked up and made his best ‘and-just-who-the-hell-are-you?’ face. Buddy smiled at that. He’d put a lot of practice in over the years, and it actually wasn’t all that bad: there was enough whiny, spoilt kid behind those big green eyes to pass as malevolence, and it seemed to work on most people. Buddy felt a genuine pang of guilt over what was about to happen, and wished there was some way of doing this that wouldn’t seem like a betrayal, but there was no way he could have explained it to Pete, no way that could have made sense to him.

  Ah well, he thought, here goes.

  “Where’s your girlfriend, queer boy?” Pete asked.

  Despite himself, Buddy rolled his eyes at the muddled jibe.

  “Telling yours that two-inch cocks are not the norm,” Alex said with a small smile.

  Pete quickly hid his surprise – no one ever talked back in front of Buddy – and grinned his best ‘you-are-so-for-it’ grin. He started to punch the palm of his left hand, but then something caught him off balance. Something dreadful.

  Buddy was laughing. No, Buddy was howling.

  Pete froze in disbelief as Alex joined Buddy in front of the blue doors, joined him with a casual, easy-going manner as if he had been doing this every day for the last five years. As he watched the two of them standing there, time seemed to stretch out. He waited for Buddy to regain control of himself. Was he supposed to laugh too? He tried desperately to understand what was so funny, but where his thoughts should be, he found nothing but a white space.

  The sun, which had been faltering between the clouds, turning its hard light on and off intermittently, now finally emerged and gave the grass verge to the left and the car park on the right the full works. The cars glistened, beaming sparks of light this way and that and the grass turned radioactive, making the shadows swampy in contrast.

  From far away, Buddy said something strange, part of whatever weird game he was playing with the Turner boy.

  “Pete!”

  He looked up. Both boys were staring at him. Alex looked almost bored, a look that scared him more than anything; people normally looked nervous around Buddy, certainly never bored.

  “Pete, give us a few minutes here, will you?”

  “Okay.” Lost in the blankness of his thoughts, he wondered how he would manage such a task.

  “No, Pete, piss off.” Some ash landed on the shoulder of Pete’s crisp, new shirt, and the reality of the situation finally crinkled his face. For a moment he considered asking what was going on, and why he had to leave, but then he simply nodded, turned, and left. It’s a game, he told himself. It’s all just a game.

  Alex watched Pete and admired the way he walked away without turning back. That must’ve hurt, he thought. As soon as Pete was gone, Alex’s thoughts turned to his own predicament.

  Smokers’ corner. Hanging with The Man.

  “You need a shave.”

  Buddy rubbed his chin. “I’m going for the rugged look.”

  “It’s not working.”

  Buddy leant against one of the kitchen doors and looked at the trees.

  “So, I’m here. What do you want to talk about?”

  Buddy took a deep brea
th, and then said the most preposterous thing he had ever heard:

  “Dreams.”

  He looked at Alex and repeated it:

  “Dreams.”

  Weight gathered in Alex’s legs, and the door he was leaning against felt as flimsy as cardboard. He slouched down to his haunches, and Buddy joined him there. Alex noticed Buddy’s hair looked greasy this close up, and there were flecks of white dandruff speckled here and there. His skin had more lines in it than he remembered, and more acne, but his eyes in those deep, angular sockets were still the same: cold, and slightly crazed. Those eyes found Alex and seemed to know what he was thinking. “What have you been dreaming about?”

  “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine, Big Boy.”

  “What makes you think I’ve been dreaming?”

  “Look,” he said, “I know you have. And I have a pretty good idea of what sort of dreams. But by the looks of him yesterday, I think Tom had them worse, and for longer.”

  Alex hobbled back onto his feet; his body ached nearly as much as it had done the last time Mr Ortiz made him complete the cross-country circuit. “Come on, then, let’s walk. If we’re doing this, let’s get it over with.”

  “Ab-so-lutely,” Buddy said, getting up and shaking the dust off his trousers. He checked his watch. “Maybe we should get down to it at lunchtime like we first said.”

  Alex shook his head. “Now or never.”

  Buddy grinned the same gleeful grin that had so disturbed Pete a few minutes before, and when Alex caught sight of it, he was helpless to do anything but match it with his own. “I take it now’s fine.”

  “Now’s more than fine”

  “Well, come on then.”

  With that, both boys started off towards the school gates. Although he presumed that Alex had never skipped class at St Vincent’s, Buddy was delighted to see that his old friend still understood that if you wanted to skip class, you skipped school. And if you wanted to skip school, you just walked out the gates like you had every right to do so. When faced with such blatant disregard of school hours, most people would presume there to be good reason, and immediately disregard it. Buddy thought of Pete and his nervous little lookout routine, shook his head and laughed. Alex didn’t ask what he was laughing about, which was also cool.