Mr Ermey's Funeral Read online

  The notion of tearing off into the woods grew more tempting.

  But what about the painting?

  Her gaze fell back to the woodland floor, to its thinning clumps of green, its foot-worn and brittle soil. The rucksack suddenly seemed very heavy. She pulled the photograph out of her jeans pocket and stared at it. Even through the milky film that had yet to fully evaporate, she could tell that the shot had been taken without any clipping. Interrupting the line of the pavement, however, was a large white shape with dark patches.

  Great, Mary thought, it was even closer than I thought; it’s covered up half the photo.

  She slid the photo back into her pocket, and continued looking for the newspaper. She tried to remember the exact moment of taking the shot: the lining up of the shelter’s floor, the tracking in, her steadying the shot by exhaling in the same way that she had once seen in a film (only they were firing a gun, not a camera), squeezing the button, and at the same time…there was the newspaper. But had there been a gust of air? A gust strong enough to shift a whole newspaper across the floor? She couldn’t say for sure, but she didn’t think so. Even if it had only been the front page (and she was pretty sure that she had seen the edges of more than one leaf flapping in her viewfinder), it would require a goodish wind to move it that fast. And certainly to move it as far away as it must be now, because it’s nowhere to be seen.

  Despite the weather, the sun managed to find a slender cloud to slip behind, and dull light rolled out across St Vincent’s playground. By the time it reached the young, ponytailed woman with her hands on her hips, the entire grounds that surrounded her were cast in shadow.

  Mary regarded the old shelter. Constructed of some greenish corrugated material, probably fibreglass, the canopy looked ready to topple to the ground at any moment. The rusted supports struggled with their burden. She took a wary step backwards, casting her eyes to the broken paving flags.

  I used to play here all the time, she thought, now gazing across the playground, back towards the school. We used to come here and-

  In her mind, an image rose of the four of them creeping along, one by one, beneath the windows. The trick was to keep their balance on the slender window ledges, while trying to peek in at what would one day become their classrooms. The image of the old gang splayed against the windowpanes, stretching for purchase, was bright and full of brilliant colours, and Mary finally noticed how dull the day had become.

  We were here, she told herself. It was here that we…

  The newspaper. She'd seen it before.

  But it wasn’t a newspaper. That’s what you thought it was at first, but when Buddy grabbed it, you realised it was something else.

  With fingers that no longer felt like her own, Mary found the pocket that held the photograph; she could feel the sharp edges that clearly defined its shape, and she pressed lightly, checking for the crinkly resistance of the plastic beneath her touch, checking to see if it really was there.

  She removed the photograph and forced herself to look at it.

  The first thing that she noticed was its brilliant clarity; her Polaroid had never had much in the way of focus, but this shot was pristine. Even though the colours had taken on different shades – the pale green of the shelter’s canopy was now rich and vibrant, soaking up the hue of the surrounding leaves, and the pavement was almost turquoise – the definition was crisp and detailed. The second thing she noticed was the photograph of a kestrel. Even after all these years, she recognised David Hartman’s ornithology magazine instantly.

  And Buddy was the one who burned it, wasn’t he?

  Like most Bracton kids her age, her visual memory of David Hartman was a poster of a boy with a soft, round face, and a clump of unruly brown hair that needed cutting. Like everyone else, Mary remembered his eyes most of all. Wide, blue, and seemingly always on the brink of tears, they looked out from tarry telephone masts, shop windows, telephone boxes, and the boarded-up windows of closed-down shops. David Hartman’s eyes had also gazed into every living room throughout Lancashire. Whilst his disappearance never made the national news, on the Monday following the weekend of the incident, Granada Reports put together a small piece summarising the basic facts and appealing for witnesses. It ran just before the weather.

  Mary stared at the comic that Richard Budden had incinerated with his Zippo. She remembered the kestrel burning up, the way the flames licked the image, consuming it, and remembered feeling happy about it. Vindicated, somehow.

  Mary shuddered and, as if she could back away from the previous version of herself that she had stumbled into, set off home.

  6

  At some point along the way, lost in another private, though less serene, slipstream, Mary realised she was no longer holding her photograph. She halted and searched her pockets, then her rucksack, and then her pockets again, and when she could not find it, she considered returning to the old shelter.

  But she didn’t.

  Deep down she knew that the photograph would have already blown away to wherever the newspaper that wasn’t really a newspaper had gone.

  Chapter Three

  1

  The first person to see Mary that day was her mother, Maureen, who had woken up to the unmistakable sound of her daughter blowing her nose in the drive below and had risen to catch a glimpse of her leaving. It had been six in the morning and Maureen’s hangover was a dry, buzzing ache that stretched from the top of her head, down the muscles in her arms, to the joints in her legs. She had nudged aside the bedroom curtain and seen Mary standing at the top of the drive, her head cocked to one side like a dog. Even through the familiar network of agony that was her body (and her head, her poor, pounding head), Maureen had found the strength to wonder, as she often did, when her daughter was going to ‘find herself’. Five minutes later at the bathroom sink, filling a glass with one hand while fumbling for paracetamol with the other, Maureen began to wonder if she had judged her daughter too hard. Was eighteen years of marriage – and pretty much the same length of time in the same job – really a case of finding herself, or just a lack of imagination?

  She measured the figure standing in the bathroom mirror, the tired result of a few too many sun bed sessions, a few too many hair dye products (she couldn’t even remember the name of one she was currently using: Natural Honey, or something else that sounded like a porn star), and a few too many late nights with her workmates.

  Maybe I’m being a bit hard on myself, she thought, pressing pills through foil and swallowing them, we all grow old. It’s just that some do it more gracefully than others, and, let’s face it, I was never the most graceful person.

  Maureen returned to her bedroom window again, looking out upon an empty drive. Wherever her daughter was going to, she had gone. Gone finding herself, perhaps.

  She straightened the curtains and went back to bed, where she would spend the rest of the day reading her latest Mills And Boon and pretending to her husband that she had a cold.

  2

  The second person to see Mary that day was Derek Ambry, the school caretaker.

  He had been going about his usual Saturday morning chores when a sudden stiffness in his back had forced him to sit down, which he did, as carefully as possible, on the nearest available seat: a toilet in one of the girls’ stalls. His entire body felt like it was made of fine crystal, crystal that would shatter with the slightest movement, but this was something he was used to, and the only thing he could do was wait for it to pass. And so he remained there, mop in hand, perched on the edge of the toilet, his chin raised, taking the tiniest of breaths until the cramping subsided. Which it did, little by little. After an unknown amount of time, softness returned to his frame, and, using the mop handle as a makeshift crutch, he worked his way back to his feet.

  Thirty years is too long to be doing this, he thought, as he caught his reflection in the mirror. The reflection looked as weary and exhausted as he felt. Way too long.

  Slowly, he stretched, allowing wh
atever bones and muscles that had conspired to hamper his progress this morning to find their normal places and leave him the hell alone to get on with his job. With luck, no further cramps came and he thanked God that he wouldn’t still be stuck here, paralysed, when all the young and healthy bodies started using this room again on Monday. He could imagine it now, an old man found stuck on the toilet, and scaring some poor little girl half to death in the process. He shook his head to try to clear the image, and stabbed the mop back into the galvanised bucket. He was just twisting the head into the wringer when something outside caught his eye.

  Derek hobbled over to the window, the cleaning forgotten for now, panic rising in his chest. He peered out at the girl with the rucksack, recognised her immediately, and relaxed.

  The Townsend girl. Mary. Well that’s alright then.

  There had been more and more gangs roaming the premises at the weekend lately, up to no good; kids he didn’t know, kids from other schools, and it was the one part of this job he had really started to hate. He’d mentioned it to the boss, who’d suggested he should confront them. But really, at his age? There was no way. He didn’t even want them knowing he was there, if he could help it.

  Derek watched as Mary took something from her rucksack and raised it to her face.

  What’s that…a camera? What’s she taking photos of?

  Again, he shook his head, and decided it was none of his business: if she was playing nicely, and not making a mess, or setting fire to anything, then what did it matter? Derek Ambry re-wet his mop and got back to his work, which his back grudgingly allowed for now.

  3

  The last person to see Mary alive was her father.

  Henry Townsend had spent most of the morning in his study, reading the instruction manual for his new camcorder, leafing through photography magazines, and waiting for the two tiny shaving cuts beneath his nostrils to dry. No matter how careful he was he always cut himself in exactly the same place. At noon, he put down the thick glossy open at a tripod ad and tramped down the stairs.

  He opened the door of the refrigerator, and extended the salad drawer, revealing orange, green, and red peppers, cucumber, lettuce, and tomatoes. He slammed the drawer shut, and reached for the plate of left over roast beef. He made and ate a sandwich at the kitchen window, staring out at the garden, thinking about tripods.

  A moment later Mary returned from wherever she had been and disappeared into her studio. He constructed another two sandwiches, this time going a little lighter on the butter and mayo, but making up for the shortfall with extra pickles. He plated one and took it outside.

  The garage door was slightly ajar, which was a welcome change to his daughter’s habitual privacy, but he knocked as a matter of course.

  “It’s me.” He pulled on the door and stepped in.

  Henry knew right away that his daughter would not be interested in the sandwich: she was at her easel, lost in a frenzy of mixing and painting. Scratching and scraping sounds blended with Mary’s deep and rhythmical breathing. She was holding a brush and something that looked like a spatula.

  Mary wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and reached for another tube of paint.

  “I made you a sandwich. Beef and pickled onion. I thought you might be hungry.”

  Mary’s eyes never left her work.

  “Well…I guess I’ll leave you to it.”

  He tiptoed his way over her stuff (the place had been much tidier when he had it, but never mind) and set the plate down on her desk, consciously avoiding eye contact with her work-in-progress. Henry stepped back out into the sunshine and pushed the door to.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, darling,” he answered through the door.

  The scraping and heavy breathing was gone. Birds sang somewhere up above. Mary’s voice, slow and quiet: “Have I always been? I mean, when I was little, was I…”

  Henry started to open the door.

  “No, don’t come in.”

  “Mary, what’s the matter?”

  “It’s alright, I’m just…well, to tell you the truth, I was just wondering if, when I was little, was I…” Mary paused. Henry stood at the garage door, his shadow small and close. His thoughts returned to the tripod. It was fifteen pounds cheaper than the store in Bracton, even with the postage factored in. But things get damaged in the mail. And what if I don’t like it? At least at the store I could return…

  “…always so mean? Dad, when I was little, I was mean wasn’t I?”

  His thoughts dispersed, leaving the growing heat of the day, the insignificant sounds of a suburban street, and his daughter talking about something he had hoped they would never have to talk about again.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying,” he said with a calm and steady voice. “Darling, do you want me to go and get you a drink of water? You sound upset.”

  “Before I went to St Vincent’s, when I was at St Lydia’s, was I a bully? Daddy? Did I pick on other kids? I did, didn’t I?”

  Henry looked at his shadow, so crisp and dark against the garage door, yet so small. He flexed his hand, watched it make half a spider.

  The half spider wiggled its legs.

  He’d once shown his beautiful little girl how to make shadow figures; he’d shown her how to make a spider, a grumpy old man’s head, and a bird. Those were the only ones he could remember from the book he’d read when he was a kid. On execution and completion of his tiny repertoire, his beautiful little girl had always giggled like crazy. Occasionally she’d hugged him and given him a kiss. Later on, when things had turned bad, they’d held conversations like that. She was always the bird, and naturally, he was the grumpy old man’s head. The spider tended to wriggle in and out of the conversation occasionally, but it never said much because it had a difficult accent.

  “I did, didn’t I?” Mary repeated, her voice broken.

  “Mary,” he took a deep breath, “that was a long time ago.” He curled and uncurled his fist, the grumpy old man mouthing along with him. “It’s just with you not having any brothers or sisters, you had no one to play with, and so you were kind of…I don’t know. Difficult, I guess…” The grumpy old man gaped. “But not even that really, darling, you were never all that difficult. Not really. Are you sure you don’t want me to come in?”

  “No, daddy,” she sniffed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “Mary, school’s nearly over, you’ve got college coming up. You’re going through a lot of changes.”

  “Am I? Everything seems more the same than it ever did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It just feels like,” her voice grew quiet, “like the last five years never happened.”

  The scraping started again. And the heavy breathing.

  He stood there for a moment longer, trying to think of something else to say, trying to think of the right thing to say, but suspected there was probably no such thing. The scraping and the breathing continued.

  Henry looked down at his hands – just hands again, no more grumpy old man – and went back inside the house.

  Chapter Four

  1

  Her painting was a mess.

  She briefly considered turning the lights on, but decided that cold fluorescents would probably just make things worse. In the pale blue light floating through the glass – a twilight that had turned everything paper thin – the hasty mishmash of lines seemed cluttered and obvious, rather than intricate and enigmatic. It was too busy. Childish, even. And Mary knew that come tomorrow neither a fresh pair of eyes nor a hearty dose of sunlight would make anyone see it otherwise. It looked like what it was: something made by someone busy doing something else.

  Mary’s eyes flickered across the room to her other piece of handicraft, returned to her painting, and then to the floor. Her personal stereo lay discarded at her feet. The tape was working its way through The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan once more.

  Craig!

  She didn’t have
to look at her wristwatch to tell the time; the light in the garage said closing time at T.M. was long gone. In the dark, the image of Craig getting ready to leave work came to her like something from an old movie. She pictured him pacing the floor, head spinning to door every time the chime went. It was a nice idea, but she guessed the truth would be less romantic.

  She stared at her Dr Martens. At the floor. At the place where her chair had been. Mary felt hot, stinging water behind her eyes.

  Everything seems more the same than it ever did.

  That was how she’d felt today, walking in her own private slipstream, nothing more than a little girl in a yellow cagoule, trotting past the old, familiar hedgerows.

  Not a yellow cagoule – black jeans.

  But the girl in the yellow cagoule had been out there, hadn’t she? She’d just been waiting for the girl in the black jeans to catch up.

  Mary nodded to herself, and once more thought of how she had held the camera, exhaled, and taken the shot. And how a newspaper that was really David Hartman’s ornithology magazine had appeared…and disappeared.

  That was her old self taunting her, wasn’t it?

  She turned back to the painting, hoping for change, but it looked no better.

  Have I gone too far with this, or not far enough?

  Mary shook her head, and then, deciding that there was only one way to find out, she reorganised her brushes and things, and started to tweak the details. She squeezed a tube of bright yellow and swirled her brush in it; as the tip of the brush made contact with the board, the decorating equipment, the toolboxes, the desk, and the painting itself vanished. The garage walls blew apart, dispersing its dim, blue shadows into a quicksilver sky that cracked with a momentary burst of light. Dark green foliage shimmered beneath the grey firmament; beneath the sun, everything was metallic.