Mr Ermey's Funeral Page 8

  But maybe it was more than luck. Maybe Mary had been posing – only moving when she knew I wasn’t looking at her.

  But that’s ridiculous. Mary had her back to me; how could she possibly know that?

  Still, there was something about the idea that made sense, even if it was just a case of coincidence combined with a vivid imagination. Whether she was posing (the idea did seem a little ridiculous) or not, Mary knew she was being drawn. Angela was certain of it.

  “Well,” Mr Ermey said, “good enough, I guess. Good enough.” He gestured in the direction of the other room, and Angela did not hesitate.

  Aside from a few glances from her own table, the room was heedless of her return, lost as it was in its own quiet momentum of slow breathing and pencil scraping. Spying her chance, Angela approached Mary’s easel, and stood before the painting. From this vantage, looking out of the window, she could see the top end of the field where the running track was and the narrow pavement below. Spreading out beneath the window, a Games lesson was taking place: a crowd of pupils holding javelins.

  An almost identical scene was imprinted on the canvas in bold greens, browns, and blacks, ready to be fleshed out with detail that would never be added. Even so, Mary had already picked up on the overall movement of the pupils as they approached the edge of the field, depicting them in different stages of their individual throws.

  Not wishing to distract her tablemates or try her teacher’s patience any longer, Angela got on with her little experiment. She stared through the window and then slowly pulled her focus back onto the pane of glass itself. Vague reflections floated in the dark line of trees, reflections that became the classroom and the shadowy figure of Mr Ermey returning to class. She could make out the various other tables, silhouettes of pupils, and she concentrated on them, shifting position until she found what she was looking for. As she had suspected, leaning in towards the painting and casting a glance over to the right revealed the reflection of a large, white shape. Her sports bag – still sitting atop her workspace – was clearly in view.

  Angela smiled, returned to her place, and swung the bag to the floor.

  2

  Buddy closed the door and removed his clothes, leaving them in a pile at the foot of his bed. He sat, opened a new packet of cigarettes, lit one, and flipped through last month’s Playboy. Eventually his thumb found the Schwarzenegger interview and he skipped down to the part where the big fella was talking about the new Terminator movie due out next year. Buddy tried to concentrate on what he was saying about the amazing new computer effects, but found his eyes working the same line over and over. He was thinking about Lisa, and how she hadn’t even been that shocked. So you saw him the day he disappeared, she’d said, so what? That doesn’t mean he definitely came to his sticky end down the woods – it could have been anywhere. There’s tonnes of places it could’ve happened – all you need is a car and a quiet road. He’d nodded along with her, but somehow it hadn’t been what he wanted to hear. And anyway, she’d said, how do you know that they didn’t search the woods? Surely it’d be one of the first places they’d look.

  Buddy dropped the magazine onto his bundle of clothes and lay back on the bed; he reached for the square, glass ashtray from his night table and placed it on his chest. Smoke evaporated into the gloom beyond his bedside light, and he lay naked, staring at the ceiling. The room was sweltering, and the stillness emanating from the open window offered little relief. Drums from some police television drama thudded below and he briefly considered putting some music on to drown them out; his eyes felt heavy, and he let them close just for a moment. The world turned green – the fading green of summer’s end – and five years disappeared in the heavy fall of an eyelid.

  Some trees had already started shedding their leaves, and crisp, yellow and orange flakes littered their path. Alex was moaning about not going to the police about the Hartman kid, and Tom was still bouncing his ball.

  “Do you think she’s still looking for us?” Tom asked.

  “No.” Alex said. “She’ll have gone home by now.”

  “If she has any sense, she will,” Buddy said, “but even if she hasn’t, she’ll get the message soon enough.”

  The boys walked on in silence.

  “I’m just glad it stopped raining,” Tom said.

  Buddy looked up. Sunlight peered above a cloud and the only water falling was the rain gathered in the branches and leaves. They walked further and further into the woods until they stopped at the Pooh-sticks bridge. It was four feet wide, made of sturdy planks and posts held together with thick bolts. In places, the wood had been worn smooth by many hands and feet. Buddy assumed his usual position in the middle of the walkway, leaning against one side and rooting his cigarettes out of his back pocket. Alex crossed over and jogged down the bank. When he saw that Tom was in position on the other side, he planted his football, took a hesitant run up, and booted it wide. Tom chased after the errant shot, and returned it neatly. And so the game continued, with Tom never fussing over Alex’s poor ball skills.

  Buddy watched the two of them and smoked; tobacco never smelled or tasted better than it did down here. It reminded him of campfires. He cast an eye back to the path from which they had come – a steep hill leading off towards the school grounds – and spared a thought for Mary, wondering if they had done the right thing.

  No one had really liked the idea of dumping her like that, but sometimes there was just no reasoning with her. And she had become so vicious, more so than he could ever have believed. Sure, the Hartman kid was kind of annoying, but he didn’t deserve the kicking he got.

  So why didn’t you do something? You could have stopped her. She would have listened to you.

  And that was just it, wasn’t it? He’d lost control too, hadn’t he?

  Buddy watched his two friends kicking their stupid ball back and forth, back and forth, and knew it was time for a change. A big change.

  So be it.

  He concentrated on Alex as he booted another wide ball. There was something happening to his face: the skin was filling out, and the eyebrows were thickening. Buddy looked at Tom and saw the same aging process take place there too: he now wore his hair longer, and his face seemed both full of care and cynicism. Buddy noticed that he now stooped.

  Checking if the same thing was happening to him, Buddy ran a hand across his cheek and felt stubble. He laughed; the sound echoed back to him from downstream: a hollow, dead thing. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered that he had been reading an Arnold Schwarzenegger interview only a few moments ago, that he was sixteen, not eleven, that it was an unusually hot night for spring, and that all of this was an untrustworthy version of things that had happened a long time ago.

  As if to prove that this was the case, Alex turned and gave him a knowing wink Buddy watched him plant his foot behind the ball and send it in completely the wrong direction, right back into the trees from which they had just come. Without complaint, Tom was already moving, and swiftly disappeared into the woods. Buddy sucked back on his cigarette, listening to its tiny hiss and crackle.

  Tithborough woods grew still and quiet.

  “What’s taking him so long?” Alex said from below, with a wide grin. Buddy leant against the wood, flicked his cigarette butt into the water, and breathed in the cool, clean-scented air. He looked at the thick patch of woodland that Tom had run off into and thought about Mary.

  It was time to go. Tom wasn’t coming back; he just knew he wasn’t. Buddy weighed his options. Walking back to the old shelter meant a fairly steep climb, not an impossible one by any means, but a taxing one. Plus the ground was wet, and although they hadn’t slipped on the way down, it was no guarantee they wouldn’t slip on the way back up. No, they would be better walking through the woods, following the river down to where the land levelled out, and where the return journey to civilisation was less treacherous.

  “Buddy, what the hell is taking him so long?”

  Buddy loo
ked down at his friend, his apparently older friend. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Alex nodded and shrugged his shoulders, and they began walking. By the time they had reached the path that followed the river, Tom and his football were already forgotten.

  Buddy awoke to the sound of pounding drums. His mother’s thriller was reaching its climax, and he twisted towards the door, shivering despite the heat. Buddy lay there for a while, concentrating on slowing down his breathing, and replaying his dream over and over. The bedtime routine sounds enfolded him: the TV being turned off, footsteps on the stairs, and the earth shaking rumble of the toilet flush. And, just before he allowed himself to drift off again, a decision formed in his mind, something that had been there all along but hidden from view all day.

  3

  People were moving. People were getting out of their chairs, walking this way and that, edging into each other, causing arguments, causing abrasions to the wooden floor, and causing his head to feel worse than he had ever thought possible. After all that standing and praying, the need to sit down was overwhelming, and so he did.

  Let them pack me away with the chairs, he thought.

  He’d always been fond of these assembly chairs. They were uncomfortable as all hell, but he liked the way they could stack together up to a gravity-defying point. They had good design: the grey steel tubing, the minimal cloth used, the curious way their legs could interlock side by side to create perfect rows of chairs. Why did the rows of chairs have to be perfect in the school assembly?

  Because, Tom. Just because.

  The chair next to him was worn, its hem curled and fraying. At some unspecified point in the future, the material would simply give way, and on that day there would be much hilarity in the assembly hall. Much hilarity. Hoping to spur on that inevitable disruption, Tom started to pick away the green threads with his fingernails. It was slow work, but it seemed to soothe his head a little.

  What lesson do I have next? he wondered.

  He almost opened his bag, but stopped himself at the last moment. Somewhere in its depths was a blue school diary with a laminated timetable on its reverse; the timetable would answer his question quickly and painlessly, but in order to get to it, Tom knew he would have to grope his way past his other books, including his other diary, and he definitely didn’t want to look at that one any more.

  But maybe Angela would.

  Monday…first period…I can’t believe I could forget this. Is this what grief does? Makes you go mental?

  Are you grieving, Tom? You, of all people, grieving for Mary Townsend?

  He shook his head: no; yes; he didn’t know.

  Just like he didn’t know what his next lesson was.

  From the corner of his eye, he noticed Richard Budden looking his way. On instinct, he turned towards his old friend and was surprised to see Buddy nod. A part of him expected to see the same old, cool warning in Buddy’s eyes, the one that had been there for the last five years, but the eyes that greeted him just looked tired and sad. Almost out of embarrassment, Tom nodded back, and then, trying to act casually, he turned his attention towards Alex. Buddy took the hint and followed his cue. This also seemed like the natural thing to do – the surviving members of the old gang getting back together, if only in looks and glances.

  What’s my next lesson? Where the hell should I be?

  He smiled at his own stupidity, and a sharp, stabbing pain melted his smile instantly.

  Home, that’s where.

  And with that, Thomas Whyte, who had never purposefully avoided school in his entire life, got up, walked out of the door at the back of the hall, and informed the school secretary of his intention to leave school immediately. Of course, Joanna Sturtz, St Vincent’s secretary, took it for granted that Tom would be going straight home – he mentioned nothing of a detour to the local post office.

  Upon arriving home, Tom rummaged through the mirrored bathroom medicine cabinet – ignoring the unshaven, dishevelled person hidden in its glass – until he found the painkillers his father had been prescribed for an ear-infection. There were over fifty capsules left. Tom took the box, filled a glass in the kitchen, and swilled four.

  As the icy water hit, it felt as if his head was going to implode, that the fragile structure holding his head in place was going to disintegrate. Unannounced, the world shifted on its axis and Tom found himself eye to eye with the gas oven’s feet. Two inches from his nose, a long-since perished mushroom had affixed itself to the hinge of the oven door. Relishing the linoleum’s cool surface, Tom closed his eyes. He was slowly falling through the floor, rocking back and forth, sinking a bit at a time. Orange streaks of light shot behind his eyelids, plus luminous reds and blues that floated and evaporated. Feeling nauseous, Tom opened his eyes and worked himself back to his feet.

  The kitchen was in the small wing of a bungalow that fell away from the inclines of Salisbury Avenue. Although the kitchen was nearest the road, and all comings and goings were conducted through it, his mother insisted that the kitchen door was The Back Door. According to her, The Front Door was the one at the end of the hall, the one overlooking this cosy, suburban area, Bracton Hill beyond, and St Vincent’s in-between.

  No one ever used The Front Door, not even on the weekend.

  Tom headed for the garage. He stepped into the dry larder and flipped on the overheard fluorescents, which buzzed and grated. Amid the boxes of crisps, stacks of beer cans, and cases of wine, stood a box of Jameson whiskey, untouched. He carefully removed a bottle, turned out the lights, and went back inside. At the dining room table, Tom took a moment to write a note to his parents saying where he was, and deposited it in the customary place: the centre placemat, once reserved for hot plates. He took a moment to gaze at the neatly arranged placemats that were as old as he was: cheap lacquered things adorned with poor illustrations of birds. Once washed every night, they were now just dusted every so often.

  Twisting the bottle cap, he returned to the kitchen, where he poured himself a small glass. He deposited the remainder in an overhead cabinet and then sloped off to his room to discover if whiskey was the answer to his problems.

  Apparently it was. For a start, his head seemed lighter almost immediately, and after a while even his eternal weariness began to mellow into simple fatigue.

  Tom climbed into bed and was asleep in minutes.

  4

  Buddy stood smoking on the bridge, watching them kick the ball back and forth, the two of them pretending they were having fun.

  Who are we pretending for? Tom wondered. Buddy?

  Maybe.

  Either way, Tom thought he was just killing time: Alex was a terrible player, and he had to keep chasing after his shots. Finally, the ball flew past his ears and disappeared into the undergrowth. Tom checked the angle: it was charging back towards where they had come from, back towards the shelter.

  He started running. Not because he was keen on retrieving the ball, and not because he wanted to continue to pretend to have fun – the very idea suddenly seemed nonsense, anyway – but because he had a sudden urge to see Mary. To see if she really was still counting.

  And why is that so important, Tom? What does it matter?

  Because if Mary’s still counting, that means she’s still…

  She’s still…

  He didn’t know, but that didn’t bother him. He soon spotted the football, and swept it up as he passed. Undergrowth and trees fell away on either side, spaces changing temperature as he ran through light and shade. Sounds stuttered and swirled, rustling and dripping. He emerged at a clearing, and from there he could tell that Mary had already gone, but he maintained his stride until his trainers hit the pavement beneath the old shelter. He halted, doubled over and panting.

  “You made it.”

  Tom clutched the football, and then slowly, he looked up.

  The speaker was dressed in formal mourning wear, his hands held behind his back. He tapped a polished shoe on the pavement, mak
ing a scraping noise.

  “If you’re looking for Mary, then I’m afraid you’ve just missed her. She got bored of doing all the seeking, and has now chosen to hide herself to the best of her abilities.”

  “David?”

  “Hmm?”

  Tom dropped his football, which made a few rudimentary bounces and then started to roll in the direction of the grass verge near the gymnasium.

  “You saw her?” It was the only thing he could think to say. Somewhere else, he was sixteen, tired, and in trouble; here, he was eleven, scared, and things were no longer as he remembered them.

  “She was just here,” David said. “We talked.”

  The strength in Tom’s legs evaporated and he sank to the floor. David watched him for a moment, and then joined him on the kerb. Both boys sat, gazing out into the playground. Tom watched David, he studied his pale temples, and noticed how his hair wrapped and shaped itself around his scrupulously clean ears. David looked away, allowing Tom his curiosity.

  Is this real? Is this something I’ve missed? Is it a chance to put things right?

  It could be, Tom, that’s the important thing.

  “David, I’m sorry for what we did.” The words came out automatically, but he realised he meant every single one.

  David smirked. “Not you as well.”

  “We all are. We did a terrible thing, ganging up on you like that. I’m sorry I just stood by as they laid into you.”

  “Maybe you remember these things better than I do, but I really don’t think-”

  “And I’m sorry for not telling the police about what we did. I don’t know whether that would have changed anything, but we didn’t help matters.”

  David wrapped his hands around his knees and nodded. “It’s a strange thing you know, Tom, to disappear. To see the darkness of another world through the cracks in this one.”

  Tom looked at the boy who had been eleven years old the last time they met, eleven years old, bloody, and crying. Back then, he had hated that weakness – they all had.