Life at the End of the Road Page 5

  ‘Yeah, dad, we’re just going out.’ Laura replied, now confident that she’d gotten away with it.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame, so soon?’ her father continued, still looking at me. ‘You’ll be back soon, though, Anna, won’t you? You’re always welcome.’ He smiled at me.

  Laura began to walk casually towards the back door, not wanting to rush or risk drawing attention to their theft.

  ‘Yeah, Dad, chill, she’ll be around.’

  Laura stepped out the door, and I followed close behind. Just before I could cross over the threshold outside the house, I felt a hand grab my elbow. Laura’s father was standing over me, grinning.

  ‘I mean it, you’re always welcome here. Do come back soon.’

  ‘Yeah, I will, Mr Kamryn, I will,’ I promised.

  ‘Good.’

  As if satisfied with the response, he released my arm, still smiling, and Laura and I left on our adventure. We wandered down the road towards the centre of town, veering off left towards the church. A couple of slightly older guys used to hang around the woods by the churchyard (guys that we wouldn’t have minded impressing). They weren’t, however, there on this particular day.

  My first cigarette was a fairly underwhelming experience, although I wasn’t sure what I had really been expecting. Laura felt the same at the time, but it didn’t stop her developing a habit for the next five or so years. I was pretty sure for all that time that she was only smoking to support the ‘cool’ image that she was developing for herself.

  We waited around at the end of the churchyard a while longer, neither of us willing to openly admit that we were waiting to see if the guys would show up. Once an hour or two had passed and they hadn’t, we began to wander around town. Letting our legs lead the way, we ended up in the Northern part of Redbury.

  This part of town was, at the time of Laura’s disappearance, all new build homes, with the previous houses having burned down not long after this evening out (although the fire had been nothing to do with our recently-gained smoking habits). Most of the town now objected to these new builds, saying that they weren’t in keeping with the rest of Redbury, but their complaints fell on deaf ears. Perhaps they could have burned these down too.

  It was up here that we’d come across a dead fox at the side of the road. My instinct had been (as I suspect it would have been for many people) to skirt around it. It had begun to rot. Flies swarmed around it. There was a smell lingering even from the five or so metres away that we were standing. Laura had not had the same instinct.

  Laura, instead, moved closer to investigate, nudging the corpse gently with her shoe (as if there was any chance it was still alive). When it, unsurprisingly, didn’t move, she crouched down to inspect it more thoroughly.

  ‘Woah, Ann, have a look at this.’

  ‘I’m good, Lor, can’t we just keep moving?’

  ‘No, I’m serious, honestly, Ann, you got to take a look at this,’ Laura implored me.

  ‘Why? It’s a dead fox, I’m really not that interested in seeing any more of it.’

  ‘No, Ann, just…’

  With a sigh, she grabbed me by the hand and walked me closer. I gave it another glance.

  ‘What am I supposed to be seeing here?’ I asked, ‘Are you just making me confront my mortality or what?’

  ‘Oh, shut up and look, will you?’

  I took a deep breath (one loud enough that Laura would know I wasn’t happy about this), and looked at the fox.

  As you would expect, the flesh was beginning to rot, with the animal looking more red than orange. However, that wasn’t the most shocking element of the sight before me. There, for the first time, I saw those red eyes that I would still think about occasionally in the years to come. No pupils were present. Instead, the whole glossy surface shone a vibrant scarlet.

  ‘It’s like something out of a horror movie, isn’t it!’ Laura said.

  ‘Yeah… it’s…’

  ‘So cool!’ This was not the answer I had been expecting.

  ‘Is it cool, though? Or is it just a bit gross?’

  ‘It can be both!’

  ‘I just think it’s gross.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Laura replied, ‘Wanna get my Mum’s camera and get a photo?’

  I sighed. ‘Sure. If it’ll make you happy.’

  We returned to the Kamryn house, and I told her I’d wait outside while she retrieved it. Laura, incredibly excited by the prospect of getting this disgusting image on film, dashed inside. She was out again within two minutes, Polaroid One Step in hand.

  Back at the corpse, Laura crouched down to get a low angle of the face, and snapped a photograph.

  ‘You got it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, ok, ok, I got it. We can go.’

  We began to walk away, not soon enough for my liking, before Laura stopped again.

  ‘Hold on.’ She rushed back to the dead fox, and snapped another. ‘For safety,’ she explained.

  ‘It’s instant, why do you need one “for safety”?’

  She shrugged.

  Laura stashed the photographs in the Sex and the City season 1 VCR case. I could remember the exact box because it was her favourite season, and she never let me forget that. As she placed the photographs down, a thought ran through her mind, and her eyes grew wide.

  ‘Oh, crap,’ she announced.

  ‘Crap? What crap?’

  ‘Crap!’ she repeated, this time more dramatically, as if the performance was for my benefit.

  I stayed silent, knowing that there was no need to ask any follow up questions. It was inevitable that Laura would reveal the answer within the next few moments.

  ‘I was supposed to meet Sam at six!’

  There it was. I glanced at my watch (because this was a time before mobile phones were commonplace), showing that it was only 5:50pm.

  ‘So? You got time, haven’t you? He’s just around the corner.’

  ‘No, I was supposed to meet him at… you know, our campsite,’ Laura replied.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Oh, yes, this campsite you won’t show me. Not that I’m that fussed, of course.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Anna, I would, but it’s our special place. You get that, right?’

  ‘Again, I don’t, no. But you guys can do whatever you want.’

  Laura, now agitated, rushed me out the house and stormed off towards the woods.

  Twelve years later, on the day of Max’s makeshift funeral (which Laura was notably absent from), I stood once again in front of that VCR box set. Nothing had really changed at all in Laura’s childhood bedroom over the last decade, with everything now as it had been then. I opened the Season 1 case, causing a number of items to fall to the floor. Dotted around the ground in front of me was a necklace, two Polaroid photographs, an unopened pack of Parma Violets and a love letter from an old boyfriend.

  I collected the items on the bed, treating them as clues to Laura’s disappearance, each possibly explaining to where she might have gone. The love letter I could easily discount as a clue, as Rey and Laura were (somehow) very happy together, as evidenced by their recent engagement, and the increasingly-frequent Instagram posts. If the Parma Violets did carry sentimental value, I couldn’t figure out what it would be. Likewise the necklace, although I did seem to remember Laura wearing it often during our teenage years. This left only the photographs, which were the reason I’d returned to the box in the first place.

  I wondered if it was possible that Laura had made the same connection that I did between Max and the dead fox all those years ago. It was definitely the sort of image that stuck in your mind. If she had, maybe she had been searching for the link before she’d disappeared. I gathered Laura’s old possessions / possible clues into my bag and began my own investigation.

  5

  Our Father, Who Art in Heaven

  During Sports Days at school in my former years, I was the proud owner of a 12.9 second 100 metre time. Of course, being that I was only eleven years old during at the
time, my legs were on the smaller side - as is the case for many students of this age.

  It wasn’t until later in my life, long after school sports days ceased to be an event on my social calendar, that I realised that while this was my personal best, this didn’t necessarily mean that it was good. Looking back, I now recognise that the physical education teachers at my school were more encouraging than I had realised at the time. I had previously remembered only the shouting aspect of my physical education, and glossed over the encouragement that - arguably - had also been there.

  In fact, these teachers had perhaps been amongst my best. My mathematics teacher had only theoretically spoken the English language - it being hard to tell from beneath the sprawling beard which covered his mouth, muffling all sounds which emerged from it. My science teacher had been wildly inconsistent between his in-class curriculum and his homework curriculum, only to be surprised when his students were unable to complete assignments without any prior knowledge of the subject. My English literature teacher had prioritised Wikipedia summaries and BBC television adaptations over reading source material - although this had, in complete fairness, at least been reflected in higher-than-average class grades.

  I recount all this to give you some context. As you will discover in the following two chapters, physical exertion had re-entered my life rather unexpectedly - and my lack of exercise over the previous decade meant that I did not travel far. For added clarity, you may also refer to the hand-drawn maps which appear sporadically throughout this novel.

  Something about the figure I’d seen in the forest had scared me so much that I was hurrying away as fast as I could without breaking into a run. Perhaps it was just the feeling of being watched, or maybe it was the sense that there was something… not quite right about the man in the woods. Either way, my body had instantly gone into ‘fight or flight’ mode, and, as is the typical result, I chose the latter. As I’d fled, I hadn’t immediately looked back to see if he - or it - was following.

  Only once my recent lack of exercise meant caused my lungs to struggle and my legs to ache did I turn around and I saw nothing - before tripping backwards over a lump on the ground. Looking down, I checked first my foot - inspecting for injury - and then at the obstacle, which turned out to be the plaque providing information as to the grave I was sitting on.

  A hand gently touched my shoulder and I yelped for the first time in my adult life. I was the sort of person who didn’t squeal on rollercoasters, at gigs, at spiders jumping out from behind the bed - but at this moment, I couldn’t stop the noise from exiting my mouth.

  ‘Oho!’ said the voice of the person to whom the hand belonged. ‘Everything alright, sir?’

  I looked up to see a man in black garbs smiling down upon me, thin glasses resting delicately on his nose. Shielding my eyes from the sun shining bright behind him, I could make out further details - none more of note than the white clerical collar that he wore tightly around his neck.

  ‘You must be Rey,’ he continued.

  I gave him a quizzical look as I scrambled to my feet.

  ‘Yeah… I… how’d you know?’

  ‘Maybe you should come inside; it looks as though you’ve had a fright.’

  ‘Nah, I’m ok, I better get go-’

  ‘Nonsense, nonsense!’ He insisted, waving me towards the church building. ‘Come on in, we’ll get you a cup of tea and you’ll be right as rain, just like that!’

  ‘I’m…,’ I began.

  ‘Brilliant, brilliant! Come on in!’ He continued to wave me onwards as he started towards the door of the church. Clearly he wasn’t giving me any choice in the matter.

  At this point in my life, I’d never stood in a church before. I was raised without religion. Any weddings I’d been to had been hosted elsewhere, and, really, there was no other reason for a young person living in the city to enter one.

  The first church I entered, the church of Redbury, was small. It may have once paid host to a congregation of twenty, thirty, maybe even forty people at a push, but judging by the number of cushions currently resting on the pews, this number had dwindled to no more than ten. At the far end of the church, a stained glass window glistened impressively - although I expected that that was the point: to impress. It depicted the Christian messiah nailed to a cross, and he was not looking particularly pleased by the situation. A woman kneeled at his side, praying, rather than actually doing anything to help the poor guy. The vicar caught me staring at it.

  ‘It’s impressive, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s the word I would use, yeah.’

  ‘What do you think of it? Powerful to you, at all?’ He asked, probing my religious history.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not a god-ey man.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s ok, that’s ok. We take all sorts in here,’ he reassured me. ‘As long as you can appreciate the art, that’s more important to me.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s… nice. If a bit… morbid, don’t you think?’

  ‘We’ve had worse reviews.’

  ‘I’m sorry… I dunno if we’ve met?’

  ‘Of course! Sorry, Rey, sorry. It’s always uncomfortable when someone knows who you are and you don’t them. You can call me “His Holiness”.’

  ‘Oh… err…’

  ‘I’m joking, Rey, I’m joking! My name is Arthur. You can call me that, or you can call me Art. Either’s good, either’s great.’

  ‘What do your friends call you?’

  ‘They call me things I shouldn’t and won’t repeat in a house of God.’ He chuckled, and it was contagious enough that it squeezed a soft snort out of my typically stoic self. ‘Now, about that tea… how would you like it?’

  ‘Green, please.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, maybe I should have provided a list of options. I can do good old fashioned breakfast tea, with or without milk or sugar.’

  ‘That’s good too.’

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘A dash.’

  ‘Sugar?’ he winced exaggeratedly at the thought.

  ‘Never in a million years.’

  ‘Good man.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll return, tea in hand, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

  The Vicar, Art, disappeared off through a door in the side of the atrium of the church. I stared once more at the stained glass window that loomed with great presence in front of me. The son of God looked down upon me, eyes fixed upon his flock, piercing into their souls. I remembered the eyes that stood in the forest, which seemed to do the same. What had I seen in there? Had I seen anything at all? Was my mind playing tricks on me?

  The Vicar entered the room humming, possibly to avoid alarming me as he had earlier. He set the tray down on one of the pews, and passed me a cup.

  ‘Hope that’s ok.’

  ‘It’s perfect, cheers.’

  This six word interaction had taken place countless times in Britain. It was a tradition that I was not going to stray from now - even if the tea was a little strong for my taste.

  ‘Would you mind if I play the organ while we sit?’

  ‘’Course,’ I replied, ‘It’s your place, after all.’

  Art weighed this up. ‘Well, not technically.’ He pointed upwards.

  He sat down in front of the instrument and began to play expertly. ‘I try and play at least a little every day, but it’s not always easy to find the time, you see.’

  ‘Yeah, I can imagine.’ I couldn’t imagine.

  ‘Kind of you to say so. I often wonder what the people of Redbury really think of me. They’re all pleasant people, of course, but when fewer and fewer of them come to service, I can imagine that they don’t see what value I really add to the town. Of course, writing a service for a congregation of one is just as much work as writing one for a congregation of fifty - but I can see why it might not seem so.’

  ‘How many people come nowadays?’

  ‘Oh, it varies. During the cold weather the older folk stay at home, and, as you might imagine, that’s the bulk of the regul
ars. It used to be, in times long past, that we’d get twenty, twenty-five or so. That’s how it was when I started here. I had dreams of growing the congregation, getting the town more involved in the church, you know how it is. Oh, to be young.’

  I sipped my tea, not knowing how much to press this subject. The vicar seemed to notice, and changed the subject.

  ‘So. Rey. I hear you’re here looking for Laura.’

  ‘Yeah, I was wondering-’

  ‘Wondering how I knew all this? Although I spend a lot of my day tucked away in here, I do walk amongst the town too. I was down there just earlier, in fact, picking up some bread. Young Sam at the shop filled me in.’

  ‘Ah, I see. He seems to be the primary source of information in this town.’

  Art smirked at my observation. ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head there, I think.’

  He stopped playing momentarily to blow weakly on the top of his tea, cooling it, and then took his first cautious sip. He stared into it as if searching for answers in that cup.

  ‘Laura was a sweet girl when she was younger, you know.’

  ‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’

  ‘Oh, pay that no heed. Of course she was a bit wild, all children are, but she was never ill-meaning.’

  ‘Yeah, of course, I’d never mean that. I just mean…,’ I paused, unsure how much I yet trusted Art, but the sight of the smiling man in front of me happily playing his organ made me drop my guard. ‘I… went to see her dad earlier,’ I offered.

  ‘Ah! I see. Yes, I’ve heard there’s no love lost there. Between you and me, though, Rey, I would take Laura’s side over Robert’s in a heartbeat.’

  ‘Yeah I thought you would - have you been to his home any time recently? It’s a… it’s a sight, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have not, but I know exactly to what you’re referring.’

  ‘There’s some issues going on in there, I think’.

  ‘I’m… not sure it would be my place to comment,’ Art said, reluctantly.

  As if to fill the lull in conversation, Art continued to play, and soft melodies echoed around the church, lending a comfort to the environment.