The Shut Eye Read Free Page B

Academy
embroidered around a cross on the left side of the chest.
    Sometimes kids shouted at Anna as they went past in unruly groups, or called her names. Weirdo and Nutter and worse.
    She bent and went back to her work.
    ‘What are you doing?’ the girl said again.
    It was weeks since Anna had spoken to anybody but James. Maybe months.
    ‘Cluh—’ she started and then had to clear her throat of tears and disuse. ‘Cleaning.’
    ‘Oh,’ said the girl.
    Anna polished the heel of the last footprint, making the cement as smooth and shiny as glass. While she rubbed, her anorak’s nylon hood scraped synthetically back and forth against her ears, cutting out everything else.
    Scri-scri-scri
    Anna went on rubbing long after she knew the footprint was done, just to maintain that noisy silence.
    ‘Why?’ said the girl.
    ‘What?’ said Anna.
    ‘Why are you cleaning them?’
    ‘Because—’ She stopped and thought and then went on. ‘My son made them and I don’t want to lose them.’
    ‘Why?’
    Daniel had wanted to know
why
too. All the time. Why this, why that, why the other. It had driven her mad. Although – of course – at the time she’d had no idea what mad was; not the faintest idea. Now the lack of Daniel was showing her the true meaning of the word. Anna knew that. She knew she was going mad, but she didn’t know how to stop it any more than she knew how to stop crying or breathing.
    ‘Why?’ The girl was still there. Still asking. ‘Why don’t you want to lose them?’
    Anna shrugged without looking up. ‘Because I lost
him
.’
    ‘Really?’ said the girl, and her forehead wrinkled with mystery. ‘How?’
    The
how
spun inside Anna’s head so often that she knew it off by heart, the same way she’d once known every frame of Daniel’s DVDs –
The Lion King
and
Toy Story
. She didn’t want to replay the how, but once it had started, she could never stop it.
    She’d been in the kitchen, making packed lunches for playschool and work. Peanut butter and carrots and a little chocolate bar shaped like a frog for Daniel, peanut butter and a Mars bar for James. From the garage next door the radio had gone on – the tinny sound of Duran Duran maybe, or Culture Club. Something from the Eighties. She’d glanced through the kitchen window at the street below, beating out its own rhythms: the number 32 bus waiting at the stop, the man walking two rocking Dachshunds, the woman jogging so slowly that the tall man with the
Daily Telegraph
under his arm overtook her with ease, the paving slabs cracking and tilting as the lime trees refused to be contained by concrete squares. There was a cement truck parked outside the garage, and the driver was laying thick, corrugated-plastic pipes across the pavement.
    In a minute, James would sneak up from behind and put his arms around her …
    Oh!
    She had turned in his arms and kissed him long and hard.
    I’ll bring home the fireworks tonight
, he’d said.
    She’d laughed and said,
I bet you will!
    He’d laughed too, and reached around her to pick up his lunch. Slowly. Their bodies touching all the way down.
    Smiling.
    See you tonight.
    She’d see him a lot sooner than that.
    And never the same way again.
    Anna had heard him leave. Heard him go down the narrow, dark stairs, heard him open the door …
    She hadn’t heard the door shut. She hadn’t even thought about it until afterwards – until it was far, far,
far
too late. James opened the door, James shut the door. That was what had happened every day for the three years they’d lived here. She knew it like
Toy Story
– so well that she could tune it out and have other thoughts while it droned on in the background.
    Unheard.
    Daniel!
    She’d taken out the chocolate and put in another carrot.
    Daniel! Come on!
    She’d taken out the carrot and put back the chocolate.
    She’d make cornflake cakes for tonight. Daniel’s favourite. And she’d pick up some apples for bobbing, on her way to work.
    She’d