His favourite spot was the living room chair. If anyone left their house, he could watch through the net curtains. He’d been displeased when the mother had left. She had been at home all day. When he was off work, he’d hear her singing as she moved through the house. She was slightly overweight and plain, just as a mother should be, but she smiled a lot too, which was odd. He’d heard her laugh through the wall more times than he’d ever heard his own mother’s laughter. Mr Anderson couldn’t even remember what his mother’s laugh sounded like. They were the closest to family that he’d got. She’d gone now, the previous mother, and when a new woman had replaced her, he realised how easy it was to start again with a new family.
Mr Anderson smiled. There had been some mistakes, but he’d improve. He’d started his project and things were good. He made a sound deep within his throat, in between a cough and a gasp. He’d waited so long. It was all he’d ever wanted and he was surprised at how much it meant to him now that it was here – a family of his own just like the people next door. It was about to become reality. He had everything to offer: his own house, a quiet space, time to make things perfect. He was ready.
Despite the darkness, he could still make out the shape of the box in the corner of the room where he kept his modelling tools. He had stencilled the words ‘Vive Hodié’ on the top: words from one of the sundials at The Cage, his favourite place.
These were the tools to create his family. He thought about the first doll he’d completed. He’d made the figure with painstaking details, a man in blue denim jeans with a checked shirt. He remembered the look on the man’s face when he’d been working on him: the horror that turned to compliance as the knife finished its work. The way his eyes bulged as the last breath left his body – the bloody clump of hair that he’d carefully removed from the scalp and taken away in a plastic bag before he left him there on the concrete.
The snow had covered the street by now and he could see the glint through the window, so bright despite the darkness. He started to rock in the chair, like he did when he was young; it was still comforting today. The steady movement was calming, but it was more than that – it was like being rocked to sleep.
The body of the homeless man had been found quickly. Mr Anderson hadn’t tried to move it. He wondered if anyone had found the doll he’d left at Lyme Park, or if the police would ever connect the two. In the darkness he started to laugh. He couldn’t help it. The sound was too loud in the quietness of the house and for a moment he imagined his mother standing in the doorway, legs wide and face stern with anger, asking him, ‘How dare you make a noise?’ When it didn’t happen, he laughed again, louder. It was an odd sound – a sound that this house wasn’t used to. Such happenings were confined to next door, but that was about to change. He would allow it to happen. Mr Anderson would let happiness in, and it would taste as crisp on his tongue as the icy flakes of snow that had started to fall outside.
2
Jacob thought the morning would never end, but he was finally going to see Maggie. As he walked to the top of the hill, she was standing on the curve of the road. More snow had fallen again last night and there was another dusting on the pavement. It was going to get heavier later; the weatherman had said that the whole country was set to get it. Maggie pushed the loose curls from her face and the wind flattened her clothes to her body. He hadn’t seen her dressed up like that for a long time. She was wearing red shoes that glittered and her legs were the palest white. Jacob felt his palms moisten. He wanted to say something funny, but she started talking about the buses before he got the chance to.
‘Look at you,’ he smiled.
Maggie laughed. ‘What?’
Jacob laughed back. ‘Those shoes.’
‘Yeah, well it’s nice to dress up sometimes.’ She stretched out her toe into a point. ‘They’re my cousin’s. Nice, aren’t they?’
He stared at her slim white ankle. ‘Yes, but watch you don’t slip. It’s icy.’
‘You’re worse than my mum.’
The bus came quickly and he was upset that they weren’t there for longer. He wanted the Vincents to see him there with her, so they knew that she’d asked him instead of them to go with her. Being with her was amazing. It took all his strength to stay focused and not glance down at her legs that were stretched out under the seat as the shoes blinked in the sunlight.
As the bus drove towards town, he barely gave anything else a thought. The motorway belched its fumes and the cars screamed, but today it didn’t bother him. As they passed it, he didn’t even look back to check for a figure stood on the edge of the bridge. It was different today and he knew it was because he was with Maggie.
‘How’s things?’ he asked.
‘Great.’ She smiled down at the shoes.
‘That’s good then.’
‘Sure is.’
Jacob smiled. He liked it when she was like this. The town was busy and the sun glinted over the frosty ground.
‘I thought we’d go up to the market. If I can make it up the hill in these.’ She glanced down at her feet. ‘Think you were right. Should have worn my boots, but I’ve been dying to pinch these since my cousin got them.’
Jacob smiled; she looked up to her cousin despite what she said.
‘We should take your shoes out somewhere decent.’
‘Another time. I’m meeting some girls from the theatre in a bit.’
‘I thought we were going to do something else afterwards.’
‘Thought you just wanted to get something to eat?’
He smiled through gritted teeth. He wasn’t used to things not being planned out. It wasn’t the way he liked it. As they got further from the bus depot there were fewer people. It wasn’t how he imagined the day was going to be, but he pretended that everything was fine.
‘They do some ace cakes in here. Matty showed it to me the other day,’ she said, pointing to a cake shop down one of the side streets. ‘I told him I needed some ideas and then he finds this place.’
Jacob nodded. Of course Matty would have found this for her. Jacob decided that it didn’t matter that she’d been here with Matty; at least he’d got the chance to spend time with her now. He should take her somewhere new. Somewhere that would be just theirs. Somewhere that they’d found together, not just because Matty was trying to impress her.
‘When did you two come to Stockport?’
‘Dunno. Few weeks ago, why?’
‘No reason.’
They walked down the road and past the cake shop and the smell was sweet like icing as Maggie went over to the window. She nodded at a giant wedding cake in the window. ‘That’s nice, isn’t it?’
He nodded. He hoped that they’d be together forever and have their own wedding cake one day.
She smiled and pointed over the road. ‘We’re going there.’
‘Thought we were just getting some chips?’
‘No. It’s my treat.’
‘I should have dressed up too. I didn’t know it was going to be so special.’
‘It’s not, don’t worry.’ She pulled out her tongue and smiled. It was so pink. It reminded him of the times they used to share a bag of blue sherbet in the park, eating until their tongues turned blue. She always laughed so hard when it happened, as though it had never happened before. He missed those times.