It was fascinating. Mr Anderson could stay all night, but he needed to be careful. He wanted more, but it was time to leave. Coming to the window was something he shouldn’t do, but it was addictive. He had thought about what it would be like to break in and find a place to hide inside so that he could listen properly.
As he walked out of their garden, he knew that Jacob Clarke and his family were different and that’s what interested him in the first place, because he was different too. There’d been times when he’d tried to change, but he’d accepted it now. It was easy to mimic those around him, to repeat the things they said. To take a job and to walk with them, sit among them and regurgitate the stories he’d read in the newspaper that morning. To make them believe that he cared about the nonsense they spouted. He’d learnt to nod and smile in sync with them, while his mind was elsewhere. The hardest part was not being himself: he knew that he could never do that.
The job at the library had been an obvious place for him to go. Sitting among the dusty shelves in a place where silence was encouraged. Nobody warned him that he’d have to share that space with the likes of Noreen and the other women who worked there though. There was no sign of them getting a different job either, they were there for the long haul.
He needed an outside focus. As he looked back through his neighbour’s window, he thought about how much they’d love Cage Hill. Mr Anderson didn’t smile a lot, but today, in the darkness of the garden his mouth curled up. As Paula walked back through the kitchen, he could almost feel the silken blouse against his fingertips. He imagined what it would feel like to slowly and delicately cut the material and to tie it around the small little doll that was lying cold and naked at home.
He thought about the delicate curve of her hands and the long, manicured nails that were vibrant red. Those silken thighs, those perfect legs as they struggled beneath him. He pictured the whiteness of the bone, the pale clay that he would use to make the doll and curls of blonde hair – the inevitable acceptance in her eyes when she became resigned to her fate. He thought of the deer on Cage Hill, stood on the frozen ground, the dark brown eyes and curl of their eyelashes. The sound of their breath on the air when she became family.
It gave him a shiver as he crept through the darkness back out of their garden and onto the lane that led to his. As he got back to the fence, he saw Paula Garrity at the window. She stretched upwards and pulled the curtain to, and just like that they were gone, like switching off a television set, the programme was over.
5
Jacob Clarke sat at the dining room table with his dad and his sister. It was snowing again outside, but he could only think of Maggie. He hadn’t heard from her for days and he didn’t know what to do about it. Nothing else mattered to him.
Inside the house there was never any change. They all ate together. It was something that his dad had insisted on after his mother left, and it had continued that way ever since. His sister, Kim, looked down the table at him. They weren’t close. She was younger and she’d adapted better. Sometimes he thought that she’d betrayed his mum by allowing Paula into the house and accepting her. They even seemed to like each other. She was too little to remember her mother properly though and she’d just accepted Paula without question.
Her hair was different today. In French plaits along her head and a red ribbon in her hair. When she smiled, it felt to him like she shouldn’t be this happy. That she’d forgotten their mother completely. His sister pushed her knife across a piece of bread, tongue stuck out in concentration as she smeared yellow butter into the corners. He felt like he didn’t belong. His stepmother wanted him gone and if he could, he’d leave. His sister had his dad’s looks, blonde and fair, while he was just like his mother with his dark hair and brown eyes. He didn’t even look like them. To an outsider, he could have been sitting at the wrong family’s table.
He opened his mouth to speak to his dad, but the sound of movement from the kitchen stopped him. The smell of cooking was on the air, boiled vegetables and heat from the oven, smells that used to be homely. As Paula muttered something under her breath, he looked at the way his dad sat there as though everything was still normal, still the same as it always was.
Jacob has been sketching birds from the garden today. He’d put out some old fruitcake and watched them hop about on the snow as they ate it. It helped him focus on something else than Maggie. He looked over at the wall and wished he was on the other side of it – away from here. Living in a wood with just the animals where no one could bother him. The library was his only sanctuary.
On the sideboard was a picture of their mother. Her long dark hair was scraped back in a hurried ponytail and she was laughing. Her makeup-free face was so carefree. That’s how he remembered her. He was surprised to see it there. Some weeks it was placed behind the school photographs, accidentally hidden after his stepmother had dusted the sides. His picture was next to it and he could see the similarity in their smiles. He caught his sister’s eye as she saw him looking at it and wondered what his mum would have made of them now. He knew that if Paula had the choice there would be a skip outside with everything that had a trace of their mother piled up high inside. His mother was the one who had made this house a home and now she was being wiped away as efficiently as the old toast crumbs on the work surface.
The thought of her made his stomach tense and he no longer felt hungry. He tried not to look at her, but just being near Paula made him tense. She liked playing games and he’d learnt not to fight back; it just wasn’t an option, she always won. When the food was put before him, he looked down at the china plate, the gentle curve of pink roses around the edge and stared at the pink slab of meat in the centre.
Paula sat opposite and he felt her stare as he cut into the thick bloody beef. He glanced at his father’s plate, the thin slices on it, and then back at his. He swallowed, taking down air and spit. The food stayed in his cheek as he smelt his stepmother’s perfume, expensive and heavy. His dad was talking, but all he could hear was the slow scrape of her knife against the plate and the sound of her breathing through her nose as she chewed. The way her blouse shone under the light was almost too bright, her hair too blonde and her lips too pink.
‘How’s the meat?’ she asked, putting emphasis on the last word with a pout.
His dad smiled back, as though she was beautiful and nothing was missing. Jacob could sense her eyes on his plate as he cut his food into smaller and smaller pieces, moving the carrots around the plate. Bringing the fork to his mouth and then lowering it without taking a bite.
‘Wonderful,’ his dad replied. As though there were only the two of them in the room.
The snow was starting to come down again. Jacob wished for better weather. In the summer he could go and sit out on the common and watch birds on the pond. He liked to draw the heron from the bench at the side of the bank. Without Maggie he wasn’t even going to get a knock on the door to come out. The Vincents never knocked on for him – not that he wanted them to. It was only ever Maggie that gave him a thought. He’d heard the Vincents shouting down the lane this morning, Billy Vincent getting pulled on a sledge by his brother on their way to field. It wouldn’t be long before they shunned him. He knew he was only there because of Maggie, he wasn’t stupid enough to think they liked him. It wasn’t long after he’d lost his mother that it happened, as though it was somehow contagious. As if his mother’s madness was catching.