Kieran.Stories

It was something to do. Enough red and blue to keep me awake. Watching GB News became my nine-to-five job. On Facebook, I shared AI generated images of roaring lions. I visited Emily in the spare room. If I sensed movement, I described the news to her. I told her what I’d called someone. I wasn’t sure if my insults were correct in context. It was always the first thing that came into my head. But there was something appealing about incorrectness. She never really acknowledged me. It was enough to say it, though. I didn’t have the bottle to change her bedding. 

I was approached in The Ship by a beanie and grey tracksuit bottoms. His breath smelt like Euthymol. 

Catherine Clayton’s father is drinking at the bar, he said. 

It took a second for the name to register. Over a certain period I’d heard it so often. He asked if he was right in thinking I was Elaine Proctor’s dad. 

When I looked back to my pint, carbolic put his hand on my shoulder. I had no idea if he was trying to comfort me. He left. 

There were reasons I wanted to avoid Catherine Clayton’s dad at The Ship. I remembered how he’d looked the last time I saw him; his face was exactly how I felt. I thought it was expected of me, the confrontation. People wanted that, didn’t they? 

I went to the bar and there he was.  

Can I get you a drink? 

I could not hit him even if I’d wanted to. Weeks of GB News had made me inert. I bought him another drink. A side of chunky chips went by us, towards the dining area. 

She was going to meet her friend Catherine in Lytham. I checked to see if she needed a lift. Fatherly duty. She refused. She would get the bus. I told her to be safe. They ended up in Blackpool. The bus terminated at Market Street. What was the timeline? At what point did she think, maybe in not so many words, I’m in trouble here. 

It’s a fucking. He repeated this after every sup of his pint. We were on the Shipyards. The thought had crossed my mind. What was I going to do with him?  

It was clear now that we weren’t going to talk, not properly. Your man who smelt like toothpaste was patently wrong if he thought this meeting at the bar would be in any way useful, or cathartic. If anything, it was carcinogenic. There was a cancerous aura around John Clayton. I felt infected by his presence. A fucking.

No. I know. When you visit Catherine, what do you say to her?  

I haven’t seen her.  

Does your wife see her?

He laughed. He drank.  

John caught the attention of the lad pulling pints. He mustn’t have been older than nineteen. I wondered if he went to the same college as Elaine. Surely, he knew what had happened. But it had been months, and how long is a month when you’re that age?  

You haven’t seen her at all?  

She’s gone to her sister’s. I had meant Catherine, but it didn’t matter.  

How about a night cap? In the same way he had wanted me to attack, I wanted him to reject this invitation. We left The Ship together. They were relieved to see us go.  

We weren’t worried until a few hours after her last text. I was sent out to Lytham in the car. I didn’t have the radio on, as a mark of respect for the potential seriousness of the situation. By that point, she was already dead.  

John walked home with me. It was raining. His long hair stuck to his face.   

I left him in the kitchen and went to check on Emily. I turned on the light. The bed was made.

I could hear someone on the bottom step. Elaine went through a sleepwalking stage when she was twelve or thirteen. We hadn’t expected it. We were prepared for angst, but sleepwalking was a bit of a curveball. But it wasn’t Elaine. John called up from downstairs. I looked down at him from the landing, watching him sway. He brushed the banister with his right shoulder. Elaine would always complain about washing up. Any other household task she would complete without much fuss. I thought about this as I journeyed downstairs.  I asked John Clayton to get one of the chairs from the dining room and place it by the sink. In the kitchen, I drew the yellow blinds. I sat him down. He was compliant, if a little dozy. I closed the kitchen door to.  

I pulled open the cutlery drawer and took out a dessert spoon. I wouldn’t fill the spoon, I wanted him to scrape the empty metal space with his teeth, thinking there was something more to eat. There was a Rustlers burger on a side plate which I handed to John. I found a bowl of hardened mac and cheese.  

Although his hair was long, he had a widow’s peak. From the back he looked younger than he was. The whole hairdo said something to me about the cruelty of Time.  

I moved him on to the gunge near the plughole, all the spute that wouldn’t wash away.

Once he was fed, John got up from the chair and he held me. It was difficult to know for sure, in retrospect, who started what. He wore a short-sleeved shirt. His arms were cool. He explored my back. The night was slow. Neither of us slept, but neither of us worried. Needless to say, after our episode at the sink, his ordeal as he would later playfully call it, his breath was foul. 

In the morning, I went to Flapjacks and bought us both a breakfast bap. We ate our baps in bed. We talked about a day trip. We’d get the train. Perhaps that would be the trip, just getting the train. The journey itself. There is something nice about that, he said. John went to brush his teeth. I had a new toothbrush, still in its packet. I told him where to find it. Later, I drove us to Preston in Emily’s Polo. We decided on the Windermere train.  

*

It was a conversation starter. How did you meet? Oh, well, it’s a funny story. I don’t know if you’d say funny, but anyway. It goes like this. His daughter, Catherine, killed my daughter, Elaine. She – Catherine – found a piece of driftwood – handy – underneath South Pier and cracked it on my daughter’s skull. Oh, really? Oh, yes.    

We were at Miranda’s on Friday. Her cousin was there. She was staying for a week and Miranda wanted us to meet her, being such great friends of hers.  

How did you meet? But as John started to tell the story to Miranda’s cousin – there was a routine now – he faltered. His voice broke in the way Emily’s used to. I left the room.  

I found myself wandering around the downstairs of Miranda’s house.  

In the five years since I’d started seeing John Clayton, we had kept moving. We’d found our own place, a little attic flat, and I’d sold the house.  

Even on the days when we were waiting – waiting for paperwork to be sent back, for emails – we were still moving in our heads, still imagining vividly what our new life together would be. We took holidays. I got a new job. We met Miranda for the first time at the arts centre. She was attracted to our story, but she also seemed to like us as people, and as a couple. I could talk to Miranda about the way I felt about Time.  

Time with a capital T.  

How do you mean?  

It’s a fucking disaster. I don’t know what it thinks it’s doing.  

I’m not sure it thinks, even.  

Where was John that night?  

If John was out and Miranda had popped into the flat, I would be in tears remembering Elaine.  

Do you know why we picked Elaine?  

No. Miranda was making me a cup of tea.  

After Emily’s grandma. That seems so stupid now.  

Stupid’s harsh, Miranda said, and I watched as she added two spoons of sugar to my tea, sugar I hadn’t asked for.  

When we were selling the house, I asked John if we should tell the estate agents that the house was haunted. Apparently, I had never mentioned this little theory. It was so obvious to me. I could barely look in that sink.    

I drove on half a bottle of wine. Instead of driving us home, I drove us to The Ship. John didn’t notice that we were nowhere near home. He said he wanted my body. It’s a fucking. The pub was closed. We left the car, and I guided John to the marsh, below. He stood, swayed, and my heart sank. Delayed gratification was the phrase. I found a stick, not exactly driftwood, picked it out in the moonlight, and held it high for him to see, before I brought it down. 

Thank you for reading this slightly longer story. I hope you liked it. You can support these monthly stories by sending a couple of quid to my Buy Me a Coffee, but absolutely fine if not. Happy New Year to you all, have a chilled one.