Wednesday 18 December 1974.
7 AM and out the room, thank fuck.
A cup of tea and a slice of buttered toast in the Redbeck Cafe. Truck drivers held up front pages:
Wilson Denies Stonehouse Spying, Man Killed as Three Bombs Explode, Petrol Up to 74p
Johnny Kelly on the back pages, going National:
League’s Lord Lucan? Where’s Our Likely Lad?
Two policemen came in, hats off, sitting down at a window table.
My heart stopped, flopping across the scratches in my notebook:
Arnold Fowler, Marforie Dawson, and James Ashworth.
Three dates.
Back in the Redbeck lobby, a fresh stack of change.
“Arnold Fowler speaking.”
“This is Edward Dunford from the Post. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m doing a piece on the attacks on the swans up in Bretton Park.”
“I see.”
“I was hoping we’d be able to get together.”
“When?”
“Sometime this morning? I know it’s a bit short notice.”
“I’m actually up at Bretton this morning. I’m doing a Nature Walk with Horbury Juniors, but it doesn’t start till half-ten.”
“I can be up there for half-past nine.”
“I’ll meet you in the Main Hall.”
“Thank you.”
“Bye.”
Bright brittle winter sunshine pierced the windscreen on the drive over to Bretton, the heater turning as loud as the radio: The IRA and Stonehouse, the race to be the Christmas Number One, Clare Kemplay dying all over again on the National Stage.
I checked the rearview mirror.
One hand on the tuner, I went local:
Clare still breathing on Radio Leeds, phone-ins demanding that something be done about this kind of thing and what kind of animal would do such a thing and, anyroad, hanging’s too good for the likes of thems that do this kind of thing.
The police suddenly quiet, no leads, no press conference.
Me thinking, the calm before the fucking shit-storm.
“Nice day for it,” I said, all smiles.
“For a change,” said Arnold Fowler, sixty-five and clothes to match.
The Main Hall was large and cold, the walls plastered with children’s drawings and paintings of birds and trees.
High above, a huge papier-mache swan hung from the roof beams.
The hall stank like another church in winter and I was thinking of Mandy Wymer.
“I knew your father,” said Arnold Fowler, leading me into a small kitchen with two chairs and a pale blue Formica-topped table.
“Really?”
“Oh aye. Fine tailor.” He unbuttoned his tweed jacket to show me a label I’d seen every day of my life: Ronald Dunford, Tailor.
“Small world,” I said.
“Aye. Though not like it used to be.”
“He’d be very flattered.”
“I don’t reckon so. Not if I remember Ronald Dunford.”
“You’re right there,” I smiled, thinking it had only been a week.
Arnold Fowler said, “I was very sorry to hear of his passing.”
“Thank you.”
“How’s your mother?”
“You know, bearing up. She’s very strong.”
“Aye. Yorkshire lass through and through.”
I said, “You know, you came to Holy Trinity when I was there.”
“I’m not surprised. I reckon I’ve been to every school in the West Riding at some time or other. Did you enjoy it?”
“Yeah. I can remember it well, but I couldn’t draw to save me life.”
Arnold Fowler smiled. “You never joined my Nature Club then?”
“No, sorry. I was Boy’s Brigade.”
“For the football?”
“Yeah.” I laughed for the first time in a long time.
“We still lose out to this day.” He handed me a mug of tea. “Help yourself to sugar.”
I heaped in two big spoonfuls and stirred them for a long time.
When I looked up, Arnold Fowler was staring at me.
“What’s with Bill Hadden’s sudden interest in the swans then?”
“It’s not Mr Hadden. I did a piece on the injuries to those ponies over Netherton way and then I heard about the swans.”
“How did you hear about them?”
“Just talk at the Post. Barry Cannon, he…”
Arnold Fowler was shaking his head. “Terrible, terrible business. I know his father too. Know him very well.”
“Really?” I asked, playing it typecast, playing it dumb.
“Aye. Such a shame. Very talented young man, Barry.”
I took a scalding mouthful of sweet tea and then said, “I don’t know any of the details.”
“I’m sorry?”
“About the swans.”
“I see.”
I took out my notebook. “How many of these attacks have there been?”
“Two this year.”
“When were they?”
“One was in August sometime. Other was just over a week ago.”
“You said this year?”
“Aye. There are always attacks.”
“Really?”
“Aye. Sickening it is.”
“The same kind?”
“No, no. These ones this year, they were just plain barbaric.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tortured, they were.”
“Tortured?”
“They hacked the bloody wings off. Swans were alive and all.”
My mouth was bone-dry as I spoke. “And usually?”
“Crossbows, air rifles, pub darts.”
“What about the police? You always report them?”
“Aye. Of course.”
“And what did they say?”
“Last week?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“Nothing. I mean, what can they say?” Arnold Fowler was suddenly fidgeting, playing with the sugar spoon.
“The police haven’t been back to see you at all since last week then?”
Arnold Fowler looked out of the kitchen window, across the lake.
“Mr Fowler?”
“What kind of story are you writing Mr Dunford?”
“A true one.”
“Well, I’ve been asked to keep my true stories to myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are things I’ve been asked to keep to myself.” He looked at me as though I was dumb.
I picked up my mug and drained the tea.
“Have you got time to show me where you found them?” I asked.
“Aye.”
We stood up and walked out through the Main Hall, under the swan.
At the big door, I asked him, “Did Clare Kemplay ever come here?”
Arnold Fowler walked over to a pencil drawing curling on the wall above a heavy painted radiator. It was a picture of two swans kissing on the lake.
He smoothed down one of the corners. “What a bloody world we live in.”
I opened the door to the hollow sunshine and went outside.
We walked down the hill from the Main Hall towards the bridge that crossed Swan Lake.
On the other side of the lake the clouds were moving quickly across the sun, making shadows along the foot of the Moors, the purples and browns like some bruised face.
I was thinking of Paula Garland.
On the bridge, Arnold Fowler stopped.
“The last one looked like it had just been tossed over the side here, back into the lake.”
“Where did they cut the wings off?”
“I don’t know. To tell the truth, no-one’s really looked either.”
“And the other one, the one in August?”
“Hanging by her neck from that tree.” He pointed to a large oak on the other side of the lake. “They’d crucified her first, then cut off the wings.”
“You’re joking?”
“No, I’m not joking at all.”
“And no-one saw anything?”
“No.”
“Who found them?”
“The one on the oak was some kids, the last one was one of the park-keepers.”
“And the police haven’t done anything?”
“Mr Dunford, we’ve made a world where crucifying a swan is seen as a prank, not a crime.”
We walked back up the hill in silence.
In the car park a coach was unloading a class of children, pushing and pulling at each other’s coats as they got off.
I unlocked the car door.
Arnold Fowler held out his hand. “Take care, Mr Dunford.”
“And you,” I said, shaking his hand. “It was nice to see you again.”
“Aye. I’m sorry it was under such circumstances.”
“I know.”
“And good luck,” said Arnold Fowler, walking away towards the children.
“Thank you.”
I parked in an empty pub car park, somewhere between Bretton and Netherton.
The public phonebox had all its glass and most of its red paint missing, and the wind blew through me as I dialled.
“Morley Police Station.”
“Sergeant Fraser, please.”
“May I have your name please, sir?”
“Edward Dunford.”
I waited, counting the cars going past, picturing fat fingers over the mouthpiece, shouts across Morley Police Station.
“Sergeant Fraser speaking.”
“Hello. This is Edward Dunford.”
“I thought you were down South?”
“Why’d you think that?”
“Your mother.”
“Shit.” Counting cars, counting lies. “You’ve been trying to contact me then?”
“Well, there was the small matter of our conversation yes terday. My superiors are quite keen that I should get a formal statement from you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So what did you want?”
“Another favour?”
“You’re bloody joking aren’t you?”
“I’ll trade.”
“What? You been listening to the jungle drums again?”
“Did you question Marjorie Dawson about last Sunday?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s down South somewhere, visiting her dying mother.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where is she then, Sherlock?”
“Near.”
“Don’t be a twat, Dunford.”
“I said, I’ll trade.”
“Like fuck you will.” He was whispering down the line, hissing. “You’ll tell me where she is or I’ll have you for obstruction.”
“Come on. I only want to know what they have on some dead swans up at Bretton Park.”
“You on bloody drugs? What dead swans?”
“Last week some swans had their wings cut off up at Bretton. I just want to know what the police think, that’s all.”
Eraser was breathing heavily. “Cut off?”
“Yeah, cut off,” He’s heard the rumours, I thought.
Fraser said, “They find them?”
“What?”
“The wings.”
“You know they fucking did.”
Silence, then, “All right.”
“All right what?”
“All right, I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thanks.”
“Now where the fuck is Marjorie Dawson?”
“The Hartley Nursing Home, Hemsworth.”
“And how the bloody hell did you find that out?”
“Jungle drums.”
I left the phone dangling.
Me, foot down.
Sergeant Fraser, size tens running through the station.
Me, ten minutes from the Hartley Nursing Home.
Sergeant Fraser, buttoning his jacket, grabbing his hat.
Me, the window open a crack, a cigarette lit, Radio 3 and Vivaldi on loud.
Sergeant Fraser sat outside the Chief’s office, looking at the cheap watch his wife bought him last Christmas.
Me, smiling, at least one whole hour ahead.
Fresh flowers in my hand, I rang the doorbell of the Hartley Nursing Home.
I had never taken flowers to St James.
Never taken my father a single stem.
The building, looking like an old stately home or a hotel, casi a cold dark shadow over its untended grounds. Two old women stared at me through the bay window of a conservatory. One of the women was massaging her left tit, squeezing the nipple between her fingers.
I wondered when my mother had stopped taking flowers for my father.
A red-faced middle-aged woman in a white coat opened the door.
“Can I help you?”
“I do hope so. I’m here to see my Aunty Marjorie. Mrs Mar-jorie Dawson?”
“Really? I see. Please come this way,” said the lady, holding the door open for me.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had visited my father, whether it had been the Monday or the Tuesday.
“How is she?”
“Well, we’ve had to give her something for her nerves. Just to quieten her down.” She led me into a large hall dominated by a larger staircase.
I said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Well, I heard she was in a bit of a state when they brought her back.”
Back, I thought, biting my tongue.
“When did you last see your Aunt, Mr…?”
“Dunston. Eric Dunston,” I said, extending my hand with a smile.
“Mrs White,” said Mrs White, taking my hand. “The Hartleys are away this week.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said, genuinely thankful not to be meeting the Hartleys.
“She’s upstairs. Room 102. Private room of course.”
My father had ended up in a private room, the flowers all gone, a pile of bones inside a brown hide bag.
Mrs White, in her tight white coat, led the way up the stairs.
The heating was on full and there was the low hum of a television or radio. The smell of institution cooking followed us up the stairs, like it had tailed me all the way from the St James Hospital, Leeds.
At the top of the stairs we walked down a sweating corridor filled with big iron radiators and came to room 102.
My heart beating loud and fast, I said, “It’s OK. I’ve kept you long enough, Mrs White.”
“Oh, don’t be daft,” smiled Mrs White, knocking on the door and opening it. “It’s no trouble.”
It was a beautiful room, drenched in winter sunlight and filled with flowers, Radio 2 quietly playing something light.
Mrs Marjorie Dawson was lying with her eyes closed atop two full pillows, the collar of her dressing gown poking out from under all the bedding. A faint film of sweat covered her face and flattened her perm, actually making her appear younger than she probably was.
She looked like my mother.
I stared at the bottles of Lucozade and Robinson’s Barley Water, glimpsing my father’s gaunt face in the glass.
Mrs White went to the pillows, gently touching Mrs Dawson on the arm.
“Marjorie, dear. You have a visitor.”
Mrs Dawson slowly opened her eyes and looked about the room.
“Would you like some tea bringing?” Mrs White asked me as she primped the flowers on the bedside table.
“No, thank you,” I said, my eyes on Mrs Dawson.
Mrs White seized my flowers and went over to the sink in the corner. “Well then, I’ll just put these in some water for you and then I’ll be out of your way.”
“Thanks,” I said, thinking fuck.
Mrs Dawson was staring straight at me, through me.
Mrs White finished filling the vase full of water.
“It’s Eric, dear. Your nephew,” she said, turning to me and whispering, “Don’t worry. It sometimes takes her a little while to come round. She was the same with your uncle and his friends last night.”
Mrs White put the vase of fresh flowers on the bedside table. “Well, that’s me finished. I’ll be in the conservatory if you need anything. Bye-bye for now,” she smiled, giving me a wink as she closed the door.
The room was suddenly unbearably full of Radio 2.
Unbearably hot.
My father gone.
I walked over to the window. The catch had been painted over. I ran a finger along the paintwork.
“It’s locked.”
I turned around. Mrs Dawson was sitting upright in her bed.
“I see,” I said.
I stood there by the window, my whole body wet beneath my clothes.
Mrs Dawson reached over to the bedside table and switched off the radio.
“Who are you?”
“Edward Dunford.”
“And why are you here, Mr Edward Dunford?”
“I’m a journalist.”
“So you’ve been telling dear Mrs White more lies?”
“Privilege of the profession.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I received an anonymous tip.”
“I suppose I should feel flattered, to be the subject of an anonymous tip,” said Mrs Dawson, pushing her hair back behind her ears. “It sounds so very glamorous, don’t you think?”
“Like a racehorse,” I said, thinking of BJ.
Mrs Marjorie Dawson smiled and said, “So why are you interested in an old nag like me, Mr Edward Dunford?”
“My colleague, Barry Gannon, came to see you last Sunday. Do you remember?”
“I remember.”
“You said his life was in danger.”
“Did I really? I say so many things.” Mrs Dawson leant over and smelt the flowers I had brought her.
“He was killed on Sunday night.”
Mrs Dawson looked up from the flowers, her eyes wet and fading.
“And you came to tell me this?”
“You didn’t know?”
“Who can tell what I’m supposed to know these days?”
I looked out across the grounds at the bare trees, their cold shadows waning with the sunshine.
“Why did you tell him his life was in danger?”
“He was asking reckless things about reckless men.”
“What kind of things? About your husband?”
Mrs Dawson smiled sadly. “Mr Dunford, my husband may be many things but reckless isn’t one of them.”
“What did you talk about then?”
“Mutual friends, architecture, sport, that kind of thing.” A tear slid down her cheek on to her neck.
“Sport?”
“Rugby League, would you believe?”
“What about it?”
“Well, I’m not a fan so it was all a bit one-sided.”
“Donald Foster’s a fan, isn’t he?”
“Really? I thought it was the wife.” Another tear.
“His wife?”
“Really, Mr Dunford, here we go again. Reckless talk costs lives.”
I turned back to the window.
A blue and white police car was coming up the gravel drive.
“Shit.”
Eraser?
I looked at my father’s watch.
It had been just over forty minutes since I’d phoned.
Not Eraser?
I walked over to the door.
“You’re leaving so soon?”
“I’m afraid the police are here. They may want to talk to you about Barry Gannon.”
“Not again?” sighed Mrs Dawson.
“Again? What do you mean again?”
There was a stampede of boots and shouts up the stairs.
“I really think you should be going,” said Mrs Dawson.
The door burst open.
“Yep, I really think you should be going,” said the first policeman through the door.
The one with the beard.
Not Fraser.
Fuck Fraser.
“I thought we’d told you about bothering people who don’t want bothering,” said the other, shorter officer.
There were just the two of them, but the room felt as though it was full of men in black uniforms, with iron-shod boots and truncheons in their hands.
The short one stepped towards me.
“Here comes a copper to chop off your head.”
A sharp pain from a kick to my ankle brought me falling to my knees.
I sprawled across the carpet, my eyes blinking wet with burning red tears, trying to stand.
A pair of white tights walked towards me.
“You lying bastard,” hissed Mrs White.
A big pair of feet led her away.
“You’re dead,” whispered the bearded officer, seizing me by my hair and dragging me from the room.
I looked back at the bed, my scalp red raw.
Mrs Dawson was lying on her side, her back to the door, the radio on loud.
The door shut.
The room was gone.
Big monkey hands pinched me hard under the armpits, the smaller claws still at the roots of my hair.
I saw a huge radiator, the paint flaking in strips.
Fuck, white warm wool into black yellow pain.
I was at the top of the stairs, my shoes struggling to stay on my feet.
Then I was holding on to the banister halfway down.
Fuck, I’d lost the breath from my chest and my ribs.
And then I was at the foot of the stairs, trying to stand, one hand on the bottom step, one upon my chest.
Fuck, my scalp red yellow black pain.
Then all the heat was gone and there was only cold air and bits of the gravel drive in my palms.
Fuck, my back.
And then we were all running together down the drive.
Fuck, my head into the green Viva door.
Then they were touching my cock, their hands in my pockets, making me giggle and squirm.
Fuck, big leather hands squeezing my face into yellow red pain.
And then they were opening the door of my car, holding my hand out.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Then black.
Yellow light.
Who will love our Little Red Eddie?
Yellow light again.
“Oh, thank heavens for that.”
My mother’s pink face, shaking from side to side.
“What happened love?”
Two tall black figures behind her, like huge crows.
“Eddie, love?”
A yellow room full of blacks and blues.
“You’re in Pinderfields Casualty,” said a man’s deep voice from the black beyond.
There was something at the end of my arm.
“Can you feel anything?”
A big fat bandaged hand at the end of my arm.
“Careful, love,” said my mother, a gentle brown hand upon my cheek.
Yellow light, black flashes.
“They know who I am! They know where we live!”
“Best leave him for now,” said another man.
Black flash.
“I’m sorry, Mum.”
“Don’t be worrying about me, love.”
A taxi, Paki radio talk and the scent of pines.
I stared down at my white right hand.
“What time is it?”
“Just gone three.”
“Wednesday?”
“Yes, love. Wednesday.”
Out the window, Wakefield city centre slugging past.
“What happened Mum?”
“I don’t know love.”
“Who called you?”
“Called me? It was me that found you.”
“Where?”
My mother, her face to the window, sniffing.
“In the drive.”
“What happened to the car?”
“I found you in the car. You were on the back seat.”
“Mum…”
“Covered in blood.”
“Mum…”
“Just lying there.”
“Please…”
“I thought you were bloody dead.” She was crying.
I stared down at my white right hand, the stink of the ban dages stronger than the cab.
“What about the police?”
“The ambulance driver called them. He took one look at you and reported it.”
My mother put her hand on my good arm, eye to eye:
“Who did this to you love?”
My cold right hand throbbed to the pulse beneath the bandages.
“I don’t know.”
Back home, Wesley Street, Ossett.
The taxi door slammed shut behind me.
I jumped.
There were brown smears on the Viva’s passenger door.
My mother was coming up the drive behind me, closing her bag.
I put my left hand into my right pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t be daft, lad.”
“Mum, please.”
“You’re not fit.”
“Mum, stop it.”
“No, you stop it. Don’t do this to me.”
She made a grab for the car keys.
“Mum!”
“I hate you for this, Edward.”
I reversed out the drive, tears and black flashes. My mother, standing in the drive, watching me go.
The one-armed driver.
Red light, green light, amber light, red.
Crying in the Redbeck car park.
Black pain, white pain, yellow pain, more.
Room 27, untouched.
One hand cupping cold water over my head.
A face in the mirror running brown with old blood.
Room 27, all blood.
Twenty minutes later, on the slow road to Fitzwilliam.
Driving with one hand on the rearview mirror, eating the lid off a bottle of paracetamol, gobbling six to null the pain.
Fitzwilliam looming, a dirty brown mining town.
My fat white right hand upon the steering wheel, left hand through my pockets. My one good hand and my teeth unfolding a torn-out page from the Redbeck’s phone book:
Ashworth, D., 69 Newstead View, Fitzwilliam.
Circled and underlined.
FUCK THE IRA was sprayed on the iron bridge into town.
“Aye-up lads. Where’s Newstead View?”
Three teenage boys in big green trousers, sharing a cigarette, spitting big pink-streaked chunks of phlegm at a bus shelter window.
They said, “You what?”
“Newstead View?”
“Right by offy. Then left.”
“Ta very much.”
“I should think so.”
I struggled to wind up my window and stalled as I drove off, the three big green trousers waving me off with a big pink shower and two forked fingers all round.
Under my bandages, four fingers smashed into one.
Right at the off-licence, then left on to Newstead View.
I pulled over and switched off the engine.
Newstead View was a single line of terraces looking out on to dirty moorland. Ponies grazed between rusting tractors and piles of scrap metal. A pack of dogs chased a plastic shopping bag up and down the road. Somewhere babies were crying.
I felt around inside my jacket pockets.
I took out my pen, my stomach empty, my eyes filling.
I stared at the white right hand that wouldn’t close, at the white right hand that wouldn’t write.
The pen rolled slowly off the bandages and on to the floor of the car.
69 Newstead View, a neat garden and flaking window frames.
TV lights on.
Knock, knock.
I switched on the Philips Pocket Memo in my right jacket pocket with my left hand.
“Hello. My name is Edward Dunford.”
“Yes?” said a prematurely grey woman through bucked teeth and an Irish accent.
“Is your James home?”
Hands stuffed deep into a blue housecoat, she said, “You’re the one from the Post aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“The one that’s been talking to Terry Jones?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want with our Jimmy?”
“Just a quick chat, that’s all.”
“He had enough of a chat with the police. He doesn’t need to keep going over it. Specially with likes of…”
I reached out to steady myself, grabbing at the frame of the front door.
“You been in some kind of accident have you?”
“Yeah.”
She sighed and mumbled, “You’d better come in and sit yourself down. You don’t look right clever.”
Mrs Ashworth shooed me into the front room and a chair too close to the fire.
“Jimmy! There’s that gentleman from the Post here to see you.”
My left cheek already burning, I heard two loud thumps from the room up above.
Mrs Ashworth switched off the TV, plunging the room into an orange darkness. “You should have been here earlier.”
“Why?”
“Well I didn’t see it myself like, but they said the place was swarming with police.”
“When?”
“About five this morning.”
“Where?” I asked, staring through the gloom at a school photo on top of the TV, a long-haired youth smirking back at me, the knot in his tie as big as his face.
“Here. This street.”
“Five o’clock this morning?”
“Yeah, five. No-one knows what it were about, but everyone reckons it were…”
“Shut up Mam!”
Jimmy Ashworth was standing in the doorway in an old school shirt and purple tracksuit bottoms.
“Ah, you’re up. Cup of tea?” said his mother.
I said, “Please.”
“Yeah,” said the youth.
Mrs Ashworth walked out of the room half backwards, mut tering.
The boy sat down on the floor, his back against the sofa, flicking the lank strands of hair from his eyes.
“Jimmy Ashworth?”
He nodded. “You’re bloke what spoke to Terry?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Terry said there might be some brass for us?”
“Could be.” I was desperate to change seats.
Jimmy Ashworth reached up behind him to a packet of ciga rettes on the arm of the sofa. The packet fell on to the carpet and he took out a cigarette.
I sat forward and said quietly, “You want to tell me what happened?”
“What happened to your hand?” said Jimmy, lighting up.
“I got it caught in a car door. What about your eye?”
“Shows does it?”
“Only when you spark up. Coppers give you it?”
“Maybe.”
“Give you a hard time, did they?”
“Could say that.”
“So get some brass out of it. Tell us what happened?”
Jimmy Ashworth pulled hard on his cigarette and then exhaled slowly into the orange glow of the fire.
“We were waiting for Gaffer, but he never come and it was raining so we were just arsing about, you know, drinking tea and stuff. I went over to Ditch to have a waz and that’s when I saw her.”
“Where was she?”
“In Di^ch, near top. It were like she’d rolled down or some thing. Then I saw them, them…”
The kettle in the kitchen began to whistle.
“Wings?”
“You know then?”
“Yeah.”
“Terry tell you?”
“Yeah.”
Jimmy Ashworth brushed at the hair in his face, singeing it slightly with the end of his cig. “Shit.”
The smell of burnt hair filled the room.
Jimmy Ashworth looked at me. “They was all caught up.”
“What did you do?” I said, turning as far as I could from the fire.
“Nothing. I just fucking froze. I couldn’t believe it was her. She looked so different, so white.”
Mrs Ashworth came back in with a teatray and set it down. “They were always saying what a lovely little thing she was,” she whispered.
My whole right arm felt like the blood had stopped moving in it. “And you were alone?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
The hand throbbed again, the bandage sweating and itching. “What about Terry Jones?”
“What about him?”
“Thanks,” I said, taking a cup from Mrs Ashworth. “When did Terry see her?”
“Well I went back to tell lads didn’t I?”
“When was this?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well you just said you froze, so I was wondering how long you were standing there before you told the others?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
“Jimmy, please. Not in this house,” his mother said quietly.
“But he’s same as bleeding coppers. I don’t know how long it was.”
“I’m sorry Jimmy,” I said, putting down the cup of tea on top of the fireplace so I could scratch at my bandage.
“I went back to shed and I was hoping Gaffer’d be there, but…”
“Mr Foster?”
“Nah, nah. Mr Foster’s Boss. Gaffer is Mr Marsh.”
“George Marsh. Very nice man,” said Mrs Ashworth.
Jimmy Ashworth looked at his mother and sighed and said, “Anyroad, Gaffer weren’t there, just Terry.”
“What about the others?”
“They’d pissed off in van somewhere.”
“So you told Terry Jones and he went back over to Devil’s Ditch with you?”
“No, no. I went and telephoned police. Once were enough for me.”
“So Terry went over there to have a look while you tele phoned the police?”
“Yeah.”
“By himself?”
“By his sen, that’s what I said.”
“And?”
Jimmy Ashworth looked off into the orange glow. “And police came and took us up Wood Street Nick.”
“They thought he’d done it, you know.” Mrs Ashworth was dabbing at her eyes.
“Mum shut up!”
“What about Terry Jones?” I said, my hand throbbing hard then stopping numb, sensing something missing.
“He’s no good that one.”
“Mum, will you bloody shut up!”
I was hot, numb, and tired.
I said, “The police questioned him?”
“Yeah.”
I was sweating and itching and desperate to get the fuck out of this oven.
“But they didn’t think he’d done it, did they?”
“I don’t know. Ask them.”
“Why did they think you did it, Jimmy?”
“Like I said, ask them.”
I stood up. “You’re a smart lad, Jimmy.”
He looked up, surprised. “How’s that?”
“Keeping it shut.”
“He’s a good boy, Mr Dunford. He didn’t do nothing,” Mrs Ashworth said, standing up.
“Thanks for letting me come in, Mrs Ashworth.”
“What are you going to write about him?” She was standing in the doorway, hands deep in her blue pockets.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” said Jimmy Ashworth, on his bare feet.
“Nothing,” I said, holding up my fat white right hand.
I drove slowly back through the black to the Redbeck, gobbling pills and scattering more on the floor, lorry lights and Christmas trees, like ghosts from the gloom.
I had tears on my cheeks and not from the pain.
“What a bloody world we live in.”
Children were slaughtered and no-one gave a fuck. King Herod Lives.
In the bright yellow lobby, I took another stack of coins and dialled Wesley Street, letting it ring for five minutes.
“I hate you for this, Edward!”
I thought about phoning my sister’s house, but I changed my mind.
I went and bought an Evening Post and drank a cup of coffee in the Redbeck’s cafe.
The paper was full of price rises and the IRA. There was a small piece about the Clare Kemplay inquiry, bland statements from Detective Superintendent Noble, tucked inside page 2 with no byline.
What the fuck was Jack doing?
“ I saw Jack Whitehead coming out of the Gaiety and he looked ›smashed and mad.”
The back pages were full of Leeds United, football giving Rugby League the boot.
No Johnny Kelly, no Wakefield Trinity, just St Helens 7 points clear.
“Really? I thought it was the wife.”
I was making circles with a dried coffee spoon:
Missing girl: Clare Kemplay-
Clare Kemplay’s body found by James Ashworth-
James Ashworth, employed by Foster’s Construction-
Foster’s Construction, owned by Donald Foster-
Donald Foster, Chairman of Wakefield Trinity Rugby League Club-
Wakefield Trinity’s star player, Johnny Kelly-
Johnny Kelly, brother of Paula Garland-
Paula Garland, mother of Jeanette Garland-
Jeanette Garland: Missing girl.
“Everything’s linked. Show me two things that aren’t connected.”
Barry Gannon, like he was sitting right there, across the table:
“What’s your plan then?”
Back in the bright yellow lobby, just gone six, I ripped through the phone book.
“It’s Edward Dunford.”
“Yes?”
“I need to see you.”
“You’d better come in.”
Mrs Paula Garland, standing in the doorway of Number 11, Brunt Street, Castleford.
“Thank you.”
I stepped inside another warm terraced room, Coronation Street just starting, my right hand in my pocket.
A short fat red-haired woman came out of the kitchen. “Hello, Mr Dunford.”
“This is Scotch Clare, lives two down. She’s just going, aren’t you?”
“Aye. Pleased to meet you,” said the woman, squeezing my left hand.
“You’re not going on my account, I hope?” I lied, by trade.
“Ooh, he’s got some manners has this one, eh?” laughed Scotch Clare, walking over to the bright red door.
Paula Garland was still holding open the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, love.”
“Aye. Nice to meet you Mr Dunford. Maybe we’ll see you again for a wee Christmas drink, eh?”
“Eddie, please. That’d be nice,” I smiled.
“See you then, Eddie. Merry Christmas,” grinned Clare.
Paula Garland walked a little way out into the street with Clare. “See you then,” she said outside, giggling.
I stood for a moment alone in the front room, staring at the photograph on top of the TV.
Paula Garland came back in and closed the red door. “Sorry about that.”
“No, it’s me that should be sorry, just phoning up…”
“Don’t be daft. Sit down will you.”
“Thanks,” I said and sat down on the off-white leather sofa.
She started to say, “About last night, I…”
I put up my hands. “Forget it.”
“What’s happened to your hand?” Paula Garland had her own hand to her mouth, staring at the greying lump of bandages on the end of my arm.
“Someone slammed my car door on it.”
“You’re joking?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Two policemen.”
“You’re joking?”
“No.”
“Why?”
I looked up and tried to smile. “I thought you might be able to tell me.”
“Me?”
She had a piece of red cotton thread hanging from her brown flared skirt and I wanted to stop what I had started and tell her about the piece of red cotton thread.
But I said, “The same two coppers warned me off after I was here on Sunday.”
“Sunday?”
“The first time I came here.”
“I never said anything to the police.”
“Who did you tell?”
“Just our Paul.”
“Who else?”
“No-one.”
“Please tell me?”
Paula Garland was standing in the middle of the furniture, surrounded by trophies and photographs and Christmas cards, pulling her yellow and green and brown striped cardigan tight around her.
“Please, Mrs Garland…”
“Paula,” she whispered.
I just wanted to stop, to reach over, to pick off the piece of red cotton thread and hold her as tight as life itself.
But I said, “Paula please, I need to know.”
She sighed and sat down in the off-white leather armchair opposite me. “After you went, I was upset and…”
“Please?”
“Well, the Fosters came over…”
“Donald Foster?”
“And his wife.”
“Why did they come here?”
Paula Garland’s blue eyes flashed cold. “They’re friends, you know.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
She sighed, “They came to see if I’d heard from Johnny.”
“When was this?”
“About ten or fifteen minutes after you’d gone. I was still crying and…”
“I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t just you. They’d been phoning all weekend, wanting to speak to Johnny.”
“Who had?”
“The papers. Your mates.” She was talking to the floor.
“And you told Foster about me?”
“I didn’t tell him your name.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Just that some fucking journalist had been round asking about Jeanette.” Paula Garland looked up, staring at my right hand.
“Tell me about him,” I said, my dead hand waking again.
“Who?”
The pain was growing, throbbing. “Donald Foster.”
Paula Garland, beautiful blonde hair tied back, said, “What about him?”
“Everything.”
Paula Garland swallowed. “He’s rich and he likes Johnny.”
“And?”
Paula Garland, her eyes blinking fast, whispered, “And he was very kind to us when Jeanette went missing.”
My mouth dry, my hand on fire, staring at the piece of red cotton thread, I said, “And?”
“And he’s a bastard if you cross him.”
I held up my white right hand. “You think he’d do something like this?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No I don’t know, because I don’t know why he’d do it.”
“Because of what I know.”
“What do you mean, what you know?”
“Because I know everything’s connected and he’s the link.”
“Link to what? What are you talking about?” Paula Garland was scratching at her forearms.
“Donald Foster knows you and Johnny, and Clare Kemplay’s body was found on one of his building sites in Wakefield.”
“That’s it?”
“He’s the link between Jeanette and Clare.”
Paula Garland was white and shaking, tearing at the skin on her arms. “You think Donald Foster killed that little girl and took my Jeanette from me?”
“I’m not saying, that, but he knows.”
“Knows what?”
I was on my feet, my bandages flailing, shouting, “There’s a man out there and he’s taking and raping and murdering little girls and he’ll take and rape and murder again and nobody is going to stop him because nobody really fucking cares.”
“I care.”
“I know you care, but they don’t. They just care about their little lies and their money.”
Paula Garland flew from the chair, kissing my mouth, kissing my eyes, kissing my ears, holding me tight, saying over and over, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
My left hand clutched at the bones in her spine, my right hand dangling numb, pawing at her skirt, the piece of red cotton thread catching on my bandage.
“Not here,” said Paula and gently picked up my white right hand, leading me up the steep, steep stairs.
There were three doors at the top of the stairs, two closed and a bathroom door ajar. Two tacked on plastic door plates: Mummy & Daddy’s Room and Jeanette’s Room.
We fell through the Mummy & Daddy door, Paula kissing me harder and harder, talking faster and faster:
“You care and you believe. You don’t know how much that means to me. It’s been so long since someone cared.”
We were on the bed, the light from the landing making warm shadows of the wardrobe and the dressing table.
“You know how many times I still wake up and think, I must make Jeanette’s breakfast, I must wake her up?”
I was on top, kissing back, the sound of shoes hitting the bedroom floor.
“I just want to be able to sleep and wake up like everybody else.”
She sat up and took off her yellow and green and brown striped cardigan. I tried to lean on my right hand, pulling at the little flower buttons of her blouse with my left.
“It used to be so important to me, you know, that nobody ever forgot her, that nobody ever spoke about her like she was dead or in the past.”
My left hand was pulling down the zip of her skirt, her own hand on my fly.
“We weren’t happy, you know, Geoff and me. But after we had Jeanette, it was like it was all worth it.”
My mouth tasted of salt water, her tears and words a hard and ceaseless rain.
“Even then though, even when she was just a baby, I’d lie awake at night and wonder what I’d do if anything happened to her, seeing her dead; lying awake, seeing her dead.”
She was squeezing my cock too tight, my hand inside her knickers.
“Usually hit by a car or a lorry, just lying there in the street in her little red coat.”
I was kissing her tits, moving across her stomach, running from her words and her kisses, down to her cunt.
“And sometimes I’d see her strangled, raped and murdered, and I’d run to her room and I’d wake her up and I’d hug her and hug her and hug her.”
She was running her fingers through my hair, picking scabs loose, my blood beneath her nails.
“And then when she never came home, everything I’d imagined, all those terrible things, it had all come true.”
My hand was burning, her voice white noise.
“It had all come true.”
Me, cock hard and fast inside her dead room.
Her, cries and whispers in the dark.
“We bury our dead alive, don’t we?”
I was pulling at her nipple.
“Under stones, under grass.”
Biting at the lobe of her ear.
“We hear them everyday.”
Sucking her lower lip.
“They talk to us.”
Squeezing her hip bones.
“They’re asking us why, why, why?”
Me, faster and faster.
“I hear her everyday.”
Faster.
“Asking me why?”
Faster.
“Why?”
Dry sore skin on dry sore skin.
“Why?”
I was thinking of Mary Goldthorpe, of her silk knickers and her stockings.
“She knocks on this door and she wants to know why?”
Faster.
“She wants to know why?”
My dry edges against her dry edges.
“I can hear her saying, why Mummy?”
I was thinking of Mandy Wymer, her country skirt riding up.
“Why?”
Fast.
Dry-Thinking of the wrong Garland.
Spent.
“I can’t be alone again.”
My cock dry and sore, I was listening to her talking through the dark.
“They took her from me. Then Geoff, he…”
My eyes open, thinking of double-barrelled shotguns, of Geoff Garland and Graham Goldthorpe, of bloody patterns.
“He was a coward.”
Passing headlights drew shadows across the ceiling and I wondered if Geoff had blown his brains out in this house, in this room, or someplace else.
She was saying, “The ring always felt loose anyway.”
I was lying in a widow and a mother’s bed, thinking of Kathryn Taylor and screwing up my eyes so it was like I wasn’t really here.
“And now Johnny.”
I’d counted only two bedrooms and a bathroom. I wondered where Paula Garland’s brother slept, if Johnny slept in Jeanette’s room.
“I can’t live like this any more.”
I was gently stroking my own right arm, her pillow whispers lapping me up, on the verges of sleep.
It was the night before Christmas. There was a new cabin made of logs in the middle of a dark wood, candles burning yellow in the windows. I was walking through the wood, light snow underfoot, heading home. On the cabin porch I stamped my boots loose of snow and opened the heavy wooden door. A fire was burning in the hearth and the room was filled with the smell of good cooking. Under a perfect Christmas tree, there were boxes of beautifully wrapped presents. I went into the bedroom and saw her. She was lying under a home made quilt, her golden hair splayed across the gingham pillows, her eyes closed. I sat down on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning my clothes. I slid quietly under the quilt, nuzzling up to her. She was cold and she was wet. I felt for her arms and legs. I sat up, ripping back the quilt and blankets, everything red. Only her head and her chest, open at the seams, her arms and legs lost. I fell through the blankets, her heart dropping to the floor with a dull thud. I picked it up with a bandaged hand, dust and feathers stuck in the blood. I pressed the dirty heart against her breast, stroking her golden locks. The hair came loose in my hand, sliding from her scalp, leaving me lying on a bed all covered in feathers and blood, the night before Christmas, someone knocking at the door.
“What was that?” I was wide awake.
Paula Garland was getting out of bed. “It’s the phone.”
She picked up her yellow and green and brown cardigan, putting it on as she went downstairs with her arse showing, the colours doing nothing for her.
I lay on the bed, listening to the scratchings of mice or birds in the roof.
After two or three minutes I sat up in the bed, got up and dressed, and went downstairs.
Mrs Paula Garland was rocking back and forth in the off-white leather armchair, clutching Jeanette’s school photograph.
“What is it? What’s happened?”
“It was our Paul.,.”
“What? What’s wrong?” I was thinking shit, shit, shit; visions of cars crashed and windscreens bloodied.
“The police…”
I was on my knees, shaking her. “What?”
“They’ve got him.”
“Who? Paul?”
“Some kid from Fitzwilliam.”
“What?”
“They’re saying he did it.”
“Did what?”
“They’re saying he killed Clare Kemplay and…”
“What?”
“He says he’s done others.”
Everything seemed suddenly red, blood-blind.
She was saying, “He says he killed Jeanette.”
“Jeanette?”
Her mouth and eyes were open, no sound, no tears.
I ran up the stairs, my hand on fire.
Back down the stairs, my shoes in one hand.
“Where are you going?”
“The office.”
“Please don’t go.”
“I must.”
“I can’t be alone.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Come back.”
“Of course.”
“Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
10 PM Wednesday 18 December 1974.
The motorway, slick, black, and wet.
One arm on the wheel, heavy on the pedal, ice-wind screaming through the Viva, thinking Jimmy James Ashworth.
“They thought he’d done it, you know.”
I checked my rearview mirror, the motorway empty but for lorries and lovers and Jimmy James Ashworth.
“Mum shut up!”
Exiting at the gypsy camp, black on black hiding the damage, shaking the blood warm in my right hand, thinking Jimmy James Ashworth.
“Why did they think you did it, Jimmy?”
Through the Christmas lights of Leeds City Centre, writing copy in my head, thinking Jimmy James Ashworth.
“Ask them.”
The Yorkshire Post building, yellow lights on ten floors. I parked underneath, grinning and thinking, Jimmy James Ashworth.
“You’re a smart lad, Jimmy.”
A large Christmas tree in the foyer, double glass doors sprayed white with Season’s Greetings. I pressed the lift button, thinking Jimmy James Ashworth.
“Keeping it shut.”
The lift doors opened. I stepped inside and pressed the 10 button, my heart beating, thinking Jimmy James Ashworth.
“He’s a good boy, Mr Dunford. He didn’t do nothing.”
The lift doors opened on the tenth floor, the office alive, the hum everywhere. The look on every face, shouting out, WE GOT HIM!
I clutched the Philips Pocket Memo in my left hand, thinking Jimmy James Ashworth, thanking Jimmy James Ashworth.
“What are you going to write about him?”
Thinking Scoop.
No knock, into Hadden’s office.
The room, eye-of-the-hurricane still.
Jack Whitehead looking up, two days beard and eyes as big as dinner plates.
“Edward…” Hadden, glasses halfway down his nose.
“I interviewed him this afternoon. I fucking interviewed him!”
Hadden winced. “Who?”
“No you didn’t,” grinned back Jack, the stink of drink in the air.
“I sat in his front room and he practically told me everything.”
“Really?” Jack, mock-quizzical.
“Yeah, really.”
“Who are we talking about, Scoop?”
“James Ashworth.”
Jack Whitehead looked at Bill Hadden, smiling.
“Sit down,” said Hadden, pointing at the seat next to Jack.
“What is it?”
“Edward, they didn’t arrest any James Ashworth,” he said as kindly as he could.
Jack Whitehead pretended to look at some notes, arching an eyebrow even higher, unable to resist saying, “Not unless he also goes by the name of Michael John Myshkin.”
“Who?”
“Michael John Myshkin,” repeated Hadden.
“Parents are Polacks. Can’t speak a word of English,” laughed Jack, like it was funny.
“That’s lucky,” I said.
“Here Scoop. Have a read.” Jack Whitehead tossed the morning first edition at me. It bounced off me and on to the floor. I leant forward to pick it up.
“What on earth happened to your hand?” said Hadden.
“I got it trapped in a door.”
“ Trust it’s not going to hamper your style, eh Scoop?”
I flapped around with the paper in my left hand.
“Need a hand?” laughed Jack.
“No.”
“Front Page,” he smiled.
CAUGHT screamed the headline.
Clare: Murder Squad Arrest Local Man, teased the subheading.
BY JACK WHITEHEAD, CRIME REPORTER OF THE YEAR, boasted the byline. I read on:
Early yesterday morning police arrested a Fitzwilliam man in connection with the murder of ten-year-old Clare Kemplay.
According to a police source, exclusive to this newspaper, the man has confessed to the murder and has been formally charged. He will be remanded in custody at Wakefield Magistrates Court later this morning.
The police source further revealed that the man has also confessed to a number of other murders and formal charges are expected shortly.
Senior Detectives from around the country are due to arrive in Wakefield throughout the day to question the man about other similar unsolved cases.
I let the paper fall to the floor.
“I was right.”
Jack said, “You think so?”
I turned to Hadden. “You know I was. I said they were connected.”
“Which ones are they talking about Jack?” asked Hadden.
“Jeanette Garland and Susan Ridyard,” I said, tears in my eyes.
“For starters,” said Jack.
“I rucking told you.”
“Language, Edward,” muttered Hadden.
I said, “I sat in this office, I sat in Oldman’s office, and I told you both.”
But I knew it was over.
I sat there at the end of it all with Hadden and Jack White-head, my hand frozen with pain. I looked from one to the other, Jack grinning, Hadden fiddling with his glasses. The room, the outer office, the streets beyond, all suddenly silent. For one moment I wondered if it was snowing outside.
For just one moment, and then it started again:
“Have you got an address?” I asked Hadden.
“Jack?”
“54 Newstead View.”
“Newstead View! That’s the same fucking street.”
“What?” Hadden, drained of patience.
“James Ashworth, the lad who found her body, he lives on the same bloody street as this bloke.”
“So?” smiled Jack.
“Fuck off, Jack!”
“Please watch your language in my office.”
Jack Whitehead had his arms up in mock surrender.
I saw red, red, and only red, my head alive with pain. “They live on the same bloody street, in the same town, ten miles from where the body was found.”
“Coincidence,” said Jack.
“You reckon?”
“I reckon.”
I sat back, my right hand heavy with still blood, feeling the same heaviness creep over everything, like it was snowing here in this room, here in my brain.
Jack Whitehead said, “He coughed for them. What more do you want?”
“The fucking truth.”
Jack was laughing, really laughing, big fat belly laughs.
We were pushing Hadden too far.
Quietly, I said, “What did they get him on?”
Hadden sighed, “Faulty brakelights.”
“You’re joking?”
Jack had stopped laughing. “Wouldn’t pull over. Panda car gives chase. They haul him in, out of the blue he coughs for all this.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“Transit van,” said Jack, avoiding my eyes.
“What colour?”
“White,” smiled Jack, offering me a cigarette.
I took the cigarette, thinking of Mrs Ridyard and her posters, sitting in her neat front room with its spoiled view.
“How old is he?”
Jack lit his cigarette and said, “Twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two? That’d make him only sixteen or seventeen in ‘69.”
“So?”
“Come on, Jack?”
“What’s he do?” Hadden asked Jack, but looking at me.
“Works for a photo lab. Develops photos.”
My head awash, swimming with school girl photos.
Jack said, “It feels wrong doesn’t it, Scoop?”
“No,” I whispered.
“You don’t want it to be him, I know.”
“No.”
Jack leant forward in his chair. “I was the same. All that hard work, all those hunches, and it just doesn’t sit right.”
“No,” I muttered, adrift in a white transit van plastered with photographs of the smiling, fair-haired, little dead.
“It’s a bitter pill, but they got him.”
“Yeah.”
“You get used to it,” winked Jack as he stood up unsteadily. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
Hadden said, “Yeah, thanks Jack.”
“Big day, eh?” said Jack, closing the door behind him.
“Yeah,” I said blankly.
The room was quiet and still smelt of Jack and drink.
After a few seconds, I said, “What happens now?”
“I want you to do the background on this Myshkin feller. The whole thing’s technically sub-judice, but if he’s confessed and on remand we’ll be all right.”
“When are you going to print his name?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Who’s covering the remand hearing?”
“Jack’11 do that and the press conference.”
“He’s going to do both?”
“Well, you can go but, what with the funeral and everything, I thought…”
“Funeral? What funeral?”
Hadden looked at me over the top of his glasses. “It’s Barry’s funeral tomorrow.”
I was staring at a Christmas card on his desk, a picture of a warm and glowing cottage in the middle of a snow-covered wood. “Shit, I’d forgotten,” I whispered.
“I think it’s best Jack stays on it tomorrow.”
“What time’s the funeral?”
“Eleven. Dewsbury Crematorium.”
I stood up, all my limbs weak with the weight of dead blood. I walked across the seabed to the door.
Hadden looked up from his forest of cards and quietly said, “Why were you so sure it was James Ashworth?”
“I wasn’t,” I said and closed the door on my way out.
Paul Kelly was sitting on the edge of my desk.
“Our Paula’s been ringing you.”
“Yeah?”
“What’s going on Eddie?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“She called me. Said you’d told her about me seeing that Mandy Wymer woman.”
“Leave her be, Eddie.”
Two hours straight shit-work, one-handed typing making it four. I transcribed my Ridyard notes for Jack Whitehead’s big story, glossing over my meetings with Mrs Paula Garland:
Jack-Mrs Garland is reluctant to talk about the disappearance of her daughter. Her cousin is Paul Kelly, an employee of this paper, and he has asked that we respect her wish to be left alone.
I picked up the receiver and dialled.
On the second ring, “Hello, Edward?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you?”
“At work.”
“When are you coming back?”
“I’ve been warned off again.”
“Who by?”
“Your Paul.”
“I’m sorry. He means well.”
“I know, but he’s right.”
“Edward, I…”
“I’ll ring you tomorrow.”
“Are you going to court?”
Alone in the office, I said, “Yeah.”
“It’s him, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it looks that way.”
“Please come over.”
“I can’t.”
“Please?”
“I’ll ring tomorrow, I promise. I’ve got to go.”
The line went dead and my stomach knotted.
I had my head in my good and bad hands, the stink of hospitals and her on them both.
I lay in the dark on the floor of Room 27, thinking of women.
The lorries in the car park came and went, their lights making shadows dance like skeletons across the room.
I lay on my stomach, my back to the wall, eyes closed and hands over my ears, thinking of girls.
Outside in the night, a car door slammed.
I jumped up, out of my skin, screaming.