Darkside

Jonas froze. Why was she asking? Was she planning something? He experienced a moment of pure panic as his memory of that day crashed through his brain like a breaker in a rock-pool. Her half-open eyes and her cold, cold hands, and the lifetime it took for the ambulance to come, while all the time he sat on the floor behind the front door and begged her not to leave him. The memory was so strong that he felt his stomach flip-flop in fear and tears burn his eyes.

He cleared his throat and made a huge effort to sound normal. ‘I don’t have to go.’

‘I don’t mind,’ she said, squeezing the back of his hand.

It sounded like the truth, but who could be sure?

They lay like that for a while and he knew that they were thinking different things in different ways and that a universe separated their minds even while their bodies shared heat.

‘I love you,’ he whispered, so low that if his lips hadn’t been against her ear she would never have heard him.

She paused almost imperceptibly, then said, ‘I love you too.’

* * *

It had snowed and stopped again during the afternoon, leaving just a couple of inches on the ground. The moon was getting big and the fields looked ice blue under its gaze, but in the village itself the snow had been trampled to slush which had then frozen in the dropping night temperature, making for treacherous conditions.

Jonas walked carefully up the street, past the pub and the church and Mr Jacoby’s shop to the school, without seeing anyone.

On the way back he stopped at the shop and looked in the window at the little cards stuck there advertising free kittens and bikes for sale. They made him think of the note that had been left under his wiper, and once again he got that unpleasant feeling of being watched. He turned but saw no one. Then, feeling slightly foolish, he backed into the alleyway beside the shop, where he could not be seen. From there he looked at the houses opposite.

Straight across the road was the Marsh home – a little two up, two down, which he knew was pale green but which looked merely grubby in the orange light of the streetlamps.

There was a light on behind the curtains in Danny’s bedroom – or what used to be Danny’s bedroom when they were boys; Jonas thought it probably still was. Next door to that was Angela Stirk’s house, where Jonas knew Peter Priddy spent every Saturday night that her husband was away. Jonas guessed it was one of her neighbours who had split on him to Marvel, sick of the noise. On the other side of the Marshes was the home of Ted Randall, who grew giant vegetables for the county show, then the Peters’ house, to which Billy Peters had never returned and where Steven Lamb lived now like a replacement … Jonas realized he could travel right down the street with his eyes, naming the residents of each little home, knowing their stories, keeping their secrets.

He saw Neil Randall limping his way home from the pub on the opposite pavement. He wondered what it was like to wake up in the sand and see your leg beside your head, which is what he’d heard had happened to Neil. How curious. How strange. How much easier to tie your shoelaces. Jonas smiled, and felt guilty.

He looked back up the street, but all was calm.

‘Shit!’

The word was accompanied by a scrape and a thud, and Jonas looked across the road to see Neil on his back in the gutter between two parked cars. He hurried over.

‘All right, Neil?’ said Jonas, offering his hand.

Neil looked at it, then ignored it and tried to sit up by himself. Jonas withdrew his hand and let him struggle. The smell of booze came off him in waves, over an undertow of profanity.

Jonas remembered Neil Randall at school. He had been a star on the football field – quick on his feet and tough in a tackle. That was with two legs, of course.

‘Fuck,’ said Neil, and Jonas became aware that he was groping at his own thigh. He looked down and saw that Neil’s right leg had grown about a foot longer than the left. For a second his brain couldn’t adjust to the anomaly – then he realized that Neil Randall’s prosthetic limb had come loose and was slowly working its way out of his trouser leg. By the orange light of the streetlamp he could see the edge of a thick sock and the start of a shiny plastic shin.

Jonas bent and started to try to push it back up, but it just bunched Neil’s jeans at the empty hip.

‘No’tha’way!’ slurred Neil, shoving his hands off. ‘Take it off.’

Feeling surreal, Jonas pulled carefully on the slush-covered boot. The limb came so far and then stopped, the thigh caught in the narrow leg of Neil Randall’s jeans.

‘It’s stuck,’ he informed him.

‘What?’ said Neil aggressively, as if it was all his fault.

‘It’s stuck in your jeans, mate. You want me to push it back inside?’

‘Get it off!’ said Neil.

‘It’s stuck,’ said Jonas, getting impatient. He was supposed to be on anti-killer patrol, not playing tug-of-war with a fake leg.

‘Fuck you, get it off!’