She’s Not There. Tamsin Grey
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was Roland. Last year, when the Olympics were on. You should remember that, Raff! Imagine if Roland knew you’d got him mixed up with Saviour!’
‘Fuck off, Jonah, because I didn’t mix him up with Saviour. I just thought Saviour gave me the posters.’
‘Anyway. He sent Lucy flowers before.’
‘When?’
‘On her birthday.’
‘So why did he send some now?’
‘Maybe because she was ill? How should I know, Raff?’ Sometimes Raff’s questions went on and on.
‘But how did he know she was ill?’
‘Maybe he phoned her.’ Jonah suddenly remembered finding her red phone in the flowerpot, and tried to think what he’d done with it.
‘Why didn’t he speak to us, then?’
‘I don’t know, Raff! I don’t know anything about it! I don’t even know if it was him who sent the flowers!’
‘No need to fuckin’ shout, fam.’
‘Don’t swear! You always swear!’ Jonah picked up the mixing bowl and tried to put it in the sink, but the sink was too full.
‘You got anger management, bro.’ Raff shook his head for a bit, squashing ants with the back of his spoon. ‘Maybe he sent them because he’s coming out on patrol.’
‘Parole.’ There was no room on the draining board either.
‘Maybe he’ll get out in time for Sports Day.’ Raff examined the ants on the back of the spoon. ‘Do you remember when he came to Sports Day with Bad Granny?’
‘Yes.’ Jonah put the bowl back on the table. He was surprised Raff could remember. He’d been tiny, not much more than a toddler.
‘But it was before she tried to steal us.’
‘Stop killing the ants, Raff.’
‘Will he bring her this time?’
‘Raff, he won’t come to Sports Day. He’s not getting out that soon. Lucy would have told us.’
‘She might of forgotten.’ Raff squashed some ants with the back of his spoon. ‘Anyway, why do you call her Lucy now? What’s wrong with Mayo?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Is it because it’s Zambian?’
‘No. I just like calling her Lucy.’ She liked it too. She liked it that he was getting so grown up.
Raff squashed some more ants. ‘What about Haredale’s Got Talent? I bet he’ll get out for that!’
‘Raffy, that’s the same day, remember! And stop killing the ants!’
‘Dey ants, Peck.’
‘Ants are amazing!’ Jonah grabbed the spoon off him and sat back down. ‘Did you know they have two stomachs?’ He watched the ants reorganise themselves. ‘One for themselves, and one to store food to take back to their queen.’
‘Queen gonna be hungry, den.’ Raff snatched the spoon back and rolled it over a whole cluster of them.
‘Raff! That is such bad karma!’
‘Saviour says that karma shit is rubbish. He says everything’s just random.’ But Raff laid the spoon down. ‘You know Bad Granny?’
‘Yes.’ Jonah looked at the empty eyeholes of the mask on the cover of the book.
‘Will we know her again? When Roland comes out on patrol? Will he take us to see her?’
Shattered glass, Sadie’s crazy face, and the peacock, screaming. ‘I don’t know.’ After she’d tried to take them from school, Dora and Lucy had talked about going to court to get – what was it called? – a thing to stop her from coming anywhere near them. He wasn’t sure if they’d actually done it, though. He opened the book. It was Dora’s, she’d written her name on the inside cover, Dora Martin, in black ink, the letters very pointed, and all leaning forwards. Underneath it, she’d done lots of scribbling in pencil, words and some doodles, but no, actually it was Lucy who’d done the stuff in pencil, he could tell by the handwriting, and the doodles.
‘Raff.’ He closed the book.
‘What.’
‘What does Peck actually mean?’
‘Peck means Peck!’
‘Doh! Did you get it off Saviour?’
‘I didn’t get it off no one. It’s from my head.’ Raff put down the spoon and stood up, very straight, with his arms by his sides. ‘This is what it is!’ He made a bobbing movement with his head. It looked like a move from a street dance, but also exactly like a pecking pigeon. It made Jonah laugh again, and try it himself. They both walked around the table pecking for a while.
Raff stopped first. ‘Maybe it was the Angry Saturday man who sent her the flowers.’
‘It wouldn’t be him.’ Jonah noticed the clock. ‘Raff, we need to hurry! We’re going to be late for school!’
Jonah hesitated before opening the front door, and looked from side to side before stepping onto the pavement. The Raggedy Man was nowhere to be seen. There were clouds now, great billowing ones: cumulus, not cumulonimbus, so it wouldn’t rain.
‘Mind, Peck!’ Raff shoved past him. He had a toothpaste beard, his shirt was filthy and he was wearing trainers, which wasn’t allowed. Jonah passed him his school bag, and hoisted his own onto his shoulder. They scurried along Southway Street, but stopped dead on the corner, because there was a fox lying just off the kerb.
‘Violet!’ Raff cried, clapping his hand over his mouth, but Jonah shook his head.
‘It’s not her. It might be one of her cubs though.’ The back of the fox’s body had been squashed into a bloody mess by the wheels of a car, but its head and its front legs were untouched. Jonah wondered if it had died straightaway, or whether it had lain there for a while, trying and trying to make its back half work. He wriggled his shoulders to shake off the thought, and took Raff’s hand. ‘Come on,’ he said.
The bell started ringing as they went through the gate. Jonah went with Raff into the Infants, and watched him run off into his classroom, before walking through into the Juniors’ playground. It had nearly emptied out. Among the stragglers were Emerald and Saviour, and Jonah ran over to say hello. Saviour was squatting down so that Emerald could hug him goodbye, which he didn’t need to do any more, because he was quite short, and Emerald had got really tall. Something about the way they were hugging, and the expression on Saviour’s face, made Jonah stop a foot or two away and wait to be noticed. They didn’t look like father and daughter: Saviour browner than ever, so brown you might not realise he was a white person, whereas Emerald’s skin had gone just slightly golden. And Emerald was all fresh and neat in her school dress, with her long yellow hair in bunches, whereas Saviour was scruffy, in his torn T-shirt, and his paint-spattered Crocs, with bits of leaves and twigs in his curly hair. Jonah noticed that it was more grey than black now, his hair, and that you could see his scalp through it, hard and brown as a nut. His eyebrows were dark still; dark and bushy, which could make him seem cross, or at least lost in his thoughts – until he looked at you, like he did now, over Emerald’s shoulder, with his kind, interested eyes.
‘Jonah, mate. Where’s the whale?’ If you didn’t know him, you might expect a deep, growly voice, maybe with a foreign accent, and be surprised by the warm, cockney lightness. He winked, and Jonah grinned and winked back, and Saviour reached up and high-fived him, because