‘Olivia, come to me,’ Colleen shouted.
Astrid hid in the gloom, small droplets of rain bouncing off the ground.
The druggie stared at the girl. ‘We only want to play.’
His voice was empty as a freshly dug grave, his face constructed from crisscrossing scars and a nose which had gone too many rounds with somebody else’s fists. His friends were no better, all hollow eyes, ragged, unwashed hair and filthy clothes. They stank of desperation and anti-life.
She moved her gaze from the grunts towards those who pulled their vagabond strings. The dealers were closer to ordinary humanity, clean clobber and gaudy jewellery hanging off them; apart from the one with the swastikas and white power symbols tattooed on his neck and hands. Astrid touched her skin and admired the shine the new moisturiser gave her. It smelt of fresh peaches. She hoped the swastika man was allergic to peaches.
Olivia ran to Colleen, who scooped the kid up in her arms.
‘We won’t hurt you,’ the intruder said. There was deception buried in the quicksand of his ignorance. Astrid wiped the rain from her cheek.
‘Come any closer, and I’ll crush your balls,’ the nanny yelled and Astrid discovered a new admiration for the Irish girl.
The thug froze. Astrid relaxed as she observed Olivia. Silence engulfed the playground before a raucous laugh startled the birds from the trees. They scattered as she followed the laughter to the neo-Nazi drug dealer, identifying him as the group leader.
‘Let them go,’ he shouted at the shivering excuse for humanity Colleen had shamed. She turned from him, striding from the playground and towards Astrid, who moved into the last light of the day, cracking her knuckles to attract the nanny's attention.
‘Yer shud scarper while dohs scumbags are ere.’
Colleen’s accent was so thick, Astrid struggled to get the gist of it. Olivia smiled at the aunt she didn’t know, her grin warmer than the sun, no sense of fear anywhere on her face. Being this close to her niece was blissful and confusing, the perplexity of the emotions forcing Astrid to question everything she’d prepared for her new life.
Would I abandon a year’s worth of planning for this kid? Is isolation still what I crave?
‘Don’t worry; they won’t be back again.’ Astrid returned Olivia’s smile with her own.
‘Are ye a copper?’ the departing nanny said.
‘Something like that.’
As the two of them disappeared into the distance, Astrid strode into the playground, focused on the nearest interloper and the cricket bat at his feet. She hated sports. Ever since that day at school when she’d turned up wearing high heels and the teacher made her run around the field in them. The bruises had vanished, but the pain continued.
She stuck in the shadows, inching towards them unnoticed, fixed on the weapon against the slide as the invader bent down. She was behind him with one movement, snatching the bat while he reached for drugs inside his sock. Astrid put her foot on his back and kicked him forward. The force threw him to the ground, splitting his nose against a smiling concrete facsimile of a unicorn. The sound of cracked bone shattered the silence. The other druggies stood entranced while the two dealers remained stationary in their swings. Astrid stepped over the one she’d broken as he rolled around and swore at her. She peered at him.
‘Obscenity is the trademark of the ignoramus.’ A dark veil covered his eyes. ‘You think an ignoramus is a dinosaur, don’t you?’ She thought about it as confusion consumed his face. ‘You know, you’re probably not wrong.’
Astrid turned towards the leader in his swing. The two dealers stared at her, dull black eyes peering as if she was an unexpected treat.
‘Free hit for the first one to take her down.’
His voice was guttural and abrasive, the words jack-booting from his mouth. The chemical zombies didn’t falter and jumped at her as one. Their intoxicated flesh and mushed brains meant their reflexes were no better than five-year-olds trying Zumba for the first time.
Astrid stepped to the side to evade them as they stumbled past her. She swung the bat in an arc, bringing it around to smash the middle thug in the jaw, shattering teeth and bone. She followed through to strike the next one in his cheek, sending him flying into a crazed-looking rocking horse. She turned to see the last thug gazing at her in shock, his mouth wide enough to eat a cricket ball; instead, she jabbed him in the gut with the large end of the bat. His stomach rippled under the force as he crumbled.
They lay broken around her, but the two dealers hadn’t moved. Fear possessed the eyes of the smaller one; he was no threat. It was the fascist she had to make an example of.
‘There’s still time for you to leave here pain free.’ She twirled the bat above her head. ‘I don’t care who you work for or what you do, do it somewhere else.’
She picked a piece of skin from her fingers and dropped it, drawn to the bright green hue of his eyes, the same shade as one of those frogs you licked to get high. She’d tried it once and lost two days of her life. The leader slipped from the seat, his six-foot-four frame looking ridiculous in the child’s swing. He had a physique best described as lean, muscular, and honed more on the streets than in the gym. His green eyes glared at her.
‘That piece of wood won’t help you, puta.’
‘No Necesito nada para Tratar Contigo,’ she said as she flung the bat behind her. He stepped forward, flexing his impressive arms, so his muscles bulged like Popeye on an overdose of spinach. She imagined cracking his head like an egg.
He didn’t make the mistake the others had; no impetuous lunging from him, but short, sharp jabs to get her measure. Astrid moved backwards each time, avoiding the druggies on the ground and luring him to where she wanted to be: in the middle of the playground and surrounded by slides, climbing frames and a rocking horse. There was no space to manoeuvre. He was a big man with long legs who couldn’t move well in the area created for little kids.
She dodged his latest jab, his frustration growing with every miss. Her chance came as his leg caught the sharp metal edge of the slide. Astrid moved as he dropped his shoulder, dodging away from his arm and throwing her elbow into his neck. He collapsed on his side, tumbling over the slide, lying face down like a marionette with severed strings. The others scrambled to their feet and abandoned their leader to his fate.
Astrid flexed her fingers. ‘There’s less in you than meets the eye.’
He muttered something obscene as he pushed up from the cold metal. He followed it with some terrible insult about her parents, which she would have agreed with in different circumstances. Astrid allowed him to stand and flail his fist towards her. She ducked before bringing her foot up and kicking him in the groin. His face collapsed, his eyes, nose and mouth dropping like high-rise flats under demolition before hitting the ground with a crack.
He cried amongst the leaves as the clouds split asunder and the rain spat out a thousand waterfalls. Astrid left the playground, walking past the spot where she first saw Olivia’s smile. and headed towards the exit on the far side.
She peered into the trees. Is this what she’d gone there for, to find a childhood she never had? Shadows slipped from the bushes behind her, but she focused on images of Olivia. The surrounding greenery reminded Astrid of their back garden, of her earliest memory, of Courtney’s fourth birthday party and the gaggle of kids who turned up to celebrate it. Sunlight streamed everywhere as an ocean of blue overtook the surroundings. A group of older children dressed as Smurfs entered the festivities; it was as if a sapphire sea had swept the green grass into another world.
Then her father approached her, Astrid, all of three years old, and these were the first words she recalled anyone saying to her:
You’re incapable of love, so no one will ever love you.
She barely understood what he said at the time, but she knew from his face, from the void in his eyes, what he meant.
You’ll never be like your sister. Courtney is everything to us.
Her sister’s fancy-dress party was in full swing. He danced over the grass, a coronet of snakes gripping his head. Or did she only dream that part? He drifted from her vision and into the gloom. But he was always there.
Astrid shook the memory from her head. The experience with Olivia had confused the hell out of her. That confusion meant she was oblivious to the people following her from the murk and past the lake. It was only when she approached the exit and two more dark-suited men appeared that she realised her night wasn’t over.
Some people, weak people, fear death. What they cannot understand is how liberating it is. Think of a lifetime of disappointments and regrets vanishing into the next world. It’s the deaths of others which are redemptive. Ironically, my first was like giving birth.
The rhythm of the water held me in its sway. The body floating on the river mesmerised me, how the head peered into the liquid arms waiting for it. The tender cadence of the apple-green reeds matched the movement of my heart as the wind moved the grass from side to side, dancers in nature and observers of death. The hair floated out towards the shore, sleeping on the waves as if her spirit tried to find an anchor to the mortal world. It was an image I kept returning to inside my mind, finding comfort in the aesthetic of death.
The dead sleep with their eyes open; the living walk around with theirs closed. They begged for mercy, but were disappointed. They asked for absolution but received no answers. They searched for salvation, but couldn’t find it. Some of them desired to cleanse their sins, but no water was available. It was a new life for me, one which tormented me with panic, creating a fear that gripped me in a vice. Revelations greater than most could comprehend possessed me. The dark and relentless fate I’d envisaged for myself had withered into the ether. A fever of enthusiasm surged through me, heading towards a climax which would only reach fulfilment once she’d suffered at my hands. She had to pay for her sins. The water was too good for her. It was for the others; her iniquities would never wash away. She walked by the lake, and it made me think of the different rivers I’d visited, the hunger growing inside me once more.
I needed to get back to the red water.