Marie walks home quickly. She’d checked her phone as she’d left the pub and noticed a couple of missed calls and a text, all from Davie. ‘Am I still seeing you later? Call me’ the text says. Maybe later. She’s in no mood for a date now.
She opens the front door to her building and hesitates in front of the row of mailboxes. Number 9 . . . she takes a chance, pulls at the flap on the front, but it doesn’t open. Of course it doesn’t. They’re all locked, and there’s only one key per flat. You can’t even get a copy made. There’s a phone number on the inside of the mailbox with a code on it, and that’s the only place you can get a replacement.
She slides her hand into the narrow flap, but the space is too small. Her fingertips brush against paper. There’s mail in there. Probably just junk. She doesn’t want to imagine that there’s anything in there that’s meant for her.
Forget it.
She pushes open the door of her flat and is almost assaulted by a large brown ball of fur.
‘Oh shit.’ She drops her bag on the floor and picks up the cat. It’s miaowing, but not in a ‘pleased to see you’ sort of way. ‘I’m sorry, Cads. Did I leave you shut in there all day?’
Despite the fatness and furriness, Cadbury has never been much of a house cat. She likes to roam the streets, only coming back occasionally for treats and, if she was feeling particularly loving, a tummy tickle. Cadbury is one of those cats that make you feel like they’re doing you a favour just by hanging around.
Marie can’t remember shutting the cat inside that morning, but she obviously had. ‘I’m starting to think I’m going a bit mad,’ she says to the cat, dropping it on the floor and watching it shoot off into the hall. There’s a cat flap on the main door to the building, but not on her internal door. She usually leaves the kitchen window open so it can come and go as it pleases, but the sky had been threatening rain when she’d left that morning. She must’ve closed it.
She watches as the cat hesitates, turns to look at her, then coughs up a hairball, before disappearing through the flap. She wonders if other pet owners have cats that are capable of such disdain.
Marie takes a tissue out of her bag and picks up the hairball. Tries not to grimace, thinking of the crap that might be packed in there with the hair. She closes the door behind her, balls up the tissue and throws it in the bin. Sighs. She’s in. She’s about to flick the kettle on, when her phone buzzes. Another text.
Davie again: ‘Where are you?’
She replies: ‘Home. Talk tomorrow. Sorry.’
Switches the phone off.
It’s starting already. Pushing him away. She thought that maybe he was the one. The one to help her open up, move on. God knows she’d spent a long enough time trying. But she has that same feeling every time – as soon as someone tries to get close, she clams up. Pulls back. So far they’ve only been out a few times. Kissed. He’ll be expecting more soon, but Marie’s not sure she has more to give. Yes, she could have sex with him. But she knows she’ll feel nothing when they do; and there’s not a damn thing that either of them can do about it.
She makes herself a tea, takes a Twix out of the cupboard. Pulls the letter out of her bag. She takes a bite of the Twix and lays it back down – it’s tasteless. Like sawdust. Her mouth is dry. She takes a drink of tea, but it tastes stale. Bitter. She picks up the letter and tries to stop her hands from shaking. She skims past the lyrics. Sweet Marie . . . Tries to push the voice out of her head. It’s dated 31 July. Over a week ago.
31st July 2015
Marie,
We were ten, I think. You were playing in my room, I was playing in yours. It was that little game we used to love. You’d pretend to be me, and I’d pretend to be you . . . I know you loved my toys more than I loved yours. Yours were pretty fucking lame, actually. For someone of your obvious intelligence: Sindy dolls, Girl’s World, those books full of cardboard outfits with the little tabs on the sides to hang them on the stupid cardboard dolls? I suppose Mum and Dad were just giving us what they thought they were supposed to.
Pink for girls, blue for boys.
Little did they know that we played our own games, though. . . I remember the first time. Do you? Anyway . . . I was talking about my toys: G.I. Joe (who was pretty much as useless as Sindy, although I did like the idea of the two of them fucking – if they hadn’t had such useless non-genitals), Meccano . . . that chemistry set? We had chemistry, didn’t we, Marie?
I know what you liked best, though.
You were good at it too – much better than me. Smaller hands. More patience. I watched you through the keyhole as you built the final turret on that castle. The smallest of bricks at the top to make it seem as if it was curved. Quite clever
Did you hear me breathing that day, Marie? Did you feel me watching you? I always loved watching you . . .
Anyway. . . that’s it, I think. I’m done now. I started on our birthday and I stopped today. Do you know why I stopped today? I guess you’ll work it out soon. I’m not going to write again But I hope you think of me, Marie. I hope you remember. What we did. All the things we did .
You loved it, once. You loved me.
With all my love, always.
Graeme xxx
Marie lays the letter down on the table. She rubs at her eyes as if trying to erase what she’d just seen. How can this be happening? He’s not allowed to contact her. How did he get her address? Even with the wrong flat number, it still got to her.
Graeme would always be able to get to her.
Why was he talking about the toys? The . . . oh God. She remembers what happened in the pub earlier – how she’d thought it was nothing, dismissed it. Someone had been in the pub and left before she’d seen him. She’d felt his presence. He’d left an imprint. He’d left something else, too.
A piece of Lego.
That was the thing of Graeme’s that she’d loved playing with so much. She remembered the castle. Remembered adding the final touch – two little blue plastic flags. She’d stood back and admired it. Was about to run downstairs and tell her mum to come and have a look. But then the door had burst open, and Graeme had come in.
‘Ooh, nice work,’ he’d said, smirking. Marie turned and smiled, but felt her smile drop when she saw what he was carrying.
‘What have you done?’
Graeme offered his hands to her. Prom Queen Sindy’s dress had been ripped up the middle. Her hair was hacked off. One of her arms had been pulled from its socket.
Marie felt her lip start to quiver. ‘Why? You didn’t have to play with them if you didn’t want to . . . you could’ve come in here. We could’ve built the castle together.’
‘You’re the queen of the castle, Marie. I’m the dirty wee rascal.’
He’d walked further into the room, and Marie felt herself backing away. She’d never seen him like this before. Sometimes he had rages. Sometimes he smashed stuff up in the garden, and their dad always pretended he hadn’t seen. But she’d never been scared of him before. His eyes seemed to have turned a different shade of blue, so dark that she could barely see if he was still inside.
He lurched forward at her, laughing, and she stumbled back. She hit the edge of the table and couldn’t stop herself. Her arms windmilled uselessly as she fell back, knocking the castle off the table and hearing it split into pieces as she landed on top of it with a painful thud – bits of plastic dug into her back and her bare arms, and she had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying.
Graeme stared at her for a moment. Then he blinked. Smiled. As if he’d been somewhere else. In a trance and just snapped out of it.
‘Oh Marie,’ he said, heading towards her. ‘Oh Marie, are you OK? Look what you’ve done to that lovely castle . . . Here.’ He leant down and offered her an outstretched hand. ‘Let me help you build it back up again, all right? I love you, Marie.’
In shock, she took his hand and let him pull her up. Her pain was forgotten when he hugged her tight, stroked her hair.
‘I love you, too, Graeme,’ she’d said.
Marie blinks back tears and tries to shake the memory out of her head. She folds the letter up and puts it back in the envelope. This isn’t the first one. It can’t be. She pours the remains of her tea down the sink and reaches up to the top cupboard. A half bottle of dark rum. Two bottles of wine. Some dodgy-looking blue cocktail mix that someone gave her for Christmas.
She takes down the bottle of rum, picks up a small tumbler from the draining board. Walks through to her bedroom, knowing that this is the only way to keep the nightmares at bay.