At other times she placed a tea-light there, and lit it with an old Bic lighter. Once a policeman blew it out and told her it was a fire hazard. Anna had screamed in his face – some crazed incoherence about Daniel and wasting time and catching real criminals – and the policeman had backed off and scurried away. After that he walked his beat on the other side of the street and let her light her candles.
Now Anna put out her finger and traced the outline of the last footprint. It was her favourite. It was the print where she could tell Daniel had realized he was running across the freshly poured cement and had changed direction. The print was twisted and a little misshapen, and the heel was shallower, and the ball of the foot and the toes much deeper, as though he’d raised himself on to his tiptoes and pushed off at an angle … ‘What are you doing?’
Anna looked up briefly and saw a girl. She was in school uniform – black trousers, black shoes and red sweatshirt, St Catherine’s Academy embroidered around a cross on the left side of the chest.
Sometimes kids shouted at Anna as they went past in unruly groups, or called her names. Weirdo and Nutter and worse.
She bent and went back to her work.
‘What are you doing?’ the girl said again.
It was weeks since Anna had spoken to anybody but James. Maybe months.
‘Cluh—’ she started and then had to clear her throat of tears and disuse. ‘Cleaning.’
‘Oh,’ said the girl.
Anna polished the heel of the last footprint, making the cement as smooth and shiny as glass. While she rubbed, her anorak’s nylon hood scraped synthetically back and forth against her ears, cutting out everything else.
Scri-scri-scri
Anna went on rubbing long after she knew the footprint was done, just to maintain that noisy silence.
‘Why?’ said the girl.
‘What?’ said Anna.
‘Why are you cleaning them?’
‘Because—’ She stopped and thought and then went on. ‘My son made them and I don’t want to lose them.’
‘Why?’
Daniel had wanted to know why too. All the time. Why this, why that, why the other. It had driven her mad. Although – of course – at the time she’d had no idea what mad was; not the faintest idea. Now the lack of Daniel was showing her the true meaning of the word. Anna knew that. She knew she was going mad, but she didn’t know how to stop it any more than she knew how to stop crying or breathing.
‘Why?’ The girl was still there. Still asking. ‘Why don’t you want to lose them?’
Anna shrugged without looking up. ‘Because I lost him.’
‘Really?’ said the girl, and her forehead wrinkled with mystery. ‘How?’
The how spun inside Anna’s head so often that she knew it off by heart, the same way she’d once known every frame of Daniel’s DVDs – The Lion King and Toy Story. She didn’t want to replay the how, but once it had started, she could never stop it.
She’d been in the kitchen, making packed lunches for playschool and work. Peanut butter and carrots and a little chocolate bar shaped like a frog for Daniel, peanut butter and a Mars bar for James. From the garage next door the radio had gone on – the tinny sound of Duran Duran maybe, or Culture Club. Something from the Eighties. She’d glanced through the kitchen window at the street below, beating out its own rhythms: the number 32 bus waiting at the stop, the man walking two rocking Dachshunds, the woman jogging so slowly that the tall man with the Daily Telegraph under his arm overtook her with ease, the paving slabs cracking and tilting as the lime trees refused to be contained by concrete squares. There was a cement truck parked outside the garage, and the driver was laying thick, corrugated-plastic pipes across the pavement.
In a minute, James would sneak up from behind and put his arms around her …
Oh!
She had turned in his arms and kissed him long and hard.
I’ll bring home the fireworks tonight, he’d said.
She’d laughed and said, I bet you will!
He’d laughed too, and reached around her to pick up his lunch. Slowly. Their bodies touching all the way down.
Smiling.
See you tonight.
She’d see him a lot sooner than that.
And never the same way again.
Anna had heard him leave. Heard him go down the narrow, dark stairs, heard him open the door …
She hadn’t heard the door shut. She hadn’t even thought about it until afterwards – until it was far, far, far too late. James opened the door, James shut the door. That was what had happened every day for the three years they’d lived here. She knew it like Toy Story – so well that she could tune it out and have other thoughts while it droned on in the background.
Unheard.
Daniel!
She’d taken out the chocolate and put in another carrot.
Daniel! Come on!
She’d taken out the carrot and put back the chocolate.
She’d make cornflake cakes for tonight. Daniel’s favourite. And she’d pick up some apples for bobbing, on her way to work.
She’d never go to work again.
Daniel!
She’d gone into his bedroom. She’d gone into the bathroom. She’d gone back to his room. She hadn’t gone downstairs; there was no reason to. The only thing downstairs was the front door, and that was always shut because they were on a main road.
Instead she’d stood by the telly, wasting time, wasting life, wondering where he might be – and by the time she’d peered down the stairs, it was too late.
One hundred and twenty days ago, the door had been left open …
Everything after that was just a fast-forward blur of panic: of running and shouting and of the cement-truck driver looking up from the fat, jiggling hose to see what was wrong, of Pavel and Mr Pigeon scooting up and down the street, stopping strangers, holding their hands at hip height to show the top of Daniel’s imaginary head. Of Ang clutching his broom, wide-eyed and tearful at the commotion. Of Mikey shouting Danny! Danny! from the alleyway behind the garage.
Of James finally appearing from the direction of the shops, with an armful of sparklers and rockets that he then forgot about so completely that they dropped from his grasp one by one as he ran frantically up and down the street.