Final Cut(28)

I peer inside. The stale, sulphurous smell hits me first, an ammoniacal undercurrent of stale pee, possibly worse. I shine the flash into the dank interior, still filming. Meaningless slogans cover the walls: names and dates, a weird, cartoonish figure, the odd tag in garish spray-paint. Beer cans and bottles litter the floor; there are pieces of wood, pizza boxes, magazines. Teenagers, I suppose, using it until it became too unsafe, or too disgusting. I wonder if David let them; perhaps he didn’t even try to stop it. I picture him, holed up in his house while the kids outside partied, played music, took drugs, screwed. Perhaps he hid himself away, retreated to the depths, or maybe he peered out of the window and watched them. I wonder what he thought. Whether he envied them.

There’s a rusted cooker right in front of me, plus a filthy sink. A concertina doorway at the back leads, I presume, to the only bedroom, with another that I’m guessing is the bathroom. I try to imagine a different time. Daisy living here.

Is that where she would have slept? There’d have been posters taped to the walls – Katy Perry, perhaps, Lady Gaga? The Twilight films? – a soft duvet cover in a bright purple, something like that. I doubt she’d have had an iPod – a tinny stereo, maybe? I see her mother, waiting until her daughter went to bed, then releasing a catch to fold down the tiny dining-room table and arranging the cushions from the living area to double as a mattress. The two women on top of each other. Fine for a fortnight’s holiday, I suppose, but every night? Who would want to live like this, amidst this dinginess? It must’ve been suffocating; it reminds me of the hostels in London. What teenager would want to have her life pressed so tightly against her mother’s, every day?

I check myself. Any, perhaps, if the alternative is … well, whatever did happen that day she went over the edge. Could it really have been something to do with me, the thing that caused her to jump? I close my eyes and try to see us. In the café, perhaps, just like the girls the other day. Pushing and shoving, bitching about our friends, but it’s playful, we don’t mean anything by it. Or maybe we’re down on the beach, she’s telling me about a boy, she’s met him again, and this time he kissed her. She can’t believe her luck, her first kiss, and someone she really likes. He’s older, she says, nearly a man, and she could taste cigarettes on his breath, only she didn’t mind because they were his cigarettes that he’d smoked, and it was his breath she could taste them on.

I’m jolted out of my reverie. It doesn’t make sense. Mooning over a boy? What was it Gavin had told me? People say she was a slut, or words to that effect.

Anger bubbles up. People know nothing. People can take their judgemental bullshit and shove it. People can fuck off.

And yet … we’re supposed to believe she took her own life? Flung herself to her death just a few feet from here? My eyes flick open as I remember where I am. Perhaps it wasn’t like that at all. Perhaps her first kiss was right here, in this stinking van. I see that, too. Hands on her, despite her wanting them gone. Her own mouth stoppered with that of another. Or maybe it was in the park, in the bandstand, at the amusement arcade. Or over there, inside the black house, with a man as old as her father.

But where did I fit in, at the end? What did I do? I use both hands to lever myself up into the van. I carry on filming as I explore, still not sure what I expect to find. Anything she or her mother might’ve left would be long gone by now. I wait, but the smoke isn’t clearing. I steel myself against the weight of the stink. The van creaks as I go in deeper, treading carefully. There may be anything buried here, discarded needles hidden among the wrappers. At least I’m wearing my boots. I shiver in the cold and scan the defaced walls with my camera, then try to push my way into the bedroom area. The door that separates it from the rest resists as something bunches behind it. I push harder – it’s a thin mattress, it turns out – and eventually get in. The smell in here is worse, the air staler. I want to escape but, over by the remains of the bed, low down and half hidden by a bundle of rags, something catches my eye. A mark, scratched on the wall.

It’s a message, I think, but even as I draw closer I’m telling myself not to be stupid. And I’m right to be sceptical. It’s just a series of dots, joined together in two lines that converge at one end to form a horizontal V. Meaningless, I think at first, it’s a surprise I even noticed it, but then I feel a peculiar jolt of recognition and realise it could be Andromeda. Seven major stars, part of the Perseus group. Named for the beautiful princess who was sacrificed, chained naked to a rock to be eaten by a sea monster. A constellation visible only in winter.

But why would Daisy have that scratched on her wall? Just as I’m about to stand, to get a better angle with my camera, I notice something else next to it, two words. They’re both unclear, but one is almost certainly Daisy.

As I crouch down to the other the déjà vu returns, stronger this time. It’s like I know what the word is. I make out an S, a d. Sad, it looks like. My heart thrums as I rub away at the debris and dust, and there it is. Sadie.

I stand up. It’s true, then. We were close. Best friends, just like I thought when I first saw the photo in the cottage. I must’ve been here. So why don’t I remember?

I lift my camera to frame the shot, but then I hear a sound, some movement outside. An animal, something big, unless I’m imagining it. It comes again, heavier this time, more distinct, and with it there’s something else, a shuddering bang that shakes the whole van, and I realise it’s the caravan door, slamming shut.