Final Cut(69)

I shrink away. A girl appears, her head and shoulders filling the frame. She’s smiling, grinning. Daisy. The image is sharp, it might almost be recent, but no, it can’t be, she’s dead.

Still it’s as if I’m looking at a ghost, as if I could reach into the screen and grab her, save her. Ask her what happened, who hurt her, why she jumped and why I ran away.

And who sent this? Who is it who was holding the camera?

I need to get away. The night sky is cloudless, the air frozen and still. By the time I’m halfway up Slate Road, I’m out of breath. It’s as if the air itself has thickened, closed around me. It’s as if I’m back on twenty a day.

My car is where I left it, but now I’m here I don’t know where to go, why I’d thought escape was even an option. I know what Dan would say, and I know he’s right. Finish your film.

I continue further, to the park, and push open the stiff sprung gate. My feet crunch on the frozen gravel path. Up ahead, the bandstand looms, but the wind has picked up and I head for its shelter. As I draw close, I see it’s not empty; there’s a figure hunched in its recess, head down.

I don’t turn back. It’s as if my subconscious worked out she’d be here and brought me to her. I climb the steps and stand in front of her. She’s smoking; she has a jacket wrapped tight around her but still she shivers in the cold. I clear my throat.

‘Kat?’

It’s only then she notices me and raises her head.

‘What’re you doing here?’

Her question lacks conviction. She’s glad, I can tell. Secretly, perhaps without even knowing it. I’m company, if nothing else.

‘Can I join you?’

‘It’s a free country.’

I sit next to her, leaving a gap between us. I look out at Blackwood Bay for a minute or two, at the sea beyond it. I used to come here, too, I think. When I was upset. Finally, Kat speaks.

‘How did you find me?’

‘I didn’t. I had no idea you’d be here.’

She stubs out her cigarette and folds her arms.

‘You’re not filming or nothing?’

I shake my head. ‘D’you want me to?’

Her laughter is a short, low bark of derision. We fall back into an uneasy silence.

‘Have you seen Ellie?’ she asks me, after a while.

‘Briefly,’ I say. ‘Last night.’

She grunts. It’s unreadable, defensive.

‘Have you?’

She shakes her head. ‘They won’t let me.’

‘Who? Her parents?’

‘She’s told them she ran away. They say I’m a bad influence.’ She’s staring out to sea; her mouth is a thin, hard line.

‘And are you?’

She inclines her head towards me. Her lips are twisted into a scowl, but I think I see something else there, too. A grudging respect, maybe. A hint of pride. We’re the same, me and her. A friend in nameless trouble and us, rightly or wrongly, taking the blame.

‘You drink. I know that. Drugs, too, I imagine.’

She says nothing.

‘I was the same at your age, you know?’

‘That right?’

Her sneer also lacks conviction and I laugh quietly. ‘You’d be surprised. There’s not much else to do, is there?’

She gazes back out to sea.

‘I remember it, you know. Too young to go clubbing, or even drinking in the pub. It was speed with me, at first anyway.’

‘Speed?’

‘Just a bit. Then … well, other stuff.’

She stares down at her lap and fiddles with a ring she’s wearing on her middle finger, twisting it round. The cheap silver glints.

‘How about you?’

‘Just weed,’ she whispers. ‘And booze.’

‘You’re sure?’

A shrug tells me no, but that’s all she’s prepared to admit to.

‘Ellie, too?’

She shakes her head.

‘Where d’you get it? Is it the boys?’ I think of the one we saw her with in the café, the charmer I’d encountered on the beach. ‘Your boyfriend?’

She looks away, breathes deep. Is she crying? I can’t tell.

‘Tell me what happened to Ellie.’

‘I don’t know, but she didn’t run. She wouldn’t. And if she did, why did she come back?’

‘So …’ I speak hesitantly, as if the wrong thing might startle her into flight. ‘She was taken? Dumped out there?’

She doesn’t answer, but I take her silence for a yes.

‘You were worried about David,’ I say. ‘Last night.’

She freezes, for a moment. ‘Is he going to be all right?’

I speak softly. ‘I don’t know.’

She looks round now. Her eyes are dry.

‘David is your friend?’

‘Yes. Ellie’s, too.’ She hesitates. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking.’

‘I’m not thinking anything.’

‘He helps with homework. He gives us food. A sandwich. When … you know.’

When your mothers don’t bother, I think. Or your fathers.

‘So that’s all?’