Page 12 of The Bodies

ELEVEN

Joseph hasn’t eaten all day. And now, dressed in his ridiculous apron, advertising himself as the WORLD ’ S OKAYIST COOK , he won’t be able to eat all night.

On the barbecue, hissing and sputtering, lie rows of pink sausages, red burgers and kebabs. There are prawn skewers, tuna fillets and racks of glazed ribs, even a couple of tomahawk steaks that Joseph will sear and Erin will finish in the oven.

Usually, the competing aromas of beef and pork and fish would have him salivating.

Now, they roil his stomach. The fizz and whistle of burning fat sound to him like squeals of pain – as if, rather than barbecuing dead meat, he’s torturing live animals on his grill.

As he cooks, he tries to avoid thoughts of the dead man.

And when someone hands him another beer, it takes all his willpower to refuse it.

‘Dad?’

Joseph nearly drops his tongs, turns.

Max is looking at him in disbelief. ‘What the hell? You’re barbecuing ?’ He checks no one’s in earshot before adding, ‘Have you completely forgotten about last night?’

‘Of course not,’ Joseph hisses. And suddenly his emotions ignite. ‘You think I want to be standing here, wearing this stupid fucking apron, cooking cheeseburgers for Gemma fucking Robinson and all the rest of them?’

Max takes a step back. A few people glance over.

‘Look,’ Joseph says, through clenched teeth. ‘I have a plan, but I can’t just disappear from a party I’m meant to be hosting. How do you think that would look?’

Max raises his hands. ‘OK, understood. I’m sorry.’ He lowers his voice. ‘So what are we going to do?’

‘What you’re going to do is stay here, ideally with people who can vouch for you later if needed. I don’t want you involved in what comes next. Once the party’s over, I’ll take care of it.’

‘Dad, you’re not doing this alone. I’m—’

‘That’s not up for debate, Max. Did you know Ralph Erikson recorded us leaving the house at three a.m.?

And coming back an hour later on bikes? That he’s been telling everyone?

I’ve got to figure out how to get rid of his doorbell camera and its footage.

Until I do, I don’t want it capturing us again, especially not at any weird times of day or night.

So – put on a smile and act like you’re enjoying yourself. ’

Max sighs. Then he indicates Joseph’s abdomen. ‘How is it today? Are you keeping it clean?’

‘It’s fine.’

‘You want me to take over here for a while? Give you a break?’

Joseph shakes his head. ‘If you want to help, you can carry this tray of kebabs over to the gazebo.’

Max looks at him as if he’s thinking about saying more. Instead, he takes the tray and turns his back.

Drew’s dad arrives around eight, wearing white socks and sliders and a Manchester United shirt from when Vodafone were still the sponsors.

Enoch Cullen is stubbled and shaven-headed, his ears so cluttered with piercings they look to Joseph like hybrid musical instruments.

He heads straight to the gazebo, emerging with two cans of Strongbow.

He pops the tab on one, chugging down the contents in a couple of swallows.

Then he opens the second and takes a long sip.

Shuffling over to the barbecue, he punches Joseph’s arm with a fist that’s all sharp knuckles, the blow hard enough to bruise.

‘Joey-boy,’ he mutters, and belches cider fumes. ‘Ain’t seen you in a while.’

‘How are you, Enoch? Keeping busy?’

‘Ain’t no work, is there? ’Less you want peanuts. ’Less you’re happy taking shit from some jumped-up toddler just out of nursery. Knocked the last one out sparko. Then everyone got excited.’

The sun sets. The sky darkens. Overhead, a spray of stars glitters. In Joseph Carver’s back garden, wine corks pop, prosecco fizzes into glasses, jaws and tongues and teeth masticate barbecued flesh. Erin switches on strings of globe lights. Someone cranks up the music.

Joseph checks his watch constantly. Eleven p.m. comes and goes and the party’s still in full swing.

At midnight, a few of the older guests start leaving, Ralph Erikson among them.

By one a.m., a core of twenty drinkers remains.

When Erin drags Greg Robinson into the kitchen to arrange a tray of sambuca shots, Joseph groans – and not just because he’s left with Gemma Robinson, whose dress straps keep sliding off her shoulders and who can’t seem to stand upright without snatching at him for balance.

The more Gemma drinks, the more flirtatious she grows. She tells Joseph he understands her, that Greg, her husband, doesn’t realize she’s a woman. She fingers the buttons on his new shirt and repeatedly tells him how good he looks.

Gemma glances towards the house, where Greg, his face flushed with alcohol, is emerging from the bifold doors with the sambuca tray. For a moment it looks like he’ll stumble, until Erin, following behind, puts a stabilizing hand on his shoulder.

‘I met him at university,’ Gemma says. ‘Freshers Week. Can you believe that? We were both off our faces and he wheeled me across campus in a shopping trolley. That was my criteria for a future husband: can push me on wheels while pissed.’

‘Might be handy when you’re both eighty.’

Gemma snorts with laughter. She touches Joseph’s collar, smooths it. ‘How did you and Erin meet?’

‘A bereavement group,’ he replies.

‘Oh God, of course. I remember Greg telling me. You were married before, both of you.’ She hiccups. ‘Your first wife, she—’

‘Yes,’ Joseph says.

‘And Erin’s husband. I heard he—’

‘Took his own life over a gambling debt.’

‘S’really sad,’ Gemma continues, leaning into him again.

‘Horrible. But it’s good you found each other.

’ She puffs out her lips, blowing alcohol breath all over him.

‘You know, there’s an upside to meeting later in life.

Trouble with marrying young, if you ask me, is that your other half hasn’t stopped growing into the person they’re going to be. ’

She waves a hand in the direction of the gazebo, where Greg Robinson is trying to extinguish a flaming sambuca that’s spilled down his shirt. ‘And what I never quite realized when I married Greg was that one day he’d grow into, well … that.’

Joseph nods, disentangles himself, casts his gaze over his guests.

Across the garden, Max has joined Tilly and Drew.

As Joseph studies his son’s interaction with his stepdaughter and her best friend, he realizes that Drew has noticed his interest. Quickly, he looks away – but over the next ten minutes they make eye contact again and again.

Joseph can’t figure out if he keeps glancing over because he knows she’s looking at him or if it’s the other way round.

Just like at the coffee shop, he wonders if she can somehow read his thoughts – and knows what he plans to do once everyone else is asleep.

Whatever the explanation, her scrutiny is deeply uncomfortable.

Once or twice he catches Max frowning at him, and can’t decide if the boy feels threatened or if he’s simply anxious for his father to fulfil tonight’s task.

By two a.m., the core of twenty revellers has dropped to eight.

Half an hour later, the Robinsons are the last guests to stagger home.

Erin’s eyes are heavy. Tilly’s too. Joseph helps them both upstairs.

When he returns to the kitchen, Max is waiting.

The boy’s eyes are red-rimmed, from alcohol or tiredness or both.

‘Go to bed,’ Joseph says. ‘You look exhausted.’

‘I need to know what’s happening.’

‘No. You don’t.’

‘But I can’t just—’

‘We already had this conversation. I don’t want you any more involved. What I do want is for you to go to bed and let me deal with the rest. Afterwards, we can talk all you like, but right now you’re holding me up – and I don’t have much of a window to get this done.’

Max’s shoulders slump, but at the kitchen door he hesitates, turns back. ‘Dad?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think I’m a monster?’

The question stops Joseph dead.

It was a kindness, what I did.

‘No, of course not,’ he says. ‘I love you. More than anything else in this life.’

‘Loving someone and thinking they’re a monster aren’t mutually exclusive. At least, they don’t have to be.’

‘I don’t think you’re a monster. I do think you suffered a massively traumatic event at a really vulnerable age. And I think we’re still feeling the effects of that – the echoes of it – all these years later.

‘I know I’ve said it before, but I’d give everything to go back in time, to have handled everything differently.’

‘It probably sounds horrible,’ the boy says, ‘and I don’t mean it to be, at all, but I’m glad Mum’s not here to see this.’

There’s crushed glass, suddenly, in Joseph’s throat. In his eyes, too. He folds his son into a hug, hoping to hide his tears. ‘Don’t say that,’ he croaks. ‘Don’t say it. I love you. We’ll get through this. Don’t say it.’

‘I miss her so much , Dad,’ Max moans. ‘I didn’t think it could still be this painful but it is. I miss her, I miss you. I miss us – the way we used to be. But mainly I just miss Mum.’ He trembles once, like a tree struck by an axe, and then he’s shaking, sobbing.

Joseph tightens his grip. He tells Max it’s OK, even though he knows it isn’t.

And he wonders – if this is how life now feels to his son – whether it might explain Max’s actions in Jack-O’-Lantern Woods.

Because if life is pain, one might be forgiven for thinking that those who cut it short aren’t demons, after all, but angels.

‘And now I’m losing you, too,’ the boy whispers.

‘No, you’re not. Of course you’re not.’

‘Yes, I am. After what happened to Mum, I swore to myself I’d look after you, and now I’ve dragged you into a nightmare.’

‘It’s not your job to look after me, Max,’ Joseph says.

‘It’s my job to look after you. I might not have done it very well in the past, but I’m going to do it now.

’ He kisses his son’s ear, then turns him by the shoulders and ushers him into the hall.

‘Go,’ he urges. ‘Straight up. We’ll talk more tomorrow. ’

Thankfully, Max complies without further protest.

Joseph watches him climb the stairs. Then he gets to work.