Page 4 of The Bodies

THREE

They work side by side in strained silence. For Joseph, despite his dread at what he might soon discover, it’s an opportunity to breathe, order his thoughts, process what just happened.

Max stands at the sink with a dish scrubber, scouring dried blood from his nails.

Joseph uses more kitchen roll to soak up his own spilled blood.

He mops the floor with detergent. Then he adds a few squirts of bleach to fresh water and mops the whole thing again.

He returns the whisky bottle to the cupboard and puts away the snifter.

In the utility, he wipes down the washing-machine door.

While Max cleans the kitchen taps, Joseph examines the pile of discarded clothes beneath the machine: his son’s shorts, grey T-shirt and white socks.

The shorts and socks are spotted with rust stains.

The grey T-shirt is more heavily soiled, the blood on it still wet.

Briefly, Joseph considers loading the clothes into the drum and running a boil cycle.

Instead, he double-bags them in bin liners, along with the ruined trainers.

When he turns back towards the arch, he finds Max staring at him from the kitchen. Again, he sees something deeply troubling in his son’s expression. It lifts the hairs on his arms, wicks the moisture from his mouth.

‘Let’s sit,’ Joseph says.

‘I’d rather stand.’

‘Sit.’

For a handful of breaths, Max doesn’t move. Then, without breaking eye contact, he goes to the breakfast table by the bifold doors and pulls out a seat.

‘Drink?’ Joseph asks. The tension between them is palpable. He needs to find some way of slackening it.

Max shakes his head. He rests his forearms on the table edge, inspects his fingernails. Then he hides his hands in his lap. ‘I can’t talk to you.’

‘Why not?’

‘This …’ Max licks his lips. ‘You were never meant to see it.’

Joseph opens the fridge. He grabs a Coke Zero, pops the tab and takes a long swallow. Then he sits opposite. ‘Whose blood is that?’

Again, Max shakes his head.

‘What happened tonight?’

‘It’s best you don’t know.’

‘Was it a fight?’

‘Dad,’ he begins. Then he grimaces, closes his mouth.

Abruptly, Joseph realizes what’s been frightening him about his son’s expression.

It’s as if he’s seeing two people struggling for supremacy inside the same face.

One is the boy he loves; the other is a traumatized stranger.

The battle twists back and forth. Moments ago, his son resurfaced.

Now, the stranger has reappeared, watching with wary eyes.

Joseph wants to reach out, take Max’s hands, create a physical connection if not an emotional one. Deeper instinct tells him the time isn’t right. Better to proceed cautiously, and wait for his son’s return.

Max – or Not-Max – lifts his gaze to the worktop, blinks. ‘Is that an axe?’

‘A tomahawk.’

‘Jesus, Dad.’

‘Erin woke me. Said she could hear someone poking around downstairs. We thought you were stay—’

‘What were you going to do?’

‘Get my phone, call the police. The tomahawk was just a deterrent. But it was a stupid—’

‘I’ve never seen it before.’

‘I keep it hidden.’

‘Where?’

‘Back of the wardrobe,’ Joseph says, and wishes, instantly, that he hadn’t. ‘Look, that’s not important. What—’

‘Does Erin know?’

‘Max, listen to me. You’re down here in pitch darkness, in the middle of the night, covered in someone else’s blood. I don’t want to talk about the tomahawk. I don’t want to talk about anything other than whose blood it is, what’s happened, and whether you’re both OK.’

His son – or perhaps it’s still the stranger – shakes his head. ‘I can’t talk about it.’

‘You don’t have a choice. I’m not—’

‘Dad,’ he says softly. ‘What you need to do is go back upstairs, pretend this never happened. That means you tell no one about what you saw, not even Erin. Especially Erin. It’s the only way this ends well.’

Max must know that no responsible parent in the world would agree to what he’s asking.

The idea that Joseph could climb into bed and go back to sleep is absurd.

Joseph glances at the wall clock, sees it’s well past three.

He has the sense of time running down, running out – the window for fixing this shrinking by the minute.

He leans forward, searching Max’s face. ‘Why did you grab a knife?’ he asks. ‘That might have been Erin walking in on you. It might have been Tilly, getting a glass of water. Swinging out like you did – you could’ve slashed her throat.’

Max’s face creases in pain as he considers that. ‘I don’t know what to tell you. I just wasn’t thinking straight. First thing I heard was whatever you kicked over in the hall. And when the door burst open, and that torch beam shone in my face, I … I guess it took me back to …’

Max’s words peter out, but he doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Clearly Joseph’s not the only one, these days, to see danger in what should be the safest of places.

‘What happened tonight?’

The boy shakes his head.

‘Max, you’ve got to tell me.’

‘I can’t.’

Joseph’s heart thumps. He knows he can’t walk away from this, which means his only option is escalation – raising the stakes and hoping it works.

He stands, grimacing as the wound across his abdomen reopens.

Crossing the kitchen, he opens the door.

The rest of the house is still dark, but there’s enough light to see the hall.

He steps over Erin’s ballet flat, pauses at the base of the stairs.

No way of knowing if his wife has gone back to sleep unless he goes up there, but at least she hasn’t come down again.

He retrieves his phone from the living room and returns to the kitchen. He doesn’t like what he’s about to do. If he were a better parent – wiser and more emotionally literate – maybe he’d devise a better plan. But this is all he has.

He sits opposite Max, places the phone on the table between them, tries to control his breathing.

‘Here’s the deal. And there really isn’t another.

You tell me, right now, exactly what’s happened tonight.

No lies, no evasions. The truth. If you do that, this conversation – everything we talk about – remains strictly between you and me.

And I mean for ever. No one else will ever know, not even Erin.

I give you my word on that. From there, if it’s bad, we figure a way out. Together.’

Joseph pauses, forces a calmness into his voice he doesn’t feel. ‘But if you won’t talk to me, Max – if you insist on silence – then I’ll phone the police right now and tell them what I know. Because that blood came from someone’s son, or someone’s daughter.’

Max blinks. ‘You wouldn’t do that.’

‘I would. And I will. I’ll give you to the count of five. Then I’m picking up that phone and calling.’

‘If you think this is—’

‘One,’ Joseph says.

‘I’ve already told you I’m—’

‘Two.’

Max drops his gaze to the phone.

Joseph wonders if he’ll try to snatch it, thinks he probably won’t. ‘Three,’ he says.

‘Please, Dad, you’re—’

‘Four.’

A nerve twitches in Max’s cheek. ‘There’s no—’

‘Five,’ Joseph says.

He picks up the phone and dials 999, and as his finger descends on the call button, Max says, ‘I hit someone.’