The Chalk Man Read online

  I walk into the kitchen, debate making a coffee, then decide I’m still a little too full of fluid from lunchtime. Instead, I head upstairs.

  My parents’ room is now Chloe’s, I sleep in my old room at the back and my dad’s study is, along with the other spare room, a place where I store stuff. A lot of stuff.

  I don’t like to think of myself as a hoarder. My “collectables” are stored neatly in boxes, carefully labeled and stacked on shelving units. But they do fill most of the rooms upstairs, and it is true that, without the labels, I would have forgotten much of what I have accumulated.

  I run a finger along a few of the labels: Earrings. Porcelain. Toys. There are several boxes of the latter. Retro ones from the eighties, some from my own childhood, some purchased—at generally extortionate prices—on eBay. On another shelf there are a couple of boxes labeled “Photos.” Not all of these are of my own family. Another box contains shoes. Sparkly, glittery women’s shoes. There are half a dozen boxes of pictures. Watercolors and pastels scavenged from car-boot sales. Many boxes are lazily labeled “Miscellaneous.” Even under interrogation, I probably couldn’t say what’s inside these. There’s only one box I know the contents of by heart—sheets of typed paper, a pair of old sandals, a dirty T-shirt and an unused electric razor. This one is labeled simply “Dad.”

  I sit down at the desk. I’m pretty sure Chloe isn’t at home and won’t be back anytime soon, but I’ve locked the door, anyway. I open the envelope I received this morning and look at its contents again. There’s no writing. But the message is very clear. A stick figure with a noose around its neck.

  It’s drawn in crayon, which is wrong. Perhaps that’s why, as an added reminder, the sender has included something else. I tip up the envelope and it falls to the desk in a small cloud of dust. A single piece of white chalk.

  1986

  I hadn’t seen Mr. Halloran properly since the day at the fair. The “terrible day at the fair,” as I had come to think of it. I mean, I’d seen him—when the papers took our photo, around the town, at Fat Gav’s party—but we hadn’t really spoken.

  That might seem a bit weird, bearing in mind what happened. But just because we got stuck in some horrible situation didn’t mean we were suddenly bound by an incredible bond. At least, I didn’t think we were, not then.

  I was wheeling my bike through the park, on my way to meet the others at the woods, when I spotted him. He was sitting on a bench, a sketch pad on his lap, a small tray of pencils or something next to him. He wore black jeans, chunky boots, and a flowing white shirt with a skinny black tie. As always, a large hat was perched on his head to keep off the sun. Still, I was amazed he wasn’t melting. I was hot, and I was only wearing a vest, shorts and my old trainers.

  I hovered for a moment, uncertain. I didn’t really know what to say to him, but I couldn’t just walk past and ignore him either. As I dithered, he looked up and saw me.

  “Hi, Eddie.”

  “Hi, Mr. Halloran.”

  “How are you?”

  “Err, fine thanks, sir.”

  “Good.”

  There was a pause. I felt like I should say something else, so I asked, “What are you drawing?”

  “People.” He smiled. His teeth always looked a bit yellow because his face was so white. “Want to look?”

  I didn’t really, but that would sound rude, so I said, “Okay.”

  I laid my bike down, walked over and perched on the bench next to him. He turned the pad around so I could see what he had been drawing. I let out a little gasp.

  “Wow. That’s really good.”

  I wasn’t bullshitting (although I would have felt like I had to say it was good even if it hadn’t been). Like he said, they were sketches of people in the park. An older couple on a nearby bench, a man with his dog, and a couple of girls sitting on the grass. It doesn’t sound like much, but something about them was pretty awesome. Even as a kid I could tell that Mr. Halloran was really talented. There’s something about pictures done by someone with talent. Anyone can copy something and make it look like the thing they’re copying, but it takes something else to bring a scene, to bring people, to life.

  “Thanks. Want to see some more?”

  I nodded. Mr. Halloran flicked back a few pages. There was a picture of an old man in a raincoat with a cigarette (you could almost smell the curls of whisper-gray smoke); a group of women gossiping on one of the cobbled streets near the cathedral; a picture of the cathedral itself, which I didn’t like as much as the people and…

  “But I don’t want to bore you,” Mr. Halloran said, suddenly moving the pad away before I could get a proper look at the next picture. I just caught a glimpse of long, dark hair and one brown eye.

  “You’re not,” I said. “I really like them. Will you be teaching us art at school?”

  “No. I’ll be teaching English. Art, well, that’s just a hobby.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t really into drawing that much, anyway. I sometimes doodled pictures of my favorite cartoon characters, but they weren’t very good. I could write, though. English was my best subject.

  “What are you drawing with?” I asked.

  “These.” He held up the packet of what looked like chalks. “These are pastels.”

  “They look like chalk.”

  “Well, they’re the same sort of thing.”

  “Fat Gav got some chalks for his birthday, but he thought they were pretty lame.”

  An odd little flicker crossed his face. “Did he now?”

  For some reason, I felt like I had said the wrong thing.

  “But Fat Gav can be a bit, you know—”

  “Spoiled?”

  Although it felt disloyal, I nodded. “Kind of. I guess.”

  He considered. “I remember having chalks as a kid. We used to draw on the pavement outside our house.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah? You never do that?”

  I thought. I didn’t think I ever had. Like I said, I wasn’t much into drawing.

  “You know what else we used to do? My friends and me, we made up these secret symbols and we’d use them to leave messages for each other, all over the place, that only we understood. Like I would draw a symbol for wanting to go to the park in chalk outside my best friend’s house and he’d know what it meant.”

  “Couldn’t you just knock on his door?”

  “Well, I could, but that wouldn’t have been as much fun.”

  I thought about this. I could see the appeal of the idea. Like clues on a treasure hunt. A secret code.

  “Anyway,” Mr. Halloran said when—thinking about it later—he had given me just enough time for the idea to settle but not enough for me to dismiss it. He closed his drawing pad and shut the lid of his pastels. “I should get going. I have someone I have to go and see.”

  “Okay. I should get going, too. I’m meeting my friends.”

  “Good to see you again, Eddie. Stay brave.”

  It was the first time he had made any reference to the day at the fair. I liked him for that. A lot of adults, it would have been the first thing they’d gone on about. How are you? Are you okay? All that stuff.

  “You too, sir.”

  He smiled his yellow smile again. “I’m not brave, Eddie. I’m just a fool.”

  He cocked his head at my puzzled expression. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Ever heard that saying?”

  “No, sir. What does it mean?”

  “Well, the way I see it, it means it’s better to be a fool than an angel.”

  I thought about it. I wasn’t quite sure how that worked. He tilted his hat at me. “See you, Eddie.”

  “Bye, sir.”

  I jumped from the bench and got on my bike. I liked Mr. Halloran, but he was definitely weird. Better to be a fool than an angel. Weird, and just a little bit scary.

  —

  The woods skirted the edge of Anderbury, where suburbia melted away into farmland and fields. Although not for lo
ng. The town was spreading this way. A large area of land had already been razed to gravel and earth. Bricks, cement and scaffolding erupted from the ground.

  “Salmon Homes,” a sign read in large, cheery writing. “Building homes and winning hearts for thirty years.” A high wire fence ran around the site. Behind it I could see the hulking shapes of huge machinery, like great big mechanical dinosaurs, but inactive at the moment. Burly men in orange waistcoats and jeans stood around, smoking and drinking from mugs. A radio blared out Shakin’ Stevens. A few signs had been stuck to the fence. KEEP OUT. DANGER.

  I cycled around the edge of the site, then along a narrow track that ran beside more fields. Eventually, I reached a small wooden fence with a stile. I hopped off my bike and slung it over first, then climbed into the woods’ cool embrace.

  They weren’t huge woods, but they were dense and dark. Formed in a natural hollow, they dipped into low folds and rose again around the sides, trees straggling away to low scrub and chalky white rock. I half wheeled, half carried my bike as I walked deeper in. I could hear the trickling whisper of a small stream. Sunlight peeked through the canopy of leaves.

  A little farther ahead I heard the murmur of voices. Caught a glimpse of blue and green. A flash of a silver spoke. Fat Gav, Metal Mickey and Hoppo were crouched down in a small clearing, shielded by foliage and shrubbery. They had already constructed about half of a pretty impressive den from intertwining branches tied around a natural overhang made by a broken bough.

  “Hey!” Fat Gav called out. “It’s Eddie Munster, whose dad’s a big puncher.”

  This was Fat Gav’s new thing to entertain us with this week. Rhyming everything.

  Hoppo looked up and waved. Metal Mickey didn’t bother. I picked my way through the undergrowth and slung my bike down next to their racers, conscious that, out of all of them, it was the oldest and rustiest.

  “Where’s Nicky?” I asked.

  Metal Mickey shrugged. “Who cares? Probably playing with her dolls.” He snickered at his own joke.

  “Not sure she’s coming,” Hoppo said.

  “Oh.”

  I hadn’t seen Nicky since the party, although I knew she’d been down the shops with Hoppo and Metal Mickey. I was starting to feel she might be avoiding me. I’d been hoping to see her today, hoping things could be right again.

  “Her dad’s probably just got her doing some chores,” Hoppo said, as if he guessed what I was thinking.

  “Yeah, or she’s still really pissed off at you because your dad laid hers out. Wham!” This from Metal Mickey again, who could never resist an opportunity to stir things up.

  “Well, he probably deserved it,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Hoppo said. “And he did seem pretty wasted.”

  “I didn’t think vicars drank,” I said.

  “Maybe he’s a secret drinker.” Fat Gav tipped his head back, made a glug, glug motion and then rolled his eyes, slurring, “My name’s Reverend Martin. Praise the Lorrrd. Hic.”

  Before anyone could answer, the undergrowth rustled and a flock of birds exploded out of the trees. We jumped like a pack of startled rabbits.

  Nicky stood at the edge of the hollow, holding the handlebars of her bike. Somehow I got the feeling she’d been standing there a while.

  She looked around at us. “So what are you all sitting here for? I thought we were building a den?”

  —

  With five of us, it didn’t take long to finish the den. It was pretty wicked. Big enough so we could all squeeze in, even if you did have to huddle over a bit. We even constructed a door of leafy branches to cover the entrance. Best of all, you could barely see it until you got right up close.

  We sat cross-legged outside. Hot, scratched to ribbons, but happy. Hungry, too. We started to unpack our sandwiches. Nicky hadn’t said anything about the party so I didn’t either. We just carried on as normal. That’s how it is when you’re kids. You can let things go. It gets harder as you get older.

  “Didn’t your dad pack you any?” Fat Gav asked Nicky.

  “He doesn’t know I’m here. I had to sneak out.”

  “Here,” Hoppo said. He took a couple of his cheese sandwiches out of their cling-film wrapping and handed them over.

  I liked Hoppo, but just then I really hated him, because he got there first.

  “You can have my banana, too,” Fat Gav said. “I don’t really like them.”

  “And you can share my juice,” I said quickly, not wanting to be left out.

  Metal Mickey stuffed a peanut-butter sandwich in his face. He didn’t offer Nicky anything.

  “Thanks,” Nicky said, but shook her head. “I should get back. My dad’ll notice if I’m not there for lunch.”

  “But we’ve only just built the den,” I said.

  “Sorry. I can’t.”

  She pushed up her sleeve and rubbed at her shoulder. It was only then I noticed she had a massive bruise on it.

  “What did you do to your shoulder?”

  She pulled her sleeve down again. “Nothing. Bumped into a door.” She stood up quickly. “I’ve got to go.”

  I stood up, too. “Is this because of the party?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Dad’s still pretty pissed off about it. But he’ll get over it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be. He deserved it.”

  I wanted to say something else, but I wasn’t sure what. I opened my mouth.

  Something hit the side of my head. Hard. My world wavered. My legs buckled. I fell to my knees. Clutched at my head. My fingers came away all sticky.

  Something else whizzed through the air, narrowly missing Nicky’s head. She screamed and ducked. Another large lump of rock hit the ground in front of Hoppo and Metal Mickey, causing an explosion of peanut butter and bread. They squawked and scurried backward, toward the cover of the woods.

  More missiles rained down. Stones and rocks, bits of brick. I could hear hollering and whooping from the steep slope above the wooded hollow. I looked up and could just make out three older boys at the top of it. Two with dark hair. One taller and blond. I knew who they were right away.

  Metal Mickey’s brother, Sean, and his mates Duncan and Keith.

  Fat Gav grabbed my arm. “You okay?”

  I felt dizzy and a bit sick. But I nodded. He shoved me toward the trees. “Get under cover.”

  Metal Mickey turned and yelled up at the older boys. “Leave us alone, Sean!”

  “Leave us alone. Leave us alone,” the blond boy—his brother—called back in a high-pitched girly voice. “Why? You gonna cry? You gonna go and tell Mummy?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Yeah. Try it with a broken nose, Shit-for-brains!” Duncan yelled.

  “You’re in our woods!” Sean shouted.

  “They’re not your woods!” Fat Gav yelled back.

  “Yeah? Then we’ll fight you for them.”

  “Shit,” Fat Gav muttered.

  “C’mon. Let’s get ’em!” Keith shouted.

  They began to make their way down the slope, still bombarding us with missiles.

  Another big chunk of rock flew through the air and hit Nicky’s bike with a crunch.

  She shrieked, “That’s my bike, you spastics!”

  “Hey, it’s Copper-top.”

  “Copper-top, got any copper pubes yet?”

  “Piss off, benders.”

  “Bitch.”

  A lump of brick crashed through the canopy and struck her on the shoulder. She yelped and staggered.

  Anger rose up in my chest. You didn’t hit girls. You didn’t throw bricks at them. I forced myself to my feet and broke cover. Grabbed the heaviest missile from the ground and lobbed it up the slope as hard as I could.

  If it hadn’t been so heavy, carried by the weight of its own momentum, if Sean hadn’t been halfway down the slope and not right at the top, then I would probably have missed by a mile.

  Instead I heard a cry. Not a jeering cry. A scre
am of pain. “Fuck. My eye. Fucking hit me in the fucking eye.”

  There was a pause. One of those moments where time seems to stand still. Fat Gav, Hoppo, Metal Mickey, Nicky and I stared at each other.

  “You little shits!” one of the other voices yelled. “We are so going to get you for that!”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Hoppo said.

  We ran for our bikes. I could already hear scrabbling and panting sounds as the gang scrambled down the steep slope.

  It would take them some time to make it. But we were at a disadvantage, having to wheel our bikes out of the woods before we could hit the path. We jogged along, shoving the bikes clumsily through the undergrowth. I could hear swearing and rustling behind us. Not far enough behind us. I tried to pick up my pace. Hoppo and Metal Mickey were out in front. Nicky was fast, too. Fat Gav was surprisingly quick for a big kid and he’d got a head start on me. My legs were the longest but I was hopelessly uncoordinated and rubbish at running. Dimly, I remembered an old joke my dad used to tell about outrunning a lion. Didn’t matter if you outran the lion. You just needed to outrun the slowest person. Unfortunately, I was the slowest person.

  We burst out of the shade of the woods into the blistering sun and onto the narrow path. I could see the stile ahead. I glanced behind. Sean was already out of the woods behind us. His left eye was swollen and red. Blood streaked down his cheek. It didn’t seem to be slowing him down any. If anything, the anger and pain seemed to be giving him extra speed. His face twisted into a snarl. “I’m gonna kill you, Shitface.”

  I turned back, heart thumping so hard and fast now it felt like it might explode. My head throbbed. Sweat streamed down my forehead, salt stinging my eyes.

  Hoppo and Metal Mickey reached the stile and threw their bikes over, vaulting after them. Nicky followed, bundling her bike over and clambering behind like an agile monkey. Fat Gav climbed up and hefted his bike and body over. I was next. I lifted my bike up, but it was older and more cumbersome than the others. It stuck. The wheel lodged on the stile. A bit of wood caught on the spoke.