The Chalk Man Read online

  The third picture showed even more of her face, or rather the side of her face that the shard of flying metal had sliced away. It didn’t look so terrible anymore, though, because Mr. Halloran had softened all the scars so they looked more like a pretty patchwork of different colors and her hair half covered her damaged eye. She almost looked beautiful again, just in a different way.

  I looked at the canvas on the easel. I found myself walking toward it. I raised a corner of the sheet. And that was when I heard the creak of a floorboard.

  “Eddie? What are you doing?”

  I spun round, shame crippling me for the second time that day.

  “I’m sorry. I was just…I just wanted to look.”

  For a moment I thought Mr. Halloran was going to tell me off, then he smiled. “It’s okay, Eddie. I should have shut the door.”

  I almost opened my mouth to say that he had. But then I realized. He was giving me a get-out.

  “They’re really good,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Who’s that?” I asked, pointing at the picture of the blond girl.

  “My sister. Jenny.”

  That explained the resemblance.

  “She’s very pretty.”

  “Yes, she was. She died. A few years ago. Leukemia.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t know what I was apologizing for, but that was what people always said when someone died.

  “It’s okay. In a way, the paintings help me keep her alive…I suppose you recognize Elisa?”

  Waltzer Girl. I nodded.

  “I’ve visited her a lot, in hospital.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Not really, Eddie. But she will be. She’s strong. Stronger than she realizes.”

  I stayed quiet. I got the feeling Mr. Halloran wanted to say something else.

  “I’m hoping the paintings will help her with her convalescence. A girl like Elisa, her whole life she’s been told she’s beautiful. And when you take that away it can feel like there’s nothing left. But there is, on the inside. I want to show her that beauty. I want to show her there’s still something worth holding on to.”

  I looked back at the picture of Elisa. I kind of got it. She didn’t look like she used to. But he had brought out a different kind of beauty, a special kind. I understood about holding on to things, too. About making sure they weren’t lost forever. I almost told him that. But when I turned back Mr. Halloran was staring at the painting, like he had forgotten I was even there.

  That was when I understood something else. He was in love with her.

  I liked Mr. Halloran but, even then, I felt uncomfortable. Mr. Halloran was an adult. Not an old adult (later, we found out he was thirty-one) but still an adult, and Waltzer Girl, well, she wasn’t a schoolgirl or anything but she was still way younger than him. He couldn’t love her. Not without there being trouble. Lots of it.

  Suddenly he seemed to snap back and realize I was still in the room.

  “Anyway, here I am, rambling. That’s why I don’t teach art. No one would ever get anything done.” He smiled his yellow smile. “Ready to go home?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  More than anything.

  —

  Mr. Halloran pulled up at the end of my road.

  “I thought you might not want your mum to ask questions.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Want a hand getting your bike out of the boot?”

  “No, it’s okay, I can manage. Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome, Eddie. Just one thing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll do you a deal. I won’t tell anyone about what happened today if you don’t. Especially about the paintings. They’re sort of private.”

  I didn’t have to think twice. I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened today.

  “Yes, sir. I mean, deal.”

  “Good. Bye, Eddie.”

  “Bye, sir.”

  I grabbed my bike, wheeled it down the street and up the driveway. I propped it by the front door. There was a parcel on the step outside. It had a label stuck to it: Mrs. M. Adams. I wondered why the postman hadn’t knocked on the door, or perhaps he had and Mum and Dad hadn’t heard him.

  I picked the box up and carried it indoors.

  “Hi, Eddie,” Dad called out from the kitchen.

  I quickly checked myself in the hall mirror. I still had a bit of a bruise on my forehead and my T-shirt was a bit dirty, but it would have to do. I took a deep breath and walked into the kitchen.

  Dad was sitting at the table, drinking a big glass of lemonade. He looked at me and frowned.

  “What happened to your head?”

  “I, err, fell off the climbing frame.”

  “Are you okay? You don’t feel sick, do you? Dizzy?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  I put the parcel down on the table. “This was on the step.”

  “Oh, right. I didn’t hear the bell.” He stood and called upstairs, “Marianne…parcel for you.”

  Mum called back, “Okay, just coming.”

  “Want some lemonade, Eddie?” Dad asked.

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  He went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle out of the door. I sniffed. There was a funny smell in the room.

  Mum walked into the kitchen. She had her glasses pushed back in her hair and looked tired.

  “Hi, Eddie.” She glanced at the parcel. “What’s this?”

  “Search me,” Dad said.

  She sniffed. “Can you smell something?”

  Dad shook his head but then reconsidered. “Well, maybe a bit.”

  Mum looked at the parcel again and then she said in a slightly tighter voice, “Geoff, can you get me some scissors?”

  Dad passed her some from the drawer. She sliced through the brown tape sealing the parcel and pulled it open.

  Mum wasn’t fazed by much, but I saw her recoil. “Jesus!”

  Dad leaned over. “Christ!”

  Before he could snatch the box away, I peered inside. Something small and pink and covered in slimy goo and blood (later, I would learn it was a pig fetus) nestled at the bottom of the box. A slim knife was sticking out from the top, skewering a piece of paper with just two words printed on it:

  “BABY KILLER.”

  2016

  Principles are nice things. If you can afford them. I like to think I am a principled man, but then, most men do. The fact is, we all have a price, we all have buttons that can be pressed to make us do things that are not entirely honorable. Principles do not pay the mortgage, or clear our debts. Principles are actually pretty useless currency in the daily grind of life. A principled man is generally a man who has everything he wants, or absolutely nothing to lose.

  I lie awake for a long time, and not just because an excess of wine and spaghetti has given me indigestion.

  “I know who really killed her.”

  A great cliffhanger. Mickey knew it would be. And, of course, he would not elaborate.

  “I can’t tell you now. I just need to get a few things straight first.”

  Bullshit, I thought. But I had nodded, numb with shock.

  “I’ll let you sleep on it,” Mickey had said as he left. He hadn’t brought his car and wouldn’t let me book him a cab. He was staying in a Travelodge on the outskirts of town.

  “The walk will do me good,” he said.

  I wasn’t so sure, bearing in mind how unsteady on his feet he looked. But I concurred. After all, it wasn’t that late and he was a grown man.

  After he had gone, I loaded the dishes in the dishwasher and retired to the living room with a large bourbon to think about his proposal. I may have closed my eyes for a moment, or several. The after-dinner nap—the curse of the middle-aged.

  I started awake to the sound of floorboards creaking above me, footsteps on the old staircase.

  Chloe poked her head around the door. “Hey.”

  “Hello.”

/>   She had changed into nightwear. A baggy T-shirt over men’s pajama bottoms and slouchy socks. Her dark hair was loose. She looked sexy and vulnerable and disheveled all at the same time. I buried my nose in my bourbon.

  “How’d it go?” she asked.

  I considered. “Interesting.”

  She walked in and perched on the arm of the sofa. “Do tell.”

  I took a swig of my drink. “Mickey wants to write a book, maybe a television script, about what happened. He wants me to work on it with him.”

  “The plot thickens.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Well, you said yes, I presume.”

  “I haven’t said anything yet. I’m not sure I want to do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there are a lot of things to consider—how people in Anderbury feel about digging up the past, for one thing. Gav and Hoppo. Our families.”

  And Nicky, I thought. Had he spoken to Nicky?

  Chloe frowned. “Okay. I get that. But what about you?”

  “Me?”

  She sighed and looked at me like I was a particularly slow toddler. “It could be a great opportunity. And I’m sure the money wouldn’t hurt either.”

  “That’s not really the point. Besides, this is all hypothetical. Projects like this fall by the wayside all the time.”

  “Yes, but you have to take a chance sometimes.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. Otherwise you never get anywhere in life. You just end up sitting around and fossilizing, instead of actually living.”

  I raised my glass. “Well, thanks for that. Sage advice from someone who is really living on the edge, working part-time in a crappy clothes shop. You’re really pushing the limits.”

  She stood and huffed to the door. “You’re drunk. I’m going back to bed.”

  Regret washed over me. I was an idiot. A grade-A, with-honors-and-a-diploma idiot.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it.” She offered a sour smile. “But then, you probably won’t remember it in the morning anyway.”

  “Chloe—”

  “Sleep it off, Ed.”

  —

  Sleep it off. I turn on my side and then onto my back. That would be good advice. If I could sleep.

  I try to prop myself on my pillows, but it’s no good. My stomach is a tight, nagging ache. I think I might have some antacids somewhere. Perhaps in the kitchen.

  Reluctantly, I swing my legs from the bed and pad downstairs. I flick on the harsh kitchen light. It scours my sore eyeballs. I squint and fumble in one of the junk drawers. Sellotape, Blu-Tack, pens, scissors. Unfathomable keys and screws and a pack of ancient playing cards. Eventually, I find the antacids, lurking right at the back, along with a nail file and an old bottle opener.

  I take them out to find there is only one left in the packet. It will do. I chuck it in my mouth and crunch down. It’s supposed to taste of fruit, but it just tastes of chalk. I walk back out into the hallway, which is when I notice something. Well, two things, actually: there’s a light on in the living room, and there’s a strange smell coming from somewhere. Kind of sweet, yet sickly stale. Rotten. Familiar.

  I take a step forward and tread in something gritty. I look down. Black earth trails across the hall floor. Footsteps. Like something has shuffled, shedding dirt, across the hallway. Something that has dragged itself from the depths of somewhere cold and dark and full of beetles and worms.

  I swallow. No. No, not possible. It’s just my mind playing tricks. Dredging up an old nightmare, dreamed up by a twelve-year-old kid with a hyperactive imagination.

  Lucid dreaming. That’s what they call it. A dream that feels incredibly real. You may even perform activities within the dream that contribute to the illusion of reality, like holding conversations, making food, running a bath…or other things.

  This is not real (despite the very real feeling of dirt between my toes and the chalky tablet in my mouth). All I need to do is wake up. Wake up. Wake up! Unfortunately, wakefulness, just like the oblivion I previously sought, seems equally hard to come by.

  I walk forward and place a hand on the living-room door. Of course I do. It’s a dream, and dreams like these (bad ones) follow a somewhat inevitable path; a twisting, narrow path, through the deep, dark woods, right into the gingerbread cottage at the bottom of our psyche.

  I push the door open. It feels cold in here, too. Not normal cold. Not the slight chill of a house at nighttime. This type of cold wraps itself around your bones and sits like a lump of ice in your intestines. Fear-cold. And the smell is stronger. Overpowering. I can barely breathe. I want to back out of the room. I want to run. I want to scream. Instead, I turn the light on.

  He sits in my armchair. White-blond hair clings to his scalp like sticky strands of spiderweb, parts of bone and brain visible beneath. His face is a skull, loosely draped with shreds of rotting skin.

  As always, he wears a baggy shirt and skinny jeans with heavy black boots. The clothes are ragged and torn. The boots scuffed and crusted with dirt. His battered hat sits on the arm of the chair.

  I should have realized. The time for my childhood bogeyman has gone. I’m an adult now. Time to face the Chalk Man.

  Mr. Halloran turns toward me. His eyes are gone, but there’s something within those sockets, some semblance of understanding or recognition…and something else that makes me not want to look into them too deeply, for fear I might never drag the whole of my mind back out again.

  “Hello, Ed. Long time no see.”

  —

  Chloe is already up, drinking coffee and munching on toast in the kitchen when I emerge downstairs, feeling distinctly unrested, at just gone eight.

  She has retuned the radio and, instead of Radio 4, it is pumping out something that sounds like a man screaming in agony while trying to kill himself by thrashing a guitar over his head.

  Suffice to say, it does nothing to alleviate the pounding in my head.

  She turns and appraises me briefly. “You look like shit.”

  “I feel it.”

  “Good. Serves you right.”

  “Thanks for the sympathy.”

  “Self-inflicted pain does not merit sympathy.”

  “Again, thanks…and any chance you could turn down the angry white man with daddy issues.”

  “It’s called rock music, Grandpa.”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  She shakes her head but nudges the volume down a fraction.

  I walk over to the coffee machine and pour a black coffee.

  “So how long did you stay up after I went to bed?” Chloe asks.

  I sit down at the table. “Not long. I was pretty drunk.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She waves a pale hand. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have got on your case. Really, it’s none of my business.”

  “No, well, I mean, you’re right. What you said. But sometimes things aren’t so clear-cut.”

  “Fine.” She sips her coffee, then says, “Are you sure you didn’t stay up long?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t get up again?”

  “Well, I did come down to get some antacids.”

  “And that’s all?”

  A fragment of a dream flits across my memory: “Hello, Ed. Long time no see.”

  I push it away. “Yes. Why?”

  She gives me an odd look. “Let me show you something.”

  She gets up and walks out of the kitchen. Reluctantly, I rise from my seat and follow her.

  She pauses at the living-room door. “I just wondered if things might have been preying on your mind, after your chat with your friend?”

  “Just show me, Chloe.”

  “Okay.”

  She pushes open the door.

  One of the few renovations I had made to the house was to replace the old fireplace with a new wood-b
urning stove and a slate hearth.

  I stare at it. The hearth is covered in drawings. Standing out stark white against the gray slate. Dozens and dozens, drawn on top of each other, as if in some kind of frenzy. White chalk men.

  1986

  A policeman came round to our house. We’d never had a policeman in the house before. Up until that summer, I don’t think I’d ever seen one up close.

  This one was tall and thin. He had a lot of dark hair and a face that was sort of square. He looked a bit like a giant piece of Lego, except he wasn’t yellow. His name was PC Thomas.

  He peered in the box, took it away in a bin bag and put it in his police car. Then he came back and perched awkwardly in the kitchen while he asked Mum and Dad questions and wrote things down in a small, spiral-bound notebook.

  “And your son found the parcel outside?”

  “That’s right,” Mum said, and looked at me. “Isn’t it, Eddie?”

  I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “What time was this?”

  “4:04 p.m.,” Mum said. “I checked my watch before I came downstairs.”

  The policeman scribbled more notes.

  “And you didn’t see anyone leaving the house or on the street, hanging around?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir.”

  “Okay.”

  More scribbling. My dad shifted in his chair.

  “Look, all of this is pointless,” he said. “We all know who left that parcel.”

  PC Thomas gave him an odd look. It wasn’t very friendly, I thought. “Do we, sir?”

  “Yes. One of Reverend Martin’s little gang. They’re trying to intimidate my wife and my family, and it’s about time someone put a stop to it.”

  “Do you have any evidence?”

  “No, but it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps we should leave the unfounded allegations for now.”

  “Unfounded?” I could tell my dad was getting mad. Dad didn’t get mad often, but when he did—like at the party—he really blew.

  “There is no law against peaceful protest, sir.”

  And that was when I got it. The policeman wasn’t on Mum and Dad’s side. He was on the side of the protesters.