Killing God

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Mel mutters. ‘I'm sorry…’

  ‘What did you do?’ I ask her. ‘Did you spike the Revolver?’

  ‘Later on, yeah… Taylor put a load of vodka in it. But the thing is, it's got vodka in it anyway.’

  ‘What – Revolver?’

  ‘Yeah, it's like one of those pre-mixed drinks, you know… like Bacardi Breezer and Vodka Kick and stuff. That's why we scratched the label off, so you couldn't see what was in it.’

  I'm looking at her now, my eyes fixed steadily on hers, and I realize that I'm feeling surprisingly calm about everything. Whatever bad feelings I have – resentment, anger, a sense of betrayal – they're not really true feelings. They're just the kind of feelings you get when you think you're expected to feel a certain way, and although you don't feel that way, there's something inside you that feels the need to show that you do.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ I ask Mel.

  ‘What – get you drunk?’

  ‘Yeah… and all the other stuff too. The clothes and the make-up and everything. Pretending to like me. I mean, I know you probably thought it was funny –’

  ‘No,’ she says firmly. ‘It wasn't that.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I say (and I can't help sounding pretty sarcastic here). ‘I suppose you were just trying make me feel better about myself, were you?’

  Mel shakes her head. ‘Honestly, Dawn… it wasn't like that. It was just…’

  ‘Just what?’

  She looks at me for a few moments then, her face so serious and her eyes so troubled that I can't help feeling just a little bit sorry for her. And it suddenly strikes me that here I am, Pathetic Dawn, and the girl over there, the girl I'm feeling sorry for, is Mel Monroe. I mean… she's Mel Monroe, for Christ's sake. She's hard, she's hot, she's the bad girl who all the other bad girls look up to. She can ruin your life just by looking at you the wrong way. And it was only a few days ago (or maybe it was a few thousand years ago?) that I'd seen her coming out of Accessorize with Taylor, and I'd felt so alien to them, so unbelonging, that I'd kept my head down and kept on going, pretending not to see them, pretending to be lost in the music… but now here she is, Mel Monroe, bad-assed and beautiful, sitting nervously on the edge of my bed in my room. And I'm actually feeling a little bit sorry for her. And that, in turn (and unbelievably), makes me feel that I have some kind of power over her.

  I know that I don't, of course.

  I know that this is just a temporary blip in the balance of nature. And Mel knows it too. Which is why she's looking at me now, then gazing down at the floor, taking a deep breath, pulling herself together… and finally she raises her head and looks over at me and makes herself say what she's come here to say.

  ‘It was just for the money.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The money… it was all about the money. It still is. That's why I'm here.’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘Your dad's money.’

  When I don't say anything to that, she just stares intently at me for a moment or two, trying to work out what my silence means, and I try to keep my eyes as blank as possible. Which isn't easy, because my heart's pumping pretty hard right now, and I can feel all kinds of stuff stirring inside me.

  ‘Look,’ Mel says, ‘I don't know if there is any money or not, and to be honest I really don't care any more. But, in a way, it doesn't matter if there is any money or not. I mean, if Taylor's dad thinks there is –’

  ‘Taylor's dad?’

  ‘Yeah. If he thinks –’

  ‘Hold on,’ I say, suddenly confused. ‘What's Taylor's dad got to do with anything?’

  Mel raises her eyebrows. ‘Don't you know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  She looks at me, perplexed. ‘You really don't know?’

  I shake my head. ‘I haven't got a clue what you're talking about.’

  ‘Lee Harding,’ she says. ‘Taylor's dad. You've never heard of him?’

  ‘No.’

  She sighs. ‘Didn't your dad ever mention him?’

  ‘My dad?’

  ‘Yeah, they know each other. Well, they used to know each other…’ She pauses for a moment to light a cigarette, and all I can do is sit here and watch her, waiting, breathing, not knowing what to think about anything. ‘Lee Harding,’ she says, through a mouthful of smoke, ‘got out of prison two or three weeks ago. He served two and a half years of a five-year sentence for ABH and dealing. That's how your dad knew him.’

  ‘From prison?’

  ‘No, I mean through the drugs. Lee was a supplier, a dealer. I think your dad first met him when he was buying gear for himself, but then he started working for Lee now and then.’ She looks at me. ‘You do know that your dad was involved in all that kind of stuff, don't you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He knew a lot of people, apparently. Had a lot of contacts.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Mel goes on, ‘it turns out that a couple of years ago Lee was working on some kind of really big deal, something to do with a big shipment of smack, and your dad was helping him out with the distribution. You know, like selling it on for Lee for a percentage of the take… and then, all of a sudden, Lee gets busted, doesn't he? And the police know exactly where to look for the evidence they need for a conviction. And your dad's just collected on a deal worth over £200,000. The thing is, though… he's sold the gear and he's got the cash, but he hasn't paid anything over to Lee.’

  ‘Are you trying to say that my dad stole Lee's money and grassed him up?’

  ‘I'm not trying to say anything. I'm just telling you what I've heard.’ She looks at me. ‘I mean, think about it. Your dad's got more than 200 grand that belongs to Lee Harding –’

  ‘Yeah, OK, but if Lee was in custody by then, how was my dad supposed to pay him?’

  Mel shakes her head. ‘He'd already had the cash for a week or so before Lee was arrested. And, anyway, it doesn't work like that. There were other people involved, they had a system… your dad didn't have to hand over the money to Lee directly. He could have got it to him if he'd wanted to. And then, once Lee's been banged up, your dad goes and disappears… and no one's seen him for the last two years… so, you know…’ Mel looks at me. ‘It all kind of adds up, doesn't it?’

  ‘You think so?’

  She shrugs. ‘It doesn't matter what I think. All that matters is what Lee Harding thinks. And he thinks your dad took his money and tipped off the police.’

  ‘And now Lee's out of prison.’

  ‘Yeah… and he wants his money back.’

  I stare at her, trying to think things through, trying to work out if what she's saying makes any sense. ‘But why has he waited until now?’ I ask her. ‘I mean, I know he was in prison, but you said that there were other people involved… why didn't he just get some of them to go looking for his money?’

  Mel takes another drag on her cigarette. ‘Lee's a bit of a psycho. He likes to deal with this kind of thing personally, if you know what I mean.’ She looks into my eyes. ‘So, you know… if you do know anything about the money –’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I say. ‘How do you know about all this?’

  ‘I told you, he's Taylor's dad…’

  ‘So?’

  She sighs (like, does it matter how I know?). ‘Look,’ she says, ‘we were at Taylor's place, OK? A few weeks ago… sometime before Christmas. And we happened to overhear her dad talking to some of his friends. They were all stoned, you know… Lee had just got out of prison and they were throwing this kind of welcome-home party for him. Anyway, we heard them going on about this guy called John Bundy –’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I say, interrupting her. ‘And I suppose Taylor just happened to mention that she goes to school with his daughter?’

  Mel shakes her head. ‘No… Taylor didn't know you were his daughter. Not then, anyway. She's pretty new at school, don't forget. I mean, she knew you were called Bundy, but she didn't know anything else about you. As
far as she was concerned, you were just that weird girl from school who never spoke to anyone –’

  ‘The fat todger-dodger with no friends?’

  Mel smiles. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But now she knows who I am.’

  Mel nods. ‘She asked me… you know, she asked me if you were related to this John Bundy guy, and I told her –’

  ‘You knew he was my dad?’

  ‘Not for sure, no… but I'd heard about your dad going missing, and there were all these rumours about him doing drugs and going to prison and everything, so I just kind of guessed it was probably the same guy. I mean, there aren't that many people called Bundy around, are there?’

  I shrug.

  ‘So, anyway,’ Mel goes on, ‘after we'd heard Taylor's dad and his friends talking about your dad, Taylor and me decided to check you out. You know, we thought we'd find out for sure if you really were John Bundy's daughter, and then we'd just kind of poke around a bit, see if you knew anything about the money.’ Mel stubs out her cigarette. ‘Taylor reckoned that if we got the money back, her dad might let us have some of it.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘So all this… the two of you coming round here and making out like you're friends of mine, and all that crap with the clothes and the make-up and getting me drunk and everything… it was all just for the money?’

  ‘Yeah. Listen, I'm sorry –’

  ‘Did you look for it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The money. I mean, after I'd passed out last night… did you look for it?’

  ‘Yeah… well, Taylor did. But she didn't find anything.’

  ‘And I suppose she asked me where it was when I was drunk, did she?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But I didn't say anything?’

  Mel hesitates. ‘Not about the money, no.’

  And now I'm hesitating too. ‘What do you mean?’

  She lights another cigarette. ‘Do you remember Taylor asking you about your dad?’

  ‘Yeah, vaguely.’

  Mel shakes her head, blowing out smoke. ‘She was trying to be all clever about it. You know, she was trying to find out if you knew anything about the money without letting on that that's what she was doing. Do you know what I mean? It's like she couldn't just come straight out and ask you about it, she had to try and be clever. What was he like, your dad? What do you remember about him? Was he up to something?’ She shakes her head again. ‘I told her to just ask you about the money. You were too drunk. It wasn't fair…’

  I look at her. ‘What wasn't fair?’

  She closes her eyes for a moment and sighs. ‘You were too drunk… you just started rambling. And it was really hard to understand what you were saying. It was like you were having a nightmare or something, you know… just blurting out all this stuff that didn't seem to make sense.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’ I ask quietly.

  Mel holds my gaze. ‘Stuff about your dad.’

  I don't know how I feel now. There's an emptiness in my stomach, a remembrance of pain. A suffocating blockage in my throat. And deep inside the darkness of my cave I can feel a tingle of tears in my eyes. But the tears are too far away to come out.

  I can't speak.

  My eyes ask the questions.

  And Mel answers. ‘You kept saying “it wasn't him”,’ she tells me. ‘“It was someone else…”’ She stares at the ceiling, concentrating, trying to remember. ‘And there was something about prayers… and something else about washing something, I think. And blood.’ She looks at me. ‘The blood of something?’ She puffs thoughtfully on her cigarette. ‘And you kept trying to say “stop him”… but it was like you couldn't say it properly, or you kept getting it mixed up or something. It sounded like you were saying “stop the him…”’

  ‘Hymn,’ I mutter, staring at the floor. ‘Stop the hymn…’

  ‘What?’

  I look up at Mel. ‘Nothing… it's nothing. I'm sorry… I can't…’

  ‘It's all right,’ she says softly. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. That's partly why I'm here.’

  I give her a puzzled look. ‘What do you mean?’

  She sighs. ‘It made sense to me.’

  ‘What did?’

  ‘The stuff you were saying last night, when you were drunk… the stuff about your dad. I know I just said that it didn't make sense, and it didn't in a way… you know, it wasn't like you were giving anything away. I mean, Taylor didn't have a clue what you were talking about.’

  ‘But you did?’

  She nods soberly. ‘I think so.’

  I look at her, waiting for her to explain.

  After a few seconds' silence, she says (very quietly), ‘I had a brother… Oliver…’

  She pauses then, staring blindly at the floor… and I remember her doing exactly the same thing when she mentioned her brother before. She'd not said anything else about him then, she'd just whispered ‘my brother’ and sat there in silence, as if she was totally alone. This time, though, she doesn't look quite so lonely, and I get the feeling that she's going to tell me more.

  I sit very still and wait.

  After another few moments, she closes her eyes, swallows hard, then breathes out shakily and goes on. ‘Oliver was thirteen at the time. I was about ten… he was my big brother, you know? He used to look after me.’ She smiles sadly to herself at the memory. ‘He used to go to this local youth club thing, you know, one of those places that's supposed to help kids with problems… not that Oliver had any problems. I mean, he'd just got himself into a bit of trouble nicking cars and stuff… that's all it was. Anyway, there was this vicar… he used to come round to the club now and then to talk to the kids about… I don't know. I suppose he talked to them about fucking morality and shit…’ Mel's voice is gripped with bitterness now. ‘I don't know how it happened,’ she continues, ‘but somehow Oliver got mixed up with this vicar, and they started having these special little talks together, you know, on their own… and then… shit, I don't know. I was only ten, for Christ's sake. I didn't know what was going on. And, of course, my mum and dad didn't know how to deal with it, so they wouldn't tell me anything… I don't really know exactly what happened even now.’ She takes another deep breath. ‘All I know is that Oliver killed himself, hanged himself, and he left a note behind for Mum and Dad telling them how sorry he was, how ashamed… and then there was all this stuff with the police and the vicar and everything… Christ…’

  Her voice trails off as she wipes a tear from her eye.

  ‘Shit,’ I whisper.

  She nods.

  ‘What happened to him?’ I ask. ‘The vicar, I mean.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Nothing… fucking nothing. He denied it all, didn't he? Said it was all in Oliver's mind. And there was no proof…’ She shrugs. ‘He got moved away, that's all. The vicar. They moved him to another town somewhere.’ She stares at nothing for a moment, lost in her thoughts, then she puts out her cigarette and looks over at me. ‘We used to share a bedroom,’ she says. ‘Oliver and me. He used to have nightmares sometimes, you know, when all this stuff with the vicar was going on. He'd talk in his sleep. It didn't make any sense to me at the time…’ She pauses, looking thoughtfully at me, asking me if I understand.

  I nod at her. ‘Some things are too hard to talk about.’

  ‘Yeah… but you can still understand them.’

  I nod again. ‘Yeah…’

  And then, as we sit there for a moment or two, letting the (Jesus-and-Mary-Chained) silence hang in the air, there's a quiet knock on the door and we both look round as it inches open and Mum's head appears (as if floating) in the gap.

  ‘I'm off to the doctor's now, love,’ she says.

  ‘Oh, right,’ I say, glancing at the clock (16:32). ‘I didn't realize it was so late…’

  Mum smiles nervously at Mel. ‘Hello…’

  ‘Hi,’ says Mel, smiling back at her.

  ‘Right, well,’ M
um says awkwardly, turning to me again. ‘I'd better get a move on or I'll be late…’

  Her eyes are filmed with a slight sheen of drunkenness.

  ‘Are you all right, Mum?’ I ask her.

  ‘I'm fine.’ She smiles at me. ‘I'll see you later, love. OK?’

  ‘Yeah, OK. Bye…’

  Her smile is already fading as her head retreats and the door closes behind her. I listen to her footsteps shuffling slowly down the stairs. I hear her pick up her keys and open the front door… a pause… then the door slams shut.

  ‘Is she always like that?’ Mel asks me.

  ‘What – nervous?’

  ‘No, drunk.’

  My instinctive reaction is to deny it, but when I gaze over at Mel and see the knowing look in her eyes, I realize there's no point.

  ‘Well, she's not always drunk,’ I tell her.

  ‘But more often than not?’

  ‘Yeah… pretty much.’

  Mel nods. ‘Mine's the same.’

  ‘Really? Your mum?’

  ‘Yeah… she was always a bit of a drinker, but after Oliver killed himself… well, it all got too much for her. Dad too. They couldn't cope with it. They split up about a year after it happened. Mum's been drinking herself to death ever since.’ Mel lights a cigarette and smiles at me. ‘Life, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose…’

  ‘You're meant to say it's a bitch.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK… it's a bitch.’

  She laughs then, and it sounds good. It sounds tired and hopeless too – in a got-to-laugh-or-else-you'll-cry kind of way – but it still sounds good.

  ‘So, anyway,’ she says, her laughter dying with a weary sigh. ‘Do you get it now? I mean, do you see what I mean about understanding?’

  ‘Yeah… (I can see that you and me live our lives in the pouring rain) yeah, I think I get it. Well, most of it, anyway.’

  ‘Which bit don't you get?’

  I shrug. ‘Why you're here. I mean, I'm not saying I don't appreciate it or anything, and I realize it must have been really hard for you –’

  ‘It's not hard for me.’

  ‘I didn't mean –’