Burial Read online

  'I can't do it.'

  'Of course you can. You've done it once already. This time will be easier.'

  'Not again.'

  'You have to.'

  'I'll take my chances.'

  'How will Holly feel?'

  A droplet of sweat ran the length of Nathan's spine. He was clammy, as on a thundery day.

  'Because it would be a terrible thing to do to her,' said Bob. 'To let Elise be unearthed by a fucking bulldozer. And then learn it was you who put her there.'

  'Do it by yourself.'

  'I would if I could. But it needs two of us, to do it properly. Two pairs of hands. Two pairs of eyes.'

  'I thought she'd be light.'

  'I can't do it alone. Simple as that.'

  Above them, a door slammed. Running footsteps descending the staircase.

  Nathan said, 'Are you scared?'

  'Wouldn't you be?'

  'Yes. Yeah, I'd be scared.'

  They sat in silence. Then Nathan stood. 'I'll be in touch.'

  'Make sure you are.'

  Nathan shuffled from the bedsitting room, slamming the door behind him. He walked up the stairs and out the door and along the drive and into the daylight.

  He sat on a wall from which the metal railings had been removed in 1941 -- melted down for weaponry, their black nubs long since worn smooth. He took great lungfuls of air and watched the traffic go past.

  Nathan walked in and dropped himself in the armchair. He sat with his coat on, looking at the television. It was Coronation Street.

  Holly was on the sofa. She'd been on site most of the day, visiting a warehouse in Birmingham she was interested in converting. Then she worked for a couple of hours in the home office they'd installed in the second bedroom.

  She'd taken a hot bath to unwind: if she didn't, she couldn't sleep, she'd be thinking about work all night. Sometimes that happened to Nathan, too. He'd wake at 2 a.m., fretting about some new line of cards that was failing. Now Holly smelled of bath oil. She wore 'ŚŚ

  tracksuit trousers and a T-shirt. Her hands and feet were soft and her legs were crossed beneath her. She was half-lying on the sofa, watching TV and doing a crossword.

  She said, 'What's up?'

  'Nothing.'

  She put down the paper and muted the television.

  'You look terrible.'

  He touched his temple. 'I've got this really bad headache.'

  She came over and sat in his lap. She was so clean. She laced her hands behind his head and said, 'This isn't like you. Have you caught a bug or something?'

  'I don't know.'

  She touched his burning forehead. 'God. You're really sick'

  She stood and led him upstairs and made him undress. She folded back the duvet and he lay, corrupt and sweating, in the clean bed. He left on his boxer shorts; he could smell his genitals. He cupped his throbbing testicles and slipped into a feverish sleep. The testicle ache spread to his lower back, like a bruise across his kidneys.

  Elise's spectre lay a cool hand upon his forehead and he woke with a shout to see it was only Holly, his wife. She put a thermometer into the corner of his mouth. It was the instrument she'd once used to time her ovulation. She waited, then she removed it and held it to the hallway light.

  'You're burning up.'

  He reached out and held her hand by the fingertips.

  She said, 'You sleep. I'll drive down to the chemist and get something for the fever.'

  He sat up. Grabbed her wrist.

  'Don't.'

  'You need to get that fever down. I'll be back in twenty minutes.'

  'Please don't go.'

  She looked at him - backlit, the thermometer held high in one hand.

  He said, 'Don't leave me alone in the house.'

  Slowly, she lowered the thermometer.

  'You're scared of the dark, aren't you?'

  'Yes.'

  She sat on the edge of the bed, holding his hand.

  'You never talk about it.'

  'Would you?'

  'Did you think I'd laugh?'

  'Yes.'

  She laughed.

  'You see,' he said.

  She leaned in a little closer. 'What happened, to make you so scared ?'

  He turned away on his side.

  'Nothing.'

  He could feel her, looking at him.

  She said, 'Shall I turn on the light?'

  'Please. And leave the door open.'

  She kissed his forehead and turned on the reading light. She left the bedroom door ajar. He heard her, descending the stairs; picking up the telephone and taking it through to the front room. She'd be calling her mother, seeking advice on how to treat a man who never fell ill, who wouldn't let her leave the house to get medicine.

  He woke to a cool flannel on his forehead.

  Holly pressed a mug into his hand; Lemsip Cold Flu.

  He said, 'Where did you get these?'

  'Shhh,' said Holly.

  He began to panic. 'Did you leave the house?'

  Then he saw June, framed in the doorway. She'd driven to a twenty-four-hour chemist in the town centre. Nathan looked at her.

  Then he looked at Holly. She brushed back his sweating hair.

  'Get better, now.'

  Later, the sound of the front door closing: June going home. He imagined her at the wheel, a bubble of light in the darkness, hurtling past the earth where her daughter lay.

  25

  In the morning, Holly woke him with another Lemsip and a kiss goodbye.

  He drank the Lemsip, then pulled on a tracksuit and thick socks and his dressing gown, and limped to the office.

  Holly's workstation was a chrome and glass table: a Compaq desktop, replaced every couple of years; a filing cabinet, a cheap plastic desktidy, stacked in-and out-trays, a desk diary, a mobile phone charger. Nathan kept a smaller workstation in there - a corner desk, a laptop, not much else.

  He logged on and skim-read his work emails. Later, he would answer the more important of them, because he wanted his bosses and colleagues to consider him a martyr and a workaholic. Then he logged on to the Internet and ran a search on the proposed Cabot Green estate.

  There were dozens of hits - Cabot Green had been a local interest story for years now. According to the published minutes of the Sutton Down Action Group, Graham and June Fox had declined an invitation to act as group secretaries. (Probably they'd have thought it hypocritical to accept, given Holly's chosen career.) Holly must know about this proposed development - all the local developers seemed to know and enjoy gossiping about each other. She might even have mentioned it, over dinner or breakfast: Nathan had probably acknowledged her and immediately forgotten all about it, having little real interest in the matter - no more interest, say, than Holly had in the wholesale of greetings cards.

  The final appeals had failed. Planning permission had been granted. Building work was due to commence.

  Nathan navigated to the development company's website and found his way to a map of the proposed Cabot Green estate.

  It took some time to make sense of the plans, but not as long as it might have -- Holly often discussed similar proposals with him, and he'd learned how to read them.

  Whoever now owned Mark Derbyshire's estate had sold off a good portion of it -- including the woods that ran to the main road. On the map, Nathan was easily able to find and identify the lane. It was simply marked, given no name. He was able to trace the wiggling brook beside which they had laid her.

  Superimposed on this map in dotted, coloured lines was the ghost of the housing estate to come. Around the brook, there was to be a modern playground with climbing frames and, across a small bridge, a picnic area. Nathan knew that such facilities were often designed into new estates' proposals -- and were often dropped at the last minute, as a cost-saving exercise; such projects always ran above budget. But factoring in designated recreation sites helped get the project past the protesters. It helped foster the illusion that a new community
was being designed from the ground up.

  He could see written into the plans that Elise would be found. She would be disinterred by a mechanical digger, or by some boys who'd scrambled over the chain-link fence, drawn to the unexplored moonscape behind it, or she would be sniffed out by badgers or foxes or a domestic dog tempted by the thick, sweet smell of old carrion.

  He cleared his Internet history, as if he'd been viewing pornography, then accessed his work emails. He answered several of them on corporate autopilot: they seemed to address problems that had arisen decades ago, and did not greatly interest him. Then he logged off and went back to bed. He couldn't sleep. He dragged the duvet downstairs and, wrapped in it, watched daytime television.

  As a student and as a doley, he'd watched and thoroughly enjoyed daytime TV -- but now the charm seemed to have gone from it. He watched tawdry, depressing quizzes, a sordid freak show disguised as a discussion programme, cookery programmes, yet more quizzes, and a comfortingly soporific programme about watercolours. He made beans on toast. He hadn't eaten beans on toast for a long time.

  He called Bob at 5 p.m. -- two hours before Holly was due back.

  Bob said, 'How have you been? I've been worried.'

  'I've been ill.'

  'Stress, I expect.'

  'Yes.'

  'So. Anyway.'

  'So anyway. Let's do it.'

  'When?'

  'Friday night.'

  'What will you tell Holly?'

  'That I'm going for a drink with you. And that I'm sleeping at your place.'

  'Is that wise?'

  'I never go out. The only nights I've ever spent away from my wife, I've been at a sales conference. And there isn't a sales conference for five fucking months, and it's in fucking Dublin. Okay?'

  'Okay. Steady on. Whatever.'

  'I'm sorry. I'm on edge, here.'

  Bob said, 'I'll be in touch', and hung up.

  Nathan wrapped the duvet tighter round himself and turned up the volume on the muted television. He watched a shrieking advert for loan consolidation, then a quieter ad for orthopaedic beds, a third for stairlifts, and a fourth for a flu remedy which took the form of a macho, corporate mini-drama.

  So this is who was watching with him. The unemployed, the elderly and the sick. A silent nexus of them, in lonely communion.

  He turned it off.

  26

  On Friday night, Holly kissed his cheek and told him to have a good time.

  In the hallway, he crushed her to him and she pulled back, laughing: 'You're only going for one night.'

  She brushed down his lapel - he was wearing a good suit and carrying an Adidas sports bag - then turned him round, swatted his arse and shoved him through the front door. A taxi was waiting at the kerb.

  He took it into town and met Bob, who was waiting for him at the wheel of an old Audi 100. Its rear bumper was gaffer-taped and his tax disc was out of date.

  Nathan got in, pointing to the tax disc.

  'That's a good idea. Get us arrested.'

  'It's a detail. What's in the bag?'

  'Clean underwear. Nurofen Plus for the hangover. Lucozade. That sort of thing.'

  'It's like she's sending you off to camp.'

  Nathan belted himself in, saying: 'That's the last time you mention her this evening.'

  'Fine,' said Bob, and pulled away.

  They drove.

  Nathan asked him, 'Have you got everything?'

  'Pretty much. Do you want to stop somewhere? Pick up some cheap clothes?'

  Bob waited behind the wheel in an NCP car park while Nathan went to Millets in the mall. He bought a dark-green fleece and a black cagoule, some hiking shoes, a pair of khaki trousers. Also a balaclava.

  He

  paid cash.

  Back at the NCP, he dumped the carrier bags on the back seat of Bob's car, next to his overnight bag.

  Driving, Bob said, 'How are you coping?'

  'I feel sick. You?'

  'I'm all right. A bit hyper. Like I had one coffee too many.'

  To calm down, and to kill some time until it was late enough, they stopped at a pub.

  Bob moped over a pint of Guinness. Nathan drank several tepid gin and tonics. They sat in a booth, unwilling and unable to talk -- the jukebox was too loud. Before they left, Nathan went for a long piss.

  They turned off the motorway and on to the B-roads. The night was overcast, with multiple layers of quick-moving clouds, backlit by the moon.

  They left the yellow lights of the city behind them. Nathan turned to see it, sitting in the valley like a UFO. Bob took the familiar route to the forest and located the lane with almost no difficulty.

  He slowed and, with a heave on the wheel, he turned the Audi into the slot of darkness. They followed the beam of its headlights. The trees shifted in the edge of their vision.

  They came to the right place.

  They knew it was the right place.

  Bob stopped the car. They heard its engine ticking. The wind through the trees. Nathan remembered the last time he'd sat here. He remembered Elise. Laughing, naked. The way her fingers tightened then relaxed on his arms as he entered her. He thought of the semen he'd pumped into her.

  The sound of them breathing.

  Bob said, 'I used to come here sometimes. In the early days. Just drive past. Y'know.'

  Nathan didn't want to listen. He freed his seat belt and scrambled on to the back seat. He took the new clothes from the carrier bag and began to rip the tags from them. Then he began to undress.

  'Just like old times,' said Bob.

  Nathan was pulling off his smart trousers.

  'You,' said Bob. 'Taking off your trousers in the back of my car.'

  Nathan had folded the clean trousers next to him and removed his shirt. He was pulling on a Millets T-shirt. His hair stuck up.

  'Make sure you get all the tags off those clothes,' said Bob. 'You don't want to leave any behind.'

  Nathan brushed his hair flat.

  Bob said, 'Look, I'm sorry. I just thought it was pretty freaky, that's all. You undressing in the back of my car. Here, of all places. You have to admit.'

  Nathan said, 'If it gets any more freaky I'll go fucking mad. Do you know what I mean, Bob? They'll find me in the town fountain, hitting myself with bricks and eating dog shit. So give me a break, all right.'

  Bob smoked a cigarette while Nathan finished dressing. The clothes smelled new; they were still creased with their shop folds. The boots had been expensive - he didn't want to wear something that might give him blisters.

  He and Bob looked straight ahead, through the black windscreen.

  'Shit,' said Nathan.

  His voice, so loud in the confined space of the car, seemed to galvanize Bob, who slapped his leg and opened the door. He walked round to the boot. Nathan joined him. In the boot were two shovels and a big roll of clear plastic. There were two rolls of duct tape and two pairs of gardening gloves.

  They listened to the wind. The clouds moved fast overhead, lit silver by the moon.

  'We are going to do this,' said Bob.

  He reached in and grabbed two shovels in his fist. He passed them to Nathan. Bob lifted out the bulky roll of plastic. He rested his chin on top of it and said, 'Right.'

  Nathan looked at the trees: the oaks, the silvery ash, the swaying ferns and the soft moss. The smell of it.

  'Are you sure this is it?'

  'Pretty sure.'

  So was Nathan. He followed Bob into the trees. After a single step, the moonlight winked out and the darkness was complete. He could hear Bob's exerted breathing, the rustle of clothing. But he could see nothing. The canopy of branches formed a rustling, shifting membrane above his head.

  Bob's harsh whisper:

  200

  201

  Neil Cross

  'Are you there?'

  'Yeah. I can't see a fucking thing.'

  'Press on a few feet. I'll turn on the torch as soon as it's safe.'

&nbs
p; 'But I can't fucking see.'

  'Then be careful.'

  Nathan moved with great caution. But still, he caught his foot in the twisted root of a tree. For a terrible moment, he believed that a human hand had reached out and grabbed his ankle.

  He'd fallen before he could scream.

  A cold point of light popped on and passed across him. Bob's torch.

  Nathan stood, brushing himself down, and picked up the shovels.

  Bob's face was blanched by the torchlight.

  He handed Nathan a torch. Nathan tucked the shovels under his arm and followed its wavering beam deeper into the forest.

  Eventually, they found the brook. Its waters were black round white boulders. They stuck close together, did not speak, and began to dig around. In less than half an hour, they had found the place.

  They had buried Elise near the fork of a massive old tree, adjacent to the brook. The bank had crumbled away since, exposing the tree's root base.

  Further up the bank, where it began to level off, they lay out the plastic sheeting, weighing down the corners with branches and rocks.

  Weighed down, it inflated and deflated with the wind, like something breathing.

  Bob laid his torch on the ground. Then he thrust the blade of his shovel into the earth. It made a slicing sound. He looked at Nathan, then turned off the torch. To Nathan's eye, he simply disappeared.

  Nathan whirled the beam of his torch until it crossed Bob's form, made him briefly luminous like the moon. Bob paused, spade in hand and whispered, 'Turn off the fucking torch and give me a hand.'

  It was hot work, far hotter than burying her. Nathan removed his fleece and cagoule and worked in his T-shirt. His trousers and boots were muddy to the knees and clagged with clots of mud and soil.

  They wished they'd remembered to bring the water. It was in the boot. It was thirsty work.

  They dug around for an hour or more. Then Bob hissed for him to stop.

  They kneeled, brushing at the soil with their clumsy gloves. Bob had overturned a white knob of something.

  Nathan stood. He walked to the water's edge and breathed rapidly through his nostrils. Leaning on the shovel, he looked at the racing sky. Then he looked at the water.

  He walked back to Bob.

  'What is it?'