The Leftovers , livre ebook

the leftovers
CASSANDRA PARKIN
Legend Press Ltd, 51 Gower Street, London, WC1E 6HJ
info@legendpress.co.uk | www.legendpress.co.uk
Contents Cassandra Parkin 2021
The right of the above author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
Print ISBN 978-1-80031-0-087
Ebook ISBN 978-1-80031-0-094
Set in Times. Printing managed by Jellyfish Solutions Ltd
Cover design by Sarah Whittaker | www.whittakerbookdesign.com
All characters, other than those clearly in the public domain, and place names, other than those well-established such as towns and cities, are fictitious and any resemblance is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Cassandra Parkin grew up in Hull, and now lives in East Yorkshire. Her debut novel The Summer We All Ran Away was published by Legend Press in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Amazon Rising Star Award. Her short story collection, New World Fairy Tales (Salt Publishing, 2011) was the winner of the 2011 Scott Prize for Short Stories. The Beach Hut was published in 2015, Lily s House in 2016, The Winter s Child in 2017, Underwater Breathing in 2018, The Slaughter Man in 2019, and Soldier Boy in 2020. Cassandra s work has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.
Visit Cassandra at cassandraparkin.wordpress.com or follow her @cassandrajaneuk
To darling H Walking in your own time and space
Chapter One
Left
On the evening my brother and father die, I learn a curious lesson about time.
It s a warm, bright evening, and the four of us are sitting in the kitchen. Our bellies are pleasantly full of the takeaway meal we always share on the last night of our two-week shift. Frey had special fried rice, because he always does. Josh and I can have anything we want, but we ve both caught Frey s habit of sameness, and it s good to have a favourite. So I had beef chow mein, and Josh had chicken curry and chips, and now everyone s faintly sleepy and reluctant to move.
The kitchen is peaceful and homely. The dishwasher s humming and splashing, and Frey has wiped down every inch of the dining table - top, sides and legs - with his slow, peaceful movements. Josh and I are drinking coffee. Frey has a cup of tea, sweet and milky. The curve of his fingers around his mug, the small murmurs in the back of his throat as he drinks it, tell me I ve made it exactly to his liking, and I feel warm. Warmth inside me, from my simple accomplishment. Warmth against my neck from sunlight through glass. Warmth at my feet because Floss, lazy and content, has come to lie there, the shredded silk of her ears soft against my ankles.
It s a moment of unguarded happiness. A treasure I can revisit, like going to a museum to marvel at a way of life once lived. Something s tickling my thigh, rhythmic and regular.
My phone s ringing, I say in surprise.
We re allowed to take personal phone calls. Linnea understands we have lives to live in the other two weeks when we re not here with her brother. We could probably go further than either of us ever do. We could slack off on our duties and scroll through newsfeeds, buy things we want but don t need, find words or set cartoon characters free or smash fruits to pieces. But we never do. First: while we could easily evade the cameras we know about, we both have an unshakeable conviction that there are other cameras, in other places, there to keep us honest. (We ve never found these cameras, never even gone looking, but nonetheless we believe in them. You can t prove a negative, after all.)
The other reason is that we both genuinely love Frey.
I take out my phone, feel it shudder and jump against my palm. Mother , it says, six letters blazing a warning. I ve often considered deleting her number, maybe even blocking it, but I can never quite make myself do it. I need to know she can t sneak up on me. I need to pretend that if she calls, I might see her name and choose not to answer.
I have to take this, I say.
It s okay, Josh says. We re fine, aren t we, Frey?
I m sorry. What I am is on high alert, terrified but also resentful. She never calls me. We have nothing to say to each other. Our small scraps of contact come only through my brother Noah, who loves her in spite of everything.
Noah. It must be to do with Noah.
Don t be daft. Josh s smile belongs to the world I m in now and not the one I m about to enter. We re off duty in two hours anyway. Go for it.
I ll be quick, I say to Frey.
An outsider would look at Frey s face as he traces out the wood s grain with his fingertip and say, He s not listening, why bother? Josh and I have learned to read Frey s small signals - the hesitation of a fingertip, the minute pause in the slow rhythm of his breath, the twitch at the corner of his mouth. We know that he s absolutely listening, that it s always worth bothering. Frey lives in a world of his own making. To come into Frey s presence is to share that world with him, and he s aware of everything we do while we re in it.
Sorry, I say yet again, this time to Floss as I stand up, trying to spill her off my feet without disturbing her. She groans and stretches, claws clicking as she pads over to lean against Frey s leg. His hand creeps down to pet the dome of her head. We re all acutely attuned to Frey s emotional state, but Floss - being a dog, and unconcerned with human distractions - is by far the most skilled. She knows Frey s absorbing this small disruption to our evening, and would appreciate the small kindness of a warm, furry body.
People often resent Frey. Nice work if you can get it, I heard a man say to his wife once as we guided Frey around the supermarket. They never see the effort Frey makes to make sense of a world that isn t built for him. He s in a constant battle with his own body, with the relentless assault on his senses. He longs for connection, but also finds it overwhelming. Frey is one of the hardest-working people I know. His work s only invisible if you re not looking properly.
I m thinking about this, and about Floss s sweetness - a dog being kind to a distressed human as he tries to manage his own emotional temperature - as I go into the hall to take the call. I m delaying the moment when I have to hear what s waiting for me. It will involve Noah, somehow. He s the only person in my life who s both important enough, and disruptive enough, to have prodded my mother into calling. Perhaps he s in hospital again. But then, it ought to be Dad calling - he s Noah s primary carer and his next of kin.
Unless Noah s sneaked away from Dad and gone to see her. It s the sort of thing he might do, especially if he s managed to hide his tablets. Life with Noah is filled with wild elaborations, kinetic energy looking for an outlet. Stealing a car and driving for a few hours would be nothing to him.
I have to speak to my mother. I feel suddenly empty and terrified, despite my full belly. Maybe Noah s hurt Dad somehow (even in the depths of his mania, Noah is still basically a nice person who tries to do no harm, but there s always the possibility of a frantic fight back against restraint, a wild refusal to accept medication). Maybe that s why she s calling. Maybe it s Dad who s in trouble. And if it s Dad, then Noah s on his own
In the tiny fraction of silence before the words arrive, I think, At least it s happened right at shift change. But if it s bad, it might take longer than two weeks, I might have to take emergency leave. Damn it
Hello? I say. Are you there? My voice isn t quavering or tentative. I m firm and confident. I m braced and ready.
Could I speak to Callie Taggart, please?
Not my mother, but a stranger. Not a friend, not a neighbour; they d sound anxious, maybe a little triumphant. And besides, my mother wouldn t speak to her neighbours, has never had any friends. This woman is calm and professional, someone who s used to dealing with bad news and sharing it compassionately but without hesitation. It s a skill I learned myself. The first few times you have to give bad news, you feel as if you yourself might die of it. After that, it gets easier.
Something s happened to my mother, then.
Speaking, I say.
Ms Taggart, my name s PC Sarah Henderson. I m sorry to say I have some very bad news.
When they say very bad news - no qualifications or modifiers, no I m calling from the hospital but there s no need to panic , not even you need to prepare yourself for a bad outcome - it means death. She s going to tell me my mother is dead.
Death forces you to confront the truth about the way we love. Love is blind, we say to each other, love is infinite, I couldn t possibly love one of you more than the other. The truth is that Death is blind and Death is infinite and Death loves all of us equally. Love is the literal definition of having a favourite. In the moment before the police officer speaks, I find time to be grateful. Thank you, Death, I think, thank you for not coming for Noah or Dad. Thank you for choosing her instead. You can have our mother, that s fine. Thank you for leaving me Noah and Dad.
Tell me, I say. I m ready.
Then, in the background of the phone call, there s a low sobbing moan that tingles against the back of my neck, as if a dog is licking me there, a dog that s nothing like our lovely, gentle Floss but some sort of awful hellhound. A creature come to steal away something precious. My mother, despairing.
All right, then. All right. If you must, you can take Dad. But leave Noa