This was not quick. This seemed to have no end. Ellie kept bringing the brick down and down and down. The brown eyes Maeve had once so admired were gone. So were his cheekbones, his chin. His teeth. No one would ever see his face again because there was no face to see.
A red puddle formed around what remained of his head, mixing with the mud. Ellie stood over him, the blood and bone-spattered brick in her hand, fresh stains on her skin and clothes. A pause hung over them all, a vacuum created now that Oliver—this force that even in his absence had dominated much of their lives—had been eradicated for good. Maeve looked at his hand, which twitched as the nerves received their final signals from a brain that no longer existed. How long they all stood there, each adjusting to the vacuum in her own way, she would never know, but when she made eye contact with Ellie, the moment ended like the crash of a wave against the shore. Lorna took Maeve’s hand.
“Run.”
Pp. 98–120
not to get sidetracked, but all this took me years, you know. Years of tracking down their old diaries, old witnesses, old friends. Squeezing the truth out in droplets from the five themselves. And I’ve put it together as best I could. I admit some details may be wrong, but the key facts, the important facts, can all be verified. If anyone would care to bother.
So let’s talk about that. Fucking. Party.
It should have been no different from any other party in the house’s history. Remembrances of raucous nights were so ingrained in the muscle memory of 215 Caldwell Street’s nicotine-stained walls that a pulsating heavy bass beat could sometimes be felt on quiet Sunday mornings. The house fed on empty glass bottles stashed in the mouth of its disconnected gas fireplace. It breathed clouds of cigarette and weed smoke. And, like the monster it was, it gorged on the numerous sweating bodies that lingered inside. Brief moments of tranquility could be found in the clear air of the back garden, but those who escaped would eventually return inside, driven by the need for another drink, another toke, another kiss.
It’s easy to picture that night—the most beautiful night of 1995. Earlier in the evening, every pub with garden seating had been packed to capacity, the chatter and laughter of hardworking folk, students and regulars, mingling in the air like prayers to heaven. But after 11:30, the last straggler headed home or to a club while tired bar staff cleared sticky glasses from the picnic tables, able to enjoy the night’s tranquility for the first time since they came on shift. If anyone was out in the garden of the Byeways pub, and it’s likely there was, they would’ve heard the music drifting up from Caldwell Street, the bass thumping away even at that distance.
The sounds within the house were exponentially greater. A mate of Oliver’s acted as DJ and kept the music flowing through a series of boom boxes hooked up to speakers the size of mini-fridges.
Maeve tripped over the cords as she maneuvered from room to room, looking for some place or some group where she could fit in. She’d been left wandering ever since Lorna declared her night done and disappeared to her bedroom. Maeve muttered half-heard “pardon me’s” as she walked through the crowd, the cheap white wine in her tumbler sloshing over her hand as she forced her way through the bodies that filled the kitchen. She glanced at the picked-over pizza boxes, but only a few gnawed pieces of crust remained. After an elbow to her breast, she stumbled into the back garden, where the music was muffled and the smoke less dense. She hadn’t realized how dry her eyes had become until they watered in the fresh air. She pictured her mascara running down her cheeks; not wanting anyone to mistake her watery eyes for tears, she made her way through the high grass to the old chair by the fence. The green plastic bent under her weight, the legs sinking into the soft ground of the marshy corner. She tried to lean back but the chair tipped, so she settled for leaning forward, her glass cupped in both hands as the skirt of her sweat-stained yellow dress rode up her thighs.
From her position, she could watch the party unfold through the windows of the house. People she didn’t recognize talked, smoked, and kissed. Backlit by the house lights, they looked like profiles in silhouette. A shatter of glass and burst of laughter made her wince.
“So much for your rules.”
Maeve fell back. Her shoulder scraped the rough wood of the garden fence, but she managed to stay upright and save her drink.
“Jesus, Callum. Who said you could sneak up on people like that?”
“Sorry.” He sat on the ground beside her. It must’ve been damp, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“I thought you were upstairs.”
“I was, but it’s hard to think straight in there.”
Maeve pretended not to know what he meant and sipped her warm wine, telling herself she didn’t mind the taste.
“I thought Ellie got you some of those strawberry things you like?”
She shrugged. “I had one. Other people took the rest.”
A new song came on, and those within the house cheered.
“Not what you expected, is it?” he asked.
She watched the people enjoying themselves so effortlessly. So unselfconsciously.
“It is,” she said. “It really is.”
Many seconds passed. In the course of an average moment on an average day, those seconds would’ve felt like the life of a fly, there and gone with hardly a passing thought. But this was not an average moment on an average day. Each second grew heavier than the last, weighing on each of them in different ways until even breathing became too painful.
“Maeve.” His voice cracked the silence. She kept her eyes on the windows, pretending she was in there and not out here.
“Maeve, I wanted to talk to you about something. Something that’s been on my mind. That’s been bothering me for a while.”
Oliver stepped in front of the window. Inside the house, Maeve had sweated terribly. Despite the amount of deodorant she’d sprayed on, her makeup ran and her armpits stank. But Oliver looked immune to the heat and smoke. His face glowed. Every time he smiled, Maeve hated herself.
“Maeve? Are you listening?”
She’d forgotten about Callum there on the ground, sinking in the mud. “I’m sorry.”
“Right, but what I was saying was—”
“No, I mean I’m sorry if you ever thought I was flirting with you or if you thought I was leading you on.” She fixed the strap of her bra. “You’re a nice guy and all, and a really good friend, but I don’t like you that way. I never have, and I don’t think I ever could.”
She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. She wasn’t sure if she could ever look at him again. But she heard him stand up. Heard him brush off his jeans. Heard him say, “This had nothing to do with you, actually? But fine. Whatever. It’s fine.”
She stared at the ground as he left. Listened as his feet stamped across the garden. When she could raise her head, the house had already absorbed him, the anonymous throng of bodies making him one of their own. Oliver’s face, though, remained at the window, clear and bold. Brazen, as Lorna might say. He chatted up a girl while Maeve downed the rest of her warm wine and wondered how she might extract another bottle from within the house’s depths.
In a comfortable corner of the downstairs spare room, cluttered with the useless junk left by previous tenants, Hollis was having no such problems while he chatted with a few of the lads from the nearby technical college.