The Afterwards

  Also by A.F. HARROLD

  The Imaginary

  Illustrated by EMILY GRAVETT

  The Song From Somewhere Else

  Illustrated by LEVI PINFOLD

  FOR ISOBEL — WHO FOUND ME WANDERING BETWEEN PLACES

  A.F. HARROLD

  FOR ELIJAH

  EMILY GRAVETT

  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  A tidy man, with small, hideaway handwriting,

  He writes things down. He does not ask,

  ‘Was she good?’ Everyone receives this Certificate.

  You do not need even to deserve it.

  Douglas Dunn

  from ‘Arrangements’

  Elegies (Faber 1985)

  Hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild – as wild as wild could be – and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

  Rudyard Kipling

  from ‘The Cat That Walked By Himself’

  Just So Stories

  PROLOGUE

  An old woman returns to a town she once knew.

  It is a bright day. A summer’s day.

  From the train station she gets a taxi to an ordinary street. Stops outside a shop that was once a bakery. Gets out. Looks in the window at the absence of doughnuts.

  It takes time to walk from there to the mouth of the alley. Much longer than it used to take. But then, everything takes longer now. Walking, making tea, getting out of bed.

  The sound of children playing echoes in the blue sky from a field somewhere, or a playground.

  She unfolds a sheet of paper from her coat pocket.

  It had been forgotten for such a long time, but recently, after Mo died, and after talking to the doctor, it had risen to the top of her desk drawer. It had found its way to her hand.

  She steps forward, the paper cold in the warm sunlight.

  It is time, she thinks. It’s been long enough now.

  She walks by herself, into the alley.

  She is looking forward to seeing the cat one more time.

  She wants to say ‘Thank you’ at last.

  December ran up the stairs two at a time, tripping at the top and knocking a pile of paperbacks over as she caught herself.

  She spun on the landing, ignoring the books, and hurtled into her bedroom.

  Her hair was wet and dripping and she plunged her head into a towel that had been warming on the radiator.

  ‘Ah!’ she said

  Luxury.

  She’d been looking forward to this for ages, thinking about it the whole journey home.

  It had obviously been about to rain, but her dad had insisted they go for a walk in the woods anyway. It was what families did on a Sunday afternoon, and they were a family, after all.

  ‘It’s a beautiful day,’ he’d said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the bluebells are out. This is just the weekend for it.’

  The bluebells had been out, whole rippling beds of them underneath the trees, but so had the clouds and they’d got absolutely soaked.

  It had been a long walk back to the car without an umbrella.

  She hadn’t spoken to him on the way home.

  ‘Shoes!’ he shouted from downstairs.

  The front door banged shut.

  She sat on her bed and looked at her shoes.

  She’d scraped the worst of the mud off before they got in the car, of course, but they still weren’t exactly what you’d call clean. And they certainly weren’t dry by any stretch of the imagination.

  There were dark footprints leading across the carpet straight to her.

  Well, it was his fault, she reckoned, not feeling very guilty at all. If he’d had a warm, clean towel in the car, she wouldn’t have needed to hurry upstairs to dry her hair. So she wasn’t to blame. Not really.

  She bent down and tugged at the laces. They didn’t budge.

  ‘Knots!’ she shouted.

  ‘Ember,’ her dad said from the doorway. ‘There’s no need to shout. I’m right here.’

  He was holding the books in his hand. He set them down on the corner of the chest of drawers.

  He smiled at her.

  ‘Look at this carpet,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You don’t half take after your mum. Just like her.’

  He knelt down and lifted one of her feet.

  ‘Knots, you say?’

  December nodded.

  His fingers prised at the laces for a few seconds, and then he said, ‘There you go.’

  She wriggled out of the shoe and lifted the other one for him to untie too.

  ‘What do you say?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s for tea, Harry?’ she replied, deadpan.

  He stood up and poked her on the nose.

  ‘Bangers and mash,’ he said.

  She watched as he picked his books up, the wet shoes dangling by their laces from the same hand, and went out on to the landing, pulling her door to behind him.

  The ‘What’s for tea?’ business was an old routine and they both liked it. It was easier than saying ‘Thank you’ and meant more or less the same thing. You just had to remember not to do it when you were stood in front of the headmaster’s desk.

  His name was Harry (and that was what she’d always called him, ever since she was little) and it was hard to stay mad at him for long. It was something about his smile, the width of it, the easiness of it, the quickness of it, the warmth of it. It was like a big, wobbly hot-water bottle looking at you.

  December had known him ever since she was a baby – he was her dad, after all – and for as long as she could remember it had just been him and her. Her mum had gone away and they’d been left on their own, her and Harry, Harry and her.

  And it was all right.

  That’s what she thought. She knew it was all right because of that smile of his.

  Her best friend from school, Happiness, had a dad and a mum, and they were always shouting at one another, even when December went and stayed over. She’d snuggle in her sleeping bag on Happiness’s floor and listen to the noise downstairs. It was a strange way to go to sleep.

  Harry never shouted at her mum. Her mum never shouted at Harry. Harry never had a bad word to say about her mum. He didn’t say much about her, but when he did he smiled and looked at December and shook his head in a way that smelt of love.

  She knew she was lucky. She felt lucky.

  Having a dead mum meant even the teachers at school tried to be extra nice to her, even that time when she’d tripped up Emerald Jones in the playground accidentally-on-purpose and her tooth had come out. She got what they called ‘the benefit of the doubt’.

  All in all, life being December wasn’t so bad.

  ‘Deck! Deck!’

  Happiness was shouting in the front garden.

  December opened the door, feeling slightly embarrassed as usual.

  Wh
y Happiness couldn’t ring the doorbell like a normal person she wasn’t sure, but it had ever been thus.

  They’d lived next door to one another for nearly three years and for most of that time they’d been best friends. Ness had thrown a football at a dog that had been chasing December a few weeks after she and Harry had moved in, and that was how they’d met.

  Now they were in the same class at school and sat at the same table. Their hands usually went up to answer questions at the same time. Sometimes they shared answers to tests if Miss Short was looking the other way.

  They swapped their packed lunches round because sometimes you needed a break from the same sandwiches and they always snapped their chocolate biscuits in two.

  This Monday was the first day back after the Easter holidays and Ness had been away visiting her grandparents for the last week, so there was lots to talk about. She was excited and bouncing on her toes as they walked down the three streets that led to school.

  It was all ‘Then Grandpa let out this most enormous –’ and ‘The dog fainted, and then Gran –’ and ‘Mum was so embarrassed when he said –’ and the like.

  December dragged her heels and laughed at her friend. She could’ve listened to this sort of thing forever, but soon they passed through the school gates and the bell went and the register was taken and gossip had to be put to one side for a time.

  In class they learnt about the Vikings. Then they climbed ropes in the gym.

  They played football at lunch and December swapped her ham sandwich for Happiness’s ham roll.

  In the afternoon a light rain speckled the classroom windows, but it stopped by home time. There were hardly even any puddles to splash in on the way home. And so they walked together, dry-footed, skipping and swapping stories.

  Yet again it hadn’t been a bad day at all.

  They parted on the pavement outside their houses.

  ‘You wanna come to the park?’ Happiness asked.

  ‘Can’t,’ said December. ‘Going out with Dad and Penny later. Gonna have to wrap a box of chocolates first, and have a wash.’

  ‘Well, see ya tomorrow then.’

  ‘Yeah, see ya.’

  Penny was Harry’s girlfriend. (Although ‘girlfriend’ was hardly the right word, since she was over thirty, but no one seemed to notice that.)

  She was nice. Didn’t try to be December’s mum. Didn’t try to be her bestest best friend. She was just cool. Friendly enough, nice enough, kind enough.

  Tonight they were going out for a meal since it was the one-year anniversary of December walking in on them kissing in the kitchen and finding out her dad had a girlfriend. If that wasn’t worth going out for a meal with starters and afters she didn’t know what was.

  That night December had a strange dream.

  It was last summer and she and Harry and Happiness had gone out for the day.

  This had actually happened. The dream was just a repeat, as far as she could tell.

  They were driving through the safari park when all of a sudden there was a bang and the car had slumped and there was this weird scraping noise and Harry had said a word that had made December say, ‘Harry, I’m shocked,’ in a way that had made him laugh.

  They had a flat tyre.

  ‘Must’ve driven over something sharp,’ he said. ‘A stone or something.’

  ‘Shall we get out and have a look?’ December said, her hand already on the door handle.

  ‘No, Deck,’ said Happiness quickly. ‘I don’t think that’d be a great idea.’

  She was pointing out the window at the lions who were lazing in the shade beneath the tree.

  ‘Spoilsport,’ said December.

  ‘Actually,’ said Harry, ‘I think Happiness makes a very good point and you should listen to her wise words.’

  Ness stuck her tongue out at her friend and said, ‘See? Wise words!’

  ‘So what we gonna do?’

  Harry fiddled with the gear stick and tried driving forward but the noise was horrible.

  ‘I’ll ruin the wheel if I keep on,’ he said.

  The car behind them honked its horn. Twice. Then it pulled out and drove round them.

  Harry put the hazard lights on and said, ‘We just have to wait.’

  ‘Let sleeping lions lie,’ Happiness said, keeping an eye on the lions lying in the shade.

  One of them was looking up, a rather scruffy-looking one with a shaggy old tatty mane, but the sunshine was bright and hot and the big cat didn’t look like it was about to move.

  Ember didn’t like the way the cat looked at her though, as if it knew more than she did.

  After ten minutes a truck from the safari park came and towed them out of the lions’ enclosure and soon the car was in the car park and they were in the café and Harry was talking to the emergency repair people on the phone.

  The girls played hide-and-seek among the plastic animals, tables, vending machines and visitors that filled the noisy hall, while stuffing hot dogs in their faces.

  December hid behind a fat lady and moved when she moved and got almost all the way to the door before Happiness pointed at her and shouted, ‘Found you!’

  ‘You should’ve seen her face,’ Ness laughed when they were back in the car later on. ‘She thought I was pointing at her, but I wasn’t, and she got all huffy and stuck her nose in the air and her chins wobbled and she waddled off, leaving you just stood there.’

  ‘It was a good hiding place though,’ December said. ‘You’ve got to admit, yeah?’

  ‘Better than behind a skinny bloke,’ Ness laughed.

  December laughed too and then she tried to explain to Harry as he opened the door and climbed into the driving seat, but the words didn’t come out right and he didn’t get it, but he smiled in the mirror and said, ‘Very good, girls. Seat belts on. Chop, chop.’

  And they drove home.

  ‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with “Q”,’ Ness said.

  ‘Um. Koala?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about quince?’

  ‘What’s quince?’

  ‘It’s a sort of fruit, I think,’ said December.

  ‘Nope,’ said Ness.

  There was silence for a while and the girls both looked out of the windows at the motorway whizzing past. Green verges and green fields, sheep and trees, and the stretching blue, cloudless and endless above. The windows were open and the air was cool and fierce on their faces, and as they passed other cars they stared at the people who refused to look back at them, and they laughed.

  ‘Qualllm?’ December said eventually.

  ‘What’s qualllm?’ asked Ness.

  Yes, what is qualllm? thought December,

  and then she realised she was

  yawning and the car seat

  was so soft and warm and,

  almost mumbling,

  she listened to herself say,

  ‘It’s that bit when you’re just falling asleep

  or just waking up

  and you’re all peaceful and dozy and you’re lying there and you don’t really remember what’s real

  and what’s not,

  but it’s all quite lovely.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ness, yawning wide, ‘maybe that’s it.

  Falling asleep.

  Waking up.

  Maybe that’s it.

  Maybe that’s what it is.’

  The next morning all was silent outside the house.

  Silent apart from the occasional car passing by and Mr Dibnah’s dog, who had a daily walk before breakfast – a walk which neither Mr Dibnah nor the dog enjoyed.

  When it was time to go to school, December went and knocked on Ness’s door.

  There was no reply.

  This was odd.

  ‘Maybe she’s already gone,’ Harry said.

  ‘But without me?’

  He just grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘You’ll be all right walking on your own, yeah?’


  ‘Of course,’ she said, pulling her bag up on to her shoulder and setting off.

  ‘Remember to wash behind your ears,’ her dad called, which was his way of saying ‘Love you’ and ‘Goodbye for now’ all in one.

  December walked quickly.

  When she got to school, Ness wasn’t there either.

  Not in the playground, not in the classroom.

  They all marched through into the hall for a special assembly.

  They didn’t normally have assembly on a Tuesday.

  ‘What’s going on?’ December asked Toby, who was in front of her as they walked down the corridor.

  ‘Dunno,’ he said, picking his nose. ‘Prob’ly a vis’ter or somefink. Maybe we’re gettin’ prizes or somefink.’

  December looked around as they walked and wondered what sort of prizes the prizes might be.

  When they were all sat down in the hall, legs crossed neatly and eyes facing forward, Mr Dedman, the head, wheeled himself out in front of the crowd.

  He coughed.

  He looked at them.

  He looked at a sheet of paper in his lap.

  He coughed again.

  It was as if he didn’t quite know what he was doing, which wasn’t like him at all. He must’ve taken hundreds of assemblies in his time. You could tell because his moustache had turned grey.

  Despite his name he was usually friendly and made bad jokes.

  Today he made no jokes.

  ‘Um, children,’ he said, without saying ‘Good morning’ first. (A few little voices near the front tried echoing back the usual ‘Good morning, everybody’ but they stumbled to silence halfway through.) ‘Children, as some of you may have already heard, um, I’ve got some bad news to tell you. Last night … yesterday, after school, one of our friends, one of the brightest and liveliest girls in this school, had a … an accident. She fell off a swing in the park and hit her head. It was nobody’s fault, just an accident and a very sad one. The ambulance came and took her to hospital, of course, but I’m sorry, um, to say she didn’t wake up again, and in the early hours of this morning she … er, she passed away.’