By Stu Hennigan.
You’ll never forget the day Hayley died.
A bright September sky, the early autumn sun turning your bare shoulders salmon pink as you watered your old man’s front lawn in the drowsy heat of a lazy Sunday morning, the spray from the yellow hose throwing rainbows all around you, icy drops misting on your face and spattering all over your chest. You were twenty-one, fresh out of uni with your whole life to look forward to, or so everyone said, but you had no idea what that meant. You were yet to find a job and not much interested in looking, although money was thin on the ground and you knew you were going to have to bite the bullet and start applying for things sooner rather than later. It wasn’t a day for thinking about that though.
Your mam and dad were out, looking for Hayley like everyone else. She’d been gone for a week, and people were starting to worry. It had happened a couple of times before like this when she was younger, when she’d disappear without warning, but it had only ever been for a day or two — three at the most — before she’d turn up again, calling her dad from some payphone or another, hungover and helpless or high as a kite with no idea where she was, or where she’d been, what she’d been doing or who she’d been with. Then they’d pick her up and take her home to sit in bed mute as a stone while they tried to feed her soup and sweet tea and told her how much they’d worried, how they wished she’d stop this silliness and start trying to settle down, she was a grown woman, what did she think she was doing acting out and running away like a teenager?
Everyone knew it was serious this time, although no one was brave enough to say as much. You’d heard your mam and dad on the phone to your uncle Terry in the first few days, don’t worry, she’ll be back soon enough, it’s just a matter of time. She always turns up in the end. You know what she’s like. The same reassurances they gave to your grandma, Aunty Jean — Hayley’s mam — and everyone else who’d listen. They were trying to convince themselves as much as everybody else, but by now it was wearing thin. You’d almost finished with the lawn when the phone rang.
When you were a kid she was your idol. She was four or five years older than you and she spent a lot of time round yours when her mam and dad split up. She loved Uncle Tez but he was too pissed to live with then, and she hated her mam’s new fella with a passion so when he moved in she pretty much moved out, kipping at her mates’ houses when she could, and dossing down in the spare room at your mam’s whenever she felt like she needed a proper bed and a bit of peace, or she’d run out of sofas to crash on. She was more like a big sister than a cousin, and you loved her more than anyone in the world.
She was probably about fourteen when Tez and Jean split up for good, so you’ll have been about nine. She was already chaotic, prone to mood swings that would veer from euphoria to abjection, sometimes in the space of a single day or even a few hours, but no one ever knew why, and they never bothered to ask.
She’s a bit flighty, that one, is all your mam would ever say. Bad with her nerves.
Bloody moody is what I call it. This was your old man’s carefully considered assessment. I love her to bits though, so what can you do? I just wish she could settle down a bit. She’s nearly bloody thirty for Christ’s sake.
She could be so much fun when she was up. She’d take you to the playground and you’d kick a football around for hours, climb trees together or have races on the swings to see who could go the highest. She always won, of course, and you’d watch in amazement as she soared almost parallel to the ground and leapt off right at the apex, flying through the air like Supergirl. Sometimes she’d land on her feet, spinning around to face you with a huge smile and a wobbly curtsey, tugging up the hem of her dress like a ballerina taking a curtain call. Other times she’d land with a thud in a tangle of limbs, but no matter how many grazes, bumps and bruises she picked up, she never betrayed any sign that she was hurt, and before you knew it she’d be back on the swing challenging you to race again. She was fearless, bulletproof, indestructible, and you were awestruck by her powers.
One evening after tea when you were about ten, you’d gone off on your bike to the playground on your own. It was a couple of streets away from home, only a quick ride. It wasn’t much of thing — an expanse of half-dead, dogshit covered grass that separated the two sides of the estate, the one you lived on and the side you were always warned to stay away from, although you never knew why because your old man was born and raised there and your grandparents still lived on the far side of it. There was a wooden climbing frame, green with mould and moss, a couple of creaky swings, chains rusted to a day-glo orange, and a concrete tunnel under a hillock of grass that you used to love to crawl through until one day when you were there with your mam you dragged yourself out, damp and dirty from the stagnant water collected in the bottom, waving the treasure you’d just collected.
Mam, mam, I’ve found a little sword?
Oh my god Sean, put that down!
But —
Now!
You dropped the syringe and watched as your mam gingerly picked it up, wrapped it in the tissues she always kept tucked under her bra strap and dropped it into the top of a litter bin. You were never allowed in the tunnel again, and the council blocked up the ends not long after.
It was a nice evening, but you were bored, circling round aimlessly on your bike, wondering if any of your friends would turn up. You were at that age where your childhood games had started to seem a little lame and whenever you met up it was kinda awkward, that fear that anything anyone suggested playing was totally uncool so you usually ended up doing nothing, but at least if you were bored you could be bored together. After a time a couple of kids jumped over the wall at the far end of the playground and started walking towards you. You didn’t recognise them but you could tell from their Reebok hoodies, Nike trainers and gelled hair which bit of the estate they were from. When they got closer, you saw one of them was carrying a football.
Can I play? You asked when they got within range.
Play what?
Football.
We’re not playing football.
What’s that then?
This? The lad with the ball peered theatrically at it. Nothing. Can I have a ride on your bike?
You knew now then that something was up. There was a cast in his eyes, a hint of a sneer, an edge to the voice that told you he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Me mam says not to let anyone else on it.
Well, your mam’s not here, is she? So give him the fucking bike. This was the other one speaking.
Instantly the mood changed, and they advanced couple of steps, crowding you. They looked to be a couple of years older, high school kids, and you were scared now but trying not to show it. You moved to back away but you were still straddling the bike so your feet got tangled and you stumbled.
You can’t have it, you told him. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I’m going now, actually. Bye.
As you started to turn around the first lad dropped the ball and caught hold of your shirt, bunched it in his fist and pulled you towards him, his nose millimetres from yours. If you don’t give me the bike, he hissed, fags and baked beans on his breath, I’m going to take it anyway and I’ll fucking bray you shitless for keeping me waiting, right?
Before you got the time to answer he let go of your shirt and shoved you with his other hand, hard. You reeled but stayed on your feet, and your blood was up now; you weren’t much good at fighting, but you’d grown up knowing only soft lads didn’t stick up for themselves and you never backed away if it came down to it, even if it meant getting leathered.
Fuck off, you told him to buy a bit of time, heart pounding as you planned your next move. You know you were in trouble as there was no way you could take two older lads on your own; you just had to tough it out and hope you didn’t get too badly hurt.
You hear that? The lad looked at his mate. This little bender just told me to fuck off. Do you know what we do to dickheads who tell us to fuck off? He shoved you in the chest again and at that point you lost it. Fear and panic took — fight or flight. You drew back your left hand and swung it at him as hard as you could. He wasn’t expecting it and you caught him on the side of the head, but it was a glancing blow and he barely flinched before knocking you over with a punch so fast you didn’t even see it. There was a dull, fleshy slap as his balled fist slammed into your cheek and you found yourself on the floor staring up at the pair of them through a mist of tears, your bike clanging sideways onto its pedal next to you, the back wheel spinning slowly in the evening sun.
Looks like you’re in for it now, twat. He kicked the top of your thigh, hard, with the toe end of his trainer.
We’re gonna make you wish you’d never been born.
You’d started to curl up into a ball, covering your face with your hands, when there came the sound of heavy footsteps pounding up the path that ran through the middle of the park. Even though your vision was blurred you could see it was Hayley steaming towards the lads as fast as she could, her school skirt flipping up and down as she ran. She crossed the playground in the blink of an eye, and without even breaking stride she kicked the lad who’d hit you so hard in the nuts with her cherry red Doc Marten that both his feet came off the ground before he crumpled to the turf, gasping for breath and making a disgusting retching noise like he was drowning or choking to death. The other lad looked on in silence, mouth agape, until Hayley caught his eye and feinted towards him, then he turned and ran like fuck, leaving his mate there bawling his eyes out on the grass.
If I catch you anywhere near my cousin again I won’t be kicking you in the bollocks, I’ll be ripping them off and wearing them as ear-rings, right? She looked down at him with utter disdain and booted the ball into his face with such venom that the sound of it made you flinch. The kid said nothing, just lay there whimpering with one hand cupping his groin, the other groping feebly at the mess of snot, tears and blood that swam all over his face. Even at that age you could see that his nose was broken.
She helped you to your feet. Come on, kiddo, she said, her voice calmer now. Let’s get you home.
You were still sniffing, wiping your nose on your sleeve and expecting to see blood, feeling a slight tinge of disappointment when all that was left was a slug trail of snot without even a hint of red.
You alright? She asked as she picked up your bike and held it upright for you to take.
You nodded as bravely as you could. You were shaking, partly from the shock of being punched, and partly with excitement at what you’d just seen. There were fights all the time at school but it was primary playground stuff — blood was rare, and you’d never seen anyone go down as quickly as that kid did when Hayley’s DM connected. You wished you could have done that.
She produced a fag from somewhere and sparked it. Most of your family smoked and you’d always hated the smell, but you’d never seen Hayley do it before and she looked so cool as she exhaled a plume from the corner of her mouth that you decided on the spot to start yourself as soon as you could.
Don’t worry about him. She cast a scornful look back at the kid, who still hadn’t moved. I know his brother — David Nelson. He’s in the year above me at school and he’s another right, proper wanker. We were lining up once to go into a class and I felt this thing on the back of my leg, and when I turned round it was him, trying to put his hand up my skirt. He wound up bleeding on his arse an all. Fucking knobhead.
It was the first time you’d heard her speak like that and something changed in you that day. As you ambled home in the lengthening shadows, you felt as if you’d been shown a glimpse of another world, a secret place that had been hidden up until now; even though you were mortified that she’d seen you cry, you’d put a brave face on it, and all of a sudden you felt very grown-up, as if she was inviting you leave your childhood behind and rise into the world of the cool kids, with their fags and fights and kicks in the nuts; you wanted to marry her that night, and it remained your favourite memory of her.
When she was down she’d fester in the spare room for days with the lights turned off and her rock music playing low, but she’d always have time for you, even when she wouldn’t speak to anyone else.
Come and sit on the bed with me, kiddo, tell me what’s happened at school today, she’d say, and you’d sit and talk about your day, or show her the picture you’d just drawn, or see if she could figure out how to make your new Transformer turn from a truck into a robot. Later, when you’d grown up and had problems of your own, you realised how bad she must have felt, how lonely she must have been, and how hard it must have been to have to deal with a buoyant little lad and his boundless enthusiasm for life, but she never let on and in your memories that made you love her even more.
When you answered the phone it was your grandad on the other end. He was your gran’s second husband, your mam’s step-dad, who she’d married a few years after your real grandad had died of liver failure — the inevitable fate of one who spent his life working behind bars at every pub in town and could never say no to a drink.
Sean, love, it’s grandad. Is your mam there? There was nothing in his voice to indicate anything was amiss.
Hiya grandad. She’s not in. Her and me dad have gone down to see Uncle Tez. They’ve all gone out looking for Hayley again.
That’s what I’m calling about, love. They’ve found her.
Where —
I’m sorry love, but someone found her in the woods. She’s cut her wrists, love.
The words were like a lead cosh to the head. Your legs buckled and you sat down on the stairs, staring at the phone cord and shaking so hard your teeth rattled.
Is she —
She is, love. Sean, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go see to your gran, she’s in bits. Look after your mam. Tell her to give me a ring. I’ll talk to you later. And look after yourself love, right?
You hung up without replying and went back outside, lit a Marlboro Light and picked up the hose. You must have been in shock because you don’t remember feeling anything, just an icy kind of numbness as if your whole body was about to petrify. You caned the fag without touching it, squeezing the hose with both hands in a rigor mortis grip, until you realised you were smoking the filter and opened your mouth just enough for the charred and smouldering end to drop into the flowerbed, an ugly corky blot amidst the yellow and purple of your dad’s pansies.
Morning, Mr Molloy. A voice from over the road.
It took an eternity to lift your head and turn around. Waving across the street you could see Mr Jones, one of your old teachers, out for a walk with his fat Dalmatian. In high school, the teachers never called you by your first name, and he’d never got out of the habit. Back then you were sworn enemies, him putting you in detention every time he caught you smoking on the way home, which was often, and generally getting on your case about all sorts of minor infractions, like the petty, pedantic bastard he was. His maths lessons were dull as fuck and you never paid attention, acting out and doing everything you could to make his life as miserable as he made yours. One day he lost his rag trying to get your attention, threw a blackboard rubber that bounced off the desk in front of you and hit you lamely in the chest. The rest of the class thought it was hilarious, but that was nothing compared to the uproar when quick as a flash you picked it up, launched it straight back and bullseyed him right in the middle of his stupid, bald, sanctimonious head. You got a month of detentions, but it was worth it. For a few years you hated the cunt, and would have happily seen him under the wheels of a bus.
He lived around the corner so you ran into him a lot whenever you were back from uni, and you’d long-since made your peace, chatting about your schooldays like a couple of old soldiers swapping war stories. His presence that day was a distraction, and you were strangely pleased to see him.
Hey, Mr J. How’s it going? You were amazed by the sound of your own voice, so natural on a day that had nothing natural about it.
I’m alright. I’ve been off sick with stress though. I’m hoping to retire soon with a bit of luck.
What have you got to be stressed about? I left school years ago.
He laughed. You might not believe it but some of the little buggers they send us these days make you look like a perfect pupil. Still smoking, I see?
You were surprised to find another fag in your mouth; you had no recollection of getting it out of the pack, or of lighting it.
Looks a bit that way.
Bad habit, that. Stunts your growth. It was an old line and he waited for you to laugh, but you didn’t.
I best get on, anyway. Dog wants feeding. You might wanna point that hose somewhere else though. You’re watering your feet.
And with that he was gone, leaving you gawping at the puddle of water spreading around your tatty Converse.
Just then the car pulled up and your mam and dad got out.
Alright? Your dad nodded. Ta for doing that. Looks like you cut the grass an all.
Where’ve you been?
We’ve just come from your Uncle Terry’s.
Are you alright?
Yeah, sound. Your mam’s gonna make a brew, you having one?
Aye, go on then, you said, then you felt sick to your stomach and the shakes came back, big time, as the realisation dawned. They didn’t know.
Dad, you called after him as he walked up the front steps after your mam. Dad, grandad just phoned. I think you’d better ring him.
Alright love, I’ll tell your mam.
Two minutes later there was a piercing scream and you rushed inside to find your mam laid on the floor, hysterical, your old man standing over her trying to pour a glass of brandy down her throat. Come on love, get this down you, he was saying over and over again, his trembling hands slopping the liquor over the edges of the glass and onto the floor. He looked up as you came in. He was a big man, six foot three in his socks and built like a heavyweight boxer, blunt and impassive in his gruff Yorkshire ways. You’d never seen him cry, ever, but there were tears in his eyes that day, although you could see he was determined not to give in to them and not a single one managed to escape onto his face.
Hayley, he choked it out. Hayley.
Fuck, dad, I thought you knew.
He shook his head, rubbing your mam’s shoulders and trying to get her to sit up while you just stood there like a little kid, helpless. Your mam was making these fucking awful noises, kind of crying, kind of moaning, but mostly sounding like a pig in a slaughterhouse that’s just smelled blood and realised the game is up.
Brandy, your old man looked up again. Brandy. Now.
You found it in the kitchen, had a long belt off the bottle and filled a coffee mug to the brim, took it back into the hall and watched him toss it down without a thought.
More. He held out the mug to be refilled and drained it again, then his shoulders slumped slightly and his eyes sunk back a little into his skull, the tears drying up and a dull glaze taking over as his shivering subsided.
Right, come on. Let’s get yer mam up the stairs to bed. Have a bit of that brandy if you want but don’t you fucking dare be getting pissed, lad. I need your help today.
***
In the days after it was like a bomb had gone off; total shell-shock. At home you tiptoed round each other, exchanging pleasantries and platitudes and not much else, all three of you trying to keep out of the way.
Alright?
Yeah. You?
Fine. How’s me mam?
Same.
Right.
A house filled with tears and tissues, endless cups of tea for the wreck of your mam, scores of sympathetic but horribly awkward phone calls from family friends who meant well but had absolutely nothing to say. You stayed in your room as much as you could, blank and deathly calm, refusing food and coming out only to smoke on the back steps, hundreds of butts littering the floor where the pathway at the bottom met the lawn. Usually the old fella went mad if he found a single stray tab in the garden, but now he was smoking too, years after quitting, chucking them down there without a thought.
There was a post-mortem, but you couldn’t see the point in that. She’d been found by a dog-walker in some thick undergrowth right in the heart of the woods that bordered the top end of town before being amputated by the road that led up the Dale. The carving knife she’d used to slash her left wrist was so sharp her hand was hanging half off; the wound was so severe she’d not been able to swap hands, leaving her right wrist intact. When the verdict arrived it was death by suicide, a masterclass in stating the fucking obvious. There were no traces of drugs or alcohol in her system; she’d cut her wrist and bled to death, and that was the end of it. No one ever knew why.
The numbness you’d felt on hearing the news never went away. There were no tears, not then, not ever. You’d been raised not to cry, and the habit of a lifetime was impossible to break. You just sat and sat and sat in stupefied silence for what felt like the longest weeks of your life, nicking your dads booze whenever you could and smoking like it was the fags themselves that were keeping you alive. There was nothing else to do.
The time came for the body to be laid out in the chapel of rest and everyone said you should go. She’ll just look like she’s asleep, they said, you can remember her like that, but you shook your head. Why would you want to remember her in a coffin, a waxen face, a shell where life no longer lived, knowing that beneath the clothes her body had been cut up and stitched back together again like a gutted carcass in a butcher’s shop? Fuck that.
You didn’t go to the funeral either. Later you tried to justify it to yourself a hundred different ways. You’d grown apart in the last few years; she’d moved out of town and back again more times than you could count, and with you at uni you barely saw each other any more. As a teenager you withdrew from everyone, even her, mumbling in mortified embarrassment when she came into your room to talk to you.
I know you’re having a hard time, kiddo, believe me. I know all about it.
Part of you loved that she was paying you attention but you’ve never known how to respond to kindness or talk about how you feel, so you’d shrug your shoulders, lay there on your bed with your fringe hiding your eyes, and mumble into your chest that you were fine; she’d never push it. If you say so, she’d say. But you can talk to me any time, right?
In your head you were strangers. The person that had died wasn’t Hayley at all. She was someone who looked like her, a poor, fucked up woman to be sure, and it was tragic how she’d ended up, but she wasn’t Hayley and if she was you didn’t know her. Your Hayley would be fifteen forever, the girl with the ripped fishnets, dyed black hair and Misfits t-shirts who snuck you sweets even when your mam said you couldn’t have them, the girl who kicked that bully in the balls and smashed fuck out of his face out of sheer love for you; the big sister you never had.
The girl who held up the fucking moon.
Everyone else could weep in the chapel at the crem and watch the casket as it slid through the velvet curtains into the flames that would reduce her to ash, but not you. Your Hayley was still there in the sunlit playgrounds of your childhood memories, so there was no need to say goodbye, and never would be.
Deep down you knew the real reason you didn’t go, but it was so shameful you’d never admit it to anyone. You were scared to go because if you went, you’d cry, and you couldn’t have that. At twenty one you couldn’t remember the last time you cried, probably not since the first year in high school when Michael Dawson from a couple of years above you nicked your lunch money and shoved your face into a blocked, overflowing bog for good measure. You’re still mortified to think you let the mask slip even then, beefing in front of a circle of giggling teenagers who pointed and laughed and called you pissface and shithead as if it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen while you stood there retching, dripping mucky toilet water all over the floor. You’d held it all in for so long that you were an icicle inside, disgusted by the thought of feelings and proud of your mastery of them. There was no way you could let all that out in public, not even for Hayley. The sight of other people crying made you feel sick; even in the face of such a loss the idea of anyone seeing you do it was one of the worst things you could imagine, and so, you chickened out.
When you told your mam that you weren’t going to go she was silent for a minute, then just asked, are you sure? One day you might regret it. But you said yes, you were sure, and not another word was spoken on the subject. On that drab October morning you watched your parents take a taxi to your grandma’s house to be collected by the cortege, dismissing your mam with a silent shake of the head when she asked if you wouldn’t change your minds about going.
I hope it goes okay, you managed to say as she hugged you, your throat so tight you could barely get the words out.
You waved them off, then went into the woods with four bottles of wine to somewhere near where you thought she’d been found. There were flowers scattered around, a couple of stuffed toys already ragged with cold and autumn rain, a few cards with little notes scribbled on, but you didn’t read them. You couldn’t. You just sat on a rock and drank until your skin could hold no more and you puked it all out, harsh like acid, dark red like old blood; then you opened another bottle. And that’s how you killed the day, alone, drinking and puking and puking and drinking until the sun died behind the treetops and the soft toys stiffened with frost. And when the wine was all gone, you wiped the puke off your face with the front of your shirt and stumbled back to town with the wild-eyed look of a man gone mad, heading in the direction of any pub that would serve you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stu Hennigan is a writer, poet and musician from the north of England, currently based in Leeds. His debut non-fiction work Ghost Signs: Poverty and the Pandemic, based on his experiences delivering food parcels in Leeds during the early stages of the pandemic, was published in June 2022 by Bluemoose books. His short fiction and poems have appeared in Lune Journal, the anthology The Middle Of A Sentence, Expat Lit, Visual Verse and others. He is currently working on a novel with the working title of “False Friend”, as well as several other shorter fiction and non-fiction projects.
