Free The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner Page A

management supplies all the toilet paper we’ll ever need. We don’t need our own. Not a single roll.’
    She grinned. ‘Yes, that’s correct. This is recycled paper. They’re on sale.’
    ‘Not a roll.’
    She patted the slab.
    I slowed and waited until she was out of sight in the next aisle, then propped the toilet paper atop a display of biscuit tins. Around the corner, she’d struck up a conversation with a hoary gent close to her own vintage.
    ‘I agree,’ the man said. ‘But what’s the alternative?’
    ‘Buy the spices and mix them yourself. There’s a whole rack of them here. Aisle six, I believe.’
    She scurried around my trolley and towards the dairy refrigerator, scanning and touching the shelves as she passed.
    The man watched her go and continued his shopping. He wouldn’t know, I thought.
    He would see a lean older woman, dressed well and groomed – neat, but not ostentatiously wealthy or stylish. The tiny conversation they’d had would reveal no evidence of her frayed edges.
    She came back with four bottles of dishwashing liquid.
    I thanked her and stashed them back on the shelves in the tinned fruit section.
    Our roles had changed and I felt it.
    I knew, from my deepest self to the very skin of my teeth, that I would do whatever I needed to keep her safe from the world. If that harridan Nerida Long had to stick her nose in our affairs, I’d find a way to discreetly break it. If that lowlife Candy from 57 or any of her circus decidedMam was there for the taking, I’d take them out, one by one. Cleanly, without remorse.
    Two men entered the toilets while I was locked in a cubicle that evening. They spoke quietly but I could understand every word.
    ‘Mum’s fine but Dad’s losing his marbles.’
    ‘Yeah? What makes you say that?’
    ‘Oh, lots of things. Constantly misplacing his glasses and the car keys, can’t remember what day it is . . .’
    ‘Sounds like me!’
    They cackled, then went silent. Urine drummed on the stainless steel.
    ‘No, but Dad has always been so sharp. Never missed a trick.’
    ‘How old is he again?’
    ‘Fifty-two. Fifty-three in November.’
    ‘Bit young to be going senile, isn’t he?’
    ‘Didn’t know there was an age limit.’
    ‘I’m guessing. I don’t know much about that stuff.’
    Their voices trailed into the night and I was left with all the free toilet paper I needed and a sense that Mam and I might not be alone.
    That night, I used my JKB tie to bind my wrist to my bunk in the annex. I lay there for a long time, staring at the distorted green stars through the panel in the ceiling. I figured it would take more than a tie to hold me down, but less than a bunk dangling from my wrist to wake me as I wandered the night.

16
    I trace the shape of a foot beneath the pink sheet and see a leg, the round of a hip. The body is twisted and the linen is drawn tight across the back. A time-lapse flower of red blooms there. The stain rushes out, threatening to fill the room.
    I hit reality as hard as if I’d fallen from a tree.
    I sat up, befuddled but still in my bed. The bed I’d gone to sleep in. One end of the tie was still hot around my wrist, the other draped across my blanket. It had come loose during the night but had obviously been enough to curb my somnambulism. I stared at the tie for a long time, quietly marvelling at how simple the solution had been and thanking the anonymous man – Mam’s friend the runner – for handing it to me.
    The toilets were empty. I was at the mirror shaving when Westy – from van 57 – entered. His face was drawn,probably from lack of sleep more than the early hour. Our eyes met and he smiled with all the warmth of an autopsy scar.
    ‘Hey hey! Row, row, row your boat,’ he sang. ‘I ’member you from school!’
    He slapped my back and laughed bourbon fumes in my face.
    ‘Told you I never forget that stuff. ’Member me? Westy? Dale West? Hey, they were prize pyjamas you were almost wearing last night,