Free A Trick I Learned From Dead Men by Kitty Aldridge Page A

shoes, the same black Barratts as mine except his rolled in. And his name came after Paul Aldiss on the class register. I wished we’d had a conversation or a fight. I can’t remember anything he said or did or even his voice. Or even his face. When his name comes up I always mention that I was at school with him. People are surprised, sympathetic. I knew him, I say, same class, same age, same time. Terrible, I say. The exact same shoes. Tragic. He came second on the class register. His grave is in the churchyard by the yew hedge. His name is carved. Daniel Atkinson became a local superstar. It’s living that makes you invisible.
    I compose a poem to Lorelle. I have not addressed Artistic Guy vis-à-vis Five Things Girls Can’t Resist. It’s now or never, as Derek would say Elvis would sing. Harder than it looks. In the end I go for short and sweet. I send it as an SMS.
    You and me. Just the way we talk, stand around. It keeps my feet on the ground and my head in gear. In the summer sun at this time of year. You and me.
    I’m not saying it’s Shakespeare, but. Reckon it might touch a nerve, slant things in the right direction. Girls like things to rhyme.
    *
    S PEAKING OF GIRLS , Ned has met one online. On Chatroulette, the site where, play your cards right, you’ll likely meet a mass murderer or two. Lovely. Her name is Debra-Ann, according to Ned. His hands fly, two birds in a net. Of course this will not be her real name. I sign this to him. Her real name will be Graham, she’ll have three bodies under the floorboards, two more in the Ford Transit. Talk about gullible. He finds this funny.
    Jealous! Jealous! he signs.
    Ned believes anything anyone tells him. Without me he’d be eaten alive. I’d love to see a picture of Debra-Ann. I could admire her piercings, her display of dentistry, her Adam’s apple. I wouldn’t mind but someone’s got to look after him. Ned says he can talk to people online without them having to know he’s deaf.
    Wear clothes, I tell him, when you chat. Reckon he’s more chance of meeting someone sane if he’s dressed. Life would be better in general if Ned wore more clothes. He goes shirtless because he’s big on sensation, he likes the feel on his skin: wind, water, psychopaths. He goes shirtless in the field, he thinks I don’t know.
    He falls asleep like a cat. He curls up anywhere. Ned can bend himself any which way, God’s gift to yoga, a waste really. He is spark out on the settee, mouth open. Silence is golden. Sausage casserole we had, my own recipe. Plates are drying on the drainer. I am concerned lately that he has maybe joined an online cult. He has begun to smirk and grin at inappropriate times, as if he’s some kind of enlightened soul. Arsehole, more like. Let’s face it, he is easy prey for wackos.
    As well as communicating with nefarious psychotics online and staring at naked girls, Ned also spends time on air disaster sites: emergency landings, near misses, crashes, you name it. What would poleaxe you and me lights him up like Christmas. He can’t see the horror, don’t ask me why. He can watch those planes skid, spin and break up no problem at all. Like when we scattered her ashes in the field, it’s not that he doesn’t feel it, he just sees another side. To him normal everyday things are madness and vice versa. Like he’s looking down the wrong end of a telescope.
    I let myself out. Quiet. Birds beginning to roost. No wind. Decent moon up. The field is full of rabbits, as I walk they flow away, puts me in mind of locusts. I have never seen a locust except on TV. I climb the stile, walk the set-aside. Pigeons in a corner of the field. They rise up, clatter clatter, and swerve towards the woods. I turn my attention to the mast instead.
    Greetings, mast. Buongiorno.
    Me and the mast have a lot in common. We stand tall in all weathers, no funny business, no shirking, no day off. No one notices. No one thinks what if the mast/Lee didn’t exist. Then what?
    I