Crossing Over
by
Catherine Chisnall
Smashwords edition
Copyright 2011, Catherine Chisnall
ISBN 978-1-4661-1218-6
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All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is accidental.
Crossing Over
1. Olivia
He was dead. No matter how much I shook his arm or spoke to him, he wouldn’t wake up. Slumped over his work, he’d breathed his last over a History essay. How ironic he was wearing a pale yellow jumper. Yellow, the colour of spring and youth.
Touching his arm had been like touching a fence. No human spark, no twitch, no ‘oi, get off.’ I expected him to sit up, shake his head and say ‘just dozed off there for a minute.’ Fortunately his long hair had fallen forward- I didn’t want to see a dead boy’s face. He could only be about seven years younger than me, at most.
Staggering back against the shelves of books, I inhaled their reassuring dustiness. My stomach tightened and my throat dried, but I refused to vomit. I wouldn’t vomit in a library! I wasn’t some drunken chav, I was the Assistant Librarian. The shelf shook under my assault and I feared it would collapse.
Running to the stairs, I hobbled down them as if I had dead leg and reached the glass doors in a second. They met me with a slap. My watch showed ten past nine. So the caretakers hadn’t bothered to check the building for people when they locked up. My heart hammering, my thoughts beating in my head like a trapped moth, I tried to focus. I would have to phone the caretakers to let me out.
“C-can you open the library? I’m l-locked in,” I quavered when someone answered after seven rings. It was dark outside and the library walls were mostly window, so I felt vulnerable to anything.
“Bloody hell, woman. Haven’t you the sense to- Oh never mind. I’m comin’ now.” He put the phone down roughly.
It sounded like the sturdy blond one- was his name Dave? So the rudeness came as no surprise. I didn’t know what his problem was, but politeness costs nothing. As Mummy used to say.
I didn’t want to go back upstairs to the body. The student, I should call him, not the body.
But what about the ambulance? The police? 999 loomed large in my mind.
I mumbled something to the operator whose calm composure got me through the call.
I met Dave at the door, his navy caretaker’s jacket reassuring in the unfamiliar situation.
“Bloody stupid-“ He began, but contrary to what I’d been taught, I interrupted.
“One of the students is dead.” I pointed up the stairs, heart pounding.
“What? Show me.”
“Can you check I’m right?”
I led him to the study tables and he cautiously tried to find the boy’s pulse. It was like a morgue in that area: deserted, silent, cold. Surrounded by the dead tree forest of books.
“Yep. Dead. What happened?”
“I-I don’t know. I found him like that.”
“Fuckin’ hell! Did you touch him?”
“I touched his arm to see if he was dead. I-I shook him.”
“S’pose that’ll be alright. But you shouldn’t-“
Sirens interrupted and he hurried downstairs. The hum of the air conditioning was the only sound as the heating had switched off for the night. If only the student would suddenly shake himself and sit up, yawning. But however much I watched him, he never did, and I couldn’t stand there just staring.
By the time I reached the lower floor, the paramedics and the police were striding in.
They carried out the body- the student- under a blanket on a stretcher, his face covered. Was this real? Surely it was a nightmare, I would wake up soon. I felt as if I were floating above them, while they, the useful ones, moved purposefully around.
The police asked the usual questions and took my details.
“Why- why did he die?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“We can’t say at the moment Mrs Meredith. Nothing’s confirmed until the post mortem.”
“Would you like a cup of tea, love?” asked the police woman.
I shook my head.
“I must get home. My husband will be waiting.”
“We’ll be in touch tomorrow.”
The cortege of emergency services departed, leaving me with Dave.
“Why did you not tell me someone’d died? Made me look a right fool.”
“You didn’t give me a chance. You slammed the phone down too quickly.”
I faced him, determined to keep calm even though he loomed over me scornfully. I’d never seen him smile, although the crinkles round his eyes showed he must do sometimes.
He opened his mouth to reply, but I spoke first.
“Please excuse me. I must get home to my husband. He’s cooking Boeuf Bourgignon.”
Dave stared after me, an unfriendly expression on his face. I couldn’t get away quick enough, my footsteps resounding on the tarmac of the car park, which was fortunately just outside.
In our living room, Robin’s round, bespectacled face peered at me anxiously.
“Darling Livia, how frightful. How truly ghastly. Shall I get you a sherry?”
“Yes. Please do. That poor boy. It was- it was-“ The sickness rose and I rushed to the bathroom, throwing up the half-digested sandwiches from lunch. An unfamiliar sensation.
Robin sat waiting patiently in his study. A man’s room, functional and white with all his books arranged alphabetically, as befitted the true librarian. Built in the thirties, our house had carved bookshelves set in the walls of some rooms. Perfect for his personal library.
“Please excuse me.” My lack of control was an embarrassment. Robin always valued my impassiveness.
He nodded.
“I’ve put your favourite Mozart on, darling. That will soothe you.”
I sat by the open fire recovering, and ran my eye over the familiar, reassuring books: Tender is the Night, by F Scott Fitzgerald; Death in Venice by Thomas Mann; The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold; Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. All in their correct places, same as ever.
I hadn’t vomited since- well, I couldn’t remember when. Perhaps as a student after drinking enough to fit in? Before I’d met Robin and relaxed into the life I was meant to live.
“Rather Agatha Christie though, isn’t it? The body in the library.” He smirked.
I smiled unwillingly.
“Or Cluedo. Was it Colonel Mustard in the library with the lead piping?” He chuckled. “We’ll have to find out.”
I couldn’t find it funny though. That poor boy, what a waste of a life. Supposing Robin was correct? Was there a murderer lurking somewhere in the shadows? I pulled my cardigan closer round me.
2. Dave
I was glad to get back home. That were a right strange evening shift and no mistake. I’d seen dead bodies before of course, that didn’t bother me. Most far worse than that lad, wounds and blood everywhere. But I thought that life were behind me now.
It hadn’t helped with that bloody librarian woman flapping about like a headless chicken. Women never keep calm.
Home at the moment was a small one bedroom place, alright for a single man. Didn’t bother to keep it very clean though. Not what I’d been taught but it didn’t matter these days. Dirty plates in the sink, a broken lamp I’d half mended, the remote control which only worked if you stood a foot from the TV.
The phone rang and it were me ex wife. Ranting on like a madwoman. Said I hadn’t paid the maintenance for t’kids for two months. Said if I didn’t start paying, I shouldn’t expect to see them so often. What did she expect? I only earned a caretaker’s wage now I couldn’t do a proper job.
I had a chicken curry for tea. Heated up from a packet, as usual. Why bother cooking from scratch? Ready meals tasted better, were cheaper, easier. Didn’t do me insides any good, but what the hell.
The doorbell rang and it were Sheryl.
“You comin’ out tonight, darlin’?”
Her face thick with makeup, black eyelashes so long she could hardly open her eyes, hair bleached almost white. But massive jugs, that was the bonus with her.
“Might do.” I eyed her, spilling out of her orange boob tube. “Or you could just come in now.”
She laughed squeakily and I pulled her into the flat. I didn’t bother taking her to the bedroom, just pushed her onto the sofa and shagged her as fast as I could. Any road, the bedroom stank of dirty washing and worse.
She made a big fuss, moaning and writhing, but I knew it were all fake. A big drama out of nothing, as usual with women.
“Still want to go out?” I asked afterwards, zipping myself up. I burped, tasting chicken curry again. Now that were really nice.
“Of course, darlin’. You’re my boyfriend, I want to show you off.”
She laughed that bloody annoying laugh again and I went off to the shower. I didn’t want to stink of sex if I wanted to pull that night. Sheryl didn’t mind what I did. Drinking, burping, farting. Other women. She took anything.
We went to Mac’s Bar, which was dingy. Faded leather sofas were set around tables, with a dance floor at one side but to be honest, it was so dark I couldn’t really see what was going on. I sat with my mates, who had lines of empty bottles in front of them. I only had a few beers, we all chatted up the birds.
Sheryl chatted to her friends at a different table to us. She always did that when we went out, but kept an eye on me all the time.
“Look at him making a twat of himself.” Sonny pointed out John to me in the darkness of the dance floor. John was bobbing around hopelessly, putting all the birds off. I went and only had to tap him on the shoulder to knock him over.
“Bastard!” He was half laughing, half cross.
“Hey, Dave.” It were that Keeley from the hairdressers, flapping her eyelashes. She’d been eyeing me up for days. It wasn’t long before we went off to the bog.
The floor was swimming in water and worse, but I didn’t care and it didn’t bother her. She made as much fuss as Sheryl, moaning and squirming around like a loon.
That’s the bonus of not being able to drink myself into a coma: I can pull better than my shit faced mates.
Stacey’s mouth went into a hard line when I came back afterwards. And she glared at Keeley. But who cares? That’s what every night out is like.
At work the next day, that dead boy were all they talked about.
“How did he die? Was there blood everywhere? Who killed him?”
I just shrugged them off.
“Dave’s hard,” they teased. “S’pose you’ve seen so many dead bodies you’re used to it.”
I nodded, while sorting out the keys for the library, which were always in a mess. Librarians never get anything right.
“Can you go and speak to Geoff? Cos you were the one on the scene last night,” asked Nev, the head caretaker. He was a prick. I could have done his job with one- no both- hands tied behind my back.
Geoff, the head librarian, was a good bloke though. How he kept those librarians under control I’d no idea. A load of cackling hens. Probably why his office was upstairs away from the desk
“So, Dave. What happened last night?” He got straight to the point as usual, sitting behind his big desk, one hand under his chin.
“Well, first I knew were a call to say that silly bird- er- one of the librarians had got locked in. She didn’t mention a dead body, I just thought she’d lost track of time.”
His piercing blue eyes bored into me and I shuffled uncomfortably. He reminded me of my old chief. A terror, but all us lads respected him.
“The police want to interview you, I’m afraid.”
I shifted from foot to foot. I weren’t keen on the police. Too many run ins when I were a lad. And probably more to come as I got towards thirty, I’d bet.
“Don’t worry. They only want the basic info from you. They’re coming in after lunch. They’ve asked Olivia the same questions.”
“Olivia?”
“The assistant librarian who found the body. She’s being interviewed now.”
“She’s at work today?” I expected her to take a week or two off after the stress of finding a dead body. She’d have counselling and mollycoddling.
“Of course. She’s very calm about it all. Amazing woman. Truly amazing.” Geoff’s eyes misted over.
Maybe, but she weren’t my sort. Flat chested, hair tied back, skirt down to her ankles, blouse up to her neck. Didn’t even look like a woman in my opinion.
I remembered shagging Keeley last night and I suppose my eyes went misty too, because Geoff coughed to get my attention.
“Let me know how it goes.” He dismissed me, turning back to his reports. His whole office was filled with books and papers- weren’t there enough in the rest of the library for him?
That Olivia were waiting outside, I walked right into her. Her pale face and dark unplucked eyebrows looked weird.
“Oh, sorry.” I moved away, not wanting to touch her.
“Th-thank you.” Her eyes were blank.
“Alright?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
She didn’t react. No blurting out of how she felt, asking how I felt, no crying, nothing.
I walked off, not bothering to reply.
I was obviously just some bloke to her. Not the one who’d stepped in to save the day, despite the uniform. That about summed me up: an ordinary person, nothing special. Not even a proper dad anymore.
But at least my kids’ monthly visit would be soon. That were something to look forward to, despite their mum’s whinges.
3. Olivia
“Are you sure you don’t want to take today off? After last night?” Geoff’s Stewart Granger face frowned down at me.
“No, no. I’m fine. It was a shock but I’m fine. It’s probably best to keep coming in to work as normal, like getting back on a horse after you’ve been thrown.” I smiled brightly.
“The young man’s name was Alex Leeson, by the way.
“Oh- oh. Well it’s nice to give him an identity.”
“They expect to have the post mortem results within the week. Then we’ll know if there is a murderer loitering behind the shelves.”
I laughed uneasily.
“But I don’t expect there is, don’t worry,” he added quickly. “My guess is that it was a heart problem. Some young people have unknown heart disease and one day it finishes them off.”
Geoff always sat bolt upright and wore a suit. He reminded me of my father: upper middle class upbringing, academic, a no nonsense type. Such a familiar type of man to me, like my husband.
Robin had been wonderful after I vomited. After playing my favourite music, we discussed the situation.
“Who could be held responsible, I wonder? He was legally an adult, but were you in charge? In loco parentis, so to speak?”
“Not really. I’m not a teacher, he was there under his own free will and whatever happened to him was nothing to do with me.”
“The investigation will probably not take too long. Then you can put it all behind you as a bad experience.”
I nodded.
“My book is coming along well. I’ve completed the introduction about libraries in the present and now leading on to discussing the status of libraries in the future, with all the technological advances.” He carried on talking while I watched him fondly. Since university, I’d always loved his keenness for research and questioning everything.
“So just do as much as you can today,” said Geoff, breaking into my thoughts. “Good good. Well done.” He dismissed me with a smiling nod.
I floated back to the issue desk, as if in a dream. I must pull myself together.
“How are you, Olivia?” asked Rachel, the library assistant on the counter that morning. “I can’t believe you’re in, you could have got a free day off.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t do that.” I smiled bleakly. “There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s the poor student I feel sorry for.”
I automatically went through my duties that day. Greeting the students, many of whom were pale and shocked. Stamping books, mending covers, filing forms. It gave me time to think. The only people I’d known to die were elderly grandparents after long and fruitful lives. Not teenagers with their lives ahead of them. How would his family feel now? Devastated? Empty? How unnatural for such a young person to die.
Crouching by the downstairs shelves to look for an atlas during my off-counter time, I became aware of two rough boots in front of me.
I looked up to see Dave, his expression blank.
“Been told to help you with the book crates upstairs.”
“Oh. Yes.” Upstairs had been cordoned off by police, but the library still had to be re-organised. The Information Technology department of the university had been divided into two so we now had to find room for books for two departments instead of one.
“Come on.” He marched off.
I didn’t want to go upstairs. Try as I might to keep a calm façade, I knew going upstairs would break it.
Approaching the area where I found the dead student- oh god- I walked slower.
“Don’t get silly. It’s over now.” Dave instructed.
I still hesitated.
“It could have been worse. He could have been like this.” He put his head on one side and stuck his tongue out like a hanged man.
I turned away to the crates full of books.
“Could you please take these downstairs on the trolley?”
“Is that all you got to say?” he asked loudly.
“What do you expect me to say?”
“I dunno. Something. Not just stand there like a plank.”
I shrugged.
“What would you have done if he was covered in blood?” He walked over to me, closer than I liked. He smelled stale and musty, as if his uniform hadn’t been washed.
“Called the ambulance of course,” I recited evenly.
“You wouldn’t have screamed? Fainted even?” He smirked.
“Yes. Can we please get on? I’ve got work to do.”
“So’ve I. You’re not t’only one busy. Some of us-“
He broke off and went to the book crates. They were huge. Goodness knows why they were so big, they could have made them half the size. Then we wouldn’t have needed caretakers to help move them.
“What were t’lad’s name, any road?”
“Alex Leeson.” The words echoed in my head. I half wished Geoff hadn’t told me his name, but I shouldn’t be squeamish. Of course the boy had an identity, he wasn’t anonymous. Not some unidentified body floating in the canal.
Last night I’d spent the rest of the evening alone in my study while Robin wrote his book in his. We’d deliberately bought a house big enough for us to have a study each. My own studying involved researching courtly love in the medieval age. A fascinating subject.
Or so I’d thought. I hadn’t been able to concentrate for some reason, however hard I’d tried. I kept re-living the horrible sensation of not being able to wake the student. I hoped never to experience that again.
Robin had become so involved in his writing that he hadn’t come to bed that night. I’d slept alone fitfully, waking to find him asleep in his wingback armchair.
“Don’t worry love,” Dave’s voice broke into my thoughts. “It happened. It’s done now.”
“What do you mean?” I said indignantly. “I’m fine.”
He gave me a quizzical look.
“I’m just sayin’. Don’t fret about it.”
4. Dave
Me kids were coming today. I had a boy and a girl, eleven and eight. I’d thought I were set up for life: married with two kids, one of each, but the wife thought otherwise. She’d- well- she’d done what she’d done so there you go.
“Daddy!”
Our Daisy ran into my arms and I swung her round. Our Josh, however, was a different story. He never wanted cuddles now days. It were right, really, a young man shouldn’t be soppy, but I missed the cuddles I got when he were little.
“I’ll pick ‘em up after tea,” said Roxanne. “Now, remember what I said. No sweets, don’t give ‘em too much sugar. Don’t give ‘em loads of presents, they’ll get spoilt and play up. Don’t let ’em sit in the sun and remember Josh’s inhaler-“
She blathered on and I switched off, sitting with Daisy on my lap. She were my princess, my angel. I wished we all still lived together, but… no point thinking that.
Eventually, Roxanne left.
“Right kids, what shall we do?” My late shift last night had tired me out but I didn’t want them to know.
Josh had already got his Xbox out and hooked it up. He didn’t answer.
“I thought we’d go to the beach and see what’s going on.”
“Oh yes, Daddy.” Daisy stood ready at the front door.
Josh ignored me.
“Come on, mate, we’ve only got a few hours together.”
He sighed and put the game away. Teenage years, here we come.