was strange, walking through the Pitt again. It seems different now. Most of it’s unchanged, really – St Peter’s still looks the same (except for those tall green fences around it) and Crossgrove Park still has the swings and that rusted old climbing frame. Maybe it seems different because it’s winter and it’s dark or because it’s even scruffier and even more overgrown with even more misspelt graffiti, or maybe it’s because I know that Nan’s not there any more, not really, not the Nan I knew. We walked all the way down Brook Road and through the park to the estates. I didn’t see or hear a single other person, just you and your heels, echoing up each empty street. It was as if we were the only two people in the whole Pitt.
And then you disappeared. This time where I couldn’t follow: up your driveway. I crossed the road and quickened my pace but by the time I reached your house your peeling red door had slammed shut. I remembered where I was, out in the furthest reaches of the bus route. I remembered the gangs of Pitt kids I’d seen from the window, pitching stones at the cars on the carriageway. I could hear laughter, somewhere, a couple of streets away. I didn’t even know if I’d remember the way back.
But then I noticed something: a thin thread of smoke, rising from the end of your path. Your cigarette butt, lying there, smouldering. It gave me the same feeling of dread I get when I see a snail in the middle of the road. A cigarette that had been sitting in a packet in your pocket all day, that had travelled the bus with us, that had been to your lips and felt your suck and burnt down for you – it was just lying there, dying on the cold pavement. I glanced around but the street was deserted. I picked it up, held it in my pocket.
I ran back to the bus stop. I didn’t try to remember the way, I just remembered, instinctively. It was only seven minutes till the next bus so I sat and listened to my breathing, the butt burning into the palm of my hand. I didn’t dare remove it from my pocket, didn’t dare examine it in case, in the yellow light of the bus stop, I realised it was just a cigarette butt, and threw it away.
Later, when my sister was thudding away in her room and Mum had taken up her nap-position in the lounge, I crept out into the garden and sat on the edge of one of Mum’s plant pots and took the butt from my pocket. It was smaller than I remembered, smaller than it felt. The tip of the filter was crumpled pink from your lipstick. I smelt it, thinking it would smell of something other than cigarettes.
I held it in my lips. I clicked the trigger of Mum’s crème brûlée blowtorch (the only light I’d been able to find). Its flame was blue and extremely hot and it was hard to light the butt without singeing my nostrils. I breathed deep, sucking the heat into my chest. I don’t know what I was expecting – something smooth, maybe. Cigarette smoke always looks so silky but it felt more like gravel clawing down my throat. I coughed and dropped the butt into the flower bed.
It was hard to find in the darkness. Mum’s blowtorch doesn’t give much light. It was only as I crouched there, searching, that I noticed the burn on the palm of my hand, the weeping pink hole the cigarette had left when I grasped it.
I found the butt, eventually. It was lodged under one of the plant tubs, speckled with soil. I slipped it back into my pocket and came inside.
28/11
By the way, I wouldn’t let your dad find out you smoke. Whenever Phil smokes, your dad gets very upset. He says, ‘You’re sucking the dick of death, man.’ Phil sometimes offers him a cigarette as a little joke but your dad never laughs. He just gives Phil that stony-faced look.
This morning Phil was helping your dad carry some dead pigs to the freezer. Your dad lifted them no problem, hoisting them over his shoulder like a fireman, but Phil’s small and skinny and by the end he was panting his way past the kitchen like a
And then you disappeared. This time where I couldn’t follow: up your driveway. I crossed the road and quickened my pace but by the time I reached your house your peeling red door had slammed shut. I remembered where I was, out in the furthest reaches of the bus route. I remembered the gangs of Pitt kids I’d seen from the window, pitching stones at the cars on the carriageway. I could hear laughter, somewhere, a couple of streets away. I didn’t even know if I’d remember the way back.
But then I noticed something: a thin thread of smoke, rising from the end of your path. Your cigarette butt, lying there, smouldering. It gave me the same feeling of dread I get when I see a snail in the middle of the road. A cigarette that had been sitting in a packet in your pocket all day, that had travelled the bus with us, that had been to your lips and felt your suck and burnt down for you – it was just lying there, dying on the cold pavement. I glanced around but the street was deserted. I picked it up, held it in my pocket.
I ran back to the bus stop. I didn’t try to remember the way, I just remembered, instinctively. It was only seven minutes till the next bus so I sat and listened to my breathing, the butt burning into the palm of my hand. I didn’t dare remove it from my pocket, didn’t dare examine it in case, in the yellow light of the bus stop, I realised it was just a cigarette butt, and threw it away.
Later, when my sister was thudding away in her room and Mum had taken up her nap-position in the lounge, I crept out into the garden and sat on the edge of one of Mum’s plant pots and took the butt from my pocket. It was smaller than I remembered, smaller than it felt. The tip of the filter was crumpled pink from your lipstick. I smelt it, thinking it would smell of something other than cigarettes.
I held it in my lips. I clicked the trigger of Mum’s crème brûlée blowtorch (the only light I’d been able to find). Its flame was blue and extremely hot and it was hard to light the butt without singeing my nostrils. I breathed deep, sucking the heat into my chest. I don’t know what I was expecting – something smooth, maybe. Cigarette smoke always looks so silky but it felt more like gravel clawing down my throat. I coughed and dropped the butt into the flower bed.
It was hard to find in the darkness. Mum’s blowtorch doesn’t give much light. It was only as I crouched there, searching, that I noticed the burn on the palm of my hand, the weeping pink hole the cigarette had left when I grasped it.
I found the butt, eventually. It was lodged under one of the plant tubs, speckled with soil. I slipped it back into my pocket and came inside.
28/11
By the way, I wouldn’t let your dad find out you smoke. Whenever Phil smokes, your dad gets very upset. He says, ‘You’re sucking the dick of death, man.’ Phil sometimes offers him a cigarette as a little joke but your dad never laughs. He just gives Phil that stony-faced look.
This morning Phil was helping your dad carry some dead pigs to the freezer. Your dad lifted them no problem, hoisting them over his shoulder like a fireman, but Phil’s small and skinny and by the end he was panting his way past the kitchen like a
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