It’s mine, all mine.
The box isn’t heavy, but it is awkward. I lug it around the shopping centre as if clinging onto a newborn child. Young and old look at me as I pass. It’s probably the oversized box, but it feels as if I’m special. It’s been a while since groups of people turned to look at me – if it ever happened at all.
After a few minutes, I have to stop on a bench to rest my arms. It’s then that I notice I have yet another missed call from an unknown number. One after another, after another. This mystery caller is literally the only person who has phoned me for three days. I tell myself it’s nothing, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that the calls only started after the money had been left in my bag. If the unknown caller knows something about the envelope, then why not say so? They have my number. I’ve tried to talk to the person twice – and he or she could have left messages on any other occasion. Instead, it’s silence. It feels… ominous – and yet I’m on such a high from spending the money that I blink it away.
I’m on my way towards the front of the shopping centre and the bus stop beyond when I notice the pet store. I stop, take a step towards it and then another away. But it’s hard to resist.
I spend ten minutes squishing various toys, before noticing the sign about a ‘dog cake’. I picture Billy’s scruffy, grizzled face beaming at the idea of a cake that’s entirely for him, and so I spend another £20.
I waddle my way towards the exit, somehow balancing everything, when I find myself passing the food court. Even with everything I’m carrying, I march with a purpose over to the McDonald’s window. There are screens now, where orders are tapped into the system and paid for without having to talk to anybody. I pick a Big Mac, fries and strawberry milkshake, then feed the machine a ten-pound note. It is only a few minutes until I’m sitting in my new trainers, with my new laptop at my side and a doggy cake on the table, all while dipping fries into a milkshake.
Life, as they say, is wonderful.
Chapter Eleven
I’m not entirely sure how anyone thought it was a good idea that, one night a year, kids should be given their own body weight in sugar. The streets around our estate are like the aftermath of a bombing raid. Children are screaming and running in all directions – and a good proportion are dressed up to look as if they’ve dragged themselves bloodied and battered from a crumbling building.
Tyler is dressed as a tree… sort of. He has taped twigs to a green top and is going around telling everyone that ‘I Am Groot’. Quinn, meanwhile, is wearing a football kit. I’m not sure what that has to do with Halloween. As for Billy, the two boys made him an orange jumpsuit and have strapped a toilet-roll gun to his back, so that he can be Rocket Raccoon. I’ve somehow ended up supervising two members of Guardians of the Galaxy, plus a four-foot footballer.
Compared to some of the other children, Karen’s pair are incredibly polite and well-behaved. It helps that, once again, Billy is the star of the show. So many kids and adults come over to say how terrific his costume is and then rub his head or his back. He never seems to tire of the attention, even rolling onto his back for a belly rub at one point and slightly squashing his toilet roll gun.
As we traipse from door to door, I keep an eye on the lamp posts we pass. To the untrained eye, it’s a weird new hobby; to the trained eye, I’m reading the various posters people have put up. There are crudely made ones advertising gigs and quiz nights at some of the local pubs. Somebody is hosting a sit-in on the green to protest the new one-way system, which, if you ask me, sounds like grounds for sectioning. There’s one that screams: ‘Wanted: Flatmate’, which is probably a good way to get stabbed while sleeping.
Nothing about missing money, or a lost envelope.
The voice in my head can’t make up its mind. It’s now saying I should enjoy the money; that it’s mine and I deserve it.
Even if I wanted to repay what I spent, it’s gone past the point of feasibility. With the dinner, the laptop, the trainers, Billy’s cake, the McDonald’s and a couple of other odds and ends, I’ve spent more than £700 in less than twenty-four hours. I’ve kept the receipts as proof of my theft – if it is theft. The numbers burn inside me.
I’m so lost in thinking about myself that I almost miss the ‘NO trick or treaters’ sign that’s pasted to a gate. Quinn is halfway down the path before I call him back. We carry on along the street and there’s no question that some of the adults have used this night of trick or treating as an excuse to go over the top with their own costumes. There are a couple dressed as Rey and Kylo Ren who are having a lightsabre fight in the middle of the street, all while their kids – I assume it’s their kids – watch on, bored.
It’s as we’re about to head along the next driveway that Tyler stops. He picks at one of the errant twigs angling out of his shoulder and nods behind me.
‘I think that wolf is following us,’ he says.
At first I don’t notice who he means – but then I spot the figure striding along the pavement on the other side of the street. The person is tall, wearing a wolf mask that covers the entire head, plus a full body suit of hair, with a basketball jersey and shorts over the top. Whoever it is has no children with them. Because of the height, I assume it’s a ‘he’ – and the wolf turns to look at us before stopping momentarily and then continuing on.
‘Why do you think he’s following?’ I ask.
‘Dunno. He’s just always there.’
I turn from Tyler back to the other side of the street, but the wolf has already disappeared around a corner.
‘There could be more than one wolf,’ I say.
‘I guess…’
Tyler suddenly loses interest in the way kids do. Quinn is waiting at the next house, impatiently bouncing on his heels and Tyler skips away to join him. We head along the path as a foursome and the owner has the front door open before we’ve got there. He asks Tyler if he’s a tree, tells Quinn he hates Manchester City and then asks if Billy is ‘a giant rat’. Poor old Billy doesn’t seem to mind, probably because he’d gone through a quarter of his doggy cake before we came out.
The homeowner scratches his head as Tyler explains about the Guardians of the Galaxy – but he does dump handfuls of mini chocolate bars into the boys’ carrier bags and follows it up with an ear-rub for Billy.
We carry on along the street, ignoring the houses with the lights off, and continuing until the boys’ bags are full of sweets and chocolate. It’s as we’re about to head home that I notice the wolf again. This time, he is standing in the shadows of an alcove next to some bins at the back of a housing block. The lighting is dim, but the orange glow from the apartments beyond casts his hairy shadow across the pavement. The wolf isn’t watching us; he’s turned in the opposite direction, thumbing a mobile phone. The head of the costume is hinged upwards, resting on top of his head as the bluey glow from the screen illuminates his stubbled face. His jaw is sharp, his cheekbones angled, though it’s too dark to see much else.
There’s the fleeting glimpse of passing a celebrity in the street and realising a few seconds too late who it is. And in that moment, only a moment, I feel a tug of recognition. The shape twists away slightly, peering closer at the screen. I take a step towards him but then…
‘Auntie Luce…’ Quinn tugs on my sleeve and I turn to see him, knees clamped together. ‘I need a wee,’ he adds. I turn between him and the wolf, but the moment is lost. The slant of the light has changed and the man in the costume now seems like the stranger he is.