Page 70 of The Cut
Lily’s confidence was waning by the second. ‘Nate’s supposed to be going as Red Skull.’ She opened the door and jumped down. ‘I’d better not be the only one in costume. Maybe I should change into my trainers … NATE!’ She beamed at her brother stepping out of Ben’s car, parked across the way. Nate, dressed as Johann Schmidt, with the livid red intricate make-up of Red Skull, was carrying a clumsy-looking old video camera. He turned the camera towards Lily, who was now sitting in the footwell tugging on a pair of Stan Smiths. At the sight of Nate filming her, she leapt up and draped herself over the bonnet of Dani’s SUV, giving it a pouty face and a two fingers peace sign, performing for the camera.
A line of Steve Rogers of various shapes and sizes crossed the car park. An Agent Carter dashed in through the double doors, holding them open as a queue of Captain Marvels, Lokis, Rocky Raccoons and Spider-Men streamed into the hall. A stray Harley Quinn with a baseball bat and a sheepish-looking Wonder Woman, with a dog lead instead of a whip, slunk in through a270side door, hoping to disappear into the thumping disco darkness of the annual Barton Mallet Pearls Before Swine end-of-term party.
Ben watched as Lily and Nate threw their arms around each other and headed into the melee, towards their circle of friends. Everything was about to change for his two kids. They were at that moment in life when everything that felt sure and certain, everything that defined them, was suddenly about to be taken away. For some kids it was a fresh start, for others it was like staring into the void. Ben remembered how, at their age, he had felt cut adrift and alone. Severing the reins of childhood was a cruel and painful act. School didn’t want him anymore; his parents couldn’t be there for him; he was on his own.
Lily linked her brother’s arm as they entered the school hall.
‘What does Pearls Before Swine mean anyway?’ She stopped for a second and gazed up at the ceiling festooned with red and gold streamers, bunting made of hundreds of glittering Captain America shields and a DJ desk set up on the stage, pimped to look like the bridge of Star-Lord’sBowie.
‘Gems of wisdom for a bunch of ungrateful pigs?’ Nate scanned the room with his camera, landing on Lily.
‘Sweet.’ She smiled then pushed the camera away and slunk off towards a couple of her mates standing by a table buckling under a ton of sausage rolls and bowls of cheesy puffs. Lily crossed the empty dance floor. By the end of the night, the parquet would be sticky with spilled drinks and the stifling air heavy with the pungent smell of disco bodies writhing in the dark. Right now, no one wanted to be the first to embarrass themselves.
Outside in the car park, Ben switched off his headlights and sat alone in the dark, watching a rather weedy Doctor Strange271and towering Scarlet Witch holding hands as they filed into the school hall. Dani, sitting in her car opposite, flicked on her full beam, deliberately blinding him. He shaded his eyes and dropped the visor.
On nights like this, he wanted to take a snapshot for his memory. His children were growing up too fast; he could feel the wheel of time turning and for a moment he wished it would stop. Or perhaps rewind so he could watch it all over again. It was as if she was sitting in the passenger seat, right there next to him. It wasn’t his ex-wife, Ellie, he was thinking about, it wasn’t Dani. It was Annabel Maddock.
A prickle of nerve endings that started in his feet, rose through his stomach and ended in the follicles of his scalp jolted him back through time into that same night, all those years ago. Images flashing vividly across his mind. Every frame of every second compressed into a single moment. It was more a feeling than a thought, a sudden rush of pain, mixed with that flutter of teenage thrill. The rules were the rules. If you didn’t get off with someone at Pearls Before Swine then you were a sad loser, and tonight was the night.
As that thought passed through his mind, Dani killed her beam. They sat in the orange hue of the school car park, eyeballing each other through steamed-up windscreens. They were like two strangers now. He was about to start the car and head home when Fruity Vape crawled into the car park in the beat-up transit. Karine was riding shotgun; the sound guy and focus puller were nowhere to be seen. Her camera was already on her shoulder as the vehicle slowly tracked around the perimeter of the school hall. Without cutting, she stepped down from the passenger seat and moved stealthily into the shadows like some kind of wildlife photographer. There was a passageway around272the side of the building that led to the service area. Karine headed confidently into the shadows, camera poised to capture everything.
Ben kept his eyes fixed on Karine, the fury building inside him. Dani stared at him through her dark windscreen. Fruity Vape was lighting up a spliff; the plume of smoke wafting through the cracked window had a distinctive smell and was far too thick and bilious to be from a cigarette. Ben quietly opened the door of the car and stepped out into the warm summer air. The rain and heat had caused a swarm of midges to descend on the village like a plague, and the landfill on which the school was built was waterlogged and smelt like rotting eggs. Ben followed Karine down the side entrance by the kitchens. He counted to five, guessing no more than ten seconds would pass before Dani followed close behind. Sure enough, he soon heard her car door close and her heels clicking on the tarmac. She was following them. Well, let her see what Karine Mickelsen was really like.
Ben hovered in the shadows, observing Karine balanced with one foot on a crate, the other perched on a sill. She was straining to film through a high fanlight window. He watched her watching his kids, studying them through her lens, and he hated her for it, from the very base of his soul.
‘Getting everything you need?’
Karine’s foot slipped on the crate as she jumped out of her skin. She clattered to the ground, grabbing on to his jacket as she fell.
‘Caught red-handed.’ She laughed and checked the camera was OK. ‘I’m a fly on the wall.’ She flipped the camera, turning it on him.
‘Be careful, Karine, or I might just swat that bug.’ Ben’s lip wrinkled. ‘It’s becoming an annoyance.’273
Dani was just about to turn the corner when she heard voices and froze.
Ben remained in the darkness next to the recycling bins. ‘I want you and your sordid little film gone.’ He took a step forward, his face pale and his voice dead calm. ‘I want you out of my life.’
Karine stared at him, then turned the camera on to his face. The rage in his bloodshot eyes was terrifying. She zoomed in tight. ‘Oh … but I’m not quite done yet.’
‘You’re done when I say you’re done.’ Ben’s fingers felt for his buckle. He undid it, then slowly removed his leather belt. ‘You need to leave my kids alone.’ He slowly wrapped the belt around his wrist, clenching the buckle in his fist like a knuckle duster.
Karine took a tiny step back away from him; her voice was shaking. ‘Is it … making you feel something, watching your children suffer too?’
Ben dug his nails into the belt strap. ‘If this is about money, if you’re planning on blackmailing me, I don’t have any and you can tell whoever put you up to this they won’t get a penny out of me.’
Karine frowned. ‘I think you may have the wrong end of the stick, Ben. You’re letting your paranoia show.’
Ben could feel the blood suddenly rushing to his head. He was fizzing with a white-hot rage. He wanted to rip her head off. ‘Be careful, Karine. Be very careful.’
‘You do realise I’m filming all this, Ben? And film is forever. Is there something you want to get off your chest?’ She panned the camera down to the belt in his hand ready to strike her.
‘We had a little accident … at the house.’ Ben took a step closer. ‘Bit of a flood. I’m afraid some of your equipment got damaged.’ He pulled the hard drive from his jacket pocket. It had been smashed with a hammer.274
Karine stared at him. Ben smiled and threw the broken box at her. She caught it and turned it over in her hands.
‘No matter.’ Her eyes met his; she was smirking. ‘I upload dailies to my editor digitally … This is just a backup.’
Before he could answer, a scream pierced the air.
