Human Remains

mental.’
    ‘Cat?’
    ‘Don’t worry. I’ve been going to your house every day and feeding her. She’s a lovely cat. What’s her name?’
    The cat. I tried to find the other word in my head, searched for it, nearly gave up – and then suddenly it was there.
    ‘Lucy. She’s called Lucy.’
    ‘Well, that’s better than Puss, which is what Irene came up with.’
    The colours were too bright, the green of the grass and the leaves on the tree that were red and gold and brown and every imaginable colour in between. And the sky, so blue, a bright blue that hurt my eyes.
    ‘My mum died,’ I said. ‘It feels like years.’
    ‘It was just over a fortnight ago,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I know how hard grief is – I went through it too. You need time, and as much support as possible.’
    ‘I should be doing things, shouldn’t I?’
    ‘I can help you with it. It’s alright. I spoke to the family relations officer at the hospital, so they’re keeping your mum safe until you’re ready. Nothing to worry about.’
    The sun went behind a cloud and the breeze felt suddenly cold. I shivered and folded my arms in front of me.
    ‘Do you want to go inside?’
    I looked back over my shoulder at the fire door, at the ward beyond it. ‘No. Can I stay a bit longer?’
    He smiled then, a big happy smile, and I found I was smiling back at him. ‘You’re going to be OK,’ he said.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course. There’s nothing to worry about.’
    He reached across to me and rubbed my arm, then patted my knee.

Colin
     
     
    Rachelle came into my life a month after Justine.
    The time between them was spent on study, whisky and porn. The only class I attended in that period was Nigel’s NLP – and every evening, after work, I devoted myself to further study in the subject as well as expanding into such topics as hypnosis, mind control and suggestion. I stayed up until I was too tired to see the computer any more, and at that point I would put a DVD on in the bedroom and watch it to the inevitable conclusion.
    I knew now what all this had been leading to. I knew and understood it all with an astonishing clarity – that this was my calling, this was what I had been born to do, and that everything that had happened so far in my life had been leading up to this moment.
    I met Rachelle whilst I was walking in the country park in Baysbury one Sunday morning. It was a bright day, cold, sunny – the sort of day you’d expect to find a lot of people in the park, which is why I nearly didn’t go. I’d forgotten that there was a big football match on and as a result everyone was at home or in the pub watching the game. Everyone except for Rachelle and me.
    I walked past her, sitting on the park bench halfway up the hill, and immediately I was struck by her physique and the fact that she was sitting on the bench wearing jogging pants and trainers, a shapeless hooded top that she seemed to be shrinking into.
    She did not pay me any attention and so I felt confident enough to turn back and sit down next to her on the bench.
    ‘Hello,’ I said.
    She didn’t reply but she cast a glance in my direction, a nervous smile. She wasn’t used to being spoken to. She wasn’t used to attracting attention. She was used to hiding.
    ‘It’s a lovely day today,’ I said.
    ‘Yeah, I guess,’ she said. Her voice sounded wheezy.
    ‘You’re out for a run?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘I can do this hill in thirty-five seconds,’ I said. I had no idea if such a thing was even possible; it was a random guess at a number that completely did the trick: as if I’d flicked a switch, she engaged.
    ‘Really? Thirty-five? I can only manage sixty. That was last week.’
    ‘You’re fit,’ I said.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m too…’
    She’d stopped herself from saying it.
    ‘You’re on a journey,’ I said. ‘Every day is a step towards your goal.’
    She looked up at me with astonishment in her eyes, blue eyes that looked too big for her pale, gaunt face.
    I put a hand – tentative, but it felt like the right time – on her arm. She winced slightly but did not move away. I could feel the bones under my hand, as though the grey fleece fabric was the only thing between me and her skeleton.
    ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘Everything you think and feel is right. You’re choosing the right path.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    ‘You can make the decision,’ I said. ‘You can choose what happens, how it happens.’
    ‘Can I?’ She was