The Last Death Poet

Chapter One

The ferry lurches and I grip my camera, searching for a glimpse of the city beyond the clouds.

A seagull bursts through the mist with a cry.

I flick my hair from my eyes as the gull hovers effortlessly on the brisk wind, a bright eye trained on me.

Presumably to see if I have any food, but I also feel like she (this bird is giving ‘she’) wants me to photograph her.

‘Sorry, not interested.’

She’s persistent though. A natural model. She flaps her wings, arched like an angel in an old painting: magical and majestic. She’s a vivid force of life against the drab clouds hanging above the Irish Sea. She stares at me. Challenging me to not find her stunning.

Fine.

I focus on her beak, yellow with a lipstick smudge of red. My finger hovers over the shutter-release. Then she shifts in the wind and lets out a high-pitched shriek that slices through my head. I blink away the pain as she shrieks again and flaps her wings. I steady myself and take a pic.

It’s not bad. There’s a black mark in the top right corner of the shot, but I can edit that out later. The seagull cries out once more and disappears into the clouds.

Drama queen.

‘You look just like him, Michael.’ Mum appears behind me on the deck, hugging her arms in her long cardigan.

Her eyes flicker to my head and she frowns.

This could be because my hair (red like hers, but straight like Dad’s) is blown beyond what you might describe as windswept.

More likely, though, she’s pissed I didn’t take her advice to wear a beanie.

I shrug. I don’t want to discuss either option.

I hate hats and I’m not in the mood to talk about my similarity to Dad.

‘You see that seagull?’ I say, changing the subject.

The corners of her mouth twitch as she shakes her head. It’s her in-between happy and sad smile. As she tucks a curl into her own beanie I spot a tear sparkling in the corner of her eye and a numbness seeps into my fingers that has nothing to do with the chill coming off the Irish Sea.

‘Can I have a hot chocolate, please?’ I wiggle my fingers with a smirk. ‘For the frostbite.’

She lets out one of her short, snorty laughs that always seem to take her by surprise. ‘Of course.’

The ferry from Cairnryan is weirdly busy.

Like, why are all these people travelling to Belfast on a Tuesday morning?

The cafe area’s rammed, but I eventually find us a table between a man with a thick grey beard eating a greasy-smelling fry-up that makes me both hungry and nauseous, and a guy a bit older than me slumped over a table. Dead or hungover, it’s not clear.

‘Michael,’ Mum calls from the counter, ‘would you like a wee muffin, love?’

My face erupts with the heat of a thousand burning stars and I shake my head.

The slumped guy sniggers. Not dead then. Good for you.

Mum shrugs and turns back to the counter. I take a deep breath, sit back and reread Ben’s message, just in case it’s somehow changed in the last twenty minutes.

I’m going to miss you

My stomach flutters at the directness of the message. He didn’t even put ‘mate’ at the end. He’s going to miss me. Does that mean…? I don’t know. But maybe…

Before I can stop myself, I start to type a reply.

I’ll miss you too!

What am I doing? He never wanted anything serious. Plus, I’m leaving. I’ve left. I delete it.

I check the photograph of the seagull. It’s actually pretty good. Feathers spread, eyes glinting. I’ve caught the angle well. That black thing though. What is it? I zoom in and –

Oh!

It’s a feather. A jet-black feather caught in the wind, its tip glimmering silver. Did I use a flash?

I remember the screech of the seagull and shiver. I zoom in on the bird. Her gaze is focused upward at something out of shot, beyond the feather. Her beak is open, eyes wide. She looks…frightened?

Sharp needles of heat prickle the base of my neck as I zoom out to see the whole image again.

The sound of wind and wings fills my ears and a desire to relive that moment draws me closer to the screen.

There’s something special there.

I dismiss the thought. It’s just a photo. A cool one though.

Dad would’ve loved it.

I think of nine-year-old me running to show him my photo of a honeybee. He plants a rough kiss on the top of my head. ‘That’s brilliant, son. Proud of you.’ He smells like coffee and his black pepper shower gel.

Where did you go?

I drum my fingers on the table as Mum arrives with hot chocolates and a muffin. No, two muffins. I frown.

She smiles, sitting opposite me. ‘I got you one anyway.’

‘But I—’

‘Well, if you don’t want it now, you can have it later.’ Her voice tremors slightly.

My fists clench under the table. I want to explain that while I appreciate the gesture of the muffin, I specifically said I didn’t want one. I want to tell her that I’m not a child. That I don’t need hats and pastries. I want to ask why she won’t listen to me and trust that I know what I need.

But I don’t say any of that because it’s only a muffin and I’m not a total dick.

Instead, I mumble a thank you and pick up the drink. It warms my hands. I take a sip of it then watch it swirl about the inside of the mug, remembering a childhood fantasy of swimming in a pool of chocolate.

Would be a nightmare to clean up.

I set the mug down and I’m met with Mum’s pale blue eyes. ‘Enjoying that?’

I force a grin. ‘Yep.’

‘You OK?’

I shrug and a familiar hum of guilt settles in the silence between us.

She checks her phone and I pick up my camera. I study the seagull. The fear in her eyes. I imagine her heart racing, the adrenaline pumping through muscles as she twists in the frigid air.

What could she see? I hope I didn’t miss a cormorant or something while photographing a seagull!

‘Can I see the picture, please?’

I grip the camera, wanting to hide it from Mum. Why am I being like this?

I pass it over.

‘Looks good. You happy with it?’

‘It’s all right.’

I can’t shake off the feeling of annoyance. Even when she’s done nothing wrong, like asking to see a photo, she gets right under my skin. She’s sad and hurting, and for some reason she wants me to be sad and hurting with her. But we aren’t in the same place because one of us is hiding something.

I take the camera back and the silence returns, which I kind of prefer because for six months she’s changed the subject whenever I ask what happened to Dad.

I’ve learned to avoid pushing for answers because I know she’ll get upset.

She’s tried to get me into counselling, saying I should talk about my feelings.

But all I want to know are the facts. And now she’s taking me away from everything I’ve known because she can’t handle being in our home without Dad, living the life they used to share. She –

I dig my nails into my palms. Stop being selfish! She’s in pain.

After saying goodbye to Ben, I spent my last day in London helping her pack. The delivery company arrived in the morning to collect everything that’s going into storage in Belfast while we find somewhere to live. All that was left were our clothes, a few essentials and a single cardboard box.

The box was full of Dad’s clothes – the ones he hadn’t taken with him.

Shirts, trousers and an old REM hoodie that was pretty much falling apart.

It had been Mum’s idea to give his things away, but when the woman from the charity shop arrived to collect them, Mum gripped the box.

She let out a little gasp when she eventually let go.

After the woman left, I saw Mum holding the hoodie behind her back.

‘What’s on your mind?’ she asks, eyebrows knitted as she takes another sip of her hot chocolate.

‘Nothing. Just thinking about stuff.’

‘Want to talk about it?’ A hopeful smile flickers.

I squirm in my seat. There was a time when I would tell her everything. When I was hurt, when I got picked on. No matter how big the problem was, I could tell her.

I shake my head. ‘Just thinking about exam results.’

Mum sighs. ‘OK, love. I’m sure you’ve done well in them.

’ She knows I’m lying. She always does. She takes my hand.

Her skin is soft and warm, and mine relaxes in hers like it used to when I was little.

‘I know this is hard. You’re nearly seventeen and this is a big move.

I know what you’re leaving behind.’ She squeezes my hand.

‘Who you’re leaving behind. Your friends… Ben.’

I flinch.

‘He can come visit any time…’

My ears burn.

‘And if you need to tell me anything…’

A lash of pain whips across my forehead.

I jerk my hand away and stand so quickly I nearly knock over my mug. ‘I’m going to go and take a few more photos.’

Another lie.

Before she can say anything else, I pick up my camera and head back out to the deck.

The wind has dropped but it’s still chilly.

It’s literally July!

Two men walk towards me. ‘We’ll be docking soon, son,’ says the older one in a warm Belfast accent.

‘Yep, thanks.’

As I walk to the rail, I’m relieved to hear the door close behind them. I’ve got the deck to myself.

The sun has decided to make an appearance and throws sparkles of silver and blue across the rolling black water of Belfast lough. Ahead is the city itself; a narrow strip of grey buildings surrounded by velvet green mountains.

I wrap my arms around myself and take in my new home.

My new start.

The city where Mum and Dad grew up, then left for uni and never went back except for short trips. Belfast: land of the Troubles and the Titanic.

Growing up, the Troubles – those thirty years of bloodshed – were never talked about.

Mum and Dad told me the bare minimum about the conflict between Catholic and Protestant communities that killed so many.

They’d moved to get away from all that, and on our visits they made me promise not to ask questions.

‘People don’t like to be reminded of it,’ said Dad to a tenyear- old me from the front of the car as we drove past a mural of a masked gunman.

Mum has mentioned that there’s been some trouble this summer.

The annual marches of the Orange Order have always been points of tension, but this year there were a few riots following ‘anti-immigration’ protests.

She assured me it was nothing to worry about, although we did wait until after the twelfth of July – the biggest day of the marches – to move over.

I’ve never been there for the Twelfth, so I know as little about that as I do the Troubles.

The Titanic, on the other hand, came up in my childhood. A lot.

Memories of rainy childhood holidays with Nanny Bet come rushing back. She told me stories of my great-greatgreat- great (too many greats?) grandfather Patrick who worked on it. ‘It was unusual for a Catholic to be working at the docks back then,’ she’d said proudly.

Patrick left on the ship, wanting to start a new life in America. And, well, we all know how that ended.

I’ve promised my nan we’ll go to the Titanic museum to learn more. I love spending time with her. She’s funny and smart and used to be a writer – her first book of poetry is in my suitcase. And I’m not going to lie, there are upsides to being someone’s only grandchild.

‘She spoils you,’ Dad slurred, clutching his wine when a ￡100 gift card arrived on my last birthday.

Yeah, well, at least I talk to her, I’d wanted to say. But didn’t. As always, there was no point trying to talk about anything when Dad was drinking.

I wonder for the millionth time where he is, but the chugging of the ferry’s engine offers no answer. He’s out there somewhere, dealing with his problems, while we leave ours (and him) behind.

My head aches from the cold. I should get back to Mum and see if she has any painkillers. The pain prickles in my neck as a light flashes above the city.

A ray shines down and hits the sea, and the pins and needles in my forehead intensify. The column of sunlight blazes in the morning sky like a spotlight in front of a curtain of grey. The squat buildings of the dock shimmer and sway.

The light gets brighter and pain blooms behind my eyes but I can’t look away. Like smoke flowing into a glass pipe, the buildings mist over until I can’t see them any more.

I grip the railing and gulp in the salted air, laced with a woody, metallic scent.

The swirling column of light burns fierce and bright, and a shape emerges. The giant, towering outline of an ocean liner – and it’s heading straight for us.

I’m about to shout a warning. Tell the captain of the ferry we’re going to be smashed to pieces by a luxury cruiser. But then I recognise the boat.

It can’t be. The impossible word forms in my mind.

Titanic.

My vision flickers. There are people lined along the top deck. Men and women in old-fashioned clothes.

My hands shake as I take out my camera, raise it and aim at the ship. Snap.

A foghorn blares and the people on the boat cheer.

This is incredible, I—

A woman’s scream fills the air.

It slices through me and my hands fly to my ears as ice flows through my body. Burning me within. Dragging me down.

The camera clatters on the deck as I fall to my knees.

A pressure on my chest like I’m trapped underwater. I can’t breathe.

A shadow crosses my gaze and there’s a shimmering image of a man beside me, surrounded by the same blazing light as the ship.

He’s wearing a brown leather jacket and clutching something.

A little wooden box – it’s some sort of old-style camera.

He shakes his hair from his eyes and aims it at the ship.

‘Dad?’ I say, my voice strangled. I reach forward. ‘What’re you—’

Light surges behind the ship and blinds me.

Voices cry out.

Crows screech.

A woman laughs.

Everything goes dark.