“No, but don’t stop, Sal. I love hearing you talk.”
I actually heard him perfectly well but I love hearing Todd using the words “I,” “love” and “you” in such close procimity so I ask him, “Say that again?”
“I said, I love hearing you talk. Maybe Freya’s jealous of you, too.”
“As if! Here’s my potted biography, to prove the point: Sally Timms, born Canterbury in 1979.” Todd’s paying close attention, like he really wants to hear this. “Dad was a Shell Oil man and Mum was a Shell Oil wife. They still are—Shell’s like Hotel California: You can check out but you can never leave. Dad got promoted to the Singapore office when I was eight, and we all moved out. Singapore’s all rules, every square yard’s hemmed in. When I was twelve, I had a, kind of…breakdown, and…” I hesitate, wondering if Todd’s admiring my honesty or thinking, Headcase, headcase, pull back, pull back; but his beautiful brown eyes encourage me to carry on. “My parents decided I wasn’t culturally adaptable, so I ended up at a girls’ school in Great Malvern, in Worcestershire. Six years of English weather; of crap English food; lots of Singaporean girls, ironically; lots of rich people’s problem daughters, too. Like me.” But slimmer, prettier and bitchier. “I should’ve fitted right in, but I…Actually, I loathed it.”
Todd asks, “Did your parents know you were so unhappy?”
I shrug. “It was a matter of making my bed and lying in it. Dad got promoted to Brunei, Mum stayed in Singapore, Freya left for Sydney—this was all pre-email, of course, so we all had to…to build our own lives, pretty much independently. We reconvened for summers and Christmases, but while Mum and Freya were like long-lost sisters, I was the…well, I’d like to say ‘black sheep of the family,’ but black sheep are kind of cool. Todd, I can’t believe you want to listen to me whinge on.”
“You’re not whinging. You had a tough time.”
I sip my shit wine. “Not compared to an AIDS orphan or any North Korean or a Shell Oil wife’s maid. I forget my good luck.”
“Who doesn’t?” says Todd, and I’m about to say, “You don’t, I bet,” but then this black guy with hair dyed white opens the oven door next to us: “ ’Scuse us, ’scuse us, boys ’n’ girls.” He slides out a tray of garlic bread and offers us a slice: “G’arn, g’arn—ya know ya want to.” I don’t know if it’s a real London accent or a Cockney piss-take, but the garlic bread smells authentically gorgeous. I hesitate. Todd says, “I will if you will.”
· · ·
“Mum’s blind,” Todd tells me when we’re on our third slice.
Actually I’m on my fourth, but I stop chewing. “Todd.”
“Hey, it’s no big deal. People live with worse.”
“It’s not not a big deal. Is that why you live at home?”
“Uh-huh. I got accepted at Edinburgh, and Mum and Dad were all, ‘Go on, son, it’s your life,’ but Dad’s not getting any younger, I’m an only child, so I stayed. I don’t regret it. I’ve got my own granny flat above the garage, all mod cons, for”—Todd realizes that if he says “girlfriends” it’ll look like he’s hitting on me—“for, uh…”
“Personal space and independent living?” I offer, wiping a dribble of butter off my chin as sophisticatedly as possible.
“Personal space and independent living. Can I use that?”
I dare to say, “Only with me.” I try not to ogle as Todd grins and licks garlic butter off his fingers. “If it’s not too personal, Todd, can I ask if your mum was born blind or if it came on in later life?”
“Later life. She was diagnosed when I was eleven. Retinitis pigmentosa, or RP to its friends. She went from about 90 percent vision to less than 10 percent in a year. Not the best of times. These days she can tell if it’s night or day, and that’s about it. But we’re still lucky. Sometimes RP ushers in deafness and chronic fatigue as well, but Mum can hear me swear from a mile away. She works, too, transcribing audiobooks into Braille. She did that Crispin Hershey novel Desiccated Embryos.”
I say, “Cool,” but don’t add that I thought the book was massively overrated. Todd’s knee’s almost touching mine. If I were drunker, or Fern, or Freya, I’d put my hand on it and tell Todd, “Kiss me, you idiot, can’t you see I want you to?” and I’d sound so classy. But if I tried it, I’d come over like a drunk podgy sad-sack slut—like a female Lance—and I can’t, won’t, mustn’t, don’t. “Cool.”
“You and Mum’d get on.” Todd stands up. “Really well.”
Was that an invitation? “I’d love that, Todd,” I say, inserting “I,” “love” and “Todd” into the same sentence. “God, I’d love to meet her.”
“Let’s make it happen. Look, I’m going to track down the bathroom. Promise not to go anywhere?”
“I do. Most solemnly.” I watch him vanish among the bodies. Todd Cosgrove. A good name for a boyfriend. “Todd” is kind of classless while “Cosgrove” is borderline posh. Nice balance. “Sally Timms” sounds like a shat-upon events organizer, but “Sal Cosgrove” could be a rising star at the BBC, or an interior designer to the stars, or a legendary editor. Sal Cosgrove isn’t fat, either. She’d never wolf down a family-size bag of Minstrels and make herself vomit it up in the toilet afterwards. True, I only properly started talking with Todd half an hour ago, but every instance of undying love was only half an hour young, once upon a time.
Behind me, Darth Vader’s slagging off his sociology lecturer to a thin-as-a-rake Incredible Hulk, while in front of me the Grim Reaper’s scythe slides to the floor as he, or she, flirts with a black angel with crumpled wings. I open my handbag and get out my Tiffany compact mirror—a “sorry” present from Freya for being too busy for me to stay with her in New York in August. The girl in the mirror fixes her lipstick. With Todd as my official boyfriend, I’ll stick to my diet, I’ll only eat fruit for breakfast, I’ll only eat half my present portions. Mum and Freya’s jaws will drop when they see me. God, that’ll feel good! So now that’s decided, I walk over to the food counter. Popcorn, more garlic bread and two Wedgwood cake stands piled high with brownies. One cake stand has a little flag stuck into the topmost brownie, saying HASH BROWNIES, while the flag on the other one reads NO HASH BROWNIES. Apart from a Snickers bar before my Chaucer seminar, plus the tube of Pringles I had at the library, I haven’t eaten a thing since lunch. If we gloss over the garlic bread. Plus, I burned skads of calories walking to The Fox and Hounds. One tiny no-hash brownie won’t hurt…
…Holy hell, my mouth actually froths, they’re that delicious. Dark chocolate, hazelnuts, rum and raisins. I’m about to eat a second one when this tanned blond blue-eyed Action Man body in muscle-hugging black appears and asks in a twenty-four-carat Aussie accent, “Didn’t we meet at the Morrissey gig?”
I would have remembered. “Wrong girl, I’m afraid.”
“Story of my life. But seriously, you’ve got a doppelgänger. I’m Mike—Melbourne Mike, as opposed to Margate Mike. Nice to meet you…Question Mark?”
We shake hands. “I’m Sal,” I say, “from Singapore, I suppose, if I’m from anywhere.” Singapore’s more exotic than Malvern, as long as you’ve never actually lived there.
Melbourne Mike lifts a man-of-mystery eyebrow. “Singapore Sal. I think I drank three of those one night in a cocktail bar. All on your ownsome, Sal?”
Of all the guys who’ve hit on me and who haven’t been drunk, which isn’t actually all that many, Melbourne Mike’s the best-looking by light-years. But I’ve got Todd, so I give Mike an apologetic smile. “ ’Fraid not.”
Melbourne Mike does a courtly bow. “Lucky bloke. Happy Halloween.” Off he goes, and screw you, Isolde Delahunty at Great Malvern Beacon School for Girls and your platoon of body-fascist Barbies who spent six years calling me “Oink” like it was just a friendly nickname and saying, “Oink oink, Oink!” when you passed me on the stairs or in the showers after hockey and I had to smile as if it were all just a funny joke but you knew it wasn’t, you knew it was poison, so screw you Isolde De
lahunty and screw all of you, wherever you are this evening, because I won, Oink just turned down a bronzed Australian surfer demigod, who now returns, still smiling, and points at the two cake stands of brownies: “By the way, Singapore Sal, some joker may have switched those signs over.”
I stop chewing. “But that’s really dangerous.”
“Some people, eh? Proper turd nuggets.”
· · ·
At the foot of the stairs, a possibly Indian girl in an all-silver Tin Man costume reads my mind: “Bathroom’s this way, turn right, go along, it’s there. Love the nail varnish, by the way. Peacock blue?” I get stuck between saying “Yes” and “Thanks” so it comes out “Yanks.” Embarrassed, I follow her directions to a TV room where a bunch of guys are sitting on sofas watching The Exorcist, but I’m not staying for this. The Exorcist was on at the party in Malvern where I lost my virginity to a temporary best friend’s ex-boyfriend’s friend called Piers. Not a memory I cherish. Isolde Delahunty told the whole school about Oink Oink’s Big Night, of course, and publicized what Piers had said about me afterwards. Now I’m in a blue-lit corridor booming with Björk’s “Hyperballad.” I pass a pair of tall doors and peer in. Thirty or so people are dancing in a big sort of ex-ballroom, lit by dim orange lamps. Some of the dancers are wearing stripped-down half-costumes, others are in only T-shirts or vests. I see Lance, sliding his hand over his own torso and neck. He tosses his dandruffy mane, spots me at the door and beckons me inside with a sex god’s come-hither finger. I hurry off down the chilly corridor before I puke, round a corner, up some stairs and down some more until I find a bay window with a view of what might be the front of Slade House, with two big gateposts, though the streetlights and tree shadows and lines are blurred by mist and the fogged-up mullioned window, and to be honest I left my sense of direction in the kitchen. “Hyperballad” has turned into Massive Attack’s “Safe from Harm.” Fern says my name. She’s draped on a giant sofa in an alcove, French cigarette in one hand and a glass in the other, like she’s doing a photo shoot. “Hello. Are you enjoying the party?”
“Yes, actually. Have you seen Todd?”
“I’ve seen how besotted he is with you.”
I so, so badly want to hear this that I join her, just for a moment. The leather sofa’s cold. I sink deep into it. It makes that dry squelchy noise like new snow or polystyrene that someone needs to invent a proper adjective for. “Do you think so?”
“Big-time, Sal. It wasn’t for paranormal experiences that Todd showed up tonight. When are you guys going to hook up? Tonight?”
I act cool, but I’m happier than I’ve been for…ever, actually. “That depends. These things have their own pace.”
“Bollocks, girl.” Fern’s cigarette hisses in her glass. “You set the pace. Todd’s a keeper. Lovely guy, really. Reminds me of my brother.”
Fern’s never mentioned a brother—not that we’ve talked much. “Is your brother a student, or an actor, or…?”
“He’s not anything these days. He’s dead.”
“Oh God! I’m famous for my big mouth, Fern, I—”
“It’s okay. It’s fine. It happened, um…five Christmases ago. It’s history.” Fern stares at the body of her cigarette bobbing in her drink.
I try to fix my blunder. “Was it an accident? Or illness?”
“Suicide. Jonny drove his car over the edge of a cliff.”
“Bloody hell. I’m sorry. Why did he…I mean, no, forget it, it’s not—”
“He didn’t leave a note, but the cliff was a field away from the road to Trevadoe—our ancestral pile near Truro—so we know it wasn’t an accident.” Fern acts a smile. “He chose Daddy’s vintage Aston Martin as his sarcophagus, too. The act was the suicide note, you might say.”
“I didn’t mean to probe, Fern, I’m sorry, I’m an idiot, I—”
“Stop apologizing! Jonny was the idiot. Well, that’s not fair, Daddy had died two years before, Mummy had gone to pieces, so Jonny was juggling the legal mess, the death duties, a degree at Cambridge of course, and battling depression—unknown to us…His ideas about poker debts and honor, though, they really were idiotic—utterly, utterly idiotic. We could’ve just sold off an acre or two.” We watch the misted-up night through the misted-up window. “That’s why I joined ParaSoc, if I’m honest,” says Fern. “If I could just see a ghost, just once—a Roman centurion or a headless horseman or, or Nathan and Rita Bishop, I’m not fussy…Just one ghost, so I know that death’s not game over, but a door. A door with Jonny on the other side. Christ, Sally, I’d give anything to know he didn’t just…stop, that stupid afternoon. Anything. Seriously. Like”—Fern clicks her fingers—“that.”
· · ·
I unpeel my face off a big cold leather sofa in a dark alcove. “Safe from Harm” is still on, so I can’t have slept long. Fern’s gone, but sitting a foot away is a guy dressed in a furry brown dressing gown and not a lot else, judging by his hairy legs and hairy chest. Right. He’s not eyeing me up. Actually he’s just staring at the blank wall—I thought there was a bay window there, but obviously not. The dressing-gown man’s not that old, but he’s going bald. He has sleepless owlish eyes and an almost-monobrow. Do I know him? Don’t see how. It’s strange that Fern would just vanish like that, straight after spilling her guts about her brother, but that’s actresses for you. Maybe she was pissed off that I nodded off. I ought to find her and put it right. Poor Fern. Her poor brother. People are masks, with masks under those masks, and masks under those, and down you go. Todd must be back in the kitchen by now, but the sofa won’t let me get up. “Excuse me,” I ask Mr. Dressing Gown, “but do you know the way to the kitchen?”
Mr. Dressing Gown acts like I’m not even there.
I tell him, “Thanks, that’s really helpful.”
His frown deepens, then, in slow motion, he opens his mouth. Is it supposed to be funny? His voice is dry as dust and he leaves big gaps between his words: “Am…I…still…in…the…house?”
Jesus, he’s stoned out of his Easter egg. “Well, it’s not Trafalgar Square, I can promise you that.”
More seconds pass. He’s still talking to the blank wall. It’s bloody weird. “They…took…a…way…my…name.”
I humor him: “I’m sure you’ll find it again in the morning.”
The man looks towards me, but not at me, as if he can’t quite place where my words are coming from. “They…don’t…e…ven…let…you…die…pro…per…ly.”
So far, so loony tunes. “Whatever you’ve been smoking, I’d steer clear of it in future. Seriously.”
He cocks his shaved head and squints, as if hearing words shouted from a long way off. “Are…you…the…next…”
I actually giggle; I can’t help it. “What, the next Messiah?”
The sofa vibrates to the giant bass in “Safe from Harm.”
“Get a big strong black coffee,” I tell Mr. Dressing Gown.
The man flinches, as if the words were pebbles hitting his face. Now I feel bad about laughing at him. He screws up his red eyes like he’s trying to remember something. “Guest,” he says, and blinks about him, Alzheimer’s-ishly.
I wait for more, but there isn’t any. “Am I the next guest? Is that what you’re asking? The next guest?”
When the man speaks again he does this utterly incredible ventriloquist’s trick where he mouths his words a second or two before you hear them. “I…found…a…wea…pon…in…the…cracks.”
His sound-delay trick’s amazing, but his mention of weapons triggers a warning light. “Okay, thing is, I don’t need a weapon, so—” but from out of his dressing-gown pocket the sad, half-naked stoner produces a short silver spike, about six inches long. First I recoil in case it’s a threat, but actually he’s offering it to me, like a gift. The nonspiky end’s decorated with a fox’s head, silver, small but chunky, with jeweled eyes. “It’s lovely,” I’m saying, twizzling it. “It looks antique. Is it some kind of a, a geisha’s hairpin or something?�
��
· · ·
I’m alone on the leather sofa. Nobody’s in the corridor. Nobody’s anywhere. Mr. Dressing Gown’s long gone, I sense, but I’m still holding his fox hairpin. God, I zoned out again. This isn’t a good habit. “Safe from Harm” has turned into the Orb’s “Little Fluffy Clouds.” There was a blank wall here, I thought, but actually there’s a small black iron door, exactly like the one in Slade Alley, only this one’s already ajar. I go to it, crouch down, push it open and peer out, just my head. It’s an alley. It looks very like Slade Alley, but it can’t be because it can’t be. My knees are still on the carpet, in Slade House. It’s dark, with very high walls and no people. It’s as quiet as the tomb. As they say. There’s no “Little Fluffy Clouds” out here; it’s as if my head’s passed through a soundproof membrane. About fifty meters away to my left, the alley turns right under a flickery streetlamp. To my right, about the same distance away, there’s another lamp, another corner. It can’t be Slade Alley. I’m in a corridor in the house, fifty, eighty, a hundred meters away—I’m no good with distances. So…drugs? Drugs. If one frickhead put hash into no-hash brownies, another frickhead-to-the-power-of-ten could have sprinkled something trippier in the punch bowl. It happens. Two students Freya knew in Sydney went to Indonesia, ate some kind of stew with magic mushrooms in it, and thought they could swim home to Bondi Beach. One of them was rescued, but the body of the other was never found. What do you actually do if you find an impossible alleyway on an acid trip? Go down it? Could do. See if it takes me back to Westwood Road. But what about Todd, waiting for me, right now, in the kitchen, wondering where I am. No. I’d rather get back. Or…
Or…
What if Slade House is the hallucination, and this door’s my way back? Not a rabbit hole into Wonderland but the rabbit hole home? What if—
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