TWICE

by Susanna Kleeman

  ‘A landslide,’ he said, squatting down next to me to touch crack and gravel.

  No way on. The road had crumbled down the hill.

  He started to shake.

  ‘There’s other roads, other ways round,’ I said.

  He shook his head: ‘They’ve been here, can’t you smell it?’ ‘Just a landslide. Pull yourself together.’ That kind of thing happened out there, I knew it did.

  We got back into the car. He wanted to drive but I insisted, said I’d chuck the keys down the hill and jump down behind them if he tried anything more. So I drove, reversed back down that steep narrow hill path with no metal barrier, checked the map and drove back and up and round and down the detour to get to Flora’s from the north-west side, drove in silence for maybe ten minutes, him pale and shaking. Till the road widened into familiar land, modern nature: a nowheresville plateau of ordered firs, sheep, fields, windfarms in the distance, patches of reddish earth, burnt stumps. Then suddenly, out of my window: the field and the dumped container, ‘Londis’ on its side.

  He saw it too.

  ‘There,’ I said, pointing to a junky cottage to my right.

  He squinted. ‘You’re sure?’

  I nodded but it wasn’t Flora’s cottage I was pointing to. This one belonged to the container guys, hers was further on. This was my plan: I couldn’t take him to her, I needed allies, I needed him overpowered by the container guys. Then we’d see.

  He frowned at me. How close had he studied my holiday shots, could he really remember what Flora’s cottage looked like?

  I stopped the car on the other side of the road, put the key in my pocket while he watched me.

  ‘OK so,’ he said, very serious. ‘From now: special measures. Trust where I lead. Do what I say. Or else. Assume the worst, that they’re in there, that they’ve got them, that they’re lying in wait for us, will use them to prise info out of us, anything—I’d go in alone ‘cept I know you won’t let that. Where’s the book? In her house. Where d’you put it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What d’you mean, you don’t know?’

  Like I said, mate. I hadn’t put the book anywhere, Flora had put it somewhere. My first days back from New York, me sad, she’d driven all the way down to London to cheer me up and take all traces of him and Scritchwood back with her. To store them for me, so I could make my clean start, lock it all away. Because I couldn’t quite face burning them.

  ‘But it’s still in her house somewhere. You’re sure? She won’t have put it somewhere else, got rid? Do you trust her?’

  I looked at him. He knew, he ought to know, that I trusted Flora with my life.

  But did I trust her now, he wanted to know. ‘When d’you last see her, speak to her? What’s she like these days, how nutty, how loyal? Strong? Addicted to anything? Money trouble? She’s got kids, a kid, that’s a terrible weakness, for them to have over her. She could be up to anything, they can make her up to anything.’

  ‘I trust her.’ She was Flora.

  ‘You don’t know. If I say “coffee”, leave straight away, out the door, however you can, get back here to the car if you can. OK?’

  I nodded.

  ‘If I…don’t make it, and you do,’ and he swallowed and bogused about how he’d made a copy of the supposed Cuckfield message—the one he couldn’t understand, needed the book for, wouldn’t tell me—into the visitors’ book of some church in Rochester, as insurance. He told me the name of the church and which date to look under, in case something happened to him, so there was some record, some way for me to carry this on and read Alan’s message and act on it if he, stump Chris, ended up dead.

  Yeah right. Wouldn’t they have followed you there too? According to your bollocks. Why weren’t they following us here?

  We sat there. Stump to nose, his pale profile in the grey, what I hoped were our last moments together. My torn face in the mirror, my bloody wrists, the bruise marks from his fingers round my neck.

  ‘What time do they usually get up?’

  I shrugged. ‘Early.’

  We sat there. ‘Look at it. Feel it, if you can. Anything different? Anything off?’

  I looked across at the ratty cottage. Between the drive and the neighbouring field was a sea of junk: two ex-cars, broken breeze blocks. a sink, a toilet, several broken toilet seats. Blue plastic sheets, branches, unused fencing, boxes and an upturned shopping trolley, other junk piled up behind like a drained polluted river. A truck parked outside, smoke coming out the chimney—looked like the container guys were in.

  ‘Looks fine to me.’

  He scabbled round in the back seat and fished out a rank anorak for me to put on over the hoodie and burka. He got some huge dirty socks and made me put them on under my ruined slippers. He pulled my hoodie down low. Then we got out, crossed the empty road in the drizzle, went over to the grey pebble-dashed house with its weeds and closed grubby curtains.

  I’d be quick and direct: just explain I needed help, that he’d kidnapped me, show them my wrists and neck. Step aside from him, act fast, rely on them to intervene if he grabbed me, did anything, hope for luck. I couldn’t see any other way.

  So nervous, hiding in my anorak so he wouldn’t see it. I knocked on their peeling door.

  No reply. It was early. Smoke coming out of the chimney.

  I knocked again. He twitched next to me.

  ‘You sure this is the place?’

  I was about to knock again when the door opened to show a large red-headed young woman in a dirty white t-shirt with LOL written across the front, frowning at us, one front tooth missing, a big ugly rose tattooed on her arm.

  ‘Yes? What you want? Oh hello,’ she said to me, her face changing, a big smile, a Welsh lilt. ‘I know you, don’t I? Flora’s friend, right? Nim, is it? Last summer was it? What can I do for you? Looking for Flora?’

  I was about one hundred per cent sure I’d never seen her before.

  11

  ‘Where’s Flora?’ Chris said.

  ‘Who’s this?’ to me, ‘your fella?’ She reached her hand out to shake his, fixing him with a stare. ‘I’m Margi. And you are?’ Back to me: ‘They’ve cleared Flora out. You couldn’t find her, back at her place?’

  Cleared Flora out. I didn’t like that.

  ‘This isn’t Flora’s place?’ Chris whipped his head round at me, grabbed my cut wrist tight.

  Her eyes watched this but she didn’t do anything, just carried on talking: ‘Flora’s further up, you forgot? You won’t find her, though, she’d been cleared out, you didn’t know? Chemical spill, they say, couple of days ago. Big lorries round here, these tiny bendy roads. Forestry Commission, you know. Police came up, cleared us all out, the fumes. All these crashes, the things they carry, you think they’d take more care. Or is it all an excuse, to clear us all out, see what we’re up to?’ She laughed.

  And all the while her small darting eyes looking at me in my hoodie and burka and jeans, looking at Chris in his hoodie, my messed-up slippers, me trying to wriggle my wrist from him, my cut wrists that she was looking at but not saying anything about. There’d never been a woman here before with them, I was pretty sure.

  ‘When did this happen?’ Chris said.

  ‘Oh two days ago now. Nenog way, they say it’s still not safe, everyone taken down in the church hall in Gwernogle, though I think Flora and Rhodri and the kids went to Rhodri’s mam in Llandeilo, I think that’s what they said, till we get the all-clear. Very bad luck, you popping up in the middle of this. Surprise visit, was it? Or is she expecting you? The roads still blocked, I thought, didn’t think you could get up yet, thought there were signs, did you not see signs? Where did you come from, how did you get up? You OK?’

  ‘How come you’re still here?’ he said.

  ‘Ah well me. Decided to risk it, hid upstairs,’ giving us a little smile. ‘One of us had to stay. Someone has to take care of things, feed the cats. Well done you, making it up anyway. Get you anything, a cu
ppa? Where d’you come from, London is it? Pop in, what a shame, coming up all this way.’

  His fingers tightened round my wrist.

  ‘Where are the others?’ I tried to pull away.

  ‘Which others?’

  ‘The ones who live here? Who lived here before? The Liverpool guys?’

  ‘Oh the boys, you’re missing the boys. Down in Gwernogle. We’re expecting to hear the all-clear today, they’ll be back, if you can wait, perhaps Flora too. Or tomorrow, it can take a while, these clear-ups. Come in, you’re welcome to stay, I’m sure the fumes have passed, Health and Safety madness. Come on in, it’s freezing. Tea or coffee?’

  ‘A tea would be great,’ Chris said.

  ‘I’d love a coffee,’ I said, staring at Chris. I had a bad feeling about this LOL-woman and her jolly tone and useful info and staring eyes. We’d never met, I was sure. I had a bad feeling about Flora, wanted to get on, get to her real cottage.

  But Chris was stuck in there, asking if LOL-woman knew Rhodri’s mum’s address in Llandeilo.

  I reached over, put my free hand in his free hand so it looked like we were holding both hands, super lovers. I kissed his cheek, to make it look real. I started stroking his free palm. I stroked it with my thumb. I pinched SOS out into his palm using Alan’s pinch-hand alphabet.

  But this stump Chris I was with just turned to me, like he didn’t know what I was doing, like he thought I was out of nowhere getting flirty, choosing a weird time for it.

  For a moment. The he took my hand and pinched out OK.

  ‘You know what,’ he said to me, relaxing his other hand’s grip round my wrist, ‘we still got all that coffee in the car. In the thermos. Thanks so much, we don’t want to trouble you,’ to the woman.

  ‘No trouble. Could do with the company. Here on my lonesome nearly three days now, does your head in. And so lovely to see you again,’ nodding at me. ‘Two years ago, was it? That solstice party. All got a bit fruity as I recall.’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘Come on it. I’ll brew something up, let me take a look, think I’ve got it written down somewhere, Rhodri’s mam’s address.’

  ‘No it’s fine,’ Chris said. ‘We’d best be off, not safe here by the sounds of things. And you know Rhodri’s mum’s address, right?’ nodding at me.

  I said I did. We told her thanks and set off to cross the road for the car.

  ‘Don’t go.’ She’d come outside now, was padding after us onto the road with grey bare feet as we got into the car and I revved up, drove us off. Standing there on the road looking after us, still calling out to us, hands on hips, LOL t-shirt and leggings and bare feet in the cold morning.

  ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ Chris said furious as we sped away. ‘That’s not Flora’s place, where’s Flora’s place? Who was she, what is this?’

  ‘What you think I was going to do? Take you to her, to her kids? I know the men who live there, who usually live there. I needed some back-up.’

  ‘Fucking fool. Who’s that woman? You know her?’

  ‘Never saw her in my life.’ We drove on, my stomach cramping. ‘You think it’s true, the chemical spill?’

  ‘No. Who the fuck knows. Where’s the real house then? Where you leading me now?’

  ‘It’s here, it should be here, a bit further up.’ But by now we were beginning to head down the hill and Flora lived just before the crest and in fact now that I looked back I could see in the field behind us the fence and the trees and the swing and slide and some of Rhodri’s caravans, old wrecks he bought and did up for fun, and Poppy’s red bike on its side and the shed where Flora dyed fleeces and dried the roving. Just not their house, the red cottage at the crest of the hill. It just wasn’t there. Every last trace of that cottage had gone.

  12

  ‘It’s vanished.’ I stopped the car, sat there feeling mad. Everything else was the same but it was like the house had been cut from the scene. And now only these new views of the hills rising behind the caravans at the back and where the house should have been just grass, fresh green grass, not even debris, like nothing had ever been there and the only habitation ever in that plot the breezeblock shed and those big dead caravans.

  ‘Fucking hell, Chris.’

  Flora and Rhodri might have torn it down. Something might have happened or changed, without me knowing.

  Everything perfect, smooth, normal, except for the gone house. Their bikes and washing line.

  I sat there gobswanged, wondering if I was on drugs.

  He tugged his hoodie down low and tugged mine down low and sank low and craned round at where Flora’s house should have been. Then he pushed my head down below the steering wheel and squashed on top of me, crouching us both down as low as we could, which hurt and made it hard to breathe. He pushed my feet aside to get at the pedals and turned the ignition and drove a bit like that, crouched on top of me, down the hill, further on, taking a turn to the right. He swerved and we stopped and I pushed him off.

  Back in woods, of regular Christmas trees.

  ‘I remember the shed from your photos,’ he said, crouched low in his seat and panting, pulling me down again low with him. ‘And the swings. I’m sorry. They do things like this. Yank up buildings, foundations and all, crane them away in huge trucks, normalise the aftermath. Replace it all later if they need to, seamless, back to normal, like nothing happened. When they really need to find things, check things, fine-tooth-comb, analyse from all sides. Load them into monster machines, probe in surround, three-sixty sniffers, heat sensors, infra-red. Crunch and model, interrogate the house. Nothing escapes them, dismantle everything, put it back together.’

  I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Whole houses? Whole houses don’t fit in trucks.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. Chop them up, slot it all back together, the machines plan it, the machines do it. Seamless, trivial, they got the bots, mega and nano. Have you been listening to anything I’ve been telling you?’

  His whole crap turning out real.

  ‘Where’s Flora?’

  ‘Probably fine. They probably…bundled her off before they got down to it.’

  ‘Bundled her off? To Gwernogle? You think she might be there?’ Them saying a chemical spill, getting Flora out the way to Gwernogle first then…taking the house? Whoever they were. I couldn’t believe what I was thinking, saying.

  He looked at me sadly. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And that woman?’ Margi. ‘She said there were lorries.’ ‘She’s part of it.’

  A cast. Which sounded crazy.

  Two Chrises.

  Grag Medusa.

  I could not believe it. I had to go back and check.

  I watched the Christmas trees in neat grids in front of us.

  What if it was real and they’d taken Flora and Rhodri and the kids? What if his whole crazy story was true and me blind to it because he was a twisted asshole I had to believe?

  Breathe.

  ‘They must have seen us,’ I said. ‘If they did this. They’d still be there. They’ll know we’re here. They’re here,’ staring round at the trees and sky and him.

  His blank face. Not up to it. Like in Scritch, before, me more aware, better at it, picking up the clues.

  ‘Let’s go. I’ll drive,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere.’

  ‘What about Flora?’ No matter what, Flora was missing. If that house was really gone.

  He shook his head. ‘We got to go.’

  ‘No.’ I had to go back up there. I had to see it again.

  ‘You’ll get sucked up.’

  I didn’t say anything, just opened the door, stepped out of the car, slippers into mud. I had to go and find out what had happened to Flora and see it again, check if it was real with my own eyes. It was the maddest thing I’d ever seen if it was real.

  He shunted over into the driving seat.

  ‘Get in,’ he said, motioning the passenger seat, his stump hand over the keys in the i
gnition. ‘We’re going now. Pull your hood down.’

  ‘What about the book?’ I said.

  ‘They got it. They got the house, they got the book, they got the info, they got Alan. I fucked up, again. Let him down again. We’ve got to run. We’ll work out where later.’

  ‘But the book’s not in the house,’ I said, the car door open, him in the driver’s seat.

  He sprang out and grabbed me, ‘Tell me now. Where’s the fucking book?’ the car keys in his hand.

  I pushed him off

  ‘Is this real?’ I said.

  ‘It’s real. Where’s the book?’

  ‘Why do you want the book?’

  ‘To decode Alan’s Cuckfield message. Where is it?’

  ‘At hers,’ I said, the words just coming out. ‘Or it was. Just not in the house.’

  ‘Where?’ grabbing my shoulders. ‘You said you didn’t know where she put it.’

  ‘The bunker,’ pushing him off hard. ‘Jesus, Chris. I don’t know exactly. She said she put it in deep storage, that usually means the bunker, I wasn’t going to tell you all that. But they probably took the bunker too, right? I don’t know if the caravan was still there,’ trying to picture the scene again, see if I could remember seeing the caravan at the back that the bunker was built under. Like there was any sense, that fucking house gone.

  ‘What bunker?’

  ‘Underground. That Rhodri built. For nuclear war, whatever. At the back.’ Didn’t seem so mad now, Rhodri’s deal, why they were living out there like that in the first place, survivalists. More fool me for laughing at them. ‘Under one of the caravans. She stores stuff down there, he doesn’t want her to. They could be in there too, right?’ I meant Flora and Rhodri and Poppy and the baby, suddenly seeing them huddled down there. ‘Maybe that’s where they went. When they heard weird stuff—this is exactly the kind of crazy shit Rhodri built it for, this is what he thinks the world’s like, Jesus fucking Christ. But they’ll have found it too, right? Your…guys? With their…probes, whatever.’ Heat sensors, infra-red. ‘Can they lift up things from underground? They might be down there, Flora. I’m going back.’