They Did Bad Things

by Lauren A. Forry

  Oliver thought the shadows were playing tricks on him, but the longer he stared, the more he understood what was happening.

  James Caskie, one arm untied, was staring at a dark stain spreading across his stomach while blood dripped from the corkscrew in Ellie’s hand.

  Pp. 75–82

  The five of them, they were animals. James Caskie’s death proves that. You couldn’t trust them at all. I’ve been saying that for years. Ever since I first met them. Or not then. That’s a lie. Sorry. A few months after I met them. After Callum did something really stupid. When, in the middle of this ticking time bomb, he put himself in the most dangerous position of all—the center of their attention.

  The precipitation falling that day in February wouldn’t be classified as snow by anyone outside of England. Most would have called it a flurry, yet within the confines of the capital and her suburbs, the light white dusting that coated the ground like sugar was enough to halt public transport and close most local shops. The inhabitants of 215 Caldwell Street had been trapped within their rented walls for eleven hours, low on supplies and bereft of amicability.

  From the top floor, Hollis’s music thumped into Lorna’s room, vibrating the walls. As she tried to complete her course readings, she found herself reading the same lines over and over, the yellow highlighter growing warm in her fingers. She had failed her last essay thanks to a lecturer who refused to acknowledge feminist perspectives of film theory. She had never failed an assignment before, and was not going to again even though she’d been stuck with the same lecturer for the new term. But Hollis’s music made it impossible to concentrate. A break at the end of a song allowed her a moment’s respite and she reached for another piece of shortbread from the tin at the side of her bed. Her fingers brushed crumbs and smooth metal and she stared down at the shining empty container. Her stomach grumbled. A proper dinner would involve going downstairs and making conversation with those there, so she licked the crumbs from her fingers and tried to will the hunger away. But Hollis’s music started again and she couldn’t focus on the words in front of her, which seemed more content to dance to the heavy beat than stick inside her brain.

  The half bag of Smarties in the bottom of her backpack helped stave off the hunger for another few minutes but replaced it with a sugar rush that made her giddy and even more irritable. She put a bookmark in Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film and opened Truffaut’s Hitchcock but couldn’t get past the table of contents. The call of the spinach and ricotta cannelloni microwave dinner waiting for her in the fridge became stronger than her desire to read more cinematic theory.

  Descending to the front room felt akin to entering a stranger’s house. Lorna drew as little attention to herself as she could. Oliver was stretched out on the sofa and laughing at some inane program on TV while Callum sat in the armchair flipping through a stack of photographs. Neither spoke to Lorna as she passed, and she thought perhaps her anxieties had been unfounded. Perhaps she could heat up her meal and return upstairs without anyone saying a word to her. Then she opened the fridge.

  “What the fuck?” She stomped back into the front room. “Who ate my cannelloni?”

  “Dunno.” Oliver yawned and scratched his stomach. “Are you sure you even had any?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I bought it yesterday, put it in the fridge, and now it’s gone.”

  “Well maybe you ate it yesterday and forgot.”

  “Yeah. Definitely. That’s exactly it.”

  “Sorry, Lorna,” said Callum. “I remember seeing it in there.”

  “That’s really helpful, Callum. Cheers.” She thought of saying more but knew it would be pointless, and so focused her energy on finding evidence of the theft. She dug through the rubbish bin but couldn’t find any of the packaging, even after sifting all the way to the bottom. She went out into the garden, shivering in her thin jumper, and checked the bigger bin out back, but there was nothing there, either. Whoever ate it had either hidden the packaging in their room or disposed of it elsewhere.

  Back upstairs, she went into the bathroom to relieve herself of the three cups of tea she’d had so far that day, trying to figure out what else she had left for dinner, and there in the small wastebasket under the bathroom sink was the empty plastic container and cardboard sheath of her missing microwave dinner.

  “Un-fucking-believable!”

  She grabbed the packaging, intending to wave it in Oliver’s face—because of course it must have been Oliver—when something else in the bin caught her eye. She had just cottoned on to what it was when someone ripped it out of her hand.

  “Whoa-ho! What do we have here?” Oliver, who had snuck up behind her, turned the small cardboard box over in his hands. “Well, well, Lorna, have you been keeping a secret from us?”

  She jumped to snatch it back, but he held it out of her reach. “I was looking for this”—she held up the food packaging—“and I found that alongside it.”

  “Riiiiight.” He paused, then a smile crept over his face. “Actually, coming from you, I do believe it. So let’s find out whose this is, shall we?”

  “Oliver, maybe we shouldn’t . . .”

  But for Oliver, this was better than Christmas morning. He bounded out of the bathroom, shouting “house meeting” as he knocked on doors. The house atmosphere had been spiraling down the toilet for a while now. Maeve’s “no-fun” referendum in January had led to the Berry Avenue student house becoming the party spot of the spring term, and while they always invited Oliver, rather than host, he had to play second fiddle to that fat bastard Jabba. With another week left until the party ban would be lifted, another week before Oliver could return any semblance of normality to this dull place, this find represented the change in fortune that was due him.

  He gathered them downstairs—Hollis leaning against the closet under the stairs, Ellie on the sofa, Maeve in the kitchen doorway, picking at a hangnail, Callum in the armchair, and Lorna on the bottom step of the staircase, ready to beat a hasty retreat. Oliver stood in the center of them all, the box hidden in the front pocket of his Cahill University hoodie.

  “I suppose you’re wondering why I called you all here.”

  Hollis raised his hand. “Did someone let the squirrels in again?”

  “What? No. Turns out we have a little mystery brought to my attention by the lovely Lorna.”

  She folded her arms. “Don’t bring me into this.”

  “But aren’t you the one who discovered it?”

  “Get on with it,” Hollis said.

  “Very well. Upstairs, hidden in the bottom of the bathroom bin was none other than . . .”

  “I did it!”

  Everyone turned to Maeve.

  “I ate your cannelloni. I’m really sorry, Lorna. I’ll buy you two to replace it as soon as the shops open, I swear. I have a can of ravioli, if you want it.”

  “It’s fine, Maeve. Thanks.”

  The group shifted as if accepting the mystery solved. Oliver was losing them, so he spoke louder to recover.

  “How noble of you to confess, dear Maeve! But Lorna’s missing dinner isn’t the mystery.” He whipped out the box and held it high in the air, turning about so everyone could see the image of the pregnancy test on the front.

  “Now Lorna says it isn’t hers, and I’m inclined to believe her.”

  He watched their eyes fall away from Lorna and shift to Maeve and Ellie, who kept throwing glances at one another.

  “All right then, ladies. Time to fess up. Which one of you is going to be a mummy?”

  “Did you find the actual stick?” Hollis asked.

  “No, just the box,” Lorna answered.

  They usually sided with Oliver, but if Hollis was firm enough, they would shift allegiances. But Hollis said nothing more, leaving Oliver free to continue.

  “Come on. Don’t keep us in suspense! That’s how rumors get started. Isn’t it better if we’re all open and honest with one another?”

&n
bsp; Maeve sucked in her lips the way she always did when she had something to say but wasn’t sure she should. Usually, it was better if she didn’t. At best, it would be something inane and toothless; at worst, offensive and inconsiderate. Ellie stared at her lap, her fists clenched tight enough that her already pale knuckles turned a lighter shade of white. The seconds ticked by, marked by the snowflakes spotting the windows.

  Despite the chill outside, the temperature inside increased, the room like an underground bunker with the oxygen running out. They knew that wasn’t true. They each knew they could walk out a door or up the stairs at any time, and maybe things would be different now if they had, but they didn’t. Something held them there, and they didn’t want to admit what it was. To admit that they wanted to know.

  Time stretched, slower than when their English lit lecturer had asked that wafer-thin girl in the back row something about Hamlet and the girl had sat there unable to utter a sound as her skin grew redder and redder and the lecturer had waited, tapping his foot, folding his arms, and the girl started to cry until finally someone in the front row shouted out the answer and spared her.

  They didn’t know who they were right now. If they were the lecturer or one of the dozens of students hunkering down in their seats. They certainly weren’t the student in the front. They never would be.

  Like the earth completing its rotation, Oliver finished another turn, the empty pregnancy test box held high in the air. Then several things happened at once.

  A car drove past. Hollis sneezed. Maeve started to speak. Ellie spoke louder.

  “It’s Maeve’s!”

  They thought a glass had shattered. But it hadn’t. That was only what it felt like.

  “It is not.” Maeve’s voice cracked.

  “She told me when she got back from Christmas break that she’d slept with this boy from home and she was worried that she might be pregnant because they hadn’t used protection.”

  “That’s not . . .” Maeve closed her eyes and shook her head. “I told you that in . . . That’s yours. I know you bought it. Tell the truth!”

  “I did buy it. For her. Because she was too scared to get it herself.”

  “I wasn’t too scared! I never needed it in the first place.”

  Oliver spun the box. “So you’re not pregnant?”

  “No!” Maeve shook her head again. “I mean I never thought I was! It’s hers. It’s Ellie’s.” She pointed as if they might need reminding who Ellie was. Or perhaps she wanted to redirect their eyes away from her, but Oliver’s gaze held firm.

  “And why would Ellie need a pregnancy test?”

  Maeve looked at Oliver. Everyone else looked away. None dared say it, Maeve least of all. She would rather let herself be slaughtered. And when it seemed the final knife would stab Maeve’s heart, her denials and accusations disregarded, prepared to become the detritus of an unfair joke dug up over the next several months, a cataclysmic shift occurred.

  Callum stood up.

  Callum, his thin arms hidden in the padding of an oversized gray sweatshirt, Callum, a good stone lighter than Oliver, grabbed the box from Oliver’s fingers and walked it out to the garden. In the silence formed by their shock, they heard him deposit it into the big bin. He returned with hands again stuffed into the front pocket of his hoodie.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s none of our business.”

  Without meeting anyone’s eye, he crossed the circle of bodies and walked up the stairs. The tension that had held them there like the grip of a spider’s web unraveled. Hollis grabbed his coat off the hook and left through the front door. Oliver let out a single confused laugh that fell on empty air, muttered to himself, and scurried upstairs. Lorna went next, leaving Ellie and Maeve alone. Neither would look at the other. If either spoke, the force of their words would’ve been enough to crack the foundations of the house. So it was in silence that Ellie ran upstairs, leaving Maeve shaking in the kitchen doorway until she, too, gathered enough strength to move.

  The light in Lorna’s room shifted from gray day to gray dusk. Her hunger had grown, but leaving her room wasn’t an option. The last time she’d left she’d caused near disaster. So it was better to stay locked away where no one could trouble her. Where she could trouble no one. She read the same passage of Hitchcock over and over, underlining the same sentences, her highlighter leaking through the page, until a new distraction emerged in the form of voices on the other side of the cold wall that partitioned her room from Callum’s. Callum and a girl. Maeve, she thought, based on the conversation.

  “I told you. I really don’t care.”

  “But I want you to know the truth.”

  “I meant what I said. It’s none of my business.”

  “But it was . . .”

  “I don’t want to gossip!”

  Something thumped against the wall, and Lorna jerked away. Had that been a hint to stop eavesdropping? No, they couldn’t have known, but their voices dropped to an indistinct hum rather than words. She pressed her ear to the wall but heard nothing more than mumbles. In her distraction, her book slid off the bed and thudded to the floor, waking her from her trance. This was ridiculous. She would never behave like this at home. Never.

  A sudden knock sounded on her door. The voices in Callum’s room went quiet. Lorna bookmarked her page and opened her door to find Maeve in her woolen winter jacket, snowflakes coating her shoulders like a heavy layer of dandruff, eyes puffy from crying. She held out two containers of microwavable cannelloni.

  “The off-license down by the pub was open. Not sure how good they are but they’re within the expiration date, so . . .” She held them out.

  “Thanks.” Lorna took only one. “You need dinner, too, right?”

  Ellie appeared at the opposite end of the hall, ready to turn into the bathroom, but when she spotted Lorna and Maeve, she hurried back upstairs.

  “I’m not really hungry.” Maeve handed Lorna the other container. The words Lorna wanted to say caught in her throat, but she managed to speak before Maeve walked away.

  “I believe you.”

  She also wanted to say she was sorry, but she couldn’t get it out. Maeve hesitated as if she wanted to say something in return, but she dusted the melting snow from her hair and then shuffled to the staircase.

  Maeve watched the water bead on her jacket and wished she could stay downstairs with others, but no one wanted her in their presence. Not even Lorna, whose door had once again closed. As she retreated upstairs, Callum emerged from his room, and she paused, thinking he might welcome her, but he made no acknowledgment that he saw her, even though he had to know she was there. She wasn’t trying to hide. It was like he wanted her to watch, to bear witness as he knocked on Oliver’s door and asked, “Can we talk?”

  All doors closed to her, Maeve went to the only one over which she retained any control. The spacious double had never before felt as empty as it did now, even cluttered as it was with her suitcases and clothes and posters and textbooks. She curled up on her bed because she wanted to feel small, contained, manageable.

  Why the fuck had she told Ellie about Thomas Kinsey? What moment of utter weakness had caused her to sit cross-legged on the floor and spill her guts about losing her virginity to her secondary school crush over Christmas break? Thank god she hadn’t told Ellie everything. She had left out the bit about how Thomas Kinsey had gained a stone and an acne problem since the last she saw him and now smoked so much that his breath always stank and his teeth were the color of weak piss. Because those were the only reasons the once-beloved golden boy had deigned to sleep with her. The freedom of university life had wrecked him, and Maeve, who’d always been a wreck, was finally in his league.

  But she’d never feared pregnancy, never told Ellie she had. Her period had come two weeks later, right on schedule. In fact, the arrival of her period remained the only reliable thing in her life. None of that mattered now, not with what Ellie had said. Though they both lived on the top flo
or, in the house hierarchy, Ellie remained firmly above her. The others would always believe her lies over Maeve’s truth.

  At some point she’d begun crying again, her face a soggy mess, and she wiped it across her coat sleeve, unable to motivate herself to get out of her wet things, and swore she would never forgive Ellie for this—not tomorrow or in a month or in a year or in twenty years—and her crying became more fierce, a mix of anger and shame, and if she was grateful for one thing that night it was that Hollis turned on his music and she could not be heard.

  A mere four steps away, in her own room, perched on the edge of her bed, Ellie also appreciated Hollis’s music, but for a different reason. She did not know the artist or even the song, but the deep, pounding base-line mixed with the jarring chords spoke to a part of her she didn’t know existed, mimicking a feeling she kept buried beneath her smiles and graciousness and cleanliness. A feeling that made her want to rage and scream and smash. That music wound its way inside her, wrapped itself around every nerve, and before she knew what she had done, all of her framed pictures were smashed on the floor. Like a wicked fairy, the feeling flew out of her when the song ended, leaving her ashamed and trembling, surrounded by her destruction.

  I watched Ellie from the stairwell that day. There was a mirror on the back of her door, and I saw her reflection, and I prayed and prayed she would cut her hand. But the first time her hands would become covered in blood did not happen until just a few hours ago.

  8

  Maeve

  She wished she had her cards, pretended to feel their comforting touch, and tried to visualize their words, the typeface, the colors, but a clear image wouldn’t form in her mind. It was like trying to grab hold of a stray dog, running out of reach when she thought she had it cornered. Anxiety always took form of a dog: her dog as a child, slipping its collar and dashing away from her, never to be seen again. But she had to let it go. Let it all go. If she wanted to get out of here alive, she had to let go of everything in the past. Let herself become someone new. Close the door on everything that had once hurt her.