A Gingerbread House

by Catriona McPherson

  There was nothing down here that could be used as a screen either. Not so much as an old curtain or even a bin bag they could slit up the sides and open out. Mind you, if there had been a curtain, it would have been too useful as a cover for their cardboard bed, or as a blanket, to waste it as a screen anyway.

  The drain was a find all the same. Laura chiselled the cover off with her shoe heels and, once they recovered from the disappointment that it wasn’t a trapdoor, they put all the used paper and rags in there and closed the lid back down on them. It still smelled unspeakable when the cover was lifted but they breathed through their mouths.

  And they treated themselves to a fantasy of leaving it off, and of Kate tripping over the edge of the open hole and falling in, breaking her neck, lying there at the bottom, bent like a hairpin, begging for mercy.

  ‘You couldn’t really do that though?’ Ivy said.

  ‘Could I not?’ Laura spoke so boldly, Ivy never could tell when she was serious and when she was just giving herself a boost.

  ‘She’s as much the vict—’ Ivy began, but Laura snorted.

  ‘Come off it, Ivy,’ she said. ‘Not the Nuremberg defence.’

  ‘But what’s she supposed to do when Gail’s right outside with the keys?’ Ivy said. She really did feel pity for Kate. She hadn’t wanted to go in and deal with poor little mice in the dark larder. Probably Kate didn’t want to come in here and deal with the three of them either, but Gail didn’t give her much choice.

  ‘She went up to Fraserburgh and came down to Lockerbie,’ Martine said. ‘She could have gone to a police station instead and said …’

  ‘My sister’s a homicidal maniac and she needs locking up in a padded cell,’ Laura supplied.

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ said Ivy. ‘Not to be the strong one, not to be able to stand up to someone.’ She saw Laura open her mouth to say something Laura-like but Martine got there first.

  ‘Don’t mention yourself in the same breath as her, Ivy,’ she said.

  ‘I’m just saying I understand why she’s scared of Gail.’

  ‘We all do,’ Laura said in a small voice. ‘I don’t know what’s worse. Night or day.’

  The first time they had heard Gail at night, the quiet slap of bare feet and the tick-tock of her knife, they had huddled together and whimpered. Ivy didn’t know what the other two were thinking, but she was thinking: ‘this is it; here it comes; now she kills us.’

  Only she didn’t. She went away. And she went away the next time and the time after that. So now, when they heard her – tick-tock, slap-slap – they put their hands over their ears. Sometimes, Ivy noticed, Martine still had her fingers stuffed in her ears when they all woke up in the morning.

  ‘I never know whether I wish I’d seen her or I’m glad I didn’t,’ Laura said, like she always did whenever they talked about Gail. Ivy wanted to add it to the list of things they weren’t allowed to say. Instead, she patted Laura’s arm. ‘What are you going to ask for?’ she went on.

  ‘Why?’ said Ivy, thinking she heard an odd note in the question. ‘What do you want?’

  But Laura shook her head. ‘I’ll get my turn tomorrow.’

  ‘And what will you ask for then?’ said Ivy.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Laura said, ‘I’m going to ask for a hip bath, a Thai massage and a cannabis cookie.’ Ivy felt a flare of gratitude. Sometimes one of them could start joking. When that happened they all tried to keep it going as long as possible.

  ‘Have you ever had a cannabis cookie?’ Martine said. ‘Have you, Ivy?’

  ‘Me?’ Ivy said. ‘I’ve never even had vodka.’ She knew they’d pity her, but they’d laugh too. And so she did her bit. ‘I’ve had wine and beer and Pimm’s one time at a brass band concert in a park, and I’ve had port and brandy to settle my stomach and whisky on toothache. But not vodka.’

  ‘Mushrooms?’ said Laura.

  ‘No,’ Ivy said, slowly as if she was thinking. ‘Ecstasy, though.’

  Martine snorted. ‘You’ve never had ecstasy!’ she said. ‘You’re too old.’

  ‘Charming. No, I’ve never had any of that. Poppers, uppers, downers. And I wouldn’t want to start in here. It would drive you doolally if you had hallucinations in here and you couldn’t get out.’ She had gone too far. No one laughed this time.

  ‘I was in a club in London once, ‘Laura said, ‘and I put my brand-new bag down on the cistern and it stuck. Vaseline. To stop people sniffing coke off it. Ruined two hundred quid’s worth of Italian leather.’

  They were all silent then, remembering London and clubs, or at least films about them. Thinking of handbags and bathrooms. Just like that, it had all run out again.

  ‘I’ll swap my day with you,’ Ivy found herself saying. ‘You go next and I’ll go after.’

  She heard Laura’s breath catch in her throat and her whisper of: ‘Why?’

  Ivy couldn’t tell them the truth. If they laughed at her she might disintegrate until she was nothing but a pile of crumbs. Instead, she delved down into herself for a different story, but she was empty. So she took a pinch of the truth and served it up to them. ‘Because you’re just girls. I’m much older. I want to take care of you.’

  It had come to her late last night. She had been dozing, warm at last, with the two of them cuddled up to her on either side. She had dreamed, half-dreamed anyway, of Mother. It wasn’t really Mother. It was a woman with Mother’s face and someone else’s voice, leaning over Ivy asking if she wanted a bowl of soup, or a cup of cocoa. It might have been Glinda the Good Witch, whose voice had been Ivy’s favourite sound when she was a child. Then she had opened her eyes and looked at the curve of Martine’s arm lying over Ivy’s own body and the curl of Martine’s hand against Ivy’s stomach, how it bumped softly every time Ivy breathed. Maxine’s skin was so smooth, even the thin bridge between her thumb and forefinger didn’t have a single fold in it. Ivy put her own hand beside Martine’s, looking at the elephant’s kneecap swirl of her knuckles and the rough ribs of her nails. Martine’s nails were little peach shells, each one with a pinpoint of light shining on it. Ivy told herself she was far too old to be thinking about Mother, wishing for the love that never had come and never would come now. She told herself she was nearly old enough to be Laura’s mother, definitely Martine’s. And that was when a thought dropped into her head like a round stone into a still pond. I will be the mother; I’ll give the love: a thought so startling and so complete she ran from it, ruffled and feeling foolish.

  But it had come back in the day. That was what she had to live for, instead of pining for death, begging Kate to kill her as she had when she was alone that first month. The thought climbed down from her mind and formed itself into that sentence, pushing an offer out of her mouth, a gift. Like chewed fish in the gullet of a bird, or the rasping reach of a cat’s tongue.

  Laura was staring at her. She turned to look at Martine, whose eyes were round and bright in the dimness. They were all getting used to the dimness now, the soft grey of day and the soft yellow of night, from the streetlamp’s bleary glow through that one tiny window choked with dirt. When they got out, if they got out, the daylight would be blinding.

  ‘No,’ said Martine. ‘There’s no need for that. We’re all in this together, no matter what age we are, what difference does that make? I mean, if one of us was a child or was elderly, but we’re not. We’re all the same.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Laura. ‘That said, if you can’t think what to ask for, Ivy, how about socks?’

  Martine laughed but Ivy bent her head in shame. Laura had been here a week. Her dress was stiff with sweat and dust and her feet were stone-cold all day as she moved around, only warming towards the end of the night when she tucked them close to Ivy’s calves and stole some body heat. A real mother would have noticed that.

  ‘I’ll ask for three pairs of socks tomorrow,’ she said.

  Laura said nothing. Not even thank you. And Ivy’s fragile little tower of hope collapse
d again. Never loved, never loved, never loved, she told herself. So why keep going?

  Why don’t you kill me? she had asked every day until Martine came. Then, why don’t they kill both of us, she asked, until Martine wept and begged her not to. Then when Laura came she asked again: why don’t they kill all three of us and get it over with? Wouldn’t it be better now they’ve caught us, just to kill us? Wouldn’t it be kinder? If she had to spend another minute in this coal-black larder she would— Cellar, she told herself. You are grown-up, Ivy, and this is a cellar you’re trapped in. But still she dreamed of the larder and the mousetrap and the longed-for cat and Mother saying ‘Call the plumber. That tap’s dripping again!’ and ‘Even you’d shut up with your neck broken, Ivy.’

  She did empty the trap that first day, and the next. And every day until once, walking towards the larder cupboard door, telling herself she was imagining the noise, because it couldn’t cry with a broken neck, nevertheless she heard it. It wasn’t a squeak exactly. It was too exhausted to be as sharp a sound as a squeak. It sounded more like the last legs of a small battery telling Ivy it needed changing. But as she opened the door, the scuffling started, a frantic scrabbling and, as if the scrabbling recharged the battery, the slow chirps really were squeaks now.

  Ivy snapped the light on, half-sure she’d see nothing, half-hoping it was her imagination turning the scrape of a twig against the window into this impossible noise. But she knew it wasn’t. There on the floor, caught in the trap by one bloody back foot, was the mouse, turning the trap over and over as it struggled with its front paws, clawing to get away from the pain and the light and this monster who had come.

  Ivy stood frozen, watching the pitiful little drama building to its climax on the floor in front of her. It didn’t take long. In a minute, seemed longer but couldn’t be, the mouse collapsed, its side fluttering up and down and its paws, save for the one stretched out and bloody, contracting as its eyes closed.

  It took another minute, seemed shorter but couldn’t be, for Ivy to pluck up the nerve to lift it. She took the dustpan from the nail on the back of the door and, with her face turned away, she shoved it across the tile floor like a snow plough, whimpering when she felt the sharp edge catch the trap and its tiny appendage. Then she tilted it back, whimpering louder to feel the weight slide towards the handle and thump against the metal.

  She trotted outside, lifted the dustbin lid and let the mouse, trap and all, fall in amongst the peelings and packets. She heard just one more squeak and told herself she didn’t. Told herself it was her shoe leather on the cold ground, or her own voice, still whimpering. For years she told herself it was dead and she hadn’t let it lie there in the dark and dirt, in pain and slowly starving. She was grateful to Mother for the scolding she got: throwing away a good mousetrap instead of emptying it! How would she like to rummage in a filthy bin to get it out? She wouldn’t, would she? ‘No, Mum. No, Mum,’ Ivy said and soon enough the harsh words filled her ears and the tiny little dead-battery squeak was silenced forever.

  Then, slowly – or quickly, who could say – she grew up. She grew to understand the cost of a mousetrap, five pounds ninety-nine for a bag of ten in the cheap shop with the brooms in buckets and the dusters done up like flower-heads and stacked in baskets. But every night, in her bed, she would imagine she could hear it. Sometimes still, as she slept, she would dream a tiny meeping cry.

  Not until Mother was dead did she say to herself, I can have a cat. Now here she was in this cellar, punished for trying.

  Kate was there.

  She was putting a bag of apples and sandwiches down on the ground.

  Ivy hadn’t noticed her coming.

  She was a different Kate from the chummy, confident little woman who’d bought brandy and stood up to louts in a pub. This Kate was blank and cold, as if she was emptying traps and trying not to hear the sounds of suffering. Even as her feet walked in and her hands put bags of food down, she was miles away, braced against the pleas she would ignore.

  But what if Ivy surprised her?

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, from the cardboard. ‘We do appreciate the food. Even if it’s hard to understand why you’re feeding us.’

  ‘Sshhhhhh,’ said Kate. ‘Dead people don’t talk.’

  The words, delivered so calmly, made Ivy’s scalp shrink.

  ‘Dead people don’t eat either,’ Laura muttered under her breath. ‘Oops.’

  ‘Could you bring us some blankets and pillows?’ said Martine. ‘Maybe even some clean clothes. Socks.’

  ‘Clean clothes?’ said Kate, in the same blank voice that lifted the hairs on Ivy’s arms. ‘Pillows? No. Dead people don’t need them.’

  ‘A torch would be nice,’ said Laura, as if she hadn’t heard. ‘Three torches. Head torches. And something to read. Books, magazines …’

  ‘Dead people,’ Kate said, ‘don’t …’

  ‘Two more toothbrushes and some toothpaste,’ said Martine, in a bright voice. The devil had got into her, spreading from Laura. ‘And some sanitary pads in the next day or two.’

  Kate’s head snapped up. ‘No! I can’t buy … those things you said. This shouldn’t be happening. Dead people don’t need anything.’

  ‘A pack of cards then,’ said Ivy. If the other two could find the courage, she wasn’t going to let them down. ‘A radio? You wouldn’t need to buy them if you’ve got spares.’

  ‘I have to go,’ said Kate, shooting a look over her shoulder.

  ‘You don’t!’ Martine said. ‘You don’t have to do any of this.’

  ‘She’s my sister,’ Kate said. She opened the door at her back, but before she went through, she spoke again, hissing, ‘Don’t you understand? How dead do you want to be?’ Then she pulled the door shut with a slam. And her voice as she called to Gail was a cold bellow. ‘Let me out,’ she boomed. ‘Now!’

  They sat in silence then, letting the sounds pass from echoes into memories. Ivy found it soothing to hear the plastic carrier bag settling with small pops and cracks.

  ‘Interesting,’ Laura said eventually.

  When Ivy realized it was up to her to answer, she made her voice sound as eager as she could and said: ‘Tell us.’

  ‘She didn’t mind socks or blankets,’ Laura said. ‘She’ll have them in the house. And she can buy bread and cheese, apples and water. But she hated the idea of tampons and torches. Do you see what that means?’

  ‘Not tampons,’ said Martine. ‘We’d be dead of toxic shock before morning. No, I don’t see what you’re getting at.’

  ‘They’re buying supplies in shops where people know them,’ said Laura. ‘Local shops where the assistants would wonder why two women their age need san-pro, or where they’d remember three head torches.’

  ‘OK,’ said Martine. ‘So what?’

  ‘So,’ said Laura. ‘Can you think of anything we could ask them to buy that would be suspicious without them knowing? That wouldn’t ring their alarm bells but might ring others’? Other people, who’d come. And save us.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Martine. ‘This again!’

  Ivy had dug her nails into her palms so hard she thought they might be bleeding. Maybe she should make them bleed. Sepsis would work.

  ‘What do you think, Ivy?’ Laura said. ‘Ivy?’ She stretched and nudged her with an icy toe.

  ‘I wish she would kill us and get it over with. Sorry,’ she added, at Martine’s gasp. ‘But there’s nothing to work out. And no one’s coming to save us. They didn’t pick our names out of a hat. They chose well.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Martine said.

  ‘They chose three women who lived alone and worked alone, at home, for themselves,’ Ivy said. ‘Women who were all alone.’

  ‘Women without husbands,’ Laura said. Her voice broke.

  ‘Women without parents,’ said Martine.

  ‘Or children,’ Ivy added but, when she saw tears shining in Martine’s eyes, she wished she could take the words back again.

  In the quie
t, Ivy dreamed of her perfect meal. Martine was probably dreaming about her hotel room again. Who knew what Laura was dreaming of but at least she was actually sleeping. Ivy glanced at Martine and both of them smiled, listening to the soft popping snores. Martine stretched Laura’s legs out and cradled her feet, and Ivy pulled Laura’s head down into her lap and smoothed back her hair. She stopped snoring but didn’t wake. Ivy kept stroking her hair back from her head and Martine eased herself back, slower than the seasons, so she could keep Laura’s feet safely in her lap. Like that, they waited. When Laura opened her mouth and smacked her lips together, the way she always did on waking, then rubbed her head back and forth as if scratching it on a pillow, Ivy said softly, ‘Welcome back, sleepyhead.’

  Laura opened her eyes and looked straight up. Then she raised her head and looked down at Martine. ‘Have you been holding me?’ she said. She screwed her head to the side and stared up at the square of window. ‘It’s nearly dark.’

  ‘It was good,’ Martine said. ‘It was time to think.’

  ‘Not again.’ Laura’s voice was weary but there was warmth in it as well as warning.

  ‘It was what you said, Ivy,’ Martine began, ‘about them choosing well. Choosing us well. I thought of something.’

  Laura sat up and pulled her feet in. ‘I need a pee,’ she said.

  ‘You need a pee?’ said Martine, moving at last. ‘I’ve been stock-still with your heels digging into my bladder since lunchtime!’ She stood and shook out her legs. ‘Ivy wanted a cat and got a sister. I wanted a dad and got a sister. Laura wanted a date and got a woman saying ‘Think of me as your sister’ or if we’re willing to stretch a point got … a sister.’

  ‘So?’ said Laura.

  ‘So they chose you, Laura, and they chose how to catch you. With the dating agency.’

  ‘For my pathetic sins,’ Laura said, shifting the sheet from over the drain and squatting.