A Gingerbread House

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Basically,’ said Ivy, ‘Kate went ballistic when she saw the open drain.’

  ‘But not because she was worried she might get whacked with the cover for it,’ Laura said. ‘She didn’t care where a massive metal plate had gone. Oh no! She only cared that the drain was open.’

  ‘And she said,’ Martine chipped in – they were enjoying telling me this – ‘she said … “Get away from there. That’s private.”’

  ‘And even when she saw me actually with the drain cover raised over my head to bash her brains in,’ said Ivy, ‘she was still more bothered about Martine being near the hole.’

  ‘Which is bonkers,’ Martine said.

  ‘So,’ said Laura, ‘we think there’s a way out. Through the drain.’

  ‘I think so too,’ I said. ‘I think you’re right.’ That set them off like a flock of parrots, flapping and chattering. When they’d quietened again I went on: ‘There’s a nail bar, on the corner – Hollywood Nails – and in the last few days the girls that run it have been talking about the smell. They even worked out it was coming from here. I thought … I really thought … Never mind. If the cover was taken off at the other end and the air’s moving, that would explain it. How big is it at this end?’

  ‘Like a manhole,’ Laura said. ‘A womanhole.’

  ‘The Hollywood girls said there’s a grating in their back yard that’s too big to cover up with a bin,’ I told them.

  ‘We’ve made a rope,’ Ivy said. She leaned to the side and lifted a thick grey plait. ‘It’s our tracksuit bottoms. Not Laura’s because of her kidney infection—’

  ‘Just call me Marie Antoinette,’ Laura chipped in, giving a royal wave with the one hand that was sticking out from under her blanket.

  ‘And I was going to go down it,’ Martine said. ‘I kind of still want to even though you’re here, Tash.’

  ‘Except no way,’ Laura said. ‘Because for one – open wound on the back of your head. And for two – if there’s four of us in here and the only Black girl gets dropped down a sewer to save three whiteys we are going to get roasted alive in the papers. So just no.’

  ‘Right,’ said Ivy. ‘We don’t care about you, Martine, we just want to make sure we can get paid for glowing articles about us in the posh magazines.’

  ‘You’re sick,’ Martine said. ‘Tash, we decided all this before you got here. We’ve made a pact to talk all together or not at all.’

  ‘Otherwise Laura would be showing them round her penthouse and I’d be in the black-and-white pages at the back,’ said Ivy.

  I stared at them, one after the other. They were kidding. They were actually joking around. They were laughing.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Laura said. ‘What a bunch of brain-dead zombies.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ I said, stumbling to get the words out fast enough.

  ‘Yeah, you were,’ Laura said. ‘We’re not, though. We’re just demob happy because we’re getting outta here!’

  ‘And because Laura didn’t die,’ Martine said. ‘That’s always nice.’

  ‘Plus – to be fair – they drug us,’ said Ivy.

  ‘Yeah, all three of us are off our heads on some kind of sedative or something,’ said Martine. ‘It’s in the water.’

  ‘And when we get out and I get this pair hooked up to a lie detector …’ Laura said. The other two laughed but it was hollow. ‘You look puzzled, Tash,’ she went on. ‘The thing is that while I was ill – really ill – they gave me nearly all the water and I can’t work out if they were trying to put me out of my misery or just keep my kidneys flushed through.’

  ‘I keep telling you,’ Martine said, ‘I heard on a podcast about deep sedation letting people fight infection. And maybe it worked.’

  ‘Maybe?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, maybe,’ Laura said. ‘Because Kate gave us a bottle of pills, with the label too faded to read. And this pair of Florence Nightingales – or Harold Shipmans; who can say? – fed them to me anyway. We’ve saved one to get it tested if we ever—’

  ‘Once we’re out,’ said Ivy.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Martine. ‘Once we’re home.’

  ‘So anyway, Tash, there’s Flurazepam in the water. That’s why we’re all loopy.’

  ‘I wasn’t thirsty anyway,’ I said, trying to sound as calm as they did without the help they were getting. What a total head-wreck of an idea: to know that your mind was being controlled by the water you had to drink to stay alive.

  ‘Actually, that’s a good idea,’ Ivy said. ‘Don’t drink unless you have to.’

  ‘Well, when’s zero hour?’ I said. ‘When’s go time?’

  ‘We had said tomorrow,’ Ivy said. ‘To let Martine’s head scab over. But since you’re here, we could go right now.’ She beamed at the others and then at me.

  I thought again of Wee Garry stepping out of my dad’s car and the sound of the entry-phone buzzer. For the first time, it struck me that this was perfect. My dad must be going crazy out there, knowing I was close – the warm kettle, the open window, even the stairway of fat pails if he looked out and noticed them. He would be climbing the walls, not knowing where I’d got to.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘right now might be very bad for me. Tomorrow would work much better.’

  They shared a look. ‘Interesting,’ Laura said. ‘Makes me wonder all over again what you’re doing here. How about we tell you our sad tales, if you tell us yours. In fact why don’t we start?’

  I listened. It seemed like they talked for hours. About a cold mother, a missing father, a long-lost sister, a hoped-for husband; cats and photos and roses. The light changed while I listened.

  ‘You probably think we’re pathetic,’ Ivy said when Laura had finished her bout of talking and dried her tears. ‘Well, we are. I am anyway. We’re as bad as those girls who think they’re going to be nannies and hand their passports over.’

  And so to make them feel better, when I started to talk I told them everything. Big Garry and Lynne and Bazz, BG Europe and the eager Russian buyers, the collapsing foundations of my life. I told them about the burner phone and the stomach bug, my decision, all my preparation, my ultimatum, my seven-day wait, and the sight of my dad out in the street, coming to get me. Then I pushed the button to light my watch face. ‘Gone eleven,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Time’s weird down here,’ Martine said.

  ‘Let’s rest,’ said Ivy. ‘And try to sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.’

  ‘Tash, can you put that light on again a minute?’ said Laura. ‘Sounds daft but we haven’t had a light. It’s nice.’

  When we’d all squatted over the drain in turn and the three of them had drunk some water, giving me an apple instead, we settled down, them like sardines on their airbed and me across two of the plastic chairs.

  ‘Are we ready?’ Martine said. ‘It’s my turn. Tash, someone tells a bedtime story every night. Ivy started it but we help now. You listen and if our plan doesn’t work maybe you can take a turn tomorrow.’

  If it doesn’t work, I thought. Tomorrow. When I’d had some of the water too. Then I tuned in to what Martine was saying.

  ‘… is a hotel that pays test guests to come and stay. I’ll have a tower room with a view over miles of countryside, treetops and fields full of lambs, and windows on all four sides that I can leave open and feel the night breeze and hear owls. Laura’s got a room downstairs with a balcony facing the sea, so you can hear seagulls and smell the ozone. Your bath is sunk in the floor, Laura, and it’s got jets of water and there’s a pot of salt scrub. Ivy, you’re in a suite with a full kitchen and a log fire, so you can bake crumpets in the oven and then toast them on a fork and then we’ll come down and eat them with you, dripping with butter and blackcurrant jam.’

  ‘Strawberry,’ said Ivy, her voice already gravelly.

  ‘Strawberry,’ said Martine. ‘And when we go to bed, I’m on cool linen sheets and a goose-down duvet and Laura’s bed has got satin and no
blankets at all because the room’s so warm, and you’ve been to the waxers, Laura, so your legs don’t snag them – See? I do remember – and Ivy’s bed has got red flannel sheets and real wool blankets and a Tiffany lamp on the bedside table so you can sit up with your cocoa and read.’

  ‘What am I reading?’ Ivy’s voice was slurred.

  ‘The new Ann Cleeves. They sent you it early because you’re such a superfan. And it’s her best yet.’

  ‘What am I doing?’ said Laura softly.

  ‘His name’s Jaden,’ said Martine. ‘He’s a trainer, but he’s also a trauma counsellor. He volunteers at the Samaritans on a Saturday night. That’s their hardest night. But he’s in a rugby club too. He’s got a scar through one eyebrow from a bad scrum. And I’m Skyping Idris because he’s filming in LA. But he’ll be home tomorrow.’

  ‘You get Jaden and Idris and I get cocoa?’ Ivy said. ‘Is Bill Nighy dead in this dream?’

  ‘Shoosh,’ said Martine. ‘Don’t make us laugh. We’ll all wake up again.’

  ‘What did we have for dinner in the hotel?’ Ivy said. And Martine started talking.

  TWENTY-SIX

  It wasn’t exactly light when I woke but the darkness had a different quality, dusty instead of silky, muffled. I had moved to the airbed sometime in the night and now I lay on my portion of it, trying not to move or breathe differently in case I woke them. I’d had one night to take. Ivy had been in here for months. Any time they could sleep was surely a blessing.

  ‘Do you think Ty’s looking already?’ Laura said.

  ‘And Adim?’ Ivy said.

  ‘I was going to run to his shop the day I came,’ Martine said. ‘When I realized my bag was gone with my phone in it. But they’d locked me in already.’

  ‘How long have you all been awake?’ I asked.

  ‘A while,’ Martine told me. ‘We didn’t want to disturb you. I remember waking up the second day.’

  Two pairs of tracksuit bottoms hadn’t looked like a very long rope but it stretched to double when I tested my weight on it.

  ‘No sound of stitches ripping though,’ Ivy said. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘And if the pipe to the other drain is too small you’ll come right back,’ said Martine.

  ‘I will, but I’ll have to sit away from you all or you’ll all puke.’

  ‘No way,’ said Ivy. ‘It’s a waste of food.’

  ‘Five metres,’ Laura said when I shone my watch light down the shaft, moving it gradually, lighting the dark brick walls and only letting it settle a moment on the jumbled mess at the bottom.

  ‘Fifteen feet,’ Ivy said.

  ‘Same difference. And I’m five foot five. I can do that. If you think you can counterweight me so I don’t drop, Martine, I can do that easy.’ I didn’t feel as brave as I was trying to sound. Not nearly. What did I know about letting myself down into a deep hole in the ground without dying? I’d seen it in films but they always made it look like nothing. ‘Were any of you in the Brownies?’ I asked. ‘Because I haven’t got a clue how to climb down a rope. Not a single clue.’

  ‘Don’t climb down the rope,’ Laura said. ‘Walk down the wall. More control that way.’

  I bit my lip on the answer that sprang to mind but it was easier than I expected, once Laura – never a Brownie, but once a gymnast – had explained the basics. It was mostly trust and there was no way these three were going to let me fall. Martine took most of it, her knuckles shining bony on the pale grey twisted cotton and a grim set to her jaw, but Ivy was there with her one good hand, pale from the pain, and Laura insisted. Still, the first step off the horizontal on to the face of the shaft was terrifying. Everything felt wrong – new muscles working, fighting gravity, the threat of my feet slipping on the wet bricks. It was better when both feet were flat in front of me and I was passing the rope up through my hands, slowly shuffling down, grabbing, releasing, shuffling again, keeping going. When I felt the big knot in the rope end pass between my legs I was shocked to look up and see how far above me the edge of the hole was, even more shocked to look down and see the filthy floor of the drain only a few metres below. ‘It’s really stretched,’ I called up to them. I took a breath, held it, and let my legs drop away. Then, sending up a prayer, I let go.

  ‘Are you down?’ It was Ivy. They must have felt the tension leave the rope.

  ‘I’m down,’ I said. ‘Standing on solid ground. But oh my God the smell.’ The base of the drain was bigger than the shaft, like the bulb in the bottom of a test-tube, but it was still close enough all around to make me feel trapped and panicky. It couldn’t be piss and shit and a bit of dried blood. I didn’t believe it. It was too thick and far too sweet.

  ‘Is there an opening?’ Martine shouted. ‘Just tell us and then come back up. I’ll take over.’

  ‘No!’ I shouted. The air down here felt like poison, bitter and stinking in my nose and my mouth. Martine with that gash on the back of her head couldn’t come down here.

  ‘Tash, I’m flinging the wet wipes to you,’ Ivy said. ‘See if you can’t make a mask. See if that helps.’

  ‘Don’t waste them!’ I said. ‘I’m fine. I’m sorry. I just … I’m fine now. I’m going to put my light on and have a look.’

  I turned my wrist and hit the button, turning in a tight circle, peering at the bottom of the blackened brick walls all around me, then suddenly a section that was striped and shining. The moan escaped me helplessly. ‘Nooo.’

  ‘What?’ All three voices came booming down.

  ‘There’s a grate over it. It’s covered.’ I dropped on my knees and put my hands round the bars, shaking them more out of frustration than hope, but I felt them give and I fell back, sprawling flat with the square of grating on top of me.

  ‘Shit!’ I spat. ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘What?’ It was Ivy. ‘Tash, we can’t see a thing up here.’

  ‘The grate’s loose. It’s off. It came away in my hands. But I’ve sprawled on my arse and I’m covered in crap.’

  ‘How big’s the hole?’ Laura shouted. ‘Put the light on.’

  But I knew without checking, because I’d heard the crunch, that my watch was a goner. ‘There’s no light now,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. The grate fell on it. But the hole’s … about the size of one of those wee IKEA tables. The square ones.’

  No one said anything for a moment, then Martine spoke up. ‘It’s your call. That sounds pretty tiny to me.’

  I slid until I was lying flat, trying not to think about the wetness at the back of my head. ‘Yeah but if I skootch right down and look along it,’ I said, ‘I’m pretty sure I can see light and it doesn’t look that far. I mean, how far can it be? Twenty feet? I really can see light. It must be from the grate in the yard at Hollywood. I’m going.’

  ‘Wind the rope round your waist in case you need it at the other end,’ Laura shouted. ‘And be careful. Feel your way. Don’t get jagged on anything. Or anything.’

  ‘The bottom’s soft,’ I said. ‘I think there might be litter or something. And there’s a blockage. It’s all gathered in a pile halfway along. I’ll need to shift it.’

  ‘A pile of what?’ said Ivy. ‘I still think you should make a mask.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Leaves? Maybe someone at the other end swept them down the drain and they got blown along the pipe?’ Or maybe, I was thinking, something crawled in there and died. It would explain the waves of stink. But that pile was far too big to be a dead animal. I sniffed again. ‘Oh Jesus.’

  ‘What?’ Another frightened chorus.

  ‘Smell,’ I managed to say. ‘It’s really bad. It’s much worse in the pipe. It’s not good.’ I tried to laugh and failed completely. ‘I’m taking that tower room at the hotel, Martine. And Jaden. And the cocoa. I’m just saying.’

  It wouldn’t have been so terrible if I could crawl, but there wasn’t enough clearance so I dropped on to my front and, grabbing my cuffs in my fists to save my arms getting scraped, pulled myself for
ward into the pipe, wriggling my bum and pushing with my toes. I made a good six feet of progress that way, panting hard, feeling the closeness press all around me and thanking all the gods I wasn’t scared of small spaces, or the dark. And at least panting made me breathe automatically through my mouth and stopped me smelling maybe half of the evil stench down here. I could still hear them shouting encouragement from up in the cellar, even though I had no breath to spare to answer them.

  Now I was at the bit where that heap of litter blocked my way. I would have given anything for my watch light back again. Instead, I had to feel ahead in the dark to see what the blockage was and how I might get over it or move it aside or something.

  ‘A shoe.’ I said it out loud to myself. Why the hell would anyone hide old shoes down here halfway along a sewage pipe? That’s private! they said Kate had blurted out. But why would even a madwoman – even a madwoman’s minion – stash shoes here? I grabbed it and tugged, expecting to chuck it behind me but it didn’t move, as if it was stuck on something. I felt around, trying to understand the strange texture of the flakes and strings that were shifting under my hands, dropping away from my touch until I felt a sudden unyielding rod like a … like a …

  And I was moving backwards, ten times faster than I had crawled in, screaming, my screams booming in the shaft.

  ‘What? What? Tash!’ I could see the dim outlines of their heads above me.

  ‘Throw the rope up. We’ll get you up.’

  ‘What’s wrong? Untie the rope and throw it up to us.’

  I had crawled right through the heap of waste at the bottom of the shaft and found myself sitting pressed against the far wall whimpering. ‘It’s a body. There’s a body. It’s a corpse. There’s a corpse in there. I felt its foot. There’s a dead person in there. It’s a body.’ I wasn’t cold – I was hotter if anything, from the close air and exertion and adrenaline – but I was shivering hard, my teeth clacking together and my limbs shuddering.