The Death House

by Sarah Pinborough

  He nods, but he’s obviously not convinced. I wonder if the dread is worse for him because he’s so clever, but I don’t think it can be. I think we’re all pretty equal in the dread, we just show it differently. I withdrew from them all, Jake got more arrogant and Ashley found the church to hide behind and pretend he isn’t scared. But he’s just kidding himself. If his eyes started bleeding, I bet he’d cry like Henry did.

  ‘We should play Narnia.’ Will has followed Louis over, puppy-like. ‘Clara could be the queen.’

  ‘We’re too old for shit like that,’ I say. ‘You and Eleanor play it if you want.’ When I look at Will and Louis for too long I feel bad about me and Clara planning to run away on the boat. I worry about them. It will upset them. I know it will. I’ll have abandoned them. We can’t take more people, though, and that’s that. I’m not their parent. At least they have each other.

  Will shrugs and sniffs. ‘I can’t finish the snowman. Two of my fingers are numb.’ He holds up his small hands, now red and raw. ‘Here,’ Louis says. He pulls a spare pair of socks from his coat pocket. They’re thick and woollen. ‘Put those on and warm up.’

  ‘It’s great, isn’t it? The snow?’ Will grins, pushing his hands into the feet. ‘Isn’t it great?’

  ‘Yep, it really is,’ Louis agrees.

  ‘Hey, Toby!’ I stop smiling and look across the garden. It’s Jake. ‘Dorm Seven against Dorm Four snowball fight?’

  The garden stills for a moment as Jake’s deeper voice cuts across the excited noises of everyone else and the strange snow silence takes hold as they all pause to see how this will play out. Louis and Will both glance at me, nervous, but I smile. Jake’s giving me an olive branch and I’m going to take it. ‘We’ll smash you!’ I call back.

  ‘I’ll go on their team!’ Clara bounces across the snow, all energy and joy.

  ‘Okay, bring it on!’

  It turns into a free-for-all with everyone joining in. By the time the gong goes for lunch we all know exactly how it feels to get snow in your eyes and ears and nose and our skin stings and tingles and we’ve laughed so hard we’ve cried. We’re not divided into dorms any more, suspicious of each other. There are no unspoken boundaries. It’s too brilliant a day for that. It’s not just the best day we’ve had in the house. I think it’s one of the best days any of us has had ever.

  It’s after lunch when Jake comes to us with his plan. He pulls me, Clara and Tom into a corner near the playroom. The house is quiet. Everyone is changing into whatever dry clothes they can find to go back outside again, but he still has Albi on lookout at one end of the corridor and Daniel at the other. I feel like we’re in one of those old prison films.

  ‘I’m thinking of breaking into one of the teachers’ rooms later. The old bloke who always stank of fags.’ His voice is low. ‘See if there’s any booze and stuff. We can have a party before bed.’

  ‘When?’ I say. My heart is racing. ‘And how? If you wreck the door they’ll know we’ve done it.’

  ‘Not a problem. This house is old, man. The internal locks will be easy.’ He looks at Clara. ‘If you’ve got a couple of hairpins.’

  ‘Harriet does. I can bring you one of hers.’

  ‘Two. I need two.’ Clara nods.

  ‘You really know how to do that shit?’ I say. ‘Did you learn it in reform school?’

  He rolls his eyes. ‘Before then. It’s a fuck tonne easier than breaking into cars and I can do that, too.’

  I don’t know whether he’s lying about the cars, but I figure we’ll never find out so I take his word for it.

  ‘So? You in?’ he asks. ‘I’m thinking your dorm and mine – none of the Jesus freaks, though.’ He glances sideways. ‘And Clara. No one else. And if anyone else hears about it, I’ll kick your head in.’

  ‘We won’t tell,’ Clara says. We know how to keep secrets better than Jake could ever guess.

  ‘I’ll need lookouts while I do it. You watch Matron’s office, Toby. She’s always in there for a couple of hours after tea. I’ll need you to let me know if she comes out. We can set up a whistle system.’

  ‘Sure.’ I wonder for a minute if this is an elaborate joke he’s playing on us, but I decide against it. He’s too earnest. Plus we need the truce. The house is shit enough without fighting each other. I think about the boat schedule in Matron’s office. ‘Will you show me how to pick the locks?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ His eyes narrow slightly.

  ‘I just think it’s a cool thing to be able to do, that’s all,’ I say. ‘I always wanted to know how people do that shit.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘After.’

  I don’t push it. I don’t want him to know it’s important.

  I don’t tell Will and Louis until just before the plan goes into action. They probably wouldn’t have told anyone but their faces aren’t great at hiding excitement. Clara takes them off upstairs and I go to my position in the hall just around the corner from Matron’s office door. She can’t come out without crossing my line of sight.

  I take an old Beano Annual from the library, a relic from the years when snow was normal in England, and sit on a cushion from the playroom floor, leaning against the long radiator. I flick through yellowed pages but don’t really read. There’s a boy with a crazy dog who always gets in trouble and a posh kid in a bow tie. The heat at my back after all the cold excitement of the morning makes me drowsy and I’m fighting to keep my eyes open when footsteps come down the stairs. I sit up, sharply alert, and see the nurse – our nurse, as I’ve started to think of her – heading to Matron’s office. She’s clutching a piece of paper and the glimpse I get of her face shows none of her normal kindness. Her jaw looks clenched, her eyes determined.

  Just out of sight, she knocks loudly on the office door and my heart races. She starts speaking as soon as the door opens.

  ‘I’ve got the results – they’re the same as before. We really need to talk about what to do.’

  Matron mutters something and they both disappear inside. I’m not dozing any more. The results she’s talking about have to be mine and Louis’. What’s going on with us? What might they have to do? I lean my head back against the wall and for a moment just want to cry as the ball of dread grows and presses into my bladder and all my insides cringe.

  I can hear voices through the wall and press my ear against it. I’d be less afraid if I just knew what was going on. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

  Matron’s voice is a mumble. I can’t imagine her ever shouting, but the nurse is getting heated. She’s braver than she looks. How could anyone ever get angry face-to-face with Matron? I concentrate harder and make out occasional phrases.

  They need to be told.

  But something must be done. What are you going to do about it?

  If you don’t, I will.

  More calm murmurings from Matron between her outbursts, a trickle of water on fire, and slowly the nurse’s voice drops again. The door clicks.

  I push myself into the wall as she comes out and heads back up the stairs, without the paper she had on the way in. I don’t want her to see me. I don’t want her to see my dread. I want to melt into the wall and never be found.

  A few moments later, a quiet whistle drifts down to me. Jake’s done it. Good, I think as I stand, leaving the book and cushion behind, because what I really need is to get drunk and forget about everything. I glance out of the window. It’s started snowing again. I try to find some joy in it.

  It’s not a great haul, to be honest – three bottles of wine and two cigarettes – but it’s better than nothing and between eight of us, it’s plenty. Will looks nervous. He’s probably never had more than a sip of beer at Christmas, and I doubt Louis’ life before contained any nights necking cheap cider in a park somewhere. We’ll be drinking most of their share. It feels like treasure as we sit in a circle on p
illows in a room a little further down from where we kept Georgie. It’s colder here and I wonder if they turn the heating off in the unused parts of the house.

  ‘You watch the door first, Dan,’ Jake says, pouring a measure of white wine into our plastic water cups. ‘Ten minutes each, yeah?’

  ‘No problemo.’ Daniel hauls himself to his feet, huffing a little at moving his weight. He’s just happy to be here. He’d probably smear himself with shit if Jake asked him to. Jake and Albi are the closest things to friends he has, and they’re not really his friends.

  Jake holds his cup up. ‘Fuck this shit,’ he toasts.

  Tom laughs. ‘Yeah, fuck this shit.’ We all raise our plastic glasses and drink.

  ‘To the snow! To Narnia!’ Will blurts out as his nose crinkles at the taste, and we all stare at him.

  Albi laughs but there’s no meanness in it. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘To the snow, little brother. To the snow.’

  Within ten minutes, we’ve all got a buzz on, even Jake. It doesn’t take much. None of us has been near a drink for weeks and even before that probably only Jake drank regularly. Tom takes over from Daniel at the door, loitering half-in and half-out, but we’re pretty safe. No one comes down here. We tell jokes and begin to relax as the wine takes hold. I put my arm round Clara and she leans into me, kissing my cheek, after which Daniel starts singing, ‘Toby and Clara sitting in a tree, K. I. S. S. I. N. G . . .’ And then Louis joins in and then the rest until Tom shushes us from the doorway.

  ‘None of that soppy shit in here,’ Jake says, and although there’s a twinge of jealousy in his tone, he’s doing his best to get past it. Clara straightens up and I pull my arm back. From the corner of my eye I see Louis catching Will’s cup as it threatens to spill and I smile.

  ‘Pissed already?’

  ‘I’ve never had wine before,’ Will says and takes a big swallow. More laughter.

  ‘Are we going to smoke those cigarettes?’ Clara asks.

  ‘Won’t the nurses smell them?’ I ask.

  ‘Not if we open the window and lean out. And close the door.’ She’s on her feet. ‘Will’s never had wine, I’ve never had a cigarette. None of us had ever seen snow before.’ She glances at me – a secret look that’s just ours. ‘It’s been a couple of days of first things.’ I think about how it felt being inside her – weird and wonderful all at the same time. I can’t wait for it to be night again.

  ‘I don’t want one,’ Louis says, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘They’re really bad for you.’

  Jake is at the window, pushing the old wooden frame up, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He turns and stares.

  ‘Are you shitting serious?’ He looks from Louis to me.

  ‘I have to live with this,’ I say.

  ‘But they give you cancer,’ Louis insists. ‘Everyone knows that.’

  The rest of us exchange amused glances.

  ‘You gotta be messing with us,’ Albi says. ‘For real?’

  ‘I don’t see the point of making things worse, that’s all.’ Louis sips his wine, a picture of reasonableness, and it’s so ridiculously comical that we all burst out laughing, the kind that comes from the belly that you just can’t stop.

  ‘What?’ Louis says. He looks so confused, it just makes it worse. Tom is wheezing. Clara’s half-taking a drink when the laughter overcomes her and she snorts into her wine and sets us all off again.

  ‘Don’t see the point of making things worse?’ Jake finally says through his giggles. ‘Shit, man, that is classic.’

  ‘Don’t want to make things worse,’ Tom repeats. He’s trying to get the words out between fits of laughter and his voice is so high-pitched it doesn’t even sound like him. ‘Hi, I live in the Death House, but no, no smoking for me. Don’t see the point of making things worse.’ The end of the sentence is barely more than a blur of sobs and squeezed-out sounds as Tom loses it again.

  Finally, Louis cracks, the ridiculousness of his position dawning on him, and the giggles take him, too. We’re all lost then.

  My stomach and face ache from it, my bruised eye throbbing hard, and even though I know it’s crazy – the eight of us, a little bit drunk, laughing until we hurt at the fact that we’re in the Death House – and even with the thought of the nurse and Matron talking about me and Louis, I still can’t stop laughing. Everything seems funny. All of it.

  I don’t even like cigarettes but I’m going to fucking smoke one today.

  I have a few puffs but the smoke makes my head spin and after a couple of goes that scorch my lungs, I avoid inhaling. Clara’s trying valiantly but coughs every time she breathes in. We’re like the lame kids around the back of the science labs at school. In the end, we just hand it back to Jake. He and Tom smoke the rest.

  Once the wine is finished, it’s only an hour or so before bedtime and Albi heads downstairs to play his sax and ‘get his mellow on’ as he puts it. Clara and Tom go to listen and the younger kids head off to the dorms.

  ‘Show me how to do the locks,’ I say, when it’s just me and Jake left.

  We hide the bottles behind an old wardrobe where we figure it will be weeks at least until they’re found, if ever, and then make our way to the teachers’ quarters. My head is buzzing and I still feel a bit queasy from the cigarette smoke. It clings to me like bad aftershave but I try to focus as Jake tells me how to hold the two hairpins and wiggle them against the mechanism inside. Eventually I hear a click. I turn the handle and the door opens. My heart lifts. Jake grins. ‘See? Pretty easy, huh?’

  For a second I glimpse a cosy little bedsit, a throw over the sofa, TV in the corner, all so normal and homely, and then we close the door again.

  ‘They’re harder to relock.’

  He’s right. By the time I get it done, my fingers are aching and I’ve used every swear word I know at least twice. But I manage it. I knew I would. I have to. I think of Matron’s office downstairs and pray she has the same kind of lock.

  ‘We’d better get back,’ Jake says. ‘Wash the fags away before the nurses come round.’

  ‘Hey,’ I say, when we reach the stairs. ‘Thanks for this.’ I don’t know quite what I’m trying to say. His face doesn’t look as bad as my eye does, but his lip is fatter and I can see where I split it. ‘You know, after everything.’

  He shrugs. ‘Let’s just leave it, yeah?’

  ‘Sure.’

  We’ll be gone soon, I want to say. We’ll be out of your face for ever. But I don’t. Even with Jake it feels like a bit of a betrayal now. In a lot of ways we are all in this shit together even though we all feel so very alone.

  I come out of the bathroom, washed and smelling of soap and toothpaste but still hazy from wine, and find Louis waiting for me in the hallway in his pyjamas and slippers.

  ‘What’s up?’

  His face is drawn tight in a frown. ‘Will.’

  ‘What about him?’ I hope to shit he hasn’t thrown up in the dorm. What will we clean it up with?

  ‘Do you think he’s all right?’

  ‘He’s just drunk.’

  ‘No, not that. The other stuff.’ He picks at his fingers.

  ‘What other stuff?’ We need to get to the dorm. The nurses will be coming round soon.

  ‘He’s clumsy all of a sudden.’ He’s not looking at me, but down at the floor. ‘It’s weird.’

  ‘He seems okay to me.’ I’m pretty sure he is, anyway. My head is so full of Clara, the boat and the retests that I haven’t really been paying attention. ‘I think you’re being paranoid.’

  ‘What about you?’ He looks at me now. ‘You okay?’

  I nod. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  ‘So let’s go to bed.’ I feel uncomfortable now, the overhead conversation wriggling like maggots in my mind. Something must be done. If you don’t, I will.


  Sixteen

  I fall asleep quickly, despite myself. It’s been a long day of snow and wine on top of so many days of surviving on three or four hours, and although I’m determined to stay awake and see Clara, I go out like a light.

  I wake up with a start. The dorm is dark and still, the combination of wine and sleeping pills having sent the others into a deep sleep that will probably leave them fuzzy in the morning. My mouth is dry and my lungs are raw from my few attempts to smoke. I need a drink of water. I have no idea what time it is, but the night has a thick texture that tells my gut it’s safe. The nurses are in bed. It’s mine and Clara’s time.

  I get water from the bathroom and between that and the cold air I wake up a bit. I creep to Clara’s dorm and find her fast asleep, curled up on her side, knees tucked under her chin, hair spread out over the pillow behind her as if the sea wind is in her face even as she sleeps. I almost shake her and then think better of it. She’s so still and her breathing so even I know she’s way down deep in her rest. I don’t want to disturb her. She probably needs it. I watch her for a minute and decide to go back to my own bed. I don’t want to steal food and go and look at the sky through the playroom window on my own any more. Those days are done. The nights are mine and Clara’s and I’ll just feel lonely and maudlin without her.

  I’m between the landings when I hear it. For a moment, I don’t know what it is. My body does – my heart races and I shiver with sudden fear before I freeze where I stand – but my mind takes a minute to catch up. It’s the groan and wheeze of the lift coming to life. I’m not expecting it. Who are they coming for?

  Me. Me and Louis. The retest.

  I almost throw up. I can’t think of anyone else who’s sick. Not sick enough for the Angels of Death to come and wheel them away. I have the crazy thought that I should rush back to my dorm and pretend to be asleep because I’ll get in trouble if I’m not there when they come for me, and then I have to stifle a terrified giggle at how stupid that is. There is no trouble that compares with the trouble I’m in now. I should run. Head out into the garden and over the wall and hide on the island somewhere they won’t find me. Or take my chances in that rowing boat.