Five Stories High

by Jonathan Oliver

  Who is upstairs?

  Harry runs up the staircase, taking steps two at a time. He searches both Cory and Ade’s rooms, but finds nothing. The windows are closed. Confused, he returns down the stairs. He starts to question himself, maybe he did not hear anything. Maybe there are rats leftover from the previous incarnation of the house. Odd, though. The other night, while making love to Tara, he sees or thinks he sees the silhouette of a man in the room with them. He blinks and it is gone, but in a few seconds it is back. A few blinks clears his vision. He decides to squeeze his eyes shut and by the time he climaxes there are no silhouettes.

  Cursory wordless kiss from Tara – she does not even make eye contact. Harry goes out to get the shopping for her. The leaves are orange, brown and red, the onset of autumn. He notices a girl leading a bicycle past the still-open gate. She is about nine or ten years old, and she waves gaily. He waves back and takes the shopping bags in.

  Later, at night when the house is silent and he lies awake, he knows that his excitement, his satisfaction with the house is a little less shiny, a little less absolute. This might or might not be due to Tara’s indifference. Her warmth radiates beside him. He knows, beyond doubt, that he loves her, but not that she loves him.

  It’s been ten years since Harry’s exoneration.

  He has known Tara for thirteen years. The first two years he and Tara are your basic London couple. Then one of her friends, Loretta, accuses Harry of rape. Harry is asleep in Tara’s bed in a house-share. Tara is on a night-shift. This has happened a million times, and Harry is friendly with all of the housemates. The next day Harry is woken by the police who arrest him. Tara stands by him until DNA evidence places Harry in the room where the rape occurred. This baffles Harry even while he spends a year in prison. He is only set free when the real rapist, who used a condom, is caught in an unrelated case and confesses. A second scientist theorises that shared towels may be responsible for Harry’s DNA being present, or that he and Loretta may have had recent consensual sex. Tara is waiting for him, tearful, outside Wormwood Scrubs. He never speaks of his time inside, and they continue their relationship. When he asks her to marry him, she says yes. She is suitably overjoyed when they become pregnant with Adrienne. Likewise with Cory.

  Nevertheless, Harry still feels there is a bit of pity and guilt at the heart of their marriage, sorry for not believing you and all that. He doesn’t mind too much. The house is for her because she comes from money. It takes time, but Harry parlays his compensation cash into the small fortune that led to him owning and restoring this castle.

  He realises he is no longer sleepy, so he rises carefully, trying not to wake Tara. He works his way down the staircase, but steps on something, like a cord or thick cable. He switches on the light and sees a dead garden snake. No, it’s a slow worm. He pokes it with his toe, just to be sure, then he picks it up. He drops it in the bin and puts the kettle on. He tries to do some paperwork, but it sends him to sleep, and he only wakes when the house begins to stir.

  “THEY’RE HARMLESS,” SAYS the gardener. “Eat slugs, too. Good for the garden.”

  “I have young children,” says Harry. “What if they bite?”

  “They don’t bite. They detach their tails when they’re scared.”

  “What about disease?”

  The gardener makes a face, and Harry leaves him alone.

  HARRY IS AT work when he receives a phone call from Tara.

  “Can you leave work for about an hour?” she asks.

  Harry looks at thirty unread emails in his inbox. “Err... why?”

  “Cory’s teacher wants to see us.”

  “Both of us?”

  “If you don’t have the time I can go on my own, Harry.” There was a sigh in the way she said it, an acknowledgement of him falling short.

  “I’ll come. When?”

  “You don’t have to –”

  “I said I’ll come.”

  Those fucking children!

  I can hear them, laughing at me, laughing at my impotence. I’d like to catch one of them, just one. Then they’d see. Then they would see. The laughter would stop and the seriousness would begin.

  I can hear them now, running, creeping, whispering. Holding their laughter in like a –

  The writing comes to an abrupt stop on the envelope. Harry looks up at the teacher, hands the paper to Tara, who has been leaning in, reading.

  “Cory wrote this?” Harry says.

  “Yes.” The teacher is searching their faces now, no doubt looking for signs of debauchery and deviance. Harry tries to appear as normal as possible. Think normal. Think boring!

  “I don’t understand,” says Harry. He does, though. This is the same kind of thing Cory wrote the other day, but it would not do to let the teacher know that. Tara seems to play along, although he senses disapproval in her body language.

  “How has he been at home?” asks the teacher, not quite hiding the interrogatory tone.

  “Fine. He’s been fine,” says Harry. “You know, we just moved house.”

  “He’s using sexualised terms. This can sometimes mean he’s been sexually abused. At the very least, he has been exposed to that kind of language.”

  Harry laughs, and hopes it does not come across as nervous. “Aren’t we taking this a little too far?”

  “We have to take this kind of behaviour seriously. Read it again. It’s vile, it’s violent, and it makes me wonder what kind of films you allow him to watch, or who you let him associate with. And then there is the humming.”

  Tara sits up. “Humming?” she says.

  The teacher sighs. “He goes around humming this song repetitively. No lyrics, just a refrain, repeated, high pitched, annoying. But the thing is, it bothers the other children. They’ve told their parents. Their parents have told me.”

  “What’s wrong with a kid humming a tune?” asks Harry.

  “That’s all he does. I don’t even think he’s aware of it.”

  She has that attitude that only teachers can have, the look, the one that says, there may be something wrong with your child and it’s your fault. The one that judges you as a parent, but without judging you as a parent. You want to blame the school, they want to blame the home, and in between is a child.

  “He doesn’t do that at home,” says Harry.

  “Actually, he does,” says Tara. “I just didn’t know it was this... pervasive.”

  The teacher jumps on this like it’s validation and Harry tunes out. He excuses himself and wanders out. Cory is in the corridor, seated beside Adrienne, both of them holding hands. Adrienne chattering away, Cory silent, but attentive.

  Harry hugs them both. He loves them. He loves Cory just the way he is, and fuck the teacher and the whole educational system.

  Let him hum.

  TARA PERFORMS SOME bars of the song.

  “I don’t know what it is,” she says. “But he does hum it. It’s like an earworm, but it’s been going on for weeks.”

  “Okay.”

  “Harry, he said he dreamt the song. He doesn’t know what it is.”

  “He’s seven. More likely he heard it while sleeping or can’t remember where he heard it from.”

  “I’m taking him to see the GP.”

  “What?”

  “Not because of the song. I think he’s a bit anxious after the move.”

  Harry disagrees, but says nothing. It can’t hurt.

  IN THE GROUNDS of the house there is one item that Harry does not let the workmen dispose of. The old, rusted car is not left in place in the front. He has them drag it to the back. He knows very little about cars, but he harbours a fantasy about restoring the car either to functionality or art. Either way, he does not want to get rid of something so old.

  He hoses it down just to get an idea of the thing. Large clumps of dirt fall away to the gravel. Some of the withered upholstery seems melted at the edges. Did this thing burn? Harry can’t tell what kind of car it is yet. He entertains a brief fantasy o
f having it cut into scrap and using it for a metal sculpture.

  “Hello.”

  Harry starts. It’s the girl with the bicycle whom he saw the other day. She is looking at him with a wide open face, none of that feral, mobile-phone insularity that he sees in most girls her age.

  “Er... hi,” says Harry. “Can I help you?”

  “Do you know your front door is open?”

  “No, I didn’t –”

  “Well, it is. Do you want to be murdered in your sleep?”

  “What, no, I –”

  “Then you might want to close the door.” Now she smiles, but makes no move to leave.

  Harry feels uncomfortable, although he responds to her neighbourliness. He likes that she would do such a thing, stop her bike ride, look for the idiot who left his door open. He has that modern fear of being caught talking to a child that is not his own, because twenty-first century adult strangers are considered paedophiles until proven otherwise. He then wonders how he would feel if he saw Adrienne talking to a strange man alone. He is comfortable with his own hypocrisy.

  The front door is indeed ajar. He closes the door and turns to the girl who has followed.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Louise.”

  “Well, Louise, I thank you. My name is Harry.”

  “I know.”

  “How do –”

  “I’ve heard your wife calling you while riding past.”

  Harry notices her T-shirt. “You’re a Newcastle fan. Like my wife.”

  “Who do you support?”

  “Spurs.”

  She makes a non-committal sound, like a cross between a snort and a hiss.

  They exchange mutual derision for their football teams, then she leaves and Harry returns to the car. He feels good.

  CORY AND ADRIENNE stand in front of Harry in the lounge. Tara watches from the far side of the room. Both children are standing on one foot. They have one hand on their heads and one on their bellies. They suppress laughter.

  “Ready?” says Harry.

  “Yes!” they say together.

  “Go!”

  They begin to rub their bellies clockwise and hop at the same time. They keep it up for forty seconds before they collapse into a tangle of limbs and laughter.

  3.

  CORY AND THE doctor are alone in the office. He smiles at Cory, has a good face, and Cory smiles back.

  “Cory, do you know why we’re here?” says the doctor.

  Cory nods.

  “This is a bit of private time, but I want you to know that it isn’t secret. Do you know the difference between private and secret?”

  Cory shakes his head.

  “Secret means nobody else will know about something. Private just means we will talk alone, but I will tell your mother what we talk about. Do you understand?”

  Cory nods.

  “Do you like the new house?”

  “It’s okay.” The doctor has some white hairs in his eyebrows. Cory tries not to stare.

  “Do you miss the old one?”

  Cory shakes his head.

  “Do you like your room?”

  “It’s okay. Sometimes we sleep in Adrienne’s room.”

  “You both like to sleep in the same room?”

  Cory nods.

  “Do you like Adrienne’s room?”

  Cory nods, but he does not mention the lady who is in both their rooms because she said not to say anything.

  That’s a secret. Not private.

  BACK HOME CORY runs out of the car into the kitchen where he pours himself some milk. He takes a long pull, then starts up the stairs. He spills some of the milk and stops briefly to watch the fluid sink into the carpet. Wet spot, but no stain, so mum won’t notice. He continues to his room.

  The lady is waiting, sitting on his bed. Cory knows he will not be sleeping there tonight.

  “Hello, dear boy,” she says.

  “I didn’t talk about you,” says Cory, hastily.

  “I know. Good boy.”

  She wears a hat, one of those silly ones from the tennis that mum always gets excited about. There is a small peacock on it, dark feathers covered in colourful circles. She wears an old dress. It is clean, but from old times. Cory has seen it in films. Her waist is tiny, as if squeezed by the big belt she has on.

  “Come sit with me,” she says.

  Cory shakes his head.

  Her face is sharp and pointy. Small, black eyes, narrow nose that looks like it would hurt if she kisses his cheek, thin lips, and tiny ears. The ears scare Cory, but he doesn’t know why. He has never seen her hair because it is always in the hat. She wears white gloves and keeps them folded in her lap.

  She was here the day they moved in, standing in the corner of the room, glaring at Cory.

  “This is my house,” she had said.

  “O-Okay,” said Cory. Then the lady had smiled.

  Now she pats the bed beside her, on the left. She smells of talcum powder and perfume, a lot of it. There is something else, something unpleasant, but he can’t quite figure out what it is. He sits beside her. She points into Adrienne’s room which he can just about see through the open door.

  “You know what keeps them quiet?” the lady asks.

  Cory nods.

  “Well?”

  “My mummy says not to bring snakes into the house,” says Cory.

  “Do you want to make me... upset?” asks the lady.

  She twitches. It is a small movement, but it frightens Cory because it seems like she is holding herself back, like she would like to get upset.

  “I’ll get... I’ll go to the garden. But I have to wait until later. My mummy is downstairs.”

  “Who are you talking to?” asks Adrienne. She is in the doorway.

  Cory looks to the lady, but she is gone.

  IT’S ALMOST SEVEN, time for him to go inside. Cory has not been able to find a slow worm. Nothing slithery anywhere. The lady is going to be unhappy, and Cory knows if he doesn’t get one it will be a bad night. Not even a slug. Where had they all gone? No insects, no reptiles, nothing useful.

  “Cory!”

  His mummy is calling. Time up. Cory is shaking, feels like crying and he takes a few minutes to control himself. Then he runs in.

  HE HOLDS ADRIENNE tight and shivers. His eyes are squeezed shut, but from time to time he peeks.

  The man is right there. The man has tied a rope around his neck. His face is darker than the rest of him and fixed in a single expression, like he’s hurting. He wears no clothes and there is dark liquid leaking from his mouth. His eyes bulge out of his skull, and he’s done a poo and a wee. Cory does not keep his eyes open long enough to see it, but he can smell it. He knows the smell of poo and wee very well.

  The man doesn’t do anything, but he stands close to the bed. Those large eyes are rolled upwards, so at least the man doesn’t stare. But he breathes. He has a raspy sound with occasional gurgles. At times Cory thinks he is trying to speak, but can’t.

  Adrienne does not see him. Adrienne thinks Cory has nightmares and hugs him.

  The man stays until dawn. As light forms outside the window, the man disappears.

  Cory himself feels he has to wee, but he is too frightened to get up.

  4.

  TARA IS PICKING tomatoes when a man says, “Hanged Man.”

  “Excuse me?” asks Tara.

  “The Hanged Man. That song you were just humming.”

  “I wasn’t humming.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  Tara looks into her shopping basket to compose herself. Has she caught Cory’s earworm? What’s this man doing? He punches keys on his phone and hands it to her, keeping a respectable distance. She takes it in a position that displays her wedding ring. It’s an internet video playing the song “Hanged Man” and it’s definitely Cory’s song. It sounds all ’70s with electric keyboards and trumpets. It sounds vaguely familiar to Tara, and she has probably heard it before, perhaps in her childhoo
d. But where would Cory have heard it?

  “See?” says the man.

  Tara nods and hands the phone back. The man is saying something as she walks away. Later, at home, she scours the web for information.

  She listens in full to the song. It’s credited to an Alan Tew, someone she has never heard of, but who was apparently big in the ’70s. There is an Alan Tew Orchestra. The song Cory obsesses over, The Hanged Man, is for a television programme of the same name. 1975. Some guy pretends to be dead so he can find out who wanted him dead, based on a book. Tara looks at the opening sequence of the show, but it is unfamiliar and dated.

  “That settles it, then,” says Harry over the phone.

  “Settles what?” asks Tara.

  “He saw it on TV.”

  “In the ’70s?”

  “No, silly, on one of those channels that play hit shows of yesteryear.”

  “You’re wrong.” Tara is slightly irritated and she can hear it in her own voice. “I checked the schedule of all the channels we have. It isn’t there. Nobody remembers the show, Harry. It’s not playing anywhere. Nobody liked it, it was such shit. Only eight episodes were ever shot.”

  “So he saw it in a friend’s house.”

  “The protagonist brings a helicopter down by throwing spanners at it, Harry.”

  “Okay, so nobody’s playing it. Where could he have heard it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Harry pauses, then says, “I have to go. Love you.”

  She can’t help thinking he is not taking this as seriously as he should. She also does not want to think of what it meant that she was humming the same tune without being aware of it.

  She makes tea and answers some email. She feels it is about time to return to work, although she does not feel ready. Mentally, she feels soft, fuzzy around the edges. Too many conversations with seven-year-old kids and their parents, too many kiddie books. Maybe take a few shifts at the hospital, see how it goes.