by K E Coles
‘Shall I make some tea?’ My voice quivered.
‘Yes.’ She reached up to the cupboard, brought out a box of teabags.
A smell of burning came from the frying pan. ‘Now look,’ she said. ‘Look what you’ve done. It’s all ruined – look.’
Flames flickered up the side of the frying pan. I ran to help her, turned the hob off and opened the bin. It was full of fish fingers. It stank of rotting fish. I gagged, threw the burned food in and closed it. ‘I’ll empty this,’ I said. ‘Where does your rubbish go?’
She didn’t answer. When I turned around, she had her hands over her face, shoulders hunched.
‘It’s all right, Maria.’ I picked up the knife, hid it behind the microwave. ‘Maria,’ I said. ‘The rubbish – where does it . . .?’
She looked up and shook her head. Her face crumpled. ‘I can’t – I . . .’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll find it when I’ve made some tea.’
She sat at the little table. I made two mugs of tea, put one in front of her.
‘Who told you I’d be coming?’ I said.
‘I’m not allowed.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s put things in.’ She tapped her temple.
‘All right,’ I said, in as calm a voice as I could manage. ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me. I’ll take this rubbish out and then we’ll have a chat.’
She nodded.
I left the room, glanced back from the corridor to see her holding her head. As I turned, I spotted a plaque on the white-painted door to my left. Beatrix Potter rabbits, blue and yellow.
I turned the handle quietly, opened the door a few inches. A child’s bed with a Peter Rabbit mobile above it. On the bedside table was a nightlight, switched on, with a train and aeroplane design. The bed was made, all neat and tidy. On the floor, at the side of the bed, lay a pair of tiny slippers.
Something whacked into my back.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ Maria screeched behind me. ‘He’s gone. You’ve frightened him away. Now I’ll never find him, you stupid girl.’ She thumped my arm. ‘Stupid, stupid girl. Get out. Get . . .’
I couldn’t protect myself because my hands were full with the bin. Afraid of dropping it, of spilling the rancid fish all over the floor, I just let her hit me until she cried and sank to the floor.
I dumped the bin in the hallway and helped her to her feet. She sobbed as I manhandled her into the living room, throwing her head back and wailing as if she was being tortured. I settled her on the sofa, and sat with her, hugged her, until her sobs subsided to sniffs. She rested her head on my shoulder. It grew heavier, until her regular breathing told me she’d gone to sleep. I gently moved away, laid her flat and covered her with the padded jacket.
There was nowhere to empty the bin in the corridor, so I took the lift down to the ground floor. A black wheelie bin stood outside, to the left of the fire door. I took one of my shoes off and used it to wedge the door open. I lifted the lid of the wheelie bin and tipped the contents of Maria’s bin inside, turning my face away and holding my breath. Day after day, she must have been cooking those fish fingers and throwing them out.
The lift was closing as I came back through the door, so I carried the bin up the stairs. If anything, it smelled even worse than before. I’d wash it out in the bath, I thought, if she had a bath. As I reached the top of the stairs, something caught my eye in the corridor – a man, black hair in dreads. He stood outside Maria’s door, his back to it like a guard. He was looking the other way, towards the lift, but I still knew it was Nico. I backed around the corner, tried to quiet my breathing.
Nico meant Papa. Papa in Maria’s flat. I placed the bin on the floor, careful to make no noise, then crept back down the stairs on tiptoes. All the time, I listened out for footsteps behind me, for the noise from the lift shaft. I couldn’t stop thinking ‘what if’. What if they’d come when I was in there, sitting on that sofa? What if I’d gone up in the lift? It would have opened right in front of Nico – right in front of him. There’d have been no escape.
I left by the same fire door, and sneaked around the corner of the building. I took my phone out of my pocket, hesitated. Should I call Art? What if it put him in danger? What if it was him in the flat with Maria, not Papa.
I crept around to where I could see the front door of the building. Less than a minute later, Papa came out, pulling off his black leather gloves. Behind him, Nico had his phone to his ear. A sleek, black car with tinted windows drew up. Nico opened the back door for Papa, then climbed into the front passenger seat, and the car drove away – silently, like a deadly, black cockroach.
I tried to call Art. It went to answer phone. I didn’t dare leave a message.
The door to the building had closed behind me. I pressed Maria’s buzzer. No response. For pity’s sake! I paced up and down, tried again. I shouted into the intercom. ‘Maria, open the door.’ Nothing. I pressed the buzzers either side of hers, then others. Eventually someone picked up.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to get in to . . .’
They cut me off. I waited, hoping to hear a buzz. I pushed at the door. It didn’t budge. It was twenty, maybe thirty minutes before a group of school kids arrived and opened the door. I ran in after them, shot up the stairs, grabbing the stinking bin as I went.
Maria’s door wasn’t completely shut. I edged it open with one finger, and listened out for voices. All was quiet. A wave of nausea rose through me.
‘Maria?’
Nothing. I hesitated. Maybe Leo was waiting inside. Minutes passed in indecision. It was stupid. I couldn’t go back without checking she was okay. I pushed the door open.
‘Maria?’
I dumped the bin by the bathroom door. The living area was empty. Her cup lay on its side on the table. Tea had run across the wood, and trickled onto the floor, where it formed a pool. I didn’t remember it being knocked over, but perhaps I hadn’t noticed, with all the hoo-hah going on. I listened intently. Voices, traffic noises, the whine of an aeroplane, all came from outside, and yet, despite all that, the flat was eerily silent.
My heart felt as if it was about to pop out of my mouth as I opened her bedroom door. I don’t know what I expected to find, but there was no one in the small, dark room. Her clothes lay scattered about the floor, as if she’d changed in a hurry. Little light came through the half-open thin, deep green curtains. A stained chest of drawers stood under the window with a hairbrush and a white, plastic mirror on it. Some of the silvering had worn off the mirror, so the edges were rusty red. For some reason, that gave me an ache in my chest. Her life had come to that – a crappy mirror on a cheap, stained chest of drawers. The bedcovers lay crumpled, the pillowcase yellowed in patches. A sweet-sour smell of unwashed bedding competed with the fish.
I’d been holding my breath for far too long. I sat on the end of the bed, breathed steadily through my mouth, tried to quell the queasiness that came and went.
Two rooms to go. The bathroom, and Andreas’s bedroom. There was no sound of running water, so I’d check the child’s bedroom first. The thought filled me with nameless dread, although I wasn’t sure why. Best to get it over with then, I thought.
As I stood, my stomach clenched and sweet saliva rushed into my mouth. I ran into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. Every time I managed a breath, the smell of fish set me off again.
Something caught my eye – something wrong – a darkness in the bath behind the shower curtain.
What felt like an electric shock shot through my limbs. For ages, I didn’t turn to look, trying to rationalise what my eye had seen. Slowly, slowly, I turned. Red – red spattered and streaked over the taps, over the white plastic, over the shower curtain. Blood, lots of it, too much. I held the curtain, pulled it back. She lay in the bath, pale flesh in a sea of blood. Her face was underwater, her eyes open, just a little.
I screamed. ‘Maria.’ I put my hands under her armpits, tried to lift her. Her waxy skin slipped fr
om my grasp, sending her sliding back into the bloodied water. It sloshed over the edge of the bath, over the floor. Her face, her face was back under the water. I yelled something, God knows what, and pulled the plug out. I held her head up, and screamed for help. The red water drained away. Her bleached, flaccid limbs resembled a rubber doll, rather than a human being.
With the water drained away, her body was even heavier. Somehow, I manoeuvred her round, bit by bit, and got my arms right around her, my hands interlocked over her chest. I pulled upwards, holding her back against my front. My arms ached, my back ached, my fingers slipped apart. She almost slid back again. Crying with frustration, I hunched down and heaved her top half over the edge of the bath.
I fell to my knees. She was half in, half out of the bath. I couldn’t get her legs out without letting go of her shoulders. I put my hands under her arms and shuffled backwards, dragging her with me until her feet banged onto the floor.
‘Oh, God! Maria.’ Her body lay white and cold. No blood ran from the gashes on her arms and legs.
I lay her on the worn, faded lino, put a folded towel under her head and another one to cover her poor, lifeless body. I pulled my phone from my pocket, hesitated. Better to use the house phone. I ran into the living room, and called for an ambulance.
Fear seemed to quicken my brain. I wiped every surface I’d touched, then went back to the bathroom. She looked younger, lying there, as if asleep. And suddenly, I saw Art in the sharp cheekbones, the dark lashes stark against ivory skin, the softly sculptured lips. She was so like him – so like him. A sob escaped me, tight and painful in my chest.
‘I’m so sorry, Maria.’ I kissed her forehead. ‘I have to go.’
A click came from outside, then a clanking sound. The lift shaft.
I ran for the stairs, hurtled down them. A scream lodged somewhere in the back of my throat. I had to stop it coming out, so I opened my mouth wide and screamed silently, and it worked. It helped. As I neared the ground floor, I heard voices, children. I stopped, looked down at my wet clothes. They were soaked, but no obvious bloodstains.
There was no black cockroach car outside. I tried to walk normally, as though everything was fine, but my legs felt weird, as though they belonged to somebody else.
Heavy, black clouds hung over the city. I crossed the main road, clogged with rush hour traffic.
I called Art.
‘Yeah?’ he said.
The sound of his low, soft voice made me wish I’d listened to Mrs Arnold, and left well alone. But I hadn’t, and he had to know.
‘I’ve been to your mother’s,’ I said, ‘and I need to see you - now.’
‘Why?’
‘Papa’s been there.’
Silence.
‘Art.’ My voice rose. ‘Did you hear me?’
He groaned. ‘I’ll meet you at Mrs A’s.’
‘Okay, but . . .’
‘What?’
What was I going to tell him? Papa had killed his mother? Over the phone? ‘Nothing. I’ll see you there.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX PEARL
Back home, I hung my coat in the hallway. Under the bright light, the wetness was streaked with pink, just a little, not really noticeable, but if Art saw it . . . I turned it inside out, just in case.
He was already in my room, pacing up and down. ‘Christ! Thought they’d got you,’ he said.
‘Sit down.’ I pointed at the sofa.
‘Why?’
‘Please.’
He stared for a moment, sat. ‘Wait.’ He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, put his hands on his head. ‘Okay – go on.’
I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.
‘What?’ He glared at me. ‘What is it?’
‘Oh, God,’ I said. ‘Art. Oh, God.’ I sat beside him, tried to hold his hand.
He snatched it away. ‘Tell me.’
‘I can’t.’ My voice broke.
He stared, blinked. ‘What?’
‘She was . . .’ I shook my head.
‘Shush!’ He closed his eyes, put his hands over his face. ‘Wait.’
He got to his feet, stumbled over to the window, and stood with his back to me. ‘Is she alive?’
‘No.’ That, at least, I could manage.
Silence. A long, long silence.
‘You think,’ he said, at last. ‘You think Papa . .?’
‘I’m sure. I saw him there.’
He leaned his forehead against the glass. ‘You’re lying. Trying to make me turn against him.’
‘He killed her,’ I said, angry at his blind devotion to Papa, ‘like he kills anyone who gets close to you.’ Suddenly, everything fell into place. ‘Like he killed Ben.’ It had never even occurred to me before, and yet now it seemed beyond doubt, in my head at least.
His back tensed, knuckles stood out white against the windowsill. ‘Ben killed himself,’ he said, quietly, between his teeth.
‘That’s how Papa made it look,’ I said. ‘That’s what he does. He did the same with Maria – made it look like suicide.’
He spun around to face me. I gasped at the tears running down his face. It was like seeing a new person, a stranger. ‘How do you know it wasn’t?’
I almost wanted to let him believe it, to ease his pain, but I couldn’t. ‘You know Papa,’ I said. ‘What is it he calls it - beautiful violence?’
He slid down the wall into a crouch, and put his hands on his head. ‘I don’t believe her,’ he said, so quietly, I could barely hear him. ‘I don’t believe her.’ Then he whimpered, and clutched at his head. ‘Don’t. Please, don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Not you,’ he snapped. ‘Them.’
My pulse raced. I shot a look over my shoulder. ‘There’s no one here.’
‘Them. The eggs,’ he shouted, spittle flying. ‘Oh, fuck.’
‘What eggs?’ What the hell?
‘The eggs.’ He tapped at his head. ‘In here.’
‘In your head?’
‘Of course in my head. Where d’you think?’ He groaned, rocked back and forth on his heels. ‘In the folds, the . . .’ He waved his hand impatiently, ‘cortex.’ He banged his head against the wall, once, twice, three times.
‘Stop it,’ I shouted. ‘Stop it. You’re frightening me.’
He leaned back, laughed maniacally, tears running down his cheeks. ‘They’re hatching.’ He seemed to collapse in on himself.
‘What are?’
‘The eggs,’ he shouted, eyes wide. ‘The fucking eggs. Maggots!’
Papa, mind control genius.
He slumped onto his knees. ‘They’re out. They’re out.’ His words ended in a choked sob.
I knelt next to him, not too close, afraid he’d lash out. ‘They’re not real.’ I backed off at his bitter, harsh laugh.
‘Not real? And what would you know?’ He twisted around, held onto the windowsill and tried to haul himself to his feet, then collapsed again. ‘Not real?’ he said. ‘Then how come they’re fucking killing me.’
I reached out to hold him, calm him.
He backed away into the corner. ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t. You’re a liar. You’re trying to make me . . . ’
He cried out, tore at his hair, pulled chunks of it from his scalp.
‘Art, stop it.’ I tried to catch his hands.
Blood ran down his face, down his neck as he screamed and ripped at his hair.
‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Stop it!’
Mrs Arnold touched my arm. I hadn’t even heard her come in.
‘It’s all right, dear,’ she said. ‘I’ll deal with this.’
She crouched down in front of Art. ‘Come on, now,’ she said, her voice low and gentle.
Art froze. He stared at her, hands still in his hair.
‘Come on, darling boy,’ Mrs Arnold gently moved his hands from his head and held them in her own. ‘It’s all right now.’
He nodded, unblinking, as though in a trance.
‘Pearl
,’ she said, over her shoulder. ‘Warm water, soap, and the first aid kit please. Everything you need is in the bathroom cabinet.’
My whole body trembled as I poured the water. By the time I got back to the room, Art’s eyes were half-closed.
Mrs Arnold dabbed at the bloody mess that was his torn scalp. ‘Dear, dear,’ she kept saying. ‘Dear, dear me. What a state. You poor boy. You poor, poor boy.’
I watched her, how gently she washed his wounds, how she calmed him. Why hadn’t I been able to do that, to help him?
Once she’d dressed the deepest wounds, together we manhandled him into my bed. His eyes were already closed as his head hit the pillow.
Mrs Arnold tucked the duvet around him. ‘There now. That’s better.’
She loves him, I thought, just like a mother loves her child.
She took my elbow, nodded towards the door. ‘Come on. He’ll sleep for a good while now.’
We sat in the living room, and drank cocoa. ‘I put two sugars in it,’ she said, as she put my mug down on the table. ‘Good for shock, sugar.’
It tasted okay, but I didn’t drink much. I still felt nauseous.
‘He’ll be all right,’ Mrs Arnold said. ‘Just one of his turns.’
‘You’ve seen him like that before?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Many a time, although this one was particularly bad. Any idea what set him off?’
‘His mother’s dead.’
‘Ah!’ She stood up, wandered to the mantelpiece, her back to me. ‘You’re a sweet girl,’ she said, ‘and I know he’s very fond of you – more than fond. It’s such a pity you had to meddle.’
‘He’ll be all right, won’t he?’ I said.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, straightening her shoulders. ‘Yes, he’ll be fine.’
I went up to bed, snuggled up close to Art. He didn’t stir, even when I put my arm over his chest. I kissed his cheek and felt something tug at my heart. It was probably pity – but it felt like love.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN PEARL
When I woke, the pillow next to me was empty, bloody and crumpled. My bedroom door shut quietly.