by Sue Gee
‘It’s everywhere,’ said Frances, from behind them. ‘Not just the house. I looked out of our window – the whole village is dark.’
‘Mummy!’
‘Coming!’ called Claire, and her stomach gave a lurch of fear as they felt their way along the corridor, moving past Jack and Tom’s room to the terrifying open landing. The moon was hidden by cloud: not a glimmer of light shone through the window overlooking the peach tree.
‘Stay with the boys,’ said Robert to Frances.
‘Yes, all right.’ A thin, distant voice, like a ghost.
They left her, moving carefully towards the stairs, treading the slippery wood in their bare feet, coming to the turn, passing the black square of window.
‘Open-this-door! Open-this-fucking-door!’
Oliver was kicking now; it felt as if the whole house were being picked up and shaken.
‘That’s the kitchen door – must be too drunk to go round the house,’ said Robert.
‘Mummy!’
‘I’m here!’ called Claire, and broke away from him as they reached the bottom of the stairs, stumbling down the corridor, feeling along the panelling, coming up, suddenly, against Jessica’s cold and trembling body, standing in her nightshirt by her open door, her hair soft, comforting, as she fell into Claire’s arms to be comforted.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right …’
Behind them she could hear Robert, banging against things in the kitchen, swearing.
And then the lights came soundlessly on, shining from the upper landing so that she was able, in the reassuring gleam on the stairs, to find the switch here, and fill the corridor with light. ‘Here we are, come on, come up with me …’ Across the wide expanse of the sitting-room floor the fuse-box began to fizz again, but she ignored it, leading Jess upstairs, hugging her.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Jessica miserably. ‘Did Tom do something?’
‘No, no … I think Tom’s slept through it all, so’s Jack.’ She could hear the kitchen door being unbolted, unlocked, and Oliver come crashing into the room. Should she – no. Robert could cope with anything. They had reached the turn in the stairs, and climbed to the landing, where Frances, in her pale pyjamas, stood leaning up against the wall like someone about to faint. Claire reached for her hand. She led both of them, Frances and Jessica, along the corridor, leaving Jess in her own room, taking Frances back to hers, putting her back into bed as if she, too, were a child.
‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you a brandy.’
‘Oliver …’ said Frances, reaching for her cigarettes.
‘Robert will deal with Oliver. And don’t set the house on fire, that’s all we need.’
Frances put the cigarettes down and lay back against the pillows. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
‘Sssh. Thank God the boys haven’t woken.’ Claire went out, back to Jess, who had buried her head beneath the bedclothes, then crept to the top of the stairs, where she stood listening to the voices of the men below.
Oliver was sitting slumped on the edge of the sofa, his head in his hands, shivering. For the second time in a week Robert was sitting with him in the middle of the night, though he felt only like going back to bed. He stayed out of duty: towards Oliver, in a mess; towards Frances, who needed protection from all this, even if she had somehow caused it.
Oliver, however, did not want to talk. Too drunk to think about keys and ways into the house in darkness, he was shaken by his own fury, exhausted.
‘I’ll sleep down here,’ he said.
‘All right.’ Robert cast about, wondering where. The sofa was much too small, but there was nowhere else, since he, presumably, would be sleeping in Jessica’s room again. He sighed, and went off to look for blankets, meeting Claire coming quietly down.
‘What’s going on?’ she whispered.
‘Not a lot – he’s going to sleep down here. Is Jess okay?’
‘More or less.’
‘Frances?’
‘In a state. Where’s the brandy?’
‘On the kitchen table. Have we got any extra blankets?’
‘In the cupboard in Jess’s room. We sound like a couple of school matrons.’ Claire began to giggle, and then she began to cry.
‘Sssh,’ said Robert. ‘Sssh. It’s all right, we’re still here.’
‘It’s not all right – this is appalling. How are we going to get through this holiday?’
‘Tomorrow is another day.’
Claire looked at him. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘you are a complacent fool.’
‘Thanks. It was, if I may say so, you who wanted to ask these people. I did say –’
‘Oh, shut up!’
From the sitting-room they could hear Oliver, starting to pace.
‘Oh, help me –’ said Claire, and sat down on the stairs very suddenly, very white.
Robert went for the brandy. She drank, and he took her upstairs and put her to bed with Jessica.
‘Frances –’ she said, sinking on to the pillows.
‘All right, all right.’
He went along the corridor, and knocked at the door.
‘Yes?’
She was hunched up in bed like a child, her arms round her knees.
‘Oliver’s going to sleep downstairs.’ He held out the brandy enquiringly. ‘Want some?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks. I’m so sorry –’
‘These things happen.’
She looked at him gratefully. ‘But they shouldn’t.’
‘Never mind. See you in the morning.’
Frances nodded, and buried her face in her knees. He left her, and went downstairs again; he put Oliver to bed on the sitting-room floor, laying out sofa cushions, covering him with blankets. And then he went into Jessica’s room and crawled into bed, falling almost at once into a deep sleep, though not before he suddenly remembered that when they were woken by that frenzied banging on the kitchen door he had been dreaming of Frances, weeping.
Upstairs, Tom lay wide awake in soaking-wet bedclothes. He shifted about, cold and uncomfortable, but he did not dare to get out of bed and in the end, feeling his legs give a funny sort of twitch and jerk, he fell asleep again, like Jack, who on the other side of the room looked completely ordinary, just as usual, as though nothing could ever happen to him.
In her room at the end of the corridor, Frances smoked a cigarette and waited until everything was quiet; and then, as the church clock chimed twice, indicating what could be any hour, she put her arms round her pillow and began to drift towards the longed-for embrace of sleep, searching for Dora.
In bed with Jessica, with the light still burning, Claire put her arms round her daughter and shut her eyes, trying to forget the fear she had felt, moving about in the darkness, listening to all that rage. She tried, but she could not. She lay awake for a long time, fighting not only the fear she had felt then but a feeling that grew out of it, which not so long ago she would have dismissed as hysterical and neurotic: that it was possible, in the tension rising all around her, that something truly terrible might happen on this holiday.
Chapter Seven
‘I owe you all an apology.’ Oliver, at the dining-room door, looked and sounded well in control again, observing them all as they had breakfast late, tired and dishevelled. They had come down in ones and twos, Claire first, taking tea through to Robert in Jessica’s room, opening the shutters on to the dense greenery outside the window.
‘How’s Oliver?’ he muttered, rolling over.
‘I wouldn’t know – he’s not about.’
The bed on the floor had been taken up, cushions replaced on the sofa, the blankets folded and put on a chair. The doors to the terrace were open.
‘Probably gone for a swim,’ said Robert.
And he obviously had: standing in the doorway now he looked fresher than any of them, his hair damp, his skin clear, a towel flung round his shoulders. Jessica, spooning sugar on to her cornflakes, looked up at him and
looked away; sugar fell on the tablecloth.
‘Careful,’ said Claire, beside her. ‘Well,’ she said to him, feeling her way, aiming for ordinariness, for the children’s sake, ‘how is the river this morning?’
‘I haven’t been to the river, only up to the pool.’ Oliver did not come in any further, and he did not meet her eyes; he did not look directly at any of them, and most particularly not at Frances, Who sat next to Tom, sipping coffee as though there were nothing else she might ever want to do.
‘And I do apologise,’ he went on, addressing the air above their heads. ‘I must have frightened you all, especially the children.’
‘We’re all in one piece,’ said Robert. ‘Come and sit down.’
But Oliver said, ‘I’ll join you in a minute,’ in a tone which to Claire announced clearly that he was still in no mood to be told what to do by anyone, and he went out again: they could hear him going through the kitchen and outside, to hang up his towel on the line by the water tank.
‘What happens when you’re drunk?’ asked Jack.
‘I’ll tell you another time.’ Robert reached for the coffeepot, finding it empty.
Frances pushed back her chair. ‘I’ll make some more.’
‘Are you sure? I don’t mind …’
‘You’ve done more than enough, already,’ she said, coming round the table to pick it up, and she slowly left the room.
Robert and Claire exchanged glances. Beside Jessica, Tom began to make noises, fiddling with his cereal spoon. Across the table, Jack began to imitate him, clearing his throat, clicking his tongue.
‘Jack …’ said Claire, but Tom seemed not to notice, and watching him she felt there was something which could not be accounted for only by fatigue and wet beds: despite the intrusive noises he seemed distant and withdrawn – she realised that she wanted to click her fingers at him, to check he was all there.
‘Tom? Are you okay?’ He stopped fiddling with his spoon, but didn’t answer. ‘Tom?’
‘What?’
‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘Yes.’ He sounded surprised. Rising voices came from the kitchen; he slid off his chair.
Robert said quickly: ‘Shall we go and let the hens out, Tom?’
‘I want to let them out,’ said Jack. ‘Why should he do it?’
But Tom, stumbling and then regaining his balance, was already out of the door, making his way towards the kitchen, and the voices.
Claire made to follow him.
‘Leave it,’ said Robert. ‘What can we do?’
‘Answer me,’ said Oliver. ‘Answer!’
He was standing with his back to the entrance from the corridor, his arms outstretched across the door, blocking escape, so that Tom, coming up from behind, could see only this towering back view of his father, and nothing at all of his mother, who stood in the middle of the room, clasping the coffeepot, absolutely still.
‘Answer!’
‘I can’t. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this …’
‘And how do you expect me to be?’
The room, as always, smelled faintly, sourly, of Calor gas. I shall come down here when everyone is asleep, thought Frances, locking herself away from this voice, this fury. I shall come down and turn on every switch on that stove and seal up every crack.
Oliver made a move towards her. She stepped away and put down the coffee pot, next to the stove; she lifted the thin aluminium kettle and went to the sink to fill it; she put it back on the stove, and picked up the box of matches and pushed it open and they all fell on to the floor.
‘Leave them. Leave them! Look at me.’
‘No.’ She bent down, her hands shaking, trying to scoop them up. ‘Go away,’ she said, straightening up again, the box half full, the matches all at angles, sticking out like little bones. ‘I’ll talk to you, but not now. Please.’ She turned to the stove and lit the burner beneath the kettle, shook out the match, dropping it into the saucer, and shut her eyes, willing him to leave her. Footsteps came swiftly and heavily towards her: she saw herself lie broken, and her hands flew up to her mouth, but the footsteps went past her, and the door to the sunlit steps beneath the vines was flung open, battered from where it had been beaten upon last night and now slammed shut so hard that pieces of paint flew off it, on to the floor.
Frances stood quite still until she could no longer hear him, running away down the steps to the garden, and then she opened her eyes. She waited for the kettle to boil, rinsing out the coffeepot, swirling the grounds away, and then she made fresh coffee, and carried it out and down the corridor, by which time Tom, who had pressed back into the shadows at the bottom of the stairs, had carefully opened the door to the cellar, and gone down.
The towering shape in the corner did not move, and the head was hidden beneath the hat, but he knew that it had grown a face and was watching him, and he breathed fast, his heart banging and his knees trembling as he crossed the dusty floor, well away from it. The slam of the kitchen door was still in his head, mixing up with the banging last night and the shouting: it was like the tuning fork they’d been shown when he was still in the reception class, that went on and on. The girl sitting next to him in the circle on the floor had wanted to hear it again, and they’d heard it again, and then again, and everyone thought it was wicked, but he, as it hummed above him, had covered his ears. He hadn’t thought about that for a long time, funny to think of it now, in a foreign country. Twaaaang, baaaang, twaaaang. Something was happening in his head again – nothing to do with the lid, which was helping, actually, keeping the noises down, but he didn’t like it.
Still, he was safe down here, all shut away, like the pig. That made a funny noise, too, grunting and snorting in the dark. Twang, bang; not quite so loud now. Good. Now – where was the house?
He found the passage, and the cupboard. He stepped inside and drew the house towards him. Dust had settled since the last time and he blew it softly away, surprising himself – he hadn’t known he could be so quiet. Then he opened the front, and the lid in his head opened too, but not much, and he forgot about it, anyway, looking through all the rooms again. It was clever, making something like this, he wished he was good at making things. Perhaps he could make some people to live here, and some furniture or something. It was sad seeing such a beautiful place all empty.
Tom bent down, and looked on the shelf below. There was the box of chisels and screwdrivers, and the nice little saw, and there was a box of leftover bits of wood. He looked through them, sorting out sizes. A big piece, a medium-size piece, and a little piece. He held them all in his hand.
Now then, what about furniture? A thick square shape for a table, that was easy. He put down the family: they lay there as if they were dead. He put the table in the middle of the great big room, and found some little round bits for chairs, and arranged them nicely. They’d need some food, but he could bring that down later, pieces of bread and stuff. Of course, he didn’t have to feed them, not if he didn’t want to. He could do anything he liked with them, starve them to death if he wanted. Now then, where were they going to sleep?
He picked them up again, and walked them up the stairs, one by one. Tap tap tap of wood on wood. Tap tap tap along the corridor. Where should they go?
Above him floorboards were creaking, and he could hear footsteps, then voices. ‘Tom? Tom! Now where’s he got to?’ He went absolutely still and invisible. You could do anything you wanted if you were invisible, take all the food off people’s plates or kill someone, and no one would ever know who it was. The footsteps went away, and the voices went quieter. Good.
Now, then. Three bedrooms. Three people in the family, so they could, have one each. He walked them in, one by one, and laid each of them down. How did that look? Lonely and sad. Put them all together, but that wasn’t right, families didn’t ever all sleep together. Put them as they were now, then: the little piece in one room, and the big piece and the medium-size piece in another, and why didn’t that feel
right? He picked up the big piece, and began to feel afraid. How could you be afraid of a bit of wood, a stick, almost? Things like this, dead things, hadn’t got power, had they?
‘Tom!’ That was Frances. He wanted to call out, to tell her where he was, but he didn’t want anyone to know he was here, not even her. So he waited until she had gone away, guessing she was outside now, and then he put down the big piece of wood, just left it on the landing, not with anyone, and shut up the house at the front and went out of the cupboard, shutting that up, too. Click, click, click. Doors and lids on everything.
And across the cellar, panting with fear as he passed the shape, because that was real, he couldn’t make that be nothing, it was too big, and then up the stairs to the door, flicking the light off, going out quietly, as if he’d just been to the toilet or something.
Somehow they got through the day.
Guida came: that helped. She arrived soon after Tom reappeared, saying he’d been outside with the hens. No one believed him, but no one had the energy for questions, and anyway, what did it matter? He was here. And here was Guida, visibly hungover but full of smiles, shrugging about the power cut, indicating it had happened before, bringing luridly coloured little cards for the children.
‘Nossa Senhora,’ she said, presenting them. ‘From the fiesta.’
They stared at swirling bright blue robes, uplifted faces, crimson hearts in a sunburst of bleeding rays.
‘Obrigada, Guida.’
They took them away.
‘What do we do with them?’ asked Jack, out on the terrace.
‘Go and put them somewhere,’ said Claire feebly. ‘Where’s Frances?’
No one knew.
‘Are they stickers?’ Jack turned them over. ‘They’ve got glue on.’ He licked, cautiously. ‘Ugh.’
‘I shouldn’t,’ said Robert, watching. ‘It’s probably made of Third World chemicals and will kill you. Go on, put it down. Now then, who’s for a swim?’
They ran to fetch their things from the line, leaving the cards to curl in the sun.
Claire said to Robert, ‘I’m sorry I was foul last night.’