by Lucy Cameron
Up close, through the rain-soaked car window, Andrews’s skin is translucently thin; his veins pump thick and blue and make his face look cracked. His tiny bead eyes shine and dance. His upper lip curls, part smile, part snarl. Rhys doesn’t flinch as Andrews slams his hand against the glass. Inside, one of the Constables pulls him back.
Rhys stares at the glass. The rain running down the window makes the image look like a child’s painting.
The image of a fresh bloody handprint.
2.
Elsie dreams of her dead cat. She watches him skit back and forth in the shadows, his skin no longer saggy with dehydration, his fur jet black and soft. He springs onto her knee and nuzzles her neck, purring, warm and comforting, alive. Her fingers move to touch him and he fades. Her eyes open, her stomach drops. His remaining sibling and Elsie look each other in the eye. Does she miss him too? The real cat turns its head in dissatisfaction and leaves the room. It’s taken Elsie exactly one month to dream her cat back from the dead. It took far longer with her husband.
Elsie blinks the room into focus. It’s dark. She’s nodded off in the armchair again. The heating is on expensively high yet she still can’t get warm. From nowhere, the cool breeze tickles across her face, tender as a lover’s fingers. She shivers. No amount of looking will reveal where the breeze comes from, or where it’s going. No amount of asking will help.
‘Leave me alone,’ she mutters, knowing it will make little difference.
Something outside clatters. Is that what’s awoken her?
She pulls the blanket tighter around her bony shoulders, lifts the edges high around her neck, covers her sagging flesh. She knows it’s a feeble defence for when the breeze comes, which it always does.
The clatter again – this time becoming a deep scraping sound.
Across the room, the pitch-black window goads her.
It takes too long to do anything these days, simple things youth took for granted, so Elsie sits, unmoving. She often thinks spitefully of her young, beautiful self, of her lack of appreciation. Her crooked fingers reach out, touch her face, skin soft, sore and sad. She’s glad there are no mirrors in the room. Vanity is a fickle, yet long-serving companion.
Upstairs something creaks. Her eyes turn slowly towards the ceiling.
This sound she knows. The sound of the old house retracting in the cold night air. Do old bones make the same creaking sound? Is that the noise that’s awoken her? She knows every sound this house makes, the same as she knows every crack in the plaster and cobweb just out of reach. It’s been her home for years, and now? It closes in on her and she’s afraid she will suffocate and be found one day, a pile of bones and cloth in this very room. At least the remaining cat won’t starve. A small smile tugs at her mouth.
What does it look like these days, the upstairs of her home? How much shame should she feel that this is a question she can’t answer? Long ago the stairs became too much, a mountain she could no longer conquer. The nice young man from Home Help offers to take pictures on his mobile phone. Pictures on a phone, indeed. Does he think she came down in the last shower? The rooms are clean enough for the sparse guests and sparse enough for the guests not to interfere. What more is needed?
The clatter and scraping sound again.
It’s outside, isn’t it? Pain and frustration of equal measures pulse through her body. She pushes herself upright, sways and struggles to catch her breath. Shuffle by shuffle she edges to the window and pushes back the fine net curtain with a near-useless arthritic fist.
The cul-de-sac is tranquil, as one would expect for the hour. The pavements glisten wet, the gutters run full. The houses are dark, only the occasional security light flashes. A child’s nightlight throbs. Elsie spends many hours looking through this window, watching the world go by. She sees family rows and reconciliations, births and deaths, generations come and go. She sees couples watching television, children crying at having to go to bed, and late-returning husbands eating dinner alone. It is the grand and the mundane, all as interesting as each other, all part of her own private show.
She wonders if anyone ever watches her? A shiver runs across her skin.
It’s a sound at the top end of the cul-de-sac that has roused her. Movement outside what the local children refer to as the ‘old witch’s house’.
The house is set well back from the road edge. It was the first house to be built and with its slightly elevated status, appears to have spawned the rest of the houses around it. The garden is dense and green, shielding the house from the world’s eye. A gravel path cuts a line to the heavy front door. The windows that can be seen on the upper level blink down like bright little eyes.
The house has stood empty for years, ever since the owner was found dead. Local children’s imaginations ran wild as their parents protected them from the killing truth of alcohol abuse. Without her ‘rock’, some said drinking partner, the remaining lady of the house quickly became both reclusive and volatile, hurling abuse at anyone who tried to help until they gave up trying. Chasing children with a broom and a couple of large toads taking up habitat in the lush, neglected garden led to the inevitable. Eventually a distant and unsuspecting relative took pity on her and carried her away like the wet rag she was, to dry out in some distant town. They would finally be getting their hands on the cash pay out that drove them to help the old soak. Or perhaps the local children were right and she had been a crazy witch who killed her husband to make potions. Elsie smiles to herself, anything is possible.
The sound scrapes again. It’s the tail lift of a large, non-descript removal van. Two burly men in dirty overalls begin to manoeuvre a sideboard up the gravel path. It’s a surprise the whole street isn’t awake. What time is it? Elsie rubs her eyes and focuses on the large mantelpiece clock. Three in the morning?
Two different men come out of the house and talk in mime at the tail lift. Both are tall but one is significantly younger than the other. The younger is blond, with broad shoulders and lean physique. He holds himself with an elegance she has not seen for decades.
An exact elegance. Elsie blinks. The younger man is slightly out of focus, like she has forgotten to put on her glasses even thought she only needs them for reading. Didn’t she just look at the clock? She rubs a fist against her eyes once more. The younger man remains blurred around the edges.
The smell of freshly cut orchids fills her nostrils. Her brow furrows. There is an underlying smell, one she cannot place. It turns into the taste of rust along the back of her tongue.
A slow sense of unease prickles up her spine.
The young man turns his face towards her house. The prickles scatter all over her body. The pressure in her head is instant, a claw clamped around her brain. She gasps. Her vision pulsates, a shade darker. Door after door slams in the tunnel of her mind. Locking her out. She cannot breathe. A deep pain starts to throb somewhere inside. Her eyes drop from the window and focus on an imaginary spot on the carpet.
When she looks back, the younger man is gone, leaving the older gentleman alone.
Everything changes.
The gentleman is a silhouette that pulls into full colour and clear crisp focus. Elsie can’t move from the spot and doesn’t want to. The older gentleman is mesmerising.
Has he always been out there alone or was there someone with him? Elsie can’t remember and doesn’t care.
She can see now the gentleman is around eighty but no jealously flashes through her as he strides around. He has a thick head of white hair and posture as good as a man half his age. His dress is smart, a full three-piece suit and tie, a heavy overcoat to protect him from the elements. As the tail lift lands softly, he looks around the cul-de-sac and for a moment and their eyes catch.
It is so different, yet exactly the same.
Elsie is a rabbit caught in headlights; embarrassment flushes her cheeks. Then he smiles and there is something more, something so unusual she’s forgotten it even exists. Her stomach flips. Her heart misses a bea
t and for once, not in a medical way. The dashing stranger is smiling the warmest smile she has felt in a long time. He is smiling it for her. Before the edges of her mouth can respond, he turns and is swallowed back into the house.
Elsie continues to stare out of the window for a long time. Staring at the front door’s rectangle of light. Staring through the removal men as they ferry the furniture in. She sees nothing other than the soft edge of the gentleman’s smile.
The headlights of a car entering the cul-de-sac snap her back to reality. She blinks rapidly to clear her vision. How long has she been stood here? Doubt creeps into her mind. Does the dashing gentleman even exist or is he just part of another elaborate daydream created to make it all worthwhile? Her slowing heartbeat is answer enough.
She shivers, acutely aware that every part of her body aches. The room smells musty.
The car pulls onto her neighbours’ drive.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Elsie notes that it takes longer than it should for Rhys Morgan to haul himself out. Physically, he is on the street but his mind is elsewhere. He doesn’t register the goings-on at the top of the cul-de-sac. Thankfully, he doesn’t catch Elsie as she peaks through the window. The soft net slowly drops.
The armchair embraces Elsie as she collapses back into it. She is more exhausted, yet alive, than she remembers ever being.
‘Stop being so stupid,’ she says. ‘You’re not sixteen for goodness sake.’
The room starts to slip out of focus. A soft smile plays on her lips. Well maybe she could pretend she’s sixteen, for a little while. And then he is here with her, her dead cat, jumping to her knees from the floor of her dreams.
Upstairs something creaks.
The sound of the house retracting in the cold night air?
Or is it more of a scrape?
3.
‘Naughty boy. Naughty. Little. Vile boy,’ the shrill voice spits. ‘Always in trouble. Never learning. You remember what this means for the naughty little boy? No? You are so stupid you’ve probably forgotten. Thick little boy. Thick, little, vile boy.’
He lets his body go floppy and drop to the floor. It’s harder for them to lift him this way. Harder to shift and form his limp limbs. She shrieks more inaudible, high-pitched words. She laughs, a loud sound full of spite. The little boy closes his eyes and waits to feel the impact of violence, but it does not come.
Not yet.
Light and dark play on his eyelids as she moves around him. He screws his eyeballs tight. The metal on metal sound of the bolt doesn’t escape him. She has made it louder to ensure he hears. The door scrapes across the stone floor.
The cupboard is open.
Liquid forms in the back of his throat. Not the cupboard. Please not the cupboard. Not again. Anything but the cupboard.
All he wanted was a glass of water. How was he to know he wasn’t allowed to use the glasses anymore; that he now has to use the bowl? Why does she always change the rules? How is he supposed to learn if she keeps changing things?
Too much time is passing.
He peeks out through soft eyelashes. She towers over him, all skin and bones, like a giant stick insect. Her hair is pulled back in a tight plait, stretching the skin across her narrow face. Her arms jerk around her body and she screeches for him, for her ally. Screech, screech, the sound whistles through the hole where her tooth should be.
The man is already in the room, just out of sight. His footsteps are so soft they could be missed unless you know what you’re listening for. The man is small but he’s strong. He’s the strongest man the boy has ever known. The boy doesn’t know his name so calls him Strong Hands.
Strong Hands smiles down at the little boy. A big, rotten-toothed smile. His big, strong hands loom out and the boy wants to scream. Strong Hands grabs him by the shoulders, far too hard. Her voice in the background taunts and gives Strong Hands orders, orders the hands do not disobey although the boy is sure they could. Strong Hands is so strong he could easily win against her but he doesn’t even try. The boy is too afraid of her, too small to fight back, but Strong Hands isn’t. He must do her bidding because he wants to, because the little boy really is naughty and vile.
Pain spasms as Strong Hands digs into the muscle. The little boy stays limp but Strong Hands lifts him by the tendons, flesh on flesh, stretching in pain.
The little boy screams and all they do is laugh.
The steps are few but last a lifetime. The boy screams again, claws his fingers at the cupboard edge, its dark mouth ready to swallow him whole. A splinter sears like hot metal down his nail bed. Screams a pitch higher rise with bile, warm and bitter in his mouth. The shrill voice laughs hard, and spits instructions at Strong Hands.
‘Screaming like a girl. Pathetic. Listen to him, screaming like a girl at a little splinter. Poor pathetic little boy needs helpie welpie from proper grown-ups.’ They both laugh. The little boy sees only patches of colour pulsate through his tears.
Strong Hands gets the pliers.
No! The splinter, not the nail! The pliers are cold against his fingertip. The world throbs red. A tearing sound and the nail is gone.
The little boy can get no air into his lungs. Every muscle in his body contracts, every millimetre full of pain.
‘Cry baby. Crying like a baby. Not such a big boy now, eh? Naughty little baby.’ Fingers jab in the light, then nothing in the dark.
Little boy all alone. Left to learn in the dark. Vile little boy left alone to learn.
He can feel every heartbeat pulse in his aching flesh. He sucks his finger to stop the throb of pain, warm and bitter in his mouth, comfort in the dark. His eyes squeeze tight to prevent more tears escaping. The blanket of dust wraps around him and his bones quake with fear of what’s to come. This is never the end; the cupboard is always the beginning. Endless time passing locked up in the dark.
In the dark, the naughty little boy imagines. He imagines what it would be like if Strong Hands went away. Things were better before Strong Hands arrived, weren’t they? Strong Hands only came along because of everything else that happened. If Strong Hands wasn’t here maybe the shrieking would stop, maybe she would be different? If the naughty little boy was good, if he tried harder, maybe it could be like it was before?
‘Are you hungry vile little boy?’ The screech wakes him. ‘Remember, don’t look at me or I’ll be sick. You want food? Who provides the food for dirty little boys? That’s right, I do. I provided the food to eat, the heat to cook and the plate you eat off. You are lucky, you vile little thing, lucky I am so kind-hearted that even after you misbehave so much, I still provide for you. I provide the food.’
A crack of blinding light. The door opens.
‘Remember the rule: don’t look at me or I’ll be sick. You stink. You disgust me. Get him out. I said, get him out!’
Soiled and stiff, he is lifted, light as a leaf from the dark. He sits on the floor in the corner. The floor is flagstone and although he tries, he can’t stop the shivers as the cold numbs his naked legs. After all, naughty boys never get to sit at the table however good they are. Good is never good enough. The bowl is put in front of him. She screeches and jabs until he eats all the meat, even though it’s raw, wet and slippery in his hands, tough and chewy in his mouth.
‘Bet you want to be sick, vile little boy.’ She dances in her glee. ‘Sick, sick, sick, be sick like the baby you are.’ But he isn’t sick and he eats it all.
Thrown back into the hole, the naughty boy cries. He hears them laugh, laugh at the vile little boy. The smell of the raw meat fills his nostrils, the taste metallic on his tongue. His throat churns. His stomach churns, but he won’t be sick no matter what.
No, he won’t be sick.
He won’t ever be sick.
4.
The grass is as green as the last time he walked through the summer field. The field of dreams. Overhead, sun shines, fractured on occasion like old cine film whirling through a cheap projector. Trees and flowers are huge
and wondrous as if seen for the first time through a child’s eye. Colours are primary and intense, leaves vibrant and waxy.
A section of this endless field is fenced off, a pure white fence made of no describable substance. Inside the fence grow the most beautiful of the trees and flowers, tall and luscious. Plants bloom and birds sing. This fenced section far outshines the rest of creation, a paradise within paradise. Two figures, one male, one female, run naked between these sunlit perfections laughing and chasing each other. Inside the garden, they are happy, at peace. They are too distant; this little garden is too distant for him to see their faces, yet he knows they are happy, in love. There is something about the female, something he recognises but cannot place.
Slowly from the large apple tree in the centre of the garden comes the serpent. Laughing, it slithers under the fence towards him. The laugh is evil, out of place for this paradise. The serpent’s rotting black skin emanates a stench that turns to bile in the man’s throat.
Fear grips the man as he looks into the serpent’s vivid blue eyes. Breath tight in his chest, he turns to run. It is as if he is trying to run through water.
As he staggers forward, an amazing bright light flashes electric in the sky. It makes the landscape around him black then white then black. Negative to colour. Over and over, he stumbles and falls as the invisible water tries to pull him down.
The serpent slithers closer and closer at a speed faster than the man can comprehend until he feels the fork of its tongue like icy fingers on the back of his neck.
Paradise falters. His very core turns cold.
5.
The coffee is cold and bitter. Anna would laugh at the comparison, except it isn’t funny. She pulls her dressing gown tighter, swills the cold liquid in the bottom of the stained mug, she really must get round to buying some new ones. She stares at the kitchen window. It is dark outside, all she can see is the reflection of the lights inside, same as she has done all night, all night while she’s sat and waited for Rhys to come home.