Cass bit her lip. She had a week – no, not so long. They would want it all in place before that.
Sally’s right, they’ll fix the phones tomorrow, she told herself. It’ll be fine. Even Mr Remick had said so. That hand on her arm. Those eyes. It’ll all be fine.
Ben and Damon sat on the floor, drinking hot chocolate. Damon had asked for Coke, but Cass didn’t have any and Damon had looked his contempt at her. Ben didn’t seem to notice the older boy’s surliness. He showed Damon his games, chattering away about each one, and they both groaned when Sally declared it was time to go. She clapped her hands and Damon scowled as he dragged himself to his feet.
‘Say thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘Don’t be rude. Say thank you for the drink and hurry up.’
Damon turned those eyes on Cass. The irises were dark, almost as dark as his pupils, and they held a pale gleam. ‘Thank you for the chocolate,’ he said.
Cass chose to ignore the emphasis in his words. ‘You’re very welcome.’ She took the cup from his outstretched hand and saw an ugly mark crossing his palm. ‘Oh, what happened? Are you all right?’
She felt Sally’s gaze on her, but she bent and took Damon’s hand anyway, turning it so she could see the wound. It wasn’t fresh, nor was it as livid as she’d thought. He’d cut it some time in the past, and the skin was a deeper pink where it had healed. Damon left his hand in hers for a second, a cold, limp thing, then whipped it away.
Cass expected his mother to say something, tell him off again, maybe, but she did not. When Cass looked round she saw that Sally’s mouth was pressed into a thin line. They said their goodbyes and Cass closed the door on them, leaning her head on it in relief.
Then she thought of the entryphone. Sally hadn’t used it either; she’d come straight up the stairs to the apartment door. So either she knew the code too or the main entrance hadn’t been locked. Cass didn’t think that Ben had memorised the code yet – he hadn’t come in alone before, had never needed to.
She turned to Ben. ‘How did you get in? Did Mrs Spencer have the code?
He shrugged and turned back to his games, stacking them in a neat pile, lining up the edges.
‘Ben, I asked you a question.’
He looked up, shrugged again, stuck out his bottom lip.
Cass sighed. ‘I’m popping downstairs for a minute,’ she said. ‘Be ready to let me in, okay? I might ring the entry-phone. You know where it is, right?’
He nodded without looking up.
Cass slipped out of the door and down the stairs, wall lights flickering on in response to her movement. The newspapers outside Number 10 hadn’t moved. They looked forlorn, abandoned.
The mill grew cooler as she went down the empty staircase to the front door. She turned the inside handle a few times, listening to the clicks, trying to work out if it was locking. Then she pulled the door open and stepped outside.
She began shivering at once. There was a single light outside the mill, a wrought-iron lamp designed to look like an old-fashioned streetlight. Snow flurried around it as though attracted by its brightness. Everything else was dark. When Cass looked up, pale flakes danced out of the blackness and into her face.
She looked about and let the door shut behind her. When she turned back she found herself face to face with that nasty knife-work in the door. She had forgotten the cross. What must Mr Remick have thought? He’d not mentioned it. She put her hand to the cold brass handle and tried turning it, but it wouldn’t budge; the lock was obviously working.
Cass flicked snow from her hair, brushed more from the keypad. She began to tap in the entry code, then cancelled it and put in the apartment number instead. The entryphone was an internal system, so it shouldn’t be affected by the snow. She could hear it ringing: three, four, five. Come on, Ben.
The ringing stopped and Cass put her face to the grille. ‘Ben, it’s me.’
There was only the almost imperceptible sound of snow settling around her. She tapped in the apartment number again and waited. Maybe it was wired wrongly and wasn’t connecting with Number 12 at all. She imagined the phone ringing in an empty apartment – the one on the ground floor maybe. She had a sudden image of someone in there, a dark shape turning and hearing the sound. Rising to its feet and going to answer.
Cass cut it off. She punched in the entry code instead, the metal slick and cold against her fingers, and heard the buzz as the lock disengaged. She stepped inside and slammed the door behind her, hurried up the stairs and rapped at the apartment door for Ben.
She waited. After a while she knocked again.
No response. She couldn’t hear any sound from inside. ‘Ben, do you hear me?’ she called out. She knocked again, louder this time. Stared at the brass 12 screwed into the wood. ‘Ben!’
He didn’t answer. Cass waited, then banged louder, angling her fist to make it resonate on the wood. She felt the pain in her knuckles as a distant thing. ‘Ben!’ She tried again, knocking seven, eight, nine times. Then she opened her hand and slapped it against the door. At last she subsided, leaning against it.
She glanced down the silent hall, and for a second she imagined neighbours, lots of them, opening their doors and leaning out to stare. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned back to her own door. Her breath came heavily, as though she’d been running up the stairs and up and down the hallways, all over the mill, in search of her son. But he wasn’t lost; Ben was safe at home; it was she, Cass, who was stuck outside.
She knocked again, harder, so that her knuckles sang out, and when she put them to her lips she saw they were red. ‘Ben, please! Let me in.’
She tried to steady her breathing. What if he wasn’t inside at all? What if he’d already gone? Already? Why had she thought that? It wasn’t going to happen, would never happen. They would always be together; she would look after him—
That’s why you’re out here yelling yourself hoarse.
Cass slid down the door and rested her back against it. Then she turned, rising to her knees as though pleading with the door to open. She reached up and caught the handle, twisted it, rattling the door on its hinges. ‘Ben, it’s me. Let me in, now!’
She got to her feet and pressed her ear to the wood, but there was no sound, not even the burble of the TV or the flush of a toilet to explain why he hadn’t let her in.
‘Oh God,’ she whispered, ‘Ben, please.’ She banged again, then pushed at the door with her whole body, and she felt it give a fraction before it met the jamb.
‘Ben—’ She wailed, not a mother’s voice, a capable in-control voice, but a little-girl-lost voice, the same voice that had been threatening and pushing at her insides ever since Pete had left and they said he wasn’t coming back, not this time, not ever again. Her voice.
She knocked. This time, when she took her hand away, there was blood on the knuckles. She sank back onto the floor and closed her eyes. There was no sound from inside, and none from the rest of the mill. Cass thought again of that apartment downstairs, the one with the empty windows. They would be like black eyes now, the snow swirling in and covering the floor, the dust, those dolls.
If anyone got inside she would be trapped in the hallways with them. Cass’ throat went dry.
Ben might be ill – he could have collapsed in there, might need help.
Cass looked down the hall to Number 10. The newspapers were still there. She pushed herself up and went to the door. She hesitated before she tried it, but even so she knew there would be no answer. She had been banging so loudly, there was no way anyone inside wouldn’t have heard her.
The door of Number 12 opened and Ben stuck his head out. His hair was tousled, in need of a cut, and he had brushed it down over his eyes like Damon’s. He looked up and down and saw her. ‘Are you coming?’ he asked and closed the door.
Cass walked down the hall as though sleepwalking, her legs unsteady. She pushed on the door with its brass 12, half expecting it to have locked again behind her s
on, but he had put it on the latch. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
She went in, slowly, and locked the door behind her.
Ben was in the lounge, starting up his game. His back was turned to Cass. He sat quite still, only his hands moving on the controls, small and capable.
‘Where were you?’
There was no answer. Nor did he stop.
‘Ben, why didn’t you let me in? You must have heard me knocking.’ There was a plaintive note to Cass’ voice she couldn’t banish. Little girl lost. She looked down at her hand, spreading the bloody knuckles.
There was a pause before Ben answered, as though he wasn’t really listening: ‘I did,’ he said.
Cass stormed over and pulled him to his feet, turned him to face her. ‘You didn’t,’ she said, ‘not for ages. Look.’ She held her hand out to him, showing him the blood.
His face was blank and he looked at her with half-closed eyes. ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ he said. ‘Only the rats.’
Then his eyes came into focus and he looked at her hand. It was shaking. Ben took hold of it in both of his and leaned forward. Cass expected him to kiss it better, but he did not; he stuck out his smooth pink tongue and licked her bloody knuckle.
Cass snatched it away. ‘What are you doing?’
When he met her gaze there was a light in his eyes she didn’t like: an appraising look, a knowing look. ‘Ben?’
The expression in his eyes vanished as though it had never been there. He grinned, showing his white teeth. ‘Are you going to play with me, Mum?’
Cass straightened.
‘We can have a competition. We did that at Damon’s. He’s my best friend.’ His expression was genuine, the transparent smile of a child, but Cass still heard the words with dismay. He’s my best friend. She remembered Damon’s surly glare, the way Ben had looked at her just a moment ago. Is that where he’d learned it?
‘He’s got Street Skirmish. Did I say? It was a present – for Christmas. No, not Christmas. Something else.’
‘Something else?’
‘Yeah. And it was really, really good. Can I get it, Mum?’
‘We’ll have to wait and see.’ The words came automatically, but while she was speaking Cass noticed something. She bent and took hold of Ben’s top, twisting it. A dark stain was splashed onto the fabric. It had crusted over, a deep rust-brown. ‘What’s that?’
Ben pulled away. ‘Ribena,’ he said. ‘Have we got any Ribena, Mum? Damon’s mum has. She’s got everything.’
‘Has she?’ Cass muttered, but Ben didn’t hear, he had already dropped to the floor, the controls ready in his hand, and started up a new game.
Ben slept peacefully that night. Cass knew this because she kept waking in the dark, wondering where she was, feeling uncomfortable and unsettled. She imagined Ben the same way, hot and feverish, but when she went in she found him lying on his back, resting his head on one hand, his face tilted to one side. The nightlight illuminated the pale curve of his cheek. He breathed steadily, as a sleeping child should.
Cass stood over him for a while, not wanting to go back to bed. She knew she had been dreaming, and though she couldn’t recall any of the details, the feeling of it stayed with her.
Eventually Ben sighed and turned over, and Cass tiptoed from the room. She lay awake a long time, and then, as though on cue, as she began to close her eyes the scratching in the walls began.
When the dream came, Cass sensed someone leaning over her. She couldn’t see a face, but she knew the tall, broad figure, the black folds that fell from it. She could feel the way he looked at her.
Her father leaned in closer, hair gleaming as candle-light shone through it. He held something out, a small white disc.
Cass opened her mouth, and he placed it on her tongue. It was dry and papery and tasted of nothing. ‘This is love,’ he said, and Cass woke again, cold to the bone, sitting up and staring into the dark.
TEN
The world was hidden by a mist that drifted in sheets across the hillside, masking everything, turning the trees into veiled figures with their arms outstretched. Cass stood at the window, drinking coffee that failed to clear her head.
Ben munched on Weetabix from his football bowl, stuffing in great mouthfuls and swallowing as quickly as he could. He poured more milk with one hand, still scooping up spoonfuls with the other. He saw her watching. ‘We’re playing football in the gym today,’ he said. ‘Damon’s going to show me how to do keepie-uppie on my neck.’
Cass stirred. Her neck was stiff, her limbs sluggish. When she’d looked in the mirror there were dark circles under her eyes. She’d spent half the night thinking about Ben, and now she was awake it was her client she was worried about, pacing up and down his office, waiting for his missing files.
‘Come on, Mum.’ Ben’s spoon clattered into the bowl, scattering droplets of milk. ‘Have you got my kit?’
Cass checked the clock, swore under her breath and gathered it together, grabbed his bag and lunch and the keys. They pulled on their coats as they went down the stairs. Last night’s lockout already felt unreal, like something she’d dreamed.
They waded through the snow, which squeaked under their boots. The lane was solid white, the top layer hardened like pastry crust. Ben picked some up, karate-chopping it into pieces.
‘Hurry up, Ben,’ she called.
He jumped up and ran ahead, waving his arms, and Cass saw Bert standing at the top of the hill, a now-familiar figure. Captain was, as usual, at his master’s side, chest heaving between squat wide-set legs, breath puffing out rhythmic plumes.
Cass waved and hurried on, but she wasn’t as quick as Ben, who ran straight for the dog, arm outstretched to stroke Captain’s black muzzle.
Cass was still yards away when she heard Captain’s jaws snap together. She blinked. Everything was still, so that she thought she must have imagined it: the lunge forward, the heavy chest straining, the neck stretching forward as grizzled lips drew back over old yellowed teeth.
Then everything started to move: Ben pulling his arm away, cradling it in the other, shrieking; Bert holding Captain back; Cass calling her son’s name.
She reached Ben’s side and took his arm. His eyes narrowed and he fought, hitting out with his other hand. His splayed fingers caught in her hair and Cass felt strands of it rip from her skull, but she didn’t care; she was too busy running her fingers over his arm, checking for blood, for the holes Captain’s teeth must have made.
There was nothing, only a string of drool that had dribbled across his coat, darkening the red cloth so that it looked like blood.
Ben twisted, dragging his arm away. ‘Get off me. Get off.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bert said, over and over, a monotone background to everything. ‘I’m sorry. I never— I never—’
‘Ben, are you all right?’
‘I don’t think ’e got ’im; ’e just tried it on, that’s all. He were ’appen messin’ about, weren’t you, Captain?’
Ben stepped back, glaring at the dog. That gleam in his eyes, the cold look of the evening before, was back.
Something inside Cass clenched and she turned to Bert in a fury. ‘Get that dog away from my son! He’s dangerous. He ought to have a muzzle.’
Even as she saw Bert’s shocked face she pictured them together, Ben and the dog, playing with the old green ball in the park, the dog waddling after the ball, slow but game, tail wagging furiously.
‘Sorry,’ Bert said again. The old man stared down at his dog, his face pale, lost in disbelief. ‘Captain,’ he said. ‘Captain.’
Cass felt for Ben’s hand. He pulled away but she caught and held it. She skirted Bert and the dog, keeping her son behind her.
‘Miss,’ said Bert.
She turned and saw that his eyes were pale and more watery than ever. Brim full. ‘I’m so sorry—’
‘I’m sure … ’ she began, but she didn’t know how to continue, and anyway, how could she tell him it was all right? It co
uld have been far from all right. Cass closed her mouth and walked away, leading Ben towards the road.
When she had put some distance between them, she stopped and squatted down in front of Ben. ‘Are you all right, love?’
Ben nodded. His lips were pressed together, almost vanished into his face.
‘We can go home again if you want. Did the dog hurt you?’
He shook his head.
‘Just your feelings?’
Ben’s eyes narrowed, and that light was back in them. He screwed up his face and shook his head. There was hatred in his look.
‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it. He’s an old dog, he must have been startled. We’ll have to be careful, won’t we, if we see him again.’
Ben blew out his breath with a tch. Cass felt the warmth of it on her face.
‘All right,’ she whispered. ‘You’re the boss.’
This would normally draw a smile, but Ben didn’t even look at her. He stared into the distance until Cass straightened and they began walking towards the school once more.
As they approached the gates, Ben pulled away and bounded off towards a group of children. He tapped on someone’s back and they put their heads together, gossiping with their hands cupped around their words. The other boy looked up, and Cass saw without surprise that it was Damon. She smiled at him, but he just stared at her.
Ben waved, ran with Damon to the entrance and was gone. Cass stopped. She could not see anyone she knew except one of the mothers Sally had introduced her to. Moira? Myra? She had long hair that hung loose, very straight down her back. Cass caught her eye and smiled. The other woman’s eyes slid away and she bent to kiss her child on the cheek. Cass pursed her lips. She was sure Myra had seen her.
Mr Remick appeared in the doorway and walked towards her, his arms spread in a welcoming gesture. ‘Nice to see you,’ he called out.
‘You too,’ said Cass, and found she meant it. She looked up at him. It struck her that his face shouldn’t be attractive: the hollowed cheeks, the nose with its slight hook. His skin was dry, a little uneven, almost pockmarked, but his eyes – they were beautiful.
Alison Littlewood Page 6