by Amy Lilwall
‘Shoes smell different. Leather smells different.’
Chips couldn’t know what she was really like. Chips didn’t have to sleep in a basket with her. Chips had nothing to do all day except remember her stupid weird words.
‘Leather has its own smell. Once you know the smell, you never forget it. I know the smell of leather now, Bonbon. I’ll never forget it. You never forget the smell of leather, Bonbon.’
‘I don’t care, Jinx! There are no feathers! There. Are. No. Feathers!’
Jinx stopped jumping.
‘You’re such a weird selfish rat, Jinx. I don’t even know what those words mean. No one knows what those words mean!’
‘Bonbon!’ Jinx held her hands halfway between her eyes and her ears.
‘There are no feathers, Jinx! Today is feather day! IT’S FEATHER DAY!’
Jinx crouched down and pressed her face into her hands and her hands into her lap. Bonbon was angry, really angry, and it would only make her angrier if Jinx did that thing that made her ears feel hot. She’d better go away and do it on her own. Jinx slid down from the cushion and ran to the door, still bending as near to her lap as she could. She would have to go and hide somewhere until Bonbon was better. She would find a more secret hiding place than the toilet box. She would hide herself so well that Bonbon would wonder where she was, yes! And then she would come to look for her – when she was feeling better.
She ran out of the room, jumping the gaps in the tiles.
‘Jinx!’ she heard behind her. She stopped.
‘Yes, Bonbon?’
‘Come back, Jinx!’
She sounded nicer. But Jinx was still doing that thing. That would only make her shout again. ‘I-I’m just going over here for a little while.’ Sniff.
Bonbon spent the afternoon arranging the feathers in the basket while Jinx crouched in the dining room between a chair leg and the big glass door. The dining room was nice because it had carpet and she could make big swirls in it just by hopping across it and letting one foot drag behind. Not today, though; today was for hiding and this was a brilliant hiding place. They almost never came into the dining room. She looked out of the patio door. It was near the bit outside where she could see over the bars. She couldn’t see over the bars from inside. Just grey bricks. And no feathers.
She’d been here ages.
Bonbon still hadn’t come to look for her. Or maybe she just couldn’t find her. Maybe if she coughed a bit then Bonbon would come… No! She would wait for Bonbon to find her. Well… Maybe she would wait for a bit; if Bonbon still hadn’t come, she would cough. But Bonbon wouldn’t come if she had things to do, would she? And today was feather day.
Had she waited long enough?
No. Just a bit longer. She would look out of the patio door.
What was that?! A feather? But there were no feathers outside… Yes, it was! Was it? Yes! And Chips! Chips was outside with a feather! And another! And another! Loads of feathers! ‘BONBON!’ Jinx ran across the carpet and out of the dining room. ‘BONBON!’
Bonbon was sitting in the basket looking at the other end of it. ‘What?’
‘Chips has got feathers,’ she yelled, running to the vacuum hatch and crawling out of it. ‘Chips!’ She could see him talking to something. ‘Chips! Where did you find all of them?’
‘On the ground over here. There’s something here.’
Jinx stepped forward and felt Bonbon rush past her.
‘But there are no feathers outside – how did they get—’ Bonbon stopped and looked in the same direction as Chips. ‘But… They’re all over it!’ She ran over to the green box and disappeared behind it.
Jinx leaped after her. ‘What, Bonbon? What is it?’ And as she got to the other side of the box, she saw it. In the middle of a circle of feathers lay a big, soft head with one long grey tooth and a shiny eye that looked weird and still. Jinx bent down to look into the eye. ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Hello?’
The eye stared at her.
‘Are you having a nap? That’s a funny way to have a nap.’ She put her hand on its cheek. ‘Why isn’t it moving? Chips? It should be moving, shouldn’t it?’
‘—.’
‘Where did it come from?’
‘—.’
Jinx turned. Chips had dropped all of his feathers and was looking at the back of his left hand. Then he wiped his eye with his other hand and looked at the back of that too. His hands had wet patches. And his face. It was that thing that happened to Jinx! That thing that made her weird… The thing that made Bonbon’s ears feel hot. But… She looked at Chips’s eyes then back down to the eye that wasn’t moving – it was moving! ‘It’s moving, Chips, it’s moving!’ But it wasn’t the eye that was moving; it was the head. The head was jerking backwards. Jinx looked at the head, then down the body towards Bonbon. ‘Bonbon! Stop!’ Bonbon pulled feathers out of its body with one hand, then the other, then the other, so hard that the whole thing jerked ‘Bonbon! Stop! Stop it!’ Jinx put her arms around the thing’s neck and cuddled it, shutting her eyes. ‘Bonbon! Bonbon!’
‘Shut up, Jinx!’ Bonbon shouted, still pulling feathers out of the thing.
‘You’re hurting it! You’re hurting it!’
‘I’m not hurting it, Jinx!’
‘You are!’
‘If I was hurting it, it would say something!’
‘It was saying something; it was trying to say something to me!’ yelled Chips. Bonbon and Jinx stopped shouting at one another and looked at him.
‘See, Bonbon? It was! It really was saying something! And now look at it—’
‘Shut up, Jinx. What did it say?’
‘I-I couldn’t understand it…’
Bonbon screwed up her eyes. What was happening to Chips? Jeez, not this again. ‘Don’t do that, it makes my ears feel hot. I don’t think it’s a very good thing to do to other people’s ears.’ Bonbon looked at Jinx. She was doing it as well. Stupid hot ears. ‘I didn’t hurt it.’
The thing’s head was stuck inside Jinx’s cuddle, its still stare fixed on Bonbon.
Bonbon bent to pick up her feathers. She hadn’t hurt it. And it was feather day. She turned to walk back to the vacuum hatch. ‘I didn’t hurt it.’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t.’ She went back inside the kitchen, feeling weird. Oh dear. She would have liked to feel better about what had happened just then, with the feathers. Maybe now would be a good time to go and see if they were in the mood. That would make her feel better. She went to the big room, hoping that the She-one had come home while she’d been outside. Empty. As she turned to leave, the He-one appeared at the door.
‘Are you looking for some affection already?’ he asked her as she lay across his shoe. He plonked himself down on the sofa then leaned forward to pick Bonbon up.
She would have preferred the She-one this evening. She didn’t know why. Maybe because of what had just happened; the She-one would have been better. Oh well. Never mind. She rolled onto her stomach and let the fingers brush up her back.
‘I tell you each time that whatever you say here is confidential,’ he said without gesturing. Gestures leaked, no, they trickled little bits of personality into an exchange. That was not neutral. Personality was not neutral.
‘I know.’
‘And so? Why do you keep asking?’ The frames of his glasses cut horizontally through his pupils so that he was not quite looking at her; maintaining a barrier; not a barrier, a filter that, well, filtered his gaze.
Barrier indeed. Not in this office.
‘I don’t know really…’
‘Yes, you do.’
She puffed up her cheeks then blew the air out slowly. ‘Because I’m worried that some stuff might be illegal.’
He nodded. ‘Right.’
‘That would change things, wouldn’t it?’
‘If the authorities needed to know something, I would have to tell them.’
‘Okay.’
‘But then you knew that, didn’t you?’
‘Well… Yes.’
‘So, how does that make you feel?’
‘I haven’t really thought about it.’
‘Guilty?’ He let his eyebrows go up slightly.
‘Erm. Yes. I mean, I don’t agree with… how they go about things. So I’ve become a bit of a rebel, I mean, I’d be in so much trouble if they had any idea about… my role.’
‘In trouble with the authorities?’
‘No!’ she grinned. ‘No, sorry… In trouble with my employers. Big trouble, though. The biggest trouble, in fact.’
‘Why?’
‘Well… I have access to some fairly secret stuff and I’ve been… abusing that privilege somewhat…’
‘And would that be the ultimate punishment? Getting into trouble with your employers?’
‘I need them in order to do what I do. But I just don’t know if what I’m doing is good or bad any more. From a moral viewpoint, that is.’
‘You feel responsible.’
‘—.’ She did a little swimming-duck movement with her head and looked to the side. A lateral nod. Lateral nodding, literally sticking your neck out – but that was a guarded gesture. Or perhaps she was being coy? It was certainly another veiled gesture. Was it because of him that she kept on letting up these veiled gestures? Let’s see: was this the eighth or the ninth session of veiled gestures? He would check his notes afterwards… He was pretty sure it was the ninth.
He took the duck movement as a ‘yes’ to feeling guilty and shook his head. ‘You shouldn’t.’ Drat. His opinion. And a head-shake. Drat, drat, drat. Try again. ‘I wonder why you do… Why is that? Tell me.’ No gestures. Concentrate, Hamish, for goodness’ sake.
‘Like I just said… erm… I’ve abused my situation a little.’
‘I know that’s what you said but…’ His hand wandered up into the air and opened as if to release the question he didn’t have prepared. It scratched his ear just in time and laid itself back down on the desk. ‘Why don’t you just confess? And accept whatever that leads to?’
She shook her head. The clusters of little painted beads hanging from her ears clacked. ‘It wouldn’t do any good, not when it’s just me. I’d be the individual against the system; one of those stories.’
Yes; no. She was quite right. Best not go down that road. ‘Some might say that you’re in a corner, which means that morally you are… free.’
‘No. I used to feel moral, and free. But now I’m starting to believe that I’m not really helping anyone.’
He blinked to switch off a sigh. Little invisible hands snaked out from his body and floated in all directions; some towards her feet and her bottom to lift her out of her chair while others went out of the window to drag back blankets of cloud which they wrapped around her, tucking her feet into the cottony folds and rocking the whole swirly bundle until she dozed off to sleep.
Oh for heaven’s sake! How long had that thought taken? These were not his normal thought processes; he understood his normal thought processes; he knew himself. He glanced at her expression, pouty with rearing eyebrows. Concerned. Childlike. That was it! She was projecting caring tendencies onto him. He sucked ropes of air through flaring nostrils. She cared for him.
He’d experienced this before – of course – with many of his patients. It was like being a medium; transmitting messages to the patient from, essentially, their own ghost. The ghost would tip him off about the mortal’s feelings towards him, but these feelings had never taken him over. This time, with Emma, it was different… It was like the documentaries about ghost-followers who would be in mid-conversation with a spirit before suddenly bursting into tears; ‘Don’t make me feel what you’re feeling,’ they would say to the ghost, ‘just tell me your story.’
Sooner or later he would have to have a similar chat with Emma. But that was not for now.
‘You think that what you’re involved in – which uniquely involves bereaved people – am I right?’
She nodded a normal, non-duck nod.
‘Is… is morally wrong – even though you originally thought it was right – and now you’re feeling guilty and scared that you’ll be found out. Am I right?’
She exhaled and smiled. ‘I suppose. I’m not sure…’
His face was hot. Ah. That could mean that hers was too. It looked like it was. He’d picked up on something; now, this was, indeed, projection and this would have to be brought up… Unless it was relief she was feeling… It was a very relieved-sounding reply she’d given, but, he didn’t feel relieved. Did he? If she’d just managed to unload some of her worry then perhaps he did…
This would have to be brought up.
‘Why?’ he went on. ‘What part of what I’ve just said don’t you agree with?’
‘I always thought that I didn’t care about being found out by the people I work for, as when I originally started to do, erm, what I do, it was to counterbalance their immorality.’
‘Counterbalance… In whose eyes? Yours?’
‘The world’s.’
‘You think you’ve wronged the world?’
‘Sort of… There was just this one thing I did that makes me feel a bit panicky sometimes. And it made me start to question… all the other, erm, things.’ She let her hand flop at her wrist. ‘I’m sure nothing’ll come of it.’
A hand-flop. A brush-off. Hamish would have scowled if he allowed himself to do that kind of thing. Instead, he bent forward.
‘How would you feel if you could be certain that no one would ever find out about… whatever it is you’ve done?’
She sighed. ‘Relieved.’
‘So you’ll only really have wronged the world if you get found out?’
‘Ha!’ She uncrossed and re-crossed her legs. ‘And that seems like more of a possibility now, you know, since I went a bit too far… And then, maybe, everything I did would get reversed and all those people would be doubly wronged when they didn’t even know they’d been wronged… in the first place.’
He allowed his pupils a rim-free view of the pupils that studied his shoulder. He would get this out of her. ‘Go on.’
She half-laughed. ‘I don’t think I can. I’m used to being so secretive about everything.’
He swallowed and hid his pupils again. ‘Shall I help you?’
‘You can try if you like.’
‘What do you talk about with these bereaved people?’
‘Cells.’
‘Cells. Okay. And what happens to these cells?’
‘—.’
‘Do they get used for research?’
‘No.’
‘Do they get frozen?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘So they have to be stored for… whatever use they might have afterwards. Like, well, sperm in a sperm bank.’
She went red and half-smiled for a quarter of a breath. Then a nod.
Right.
That confirmed that then. She had sniggered at the word ‘sperm’ – oh dear. Why oh dear? Did that disappoint him? It was an embarrassed snigger; if she cared about him then she would be particularly vulnerable to embarrassment in his presence. Perhaps he should jump on the desk and shout ‘sperm, sperm, sperm!’ right into her face. Good God, where on Earth had that come from? The laughing gnome in his head chuckled. When was the last time he had used the laughing gnome? He never felt the need to laugh during his sessions… Next session. They would have to talk about all of this pollution during the following session. It wouldn’t be appropriate now… Although… He checked the time; it was already time.
She saw him checking and checked as well then reached for her bag. ‘It’s already time.’
‘Yes.’
‘To be continued.’
‘Next time, yes. Thank you, Emma.’
‘Thank you. Do you want the door shut?’
‘No, leave the door.’
He watched as her skirt licked at her ankles all the way along the corridor.
Blankey!
She sat in the midd
le of the garden all gathered under her humcoat.
Her humcoat was very nice; it was made out of lots of grey cat tails, all sewn together, and she had a thing on her head that was the same as the cat tails, but just one maybe, all curled up like it was sleeping.
Jinx shivered. She hated grey cats. One had chased her from the green box to the vacuum hatch ages ago. It would have caught her but Bonbon grabbed it by the tail and pulled. It made a horrible noise and showed all its teeth at Bonbon, and was just about to swipe her with its hairy hand when Bonbon threw a handful of little stones into its eyes.
Bonbon was so brave.
Good job it was little-stone day – what if it had been feather day?
Jinx shivered again.
Blankey rearranged herself while Jinx watched from the dining room.
‘Jinx!’
Bonbon! ‘Yes, Bonbon!’
‘What are you doing? It’s hair day!’
Jinx got up and walked slowly to the kitchen; dragging one foot behind then the other, then the other, then the other. When she got to the door she turned to look at the pattern she had made. A trail of long footprints. Like that picture of the He-one where everything was white and he had long flat feet. ‘Skis,’ she said. They were ‘ski’ footprints.
Oops; funny how that happened sometimes. When she was looking at something and she didn’t know what it was, a tiny voice would whisper a word inside her head and she was sure that the word was the name of the thing she was looking at… Like the grey-cat day; ‘Did you see that? The cat nearly hit you with its hand, Bonbon! It really did, it really did!’
‘The what, Jinx? The what nearly hit me with its hand?’
And then there was the death day. The death day had been the most scary of all the days. Bonbon had seen it too. She was the one who saw it first because she knew that she wouldn’t hurt it when she started to pull out its feathers. Chips had seen it because he started to do that thing that made Bonbon’s ears red. Jinx had been the last to see it, but when she did, the little voice had said ‘death’ long, long after it had said ‘bird’.
‘You’re right, Bonbon,’ Jinx had said afterwards. ‘You didn’t hurt it.’
‘I know, Jinx,’ she had replied. ‘I don’t know why, but I think that nothing could have hurt it. It was already too hurt.’