by Amy Lilwall
‘Yes, but how…’
‘It is very likely that she has been taken by Terence Bennett: your almost neighbour.’
Hamish’s mouth started to open.
‘That’s all, really. That’s what I came to tell you.’ She folded her lips inwards.
‘But… You know where I live?’
A nod.
‘How?’
‘I approved your adoption of Bonbon and Jinx.’
He nodded slowly, trying not to look surprised to hear those names come out of this person’s mouth as two worlds overlapped. He thought about this as 10:36 flipped to 10:37, staring at her with his neutral face, the only tool he could rely on. She’d known him this whole time. She knew where he lived, his neighbours and… Susan. His eyelids stopped blinking, she blurred in front of him. Stories of stalkings, therapists being followed or phoned or harassed superposed themselves one over the other. ‘She is still a patient.’ He heard the words in the voice of his lecturer at university. ‘You need to help your patient.’
‘I realize this is a shock but it’s important,’ she urged.
‘Is this why you booked this appointment with me?’
‘Yes.’
Hamish nodded. ‘Right then.’ He sat up straight in his chair and asked: ‘Why would he have taken her?’
She brushed her fringe away from her face and glanced at him from under her hand; had she hurt him? They observed each other for a minute. Her stomach squeezed itself to the size of an acorn. She leaned forward. ‘I really think he’s taken her.’
His eyebrows rounded back into their sad mouths. ‘Right… But, you can’t be sure so… how would I go about accusing this, um, Mr Bennett?’ Then: ‘He has another one; you know that, don’t you?’
‘Another what?’
‘A boy one.’
‘Oh! Yes, Chips. Yes, Mr Bennett is the legitimate owner of Chips. I’m not concerned about that.’
He nodded. ‘That’s strange because Chips, is it?’
‘Yes, Chips.’
‘He’s… well… like a skeleton.’
Her eyes widened. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Completely undernourished. You can see his ribs, his hip bones; everything. My partner has seen him in our house before.’ He winced at the word ‘partner’.
Emma didn’t seem to notice. She bent forward and rummaged in her bag. ‘I had no idea. I had nothing to do with his development…’ She unrolled a sheet of plastic and started to type on it with one hand.
‘Can’t you have someone, you know, look into it?’
‘No, but you can,’ she said while typing. ‘This is very good.’ Looking straight at him: ‘The fact that he is mistreating Chips will detract attention from the Blankey problem, especially as I had nothing to do with placing him there. I need you to call the authorities about Blankey – mention Chips and your neighbour – the company will more than likely investigate him and find her.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep. When you make the call, say that you’re calling on behalf of Mrs Lucas because Blankey has gone missing. Mention your concerns about Chips. Mention that you think she might have been locked in next door. If they do their job properly, they’ll investigate your neighbour’s house.’
‘I still don’t understand why you can’t do this.’
Emma put the sheet of plastic down on her lap. ‘I’m very worried about my previous employers linking me to any of this.’
‘Were you sacked?’
‘Oh gosh no… I left. I’d have real trouble lying low after being sacked.’ She leaned forward. ‘I’m really trusting you.’
Hamish curled one finger over his mouth. ‘If it’s that secret, why say anything?’
She looked panicked. ‘Because it’s my fault that she’s there.’
‘Your fault?’
She sighed. ‘Remember when I told you that I chose families?’
His eyes took in her fingers as they curled around ‘chose’. Then danced over his year-old memories, as clear as the moment they were written. ‘She’s his late-wife, isn’t she?’
She swallowed and said nothing.
He understood. She watched his eyes widen as he thought this over for a minute. ‘So, who are Bonbon and Jinx?’
Gosh, she had not been expecting that question. ‘I don’t want to go into all of that today…’
‘My grandmothers? Susan’s grandmothers?’
‘No, absolutely not.’ She waved her hands to reassure him. ‘They’re in no way related to you, I promise.’
‘Then why do we have them?’
She sighed. ‘Because you’re both young and earning well and I wanted them to stay together.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Listen, Hamish, you just told me that we have to trust each other.’
‘What I was saying is not quite the same—’
She interrupted. ‘Trust is the only component of a relationship that we are allowed. You said that I could tell you anything and I trusted that.’
He looked at the desk and pursed his lips. ‘You can,’ he said after a while. ‘You can trust me.’
CHAPTER 12
She would just clap. That was the best way; in fact, it was really the only way to get her attention. Eventually she would figure it out, even if she did ask loads of stupid questions beforehand. She must have been worried about them. They had been gone ages! It was still daylight when Bonbon had come through the tunnel. And now she was wobbling back the other way on her own, her arms stretched out so that she didn’t bump into the sides; she saw an opening up ahead, yes! Home! And ran through it. Gosh! Where on Earth was she? Two funny balls rushed up to her and bounced into her legs. She screamed then covered her mouth before bending to pick one up. The smell of it made her eyes close and flick through pictures on the other side of her head. She pushed its pointy folds into her nostrils. A man at a table, looking at a sheet with funny markings on it, it had the same smell as the thing she was holding now. She opened it up – what were these funny markings? ‘Darling Helena…’ It read. Bonbon felt her skin go bumpy at the word ‘darling’. Her ears went hot as she heard the word whispered into them. Her eyes closed as they searched the pictures for the face that owned the whisper. ‘Darling,’ she said to herself, breathing air right to the bottom of her belly. ‘Geraniums,’ said the inside of her head. She opened her eyes. Black shadows of flowers bent down and sprang back up as the wind danced them in front of a light that seemed to be inside spurts of musical water that sang with a plip-ploppy voice rather than a horrid rushing sound that she made when she went for a wee or when Chips’s he-one had left the taps on. The water curved into a big bowl that had fish mouths all around its edges singing out the water. Bits of flower tumbled from their mouths, and sometimes, when the wind licked the top of the bowl, they would spill right over its edge with a whole gush of water.
Bonbon stepped closer; this was Blankey’s house. The dining-room doors were different, with curly black shadows for handles and a long brown spidery thing that hung down in front of them making tok-tok noises in the wind. This was where Blankey’s she-one lived. The lady that had asked them to go to Chips’s house. There was no light behind the shadowy handle-curls and the legs of the spider. There was no light coming from any window, only the fountain. Maybe Blankey’s she-one was still at their house, with Bonbon’s She-one? Bonbon ran her hand over ‘Darling’ before re-scrunching up the paper. Jinx was waiting. With Blankey… Turning towards the tunnel, she made herself go back inside, holding her breath and filling up her cheeks with geranium air; telling herself that she wouldn’t take another breath until she’d gone through her own vacuum hatch.
And she didn’t.
Running back into the kitchen, she gasped, looking around her for the She-one. She opened her mouth and screamed: ‘She-one!’ Then strode towards the kitchen door before realizing that if her voice could be screamed, there was nobody there. She went to the dining room and did the same. And the big room. She l
eft her ball of paper and coat at the bottom of the stairs and climbed to the middle step to scream again. Nobody heard. ‘Not even the He-one,’ she said to herself, picking the paper back up and dragging her coat to the basket. She would just wait until somebody got home, and if nobody did get home, she would just have to go back again.
* * *
Drew looked up from the newspaper and reached into the fruit bowl for a yellow apple. The little person who sat just across the table, on her booster seat, had been silent for a while, and looking up now Drew realized that she wasn’t reading the book that lay closed between her elbows, but holding her cheeks up with open hands and pouting at its cover. ‘What’s the matter, misery guts?’
‘Jinx is dead.’
Drew, mid-bite, let the apple hand fall back on the table to reveal a circle of glinting teeth-marks. The tale of the brown bears had been a constant source of excitement and anguish ever since Isabel had started reading a blog about them. She had begged Drew to let her write to the blogger, to let her show her support. ‘Why don’t you let me write to them for you? Or at least use my name…’ Watty had accused Drew of being over-paranoid, and Isabel had always got too cross for them to work out a solution. Now it was too late. The acid from the apple fizzed in Drew’s stomach. ‘What happened?’
‘Don’t know. Apparently she was found dead in her enclosure.’
‘Oh Isabel, I’m so sorry.’
‘I just keep thinking about Bonbon. He’ll be all alone now.’
Drew sighed and cut a slice off the apple, peeled it and handed it to Isabel.
She took the apple and half-smiled. It looked like a piece of watermelon in her tiny hands.
‘I’m so frustrated. Imagine what I could have done if I’d have been allowed on a train or a plane or something. With all my medical knowledge…’
Drew’s gaze crawled across the table. ‘I know, darling. We’re very proud of you.’
‘Don’t patronise me.’
‘I’m not! I’m so disappointed for you and… And I don’t know what to say to make you feel better.’
Isabel rubbed the edge of the apple with her thumb. ‘I didn’t mean to snap.’
‘I know, it’s okay.’ Drew sighed, wondering what could be said to cheer her up. Poor little Isabel. Drew imagined the bear that had been left alone, prodding at his dead mate, trying to revive her, then feeling suddenly very sleepy and waking up to find that she was gone. ‘Animals cope with death a lot better than we do.’
Isabel snorted.
‘I mean, things like this happen all the time, Isabel. The truth is that, even if you were out in the world, being a vet, you’d soon find it impossible to protect everything.’
Isabel looked horrified. ‘Even if I were out there? You’ve just said it, haven’t you? My studies are completely pointless. I’ll never be able to help anything.’
Drew swallowed. ‘Of course you will!’
Isabel shook her head and stared at nothing. A thought unravelled that she had had many times. A picture, of the world covered in teeny-tiny flames that were snuffing out so quickly that the few people who were trying to keep them burning couldn’t work fast enough. All she could do was watch. Her fists clenched and she rubbed at her cheeks so hard that she made red lines with her knuckles. There, somewhere in a park enclosure in France, two tiny flames had been flickering together and now one barely glowed alone. ‘Poh!’ she whispered with her mouth as if blowing out a candle. ‘I’ll be forever useless.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Oh dear. Surely there was something that could lighten the mood? Ah yes! Remembering the heavy satchel that had been dumped on the kitchen floor, Drew got up and glided towards the kitchen. ‘Hey, I brought you more books from the library!’
Isabel’s eyebrows spread upwards but her mouth stayed sad. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘Hello!’ called Watty as the front door shut.
‘Good evening, Watson,’ Drew grinned, rising from the ground where the satchel lay, now empty on the floor.
Head, body, arms and legs rose up into the air as if that was where they belonged, as if they were birds flying from the ground to a tree. No! As if they were made of the lightest porcelain that had been smashed on the chair and the whole scene had been replayed backwards in slow motion. Yes, that was a better description. That was one that Watty would jot down later. ‘Got some more books for Quail?’
‘Yep,’ said Drew. ‘Good ones. Cytology and Haematology, Emergency Medicine, and this one is more for Jasper, I think.’
Isabel read aloud. ‘Physical Therapy and Massage for the Dog.’
‘Oh excellent.’ Watty took a grape from the fruit bowl. ‘Did you hear that, Jasper?’
Jasper lay in his basket, his greying muzzle resting on crossed paws. On hearing his name, his pupils floated to the top of their eye sockets and his tail beat slowly against the floor.
‘Wait, you forgot one, Drew.’
Drew turned quickly. ‘Yes, I know, that one has to go back.’ But Watty was already reading the title.
‘Zoo and Wild Animal Medicine.’ Watty turned the book around to reveal a brown bear standing upright in long green grass.
Isabel blinked and stroked the cover of Emergency Medicine.
Drew throat-cleared. ‘Erm, we have a bit of sad news, Watty: Jinx died today.’
Watty put the book down and strode over to Isabel. ‘Oh darling, I am sorry.’
‘It happened this morning.’
‘Poor old Jinx; you must be devastated.’
‘I am. Because at least they had each other.’ She sat back in her chair and sighed. Then smiled at Watty who had made sad eyes and an upside-down mouth.
‘You know, as sad as this is, it should make you even more motivated to support other causes. The majority of them can only move forward because of their following, even if you don’t send any money,’ Watty shrugged. ‘Just knowing that there are like-minded people in the world can really fuel projects like this.’
‘Yes,’ said Isabel with a jerk of her head. ‘I do hope so.’
Drew watched as Watty kissed the top of Isabel’s head and ruffled her hair. She was almost smiling now. Watty could always get her out of one of her moods.
‘And you know what?’ Watty asked, walking away. ‘If you happen to have any of Jinx’s DNA, Drew will bring her back to life.’
Drew winced. That would not go down well. All the shadows and dimples in Isabel’s face seemed to scuttle out of the way as if running from a rain cloud.
‘She is dead!’ she shouted as her little fist hit the table top. ‘Dead! There are so many more alive things that need to be taken care of, why did you waste your time creating new freaks of nature like me with your stupid experiments?’ she yelled, gesturing towards her chest. ‘I’m such a mutant that I can’t even help anything.’ She sat back sobbing as Watty bent down to hold her. ‘Real life should be put first,’ she cried. ‘This isn’t a life.’
Drew looked at the strands of Isabel’s hair that were stuck to Watty’s jawline, before turning and walking back to the kitchen. With palms flat on the work surface, Drew tried to breathe as silently as crying would allow.
‘You are mistaken, darling. Drew’s entire career has been devoted to protecting real life. You are real life, you come from a real egg that your real mother donated to the hospital; do you know how many embryos died before we were lucky enough to find our Quail?’
‘But why did you kill them?’
A loud sob echoed in the kitchen. Isabel looked surprised.
‘Nobody was killing them, Drew was trying to save them.’
‘By making them smaller?’
‘You have to understand, Quail…’
‘I could have been a normal size, couldn’t I?’
Watty looked at the table, lips pursed.
‘You were supposed to die,’ came the answer from the kitchen. ‘None of you were supposed to live. If I had respected the law you would be dead like
the others.’
Isabel looked towards the kitchen where Drew reappeared, burst mascara tears glistening.
‘Why did you keep me?’
‘It was my job to kill children.’ Drew’s voice quivered at the word ‘kill’. ‘I had to make something good come of it. You were the only one in a batch of twelve that survived. I was supposed to observe your development for another two weeks before terminating the experiment. But after two weeks, I couldn’t do it.’ Drew plopped into a chair and looked towards the window. ‘I remember sneaking into the lab at night to sing to you and talk to you and arriving every morning before anybody else, praying that the monitor would still be beeping. I would go home at night and think of nothing else until the next morning, and so obviously, when the day came… Well… By that point you were my baby, I had to bring you home, and now…’ Drew’s voice broke. ‘You’re so unhappy, I’m so sorry, Isabel. I just couldn’t kill you…’
They all looked up as the handle of the kitchen door creaked. Uncle Reg poked his head around the door and noted each miserable face one after the other. ‘A bad time?’ he asked.
‘Erm…’ Watty got up from kneeling on the floor, Isabel’s hair unsticking from his face, strand by strand like spaghetti falling from a colander. ‘Actually, Jinx is dead.’
Drew looked at the floor and nodded slowly. Yes, that was the best answer.
‘Ah.’ Uncle Reg crept around the door and closed it behind him. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t come here to cheer you up. The thing is… It looks like I’ve committed a bit of a boo-boo.’
* * *
It was Tuesday. First day back to work after almost two weeks off. Oh God, she had to wash her hair this morning; what time was it? Quarter to nine? Oh no… Thirty minutes to get dressed and go. Maybe she could just shove a headband on. Or a hat.
She rolled over. Hamish had gone. She had been sleeping on his side of the bed and the mug of coffee that he’d left for her stood on her bedside table. She leaned over and dipped her finger in it; tepid. Yuk. Cold coffee. Still, she would drink it. If he ever found out that she tipped his coffee away, he’d definitely stop making it. She sat up and took a swig from the coffee. Oh, it was gross. Freezing cold, how long ago had he left? Maybe she’d just tip this one down the toilet then vow to get up earlier and drink all the others; just like she’d vowed to get up earlier and run for forty minutes… Oh well. She swung her legs out of bed and looked in the mirror. Not too bad. It was just the bits above the ears that caught her out. She’d been hoping to come back to work looking all glowing and, and radiant. Like someone who’d just been on holiday. She’d just wear it loose, then come back at lunchtime and wash it. After her run.