by Amy Lilwall
Mug in hand, she went into the bathroom and asked for a shower at thirty-nine degrees. Dear oh dear, tipping coffee away; runs at lunchtime. When would the lies stop? She giggled as the shower radio reminded her that it was 08:54. Shit. She still had everything to do and she hadn’t even had a good cup of coffee.
She frowned and bit her thumbnail as shower-drops scattered along her shoulders. Oh dear, a bad feeling – what was that? Was it Hamish? No… No, it wasn’t Hamish. Was it work? Well, yes… But that wasn’t it. Ah! That was it! Mrs Lucas. She mustn’t forget to call round today. And before that, she’d have to ask Bonbon and Jinx if they’d had any news from Chips. But that wasn’t the bad feeling, was it? Why would that make her feel bad? Because she’d forgotten to call her the last time, that was probably it… No! Because she’d forgotten to check on Bonbon and Jinx last night after the meeting. That was the reason.
Susan finished showering, got dressed, stamped on her eyeliner and sprayed her cheeks with blusher. Damn. She had really hoped to look nicer today. Oh well. She ran down the stairs, smacked the glass coffee table and yelled ‘Coffee!’ at it, before rifling through the understairs cupboard for presents that she’d bought for her colleagues… Fuck, Hamish! He’d stacked all these bloody boxes in front of her presents. ‘Hamish, you arse!’ She’d have to get them at lunchtime as well. So much for her Big Return.
She ran into the kitchen, grabbed a yogurt from the fridge, and flicked her eyes over the bowls. Excellent, they were full. At least he’d managed to do that. She went back into the lounge, snatched the coffee from the glass tongue and remembered that she’d been meaning to do something. Ah yes! Check on the chilly-billies. Popping her head around the kitchen door, she saw Bonbon sleeping on her humcoat with her arms over another lump that didn’t look like it could’ve been Jinx…
Susan squinted; maybe it was.
Maybe Jinx was out with her boyfriend.
09:13, bugger. She would look for her at lunchtime.
Right.
Shoes.
Keys.
Phone? She looked at her wrist and flicked it onto ‘silent’ mode.
Coffee.
And we’re off.
Awake.
Bonbon’s eyes opened as the front door closed. Like a kiss, she thought, it always sounded like a kiss. She looked at the ceiling for a moment before flipping herself over. Jinx wasn’t there.
Shit!
Her humcoat lay on its back, arms outstretched; an invisible head inclined towards her, gasping for water. Blankey. Oh no, poor Blankey! She jumped up and ran towards the hall, screaming with a voice that was dry in her mouth and soft in her ears. She coughed and tried again. It was a little better, she could definitely hear herself: maybe one of them was still upstairs? She climbed to the middle stair and stood there shouting. Yesterday’s screaming had made her voice all poorly, but she could still be heard. She climbed back down, listening for shower sounds or footsteps or spoons chiming inside cups.
Nothing.
She got to the kitchen. Both bowls were filled with flakes. A mug stood next to the thing where the water came from as well as two fallen yogurt pots, one spoon hung over the edge of the worktop, the other… She looked down to the ground. There it was, resting against the cupboard on its side, its silver bottom pointing towards her like the back of a sleeping Jinx. Oh dear… They were both out. She walked towards the spoon, her upside-down reflection growing in its bowl, before picking it up with both hands, running to the basket and snatching up her humcoat. The ball of paper that had been underneath crisped as if it were waking up.
Bonbon threw on her coat and spooned up a pile of flakes. How could she have slept all this time? A layer of flakes shivered from the spoon to the ground where they melted in water splashes that glittered next to the water bowl. She looked between the spoon and the water bowl and plunged the pile of flakes inside. The spoon came back up as a clump of yellow; at least they weren’t falling off now, she thought, and Jinx would be able to suck the water out if she needed it. ‘U’ she read as she turned to leave. Or a ‘C’. She stopped and turned back. The flaky water on the floor had made a letter. The Darling letter squiggled its way across the inside of her head. She put the spoon down and plunged her hand into the yellow gunge.
Five minutes later, she was running with the spoon, across the tiles and towards the vacuum hatch.
She imagined them, all together underneath the bed; very thirsty and hungry. Maybe Blankey would be, she would be… Bonbon swallowed. The Dead Bird lay in her mind, a bald patch in its side from where she’d yanked all its feathers out.
She crossed Chips’s Outside and made for the dirty, blackened hole that was his vacuum hatch. Shit. What if Chips’s he-one had come home? The thought made her rise up onto her tiptoes and leap forward silently from foot to foot, listening for big boots and crackly breathing. She walked across the kitchen and went into the hall. Boots came out of the living room. She stood still and closed her eyes.
Had he seen her?
‘It’s morning time. Shall we go and give Tilda some water?’ he said.
Bonbon opened her eyes to see him bending down towards her with one opened hand, its creases so deep that it looked as if it had brown stripes.
She swung the spoon as far back as it would go before smacking the hand over and over. Yellow sludge splattered up the wrist as the hand got closer. The air from his mouth was hot and horrible on her face as he laughed. ‘You’ve got a bit of a temper, haven’t you?’ Fingers closed around her as she hit out at his wrist, and even when the spoon was tugged from her hands and she heard it plop onto the carpet, her empty hands smacked against his fist.
‘Come on.’ He stood for a moment. She opened her eyes to see that he’d covered his own with his other hand and was making a funny, straining noise. ‘It’s no good… I can’t remember,’ he said. She peered at him; he’d been trying to find something that was lost inside his head. ‘That’s it!’ He pointed up into the air and she jumped. ‘We were on our way to get some water,’ he said, stepping up to the first stair and waiting for his other foot to be on the same step before stepping up to the next one. ‘For Tilda. Then you started hitting me with that spo-spoon.’ He laughed again and the fingers loosened. She buried her hands in his beard and held on, looking wildly around her; she’d never been in the air on the stairs like this. Her eyes flitted over a tiny square that hung so high up on the wall that she wouldn’t have seen it from the stairs. She focused on it, it was a picture of… Of Blankey! She screwed up her face. Blankey was dressed all weird, with a different colour on her lips and a long skinny thing that poked out from between her fingers. Was it really her? Yes, yes, it must have been. She had the same eyes, the same cloud-like hair.
The sound of rushing water reached her ears, and suddenly she had been turned around and was looking into a bathroom. Thick green spots grew up the walls and became black stains in the corners that licked at the ceiling. Three brown hand prints climbed up the wall just next to the toilet, which was open, shit streaking up the outside and sitting inside, like wet rocks, at the bottom of the bowl. The skin-coloured bath had a thick, flake-sludgy line around it and specks of black covered its bottom. The taps in the sink were still running from yesterday. Bonbon tried not to breathe and looked behind her, back across the landing towards the bedroom. The door to the room that the others were trapped in was still shut.
‘The tap’s on,’ mumbled the beard. She looked at the tap as he tried to turn it but it was stuck. ‘Just you stand there,’ he said, putting her down into the bath, its edge growing over her as she was lowered inside. She tried clapping twice, No! No! But he just stood up and put his hand over his eyes again. He stood like that for a while before poking the air. ‘Tap!’ He turned and forced it shut, then looked at it for a moment before turning around and leaving the bathroom.
Bonbon clapped and thumped the side of the bath until he came back, good, and looked down at her, his eyebrows as thick as Jinx’s
hair and his eyes all blue and liney. She opened her mouth and rubbed her throat, pointing towards the bedroom and the closed door. They were in there, and they were thirsty.
He looked around the bathroom then behind him to where she was pointing. ‘What?’ he said, squinting at her. He rubbed his eyes again and made groany noises, just as he had done in the hallway. ‘I can’t remember…’ he moaned; then ‘Tilda!’ he said before turning in a circle and picking up a dish from the windowsill. Its slimy contents dropped into the sink as he tipped it this way and that, trying to turn the tap back on while holding the dish in his massive hand. ‘Why is it off?’
Bonbon watched as he sighed at it and thumped it with his fist before bending down and turning the bath tap on. Water rushed out and beat the bottom of the bath making her legs shake and her hands reach for her ears. She watched as he filled up the dish, turned and left. ‘No!’ she shouted, and her voice let itself be used, as nobody could hear her when the taps were on. She looked down as the water covered her feet and threw herself at the side of the bath, outstretched fingers trying to cling onto anything that they could dig their nails into, but she bounced straight back with both hands full of sludge. She wiped them on her humcoat and tried again, this time falling against the side and sliding down. The water was up to her knees and sucking at the soles of her feet when she tried to jump. She took off her humcoat and let it float off to where the water was pushing it. Slumping against the side of the bath, she thumped it until her fists wouldn’t open and the black bits from the bottom were floating around her waist and getting stuck to her elbows. She screamed and held her arms above her head, darting her eyes over the ceiling. Dangly items hung over the bath, a shower, the tap, a hand towel, a long thing with a brush on the end of it, all way out of her reach, as if they were pointing and laughing at her while she… while she… ‘Drowned,’ said the inside of her head. ‘They are laughing at you while you drown.’ She tilted her head right back as the water reached her ears and underwater swirls nudged at her legs. This was it. The old littler had told her that she would drown; any minute now, she would go under. The ceiling speckled into almost blackness as her gaze followed it towards the door. She imagined it was night again and she was reading ‘Darling’ over and over in the geranium-smelling garden, where black shadowy flowers swayed and the fishes used water for voices while the wind licked petals over their heads. ‘Darling,’ said Jinx into her ear, with the voice of a man, as the water butted at her feet so that they rose and her head jerked backwards and disappeared under the surface.
CHAPTER 13
‘Oh dear, Reg, you didn’t?’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Did you give him my real number?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘It’s not that drastic, is it?’
Reg and Watty looked at Drew. ‘The thing is, if Mark Hector wants something, he can be pretty pushy.’
Reg shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I got that impression.’
‘And he wants me by the sounds of it…’
Watty leaned forward in his chair and scratched at the exposed skin between the top of his sock and the bottom of his trousers. ‘You’re not going to accept the job, are you?’
‘Even if I’d wanted to, I can’t. It’s a bit too risky… for my liking.’
‘Fine. Don’t accept the job.’
‘I won’t.’
‘And that’ll be the end of it.’
‘Well…’
‘Short of coming to the house, what could he do to discover Isabel?’
‘It’s fine, we’ll just…’ One hand grew up through the air, turning in circles as it did; a blooming flower on fast-play, like on one of those BBC documentaries, thought Watty. The hand bloomed. ‘We’ll just move.’
‘Pfff.’ Watty got up, grabbed the fruit bowl from the table and walked to the kitchen with it before turning his back to the sink and leaning against it. ‘Did you actually say that we had a daughter?’
‘Yes. Called Isabel.’
‘Right.’
Reg held both palms out to them. ‘Look,’ they looked at him, ‘if he calls, he calls. If he doesn’t, then great.’
‘He’ll call,’ scoffed Drew, eyes resting on the middle of the table where the fruit bowl no longer was, then turned to a jacket that hung over the back of the chair and started rifling through the pockets.
‘Sorry to be a burden.’ Isabel stuck out her bottom lip and folded her arms.
‘Oh shut up, Isabel.’
Isabel’s face dropped. Watty strode over from the kitchen and put his arm around her chair.
Drew rummaged for a while then came back up from the jacket with a mobile phone. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before; I’ll just change the number.’
‘Drew…’ Watty’s head tipped towards Isabel. Drew’s brows rose in the middle like a lifting bridge, allowing Isabel’s expression to pass under. ‘I’m so sorry, darling.’
‘S’alright.’ Isabel sniffed.
‘Of course you’re not a burden. It’s just that silly doctor, he’s stressing me out.’
‘I know.’
Drew put the phone, screen down, on the table.
‘Do you think he’d come and badger me for your new number?’ asked Reg. ‘He knows where Flick ’n’ Spin is.’
‘I don’t know where it is—’ said Isabel.
‘I won’t bother to change it,’ interrupted Drew. ‘He’d probably turn up on the doorstep. It’s best that he calls me.’
Reg looked at his hands. ‘I am sorry, Drew.’
‘In fact, it’s weird that I’ve never been there,’ insisted Isabel.
Watty got up. ‘Let’s change the subject, shall we? How about some tea, Reg?’
‘Are you listening to me?’
Reg looked at Isabel. ‘What is it, Quail?’
‘Can I come and stay with you this evening?’
Watty and Drew turned and gaped. ‘Out of the question,’ said Drew, finally.
‘Why?’ Isabel signalled that she wanted to get down from her chair. Reg got up to help her. ‘In fact, there is no question… I’m going with Reg.’
Oh bloody thing. So slippery. Really must get a cover for it. Ah, that’s it, gotcha. ‘Hello?’
‘Drew Mahlik?’
Oh God. He hadn’t wasted any time. ‘Yes?’ Drew swallowed. ‘Who’s speaking, please?’
‘Oh, well, I feel like a bit of a blast from the past, actually. It’s Mark Hector.’
Drew winced at the ceiling. Stay strong. Must refuse him. ‘Dr Mark Hector?’
‘Yes. That’s the one.’
‘Wow! This is a surprise.’
‘How are you?’
‘Erm… I’m good, thank you. Doing very well.’
‘Jolly good.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I must say!’
‘Huh!’
‘Right.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Funny eh?’
‘Ha! Yes.’
‘Good.’
‘Ahem.’
‘—.’
Drew’s eyes scrunched shut. ‘And you? How are you?’
‘Well… I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up to date, have you?’
‘Erm… No. Not one bit actually. To tell you the truth, I’ve somewhat abandoned that… that interest.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh… Oh dear. That is a shame. Any particular reason?’
‘Well, ha!’ Think, Drew, think. ‘God, actually. I’ve found, erm, religion.’
At the other end of the phone, Dr Hector took a loud breath then didn’t seem to exhale. Silence stopped the air as if it were freezing it. Drew smiled a non-smile. The kind of smile that is necessary when one’s teeth are clenching. Suddenly, Dr Hector started to laugh.
‘Brilliant!’ he boomed. ‘If you only knew the week I’ve had… That’s just topped it off. Ha! God! So si
mple.’
Arrogant bastard. He’d always been an arrogant bastard. Drew laughed with him anyway but couldn’t help adding: ‘I might, um… I might not have been joking, you know.’
‘What?’
The ‘what’ was a short bark, transporting Drew back to the lab, into a white coat, placing a clipboard in one latex-covered hand and making the floor underfoot grey and chemical-smelling. ‘Every one of the last batch died before reaching term,’ Drew explained. ‘What?’ came the response, with a glinting pair of eyes that stared and stared like toothy piranhas about to swim out of their caves and eat Drew’s face.
Drew shuddered and swapped the phone to the other ear. ‘If I’m honest, I have been keeping up to date with your study. It sounds like you’re making progress.’
‘Oh really? Good! Well… Not as much progress as I’d like and, actually… um… funnily enough this is the reason for my call.’
‘Is it?’ Drew husked, then throat-cleared. ‘Is it?’ he repeated.
‘Yes.’ He was quiet for a second. Drew imagined his piranha eyes snapping open and shut as his brain put together his next sentence. He began. ‘The thing is, I have some fantastic scientists and some, let’s say, not so fantastic. I’m in a bit of a spot and… well… your record caught my eye and, in short, I could really do with someone like you… Someone with experience.’
Someone who doesn’t mind being bullied and, and someone who knows how to keep their mouth shut – ha! How dare he? How dare he phone up like this and expect Drew to drop everything and go back to those horrid experiments; killing children and keeping it a secret. Drew’s lips opened and mouthed angry shapes into the phone before they could calm down and let through a small but solid ‘No’.