by S. L. Grey
I logged on to Facebook, feeling a rush of guilty joy when I saw that Karim had sent me a friend request. Seconds after I accepted it, a message from him blipped onto the screen:
He had a point. I couldn’t forget that Mireille had mentioned that other people had stayed in the apartment—it was entirely feasible that the Petits had lured other people into their place via other means. I should have thought of it myself.
I paused for a second, then wrote:
There was no answer for a couple of minutes, then:
A shiver of anticipation: Mark would be at work from ten until four.
<3?>
Next, I typed in the building’s address and “accommodation to rent in Paris.” Bingo: I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like it had once been listed on another house swap website. But when I clicked on the link, nothing came up. I scrolled through link after link until I came to Parisdreaming.com, which catered to American travelers seeking budget accommodation. Below the same picture of the bathroom that the Petits had posted on our house swap site there was a single review:
Don’t stay here. It smells bad & has no air-con. Don’t be fooled into thinking your getting a bargain because it is not worth it. We left after 2 days.
The review was posted last July, but there wasn’t a place for me to leave a comment, and when I clicked through to the site’s contact details I hit a “page not found” wall. Frustrated, I pressed the go-back key, but after half an hour of fruitless searching, I couldn’t seem to locate the page again. I was about to give up when I came across a link to an accommodation forum for ex-pat Brits. A thread had been started by a Mrbaker9981 in September last year, entitled DON’T STAY HERE. The poster had written the Petits’ address in caps, followed by: came across this hellhole on a cheap accommodation site that conveniently is no longer active. Worst place I have ever stayed in. Hot, smelly, and owners didn’t show up and refused to give us a refund after we left early. It was haunted as well and not in a good way. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Two other posters had responded with messages along the lines of thanks for the heads-up and is there a good way to be haunted? but Mrbaker9981 hadn’t replied to them.
Heart beating harder, I signed up to the site, left a message saying that I’d stayed at the same “hellhole,” and shamelessly begged Mrbaker9981 to contact me. I included my email address—I didn’t care if I got spammed because of it.
On a whim, I googled the username in case he was signed up to other forums under the same moniker. And I struck gold. He appeared to be active on two other sites: The Guardian’s Comment Is Free, and loveulots.co.uk, a “discreet” hookup site for married people. Without hesitating, I joined the dating site (I had to pay two hundred rand to do so and fill in a questionnaire) and went to his profile. I scrolled straight to the “leave a message” button and left a slightly more desperate plea, asking if he was the same man who’d posted on the accommodation forum and entreating him to get hold of me to share information. The site’s rules stated that I couldn’t leave my email address unless he messaged me back.
I’d been so absorbed in my detective work I hadn’t noticed that the house was now quiet and the movie had ended. In the living room, Mark and Hayden were asleep on the couch. She was lying on his chest, one of his arms loosely draped over her. Here’s where I’m supposed to say that I was overwhelmed by a feeling of love, but I just felt that same uneasiness, as if his gesture was possessive rather than caring. I uncurled his arm—he didn’t wake, and his skin was slimed with sweat—and picked Hayden up. She protested blearily, then flung her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, monkey-style.
As usual, I turned on her nightlight and lay down next to her on the bed. The sense that we weren’t alone in the room didn’t creep up this time; it flashed through me. I turned my head to the side and saw that something dark was lurking in the corner of the room next to the chest of drawers. A scream locked in my throat as I watched the blank-faced thing writhing in place on its multi-limbed form. I blinked, and it was gone. Frozen with fear, I didn’t move for at least a minute. Gradually, I sat up, then scurried in a panicked burst to turn on the main light. The room felt empty again. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what my mind was trying to conjure up: a monstrous amalgam of the men who’d broken into the house and terrorized us. And again, when I checked under the bed, there was nothing but Hayden’s lonely sock. After taking ages to muster up the courage, as if I half expected it to bite me, I reached under and grabbed it. There was something else a few feet from it. Zoë’s hairbrush. The one that had fallen behind the chest of drawers. Or maybe it wasn’t Zoë’s. No matter: what the hell was it doing there? I wrapped it up in the sock, intending to put it in the trash can.
I couldn’t leave Hayden alone, but nor could I sleep. Lights blazing, I read my way through her shelf full of picture books, determined to stay awake until the morning light came. I suppose I must have dozed off as the hours passed, because the next thing I was aware of was the sound of the shower running. Hayden was still in dreamland, her fists curled into her chest, her hair sticking to her forehead. Careful not to wake her, I got up and tiptoed down the hallway to the bathroom. I could make out the murmur of Mark’s voice through the half-open door. Was he on the phone? Ridiculous—he was in the shower. I gently pushed the door open and listened. I couldn’t make out any individual words through the spit-spattering of the water; then came: “I did it for you. I said I did it for you.” His voice rose with every word.
I ripped the shower curtain back, and he jumped and turned to face me.
“Why are you talking to yourself, Mark?”
“I wasn’t…Hey, how about some privacy here?” He tried to chuckle, but it sounded like a death rattle. He wasn’t the man I’d married, whom I’d once felt such desire for. Whatever mental battles he was waging were taking their toll on his body. He’d lost weight; I could discern every rib. His skin was corpse white and, despite the steam and hot water, riddled with gooseflesh, and there was a scribble of scratches and nicks over his arms. A bright blue network of varicose veins bulged beneath the skin of his calf. Old, I thought, you’re old. He turned off the water and bent down to grab a towel. “Is Hayden up yet?”
“No, Mark. What’s going on with you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ve been distancing yourself from me and Hayden ever since we got back from Paris.” That wasn’t true. It had started before then. Way before then. Since the night the men broke into the house.
He dried himself hurriedly. He’d lost too much weight. I tried to remember that firm body I’d lusted after, but all I could see were these stringy arms, this concave chest. His cheeks sagged. “I’m getting help, Steph. That’s what you wanted me to do, wasn’t it? I’m seeing someone like you asked.”
“Mark, please talk to me.”
“Go make us some coffee and we’ll talk.”
“Really?”
He smiled. “Really.”
Had I just seen a flicker of the old Mark? But as desperate as I was not to let things slide even further out of my control, I knew that was just wishful thinking.
I looked in on Hayden on my way down to the kitchen. Unusually for her, she was still asleep. I hesitated and then peered under her bed. Nothing. Of course there was nothing. I dropped the hairbrush into Hayden’s trash can, reminding myself to dispose of it later.
The kitchen still held a trace of that foul burned smell, the dishwasher needed unstacking, the stove was spattered with grease, and the microwave door was peppered w
ith melted cheese bits from Hayden’s supper. I dug through the cupboards, hunting for clean mugs. We were nearly out of the good coffee. Mindful that Karim was coming over later, I spooned the emergency blend into the coffeemaker, not caring if Mark noticed.
When he joined me a few minutes later, he was dressed in a suit—the one he’d worn at our wedding and his father’s funeral. He read my dubious look. “All of my other clothes are dirty.”
I searched his face for a sign that he was pissed off at me for not bothering to do the washing. It would almost have been a relief to see such a normal emotion. “I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what exactly?”
Since Hayden was born, we’d both avoided arguing about domestic niggles. He told me he’d had his fill of them with Odette; it was too easy to allow them to slide into fighting and resentment: What do you mean we don’t have any milk? Haven’t you been at home all fucking day while I’ve been working? The least you could have done was empty the dishwasher before you left the house, blah blah. I knew I should have let his sideswipe go, but instead I snapped: “Looking after your fucking daughter.”
“My daughter is…my daughter is…”
“Your daughter is what, Mark?” Seconds passed without him responding. The coffee machine blipped and sizzled. “Mark? Hayden is what?”
“She’s just sleeping, isn’t she, Steph?” His voice was high and whiny, as if he was pleading with me.
Oh Jesus. “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “You want some coffee?”
“No. I have to go.”
“I thought we were going to talk.”
“We will. Just not now.”
It was five to seven. His classes didn’t start before ten most days. With a small nod, he turned and walked into the hallway, grabbing his car keys from the hall table. He hesitated, returned to the kitchen, and pushed past me to enter the pantry. I didn’t ask him what he was doing, nor did I ask what was in the battered shoe box he was now carrying under his arm. Without acknowledging me, he left the house, slamming the door behind him.
Refusing to allow myself to get upset, I went to rouse Hayden. She was groggy and complained of a sore throat. Her forehead was warm, but I wasn’t too concerned—she often had colds. I settled her on the couch and let her play with the iPad. I filled time by taking a shower and spring-cleaning the kitchen with disinfectant. Its sharp odor made me think of sickness and hospitals, but at least it erased the stale, smoky stench. Next, I gathered up our dirty clothes and used the washer’s sanitize cycle. I didn’t want to dwell on Mark. More than one line had been crossed since we’d returned from Paris. Everything was out of synch. Instead, I thought about Karim. I thought about his skin, his hair, the small black tattoo that emerged out of the sleeve of his T-shirt (I didn’t know what it was—I still don’t know). He was everything that Mark wasn’t. I admit it: I’d been thinking about him more than I should. It didn’t occur to me then that maybe he’d been thinking about me too.
At two thirty I raced upstairs to get changed and hastily slapped on a layer of foundation, which wouldn’t last in the heat. My fingers trembled as I tried to apply eyeliner. I wiped it off and started again.
The door buzzed at exactly three. Karim smelled of soap and shaving foam, as if he’d showered minutes earlier. The second Hayden saw him, she stretched out her arms for a hug, and he was forced to get to his knees next to the couch to greet her. I put Frozen on for her, which I knew would distract her for at least an hour, and Karim followed me into the kitchen. I was sweaty and self-conscious. Neither of us spoke while I readied the coffee things. Impulsively I said, “It’s too hot for coffee. How about a beer?”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Why not?” I said, regretting the suggestion—what if he thought I was an alcoholic?
Then he smiled. “Yeah. Why not? One won’t hurt.”
This time the fridge door behaved. I dug out a couple of bottles left over from the night Carla and her friend came over for supper, and handed one to Karim. As we clinked, glancing into each other’s eyes, I said, “Can I ask you a question? It’s going to sound stupid.”
“Go for it.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Why?”
“It’s just…” And then I told him about the thing under Hayden’s bed. It all tumbled out: the sense I’d had in the Paris apartment that we weren’t alone; the feeling that Mireille was there when I was back in the apartment after our night at the police station.
He listened carefully, like he had last time. I expected him to say something about trauma and imagination—he was a psychology student, after all—but instead he said, “There’re lots of rational reasons people see ghosts. You know, stuff like infrasound, carbon monoxide poisoning. There’s even a mold that people think might be the cause of hallucinations.”
“A mold?” I looked down at my beer. It was empty. I didn’t remember drinking it, but I didn’t feel even slightly tipsy.
“Look here.” He pulled out his phone and tapped something into it. He passed it to me. He’d downloaded an article about a group of scientists who’d discovered a link between hallucinations and toxic spores from mold found in old buildings. There was no concrete proof of their theory, and I didn’t miss that the article was published in a British tabloid not known for its fact-checking.
I handed his phone back to him. “Interesting.” Could we have brought something back from Paris? I shuddered at the thought of mold spores growing in my brain, infecting the neural pathways or whatever they’re called. Perhaps that explained Mark’s bizarre behavior as well. And that Mrbaker9981 review had mentioned something about the place being haunted. The theory was far-fetched and unproven, but it was better than the alternative: that Mark and I were basically going insane.
“Was there any mold in that apartment where you guys stayed?”
“Actually, yes. And it stank. What was that other thing you mentioned? Infrasound?”
“Yes. It causes a vibration that can make some people feel uneasy, or something like that.” He grinned at me again and held up his phone. “Let me look for you.”
I moved closer to him so that I could read what he’d called up on the screen. My shoulder brushed his arm. I don’t know who started it—I’m being honest about this—but suddenly, I was in his arms, kissing him. I could taste the malty beer on his tongue and feel the solid weight of his muscled back under the shirt, so different from Mark’s. His hands snuck under my shirt, and then I heard Hayden calling me. I jumped away from him. “Shit. You’d better go.”
“Yeah.” He shoved his phone into his pocket and followed me to the front door. We were both avoiding each other’s eyes, and there was a moment of supreme awkwardness as I unlocked the gate and let him out of Alcatraz. My face was burning, not with shame exactly, but mortification at the thought that Hayden could have walked in on us. I hurried into the living room.
“Mumma, I’m hurty.”
She was still warm, but not terribly, and I gave her some cold medicine just in case. I settled her back on the couch where I could keep an eye on her and returned to the kitchen. I stashed the beer evidence in the recycling bin, and while Hayden dozed, I turned back to the computer, intending to google the article about the ghost-inducing mold to distract myself from the guilt of what had just happened with Karim. I couldn’t blame it on the booze.
My spam folder was heaving with messages from the dating site. I’d written only the sketchiest of profiles and hadn’t uploaded a pic, but this hadn’t deterred the site’s members. I was about to delete the messages unread when I realized that one was from Mrbaker9981:
Dear Stephanie,
My name is Ellie Baker. You left a message on this site for my dad. I am ashamed that my dad was part of this site but he had a lot of troubles in his life on account of an abusive childhood and other things that I won’t go into so I know he was looking for outlets & it’s not his fault. I keep an eye on his emails & I forgot to cancel the debit order
for the subscription which is how I was alerted to your message. Usually I would have ignored it but you seem like a nice lady so I thought I would reply to you. I have to tell you that he cannot help you with your inquiries about the apartment he stayed at with my mum in August last year in France. He and my mum died in October in an accident.
Regards,
Ellie
At the bottom of the email there was a link to an article. I didn’t need to click on it to make out the headline: “Two Die in Possible Murder/Suicide Crash.”
Chapter 21
Mark
The wind hisses through the pines in Plumstead Cemetery, and the children’s graves are making me cry again. The cracked-faced dolls and dead flowers, the yellowed cellophane around limp balloons, make this section look like a birthday party abandoned because of sudden tragedy. I know the pain of those families as they’ve laid their angels to rest. Nothing will make them feel better; they will never be whole again. I look over at the overblown Barney mausoleum and it reminds me of the excesses of grief; it makes me self-conscious; it stops my tears. You could paint the whole earth purple, you could tear it all up in your despair, but nothing will bring her back to you.
I wouldn’t know how to explain to Steph what I’ve been doing here. Why now, why after all this time. She’d just imply that I should have got over it and that I should worry about Hayden instead. She’s done with my grief.
I can’t really explain it to myself. Sure, Zoë’s always been with me in one way or another, but since Paris, she’s with me much more viscerally. I can’t explain that to Steph, or why I’m making my collection for Zoë—she’ll just think I’m mad. She already does.