The Rules of Seeing

by Joe Heap

  She is awake. She is upright. Sitting.

  She is in a chair.

  Her hands are held together in her lap, almost casually. Has she nodded off on the train? But there is a strange feeling in her wrists. Kate opens her eyes with some difficulty and looks down.

  Her wrists are bound.

  The room. She remembers. Kate resumes life after her brief, painless interlude, like a nightmare she can’t stop dreaming. She moves her ankles experimentally. They are free. Only her wrists are bound. She looks up and sees Tony. His back is to her, but he is turning. She quickly closes her eyes.

  He is talking, and for a moment Kate thinks he is talking to her.

  ‘I wanted to do this while she was awake. So she could watch it happening. But I think maybe this is better … She’ll wake up, and know that she couldn’t stop it happening.’

  Kate doesn’t know what he’s doing, but she hopes Tony doesn’t notice her breath speeding up. With each breath, the wound in her shoulder parts again, like a second mouth gasping air. Her back is cold with blood. How much blood has she lost? How much more can she lose?

  She pretends to be asleep while he rummages in a bag next to her. She hears him straighten up and go back to the bed. Nova isn’t making any sound. Why isn’t she making any sound?

  ‘Don’t worry; it’ll be over soon.’

  Kate takes a chance and opens her eyes. Tony has his back to her again. She can see Nova on the bed. She’s still tied up, still gagged, but the blindfold is off. For the moment, her eyes are fixed on Tony, and Kate doesn’t want her to look over and see that she’s awake.

  It’s only now that she sees the bottle on the bedside table. The bottle is white plastic and has a safety cap. She can’t see the words printed on the label, but she can see the hazard labels – a red diamond, a yellow triangle, a blue circle. Like shapes from one of Nova’s lessons. Whatever’s in the bottle, it’s dangerous. Kate thinks she already knows what it is, but she hopes she’s wrong. Tony keeps talking in fits, more to himself, it seems, than Nova.

  ‘It’ll be over soon. And she’ll wake up. And she’ll see you again. Of course, you won’t see her …’

  He makes a sound like a laugh, but it’s more of a retching, coughing sound. Nova still hasn’t made a sound. She’s forcing herself not to. But Kate can see clearly that she’s shaking – every inch of her trembling.

  Tony is unscrewing the cap of the bottle. As though a malevolent spirit has been released, the room is immediately full of the smell of whatever liquid it contains. It is a strange smell, like nothing Kate knows. It sticks in her throat; she wants to gag. She realizes what is in the bottle, without seeing. It’s acid. He’s going to blind Nova for a second time.

  Tony turns away from Nova for a moment. Kate clamps her eyes shut, praying he didn’t see her. He grabs something else from the bag at her side and returns to the bed. When Kate looks again, he’s placing a cloth over Nova’s eyes. Nova is struggling, and her head is relatively free to move. The cloth keeps coming off, and she goes back to glaring at him. He bends closer.

  ‘This is happening, okay? You’d rather have the cloth than not. This stuff can eat right through your head.’

  Only now does Nova cry out, as Tony places the cloth back over her eyes. Her breath is fast and shuddering. Her hands grip tight to the mattress.

  ‘That’s better.’ Tony says. His voice is soft, as though he’s talking to a child. ‘Now just hold still.’

  He brings the bottle down.

  Kate leaps out of the chair, arms raised in front of her. Tony must hear her, because he starts to turn, but Kate is too quick. She can’t get her wrists free of the ropes, so she puts the bonds around his neck and tugs him back from the bed.

  Tony makes a sharp, strangled noise as the ropes cut into his neck. Kate kicks her knees forward, into the back of Tony’s legs, and lets herself fall, dragging him back with her.

  They fall together, hard. Their combined weight makes the impact a heavy one, and Kate is crushed by his body on top of her. The new mouth in her shoulder blade screams. For a moment, Kate loses awareness, all the breath knocked out of her. Her hands loosen their grip, and Tony tries to wrestle free.

  She comes back to consciousness, though she can’t draw more than the tiniest breath. Still, she pulls back on the rope, feeling it dig into Tony’s neck. He’s still holding the open bottle of acid, and Kate can hear a sloshing noise. There’s a sharp pain on one of her wrists – a splash of acid, eating its way into her skin.

  At the same moment, Tony cries out, still strangled by the rope. Kate doesn’t know where the acid has landed, but she knows it is on Tony, and he’s feeling the same pain as her, only worse.

  There is a fizzing sound.

  Kate realizes that if she stays under him the acid will trickle down and find her. Tony’s strength has faltered with the pain, though his weight is enough to keep her down. With a last burst of strength, Kate forces their bodies to one side with her legs. For a second she thinks she can’t do it, that Tony will hold her in place until the cascade of acid finds her. But he is too distracted to fight her.

  She shoves him off, to her right-hand side. She holds onto the rope and continues to pull. Tony kicks back with his legs, catching Kate hard in the shins. Her strength is failing – she can’t hold on much longer while he fights. The pain in her shoulder and wrist is just the start of it – her body feels like it’s been in a car crash. She can’t draw a deep enough breath, even with Tony off her.

  She holds on, feeling her strength fade. Then, just as she thinks she must let go, and let Tony turn on her, he goes still. For a second, Kate thinks he must be bluffing. But Tony doesn’t move again.

  Kate takes her hands from around Tony’s neck. He rolls over on to his back, and Kate can see the lurid red streak, diagonally across Tony’s face and eyes. The acid is still eating into him. Kate feels her stomach lurch and for a moment she thinks he is dead, but she can hear him wheezing faintly.

  Kate looks at Nova on the bed. Her eyes are wide and full of tears. Kate needs to get her free, but to do that she needs to untie the rope around her own wrists. She looks around and sees the knife lying on the floor, still covered in her blood. She crawls over and picks it up clumsily, then holds it between her knees and begins to saw the bonds on her wrists, back and forth. She keeps blinking the tears out of her eyes so she can see.

  The rope gives after a minute, and Kate is free. She crawls back to the bed on hands and knees. She doesn’t trust herself to stand. Nova is watching her, unable to help. Tony stirs on the floor, but Kate ignores him, instead pulling the gag out of Nova’s mouth.

  ‘Don’t!’ Nova gasps, her mouth dry. ‘Tie him up first, then you can untie me.’

  Kate knows she’s right, though she just wants to get them both out of the room. She takes a spare length of rope from the bed and starts to tie it around Tony’s wrists. She’s halfway done when he wakes up and starts to struggle. His eyes are clenched tight shut, but his hands seem to know where she is. Kate wrestles with him, tying and retying the knots binding his wrists. Finally, it is done.

  Kate stands unsteadily, watching him struggle. She kicks him hard in the stomach, watches as he doubles up and then falls silent. She turns back to the bed, taking up the knife again, and cuts through the ropes binding Nova to the bed. Nova sits up quickly and faces her.

  ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt?’ Kate says.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ Nova puts her hands on Kate’s face, to calm her down.

  ‘I thought I’d lost you!’

  ‘Me too. I thought you wouldn’t find me.’

  Kate looks down to Tony, lying on the floor. The carpet around him is stained with blood, and patches of it are pockmarked by the acid. There is a terrible smell in the air.

  As she looks, he opens his eyes and looks back at her. Or rather, Kate realizes, he looks at nothing. Whether he has lost his sight for good, or whether it can be reversed, he is blind now. He casts a
bout, trying to see anything. But all Tony can see is the inside of his own head. A private darkness.

  Nova is saying something to her, which Kate can’t hear.

  ‘What’s all this – this blood? Is this all you? We need to call someone, we need to …’

  Kate turns to Nova and smiles. She leans in, until their foreheads are touching.

  ‘I love you. I always …’

  The pain fades, and all she can see now is Nova’s face. Her blue eyes. She falls forward, resting in the crook of her neck.

  Kate slips into her own darkness.

  Thirty-Six

  New Year’s Eve

  NOVA SITS BY THE window, watching the cars driving down the road. In her hand she’s holding a toy car, and she runs her fingers over it, again and again, as though trying to discover something new. There are lots of cars outside, even on this last day of the year. She sighs, setting the car down and turning away from the window.

  The flat is quiet. She goes to the kitchen and makes herself a cup of tea, then goes to sit on the sofa. The same sofa where Kate made the fort, all that time ago.

  It seems like a lifetime.

  There is a remote control for the stereo on the coffee table, and Nova could turn it on now, to be surrounded by the phantom musicians. But for now, at least, she wants the silence. She doesn’t want anything going on in her head except her own thoughts.

  She looks around the room and sees everything clearly. Perhaps she is still not fluent at seeing, and perhaps she never will be. Seeing will always be a second language. But her vision is rich and detailed, and it is easy. She still makes conversational mistakes, calling a cat a dog, calling the moon a streetlamp. But these are small things. Her vision is not just something to help her get from A to B. There is beauty in the things she sees.

  Nova tries to remember the first time she came to this place. She sensed immediately that it was a good place to be. Back then, her vision was a patched-together thing, a jerry-rigged contraption. She saw parts of the room, like someone holding a candle to a cave painting, illuminating a tiny circle of detail, but not the whole.

  But the vision hadn’t been important – she knew that this was the place she wanted to be. The place she always wanted to stay.

  It is raining. It has been raining all day, but now, as night falls, it seems to be getting heavier. When Nova hears the first peal of thunder, it’s as though she has been electrified. She knows what she has to do.

  The French windows are stiff with underuse, but she gets them open. The room fills with the sound of falling rain. It’s as heavy as the time before. She pulls the armchair over to the window, grabs a blanket, and watches the rain. The light fades from the sky, but the rain goes on and on. The thunder comes closer and Nova hugs herself.

  RULE OF SEEING NO.???

  After seeing has become easy, there are moments when the thing you are looking at evokes a memory, like an old scent, or a piece of music you haven’t listened to for years. You may feel nostalgic, homesick, or heartbroken. Try not to be surprised.

  She closes her eyes, losing herself in the sound of the rain. She could stay like this forever. She wants to be washed away.

  The sound is so all-embracing, she doesn’t hear the front door opening. Her eyes are still closed when a warm body slides into the chair next to her.

  ‘Hey, sweetie.’

  ‘Hey. I didn’t hear you.’

  ‘You okay? You’re crying.’

  Nova reaches up and feels the tears on her cheeks. ‘I didn’t realize. But I’m fine. I was just enjoying the sound of the rain.’

  ‘Good.’

  Kate kisses her and wraps the blanket around them both, and they watch the rain fall. Blue flashes light up the street. They say nothing for a long time.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘Uh huh?’

  ‘Can I stay here?’

  There is a long pause, broken by a peal of thunder, and Nova gets ever so slightly smaller, curling in on herself.

  ‘What, in this chair?’

  ‘No, I mean, can I stay here … in your flat?’

  Kate pulls back to look at her, frowning. ‘Of course. You have a key … You’re paying half the mortgage!’

  Nova doesn’t say anything, unsatisfied with the answer. Kate sighs, smiling.

  ‘Yes. You can always stay here.’

  Nova looks her in the eyes – really looks – and she can understand what Kate’s face is telling her. Other faces are still hard to read, but if she concentrates, she can understand Kate. Then she looks back at the rain, and the rain keeps falling. It seems to fall endlessly through the universe, in an unbroken line. The world fades away, and the rain is like static on a TV. It is formless, a not-shape.

  ‘Okay, then,’ she says at last. ‘I’ll stay.’

  Acknowledgements

  To my parents Sue and Tim, the teachers who taught me everything. I couldn’t have done this without your love and support.

  To my brother Jim, curator of obscure books and films, for a lifetime of inspiration.

  To my grandparents, Joseph and Christina, John and Jean, for endless love and care.

  To my agent, Laura Macdougall, whose support and encouragement seems (and possibly is) superhuman. She made this book possible. Plus, she makes a mean chilli jam.

  To Charlotte Ledger, my brilliant editor, and the cool cats at HarperCollins for their belief in this story. I couldn’t have wished for a lovelier, more talented bunch.

  To the kids of 281 Donnelly, Stirling, for all the cups of tea and the recipe for sausages. Stay off the streets.

  To Laura Friis-West, Corinna Booth, Andrew Freeland and Chris Wynne – great readers and better friends.

  To the Tillins, young and old, for their support and many happy times.

  To Sophie Hignett, who kept me on the road.

  To Charlotte Maddox, Sonny Marr and Mary Rodgers, for endless support and cups of tea.

  To Alice, for showing me how it’s done. We go together like peaches and pepperoni.

  To Sam, our absolute beginner.

  Thank you.

  About the Author

  Joe Heap was born in 1986 and grew up in Bradford, the son of two teachers. In 2004, he won the Foyle Young Poets award, and he is a published poet. He studied for a BA in English Literature at Stirling University and a Masters in Creative Writing at Glasgow University. Joe lives in London with his long-suffering girlfriend, short-suffering baby, and much-aggrieved cat. The Rules of Seeing is his first novel.

  @Joe_Heap_

  www.facebook.com/joeheap.author/

  Joe_Heap_

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