by Matt Haig
“Right,” says Helen, realizing Mark expects some kind of affirmation.
“And the first and only guy who wanted to rent it out has been a total disaster. Total disaster.”
Peter is only half listening. He is too busy trying to fight off thoughts about Lorna as he chews away on his pork. He tries not to catch her eye and to stay focused on his plate and the vegetables and the sauce.
“A disaster?” asks Helen, stil doing her level best to sound interested in what Mark is saying.
Mark nods, solemnly. “Jared Copeland. Do you know him?”
Copeland. Helen thinks. It certainly rings a bel .
“Got a daughter,” adds Mark. “Blond girl. Eve, I think.”
“Oh yes. Clara’s friends with her. Only met her once but she seems lovely. A bright girl.”
“Wel , anyway, her dad’s a strange case. Alcoholic, I reckon. Used to be in the police. Criminal Investigation Department or something. But you wouldn’t believe it to look at him. He’s been out of work and decided to move from Manchester to here. Makes absolutely no sense, but if he wants to rent a flat from me I’m not going to stop him. Trouble is, he doesn’t have any money. He’s only paid me his deposit and that’s it. He’s been in there two months now and I haven’t had anything off him.”
“Oh dear, but the poor man,” says Helen, with genuine sympathy. “He’s obviously had something happen to him.”
“That’s what I said,” says Lorna.
Mark rol s his eyes. “I’m not running a charity. I’ve told him, if I don’t have the money in a week it’s curtains. You can’t get sentimental about these things, Helen. I’m a businessman. Anyway, he told me not to worry. He’s got a new job.” Mark smirks in such a way that even Helen is wondering why she invited the Felts around. “A garbageman. From the CID to a garbageman. I don’t think I’l be going to him for career advice.”
Helen remembers the garbageman rummaging through her rubbish this morning.
Her husband, though, hasn’t made any connection. He hasn’t heard the reference to the garbageman because it coincided with something pressing against his foot. And now his heart is racing because he realizes it is Lorna. Her foot. An accident, he assumes. But then it stays there, her foot against his foot, and even rubs against his, pressing tenderly down on the leather.
He looks at her.
She smiles coyly. His foot stays where it is as he thinks about the barriers between them.
Shoe, sock, skin.
Duty, marriage, sanity.
He closes his eyes and tries to keep the fantasy sexual. Normal. Human. But it is a struggle, even with Vivaldi playing in the background.
He retreats, sliding his foot slowly back under his chair, and she looks down at her empty plate.
But the smile stays on her face.
“It’s business,” says Mark, in love with the word. “And we’ve got an expensive year. Some big work on our house.”
“Oh, what are you thinking of doing?” Helen asks.
Mark clears his throat, as if about to make an announcement of national significance. “We’re thinking of extending. Upstairs. Make a fifth bedroom. Peter, I’l come round and show you the plans before we go for planning permission. There’s a risk it might shade some of your garden.”
“I’m sure it wil be fine,” says Peter, feeling alive and dangerous al of a sudden. “For us I’d say shade’s almost a plus point.”
Helen pinches her husband’s leg, as hard as she can manage.
“Right,” she says, starting to clear away the plates. “Who’s for some dessert?”
Tarantula
It is cold out in the field, even with the fire, but no one else seems to care.
People are dancing, drinking, smoking spliffs.
Clara sits on the ground, staring at the impromptu bonfire a few meters in front of her, flinching at its heat and brightness as the flames lick away at the night. Even if she wasn’t il , she would have been pretty miserable for the last hour or however long it has been since Toby Felt weaseled over and started plying Eve with cheap vodka and cheaper lines. And somehow, it has worked.
They are kissing now, and Toby’s hand is on the back of her friend’s head crawling around like a five-legged tarantula.
Making Clara’s night even worse is Harper. For the last ten minutes he has been leaning back and gawking at Clara, with drunk and hungry eyes, making her feel even worse.
Her stomach flips again, as if the ground is shooting downward.
She has to go.
She tries to conjure the energy to stand up when Eve pul s away from Toby’s mouth to talk to her friend.
“Oh my God, Clara, you look real y pale,” says Eve, drunk but concerned. “Shal we go? We could share a taxi back. I’l phone one.”
Behind her Clara sees Toby pep-talking Harper and vaguely wonders what he is saying.
“No, it’s okay,” Clara manages to say, over the drum-heavy music. “I’m going to cal my mum in a minute. She’l pick me up.”
“I can phone her if you want.”
Toby is tugging on Eve’s shirt.
“It’s okay,” says Clara.
“Sure?” asks Eve, with the eyes of a drunken deer.
Clara nods. She can’t speak now. If she speaks, she knows, she wil throw up. Instead she inhales and tries to get some fresh night air inside her, but it does nothing to help.
And then, as Eve and Toby start kissing again, the nausea in her stomach intensifies and begins to be mixed with sharp, wrenching pain.
This isn’t right.
Clara closes her eyes, and from somewhere deep inside the darkness of her being, she summons the strength needed to stand up and get away from al the happy dancers and kissing couples.
Signal
A couple of minutes later Clara is crossing a stile and heading into an adjacent field. She wants to cal her mum but there’s no signal on her phone so she just keeps walking. Not directly toward the road—she doesn’t want to stay in ful view of the partygoers—but through this field, which offers a quieter way to disappear.
She takes out her phone again. The little aerial symbol stil has a line through it.
There are sleeping cows on the ground. Headless shapes in the dark, like the backs of whales breaking free of an ocean. They only properly become cows when she is near; they wake, startled, and blunder in desperation away from her. She keeps going, treading a diagonal path toward the distant road, as the voices from the party blur and fade behind her along with the music, becoming lost in the night air.
Clara has never felt so il in her life. And in a life of eye infections, three-day migraines, and recurrent diarrhea, this is quite an achievement. She should be in bed, curled up in a fetal bal under the duvet whimpering to herself.
Then it comes again, that racking nausea that makes her wish she could escape her own body.
She needs to stop.
She needs to stop and be sick.
But then she hears something. Heavy panting.
The fire seems miles away now, a distant glow behind a rough, bushy hedge separating the fields.
She sees a hulking silhouette, bounding across the earth.
“Hey,” it pants. He pants. “Clara.”
It’s Harper. She feels so sick she isn’t real y too worried about why he might be fol owing her.
She is delirious enough to have forgotten his lecherous stares and to imagine that he might not be fol owing her at al . Or maybe she left something behind and he’s coming to give it to her.
“What?” she says. She straightens herself upright.
He steps closer to her. He smiles broadly and doesn’t speak. He is incredibly drunk, she thinks.
She’s not, though. Harper is a big oaf and a thug, but she’s always thought of him as lacking a mind of his own. And as Toby’s isn’t around for him to borrow, she should be okay.
“You look nice,” he says, wobbling about like a huge tree chopped at the base of its trunk.
His deep, sinusy voice weighs her down, adding to the queasiness.
“No. I don’t. I—”
“I wondered if you wanted a walk.”
“What?”
“Just, you know, a walk.”
She’s confused. She wonders again what Toby has been saying to him. “I am walking.”
He smiles. “It’s al right. I know you like me.”
She can’t be dealing with this. She doesn’t seem to have her usual supply of polite and useful excuses at hand to help her deal with him. Instead, she can do nothing except walk on.
But Harper somehow gets in front of her, plants himself in her path, and smiles as if they are sharing a joke. A joke that could get crude, or ugly. He walks backward as she walks forward, staying in front of her when she needs more than anything for no one to be there. No one except her mum and dad.
And he looks suddenly dangerous, his drunken face revealing its potential for human evil. She wonders if this is how dogs and monkeys feel in the laboratory when they suddenly realize the scientists aren’t there to be nice to them.
“Please,” she manages, “just leave me alone.”
He is cross at this, as if she is deliberately trying to hurt him. “I know you fancy me. Just stop pretending.”
Pretending.
The word swirls in her mind, becomes a meaningless sound. She is sure she can detect the earth spinning around on its axis.
She tries to focus.
There is an empty road at the end of the field.
A road that leads to Bishopthorpe.
To her parents.
To home.
And away from him.
She must cal them. She must, she must, she must . . .
“Fuckin’ ’el !”
She has thrown up on his shoes.
“They’re new!” he says.
She wipes her mouth, feeling slightly more normal.
“Sorry,” she says. She is now able to realize how vulnerable she is, this far from the party and not close enough to the road.
She walks past him with a new urgency, keeps heading down the sloping ground toward the road. But stil he fol ows her.
“It’s al right though. I forgive you.”
She ignores him and starts to dial her parents’ number, but in her nervousness she gets it wrong and goes into her settings instead of her contacts.
He catches up. “I said it’s al right.” His voice has changed. He’s sounding angry, even when he dresses the words with a laugh.
“I’m il . Just leave me.”
She clicks on address book. It’s there, the number, glowing at her from the screen with comforting accuracy. She presses dial.
“I’l make you better. Come on, I know you like me.”
She has the phone to her ear. It starts to ring. They wil be eating. They won’t be near the phone.
Clara prays on each mechanical bleat that her parents wil pick up. But three or four rings in and the mobile is out of her hands. He has grabbed it roughly from her. He is switching it off.
She can sense, even though she is very il , that the joke is becoming darker. She is a girl, and he is a boy twice her size who could do anything to her. Three miles away, she thinks, her mum and dad are having a friendly conversation with the Felts over dinner. Three miles have never felt so far.
“What are you doing?”
She watches her mobile slide into his jeans pocket.
“I’ve got your phone. Samsung piece of shit.” He is a child. He is a three-year-old blown up into a monster.
“Please, give it to me. I need to cal my mum.”
“Come and get it.”
“Please, just give it back.”
He comes closer. Puts his arm around her. She tries to resist, but he is using more strength, tightening his grip. She catches the alcohol on his breath.
“I know you fancy me,” he says. “Eve told Toby you fancy me.”
Clara’s heart trips and speeds toward panic. “Please,” she says, one last time.
“Shit, what’s the matter? You’re the one who was sick on me. You’re as weird as your brother.”
He tries to kiss her. She turns her head away.
His voice comes at her, hard as stone. “What, you think you’re too good for me? You’re not too good for me.”
She shouts for help now, with his arm across her, his hand pressing onto the body he wants to enjoy.
“Help!” she shouts again, her head turning toward the way she came. The words only reach cows, who are watching her with a fear she shares. Harper too is now in a panic. She can see it on his face, his desperate smile and frightened eyes. Unable to work out a better solution, he places his hand over her mouth. Her eyes scan the road. No cars. No sign of anyone. She screams through his hand, but only a desperate muffle escapes. The sound causes him to press harder, hurting her jaw.
He presses at the back of her legs, behind her knees, and pul s her down to the ground.
“You’re not better than me,” he says, his hand stil suppressing her screams. “I’m going to show you.” Al his weight is on her as his hand goes for the top button of her jeans.
It’s at this point her fear starts to harden into anger. She punches at his back, pul s at his hair, bites into his palm.
She tastes his blood and bites harder.
“Aagh! You bitch! Aagh!”
Something changes.
Her mind sharpens.
Suddenly there is no fear at al .
No sickness.
No weakness.
Just the blood, the beautiful taste of human blood.
A thirst she never knew she had is being quenched, and she experiences the relief of dry land absorbing the first drops of rain. She loses herself to it, the taste, and is unaware of his scream as he yanks his hand away. There is something black and shining on his hand. A large gaping flesh wound where his palm should be, with little pipes of bone left intact. He looks at her with complete terror and she doesn’t question why. There isn’t a single question in her.
She lashes out in wild, uncontrol able rage and with sudden strength she pushes him, slams him into the ground to keep that taste alive.
His stifled scream eventual y fades, along with the unearthly pain she has given him, and she is left with nothing but the singular and intense pleasure of his blood. It floods into her, drowning the weak girl she thought she was and lifting someone new—her strong and true self—to the surface.
She is, in this moment, more powerful than a thousand warriors. The world suddenly holds no fear, as her body holds no pain and no nausea.
She stays lost in this moment. Feels the intensity of this present, free from past and future, and keeps feeding under the comfort of a dark and starless sky.
The Blood, the Blood
Helen gets up to answer the phone, but it stops ringing before she is even out of the dining room. That’s odd, she thinks, and has a vague sense that something is wrong. She turns back to their guests, to see Mark Felt’s spoon carrying a substantial quantity of summer pudding into his mouth.
“Delicious, Helen. You should give Lorna the recipe.”
Lorna throws him a glance, clearly aware this is a dig at her. Her mouth opens and closes, and then opens again, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Wel ,” says Helen diplomatical y, “I think I overdid it with the red currants. I probably should have just got something ready-made from Waitrose.”
They hear Rowan’s music filtering from upstairs, a morose suicide note over guitars, a song Peter and Helen last heard years ago in London on their first date. Helen can just about make out the lyric “I want to drown in the flood of your sweet red blood” and smiles without meaning to, remembering how much fun she’d had that night.
“I’ve been wanting to see you, actual y,” purrs Lorna.
“Oh?” asks Peter.
Lorna’s eyes stay on him. “In a professional capacity, I mean. You know, make an appointment about some
thing.”
“An appointment with an old-fashioned GP?” says Peter now. “Bit conventional for a reflexologist, isn’t it?”
Lorna smiles. “Wel , you’ve got to cover al bases, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I suppose you—”
Before Peter finishes, the phone rings for a second time.
“Again? ” Helen says. She pul s back her chair and leaves the room.
Out in the hal way she notices the time on the smal clock perched next to the phone. It is five to eleven.
She picks up, hears her daughter’s breath, heavy and hard on the other end of the line.
“Clara?”
It is a while before she hears Clara’s voice, above Vivaldi’s interpretation of “Spring,” which is stil chirping its way out of their stereo. At first her daughter doesn’t seem able to form coherent words, as though she is having to learn to speak again.
“Clara? What is it?”
Then the words final y come, and Helen knows a world is ending.
“It was just the blood. I couldn’t stop. It was the blood, the blood . . .”
Quiet
Rowan has spent the whole evening in his room, working on a poem about Eve but getting nowhere.
The house seems quiet, he realizes. He can’t hear the polite, strained voices of his parents and their guests. He hears something else instead.
An engine, outside. He peeks through his curtains just in time to see his parents’ car speed out of the drive and up Orchard Lane.
Strange.
His parents never drive that fast, and vaguely wondering if the car has been stolen, he puts his top back on—he had taken it off to do three agonizing push-ups—and heads downstairs.
Béla Lugosi
The trees whip by in the dark as Helen drives out of the vilage. She had wanted to drive because she knew Peter would flip out as soon as she told him, but even with him in the passenger seat, she decided to wait until they were out of the vil age. It felt easier that way somehow, away from the houses and lanes of their new life. Now she’s told him the inevitable has happened and he is shouting at her while she tries to concentrate on what she’s doing, fixing her eyes on the empty road ahead.