The Stuff of Nightmares

by Malorie Blackman

  First Week

  The house was empty. Madam had gone to see her doctor. Madam’s husband had gone to work. Peter was with a neighbour.

  Peter … What a strange child.

  He followed me everywhere, like a puppy. And when his parents weren’t around he’d help me with some of the chores. I made the most of it. I knew it couldn’t last. But for now he liked me and I didn’t mind him. After all, he was just a child.

  I was vacuuming the upstairs when I heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. I was halfway down the stairs when the front door opened.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Madam’s husband snapped.

  ‘I was just coming to answer the door. I was vacuuming.’ I kept my voice low and soft. Even the volume and tone of my normal voice are not my own in this house, in this country.

  Madam’s husband closed the door and leaned against it. He looked at me speculatively.

  ‘Think yourself lucky that you’re with us and not most of my friends,’ he said at last. ‘Their maids use brooms or a dustpan and brush. They’re not allowed to touch the vacuum cleaners.’

  I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. He spoke as if I should be grateful that he and his wife allowed me to clean their house and eat their bread and jam and mealie meal and samp. I turned round so that he wouldn’t see my face.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  I turned back. ‘To finish the vacuuming,’ I replied.

  He stared at me but said nothing.

  ‘May I go back to it?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘That’s why you’re here.’

  I vacuumed their bedroom, larger than my shack several times over. I vacuumed Peter’s room, around his double bed, under his chair, around his wardrobe. I paused by the window, leaving the vacuum cleaner switched on. I looked out over their pool, over their back garden. I felt homesick and heartsick and, oh, so tired.

  Miriam, are you still alive?

  My heart tells me yes. My head tells me no. Which should I listen to? I want to slam down every police worker in the country. I want to tear down their prisons, bulldoze their walls until I find you. First Daniel, my eldest, shot in the back while running away from them, and now you, my daughter. Is that why you didn’t run, Miriam? I’m trying to understand. Trying desperately …

  ‘We don’t pay you to gaze out of the window.’

  I jumped at the voice of Madam’s husband behind me. I turned. He was standing in the doorway watching. I began to vacuum furiously.

  I needed this job. I would give neither him nor his wife an excuse to fault my work.

  ‘Turn that thing off.’

  I turned off the vacuum cleaner.

  ‘Come here.’

  I walked slowly towards him, my heart pounding. A key turned in the lock downstairs. Madam was home early. Madam’s husband looked at me; then, without warning, his open hand came up to slap my face just as hard as he could.

  ‘Get back to work,’ he hissed.

  My face stinging, I went back to the vacuum cleaner without saying a word.

  First Month

  ‘These are your wages. You’ve been satisfactory … so far.’

  I looked down at the money in my hand. I wasn’t surprised. I was disappointed, but I shouldn’t have been. I should have known better.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Madam asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Because of course you do get food and lodging. Besides, if I paid you any more I’d have to pay tax on it, directly out of your own wages, I might add, so you’d lose out in the long run.’

  I clenched my hand around the money. To be told that my low wages were for my own good I was used to. To be expected to believe it tore into me like talons. I’m not a fool.

  I may keep silent, waiting … but I’m not a fool.

  I went home that afternoon, for the first time since I started working for Madam. It took three hours to walk home but I was feather light. Every step along the dusty road brought me closer to my reason for carrying on; every step brought me closer to my reason. I ran the last few metres to my mother’s shack. Ruth and Gabriel were both there. I hugged them, drank and smelled and tasted them until my senses were flooded. A month, a whole month had passed since I’d seen them. Ruth and Gabriel and I talked until it was very late – about their school, their friends, their lives without me.

  I told them of some of my life at Madam’s house. My duties, my food, Peter. Ruth was young. She accepted everything I said at face value. Gabriel was different. He watched me, his eyes burning black, but he said nothing.

  After my children went to bed I sat up with my mother talking, telling the truth, until at last I fell asleep in my chair. All too soon Mother was shaking me awake.

  I washed in the dark by the standpipe. I kissed my children while they slept and began the long journey back to Madam’s.

  First Year

  It is hard, so hard. I have been here six months and it feels like six centuries. I have seen my children six times – that is the hardest of all to bear. I am on my guard all the time. Outside I simmer silently; inside I boil and rage.

  Madam’s baby was a girl. They called her Charlene – a name with no character, no background, to my way of thinking. Madam doesn’t lift a finger to do anything for Charlene. She sees her child for about an hour every day. I try not to feel sorry for the child. She sees her mother more often than my children see me and she’ll probably grow up to be just like her mother, but for now she’s innocent and I tell myself that she can’t help who she’s born to … yet.

  Madam’s husband still won’t leave me alone. Just the sight of him makes me feel physically sick. He keeps touching me. The last time he pushed me against a wall and touched my body all over. It is like a game to him. He has even started touching me when Madam is elsewhere in the house. I just close my eyes and endure. I need this job. Peter is a consolation though. He still follows me everywhere. He sneaks me biscuits and bits of meat from his plate. Of course, when it’s stew I can sneak for myself. Stew meat can’t be missed in the way that chops or chicken legs can.

  I miss my children so much. I thought maybe the ache would get easier, less sharp, but instead it just gets worse. And the road taunts me. Beckoning, beckoning all the time. I hear it calling, even in my sleep. I long to walk it, with no thought in my head of ever turning back.

  On my last visit home Gabriel said, ‘You care more about Peter than you do about us. You’re with him a lot more. We never see Father, we hardly see you.’

  ‘But you know why—’ I began.

  ‘You give in too easily!’ Gabriel shouted. ‘You don’t fight. You should fight!’

  ‘I work so you and Ruth will have the strength to fight,’ I pleaded.

  ‘You work because you’re too afraid to do anything else. You’re afraid to fight. Then you blame me and Ruth for your cowardice. You are a domestic, you are a slave. You are nothing.’

  I couldn’t speak for the tears, sharp as broken glass, in my throat. What could I say? How could I explain that I am waiting.

  Last Night

  Last night, for the first time, Madam’s husband visited my bed. I lay there waiting for him to finish, waiting for him to leave so I could vomit. The door opened and in walked Peter, rubbing his eyes.

  Madam’s husband didn’t realize at first that his son had come in and carried on moving on top of me.

  I watched Peter, he watched me, both of us visible in the light of the full moon outside my curtainless window.

  Watch your father, I thought as I stared at Peter. Watch how your father uses me because your mother won’t give him what he wants. Watch how he uses me because he can. He chews me up and spits me out.

  I waited for Peter to speak. I willed him to speak, to understand.

  I waited.

  ‘Dad?’ Peter whispered.

  Madam’s husband turned his head. ‘Go back to your room, Peter. I’ll be right there.’

  Peter look
ed at me and I knew my consolation had disappeared. Madam’s son hated me. I was nothing now. He was his father’s son.

  Today

  ‘Kaffir. Dirty, stinking kaffir.’

  I tried not to mind. I tried not to hurt inside but I did. Madam and her husband had gone to have dinner with some friends, leaving me to look after Peter and Charlene, who was upstairs asleep in her cot. Throughout the day Madam’s son said barely two words to me. Once his parents had left he sat in the kitchen watching me. Slowly, deliberately he picked up an egg from the work surface and dropped it on the floor. Without a word I cleaned it up. He dropped another. I cleaned it up. He dropped another. I looked at him. He spat at me before running up to his room. I followed him, wiping the spit from my face. He lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

  He sat up as I came into his room.

  ‘Kaffir. Dirty, stinking kaffir.’

  ‘Peter—’

  ‘Kaffir.’

  He hated me. I hated him. There sat my oppressor, my children’s oppressor. I walked over to Madam’s son. He was strangely quiet. He just watched me. I pushed him back against the bed.

  You blame me and Ruth for your cowardice …

  I picked up a pillow.

  You work because you are afraid to do anything else …

  I put the pillow over Peter’s face.

  You’re afraid to fight …

  Peter kicked against my arms but suddenly I was strong, as strong as the world and everyone in it. His screams were muffled by the pillow but I could hear them. They answered the screams and echoes in my own head.

  You are nothing … nothing … nothing …

  Slowly, so slowly, Peter stopped struggling. Still I held the pillow against his face. When at last I removed it, his eyes were open and he was staring at the ceiling.

  I closed his eyes.

  There was no respect, no dignity – just screams. Loud, long screams filling my mind. Will they never stop?

  You are nothing …

  Now

  I am walking home. Home is where I belong. I don’t think I’ll make it – they’ll catch up with me first, but it doesn’t matter. Each step weighs like lead around my neck, breathes like baby’s breath around my heart. The road that beckoned me before now ignores me as I walk on and on. On and on and on … I’m walking home.

  I’m not waiting any more.

  22

  DAZED, I STARED at the woman, my eyes big enough to swallow her up. Her forehead was lined but her cheeks were smooth. She had a round face, her cheekbones high and prominent. Her hair was more black than grey but the grey was obvious. In her time she must’ve been beautiful, but the world had ground her down until her face held only a trace of what she’d been before. She was still wedged upright between the seat and the floor, and still unconscious, her eyes closed – but it didn’t matter. I could see through her closed eyes to the pain that was her life, the guilt and loneliness that’d been hers since she escaped South Africa. She was so tired of running and hiding. Her fatigue flowed out of her like water from a faulty tap. I didn’t have to wonder if her nightmare was real. If she’d been awake, I wouldn’t have had to ask. Nor did I need to stay in her head for confirmation – not that I could have stayed. The stranger’s desolation ate into her every second of every day. Not a day went by when she didn’t think about her children – or Peter. How could I stay in her nightmare? The woman was lonely and alone, with nothing but her grief, and I wasn’t strong enough to share it.

  I steeled myself to glance down the carriage. A man stood at the far end. The solid, dark, faceless vision of a man who stood like a three-dimensional shadow, watching me. Death wasn’t a skeleton with a scythe, he wasn’t a bag of bones in a hooded mask, he was a normal, everyday, faceless man. Death was faceless and silent, the way I’d always imagined. If I had any courage at all, I wouldn’t have turned away from him. But I couldn’t look. I didn’t want to die. Over the last few months I’d been wondering about it, especially after what happened to my dad, but leaping into all these nightmares had messed with my head so much that I wasn’t sure what I believed or what I wanted any more.

  ‘That’s what this is, Kyle. That’s all life is,’ said Rachel from behind me. ‘Nothing but selfish people doing self-centred things.’

  Before this morning I might’ve agreed with her. But not any more. ‘That’s not true,’ I replied. ‘There are such things as hope and love and decency. There’s even such a thing as live and let live.’

  ‘Have you seen much evidence of that on this train?’ Rachel sneered.

  ‘Maybe not so much,’ I admitted. ‘But I’m jumping into nightmares, not daydreams. I’m living through other people’s worst fears. Fear makes us all do things we wouldn’t normally.’

  ‘Is fear what made your dad send that thing after you?’

  I turned to look at the apparition. He started to raise his arms as if reaching for me. I immediately turned away, my heart trying to batter its way out through my ribs. It took all I had not to turn and race away just as fast and as far as I could.

  Death was reaching out for me …

  ‘You can still win, Kyle,’ said Rachel. ‘You can still beat him.’

  But how could I beat Death? I looked around, trying not to show the fear I felt. Kendra! I hadn’t been inside her head yet. Kendra wouldn’t be another Elena. Her dream would be nothing like that of the stranger. I’d hide out in her head until Death passed me by and entered the first carriage. After all, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. He was moving from carriage to carriage, collecting … I squatted down next to Kendra and took her hand.

  A spasm jolted my entire body, like I’d touched a live, electric wire. I was inside Kendra’s head, looking through her eyes, though her gaze kept darting here, there and everywhere like a frightened rabbit. But at least this leap had worked. Maybe this would be the dream I could lose myself in – and even if it was just for a little while, hopefully it would be long enough.

  23

  Kendra’s Nightmare

  ‘KENDRA, WE’RE ALL going for a drink after work. Would you like to—?’

  The sudden ringing of the phone on my desk made me jump.

  ‘Gosh, you’re twitchy,’ laughed Arif. ‘Guilty conscience?’

  I dredged up a smile. ‘Something like that.’

  The phone continued to ring.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ he asked.

  No. I know who it is and I don’t want to talk to him …

  But the thoughts in my head were prisoners. No way would I ever let them escape for Arif or anyone else to see. I picked up the phone, knowing full well what I’d hear.

  ‘Hello? Kendra speaking.’

  Silence. Someone was at the other end all right. He was at the other end; listening, breathing, waiting.

  ‘Hello?’ I tried again.

  He still refused to speak, the way he always did. I put down the phone.

  ‘Wrong number,’ I said, smiling at Arif to lighten my words even further.

  ‘So do you want to come to the wine bar later?’

  ‘I—’

  The phone began to ring again. I picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’

  Silence.

  Him again. If Arif hadn’t been standing there, I would’ve shouted at him to leave me alone. Or pleaded. Or wept bitter, reluctant tears. Tears which would reveal just how much he was getting to me.

  ‘Kendra?’ Arif’s voice brought me back to where and how I was.

  I put down the phone. ‘Someone playing silly buggers,’ I dismissed. ‘Can’t make it tonight. Sorry. Some other time? Anyway, I’d better get back to work.’

  I turned away from Arif, willing him to leave before my phone started again. He took the unsubtle hint and headed back to his desk. My phone began to snarl at me again, each ring jagged like sharp teeth. I glanced up. Arif was heading back to his desk but his head was turned towards me. And even though his face was i
n profile, the frown on it was unmistakable. I picked up the receiver.

  ‘Yes?’ I snapped.

  ‘That’s a charming way to answer the phone,’ said my mum.

  I sighed. ‘Sorry, Mum. It’s been one of those days.’

  ‘It’s not even ten o’clock yet,’ Mum pointed out.

  ‘Shows how bad it’s been then, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Hmm! Anyway, I’m phoning to remind you about dinner tonight. And I’m cooking all your favourites, so don’t bother cancelling on me.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to, Mum.’

  As if! Dinner at Mum’s meant a few blessed hours away from my own flat. Away from him. My neighbours would probably throw a party to celebrate my absence.

  ‘Is Zach still giving you grief?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ I replied.

  ‘You mean he’s still—’

  ‘Haven’t seen or spoken to him in days,’ I interrupted.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. He’s got the message now.’

  ‘About time. See you later, love,’ said Mum.

  ‘Bye, Mum.’

  I put down the phone. It started to ring. I picked it up.

  ‘Hello?’

  Silence. I put down the receiver. Today was going to be a long day, just like yesterday and the day before that and every day for the last month.

  I walked through the reception area of my building, my heartbeat now audible in my ears. The lunchtime ordeal was about to begin. After a quick reconnaissance through the glass doors, I took a deep breath, opened them and stepped outside. The warm spring air stroked at my face. It was a beautiful day, but it was like something seen out of the corner of one eye. I was too busy looking for him instead.

  Sometimes when I came out for my lunch, he’d be on the pavement waiting for me. Sometimes he liked to show himself. Most of the time he didn’t. When all this first started, if he was there I’d ignore him and just walk past without saying a word. And when he wasn’t I’d breathe a deep sigh of relief as I headed off to buy my sandwiches. But on those occasions I’d get the inexplicable feeling that I was being watched, followed. I’d turn suddenly to catch him out before he could duck out of the way or hide behind another pedestrian. Sometimes I actually saw him following me. I tried ignoring him, confronting him, reasoning with him – but nothing worked, because he wanted nothing. Except me.