Spare Room: a twisty dark psychological thriller

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  A pissed-off Jack leans out of an upstairs window. ‘Oi! Get off our land! We’ve got an injunction against you! Get off our land before we have you put in prison, you mad old bat.’

  His neighbour hunts around for something, probably to throw at him. ‘You miserable coward! Why don’t you come out here? A cat’s about your size, isn’t it? You piece of worthless offal.’

  By this stage other residents are out on the street. The skateboarding kids are also looking on, one of them filming everything on his phone, no doubt to giggle and laugh at with his mates on social media. How utterly disrespectful. I want to snatch it from his hand. Poor Patsy is beside herself with grief and this kid thinks it’s a roll camera, action and share moment.

  Truth is, I don’t know what to do. Patsy thrashes the door with her stick but her frail arms and arthritis get in the way of making any dents.

  Martha has now appeared at the upstairs window.

  Jack’s unruffled voice tells her, ‘Call the cops – mad girl next door is having one of her witchy, funny turns again. They should put her in the nut house where she belongs. Woman’s an embarrassment.’

  But there’s no need to make a call. The police turn up anyway.

  Jack sends Patsy such a look of unbridled fury she stumbles back from the door. ‘If you called the cops—’ he begins to yell.

  ‘I never. I swear I didn’t.’ Patsy looks terrified. That’s strange. Wouldn’t she want the police to sort this out?

  Two officers, a man and a woman, get out of a car and walk up the drive. The male officer gently takes the stick from Patsy while his colleague puts a gentle, but restraining, hand on her arm.

  ‘Take her away,’ Jack yells. ‘She shouldn’t be on the streets with normal people anyway. Nutter…’

  The officer with the stick looks up. ‘Can you come down please, sir? We want a word.’

  ‘Not until you lock her up, I can’t.’

  I notice that Martha doesn’t utter a word.

  Patsy breaks down, sobbing and wailing as the officer steers her bent figure back onto the avenue. I cross the road to help but that’s a mistake.

  Patsy glares at me with such naked hatred I instinctively step back. ‘She’s one of them. Arrest her. She’s one of them.’

  I back off and realise that my phone is ringing in my pocket. It’s Alex again.

  ‘What the hell is going on over there? I’ve just had Aunty Pats on claiming the neighbours have murdered someone. I’ve had to call the police.’

  So that’s what Patsy had been doing inside.

  ‘Jack killed one of her cats.’

  Alex is baffled. ‘He’s murdered a cat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He’s got his lawyer’s hat on. ‘It’s not really my field but I’m pretty sure you can’t murder a cat.’

  ‘Bette, her tiger tabby, is dead. I found it in my room.’

  ‘You think Jack put it there?’

  My voice rises slightly, shaking as it does so. ‘How else do you think it got there? It was awful.’

  ‘Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘Definitely not. I’m sure Martha and Jack know who you are and if they see you with me…’

  ‘I hear you.’

  I look up as the door to Patsy’s house closes. I can still hear her weeping and sobbing the name of her dead cat over and over again.

  ‘Bette. Bette. Bette.’

  ‘How could you do something as shit as that?’ I round on Jack as he stands next to Martha in the hallway. ‘I know you’ve fallen out about the garden but how could you? How could you?’

  He levels a steely stare at me. ‘How do you know about our business with her and our garden?’

  His question takes me unawares. I try not to stutter. ‘I met her by chance the other day and she just told me. She seems to like to talk.’

  He straightens his man bun, which has tilted to the side in all the earlier uproar. ‘I’ll tell you what I told fruitcake next door. I didn’t touch her pussycat.’

  ‘Then how did it end up dead on the windowsill in my room?’

  He moves menacingly close to me. Martha tries half-heartedly to stop him. I stand my ground. ‘If you don’t like it you know what you can do: pack your gear and leave.’

  Oh, he’d love that. Not a chance.

  I shake my head in disgust and leave the room. As I near the stairs, the front door knocker goes.

  It’s the male officer.

  ‘Are you Lisa?’

  I nod.

  ‘I need to have a word with you.’

  That night I double knot my scarf around my ankle and lie down. The house sounds restless. Wood cries as it creaks on another floor and the pipe in my radiator ticks and gurgles.

  What a nasty day. Thankfully the talk with the police had been short, with him taking me at my word that I’d only found the cat, already dead. I hadn’t accused Jack of doing it because the truth was I had no proof. Unless Patsy pays for a post-mortem of her cat – I’m not even sure if you can do this – no one will ever know if Bette was poisoned.

  Poison. Is that what Jack has in store for me next? Surely not. Dead animals seem to be his thing. Nevertheless, I make up my mind to only eat ready meals and pre-prepared food and keep drinks in my room. I’ll hide the drinks away in the wardrobe, conscious that if Jack discovered I’ve broken the agreement not to keep food in my room it will give him the excuse he’s been looking for to boot me out.

  And that isn’t going to happen. I will not allow it to happen.

  A mouse brutally bashed in the head, death flies, poisoned cats, a grief-stricken, shrieking neighbour; my subconscious doesn’t need any help tormenting me tonight. No need for my usual girly groove with Amy tonight; I don’t need music to get me to sleep. I’m beyond tired. My bones feel like they’ve fled my body, leaving me a flopping mess.

  I’m drifting… drifting… I can hear Patsy wailing over the loss of Bette. I wake with a start and realise it really is her shouting outside. I go to the open window. She’s in her garden, clearly distraught, shouting ‘murderer’ at the top of her voice as if to no one in particular, like a drunk. Then it stops. Or am I dreaming? No, I’m not. I hear her back door slam shut. My gaze lingers on the shadowy spot where I found the corpse of her dead pet. I feel sick and my heart is pumping as if I’m running in terror.

  I go back to bed. Tie my leg. Lie down. And sleep.

  Bette is on the windowsill. Her fur’s matted, tangled and greasy with blood. Foam licks at her mouth and whiskers. She’s sitting up, staring at me. Her tail swishes to Amy’s ‘Love is a Losing Game’.

  ‘Murderer,’ she mouths at me.

  And again. ‘Murderer.’ Bette mouths ‘murderer’ at me and then again. I can feel my fingers digging into the duvet and my leg thrashing and pulling against my mum’s birthday scarf.

  This is how it begins.

  Bette whispers, ‘Scream all you like, no one’s coming… You’re dead, just like me… You’re dead’.

  Bette looks up at the skylight because someone must be there, and then behind her, and then at the door, because someone is coming. She leaps away through the dormer and then around whoever I sense is waiting out there on the roof.

  My heart’s bashing against my skin, almost ripping out. I have to get away.

  Get away.

  Or it will be the end.

  In the house a woman and children scream. The woman’s scream is like an animal howling in pain. Desperate footsteps pound in the bowels of the house and on all the stairs, where the noise merges to one continuous drumbeat of steps. There’s more screaming. Everyone’s fleeing and I have to flee too.

  On the landing below, I hesitate. There’s a whirl of shapes and figures around me and they’re wielding knives and needles and screaming at me. I call out for my mum but she doesn’t come. Where is she? Down in the hallway are the dead. Piles of them, covered in blood with anguished and shocked expressions on their faces. I can’t go down to where the dead are. Unbel
ievable pain grips me. I’m screaming. I’m falling.

  Falling…

  My eyes flash open. Oh God, I don’t know where I am. I’m shaking, panting, finding it hard to fill my lungs with air. I realise that I’m crouched down with my back against the wall on the second landing in the dark. My arms are locked tight, with the power of a lifeline, around my raised knees. I close my eyes. I’m in despair. Devastated. Can’t believe it. I’m sleepwalking again. Or, as I call it, awake-sleep; I remember what happens in each episode. It’s as if I’m awake, forced to follow where my feet take me, but I don’t have any control to stop it. It always ends the same: I fall asleep somewhere that isn’t my bed and wake up feeling like it’s the worst day of my life.

  That’s why I tie my scarf to the bed. To stop me from the dread of awake-sleep. Since I’d invented my homemade remedy of tying my leg to the bed the awake-sleep had vanished. Only a few times had I woken to find myself on the floor beside my bed, but at least I was still in the room.

  I had told Doctor Wilson about the nightmares but nothing about this or the real root of my problems. I am convinced if I had he would indeed think I’m mad.

  I bow my head; hopeless tears leak down my cold face. Why is this happening to me again? Why? I’m so scared.

  Something ice-cold touches my naked arm. I cry out as I desperately try to find out what it is. A small hand.

  ‘It’s just me.’ Martha’s head looms before me as if it there’s no body attached. Am I still in the land of awake-sleep?

  When she speaks again I know I’m not. ‘I’m going to put on one of the side lights.’

  No. No. My panic rises. I mustn’t let her. She’ll see… Warm orange bathes the landing. Bathes my exposed skin.

  I want to turn away so I don’t see the ‘O’ her mouth makes as she stares at my body. At the scars that slash across my arms and legs.

  I refuse to look at them, but say, ‘They’re ugly, aren’t they?’ My voice rasps, barely above a whisper.

  I hold my breath, waiting for what she will say. Alex had been the last person to see them while we made love. He was steadfast that it wasn’t the reason we’d parted company; I didn’t believe him. Who wants a girlfriend who looks as repulsive as me?

  Martha surprises me with her comment. ‘Let’s get you back upstairs. Don’t worry about Jack, he’s dead to the world.’

  I allow her to help me to my feet. I’m grateful for the arm she curves round my waist, giving me the much-needed strength to help me climb the stairs. The door of my room is shut. That’s what frustrates me about the awake-sleep; it’s as if the part of my brain that deals with small, everyday tasks still works – close the door, walk down the stairs, switch on the lights.

  My room is peaceful, quiet. No writing on the wall on display. No Bette, thank God. We both ease down onto the bed. The scarf hangs off the bed like a forlorn flag never to be raised up again. Traitor, I want to yell at it. How can you have let me down?

  Martha pulls it towards her. Runs it through her hands. ‘This is a beautiful.’

  ‘My mother gave it to me.’

  She turns her body to look fully at me. ‘Your mother?’

  The chill of whatever time it is settles in my bones. ‘She gave it to me when I was a teenager. Mum never said it was a family heirloom, but it seemed to have some special importance to her.’

  ‘I never knew my mother.’ Martha looks sad. Her face is made up as meticulously as if it were daytime. ‘My father did his best, but it was a rootless existence, being dragged from place to place. When I was a child I’d make up stories that if I had a mother I’d be settled, living in a proper home. You know, breakfast, dinner and bedtime stories always at the same time.’ She takes a breath. ‘How long have you been sleepwalking?’

  I run a hand through my hair. ‘Since I was a kid. It’s not sleepwalking to me because I remember everything I do.’ I smile ruefully at her.

  ‘How did you get the scars?’

  I gasp even though I know her question was bound to rear its head. ‘More childhood shit. Look, if you don’t mind—’

  ‘You don’t want to talk about it. I understand.’ She gets to her feet, the scarf still in her hands. ‘I’ll keep what happened tonight between us girls. No need for Jack to know.’

  After the door clicks closed behind her, I get up and do something I haven’t done in years. I flip the full-standing mirror to face me. I’ve kept it turned away from me since I moved in. I peel off my nightclothes and force myself to stare at my reflection. I know each of those scars off by heart. The three on my left leg, the one on the right, the two on my right arm and the biggest of all, the long one, a magnified lifeline across my stomach. Some are long, others short, the longest jagged. Puckered, discoloured. Macabre. The original freak show.

  At the group therapy session my parents had forced me to go to as a teenager to win the battle against my eating disorder, the therapist said the scars were the symptom not the problem. She was wrong. They were part of a set of problems that had blighted my life. Problems I wasn’t prepared to sit back and do nothing about anymore.

  I put my jim-jams back on. When I get to the bed I notice that Martha has left the scarf in a series of knots. It takes me a while to have an uninterrupted length of material flowing through my fingers.

  Time to sleep.

  I tie my leg to the bed.

  Chapter 15

  Iring the buzzer of Doctor Wilson’s studio. I had no intention of making any follow-up visit. But then, during the day while I was working on a project at work, something occurred to me that made me change my mind.

  My dad had said that Doctor Wilson is an old friend of his, dating back to their days studying medicine. That had to mean their relationship dated back to before I was born. And that might mean he’d know or had heard something along the way that might answer a few questions. What if Dad had asked his advice about me privately over the years?

  However, there was a wrinkle in my logic. Until recently I’d never in my life heard Doctor Wilson’s name mentioned at home or ever seen him at my parents’. Then again, my parents aren’t big social entertainers.

  And what was it Mum had said during my last visit to see them?

  ‘He considers himself almost a part of this family.’

  Bubbling with anticipation, I’d called Doctor Wilson to ask if there was any possibility he could fit me in this evening? Not in the least surprised by my change of mind or my urgent request to see him, he’d readily agreed.

  I’m eager to begin our session. I might be able to tease those longed-for answers out of him. Deduce them from his reaction to what I say. I realise that I’ll have to be careful because I don’t want him to think I’m just here to collect evidence and he’s obviously a very clever man. On the other hand, I’m past caring. If it comes to it, I’ll just ask him flat out: what do you know about my childhood? What do you know about how I really got these scars?

  Doctor Wilson comes to the door and takes me to his consulting room. This time I accept his offer of tea: chamomile to keep me nice and calm. I think about taking a chair this time so I can study his face but I don’t want to arouse suspicion. Soon I’m back on his couch, my hands clasped like an obedient patient. The man from my room doesn’t join me this time.

  Once again, Doctor Wilson opens his notebook and has his pen at the ready.

  He begins. ‘At the end of our last session, at the door, you said you feel as if you’re living someone else’s life. That your body doesn’t seem to be yours. Am I right?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  He writes and talks. ‘Why is that?’

  I’m careful about what I say. ‘Apparently, on my fifth birthday, we were holidaying on a friend’s farm down in Sussex. While the adults sat around a table in the garden, me and the other kids were playing chase in the farmyard. I climbed onto some farm machinery and fell into it. I was very badly injured and rushed to hospital where I was kept for several months while I recovere
d. As I was only five, I wasn’t a very good patient. I couldn’t understand what had happened, what was happening and why I couldn’t go home. I was also in a lot of pain. The nights were especially bad on a dark ward with strangers all around me. With children weeping in the small hours and the shadow of adults passing on the floor by my bed. When I was better and went home again, I was OK for a while. Then the nightmares began.’

  I deliberately pause. ‘What I’ve just told you is what my parents told me. I don’t remember anything – I mean anything – about it.’

  I steal sly glances at his face to see if there is any reaction. There isn’t.

  He pointedly observes, ‘You sound as if you doubt their story?’

  He’s good. I’ve said nothing to suggest that but he knows I don’t believe it.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Do you have any recollection of that day at all? Anything that would suggest your parents’ version of what happened isn’t true?’

  I don’t answer him directly. ‘I’ve got a very clear memory of three things but I don’t know if it was on that day. I hear a woman screaming. Actually, not screaming, it was more like howling, like a wounded animal.’

  I stare desperately at the ceiling as the horror of it shreds my mind. It’s so terrible, like her guts are being ripped out, her life torn forever apart.

  I make myself carry on despite the taste of bile in my throat. ‘Then there was silence. Children start screaming – high-pitched, deafening – in terror. Then there was silence. Finally, I remember a man screaming but his screams are different. A sobbing kind of screaming, like his heart’s breaking. Then there was silence.’

  Now I’m silent. I catch a glimpse of the doctor’s face. His mouth twists to the side; his eyes blink rapidly as he thinks.

  ‘None of what you remember is incompatible with your parents’ account, is it? If you’d fallen into machinery and been seriously injured, women, men and children would be screaming. Your mother would have been distressed, no doubt manifested in her screaming. If that had happened to my child, I certainly would be.’ His gaze becomes more forceful. ‘I hope this isn’t too personal a question, but do you have scars on your body?’