Spare Room: a twisty dark psychological thriller

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Her eyes squeeze tight as she fights with her demons. ‘I don’t know. Your father does and I think Doctor Wilson does too. But I don’t.’

  ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’ I’m leaning over her now in outrage, my short, wild breath lashing her.

  Her eyes flash open with such twisted sorrow I stumble back. ‘I. Don’t. Know.’ Her torment echoes round and round the room.

  Then an awful stillness almost suffocates me from head to toe as my brain rewinds. Mum’s words slowly make their way from my ears to my heart. ‘Adopted? I’m adopted?’ I sound like I’m practising a foreign language.

  The woman whose heart beats in the chair near me isn’t really my mum? Someone has swung a sledgehammer into my chest because the pain is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.

  ‘You’re not our natural child. We adopted you. I’ve loved you with my whole heart since the first time I saw you.’

  She rocks on the chair, tears streaming down her face. I can’t speak. Can’t cry. Only blinding fury has a place inside me. Not at the people I have called mother and father, but at me. Why did it never occur to me to think that might be part of the puzzle?

  Since the day you came into our lives. Hadn’t Mum said that to me when she and Dad had visited me at my house? Hadn’t I questioned it then? Why didn’t I take it all the way and figure it out or press them further? And where’s my birth certificate? Why did I never think to ask that question? All the records I checked and I never thought of that?

  I have so many questions but they are jumbled up in my mind. I can’t see a straight path through them. My mother tries to help. Except she’s not my mum, of course. ‘I don’t know where your real parents are. Or if you have brothers or sisters. Your father knows more; he’ll probably be able to tell you.’

  Mum flinches as my fingers dig desperately into her trembling knee. ‘Does he know what happened in that house? On my fifth birthday?’

  ‘There’s no point in pretending anymore.’ She’s drowned in a daze; I’m not sure if she even sees me anymore.

  I feel utterly lost. Furiously angry, but not sure who at anymore. Straightened out but totally confused while at the same time I feel like I’m looking at a world that makes sense for the first time. But then again, it doesn’t. I still don’t know what happened in the house. I have to know that.

  I think I know the answer to this question but I’ve been tripped up by assuming things before. ‘Who is he?’

  The woman who calls me daughter is in her own private nightmare. ‘You understand why we did this, don’t you?’

  She’s pleading, begging, no doubt holding her arms out for forgiveness. Well, she’ll be holding them out for a very long time.

  ‘Who is he? My real father?’

  My mum – who isn’t my mum; God, this is so messed up – pushes out of the chair. It rocks back on its legs as I tumble back onto my bum. She’s at the door, but I catch her before she can leave. I spin her to face me.

  I growl, ‘Who is my dad?’

  Mum tries to shake free. ‘Lisa, let me go.’

  ‘Not until you answer me.’

  We start to struggle. God forgive me but I slam her into the wall. Winded, she uses her palms against my chest to heave me back. I won’t be budged, not now. Other hands grab my shoulder and waist and rip me away.

  ‘Let me go. Let me go.’

  They won’t.

  Mum escapes through the doorway. No. No. I can’t let her go.

  She’s gone as I scream, ‘Who is my real father?’

  And my real mother? Who hugged and held me before Barbara Kendal did?

  I’ve slept again. I’m dejected; beat down by the exploding dirty bomb Mum detonated in this room. Adopted. One word that has changed my life forever. Where do I come from? Who gave birth to me? I have my suspicions, of course, but my journey has taken so many turns I’m not taking anything for granted. At least Mum told me the truth. I should be grateful for that. Mum? Do I keep calling her that?

  I hear voices outside my room. The cast of the sky outside has the shadow of the beginnings of the evening. The door opens and a doctor steps inside and closes the door.

  ‘Lisa?’

  My heart sinks. I was hoping it was going to be Alex.

  ‘Look, we want you to get better as quickly as possible,’ he continues, ‘but if we’re going to do that we need your help and that of your family. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And that means we all have rules we need to stick to.’ My spirits plunge further; he’s tumbled about the phone.

  ‘I did advise your father that it’s unhelpful for you to see visitors for a few days,’ he carries on, ‘apart from him and your mother. Unfortunately, he’s neglected to tell your brother and he seems to be a very confident young man who won’t take no for an answer. In the circumstances, I’m willing to allow him to make a brief visit but I’m afraid it needs to be supervised, and I’d be grateful if you could explain to him that in future we expect our rules to be observed.’

  Brother? I’ve just lost a mother and gained a brother?

  Before I can figure out what the heck is going on the doctor opens the door and escorts Alex in. Oh, that brother. I resist the urge to triumphantly grin.

  Alex wears his unhappy face. He sits on the armchair near the bed while the doctor stands back with his arms folded.

  Alex turns to him. ‘Can we have some privacy please?’

  ‘That’s not possible, I’m afraid. Lisa is very unwell.’

  Alex is cold and curt. ‘I’m a lawyer. I’m familiar with human rights legislation as it affects families and privacy. Are you?’

  The doctor’s nostrils flare as he seethes. He stalls before displaying the fingers and thumb of one hand, in the air. ‘Five minutes only.’

  He goes but I suspect he’s got his ear pressed against the door.

  I give Alex a knowing smile. ‘I thought you were in commercial law and looked after dodgy deals with Eastern Europe, not human rights legislation.’

  Alex shrugs. ‘He doesn’t know that.’ He takes my hand. ‘What’s happened, Lisa?’

  ‘They…’ I realise I’m about to go off on a rant about a conspiracy involving my parents, Wilson and Martha to get me locked up in a lunatic asylum but I realise how that might sound, so I change tack. ‘I’ve been sectioned.’

  Alex purses his lips. ‘I see. And what do you think about that?’

  I nearly shout but manage to force my voice down. ‘Are you serious? Can’t you see what’s going on here?’

  He’s searching for words. ‘Well, be honest. Given what’s happened, perhaps it’s for the best.’

  Best! Someone needs to ban that word.

  I snatch my hand away and flop back. I’m not ready to share Mum’s bombshell news with him. ‘Not you as well? Are you in on it too? With those other creeps?’

  He remains calm. ‘I’m not in on anything. I just want you to be safe and right now, this looks like the safest place for you to be.’

  Fury laces my every word as I sit back up. ‘They want me out of the house because I’m closing in on the truth. Can’t you see that?’

  He sounds like a lawyer now. ‘Who wants you out of the house?’

  ‘My dad knew where my room was.’

  He’s confused. ‘I don’t get what you mean.’

  ‘Admittedly I was preoccupied, but I don’t recall Martha and Jack telling or showing him where it was. I might be wrong, but he confidently took the stairs to my room.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  My head shakes and throbs. ‘I don’t know. What I do know is the puzzle pieces are starting to show themselves and the house is the only thing that will help me put them together. Look, I don’t need a legal consultation at one hundred quid an hour. If you can’t help, you might as well use the door.’

  He looks around the room. Sighs and catches my eye. ‘Yes, you’re probably right; they want you out of the house. But I’m g
oing to be honest with you; I want you out of that house too. I’ve been plain and upfront about that. It’s dangerous. Terrible things have happened in there and they might happen again. Meanwhile, while you’re in here, they’re not going to happen. That’s why I think you should lie back and relax. Forget the house for a while. It’ll still be there when you come out.’

  ‘No chance. I’m going back with or without your help.’

  His hand fiddles in his pocket and he takes out the Eternity perfume bottle and thrusts it at me. ‘Asking me to buy perfume? If that isn’t a sign you’re not well, I don’t know what is.’

  ‘It’s a gift for someone who did me a good turn in here.’ I remember the woman’s heartbreaking story. ‘It will do wonders for her, more than any medication will.’

  He looks pensive. ‘Remember when I met you on the high street and you were acting weird?’

  I reluctantly nod.

  ‘What exactly were you seeing?’

  I don’t want to go back there but somehow manage to make myself describe all the images that were in my mind – the shadows, shapes, the darkness and the flipside of beauty and the world being the most amazing place to be. I take him through what I saw in the dining room.

  He now appears shaken up. ‘Listen, I’ve been asking around. What you describe sounds like the classic symptoms of a mind hallucinating. An acid trip.’

  ‘Wh… what? Acid?’ To say I’m stunned is the understatement of the year.

  ‘Did you take it deliberately to expand your consciousness and work things out that way? An extremely dangerous thing to do, I might add.’

  I’m beyond affronted. ‘I bloody well did not. I’m not a junkie if this is where this is going.’

  He’s matter-of-fact. ‘There’s another possibility. Jack or Martha or both might have spiked your food to send you over the edge and get you put in here. Do you think that’s a possibility?’

  I’m horrified and alarmed at what he’s suggesting. ‘No, I don’t. I don’t touch anything in that house.’

  He nods. ‘Anything at all?’

  I rack my brains. ‘I’ve got water in my room.’

  I suddenly come to life. My mind flashes back to Martha standing at the bottom of the stairs that lead to my room after my confrontation with Jack in the garden. Is that what she’d been doing? Coming back from my room after drugging my bottles of water? I see myself drinking it just before I saw Alex at Patsy’s, when I got back to my room preceding the incident in the dining room… and each time it was followed by the scary, strange feeling.

  ‘Do you think Martha could have fiddled with it? Spiked it with LSD? Jack’s a drug dealer—’

  ‘He’s a what?’ explodes from Alex.

  I wave his question away; we can sort through that one later.

  ‘Jack would be able to quickly get his hands on some.’ If Martha and Jack were present I’d slowly squeeze their necks at the same time. How could they do that to me? Or maybe Martha asked him to get it and didn’t let on what she was planning to do? ‘She sent me tripping—’

  ‘No, it’s only a possibility,’ Alex quickly butts in. ‘But the thing is, people who are willing to do something like that are going to stop at nothing. You see? You can’t go back to that house. You don’t know what they might do next time.’

  I throw the covers back as a statement of intent. ‘I don’t care. I’m going back. Now help me out.’

  He looks pained. ‘You know, Lisa, when I was at law school, we had a young student. Brilliant boy, top of the class, going to be a big star at the Old Bailey, the lot. The thing is, he liked to dabble in stuff. Nothing too serious but he was convinced that he could open doors with hallucinogenic drugs. He said objects came to life and started talking to him.’

  Just like the chairs and cabinet in the dining room did to me.

  Alex resumes: ‘You know, answers to the universe and all that. Well, he was wrong, he couldn’t. It’s a long story but he’s been in and out of places like this ever since. He works in a charity shop now, two days a week. You were on the edge already, before all this; now you’re hanging off it. If they pull any more stunts in that house, you’ll fall off and you might never come back. Now, can’t you see? You can’t go back there.’

  Of course, he’s right. But what he doesn’t understand is that I’ve been living in my own private hell since the age of five. And I’ll be living in it forever more if I don’t get the truth. In and out of places like this or working in charity shops. It makes no difference to me. But at least if I go back to the house, I’ve got a chance of breaking out and being free. Or maybe not. But I have to try.

  I come up with a way to satisfy his conscience and his concern for my welfare. ‘If I go back home to my house and promise to stay there, will you help me get out of here?’

  He brightens slightly. ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll do it but you have to help me get out.’

  He waits for a long time before getting up. ‘OK. Let me go and demand to see the paperwork for your case. There’s bound to be a mistake in it, there always is. And if there isn’t, I’ll front it out and pretend there is one.’

  He goes to the door. As he does so, something occurs to me. ‘Alex?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What did you mean something terrible happened in that house?’

  He averts his eyes. ‘Oh nothing. I was thinking of your possible acid trips and Bette, that’s all.’

  Chapter 35

  Thirty minutes later, there’s a veritable posse in my room. A man in a suit is clutching paperwork. A secretary, a doctor and a nurse are standing by. Alex is standing near my bed with a copy of the paperwork in his hand. He’s circled the important bits in rings of red ink.

  The man in the suit is furious. ‘Your brother here seems to think we’re holding you against your will. I’ve explained to him that despite any discrepancies he claims to have found in the documents, you’re here as a voluntary patient anyway. Would you be kind enough to explain that to him?’

  I take great pleasure in telling him, ‘No, it’s not. I’m very much here against my will. I’m a prisoner.’

  The man in the suit says nothing. Alex tells him, ‘Even if she were here voluntarily, no assessment has taken place, which means you have no right to take her belongings away or deny her access to her mobile phone and no right to section her.’

  Alex turns the screws again. ‘I’ll have an injunction on you in the morning. And who knows how a story about how this hospital is riding roughshod over the law will have ended up in the newspapers. I’m sure you’ll agree that for a hospital with such a well-deserved reputation for excellence, that would have very unfortunate consequences.’

  The man in the suit hesitates. Then he walks out without a word followed by everyone else. Alex and I are left alone.

  But they’ve left the door open for us.

  ‘Do you really think Martha spiked my water?’

  We’re sitting in his car on a lay-by near the M25. We’ve driven about thirty miles and there’s another fifteen or so until we get back to my house.

  He looks out of the window. ‘Well, there are three possibilities. One is you took it yourself but that would be so crazy, I can’t believe that would have happened. Or your mental state meant you ended up having hallucinations that resembled exactly those that you get after taking LSD. Or Martha spiked the water. That’s the only other explanation.’

  ‘Yeah. That must be it.’

  ‘Do you think Jack’s in on it?’

  Cars accelerate by at such a speed that litter and plastic cups blow across the lay-by. The sound of their engines hum low in the distance, builds up until they zoom by and then the noise fades away again. They have sidelights on for the early evening gloom. It feels like we’re at the end of the world.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I can’t help thinking he’s too stupid to be a conspirator. Plus, he more or less told me he only wanted me gone because he thought I was an undercover
cop or working for a rival dealer.’ I make a nasty sound at the back of my throat. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if Martha planted the whole idea in his head. She’s the one pulling the strings. Martha somehow knows what I’ve been up to from the start. Martha wears Bette’s name tag around her neck.’

  Alex recoils with disgust. ‘You have got to be joking.’

  ‘I know she wants me gone, but there has got be something seriously wrong with the woman.’

  Alex scowls, cocking his head to the side. ‘What difference does it make to her? She can’t be involved in your fifth birthday; she wasn’t there. What’s her stake in this unfortunate business?’

  ‘She was at the front door the day of my birthday. I know she was.’

  Alex grins, but he’s not happy. ‘You trust your acid trip over the census and the electoral roll?’

  I’m left with no choice but to say, ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘It makes no sense at all.’

  No. But it will do.

  ‘So, you think they’re all in it together then? Martha, your father and Doctor Wilson?’

  ‘What other explanation is there?’ The pain in my head has multiplied. ‘I get the connection between my dad and Doctor Wilson. They’re old mates and they’re working in tandem. But I don’t know why. Wilson claims Martha’s a patient of his. A bit too much of a coincidence for my liking. Look, I really need to get home.’

  ‘Do you though? The thing is, it’ll be five minutes before Wilson and your dad find out I’ve sprung you from the hospital. They’re probably hard at work getting a new order ready to have you put away again. Why don’t you come back to my place and lay low for a couple of days? They won’t find you there.’

  He’s so hopeful that I lack the heart to say no. ‘I’ll think about it. I need to go home. But can you do something first?’

  He’s suspicious again. ‘What?’

  ‘Just hold me. Please hold me.’

  His arms embrace me in an instant. Sobs, so terrifyingly loud and shuddering that I’m sure my body will snap in two, erupt from me. The horror of what my dad did to me, what he allowed Doctor Wilson to do, is the worst type of terror I’ve ever felt. Far worse than the nightmares, the awake-sleep, the screams, the knives, the gigantic needles. The worst type of betrayal. No, what’s worse is that they never told me I wasn’t really theirs. I was part of another family, my blood family, at one time. Why didn’t they tell me?