by Daisy Pearce
There is a pause and I can hear Frankie moving about in the kitchen. The cupboard doors open and close. He appears in the doorway, hands in his pockets.
‘Stella, you’ve barely any food. Your milk went off two days ago.’
‘I’m sorry. I keep meaning to go to town.’
‘I’m not . . . Look, I’m not trying to patronise you – but what have you been living on? Dust and air?’
I press my hands lightly to my stomach where I can feel the bony protrusion of my ribs. I have been eating – I see the evidence of it: dirty plates, empty packets, apple cores growing fuzzy in the bin – but it has no rhythm, and I can’t remember when I last felt hungry.
‘Tell you what,’ he continues, ‘I’ll go and get you some stuff, shall I?’
‘Can I come with you? I don’t want to be on my own.’
‘Of course. You’ve had a shock and a shitload of adrenalin. I’d probably feel the same.’
Frankie whistles as he goes back into the kitchen, and I momentarily entertain myself with the thought that I am going with him because I want the company. I tell myself that it is because I do not want to be alone and that is partly true. I can tell myself that because it is easier than entertaining the paranoid daydream that Frankie will call Marco once he has left the house. Informing him, telling on me. She can’t cope, and she’s not eating, and she nearly died today. I shiver.
‘I have to make a quick stop,’ Frankie tells me as we walk to the van. ‘Shouldn’t take more than five minutes. I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet.’
Although the fog has lifted now the sun is still a hazy disc in the sky and the air is bright and cold. We drive into town, parking in a little mews facing a row of workshops and lock-ups. The clock on the dashboard shows me it is nearly four o’clock in the afternoon. And here is a new sensation, so unfamiliar to me that at first I do not recognise it. I feel hungry.
Frankie tells me he will just be a minute and disappears through one of the dark doorways opposite. I climb from the van and walk over the cobbles in a circle, head tilted to the clear blue sky. I only see him as I turn back, the man standing and watching me just a few feet away. He looks like a low-rent Johnny Cash, greatly weathered. His face is deeply lined, long brackets about his mouth. A geriatric teddy-boy, hair slicked back into an oily pompadour. Beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt a carton of cigarettes is just visible. His mouth is hanging open slightly, eyes wide. I know that look. It’s fear. I raise my hand, and he takes a step back, crossing himself as he does so. Forehead, chest, shoulder, shoulder. He can’t take his eyes off me, and I’m starting to feel uncomfortable, wishing Frankie would hurry back.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m just waiting for someone.’
‘You’re her.’
I get it. I nod, slowly. Katie Marigold. He’s about the right age to have seen it as an adult after all.
‘Yes, I am. Older now, but no wiser, ha-ha.’
He squints across the courtyard, shielding his eyes from the sun. ‘You,’ he says, and spits between forked fingers. ‘You’re more real than I am.’
Movement behind him; it’s Frankie coming out through the doorway. He stops when he sees the man I am talking to, and I have a moment to read the expression which crosses his face. He’s rattled. Why?
‘Stella, cool. You’ve met Jim Kennecker.’
Kennecker. I think on it for a second. Then, of course. The caretaker. I hold my hand out to him but he stares down at it, dumb. Frankie puts a large hand on the man’s scrawny shoulder.
‘You should probably get inside, Jim. Phone’s ringing.’
‘I was sorry to hear about your spell in hospital,’ I tell him. He looks at me, scratching his lip with a thumbnail and I know, I know, that what will be coming out of his mouth next is a lie.
‘Oh – yuh. My heart. I have a bad heart.’
‘Right.’
I look to Frankie who, I realise, is holding something. It is a lead, and at the end of that lead is a dog, a collie with amber eyes.
‘Uh, Stella, this is who I wanted you to meet. This is Blue.’
‘Hello, boy,’ I say. ‘Hello, Blue.’
‘Are you okay with dogs? Not allergic?’
‘No, it’s fine. Hello.’ I’m scratching him behind his ears, patting his flanks. Blue is standing up now, tail wagging. As I stand he nuzzles against me.
‘I’m sorry about Jim,’ Frankie says in a low voice as we climb into the van. ‘He puts some work my way occasionally, rents me the space over the workshop. Sometimes he can get confused.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, but I can see that neither of us believes that, and I’m relieved when we leave the workshops behind. His heart, he’d said. But it hadn’t been, had it? Not according to Frankie. What was it he’d told Marco and me that first day? My brain is soft as a cushion.
By the time we get back to Chy an Mor it is full dark, and I am ravenous. The moon is a bone-white rind hanging between the trees. In the kitchen Frankie is removing cartons from a plastic bag, stacking them next to him on the table.
I study him as he sifts through the cupboards, removing plates and cutlery from the drawers, occasionally talking to Blue. His skin is dark, tanned from summers of work outdoors. His eyes crinkle into amused half-moons when he smiles. Frankie brings plates to the table, catching me yawning.
‘Are you staying for dinner?’ I ask.
‘Do you want me to?’
‘Yes.’
He studies me indifferently. I know I’m not his problem and I tell him so.
He laughs. ‘You’re no one’s problem. What a strange thing to say.’
‘I just don’t want to be by myself.’
‘That’s why I brought Blue over, to keep you company. He can do the night shifts, look after the place for you.’
‘Here, you mean?’
‘Where else?’
He lowers himself into the chair opposite and his eyes don’t leave me. I reach across the table and put my hand on top of his.
‘Right now I just want some human company. Do you understand?’
He nods. I am embarrassed by my neediness and wish I could have a drink. I miss it, glasses of white wine, slightly frosted. Long stems of gin and tonic poured over ice. The crisp, slightly cloying taste of cider. Whisky, peaty and earthy and amber-coloured. All those ghosts of cigarettes and beer and spirits and nights which bled into mornings. I miss drinking. I miss my friends.
Later, when we are clearing away the plates, Frankie retrieves my phone from beneath the table, handing it over to me.
‘You know, they have satellites that can pinpoint your exact location just from your mobile signal,’ he says. ‘Every time you switch that thing on, you’re never alone.’
I stare down at it in my hand. It’s so bulky and unfamiliar still, this phone. What had happened to mine again? Lost, Marco had said. Like my friends.
‘What about me?’ I ask him. ‘Can I find someone else through their phone? See where they are?’
‘Depends. I guess you could. Who did you have in mind?’
Joey Fraser, I think immediately, remembering the phone call of earlier, the way his voice had snaked into my ear. I heard you’re losing your mind. About time, I’d say. Surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
‘Stella? You okay?’
‘Huh?’
‘You’re away with the fairies.’
‘I’m sorry. I heard some bad news today. An old friend died. Actually, not a friend, not really. We worked together. Long time ago.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’
‘Drove her car right into a tree. The Marigold! Curse, they’re calling it. One by one we’re all dropping like flies.’
‘You don’t believe that though, do you? Curses, I mean.’ Frankie leans his knuckles on the table, voice soft. ‘Because I can put your mind at rest there. They’re not real.’
‘Oh! I almost forgot!’ I say, and hand Frankie the photograph and the note I’d found beneath the box of eggs. Fran
kie holds them inches from his face, shaking his head in puzzlement.
‘This is weird. You said they just turned up? Out of the blue?’
‘That’s right. Do you know anything about it?’
‘Nope. Don’t recognise the writing. Don’t know who this is either. Do you?’
I shake my head, disappointed.
‘It’s horrible. Looks like someone beat her up pretty bad. You need to go to the police, Stella. This is more than trying to scare you. This is an out and out threat.’
‘They won’t do anything. I’ve had this before, with a stalker. He used to send me stuff to my home when I was a kid. Seven or eight years old. I was – sort of famous for a while, on the television. He was a fan. He signed his letters “Uncle”. The envelopes would be full of really weird stuff. The police said they couldn’t do anything until he actually did something to physically harm me. The threats weren’t enough. We moved out not long after, and it seemed to stop.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Lost a bit of faith in the process after that, to be honest.’
I consider telling Frankie about the phone calls, the ones in which the silence bristles with menace and static, but instead I pick up the photo and slide it with the note between the pages of the Reader’s Digest Book of Perennials. Frankie watches me carefully, his hands in his pockets. Something is nagging at me, I can feel it persistently, like a toothache. It wasn’t there before, when I first arrived.
‘You’ll keep Blue here with you tonight then, yes?’
I nod.
‘He’s a loud barker, an excellent mouser and a rampant breaker of wind. So be warned. I’ve bought him some food. It’s in the fridge.’
Blue is looking over at us, head tilted.
Frankie winks at him. ‘You’ll look after this lady tonight, boss? Make sure she sleeps safe?’
Blue whines down in his throat and wags his tail. Frankie and I laugh.
‘Good boy.’ He turns to me. ‘Found him hiding under my truck about six years ago. He spent nine days under there, shivering. I had to pass him food and water.’
‘How did you get him out?’
‘Persistence. I’m a dogged bastard.’ Frankie flashes me that easy, roguish grin again.
‘Poor Blue. Poor baby.’
‘Oh, keep talking, darlin’, he’s going to love you. If you need more wood, you’ll find a stack of it in the shed. Don’t lose the key, it’s the only one. And – uh – careful as you go in. There’s piles of boxes in there, really old stuff.’
We move into the hallway and I switch on the light. Frankie whistles long and low.
‘Wow. How long has that been there?’
A huge patch of damp covers the wall from floor to ceiling. It is black and wet and ugly-looking. Frankie presses his hand against it, but the thought of touching it revolts me, turning my stomach. Blue flattens himself low to the ground, walking down the hallway in a crouching gait. I stare at it.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.’
‘It almost looks’ – Frankie is hesitant, turning his head this way and that – ‘like a person. Wouldn’t you say? Like the outline of a figure.’
I bristle with a sudden chill. He’s right, of course, that is exactly what it looks like. A looming silhouette beaded with condensation as though something were pressing through from the other side of the wall.
Frankie fixes me with a firm gaze as he gets ready to leave. ‘You have my number. You can call me if you need to. If I don’t answer just keep trying – I sleep like the dead.’
‘Won’t your wife mind?’
He looks down at the plain band on his wedding finger, almost as if he is surprised to see it.
‘If she does she’s going to need to use a Ouija board to tell me about it.’
It takes a moment for me to make the connection.
‘Oh, Christ, oh, Frankie. I’m so sorry. I feel like – oh – I’m so sorry.’
‘Well, you didn’t know, and it was a long time ago now. Take that look off your face, Stella, you’ve done nothing wrong. She had a brain aneurysm as sudden and lethal as being hit by a fourteen-wheeler. There was no warning, no history and no second chance. I’ve made my peace with it, so you mustn’t worry. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Again, with feeling.’
‘Okay.’
Chapter 18
It has been just three days since I stopped taking my pills – the ‘drifters’ – and I’m wide awake. It feels like a circuit has blown in the soft tissue of my brain. My thoughts knot and tangle and the clarity, when it comes, is so stark I immediately shrink from it. The room is cold. Blue, lying at the foot of my bed, lifts his head and barks once, sharply. He looks at the ceiling and stands, whining uneasily, ears flat against his skull. The air feels electrically charged, an imperceptible buzz. I check the time, it is nearly a quarter to three in the morning, and I am starting to shiver. Blue begins to pace, and I cross the room to open the door for him, pulling my blanket around my shoulders. In the hallway the smell is rising like heat. Something like lakes and deep water slightly corrupted. Vegetative and overripe. With the light on I can see another huge damp patch on the stairwell. It covers nearly a third of the wall, right down to the skirting boards. I can see the places where it has dripped down onto the carpet. It looks to me like a figure in profile, one hand raised. I think of immurement, of being walled in. I can even see cracks in the plaster spreading out like tendrils of hair.
Blue is whining downstairs, back and forth in front of the back door. I open it for him and he disappears into the dark garden. I switch on the lamp and see another damp patch on the wall, blooming like a toxic fungus. Another in the sitting room, slightly hidden by the sofa, so wet it is almost black. I call for Blue but my voice has shrunk. It is a whisper. ‘Blue.’ There is a patch of water on the floor beside the back door. I’m sure it wasn’t there when I let the dog outside. I smell it but it is not urine, it is briny and rich. Seawater.
‘Blue!’
This time I hang in the doorway, peering into the darkness. There is no movement in the garden, no barking. The rain has stopped but the branches are still dripping, I can hear it.
‘Blue?’
I go outside. The moon is barely visible behind the clouds and there are no stars, just a perfect darkness. I cannot see the dog anywhere and I think of the cliffs and their lethal drop-offs and I am suddenly afraid. I call him again and turn back to the house thinking I should go after him, thinking I should get some wellies and a torch.
It’s not the movement I see first, although something has drawn my eyes to the upper window, my bedroom window.
There is a hand pressed against the glass, long, pale fingers which leave no residue, ghost-white. I stare and stare and then something shoots past me, moving at speed, and I see it’s Blue cowering in the doorway, and when I look up again there is nothing there at all.
The next afternoon I take Blue to the beach. We take the main road, walking carefully along the overgrown grass verge. The bluster of the wind lifts my hair, fussing it about my ears. Blue walks ahead a little way, always throwing cautious glances behind him as if to reassure himself I am still there. By the time we reach the outskirts of town I am so hot I have tied my jumper round my waist. I have noticed that the waistband of my jeans is roomy and my engagement ring has worked loose, sliding to the first knuckle of my finger. I must remember to eat.
‘Blue!’
He is sniffing around the wall of the house selling the eggs, the one with the old Range Rover marooned on the grass.
‘Blue!’
Too late. His head lifts and he sees a chicken in the yard, scratching in the dirt. He barks once and takes off, bounding over the low wall and into the front garden. The chicken makes a noise like an engine sputtering and lurches for the doorway. Blue utters another volley of barks, and I call him from the road. ‘Come back! Come back, Blue!’ Just for a moment I think he will, but then he pushes his nose again
st the gap in the door and slides through it, following the chicken into the house. I am just in time to see his tail disappear into a thick wedge of darkness. I stand there for a moment, breathless. Any second I expect to see him creep back out, looking up at me with a guilty expression, but after a minute has passed I realise I am going to have to go and get him. I can remember the way the woman in the doorway had looked at me, the way she had lifted her red hands. A warning, or a bloodied supplication. Lady Macbeth. Head down, I cross the yard quickly.
The doorbell is hidden beneath a screen of ivy. The button is missing, leaving just a small black hole like the pupil of an eye. I knock and wait. The red paint of the door looks new but the frame around it is rotting, the soft wood splintering away. This close I can see that the house is in a state of quite advanced disrepair. The windows are streaked with bird shit and dirt, and most of the panes are cracked. Gaps in the roof like a mouthful of rotten teeth. Brown, scorched grass, moss stippling the walls. A chicken appears from a little outhouse and pecks at the ground by my feet. One of its claws is shrunken and deformed, curled against its belly.
I push open the front door. Looking in, I can see a length of faded red carpet, worn wooden floorboards. There is an archway to the left of the stairs leading, I assume, towards the back of the house, to the kitchen or the dining room. There’s a closed door immediately to my left, and next to it a telephone mounted to the wall, the old-fashioned type with a rotary dial. There are no pictures or ornaments or decoration of any kind. It smells warm and musty, like a sunlit barn. I call out.
‘Hello? Blue?’
I am walking slowly down the hallway, listening. I can see holes in the wall where the plaster has fallen out in great chunks. It crunches beneath my feet. There is a sudden clatter just up ahead behind the closed door, something falling to the floor. I walk towards it beneath an archway where plaster cherubs gaze at me with sightless eyes. I push the door open and go into the kitchen.
It is full of chickens. A large black bantam is roosting in the sink. Others clutter the shelves and scratch on the surface of the table. A pot rack is suspended over the table and the metal pans rattle together tunelessly as more birds settle on the bars. A drift of snowy white feathers like snowflakes. Everything is covered in bird shit, white and hard and cracked like old porcelain. Blue is darting about the room, mouth agape while the hens shriek and shuffle. I make to grab one to lift it away from him, and it pecks at the ridges of my hand, where the skin is thin and easily torn. I cry out, dropping the bird, cradling my injured hand to my chest.
