by Shock Totem
Penny unloaded the contents of the newly positioned washing machine into the newly positioned dryer. “Are you allowed to be on your feet?”
“You know me, I don’t take advice well, do I?” He punctuated the sentence with an amused expression that made it seem as if he was talking about someone else. “Do you like the new arrangement?”
She started the dryer and stood up, her 26-year-old knees cracking as if they were twice that age. “I do, yes. There wasn’t enough light down there. Sometimes it was a little bit frightening.”
“Well, no need to be frightened anymore.”
She thought of the marks she’d seen on the stairs and shivered. “Are you really putting in a gym?”
“Yes, I think if this little incident doesn’t scare me into doing something about this”— he patted his belly—“I don’t think anything will. On a scale of one to ten, how overweight do you think I am?”
Penny shrugged. “Well, you’re not small, are you?”
“No, true,” he said, affably enough, although his gaze shifted to the work surface, making Penny wonder if she’d hurt his feelings.
“Thank you, Alan, for moving things. It is nicer for me.”
“The other night I dreamt about that cellar. It’s what got me thinking about changing it.”
“What was the dream about?”
“Snakes. There were snakes in the cellar.”
Before she could ask anything else, Alan pointed at her chest. “What is that badge for?” he said.
“It’s the Green Party,” Penny said, touching the metal button pinned to her cardigan. “I’m helping them campaign this year.”
“That’s the party about the environment, isn’t it? Sustainability and all that.”
“That’s some of what it stands for. It’s a real party, though, so it has policies.”
“Do you vote for them?”
She nodded. “I campaign for them, too. I could get you some literature if you’d like?”
“Yes, that would be brilliant, actually. Thank you.” Looking pleased with himself, he stood up and left the kitchen.
• • •
After her three hours were done, Penny set off on the long walk between Alan’s house and her flat. She switched on her phone and was greeted by a small symphony of sounds notifying her of messages and missed calls from her father, her sister, and other family members.
Mom.
Too concerned to check the messages, she immediately phoned her father. He picked up on the second ring. “Penelope, my love.”
“What’s happened? Is Mom okay?”
“She’s fine, we’re all fine. We are all lost for words, Penelope. This man you work for, Mr Roscoe. You must thank him for us, please. This gift is incredible. Tell him that he is a wonderful man.”
• • •
Donald sat at the breakfast bar, looking over some papers. The knot of his askew tie looked too tight and his hair was uncombed; Penny couldn’t remember a time when he had looked anything other than immaculate.
“Is Alan around?” she said.
“You’re here early. He’s been forced back into bed again, unsurprisingly.”
“Is he okay?”
“Yes, yes. He had a funny turn last night, which is what you get if you don’t properly wait to recover after a major operation. I mean he’s on all these drugs, he’s still bleeding from his wounds...yet will he stay still?”
The door to Alan’s room was open again. Inside, Penny noticed the hospital smell had weakened. In its place was the smell of plug-in air freshener, and just below that, a slightly rotten aroma that she worried might be coming from Alan.
He sat propped up against the headboard. She went to his side and handed him the leaflets. “There’s a manifesto in there as well, which is more detailed, if you’re interested.”
“I am. Thank you,” he said. “I’ll get stuck into these straight away.”
“Okay,” she said.
Alan looked at her expectantly, and she looked back unsure if she should mention anything. He spoke first. “Have you talked to your family?”
“Yes, I have. I just don’t quite know what to say. They are just so grateful. I mean, the amount they spent on her first operation... And the chemotherapy.”
“It’s the least I could do, Penny. It really is. And it’s just the start. I’ll pay for anything else that comes up and I’ll make sure that the best treatment is made available to your family. It’s something I should have done a long time ago.”
“Alan, it’s too much. It’s more than any of us could afford in a lifetime.”
“Respectfully, Penny, that is the point. You work very hard for me and in the time I’ve known you, I’ve never given you a bonus or a pay raise. You know, my income has almost doubled in the last five years, virtually by accident, and never once have you asked me for anything in return.”
“I work for three hours a day on a full salary.”
“Every day, though. And in return I’ve trapped you. I’ve stunted your career growth. I’ve offered you money you wouldn’t get anywhere in this market and essentially given you every incentive to abandon a real career. And don’t think it wasn’t deliberate; I wanted you to be around here more than I wanted you living your own life. Money can’t buy me redemption, but I think making things better for you is a start.” He tried to encourage her assent by nodding.
Penny shook her head, though. “How can I ever leave now? You’ve trapped me again.”
“Do you want to leave?”
“I don’t want to be a cleaner forever.”
“You can leave whenever you want. Today if you like. And I’ll keep paying your wages until you find a nursing job that matches what you earn here.”
For a moment she couldn’t speak, stuck between loving his offer and loathing his power. “I don’t want to leave now, Alan, I need to think about what I want. I’m not even sure nursing is for me.”
“You think away. I’m not going anywhere.”
He looked at the Green Party literature on his lap and Penny noticed a light purple mark that ran from his Adam’s apple to the back of his neck. Alan looked back up at her, saw where her gaze was directed, then touched the bruise. “Dreamt I was being choked by a snake.”
She waited for him to elaborate and when he didn’t her face sneered in disbelief. “Snakes again?”
“Snakes again.”
His expression was jolly and cherubic, though behind his eyes she thought she saw a coldness there warning her away. Okay, Alan. Fine. We’ve all had the odd dream that bruises in real life. Happens all the time.
• • •
It was hard to keep the brakes on her optimism in light of the other changes occurring in the house and in Alan’s life. Following the swift completion of Alan’s gymnasium down in the cellar, the large photographs of nude women and vintage cars disappeared from the walls, replaced by landscape paintings from a local artist. She was given a day off because the house was being repainted. The functional magnolia that had coloured every room had been replaced by warm reds and browns.
It became easy to just ignore the times when she was by herself and was overcome with the feeling she’d had down in the cellar, of someone standing nearby watching her, like the time she had been unloading the laundry and heard the leather stool at the breakfast bar creak as if relenting under a great weight. When she turned she had so expected to see Alan sitting there that when she saw no one, she’d dropped the basket in her hands spilling towels and socks across the tile floor. She bent over to pick them up and felt a moment of annoyance when a familiar rotten smell rose up to greet her. Before she had thought the smell belonged to Alan in his unclean sickbed, but if she could smell it down here, then perhaps it came from her cleaning equipment. Or maybe the organic waste bin was to blame. Yes, a leak perhaps, allowing for the pungent odour to escape and float through the corridors and infuse all the dark corners of the house.
Donald was the only person that didn
’t look like he enjoyed the change in Alan’s life. His dishevelment and emotional distance grew by the day. Penny would come in to work and find him either at the breakfast bar or in Alan’s office, always looking at papers or at his laptop, his face red, his expression tight.
“Donald, is everything okay? Do you need anything?” she had asked once, having gone in to clean the office.
“Everything is fine, Penny. Everything is hunky bloody dory.”
“Okay,” she said and tried to walk away, getting as far as the doorway.
“Our employer,” he said, practically shouting, “has possibly lost his mind, yet the doctors can’t do a damn thing because apparently he’s healthier than he’s ever been. Forget those of us who have known and worked with him for twenty years. We don’t know anything.”
“Why do you think he’s lost his mind?”
Donald looked up at her, his eyes wide. “Has he ever given you or your family hundreds of thousands of pounds before?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “No, I don’t think he has. And do you know what I’m doing now, Penny? Right this second I’m preparing a meeting with Meryl for Thursday in which we are going to have a discussion about which charities deserve the forty percent of all of Alan’s earnings that he now insists must go to them lest he lose anymore sleep at night.”
“Unicef,” Penny offered.
Donald shook his head and looked down. “Yes. Thank you, Penny,” he said, by way of dismissing her.
“Actually, I need to clean in here.”
He got up and left with a childish harrumph.
When she went to empty the bin she found the remains of the Green Party literature sitting at the top. Some of the pages had been shredded. These were just about recognisable, but other parts looked damp and mulched, like they’d been chewed up and spat out.
• • •
That Thursday Penny was walking to work when an ambulance hurtled past her from the direction of Alan’s house. She quickened her pace, assuming the only explanation was that Alan was sick. Farther down the road she came across two police cars that had sealed off the left lane. Behind the cordon, a red car was crushed up against a tree trunk, the front-end almost non-existent.
Donald was alone in the lounge when she got to the house ten minutes later. He stood up to greet her and she saw the capillaries at the edges of his eyes. He reached over and pulled her to him.
“I’m afraid something awful has happened, Penny,” he said, his voice barely composed. “Meryl had a car accident on the way back from our meeting. Alan’s at the hospital now but he just sent me a text message and it isn’t looking very promising at all.”
He let her go and she brought a hand to her mouth. She had met Meryl twice, had thought her slightly condescending and rude. Now she felt ashamed that this low opinion of her had risen in her mind. “That’s just awful. Do they know what happened?”
Donald turned from her and shook his head. “Well, she must have taken the corner too fast and lost control. The police were remarkably unhelpful on the information front.” He was talking much faster than usual and seemed to be aware of it all of a sudden. He took a deep breath and turned back to face her. “As you can probably tell it’s pretty shocking stuff given we were talking to her just moments before about all of Alan’s new plans.”
Penny had stopped listening. She was looking at Donald’s neck now, and at the bruising that hadn’t been there the last time she had seen him. He noticed her looking and reached up to touch the marks.
“Are you looking at my neck?” he said.
“It looks sore.”
“It’s fine.” He snorted a laugh. “Strangest thing, I dreamt I was being executed last night. They strung me up for being a highwayman. When I woke up I had these marks on my neck. What do you make of that?”
She didn’t answer directly, though her body responded by becoming tense, her mind suddenly more alert. “Where did you sleep?”
“I was here, in the spare room. Didn’t finish preparing until late and we had an early start.” Penny nodded and reached up to touch her own neck, grim understanding snaking its way out from that place in her head where she tried to lock away such things.
• • •
Following the funeral service, the first Penny had ever been to, a gathering was held at Alan’s house, where people drank early-afternoon wine and devoured glamorous canapés.
Meryl’s defeated-looking partner and a few other family members made grateful cameos before they grew tired of the business chat coming from every corner of the house, and made equally grateful exits. Alan was nowhere to be seen. Penny made a polite and superficial circulation of the room, then went looking for him.
The light at the foot of the cellar door tipped her off. She saw him sitting on the brand new sofa that looked over his exercise toys. The once cave-like room was now lit by rows of spots built into the ceiling.
“Are people asking for me?” Alan said, scooting forward on his behind as if preparing to get up.
“No. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
He relaxed back into the cushions and sighed. Alan considered his response, then said: “You’re religious, aren’t you, Penny? Actually, that’s rude. Feel free to ignore that question if you wan—”
“I am, but mostly it’s a habit. Everyone in the village I grew up in went to church.”
“Do people in your village believe in the dark side of religion, Penny? Do they believe in the devil and in demons, and curses and all that?”
“I suppose. There are those things in the Bible, so I think if you believe in the good you have to believe in the bad, too. My mother told me she went to an exorcism once, but her belief hasn’t been the same since the illness.”
“Yes, that sort of thing can shake your beliefs.” He didn’t address the remark to Penny, rather to the floor. Without looking up he said: “I feel like when I died I got a demon off my back.”
“I like the changes,” she said. “In the house. And in you.”
He smiled, but it was polite and humourless. “I’m being serious.” After a pause, he said: “The night I died, I swear I saw it, when I was on the bathroom floor, dying. I looked up at the mirror and saw my reflection looking down on me. It wasn’t me, though, I knew that, and in the reflection I was translucent, too—do you know that word? Like, I could see through my skin; I could see the organs and the veins inside. I remember thinking how disgusting I looked, and how it was no wonder I was dying. I thought of something the doctors had said to me, about how from your mouth down you are just one long tube. I could see what they meant as the skin faded away... I could see just how much of me was extraneous… And then this thing pulled a face, a disgusted, horrified face.”
Penny felt a growing unease gnawing at the inside of her belly. The cellar dread, back again in spite of the light, forcing itself out of the mental prison she’d locked it in. Something watched them from the top of the stairs now, she felt it, something that slithered, and squeezed, and bruised.
“The thing is, Penny,” Alan said, “I think that thing I saw in the mirror is still here in the house. I feel it watching me all the time, hating me, hating the things I’m doing now. Real hate as well, Penny, the kind I used to feel all the time before the operation, childish and violent. At first that was all it was and I put it down to the drugs. Then I was losing things, my book about energy, and my pens. I watched a coffee mug turn over on the notes I’d made about my new investment plans. Right in front of me.” He looked at her, his eyes big and wet. “Do you think I’m mad?”
Penny very gently shook her head. She looked at the faint bruise on his neck. “I’ve felt something, too. Since you came home from the hospital. I wouldn’t have said anything unless...” She scanned his face and saw only solemn acknowledgement.
“Has it hurt you?”
“No, nothing like that.”
Alan reached up and touched the area of discoloured skin. “It started coming for me. Only ever when I was alo
ne, though. I told you it was a dream but even that first time I knew… I’ve seen the marks on Donald’s neck. And I don’t know if there will be marks on Meryl or not, it may have driven her off the road some other way, but it’s come for everyone close to me, and it’s come for them here at this house. It’s trying to harm us all, Penny.”
She tried to think what she had done, how she had been in any way connected to the changes in Alan’s life. “Should I give you the money back? Will that stop it?”
“No. Everything I said before still stands. But I think you all need to be away from here. If we wait long enough perhaps it will die of its own volition. Or maybe I need to call it out or whatever the spiritual equivalent is. If it wants me, fine. But when the party ends tonight I’ll have Donald drive you home and then I don’t want to see either of you until I have dealt with this.” He offered the floor a sideways smile. “Actually, in the nicest possible way, I think now might be the right time to sack you.”
Penny thought about this, then said: “Now might be the right time, yes.”
• • •
No one wanted to leave, and every time Penny looked over to Donald he looked deep in conversation. She decided to walk, even given the conversation she’d had with Alan, it would be getting dark soon and she was growing bored and impatient. And of all the people in Alan’s life, she didn’t really think it would have any business with her.
Unless it can get you alone.
She shook off the thought, put on her coat and walked out into the late afternoon. The air was surprisingly warm and reminiscent of a day in late summer rather than late autumn. As she so often did, she tried to distract herself from her fear by checking her phone, reassured by the full signal. Two or three cars went by which reassured her even more.
She reached the place where Meryl had come off the road and could still see the tyre marks where she had skidded on the tarmac, the torn-up grass on the embankment leading up to the tree. The light didn’t penetrate the cover of the evergreens; here, it felt like winter. Part of her was eager to keep moving, knowing she was still within dangerous proximity to the house. But she wanted to know just a little bit more, to try to understand what had happened here, even if it was a little morbid.
