The Stranger in Our Home

by Sophie Draper

  But Paul was openly aggressive after that and my trust in him evaporated. The sex was rough and humiliating. I’d wake in the morning with bruises on my body and tears on my face. I thought he loved me, but then how could he want to hurt me? Passion wasn’t meant to be like this.

  When Harriet guessed she was furious. She was leaving for Berlin and that was when she offered me her flat.

  ‘There’s only a few weeks left on the lease, but it will buy you some time to find another place.’

  ‘Stupid cow!’ Paul said after I left. He’d rung me a few days later, still not believing I had gone. ‘I’d like to wish you good luck, Caro. But what man is going to want someone like you? You have to work at a relationship. It’s give and take! Can’t you stand up for yourself?’

  The derision in his voice was like a knife flung directly at my heart, twisting the truth so that it was all my fault. But I had, hadn’t I? Stood up for myself.

  I’d hung up. Whatever he’d said next, I didn’t hear it. I didn’t want to hear it.

  So much for nice.

  What the heck! I raised the bottle of whisky to my lips. The liquid seared down my throat to my stomach and my head spun. The bottle upright again, I raised a hand to wipe my mouth and stared at the fire.

  I thought back to the story of The Handless Girl. I thought I could see the cook’s blade flashing within the flames of the fire. Like watching clouds in the sky. I could see the woman holding up her handless arms, the two stumps gushing with blood. The severed hands were twitching on the slab floor, more blood running along the cracks, wriggling between the stones, one line of blood joining up with another.

  The image made me gasp, it seemed so real, though I knew that it was not. What a painting it would be, I thought. It felt familiar, so strong was the image in my head. Perhaps I should read stories like this more often, with a glass of whisky to stoke the flames of my imagination.

  Another slug of my drink and the red blood was flowing, spilling out through the kitchen door, flooding the hallway. There was another trail of liquid, was it the whisky? Amber gold, snaking across the stones from the opposite direction. The red and the gold met, rising up, spiralling like a great roaring dragon. I wanted to touch it, to capture the whisky blood dragon in my hand, to let it pour through my fingers.

  I closed my eyes, imagining my hand reaching into the fire, fingers splayed. Now my hand was blistering, the skin turning brown, smoking, but I couldn’t scream. The sound was trapped within my throat. I tried to visualise how I could paint that – a silent scream, or the smell, the horrendous smell of burning human flesh. The very idea consumed me, an almost hypnotic fascination with the skin, burning, bubbling, crackling, shrivelling before my eyes, long shreds falling off until the bones were revealed, skeletal fingers clasping and unclasping, tiny, flying, singing bones, rattling in the firelight.

  I opened my eyes. In the flames of the fire, I thought I saw another face. The man from the story? Or Paul. But he was changing, morphing into a small boy, blood pouring from his hands, the golden flames rising up around him, smothering him, until I could no longer see anything but fire and smoke and a burning stump of black.

  I reached out for the glass. The skin pulled tight over my bones. It was the whisky. Just the whisky, wasn’t it? I wasn’t used to drinking spirits. And my too-vivid imagination, trying to conjure up the story. My hand was shaking. My eyes had closed again. And all the while the screeching music of the pear drum was echoing in my ears. Where had that come from? The whining, droning low-pitched notes throbbing behind my eyes, drowning out the sound of the flames, exploding in my head.

  The snow-bright sun was shining in my eyes and I rolled over to one side to escape it. The duvet was trapped around my fully clothed body, the cold floor of the sitting room hard and unforgiving. I must have fallen asleep by the fire last night, despite my plan to sleep upstairs. The logs had reduced to grey crumbling ash and my hands were soft and cool beneath my cheek.

  The clock in the hall chimed three times and I groaned. Three in the afternoon? I’d slept all day in my drunken stupor.

  I reached out to pull the duvet closer, moaning in my reluctance to wake up and the headache hammering at the front of my forehead. I wasn’t used to hangovers. Something was next to me, resting against my arm.

  I opened my eyes. It was the pear drum.

  CHAPTER 13

  I scuttled back across the rug. The pear drum toppled over with a thud, now inches from my feet.

  How had it got there? I knew I’d left it in the attic. Had someone come into the house? Walked past me sleeping in the sitting room, climbed the stairs, entered the attic and opened the crate, then left it right next to my arm? I felt a shiver of horror ripple across my skin. That was ludicrous, wasn’t it? Who would do that? And in this snow. Who would even know or care how I felt about the pear drum? But it hadn’t moved itself, had it. Had it? I closed my eyes and opened them again. It was still there.

  My brain was befuddled from sleep, and from the whisky the night before – it must have been me. Had I fetched it down earlier and forgotten? So drunk, so intoxicated, I’d overcome my own fear? Without its wooden crate it seemed bigger, more dynamic and more threatening. Now I was more than just alarmed. I felt my head burst with denial. No, this time someone must have come into the house.

  I leapt to my feet, picking up a poker from the fireplace. The weight of it was almost pleasant in my hand. Energised by my anger, I searched every room, opening cupboards, banging doors, making sure I could be heard. I swapped the poker between my hands as I stormed from one room to the next, dragging open the curtains, looking under the beds, shifting any piece of furniture a person could be hiding behind. In the hall I flung open the front door, checking the drive for footprints but there were none.

  I stood there, the wind biting at my face, poker raised in one hand. My car was a blur of white, almost completely submerged under a drift of snow. On the far side of the road a man was tipping food out for the sheep. He looked up at me. I sucked in my breath, but it was only a farmer. The one who had lost his sheep the day I arrived? I lowered my hand feeling foolish. What was he thinking now? I dithered over whether to call out to him, to ask for help. But no, I couldn’t, what would I say? It must have been me. I must have moved the pear drum myself. The farmer scowled from across the road, snatched up his sack and waded back across the fields.

  I closed the door. It was me, it had to be me. Nothing else made sense. Except I hadn’t checked the attic yet. I spun around, my heart slamming against my chest. The farmer was already out of earshot and I was going to have to go up into the attic.

  I climbed the stairs. The door was ajar. I could hear the same clacking as before, it had started up again. Each bang sent a jolt shooting down my back. A blast of cold air roared from above. My head emerged over the top of the wooden steps, poker held in front. The window was open, swinging in the breeze. I looked along the length of the attic, with its sheets and boxes and dust. It all looked exactly as it had before, even the wooden crate. It was there, as it had been, the lid shut.

  I stabbed at every bit of cloth with the poker, hitting and banging each hidden object. I even opened the crate, fingers shaking, but it was empty. The pear drum was still downstairs. I was so angry now, fear pushed to the back of my mind as I slammed the little window shut. It stuck! I snapped the window bolt home. Amazing what a bit of aggression could do. I threw myself down the wooden stairs, fetched the pear drum and raced up again, placing it in its crate. I shut the attic door firmly behind me. There was a key, why hadn’t I noticed that before? I turned it in the lock.

  I ran down the stairs and tried the lights. The electricity was back on. I checked the front door. I checked the back door. Both were firmly locked and my keys were in my coat pocket. I checked that too. It was me, I was sure, I must have fetched the pear drum down myself in my drunken state. I was obsessed with it, always had been. It was being here again in this house, remembering Elizabeth a
nd her story, haunted by those words. The same old fear stalking my subconscious. Had I walked in my sleep to fetch it? I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

  I looked down at my hands. My fingers were black where they’d gripped the wrong end of the poker. It made me think of my visions the night before. I stared at the thing and almost laughed. I suddenly saw myself as I must have been, running around the house like a mad thing, waving a poker in my hand. Pokers, cricket bats, Jesus, what was I doing? Of course there was no one in the house. All those rooms harbouring shadows from the far corners of my imagination. I must have moved the pear drum. It must have been me. I felt the agitation in me bursting for release. Already I was dreading the coming sunset, the long night, noises in the attic. It was seeing the things I grew up with, facing up to my past, that bloody story … always that bloody story haunting me. I didn’t want to remember anything, I’d moved away to forget.

  Why had I come back?

  The garden was exactly as before, only now it was criss-crossed with tiny footprints, birds and animals that had made the most of the faltering sun. I stood in my boots and coat, my heart still thudding in my ribs. Out, I had to go out. Anywhere but inside the house.

  The light was fading, the whole day almost gone without me scarcely being aware of it. I ploughed into the snow, heading for the circle of trees at the far end of the garden, a hint of the summerhouse shimmering within. I felt a chill beyond the temperature outside, my hands pushing through the shrubs, sweeping aside the branches until there it was, its snowy roof lit by a last flare of sunlight, the unexpected glare hurting my eyes.

  The summerhouse was the shape of a hexagon, the lower half brick, the upper half glazed all the way round. Except much of the glass was broken, missing or on the floor. A few panes remained, half slipping out of position, jagged and cruel, and the door hung from its hinges like an old coat flung against the wall. Inside was overgrown with ivy, moss and liverwort bonded to the metal frames. Piles of leaves had blown up against one corner, each leaf traced with ice, frozen in position, peeping from the drifting snow like bookmarks.

  The sun slid from sight behind the clouds rolling in over the horizon and I felt the deepening chill enfold me. I stepped inside, reaching out to clasp the edge of a window. A sheet of glass dropped from above, crashing to the ground. I snatched my hand away, a line of blood welling on my palm. My anger, my bravery had gone. In its place was something else, a bitter taste upon my tongue, a prickling of my skin, a damp trickle of sweat rolling down my back despite the cold. I lifted my hand, sucking the blood gushing from my skin. It was warm and sweet. I moved forward.

  My feet sank into the snow, crunching on the hidden bits of glass beneath. I stopped. I turned my head. My reflection flickered in the partial remnants of the windows. My hair was wild about my head, my skin pale and shining. As I moved, the profile of my face was distorted and repeating, each image leaping in its frame like a dark animation trapped within a spinning lantern. Perhaps it was adrenalin. Perhaps it was the effect of my hangover from the night before starting to fade. My brain was alert, recognition piercing the foggy clouds.

  Was that another face in the windows, not mine? The head small and round, like a child’s, the only feature a pair of eyes blazing from each wall.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them, the face was gone. It was only my face staring back. I closed my eyes again and there he was, imprinted on my eyelids. A boy. Here, in the summerhouse. Revelling in the broken glass.

  I felt faint. My head swayed. There was that sound again, clack clacking. Like the attic window, except it couldn’t be. Not now, not here, outside, on the wrong side of the house. I shook my head. It was still there, always a clack clacking, like wheels revolving inside my body, teeth grinding one into another, churning, driving a shaft that pierced the length of my spine, twisting my veins, spiralling into my heart.

  I spun on my heels, skidding as I did. My head crashed against the side of the doorway, more glass dropping to the ground. The pain didn’t register. I stumbled from the summerhouse, running across the snow, racing away from the house, the garden and its buildings. But it was like running in a nightmare, each step heavier than the last, cold icy snow filling up my boots, weighing down my feet. It had begun to snow again, the wind whipping up great flakes that filled the sky, blinding me, freezing me, enveloping me in ice. I kept on running, breath stabbing in my chest, burning as I clambered over gates, forcing my way across the field as far away from the summerhouse as I could go, all the time hearing that clack clacking, clack clacking, getting louder and louder and …

  I stopped. There was the lane, winding and empty, devoid of all colour like a black and white photograph. Huge drifts of white snow had blown through the hedges, blocking the way. In front of me was a cottage with snow-capped lavender bushes pressing up against the wall.

  The noise of the clacking was even louder, a rhythmic crash, like a wooden plank slapping against the floor. It came from a large outhouse straddling the cottage garden and the field. There were more bushes by the windows and a spill of electric light from under the door. I limped forwards across the snow, drawn to the sound, until my bloodied hand pushed at the door.

  Craig was standing inside, his body facing away from me. His hands were outstretched, holding a tool against a lump of wood gripped within the lathe. His foot rested on a pedal thumping down again and again as the machine spun, the wood trapped at its heart, like a fly pinned to a spider’s web. A pile of shavings had accumulated on the floor. They shifted in the breeze as I walked unseen into the shed.

  I stood watching him. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, despite the weather, a stove in one corner belting out heat. I was mesmerised, by the noise, the movement of the lathe, his hands. Beads of sweat clung to his skin, shining on the fine hairs of his arm, muscles flexing as they followed the rhythm of the lathe, his foot pounding on the pedal. Up and down, up and down, clack clacking.

  I balanced precariously on the doorstep, my hand reaching up to my head. The skin at my hairline was wet. My fingers touched my cheek with red-stained tips. My ears rang and the noise of the stamping of the pedal slammed in my head.

  Then Craig turned around to face me and I caught my breath. His eyes were black like an animal’s. I swayed on my feet. Black and sharp and shining like glass.

  Like the new mother in the story of the pear drum.

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘Caro?’

  Craig’s voice seemed to come at me from a long distance. A dog barked right behind me and the wind ricocheted off the door, slamming it into my hand. Fear, pure unadulterated fear swept over me.

  I spun on my heels and ran back out into the night.

  The front door key fell to the ground, the ice cold of the metal still stinging my fingers. The rest of me was oblivious to the cold, the pain in my chest, the rise and fall of my lungs as they pumped up and down. I reached down for the key, jamming it into the lock again. The door thrust open under my hands and I pushed it shut behind my back, jumping round to lock it from the inside. Once more the key tumbled to my feet, this time skidding across the floor towards the table. I staggered backwards.

  I lurched towards the sitting room. Reaching to the windows, I dragged the old farmhouse shutters from each side. I slammed them across and bolted them in place. Next, I ran from room to room, bolting each pair of shutters until the ground floor felt like a fortress. Upstairs, I did the same, each bedroom and the floor above, double-checking the attic door was still secure. I ran back downstairs, peering through the small window high in the front door to look across the driveway. It was empty. No footprints. Except my own across the snow, already disappearing.

  I darted into the kitchen, snatching up the phone. I fumbled to find the number for my sister. The tone rang out but there was no reply. The battery indicator blinked. I cast about for the charger. There it was. I struggled to push it in, but it didn’t connect. I checked the ceiling lights, tapping the switch on an
d off and on again – another bloody power cut. I thought of my laptop, there’d be some juice left in that, but as I looked across the kitchen table, it wasn’t there. What? It had been there earlier. What had I done with it?

  I tried to think. Sitting room? Bedroom? I ran up and down the stairs until my legs were shaking, but there was still no sign of it. I collapsed on the wide bottom step, almost in tears.

  What was wrong with me? Where was it?

  How could I have mislaid my laptop?

  I sprang to my feet again – it must be upstairs. Under the bed?

  I took the stairs more slowly, pausing in the hall. One of the bedroom doors was open. Not the one I was using. The little one next to Elizabeth’s. I’d left the door shut, I knew I had. I’d been in there only moments before in my scramble to close all the shutters.

  But the door was swinging, the hinge smoothly quiet. Too quiet, it had creaked before. The new white mark left by the splinter breaking off on the banister caught my eye and I heard a sigh.

  It was coming from inside the room. The shutter swinging open perhaps, not quite properly fixed. I pushed the door and stopped in the threshold, my body refusing to move.

  The room was dark. In my head, it seemed familiar. The same room but different. A memory of another time. The shutters were fully closed exactly as I’d left them, a faint gleam of winter white sneaking through the hinges. The light crept across the floor interrupted only by a small shape. There was something in the middle of the room. About the size of a crate. My eyes adjusted and I felt my chest heave.

  It was a child. Sitting on the floor.

  Maybe eight or nine years old. A boy. His hair was unkempt, curling at his shoulders, his face hidden as he looked down, his arms spread wide across his lap.