by Shea, Alan
Then that horrible little voice that lives in my head wakes up again.
‘I can sort out whatever I want to and I don’t need any help from anyone to do it. If you want to do something useful you could start by stopping all this. I’ve had enough of all your stories. You’re a liar, Reggie. A bloody liar.’
It’s out before I can stop it. He looks at me. Really sad, like.
Here we go again. Why did I have to say that? Somewhere I hear the loud crack of breaking ice.
17
Nan
I swing my legs out of bed, and it’s there straight away in my head – I feel terrible about Reggie. Maybe he does think he’s telling me the truth about what’s happening. Maybe that’s what’s so scary. It’s the truth as he sees it. But does that make it really true? I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’m sorry for calling him a liar, though. Sorry for losing my temper.
The floor is cold. Numbs my feet. Things are going from bad to worse.
I pull on my clothes untidily, knowing Mum is not in the kitchen burning porridge on to the bottom of the saucepan. She had to go into hospital last week. The doctor said she needed to rest, otherwise there might be a problem with the baby. I don’t like it when Mum’s away. If only she were here I’d eat the porridge, burned bits and all, and open the window so I could hear her singing.
What’s even worse, my nan is here. Bert told me I have to call her Nan. I said I would, but most of the time I don’t. She came as soon as Mum went into hospital. She’s not like the sweet old nans you read about in books. She’s old but she’s got jet-black hair, pulled back, an inky outline around her head. Sharp eyes. Long, thin nose. Cardigan sleeves rolled up. Small and skinny with a blurred tattoo on her arm. Skin so thin if you held her up to the light you’d see right through her. Grey eyes just like Bert.
She keeps brown powder in a little silver tin. Pinches it out. Puts a bit on to the back of her hand and sniffs it up loudly. Her nose is powdered brown from one pinch too many. Mum told me it’s snuff – ground-up tobacco. Fancy putting ground-up tobacco up your nose! Mind you, fancy putting it in paper and smoking it.
Sometimes, when she sees me looking at her, she says, ‘D’you wanna pinch?’ Then she grins wickedly and offers the box as a challenge.
She’s sleeping on a camp-bed in the other half of the bedroom, and she keeps a candle burning all night. It throws up giant shadows as she moves. When she gets up in the night to go to the lavatory I watch her witch’s shadow on the curtain. Sometimes I wake up and I’m sure she’s watching me. Just like Bert does. I wish she’d go back home.
I’m gonna be late for school. I try to clear up as best I can. Wish I’d done it last night. I make it to school. Wish I hadn’t. Get most of my maths wrong and get into trouble for talking during a test. Miss Lacey seems really cross. I don’t want to be there. Trouble is, I’m not sure where I want to be, so I wander around on my own in the playground.
The day’s a blur. Glad when it’s over. Only thing is, I don’t want to go home. It feels strange there without Mum. So I wander around until I’m so hungry and tired it’s the only thing I can do.
I walk home slowly, turn into the passage and decide to go straight to my room. A noise stops me. Loud banging and muffled shouts are coming from the end of the passage near our room. I move closer. It’s coming from the lavatory. For a second I wonder what’s going on. Then I realize. Someone is stuck in there. I listen; it’s Nan’s voice.
There’s a piece of wood wedged under the door. It could have been kicked under there accidentally by someone taking a short cut through the flats then out the back yard door to the bomb site. It could even have been shoved under by some kids, out to play a trick on someone.
I bend down to pick it up, and I can’t help myself, I just have to laugh. Then I hear footsteps behind me.
‘What’s going on?’
I turn around. It’s him. I pull out the wood. The door bursts open and Nan stumbles out. Her hair is all over the place. Her face red. She looks at me. We both look at the piece of wood in my hand. She puts two and two together and gets the sum wrong.
‘You wicked girl!’
‘But . . .’
He has his coat over his shoulder. ‘What’s she done now?’ His voice sounds cold and hard.
She repeats the question. ‘What’s she done?’ She sounds like a parrot. ‘I’ll tell you what she’s done. I’ve been in there for hours. Locked in! You know I can’t stand to be locked in anywhere. Laughing, she was. I heard her!’ Says it as if it’s a crime. Guilty of laughing. She looks at me again, her eyes narrowed. ‘She needs sorting out, that one.’
I can’t believe what’s happening.
‘It wasn’t me! I heard you callin’ out. There was a piece of wood stuck under the door. I just took it away.’
She sniffs disbelievingly, her pointed nose seems even sharper.
‘She was laughing. I could hear her.’
‘Sorry. It just seemed funny. Nan stuck in the lav.’
But I’m appealing to something that isn’t there. Neither of them could see a joke if it came up, said, ‘Hello, I’m a joke’, and bit them on the bum. I wonder why she’s making so much fuss. She spends hours in there anyway. Takes her newspaper and a tin of snuff in every morning. I can hear her turning the pages while I pace up and down outside with my legs crossed like a bow-legged chicken, dying for a wee.
I should have saved my breath. She doesn’t believe me.
The trouble is I want to laugh again. I have this picture of whoever did it creeping down the corridor. A secret agent, spying out the land. Then, when the coast is clear, while she’s getting comfortable with her paper, quietly wedging the wood under the door. Mission accomplished. Enemy captured.
Perhaps it was Norman, on a military exercise into no-man’s land. Orders to capture little old ladies in lavatories. No, it couldn’t have been Norman. He wouldn’t have used a bit of old wood. He’d have used barbed wire and land mines.
I know I shouldn’t find it funny. For one thing it’s really cold in there: an icebox. But even that thought paints another picture in my head – Nan’s bottom in a block of ice. The more pictures I see, the more difficult it is not to laugh. The harder I try not to, the more I want to. I hold my breath. My stomach hurts.
She gives him a look. ‘You need to sort her out. Now.’
‘But I didn’t do anything!’
‘You calling me a liar too, are you?’
‘No.’ I appeal to her. ‘Did you see who did it?’
‘How could I? I was inside.’
‘Then how d’you know it was me?’ She scowls at me. Mutters to herself, ‘In that lav for hours, I was.’
The words slink into my head. Slide in. Grinning Cheshire cats of words. Lining up to make me laugh. Digging each other in the ribs. They sing to me:
Oh dear, what can the matter be?
Bert’s old mum got stuck in the lavatory,
She’s been there from Monday to Saturday—
The dam bursts. I give a little, nervous strangled laugh.
She glares. ‘There, see what I mean. She needs someone to teach her a lesson, that young missie. Too much old cheek if you ask me.’ She looks hard at him, then sort of smiles at me. It’s not a nice smile. ‘A proper lesson, I mean.’
He looks at me. His eyes bore into me.
‘You’re never going to learn, are you? No respect. Always looking down your nose, thinking you’re better than the rest of us. Always trying to be something you ain’t.’
It’s so unfair that I can’t help it; I answer back. ‘I don’t think I’m better than anybody. And I’m not trying to be anything, except me.’
I mean my voice to sound brave and strong. It doesn’t. He moves towards me. I move back. Trouble is the wall’s behind me. He pushes his face up close, his eyes strike like lances into mine.
‘Get to your room. I’ll deal with you later, once I’ve had a chance to calm the old lady down. Now get.’
There’s something in his voice. I don’t argue. I’m glad to get away.
I lie on my bed. Somehow, suddenly, it doesn’t seem so funny any more. I suppose I’ll have to stay here all night.
Outside I can hear them talking, but I don’t want to hear what they’re saying. I pull the blanket over my head. My bed’s a galleon with sails billowing in the bright, strong wind and I’m sailing away, far out to sea on foam-flecked, white-capped waves. And on the distant horizon sea birds wheel, and I can see the sandy white shoreline of some island and I know there’ll be no one there except . . . ?
The door slams. I start. Must have dozed off. Through the window I can see it’s dark. I try to screw up my eyes tighter and look out through them at the same time. I sense someone standing there. The curtain moves, letting in a fuzz of yellow light from the lamp outside, taking the edge off the darkness. He stands silhouetted against the light, a large, flat black shape.
I try not to move. I screw up my eyes. Pretend to be asleep. I get that feeling, sick in my stomach. I can smell that smell. Stale. Beery. Heavy. He’s unsteady. Stumbles against the bed.
He moves towards me, and I know what’s coming. It’s been a while, but I feel my muscles tighten. My fingers bunch. My mouth becomes dry.
I open one eye. He’s standing there, tapping something against the palm of his hand. As I watch, his arm goes up. Something snakes high into the air. I watch it against the light from the window. It coils back behind him, uncoils, freezes for an instant. Then it lashes down. His hard leather belt bites into my back like an animal attacking me.
‘I’ve had just about enough of you . . .’ His voice rasps. ‘Maybe this’ll learn you . . .’ Again the belt goes up. ‘Give you something . . .’ Comes stinging down. ‘. . . to think about . . .’
I try to get away. Hear myself cry out as it catches me across the shoulders.
Again the belt goes up and comes down in time with what he’s saying. As if there’s a link between the belt and the words. As if the words are the belt.
I roll over to protect myself. Fall off the bed. I call out. Ask him to stop. Hear the panic in my voice. Still it goes on. It seems like now there’s no belt any more, and it’s the words that are eating into me. Words and pain mingle together. Harder and faster. Harder and faster. Like the world is fixed in a mad rhythm, keeping time to the pain on my back. I’m aware of myself huddled into a ball on the floor. Against the clear, night sky through the window the belt goes up again. Black against the silver full moon. I wait for it to come down.
Then all of a sudden anger floods through me, like a pulse in the darkness of my head. And from the anger, I get that feeling, something soft as down brushing against my cheek. It only lasts an instant then goes. I see him moving to hit me again. I see the belt change. It’s not a belt any more. His arm rises again. It sweeps up. I wait for it to come down. But this time the belt doesn’t snap down on me. It twists back. Coils. A black tongue forks the air. Hisses a warning. It has a life of its own now. It twists around his arm, flicks up to his face, knots its long body around his neck. I hear him shout. He’s frightened. He grabs at it, tries to throw it away. And now I can see the snake’s body tightening its grip around his neck. He’s fighting for breath. I can hear him panting; know he can’t breathe. His scream pierces me.
The images in my head shatter. Suddenly, the belt drops from his hand and falls to the floor.
There’s a terrible silence. He looks from me to the belt and back again. His eyes are blank. Shaking, he turns and stumbles from the room.
I slowly pull myself back on to my bed. Stay curled in a ball. Try to find a place to lie on that isn’t sore. I lie motionless, feeling the stinging pain in my back.
I sleep, badly.
In the morning the belt’s still there. Flat, lifeless on the floor. Just a belt. It all seems like a bad dream, except the marks on my back are real enough. I look at them in the mirror. Angry red weals. Criss-cross pain.
I get out of bed slowly, trying to make sense of what’s going on. I’m ordinary. Never been anything else. I’m used to things making sense. Did I really make him see what I wanted him to see? Or was that just some mad dream. My good old overactive imagination. I don’t know. I just want to get up. Get out. Away.
18
Finding out
The bus stop is already heavy with people. I feel terrible, like I haven’t slept for a week. The sun is bright. High in a blue sky. Ragged clouds become angels. Chase each other. Play catch on the way to heaven.
I’ve got a lot of thinking to do. It’s been a week now since the belt thing happened and I still feel scared. I seem to be like this all the time now. It’s like I’m not me any more. Don’t know what to think. What to believe. What’s going to happen next. It’s like things have got out of control. I’m just watching my life, not really in it.
Nan wasn’t there when I woke up. All her stuff was gone. I’m glad. Bert’s never at home now either. I wonder if it’s anything to do with the other night. Suits me. I couldn’t stand the way he keeps looking at me, like he’s trying to look inside me, always staring. Weighing me up. Working me out. It scares me. What does he want? Trouble is he’s got this habit of turning up when you least expect him.
I’m not going to tell anyone about the belt yet. Not even Reggie. I need time to think about all this. Sort it out. I’ll be all right on my own until Mum gets back. I really miss her, and I can’t help feeling there’s something they’re not telling me.
‘You all right, dear?’
Mrs Gilbey looks uncomfortable. Pink-faced. Dewy-lipped. Dabs a handkerchief. Doesn’t seem to be herself. I nod and smile, but inside I’m nervous. I shouldn’t be. After all, it’s only my mum we’re visiting in hospital and she’s not really even ill or anything.
‘I bet you’ll be glad to see her?’
I nod again.
She fiddles with the rings on her fingers. Twists and turns them. Normally she gives off calm like a slow, shy sea sucking on a sandy beach. Today she seems fidgety.
‘Mum is all right, isn’t she, Emma?’
She smiles. ‘Right as rain.’
She looks at her watch as the number 78 crawls into view. There’s a small cheer – then, as we see it’s already nearly full, a not-so-small moan. The queue shuffles forward.
‘A few little complications, that’s all. That’s why they’ve got her in early. Get her resting. Your mum does too much.’
We get to the platform of the bus. I grab the rail and swing on. Hold out my hand to Mrs Gilbey. She takes it and we’re on. Downstairs is full. We corkscrew up the sharply winding stairs. Before we can sit down the conductor rings the bell and the bus lurches off. We both half fall into the last two empty seats.
‘She needs to get off her feet a bit.’
I nod. Feel guilty, as if it’s my fault she doesn’t get off her feet a bit. I’ve got the window seat. Look out and down on the people below.
‘It will be different for you when she has the baby and comes home, you know. Babies have a habit of taking over, becoming the centre of attention.’
She says it like it will be a problem, but it won’t be. I’m hardly the centre of attention now, so the baby isn’t going to make any difference. All the same, the tone of her voice makes me feel uneasy, like she’s trying to warn me about something.
The number 78 from Aldgate to Cambridge Heath stops and starts as it hiccups its way to the hospital. Mrs Gilbey looks at her watch too much. The way people do when they’re not really looking at the time at all. The conductor whistles up the stairs. Sways expertly to the rhythm of the bus. Dances in perfect time to its movement. Swings down the aisle punching out tickets, calling everybody ‘love’ or ‘mate’.
When Mum told me about the baby it felt odd. As if it was nothing to do with me and she was telling me just to be polite. She didn’t seem to be able to find the right words, acted as if it was something complicated. It wasn’t. It was simple. She was going to hav
e a baby. I was going to have a brother or sister.
We both sit in silence on the rocking, jerking bus that is tired of being a bus and wants to be a horse in a Wild West rodeo. I expect her to ask me about Reggie. She doesn’t. I’m glad, I’ve gone over every detail I can remember of what has happened since he moved in and came to our school. Turned my mind into a laboratory. Dissected each incident. Put it under the microscope of my memory to see if there are any clues. Any vital piece of information I might have missed. Anything he has said or done that’ll help me get to the truth.
I wonder what Sherlock Homes would do in my position. Not much, probably. He was lucky. He only ever had to solve real problems. Track down flesh-and-blood people. I bet no one ever talked to him about mind-touching. All he had to worry about was good old Moriarty, or perhaps that should be bad old Moriarty.
After a few weeks I shut up the laboratory. Give my mind and my memory a rest. Trouble is, you start to remember things that never actually happened. You begin to fit things together that don’t fit.
The hospital is a big old Victorian building – a red brickwork cake in a marzipan of grime. I look up. A hundred windows look back down. I wonder which one of those rooms Mum is in.
Mrs Gilbey buys some flowers from a stall. Then we go in and face a warren of angled corridors; a maze of doors and turnings, more doors and more turnings. I know now how a rabbit feels. The smell of cooking hangs like an invisible fog. We wade through yesterday’s menus: stale liver and bacon, rice and custard.
Mrs Gilbey knows the way. Clutching the flowers, she walks purposefully until we reach Saint Katherine Ward. She nods at the nurse sitting by the door as we go in, who stops writing and smiles at us.
Mum is lying in a bed at the far end of the ward. Her hair is down, and twists in long curls over the pillow. I feel my step quicken. I want to run. To throw myself at her. I make myself walk. Try not to look at the other patients. Just focus on her.
