The Devil's Staircase

by Helen FitzGerald

  ‘Fifty–fifty is not “probably”.’ He sounded like my Dad.

  ‘What can I do with my life? I can’t have kids – I wouldn’t do it to them. I can’t fall in love. How could I? When all I could offer a man is the pleasure of holding my hand as I die?’

  Pete didn’t respond with words, but with a lovely long hug. ‘I just wonder, what’s the point of me? What’s the point of me?’

  ‘You know what I think?’ He pushed my hair away from my eyes. ‘I think it’s the not knowing that’s eating you up.’

  We were silent for a moment before we kissed and when we did I forgot all about the rules I’d made on the basin beside the toilet in Kilburn. Angles and lips and teeth and tongues and movements . . . who gave a shit? It just was. And I might never have let it end had the doorbell not rung.

  I looked at Pete’s watch. ‘Half-two?’ I dragged myself from his arms and went to open the front door. It was Greg from across the road. His thick brown hair was wild, as if something had thrown him around by it in his sleep. The two little boys were with him in their dressing gowns and slippers. Johnny, sleepy and sweet. Sam, serious and angry.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Greg said. ‘The boys have been upset all night and we noticed the lights were on . . . It’s Bobby . . . He didn’t come home and we thought he might be in your garden again?’

  25

  ‘Bobby!’ the littlest yelled with the cutest voice I’ve ever heard in my life. We were in the back yard. Pete had retrieved his torch (he seemed to have everything you’d ever need in his room), but there was no sign of the cat.

  ‘Bobby!’ the older, more serious one, called, bumping into the yellow potted eucalyptus tree Pete had bought me. It was dry. I filled a glass and gave it some water.

  ‘Bobby!’ Greg yelled.

  We scoured the place, but we didn’t find anything.

  Johnny sat on my lap while Pete made some toast and vegemite.

  ‘Yuk!’ Sam said when he saw the brown smears on his toast. ‘It’s like poo!’

  ‘Your hall smells like poo!’ Johnny said sleepily.

  ‘Shhh!’ his older brother said. ‘Don’t be rude.’

  Johnny fell asleep in my arms. I’d never been into kids – never had any nieces or nephews or cute cousins to hang out with, and I was surprised how it made me feel, having this warm bunch of snuggledom in my arms. It was beautiful. I found myself looking at Pete as he made toast (without vegemite) and smiling. What would it be like for us to be together, to have a family?

  I left Pete to do the dishes and walked across the road carrying Johnny carefully so he wouldn’t wake up. I put him in the huge bed in the master bedroom. After I put him down and kissed him on the forehead, I smiled at Sam who was lying in the dark beside his brother and staring intensely at the ceiling.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll come back,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Turn on the light,’ seven-year-old Sam ordered.

  Johnny was sleeping soundly and Greg was in the bathroom, so I turned on the light.

  ‘Turn around.’

  I did as I was told, wondering what the hell could be behind me but a wall or a wardrobe.

  There was a wall, and a wardrobe . . . and both were completely covered with newspaper clippings, maps, scribbles and photographs . . . a face was looking at me, a beautiful, happy, smiling face.

  ‘That’s my Mummy,’ Sam said, pointing to the one that said ‘MISSING’, then the one that said: ‘HAVE YOU SEEN OUR MUMMY?’ Then the one that said: ‘POLICE CALL OFF SEARCH’.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed with my hand on my mouth and looked at her picture. I felt Sam sitting up behind me and moving closer.

  I heard Greg come into the bedroom, felt his presence watching me. I turned and held Sam.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘She doesn’t love us anymore,’ Sam said.

  I held his head in my hands and looked at him. His eyes were not the eyes of a seven-year-old. They were red and tired and sad. One of his front teeth was missing, but he still looked like a downtrodden adult.

  ‘Of course she loves you,’ I said.

  ‘If she loves me then why has she done this?’

  He was cross-legged on the bed. His serious eyes were begging for an answer.

  ‘Sometimes things happen we have no control over.’ ‘That’s what everyone says.’

  ‘I tell you what, why don’t you write to her and ask her? Why don’t you tell her you miss her?’

  I don’t know where this came from. But it seemed to me that he was aching inside and needed some way to get it out.

  ‘No one writes letters anymore and anyway, where would I send it?’

  ‘Do you believe in Santa?’

  ‘I’m not stupid.’

  ‘I know, but do you believe in Santa?’

  He paused.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you write to him?’

  ‘I email.’

  ‘Well I bet your Mum has an email address.’

  I looked at Greg, who was still standing in the doorway. He smiled at me and turned on the computer in the corner.

  ‘It’s ceils.maher@hotmail.com,’ he said.

  I had a cup of tea with Greg while Sam tapped away on the computer. He told me about the search, which was incompetent from start to finish, he said. Didn’t use dogs for days, didn’t make use of the media or check airports or ferry crossings or even search the area properly.

  ‘They spent most of the time trying to convince me she’d killed herself or run off with someone.’

  ‘And there’s no way?’ I asked.

  ‘I adored her. She adored me. We were so happy it’s not allowed.’

  After the tea was finished, we went in to check on Sam. He was in bed asleep. Greg saw that he’d sent an email to his Mum. He opened it and we read it together.

  To: ceils.maher@hotmail.com Subject: No subject

  Dear Mummy,

  Why did you leave? You are a witch fuck. I hate you and it’s all your fault.

  I miss you,

  Sam

  As I walked back over to the squat, it dawned on me that their house was fogged by not knowing, a much worse not knowing than mine, because they didn’t have a choice. At that moment, I decided that I would ring the hospital first thing in the morning.

  26

  Death was okay. It was feeling the warmth of the voice that said it’s a boy, it’s a boy; smelling Greg’s coffee as the steam rose from his espresso maker, hearing the sound of Johnny calling to his cat.

  The voice of Sam, calling to the cat.

  And Greg: ‘Bobby, Bobby!’

  If this was death, this was okay. There was no need for head-banging. It was gentle. She would sleep now, she could feel it, and she knew she would never wake up. She began the closing of her eyes.

  Is death glimpsing the Dr Who slippers of her youngest son?

  Or was this real? Were the voices real? Just outside, in the garden?

  She was too weak to move fast or far, and the only tool within reach was the cat’s head, which she lifted in her tied hands. Swinging her hands, shot-put style, she hurled the sticky head towards the grate, hoping it would clear the opening. It would scare the hell out of them, she thought, but they would get over that. They would never get over losing their Mummy.

  It missed, by a lot. The cat’s head banged against the wall with a splat, fell to the floor and then rolled out of reach. She began rocking her chair and yelling through the gag, but there were no more slippers and no more shouts of Bobby.

  It had probably never happened. She had probably made it all up. She should probably close her eyes now.

  Celia would not have picked The Best of Sex as the music to die to. The yes and the oh and the yes, yes, yes. It seemed wrong, all wrong, and too long. Her head was swirling. Nothing made sense, but she had to get out of the room, away from the noise. She zigged and za
gged slowly to get away. When she finally reached the hall, she put her head against the door of the locked room that she had chipped at with the padlock earlier. Something stank. It made her vomit. She tried to relax so she could swallow and not choke. She hadn’t been thinking clearly. Where had her focus gone, falling asleep like that after the cat’s head failed to score a goal? She was doing everything in the wrong order, getting confused and . . . THINK, CELIA! Her boys had been outside. Her little boys, calling for their cat. She could not give up. She could not just close her eyes and die.

  She reached down over the piece of wood nailed to the floor to pick up the largest piece of shattered ceramic from the lamp. Why hadn’t she smashed the lamp herself while she’d had the energy? She held the ceramic weakly in her bony right hand and cut at her wrist ties, once, twice – forget the blood – three times.

  Ten minutes later, she held her hands separately in front of her face. They shook, as did her head, in disbelief. She had done it. Her hands were free.

  She tried to untie the knot on her gag, but the pain in the fractured finger on her left hand was agonising and it was impossible to loosen the tight quadruple knot. She grabbed at her gag with her good hand, pulling to free her mouth and yell, but a thick hard crust of blood and pus had meshed with the burnt polyester, and when she yanked she felt as though she was ripping off her face. She moved on to her leg ties but she’d lost momentum, and the cuts on her wrists were excruciating. She wondered if she might faint. She rested.

  She’d tried to escape by running up the stairs once before, back in the days when she’d weighed nine stone not six, when she’d had the strength and know-how. The door at the top was locked, she knew that. Anyway, she thought, perhaps the other door in the hall, the locked door, might lead to the real world, or maybe into the hostel next door? This was the door she’d tried to chip at earlier. The chipping had seemed fruitless at the time, but the area around the lock was weakened and loose.

  She carefully picked up one of the metal slats that had fallen from the grate, using both hands so she would minimise the pain. She placed it in the crack of the door near to the lock and levered . . . Of course it wasn’t going to work. Why would anything work?

  It swung open. She pushed the door and watched as a sliver of street-light filtered through a grate and lit up the room.

  Celia thought she’d reached rock-bottom – seen hell – but she hadn’t; not until she’d looked inside that room.

  27

  I was obviously not going to be one of those people who could separate sex from emotion. I cried – for the first time in ten years – pretty much the whole way through. I could feel those balls of stone in my tummy eroding a bit, rubbing against each other, dislodging. Even more embarrassing, just after Pete announced that I was officially no longer one of those virgins, I stopped him from moving and said, ‘I love you.’

  ‘I’m in love with you too,’ he said, looking down at my splotchy face and kissing the tears from it.

  ‘I want to take you home with me.’

  I didn’t understand the sadness in his stare.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ I said.

  I was also not going to be one of those quiet types. I yessed and then squawked like a seagull till we were both floppy. Ten minutes later, I went on top and yelled all over again.

  It was good.

  It was very good.

  I was in love.

  And I wanted to dance with the man I loved in the living room.

  We took the record player through and played Beatles songs over and over. I played ‘Help’, using an egg whisk as a microphone and danced on sofas and tables and mattresses. I praised the lord, kissed the Pete, asked him if we could go again.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Bronwyn, we’ve done it five times already! It’ll fall off.’

  I felt dejected. I sat down. My bottom lip pouted. I noticed that the song hadn’t jumped the way it had when I’d played it in my room.

  ‘The song didn’t jump.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bear with me,’ I said.

  I carried the record player back to its position under my bedroom window, plugged it in, put the record on, and played ‘Help’ again.

  It went smoothly the whole way through. I sighed, wondering what the hell I’d been thinking about anyway.

  Something about me bending over the record player made Pete confident that he could go a sixth time. I put the track back on and we kissed on the mattress.

  ‘Shhh!’

  ‘What?’ Pete asked.

  ‘Shhh! Listen . . .’

  I got up and put it on again. It played all the way to that same line, but this time, it didn’t jump, it stopped, at exactly the same point: pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease heeeeeeeelp meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

  Blump.

  Not only had the words descended into creepy slow motion and then stopped with a blump, but the light had gone off at the same time, and when I stood up and tried to switch it back on, I realised that all the lights had gone off. In fact, all the power had gone off.

  ‘You see that?’

  All was quiet for a moment. Then I heard Hamish and Francesco coming in from the Polish club and heading for the bong in the living room. I knelt down on the floor, lay face down on the bare floorboards, and listened.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Pete asked from his post- and pre-coital position on the mattress.

  ‘Come here!’

  Pete lay down beside me and listened to the noises that were undoubtedly coming from the basement. We looked at each other and then pressed our ears to the boards. It was a woman’s voice and she was screaming . . .

  ‘HELP ME!

  HELP ME!

  PLEASE, HELP ME!’

  28

  When the door to the locked room had opened, Celia had vomited and started to choke. She struggled to dislodge what her stomach had magically managed to expel, grabbed the ceramic she had used to sever her hand ties, and sliced at her face with abandon.

  After three huge cuts, the polyester cut in half. She peeled it from her face and spat the bile from her mouth. She coughed. If she’d seen herself, the shock would probably have finished her off. She had a G-force mouth – distorted, rigid, pulled back tight and remaining there. Her right cheek was blistered from the flame that had licked at it. She had cut herself from ear to chin.

  Not wanting to throw up again, she slammed the door to the second room. Her body had just found new strength, spurred on by the voices of her family, and by what she had seen in the locked room.

  She cut into her legs and freed them. She couldn’t walk – she was too weak, and had forgotten how, so she crawled laboriously to the drainpipe and drank as blood spurted from her wounds. She yelled. She heard music coming from another room in the house. She clambered up the stairs and banged at the door. She screamed but the music was too loud. She sat down on the top step for a moment. She may have fainted. The next thing she knew she was at the bottom of the staircase and the music had changed position. It was now coming from the girl’s bedroom.

  She crawled on all fours into her room and yelled up towards the grate on the wall, screaming into the dawn. Blood was spewing from each of the cuts she’d inflicted on herself to be free. She stood for the first time in five weeks and shook as she waited for the right moment to lift the chair and bang it against the ceiling. She felt as though she was lifting a car.

  The record jumped. She screamed, but the song had started again, and it was drowning her out. She crawled back to the hall, leaving a trail of thick blood in her wake, opened the door to the stinking room, reached up inside with closed eyes, and pulled the switch on the fuse box.

  Everything went quiet.

  Celia slumped into her puddle of blood and mustered one last shred of energy from her crumbling body . . .

  ‘HELP ME! HELP ME! PLEASE, HELP ME!’

  29

  I threw on my netball skirt and polo shirt and raced madly around the ground floor of the house looking for
a trapdoor, or some way into the basement. I ran out into the garden and noticed an open grate, and when I knelt down to look inside I nearly threw up. It was a room, covered in excrement, with a chair and broken bits of stuff scattered around. I couldn’t see the woman, but there was an open doorway from the room and I could see the foot of a staircase. I ran back inside and opened the hall cupboard. Hurling cans of paint and rolls of wallpaper out into the hallway, I yelled: ‘We’re coming! We’re coming! Hold on!’

  Maybe there was an opening underneath the junk, I thought. Hamish and Francesco came out of the living room to see what was going on, then the others walked down the stairs to join them.

  I stopped when the back of the cupboard became visible. Shit, why hadn’t we found it? It was a normal whitewashed door, inexpertly hidden by some easily movable rubbish.

  Hamish kicked the locked door, but he was weak and it didn’t budge.

  ‘Pete, you do it,’ I yelled. ‘Quick!’

  He entered the empty cupboard, dressed only in his boxer shorts, took a deep breath, and kicked the door. It fell after one attempt, the hinges bursting from the frame, the door falling and banging down what had to be a staircase.

  I went first. The stairs were wooden, banister-less, and sticky. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was walking in blood, my steps leaving red footprints behind me. I got to the bottom of the stairs, stepped over the fallen door, and saw her. A lump on the floor of the concreted, rank hallway. Her eyes were open, staring up at me, but only just, because her bony frame was spewing blood.

  ‘Who was it? I asked. ‘Who did this to you?’

  She couldn’t answer me.

  I held her. I could hear Hamish, Pete and Francesco behind me, talking, vomiting at the smell. I closed her wounds with my hands as best I could and yelled at the others to get themselves together, to call the ambulance, fast.

  ‘Who did this?’ I repeated.

  ‘Big eyes,’ she muttered, over and over as I stroked her sticky hair. ‘Big eyes.’