Imperfect Strangers (24 page)

What little conversation there is with Keith is also becoming uncomfortable. Keith constantly refuses to acknowledge that I’m staying for one night only. To shut him up
, I eventually say, “I’ll think about staying longer, but I will have to go home tomorrow for a change of clothes.

“
That won’t be necessary,” he says, grinning, with a peculiar, almost devious expression, which makes me feel even more uncomfortable.

Why won’t it be
necessary, I silently question realising that coming here was a mistake, feeling that it would be best to just stay the one night. Yes, that would be best, let Keith believe I’m coming back. Just leave in the morning and count this as one of my least enjoyable experiences.

I place the half emptied mug on the coffee
table.

“Another?”

Making a show of it, I stretch my arms and give an exaggerated yawn. “Actually, Keith, I’m shattered. Can I just go on up.”

“Yes.” Keith says,
his enthusiasm bordering on hysteria. His excitement fades as he casts a quick glance into the kitchen, but returns, exuberantly, as he looks back at me. “Come on,” he says, bounding to the door in the corner, the heavy-looking door that presumably leads to the stairs. “I can’t wait for you to see the room. It’s perfect. I got it just right. Everything, perfect, right down to the smallest detail.”

Odd. Really, really odd. I brush Mrs Seaton from my lap and stand.

“You first,” Keith insists, opening the door and stepping aside to let me pass.

On the stairs side of the door, I notice there are two hefty bolts, one at the bottom, and one in the middle. Keith closes the door; thankfully he doesn’t slide the bolts into place. H
e follows up the stairs so closely that his nose almost touches my back. It makes me feel uncomfortable, so I quicken the pace, taking two steps at a time.

*  *  *

I’m wondering if I’ve given too much away. Sally is so excited she’s practically running up the stairs.

“That’s your room,” I say as Sally hits the landing, pointing out the freshly painted door at
the far end. I can feel a tremor in my voice and try to cough it away.

“You know, maybe I should go home.” Sally smiles broadly. “I’ve no night clothes
, or change of underwear, or anything.”

She hasn’t guessed then. “Not a problem.” I give her a wink, feeling especially pleased with myself, knowing that I’ve provided all Sally could possibly need. “There’s some in the bedside cabinet.”

Sally’s smile fades as she draws her bottom lip over her teeth. “I think I might need some... my time of the month’s coming up. I really think it would be best if I went home. I mean, I don’t want to get–”

“Time of the month?”

“My period.”

“Oh.
Oh that.
No problem.” I really have thought of everything. “Bathroom cabinet.”

Why would he have such things in the house? “I think Kerry will be worried ab
out me. I really think I should–”

“SALLY!
Stop it. You’re always putting others before yourself. You’re here now–”

“But, I–”

“You don’t need to worry about a thing. Everything is going to be all right, now. And we don’t need to worry about Mother, either, not now. You’re staying here; I’m not having you walking the streets at this hour. If anything happened to you, she’d blame me? I would blame me. Everyone would. If anything happened to you I would be in big trouble. It’d be like before, like last time. And that wasn’t my fault either, but I still got the blame. It was her, Heather; she led me up the garden path. She told me to do it.”

“Keith, are you okay?”

“What? Why?”

“I thought..
. it’s just, for a moment, you went, like into a trance or something.”

“Yes. It’s al
l right. She’s gone now. She won’t bother you, anyway. It’s me she doesn’t like.” I take hold of Sally’s arm, to reassure her, and guide her along the landing. “You might want to use the bathroom, then, before we go to bed.”

CHAPTER
35

What are you doing here Sally?
Screams the voice in my head.
Why didn’t you listen to Kerry?
There’s no lock on the bathroom door. What kind of person has bolts on the door to the stairs, but not on the door to the toilet?

Most bathroom locks are useless anyway, more a discre
et way of saying occupied than a means of keeping out deranged nutters; so, it makes little difference.

So much for
my idea of spending the night, leaving early in the morning, and putting the whole thing down as a bad experience never to be repeated. That thought dwindled rapidly and caused me to really worry when he followed me up the stairs, so close that I could feel the heat of his breath on my back. Words from studying A-level literature – a sonnet by Edmund Spencer, of all things – come to mind:
My love is like to ice and I to fire. How comes it then that she is not dissolved by my so hot desire?

Keith seems to think we’re an item. I fully understand now what
Spencer’s words actually mean with a genuine depth of understanding. It was his performance on the landing that really scared me. He actually sounded frightened out there, more like a little boy than a man.
It was her; she led me up the garden path. She told me to do it.
I didn’t know whether to comfort him or run from him. All the horror stories on crime-watch and brutal scenes in films fire my imagination, and I think, no time to lose. Think Sally. Perhaps I should phone the police. He might hear me though, and that might make him crazy – carving-knife crazy. Text Kerry, that’s best. He won’t hear that. I turned my mobile off to stop Steve ringing me. Damn, the phone plays a tune when it’s turned on. Fumbling in my bag for the mobile, I wonder how to disguise the sound. Cough, and hope for the best.

Shit. Where is it? It should be in here. Fuck. I never go out without it. I put it in
my bag. I know I did – checked the charge and everything. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I rummage and rummage through the bag several times before accepting that it isn’t there. I’m on my own. It must have fallen out when Kerry knocked the bag over. It must have gone down the side of the cushion. I’ve never left the house without my phone in case there’s an emergency. Never. Ever. And now, when I really need it, not simply to say I’ll be home in ten, put the kettle on, but really need it, possibly for a matter of life and death, I haven’t got it.

Stop it Sally
, I tell the screaming self in my head,
you’re frightening yourself more than Keith is
.
This is not life and death. Be calm. Be calm
. Keith is a little creepy, but maybe there
are
nightclothes. His mother’s no doubt; that would make sense. The thought of wearing the nightclothes of a dead woman makes me shudder.
Steady your nerves
.

There’s a little knock on the door and
my heart leaps an inch in my chest; I barely managing to stifle the resulting scream. “You alright Sally?” Keith sounds sympathetic, soothing almost, the kind of tone a parent would voice to a young child. “Time we were in bed, hmmn?”

We? Surely he doesn’t mean..
. together? “Yes, I’m all right... just sorting myself out.”

Maybe if I just play along until morning. Maybe then things will be al
l right. Pretend everything is okay. Pretend all this is normal. It’s not far from normal, anyway, not really. Be calm. After all, what’s he actually done? He only got strange when I said I wanted to leave. That’s the ticket; just act normal. Be cool. Play along and go to bed as if nothing is out of the ordinary, as if everything is fine. You’re just spending the night at a friend’s house. Just sleeping. I have no intention of sleeping, though, none whatsoever. I intend to stay awake all night.

“Just going to have a wash, Keith,” I call out, trying my utmost to steady the tremor in my voice. “You get off to bed, if you like. I’ll see you in the morning, yes?”

“No. It’s all right. I’ll wait. I don’t want to miss your reaction.”

His voice vibrates against the door, and I imagine him pressed against the other side, listening. Great. What reaction?
My reaction to what? Be calm, Sal. Stay cool. If I take my time, he might get fed up of waiting and go to bed. Then again he might get all agitated and strange and nasty again and break the door in. Jack Nicholson pops into my head again, different film, but even more crazy. I have a sudden need to pee. The toilet, though, was the second thing after the lack of a lock that I’d noticed. Both its appearance and its smell make it impossible to overlook. It’s more amber than white, not very inviting, less so than most public urinals. But I need to go. I picture Keith again, his ear pressed against the door, and pull a wad of toilet paper to deaden the sound. Drawing down my knickers, slowly, I keep an eye on the door. If that handle so much as shakes, I’ll... I don’t know what I’ll do. I hover over the seat, refusing to make contact, and let the pee flow. It must be my imagination, but I can’t recall it ever sounding louder. I picture Keith smirking with sinister wickedness as he listens with perverse thoughts rolling through his head.

No
, I assure myself, Keith isn’t like that.

The entire bathroom smells. It re
eks of not just urine, but of dirty drains and damp mustiness. The shower-curtain is one of those cheap nylon things: once white, I imagine, it has a pinkish haze and is peppered with black mould. It hangs from plastic hooks, also blushed pink with bacteria, from a chrome rail spotted with rust. It’s just the kind of thing they would have in a horror film, exactly like the one in Psycho and all the slash films that have followed. I hear the slashing music in my head:
Wheep-wheep-wheep
. Stop scaring yourself, Sally, it’s bad enough as it is. Be calm, collected. You’re not going to have a shower anyway. Keep yourself together and there won’t be a problem.

Hovering over the loo, thinking the flow will never stop, my thighs burning, my knees aching, feeling vulnerable, my eyes delving into every scummy crack and cranny in the bathroom, I dread to think what the room
I will be sleeping/not sleeping in will be like. It’s his room. It’s Keith’s room. I have a picture in my mind of peeling wallpaper, a ceiling of yellowed and peeling once-white paint and a bare bulb hanging from a frayed cord. One of those light switches that are domed and made from that brown plastic they had years ago. Baking light? Something like that. Old stuff, from a bygone era, when they couldn’t make proper plastic. The bed-sheets are probably grey and damp with sweat. His sweat, soaked through the sheet and into the mattress, all cold and clammy. It would likely have been his mother’s bed before it was his. Shit, he
is
that creepy guy from
Psycho.
He’s Norman Bates. His mother’s probably in there, in a rocking chair by the window, her skeletal face grinning with sinister wickedness, the bones of a dead cat curled on her knee.

Don’t be silly Sal. Be cool.

Keith raps on the door. It’s gentle, with patient restraint in its delivery, but still it makes me draw a quick gasp. It’s only then I realise I was holding my breath, that my lungs are actually burning from their need for oxygen. “You alright? She’s not in there, bothering you, is she?”

What?
I mouth, shaking my head against the incredulity of the situation. “Who?”

“Mother. She’s not in there, is she?”

Fuck! Oh fuck. Norman Bates. Norman Bates.
Wheep. Wheep. Wheep.

“Sally?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“That thing’s in the cabinet if you need it.”

Thing?
Ignore it Sal. It’s just Keith, a little odd, certainly, but harmless.

I stand at the sink washing my hands when I catch my reflection i
n the oddly angled mirror. Its shows my chest, an inch or so of cleavage. Quick fingers take to the task of doing up buttons to my neck almost without conscious effort. I bend to see my face, to look at the stupid woman who would put herself in this position. Sure enough I look just like the kind of fool I’ve seen on crime-watch in those reconstructions. Ordinary. I’ve often said to myself that the actress in the reconstruction looks too smart to have ended up there, that the real person – the victim – must have looked real dumb.
Don’t
have nightmares
, they always say at the end,
these things rarely happen
. I almost laugh. Almost. Who will they get to play me, I find myself thinking.

The redness around my eyes tell
s of the crying I have held back while in this room. Wanting to look and act as normal as possible, so as to not raise Keith’s strangeness to uncharted heights, I splash cold water on my face. The towel is disgusting. A stench of mustiness: that vomit-like stink of damp material left to dry naturally over a long period of time. As I wait for my face to dry of its own accord, despite telling myself that I wasn’t interested, I cannot resist the urge to look in the cabinet. I always look in the cabinet when I visit a new bathroom. Bathroom cabinets can tell you a lot about a person.

That thing is in the cabinet
, he said
.

The cabinet contains the items one would normally expect to find: a tube of toothpaste; headache tablets; nail-clippers; a comb and various other things. On the bottom shelf though, in the centre,
like some sort of weird trophy, sits a solitary tampon. The rest of the shelf is empty, cleared of all other items, as if that shelf has been reserved for this tampon and this tampon alone. One! Why one? Where the other shelves have a millimetre thick carpet of dust, this one is spotless. In the confines of the bathroom mustiness the shelf’s smell of balsam fragranced polish seems almost heavenly. It’s as if the tampon is a precious item, a prize, which repels the corruption in the rest of the bathroom.

“Freak,” I say out loud, hopefully not too loud, as I close the cabinet. I draw a breath, form what I hope is an expression of normality and grasp the handle in readiness to exit this
unsanitary sanctuary of dampness.

I almost bump into Keith, so close is he to the door. He
was
listening then. Dirty bastard.

“All done?” he asks, stepping back and sweeping his arm in the direction of the door he indicated as being the one where I will be sleeping – not sleeping. “Ready for your surprise?”

Not exactly Christmas morning ready
, I think, gripping the handle of the bedroom door. My eyes travel the height of it, top to bottom. Runs in the paint terminate in wrinkled blobs. From a distance it looked perfect. Apart from the bathroom and the kitchen, the entire house smells of newness. It smells of carpet and fresh paint. It smells new. It feels unlived in, like a stage that has been set for a particular scene. A feeling of dread halts me from turning the handle. I’m dreading the discovery. I don’t actually want to know what the surprise might be. Images from every horror film, every thriller, and every true crime stream into my mind’s eye: pictures of manacles, of ropes, of knives and whips and chains. The mother’s skeletal body sitting by the window in the rocking chair, a shaft of moonlight lighting its skull, its mouth grinning, and its empty sockets staring at me as I enter.

“Go on then. Don’t worry, Sally, she’d never go in there.”

Shit. Fuck. Oh, fuck. Norman Bates.
My chest constricts. My muscles stiffen. I can hardly make myself breathe. I can feel his heat on my back. His hand reaches around me, causing me to flinch, and closes over mine on the handle. My heart hammers so hard I think it might crack a rib.

Slowly the door opens.

The light in the room is already on. It’s pink. Soft pink light spills onto the dimly lit landing and bathes me with a feeling of familiarity. Keith places his hands on my shoulders as I stand as still, as frozen as ice, his heat burning into my back. I seem to have stopped breathing altogether. Maybe time itself has stopped. My eyes, for the moment, are all that will respond to the panic in my head, a panic that is filling my mind like water gushing into a sink. My eyes dart around the room unable to settle for more than a moment on any one object: the bed, the curtains, the bed, furniture, the perfume, the bed, the ornaments. It’s a framed photograph over the bed that eventually snags my eye. It’s the one from Florence that Steve had enlarged. Only it isn’t Steve with his arm around me, it’s Keith. Or rather it’s Keith’s head – Keith’s head where Steve’s should be, Keith’s head, grinning like the cat who got the cream, like the cat who shat behind the sofa and got away with it. It’s Keith’s head that’s sneering, looking ridiculously out of place upon Steve’s shoulders, placed at a slightly odd angle as if his neck is broken. My eyes dart to the other pictures in the room. All of them familiar: the beach in Majorca, the trip to London, us standing on the heath looking down onto Derwent Dam. They’ve all been doctored in the same way. In my mind I see the pictures of Steve with that woman.

The realisation stiffens me like a chill wind.

Keith squeezes my shoulders. “Speechless? I knew you’d like it.”

“What? NO!” Instinctively I step back, crashing into Keith. “No. This isn’t real. This. It isn’t.” My heart
kicks, as the gushing panic in my head rises above the overflow and floods into a wail of a scream. Crying, I try to turn away from the room, pushing against Keith. He’s stronger than he looks; I can’t force my way past.