Sweet Damage (9 page)

‘Look,' she interrupts. And now she looks at me directly, speaks firmly, and I see a surprising flash of anger. ‘You seem like a very nice person and I don't want to be rude, but there's something I should say. You're just my flatmate, someone to share the house with. Don't assume you can help me. Not in that way.'

She puts her cup on the table and pushes her chair back. Before I have a chance to say another word, she stands up and leaves the room.

13

S
HE LEAVES
T
IM SITTING AT THE TABLE AND RUSHES UPSTAIRS, STRAIGHT
to the attic. Tim is too easy to talk to. It's something in his face: the soft hazel of his eyes, the childlike spatter of freckles across his nose, the hesitant smile he wears when he asks questions. It's impossible to believe that someone with a face like that could hold any malice, or be judgemental, and it's so tempting to blurt everything out to him, tell him every heartbreaking detail, every black thing that's ever happened, and let him ponder and probe the dark places she doesn't dare investigate on her own.

14

I
GET HOME FROM WORK LATER THAT NIGHT AND FIND THE HOUSE
in darkness. It's well past midnight and though I'm physically buggered, I'm still mentally pumped from another busy night at work. I need a few beers, an hour in front of the TV, something mindless to watch – and with Anna presumably already in bed it's the perfect opportunity to have the living room to myself for once. I open the beer I've brought home with me from the restaurant and spread myself out on the couch. I flick lazily through the channels.

I must have dozed off, because suddenly I'm jolted awake by a loud, repetitive banging.

As I sit up the noise stops. Disoriented, I wonder if I really heard it, or if some kind of sharp noise from the TV filtered into my dreams. I turn off the TV, check the time on my phone.

It's almost three a.m.

The pounding starts again. Loud and urgent. The front door.

Shit.

As I stand up, the pounding continues. Deafening. Insistent. A feeling of dread grips me, making my skin go cold. I swallow and shout, ‘Okay, okay. Hold on a minute!', trying to sound as though I'm not frightened, as though my heart isn't beating frantically and all the blood isn't draining from my face.

I look around the room for some kind of weapon, and settle on a large ceramic bookend. It's heavy enough to do some damage.

‘Who's there?' I call through the door. ‘What do you want?'

There's no answer, only three more knocks, so heavy I feel the floor shudder beneath my feet.

I clutch the bookend tightly in my fist, unlock the door, open it.

There's nobody there.

I flick the outside light but it doesn't come on.

‘Hello?' I shout. ‘Who's there? What the hell do you want?'

I don't expect an answer, and I don't get one. I put down the bookend and step out onto the porch, peering into the garden to see if anyone's hiding, but it's far too dark to tell. The massive old trees cast deep shadows, which from here look like dense pits of black. The streetlights don't help at all.

Kids, I conclude. Probably drunk. Making trouble, playing tricks on people. Me and my mates used to think it was fun doing stuff like that.

I peer again into the bushes, but it's hopeless, I can't see a thing. I'd need a strong torch to see any further than a few metres, and anyway, I'm sure that whoever it was is long gone.

‘If you do it again I'll call the police,' I call out to nobody, feeling stupid. And then I turn around to go back inside.

The front door is swinging shut.

‘Shit.' I rush forward, hands reaching out to stop it, but I'm too late. The door slams shut in my face. I twist the handle and push against it. It's locked.

‘Fuck.' I rummage in my pockets in case I left the key in my pants. I don't find it, but I do notice how shaky and clumsy my hands are. I take a deep breath, tell myself to calm down. The door must have swung shut. A stupid mistake.
My
mistake. No big deal.

I go around the side of the house towards the back, checking windows as I go. It's hard to see in the dark and I trip and stumble and curse under my breath. I can't fucking believe it. I can't believe I've let myself get locked out at three in the morning. I laugh miserably at my own stupidity. I'm so tired I could curl up on the grass and sleep, and I'm considering it as a serious option, perhaps my only option, when I reach the back of the house and see light coming from the kitchen. The French doors are both open, and light spills out onto the courtyard.

‘Hello?' I step inside, look around. The kitchen is empty.

I close and lock the doors, pushing against them firmly to ensure they're properly locked.

Did Anna leave them open before she went to bed? Seems unlikely. And I'm sure the lights weren't on before. The house was completely dark when I got home.

Is someone in the house?

I see a shape in the window, a face reflected in the glass. I whip around, a grunt of fear escaping my lips.

Nothing. There's nobody there.

I let out a relieved laugh – it was my own reflection. I'm letting my imagination get out of control. I'm beyond tired, freaking out over nothing.

A bunch of kids knocked on the door and ran away. I locked myself out. Anna left the back doors open. Nothing sinister or strange at all. I just need a decent night's sleep.

I turn the kitchen lights off and head back into the hall.

The front door is wide open.

15

I
KNOW
I
WON
'
T BE GETTING ANY MORE SLEEP TONIGHT
. I
TURN THE
kitchen lights back on and make myself a strong mug of coffee; try to make myself calmer by pretending it's morning.

I take my coffee and go through each downstairs room, one by one. I call out, turn lights on, check behind sofas and curtains. The whole exercise feels a bit stupid and pointless – I don't think anyone is in the house. Not now. But I don't want to go to bed and I need to do something with the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

I go upstairs to my bedroom. It's empty, exactly as I left it when I went to work.

I go through the other bedrooms as well, checking under beds, in cupboards. When I get to the bedroom nearest Anna's, I hear something through the door. A soft, continuous keening noise. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

I open the door.

She's crouched on the floor in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chest. Her arms are wrapped around her legs, and her face is buried. She's moaning and crying, muttering something over and over, rocking back and forth.

‘Anna?'

I enter quietly, afraid to scare her. I crouch down in front of her and put my hand on her knee.

‘Hey.'

She stops crying and becomes still for the briefest moment before starting up again. Crying and rocking. Back and forth.

I speak louder. ‘Anna, are you okay?'

She doesn't respond. Doesn't stop moving. I wait there for a moment, not sure what to do, before deciding I should try to help her up, get her to bed. It's cold in here and she's wearing a very thin-looking pair of pyjamas.

‘Sorry,' I say, hooking my hands beneath her arms. ‘But I'm going to help you back to your room. I think you're just . . .' I fade off. I don't exactly know what I think. Do I think she's having some kind of breakdown? A bad dream? Do I think she's been running around the house knocking on doors? Locking me out?

I lift her with surprising ease. She's as light as a feather and she doesn't resist. When she's standing she raises her head and looks up at me, blinking, her expression docile.

‘Did you hear him?' she asks.

‘Hear who?'

‘Benjamin,' she says.

She's obviously having some kind of dream, some kind of sleepwalking nightmare. I shake my head and put my hand on her back, lead her out of the room, across the hall. When we reach her bed she sighs, climbs in and pulls the blankets up. She turns onto her side and shuts her eyes.

‘Okay,' I say quietly, not sure if she's even aware of my presence, if she was ever fully awake. ‘You're okay now. Everything's fine.'

I flick the light off and am about to close the door when her voice rings out, sad and small in the darkness.

‘He was here. Benjamin. I heard him. He needed me. I was so happy. I thought he'd come back home. I thought he'd come back to give me a second chance.'

16

T
HOUGH
I
KEEP AN EYE OUT
, I
DON
'
T SEE
A
NNA AROUND THE HOUSE
for the rest of the day. I hear footsteps upstairs at lunchtime and I race up, only to see her slip into the attic, closing the door firmly behind her. By the time I'm ready to leave for work I've decided I should find her and check that she's okay, try to suss out what was going on last night.

Her bedroom door is open, the room empty. I knock on the attic door and hear footsteps crossing the floor above me, then clumping down the stairs. The door opens. Anna's eyes are bloodshot, her skin pale. She looks unwell. She also looks openly annoyed.

‘Sorry. I'm just leaving for work,' I say. I smile. ‘Are you okay?'

‘Absolutely fine,' she says abruptly, sounding almost offended by my question. If she remembers anything about last night, she's not giving it away.

‘O–kay,' I say. ‘Um. I . . . about last night. I—'

‘I'm busy,' she says. ‘Did you want something specific?'

Her expression is so hostile it seems suddenly impossible to bring up what happened.

‘Right,' I say, now annoyed myself. ‘Fine. I just thought you might need something from the shops. The fridge is a bit empty. I thought maybe—'

‘No,' she interrupts. ‘Thanks. I don't need a thing.' She steps back into the attic, as if she can't wait for me to go.

‘Cool,' I say. ‘No worries. I'll leave you to it, then.'

She nods, then closes the door without saying another word.

17

I
T WAS A WEEK AFTER THE ARGUMENT WITH HER MOTHER WHEN
F
IONA RANG
and asked if she wanted to come for lunch
.

Marcus cooked and they ate pasta and salad, then afterwards they walked to a nearby cinema to see an afternoon film.

‘Hey, how's your mother going?' Fiona asked. ‘Any more dramas?'

‘Not really,' Anna said. ‘No dramas. But she's not really speaking to me.'

Her mother had kept a pitifully wounded expression on her face the entire week. And when she did talk, she used her saddest, quietest voice.

‘But you're okay?' Fiona linked her arm through Anna's, pulled her closer.

‘Yes. I'm fine. I just wish she'd stop being so pathetic.' Anna laughed. ‘I sometimes have these fantasies where she just goes away. Leaves me and Daddy alone in the house. Life would be so much better without her.'

Fiona frowned.

‘You think I'm terrible now, don't you?' she said, squeezing Fiona's arm, glancing across at Marcus who had his eyes on the ground. ‘You think I'm selfish and ungrateful.'

‘Not at all,' Fiona said. ‘Sometimes parents can be hopeless. I completely understand.'

After the movie, Fiona drove her home. In the car they discussed the movie, the characters and plot, the bits they liked best. Fiona dropped her outside the house and promised to ring her in a few days. Anna waited by the side of the road and watched Fiona's car get smaller and smaller as she drove away.

*

That night she was startled awake by a gentle knock on her bedroom door.

‘Anna? Anna?' Her neighbour, Pat, was standing at the foot of her bed.

Anna pushed her covers off, stood up immediately.

‘What are you doing here?' She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly frightened. ‘What is it?'

Pat looked terrible. She had red blotches around her eyes, as if she'd been crying. ‘You'd better come downstairs, darling,' she said, taking Anna's arm. ‘There's something—'

‘Something
what
?'

‘There's been an accident.'

When they got downstairs she found the house weirdly busy. Every light was on, and there were two policemen in the kitchen. Another official-looking woman stood stiffly by the table. Pat bustled Anna into the kitchen and pulled out a chair for her. Anna was surprised when she looked at the wall clock to see that it was only just past midnight.

‘What are all these people doing here?' she asked. ‘Where's Daddy? What's happened? Where's Mum?'

The rest of it was a blur. A female police officer came and crouched beside her, put her hands on Anna's knees and told her that her parents had been in a car accident earlier that evening. Her mother had died instantly. Her father was in a critical condition in hospital. A coma. Anna tried to argue at first, saying it was impossible, there must be some kind of mistake. But the woman was patient and so was Pat, and they stayed with her until she understood.

*

On the day of her mother's funeral she howled, surprised by the depth of her grief, the way she longed for her mother.

‘I'm so sorry so sorry so sorry,' she chanted in her head as the curtains closed over the coffin.

Her father lived for three more weeks and all day long, every day, Anna sat by his bedside in the hospital and willed him to wake up. To live. To stay with her.

‘You can't leave me too,' she told him, pressing her face against his still-warm chest. ‘Don't you dare. I won't let you. I won't.'