Nicky Singer - Feather Boy

My legs are still on remote control but there’s something wrong with my breathing. I seem to have lost the knack of it. I instruct myself to breathe normally. In out, in out. The ‘out’ seems OK, but the ‘in’ is too quick and too shallow. How long does it take a person to die of oxygen starvation anyway? In out, in out. I’ve come to the door. In.

In. The room has been stripped. There are brackets but no cupboards, the dust shape of what might have been a boiler, plumbing for a sink that isn’t there and a mad array of cut and dangling wires. On the left-hand wall is a rubble hole where a fireplace has been gouged out and the floor is strewn with paper, envelopes and smashed brick.

At the far end of the room is a glass door. An internal door which must lead to the rest of the house. I look behind me and then I step inside. The door’s closed but obviously not locked because someone has put a brick at its foot, to stop it swinging. A final look over my shoulder and I’m moving towards that door. But I’ve only gone a couple of paces when I hear the scraping. A rhythmic, deliberate noise that stops me dead. The sort of noise you’d make if you were watching someone, and wanted them to know you were watching, without yourself being seen.

Scrape, scrape, scrape. Pause. Scrape.

It’s coming from my right. From the small kitchen window over the absent sink. This window is almost opaque, darkened by the steel-mesh glass and the shadow of some bush or tree that’s growing too close to the house.

Scrape. Pause. Scrape.

I see the finger now. And the knuckle – which looks deformed. But perhaps that’s just the trick of the light, the refraction of bone through fibreglass. My heart is beating like a warrior drum. Tom torn torn torn torn torn. But I’m not going to panic. I’m emphatically not going to panic.

I panic.

I leap out of the room into the garden.

I scream: “I can see you!”

A holly bush continues to scrape one of its branches against the glass of the kitchen window. Scrape. Pause. Scrape. In time with the wind.

I’m so relieved I sob. Huge foolish tears rolling down my cheeks. Norbert No-Brain. Norbert No-Botde. At least Niker isn’t here to see. Or Kate. When the boo-hooing stops I look for a hanky. But I don’t have one so I pick a dock leaf and blow my nose on that.

Right. That’s it. I’m going back in. I make for the glass door. I stride there, kick the brick out of the way and go through into a thin corridor. Then I worry about the brick. If anyone sees the brick’s been moved, they’ll know someone’s in the house. I go back out into the kitchen (which compared with the corridor is light and airy and pleasant) and retrieve the brick. Then I discover I can’t shut the door with me on the inside and the brick on the outside. Or I can, just, if I squeeze my fingers around the gap between door and doorpost, edging the brick back into place. Hang on, what if someone jams the brick right up against the door, barricading me in? Change of plan. Better to have the brick on my side of the door after all. That way at least if someone comes in from the garden, they’ll knock it over getting into the house and I’ll hear them. I bring the brick in, lean it against the door my side. Now I’m safe. If the people are outside.

But what if they’re inside?

I look at my watch. Six minutes to nine. I really have to get to school. Absolutely can’t be late. Have to go right now. The skirting board in the corridor has been ripped off. There’s a gap between the base of the wall and the floorboards through which I can see down to some sort of basement. In the dark cavity there are flowerpots, lamp bases, lamp shades, a desk, a filing cabinet and a sink, the old ceramic sort. There’s also the sound of water. Not a small drip drip, but a gushing, the noise of a tap on full bringing water pouring from a tank. Or maybe a cistern filling, or a bath emptying or…

Crash!

It’s the brick. The brick has fallen. I wheel around, catch my foot in the hole in the floor, fall, twist my ankle, drag myself up, never once taking my eyes from the swinging door. But nobody comes through. Nobody comes through! Why don’t they come through! I’m not an impetuous person, but I burst through that door, hopping across the kitchen faster than normal people run. And then I’m in the garden, and actually my ankle’s all right, so I do run. Run, run, run – flowers, washing line, burnt ground, smashed glass, corner of house, swollen door, front wall. Front wall of Chance House. Safety of St Aubyns. I collapse on to the pavement.

“Run rabbit run rabbit, run, run, run.” A familiar voice croons softly above me. “Don’t be afraid of the farmer’s gun.”

I look up. About a hand’s breadth from my head is a pair of feet.

“Hello, Norbert,” says Niker.

He swings himself down from the wall.

“You want to watch yourself.” He brushes imaginary specks of dust from his trousers. “Bad place, Chance House.” He smiles.

“What?”

“Bad place, Norbert. Bad house. Bad karma.”

He looks at my blank face. “You don’t know, do you? Everyone in town knows. But you don’t.” He turns towards school.

“Niker…”

He pauses. “Yes, Norbert?”

“Tell me.”

“Please. Pretty please, Norbert.”

“Pretty please.”

He looks at me pityingly. “A boy died in there, Norbert.”

“What?”

“You heard.”

“What boy? Who?”

“Just a boy, Norbie. Pasty little thing, by all accounts. Fluffy hair. Pale. Pocked. Bit like you, really. But his mum couldn’t see it. Doted on him, apparently. Told him he was wonderful. So wonderful he could fly. So what does he do? Opens the window of the Top Floor Flat and gives it a go. Pretty nasty mess on the concrete by all accounts.”

“Top Floor? Top Floor Flat, Chance House? Are you sure?”

“You feeling all right, Norbert?”

“Niker, are you sure?”

“Higher the window, more the strawberry jam. Lots of strawberry jam in this boy’s case, Norbert. Top Floor Flat for certain.” He grins. “Come on now, bunny, you’re going to be late for school. Better hop it, eh?”

I remain sitting on the pavement.

“Suit yourself.” He turns away.

As I watch his retreating back, the little swagger in his step, I want to believe it’s all just a story. One he’s made up to frighten me. But I know what’s really frightened me is Chance House itself. You see, it smells like The Dog Leg. It smells of fear.

Let me tell you about Kate. She’s slim and has a small round face with a pointed chin and freckles over the bridge of her nose. Her hair is light brown and straight and she keeps it cut short, usually with a fringe. Her eyes are hazel and, when she smiles, a little dimple appears in her right cheek. Niker says she looks like a cat. She’s my idea of an angel.

It took me two terms to pluck up courage to invite her to my house. I chose a Friday, because that’s a day I know she’s normally free. Both times she went back with Niker it was a Friday.

“Thanks for asking, Robert,” she said. “But I can’t. I’m busy.” She smiled and I watched the dimple appear.

“Fine,” I said. “Another time maybe.”

“Sure.”

But I didn’t ask again. When someone says they’re busy, you never know if they’re really busy or just busy for you. And I thought if I asked again I might find out. And perhaps I didn’t want to find out. Besides it was clear I had left the door open. She could invite herself any time. But she didn’t.

So you can imagine how I feel when, next time we get onto the minibus to visit the Mayfield Rest Home, Kate chooses to sit by me. OK, so it’s not exactly a free choice. She’s late and there are only two seats left, one next to student teacher and damp sponge, Liz Finch, the other next to me. On the other hand, I have the seat over the wheel with the restricted leg room and Miss Finch has the front seat with the view. So if Kate’s just looking for somewhere to sit, Finch’s seat is closer and comfier. So I reckon it has to be significant that it is at my feet that she dumps her bag.