Nicola Barker - Wide Open

“I really hope Luke cleared the mud off the bulb end,” he said, “before he set about taking these.”

Jim found the keys in a cup on the table. He took a deep breath. “I’ve got the keys, Ronny,” he spoke quietly, “but I’d rather not drive him to the hospital.”

“Why not?” Ronny put down the photos.

“They might recognize me there.”

“How come?”

“I stole some drugs a while ago. I don’t feel happy about going back.”

Ronny was surprised. “You stole drugs?”

“I needed them. I had a prescription but it was difficult to renew it. I’ll be in trouble if I go back.”

“I don’t think they’d recognize you,” Ronny said quickly, “not in an emergency.”

“They would. This is a small community, and I’m hardly inconspicuous.”

Ronny looked miserable. “It’s just that I already had to use my right arm earlier to carry Luke into the prefab and I felt strange after, kind of sick and fluttery inside. It felt all wrong.”

Jim struggled to sympathize. He struggled. “Just this once, Ronny. He may be dying.”

Ronny gnawed at his thumbnail. “But what about her? Why can’t she do it?”

“She said she can’t drive.”

“I don’t believe her. Everyone can drive.”

Jim frowned. “If we end up having a huge row over it she’ll get suspicious.”

“Why should she?”

Jim’s face was blank.

“Suspicious about what?” Ronny persisted.

“I’m asking you,” Jim said, his voice so hollow and urgent it was really quite eerie, “please. Please .”

Ronny scowled, snatched up the keys and walked out into the rain.

The longer it took for Sara to arrive home, the more enraged Lily became. Where was she anyway? She hadn’t told her she was going out. Eventually it grew dark. Lily was freezing. She was still undressed. The pink hand towel was cold and damp. Her legs and midriff felt all itchy and stiff. Her toe throbbed. She shifted. Her arms were indented with the pattern of the woodchip wallpaper. Her bottom was pocked with several small dustballs and hair-clusters which the Hoover hadn’t quite reached, but her soft skin had reached them.

She was sitting, knees up, huddled, in a corner of the landing. After the incident…The Incident. After The Incident she’d cowered there, more for effect than for anything. What was the point, after all, in making a scene if there was no one present to witness it? She hadn’t minded the initial twenty minutes. It had all been quite exciting. But she’d been waiting for almost two hours now, and she was bored and furious. In fact she’d almost forgotten why it was that she had snuck down there in the first place.

The only thing that kept her — crouched and resentfully timorous — in her corner, was the galling apprehension that if she moved all her suffering would be for nothing. And Sara had to be punished. For not being there. For not understanding her secrets. For being old and clumsy and separate. Yes.

Finally she heard a key in the lock. Voices. She listened, holding her breath. Two voices, one of them male. She jumped up and ran to her bedroom — a startled hare — threw on a precautionary dressing-gown, then came on out boxing. They were in the hallway.

“I’ve been going out of my mind!” she expostulated, making a grand entrance at the top of the stairs, limping extraordinarily. “And something terrible bit my toe. Where were you?”

She stopped in her tracks. On the first stair, close to the wall, lay a sharp blade with blood at its tip. She bent down, grabbed it, and held it behind her back. At the foot of the stairs stood Sara and Ronny. Sara looked washed out. She was torn and wrecked. “Look,” she said hoarsely, ignoring Lily’s protestations, “this is Ronny. He needs to get back to one of the prefabs on the beach. Will you take him? I know it’s dark but you could push your bike there and then ride it back again.”

This was all utterly unforeseen. Lily was thrown off-kilter. “You mean right now?”

“Yes. He doesn’t know the way.”

She was disgruntled. And she was about to complain, to heehaw, to dig in her hooves like a mule, when she noticed that her mother was holding something. “What is that?” she asked nervously. Sara looked down. “A towel. It was in the driveway. It must’ve blown off the line.”

“Oh.”

Lily stared at the brown towel.

“So will you take him?”

But Lily wasn’t listening. She was staring at the wall and at the banisters.

“What’s wrong?” Sara’s eyes followed the route Lily’s had just taken. She stepped forward, squinting. “What is that? What’s been happening here?”

Lily recoiled. “I don’t know.”

Sara climbed a couple of the stairs. “My God,” she stepped back again, “that’s revolting.”

The wall was smeared with blood. A thick blood. Liverish. It was a reddish brown colour and almost dry. The banisters were spotted with it, the skirting boards. It was everywhere.

“What is this? What have you done?”

“Me?” Lily was aggrieved and righteous. “I haven’t done anything.”

But Sara was distracted, suddenly. She was looking down at her own two hands which were red, and the front of her dress, also red. She dropped the towel. “I thought it was wet from a puddle, not…” she mumbled, stunned.

Ronny remained stock still at the foot of the stairs. He had said nothing, hitherto, but he was rubbing his stomach. He looked queasy.

“Oh Christ!” Lily yelled, seeing his expression, her girlish dignity suddenly in tatters. “All this mess! It’s so embarrassing. Why the hell did you have to bring him here?”

“Uh…” Ronny interjected, “I felt sick anyway. It has nothing at all to do with your wallpaper.”

Sara gingerly lifted the bloody towel by its corners. She held it up. Several downy feathers adhered to its sticky, damp fabric. Lily took a cautious step backwards.

“It’s absolutely soaking,” Sara said softly, “heavy Do you have any idea how this could have happened?”

Lily scowled. “No.”

“You’ve not been bleeding or anything?”

“No!”

Lily’s eyes were stony with mortification.

“Not even…you know?”

“Oh, my God, I hate you!” Lily yelled, sprinting off towards the sanctuary of her bedroom. “You just want everyone to think I’m some kind of crazy witch or a pervert or a stupid weirdo!”

The door slammed. Ronny sat down on the bottom stair. Sara pushed past him. “I’d better wash my hands and put this in to soak.”

Lily tossed the knife into a drawer and then listened, furtively. Their voices were muffled but audible. And while she listened she pressed her hands to her cheeks to feel how hot they were and then tried to cool them — first with her fists, then with the back of a plastic hairbrush, and finally with the cool innards of her A Level Business Studies text book. She was a skinny statuette. She was Tome-Head.

“I’m really sorry about this,” Sara said, “it’s just so strange. If you wait in the sitting room until Lily’s calmed down, I’ll quickly try and clear up the worst of it.”

“I’m fine here,” Ronny said, watching her disappear into the kitchen, remaining seated, picking off a couple of feathers from his cardigan’s sleeve and then raising his voice over the sound of water running. “It smells kind of like iron, don’t you think? The blood? Like metal.”

“Yes.” Sara’s voice was distant and then close again. “I’d hate you to think we made a habit of doing this kind of thing.”

Ronny was silent for a moment and then he said thoughtfully, “Your daughter seems very angry about something.”