David Mitchell - Slade House

Stairs going up; stairs going down; nobody’s here.

I try to un-tense myself. I imagined it. That’s all.

You may find a weapon in the cracks, says the voice.

This one’s not like Jonah or Norah in the kitchen. This voice is talking to me. I don’t know how I know but I know.

The cracks they throw the scraps down, says the boy.

Cracks? Scraps? Weapon? I manage to mutter, “Who are you?” but as I’m saying it to the portrait of Nathan Bishop, the smarter part of me thinks it knows.

I’m not a lot, says the boy . I’m my own left-overs.

“Why will I—” what am I doing, talking to a picture of a vanished boy? “—why’ll I need a weapon?”

The grandfather clock’s tocking, far far below.

It’s in my head. It’s not. It hurts too much.

For you, it’s too late, says the boy. But pass it on.

“Pass it on to who?” I ask the voice that may or may not be real.

The next guest … I’m finished now … I’m all used up.

I say, “Hello?” but the boy’s gone. I crawl backwards up the stairs, away from Nathan Bishop’s portrait, until my eyes lock onto the next one which I also recognize instantly ’cause it’s me, Gordon Edmonds. I ought to be totally freaked out by this, but there’s only so many shocks you can take before your, I dunno, circuits burn out. So I just gape, like a total bloody lemon. I gape at the more-real-than-real picture of Gordon Edmonds, in a brown furry dressing gown, with my buzz-cut hair, my retreating hairline, my kind-of-leaner-fitter-better-looking-Phil-Collins face, with bloody creepy skin-tone blanks where my eyes should be. I stare until I think, You should get out of this house. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. But that’s idiotic as well as chickenshit. Run off, ’cause Chloe painted your portrait? I try to think, but it’s not easy. My brain’s sort of numb. If Chloe painted my portrait, she painted the others. If Chloe painted the others, she painted Nathan Bishop. Meaning she lied about not knowing his name. Meaning …

Chloe’s a killer? Get a grip. I’ve interviewed three or four serial killers, and Chloe’s nothing like those feces-gobbling fucks. Look again. Yes, Chloe painted me as a surprise, but it doesn’t follow that she painted the other pictures. The other pictures look like they were painted a long time ago. They must have been hanging here when Chloe and Stuart bought the place from the Pitts. That explains it. Sort of. They don’t have titles or signatures, so Chloe couldn’t’ve known she’s passed Nathan Bishop every time she uses these stairs. And I didn’t show her the boy’s picture last week in the garden: all I did was tell her his name.

What about the voice I just heard, warning me to get out?

What about it? Just ’cause you hear a ghostly voice, that doesn’t mean you have to believe it. Maybe the voice I just heard wasn’t Nathan Bishop but the one Chloe called Eeyore. Anyway, how do I know I heard it? What if I only imagined it?

Here’s what you do: get Chloe out of the shower, tell her she owns a portrait of Nathan Bishop, assure her she’s not a suspect, and first thing tomorrow call Chief Super Doolan at home. He won’t be best pleased at first, and it’ll be a bit embarrassing about shagging Chloe, but when Doolan learns that Fred Pink’s lead might not be such a neon-bright red herring after all, he’ll change his tune soon enough.

Sorted, then. In we go.

But on the other side of the pale door, I find not a bathroom with Chloe in a shower, but a long dark attic. A long dark attic that’s some sort of … prison ? Yes. Three-quarters of it’s caged off by thick, sturdy bars, an inch thick and an inch apart. I can’t see how far back the attic goes ’cause it’s so dark. A faint bit of light comes in from two skylights, on the “free” side of the bars above where I am, but that’s it. The attic smells of bad breath and pine disinfectant, a lot like the cells down the station. My thumb finds a switch to flick, and a light comes on behind the bars. It’s a weak bulb, high up. I make out a bed, a washbasin, a sofa, a table, a chair, a toilet cubicle with the door ajar, an exercise bike and someone stirring on the bed, half hidden in blankets and shadow. The attic’s only about five meters wide but it goes back a long way, maybe the full width of Slade House. I press my face against the bars to peer in the best I can and I say, “Hello?”

He or she — I can’t see which — doesn’t reply. A mad relative? How legal is any of this? I’m going to have to report it in the morning.

I try again. “Hello? What’re you doing up here?”

I hear breathing, and the camp-bed squeak.

“Do you speak English? Do you need any help? Do—”

A woman’s voice cuts in: “Are you real?” A dry, brittle voice.

Not the sanest opening question. The bed’s halfway down the attic, and I can’t see much — a cheekbone, a hand, a shoulder, a flop of gray hair. “My name’s Gordon Edmonds, and yes, I’m real.”

She sits up in bed and hugs her knees. “Dream-people always say they’re real, so pardon me for not believing you.” The woman sounds frail and sad but well spoken. “Once I dreamed that Charlie Chaplin came to rescue me with a pair of giant nail-clippers.” She squints my way with a face that hasn’t smiled for years. “Vyvyan Ayrs drilled a hole in the roof, once. He strapped me onto his hang-glider, and we flew over the English Channel to Zedelghem. I cried when I woke up.” A radiator groans. “Gordon Edmonds. You’re new.”

“Yes, I am.” She’s talking like a mental case. “So … are you a patient?”

She scowls. “If you’re real, you’ll know who I am.”

“Not true, I’m afraid. I’m real, and I don’t know you.”

The woman’s frail voice stiffens with bitterness: “The Monster wants me to think I’m being rescued, doesn’t she? It’s her little entertainment. Tell her I’m not playing.”

“ Who wants you to think you’re being rescued?”

“The Monster’s the Monster. I don’t say her name.”

Her name? A nasty thought creeps up — Chloe — but there’ll be a logical explanation. “Sweetheart, I’m a copper. Detective Gordon Edmonds, Thames Valley Force, CID. Can you just tell me why you’re here? Or at least, why you think you’re here?”

“A detective in a dressing gown. Undercover, is it?”

“It doesn’t bloody matter what I’ve got on — I’m a copper.”

She gets out of bed and floats towards the bars in a nightie. “Liar.”

I step back, just in case she’s got a knife. “Love, please. I … just want to know what’s going on. Tell me your name.”

One mad eye appears in the inch between two bars. “Rita.”

The sentence says itself like a conjurer’s hanky pulled out of my mouth: “Oh, sweet bloody hell, don’t tell me you’re Rita Bishop …”

The woman blinks. “Yes. As you know perfectly well.”

I peer closer, and summon up the other photocopied picture Debs pinned above our desks. Oh, Jesus. Rita Bishop’s aged, badly, but it’s her. “After all these years,” her breath smells vinegary, “does the Monster downstairs still get a kick from these pantomimes?”

I feel like I’ve lost half my blood. “Have you—” I’m afraid of the answer “—have you been in this attic since 1979?”

“No,” she sneers. “First they put me up in Buckingham Palace; then a fortune-teller’s booth on Brighton pier; then Willy Wonka’s—”

“O kay ! Okay.” I’m trembling. “Where’s Nathan? Your son?”

Rita Bishop shuts her eyes and forces out her words: “Ask her ! Ask Lady Norah Grayer, or whatever name she’s going by this week. She’s the one who lured us to Slade House; who drugged us; who locked us up; who took Nathan away; who won’t say if my son’s still alive or not!” She folds over and lies in a silent crying heap.