David Mitchell - Slade House

Or …

What if Slade House is the hallucination, and this door’s my way back? Not a rabbit-hole into Wonderland, but the rabbit-hole home? What if—

Someone touches my back and I jerk back inside, into the corridor in Slade House, to the music, to the party, startled twice over to find the Wicked Witch of the West peering down. “Hey, Sally Timms.”

My heart’s going like an engine. I can’t get a reply out.

“You okay down there? You lost something?”

“Hi”—I search for her name—“Kate.”

“Are you feeling all right? Did you lose something?”

“No, no, I was just wondering where this door led to.”

The witch looks a bit puzzled. “What door?”

“This door.” And I show Kate Childs — the blank wall. The doorless blank wall. I touch it. Solid. I get up, wondering how I bluff this, trying to buy time. My thoughts revolve. Yes, I’m hallucinating; yes, I ate or drank something with drugs in it; no, I can’t handle telling Kate that someone’s drugged me. “Look, I’m sloping off home.”

“But the night’s still so young, Sally Timms.”

“Sorry, it’s this head-cold. My period’s started.”

Kate removes her knobbly Wicked Witch mask to show an anxious sisterly face framed by Barbie-blonde hair. “Let me summon you a cab, Sally, it’s a genuine magic power I was born with. Click of the fingers.” She starts patting herself down like at airport security. “I just happen to have an extremely handy state-of-the-art cell-phone in one of these … witchy pockets.”

A taxi would be nice, but I’ve only got £2. “I’ll walk.”

She looks dubious. “Is that such a great idea, if you’re ill?”

“Positive, thanks. The fresh air’ll do me good.”

The unmasked witch isn’t sure. “Why don’t you ask Todd Cosgrove to get you home safe and sound? One of the last gentleman in England, is Todd.”

I didn’t know Kate knew Todd. “Actually, I was just looking for him.”

“He’s looking for you. Up in the Games Room.”

Tonight feels like a board game co-designed by M.C. Escher on a bender and Stephen King in a fever. “Which way’s the Games Room?”

“The quickest way’s back through the TV room, down the hall, up the stairs and keep climbing. You can’t go wrong.”

Everyone’s glued to the screen the way people are when something major’s happened. I ask a half-turned werewolf what’s happened. “Some girl’s been abducted, like.” The werewolf’s a northerner. He doesn’t look at me. “A student, a girl, from our uni.”

“Jesus. Abducted?”

“Aye, that’s what they’re saying.”

“What’s her name?”

“Polly, or Sarah, or …” the werewolf’s drunk. “Annie? She’s only been missing five days, but a personal item was found, so now the police are afraid it’s, like … A real kidnapping. Or worse.”

“What kind of personal item?”

“A mirror,” mumbles the werewolf. “A make-up mirror. Hang on, look …” The TV shows our student union building where a female reporter’s holding a big pink microphone: “Thank you, Bob, and here on the city campus tonight the mood can best be described as grim and sober. Earlier today the police issued an appeal for any information on the whereabouts of Sally Timms, an eighteen-year-old student last seen in the vicinity of Westwood Road on Saturday night …” The reporter’s words all gloop together. Missing? Five days? Since Saturday? It’s still Saturday! I’ve only been in Slade House for an hour. It must be another Sally Timms. But a photo of my face fills the screen and it’s me, it’s me, and the Sally Timms on the screen is wearing exactly, exactly, what I’m wearing now: my Zizzi Hikaru jacket, and Freya’s Maori jade necklace that arrived today. That I signed for at the porter’s lodge only twelve hours ago. Who took that photo of me? When? How? The reporter thrusts her big pink microphone at Lance, Lance Arnott, who, apparently, is dancing in this building right now — while also speaking to a TV reporter two miles away, saying, “Yeah, yeah, I saw her just before she disappeared, at the party, and—” Lance’s cod-fish lips keep moving but my hearing kind of cuts out. I should be switching on the lights and shouting, “NO NO NO, people, look, there’s been some stupid mistake— I ’m Sally Timms, I’m here, it’s okay!” but I’m afraid of the fuss, the shame, of being a spectacle, of being a news story, and I just can’t. Meanwhile Lance Arnott’s making a doubtful face: “ ‘Fraid so, yeah. She had serious trouble adjusting to college life. Bit of a tragic figure; vulnerable, not very street-wise, know what I’m saying? There were rumours of drug use, dodgy boyfriends, that kind of stuff.” Now I’m angry, as well as frightened and confused as hell. How dare Lance say all that about me on live TV? For not fancying him, I’m a “tragic, vulnerable” druggie? The reporter turns back to the camera. “A clear picture is emerging of the missing student as an unhappy girl; a loner, with weight issues; a girl who had trouble adjusting to real life after private schools in Singapore and Great Malvern. Following the discovery of her compact mirror in, uh,” the reporter shuffles her notes, “Slade Alley earlier today, the friends and relatives of Sally Timms, while still hoping for the best, must, as the hours go by, be fearing the worst. This is Jessica Killingley, reporting live for South Today; and back to you in the studio, Bob.”

God knows what Freya, Mum and Dad must be thinking.

Actually, I know what they’re thinking: they’re thinking I’ve been murdered. They urgently need to know I’m fine, the police need to call off the search, but I can’t just announce it here. I pull back from the werewolf, and bang into a sideboard. My hand touches something rubbery: a Miss Piggy mask. Thanks to Isolde Delahunty et al. I’ve got bad associations with pigs, but if I don’t put it on, any second now someone’ll see me, point and shriek, so I just loop its cord round my head and cover my face. Cool. A bit of breathing space. What was the reporter saying about my compact mirror? I used it in the kitchen after Todd left. Didn’t I? I check in my handbag …

… Gone. Normally I’d retrace my steps and hunt it down, but I want to get out of Slade House even more than I want Freya’s gift back. She’ll understand. She’ll have to. Todd’ll know what to do. Todd’s unflappable. We’ll slip away and sort out what needs to be sorted. Him and me.

At the foot of the stairs, a possibly Indian girl in an all-silver Tin Man costume says, “Did you hear about Sally Timms, the missing girl?”

“Yes, I did.” I try to get by but she’s blocking my path.

“Did you know Sally Timms well?” asks the Tin Man girl.

“Not very,” I answer, and slip by, up the stairs. The banister glides under my fingertips and the hubbub of the hallway fades away, like I’m climbing into a fog of silence. The carpet on the stairs is white like snow, the walls are panelled and hung with portraits, and up ahead is a small square landing, guarded by a grandfather clock. A white carpet and an antique clock is asking for trouble in a student house, Erasmus scholars or not. The first picture shows a freckled girl, she’s really lifelike. The next picture’s of an old soldier with a waxed mustache, the sort who’d say, “Roger, wilco, chocks away.” I get short of breath. I can’t have been climbing that long. I need to join a gym. Finally, I’ve reached the grandfather clock. Its face has no hands, only the words TIME IS, TIME WAS, TIME IS NOT. Highly metaphysical; deeply useless. To my left’s a door, panelled, to match the walls. To my right, more stairs climb past more portraits to a pale door. Which is the Games Room? I knock on the panelled door.