Maureen Johnson - The Madness Underneath

And the heat. The house was warm. And also I was in a large bed, and yes, the blanket appeared to be some kind of fuzzy tiger print. I opened the (also black) curtains and some weak sunlight slithered in. I examined myself in the gold mirror. My eyes were bloodshot. My hair was a rat’s nest on one side. A hair tumor. That’s what I had.

“Awesome,” I said.

I returned to the bed and lifted up the bedside clock. Right before I had gone to sleep, I had transferred Boo’s number onto a piece of paper towel I’d snagged in the kitchen. There was a knock on my door, and a second later, it opened by itself. A dripping Devina stood there, dressed only in a towel. I balled the paper towel in my hand.

“I thought I heard you,” she said. “I just woke up myself. We tend to sleep late here, don’t worry. Jane’ll be up, though.”

“Is that you, Rory?” Jane called from downstairs.

“She’s awake!” Devina yelled back.

“Good morning! Do come down for something to eat!”

“I’ll see you down there,” Devina said, continuing to her room, leaving a trail of wet footprints in the carpet.

I felt the need to secure the number—to keep it with me. I was wearing borrowed pajamas with no pocket, so I tucked the number into the side of my underwear at my hip. Stupid, but it made me feel secure, like I was keeping my friends close.

There was music coming from the kitchen, nothing I recognized. Some kind of rock, not recent, but not bad. Jane was wearing something approaching normal today—pants and a white blouse. It was still a funky pants and white blouse, puffy in all kinds of unexpected places, full of more folds I couldn’t understand.

“Coffee or tea?” Jane asked pleasantly.

“Coffee, please.”

She poured me a cup from a French press that was ready and waiting.

“How do you feel this morning?”

“Kind of shocked,” I said.

“Yes, I remember the feeling. I ran away when I was your age. Took a night bus from up north. Slept on the bus. Woke up alone in London, ejected onto the streets in the pouring rain. I hope this was a slightly nicer way to face your first morning of freedom.”

She offered me the usual plate of baked goods, but I shook my head.

“I’m not really hungry,” I said. “I’m still kind of nervous.”

“Sure? I can make you what you like. An egg, some toast…no? All right then.”

“My parents,” I said. “They’re going to be really upset.”

“Undoubtedly so.” She nodded and leaned on the counter while she sipped her coffee. “But that will be temporary. And I have a recommendation. Write your parents a letter. Speaking to them on the phone will be too difficult right now. But you can express all you need to in a letter. Tell them you’re fine, that you just need some time. A letter will put them at ease.”

It sounded like good advice. I wrapped my hands around my mug and enjoyed the warmth.

“I’ve been thinking about our next steps,” she said. “It might be good for you to get away from London, just for a bit. This is where they’ll concentrate their search—not that it’s easy to find people in London. Moreover, I think you could use a change of scene. I own a property out in the country. It’s lovely this time of year. I was thinking we could drive there today. I’ll have some of the others come along, and you can get to know everyone. We always have a good time in the country.”

Running across London was one thing, but this idea of now running to the country seemed like…well, really running away.

“Darling, you’ve already done it,” she said. I guess she saw my hesitation. “In for a penny, in for a pound. The house is exquisite. It belonged to the people who owned this house. It was their family seat. This was just their London residence.”

“The people who owned this house?”

“Friends of mine,” she said. “They died in the early seventies and left it to me. They made my entire lifestyle possible, which is why I, too, like to share the wealth. Finish up your coffee and have a nice shower. We’ll leave whenever you’re ready. Devina will show you where the towels are. You’re just about Mags’s size, so you can have some of her clothes.”

The upstairs bathroom, like so much else in the house, was black. Shiny black tiles with shiny silver fixtures, a heated towel bar I burned my hand on, and a big, freestanding tub smack in the middle of the room, with a circular curtain to wrap around it. The showerhead was in the ceiling, so the water poured down on me like rain.

When I returned to my room in my towel, Devina was sitting in the middle of my bed reading a book. She was wearing a very long dress today, one that covered her feet. The denim jacket was back.

“Oh,” I said. “Hi.”

“Hi. Clothes for you.”

A large pair of what seemed to be men’s jeans and an oversized sweater had been provided.

She made no indication that she was about to leave. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do—change here, or take my clothes back the bathroom. I decided to do that thing you do in gym (or, at least, the thing I do in gym) where you pull on your underwear under the towel. Then you maneuver into the bra with the towel on. Then you drop the towel and get into the rest of your clothes as quickly as possible.

“You going to be staying with us a while, then?” Devina asked.

“I don’t really know what I’m doing,” I said, fumbling on the bra.

“I didn’t either when I showed up.”

“How long ago was that?” The bra was being difficult and refusing to hook.

She stretched out and rolled onto her stomach.

“Oh…two years now? See, my mum had this boyfriend? Total bastard. Always creepy. Obviously creepy. A little too interested in me? And one night she went out and he started to get a little friendly. So I slapped him. And he slapped me back. I don’t think he meant to do it so hard, but he was pissed. I fell down a flight of stairs. Almost broke my neck. I managed to get myself up and out of the house and walk to A and E. And my mum actually blamed me, even after they banged him up for it.”

“Sorry,” I said. Though sorry didn’t seem to cover it.

“Don’t be. I met Jane because of what happened to me. I’m glad it happened. It made me stronger, better in the end. And now I have a real family.”

“You and Jane?”

“All of us,” she said.

“Who is all of us?”

“Oh, you’ll meet everyone. Jane’s helped a lot of people. You’ll see. She fixes people. She fixed me. I would have been a disaster if not for Jane. You’ll see.”

Devina smiled, and I noticed that she had extremely small teeth. Niblet teeth, like a child. I clutched the towel around my chest. Funny…I didn’t really care that much if Devina saw me in my underwear, but the scar, that was private.

“So,” I said, “I’ll just finish getting ready and…”

I think she got the hint. She slid off the bed.

“See you downstairs,” she said, wandering out of the room. I put on the jeans and sweater and sat on the end of the bed, kicking out my bare feet, trying to make sense of my life. If I was going to the country, it seemed wise to let someone know. I retrieved the phone number, which I had moved to the pocket of the jeans.

Boo was enough of a wild child to understand, and I felt certain that if I asked her to, she would keep the news to herself, or manage it in some way.

But I had no phone. The only one I had seen was in the kitchen. There wasn’t one in this bedroom. I would need to find one. I poked my head out of my room and had a look around. All the doors on the second floor were closed but mine and the bathroom. It didn’t seem right exactly to start poking into the bedrooms. The stairs went up to another floor. I decided to try that instead.