Marta steered her bike into the hallway, glinting. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Is this it – where you live? Mind if I bring this in? I don’t really want to leave it outside.’
Her gaze made its way around full ceiling height. Cobwebs in the cornicing; slow dust, lit by lazy beams of light through the top window. ‘Who’s here – just the three of you?’
Samhain tried to think of a good explanation for leaving the rest of the rooms empty. ‘We’ve only just got into it,’ he managed. ‘We’re thinking of installing a bike rack outside.’
‘Sorry.’ She started back down towards the bike. ‘I didn’t realise.’
‘Ignore him, Mart.’ Frankie was up on a chair by the stairs, with a torch between his teeth and a screwdriver in the fuse box. ‘That boy was dragged up. He doesn’t know how to treat a guest. You leave your bike where it is.’
‘So what happened to the owners?’
She walked down the hallway towards them, holding Samhain’s gaze with those large, espresso eyes. Up close she smelled faintly medical. Antiseptic, the scent of doctors and nurses.
A click, and suddenly light.
‘He’s done it!’ Frankie shouted. ‘By God, he’s only gone and bloody done it!’ He jumped down, clapping his hands. ‘Now, for the important bit. Anybody fancy a pint?’
‘In a minute.’ Samhain turned to Mart. ‘Want to go upstairs?’
*
Things looked different with the lights on. Anaemic light, pale yellow, but light all the same. By the shy buzz of lights in their fittings, he saw dust on the door handles, on the bannister, an amount of shored-up silt that he hadn’t noticed before. There was a layer of it on the picture frames in the hallway.
Mart had this way of stepping quietly, like a museum visitor. A foreigner with backpack worn chest-forward and an eye for wonder. ‘This is some squat,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Come up.’ The cat was still in the centre of the bed, curled up with her eyes tight closed, paying neither of them any attention. ‘Now what am I supposed to do about this?’
‘Hello, beautiful.’ Mart took a spot gingerly on the bed, and scratched the cat in a spot behind one ear. ‘I didn’t know you had a cat.’
‘I didn’t, until about four o’clock today. She just came in and made herself comfortable.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘What are you meant to do when they give birth?’
‘You’ll probably need towels – for all the goo and blood, when she has them. And to keep them warm. You’ll have towels somewhere – won’t you – this was a B&B, right?’
In eight days he hadn’t thought to look. ‘Towels. Yes. I’ll find some. Then what?’
She put a hand softly on the cat’s belly, and it rubbed its cheek against her wrist. ‘Ah, you’ve no collar on, poor thing.’
‘What if I make her a really soft bed on the floor – in a box? She might sleep in it.’
‘You can’t move her, Samhain. Look how much at home she is. She’s comfortable. You’re the one who might have to sleep on the floor.’ She glanced around the room. ‘Probably should get her a litter tray and whatnot. Some food. Poor thing’s probably starving.’
‘The whole point of moving into a squat with lots of bedrooms was so that I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor. And now–’
‘Come on, it’s only for a couple of nights.’ Scratching the purring cat on the back of its head. ‘Maybe not even that. She looks fit to burst.’
He started backing out of the door. ‘I’ll see if I can’t find those towels,’ he said.
The linen cupboard was on the first floor.
A mouse family were living inside one of the sets of sheets: they’d chewed a hole the size of a two pence piece. When he stepped inside, he could hear them rustling around inside it – the sound of living things making themselves at home.
Samhain pulled a towel from the shelf. It came unfolded, scattering moths’ wings to the floor, and the next one was the same. He took six altogether, all billowing with dust.
Samhain came back to Mart cross-legged on the duvet, a little way from the cat and his phone, dead, laying on the sheet in front of her.
‘My phone.’ Scrabbling through the gritty darkness inside his rucksack. It had a depth he’d forgotten existed. ‘Got my charger in here somewhere.’ Fanzines obscuring things with bent bat-wing covers; these had been new once, and not long ago, either.
‘Sam.’ A reluctance in her voice.
Guest tumbler on the table. Wet edges, leaving a ring on the letter he’d been writing. Flores. Suddenly, inexplicably, he was thinking of her, and of a summer spent at home, aged seven. Panzo had said they could go to a seaside and stay in a youth hostel to keep it cheap. But Flores had said no, and Samhain had felt the things he’d been promised slip away. Playing Outrun in the arcades. Flying a box kite on the cliff top. Chips salty enough to shrivel your cheeks. He had cried tears that had hurt him with their sourness, and hadn’t understood why. ‘You and me don’t need a man in our lives,’ she’d said.
It was one of those times when she’d sounded less certain. And, maybe sensing a crack, a crack he could get his finger inside and pull wide, Samhain had kept on about it. He had been old enough to think he could talk her around. By mentioning the things he knew she liked. A day to herself, as promised by Panzo. Evenings in the real ale pubs all the way along the main street. Where she and Panzo could go and have a few drinks, while Samhain stayed at the youth hostel, looking after himself, like he always did at home.
Samhain had kept on washing away at his campaign, and thought he was seeing her weaken. He followed at her heels up the stairs, up into her bedroom, talking about it. One last reason, he’d thought, one more reason to go, and then she’ll cave. Getting away from the estate for a few days was his strongest sluice yet: he was just about to deploy it, expecting her to say, ‘Well, alright then, we’ll go,’ when she’d turned, grabbed him by the shirt, and slapped him hard in the face. ‘I don’t want to hear about this again,’ she’d hissed.
At last, his hand was on it. The curved, heavy black plastic, the three prongs.
‘Sam,’ she said again. ‘I’m sorry about your mum.’
He plugged it in. Boxy screen and buttons glowed the colour of sickening larvae. ‘What’s there to be sorry about? Don’t worry about it.’ The numbers were mostly worn blank with use.
Texts from Roxy, days old.
Come and meet me from work?
Then:
Never mind. I’m at Matty’s now. Probably better if you don’t come.
Then:
Memory full. Messages waiting. Open text message folder to select messages to delete?
‘Big thing to get your head around.’ She was standing on the bed, shaking towels out of the window. ‘Unless you already knew about it?’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘No?’ She turned, knelt on the bed, rolling the towels into tight cylinders. ‘Here, girl.’ The cat let itself be propped forward, while she wedged a towel behind its back. ‘She’s big, alright. How many do you think she’s got in there?’
He touched the cat’s tum softly, the way he’d seen Mart do it, and felt around. ‘Three?’ he said. ‘No, four. Definitely four.’
‘Look, my friend goes to these meetings sometimes. It’s a sort of – support group. For the women affected.’
‘Women?’ Mama Cat had her claws out, sharp. Resting them on the back of his hand, as though experimenting with the idea of hurting him.
‘Yeah, mostly.’
‘I don’t know, Mart.’ He drew his hand away. Somewhere around the cat’s shoulder, their hands touched. Her skin was papery. Thin, from being washed too many times. ‘Who goes to it?’
‘My friend. Her friends. I don’t really know them. It’s sort of – half support group, half information and political campaigning. They could tell you more about your father.’
‘He’s not my father.’
‘Well. Ok. But you could go and meet them, at least. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?’
News spread fast, that was one thing Samhain did know, in their tiny, interconnected world of gigs and political protest. Keeping a secret was almost impossible, and this one – about being fathered by a cop – was something he could hardly even admit to himself. He was afraid that if he thought it too loudly, even, somebody might figure it out. ‘Where is it?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll find out for you.’
‘I’m not going if it’s at the club.’
‘Why not?’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’ Turned back to his Nokia, looking at a backlit folder of memories.
Sure, what time?
And:
Are you in now?
And:
You about? Get down to Sainsbury’s big bin. They’re throwing out some good salads.
Delete. Delete. Delete.
‘What if it was at somebody’s house – would you go then?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. Thing is, I’m not as bothered, Mart. Didn’t know my dad growing up, don’t know him now. I don’t need to know anything about him. He was obviously a dick, and that’s all I need to know.’
‘Sam... oh, hey! I can feel one of them moving. Quick, give me your hand.’
The full scrape of her skin, palm barked by disinfectant, and then something tiny under the fur, wriggling. Penny sized paws kneading against the belly. Mama Cat slanted in discomfort.
It was there, right under his hand. Life. Fighting to get out. ‘Wow, Mart. That’s amazing.’
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ In a moment, in those dark eyes, a gleam like stars. ‘Listen, Sam–’
The door opened with a bang, jolting the end of the bed.
They all three looked up: Him. Marta. The cat.
‘Whoops.’ Roxy was framed in the doorway, hand on hip. From the way she was standing, he could tell there was something he was meant to notice about her. ‘Didn’t mean to open it that hard.’ There was a lot of wear in those clothes, as though she’d come home in the same ones she’d been wearing yesterday, and probably the few days before that, too. Hair sticking up all directions.
‘Hello, Marta,’ she said.