I walk out of the bathroom and through the dark bedroom, past Hector’s gentle snoring. Downstairs, I go to the living room. The large bay window is filled with black squares. I watch the light fixture on the ceiling until my eyes burn. Shutting my eyes, I watch the coloured dots shrink and grow. Then I do it again. And again. Soon, I can’t see anything but white.
I cross the room, from one end to the other, counting my steps. Twelve steps across. I keep going. I lose count. I begin again, this time putting one foot directly in front of the other, no gap, and walking in a straight line. If I step too far, or not straight enough, I start over. I get to three hundred and fifty-seven. I stop and watch my bare feet against the carpet for a long time. Ten toes, ten toenails, ten toes, ten toenails, ten toes ten toenails ten toes ten toenails.
I go to the hall. Outside, the day is beginning, the blue light filling the hallway, making everything cold and flat. It feels as if the light is fading, turning to darkness. I put my hands up to my temples, needing the light to come back, to make everything clear again.
Drawing the blind at the small hall window, it is still not light enough. I open it, feeling the cold air push against my cheeks, my blood rising. In the kitchen, I push back the patio doors as far as they will go. I don’t stop until every curtain is pulled back, every window opened.
Still, there are shadows everywhere: behind picture frames, under furniture, at the corners of my vision.
I stand at the front door and look at the snow. The blue light makes everything glow. When I look down at the raised wooden porch, the stone doorstep has been pushed aside and there is a deep black hole.
She’s lying there, her body like a child’s in the white pyjamas with the pink hearts, dirty and stained yellow. This is the thinnest I have seen her. I wonder if she is dead, as I kneel down by her side, taking her hand in mine. I cup my hand over her mouth, but feel nothing. Just as I am giving up hope, I feel a slight warmth on my palm. Putting my ear down close, I hear her breath rattle in and out, in time with mine. I lie down, wrapping my body around her, rubbing her hands, trying to warm her up.
Some time later, I open my eyes. They are heavy, but as I lift the lids a little, I make out the white pyjamas I’m wearing. My breath wheezes in and out of my chest: blinking makes me ache. When I try to move, everything is slow and heavy, as if my body is weighed down. I want to shut my eyes and go back to sleep.
Then there are hands behind my head and under my back, and I am being lifted. I try to call out, but my mouth is pressed against material. It smells familiar, and I lean closer.
I feel my head loll back, my mouth slip open. I see the blue sky above us, so huge and vast, and I blink as the sun swings across my vision. My head rings with the sharp new light. I hear a man panting. We are at the doorway, going back into the dark. I reach out for the edge of the doorframe. He stops, unhooks my hands. They fall, and then we’re through the door, and he shuts it behind us.
He is breathing quickly now, as he lowers me onto the floor of the hallway. I watch his face hover over mine, shadowy in the dim hall light.
‘Marta?’ he says.
I blink, making out the man’s features: the sagging skin around the face, the clear blue eyes. It is Hector.
I look down at my body. I am myself again. But I was her: I was in her body and it felt like there was no escape.
‘What happened?’ I say.
‘I found you on the doorstep,’ he says. It still feels eerily familiar. ‘You’re freezing.’ He puts his warm hand onto my forehead. ‘Why are all the doors and windows open?’
‘You carried me in?’ I ask.
‘I had to. You wouldn’t respond,’ he says. ‘I was talking to you for ages, trying to get you to wake up. I couldn’t just leave you out there.’
I see the thin layer of wetness on his forehead.
‘Is your knee OK?’ I ask.
He shrugs. ‘It’ll be fine.’
‘I didn’t hear you,’ I say.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I was worried about you. I am worried. You’re like how you were when I first found you, Marta.’ Hector’s eyes are wide. ‘I carried you in then, too. You were too weak to walk.’
He rubs my arms.
‘You found me on the doorstep?’ I say.
Hector nods. ‘You were so thin and ill, like a ghost. Much easier to carry.’ He smiles. ‘But I couldn’t leave you out there then either. I could tell you were a good person. And I was right.’
As Hector takes my hand, I see a younger Hector’s face, leaning over the bath as he washed my body. Wrapping me in a towel, he sat me on the edge of the bed. He pulled through my hair with a comb, gently at first, and then harder, until he was holding it at the roots and brushing the ends roughly. He dried it with a new hairdryer which came from a packet: despite the warmth my teeth still chattered. Asking me to open my mouth, he checked my teeth, moving my head up and down, looking at the dark hole where one was missing. He told me we’d have to get that looked at, asked me if I could remember how it happened.
I look up at him now, trying to piece it together, but I’m so tired.
‘I don’t remember,’ I say.
‘Well, who knows what you’d been taking? You hadn’t eaten in a long time by the look of you. You couldn’t even feed yourself.’
He smiles. Again, I see a flash of Hector breaking biscuits between his hands and feeding them into my mouth, slowly. Then later, there was chocolate and cakes, anything to coerce me into eating. But my mouth doesn’t move: anything he puts in just rolls back out again. I hear him curse.
‘Let’s get you warm and back to bed,’ he says. ‘I’ll bring you a hot-water bottle. Like the old days.’
*
Hector turns on the shower and the steam starts filling the room, losing our reflections in the mirror. I am so cold. He helps me take my clothes off and then I step beneath the flow of the water. It’s warm, soothing, and I start to feel better.
When I step out, Hector is gone and I am alone. Standing on the bathmat, a towel wrapped around me, I watch the steam begin to fade. There is a dark shadow next to me in the mirror. Through the misted surface, I make out her bleary reflection, coming clearer. Her hair, lacking colour, grey from the lack of sunlight. A huge matted mess, broken ends catching the light like a halo. It is the worst I have seen her look. I can make out the shape of her skull: the thin skin pulled tight, the cavernous holes under her cheek bones, the deep purple marks underneath her eyes. She is standing next to me, a skeleton covered in thin white skin.
There’s someone else reflected in the mirror too, standing behind her. He is taller, wider, than her. His face is blurred, but I make out the dark hair, the broad shoulders. For a moment I think it is Kylan and I wonder what he is doing here.
‘You look dreadful,’ he says.
I look at her, at the colour of her skin, at how thin she is.
‘I want to take care of you,’ he says. ‘I want to make you better.’
She doesn’t smile, just stares straight ahead.
‘Would you like to stay here for a while?’
She looks around her, her face turning slowly. As she looks past me, I see her pupils are huge, her eyes dead, as she looks behind her into the bedroom: the big bed that waits there, with its enormous soft duvet cover.
She nods.
He smiles, puts his hands on her shoulders. ‘You must take your medicine,’ he says.
In his hand, he holds a small orange pot. He opens it, dropping something into his hand. ‘Open your mouth,’ he says.
I see her moist pink tongue. He puts a small pink pill into her mouth and she swallows it without any water.
‘Good girl,’ he says, putting his hand on her head.
I turn around, wanting to see his face, but I am too late – he’s gone.
I look back at the mirror. Marta stands there, alone, a towel wrapped around her body. Her lined face stares back at me, her grey eyes wide.
*
Once I am in bed, Hector comes up. I try to lift myself, but he is sitting on my legs. He has a tray on his knees and uses his long nails to flip open the top of the Tupper-ware box resting on it, condensation clouding the lid.
There is a sharp smell of fish. I watch Hector spoon the food out into a bowl. He ladles some of it onto a spoon, and lifts it towards my mouth.
‘I can do it, Hector,’ I say, trying to sit up again, but he fills my mouth with food so I can’t speak any more. He continues to feed me until the bowl is empty.
‘Now, I don’t mind taking care of you,’ he says. ‘But I think we should go and see someone next week when you’re feeling up to it. It looks like your pills have stopped working, and we might need to try something new.’
‘Hector, I’m fine—’
He holds his hand up.
‘Marta, we both know that isn’t true. You need to get some help. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
I stare at him.
‘Kylan’s really worried about you,’ he says.
‘I think I might just be remembering things,’ I say, ‘from when I first came to live with you. I don’t think I need any more medication.’
‘I don’t understand why you want to remember those things, Marta,’ he says, putting his hand on the crown of my head. ‘You weren’t yourself back then.’
‘I think I need to.’
‘It’s much better if you just take your pills,’ he says. ‘We’ll find you some new ones that work better. You’ve got past all that.’
‘Maybe I haven’t,’ I say. ‘Maybe that’s why I need to remember.’
I still can’t sit up properly, so I can’t look him in the eye. He squeezes my hand.
‘I’m your husband, Marta,’ he says. ‘I know what’s best for you. It can’t do you any good to put yourself through all this. It’s not rational. We’ll go and see Thomas again. See if he can’t prescribe something new.’
And then it flashes before my eyes: shivering in the draughty waiting room, Hector’s hand over mine. The man from the pub with the beery breath, leaning over me. The doctor. The rumble of Hector’s voice. I found her, Thomas. She hasn’t been eating. Thomas nods. She hasn’t spoken, but she cries in her sleep about her parents. The doctor’s hands are cold.
I can tell he is never going to understand, so I nod.
‘Good girl,’ he says. ‘Now get some rest.’
‘Are you going to stay here?’ I ask.
‘I might pop out and see Mother later,’ he says. ‘But you don’t need to come. Stay here, where it’s safe.’ He strokes my cheek. ‘I hope you feel better soon, darling.’ He bends down, kisses me on the forehead, and then leaves the room.