18

When I try to think of a good name for this time, I can only think of Afterwards, but glass tube boy gave me a better name: The Mulch Time. He’d smoked too many of the pearly rocks in the glass tube he carried in his jeans pocket, the jeans that stank and hung from his hips, and sometimes words like that came, little truths, but he couldn’t remember saying them afterwards. I liked the smell of the stained jeans. Everything else smelled too clean in that place. They sprayed the corridors with bleach every night, and it crawled into my nostrils, made my eyes itch.

The hostel was an overnight kind of place. People came with big backpacks and played table tennis in the games room, or football along the corridors. In the mornings, doors creaking open on their hinges, the zoom of vacuuming, the bleach. But we stayed a long time, glass tube boy and me.

My first night, I felt something smooth and cool under my pillow. A bag of weed. Things felt better. Glass tube boy let himself in just then, talking about money in the outside way.

—A tenner you said, a tenner, oh, it’s not you, he said.

We looked at one another.

—Let’s be friends, he said, and offered me a rizla from his shirt pocket.

Sometimes he’d come into the shared kitchen and talk, while I boiled the kettle and tried to work out the packets of dried food. One of those kitchen times he was telling me a story about a girl he used to know. He called her this girl from my Mulch Time. I split the packet of noodles open and poured over the boiled water, dribbling it everywhere, waited for the gelatinous worms to swell.

—Mulch Time? I said.

But he was already on a new track, talking about the water in the taps.

—Poisoned, he said. —Boil it. Always boil it, and we’ll get iodine too.

The next kitchen time, I asked him again. He was breaking eggs into a bowl.

—I like the ritual of cooking, you know. I like the old routines, he said.

I scooped up the egg shells and crushed them.

—So witches can’t use them, I said.

He nodded, smiling. —Exactly.

—You know before, I said. —The Mulch Time.

—Huh?

—You said, this girl from my Mulch Time. The other day.

—Don’t remember, he said.

—Okay.

As he left he offered me the plate of scrambled eggs he’d made. When I shook my head he tipped them into the bin. At the door he stood for a second, pulling his crusted jeans up. A small shake had begun in his hips there. He shook a lot.

—It’s the lost time, he said. —You’re still in it.

Then, Mel found me.

A squatting witch, something pressing — the sheets, kick them off. Little stinging crescents on my palms where my nails have bitten in. The ceiling is a white paint ocean, brushed-on waves lap at the walls and the light fitting. Seasick, I stare and sway in bed. The wall blurs where the radiator heat shimmers.

I have strategies for mornings like these, when dreams of old faces, old fear, spill in. The best one I know is Mel’s. She says, Count all the things you are happy about in the now. Mel says lots of things like that. It’s just count your blessings, a tired idea, a needlepoint design for paper-skinned old women. But it works. So. I lift my index finger.

It’s Sunday, which means no appointments today, no meetings in circles with biscuits and enthusiastic applause for stories. Which means lying here all morning if I want. Second finger. It wasn’t a nightmare. Not until.

Swallow. Keep going.

Ring finger. I slept, didn’t need any chalky pills coating the back of my throat. Pinkie. I’m twenty-five years old, they tell me, they think, and I’ve only got one wrinkle, across my forehead, I can hide it with a fringe. Thumb. Okay, my brain doesn’t always work properly, but I have really long legs.

I must add to the list: I have a home here, I’m not lost any more; but still there’s a feeling like hunger, a heartache that lives in the throat. I’m too old to feel homesick. But being too old for things doesn’t matter much, the way I live now. I never made it to grown.

The smell of toast rises up through the carpet. I could sprawl here all day, looking at the walls where I can make scenes play out, an imaginary movie projected onto the floral wallpaper. An oval mirror with a mother of pearl frame sits on a lace doily on the bedside table. There are so many pretty things in this house. I wonder what sound it would make, if I smashed it against the wall. Things are muffled here.

At the foot of the bed Mel’s laid out my clothes for the day: a pink jumper with lace on the shoulders, a skirt that puffs at the hips. I pull a dressing gown from the back of the door.

It took me months to shrink into this neat, symmetrical box, like the houses children draw. The bedrooms sit over the lower rooms in perfect alignment. The stairs are straight, the landings neat little squares. Thick carpets and heavy curtains wrap us all up and keep the house in a permanent hush. Everywhere is lace and pink and cushions. Throw myself down the stairs and I’d bounce. Outside, the streets of Highgate lie leafy and serene.

I pad down the stairs. Breakfast, sit. Maybe look at the book, it might help. Richard and Mel will be in the kitchen, in joggers, loose t-shirts and flip-flops. They like to stay in on Sunday mornings, supine over armchairs. Then we’ll walk Jimmy on the heath, Richard will work in the afternoon and Mel and I will talk in the conservatory or she’ll read me stories from the Sundays, about affairs, lost children, cellulite.

The glass door into the kitchen catches the winter sun as it opens and my twisted sheets, my slow finger counting, they spill in here. Something’s wrong. Richard leans on his hands at the table, his fingers curved around his skull, like a passenger in a crashing plane, something from the television. Mel is stroking his back. The radio burbles as Jimmy ambles over to lean against my legs, unbalancing me with his warm weight. He blinks at me from his wizened face. He’s a lazy retired greyhound, and like me he ambles from room to room, goes for walks, eats, dreams. Our world is small and comfortable.

We all watch Jimmy push his thin head into my shins. What do people do, when there are no pets to deflect attention, to buy a few seconds? Mel smiles at the dog, still smoothing Richard’s back up and down.

The first time I met Mel, I had her down as a bitch. Her sharp cheekbones and thin nose make her face pointed and hard. Her thin lips turn down a little, making her look permanently irritated. I was wrong, though. It’s only when she speaks, or when her eyes do, that you can see how soft she is. Her eyes are grey. Her kindness sits in them, and also in her small hands. She should have children to rock and coo over.

We stay like that, pretending nothing’s wrong, for long seconds. Mel clears her throat.

—Sleep well?

Richard pours coffee.

I shrug. —Yeah, it was a good night.

—Dreams?

I nod. I wish I’d stayed in bed with my wallpaper movie. I take a triangle from a rack of toast, spread a thick layer of honey, and a dollop of chocolate spread. In the bin under the sink are the empty wrappers of my late-night binge: cardboard sticky with ice cream, orange and purple foil I have licked clean.

—Just one as I woke up. Is something wrong?

Mel chews the inside of her cheek. I swallow more toast, the flood of sugar making my teeth pulse. Richard plays himself like bubble wrap, cracking his finger bones one by one. Jimmy’s drool swings and drops onto my toes.

Mel starts the conversation over, a rewind-erase she uses when I say the wrong thing.

—Not getting dressed today?

I shrug.

—Go on, she says. —You know I like you to look nice.

—After a bath, I say.

—Okay.

—Okay, I echo. —I’ll just … I click my tongue for Jimmy to follow me into the study.

This room is the only part of the house that’s cool, the window blocked by heavy ivy. I bury my face in the downy fur along Jimmy’s back and make babyish noises until he flops onto the rug, grizzling happily. A green coat, Richard’s, lies over the back of the chair. I wrap up in it and rub my feet into Jimmy’s belly.

The laptop buzzes and grumbles to itself. The sound is wrong, not a Sunday sound, a break from routine. The website flashes up, Listen-and-read. I don’t want to work but I hate feeling in the way, the intruder on secret marriage politics. It’s usually small stuff, Richard picking at her sometimes. Bins, dishes, where’s my keys? But his head in his hands, I’ve never seen that, not here. It’s something bad. I don’t want to take a pill. I’ll take five minutes with the book.

The book sits on the shelf next to Richard’s art books and boxes of photographs. Across the cracked laminate jacket The Secrets of Pompeii is emblazoned in orange font. A museum ticket stub is tucked into the first page, and a photo of Mel and Richard in wide brimmed hats. This is how the book works. There’s a picture on each page of the modern ruins, cracked and yellowing stone under holiday blue skies. Then you turn a plastic page over it, a palimpsest, Mel told me, and the ruins are covered with the ancient city, as it was. You see dead people in strange clothes buying fruit and carrying children in their arms along the stone foundations. The stone is whole and clean and its paint restored. I love to sit with it, peeling the pages over, laying the past over the present. Now I only get to the second page before Mel’s shape approaches the glass study door.

There’s nowhere for me to go, I have to stay and listen. Something bad. They want me out. I’ll have to leave Jimmy behind. I graze his nose with a knuckle.

Richard comes up behind Mel. She folds her arms and looks at the floor. He speaks flat words, so I have to work to make the sounds mean anything.

—Freya Marsh died last week, he says.

I close the book and place it on the desk, smooth over the cover.

—I had a call from the lawyer about the house this morning. We weren’t sure if …

He opens his hands, raises his eyebrows to say, I’m reasonable.

Jimmy’s fur is matted, I should brush him.

Freya is gone.

Richard leaves. He said her full name like he didn’t even know her.

Mel settles down next to me, links her fingers through mine. She’s brought a glass of water and a diazepam. The pill makes a queasy ball with the tea and toast.

—You’ve had a shock, Mel says.

She counts and I breathe. Then she makes me stretch out my hands.

—Do you want to talk? Mel says.

Freya reaches from my throat and sews my lips shut. Mel picks at the seams.

—Richard won’t talk about it, she says, tugging at my fingers.

Freya’s face, her veined cheeks, dark eyes, crooked teeth. Her rough hands cupping my head. Her low purring voice weaving between Blue and me, binding us close. Her black hair, smelling of soil. I bury my face in Jimmy’s fur. The study door clicks shut.

The rest of the morning is sluggish, the three of us stuck to furniture and floors. Richard on the phone, floating old names around the house. Foxlowe, Freya. Mel sits with tea in the kitchen where she can watch both Richard and me. I catch her gazing through the glass doors. The diazepam suspends me in the air.

Jimmy starts to wriggle and pace. His teeth chatter and he loops around me, nudging hands and knees. Mel goes upstairs and returns with wool jumpers in her arms. She lays one in my lap.

—Come on. Fresh air.

The jumper is one of her hand-knitted ones, a horse’s head surrounded by roses. I take off the bathrobe and pull the jumper on over my t-shirt, then drift into the hallway where Mel is already clipping a coat over Jimmy’s back. She sits me down against the dresser and lifts one foot, then the other, rolling socks onto them, then stuffs my feet into trainers. In the mirror behind her, I’m glazed under a serene expression. Richard goes up the stairs behind us, the phone hooked under his ear.

Mel leads Jimmy and me along the High Street. We make wild sounds when the wind cuts under our coats, passing closed charity shops and patisseries with empty stands. Jimmy slopes along, tripping over his own feet. Mel stops and huddles into me, and I follow where she’s looking: The Flask.

—Mulled wine and fires, she says. She bends over to rub Jimmy’s muzzle. —Shame we’ve got you or we could sit in the pub all afternoon! she says.

I should laugh, I should help her. But it’s too late and we are walking again, towards the mud and the grass.

They brought me to The Flask the first night I moved in, a long-ago summer. We sat outside on the picnic benches, Jimmy’s lead hooked around a table leg. My arms were still sore from the hospital and I wasn’t supposed to drink; I nursed a coke. The needle bruises in the crook of my elbow and the back of my hands twinged when I picked up the glass. Mel’s face was set in a smile and I felt the ache of her face, wanted to say, It’s all right, you don’t have to.

—I was thinking, Mel said. —What we should call each other. You should call me Mum.

—Um, I said.

She smiled. —Well. See how you feel. And, perhaps, do you know what—? She turned to Richard, lowered her voice. —What’s her real name? she said.

—It’s Green, I said.

—But that’s not really … Well. A fresh start? How about Jane? That’s my favourite book, Mel said. —Jane Eyre. I could read it to you—

—I don’t care, I said. —Call me Jane. Or Jess. Call me Jess, if you want.

Mel pulled me into a hug, her tiny arms digging into the back of my neck. —Jess, she said. My Jess.

Richard stroked Jimmy.

—Strange, isn’t it? he said.

Mel went inside to the bar. It was the first time he’d spoken to me.

—It was all her idea, he said.

—Yes.

—Not that I don’t want you. If you want to stay, that is. If you think, you know, you’ll be all right.

He was dressed differently then, in a tailored suit jacket and dark jeans, expensive shoes that squeaked. His face was clean shaven, lined now around the lips, the result of years of puckering around roll ups, and his eyes had lost their colour somehow, washed out. His hair was grey now around the temples. His voice, too, was different; gone was the bored drawl, the long pauses. He spoke in the outside way now, quick, floating ideas, constantly checking: You know, if, that is, you know what I mean?

Jimmy pushed his head onto my lap, offering his ears to stroke.

—He’s lovely, I said, without feeling. I didn’t know how much I would love Jimmy then.

—Mel got him from a rescue centre, Richard said. —They were going to put him down, he’s got something wrong with his legs, can’t race.

An old memory surfaced, Freya with a dog in her lap, cradling it as it died. Had she given it rat poison? Never be sentimental about animals, she was saying. It means they suffer longer.

—Didn’t Freya use to …? I began.

—Now, look.

Richard leaned forward, as though to take my hands, thought better of it, and let his own fall between the glasses.

—Mel and I have a lovely life here, and she’ll look after you. This is all, it’s for her, you know, this is her thing. She feels … Well. She’s angry with me.

He leaned back, opened his hands, as though I would reply, But how unfair!

—You know, she thinks this is the right thing to do. But I don’t want to hear about any, any of that time, you know, the house, the … Everyone there with us, it’s all done. I’ll pay for you, like before, if you like, and you can do what you want. But I don’t want this … He circled his hands. —Oh, remember when, and Oh, we used to … okay?

I nodded. —Fine.

—I mean, just look what happened to you, with the … and Mel having to, and all that.

—Fine, I said.

I watched him dig under his nails. He was still looking for Foxlowe dirt, crusted there, to scrape out and wipe on the grass.

—Do I call you Dad now?

It was an easy shot. Blood flashed up Richard’s neck. I buried a rush of triumph in a gulp of coke.

—Richard is fine, he said.

I raised my eyebrows. —Your Foxlowe name. Don’t see why I can’t be Green then—

—I changed it a long time ago, he said. —I’m too old now to … And it’s a normal name.

He flicked a bit of dirt away. Jimmy snapped his jaws as it sailed past.

—Mel said I could call her Mum, if I wanted.

—For god’s sake, Green. She’s only a few years older than you. Let’s just keep things simple, all right?

It was Freya he meant. There’s to be no talk of Freya. Blue too, because they trail each other, one hanging off the other’s name.

Mel pulls us along, and we leave The Flask behind, down the wide streets with iron gates and sleek grey cars in the driveways. When we reach the muddy path with its map of the heath, I breathe more easily. I love it here. The trees mute the traffic and the sky is wide. We trudge along past woods and the hidden bowers used for picnics and sex. It’s the hill we’re heading for, the view. Mel grips my arm painfully and rubs it, rustling her glove over the nylon coat.

—All right? she says.

Jimmy shies and yelps at a leaf. I pull him into my legs, whisper, Stupid dog.

—Richard wants to go up there. To Foxlowe, Mel says. The name sounds strange in her voice. —Well, I mean, he has to, you know, to sort through the house.

—What’s going to happen?

She takes my hand and hugs it into her shoulder. —You’ll stay with us, of course. We’ll put some of the money from the house into an account for you, and everything will stay just the same.

—I … that’s not … I fumble in my pocket for dog biscuits, find ancient ones in the lining, throw them in the air for Jimmy to catch.

The crest of the hill is before us now. On the horizon, some kids whoop as their kite catches a gust and swings upward. Mel cranes to watch it.

Quick, before she changes the subject.

—So, he’s selling it, I say.

—It’s in quite bad shape, apparently. I don’t know why he kept it on.

The funeral. Freya’s funeral. Surely it will be at the house. The ballroom, the garden, the wide staircases. The attic room. Surely the others will be there.

We walk on, up the gently sloping path, until we reach the wide hilltop. All the benches are taken and we stand a while, Jimmy plodding in contented circles around us. Then Mel yanks us, and marches, shouldering a woman out of the way. She apologises with a smile, and we sit. London shines below us. I’m always surprised by how small it looks. I can span from the Eye to Liverpool Street with my fingers.

The kite we saw from the path crumples in front of us, making us jump and sending Jimmy tearing away in fright. The children, two boys and a girl, rush to pick it up. The tallest boy fiddles with the string while the younger two idly push each other towards a puddle.

As they run away again, the little girl turns and waves. Mel’s lips sag and she pulls me to her.

—I like that children fly kites still, she says.

I stroke her fingers where they grip my waist.

Jimmy careens back into Mel’s legs and pants clouds of stinking breath over us. She nuzzles his head and kisses his ears. I look at the trees along the edge of the hill and the muddy grass. Then the city glinting and smoking below us.

—I’ll go with Richard, I say. —To Foxlowe, I mean. I’ll go with Richard, I say again, because Mel is staring at me as though she doesn’t understand what I’ve said.

After the heath we plunge back into heat. Mel wrenches the door handle up, sealing us in with a thunk. Jimmy collapses at the foot of the stairs and I step over his skinny legs, stuck in the air as he pants on his back. Through the glass I glimpse Richard smoking, using a teacup as an ashtray, and it makes me laugh, with surprise, or fear, as though the old Richard is coming back, the past has punctured the smooth membrane of the house. Mel’s pulling at my coat so I shrug it off into her arms. I want a bath. I head to the bathroom, shedding clothes as I go.

Naked, I sit on the toilet lid. Mel runs the bath. The whoosh of the water makes me realise how quiet we are.

Mel wrings her hands. —Oh! Towels, fresh warm ones. She answers herself as she goes out. —Yes, towels.

I lock the door on her. She knocks and then I hear her settle on the stairs to listen out for me.

The water is like little knives on my ankles, then thighs and back. I force my body down, water spilling over the sides, and regard the rolls of fat, my roasting feet. When the water covers my shoulders my heart flails around. In the jagged beats I find my morning’s dream, and Freya lays the past over me, like turning a page of the Pompeii book; here are things I do not think about in waking life, things I had forgotten, coating Mel’s house so we are buried under the film. Silently I scream Freya’s name; the drugs keep my tongue still. The only sound in the bathroom is the slosh of water as I run the water over and over my knees.