Authors: Sarah Pinborough
‘None of that soppy shit in here,’ Jake says, and although there’s a twinge of jealousy in his tone, he’s doing his best to get past it. Clara straightens up and I pull my arm back. From the corner of my eye I see Louis catching Will’s cup as it threatens to spill and I smile.
‘Pissed already?’
‘I’ve never had wine before,’ Will says and takes a big swallow. More laughter.
‘Are we going to smoke those cigarettes?’ Clara asks.
‘Won’t the nurses smell them?’ I ask.
‘Not if we open the window and lean out. And close the door.’ She’s on her feet. ‘Will’s never had wine, I’ve never had a cigarette. None of us had ever seen snow before.’ She glances at me – a secret look that’s just ours. ‘It’s been a couple of days of first things.’ I think about how it felt being inside her – weird and wonderful all at the same time. I can’t wait for it to be night again.
‘I don’t want one,’ Louis says, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘They’re really bad for you.’
Jake is at the window, pushing the old wooden frame up, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He turns and stares.
‘Are you shitting serious?’ He looks from Louis to me.
‘I have to live with this,’ I say.
‘But they give you cancer,’ Louis insists. ‘Everyone knows that.’
The rest of us exchange amused glances.
‘You gotta be messing with us,’ Albi says. ‘For real?’
‘I don’t see the point of making things worse, that’s all.’ Louis sips his wine, a picture of reasonableness, and it’s so ridiculously comical that we all burst out laughing, the kind that comes from the belly that you just can’t stop.
‘What?’ Louis says. He looks so confused, it just makes it worse. Tom is wheezing. Clara’s half-taking a drink when the laughter overcomes her and she snorts into her wine and sets us all off again.
‘Don’t see the point of making things worse?’ Jake finally says through his giggles. ‘Shit, man, that is classic.’
‘Don’t want to make things worse,’ Tom repeats. He’s trying to get the words out between fits of laughter and his voice is so high-pitched it doesn’t even sound like him. ‘Hi, I live in the Death House, but no, no smoking for me. Don’t see the point of making things worse.’ The end of the sentence is barely more than a blur of sobs and squeezed-out sounds as Tom loses it again.
Finally, Louis cracks, the ridiculousness of his position dawning on him, and the giggles take him, too. We’re all lost then.
My stomach and face ache from it, my bruised eye throbbing hard, and even though I know it’s crazy – the eight of us, a little bit drunk, laughing until we hurt at the fact that we’re in the Death House – and even with the thought of the nurse and Matron talking about me and Louis, I still can’t stop laughing. Everything seems funny. All of it.
I don’t even like cigarettes but I’m going to fucking smoke one today.
I have a few puffs but the smoke makes my head spin and after a couple of goes that scorch my lungs, I avoid inhaling. Clara’s trying valiantly but coughs every time she breathes in. We’re like the lame kids around the back of the science labs at school. In the end, we just hand it back to Jake. He and Tom smoke the rest.
Once the wine is finished, it’s only an hour or so before bedtime and Albi heads downstairs to play his sax and ‘get his mellow on’ as he puts it. Clara and Tom go to listen and the younger kids head off to the dorms.
‘Show me how to do the locks,’ I say, when it’s just me and Jake left.
We hide the bottles behind an old wardrobe where we figure it will be weeks at least until they’re found, if ever, and then make our way to the teachers’ quarters. My head is buzzing and I still feel a bit queasy from the cigarette smoke. It clings to me like bad aftershave but I try to focus as Jake tells me how to hold the two hairpins and wiggle them against the mechanism inside. Eventually I hear a click. I turn the handle and the door opens. My heart lifts. Jake grins. ‘See? Pretty easy, huh?’
For a second I glimpse a cosy little bedsit, a throw over the sofa,
TV
in the corner, all so
normal
and homely, and then we close the door again.
‘They’re harder to relock.’
He’s right. By the time I get it done, my fingers are aching and I’ve used every swear word I know at least twice. But I manage it. I knew I would. I have to. I think of Matron’s office downstairs and pray she has the same kind of lock.
‘We’d better get back,’ Jake says. ‘Wash the fags away before the nurses come round.’
‘Hey,’ I say, when we reach the stairs. ‘Thanks for this.’ I don’t know quite what I’m trying to say. His face doesn’t look as bad as my eye does, but his lip is fatter and I can see where I split it. ‘You know, after everything.’
He shrugs. ‘Let’s just leave it, yeah?’
‘Sure.’
We’ll be gone soon
, I want to say.
We’ll be out of your face for ever
. But I don’t. Even with Jake it feels like a bit of a betrayal now. In a lot of ways we are all in this shit together even though we all feel so very alone.
I come out of the bathroom, washed and smelling of soap and toothpaste but still hazy from wine, and find Louis waiting for me in the hallway in his pyjamas and slippers.
‘What’s up?’
His face is drawn tight in a frown. ‘Will.’
‘What about him?’ I hope to shit he hasn’t thrown up in the dorm. What will we clean it up with?
‘Do you think he’s all right?’
‘He’s just drunk.’
‘No, not that. The other stuff.’ He picks at his fingers.
‘What other stuff?’ We need to get to the dorm. The nurses will be coming round soon.
‘He’s clumsy all of a sudden.’ He’s not looking at me, but down at the floor. ‘It’s weird.’
‘He seems okay to me.’ I’m pretty sure he is, anyway. My head is so full of Clara, the boat and the retests that I haven’t really been paying attention. ‘I think you’re being paranoid.’
‘What about you?’ He looks at me now. ‘You okay?’
I nod. ‘I think so.’
‘Me, too.’
‘So let’s go to bed.’ I feel uncomfortable now, the overhead conversation wriggling like maggots in my mind.
Something must be done. If you don’t, I will.
I fall asleep quickly, despite myself. It’s been a long day of snow and wine on top of so many days of surviving on three or four hours, and although I’m determined to stay awake and see Clara, I go out like a light.
I wake up with a start. The dorm is dark and still, the combination of wine and sleeping pills having sent the others into a deep sleep that will probably leave them fuzzy in the morning. My mouth is dry and my lungs are raw from my few attempts to smoke. I need a drink of water. I have no idea what time it is, but the night has a thick texture that tells my gut it’s safe. The nurses are in bed. It’s mine and Clara’s time.
I get water from the bathroom and between that and the cold air I wake up a bit. I creep to Clara’s dorm and find her fast asleep, curled up on her side, knees tucked under her chin, hair spread out over the pillow behind her as if the sea wind is in her face even as she sleeps. I almost shake her and then think better of it. She’s so still and her breathing so even I know she’s way down deep in her rest. I don’t want to disturb her. She probably needs it. I watch her for a minute and decide to go back to my own bed. I don’t want to steal food and go and look at the sky through the playroom window on my own any more. Those days are done. The nights are mine
and
Clara’s and I’ll just feel lonely and maudlin without her.
I’m between the landings when I hear it. For a moment, I don’t know what it is. My body does – my heart races and I shiver with sudden fear before I freeze where I stand – but my mind takes a minute to catch up. It’s the groan and wheeze of the lift coming to life. I’m not expecting it. Who are they coming for?
Me. Me and Louis. The retest.
I almost throw up. I can’t think of anyone else who’s sick. Not sick enough for the Angels of Death to come and wheel them away. I have the crazy thought that I should rush back to my dorm and pretend to be asleep because I’ll get in trouble if I’m not there when they come for me, and then I have to stifle a terrified giggle at how stupid that is. There is no trouble that compares with the trouble I’m in now. I should run. Head out into the garden and over the wall and hide on the island somewhere they won’t find me. Or take my chances in that rowing boat.
My bare feet are cold on the wooden floor and I’m only wearing thin pyjamas, but I’m still thinking about trying to escape through the snow. If I fight the nurses and make enough noise could I wake Clara up? I’m filled with a fresh dread. I can’t imagine not seeing Clara again. I can’t imagine her waking up to find me erased from the house. I hate that we won’t have even said a proper last goodbye, just an ordinary
goodnight
and
see you later
. I can’t even exactly remember how she looked at that moment. I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d see her. I didn’t absorb it. I want to turn the clock back. I want to stop the clock completely. To steal some more time. I want more time.
I’m so busy panicking as I stand pressed against the wall, light-headed with anxiety and clammy with fear, that I don’t realise the lift has stopped and it’s not on my floor. It’s only when I hear the shuffle of feet above that a surreal relief floods through me, hard and fast, making me shake. It’s not me. They haven’t come for me. Not tonight. Not yet.
I can’t hear the wheels even though the night is so silent there’s a hum in my ears. The nurses must be headed far down one of the corridors. I’m confused. Most of the dorms in use are near the central stairwell. So where are they going?
Away from the windows the night is like a black sea and I creep up the stairs through it, treading carefully to avoid waking the wood and making it creak with surprise at my weight. My heart thumps too loudly as I drop into a crouch and peer around the last bannister. I can’t see anyone, but my straining ears hear a door click somewhere far away along the disappeared corridor. The church and the nurses’ quarters are down there, nothing else. Why would they be going to the nurses’ rooms?
As the whispering of shoes grows louder, I slide down a few stairs and press myself into them, my bones unhappy against the hard edges. They won’t look down, that’s all I can hope, but I have to see. It’s not one of our beds that goes by but rather a gurney with silent, well-oiled wheels. There are two Angels of Death, one normal nurse and one solid, recognisable figure – Matron. Automatically, just at the sight of her, I slide silently down one step further. Matron isn’t like the nurses. Matron can see everything. I crane my neck to try and get a glimpse of the still figure they’re wheeling to the lift. It’s a woman. Strands of fine ginger hair hang over the side like gossamer from a spider’s web.
It’s a good book. My grandmother used to read it to me when I was little.
It’s nothing to worry about.
If you don’t, I will.
I stare in disbelief and feel sick all over again. I don’t want to see any more.
‘I think she took an overdose of sleeping pills,’ Matron says.
‘I found her.’ It’s the ordinary nurse who’s with them. She looks shocked and sounds young. Almost like a real person.
‘I just don’t understand why,’ she says.
‘Her psych evaluation must have been inaccurate.’ Matron’s voice is soft but still devoid of any real emotion. ‘She’s been behaving slightly erratically for a few days. I had hoped she’d go home with the rest.’ The lift doors slide open and they wheel the gurney inside.
‘I’ll contact the Ministry and tell them what’s happened,’ Matron says as she steps inside. ‘You go to bed. There’s nothing more any of us can do now.’
I catch a glimpse of her face before the machinery grinds into life again. Cool. Determined. Empty. The dead beating heart of the beast that is the sanatorium.
I wait until the nurse has headed off to her quarters then run back downstairs and into my dorm, curling into a ball like Clara, but mine is tight and angry and scared. The lift falls silent and I squeeze my eyes shut, willing myself to sleep. It won’t come, though. My mouth tastes of metal and my stomach is greasy. The good nurse has gone to the sanatorium. This is to do with me and Louis, I know it. The test results. Her argument with Matron. Did she drug her at bedtime? Put the pills in her hot chocolate? A glass of wine? Matron’s staged it somehow, but why? Too many terrified thoughts race around my brain, flaring up from the ball in my stomach. This isn’t like
us
being taken away. We’re Defectives. Whatever they do to us doesn’t matter – not really. This is different. The nurse was healthy.
Normal.
She’s gone to the sanatorium, and no one ever comes back from the sanatorium. I think about her, trying to remember her face. I think of the posters on the walls of the church, the ones with the names on. She won’t even get that.
I know I won’t see her again. I know that however quietly Matron is doing this, it’s still murder. We come here to die. The nurses don’t. I can almost feel the call of Matron’s office below me. I hope that when I get in there I can find the nurse’s name. Not to put on the church wall, though. That might as well be dust on a breeze. Within a year or so there won’t be anyone left who remembers those names anyway. Outside is different. I want the nurse’s name for when I get out of here with Clara. I want to scream it to the world in a letter to every newspaper. I want her family to know. We can’t all be unimportant and forgotten. We just can’t.
I wonder what they’re doing to her upstairs. Pumping her stomach or letting her die? I wonder if she was already dead on the trolley. I think about Henry and Ellory and all the others and me and Louis and Will and Tom and Jake and Clara, and I think about how I love them all a little bit. Even the kids I don’t speak to. I think about the lift. The silence of the night. The aloneness of it all.
I start to cry and I can’t stop.
The first year they went to Cornwall that Toby could remember, he was five. They didn’t go to the overcrowded resorts with the high-rise hotels and busy beaches, but instead to a cottage in an old village a little further inland. It must have cost his mum and dad a fortune but they never said. They had cream teas and swam in the pool and explored the small rocky cove a short drive away, which wasn’t deserted but avoided being crammed like sardines on the sand with everyone else trying to get the best of their two weeks of summer freedom. His parents laughed and looked for crabs and paddled with him along the surf’s edge. The first time they took him out in it, he cried. He’d blown the bright orange rubber armbands up so tight that they squeezed hard against his skin when he pulled them on, but they still didn’t feel like enough. Not against the enormity of the sea.
This wasn’t like the pool. The sea scared him. It was so vast, so endless beyond the horizon, and he couldn’t imagine something that went on and on for ever like the water did. When he was in the pool, he was scared of drowning if he didn’t paddle and splash hard enough, even with his armbands on. In the sea, he was scared that it would pull him away and he’d be left floating in the middle of that expanse of dark water, alone for ever.
His parents laughed and splashed and he got used to it, but it wasn’t until he was about ten that he really relaxed in the sea. He liked his mother’s tales of mermaids and mysterious magic living in its depths, but he never quite believed them. He loved the pull of the tide and the cool of the water, but sometimes he looked out at the emptiness of it all and wondered how terrible it would be to drown and be lost in all that water. To be gone and forever alone in its depths.