The Death House (5 page)

‘Yes, but we won’t be running away. We’ll just be going out for a while and then we’ll come back. And
we
won’t get caught.’

Our faces are so close that our noses are almost touching and my stomach flips again, dipping down into my groin. I know what’s happening there and will it to stop. She’s just an ordinary girl. Not even hot like Julie McKendrick. Until two hours ago I didn’t even like her much. I’m still not sure I do. She’s like a creature at the bottom of a motionless ocean, dredging up the mud as she moves through it, making everything hard to see. Life at the house was clear-cut until she arrived. She’s changing things.

‘We should go tomorrow night.’ She looks back up at the ceiling, decided. ‘There’s no time like the present, is there? Live for the moment and all that.’

‘You’re crazy,’ I say.

We lie there in silence for a while, and soon we both drift into a doze. When I next open my eyes, grey light is washing the sky and the truck is gone. The house is quiet. I creep out of the bed, not wanting to wake Clara, and as an afterthought I turn around and rearrange the covers so she’ll stay warm. She half-smiles then, sleepily, as she snuggles down, her eyes closed.

‘I told you,’ she slurs quietly.

‘Told me what?’ I whisper.

‘That it would be more fun together.’

I leave her there and creep back to my dorm. If the nurses and Matron are still awake there’s no sign of it, nor of their nocturnal activities. The house has returned to its undisturbed state, locked out of the world. My bed feels cold and unfamiliar as I peel my socks off and slide between the sheets. She’s crazy, I think, imagining the madness of going over the wall. But my heart races and I can’t sleep.

Even though Clara has been up every night since she got here, this breakfast is the first time I feel we’re sharing a secret instead of me resenting her for stealing mine. We don’t look at each other at all as the dorms file in, although she laughs and jokes with Tom when he goes to the food station while she’s there. He comes back looking slightly flushed and pleased with himself, and somehow that makes me feel pleased with myself.

‘Anyone want milk?’ Tom says.

‘Why did you get it if you don’t want it?’ Louis asks.

‘He fancies Clara.’ Will snickers.

‘No, I don’t,’ Tom says. ‘I just changed my mind after I got it.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Tom’s face is so red-blotched he looks like he’s got a fever. I don’t pay any attention. It’s not like Will said anything I wasn’t already thinking.

‘Hey, check Joe out,’ Louis says, nodding at the Dorm 7 table. I look across and Tom turns around in his seat to stare. The final three of Dorm 7 have moved themselves to one end of the table, leaving Joe isolated at the other. They’re chatting away like he doesn’t even exist, Jake at the centre, with Daniel – who’s beaming to be suddenly closer to Jake – on one side, and a black kid called Albi who spends most of his spare time playing jazz on a sax in the music room on the other. If the nurses had somehow missed the fact that Joe’s sick, it’s obvious now.

As well as being isolated from his room-mates, his shoulders are hunched and he’s listlessly spooning Weetabix into his mouth. He flinches as he swallows and his nose is so blocked he has to suck in a breath as he chews. It’s like a flashback to Ellory, except no one’s trying to protect Joe.

‘Get your washing-up gloves ready, Toby.’ Louis bites into his toast. ‘You have some chores coming.’

A chair grates beside me as it’s pushed away and Ashley gets up. At first I think he’s going to get more toast or something, but then he picks up his plate and his cup of tea. His mouth is tight.

‘You done?’ I ask. He doesn’t answer. With his back ramrod straight, he walks over to the Dorm 7 table. Their chatter stops for a moment as they stare at him, but he ignores them and sits down opposite Joe.

‘Why can’t he just be normal?’ Will whines. ‘He’s going to get us all in the shit with Jake. Why would he do that?’

‘And why at breakfast?’ I grumble, my good mood evaporating. ‘I don’t need this crap first thing in the morning.’

At the other table, Joe smiles gratefully at Ashley and his shoulders lift slightly. I look from Joe to Jake and can see that Daniel and Albi are watching him intently, their eyes shining, sure he’s going to kick-off. It’s literally survival of the fittest here. There’s no room for sympathy for the weak, and the twins broke Dorm 7’s run of luck. Jake’s jaw tightens and he’s about to get to his feet when suddenly Harriet appears and takes the final free chair at the end of the table, Joe on one side of her and Ashley on the other. She’s brought a stack of toast with her and puts it in the middle, smiling at both of the boys.

Jake glances back to where Clara and Eleanor are still eating their breakfast, continuing as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. My heart’s beating faster and we’re all watching. This is not how it goes. Not since Henry and his terrible tears and pleading when he got sick. It’s easier to simply cut them off. If it had just been Ashley, Jake would have said something, and I’d have let him, but one of the girls is different – especially now that Clara is here. After a moment, Jake goes back to his breakfast and ignores the two extras at the table. It’s as if the whole room lets out a sigh.

‘Why didn’t he do anything?’ Louis frowns.

‘Tom’s not the only one with a crush on the new girl,’ I say, and Tom flashes me a glare as Will giggles. My appetite’s gone and I feel unsettled again. The packs are changing. Ashley has his little God Squad now. Even if it’s doomed to failure and will only alienate him further, it’s still creating waves. It’s not just Clara who’s shifting the silt. I want things to stay the same. When things stay the same, you can’t feel time moving forward.

‘Fuck ’em,’ I say. ‘Better to have him over there than here with us being all holier-than-thou. Maybe he can move into Jake’s dorm, too.’

‘Oh, man, just imagine it.’ Will grins, his face alight with mischief. ‘All that praying.’ Sometimes I wish I was Will’s age. Too young to really get any of this.

It’s colder today and the teacher waiting for us at the front of the class is wearing a thick wool jumper. He looks tired, and I wonder if they had to get up in the night to help with the truck, too. As we file in and take our seats, Will pauses at the back and puts something carefully on top of the radiator.

‘Drying my conkers out,’ he says when he sees us all staring at him. ‘Makes them harder.’

‘You didn’t tell me about that.’ Louis looks hurt.

‘I forgot. But now you know – drying them out makes them harder.’

Louis immediately pulls two out of his pocket and puts them at the other end of the radiator.

Will grins at him. ‘You still won’t beat me.’

‘Take your seats, boys,’ the teacher says. ‘Comprehension this morning, please.’ He sits down and watches as we pull exercise books and textbooks out of our desks, and then his gaze drifts towards the window. He’ll sit like that for a while and then make a half-hearted effort to come round and check on what we’re doing. I’m not even sure he’s a real teacher. Surely a real teacher would give it a proper go. We settle down quickly into quiet and all I can hear are shuffles and scratches of pens writing on paper. I doodle on the back cover of my book for a while and realise I’m drawing waves and the sea, and start thinking about later. Will we really do it? What if we get caught? Maybe she’ll have changed her mind by the end of the day. I can’t decide whether I want that or not.

‘Get on with the work, please.’

He’s staring at me.

‘Sorry.’ I drop my head and stare at the extract and questions in front of me. Piggy is not having a good day in
Lord of the Flies
.

After the first hour, the teacher drags himself out of his chair and starts his rounds. As he leans over me, his jumper smells of cigarette smoke doused with aftershave. He’s old. Well older than I’ll ever be, his short beard almost grey with rough patches of skin showing through the gaps. Over forty, that’s for sure. He nods and then moves on, doing the minimum to disguise how pointless all this is.

‘Are you going to sit with Joe every mealtime?’ Louis asks Ashley at the end of the first two hours, when the teachers swap rooms and we have our pointless ten-minute break. ‘Why would you do that? He’s sick.’

Ashley doesn’t even look over. ‘I will no longer pass by on the other side of the road.’ Even the way he speaks irritates me. His voice always sounds like a whine coming from somewhere behind his nose.

Will looks at me, baffled. ‘What does that even mean?’

‘Bible shit,’ Louis says. ‘He’s just being mental.’

‘No one should be afraid alone,’ Ashley says as he opens his maths book.

I want to punch him for his stupidity. Everyone is afraid alone. If it wouldn’t break our run with no losses, I’d wish that he would go next. I really, really would.

I sleep in the afternoon as usual, happy to keep my routine and stay out of the way of the others. I don’t think about Clara or the night before or the night to come, but instead try to empty my head of everything except my tiredness. It works and I don’t wake up until just before tea, after which I go for a bath. I had a shower that morning, but locked in the bathroom I can at least avoid the playroom and the church and the dread fascination of Joe’s steady decline. I lie in the water until it’s too lukewarm to stay in and then examine my body for any changes. I know every freckle and mark on my skin. I run my hands under my armpits looking for any bumps. I check the soles of my feet. The glands in my neck. Everything feels normal. For now, at least.

When I get back to the dorm, Louis, Will and Eleanor are there, stringing conkers, and Tom is lying on his bed pretending to fill in a tattered puzzle book from the library.

‘What are you all doing in here?’ I only have a towel around me, not expecting anyone to be in the room – least of all one of the girls.

‘Can’t get in the playroom,’ Louis says, focusing on forcing a hole through the brown nut. I stare at Eleanor and her head drops as she quickly gathers up her stuff. She leaves her battered paperback behind.

‘You can read that if you want, Will. I’ve finished it. It’s really good.’

‘Cool, thanks.’ Will beams. ‘Goodnight.’

She hurries out and as the door closes I relax.

‘Maybe now Ashley and Harriet are sitting on the Dorm 7 table, Eleanor could come and sit with us. Clara, too.’ Will looks at me, hopefully. I glare at him.

‘Joe will be gone in a day or so and then Ashley will be back.’

‘Lucky us,’ Louis says, pushing a strand of wool through the hole on a thick needle. I haven’t seen any wool or needles in the playroom. Who did they ask for them? Matron? Have they all forgotten why we’re here?

‘It was just a thought,’ Will mumbles.

‘A dumb one.’ I pull my pyjama bottoms on. No point getting dressed. Not until much later, anyway. I feel a fizz of excitement in my belly and for a second or two the dread vanishes. That scares me slightly. The dark ball in my stomach is the anchor weighing me down. I need to make friends with it. I need to accept it. There is no point wishing for anything else.

‘Why can’t you get in the playroom?’ I ask.

‘Jake,’ Louis says as if this is answer enough. ‘He even kicked Tom out.’

‘
Especially
Tom,’ Will adds. He raises his conker. ‘Ready when you are.’

‘But why? Because of Ashley sitting at their table?’ Jake is going to have his revenge for that, I’m sure.

‘No, he kicked all the dorms out. Some of the others took games into the music room but we figured we’d just come up here.’

‘He’s in there with Clara,’ Tom says. ‘Watching some old comedy film.’ He keeps his eyes firmly on the puzzle but it’s clear he’s pissed off. ‘Didn’t want anyone else in there.’

‘I didn’t know she liked him,’ I say lightly, focusing on drying my feet. I don’t want the others spotting the pricks of red on my face. Jake and Clara watching a movie alone. Is that like a date? I’d see it as a date. I feel weird about it.

‘They’re on washing-up together. Came in covered in soapsuds and laughing.’ Louis’ conker hits Will’s but does no damage and Will smiles. ‘I like Clara. It’s less boring now she’s here.’

I don’t say anything to that.

‘I thought washing-up was done in dorms?’ Tom says. ‘How did she end up with him?’

I want to go and look at the rota. See who Jake bullied into swapping places with him so he could be with Clara. I lie on my bed and listen to Will and Louis chatter and laugh as they twat the conkers and each other’s fingers and wonder what’s happening in the playroom downstairs. Has Jake now got his own secret with Clara? Does she like him? Having spent days wishing she’d just fuck off, I now suddenly feel some weird sense of betrayal, which is wrong. I think of Julie McKendrick and Billy and wonder if this is like that all over again. Then another thought occurs which shakes away the jealousy – will she tell him about the night-times? Will she tell him to stop taking the pills? Whatever excitement I had fades at the thought of Jake showing up in the kitchen tonight, then swaggering off with Clara. Jake wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret, that’s the worst part. If she tells him then everyone will know.

I close my eyes. Maybe I won’t show up tonight. I can just withdraw back into my safe bubble of solitude. She’s not even all that pretty. Fuck Clara. Fuck Jake. They can fuck each other for all I care.

Eight

‘Don’t squash the sandwiches!’ she whispers down to me, astride the wall above. ‘Come on!’ She swings her leg over and disappears on the other side. We’ve moved the old garden bench against the wall, muddy indentations from the legs showing us exactly where to return it, and I climb onto the back before reaching up to grab the edge of the rough bricks. My arms, out of practice at any kind of exercise, strain in their sockets, but eventually I pull myself high enough to get a leg up. Despite the cold, I’m sweating by the time I drop heavily to the ground on the other side and my shaking shoulders take a minute to stop screaming at me. I half-expect floodlights to suddenly flash on and Matron to run towards us holding out a coin and shrieking, ‘
Heads or tails? Heads or tails?
’, but there’s nothing – just the darkness and the crisp, fresh air.

‘So, where to now?’ I say, staring into the darkness.

‘Let’s follow the road. Maybe that will take us to a path leading down to the sea. It’s over there. I saw it. Can’t be too far away.’

I glance back at the house. It remains still and silent. They haven’t made it easy for us to get out, but neither have they made it impossible. Louis was right – we must be on an island. It’s not a surprise. They wouldn’t want to risk us getting back into the general population if something went wrong and the sickness was allowed to run its course. There’s no chance of that here.

‘We shouldn’t stay out too long.’ I hurry to catch up with her as she strides, fearless, across the sloping thick grass towards the midnight strip of the road.

‘We’ve got a couple of hours, panic-pants. Relax!’ Her teeth flash white as she laughs. ‘Doesn’t it feel great, though? To be free?’

As our feet hit the smooth tarmac, the clouds break overhead and the moon, hanging low in the sky, shines bright and beautiful above us, illuminating the wild and natural surroundings. I suck in a huge breath of cold air. My whole body tingles and I want to run and jump and shriek like a crazy person. She’s right, it does feel good. For a little while I can leave it all back there – the house, the Defectiveness, the dread. Right now, we’re just two people on a night adventure.

We walk for several minutes, staying quiet until the house is barely visible behind us, and then I hear it. Water rustling on shingle. The steady breath of waves as the sea sleeps. Salt tickles my nose, overwhelming the cold air and the tang of heather.

‘Look!’ Clara stops and points. ‘There. Is that a path?’ She grabs my cold hand and we run from the road to a chalky line cutting through the overgrown shrubs. The wind picks up and the call of the sea grows louder. We’re near the edge of a small cliff and the wet pebbles on the beach below wink at us in the moonlight.

‘For fuck’s sake, be careful,’ I mutter, but she’s steady on her feet as she breaks away and picks her way down the steep chalky slash that cuts its uneven way into the darkness. ‘And wait for me.’

‘Slowcoach.’ Her laughter tinkles back at me and I grin – a proper smile. An old Toby smile. As I move carefully forward, my ears freezing in the cold sea breeze, I feel good. Properly good. We’re outside, we’re alone and we still have our secret. Whatever happened in the playroom, she didn’t tell Jake. When I finally got to the kitchen, hating myself for even showing up, I expected to find them both there. My hands were balled into tight, angry fists and I was ready to kill them for taking what had been just mine and making it something for everyone. But there was only Clara, layered in jumpers, wrapping sandwiches in greaseproof paper, waiting for me. No Jake. No betrayal.

I clamber down lower, trying to keep up with Clara as the ridge of the cliff disappears above me. I don’t even want to think about Jake, or Will, or Louis, or any of them. All that belongs back at the house with Matron and the nurses and the hungry sanatorium and the dread. It’s strange not to feel that black fire raging in the pit of my stomach. I feel lighter. I know it’ll return, but right now I feel alive and I don’t want to curtail it.

My feet hit the shingle and, with her hair whipping around her head, Clara reaches back for me and I take her hand again. It’s small but strong in mine and my heart races as we laugh and run awkwardly away from the stony ground and across the sand to the white surf which creeps in and away from the endless black water beyond. We stand there, breathless, faces burning, and stare out. The sea is calm, its endlessness mesmeric. Nature is beautiful. Life is beautiful. I ache slightly at the monumental mystery of it all and squeeze Clara’s hand tightly, reminding myself that right now, right here, I am alive.

We wander along the beach a little, not wanting to stray too far from the path, and as Clara scours the sand for treasure, I spot a break in the rocky wall, a small, yawning opening. ‘Over there.’

Clara puts down the shell she’s been examining – we both know, without saying a word, that we can’t take anything back with us – and follows me as I peer through the opening. It’s a cave, perfectly arched, carpeted with silt, sand and washed-up flotsam. The wind drops as soon as we’re inside and my stinging face warms immediately.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Clara says, her words echoey in the sudden stillness. ‘We should bring that candle from Ashley’s church down here or search the kitchen stockroom for more. And some cushions and stuff from the playroom. Make it our own secret night-time den!’

I look down at the dregs of seaweed clinging to my shoes. ‘Wouldn’t work. The tide must come right in here. It would wash everything away.’ The walls are damp and slick with sea slime, but we find a couple of rocks near the mouth and sit down and eat our sandwiches gazing out at the sea.

‘This is beautiful, isn’t it?’ she says, chewing.

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

She looks at me and smiles happily, and my sandwich almost sticks in my throat as I swallow. I’m not talking about the beach or the water. Her long hair falls around her face in thick, red, wind-battered coils, almost matted like dreadlocks by the salty wind. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright and alive. How can I not have seen how beautiful she is?

‘You look like a mermaid,’ I blurt out, from nowhere. ‘A mermaid who comes ashore at night and sits in this cave wondering what it would be like to be human, before the tide comes and carries her back out to her people in the deep.’ I don’t know where the words are coming from. I wish I could just shut up. She’s going to laugh at me. She doesn’t. She just studies me for a moment as she finishes her food.

‘I love that,’ she says when she’s done. She looks out again to where the star-littered sky meets the whispering sea. ‘It’s magical. I wish I was a mermaid.’

‘We should get back.’

‘We have to come here again,’ she says.

‘We will.’ I don’t look behind me at the cave as we amble along the beach to the path. I don’t need to.

When we reach the road, we stop to shake sand out of our shoes and clothes, not wanting any evidence of our escape to be spotted by the eagle-eyed nurses, and after brushing each other’s backs down, we walk a little further on from the house in the night that’s slowly creeping towards dawn to take in the surroundings we haven’t yet seen. The island is not very big, probably not much more than a mile or so in any direction. We can’t see any houses. There might be one or two dotted out of sight, but it’s unlikely. Who would live here? What would they do?

‘Over there,’ Clara says softly. At first I don’t see what she’s looking at, but then I notice the shine of paint between a grassy knoll and a clifftop.

‘We should go back.’

‘It’ll only take a minute.’ She jogs forwards for a better view and I follow. ‘That must be where boats from the mainland dock,’ she says as the small building and the wide, sturdy jetty cutting a little way out into the bay come into view. ‘Look – the road leads up from it.’ The slope down to the sea is gentler there and a flat stretch winds up the hill to where we stand now. ‘Do you think anyone lives in that house?’ she asks. ‘Like a gatekeeper?’

She makes it sound like we live in a fantasy castle rather than a Death House. ‘Maybe. I guess they need someone to guide the boat in.’ I’m making it up. I know nothing about boats.

‘We should find out when that supply boat’s due again.’ She’s not smiling now, her eyes narrow and thoughtful. ‘We could escape on it. Go somewhere no one knows us and have the rest of our time to ourselves.’

I don’t know what to say to that. Too many thoughts whirl in my head to focus on, but one floats to the surface now that we’re in the shadow of the house. We can make whatever plans we like, but first we have to survive until the boat comes back.

‘Come on,’ I say quietly and tug her arm like a child. I don’t want to get caught. I don’t want to play heads or tails with Clara.

The sun was warm on his back and his skin itchy with dried salt from where they’d run in and out of the sea, whooping and shrieking in water so cold they couldn’t help but laugh. His mum had even sworn a couple of times as she’d sprinted in behind him, throwing herself into the waves to get the shock of it over faster, and that had made him howl with laughter.

He was thirteen, probably too old to be enjoying a family holiday so much, but school was an age away and it had been a brilliant two weeks. Long days on the beach, the trip to the waterpark, the funfair, the circus, candyfloss, ice creams, fish and chips, and wandering through the cobbled alleyways where all the shops were filled with souvenirs and hand-crafted jewellery, and cafes served clotted cream teas and Cornish pasties. The cottage they’d rented had a hot tub and a huge shelf of
DVDs
, and every night, if they didn’t play cards, they sat together on the sofa and watched movies until they fell asleep.

Sometimes when he’d been growing up, Toby had wished for a brother – or even a sister – to play with, but those days had gone. He couldn’t imagine someone else being part of their family – his dad ruffling another kid’s hair the way he did Toby’s, or his mum smiling at someone else with so much love it made her nose crinkle. They were his parents and his alone and he was lucky to have them. They loved him and he loved them, and although the way he showed it would change in the years to come – he could already feel the pull of ‘coolness’ and wanting to hang out with friends rather than family – on that holiday, growing up was part of an unknown future, and his mum and dad were the best people to be with.

It was the last day, and while his dad lay on a sunlounger reading an old spy thriller, Toby and his mum wandered the beach looking for shells to take home.

‘Hey, Toby,’ she called to him. He was paddling in the shallows and enjoying the feel of the sand being sucked away from his feet as each roll of the water pulled back, and watching the sunlight glitter on the surface, and thinking about everything and nothing in that way you can when the weather’s warm and there are no clouds in the sky or your mind.

‘Come over here! I’ve found something.’

It was black and leathery in his hand, a flat oblong with four thin prongs like strips of leather curving away from each corner. ‘What is it?’ he asked, rubbing the smooth surface clean of sand.

‘It’s called a mermaid’s purse. They say that mermaids leave them behind when they come up to the water’s edge. Like lost handbags. Sailors used to search the beaches for them. They thought they were lucky.’

‘There’s no such thing as mermaids,’ Toby said.

‘How do you know?’

‘
Everyone
knows!’ He was thirteen. Too old to believe in all the magic of childhood any more. He knew there was no Father Christmas. The tooth fairy didn’t exist. The only one he still partly believed in was the bogeyman, and then only at night in the dark when he couldn’t sleep. ‘What is it really?’

His mum’s shoulders slumped slightly, the wind taken from her sails by her growing-up boy. ‘It’s an egg sac. Fish lay their eggs in them and they grow there until they’re ready to come out and swim by themselves. I prefer the mermaid story, though.’

Toby stared at the sac a moment longer and his mum started to wander away.

‘Hey, Mum,’ he called after her.

‘What?’

‘Maybe we should put it back where you found it. You know, in case the mermaid comes looking for it.’ She smiled at him then, a beaming grin that made her look like a teenager rather than an old woman in her thirties, and Toby was happy. He had the best mum in the world and he’d believe in the magic if she wanted him to.

‘Let’s get Dad and grab another ice cream. I’m sure there’s still a couple of flavours at that stand I haven’t tried yet,’ she said as they bedded the mermaid’s purse into the damp sand. ‘It’s our last day. We may as well eat until we feel sick. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

The perfect end to the perfect holiday.