Good Girl, Bad Girl(54)
“I know what it means.”
She smiles as though congratulating herself, before changing the subject.
“You said I could have a mobile phone.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Why don’t you like them?”
“I have nothing against mobile phones. I choose not to have one because I prefer to talk to people face-to-face. As a psychologist, my job is to listen to people and to learn things about them, which I can’t do as effectively by reading a text or tweet.”
“It doesn’t seem very professional,” says Evie.
“I have a pager. People contact me. I call them back.”
“You vet your calls.”
“That’s not the reason.”
Evie studies my face, searching for the lie, but cannot find one.
Having cleaned her plate, Evie gets up from the table and turns to leave. I remind her about helping with the chores. She looks around the kitchen. “Where’s the dishwasher?”
“I don’t have one.”
“How do you wash stuff?”
“The old-fashioned way.” I pull out detergent, rubber gloves, and a scouring pad.
Evie turns on the taps, squirting detergent into the running water.
“You should do the glasses first,” I say.
Ignoring me, she picks up a plate, which slips from her fingers. She attempts to catch it in midair, but it slips again and shatters on the tiled floor, sending shards in every direction. Evie glares at me, as though it was my fault, and then I notice a different emotion. Despair. Loss.
“It’s only a plate,” I say, getting a dustpan and brush. “No harm done.”
Evie turns away, not wanting to show any sign of weakness. Eventually, she confronts me with a new allegation.
“Stop staring at me.”
“What?”
“You keep staring at me. You’re like all the others—the shrinks and therapists and social workers—you want to reach inside my head and hook your fingers in the cracks and open me up, see what makes me tick.”
“That’s not true.”
Evie snorts, recognizing my lie.
“Have you ever considered the possibility that I don’t need to relive my past or explore my feelings? I don’t need to be fixed because I’m not fucking broken.”
29
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
The old house is speaking to me. With every creak and groan, I imagine Cyrus standing in the corridor outside, the soft noise of his breathing, his timid knock, the door opening, light falling across the floor.
I climb out of bed, brace my shoulder against the chest of drawers, and push it across the bare wooden floorboards until it rests hard against the door.
Returning to the bed, I reach beneath the pillow, searching for the knife I took earlier when I was washing the dishes. At Langford Hall they count every utensil after mealtimes—even the potato peelers—but Cyrus didn’t bother to check.
I close my eyes but cannot sleep. I’m not used to this. For years I have lived in places where the doors were locked and the lights were dimmed; where CCTV cameras monitored my waking hours and the heating was controlled by a central switch and the water could be cut in the showers if I tried to block the drains. At seven forty-five each morning I would press a buzzer and ask to come out. Most mornings the doors unlocked immediately, but occasionally I was kept inside my room until whatever emergency had passed.
Cyrus hadn’t locked any doors or demanded the lights be turned off. I’m not his prisoner. I can wander down to the kitchen to grab a bite. I can walk outside and dance under a streetlight and nobody would stop me. Maybe that’s what’s keeping me awake—the choices.
I get out of bed again, open my bag, and take out the marbles and the pieces of colored glass and the button belonging to my mother. Finally, I come to an envelope of cash. Smoothing out the duvet, I count out the notes, separating them into different piles: ten, twenties, and fifties—￡2,580 in total. My eyes come to rest on an old armchair in the corner. It’s covered in a faded floral fabric that is worn smooth where countless arses have sat. Rolling the chair onto one side, I study the stapled upholstery and the stitching, before taking the knife and carefully picking apart a seam, working the blade back and forth, until I create a pocket big enough to hold the cash. Once I’m finished, I return the chair to the corner and go back to bed, lying still, breathing slowly.
That’s when I hear the noise—the clang of metal on metal and a guttural groan as though an animal is caught in a trap.
Crossing the room, I lean over the drawers and press my ear against the door.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
It’s coming from below me. Downstairs. The basement. I want to investigate. I want to stay in bed and cover my head with a pillow, blocking out the sound. I push aside the drawers and step onto the landing, clutching the knife. I pause for a moment and listen. There it is again—the moaning; metal striking metal.
Descending slowly, I follow the noise, running my fingers along the wall to feel my way forward. Every floorboard is like a trip wire, ready to give my presence away.
Light spills from a room. Creeping closer, I peer around the edge of a door and draw back suddenly. Then I look again, half in fear and half in fascination. An ink-stained figure is hunched beneath a metal bar that curves across his shoulders, bearing colored plates the size of hubcaps at either end. The figure squats and rises, his thighs trembling and his breath coming in short bursts. He does it again and again, each lift slower and harder than the last, until he groans and drops the weight onto a cradle.