Mr. Flood's Last Resort(55)

Larkin turns away from the door and runs back along the path, stopping halfway down, his attention focused on the bank above.

I cross the threshold, my hands on the door frame, picking my way forwards to the start of the walkway. I follow it, keeping close to the wall, although my clothes will be ruined, as the bricks run with moisture and are wet to the touch. The smell is overpowering: as if the belly of the earth has opened. The primordial smell of hidden places, deep dark places, where life ends and begins again, a cycle of rot and germination.

I run my hand along the wall but there is nothing to be found, no loose bricks or cubbyholes, no messages in bottles or hidden envelopes.

*

IT ALL happens so quickly. A figure fills the doorway, backlit. The icehouse darkens. The door is pulled shut and the key turns in the lock, a single resounding click. These sounds are spun, amplified, and become echoes.

*

IT’S NOT quite pitch-black, I tell myself. There is a strip of light under the door and a small barred window high above it.

I make a simple plan. I will keep moving through the dark towards the light, sliding my foot against the wall, keeping my shoulder to it. Edging along, slowly, calmly. Not minding the space below me, above me, and all the solid black air that fills it.

It flies into my face. I throw up my arms.

*

I ROLL onto my side, swearing, and then onto my knees, to crawl around the bowl of the icehouse, my hands scrabbling at dead leaves, feathers, something. My voice is taken up, spun around in the dark, mocked, and repeated. Next time I move I’ll grit my teeth and stay silent.

When the echoes stop I hear his voice.

*

THERE ARE rungs. Sam guides my hands to them, climbing behind me. At the top he pushes me up and over. He gets me to my feet and half carries me out of the underworld into the light. I’m careful not to look back. Instead I look at my found treasure. In my hand a white ribbon bow on a broken hair slide.

*

SAM STEPS into the road to flag a cab. By the time we’re halfway home he has stopped telling me that we ought to be going to the hospital. He was coming to meet me, he says; he heard me swearing from the street. I’ve a set of lungs on me. I laugh and flinch; he takes my hand and squeezes it.

My hand is in Sam’s hand.

But all I can think about is Mr. Flood’s dinner half-made. The jam cake sat waiting for the custard and the salad waiting for the tinned ham, and the little white bow in my pocket. And beyond this, another thought: the silhouette of a figure the moment before the door of the icehouse closed, before the key turned.

Could something in their size, their build, give them away? I barely saw them.

Did I hear them? Of course not.

Would I really have heard the silent scuff of a loafer, or the hushed shuffle of a shape-shifter?



RENATA IS standing at her front door. Sam tells her he will take me up to my flat, for a change of clothes and to get patched up. Then we’ll be straight down. Renata nods and I can tell by the look on her face that she wants to follow but she can’t.

I take off my clothes in the bathroom while Sam waits in the hall. There are bad grazes on my back, legs, and arms. I put on pajamas and splash my face in the sink.

I call out and say I’m fine. I’ll be out in a minute. Then I sit down on the side of the bath and try hard to stop crying.

*

I HEAR him in the kitchen, finding mugs, washing them, boiling the kettle, sniffing the milk, and pouring black coffee. I step out to a bright greeting and a flat that’s different because he’s in it. Everything feels festive. The unwatered plants have perked up, the curtains look less drab, and the corners are cleaner than I expected.

He tells me to sit down on the sofa and rolls fabric up over my arms, then my legs. Taking a new cotton ball each time and wiping gently.

“Let me see your back.”

I turn a little on my side.

“Can I?”

He pulls up my top with hands so gentle I start to cry again.

“Done,” he says, and sits with his hand resting lightly on my leg.

I dry my face on my sleeve and we smile at each other. He puts the cotton balls in a plastic bag and goes into the bathroom to throw away the disinfectant.

I sip hot coffee and feel the pressure of everything in the room waiting for him to return.

“So you were following the fox?” He sits down next to me with a distracted smile.

I shrug. “It seemed like a plan.”

“And did you find anything in the icehouse?”

“No.”

I don’t know why I lie. Only that I can’t bring myself to show him yet the forlorn little ribbon clinging to the plastic comb, the comb with half its teeth gone. Was it dragged off her head? Was it stamped underfoot as Maggie tried to get away?

“Maybe it’s time to let go of this, Maud.” Sam’s face is grave.

“You know about what happened to Renata, don’t you?”

Sam nods. “She phoned me.”

“Did she tell you what was in the envelope? The one they ransacked her place for?”

Sam looks at me in despair and perhaps a little pity. I recognize this look; I have given it to my clients often enough.

“You have a sister, don’t you, Sam? You told Renata.”

He stares at me. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“If she disappeared, like Maggie Dunne, would you just let it go?”