Mr. Flood's Last Resort(7)

To the left of the house is a narrow path that continues to the front of the house, where you can still discern, amongst the riotous undergrowth and suppurating bin bags, the ghost of a driveway. It circles a pond with a fountain where a nymph wilts with moss in her crevices.

The place where two children stood in 1977, one with a face and one without. (I check my bag. The photograph is there, rolled and furled and back in its bottle for now.) The nymph still holds a conch to her ear, pretending to listen. At her feet, stone fish with gibbous eyes cavort and unspeakable pond creatures turn in water clotted with algae, a soup of ooze. She gazes languidly towards the porch, as if waiting for the occupants of the house to come outside, which they don’t, for the front door is painted closed. Walk up the wide, flat steps and look through the letterbox—you can’t: it’s nailed shut.

There’s an underwater quality to the light at Bridlemere, a greenish cast from the forest of foliage that surrounds the house. Sound changes too, noise fades, so that you hardly hear the traffic outside. At Bridlemere there is only the slow settling of rubbish and the patter of cats, and, when he is not roaring a lungful, the subtle sounds of Mr. Flood moving, or the silence of him standing still. Sometimes there is a kind of hushed rustling, a sort of whispering. Like a sheaf of leaves blown, or a prayer breathed, rushed and desperate, just out of earshot.

Time wavers and retreats at Bridlemere, coughing and shambling. Here is history mutely putrefying and elegance politely withering.

But for all this, the quiet house is not at peace, for there is a watched and watchful feeling, a shifting shiftless feeling. As if more than cats track your moves, as if nameless eyes follow you about your business.

At Bridlemere objects disappear and reappear somewhere else at will. Put your wristwatch on the windowsill, you’ll find it hanging from a hook on the dresser. Turn your back and the teapot you left on the table is now on a shelf in the pantry.

At Bridlemere cats startle and hiss at nothing, bouncing down the hallway with their hackles lifted and their ears flat. Or else they rub themselves, purring, against patches of air.

At Bridlemere spiders spin webs like Baroque masterpieces. They hang all through the house like coded warnings.

But it doesn’t do to dwell on it.

*

SAM HEBDEN, Senior Care Worker, no doubt dwelt on it and that is how Bridlemere broke his nerve. Mr. Flood’s attempted assault with a hurley would have been the final straw; the house would have got to Sam first.

Sam Hebden was armed with an NVQ in Social Care and a diploma in Geriatric Conflict Resolution. He didn’t need an induction; he merely glanced at the risk assessment. He worked alone. Some said that Sam was a tall man with a topknot like a Samurai. Some said he rode a Ducati and had a tattoo of a cobra on his neck. The truth is, only Biba had seen him and she spoke his name low and with a barely contained excitement. Sam was the human embodiment of a care plan successfully coming together; he was untouchable.

Then he came to Bridlemere.

Then he was gone.

Maybe he climbed on a homeward-bound motorbike. Or maybe he was detained at a local mental-health establishment, frothing at the mouth and ranting about sentient rubbish.

Who knows?

It wouldn’t do to take the fate of Sam Hebden lightly. Here are working conditions the likes of which have not been seen since Charles Booth’s day. Whole days trapped in a maze of clutter with a bockety old maniac liable to rear up at any moment, all clacking dentures and spittle-flecked gizzards. Despite his age, with his speed and long legs he would run me to ground in an instant, if today was anything to go by. My only defense is a constant vigilance and a willingness to kick an octogenarian right up his hole.

As I close the gate, I catch sight of a sudden movement in the garden. Mr. Flood is emerging chin-first from behind the bushes. He throws a furtive glance towards the back door and limps across the path holding a length of rope and a sink plunger. I thank the saints in heaven I’ve made it out alive.

*

I DON’T thank St. Dymphna (family harmony, madness, and runaways) specifically, although she is waiting outside the gate for me, as she does most days, shimmering dimly. She is chewing the plait that hangs down inside her veil. She does this when she’s bored; it gives her a ruminative look and leaves the ends of her invisible hair spiky. St. Dymphna catches sight of me, widens her eyes in mock surprise, and blesses herself in an ironic kind of way. Framed against the verdant backdrop of Bridlemere’s hedge, she glows and is beautiful. They always paint her with fair hair, but it’s brown. She resembles a very young Kate O’Mara, only transparent and world-weary (which is remarkable considering Dymphna was consecrated to Christ at fourteen and dead by fifteen).

I ignore her, hoping she might just dissipate, but she hitches up her robe and trails behind me. I can hear the faint slap and saunter of her sandals. From this sound I can tell she’s affecting her jaded gait.

St. Dymphna won’t set foot in Bridlemere. She refuses to come any farther than the gate. The only other time she balked this badly was during a trip to the National Wax Museum in Dublin. She said the place was too bloody heathen for her; there was no way she’d go inside, even though she was mad to view the likenesses of Wolfe Tone and de Valera. She flew up onto the roof and waited it out with the pigeons, sending invisible spits down onto the heads of visitors. Faced with Bridlemere St. Dymphna narrows her eyes and sucks air in through her teeth like a plumber condemning a boiler.