The Last House on Needless Street(28)

‘Pie,’ he says. A pale hand snakes out and takes the pie. For a moment Dee expects his skin to sizzle in the sunlight. She doesn’t let go of the moist cardboard, and for a moment they are caught in a gentle tug of war.

‘I’m so sorry to bother you with this,’ she says. ‘But my water doesn’t get switched on until this afternoon. Could I possibly use your bathroom? It was a long drive.’

The eye blinks. ‘It’s not convenient right now.’

‘I know,’ Dee says, smiling. ‘The new neighbour only just got here, and she’s already being a pain. Sorry. I already tried a couple houses on the street but I think everyone’s out at work.’

The door swings wide. The man says stiffly, ‘I guess, if you’re quick.’

Dee steps into an underworld; a deep cave where lonely shafts of light fall on strange mounds, jagged broken things. Plywood is nailed over all the windows, with round circles cut out to let in light.

She peers to her left, into the living room. As her eyes adjust to the gloom she sees that piles of books and old rugs litter the wooden boards. There are bare patches on the yellowed walls, where pictures or mirrors once hung. The walls are a deep green, like a forest. She sees a beat-up lounger, a TV. There’s a dirty blue rug on the floor that looks like it’s made of little pills. The whole place smells of death; not of rot or blood but dry bone and dust; like an old grave, long forgotten. Everything is decaying. Even the latch on one of the back windows is rusted through. Flakes of dark red litter the sill. The tired detective Karen’s voice is in Dee’s head. A chaotic home environment. Unmarried. Socially marginal.

Behind her the front door closes. She hears the three locks click into place. Each hair on the back of her neck stands slowly, individually on end.

‘Kids?’ she asks, nodding at the pink bicycle, which lies on its side.

He says, ‘Lauren. I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like.’

‘That’s rough,’ Dee says. He is younger than she had first thought, early thirties, maybe. Eleven years ago, he would have been just in his twenties.

‘The bathroom is down the hall,’ he says. ‘This way.’

‘Great music,’ she says, following. The song that’s playing somewhere in the house is another surprise, heartfelt country music, sung in a lovely voice. She sees that Ted has bare patches on the back of his head, as though handfuls of hair have been pulled out by small fists. For some reason this brings the light, airy graze of terror.

In the bathroom, Dee turns on both the taps. She can hear him waiting for her behind the door. His distress, his animal breathing. She’s aware, in great detail, of her own body; her skin, so strong in some places, like on her heels and her callused fingertips, so thin in others, like her eyelids. She feels the delicate hair that stands up on her forearms, the soft globes of her eyes; her long tongue and throat, her purpled organs and muscled heart, which pumps the red blood through her. It is pumping fast, now. All these vulnerable things, which can be broken or punctured: the blood can spill; bone can become a cracked white edge; eyeballs can be burst by the pressure of two thumbs. She looks for a mirror, to reassure herself that she is whole, unharmed. But there isn’t one above the basin or anywhere else in the dim, dirty bathroom.

She flushes the toilet, washes her hands and opens the door.

‘Could I have a drink of water?’ she asks. ‘I’m parched. Is it always so warm around here? I thought this place was known for the rain!’ He turns without a word and lumbers into the kitchen.

She looks about her as she drinks. ‘Do you hunt? Fish?’

‘No.’ After a moment he asks, ‘Why?’

‘You must freeze a lot of stuff,’ she says, ‘to need two freezers.’ Only the small combination fridge-freezer appears to be in use. The other – an old, industrial chest freezer – lies empty and open, lid resting against the wall.

He looks embarrassed. ‘Olivia likes to sleep in there,’ he says. ‘My cat. I should have got rid of it when it broke, but the thing makes her happy, you know? She purrs and purrs. So I keep it. Dumb, I guess.’

She looks inside. The box is lined with soft things – blankets and pillows. On a cushion she can see a hair – it is brown, or reddish-brown. It doesn’t look like a cat hair. ‘Does Olivia live outside?’ Dee asks. She can’t see cat bowls for food or water anywhere in the kitchen.

‘No,’ he says, offended. ‘Of course not, that would be dangerous. She’s an indoor cat.’

‘I love cats,’ Dee says, smiling. ‘But they’re such assholes. Especially as they get older.’

He laughs, a startled stutter. ‘I guess she is getting older,’ he says. ‘I’ve had her a long time. All I wanted, when I was a kid, was a cat.’

‘Ours used to sleep in the dryer,’ she says. ‘It gave my dad nightmares. He was so scared he’d mistake her for a sweater and …’ She mimes spinning, makes the face of a horrified cat, staring out through glass.

He gives another little choked laugh and she adds a kind of dance, like the cat paddling in the swirling laundry.

‘You’re funny,’ he says. His smile looks lopsided, creaky, like it hasn’t been used in some time. ‘I was always afraid Olivia was going to get herself shut in. At least she can’t suffocate, now.’ He shows Dee the holes that are drilled in the lid.