The Last House on Needless Street(32)

‘Are you OK, kitten?’ She doesn’t reply, but gives a little gasp that makes my heart almost stop. When I put my hand on her brow it’s cold and clammy, like the underside of a rock.

‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Come upstairs, I’ll put you to bed …’

She starts to answer but instead a hot stream of vomit darts from her mouth. Lauren doesn’t even try to avoid the mess, she just lies down where she is. When I try to move her, things come out that shouldn’t. I clean it up as best I can, I cool her with water, I try to give her aspirin and ibuprofen to keep her fever under control, but she throws them up straight away.

‘Come on, kitten,’ I say, but something strange is happening. My voice starts to sound very far away. A white-hot spear pierces me, runs through my guts. Things start to bubble and burn down there. Oh God. Black and red descend. We lie on the kitchen floor together, moaning as our insides twist.

Lauren and I are sick for a whole day and a night. We tremble and sweat. Time slows, stops and starts, inches by like a worm.

When it begins to lift I give her water and some sports drink thing I find in a cupboard. Later in the evening I butter saltines and feed them to her one by one. We hold on to one another.

‘Nearly time to go,’ I say to her. The roses have returned a little to her cheeks.

‘Do I have to?’ she whispers.

‘Be good,’ I say. ‘See you in a week.’ She lies still in my arms. Then she starts to scream. She scratches me and struggles. She knows I’m lying.

I hold her tight. ‘It’s for the best,’ I say. ‘Please, kitten, please don’t fight.’

But she does and I lose my temper. ‘You’re grounded until I say different,’ I say. ‘You brought this on yourself.’



My head spins, my insides are molten. But I have to know. I look in the trash, where I dumped the chuck that was spoiled when I left the refrigerator door open. The white grubs writhe in the brown mess. There is considerably less in the bag than there was this morning. Something hot comes up in my throat, but I hold it back.

I take the trash out, which I should have done right away. The world staggers, the air seems solid. I have never felt so sick.

It has been years since Lauren tried anything like this. I feel like an idiot, because I thought we were friends. I shouldn’t have let things get so slack.

The record scratches the silence. The woman’s voice fills the air. I don’t like this song. There’s too much tambourine. But I leave it on.

I check everything carefully. The knife is in the high cupboard, where it should be. The padlock on the laptop cupboard is secure. But the metal looks ... dull, somehow, as if it has been handled a lot with sweaty palms, as if someone has been clicking through combinations. I love my daughter. But I am pretty sure she tried to poison us both.

When I count the pens and crayons, a pink marker is missing. Worse, when I go to lock them up in their cupboard, I see my list of Murder suspects lies on top of the boxes of crayons. I didn’t put it there. When I pick it up I see that another name has been added, in sickly pink marker.

Lauren, it reads in her shaky printing. This, of course, has been my fear all along.

I curl up on the couch like a woodlouse; blackness nudges the edge of my vision. My stomach writhes. Surely it all came up, surely it’s finished now. Oh God.





Olivia





I know it’s not her time but I’m peering through my peephole anyway. Love is also hope. Grey sky, patchy grass, a triangle of iced sidewalk. It looks pretty cold out there. It’s not so bad being an indoor cat on a day like this.

Behind me the TV plays. Something about dawn streets and walking. Ted leaves it on sometimes to keep me company. Sometimes the set just turns itself on. It’s pretty old. You can learn a lot from the television. I am also glad of it because it drowns out the screeching whine that is my constant companion, now. Eeeeeee, eeeee.

I must have dozed off because I start when a voice speaks to me. At first I think it’s the LORD and I sit up quickly. Yes?

‘We must investigate trauma,’ the voice says. ‘Get to its roots. Revisit it, in order to purge it.’

I yawn. This ted is on TV sometimes and he is very boring. I don’t like his eyes. Round, like little blue peepholes. I always feel like I can smell him when he’s on, which makes my tail tingle. He reeks of dust and sour milk. But how could that be? You can’t smell teds on the TV!

Daytime TV is so bad. I think this is a public access channel or something. I wish I could change it.

I think I should have my own TV show, and actually it would be really fun. I would call it CATching up with Olivia, and I would describe everything I ate that day. I would talk all about my love and her tiger eyes and her smooth stride. I would also investigate the type and quality of naps there are, because there are so many different kinds. Short and deep – I call that kind ‘the wishing well’. The very light doze, kind of half under, which can go on for hours – I call those ‘skateboards’. The sort you have in front of the TV when a good show is playing (NOT this show) and you kind of take in the plot but are also asleep – those are called ‘whisperers’. When you are being stroked to sleep and the rumble of your purr blends with the deep voice of the earth … I don’t have a name for those ones yet. But they’re so good.