The Red House (17 page)

‘Ro?’ I said again, to let her know that I was still there. I tucked the pill wrappings back in and restacked the boxes.

All the pills were in my zip pocket now, loose. I pulled my hand out. I didn’t want my sweat to start degrading them. I took a water bottle from the stockpile in the kitchen area and put it into my other pocket. It sloshed as I turned corners.

I pulled the heavy curtain aside and it fell against me as I ducked under. The tasselling on the edge tickled my cheek. I put on a smile. Ro had a light on and it was a little oasis of brightness in there. I had stirred up dust in the air and it sparkled. ‘Hi, Grandma Ro!’ I said. I sat on the bed and held Ro’s hand.

Ro had been crying. I noticed a brochure from a care home on the floor. Mum had brought her her breakfast today. She’d probably put that with it, tucked under the edge of the plate like you would a newspaper if this were a luxury hotel. I pushed it away with the toe of my shoe.

‘Don’t worry, Ro, I’m here to keep my promise.’ I was crying too. Ro squeezed my hand.

I told her, ‘It’s going to be little bit different, okay? I couldn’t get enough pills,’ I lied.

Ro looked scared. She started to protest.

‘No, it’s okay,’ I told her. ‘There’s another way. I know I didn’t want to before, but … I will. For you. Okay?’

I stood up. The care home brochure was under my feet, where it belonged. The pills were in one side of my jacket and were much lighter than the water on the other side.

Ro didn’t know why I had waited so long. She didn’t know why I had picked today, but she was ready. She tilted her head forward, tried to curl forward with her shoulders too, but she wasn’t strong. I helped her, and slid a pillow out from behind her back.

Rowena fell back, eyes closed. She smiled. Her hands were loose at her sides, palms up.

I lay the pillow on her face and pressed. I’d thought standing would work, but the bed was wide and Ro was in the middle of it. I climbed on and straddled her, pushing hard, equally on both sides of her head. I didn’t feel any movement between my legs, any up-and-down of breathing, but I kept pressing. I’d promised Ro it wouldn’t be like last time. I’d promised her she wouldn’t wake up.

I shifted all my weight forward, so that I didn’t even have to push any more. I was just propped there, balanced like a yoga position. I made myself breathe slowly through my nose.

Suddenly,
Is the camera in here?
I wondered. I had assumed that Mum meant that it was in the house, but she might have implied that just to lull me. It might have been in something she’d left with breakfast, or propped behind the clock or on a high place. Mum might know that I let my
guard down when in here, like Ro had always done.

‘I love you, Grandma Ro,’ I said, leaning back. The pillow sprang from its stretched form back into a fluffy rounded rectangle. I pulled it off Ro’s face. It was light, like the pills. Her smile had slackened and her eyes were closed but not squeezed. I tried to find a pulse in her neck, but I wasn’t sure I was feeling in the right place, especially with Ro’s loose skin. I wanted to put a mirror to her mouth but didn’t have one on me. I hovered my palm over her nose and mouth. I didn’t feel any exhalation puffs.

I climbed off. If the camera was in there, I had to act fast. I smoothed the covers and tucked the pillow that had done it under the bed. I picked up the care home brochure and didn’t know what to do with it. I shoved it in my jeans pocket for the rubbish in the house.

I turned off the light. There was some light from the window, but it came filtered through a dingy sheer. I couldn’t see the dust motes any more. There was no sparkle.

I got on to the other side of Ro’s heavy curtain and pulled it to. I wasn’t done, and had to get on with it. There was a chair in Ro’s kitchen area that used to go with a table, until the table got buried in the pantry stockpile. I sat down.

I twisted the cap off the water. I’d always been good at pills. I don’t even need water most of the time, but with this many I’d thought I might.

I sipped after each one, to help it slide down.

After, I brought the tray back to the White House. I went back to my room and tried to sleep.

I knew from my research that feeling sedated isn’t what would happen, but I still had that image in my mind that
the pills would knock me out. I wished I could have added sleeping pills, or allergy pills, but there really wasn’t any way to get any, not without making people wonder and worry.
Especially Dora.
We had been friends forever, some years more than others. Dora would have noticed if my requests had become too complicated. Dora would have cared.

The doorbell buzzed. My whole body spasmed, but I forced myself to keep still. My window didn’t look out the front, so I couldn’t peek at who it was. If that person walked around the house, though, they could peek in and see me.

I slid down between my bed and the wall. The doorbell buzzed again. That meant that whoever-it-was was still at the front. I crawled out of my bedroom up to a dining room window and lifted one curtain corner. I couldn’t see the porch itself, but Dora’s bicycle was leaning up against it.

I welled up.
Dora. She came.
That’s what a friend does. Briefly, I considered letting her in, telling her everything, and asking her to stay until it’s over. We could giggle and gossip together, watch TV, make popcorn on the stove, play music. Dancing would tire me, wouldn’t it? Dancing might make the drugs move through my system quicker, maybe? Then I would fall asleep, happy.

Steps clattered down the porch stairs. Dora was clearly annoyed. She seemed to be in a hurry. If she knew, she would never stay and let me do it. She would make phone calls and cry and try to make me sick up the pills.

I wanted to run after her, not to tell her but to make some excuse that I was nervous staying alone in the house
and maybe Dora could sleep over? If the pills started working and I got weird or tired, I could just say that it was a headache again. I’d already laid the foundation for that. Dora might even have extra pills. I could go into the barn in the evening and in the morning, pretending to bring Ro meals. I could answer the phone when Mum called. None of them would know. None of them would stop me, and I wouldn’t have to be alone. I could write a note in secret and put it in Dora’s backpack for later, so that no one would blame Dora and so that she would understand.

I got up and unlocked the front door, two locks: the key lock and the bolt. I flung open the door, ready to chase Dora down the drive.

Dora’s bicycle was still there.

My mouth went dry.
Is that a symptom?
I wondered, hoping that something might be working at last.

A flash of movement by the barn. That grinding squeak: the door being pulled open.

I knew what would happen next: Dora would find Ro. Dora would phone for help. Police and an ambulance would come. They would call Mum.

I felt suddenly queasy and faint, and didn’t know if it was from the pills finally doing what they’re supposed to, or from worry. What if I passed out in front of the paramedics? They would take me to hospital. They would test for things. They would probably pump my stomach.

Ro had warned me: waking up when she didn’t intend to had been the worst feeling in the world. She’d told me that, to make me understand that it had to work this time. She’d clutched my wrists and squeezed, hard, begging. Ro had meant it only for herself, but I had understood it as
a more general truth. Ro had looked terrified, and I had believed her.

I hauled the sliding barn door shut. I clicked the padlock. I ran back up to the house.

That’s what I tell the police detective. It’s not Dora’s dad questioning me. I’m glad for that.

They brought me to the hospital from the concert hall, which is fine. It was too late to pump my stomach or use charcoal, so they’ve given me an IV of an antidote. It’s too late for that too, but that’s the last thing left. It only works for sure if it’s given within eight hours of overdose, or helps at all within twenty-four hours at the most. I took the pills thirty-one hours ago. I’ve made it. It’ll take about a week to finish, but no one can stop the process now.

My liver and maybe kidneys will eventually shut down. I’m starting to feel sleepy at last, which is part of this later stage. I looked it all up, before I even started asking for the pills. ‘Confusion’ is something else that’s ahead, which is why I have to tell all this now, before that happens.

Mum didn’t want to let me talk to the police, but I insisted. I said I would pull the IV out of my arm. I said I’d scream and make the doctors sedate me. I knew Mum wouldn’t want to make me unconscious any faster than is going to happen on its own.

She gave in.

The Detective Inspector is recording me on a video camera. That reminds me: ‘If you don’t believe me,’ I say, ‘you can look at Mum’s cameras.’

Mum, who’s standing in the corner covering her face, shakes her head.

‘Cameras?’ the Inspector prompts. She’s mostly small but hugely pregnant, and has a tone of voice that makes you think you have to do what she says.

Mum sighs. ‘There aren’t any cameras.’ She spreads her hands out, empty.

‘At the house,’ I explain. I don’t think there were any cameras in the barn. If they were in the barn, Mum would have got back sooner.

Mum’s mouth is open and she’s shaking her head back and forth. ‘I told you that so you would behave. I told you that so you would live to the same standard as when I’m at home. I’m a single mother trying to raise a teenager and hold on to a job. There are no cameras.’

‘There
are
cameras,’ I tell the Inspector. ‘She told me there were.’

‘That’s fine, Fiona. Thank you,’ the Inspector says, in a different voice, not the police voice. I look at her to make sure it’s her talking, that it’s she who believes me.

‘Did you write that down?’ I ask. The policewoman doesn’t even have a pen. I don’t know why I ever believed she was police.

‘We’re recording you,’ the woman reminds me, again in that gentle voice. Of course I forget that she’s police when she uses that voice.

‘I told you there are cameras,’ I say to Mum.

‘Thank you, Fiona,’ says the Inspector. She gestures to the nurse who’s standing near Mum.

‘No!’ I say. ‘No, I’m not done!’

The nurse smoothes my sheets and says she has some more medicine for me.

‘No! I need to talk to Dora.’

‘I can give her a message, sweetie,’ someone says. I think it’s the Inspector, but I’m confused that she called me ‘sweetie’.

‘I told Mum that I needed to talk to Dora, too,’ I say. ‘She’s coming. Mum said she is.’

‘I can get her,’ says that voice, too gentle to be police.

Another voice says, ‘No. Not that girl.’

‘She didn’t know!’ I insist. I’m trying to yell it, to make it cut through whatever back-and-forth they’re having without me. ‘Dora didn’t do anything! I lied to her. I lied to her and I’ve got to tell her I’m sorry.’

Someone says: ‘I’ll tell her you said that.’ The words float up to the ceiling.

I want to tell her myself, but for some reason that’s not coming out of my mouth.

Dora looks beautiful.

‘Thank you for giving me time,’ is the first thing I say. I whisper it, so that it’s just for Dora. ‘I told the police that you never knew.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Dora says, enunciating loudly. ‘I didn’t—’

A hand lands on her shoulder and stops her talking.

The lights are off everywhere, except for a light that Dora’s brought with her, so it must be night inside the hospital. They must turn all the lights off so that I can sleep.

‘I’m sorry I lied to you before,’ I say. ‘I didn’t think you would have given me the pills if I told you. I didn’t know. I should have trusted you.’

‘I wouldn’t have given them to you,’ Dora agrees.

I look for the bracelet, but Dora is hugging her arms
around herself, clasping her wrists. I try to reach out, to pry Dora’s fingers loose and peek under them, but my arm feels too heavy. It had been a sudden improvisation, tucking the bracelet into her bag at the concert hall. It had been
sorry, thank you,
and
goodbye
all in one.

Dora looks up. Both her parents are standing behind her. The light has swollen to include them.

‘I’m sorry I scared you,’ I say, but it’s not enough. There are too many different things that that could mean, so I clarify. ‘I’m sorry I locked you in. When you came to the house, I thought you would just go away, but then you went to the Red House and I knew you’d find Ro and … I needed more time. You would have called the police. I didn’t know for sure when my symptoms would start to show. It hadn’t been eight hours yet. I needed at least eight hours, at least …’

‘You locked me in?’ Dora says.

It’s suddenly very bright, and crowded. Mum is here, and the pregnant Inspector, and nurses. I cover my eyes. ‘I’m sorry I scared you.’

Dora’s face looks all wrong, her eyes squished and her mouth twisted. She’s angry. I’ve got to make it up to her.

‘You’ll get that builder out of trouble, right?’ I say to the Inspector. The police will have to. It wasn’t that man’s fault. ‘They told me that you thought it was him who locked the door,’ I tell Dora. ‘But they’ll let him out of jail now. I promise.’

I fall back onto the pillow, but it doesn’t catch me. My head just keeps falling down, down, down, and the rest of me follows in a spiral.

Dora didn’t believe me at first that I’d never been to
Milton Keynes before. I knew about the shopping mall, of course, but Mum doesn’t like crowded places. Dora knew a bus that went straight there and we caught it one day instead of going to school. The mall was huge and crazy, spread out flat over acres, instead of built upwards like something in London or America would have been. We barely bought anything, but we tried on clothes and split an expensive latte. When we had to rush back, I cried a little, just a stupid gasp and some eye-rubbing. Dora thought that I was scared of what Mum would say, even though she didn’t know how bad it would be. But that wasn’t it. I wasn’t scared. I was happy. I loved that day. That’s why Dora doesn’t have to be sorry.