At the end of the hallway was a small kitchen with a black metal range and Formica units. A radio and pots of herbs sat on a window ledge, beneath which was a stained metal sink. Water. I had to be quick. I found a mug, turned on the tap and drank three lots in quick succession. There had to be a tea towel somewhere. I opened another door and found a pantry with shelves of cat food and several long wooden trays filled with onions, carrots, potatoes, apples, tomatoes and pears. There were jars of walnuts and a large metal sieve filled with fat green pods. I looked at the door. Only now I realized I wasn’t just thirsty, I was hungry too. How bad was it to steal from an elderly lady? Bad. But still, I helped myself to a pear, and then, with another quick glance at the door, stuffed handfuls of the bright green pods into my blazer pocket.
“Elisabeth?”
I froze, my guilty thieving fingers still gripping the stolen peas, and moved behind the door, willing every molecule in my body to freeze, painfully aware of each too loud breath.
“Elisabeth?” A thin voice shaking with age, or hesitation. “Are you here?”
Then the plaintive mewing of a cat.
“Well, girls,” she said, “Elisabeth was here. There’s her mug on the draining board, look. Elisabeth was here. And now she’s gone. And she didn’t even make me a cup of tea. She didn’t even say hello.”
I should go, I thought. Right now, before she comes into the pantry, with its half-open door. I could hear the old lady moving around the kitchen, the chink of china, the opening and closing of the fridge door, her shuffling steps. Then, after a while, silence.
I looked through the crack of the door. There was no one in the kitchen. Slowly, I slipped my feet out of my shoes and held them in one hand. I moved silently into the kitchen. I crept back into the hallway where the portraits continued to frown at my shady behavior. The door to the sitting room was open, and the TV cast an oblong of blue light across the hallway floor. The old woman would probably be sitting on the sofa in full view of the door. There was no way I could risk going past. I could scare her to death. She could just drop dead of a heart attack, right there. There was no way out. I looked up at the creaky-looking stairs. I crept back into the kitchen.
There was still one other door to try. I turned the handle and found myself in a cool tiled hallway where a back door led out to the garden and, as quietly as I could, I tried turning the handle. Locked. To my left was another, much narrower, set of stairs. Moving slowly and freezing each time they creaked, I made my way upstairs. At the top was a pink carpeted landing with dark oak doors. I opened the first one and found myself in what had to be the old lady’s bedroom, with a small double bed covered with a crocheted coverlet. An ornate freestanding wardrobe stood in one corner, and, in another, an armchair upholstered in pale pink linen. Under the window was a dressing table with a hairbrush and a few bits of jewelry: brooches, earrings, strings of cut-glass beads. I shut the door again and moved as quietly as I could down the landing.
Next was a small pink bathroom, then a small room with steeply angled eaves piled high with boxes, and finally a little room with a single bed with a padded silk quilt. The walls had paper speckled with tiny yellow flowers, and there was a small window that overlooked the curve of the drive. I sat on the bed. I was so hungry. I picked a bright green pod out of my pocket, ran a nail along its pale seam and watched it spring open, revealing a line of perfect peas. I picked one out with my fingers and put it on my tongue, rolling it around my mouth before biting down. It was, I thought, perhaps the loveliest thing I’d eaten in my entire life. It was dark outside now. I lay down, tucking myself under the quilt, cocooned in a mattress that was deep and old and soft. Outside I could hear the wavering call of an owl.
Just one night, I thought. Then I’ll go home.
I closed my eyes.
I thought, I am going to be in such deep shit.
It was thirteen hours since I’d left home.
Five hours since I should have arrived back.
Nineteen hours since I got my first period.
And fourteen hours since my father had come into my bedroom on the Monday morning. Everyone else was up. From the garden I could hear banging, hollering, the noise of a truck pumping out concrete. Willa had already left for school, and I’d spotted my mother through my bedroom window, walking rapidly down the drive with a large bunch of flowers. She’d be going to the neighbors’ house, I imagined, the bouquet intended as some sort of compensation for their smashed-in windows. I wasn’t late. I still had plenty of time to get to school. I just wasn’t in a hurry. I stood in front of my mirror and inspected my head. I was pleased with the result. Willa had done a great job. The ragged bob my father had given me had gone. All of it had gone. A couple of dark tufts stood upright in small clumps. In other parts the pale skin of my skull showed through. I looked like a baby chimp.
I didn’t hear my father coming until he stopped short in my doorway, “What in the hell?” He came closer. “Jesus Christ, you stupid bloody little cunt. How are you going to explain that to your school?”
“You gave me a haircut, remember?”
“Not that one. You lying little bitch.”
He made a swipe for me. I ducked, feeling a small triumphant bolt of joy whip through my heart: No hair to grab now. He came at me again. This time his fingers found my silver necklace and he yanked it hard. I felt the chain snap and the whole thing came away in his hand. He dropped it on the floor.
“That’s mine,” I said, bending toward where my little silver dolphin lay glinting on the rug. But before I could pick it up my father gripped my wrist and jerked me upright. I looked him straight in the eyes. “Careful you don’t break it,” I said, “again.”
That’s all it took. With both hands he slammed me against the wall. My head whacked the plaster and he put his face so close to mine I could feel the heat of his breath. “This family is sick of your wacko behavior, Laika,” he said. “Me, your mother, Willa, all of us. You think you’ve got all the answers, don’t you? Making out you’re better than the rest of us, prancing around like some little tart, spouting off.”
“What?”
He let go of my arm and jabbed me hard on my breastbone.
“Wait till you get out into the real world, find out then what happens to smartass little sluts.”
I righted myself, took a moment, then shoved him back as hard as I could and, before he could come at me again, I grabbed my bag and ran.
***
“How did you get in?”
I opened my eyes. The old woman was standing over me, holding something, a folded towel. Shit.
I looked toward the window. Through a small crack between the curtains I could see the sky was already a pale gray. I looked back at the woman. My brain was playing catch-up. I swallowed. I opened my mouth.
I said, “Sorry.”
I sat up a little, propping myself on one elbow.
“When did you get here?” the woman said.
“Um,” I said, “last night. Just last night. I mean, only last night. What I mean is, I’ve only been here one night.”
I sat up a bit more. Tiny deltas of lines ran from the corners of the old woman’s eyes, skirted the beak of her nose and dipped into the hollows of her cheeks. Her hair was white and as light and fine as spider’s silk. She looked worried.
I said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—” I pulled myself fully upright. I said, “I can go.”
She smiled and the rivers of lines lifted. “But, darling,” she said, “you’ve only just arrived, and I’ve been waiting so long.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and picked up my hand. Hers was as small and light as a child’s and clouded with blooms of pink and brown skin, under which the blue lines of her veins draped in knotty threads over birdlike bones. I sat very still.
“They hurt you,” she said, examining my wrist. Her hands worked their way up my arm, turning it gently to examine its deep purple bruises. She looked up and met my eyes. With her other hand she leaned forward and touched my cheek, then ran a finger along the edge of my shorn head. “They hurt you.”
