The Last House on Needless Street Read online

  ‘I do remember when he brought me here. I liked the house, it was dusty and dirty, and Mom never let me play in the dirt. I liked the peepholes in the plywood; I thought they were like portholes in a ship. I said so, and he told me I was very smart. He told me his name was Ted and that he was taking care of me while my parents were out. I didn’t think anything was wrong. Why would I? It had happened before, me being left with people, neighbours and such. My parents went to a lot of parties. My mother always used to come into my room to kiss me goodnight, before she left for the evening. I remember her scent. Geraniums. I used to call them “germamiums”. God, I was so dumb when I was little. I guess that’s how I ended up here. What was I talking about?’

  You were telling me about the day Ted ... took ... you, I say. Each word feels like a little piece of gravel on my tongue.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Lauren. ‘I was so hot, that day, my bathing suit or underwear or whatever itched. I complained to Ted, said I was boiling. Maybe that was what gave him the idea. He told me there was ice cream in the freezer in the kitchen, and that I could go and get it. The kitchen was a mess, a pile of unwashed plates in the sink, old takeout food piled high on the counters. I liked it, it seemed like he wasn’t a regular grown-up.

  ‘It was in the corner, a big chest freezer with a padlock on it. I’d seen ones like it in garages and basements. Never in a kitchen before, though. The padlock was undone so I lifted the lid. I was expecting a rush of freezing air on my face, but it didn’t come. Then I saw the freezer was unplugged at the wall. I felt hands under my arms and I was flying up and over down into the freezer, onto the soft blankets. I had my own blanket with me too. He let me keep that. It’s yellow with blue butterflies. Soft. The butterflies are faded now. I still wasn’t afraid, even though it smelled like old chicken inside there. But then the lid came down and I was alone. There were stars in the black, like stab wounds in the sky. It was the air holes he had pierced in the lid. I shouted for the man to let me out.

  ‘“You’re safe, now,” he said. “This is for your own good.”

  ‘I remembered his name, and I knew that names were real important to grown-ups, so I tried to say, “Please, let me out, Ted.” But I had trouble saying my ‘d’s, back then. So it came out “Teb”. And when he wouldn’t let me out I thought that was why – I got his name wrong, and that made him mad. It took me a while to figure out that he would never let me go, no matter how I said it.

  ‘At first, for a long time, I lived in the box. He trickled water through the holes and I opened my mouth and drank it. He gave me pieces of candy the same way. Sometimes cookies or a chicken finger. He played the music really loud, all day and all night. The sad woman who sings. I thought that maybe I was in the hell they used to warn us about, at Sunday school. But hell was supposed to be full of fire, and it was very wet and cold, where I was, cold to the bone. After a while I didn’t notice any of it any more, not even the smell. Time stopped being a line and flattened out.

  ‘I had to learn a new language, for my body and my mind. The language of the box. It meant instead of walking, I just moved my feet an inch or two. That was a journey. Instead of jumping up and down or dancing, which I had once liked to do, I clenched and unclenched my fists. Sometimes I bit my cheek, to taste blood. I pretended it was food.

  ‘If I made noise or kicked at the sides of the box, boiling water came through the holes. I couldn’t see, but I knew the burns were bad, because of the way my skin came off. Kind of like snakeskin. It smelled bad and I wanted to die with how bad it hurt.

  ‘One day the music stopped. Above me, there was an explosion of light. I had to keep my eyes closed, it was too bright, I had been in the dark for too long. I heard him say, “Let’s get you clean.”

  ‘He lifted me out of the box. I cried because I thought there would be more boiling water, but it was cool, from the faucet. I think he bathed me standing in the sink. Afterwards he put something soothing on my burns and covered them with gauze.

  ‘“I put boards up over the windows for you,” he said. “It’s dim in here. You can try opening your eyes.”

  ‘I did – just a crack at first, and then a squint. The house was dim and huge. Everything juddered and shook. My eyes had forgotten how to see distances, because I had been in the box for so long.

  ‘He gave me a sandwich – ham, cheese and tomato. It was the first vegetable I had eaten in weeks and my body lit up with it. I used to push the tomato round my plate, before, in my old life. Makes me laugh, now. While I ate he cleaned up the box and put new blankets in there. I shivered at that – I wanted to scream. It meant I was going back in. The second I finished my sandwich, he put the music back on. That woman. How I hate her.

  ‘“Get in,” he said. I shook my head. “I made it all nice for you. Get in.” When I wouldn’t he poured something from a gallon jug into the bottom of the box. It had a sour smell that made my throat tingle. “The blankets are all soaking wet now,” he said. “What a waste of my time.” Then he picked me up, put me back in the box and closed the lid. I’ll never forget the sound of the padlock closing, right next to my ear. Snick, like a blade through an apple.

  ‘The bottom of the freezer was filled with vinegar. It was like fire on my burned skin. The fumes caught in my throat and made my eyes water. He poured more hot water in through the air holes. That was bad, it seemed like the air had turned to acid.

  ‘“When the music plays, you get in and stay there, quiet,” he said. “No dilly-dallying. No argument. Every moment it plays, you stay inside, being quiet and good.”

  ‘I don’t know how many times we went through it. I was slow to learn, I guess. In the end it wasn’t so much that I gave in. It was like, my body just started obeying him. Now I can’t get out of here when the music is on, no matter how much I want to. If the house was on fire, I couldn’t do it.

  ‘I can take more than the others, so I’ve lasted longer than usual,’ Lauren says. For a moment her voice has an edge of pride. ‘Ted says it’s because of my psychological issues. But it’s not enough to survive. I want to live. I’m going to get out and you’re going to help me.’

  My brain reels with everything she’s telling me. I try to focus. Of course I’ll help, I say. We’ll get you out.

  ‘Well, we have to try,’ she says. She sounds so adult and exhausted. It makes it all real. I feel it in my tail, the horror.

  Up in the bedroom, Ted groans. His head must be very sore. The bed creaks as he turns over. His feet hit the floor with a thump. I hear him shuffling, bare feet on tile. The shower comes on.

  ‘Olivia,’ he calls, thick. ‘Kitten.’ The music grows louder.

  ‘You have to go to him,’ Lauren says. ‘You have to act normal.’ I hear a very small sound that could be a sob. She tries really hard not to let it out.

  I pad upstairs and into the bathroom. Steam wreathes, water beats the tile. Some cats don’t like water, I know, but I’ve always loved it here. The interesting scents, the steam that frames the air in delicate wisps, the taste of warm drips from the tap.

  Ted stands under the running water, hair flat and shining like a seal. Water strikes him in metal darts. He is in his undershirt and underwear, as always. Wet fabric is gathered in translucent rucks over him like an ill-fitting second skin. His body never sees the light. The scars show through in ridges. Drunkenness comes off him in waves, I can almost see it, mingling with the steam.

  I search and search for a sign, some indication of the great change that has taken place between us. But he seems just as usual, like he gets when he goes back into the past and gets stuck.

  ‘Teddy went to the lake with Mommy and Daddy,’ he says, resting his forehead against the wall. His voice is small and far away. ‘And the Coca-Cola was cold and freezy in the glass. The ice made music on the rim. And Daddy said, “Drink it all up, Teddy, it’s good for you.”’

  He turns off the shower, groaning as if it is a painful act. He goes into the bedroom. I follow, watching as clos
ely as if I had never met him before. Maybe I haven’t. He bends his head and his back heaves. I think he’s crying.

  Now it’s my job to purr and wind myself around him and nudge him with my head until he laughs. But now the walls seem to hum and buckle. Bad things scuttle through my mind and everywhere. Hatred for him washes over me so strongly that I become a tall arch and my fur stands up in quills. I wish the cord had bound me to anyone except him.

  Why are you doing this to Lauren? I ask, wondering if he’ll reply. There isn’t a good answer, and I can’t stand to think about the bad ones.

  But I have to be normal. I have to try. I purr and nudge my head into his hand. Each place our flesh meets is cold. He turns the music up loud.

  So, this is why the lord asked me to stay here, that day when I almost escaped. I thought it was to help Ted, but it was for Lauren.

  Ted

  I am kind of crazy today. The green boys were loud in the attic last night. So it’s no surprise that this morning I went away for a little. Stress.

  When I came back I knew where I was before I even opened my eyes. I could smell the street and the forest, the asphalt, the rotting scent of trash in the bins. Garbage day. I knew what I would see when I opened them. And there I was, like I knew I would be, in front of the yellow house with the green trim, the blinds down, the emptiness of it seeming to echo out into the street, and all through the world.

  Maybe Chihuahua lady is dead. Maybe it’s her ghost that keeps making me go to her house. I am imagining it now. My eyes blank and gone, her grey, transparent hand taking mine, leading me to that spot on the sidewalk in front of her house, making me go there again and again until I realise – what?

  The only way to end the stress is to figure stuff out with Lauren. So I have to ask the bug man the question. I’ve been trying to lead up to it carefully, but things are getting out of hand. I have to figure out what Lauren is. What they are, I guess.

  In the meantime, I have made a decision: I can’t keep putting my life on hold for my daughter and my cat. I have to do something for myself occasionally, or I’ll be unhappy, and an unhappy parent isn’t a good parent.

  So I have a date tomorrow. Something to look forward to!

  Olivia

  I have to wait a few days before I can speak to her again. Ted always seems to be around, drinking and singing along to sad songs. When I row through the freezer door she doesn’t answer.

  Three nights later, he goes out. He’s whistling and his shirt is clean. The door closes behind him and the three locks thunk into place. Where is he going?

  I count to one hundred, to give him time to get far away, or to come back for his wallet or whatever. The lady on the record player moans quietly about her home town. I race to the kitchen and scratch on the freezer.

  Are you OK? I am rowing in distress. Are you there?

  ‘I’m here.’ Her voice is faint under the record. ‘Is he really gone?’

  Yes, I said. He had a clean shirt on. That usually means he’s on a date.

  ‘Gone hunting,’ Lauren says. She hates it when he dates. Now I know why.

  So, I say, stalking up and down. Let’s go through our options. Can you shout for help?

  ‘I do,’ Lauren says. ‘Or I used to. But no one came. The walls are thick. I don’t think much sound gets through. You have cat ears, remember? I started to think that even you would never hear me.’

  Hm, I say. You’re right. Cross that off the list.

  ‘What’s the next option?’ she asks.

  Now I feel terrible because actually I only had one option. That’s the end of the list.

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ Lauren is trying to comfort me, and somehow that makes my tail hurt most of all. ‘It’s not so bad, sometimes,’ she says. ‘I like my pink bike and I can ride it around the house. There’s TV. He gives me food unless he’s angry.’ Lauren giggles. ‘Sometimes he lets me look at the internet, even. If I am “supervised”.’

  The feelings in my throat and tail are worse than a hairball. What can I do? I row miserably. I was always so happy to be a cat but now I’m not sure. If I had hands I could get you out, I say.

  ‘If I still had feet I could get myself out,’ Lauren says. ‘But you can help, Olivia. You just have to do one thing.’

  Anything, I tell her.

  ‘Make him turn down the music,’ Lauren breathes. ‘That’s all you have to do. I can’t do anything with the music on. He made sure of that, long ago. You hear? It has to be off, or at least so low I can barely hear it.’

  OK! What happens then?

  Piles of lead weights and counterweights are stacked on top, like abandoned castles in a bad land.

  ‘You can get me out, Olivia. Just do what you do with the Bible.’

  It would be good to record all this in case something happens to me. But I don’t dare.

  Ted watches cars screaming through the dirt on the TV and the level of the bourbon bottle dips steadily. He leaves the record player on while he watches. Under the roar of engines there is a banjo playing and the woman sings about bars and love. He is fading. Bourbon and exhaustion twine their arms about him, pulling him earthwards.

  I prrp and go to him. But then I stop and my tail blows out. I become a tall arch. When the banjo strikes, I yow.

  ‘What’s up?’ He reaches for me.

  The banjo tinkles and I speed beneath the couch.

  ‘You’re such a dumdum,’ he says. He changes the song; it becomes something mournful sung by that pretty voice. I cry along to the music, as loud as I can.

  ‘You dumb kitten,’ he says. The banjo twangs and I row with it, a long note.

  ‘Oh man, really?’ He turns the record down so that the piano and the woman are ghosts of themselves, whispering into the air.

  I row. I don’t come out.

  ‘Hey, Olivia,’ he says, exasperated, ‘what am I? Your butler?’ But he turns it down even further. I think this is as good as it’s going to get.

  I emerge from under the couch.

  ‘Oh,’ he says warmly. ‘There you are. Decided to honour us, did you?’

  I start slowly doing all the things, the way I know he likes them. I circle his ankles in a figure of eight, purring. He bends to tickle my ears. I rear up to rub my head against his face. For a moment I wonder if it’s a trick. Perhaps he’ll take my head and twist it, now, until my neck breaks.

  ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Kitten.’ The fondness in his voice gives me a broken feeling in my spine, all along my tail. He is familiar to me as my own silky coat, or Night-time. I thought he saved me. I thought we were part of one another, almost. The thought makes me cough again in my throat.

  ‘What’s up? Got a bone stuck or something? Let me take a look.’ He lifts me gently onto his lap and parts my jaws.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘You’re OK, kitten.’ I purr and knead and he runs a gentle hand up and down my back. ‘I’ve been away too much,’ he says. ‘We’ve spent too much time apart. I’m going to be home more often, I promise. Starting now.’

  I row furiously and purr.

  ‘You want me to turn off the TV?’ he asks.

  I purr louder. We’re going to get away from you, I start to say and then I think better of it. What if he’s like Lauren and understands cat? A horrible thought – that all this time he has been listening to me.

  ‘Got to turn the music up again,’ he says sleepily, but I stroke the underside of his chin with my tail. I know just what to do to give him peace, I always have, and his eyes close, as I knew they would. His breathing becomes slow and regular and his chin meets his chest. I watch for a moment, searching for a way to feel. I guess something or someone made him the way he is, but that doesn’t matter now.

  He looks so much younger when he sleeps.

  I did it, I say to Lauren. He’s asleep.

  ‘Is he really out?’ Lauren asks. ‘Is it really safe?’

  I listen. Ted’s breathing in the far room is heavy and regular. I think it’s now o
r never. OOoooeeeeeooo. The whining in my head is back, a mad wasp in my ears.

  Yes, I tell her. I hope I’m right. I shake my head and rub my ears.

  She says, ‘You see where the freezer sits close up against the kitchen counter?’

  Yes.

  ‘Knock the top weight off the pile. It’ll make some noise, but not too much. Don’t let it fall on the floor. Then push it off the freezer, onto the counter. Got it?’

  I nod, forgetting she can’t see me. Got it, I say.

  The first weight comes off the pile with a clang. It’s small and wants to roll. I bat it back with my paws and push it onto the counter. Then the next. The one after that is heavy. I push it too hard and it slides off the freezer onto the floor, with a leaden thunk that seems to shake the world. We are both as still as death. I listen. It’s difficult through the shrieking drone in my ears. Lauren’s breath shudders in and out. In the next room, Ted snores. He’s still sleeping, I say, weak with relief.

  After a moment Lauren says. ‘Don’t drop them, OK, Olivia?’

  No, I whisper. I won’t. I’m very, very careful after that. The last weight, the one at the bottom of the pile, is so heavy that it hurts my paws to push it. Each inch is a miserable struggle. But at last it slides onto the countertop, clunking against the others.

  They’re all off, I say.

  ‘All right,’ she says. ‘I’m coming.’

  I close my eyes tight and make a sad little row. For some reason I am afraid. What will she be like?

  You know, Lauren, I say, eyes still tightly closed, I don’t think I have ever even seen you in real life. Isn’t that weird? We have kind of always taken it in turns being out here, I guess!

  There is no answer.

  I hear the freezer begin to open, slowly, effortful, as if the hand that lifts the lid is shaking and fragile. I hear the lid thud against the wall. There is wet stirring, a sigh. The stench of misery and terror comes in waves. I think of white thin hands like claws and flesh shiny with scars. It makes me want to row and curl up in a ball.