I crouched down and realised I could fit through it. Just. I peered to the right and I could see enough of a clearing, a small portal, to suggest it would indeed take me through to next door. Suddenly, I felt like Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I had found this secret gateway to take me into another world.
‘Regi.’ Karen’s voice was loud and sharp behind me. ‘What are you doing?’ I quickly stood up and brushed the mud and grass from my jeans.
‘Are you being sick?’ she asked.
‘No, I…’ I stopped myself. Of course I wouldn’t say what I thought I had heard coming from next door. ‘I thought I saw a fox.’
She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Are you sure you are feeling well?’
‘I think I’m going to, erm, go to bed.’ I turned to head back into the house.
‘It’s not even 10 p.m. yet?’ Karen said. ‘The party will be going on until dawn. I hope you have sleeping tablets?’ she called after me as I walked away.
‘I can sleep through anything,’ I said. I took a final glance backwards and saw Steve looking my way as Karen turned back to him to continue her ranting.
I made my way through the house and towards the stairs. I stumbled past bodies lounging on the steps and found my way into my bedroom. I locked and unlocked the door six times, ending on a lock. Then I stood listening to a low hum of chatter woven through the pounding sound of the bass from the DJ.
I fell onto the bed, glad that I had changed the sheets already. The alcohol had done its job; I could feel tiredness engulfing me. I hadn’t thought about Mrs Clean for a few hours but now I was alone with my own thoughts, she had crept into my mind again. I wondered what she was up to, how she had spent her Saturday evening. I had just about enough strength left in me to take a quick peek before I fell asleep. I opened the Instagram app. Along the top of my home page, I could see the small icon where her stories were. It was the same image Mrs Clean used for her profile; a photo of her hand in a pink Marigold. I clicked on it and found my way to an image of a perfectly made bed. The sheets were stretched to perfection, just the way I like to keep them.
After a few seconds, it disappeared. I clicked it again and examined the same image. I looked at how neatly she had made the bed, at how the cushions sat perfectly symmetrical, all six together, in two rows of three. It was very satisfying to look at. Then it was gone again. I pressed the icon again, this time I held my finger on the image, searching more quickly for moments of symmetry; the way she had taken the photo so the whole room was at an angle, a black-and-white photo on the wall just above the bed. My finger tired and slipped and the image disappeared.
I impatiently stabbed my finger at the screen again, and this time I took a moment to look at the texture of the wallpaper. It was a geometric abstract pattern. I looked at the image for a minute, trying to see a pattern emerge in the hexagons. Then there was something else, something that didn’t fit with the black and white and greyness of the room. My eyes were drawn to another colour in the corner of the image. A flash of red. I was sure of it. In my drunken state, my finger tired and I had to bring the image up again as the timer had run out. I clicked and this time I used the time to look straight at the corner of the photo where I could see something peeping out from the bottom of the bed. I leant into the photo and could just about make out a tiny red shoe.
Eventually, tiredness overtook and my hand dropped to the side, still gripping my phone. I closed my eyes and dreamt about hundreds of tiny pairs of shoes, all dancing to the beat that rose from beneath me.
14
Now
I woke up with a start; my was mouth dry, my phone was next to my hand. Why had I been dreaming so vividly of babies’ shoes? Then I remembered what I saw before I fell asleep. I tried to switch on my phone, but it was dead. I hadn’t put it on to charge, which was also part of my perfect evening routine, which I had managed to sabotage by drinking too much last night – something I had not meant to do.
I was glad I had managed to miss most of the evening’s events. I wondered, with dread, what the house would look like when I opened my bedroom door. I stood up and walked round to the bedside table, plugged in my phone and pressed the on button. I waited as the icon showed and the phone began to fire back to life. My home screen was back. I took myself straight to Instagram. Did I dream that image last night? I couldn’t have done. I specifically remember watching the same story
