I race upstairs and walk on his face until he wakes up. He groans with the effort of dragging clothes onto his body. I tread the outline of his warm body in the sheets, as his steps retreat like thunderclaps down the stairs. There go the locks, thunk, thunk, thunk. He opens the door. Another voice says something pleading. I think it’s a female ted. I wait confidently. Ted will tell this other ted where to go! He hates people ringing the doorbell. After all, other teds are dangerous. He has told me often enough.
But instead, to my horror, he lets the other ted in. The door closes and the thunder comes. The whole house shakes. The carpet slides under me. I am rowing and scrabbling for clawholds. The timbers in the roof groan and scream, the walls judder. The fabric of everything threatens to spring apart.
Slowly the world settles. But I can’t move from my place under the bed. I am frozen with horror, heart pounding. The new stink of her fills the house, fills my nostrils. It’s like burning and black pepper. This ted is making me feel too much – who or what is she?
Below, the teds are talking like nothing’s wrong. I think they’re in the kitchen. I don’t want to listen to them, of course I don’t, but I can’t help hearing. This lady ted is going to live next door. Then she says something about putting a cat in a washing machine. Oh my lord. She’s a gd psycho, like on the TV.
Ted’s voice takes on a strange note. It is – interest? Happiness? Awful, anyway. What if he asks her back? What if this starts happening all the time? The conversation seems to go on for ever and I think, Wow he should just ask her to move in here, the way he’s going on. At long, long last their voices move into the hall again. He shows her out.
As the lady ted leaves, she says, ‘If you ever need help with anything,’ and something about a broken arm that I don’t really understand.
Finally he closes the door behind her.
Wow. That was not right. Bad, bad, bad. The whining reaches a pitch which makes me feel like my head will explode. That was a violation of all the trust between us – what do we have if we don’t have trust? What if that lady ted is a murderer? What if she decides to come back? unacceptable.
Ted comes upstairs and the bed creaks companionably above my head. Back to his nap, of course. He calls for me but I am completely upset and I run out of the bedroom. Obviously he has no feelings because a few minutes later he is snoring again.
I pace the living room. The peepholes peer crazily at me, like eyes. Nothing feels safe. I knead the nice rug but even that can’t comfort me like usual. I am so upset that even my eyes aren’t working properly. Everything looks the wrong colour, the walls look green, the rug blue.
He has to be taught a lesson. Breaking stuff isn’t enough, this time.
I leap crazily from the counter, aiming for the refrigerator door. Eventually I hook the handle with a paw and it swings open. I give a little prrp of satisfaction. Cold billows out. In this weather it will soon melt all over the floor. The beer will get warm. The milk and meat will spoil. Good. Look at my bowl! Empty! Let him see how it feels.
I feel better after that. When I go back in the living room I am relieved to see that my eyes are back to normal. I am able to curl up on the orange rug and have a little nap which to be honest I gd deserve, after all I’ve been through.
Dee
Something gives under her feet with a crack. There are bright shards among the leaves and dirt that cover the steps. It’s as if a whole box of Christmas tree ornaments has shattered everywhere. It adds a hectic edge of unreality.
Dee wonders if she’ll know, right away, when she sees him. Surely the truth will come off his flesh like a scent.
She rings the doorbell thirty or forty times. She sees movement at the window but there’s no answer, and she wonders if she should leave. Part of her sags with relief at the thought. But she doesn’t think she can put herself through all this again. Get it done, Dee Dee. Her father’s voice in her head. Their grim credo during that long half-year when it was just them, alone. Get through it, get it done; no matter how unpleasant, however hard your heart pounds in the night, whatever dreams may come. Get it done. She straightens her spine a little, and that moment she hears a shuffling within the house. A small high noise – a cat, maybe? Then heavier sounds, a large body making impressions on stairs, walls, boards.
Three different locks click and the door opens a crack. A bleary brown eye presents itself, framed by a pale face which sprouts hair. His beard is red, much brighter than the lank brown strand that falls over his brow – the shade is attractive, it gives him a piratical, almost jaunty air.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘What is it?’ His voice is higher than she expected.
‘I’m your new neighbour. Dee. I wanted to say – well, hi, and I brought you some pie.’ She winces and resists the urge to mention that she’s a poet, but doesn’t know it. Instead she holds out the box containing the out-of-season pumpkin pie she bought at the drugstore. The box has dust on it, she
