‘OK,’ she says. ‘Enough. So, we’ll call this “Night-time”. He can see what’s down here, but nothing more. Think about that. Imagine him here at the bottom of the stairs. Now, let’s go up top.’
On the last stair but one, before the landing, she pulls me up. ‘What do you see?’
I can see the bathroom door, I say, and Ted’s room and your room and the roof light …
‘All the upstairs stuff, right?’
Yes.
‘But can you see anything downstairs? The hall? The front door, the umbrella stand …’
No.
‘So, let’s call this “Lauren”. That’s what I can see. Got it?’
Not really, I say, but she’s not listening.
‘Go down again.’
When I am precisely half way down the stairs, Lauren says, ‘Stop.’ I am on the step where I like to nap. There are seven stairs below me and seven above. ‘Now what do you see?’ Lauren asks.
I can still see the bannister, I say. I can still see the stairs and the carpet on the landing. If I look down I can see the floor of the hall and if I crouch I can see a little of the front door. And if I look up, towards the top of the stairs I can see the window, the bathroom door and the roof light on the landing.
‘So you can see a little of what’s above you and some of what’s below. This is you, Olivia. Night-time at the bottom, and me in the upstairs and you in the middle, joining us. You are the connecting point. Only one person is going to save us. You.’
The cord glows positively rose-gold as I swell with pride.
‘All you have to do is go up,’ Lauren says. ‘Try.’
But …
‘I don’t mean literally go upstairs,’ she says, impatient. ‘I mean, it’s not like any of this is real.’
OMG. WHAT DO YOU MEA—
‘Never mind that now. Again.’
I shudder. I feel the old stair carpet, rough under the velvet pads of my paws. I like my paws. I don’t want to be a ted. I want to be me.
I’m scared, I say. I can’t move, Lauren.
‘Tell yourself a story,’ Lauren says. I can tell from her voice that she knows what it’s like, to be pinned by fear. ‘Pretend something you really want is up there and go to it.’
I think about the lord, and his many shifting faces, and how good he is. I try to picture him on the landing above me. My heart fills with love. I can almost see him, with his tawny body and tiger’s tail. His eyes are golden.
I climb up one stair. For a moment the walls shiver around me. I feel utterly sick, like I’m falling from a great height.
‘Good,’ Lauren says, voice cracking with excitement. ‘That’s great, Olivia.’
I look up at the lord. He smiles. Then I see that he wears Ted’s face. Why is he wearing Ted’s face?
I turn and run back down the stairs, rowing in distress. Lauren is shouting indistinctly in our head.
I can’t do it, I say to Lauren. Please don’t make me. It is horrible.
‘You don’t love me,’ Lauren says sadly. ‘If you loved me you’d really try.’
I do, I do love you! I say, with a little row. I didn’t mean to upset you.
‘You’ve done it before, Olivia, I feel it. You take down the barrier and come up. It happens every time you knock the Bible off the table. There’s thunder, right, and the house moves? You do it when you make your recordings. Remember when you opened the refrigerator door? The meat really went bad! You just have to learn to do it on purpose.’
I remember but I don’t understand. Of course the meat spoiled – I left the fridge door open.
‘What colour was the rug that day, Olivia?’
It’s not surprising, I guess, after what she’s been through – Lauren has lost it.
Lauren says, ‘I guess I have, but try anyway?’ Weird having someone hear what you’re thinking. I’m not used to it yet.
‘Please.’ She sounds so sad that I am ashamed of myself.
All right, I say. I will!
I try again and again, but no matter how hard I wish all I can feel is my silky black coat and my four padding paws.
After what seems like for ever, Lauren says, ‘Stop.’
I sit on the stairs with some relief and begin to groom.
‘You don’t want to help me.’ Tears fill Lauren’s voice.
I do, I say. Oh, Lauren, I want to help more than anything. It’s just – I can’t do it.
‘No,’ she says quietly. ‘You don’t want to.’ My tail feels funny. Warm, somehow. I twitch it to feel the cool air along its length. But the warm feeling grows. It becomes hot.
‘I can stroke you,’ Lauren says. ‘But I can also do this.’
Pain glows red all along my vertebrae. It builds into flames. My tail becomes a red-hot poker. I am crying with it.
Please make it stop, Lauren!
Lauren says, ‘It doesn’t matter what I do to an imaginary cat.’
Oh, please, it hurts! Pain pulses through my brain, my fur, my bones.
‘You think you’re beautiful,’ Lauren says in the same, dreamy voice. ‘He took down the mirrors – you can’t see what you really are – so I’ll tell you. You are small, twisted, wizened. You are half the size you should be. Each one of your ribs stands out like a knife blade. You don’t have many teeth left. Your hair grows in stringy patches on your bald head. As the burns on your face and hands healed, over and over, the scar tissue grew so thick that it twisted your face. It pulled your nose aside, and it grew over your eyes so one of them is almost sealed shut by scars. You think you are stalking around the house on four elegant feet. That’s not what’s happening. You are crawling on your hands and knees, dragging your
