Two bottles of red. Why did I do it? I climb out of bed in search of water and pills.
Red wine always brings on the blood dreams. They’re the ones I dread the most because they are relentless and there is no way out of them.
The room is cold. I drag my suitcase from under the bed and take out a thick wool cardigan. I put it on and step out on to the landing. As I walk down the stairs I hear a tapping sound. I pause and listen for a moment. There it is again: a muffled tap, tap, tap, like the sound of distant shelling.
I slowly make my way downstairs and stand in the hallway listening. The noise has stopped. It must have been the pipes spluttering out the last of the heat. Another thing in need of modernizing, I tell myself, as I wearily make my way to the kitchen.
The water is heavenly and I drink glass after glass of it, washing away both the taste of the blood dream and two more oblong pills that will ensure me a few hours of blank sleep. I turn off the tap and stand for a moment, my eyes sore from exhaustion. The noise, when it comes again, is harder, more insistent, a bang rather than a tap. It’s coming from outside. I go to the back door and unlock it. What is it? The banging continues. It’s coming from the garden next door.
I go to the pantry and take out the heavy rolling pin my mother kept as a prop to hold one of the shelves in place. I shudder as I hold its bulky weight in my hands and remember its former use. My father, the policeman of the house, favoured the rolling pin as truncheon in order to implement his unique brand of crowd control.
With the rolling pin in my hand I open the door and step out into the garden. The air is freezing and I pull my cardigan round my chest as I creep towards the plastic chair that is still where I left it by the fence. Easing my weight on to it, I carefully climb up and stand looking into next-door’s garden. The noise has stopped and there is nothing there but an empty washing line and a pair of old wellington boots lying by an overgrown rockery. The shed is in darkness. I look to my right and see that the house seems to be locked up; the curtains in the back bedroom are closed and there is no light coming from inside.
‘Hearing things again,’ I tell myself as I climb down from the seat but just as my feet touch the ground the noise starts again, this time louder and more frantic.
I scramble back on to the chair and peer over. And then my heart flips inside my chest.
There, in the window of the shed, is a face, a child’s face.
He is very pale, almost translucent, and his face is framed with a shock of jagged black hair. He looks so scared. He bangs his fists against the glass window of the shed.
I have to get him out.
I haul myself up and into a sitting position on the fence, as if I were on the back of a bony horse, then with one swift twist of my body I land on the grass with a thud. The rolling pin that I had wedged under my arm bounces off my knee and I wince in pain.
Pulling myself up from the ground, I look around the garden for something I can use to get back over the fence. We’ll need to be quick. A rickety wooden chair lies on its side on the raised decking area by the back door. That would work but it’s so close to the door I risk alerting Fida. As I stand procrastinating the boy bangs on the window again. I will have to risk it. Crouching on my haunches, I hurry across the lawn and drag the chair back to the fence.
Once it is in place I turn and head to the shed, waving my arms to let him know I am coming to help. He looks terrified. A large cloud drifts across the moon, plunging the garden into darkness. I carry on waving as I approach the window but the glass is opaque and the boy’s face no longer visible. I turn the door handle, holding the rolling pin in front of me like a cumbersome compass. The door is locked but the wood is thin and half yields as I push it with my shoulder. One good shove will get it open, I reckon, and I stand back and come at the door with all my weight. It springs open and I land in a heap in the centre of the shed. It’s pitch black.
‘Hello,’ I call out and my voice comes back at me. ‘It’s okay, I’m here to help you.’
My back aches as I pull myself up and look around. The moon comes out again and exposes slivers of objects: a stepladder is wedged against the window, a bulky lawnmower, a set of secateurs and, at the far end of the shed, a wall of shelves with paint pots and gardening tools neatly stacked. But no child.
‘It’s okay,’ I call out to the shadows of the room. ‘I know you’re scared but you can trust me. My name is Kate. I’m staying in the house next door.’
Where is he?