The back of Noelle’s hand hard and sharp across Ellie’s cheek.
‘Enough,’ she said, her voice still and hard. ‘Enough. There’ll be no going home until I say. You need to stop with your talk of going home. Do you understand?’
Ellie held the back of her hand to her cheek, rolled the cool flesh across the red sting of Noelle’s knuckles. She nodded.
‘Good girl.’
Noelle went out that night and Ellie awoke in the dark, confused by the sound of heavy footsteps down the basement stairs.
‘Ah, did I wake you?’
Noelle was in the room. She swayed slightly in the doorway, before clicking it shut behind her and locking it.
Ellie sat up straight, clutched her racing heart. Noelle looked strange. She was wearing an awful lot of make-up, some of which had been rubbed away. One eye had more eye shadow than the other. There was a black smudge by her cheekbone. And she was dressed very smartly: a shiny black blouse with fitted black trousers and some high-heeled shoes. She had a single gold hoop in one earlobe.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, edging towards Ellie. ‘I didn’t realise how late it was. I’ve had a bit to drink and you know how the time just rolls itself up when you’ve had a few jars.’
Ellie shook her head.
‘No,’ said Noelle, perching herself on the side of Ellie’s bed. ‘Of course you don’t. You’re just a girl.’
She smiled and Ellie could see a blackish stain on her teeth.
‘So,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me where I’ve been?’
Ellie shrugged.
‘I’ve been to my boyfriend’s flat,’ she said. ‘Did I tell you I have a boyfriend?’
‘No.’
‘I bet you can’t believe it, can you? Boring old Noelle the tutor. Having a boyfriend. I mean, he’s not a patch on your fella. Obviously not. But he’s a god to me. Cleverest human being I’ve ever met. No idea what he sees in me, of course.’
‘You look very nice tonight,’ said Ellie, obsequious in the wake of Noelle’s slap to her cheek earlier on.
Noelle glanced at her. ‘Oh, you little sweetie. I do not. But thank you.’
Ellie smiled tightly.
‘Anyway, how has your evening been?’
Ellie shrugged and said, ‘OK.’
Noelle glanced around the room then and sighed. ‘I was thinking maybe I could fix you up with a TV and a DVD player. You can get one of those little all-in-one things for next to nothing these days. It might mean less treats and what have you for a while. But better than staring at these four walls for hours on end. What do you think?’
Ellie blinked. A DVD player. Movies. Documentaries. ‘Yes, please, thank you, yes.’
‘And some books, too? Would you like some books to read?’
‘Yes. I would. I’d love some books.’
Noelle smiled fondly at her. ‘Books then,’ she said. ‘I’ll pick some up from the Red Cross shop. And some DVDs. We’ll make it nice in here for you. We’ll make it good as home.’
She got to her feet then and looked down at Ellie and said, ‘It’s all coming together now. I can feel it. It’s all coming together. Just you wait.’
Ellie watched her fiddle clumsily with the key in the lock. She sensed a moment of vulnerability. She played with the idea of ambushing her. Throwing herself upon her, slamming her drunken, make-up-smeared face into the wall, once, twice, three times, grabbing the key from her, shoving it hard into the lock, turning, opening, running, running, running. But even as the thought showed itself to her, the door clicked open and Noelle Donnelly was passing through it and then slamming it shut behind her and then she was gone.
‘Mummy,’ Ellie whispered into the palms of her hands. ‘Mummy.’
Ellie would never really know what happened the following night. She could guess, because of what happened afterwards, but the actual facts, the details, only one person knew and she would never tell her.
Noelle came down with her supper at six o’clock. It was chicken nuggets and chips with a perfunctory spoonful of mixed peas and sweetcorn on the side. There was a big cream bun on the tray, a small bowl of jelly beans and a glass of Coke with a slice of lemon in it. Noelle cooked for her as though she was five years old. Ellie ached for a bit of sushi, or some garlic prawns and rice from the posh Chinese up the road.
Noelle stayed a while that evening. She’d brought Ellie a new book and some fancy shampoo. She seemed to be in a sparkling mood.
‘How’s the dinner?’ she asked.
‘It’s nice, thank you.’
‘You’re so lucky,’ she said. ‘At your age you can eat and eat and eat and never gain an ounce.’
‘But you’re very slim.’
‘Well, yes, but that is purely because I barely eat. When I turned forty, oh’ – she made a circle of her mouth – ‘what a shock that was. No more cream buns for me. And the older you get, the worse it gets. I’ll be living on water and air by the time I’m fifty at this rate.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Too old,’ she said. ‘Far too old. I’m forty-five. What a silly-sounding age that is, to be sure.’
‘It’s not that old.’
‘Well, love you for saying that, but all the same it is that old. Particularly when it comes to certain things.’
Ellie nodded. She didn’t know what the certain things were and she certainly wasn’t going to ask.
‘So, it’s a joy to have a young person to cook for. I can buy all the yummy things in the shops instead of just looking at them.’ She smiled and there were the tiny teeth that chilled Ellie’s soul.
And that was that.
The edges of Noelle Donnelly began to blur and shiver, the walls of the room turned black and bled into everything and for a small second there were just Noelle’s teeth, suspended alone in a sea of blackness, like a UFO in the night sky.
And after that it was the morning. And even though everything felt normal, Ellie knew it wasn’t normal, that something had happened.
Forty-one
Then
The summer slowly died away and nothing changed. The nights became longer; the temperature dropped five degrees. Noelle bought Ellie a fleece-lined hoodie and some warm pyjamas. The foliage around the basement window was still green. It was, Ellie imagined, September. Maybe early October. Noelle wouldn’t tell her.
‘Oh, sweet girl, you do not need to know. It’s of no use to you to know. No use at all.’