Full. Of. Germs.
Anna could hear germs breeding on counter tops and under sofa cushions. They filled her mouth when she yawned and gritted her lids when she blinked. She bleached the kitchen counters five times a day; she changed the baby even though he hadn’t dirtied his nappy, and every item in the fridge was wrapped so tightly in plastic film that it took her four minutes to crack an egg.
Charlie was not allowed on the floor, and Anna kept antibacterial wipes in her jeans pocket. Twenty times a day, she got up from the table, out of her bed, out of the shower, just to swab his fingers and face. When Daniel came home, he would be so safe. Nothing would ever harm him again. Not a cough or a cold, not a stubbed toe or a paper cut. Not nits.
She often started cleaning before she got dressed, scrubbing the paintwork around the doors and bleaching the mugs. She swept James out of the front door every morning and then covered his tile tracks with cream cleaner followed by polish – running a cotton-wool bud against the bottom of the skirting to be sure she was getting right up to the edges.
She had James buy a foldaway three-step ladder, and scrubbed her way around the ceilings in concentric rings, coaxing daddy-long-legs into jars and releasing them through the kitchen window.
James did everything else that required leaving the flat – work, shopping, errands. And he always returned.
The smell of him alone could make Anna panic. That dark, oily reek of the garage that kept her away from it like garlic does a vampire. Sometimes she could smell it seeping upwards through the floorboards and plaster along with the tinny music, despite the pine and the lemon and the lavender that she lavished on every surface.
James always took off his steel-toed boots at the bottom of the stairs, but he refused to remove his overalls.
‘I’m not taking off my clothes to come in my own bloody house,’ he’d say.
‘Not your clothes. Just your overalls,’ Anna said anxiously.
But he wouldn’t, even though it was all his fault – all of it!
So every night James led his smell up the stairs and across the kitchen to the sink, where Anna had already run a steaming bowl of soapy water and put out a pot of Swarfega and a nailbrush, for him to wash his filthy, black-grained hands and wrists. Right up to the elbows.
It was there, at the sink, that he would strip off his overalls so that she could bear them the three paces to the machine. She didn’t start it immediately; first she had to wait for him to finish washing, so that she could swab down the sink and the counter and the floor where he’d been standing, and then she could wash that cloth too. Two biological tablets and a boil wash every night. Their electric and water bills matched those of a family of six, although it was only them.
And always would be, now that she wouldn’t let him touch her any more. Not with those hands he scrubbed so hard but were never really clean.
Anna shuddered.
Then she looked up from washing the dishes and cocked her head.
She thought she’d heard Charlie crying. Not hard – more of a whimper. That was worse. Crying would show he had a healthy pair of lungs, while a whimper and then silence filled her with dread.
Some noises might be the children out behind the TiggerTime playschool a few doors down. But this sounded inside.
There it was again.
She removed her hands from the water and splashed Dettol liberally over them. A fresh towel was employed for drying, before she hurried into the nursery. Or the bedroom. It depended on who was talking.
By the time she got there, the baby had gone back to sleep. Anna breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Hey, sweetheart,’ she whispered, as she pulled the soft lemon blanket over one adventurous leg. ‘Have you been kicking, you little monkey? Have you been dancing? Hmm?’
Charlie’s golden lashes were laid on his peach cheeks; one wrinkled fist curled beside his ear. She laid a soft hand on his chest and his heart fluttered like a baby bird under his white towelling pyjamas.
Anna closed her eyes and – for a brief, precious moment – everything was all right.
Then the letter-box clattered and the circle started again.
The letter-box was in the door.
The door that was open …
Anna went slowly downstairs. Bills and junk all over the mat.
The bills she opened but didn’t read; everything else she folded neatly three times. If she didn’t, the kitchen bin would soon be full and her panic rose with its contents. She’d spoken to the postman about the junk mail but he’d explained that he got extra for delivering it.
‘Why?’ she’d asked. ‘So I can carry it from the door to the bin?’
He’d only shrugged, and at Christmas Anna hadn’t tipped him – even though he’d knocked on the door on the pretext of handing her a small package that would certainly have fitted through the slot.
Two-for-one pizza with free garlic bread! Fold.
Release the CASH in your home! Fold.
￡1,000 could be yours in TEN MINUTES! Fold.
THE DEAD ARE WAITING TO SPEAK TO YOU.
Anna stared at the leaflet. It was not glossy like the others – just cheap white paper and black ink. But somehow that, and the lack of an exclamation mark, made it seem more honest, made it seem that speaking to the dead was a more believable offer than free money and double pizza.
The dead were waiting to speak to her …
Anna swayed a little and touched the banister for support.
Daniel’s not dead.
She’d been telling herself that for months.
Daniel’s not dead!
At first it had been a blind belief. Then a crazy hope. Then a desperate, marginal faith that made other people avoid her fevered gaze and nod at their own feet when she insisted it was a fact. As if she’d joined the Moonies.
Eventually the words had started to sound meaningless even inside her own head.
Daniel’s not.
Dead.
Daniel …
Anna folded the leaflet once. Folded it twice …
Slowly, she unfolded it again.