The Death House (17 page)

‘Does he know?’ Clara asks me, scared, after the memorial is finally done. I nod. ‘Is he going to tell?’

‘I don’t think so.’ She looks so worried. She’s thinking about the boat, too. We’re so close to getting away. ‘We should have taken him with us,’ I say softly. ‘He should have been there. That’s what’s upset him.’

She looks relieved after that and I realise she’s feeling guilty, too. We may have done a necessary thing but it was also a terrible one and I can’t decide which side weighs heaviest. But if Louis wanted to be there and Louis is a genius then surely it was right? I remember the awful slump in Will’s body as he died. That will never leave me. I try to think of his face as he stared up at the lights in wonder. The weight of him was so earthy but his expression in those last minutes was so ethereal. Dark and light. Horror and beauty. Everything is extremes. I just want to sleep and get this day over with.

‘So, what’s up with you two, then?’ Tom asks when Louis goes to brush his teeth.

‘Nothing.’ I shrug.

‘Doesn’t look like nothing.’

‘He’s just upset.’

‘Yeah, but why is he upset with
you
?’

‘He’ll get over it.’ I don’t answer the question, instead turning away and getting into bed. When the nurse brings our pills round I swallow mine quite happily. I think Louis does, too. Neither of us wants to be alone with our thoughts.

Twenty

Over the next few days life does settle down. The snow finally melts away and the sun returns with its familiar warmth. After breakfast we go for lessons with our new teachers, who are uniformly dour and dull which makes me wonder if maybe the last lot had to leave because Matron disapproved of their smoking and drinking and whatever else they got up to in their wing of the house, and it wasn’t really a half-term at all. I wade diligently through the comprehension books and sums but I have half an eye on the brightness outside, and despite my inability to shake Will’s ghost away, my stomach fizzes with excitement at the prospect of being far away from here.

I imagine Clara running along a beach in cut-off denim shorts, laughing and pushing me into the sea. In my head she’s as wild and free as she was born to be. I think of how uncomfortable and awkward I was
before
. How I behaved around Julie McKendrick. Clara’s changed me. The house has changed me, too, but Clara mainly. I wouldn’t have gone over the wall without her. I’d still be moping around in the gloom full of dread and lost hope. I wouldn’t have come up with a plan to leave. I wouldn’t have thought about the boat. It’s all Clara. Without Clara I would never have found the report on Matron’s desk.

I’ve read the paper I copied so many times now that I’ve slowly started to believe it. It fills my head more than even Will does. It excites me and scares me. Matron did what she did to the nurse in the night because of it. I try not to think the word
murder
because that in turn makes me think of Will –
Thanks for this, Toby
– and that makes my heart and stomach hurt. I wonder if Matron is waiting to see if there’s any fallout from that before she comes for me and Louis. The paper, and what is printed so factually there, is dangerous. This much I know.

Louis continues to withdraw into himself. He doesn’t look at me or talk to me. If he needs something passed to him at the table, he asks someone else. In lessons his head is down and he appears focused but I don’t believe he’s really concentrating as he scribbles out his answers. Louis doesn’t need to. His brain works so fast he can think about a hundred things at once. In the afternoons he plays chess against himself or goes and sits on the swings. He mutters quietly to no one in particular.

Occasionally I think I should go and speak to him, but every time I chicken out. I put it off. I know I have to tell him what’s on the paper but I’m scared of what he might do. He’s not himself. I want him to be Louis again but I’m not sure I know who Louis is without Will. He’s never talked much about friends before the house, or if he has, he only told Will about them and Will is gone.

Clara and I withdraw in our own way, too. We don’t hang out with the others any more and they stop asking us to. We go to the library and look at atlases and encyclopaedias and think about ways to sneak onto trade ships to start our adventures. We only have to get to France and after that it should all be easy, or at least Clara makes it sound that way.

After three nights we stop taking the pills again. Clara says she doesn’t like missing out on the time and although I’m wary I go along with her. She winks and laughs and tells me I’m her serious side and she’s my crazy. Her mood has lifted since Will. There’s a nervous energy around her as the boat night draws closer.

She’s right, as usual. I lie awake for a long time before finally plucking up the courage to creep out and find her. I watch Louis for a moment but I’m pretty sure he’s asleep. I pull his blankets up a bit to cover his arms. The sun might be back during the day but the house is still cool at night.

We don’t go out – even Clara thinks that might be too risky – instead picking a room between both our dorms to curl up in just in case we hear movement and have to get back fast. The added danger is almost exciting and it’s not long until she’s kissing me hard and pulling me down over her.

‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ she whispers over and over as our faces draw close. Her breath is warm and I kiss her some more. She makes everything better. Afterwards, as we lie there, smiling and breathless, my head spins with the amazing brilliance of what we’ve just done and I feel relaxed and happy for the first time since
that
night. I wonder what Jonesy would make of this. Me, in love with a beautiful girl who loves me back, and who I have sex with and who I’m good at having sex with after those first awkward times. Jonesy seems like a kid to me now, just like Julie McKendrick has faded to nothing.

I trace my finger down Clara’s smooth skin and hope Jonesy is okay. He doesn’t have a lot of other friends. Jonesy and Louis merge a little in my head and then Clara flinches and I lean forward. There’s a big bruise across her hip.

‘What did you do?’ I ask, leaning down to kiss it.

‘Walked into something like an idiot. It’s fine.’

It blooms like a black rose across her pale skin. ‘Must’ve been hard.’ I smile up at her. ‘Try walking, not running.’

‘Sorry, Dad.’

I pull a face. ‘That’s not weird at all.’

I think about my mum and dad and whether I should call them when we get away. How much would it freak them out? Maybe when we’re safe I will. Maybe later. Home doesn’t feel like home any more.

‘I think Will would be okay with what we did,’ she says as we stare at the ceiling and imagine the night stars twinkling over us above a sandy beach. ‘I really do.’

I let her speak and don’t say anything. I’m realising that it’s less about whether Will would be fine with it than whether we can be fine with it, but I don’t want to make her think about that too hard. It’s enough that I am.

‘It’s what I’d want someone to do,’ she continues, her voice soft and serious. ‘If they knew the sanatorium was coming for me.’

I kind of envy how she’s made her peace with it so quickly. I think she’s like the lights in the sky – all bright and fascinating and in the moment. I’m the slump in weight – earthy, dark and heavy.

‘What we have to do now is live every minute. Make it all count. That’s how we’ll honour Will. We have to be
happy
.’

‘I am happy.’ It’s the truth. I’m full of secrets I can’t share but in this moment I’m happy. ‘You make me happy.’

‘Even here?’ she asks.

‘Yes.’

She twirls a strand of her hair and thinks for a moment. ‘I can’t imagine not knowing you. I can’t imagine being in my old life and never meeting you.’

‘Me neither.’ It’s true. Time has gone funny here. I feel like I’ve known her for ever and everything before was a dream.

‘It’s like fate, isn’t it?’ she says, soft and sweet. ‘You and me, both Defectives. Like we were meant to find each other here.’

‘Maybe.’

‘No maybe about it.’ She slaps my head playfully and then sighs. ‘You stop me being scared.’

My heart tugs so hard at that. I can never imagine Clara being afraid. I kiss her again and she’s warm and vulnerable and soft. I want to look after her.

‘Together for ever?’ she says.

‘Together for ever,’ I agree. I think of the paper in my pocket and a bit of me breaks inside, forcing me to grin to hide it. ‘I married you, didn’t I?’

‘Never leave me?’

‘Never leave you.’

‘At least we won’t get old and ugly,’ she says. ‘You won’t end up bald and fat like my dad. We won’t become complacent with each other. Our love won’t fade.’

‘You could never be ugly.’ I smile. ‘And our love could never fade. Fate, remember?’

She wraps her arms around my neck and holds on tight. ‘I can’t wait to get out of here,’ she breathes into my skin. ‘I can’t wait.’

Twenty-One

This time, when the vans come, there are seven. As we did last time, we crane our heads at the dorm window to see the new kids climb out, one from each van. I’ve been so caught up in my own excitement about leaving that I somehow didn’t expect any more to arrive. But the house is its own world and it keeps turning.

‘I wonder if we’ll get one,’ Tom says. He doesn’t look pleased by the thought of an interloper in our midst and I almost smile, remembering how we felt the same way about him not so long ago.

‘Maybe there’ll be some more girls,’ I chip in. I kind of hope there’ll be someone for him or Jake to make up for me stealing Clara away, even though it doesn’t really work like that. Me and Clara are meant to be. I can’t imagine anyone else feeling the way we do. But a couple of girls for them to make out with would be good. I don’t really share any of the excitement, though. I’m too busy hoping that none of these new kids fuck up mine and Clara’s plans. They’d better all take their pills. I can’t wait to leave and every moment spent in the house weighs on me with the fear of something going wrong.

Louis is at the window as well, but after a moment he drifts away and sits cross-legged on his bed. The tatty home-made chess board is laid out and he moves one of the black cardboard pieces and then mutters something, letting out a strange little laugh. It’s unsettling.

‘Do you have to talk to yourself like that?’ Tom asks. ‘It’s fucking weird.’

Louis looks up at him, eyes wide and surprised. ‘I’m not talking to myself.’

‘Yeah, you are.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘So who are you talking to, then?’

Louis smiles. It’s almost his old smile. Almost, but not quite. ‘Will, of course,’ he says. ‘I’m talking to Will.’

He goes back to his game as we stare at him, and after a long moment, Tom sucks his teeth in disgust. ‘This place is fucking crazy,’ he mumbles.

None of us really talks after that. Bored at the window, I go and lie on my bed. I wonder if Louis is doing it on purpose to drive me crazy. To not let me forget. In some ways I hope that’s the reason. It sure as shit beats the alternative that Louis, the genius, is cracking up. That he can handle being Defective, and the house, but not the loss of his friend. I can live with him hating me, but if I’m going tell him our plans I need him not to be barking mad. The time ticks by and we hear footsteps outside but no new arrival comes into Dorm 4. I think we all heave a sigh of relief. We’ve got enough shit going on in here without fresh blood.

At tea, Jake preens and talks loudly amidst the excited chattering. There are two new boys at the Dorm 7 table and he’s setting out his stall as top dog of the house. I barely look at the new faces and I don’t ask what their names are. There’s a buzz in the air with so many fresh faces here and I feel like a new day is beginning, but I don’t belong in it any more.

‘No girls,’ Tom grumbles into his apple crumble and custard. Louis hasn’t even looked up throughout the meal. He’s stuck in the old days, too.

As far as we can tell, all the new kids take their vitamins and in the hush of the night, me and Clara walk around the dorms, ghosts haunting the sleeping house, and look at them. None of them so much as twitches. I think maybe they’ve upped the dose of whatever it is since what happened with Will. In Dorm 9 one new boy’s face is still wet, as if he’s been crying in his sleep. I can’t remember if I cried. I know Will did. Maybe Ashley, too. It’s hard to remember those first nights now. We’re all so much tougher than we used to be.

‘I told you it was fate,’ Clara whispers as we hold hands and creep down to the playroom. ‘Only you and me awake in the night.’

‘Do you want to go to the cave?’ I ask. It’s crazy but I want to say goodbye to that rocky shelter before we leave. It’s mine and Clara’s place, the good and the bad.

‘I just want to dance,’ she says. ‘Let’s stay in.’ It’s not that cold tonight but she’s properly dressed rather than just in her nightshirt, so her answer throws me. She’s wearing jeans and socks and a long baggy jumper, when normally she likes the freedom of the air around her legs. She digs out a record and plugs the headphones in.

‘You wear them,’ I say. ‘I want to be able to hear if someone comes.’

‘Always so sensible, Tobes.’ She leans up and kisses me and then she’s swaying in my arms. ‘Pretend we’re on the beach,’ she whispers as she closes her eyes. ‘It’s midnight and the bonfire is going and some old guy is playing guitar and we’re dancing.’

‘We won’t have to pretend much longer.’ She can’t hear me. The music that’s just a tinny hum to me fills her head. I move with her as best I can, but dancing always makes me feel like a twat. My arms and legs never do what they’re supposed to and I can’t match her natural rhythm. She’s lost in it and doesn’t mind. Her mouth is half-open and I kiss her, breaking the moment. I can’t help it when her body is pressed so close to mine. My hand reaches under her top and she winces and pulls back, tugging the headphones away from her ears.

‘Let’s not do that. Let’s wait until we’re away before we do it again.’

‘Okay.’ I feel even more awkward now, like I’ve done something wrong, and it must show because she holds my face in her hands and kisses me again.

‘Is that all right? Do you mind?’

‘Of course not.’ I try and smile but my mouth is like drying glue. I do mind a bit. I can’t help it. Aside from the wanting to – and I kind of always
want
to, so that probably doesn’t count – I feel like she’s rejecting me and sudden doubt hits me hard. Has she gone off me? Is she just waiting until we’re free to dump me? But what about all that fate stuff? She can’t have fallen out of love with me, can she?

‘Let’s just dance then,’ she whispers and pulls the headphones back on. ‘I love to dance.’ Her eyes close and she pulls me close and my head is filled with blackness at the idea that she might not want me any more. Even if I’m just being stupid right now, in this moment, I feel sick at the thought of her ever dancing with anyone else.

We go back to bed earlier than normal, Clara saying we need to preserve our energy for our adventures, but she kisses me and hugs me and tells me she loves me and I feel a bit better.

‘Together for ever,’ I say, trying not to sound too desperate, as she leaves me for her dorm. She looks back over her shoulder and grins wide. ‘Together for ever, Mermaid King.’

I’m happy again.