Things We Say in the Dark Read online

  But.

  Evangeline had consumed a lot of insects while I was inside her, and that meant I had consumed a lot too. Insects may have short lives individually, but together they have long memories.

  In the soft pink dawn, just as Evangeline was starting to fear that she had made a terrible mistake, the insects came down from the trees and up from the soil and over from the bushes and convened on me. Piece by piece they pulled me apart, and took me home to feed to their babies, and they never once worried about the outdated theory of maternal impression.

  Second Fear:

  The worst thing about going to other people’s houses was not that it smelled weird, or that the chairs were too hard so your bones hurt or too soft so they swallowed you, or that they had a guinea pig that squeaked or a baby sister that dribbled, or that they watched different things on TV, or that you had to ask to go to the toilet. It was the food.

  Why did the orange juice have bits in it? Why did the bread have seeds in it? Why was the cereal the wrong brand? Why did they drink so much tea? Why did the soup have to be mushroom?

  Clarice had asked herself these questions often, because every day after school she had to go to her neighbour Mrs Dainty’s house. Mrs Dainty had been trying to teach Clarice how to use the right cutlery and play the piano and say pardon and yes, miss for a while now, and it wasn’t going very well.

  This pattern repeated for a few months when one Monday, after Mrs Dainty had failed to teach Clarice a thing and Clarice had failed to learn it, she went out of the room and came back in with a miniature apple on a plate.

  ‘It’s a gold and delicious apple,’ said Mrs Dainty. ‘Eat it all up now.’

  It was indeed gold, bright shiny gold, even the stalk and the tiny leaf attached to it. Clarice lifted the apple from the plate and brought it to her mouth. It was the size of a golf ball and it smelled waxy, like a candle, and also painty. She scratched at the gold and it scraped off and collected under her fingernail, revealing its dense yellowy innards. She did not want it in her mouth.

  Luckily, Mrs Dainty then went out of the room again, probably to make yet more tea, so Clarice opened the window and threw the apple into the garden. It rolled under a shrub; Clarice wanted to go outside and kick it further to hide it, but she didn’t. She closed the window silently and crept back to her chair. Mrs Dainty shuffled back in with chinking tea things on a tea tray and looked at Clarice’s empty plate.

  ‘You ate it all? The inside too?’

  ‘Was I not meant to?’ asked Clarice. Mrs Dainty frowned so she added – ‘Miss?’ Mrs Dainty still didn’t say anything, so she added – ‘Thank you, miss, it was lovely,’ and that seemed to do the trick.

  It all happened again on Tuesday: the gold and delicious, the window, the throwing.

  But on Wednesday, Mrs Dainty did not go out of the room. Clarice thought about asking for some tea, but you could never ask Mrs Dainty for things unless you wanted to hear for a long time about what an ungrateful child you were. There was nothing else for it. Clarice put the apple in her mouth.

  It tasted very gold, and not delicious. At first Clarice tried to bite it, but the spongy give of it made her stomach clench. Instead she pushed it far back in her mouth and swallowed it whole. By the time the apple had gone down, her eyes were watering.

  Of course Mrs Dainty would not have given her neighbour’s child a wax apple covered in spray-paint to eat. But it certainly tasted like it.

  Mrs Dainty smiled to see Clarice swallowing the apple. The next day, when she brought another small golden apple and Clarice swallowed it, Mrs Dainty smiled again. Actually, with each passing day she smiled a lot more in general. She didn’t tell Clarice that she was an ungrateful child, and brought her a gold and delicious apple every afternoon and watched as she swallowed it whole. It wasn’t just the smiling. Mrs Dainty seemed looser, somehow; like she was always slow-dancing to a song in her head. She talked more and she ate more and she even laughed occasionally.

  After several years, Clarice was old enough to take care of herself after school, and she didn’t go to Mrs Dainty’s any more. She still could not play the piano, but she usually remembered to say pardon, though that was really all she said; the assemblage of apples sat heavy and painful in her stomach, up her gullet and right to the back of her throat, so that she rarely spoke or ate or moved when she didn’t have to.

  Clarice stopped being a girl and became a woman instead, and eventually an old lady. Her first husband died young and the second one died old, but not as old as Clarice, and after he died she realised she had never really liked him. She didn’t want his name any more, so she changed it to Dainty; she’d always liked that name, and now that she was older it suited her. As a child she had been so restless, so noisy, so greedy; she was grateful that she had grown out of it to be a proper lady. She had eventually learned to play the piano, and liked to give lessons to the local children.

  One Monday, her neighbour’s child came over for a piano lesson. Clarice went into her kitchen to make some tea. The child could be a pretty thing – she had pale hair and lovely tapering fingers. But it was a shame: she was so noisy, and such a fidget. Always shifting in her seat and leaping about and talking about one thing or another, and never calling her miss. Clarice cleared her throat delicately. If only the child could learn to be more refined, more respectful, more still. Clarice cleared her throat harder. She’d managed it, hadn’t she? All children learned eventually. You mustn’t question grown-ups and you must always eat everything on your plate. Clarice cleared her throat; it was almost a cough now, though she was too much of a lady for such sounds.

  Clarice Dainty finished making her tea and got a small plate out of the cupboard. She reached deep into her throat, and she pulled out the malformed pieces of wax that had been lodged there for almost her entire life, and she formed the wax into the shape of an apple, and she painted it gold, and she put it on a plate. She carried the tray through and put the plate down in front of the child.

  ‘It’s a gold and delicious apple,’ said Mrs Dainty. ‘Eat it all up now.’

  Third Fear:

  Veronica spent most of her troublesome pregnancy resting on a chaise longue. It was upholstered in pink velvet, the colour of a cow’s tongue, and it was stuffed with horsehair. Veronica liked it particularly because it’s where her child was conceived; she enjoyed reclining like a lady, sighing and sipping weak sugared tea brought by her fussing mother, and remembering how her husband The Doctor had taken her roughly from behind across the cushions, thrusting into her so hard his fingers left dents in the flesh of her hips.

  There was a hole in the pink velvet of the chaise longue. Veronica liked to poke her pinkie finger into it. The hole grew a little bigger every day, as did Veronica’s belly. Before long a bit of horsehair began to poke out of the hole in the chaise longue. To keep things tidy, Veronica tugged out the stray strands – but what a shame to throw it away; this horsehair was a part of the chaise longue, and the chaise longue was a part of her baby’s conception. She put it in her mouth and swallowed it.

  By the time Veronica’s baby was due, she’d eaten almost all of the horsehair out of the chaise longue. The cushions were just empty fabric over the springs, and as well as a baby inside Veronica, there was also a large hairball.

  When they took the baby out of Veronica’s body, they took the hairball out too. Veronica named the baby Seth, and the hairball Tawny.

  Seth and Tawny developed well, but to be honest Tawny developed a little better. Seth always smelled of poo or sick or old milk, and Veronica spent much of his first few years cleaning him. Tawny kept his shape well, and never smelled of anything other than the inside of an old sofa, a smell which Veronica liked as it reminded her of her husband The Doctor.

  Eventually Seth noticed that his mother preferred Tawny. All siblings think this, particularly elder ones, but in this case it was true. Tawny managed to be mouldable, shapeable; but at the same time sturdy and permanent, like the ab
solute best furniture you can get. But Seth had a body that would not stop leaking and consuming. It farted and burped and snotted and scabbed and earwaxed. It sweated. It made smells. It got dirty and oily. Seth tried to be neat, but his body betrayed him.

  One night he crept to the bed where Tawny lay sleeping and pulled a single strand of horsehair from his shoulder. He just wanted to see what it felt like. The strand was wiry and strong, and it smelled like his mother. Seth pulled out a few more strands and wrapped them tight to make a plug, which he inserted into his ear. It did a good job at stopping the earwax getting out, and if Seth couldn’t hear in that ear – well, Veronica didn’t speak to him that much anyway.

  The next night, Seth crept again to Tawny’s bed and pulled a few strands of horsehair out. Then a few more. There were so many leaky parts of Seth that needed to be stopped.

  Tawny got smaller. And then smaller again. Veronica despaired. She didn’t even notice that Seth was much improved; not quite a perfect child, but better than before. With all his orifices blocked, he was significantly less leaky, and therefore less smelly and dirty.

  Veronica did everything she could to save Tawny, but it did not occur to her that Seth could be behind it all. Although smaller, Tawny was still perfect. Actually, Tawny was even more perfect than before.

  Tawny was cute, even cuter than a sewn poppet, and could be dressed in the most darling dolls’ clothes. Tawny could be picked up and carried in a skirt pocket. Tawny could be carried from place to place and displayed delightfully to friends and strangers alike. Tawny never grew oily or crusted. Seth’s bulky filthiness grew ever more apparent the bigger he got.

  Finally, one day when Veronica was leaning over the stove making a thimble of hot milk for Tawny, Seth reached into her skirt pocket and snatched Tawny out and threw him onto the fire. Veronica heard a squeal but thought it was just the milk reaching its boiling point.

  After that, there was no more horsehair to stop up Seth, and there was no more Tawny to prefer. Veronica loved her leaky, smelly, only child, and every night warmed a cup of milk for him and cuddled him on her lap and read him stories.

  Seth, unfortunately, did not enjoy the constant observation and his mother’s cloying, needy, wheedling attention. He missed Tawny. But there was nothing to be done about that.

  Fourth Fear:

  Oh, you. You have always been so delicious. Since the days of your babyhood, when you lay on the rug fresh-washed and kicking the air, grown-ups couldn’t help but squeal and bring you to their mouths and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you.

  Your tiny toes like cocktail sausages. Your legs fat and juicy as a roasted chicken. Your sweet little belly button dusted with sugary baby powder. Your cheeks icing-pink, your eyes chocolate-brown, your mouth a cherry pout. You’re a whole meal from toe to top.

  As you get older you won’t grow less delicious. Just differently delicious. A sugar-sticky child to a ripe-fruit teenager to an elegant platter of a woman. You will paint and arrange and scent every part of your body so neatly, a cordon bleu chef serving up yourself. You can’t blame them for wanting you, can you? It’s just a little taste. Just a nibble, no harm done. A single mouthful savoured and swallowed.

  But you’re not there yet. Still so little and edible. Toddling on your pork-chop legs, grasping things in your fat salty fists. All the aunties and uncles arrive in a mass and swoop you up, cooing and squealing, you’re so gorgeous, so perfect, can you imagine ever being so little and perfect? Oh! They could just Eat! You! Up!

  They said they would. Although you couldn’t talk back, you understood what they said. And you knew it was just a joke, a strange grown-up joke, the way grown-ups always did strange things.

  But they did say. You were fair warned. You may kick your little meat-legs and you may weep your seasoning tears and you may cry for them to put you down, but it’s too late now.

  Their mouths are so big and they open them so wide and inside their teeth are so sharp – and they love you, they love you, they love you so.

  I stopped in at the shop today to get some supplies: ground coffee, a big tub of skyr, cubed horsemeat. The meat is tough and has to be cooked for hours, but that doesn’t matter. I have time.

  As I handed over my money, the overhead fluorescents flickered out. The cashier rolled her eyes and used the torch on her phone to light the buttons on her till. I asked her if that happened often; if there was a problem with the electricity here, lightning storms maybe, faulty wiring. But she didn’t reply. I was embarrassed, thinking my accent was too thick and she couldn’t understand my English, so I just smiled and took my change and left.

  When I was almost back at the cabin I cleared my throat, which was raspy and furred through lack of use. I realised then that the cashier hadn’t replied because I hadn’t spoken the words aloud at all; I’d said them only in my head.

  The World’s More Full of Weeping Than You Can Understand

  Dorothy’s mother took her out for a nice time on the seaside pier one Saturday. There was a lady1 in a green wool dress2 showing pictures in a nice book3, and a clown4, and a Punch5 and Judy6 show, and a little penny peepshow machine7.

  Last of all, in a dark tent right at the end of the pier, was the magic show. There were rabbits8 and birds9 in the magic show.

  Then the rabbits and birds went away and there was a lady in a sparkly outfit and a man10 in a black cape and a box11 that the lady went inside. She was smiling12.

  Dorothy didn’t like it when the lady went into the box but her mother told her to sit still and not worry.

  When the lady was in the box the man stuck some shiny knives in13. Then he sawed14 the box in half and separated the two halves15. In one side the lady’s head was smiling wide. In the other side her toes wiggled16.

  Dorothy didn’t understand how the lady could do that but her mother told her to sit still because it was only a trick, not real17. Dorothy thought the man was going to put the lady back together, after. But he didn’t.

  Instead the curtain18 came down, and the show was over, and Dorothy and her mother went home19. It was all a nice trick and they had a nice time.

  The pool is quieter every time I go. Other than the guy on reception, I’m often the only person there. Sometimes there are signs that someone was around recently: a snarl of long blonde hair by the side of the hot tub, an abandoned hairpin on the changing-room floor.

  I collect up the things and put them on the same bench, just to see if they’re still there when I come back.

  I do my laps. A hundred of them. I count each one. I swim until the sky blues out to black and the stars start to appear. Then I do my steps back to my cabin. I count them too. Sometimes I count out loud, just to hear a voice.

  There used to be more people around me. I’m sure there were. I saw them. I spoke to them. Not in Icelandic, and not in any depth, but still. I’m sure I spoke.

  I got myself into a bit of a daze while I was swimming today – ‘story brain’, I call it; that hazy, unreal, half-dreaming place where I go to find stories. I go into it after a long time of repetitive movement like swimming or walking, or after listening to wordless music, or on long car journeys. I went into my daze, and through it all I counted my laps, and then walking home I counted my steps.

  All the way home I was still there, in story brain, conscious of enough to keep my feet on the path instead of the road, but not much else. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had walked in the road, really, as I didn’t see a single car. No lights were on in any of the houses. I’d been the only person in the pool. Not even anyone at reception; I’d left my little entry ticket on the counter. Changed, swam, showered, all alone. But the building was open, so someone must have been around.

  There must be someone here, somewhere, even if I can’t see them.

  Sleep Long, Sleep Tight, it is Best to Wake Up Late

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