She sniffs. ‘You probably can’t,’ she says. ‘You would have to use the hands.’
I’ll try, I whisper even though the thought of it makes me ill.
The cupboard under the stairs is dusty and smells pleasantly of fatty engine oil. There are dusty rugs piled in the corner, a stack of old newspapers, part of a vacuum cleaner, boxes of nails, a beach parasol … My ears are wide and alert, my tail raised with expectation. This is just the kind of place I love. I sniff the delicious trickle of black oil that runs across the floor.
‘Focus, Olivia,’ Lauren says. ‘I hid it under those newspapers.’
I nose into them and I smell something that is not newspaper. Bland, smoother. Plastic.
‘It’s a cassette tape,’ Lauren says. ‘Pick it up. No, that won’t work, use your hands. You don’t really have paws.’ Her frustration rises. ‘You live in my body. We are a girl. Not a cat. You just have to realise that.’
I try to feel myhands. But I can’t. I know the shape of myself. I walk delicately balanced on four velvet paws. My tail is a lash or a question mark, depending on my mood. I have eyes as green as cocktail olives, and I am beautiful …
‘We don’t have time for all this, Olivia,’ Lauren says. ‘Just pick it up in your mouth. You can do that, right?’
Yes!I take the cassette gently in my jaws.
‘Let’s go to the mail slot, OK?’
OK!
On our way past the living room I see something that makes me stop for a second.
‘Is something wrong, Olivia?’ she asks.
Yes, I say.I mean…no.
‘Then hurry up!’
I nose the mail flap open. The metal is heavy and cold on my delicate velvet nose. The outside world smells of dawn frost. White light hits my eyes.
‘Toss the cassette out into the street,’ Lauren says. ‘As far as you can.’
I jerk my head and throw the cassette. I can’t see anything, but I hear it bounce.
‘It went into the bushes,’ Lauren whispers. I hear the dismay in her voice.
Sorry, I say.Sorry.
‘It was supposed to land on the sidewalk so someone could find it,’ Lauren says. She starts to cry. ‘How will anyone find it there? You wasted our chance.’
I feel terrible, Lauren, I say.I really do!
‘You aren’t trying,’ she says. ‘You don’t want us to get out. You like it here, being his prisoner.’
No!I say, agonised.I don’t, I want to help! It was an accident!
‘You have to take this seriously,’ she says. ‘Our lives depend on it, Olivia. You can’t go on pretending you don’t have hands. You have to use them …’
I know, I say.For the knife. I’ll practise. I won’t mess up again.I nose her and rub my head against her where I feel her in my mind.You rest now, I tell her.I’ll watch.We curl up on the burry orange rug and I purr. I feel her beside me, inside me. She gives a deep sighand I feel her slip gently down and away into the peaceful dark. My tail is filled with worry. Lauren never likes to talk about after, when we’re free. I have a bad feeling she doesn’t care about being free. Worse – that she doesn’t want to be alive. But I will help her. I will keep us safe.
She has enough to deal with, so I didn’t mention it, but the weirdest thing just happened. As I walked to the front door just now, with the tape in my mouth, I glanced into the living room. And I swear that for a moment, this rug had changed from orange to blue.
Dee
Dee sits by the window looking out at the dark. She strokes the clawless tabby with a gentle hand and wishes she still smoked. ‘Pretty pebble,’ she whispers to herself. The cat looks up at her sharply. It’s late, Ted’s windows are all dark. But Dee fears sleep. The red birds will come flying into her head, with you-know-what in their beaks. Or it will be the other dream, where she sees her mother and father walking hand in hand across a desert under a blanket of stars, still looking, still calling their younger daughter’s name. Her memories cannot be kept at bay. They are nested inside one another.Like one of those Russian dolls, she thinks.
It’s getting harder and harder, the long waiting, the endless watching. Sometimes she wants to scream. Sometimes she wants to get a crowbar, go over there and break down the door – and finish it. Other times like now she just wants to get in her car and drive. Why does it fall to her, this terrible task? But this is how it is. Dee owes it to Lulu, and to all the others. She has seen the newspaper articles, blurry columns lit by the dirty glow of microfiche. Children go to that lake and don’t come back. Seven or eight, at least, over the years. Children without families or anyone to care. That’s why there hasn’t been much notice taken. Recently there have been no more disappearances. None since Lulu, in fact – andthere might be a reason for that. Maybe he learned it was better to keep a child than risk taking them, over and over.
