Olivia

Olivia

I am beginning to wonder if Ted has thrown the knife in the trash. Or maybe he carries it with him, wherever he goes on those long nights, when he comes home smelling of earth and old bone.

We considered other approaches. But it must be the knife, because it is sharp and fast. Lauren’s body is not strong. There is nothing to eat in the house, poisonous or otherwise. Ted has learned his lesson.

I don’t want to tell Lauren this, but I think Ted is up to something. He brought home some new books, today. The titles make my whiskers ache. But I think they are about us. I try and mask these thoughts, keep them from her. She can’t hear if I sink them deep enough. Once again I thank the lord for keeping me here. Lauren needs me.

‘Maybe I can make a knife,’ Lauren says, doubtful. ‘Like they do on TV, in jail. I wish there was some food. It might help me think.’

I can feel her hunger. It adds to my own, deepening the ache in our stomach. Night-time growls and shakes himself in the deep places of us like the beating of black wings. I force him down again. He’s hungry like the rest of us.

It’s not your time, I tell him.

He snarls but he is still too deep down for me to catch it. It is either, Now, now, now, or, No, no, no. I cannot be sure which.

We hunt through drawers and cupboards. All we find is dust. To keep us entertained, Lauren makes up songs. The best one is about a woodlouse. It is really, really good.

We are exhausted. I curl up on the floor under the couch. The cord lies in a pile beside me. It is pale yellow and delicate today.

Even if we found the knife I couldn’t use it on Ted. Apart from one brief flash, when Lauren took down the wall between us, I have not been able to control the hands, the head, the arms like a ted. I just feel like a cat. And there’s something else, too. I wish I didn’t but I still feel the old pull when I think of Ted. Love doesn’t die easily. It kicks and fights.

Lauren says, ‘You have to keep practising, Olivia.’

I’m tired, I say. In my head I think, Practice is horrible and I hate it.

‘I heard that,’ she says. ‘How do you think we’re going to get out of here if you can’t use the body, you stupid cat?’

You are quite rude sometimes.

‘At least I don’t go back on my promises, Olivia. You said you’d try.’

I row with unhappiness, because I know she’s right.

She sighs. ‘Let’s start again. Go to the bottom of the stairs. What can you see?’

I see the stairs, I say, tentative. (I always feel like my answers are wrong.) I see the carpet. The bannister, running up. At the top, I can just see the landing. And if I turn around I can see the front door, the umbrella stand, the door to the kitchen, into the living room a little …

‘OK,’ she says. ‘Enough. So, we’ll call this “Night-time”. He can see what’s down here, but nothing more. Think about that. Imagine him here at the bottom of the stairs. Now, let’s go up top.’

On the last stair but one, before the landing, she pulls me up. ‘What do you see?’

I can see the bathroom door, I say, and Ted’s room and your room and the roof light …

‘All the upstairs stuff, right?’

Yes.

‘But can you see anything downstairs? The hall? The front door, the umbrella stand …’

No.

‘So, let’s call this “Lauren”. That’s what I can see. Got it?’

Not really, I say, but she’s not listening.

‘Go down again.’

When I am precisely half way down the stairs, Lauren says, ‘Stop.’ I am on the step where I like to nap. There are seven stairs below me and seven above. ‘Now what do you see?’ Lauren asks.

I can still see the bannister, I say. I can still see the stairs and the carpet on the landing. If I look down I can see the floor of the hall and if I crouch I can see a little of the front door. And if I look up, towards the top of the stairs I can see the window, the bathroom door and the roof light on the landing.

‘So you can see a little of what’s above you and some of what’s below. This is you, Olivia. Night-time at the bottom, and me in the upstairs and you in the middle, joining us. You are the connecting point. Only one person is going to save us. You.’

The cord glows positively rose-gold as I swell with pride.

‘All you have to do is go up,’ Lauren says. ‘Try.’

But …

‘I don’t mean literally go upstairs,’ she says, impatient. ‘I mean, it’s not like any of this is real.’

OMG. WHAT DO YOU MEA—

‘Never mind that now. Again.’

I shudder. I feel the old stair carpet, rough under the velvet pads of my paws. I like my paws. I don’t want to be a ted. I want to be me.

I’m scared, I say. I can’t move, Lauren.

‘Tell yourself a story,’ Lauren says. I can tell from her voice that she knows what it’s like, to be pinned by fear. ‘Pretend something you really want is up there and go to it.’

I think about the lord, and his many shifting faces, and how good he is. I try to picture him on the landing above me. My heart fills with love. I can almost see him, with his tawny body and tiger’s tail. His eyes are golden.

I climb up one stair. For a moment the walls shiver around me. I feel utterly sick, like I’m falling from a great height.

‘Good,’ Lauren says, voice cracking with excitement. ‘That’s great, Olivia.’

I look up at the lord. He smiles. Then I see that he wears Ted’s face. Why is he wearing Ted’s face?

I turn and run back down the stairs, rowing in distress. Lauren is shouting indistinctly in our head.

I can’t do it, I say to Lauren. Please don’t make me. It is horrible.

‘You don’t love me,’ Lauren says sadly. ‘If you loved me you’d really try.’

I do, I do love you!I say, with a little row. I didn’t mean to upset you.

‘You’ve done it before, Olivia, I feel it. You take down the barrier and come up. It happens every time you knock the Bible off the table. There’s thunder, right, and the house moves? You do it when you make your recordings. Remember when you opened the refrigerator door? The meat really went bad! You just have to learn to do it on purpose.’

I remember but I don’t understand. Of course the meat spoiled – I left the fridge door open.

‘What colour was the rug that day, Olivia?’

It’s not surprising, I guess, after what she’s been through – Lauren has lost it.

Lauren says, ‘I guess I have, but try anyway?’ Weird having someone hear what you’re thinking. I’m not used to it yet.

‘Please.’ She sounds so sad that I am ashamed of myself.

All right, I say. I will!

I try again and again, but no matter how hard I wish all I can feel is my silky black coat and my four padding paws.

After what seems like for ever, Lauren says, ‘Stop.’

I sit on the stairs with some relief and begin to groom.

‘You don’t want to help me.’ Tears fill Lauren’s voice.

I do, I say. Oh, Lauren, I want to help more than anything. It’s just – I can’t do it.

‘No,’ she says quietly. ‘You don’t want to.’ My tail feels funny. Warm, somehow. I twitch it to feel the cool air along its length. But the warm feeling grows. It becomes hot.

‘I can stroke you,’ Lauren says. ‘But I can also do this.’

Pain glows red all along my vertebrae. It builds into flames. My tail becomes a red-hot poker. I am crying with it.

Please make it stop, Lauren!

Lauren says, ‘It doesn’t matter what I do to an imaginary cat.’

Oh, please, it hurts!Pain pulses through my brain, my fur, my bones.

‘You think you’re beautiful,’ Lauren says in the same, dreamy voice. ‘He took down the mirrors – you can’t see what you really are – so I’ll tell you. You are small, twisted, wizened. You are half the size you should be. Each one of your ribs stands out like a knife blade. You don’t have many teeth left. Your hair grows in stringy patches on your bald head. As the burns on your face and hands healed, over and over, the scar tissue grew so thick that it twisted your face. It pulled your nose aside, and it grew over your eyes so one of them is almost sealed shut by scars. You think you are stalking around the house on four elegant feet. That’s not what’s happening. You are crawling on your hands and knees, dragging your useless broken feet behind you, like an ugly fish. No wonder you don’t want to live in this body. You helped him make it and then afterwards you climbed into his lap and purred. You are pathetic.’

She stops, and says in a different voice, ‘Oh, Olivia, I’m so sorry.’

I am running, rowing with horror. The aftershock of pain still rolls through me. Her words hurt more.

‘Please,’ she calls. ‘I’m sorry. I just get so angry, sometimes.’

I know how to hurt her back. I know the place she fears more than anywhere else.

I leap into the chest freezer and hook my claws into the lid, pulling it down over us with a crash. The dark closes over, welcome, and I close my ears to Lauren’s screams. I let soft nothing take me. I go away into the deep.

How many times can someone bend before they break for ever? You have to take care, dealing with broken things; sometimes they give way, and break others in their turn.