Composite Creatures Read online

  I shot my answer at her like an arrow. “Yes, we’ve a room that’ll be perfect.”

  “Excellent,” said Zoe. “Keep the house heated between twenty-four and twenty-six degrees, too. It’ll be a bit uncomfortable but it’s only temporary. If only this had happened at Christmas!” Her laugh was shrill and shot through my head. God, the room was bright. Zoe pulled a white plastic bottle from the top drawer of her desk and checked the label. “These are for you too. It might be unenthusiastic about swallowing them. Grind them into its food, or if that doesn’t work you may have to tag team. Arthur, you could hold the body down while Norah – you’ll press one of these down its throat with your finger. Twelve hours apart. That’s two a day, for the next ten days.”

  “What are they?” Art took the bottle, peering in close to read the tiny type. I could just about see mine and Art’s names there and a barcode.

  “Mainly a multivitamin and a dose of lysine. It’ll help with any stress from the move between locations. Nothing to worry about, really. But what we do need to do is arrange a home visit for a few weeks’ time. Evenings best for you?”

  Art stared at the pill bottle and fiddled with his ear. I nodded and smiled, nodded and smiled, determined to push any issues I had with this to the back of my head for now. Definitely problems for later. Not today. Today was a good day. Nut was coming home.

  Zoe brightened, and began typing into her laptop. “Excellent. We’ll send you an appointment letter once we find a slot.”

  The door to the consultation room opened and Nut was brought in in a grey carry case with a netted fabric front. A clump of grey fur stuck through the mesh as if she was crushed inside. The relief I felt at seeing her, packed and ready to go, flooded up from my diaphragm. All was well. All would be well. We’d be back to the status quo soon enough.

  But there were things we were going to have to deal with, and the drive back wasn’t one of our best journeys. We were both tense, though I don’t know if my reasons were the same as Art’s. If we were meant to be of one mind, the mind was splitting and hiding its parts around corners. I sank into the passenger seat and shielded my eyes from the shocking flashes between trees.

  “Why did you lie to them?”

  I didn’t know how to answer. I knew the answer, but it wasn’t what he’d want to hear.

  “I just wanted to get back to normal. We can make a room for Nut somewhere, it’ll be fine.”

  “They know where we live, Norah. They’ll know when they do a home visit that we don’t have a spare room for her. What’s it going to look like if you start lying to them?”

  “I didn’t lie. I said I had a room in mind, that’s all.”

  “Fuck’s sake, Norah.” Art gripped the steering wheel. “We’re on the same side here, you know. That’s what we’re paying for.”

  “I didn’t like the assumption that we’re not good enough because we don’t have money for another custom annex. She has our files, she knows we don’t have the big house, the cash to flash like the others. It was inappropriate. The same with asking us about inpatient residency for Nut. Where did that come from?”

  “She’s just doing her job, Norah.”

  “It’s something we’re never going to do. So why bring it up?”

  “Hey, you never know what’ll happen with us, we might get a windfall at some point. My book might make a mint, or you could scale the ranks at Stokers. Anything’s possible. Everything we’ve got gunning for us now, it’s a positive thing.”

  I didn’t want to talk about it anymore and was frustrated that Art had chosen the wrong side. Easton Grove had done all they could for Nut, I’d give them that, but they were teasing us – holding us close then pushing us away. Why would they do that when they’re supposed to be looking out for us? I didn’t speak to Art again, and Nut stayed perfectly silent in her carry case on the back seat. The stalemate wasn’t broken until we were only ten or so minutes from home.

  “So where are we going to put her then?” Art asked. “Maybe we’ll have to cordon off a bit of the loft.”

  “No, Zoe said we need to keep a close eye on her. It needs to be somewhere we can sit with her.”

  My idea involved using our bedroom for the next two weeks. It was a small and safe space, we could close the curtains and turn up the dial on the radiator, she’d have the run of it during the day, and she’d hopefully be asleep at night anyway. It seemed to be the most sensible solution. Art protested at first, but when I reminded him that the only other suitable room was his study he soon relented and went up to the loft to bring down Nut’s sleeping crate, litter tray, and her food and water dishes.

  Nut hadn’t seen our bedroom before, so we needed to introduce her gently. We left the door to her carry case open and left her alone in the room with the door closed, thinking it would overstimulate her if we were there too.

  Art coughed into his elbow and then pressed his ear to the bedroom door. “Do you think we need to buy a lock?”

  We made sure the door was properly shut before heading downstairs for some breathing room. My hands shook with the same jitters I’d had on Nut’s first day. We sat in silence in the kitchen, both of us not saying anything but listening for the creak of floorboards above.

  12

  Sometimes it’s the silence that wakes me. It penetrates the void, louder than sound. My first thought is always, “Please be here. Please don’t be gone. Please don’t have died secretly in the night. How can I lift your body when I’m soft as butter, as weak as milk?”

  But as autumn began to burn, Nut would always be there asleep under the bedframe, the curve of her back a mountain of heather, rising and falling between me and the light of sunrise.

  Our new system worked well, at least at the beginning. Art would check on Nut during the day when he went to the bathroom or to grab something to eat, and he said her routine had hardly changed from her loft-days. Sleep, pace, eat, sleep. We kept the blinds closed so she couldn’t be seen by the upstairs residents across the street, and lit the room with a daylight lamp. Whenever Art opened the door a crack and peeked inside, Nut would be either lounging sidelong on the floor or cleaning her flanks with long, sensual licks of her tongue. Every few hours or so she’d snap, and run around the room as if chasing a scuttling creature he couldn’t see.

  Every morning, Art would heave Nut onto the bed and pin her there while I vacuumed the thick minky layer of hair coating the carpet. Now that Nut was a juvenile, she didn’t need it anymore, and even though we’d known this would happen I still couldn’t help but check again with Art (as I went over the floor for the second time that day), “Is this definitely normal? Should she be losing this much at once?”

  The only damage I could see from Nut having free run of the bedroom was that she’d started to pull up the carpet by the door so she could gnaw the floorboards. One morning, she’d pulled out the patchwork blanket from under my side of the bed and dragged it halfway across the room. Art picked it up by one bedraggled corner.

  “Where did this come from?”

  I sat up in bed and made my face go soft. “Aubrey made it for me when I moved into my flat. It’s pretty old now.”

  Art’s face twisted as he turned it this way and that. “Why’s it so… mad? Didn’t she know what she was doing?”

  “She started off knitting it, see the yellow? But it took too long, so she sewed her old jumpers together to make the rest.” I could still see her sitting in lotus position, finishing one row on her needles then punching the sky in victory.

  Art was still staring at it, seemingly at a loss for words.

  “I think she wanted to see my face when she gave it to me. If she’d kept on knitting it, that day would never have come.”

  “She never struck me as the future-facing type.”

  “She can be. Sewn together this tight, that old rag might even outlast you.”

  “Hmm.” Art rolled up the blanket and thrust it on top of the wardrobe where Nut wouldn’t be able to reach
it again. “Not sure I’d be so proud of that, if I was her.”

  Anyway, pulling out what I stashed beneath the bed was small fry, considering how big Nut was getting. I never caught her doing anything she shouldn’t, and by the time I went up to bed at around 11pm she’d already be curled in her crate, good as gold. She wouldn’t even stir as Art came in and undressed an hour or two later. She’d sleep through our morning alarms, and only stirred at the clink of her food bowl being filled.

  But this peace didn’t last.

  Perhaps it had been the stress of her time in the Grove that’d temporarily subdued her, but as the days went by Nut’s sleeping pattern became disjointed, and she began to rise earlier and earlier each morning. She started to take her morning run at just past 3am, stomping around the space regardless of what stood in her way. At first, when she got to our bed she’d run beneath the frame, but soon she became emboldened (or wanted a challenge), and instead of scrabbling underneath, she’d vault onto the bed and leap over our heads in one terrifying arc.

  It was impossible to sleep like that, and we moved our pillows half a metre down the bed so Nut had a clear runway and we’d avoid being crushed by her night-time stampede. I was exhausted but didn’t want to let on, so painted on more lipstick and cream blush. Art looked terrible, and whenever he did drift off he mumbled incessantly. “What’s she saying?”, “Shhhh”, “Too loud.” Maybe no one else would have noticed, but standing side by side with him in front of the bathroom mirror revealed how pale he’d become, how his hair had darkened with oil. His lips were practically white.

  I still couldn’t concentrate at work. My eyes couldn’t read the numbers fast enough, and shot side to side painfully in order to keep up. If I could just see this though, keep my head down, try to not make any more mistakes, it’d be OK. Every so often Markus would stroll past my cubicle and give me that same strained wink, his lip twitching in a way I’d never noticed before. Even he looked more tired, kept awake by some phantom.

  A letter from Easton Grove arrived with instructions to book a home visit for the following Tuesday. I emailed them straightaway to say that Art and I wouldn’t be around that day, and I didn’t suggest a new date. I left it in their hands, my head buried deep under the dunes.

  One night as Nut began her nightly parade, in a fit of desperation Art stood bolt upright and swore at the ceiling before opening the bedroom door and wedging it at the bottom with a dirty sock. He stomped across the landing, slammed the door to his study closed and climbed back into bed without as much as a word. He turned away from me and huddled beneath the covers, still and silent as if in a deep sleep. Had he just given permission for Nut to roam the house? I continued to feign sleep, dead to the heave of the bedframe, the catch of Nut’s toenail in my hair.

  At first Nut didn’t seem to notice the change, and looped the room a few more times. But after a few minutes the pounding of her feet stopped, and she padded off onto the landing to investigate this new terrain. A whole new world for her to explore. Pinned between fascination and fear, I was desperate to see what she was doing but I was still pretending to be asleep. I’d committed to it now. Besides, maybe it was best if I wasn’t the one to find her fallen down the stairs, or choking on a misplaced hairpin.

  Despite all my wild imaginings, unbelievably I did nod off. And when I awoke, Art was already up and Nut was lying stretched out full-length on the bed, just where Art should have been.

  We never talked about what Art did that night. I think he saw what he did as a chess move he couldn’t retract and for better or worse he’d have to see it through.

  Nut now had the run of the house. Every room was her domain except Art’s study, the door to which was always closed. He said it was his inner sanctum and he needed quiet. This wasn’t a bad thing – the room was a death trap – piles of heavy hardbacks and slippery plastic folders everywhere. Swallowable paperclips and pen lids. It wasn’t the place for a curious creature only starting to learn the dangers of the world.

  It was odd how easy it was to sleep with Nut running free around the place. It’s a funny feeling, to just accept that calamity could technically occur at any time. It’s not easily at home with me, that one. But maybe I just trusted her, or at least trusted her ability to handle what might harm her.

  I wasn’t as bothered about the house itself, even when on her mad runs she’d knock into table legs or the coat stand, causing relics of life to fall and break. Art didn’t find it so easy. He continued to look worn out, as if his skin was stretched tightly across his cheeks and stitched beneath a tense jawline. He had the look of someone coming down with something, but whatever bug it was never materialised.

  One night, after falling into bed, he whispered, “Do you think we should get Nut back into the attic soon?” I touched his face, shocked at how cold his cheek was. “I don’t think we can do that now, Art. It’s too late.”

  He didn’t bring it up again, but continued to lose weight. Sometimes I caught him rubbing furiously at his temples and on either side of his nose. I asked him if he was perhaps allergic to Nut’s shedding fur but he shook his head spasmodically. I suppose with growing up on a farm he’d know that already. Perhaps it was all this self-imposed pressure he put on himself to perform. He hardly left his study other than to eat or sleep, and even then he only stopped for a silent few minutes before running back upstairs with his plate and his mouth still full. Whenever I asked him to stay with me downstairs and talk for a while, he snapped at me, and accused me of not taking him seriously.

  After Nut had had free rein of the house for around a month, I needed to do something to stop the shift I could see happening. Outside, the sky was getting darker, igniting with that autumnal red that lit the trees. I’d just been channel flicking in the living room, Nut curled up by my ankles, when Art ventured out of his study to the kitchen. I followed him and dragged him to the sofa by his wrist. He watched me do it without a word, and didn’t even show the slightest spark of a fight.

  I sat him next to me, making sure as much of our thighs were touching as possible. I kissed him fully on the lips and whispered, “Do you like that?” The whites of his eyes grew and his lips parted. The tip of his tongue flicked off a tooth. I kissed him again, and pushed him back into the sofa, straddling his lap. “What do you want to do now?” I crooned, coiling his hair around my fingers.

  Did I look as desperate as I felt?

  Art looked up at me, apparently speechless. I leaned forwards so our faces were enclosed within the dark curtains of my curls. “I’m kidnapping you.”

  He looked genuinely terrified. It was a game. Just a game.

  He pushed me off and sat upright, his hands held in front of him as if to say “Wait”. It took him a minute to frame his words before he spoke.

  “I’m not myself, Norah. I’m sorry, I can’t.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “I don’t feel all that good today.”

  He looked beaten. I felt victorious. It wasn’t me. He grasped the back of his neck. “I can’t think. I’m hearing two voices all the time and I don’t know which one’s me, I don’t know which one’s right. I can’t concentrate on anything and it’s hurting me.”

  A giggle bubbled up my throat, but I gulped it down and furrowed my brow. Listening is bonding too. I’d bring him back. I stroked his hair and it felt soft and faint, not greasy like I’d expected at all. I guided his head down to my lap, and he sank into me, forgetting that I was another person and not part of his body. All the while, I wore my worried face, and a little piece of me tried to work out why I didn’t care. It was sort of nice to have him limp and semi-conscious across my knee. All I wanted to do was make sure he didn’t fall too ill, so sick that he needed official intervention. I could handle this. Hot broths. Blankets. Vitamin C. Ibuprofen. Easton Grove couldn’t know.

  If they caught wind of this, everything would go wrong.

  I wonder now how things would have turned out differently if I’d just talked to him, or dragged him by his
hair from that study, even when the door looked so firmly closed.

  When the world was quiet, I sent Art up to bed while I turned off the lamps. The last room to do was the kitchen, and as I emptied our glasses down the sink I took a good hard look at the houseplants I’d arranged on the windowsill before New Year. They were dry as straw, their leaves emaciated and dark. The trunk of my yucca plant had become a thigh bone. Maybe the fertilisers hadn’t been enough. Chemicals on chemicals. Fire on fire.

  In the centre of the row, Aubrey’s succulent still held her petals though they were in significantly lower numbers than last time I checked. Art must have thrown them out without telling me.

  I looked past the boneyard into the garden beyond. The light from the kitchen only reached so far, illuminating the funereal bluebells. The far end of the garden was a void, but I swore I could still see the outline of the berry bush by the far fence, its branches stretching towards the house like arms. No matter how many times I went out with the hedge-trimmers, those limbs kept returning – reaching out into space for something solid to grasp onto.

  13

  Trash TV became my friend. You can trust the fair-weather faces of actors and news presenters to tell you the truth, and even a pre-written, cold script can warm the heart. It’s selfish pleasure, guzzling it down because we don’t have to give anything back. No pretending.

  From coming home from work to going to bed I never switched it off, and yet never watched a single show all the way through. I couldn’t lose myself in it like I used to. The characters seemed artificial, hollow, and I found myself picking my nails, pulling at loose threads on my clothes. Sometimes the TV schedule changed without notice and regular shows were replaced with feature length films featuring case studies of Easton Grove. A year earlier and I’d have guzzled these down, I might’ve even taken minutes. But now the only mental notes I made logged the glazed eyes of the “star”, the way their hands sat clasped tight and white on their laps. And the things they didn’t say. Whether there looked to be chains beneath the table, or a shadow of a puppeteer overhead. Whenever the show’s focus moved to the ovum organi I switched over. I couldn’t stomach it.