II

      

       THE SKIN OF THE TEETH

      1

      ‘They turned off the gas and electricity in the house years ago,’ Violet said. ‘She hadn’t paid the bills. Living in squalor, she was, and it weren’t for want of me keeping a neighbourly eye. But she was rude, you know, if you enquired about her health.’ She lowered her voice a little. I know I shouldn’t say it but … your grandmother wasn’t entirely of sound mind.’

      Suzanna murmured something in reply, which she knew would go unheard.

      ‘All she had was candles for light. No television, no refrigerator. God alone knows what she was eating.’

      ‘Do you know if anyone has a key to the house?’

      ‘Oh no, she wouldn’t have done that. She had more locks on that house than you’ve had hot dinners. She didn’t trust anybody, you see. Not anybody.’

      ‘I just wanted to look around.’

      ‘Well there’s been people in and out since she went; probably find the place wide open by now. Even thought of having a look myself, but I didn’t fancy it. Some houses … they’re not quite natural. You know what I mean?’

      She knew. Standing finally on the doorstep of number eighteen Suzanna confessed to herself that she’d welcomed the various duties that had postponed this visit. The episode at the hospital had validated much of the family suspicion regarding Mimi. She was different. She could give her dreams away with a touch. And whatever powers the old woman possessed, or was possessed by, would they not also haunt the house she’d spent so many years in?

      Suzanna felt the grip of the past tighten around her: except that it was no longer that simple. She wasn’t here hesitating on the threshold just because she feared a confrontation with childhood ghosts. It was that here – on a stage she’d thought to have made a permanent exit from – she dimly sensed dramas waiting to be played, and that Mimi had somehow cast her in a pivotal role.

      She put her hand on the door. Despite what Violet had said, it was locked. She peered through the front window, into a room of debris and dust. The desolation proved oddly comforting. Maybe her anxieties would yet prove groundless. She went around the back of the house. Here she had more luck. The yard gate was open, and so was the back door.

      She stepped inside. The condition of the front room was reprised here: practically all trace of Mimi Laschenski’s presence – with the exception of candles and valueless junk – had been removed. She felt an unhappy mixture of responses. On the one hand, the certainty that nothing of value would have survived this clearance, and that she’d have to go back to Mimi empty-handed; and on the other, an undeniable relief that this was so: that the stage was deserted. Though her imagination hung the missing pictures on the walls, and put the furniture back in place, it was all in her mind. There was nothing here to spoil the calm good order of the life she lived.

      She moved through from the parlour into the hallway, glancing into the small sitting room before turning the corner to the stairs. They were not so mountainous; nor so dark. But before she could climb them she heard a movement on the floor above.

      ‘Who’s there?’ she called out –

      2

      – the words were sufficient to break Immacolata’s concentration. The creatures she’d summoned, the by-blows, halted their advance towards Cal, awaiting instruction.

      He took his opportunity, and threw himself across the room, kicking at the beast closest to him.

      The thing lacked a body, its four arms springing straight from a bulbous neck, beneath which clusters of sacs hung, wet as liver and lights. Cal’s blow connected, and one of the sacs burst, releasing a sewer stench. With the rest of the siblings close upon him. Cal raced for the door, but the wounded creature was fastest in pursuit, sidling crab-like on its hands, and spitting as it came. A spray of saliva hit the wall close to Cal’s head, and the paper blistered. Revulsion gave heat to his heels. He was at the door in an instant.

      Shadwell moved to intercept him, but one of the beasts got beneath his feet like an errant dog, and before he could regain his equilibrium Cal was out of the room and on to the landing.

      The woman who’d called out was at the bottom of the stairs, face upturned. She stood as bright day to the night he’d almost succumbed to in the room behind him. Wide grey-blue eyes, curls of dark auburn hair framing her pale face, a mouth upon which a question was rising, but which his wild appearance had silenced.

      ‘Get out of here!’ he yelled as he hurtled down the stairs.

      She stood and gaped.

      ‘The door!’ he said. ‘For God’s sake open the door.’

      He didn’t look to see if the monsters were coming in pursuit, but he heard Shadwell cry out:

      ‘Stop, thief!’

      from the top of the stairs.

      The woman’s eyes went to the Salesman, then back to Cal, then to the front door.

      ‘Open it!’ Cal yelled, and this time she moved to do so. Either she distrusted Shadwell on sight or she had a passion for thieves. Whichever, she flung the door wide. Sunlight poured in, dust dancing in its beams. Cal heard a howl of protest from behind him, but the girl did nothing to arrest his flight.

      ‘Get out of here!’ he said to her, and then he was over the threshold and into the street outside.

      He took half a dozen steps from the door and then turned around to see if the woman with the grey eyes was following, but she was still standing in the hallway.

      ‘Will you come on?’ he yelled at her.

      She opened her mouth to say something to him, but Shadwell was at the bottom of the stairs by now, and pushing her out of the way. He couldn’t linger; there were only a few paces between him and the Salesman. He ran.

      The man with the greased-back hair made no real attempt at pursuit once his quarry was out in the open. The young man was whippet-lean, and twice as fleet; the other was a bear in a Savile Row suit. Suzanna had disliked him from the moment she’d set eyes on him. Now he turned