‘No.’
‘What about your friends? Someone to come and sit with you?’
I give a hard laugh. ‘Who exactly did you have in mind?’
He frowns, but his only response is to ask me if I want tea. This time I say yes.
As the kettle boils, he opens up the back door and goes outside. There is a lean-to which has been built onto the side of Chy an Mor, with a corrugated-iron roof and a door held together by flaking green paint. It is padlocked, but Frankie tells me he has the key. When he comes in, he is carrying split logs in his arms and begins loading them into the grate.
‘I cut this wood a few weeks ago when Kennecker told me you were coming down. I can’t believe it’s stayed dry in there through all that rain, but there you are. I’ll leave you the key so you can get in and out.’
‘It’s already so cold.’
‘It’s October.’ He looks at me levelly, and I am careful to measure my expression of surprise. How did that happen? Wasn’t it only summer last week? Me and Carmel sunning ourselves on our crappy little balcony? Where has the time gone? You know where, a sober voice intones somewhere in my skull. You’re losing your whole life, girl.
‘What were you doing up here, Frankie?’
‘I told you, I saw you from the side of the house.’
‘But why were you at the house?’
He sits back on his heels, looking flustered. ‘To give you the key to the woodshed. Weather forecast for the rest of the week is dire, so I thought you’d want to get a fire going on cold nights. I forgot all about it till I found it on my keyring.’
I take the key from him and stare as he strikes a match, holding it close to the kindling.
‘I don’t suppose you found the key to the padlock, did you?’
‘What padlock?’
‘The one upstairs. For the hatch.’
The kettle is boiling and Frankie stands up, shaking his head. ‘I’ve only got what Jim Kennecker gave me. His instructions were “Keep her warm, keep her safe”.’
‘“Safe”?’
‘Uh-huh. He’s old-fashioned. I’ll get the tea.’
‘Yeah, sure. Thank you, Frankie.’
‘What for?’
‘For catching me.’
‘I thought you were going to die,’ he says plainly, hands in his pockets. ‘I don’t mind admitting that I was absolutely terrified.’
I sit on the sofa with my knees tucked up beneath my chin. I wrap my arms around my shins and watch the fire. It is building, building in the grate, and the wood is beginning to char and blacken at the edges. Frankie goes into the kitchen, ducking his head beneath the low doorway. I miss the pills. They were keeping some of my thoughts at bay: the worst ones, the ones which hurt and scrape like blunt instruments.
‘Did you really see someone?’
‘I did.’
‘She was wearing your clothes?’
‘Yes – sort of. A costume I used to wear, a long time ago.’
There is a pause and I can hear Frankie moving about in the kitchen. The cupboard doors open and close. He appears in the doorway, hands in his pockets.
‘Stella, you’ve barely any food. Your milk went off two days ago.’
‘I’m sorry. I keep meaning to go to town.’
‘I’m not . . . Look, I’m not trying to patronise you – but what have you been living on? Dust and air?’
I press my hands lightly to my stomach where I can feel the bony protrusion of my ribs. I have been eating – I see the evidence of it: dirty plates, empty packets, apple cores growing fuzzy in the bin – but it has no rhythm, and I can’t remember when I last felt hungry.
‘Tell you what,’ he continues, ‘I’ll go and get you some stuff, shall I?’
‘Can I come with you? I don’t want to be on my own.’
‘Of course. You’ve had a shock and a shitload of adrenalin. I’d probably feel the same.’
Frankie whistles as he goes back into the kitchen, and I momentarily entertain myself with the thought that I am going with him because I want the company. I tell myself that it is because I do not want to be alone and that is partly true. I can tell myself that because it is easier than entertaining the paranoid daydream that Frankie will call Marco once he has left the house. Informing him, telling on me. She can’t cope, and she’s not eating, and she nearly died today. I shiver.
‘I have to make a quick stop,’ Frankie tells me as we walk to the van. ‘Shouldn’t take more than five minutes. I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet.’
Although the fog has lifted now the sun is still a hazy disc in the sky and the air is bright and cold. We drive into town, parking in a little mews facing a row of workshops and lock-ups. The clock on the dashboard shows me it is nearly four o’clock in the afternoon. And here is a new sensation, so unfamiliar to me that at first I do not recognise it. I feel hungry.
Frankie tells me he will just be a minute and disappears through one of the dark doorways opposite. I climb from the van and walk over the cobbles in a circle, head tilted to the clear blue sky. I only see him as I turn back, the man standing and watching me just a few feet away. He looks like a low-rent Johnny Cash, greatly weathered. His face is deeply lined, long brackets about his mouth. A geriatric teddy-boy, hair slicked back into an oily pompadour. Beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt a carton of cigarettes is just visible. His mouth is hanging open slightly, eyes wide. I know that look. It’s fear. I raise my hand, and he takes a step back, crossing himself as he does so. Forehead, chest, shoulder, shoulder. He can’t take his eyes off me, and I’m starting to feel uncomfortable, wishing Frankie would hurry back.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m just waiting for someone.’
‘You’re her.’
I get it. I nod, slowly. Katie Marigold. He’s about the right age to have seen it as an adult after all.
‘Yes, I am. Older now, but no wiser, ha-ha.’
He squints across the courtyard, shielding his eyes from the sun. ‘You,’ he says, and spits between forked fingers. ‘You’re more real than I am.’
Movement behind him; it’s Frankie coming out through the doorway. He stops when he sees the man I am talking to, and I have a moment to read the expression which crosses his face. He’s rattled. Why?
‘Stella, cool. You’ve met Jim Kennecker.’
Kennecker. I think on it for a second. Then, of course. The caretaker. I hold my hand out to him but he stares down at it, dumb. Frankie puts a large hand on the man’s scrawny shoulder.
‘You should probably get inside, Jim. Phone’s ringing.’
‘I was sorry to hear about your spell in hospital,’ I tell him. He looks at me, scratching his lip with a thumbnail and I know, I know, that what will be coming out of his mouth next is a lie.
‘Oh – yuh. My heart. I have a bad heart.’
‘Right.’
I look to Frankie who, I realise, is holding something. It is a lead, and at the end of that lead is a dog, a collie with amber eyes.
‘Uh, Stella, this is who I wanted you to meet. This is Blue.’
‘Hello, boy,’ I say. ‘Hello, Blue.’
‘Are you okay with dogs? Not allergic?’