“Why?” That’s the man with the walking stick.
All their faces are looking at me expectantly, round and blank as moons. I swallow.
“I’m here to assess Alice.”
“She’s here for the same reasons we are,” the woman says. The dog is panting, unfurling a long, pink tongue. She jerks the lead. “To see if all that they’re saying is true.”
I can’t meet her eye because she’s right, isn’t she? Thatiswhy I’m here, with my photograph and my expectations and my fragile, beautifulhope.I told Oscar it was research and told Sam it was a learning experience, something to shore up my qualification—but underneath it all I’m just like these people, needing answers. I suddenly feel exactly as Oscar told me I would. Unprepared and overwhelmed.
Lisa opens the doorfor me. She casts a single disparaging look over the small crowd before ushering me inside.
“They’ve been out there since six o’clock,” she says, bitterly. “One of them reckons Alice is sending him messages in his sleep. He’s cut off bits of his hair and put them in an envelope.”
She opens the little paper package to reveal twists of wiry, black hair. I flinch away, revolted.
“I dread opening these things when I find them on the doorstep, now. What will they send her next? Where does it stop? I don’t know how much of this I can take, Mina. It’s like living in a goldfish bowl. I’ve got to fight these weirdos just to get to the corner shop.”
I attempt a sympathetic smile. Unmoved, she fixes me with her cool gray eyes.
“Honestly, Mina, what’s happening to her? What if it’s serious? What if there’s something wrong with my little girl?”
Her voice cracks and her hand covers her mouth. I put an arm around her narrow shoulders, feeling her bony shoulders shudder as she stifles a sob. She hides her face against me, presumably so the younger children don’t hear. I speak quietly when I say, “Lisa, whatever it is, I’ll find out. I promise you. That’s why I’m here.”
“I know, I know.” She sniffs loudly, taking a couple of long, deep inhales until her throat crackles. “I’m sorry. It’s all this horrible business—the heat wave and Alice and now the phone’s gone down and they’re talking about power failures all over the country. I’m just so tired.”
Sam appears in the kitchen doorway. His hair is damp as if he has just showered, a cup of coffee in his hand.
“They’ll have to go inside soon. Legally, I mean. It’s just been on the news.”
“What has?”
“Curfew. They just announced it on the radio. We’ve all got to stay indoors between noon and four. Hottest hours of the day, apparently. The next few days, temperatures are going to soar, according to the weather.”
Lisa and I exchange a wide-eyed glance as Sam continues, “If they stay out there all day they’ll either be arrested or hospitalized with heatstroke. Either way, they’ll be out of your hair.”
I don’t find the thought comforting. It makes me think of all those desperate people going to ground, waiting for dark to emerge again and collect in the shadows of the evening.
TEN
As Sam sets up the video camera in the sitting room to prepare for interviews with the other members of the Webber family, I find myself standing outside Alice’s bedroom door. My mouth is tacky and dry with nerves, heart fluttering in my throat. I’m holding Sam’s Dictaphone in my left hand, a notebook in my right. He wants everything documented, right down to the dreams we’re having. I haven’t yet told him about the noises outside my room last night or the dense, empty silence as I yanked the door suddenly open. I want to speak with Alice first.
I knock softly, and when there is no reply I gently push open Alice’s bedroom door. I’m instantly struck by the same thick odor that I noticed last night at dinner—a coppery, mineral-rich smell, like sunless water in a still lake. It’s stronger here, in this airless, gloomy room, and almost sweet like marzipan. Alice issitting in bed, leaning against the headboard with a magazine on her knees. Her skin is burnished a dark and ugly red except in the places where her sunburn has started to peel; the bridge of her nose, her shoulders. Her hair is loose and unwashed and even though she smiles at me as I walk in I notice how tightly the tension is drawn on her features. She lowers her headphones and straightens up as I close the door behind me.
“What star sign are you?” she asks brightly.
“Sorry?”
“Your star sign, Mina. What is it?”
She indicates the magazine open in front of her. The curtains ripple slightly as I walk past them and lower myself onto the end of her bed.
“Um, Pisces I think. Why?”
She clears her throat and reads aloud.
“Your horoscope for July. ‘Tough times call for tough measures, Pisces, and we all know how much you hate difficulty. A man with red hair will catch your eye but he could spell danger.’”
She lifts her eyes to meet mine, smiling slightly. “Woah. ‘A man with red hair.’ Spooky! Who do we know with red hair, I wonder?”