Hold Your Breath

‘Marjory!’ my dad shouted.

Another scream answered in return.

Then he set off running and I followed, even though the woman was shouting at me to wait. We kept running and I realised we were going down a slope. At the bottom of it was a river, the water glinting and flickering, a big shimmering line through the woods. And in the stream was Mum. She was floating on her back, her arms slowly caressing the water, the movements making her look like an angel.

Except that angels didn’t scream.

‘Fuck!’ Dad shouted and looked around him. I’m not sure what he was hoping to find – maybe a boat which he could use to sail out to get her. ‘Stay on the bank, Kitty.’

‘But—’

‘It’s deep around here. Do as I say.’

He threw down his coat, pulled off his shoes, socks, and jeans, and started wading in.

‘Christ!’ he said. The water must have been cold. He should have kept his trousers on, I thought to myself. Then I remembered that there are few things in the world worse than wet jeans. Mum always used to say so when I was younger if we were caught in a rain storm in the park. Back when she did trips to the park.

Mum’s screams got worse as Dad grew nearer to her. He took her hand and pulled her back to the edge of the water. She was shivering, and so was he, although Mum didn’t let it interrupt her wailing. ‘I need you to walk, Marjory,’ Dad snapped at her. I was alarmed to see something dark on her arms, dripping down into her clothes, but as they came closer I realised it wasn’t red like blood, but rather deep, dark black.

It was paint.

‘What the hell is this?’ he shouted when he saw it.

‘At the back of the house …’ I said, struggling to get my words out, ‘I think she’s painted on the wall. It said LEAVE.’

He glanced over at me, his face filled with worry. ‘Kitty, go back into the house,’ he said, but I didn’t move. I was watching Mum walking slowly, leaning on his side, crying as she did so. As her breathing got slower, I managed to work out what she was screaming. ‘Poison. Poison. Poison. It burns him. It burns him. It burns him.’

Chapter 9

‘I told you to watch her, Kitty,’ Dad said as he helped Mum up the stairs to the bedroom and began towelling her down.

‘You didn’t actually,’ I murmured. I watched him as he helped Mum out of her wet clothes, looking at her nakedness; her pale, white skin, slightly shrivelled from the water, now clean after Dad had washed the paint off. Once she was dry, he helped her into her night clothes and then got her into the double bed.

‘Let’s let her sleep,’ he said. ‘Come on. I need to introduce you properly to Amanda.’

I followed him downstairs. The spider I had been trying to befriend earlier had come out to see what was going on, peering down from the side of the banisters, his legs wrapped around the flaked white-painted wood. I stopped to look at him, stretching out my hand to see if he’d crawl onto it, but Dad snapped at me. ‘Kitty, I told you to come.’

I left the spider for another time and followed him through into the lounge. The woman – Amanda, apparently – was sitting on the sofa, looking comfortable and relaxed, as if she’d always lived here with us and we were all one big happy family.

‘Hello Katherine!’ She smiled a wide smile, her hoopy earrings swaying as she turned her head to look at me.

‘It’s Kitty,’ I said, staring back at her. I didn’t smile.

‘How lovely. It’s such a pleasure to meet you in person. I’ve heard so much about you from your father.’

I looked over at Dad, who had sat down in the armchair near the fireplace. ‘Amanda was kind enough to give me a lift back. My car broke down when I went to the shops earlier. We’ll need to go and get it in the morning.’

I nodded, but remained silent. If all she did was give Dad a lift from the shops, why was she still here sitting on our sofa?

‘Are you two friends?’ I asked, looking from one to the other. There was something odd about all of this and I didn’t like not being told things.

‘We’re … yes, we’re friends,’ Amanda said, nodding. ‘Your father actually helped me a lot with an insurance issue I had with my flat down in Thurrock, near where you both live. That’s how we first met. I mentioned I was originally from up here and he should say hello if he should ever visit. And lo and behold, there he was, on the side of the road, with a broken-down car.’

I frowned at her. I wasn’t quite sure which bit of her explanation to argue with, but something about it sounded false.

‘It’s quite an interesting place you guys have moved into,’ she carried on, looking around her. ‘You’ll need to stand on a chair or two to reach those cobwebs up there. But I’m sure you’ll help your father get it all spick and span.’ She gave me her smile again. I didn’t return it.

Dad glared at me from his seat, as if he thought I was showing him up or something. I didn’t care. He’d left me all alone and he must have known that what had happened was a possibility. It wasn’t my fault Mum escaped. He never said to lock her up or anything. It wasn’t like she was our prisoner, after all. Not like one of those Colditz people Mr Gregory showed us at school on a video he brought in.

After a minute or two of sitting there in silence, Amanda eventually got up. ‘Well, then. I better get going. Lots to do. Got three dogs at home. Yappy little things. They’re not even mine – my sister’s. Just one night left before she gets back from her holiday and I can return them. They’re one big nightmare as a pack, I can tell you. Rather terrify me. They’ve probably ripped up the house in protest by now.’

I turned my gaze on her. ‘I’m never terrified by dogs. I like animals.’

She nodded, raising her eyebrows slightly. ‘Good. That’s good, Kitty. I’m pleased. Well, I might borrow them off my sister one day and bring them round these woods for a walk as a special treat.’

I wasn’t sure if she meant it would be a special treat for me or for the dogs, but I didn’t ask.

‘Right, off I go then,’ she said, walking towards the door. Dad jumped up to follow her. ‘I hope your mother has a calm night and feels better in the morning.’

Dad said a few things to her at the door that I couldn’t properly hear, but I did make out the word ‘tomorrow’. The door closed and Dad came back into the lounge.

‘Time for bed,’ he said, not properly meeting my gaze.

Tomorrow arrived sooner than I expected. It felt like I’d only closed my eyes for a short few minutes before I opened them again, light shining in through the dirty window, some creature tap-tapping outside it. A magpie. It seemed pretty determined to undo the latch on the window and join me in my bed, but I didn’t dare let him in. Little animals, like spiders and beetles, rarely caused a fuss. Usually my parents didn’t know I had one. But something as big as a bird wouldn’t go down well. Plus, there was every chance Dad would still be cross about the previous night.

The memory of last night was liquid. It rippled when I tried to touch it in my mind, just like the folds of water that lapped against the side of the stream down the hill through the woods. I thought about Mum screaming, and Dad and that woman talking in whispers. The water on Mum’s body. The damp leaves clinging to her skin like black bruises; the trails left by the paint running down her arms. I felt bad that she escaped, but at the same time there wasn’t really much I could have done. And Dad had been gone for hours. Hours and hours. I didn’t mention last night how unfair the situation was, because I didn’t think I needed to. I made a plan to drop it into conversation if he started complaining about the next little creature I adopted.

Breakfast downstairs didn’t go well. Mum started off talking quite normally for once – or normal for her – not mentioning her ordeal in the river. Instead, she lectured me and Dad, in a quiet, matter-of-fact sort of voice, on how bread made by a baker who hadn’t washed his hands both ‘prior and after’ kneading the dough could quite likely pass on ‘Satan’s stain’ to those who later consumed it. She said this was particularly likely if ‘the baker had taken part in fornication or similarly wicked deeds’ before the bread’s flour was sifted. I was a bit confused by this, but it clearly annoyed Dad; he seemed to take it as a dig towards the loaf of bread he had brought back from his hours-long trip yesterday.

‘I don’t think Hovis let their sodding factory workers do anything wicked before sifting the flour,’ he remarked sternly, taking up two thick slices and buttering them generously. Mum poked about at her slice, which had been meticulously toasted to the right shade by Dad, as per her instructions. In the past, it would have been me being fussy over how my bread was toasted, and Mum telling me to ‘stop being silly’ when I objected to it being undercooked or burnt. She’d always give in though, toasting me a nice slice just the way I liked it, with extra chunks of orange peel she’d scooped out of the marmalade jar, just for me. Now, I felt like we were going in opposite directions, as if someone had reversed her timeline to make her become younger as I started to get older, her slowly becoming the child again. A child who needed an adult to sort out her fussy little problems. And bigger problems, too.

‘Please eat,’ Dad said, sending one of his cross glances her way.

Mum shook her head and pushed her plate away. ‘I think it would be better if I went back to bed,’ she said, looking not at Dad but instead over towards the ancient-looking refrigerator in the corner by the wall.

I thought back, then, to one time when Dad had tried to encourage Mum out to eat breakfast in the garden, on a warm sunny day in late spring. She wouldn’t go. She’d been terrified someone was outside waiting for her, convinced the unusual invitation for ‘al fresco dining’, as Dad called it, was a sinister trick. She accused Dad of calling for people to come and take her away to somewhere she could never come back from. ‘Promise me,’ she’d pleaded, ‘you never will. Promise me you’ll never call them.’ He’d promised her then. Promised her never to send her away. I had a feeling it was a promise he would one day have to break. That he couldn’t keep indefinitely. But for now, at least, he seemed to be keeping his word.

With Mum now ignoring his attempts to coax her into eating, Dad got properly cross. He threw down his bread and lined up the different types of spread on the table – raspberry jam, Marmite, blackberry jam, peanut butter, on-the-comb honey – saying each one’s name out loud. Mum still refused to properly look his way, and flinched as each jar landed on the wood in front of her.

‘Surely there is one of these you could possibly fucking contemplate eating,’ he said, starting to shout now. ‘One of them must free the bread from Satan’s fucking stain or whatever shit you’re about to come out with next.’

He didn’t normally say words like this to Mum and she seemed upset by it. Tears started to fall down her face and she began muttering something containing the words ‘Jesus’, ‘God’ and ‘forgiveness’. Dad then got a bit sad too, and started to say he was sorry. He tried to hug Mum, but she screamed and he went back to his seat and ate the rest of his toast in silence. I chewed on the little pile of toast squares on my plate and tried to think nice thoughts.

After breakfast, Dad announced that today would have a ‘bit more structure’ compared to yesterday. For a second I thought he was about to apologise properly for leaving us alone for hours, but he didn’t. ‘Today, we’re going to have some visitors. Some very nice, very important visitors who are going to want to talk to us.’ He turned to me now. ‘Or, specifically, Kitty, they’re going to be talking to Mum. So there might be some moments where you’ll have to go and amuse yourself. I’m sure you’ll find things to do up in your room. Or, in fact, it might be better if you went exploring for a bit. Only nearby. Not too far. Our visitors are going to want to have a nice long chat with your mum and me without any disruptions.’

‘I don’t cause disruptions,’ I said. ‘I just sit by and watch them happen.’

Dad looked a little confused by this. ‘Right,’ he said at last. Then he made a big fuss of tidying everything, preparing for the guests, getting everything tidy when it was already quite tidy, while Mum sat there, like a strange statue, not moving a muscle.

Chapter 10

Mum was upstairs asleep when the guests arrived. She’d started muttering again about returning to bed and eventually Dad gave in and went upstairs with her to settle her down. A little while later, I heard him greet people at the front door and I heard a voice I recognised. Amanda had returned. She was, apparently, one of the guests, along with a strange-looking, and very round, old man. ‘Hello Katherine,’ she said from the doorway to the lounge as Dad brought them in.

I said nothing.

‘I hope you’re all rested after last night’s excitements?’

She said it like a question, but I thought it a foolish one. I just stared at her until she looked away and started to take off her coat. Dad should have asked her for it at the door, but he often forgot these things. It used to annoy Mum. Back before Mum started to annoy Dad. Back before Mum started to make Dad look stressed and pale white all the time.

‘Shall we all sit down in the lounge here for a bit of a chat?’ Amanda asked, settling herself down on the sofa and patting the seat next to her.

‘Do you live here?’ I asked. It was something I’d been wondering since we’d arrived; whose cottage this was before we made it our temporary home.

She laughed a little. ‘Goodness me, no. But the owners of it are acquaintances of mine. Your father got a very good rate from them.’

I looked over at Dad, who had been talking to the old man, offering him something to drink. ‘Tea. Proper tea, milk in first, there’s a good chap,’ the old man said. His voice sounded a little posh, but old-person posh, not really-rich posh, and he sat down in the armchair by the currently dead fire.

‘And you must be Katherine,’ he said to me. This made me jump, as he wasn’t looking towards me, since the chair was facing the other way. I could only just make out the tip of his white hair, barely covering his bald spot, poking over from the top of the chair’s frayed top. I hadn’t accepted Amanda’s invitation to sit next to her, but I decided to leave my position by the doorframe and walked over to face the old man in the chair.

‘My name is Kitty,’ I said, sternly. ‘I rarely answer to Katherine. Only in emergencies.’

He seemed to find this funny. ‘Oh very good, very good,’ he said, laughing.

I looked down at his clothes. They were completely black, except for a white bit that could be seen under his collar at the front. I recognised it as a dog collar and pointed.

‘You must be a vicar.’

‘Well, well, well, you are a clever one,’ he said, then laughed again.

I lowered my hand, unsure if he was mocking me. I didn’t like to be mocked.

‘Well? Are you?’ I said in a way Dad would have called rude if he wasn’t busy in the kitchen making the tea.

‘In a way, in a way,’ he said, smiling.

‘In what way?’ I asked, but that set him off chuckling again.

‘Why don’t you come and sit down with me,’ Amanda said from over on the sofa.

I ignored her. ‘Why are you here?’ I asked the old man. He didn’t stop smiling, but he did narrow his eyes a little.

‘I think that subject is best discussed when your father is back in the room,’ he said. He nodded a little after saying it, then looked towards Amanda. ‘I think my daughter over there offered you a seat. You should probably take it.’

‘Your daughter?’ I stared between Amanda and the old man. ‘But she’s old. How can she be your daughter?’

I saw both of them look at each other, then they laughed again. I was starting to get really tired of the laughing.

‘Oh, Katherine, how blunt you can be,’ Amanda said. ‘I’m not that old. I’m only thirty-seven.’

‘And I am a good three decades older than that. And a bit more,’ the old man said, winking at me. People winking at me made me feel weird, so I walked away from him and took the seat next to Amanda that she’d been patting for a while.

‘I see you’re all getting on like a house on fire,’ Dad said, coming into the room with two mugs on saucers. He set them down on the scruffy coffee table in the middle of the room, and then hovered by the old man’s chair. ‘So, what are we all talking about?’ he said. He was trying to look cheerful, but I could tell he was worried about something. Dad never smiled this much these days. There was something very odd about his face right now.

‘Katherine was just suggesting I’m getting on a bit,’ Amanda said, then laughed some more. ‘Practically called me ancient!’

Dad looked shocked. ‘You didn’t, did you Kitty? That’s very rude.’

I glared back at him, anger rising in me. ‘She’s lying.’

Amanda, still smiling broadly, waved her hand. ‘Oh it’s nothing. I dare say to someone of Katherine’s age I probably do look quite old.’

‘Even if she does insist on wearing that infernal leather jacket of hers’, the old man said, shaking his head a bit. ‘Trying to be one of the young, hip, trendy ones, I’m sure.’

‘I do try,’ Amanda said, winking at me. Why were all these people winking, I thought as I looked from her to the old man.

‘Well, I don’t think you look ancient,’ Dad said. He was putting on a nice voice, a bit posher than normal, so he sounded more like these people and less like how we all normally talked. I’d heard him do this before, like when he talked to people at the bank or the doctor’s. It seemed strange he’d be doing it now though with this odd pair.

‘Well, that is enough merriment for now,’ the old man said. ‘If we’re all settled, let’s just give Katherine here a rundown of what to expect over the coming days.’

I looked at him with a strong, fixed gaze. Unlike most people I did this to, he didn’t look away. Although I was sure I didn’t like this man, I couldn’t help but be a little bit impressed.

‘Yes, that sounds sensible,’ Dad said.

‘Right, OK then. Katherine—’

‘Kitty,’ I cut across him.

‘Kitty. Yes. Quite.’ He nodded, as if giving me permission to be called what I wanted. ‘Well then, Kitty, my daughter Amanda and I are going to be staying here, in your lovely house, for the next week, maybe a little more. The length of time isn’t fixed. We’ll be coming and going, as there isn’t space for us all to sleep here at any one time. Amanda will be more “residential” than me. My bones are old, and I’m not quite as adept at sleeping on a sofa as I once was.’ He paused, as if waiting for me to laugh, and when I didn’t he smiled and carried on. ‘As you may have guessed, this concerns your mother.’

My eyes flicked to the ceiling, where I could hear Mum shuffling around. There was the occasional clunk of something heavy; I suspected she might be rearranging the furniture. She had a bit of a preoccupation with nightstands and bedside tables. She liked them to be as far away from the bed as possible.

‘We don’t want to upset you, Kitty.’ Amanda was talking now, but I carried on looking at the old man in the religious clothes. ‘But your mother is exhibiting some behaviour that some may call … well … disturbing. And my father and I – and indeed your father, too – believe we might know how to sort it out.’

I said nothing.

‘The sorting-out part,’ the old man now said, ‘will be what we’ll focus on, at least for the next few days. This might take a bit of trial and error, and I don’t imagine we’ll achieve success straight away, or even particularly quickly. This is why I said there’s no fixed time to us being here. This is very rough work. Interesting, of course. Very interesting, and your mother is a particularly fascinating case. I don’t think I’ve really encountered that many similar, aside from a young woman from Baghdad who—’

Amanda coughed quietly, and the old man very obviously changed what he was about to say.

‘So, anyway, will you allow us to take up your lovely home? And you won’t mind if we need you to be absent for a little while while we try our best to help your mother?’

I thought for a little, and then looked up at Dad, who was staring into the distance, as if in his own world. ‘This isn’t my house. I don’t think it’s lovely. And I don’t really have a choice about you being here.’

Silence greeted these words for a bit, then the old man started laughing again, ‘Well, I do like a young girl to know her own mind, and it sounds like you certainly do. Thank you, Kitty, for being so honest.’

I nodded once, short and sharp. ‘I’m not a liar.’

‘Certainly not. I never would have thought it.’ He smiled widely at me again. ‘So, I think it’s time to bring down your mother and let us have a chat with her. I think, so long as your father agrees, it might be useful for you to remain for this introduction. Your presence might help put your mother at ease. But I understand if you wish to leave if she responds badly to us and it starts to become upsetting for you.’

Dad left the room without really reacting to the old man’s words. I heard him going up the stairs and then some mumbling from one of the bedrooms.

‘Do you get upset, Kitty?’ Amanda said, in what she probably thought was a kind, child-friendly voice. ‘About your mum? About her … moments of distress?’

I considered this for several seconds, then answered her. ‘I used to. But not now.’

Amanda nodded and looked as though she was going to say something else, but then the sound of two people on the stairs signalled Dad’s return, accompanied by Mum. She wasn’t screaming just yet.

‘Hello, Marjory,’ Amanda said warmly, standing up from the sofa and going over to her. She held out her hand and Mum took it, not looking at her, but peering around the room, as if hunting for something. Amanda clasped Mum’s hand between hers and said, ‘We’ve been looking forward to properly meeting you. We didn’t get the chance to speak last night.’

At the mention of last night, Mum’s gaze snapped to Amanda and she looked worried. ‘Have you come to take me away?’

Amanda looked worried too for a moment, then said, ‘Oh no. No, no, no. Definitely not. We’re here to help you. We have no wish to take you out of this beautiful woodland property you have.’

‘It’s not beautiful,’ I murmured, more to myself than to Amanda, but Dad hissed ‘Kitty!’ at me. I glared at him, and then looked at the floor.

‘I’m Amanda, and this,’ Amanda said, gesturing to the old man, who was also rising from his chair, ‘is my dad, Father Tobias Kent.’

The effect on Mum was instantaneous. She yelped as if she’d been kicked, then fell to the floor and clasped the man’s black clothes, saying, ‘Please, please, help me.’

He lowered himself slowly to her level, knees clicking, and took hold of her hands. ‘That, my dear, is the very reason we’re here.’

She was shaking now, and tears started to roll down her face. ‘Please. We don’t have much time. When … when he finds out you’re here … he’ll be so angry.’

Father Tobias Kent nodded. ‘Then we’d better get started straight away.’

Chapter 11

I was sent out into the woods soon after the introductions had been made. Mum’s sobbing became loud and close to hysterical, and Amanda decided it would be better for me to go and play.

‘Play with what?’ I asked. She laughed as if I’d made a joke, but I didn’t really see what was funny.

‘Explore! Make a fort from sticks! Just don’t get lost. Stay in the nearby vicinity of the house, or your dad will worry.’

She closed the door, leaving me outside in the cold. I wasn’t sure my cardigan would be enough to keep me warm. Amanda hadn’t said how long I should stay out for.

I began by checking the outer walls of the house for creatures, and I was pleased to find a patch of snails around the back wall. I removed them from their place on the concrete and lined them up on a large thick log that was resting next to a nearby tree. The log must have been an upright tree itself at some point, I thought to myself. I wondered how it fell. I could fell a tree, I thought, as I watched the snails making their tracks across the damp, rotten bark. That would have made all of them in the house sit up and take notice.