THEN
Noelle Donnelly’s house was small and tidy and smelled exactly like Noelle Donnelly.
“Let me get you a squash,” said Noelle in the hallway. “You go and sit down.” She gestured into the small front room.
Ellie peered through the door into the room and then smiled politely. “I think I’d better not stay,” she said. “I’ve got loads and loads of work to do.”
“Nonsense,” said Noelle. “You can spare two minutes. Besides, it’ll take me that long to unearth the thing. You might as well take a seat and have a drink. Orange or elderflower?”
Ellie smiled stiffly. She was in a corner. “Elderflower,” she said. “Please.
Thank you.”
Noelle smiled at her strangely. “Yes,” she said, “elderflower. Of course. I’ll be one minute. You sit down.”
Ellie sidled into the living room and perched herself on the farthest edge of a brown leather sofa. The room was filled to its limits with houseplants and smelled earthy and slightly sour. The wall around the fireplace was bare brick and the hearth filled with sprays of dried flowers and some terra-cotta animals that looked as though Noelle might have made them herself. Overhead was a bulb in a globular paper shade and the windows were obscured by wooden Venetian blinds, one slat of which was missing, allowing a reassuring view of a strip of cherry blossom and sunshine. Ellie stared through the gap in the blinds, imagining the world beyond Noelle Donnelly’s front room.
“There you are,” said Noelle, placing a glass of squash in front of her.
The squash looked nice. It was in a pretty glass, clear with green polka dots. She was thirsty. Noelle watched her as she lifted the glass and began to drink
from it. “Thank you,” she said, putting down the almost empty glass.
Noelle glanced at the glass and then at Ellie. “Oh, lovely girl, you are welcome. Now, you wait there and I will get the papers and be back in a short minute.”
She left the room and Ellie heard her heavy steps ascending the stairs. Like a baby elephant, as Ellie’s mum would have said.
Stamp stamp stamp stamp . . .
She was unconscious before Noelle had made it to the landing.
 |
Ellie heard a sound, a tiny woody squeak. A chair, moving. Then she heard a breath.
“You’re awake now, are you?” said Noelle from somewhere in the dark. “Now, listen. I really want to apologize to you. This is a terrible thing. A terrible thing I’ve done to you. Unforgivable really. But I hope you’ll see why, in time. I hope you’ll understand.”
In time.
Ellie struggled against the glue. Nothing moved.
“The effects will wear off soon. Or, well”—Noelle laughed—“at least I hope they do. It said on the Internet three to twelve hours. And you’ve been out for twelve. So.” She laughed again and Ellie thought, It’s 11 p.m. I’ve been away from home since ten o’clock this morning. My mum.
Her eyes had started to lose their heaviness and she could make out parts of the room now. The cool glow of moonlight through a narrow window set high in a wood-clad wall, a toilet and sink in a recess behind a curtain, empty shelves on a wall, a small wardrobe. And there, in front of a closed door, the outline of Noelle Donnelly, legs crossed, hands in her lap.
Ellie tried again to lift her head and this time managed to move it a millimeter or two.
“Oh, there you go,” said Noelle. “You’re coming through it now. That’s great. I’ll just sit here with you for a while longer and then when you’re sitting up I’ll get you something to eat. You missed your lunch and your dinner and you must be ravenous. What would you like? Maybe just a sandwich? I have some good ham. I’ll do that for you.”
She stood then and picked up a cup from the table by the bed. “Here.” She
angled a bendy straw toward Ellie’s mouth. “Drink some water. You must be parched.”
Ellie sucked at the straw and felt the tepid water spread across the dry towel of her tongue and the papery roof of her mouth.
“My mum,” she croaked, “my mum.”
“Ah, now, don’t you worry about your mum. She probably just thinks you’re off canoodling somewhere with that boy of yours. It’s a lovely evening. Just like last night. Summery, you know, the sort of evening you want to go on for longer.”
“No,” Ellie said through a parchment throat, “she’ll be scared. My mum.”
And she felt it then, like a needle in her heart, the love her mother always talked about. “You won’t understand how much I love you until you’re a mother yourself.”
But she felt it now and all the pain in her heart was for her mother, her mother who she knew would be crying and worrying and feeling the meaning of her life slipping away from her. She couldn’t bear it. She truly couldn’t bear it. “Of course she won’t be scared. Don’t be daft. Now, let’s see if we can sit you up. Can you move your fingers now? Your toes? Your arms? Ah, yes, there you
go. Good girl. That’s great, that really is.”
And then Noelle Donnelly’s arms were around her waist and she was being pulled gently up the bed and she could see more now, she could see that she was in a room lower than ground level, walls clad with dirty gold pine.
“Where am I?”
“In the basement. Which makes it sound worse than it is. It’s my guest room, really. Not that I ever have any guests. But I used to keep all my overspill in here, you know, bric-a-brac, but knowing you were coming I had a good clear-out. Took it all to the Red Cross shop. So now we’re very minimal. There now.” She adjusted the pillow behind Ellie’s head. “All comfy. I’ll go and get you that sandwich. You just rest a bit. But don’t try and get up. You might fall out of the bed and hurt yourself, being a bit woozy as you are.”
She smiled at her indulgently, like a kindly nurse. “Good girl,” she said, running her hand down Ellie’s hair. “Good girl.”
Then she turned and left the room.
Ellie heard one lock click into place. And then she heard another. And then one more.
|
Ellie didn’t eat her sandwich. Despite the pain of an empty stomach, she wasn’t at all hungry. Noelle silently removed it and said, “Ah, well, I’m sure you’ll be hungry in the morning. We’ll try again then, eh?”
Then she looked fondly at Ellie and said, “Oh, it is a treat to have you here, it really is. Now you sleep tight and I’ll see you bright and early.”
“I want to go home!” Ellie yelled out at Noelle’s back. “I really really want to go home!”
Noelle didn’t reply. The three locks clicked into place. The room turned black.
