“Bit of a shoddy wine list, isn’t it?” he said to Elly, before holding his hand out for her to shake.
He was pleasant enough. He asked Elly whether she’d eaten here before and what her favourite cut of steak was. But Ethan was quiet and surly from the off, giving the dinner an edgy atmosphere. When Martin asked Elly what she did for work, Ethan said quickly, “She’s a chef.” The kind of look he gave her made Elly feel like prey pinned down by an animal’s paw.
“Well,” she said, looking from him to Martin, wondering if she was missing anything, “I wouldn’t say chef, exactly. I just work in a bakery.”
Elly can still see it now: the way Ethan’s face seemedto drain of life, his grip tightening so hard around his fork that it turned his knuckles white. There was a long, awkward moment before Martin started to laugh. It wasn’t mean, not exactly, but it was very close.
“Fuck’s sake, Ethan.” He laughed, jabbing his brother in the side with his elbow. “Do Mum and Dad know that? They’ll never let you hear the end of it. A bakery, Jesus Christ.” He shook his head, then seemed to remember Elly was there. “No offence, Elly.”
“None taken.” She’d wanted to sink as far down as she could in her seat. “I love it there.”
“Well, good,” Martin said. “That’s good.”
For the rest of the meal, Ethan wouldn’t speak to her, would barely look at her. Every bite of steak seemed to take forever to grind down to nothing. Luckily, Martin had enough to say for all three of them, launching into lengthy speeches about Formula One, Bitcoin, the Bauhaus movement. Over dessert, he asked Elly whether she’d ever been to the Guggenheim.
“Don’t bother,” Ethan said, sticking a fork into the centre of his chocolate fondue and letting the sauce come spilling out, “she won’t even know what that is.”
Elly stared at him, waiting for a joking smile or wink that never came. Martin looked between them with a wry smile, but even he’d started to look uncomfortable. “Actually, I went when I was a teenager,” she said eventually. “My dad was a sculptor.” To Ethan, she added quietly, “You know that.”
It wasn’t until they’d said goodbye to Martin at the station and climbed into a taxi that Ethan finally turned to her. At first, Elly thought he was going to apologise forhis brother being so rude, or for his own odd mood all evening, say something like,I’m so sorry, I get a bit weird around my brother, you can probably see why.
Instead, in a voice as cold and precise as a scalpel, he said, “You’re going to stop working at the bakery, and you’re going to get a proper fucking job.”
When Elly says this, Theo looks away from the viewfinder and straight at her. It shakes her a little, brings her back into the room. “Jesus,” he whispers quietly. He leans all the way forward in his seat, as if he wants to reach out and touch her. She half-wishes he would – finds herself wondering whether his hands would be calloused or smooth, how they’d feel against her skin. It sends little jolts through her. It’s an effort to remember she’d been talking about her husband. She knows how it makes Ethan look, the story she’s just told, but the guilt she expects never arrives. There is so much more she could say, so much more that she wants to say: how his chides had turned to barely veiled insults about her job, her appearance, the food she made; how he’d sometimes go silent for days at a time, until she found herself apologising for anything she could think of that might have provoked him. The way he’d pull her close then gut her with his words, so she was never sure of the ground she walked on.You’re just lucky I’m so patient, Elly.
But Elly’s muscles are heavy now, her throat scratchy. She doesn’t know how long she’s been talking. “Can we stop there? I’m tired.”
“Sure.” Theo coughs, sitting back and clicking a button on the camera. The red light above the lens turns black.
***
She’s just dozed off into a light sleep when Margot shakes her awake. Her eyes are pale moons in the dark lake of the night. “Wakey wakey, Little Mouse. It’s your turn to watch Lakshmi.”
Elly rises reluctantly out of bed, the vestiges of her dreams clinging to her like leeches. Ethan in the bakery, snow in his hair. It all feels too close now, after talking about him with Theo. She pulls on a loose hoodie over her pyjamas, slow and stumbling, sensing the other bodies in the beds watching her. As she pads downstairs barefoot, Elly realises that this is as quiet as she’s ever heard the house: in the absence of voices, of music, of doors opening and closing, there’s only the occasional bird call and the creaking of the foundations, the house murmuring in its sleep.
In the parlour, Lakshmi lies still under a tartan blanket. Her lumpen form looks so small and insubstantial, as if she might fade away at any moment. The room is low-lit by table lamps, the French doors open a crack to let in a breath of air from the garden. Elly kneels beside Lakshmi and watches her chest rising and falling slowly, wondering how it is that she’s still alive. Her face is wan and drawn, sheathed in a thin sweat that glistens in the cleft above her upper lip, sweat curling the hair at her temples and forehead. Her right cheekbone is swollen, bruised, and there are bandages across her visible chest. Elly guesses that there are many, many more beneath the blanket. Lakshmi groans and Elly takes one of her hands. The skin is cool, clammy.
“You’re going to be okay,” she finds herself whispering. “I promise.”
Lakshmi’s lips tremble and part. They’re chapped, onthe brink of bleeding. She whispers something and Elly can smell her stale breath.
On the table beside the sofa, there is a glass of water with a straw, a flannel and some spare bandages. Elly dips the flannel into the water to wet it and then squeezes a drop or two onto Lakshmi’s lips. She imagines the drops snaking their way deep down into her body, seeking out the broken places.
“I’m sorry,” she says, although she isn’t quite sure what she’s sorry for. That Lakshmi fell? That she can’t leave the house now? That whatever happened to her meant she had to come to Hex House in the first place?
When Elly looks up, Lakshmi is smiling at her. She reaches out a hand to touch Elly’s cheek, brushing away a tear she hadn’t known had fallen. “No sadness,” Lakshmi whispers. “I was flying, didn’t you see?” She squeezes her eyes shut, wincing. “I wish he could have seen me. I wish he could have seen what I can do.”
Elly nods. She can’t stop the tears now. She doesn’t know who Lakshmi’s talking about, knows it isn’t her place to ask, so she says nothing. When Lakshmi opens her eyes again, they’re filmy, dull, devoid of lucidity.
“Is my dad here?” she whispers. “I want my dad here.”
“He’s coming,” she offers, hoping it’s the right thing to say. “He’ll be here soon.”
That seems to calm her. Lakshmi settles back into the cushions, closing her eyes again. Elly lays her head on the sofa arm, keeping Lakshmi’s hand in hers. She doesn’t realise she’s fallen asleep until Lakshmi squeezes her gently. When Elly looks at her, there’s a little more colour in her cheeks.
“You can go now, Elly,” she says. Her voice creaks like an old floorboard. She beams. “Haina’s here.”
Haina is standing in the doorway. She is as tall and serene as always. Her dark hair is unplaited and loose over her shoulders, and she wears a nightgown of orange silk. She isn’t smiling.
