Approaching Zero (22 page)

Kathy stopped outside Suri’s door—her grandmother’s door—and knocked urgently. “Suri, can I come in? Can I see you a moment?” The excitement was foaming up inside of her uncontrollably now. “Suri?”

There was no answer, which was surprising because her young charge had just been in the living room by her side, eliminating Jacky Chug, a known paedophile who actually had a job in a nursery.

“Suri?” Kathy pushed the door open and slowly, as politely as she could, peeped into the room. Although it wasn’t night time, the curtains were drawn and it took a few moments for the light from the hallway to convert the silhouettes in the room into recognisable shapes—the ancient furniture that would crumble if it was looked at the wrong way, her grandmother’s kitsch ornaments and porcelain dolls, the vague outline of a pattern on the red and gold fleck wallpaper. It took less time for the musty smell of the room to hit Kathy, which although nothing like the smell she always experienced, was intense in its own way—the smell of sickness and waste. It also took no time at all for the sound of guttural retching to reach her ears. “Suri?” she repeated, this time urgently, and slammed the light on. Fully illuminated, she could see that her Suri was shivering over the edge of tortured bedclothes, sweating profusely and, more disturbingly, vomiting a substance that looked scarily like blood.

“My God, Suri!” Kathy screeched and ran over to the bed. She seated herself beside the reclining figure and reached out to touch her forehead. She was burning up and the strain in her face clearly told that she was in unimaginable pain. “Stay there! I’ll call a doctor.”

“No!” Suri managed to say and with the effort came more heaving and more uncontrollable vomiting.

“But we have to, Suri. Something’s seriously wrong.” She was on her feet now, about to run down the stairs to the landline.

“No, Kathy, please. You cannot.”

“But–”

“You do not understand.” Suri turned onto her elbows, and released herself onto her back, letting out an almighty sigh that perhaps signaled the end of the vomiting, although her colour was still ghostly and the sweat told a story of its own.

“Here, drink this.” Kathy passed her the glass of water from the night table, but Suri waved it away. “What can I do?” the frustration in Kathy’s voice was evident.

“It is passing now. It always passes.”

“Always? So…what? You know what this is? You’re ill? Why didn’t you tell me? Do we need to get some special care for you?”

“Please, Kathy.” Suri closed her eyes, the conversation wearing her out. “This is what must happen. This happen when I hurt others, when I kill them, Kathy. It must happen and one day I am sure I will die with them.”

Kathy opened her mouth to answer this but nothing followed. How had she not noticed this? How had Suri kept this from her? She practically fell apart every time she used her powers and Kathy hadn’t even noticed a change in her pallor. What kind of woman was she? “Maybe if we get the doctor…”

“And tell them what? That I am murderer and this my penance?”

“Of course not, but we can get something to keep your temperature down and some sickness pills maybe. You don’t have to suffer like this.”

Suri smiled at this. “Yes, Kathy, I do,” she said and closed her eyes again.

The two of them sat silently for a few minutes and even in that time Kathy could see that Suri’s health was improving. When she had arrived she was sure that Suri would be leaving in an ambulance or worse. Now she was sitting up and talking. A few minutes later and the sweating had stopped, her temperature was under control, and the colour was returning to her.

“I would like to watch film now,” Suri said. “It is the only thing of help.”

Kathy passed her the tablet and saw for the first time just how important it was to her. She had previously thought her a little odd and indulgent for her love of movies and now all she wanted to do was run out and buy her a DVD player and a ton of disks.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kathy asked and realised as she said it that it wasn’t the first time she had had cause to ask this.

Suri shrugged as she scrolled through the options on YouTube. “You have me here to do job, Kathy. I will do job.”

“But…” Again, Kathy had no real idea of what she wanted to say. “Okay, look. We’ll only do one a day from now on, okay? And now that I know, I can take care of you. I can make sure that you have medication and that your room is fresh and that it’s as easy as possible for you. Okay?”

Suri looked up briefly and nodded. “Look, Kathy,
Teen Wolf
,” she said and just like that she was back again—the smiley teen that Kathy recognised. “It is a favorite.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it then. Just give me a shout if you need anything. Okay?”

“Okay. Thank you, Kathy,” Suri replied and her focus was immediately absorbed in the opening credits of the movie. Kathy backed out slowly and stood at the door watching her for a few minutes—her old self, smiling and bright again. The infliction was clearly a terrifying and painful ordeal for the young girl, but Kathy noted how quickly it passed and began to wonder what was more tolerable—Suri’s temporary pain or the existence of child molesters? She really didn’t need to think for long. True to her word, however, as the week progressed, she curbed her ambition to annihilate the paedophile population of the Midlands in one hit and limited their activities to one per day. She also picked up some more Paracetamol and a sickness remedy for Suri so she didn’t have to suffer the side effects quite as drastically. They made little difference, but she hoped that her presence—mopping Suri’s brow, keeping her room aired, her laundry fresh, and taking away her sick bowl—helped a little. She also paid for a subscription to an unlimited film package for the tablet, which seemed to make Suri happier than anything else.

With the weekend approaching, the list was eight monsters lighter and this news would be a great welcome gift for Brady. Kathy prepared her own room for Brady’s arrival and decided that she would take the sofa. Suri also seemed excited to be reunited with Brady. They had obviously developed a bond in the short time they had spent together. But the weekend also held an event that Kathy most definitely wasn’t looking forward to—dinner with Mum and her toy boy.

Chapter 21

When Saturday arrived, it was a day of watched clocks and empty tea mugs. Suri was far better at keeping herself occupied than Kathy and as they had deemed this a day off, she had taken herself to the cinema.

“You look lovely,” Kathy told her as she watched her leave. Suri was wearing one of her new outfits—leggings and a loose floral top—which was also a little childish in style compared to what her British counterparts would be wearing, but this was what Suri had chosen. Kathy had offered her the run of her makeup, but she had giggled, embarrassed by the idea and gone on her way. From what Kathy knew of teenagers, she was fairly normal, though (apart from the obvious). She had the happy, cheeky side that some people mislay in their teenage years only to pick up again when they get into their twenties, but she also had a more characteristic reclusive side, with her obsessive movie watching and the lack of conversations they had. If she were a less special girl, Kathy would imagine her having full-blown teenage tantrums and flatly refusing to do anything she was told.

“Don’t talk to any strangers?”

“No?” Suri turned back to Kathy with a concerned expression.

“It’s just something we say,” Kathy told her, choosing not to explain and then said, “Have fun.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Kathy sat on the sofa after Suri had left and was surprised by the fact that she actually felt the young girl’s absence. The house felt changed somehow now that she had left, even though it was only to see a film. The peace and quiet simply sounded like silence and the solitude was akin to a loneliness that Kathy wasn’t accustomed to experiencing. For the first time, she also began to think seriously about the life that Suri may have come from. Although she had no clue about anything in the girl’s past, she knew that she had a family and it was difficult being parted from a family.
Maybe we can organise some Skyping
, she thought, and then looked at the clock for the millionth time. She had followed Brady’s advice and hadn’t gone to any trouble for her return, but she was bursting to see her and just prayed that she arrived before she had to head out for the dinner from hell. Why did she even have to go?

“To meet my new stepdaddy who’s younger than I am!” she answered herself huffily.

Another look at the clock. The hands hadn’t moved an inch, but the next few hours did pass eventually as Kathy had resolved to make the best of it—bathing, straightening and styling her hair, getting dressed and made up and finally making two Clingfilm-covered sandwiches to stash in the fridge. One for Suri—peanut butter and jelly—and one for Brady, who still hadn’t shown her face, but Kathy knew all about her ‘ports of call.’ As she stood in front of the hall mirror once again, she couldn’t help smiling at what she saw. The woman in front of her was dressed in a classy black number with killer heels and had great hair and makeup. She also no longer showed the signs of her collision with Malcolm Scott. It was truly remarkable how the human body healed itself. In just over a week she had gone from puffy and red through a full bruisy spectrum, which included colours she didn’t even know existed, and now foundation was concealing the last of it. She smiled at herself and knew that there was more to it than the outfit and the healing; she looked lighter somehow, as if a massive weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and she wondered if the weightlessness would become absolute when every single pervert in the Midlands had been eradicated—and then she would float away and live a joyful life in the clouds where everything smells like candy and people talked in song. She smiled at the idea, wondering if perhaps the wine from the night before was still lingering in her imagination.

With one final glance at the clock, she saw that there were no more minutes left to cushion her against the impact of seeing her mum with some young fella, but she still managed to blow herself a kiss before locking up the house and jumping in the Mini. “You are only supposed to blow the bloody doors off,” she smiled to herself and started up the engine.

***

Kathy’s mother lived an hour’s drive away, which gave her a perfectly valid reason for the scarcity of her visits. She also lived in the city centre, again a good enough reason for her never to receive a visit. No one in their right mind could actually enjoy driving in the city and Kathy grumbled to herself the whole way there, and it didn’t stop as she manoeuvred through complicated lane and one-way systems in the city and sat in traffic that moved slower than Suri in the morning. She pulled the car into the carpark at around 7 p.m., got out of the car and looked up at her mum’s mighty tower block. Living in the city was bad enough; living in a skytickler was the limit. Kathy had tried to talk her out of it when she spoke of moving there, but she had been there for about ten years now and even Kathy could see that it had been the right choice for her. She had surprised Kathy by embracing her social side; she joined every group and society available to her and made a thriving city life for herself. This man—this Marcus—however, was the first whiff Kathy had got of there being a man in her life since her dad. The thought of it jarred her insides as she pressed the entrance button and waited for an answer.

“It’s me.”

“Come up, sweetheart.”

The twisting in her guts continued as she walked up the five flights of stairs. There was a lift, but she walked past it, not needing to speed up her journey. And what would he be like—this boy? Because that’s what he was. Her mum was approaching sixty.

“Sweetheart!” Mum greeted warmly before Kathy had finished with the stairs, the door to her flat flung open.

“Hello, Mum.”

“How was the drive? Did you find me all right?”

“I know where you live, Mum.”

“Oh?” It was an ‘oh’ that said so much, but the woman in front of her was also smiling in such a carefree way that the jibe didn’t stick.

“You look like the cat that got the cream.”

“Oh, I am, I am,” she beamed. “Come in, love. Come in! How are you? Are you keeping well? Are you safe? How’s work?”

“I’m fine, Mum. Stop fussing.”

“But you know how much I worry about you.”

Kathy followed her mother through the hallway and into the open-plan living room/kitchen. It was so much smaller than the house she had shared with Kathy’s father, but it had the touches that made it so familiar to Kathy, as if it were here that she had grown up; not just the photos and ornaments that she knew so well—Kathy at various stages of her schooling and career, big and little ceramic hedgehogs that her mother simply had to rescue from the shops whenever she saw them or the general décor, which was new while being simultaneously nostalgic, warm, autumn colours that her mother believed made a house a home and paintings of sunsets: always sunsets. There was something in the smell, or in the quality of the air itself, that existed only in the space around her mother and it prickled under Kathy’s skin as if she were fifteen again and ready to explode. Her appearance hadn’t changed dramatically since Kathy was a child either. She dyed her hair to cover the most obvious sign of aging and still had the fifties-esque style that was actually more fashionable now than it had been in the nineties when Kathy was growing up. She had obviously made an effort for the dinner and was wearing a long mauve number with a darker jumper that made her look unusually summery, but she couldn’t shake the edginess that made her seem permanently worried; it was in her posture and in the way her hands were always moving and her eyebrows always arched. Whether she looked like Kathy or not, Kathy had no idea; they were just so different in so many ways that it was impossible to tell if their features had originally been intended to look similar. Most people said that Kathy looked like her dad. She didn’t really see this either, though, especially now that he was always so tanned and, well, absent; she hardly saw him from year to year now to compare looks or exchange pleasantries.