The Magpies (18 page)

‘Welcome back,’ he said, under his breath.

Fifteen

‘So how was Paul?’ Kirsty asked when Jamie got home. She had taken a couple of days off work; she still felt unwell, as if there was something poisonous still working its way out of her system. She was in bed reading a book about pregnancy, a glass of water beside her.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve got a horrible headache.’

‘Why don’t you come to bed?’

‘Good idea.’

He undressed and slid beneath the cool quilt, closing his eyes. It was early evening; the birdsong outside had ceased and shadows were beginning to darken the room.

Kirsty turned over to face the wall. She closed her eyes. She could still feel the rumblings deep down in her stomach. It was nothing to do with being pregnant. It was illness, impure and simple.

‘It’s so good to have Paul back, though, isn’t it?’ she murmured drowsily.

‘Yes it is. But–’ He realised that, within that second, she had fallen asleep.

When Jamie awoke, it was dark. He squinted at the bedside clock. It was nine. They’d been asleep for several hours. His mouth felt like something had died in it or like he’d been eating fur. He sat up and scratched his chest then crossed to the window, pulling back one edge of the curtain and peering out at the quiet night.

He sniffed. There was a strange smell in the air, faint but unpleasant. At first he thought it might be gas, but it was too pungent. In fact, it was making him feel sick so, despite the chill, he opened the window. It didn’t help, so he pushed down the sash window, harder than he intended so it closed with a bang. In the bed, Kirsty groaned. ‘What time is it?’

He crawled onto the bed and kissed her hot forehead. ‘Just gone nine.’

‘Bloody hell. We’ve missed the whole evening. Hey, what are you doing?’

‘Lighting an incense stick. There’s a horrible smell in the air.’

He found a packet of lavender joss sticks and lit one, waving it around like a Bonfire Night sparkler, trails of lavender smoke curling to the ceiling and cleansing the room.

Kirsty said, ‘I couldn’t smell anything.’

She got out of bed and stretched her arms above her head. Jamie moved towards her, putting one hand just above her hip, leaning into her.

‘Ooh, your breath.’ She waved him away.

‘Thanks.’ He put his arms around her and kissed her neck.

‘You’ve got morning mouth, Jamie. Even though it is nine pm.’

‘I’ll clean my teeth.’

‘Yes, do that. But I’m getting up now. I’m not in the mood for sex. My stomach still hurts a bit.’

‘It’s not because you’re worried about making noise?’

She tutted. ‘No. For God’s sake, Jamie, I’ve just got a stomach ache.’

‘Alright, there’s no need to snap.’

He walked into the bathroom and cleaned his teeth. He felt guilty, but also concerned. Their sex life had dwindled since the Newtons had sent them the CD. Obviously, there was a lot more to their relationship than sex, but sex with Kirsty was still pretty much his favourite thing in the world and he hated the fact that it had been marred by the worry that they were being listened to every time they did it. They could pretend defiance, but when it came down to it, that knowledge meant they could no longer relax one hundred percent. Those bastards downstairs were clever – he had to give them that. He bet this was exactly the effect they had intended.

He splashed his face with icy water and told himself to snap out of it. What did it matter, anyway? Sex, or the lack of it, was the least of his concerns at the moment. His whole life was going to change. He leaned against the sink, water dripping from his face into the basin. He opened his eyes and caught sight of something running across the bathroom floor.

‘I just saw a real fuck-off spider in the bathroom,’ he said to Kirsty as they stood dressing in the bedroom.

‘What? Where did it go?’

‘Behind the toilet.’

‘And you didn’t try to catch it?’

‘I wish I hadn’t mentioned it now.’

Kirsty walked into the hall and peered into the bathroom without actually daring to go in there. Spiders terrified her and she hated herself for it: she didn’t want to be a pathetic female stereotype; but then, surely everyone was entitled to have at least one irrational weakness? Arachnophobia ran in her family. Her mum, her grandmother, her dad: they were all hopeless when it came to small, eight-legged creatures. It was the way they moved…oh God it made her go all cold and shivery inside. And in her imagination, the spiders were always much bigger than they really were. Multiply their size by five, or ten, or more. An average household spider turned into a tarantula. A common or garden British spider became a bird-eating monstrosity; a funnel-web beast that lay in wait for her behind the toilet, all eyes and teeth and long furry legs.

‘What did you mean when you said it was a fuck-off spider?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Was it really big?’ she called out. ‘Come on, you’ve got to tell me.’

Jamie was really regretting saying anything. ‘No, not that big. It was barely bigger than a five pence piece.’

‘You’re just trying to make me feel better.’ She went back into the bedroom and climbed on the bed. ‘You’ll have to catch it.’

‘But it ran behind the toilet. It’s probably disappeared beneath the floorboards by now. Kirsty, it was only a spider.’

She glared at him. ‘You know how I feel about spiders. And I shouldn’t be exposed to any stress in my condition.’ She touched her stomach.

Jamie realised she had found a way of making him do anything she asked over the coming months. He sighed. He loved her but sometimes she drove him mad. Her terror of spiders was so irrational. She was about a thousand times bigger than a spider. If this was Australia and the spiders were poisonous he’d understand it. But these were British spiders. They were pathetic little things. Completely harmless.

He went back into the bathroom and got down on his hands and knees. He peered behind the toilet. There were some dust-smothered cobwebs, but no sign of the spider. It had been quite big – one of those brown spiders with furry legs that they sometimes found in the bath (with Kirsty having to disinfect it after Jamie had scooped the creature up and thrown it out the window) – but Jamie wished he hadn’t described it as a ‘fuck-off’ spider. What with all the excitement and too much sleep, he hadn’t been thinking straight. He wondered if he should pretend that he had found the spider and act out throwing it out the window. No, she would know he was lying, and that would only make things worse – especially if it reappeared later.

He went back into the bedroom and she looked up at him hopefully.

‘Sorry, there’s no sign of it. I’m sure it’s long gone. Come on, let’s put dinner…’

Kirsty let out a yelp and jumped backwards onto the bed. Jamie spun round. A brown spider was scuttling across the carpet towards him.

‘Catch it!’ Kirsty yelled.

He crouched and cupped his hand over it, then picked it up and took it over to the window. He could feel its feathery legs wriggling against his palm. With his free hand he opened the window – breathing in another lungful of that sickly sweet, foul smell – and tossed the spider down into the garden. He walked towards Kirsty.

She shrank away and pointed towards the bathroom. ‘Go and wash your hands before you touch me.’

‘It won’t have given me any contagious diseases, Kirsty.’

‘Just wash them. Please. I can’t bear the thought that it’s been on your skin.’

‘OK, OK.’

He washed his hands halfheartedly, dried them, then walked back into the bedroom. His stomach growled. It was nine-thirty and he hadn’t eaten all day.

‘I’m going to put dinner on, OK? What do you want?’

‘I don’t mind.’

In the kitchen, he opened the fridge and stuck his head inside. Recently, they had been living on pre-prepared meals from Sainsbury’s, with a side-serving of frozen chips or vegetables. Jamie pulled out a vegetable lasagne, shook some chips onto a baking tray and turned the oven on. Before closing the fridge he took out a beer and cracked it open. He went over and sat beside Kirsty in front of the TV.

‘Was it the same spider?’ Kirsty asked.

He had no idea. ‘I think so.’

‘You’re not just saying that?’

‘No. I’m sure it was.’

Thirty minutes later he crossed to the kitchen to check if the dinner was ready. Not quite. He took another beer out of the fridge.

‘Are you having another drink?’ said Kirsty disapprovingly.

‘Well, I’m drinking for two now.’

She tutted.

‘Actually, I’m celebrating – celebrating Paul’s recovery.’ He paused. ‘Assuming he has recovered.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘He just seemed a bit odd. Cold. He didn’t seem particularly pleased to see me.’

‘You can’t expect him to be exactly as he was before the accident – not straight away. He’s probably experiencing a form of shock. And having all these people expecting him to be just as he was before the accident – I expect he feels a bit confused and pressurised. Like you said earlier, it must be quite overwhelming.’

‘I suppose so. I’ll go and see him during the next few days.’ He sipped his beer. ‘I can entertain him with tales of all that’s been going on here. Not that he was very interested when I tried to tell him today.’

‘I bet he’ll be really angry with Chris.’

‘No, that’s just it. He’s not. He said he was sure it was an accident.’

‘Really? Maybe the so-called accident’s made him turn religious. Forgive those who trespass against you and all that. God, what if he had one of those near-death experiences, where he was floating towards the light and a voice was calling him? He might become a born again Christian.’ She laughed at a sudden image of Paul standing in the street handing out religious pamphlets, trying to persuade lost souls to embrace their maker. ‘Maybe he’ll change his name to Lazarus.’

‘You’re dread…’ He stopped dead.

‘What is it?’ She followed his gaze. ‘Oh, shit!’

A small black shape crossed the threshold of the room and ran towards them on eight skinny legs. Kirsty jumped up onto the sofa, tucking her legs beneath her. ‘It’s come back.’ In her eyes, the spider wasn’t small or skinny. It was huge, with fat legs that drummed on the floorboards.

Jamie stood up. ‘No, it’s a different one. This one’s stripy and has got shorter legs.’

She gasped. ‘I don’t want a fucking description of it. I want you to get rid of it. Quickly.’

He knelt down and reached out for the spider, which was heading straight towards him. He grabbed it and, as he stood up, he heard Kirsty cry out.

‘It’s alright, I’ve got it.’

‘No – look – there’s another one.’

A second spider scurried into the room, heading straight towards the sofa. Jamie could tell that the magnifying glass of Kirsty’s arachnophobic vision made the spider swell to the size of a tarantula. ‘I don’t believe this,’ Kirsty yelled, her voice cracking. ‘What’s going on?

Jamie ran over to the front window, opened it with one hand, threw the first spider out, then tried to catch the next one. It ran under the sofa. Kirsty jumped off and ran over to the other side of the room. She was breathing heavily, clutching her chest.

‘It’s alright,’ said Jamie in a soft voice. ‘It’s only a little spider. It can’t harm you.’

‘Just catch it. Please. Oh my god…’ She screamed and started jumping up and down.

Jamie turned towards the doorway, to the spot at which Kirsty was pointing. Another spider entered the room. Then another. And another, and another, and another. A whole family of spiders, all of them with fat brown legs – all of them enormous, poisonous, hungry, as far as the barefoot Kirsty was doubtless concerned – scuttling across the carpet towards her.

‘Jamie!’

She screamed and threw herself back onto the sofa, eyes wide with phobic terror, clutching her feet to protect them from the wriggling legs that she was so scared of. She started to hyperventilate. Tears burned her eyes.

Jamie was frozen to the spot. He couldn’t believe this. Where were they all coming from? There was no way he could catch them all, so he picked up his shoe and brought it down on the first spider.

‘Kill them!’ shouted Kirsty.

The body of the first spider was stuck to the sole of his shoe. He whacked the second spider, then a third.

Kirsty shrieked. She had never let Jamie kill a spider before. No matter how much she hated and feared them, she would never allow one to be harmed. Now she wanted to see them crushed. She wanted them all dead. ‘Kill them!’

He killed them all, one by one, then sat back, panting, his heart thumping. He looked at the little wrecked bodies and immediately felt remorseful. They were only spiders, but they were so small and helpless. It was Kirsty’s fault for getting so hysterical.

He turned towards her. ‘Look what you made me do!’

‘What?’ She looked up at him. Her face was streaked with tears. He realised how petrified she had been, and now he felt remorse for shouting at her. He sat on the edge of the sofa and hugged her. She was shaking.

‘Where did they all come from, Jamie?’

‘I don’t know, sweetheart. I really don’t know.’

‘They were coming straight for me. They wanted to get me.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

She wiped her eyes with a trembling hand. ‘I bet it was them.’

‘Who?’

‘Them. Lucy and Chris. They sent them up here to get me.’

‘How could they have?’

‘Easily! They could have put them under the door, or I don’t know, maybe they trained them.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know what Lucy said about Mary being a witch. Well, maybe it’s really Lucy who’s the witch. She’s evil enough. I bet they poisoned us last night. We saw her go into the kitchen in the restaurant. And then they made those spiders come up here to get me.’

‘Kirsty, you should hear yourself. And how would they know you’re scared of spiders?’

‘They listen to us all the time. They’ve probably got it recorded.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘They’re probably listening to us right now, gauging our reaction, laughing at us. Oh God.’