She thought of her notebook. There was something she liked in it, something recent. She leaned forwards and pulled it out from under the bed. She showed Charlie her entry for the previous Thursday. Only one entry for the entire day. Betty.
Charlie looked at her quizzically.
‘Betty’s a new waitress at the restaurant,’ Glade said. ‘She’s got orange hair, masses of it. She’s from New Zealand.’ She paused. ‘I was working lunch that day and the sun was shining through the window and every time I looked round, the only thing I could see was Betty’s hair.’ She paused again, remembering. ‘It was like watching a fire move round a room.’
Charlie was staring at his shoe, and his mouth had stretched into a wide smile.
‘The walls are changing shape,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That happens.’
She stood up slowly, walked towards the door. Her legs felt solid, but artificial, as if they were made of the same thing all the way through. Some kind of plastic, perhaps. Or fibreglass. It seemed like an adventure, just to be moving. She opened the bedroom door and looked out into the corridor.
‘Long way to the kitchen,’ she said.
She heard Charlie murmur, ‘You want me to go?’
‘Maybe.’ Then she changed her mind. ‘No, it’s all right.’ The corridor seemed to slope downwards and then bend sharply to the right, though she knew that, in reality, it was both straight and level. At the end, where the kitchen should have been, everything was white and fuzzy, everything was glowing …
She left the room, walked halfway down the corridor. The gradient seemed steeper now, and she had to use the muscles in the front of her thighs to stop herself from breaking into a run. The white glow had intensified. She could have been a saint about to receive a vision: there was the same sense of suspended time, uncertain space. She thought she had better stay where she was — for a while, at least. She didn’t think she could make it all the way to the kitchen. And besides, she could no longer remember what she was going there for.
She looked over her shoulder. It was uphill to the bedroom, quite a climb; it tired her, just thinking about it. As she stood in the corridor, looking back towards her bedroom, she became aware that there was somebody outside the house. From where she was standing she could look down the stairs, one steep flight to the ground floor. The door to the flat was open — she must have forgotten to shut it when she let Charlie in — and she could see the turquoise carpet in the hallway and the white front door beyond. If she lowered her head a fraction she could see the top half of the door, with its two narrow panes of frosted glass. Part of that frosted glass had darkened. Someone was out there, on the other side.
As she moved backwards, feeling the cool wall against the palms of her hands, against her shoulderblades, she saw the letter-box downstairs begin to open. She stood in the shadows, her body motionless, her breathing shallow. A stranger’s eyes were staring into the house. Had he heard her walking down the corridor? Was he looking up the stairs? What if he could see her feet? She listened for a sound from him, but heard nothing. The house ticked and creaked. At least she heard the flap of the letter-box drop back into place.
She wasn’t sure how long she waited before she left the safety of the wall and made her way back up the corridor again. It must have been at least ten minutes — enough time, she thought, for that dark shape to vanish from behind the glass. In the bedroom nothing had changed. Red silk curtains, candles burning. Charlie Moore and his Old Holborn tin …
‘I’m not going out there again,’ she said.
Charlie looked up at her. His face had slackened, like the face of someone who has been through a long illness. His eyes were a strange colour, somewhere between fawn and grey. The colour of raincoats.
‘How do you feel?’ he said.
‘Fine.’ She lowered herself on to the cushions. ‘There was somebody at the door.’
‘It’s all right. He’s gone.’
‘Who was it?’
‘I don’t know. He was big.’ Charlie was turning a lighter on the palm of his hand. ‘He was wearing one of those nylon bomber jackets.’
‘Big?’ She couldn’t think who it might have been.
‘Maybe he had the wrong house,’ Charlie said.
‘Maybe.’ She was still trying to think. ‘He looked through the letter-box.’
Charlie put a roll-up in his mouth and lit it. ‘Did he see you?’
‘I don’t think so.’
A silence fell, broken only by the distant jangling of a burglar alarm. She was beginning to find it difficult to talk. The air had thickened, like fog; the corners of the room were disappearing.
‘That journalist,’ Charlie said after a while. ‘Have you spoken to him yet?’
‘Journalist?’
‘That friend of mine. I wanted him to look into the soft drink you were telling me about.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Apparently he’s been trying to call you.’
‘The phone’s been unplugged. Tom …’
Charlie nodded. ‘Maybe I should give him your number at work.’
Glade was quiet for a moment. ‘The man who came to the door,’ she said slowly, ‘you think that was him?’
‘No. He doesn’t know where you live.’ Charlie paused. ‘He told me he was having trouble getting anywhere. The company that makes Kwench! is American, and the people who work there, they have to sign a contract when they’re hired. They have to promise not to say anything that reflects badly on the organisation. It’s like an oath of allegiance.’ Charlie turned to look at her. ‘He thinks they’ve been doing something illegal.’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘What?’
‘He wouldn’t go into it. He wants to see you, though. He’s got all kinds of questions.’
Glade undid her skirt and took it off, then climbed on to her bed and slid between the sheets. ‘I’m not going to sleep,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to lie down for a bit. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘No, I don’t mind.’
‘You can lie here too, if you like.’
Charlie thought about it. He put his cigarette in the ashtray and unlaced his boots. He half-sat, half-lay down next to her, on the outside of the covers, with his shoulders propped against the headboard.
‘Feels good,’ she said, ‘doesn’t it.’
He nodded.
They lay side by side, the window open, the red silk curtains billowing. They were quiet for what might have been an hour. The room felt timeless, though. Cocooned. As if it were actually a capsule floating somewhere high up in the dark.
‘Glade? Are you awake?’
‘Yes. I just couldn’t speak, that’s all.’
Later, she noticed a flickering to her left and turned, thinking it must be some new effect the drug was having on her. But it was Giacometti, her cat. He had climbed up on to the mantelpiece and, having eased himself between the chimney-breast and the four candles, a gap of only a few inches, he was staring down at her, his eyes round and yellow, utterly expressionless. She found it inexplicable, miraculous, that he should be so calm. Because he had caught fire. The whole of his left side was burning, and yet he didn’t seem to care, or even notice. He just stood on the mantelpiece, looking down at her. She reached across, touched Charlie on the shoulder.
‘The cat’s on fire,’ she said.
Charlie leapt off the bed. After lying still for such a long time, Glade had almost forgotten that movement existed. She had certainly forgotten it was possible to move so fast. Just watching Charlie cross the room left her feeling curiously breathless.