“Want to go out for Indian tonight?”
She shook her head, turning away. “I want to stay in. There’s something on telly. You go on. You could bring me something back, if you wouldn’t mind. A spinach bahjee and a couple of nans would do me. ”
“And what about . . . something for your little friend?”
She smiled a private smile. “He’s all right. I’ve fed him already. ” Then she raised her eyes to his and acknowledged his effort. “Thanks.”
He went out and got take-away for them both, and stopped at the off-license for the Mexican beer Jenny favored. A radio in the off-license was playing a sentimental song about love that Stuart remembered from his earliest childhood: his mother used to sing it. He was shocked to realize he had tears in his eyes.
That night Jenny made up the sofa bed in the spare room, explaining, “He can’t stay in the bathroom; it’s just not satisfactory, you know it’s not.”
“He needs the bed?”
“I do. He’s confused, everything is new and different, I’m the one thing he can count on. I have to stay with him. He needs me.”
“He needs you? What about me?”
“Oh, Stuart,” she said impatiently. “You’re a grown man. You can sleep by yourself for a night or two.”
“And that thing can’t?”
“Don’t call him a thing. ”
“What am I supposed to call it? Look, you’re not its mother—it doesn’t need you as much as you’d like to think. It was perfectly all right in the bathroom last night—it’ll be fine in here on its own.”
“Oh? And what do you know about it? You’d like to kill him, wouldn’t you? Admit it.”
“No,” he said, terrified that she had guessed the truth. If she knew how he had killed one of those things she would never forgive him. “It’s not true, I don’t—I couldn’t hurt it any more than I could hurt you.”
Her face softened. She believed him. It didn’t matter how he felt about the creature. Hurting it, knowing how she felt, would be like committing an act of violence against her, and they both knew he wouldn’t do that. “Just for a few nights, Stuart. Just until he settles in.”
He had to accept that. All he could do was hang on, hope that she still loved him and that this wouldn’t be forever.
The days passed. Jenny no longer offered to drive him to work. When he asked her, she said it was out of her way and with traffic so bad a detour would make her late. She said it was silly to take him the short distance to the station, especially as there was nowhere she could safely stop to let him out, and anyway the walk would do him good. They were all good reasons, which he had used in the old days himself, but her excuses struck him painfully when he remembered how eager she had once been for his company, how ready to make any detour for his sake. Her new pet accompanied her everywhere, even to work, snug in the little nest she had made for it in a woven carrier bag.
“Of course things are different now. But I haven’t stopped loving you,” she said when he tried to talk to her about the breakdown of their marriage. “It’s not like I’ve found another man. This is something completely different. It doesn’t threaten you; you’re still my husband.”
But it was obvious to him that a husband was no longer something she particularly valued. He began to have fantasies about killing it. Not, this time, in a blind rage, but as part of a carefully thought-out plan. He might poison it, or spirit it away somehow and pretend it had run away. Once it was gone he hoped Jenny would forget it and be his again.
But he never had a chance. Jenny was quite obsessive about the thing, as if it were too valuable to be left unguarded for a single minute. Even when she took a bath, or went to the toilet, the creature was with her, behind the locked door of the bathroom. When he offered to look after it for her for a few minutes she just smiled, as if the idea was manifestly ridiculous, and he didn’t dare insist.
So he went to work, and went out for drinks with colleagues, and spent what time he could with Jenny, although they were never alone. He didn’t argue with her, although he wasn’t above trying to move her to pity if he could. He made seemingly casual comments designed to convince her of his change of heart so that eventually, weeks or months from now, she would trust him and leave the creature with him—and then, later, perhaps, they could put their marriage back together.
One afternoon, after an extended lunch break, Stuart returned to the office to find one of the senior editors crouched on the floor beside his secretary’s empty desk, whispering and chuckling to herself.
He cleared his throat nervously. “Linda?”
She lurched back on her heels and got up awkwardly. She blushed and ducked her head as she turned, looking very unlike her usual high-powered self. “Oh, uh, Stuart, I was just—”
Frankie came in with a pile of photocopying. “Uh-huh,” she said loudly. Linda’s face got even redder. “Just going,” she mumbled, and fled.
Before he could ask, Stuart saw the creature, another crippled bat-without-wings, on the floor beside the open bottom drawer of Frankie’s desk. It looked up at him, opened its slit of a mouth and gave a sad little hiss. Around one matchstick-thin leg it wore a fine golden chain which was fastened at the other end to the drawer.
Some people would steal anything that s not chained down,” said Frankie darkly. “People you wouldn’t suspect. ”
He stared at her, letting her see his disapproval, his annoy mce, disgust, even. “Animals in the office aren’t part of the contract, Frankie.”
“It’s not an animal.”
“What is it, then?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter what it is, you can’t have it here.”
“I can’t leave it at home.”
“Why not?”
She turned away from him, busying herself with her stacks of paper. “I can’t leave it alone. It might get hurt. It might escape.”
“Chance would be a fine thing.”
She shot him a look, and he was certain she knew he wasn’t talking about her pet. He said, “What does your boyfriend think about it?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” She sounded angry but then, abruptly, the anger dissipated, and she smirked. “I don’t have to have one, do I?”
“You can’t have that animal here. Whatever it is. You’ll have to take it home.” She raised her fuzzy eyebrows. “Right now?”
He was tempted to say yes, but thought of the manuscripts that wouldn’t be sent out, the letters that wouldn t be typed, the delays and confusions, and he sighed. “Just don’t bring it back again. All right?”
“Yowza.”
He felt very tired. He could tell her what to do but she would no more obey than would his wife. She would bring it back the next day and keep bringing it back, maybe keeping it hidden, maybe not, until he either gave in or was forced into firing her. He went into his office, closed the door, and put his head down on his desk.
That evening he walked in on his wife feeding the creature with her blood.
It was immediately obvious that it was that way round. The creature might be a vampire—it obviously was—but his wife was no helpless victim. She was wide awake and in control, holding the creature firmly, letting it feed from a vein in her arm.
She flinched as if anticipating a shout, but he couldn’t speak. He watched what was happening without attempting to interfere and gradually she relaxed again, as if he wasn’t there.
When the creature, sated, fell off, she kept it cradled on her lap and reached with her other hand for the surgical spirit and cotton wool on the table, moistened a piece of cotton wool and tamped it to the tiny wound. Then, finally, she met her husband’s eyes.
“He has to eat,” she said reasonably. “He can’t chew. He needs blood. Not very much, but ...”