Slated Read Free

inside. ‘She doesn’t mean it; she’s just cranky that your first dinner is going to be late. Anyhow, you haven’t been in a car before, have you? How should you know?’
She pauses and I don’t know what to say, again, but this time it is because she is being nice. So I try a smile, a small one, but it is for real this time.
Amy smiles back and hers is wider. ‘Have a look around before we go in?’ she says.
Where the car is parked to the right of the house is all small stones that crunch and move underfoot as we walk. A square of green grass covers the front garden, a massive tree – oak? – to the left. Its leaves are a mix of yellow, orange and red, some spilling messily underneath. Leaves fall in autumn I remind myself, and what is it now? The 13 th of September. There are a few red and pink straggly flowers either side of the front door, petals dropping on the ground. And, all around me, so much space. So quiet after the hospital, and London. I stand on the grass and breathe the cool air in deep. It tastes damp and full of life and the ending of life, like those fallen leaves.
‘Come in?’ Amy says, and I follow her through the front door into the hall. Leading off it is a room with sofas and lamps, tables. A huge flat black screen dominates one wall. A TV? It is much bigger than the one they had in recreation at the hospital, not that they let me near it after the first time. Watching made my nightmares worse.
This room leads to another: there are long work surfaces, with cupboards above and below. And a massive oven that Mum is bending over just now, putting a pan inside.
‘Go to your room and unpack before dinner, Kyla,’ Mum says, and I jump.
Amy takes my hand. ‘This way,’ she says, and pulls me back to the hall. I follow her up the stairs, to another hall with three doors and more stairs going up.
‘We’re on this floor, Mum and Dad upstairs. See, this is my door.’ She points to the right. ‘That one at the end is the bathroom, we’ll share. They have their own one upstairs. And this is your room.’ She points left.
I look at Amy.
‘Go on.’
The door is part open; I push it and go in.
Much bigger than my hospital room. My bag is already on the floor where Dad must have put it. There is a dressing table with drawers and a mirror above it, a wardrobe next. No sink. A big wide window that looks out over the front of the house.
Twin beds.
Amy comes in and sits on one of them. ‘We thought we’d put two in here to start with; I can stay with you at night if you want me to. The nurse said it might be a good idea, until you get settled.’
She doesn’t say the rest but I can tell. They must have told them. In case I have nightmares. I often do and if no one is there fast enough when I wake, I drop too low and my Levo knocks me out.
I sit on the other bed. There is something round, black and furry on it; I reach out a hand, then stop.
‘Go on. That is Sebastian, our cat. He is very friendly.’
I touch his fur lightly with a fingertip. Warm, and soft.
He stirs, and the ball unwinds as he stretches out his paws, puts his head back and yawns.
I have seen pictures of cats before, of course. But this is different. He is so much more than a flat image: living and breathing fishy breath, silky fur rippling as he stretches, big yellow-green eyes staring back into mine.
‘Meow,’ he says and I jump.
Amy gets up, leans across.
‘Stroke him, like this,’ she says, and runs a hand along his fur from his head down to his tail. I copy her, and he makes a sound, a deep rumbling that vibrates from his throat through his body.
‘What is that?’
Amy smiles.
‘He’s purring. It means he likes you.’

Later it is dark out the window, and Amy is asleep across the room. Sebastian still purrs faintly beside me when I stroke him. The door is part open for the cat, and sounds drift up the stairs. Clattering kitchen noises. Voices.
‘She’s a quiet little thing, isn’t she.’ Dad.
‘You can say that