Page 41 of Hex House
Over the next week, Elly does three more interviews with Theo. Sometimes, Siobhan is there, too, an intense and meticulous presence behind the lens, constantly interrupting to change the track of the conversation or adjust the angle of the camera. Most of the time though, Siobhan is with Haina, and it’s just her and Theo. He lets the camera run. He lets her talk and talk.
Elly won’t admit it even to herself, not yet, but she finds herself engineering additional opportunities to speak to Theo, to be in the same room as him. She’s almost always aware of his presence, wherever he is in the house. She’s relieved that her offer of the interviews seems to have kept him here, for now, but she doesn’t know how long that might last. When she asks herself why she so desperately wants him to stay, she can’t answer. She only knows that it has something to do with the softness of his eyes, the wayhe always asks if she’s feeling okay before they start their interviews, if she needs anything. She likes the way his eyes look behind his glasses, a murky river green, a ring of gold around the pupil. The way those eyes look at her – it makes her feel like she’s burning. It’s almost too intense to be pleasurable, but she aches for the feeling whenever he isn’t near her. One day, he gives her a Terry’s Chocolate Orange he brought with him, casually and without ceremony, and it’s so out of place in the surroundings of Hex House that it feels like a talisman from another time. She cherishes it the same way she would a photograph, taking it out of her bedside table every now and again just to look at it, to run her fingers over the foil, to turn it over and over in her hands. She doesn’t eat any herself but gives a piece to Margot, who grins at her through chocolate-coated teeth then closes her eye and lies down on her bed, as if in rapture.
When the camera isn’t on, her conversations with Theo meander. They talk about arbitrary, everyday things. Theo tells her that he knows all the lyrics to every song by Green Day, and that his death row meal would be a sausage sandwich made by his mum. He tells her that all his friends think his favourite TV show isThe Sopranos, but it’s actuallyThe OC, and he grew up wanting to be like gentle, nerdy Seth. He asks about Elly’s dad, and she finds herself telling him about the last collection of sculptures he made before he died, a series of animals in hibernation.
One day, she shows him how to make apple tarte tatin. He messes up the pastry but it still tastes good, and they share it after dinner in the parlour, picking at the syrupy apples until there’s nothing left but crumbs. The flavour isso tart, the lights are so dim, and Theo is sitting so close to her that Elly feels bold. Without thinking, she takes one of his sugar-crusted fingers into her mouth, licking off the granules before holding it there on the warmth of her tongue. She watches him watching her, the way his chest rises and falls, faster faster faster; watches his eyes become unfocused and heavy-lidded, until he seems to come back into himself and pulls his hand away.
Sometimes, it makes Elly feel guilty, how much she looks forward to seeing Theo’s face over breakfast, the way she listens out for his voice in the hallway whenever she’s working in the kitchens, the way she craves the pressure of his body beside hers in bed at night, in the blurry moments before sleep. She wonders what Ethan would think, and she thinks about his baby in her belly. It makes her hate herself. She’d desired Ethan, but it had felt so different. Wanting Ethan had felt like staring into an open mouth and stepping willingly inside. Wanting him had made her feel small, as if she were barely a body at all, only the idea of one. When she thinks about Theo, when she pictures his hands around her hips and his lips on her neck, she feels bigger than herself, bigger than him, bigger than the whole house. It makes her want to stand naked in the sunlight, arch her back, swallow the world. One morning, she greases her wedding finger with warm butter and finally manages to ease the ring up and over the bone. She puts it in her bedside drawer in the dormitory and locks it. After a while, she forgets it’s there.
During one interview, in the candlelit refectory late at night, Theo asks her if she still thinks about walking out of Hex House and back into her old life. Elly doesn’t knowhow to explain it to him: how that simply doesn’t feel like an option anymore.
“Siobhan said I was on the news,” she says. “Before you got here. Did you… did you see me?”What a ridiculous question to ask, she chastises herself.Stop being so self-absorbed. But still, she watches his face intently as he nods.
“Sometimes I feel guilty,” he tells her, “knowing where you are, when all those people are looking for you.”
Something twisting and sharp, deep in her belly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says quickly. “I understand why you ran. Why you couldn’t stay with him.” He lowers his voice. “None of it is your fault, Elly.”
Almost instantly, her eyes start to burn. Because without realising it, she has always believed that the way Ethan treated herwasher fault, that it had to be, that his behaviour was only a reflection of her inherent weakness. She blames herself for all of it: for going through with the wedding, for being pregnant with a baby whose father she fears, for running, for hiding in Hex House with no clue what to do next. She has always, she realises now, thought herself a coward. Hearing those words out loud –none of it is your fault– makes her feel as though her insides have been scraped clean.
She feels unable to continue that particular train of conversation, so instead she asks, “Are you sorry you came here?”
“Maybe.” Theo blows air out through his lips, drags a hand through his hair, then says, “No, actually, I don’t think I am. I don’t know what kind of person that makes me.”
“I don’t know what kind of a person I am, either.”
“Has it changed you? The house?”
Elly thinks about the feathers sprouting from her hands. She thinks about how it felt to be in her hex form, flattening all the world beneath her. “I don’t know what it’s doing to me,” she says, and it’s true. She doesn’t know why she does it – seconds later she will wish she hadn’t – but she reaches out for his hand and pulls him towards her. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says.
What is it that crosses his face then? Elly senses a pulsing, a longing, in the way his eyes focus on her lips and his body inches forward. But it only lasts a second before he withdraws his hand, leaving hers cold in her lap.
NOW
Siobhan and Owen meet for dinner at Wildfire. The restaurant is Owen’s suggestion, intimate and lowceilinged. The menu declares that it’s proudly Scottish and is full of things like Shetland Mussels and haggis with Drambuie sauce. Siobhan feels underdressed and hungry. Her scar hasn’t stopped throbbing since yesterday. Overnight, it oozed a pale green stain onto the sheets. This morning she plastered it with Sudocrem and a foul-smelling scab fell off into her hands.
Owen is quieter than usual. He greets her with a hug, but he won’t quite meet her eye as they take their seats and order a bottle of wine. It’s a novel feeling, not entirely unpleasant, to know that he’s annoyed with her. Maybe he’s an entirely different person than what she thought. Maybe she should have more respect for him; maybe she should put more effort into resisting the temptation to test him, to punish him.
“You seem tired,” she says, once they’ve ordered their food.
Owen’s face is half-hidden by his glass of wine. Their waiter merrily fills up their water, oblivious to the tension. “I was out at Melody Blossom last night,” he says. “For no particular reason.”
“How’s Sylvie?”
Owen maintains eye contact, then places his glass down. This is a new side to him. Spiky. It makes his movements quicker and voice lower. Siobhan hadn’t thought he had it in him. “Siobhan,” he says, and it sounds like a warning. Her belly feels warm and empty. “You need to tell me what’s going on, what this obsession with Sylvie is all about. You’re putting me in some pretty uncomfortable positions, and I know you know that. You could get me in serious trouble.”
“I told you to say hello,” Siobhan says. “Nothing nefarious.”
“You know what you’re doing. I just don’t understand why.”
“Don’t you like Sylvie? There’s nothing not to like.”
“Of course I like her,” Owen snaps back, a little too loudly. Siobhan becomes aware of eyes turning their way. “But why do you care?”
“I’m in control,” Siobhan says, and something in her voice makes him pause, look away. He casts a wary eye around the restaurant, as if concerned that they’re being watched, that a hidden cameraman is going to jump out at any second and reveal the stitch-up.
“I like you, Siobhan,” he says. “But you need to stop this now.”
