Beryl touched her throat then reached out and picked up the cup of tea. She swallowed hard and returned to my hand.
David was also scrutinising it, drawn in by the attention his mum was giving.
She pummelled the flesh beneath my little finger and grimaced.
‘What is it?’ I asked, trying to grin.
‘Mmm,’ she said slowly and pushed the glasses back up her nose. ‘Sorry to ask this, but you’re not adopted are you?’
I laughed. ‘Definitely not.’
David stood up and gazed over his mother’s shoulder at my palm.
‘I don’t think it’s coming through well today, love.’ Beryl’s voice had risen.
‘Blimey,’ said David. ‘That’s a short one.’
‘What is?’ I asked too quickly.
Beryl sent him a warning look but he didn’t catch it.
He leant forwards and swayed on the balls of his feet. ‘By my reckoning …’ he started to say.
‘David!’ Beryl nudged him sharply in the ribs.
David’s brain didn’t connect with his mouth in time. ‘By my reckoning,’ he said in mock horror, ‘you’re already dead!’
He laughed heartily.
I didn’t.
I had become very cold.
Beryl sucked her teeth in annoyance. ‘David, sit down. Now don’t you go scaring people like that. Honestly,’ she said wearily. The bags under her eyes had darkened into swollen crescents of lilac. At that moment she did look very old indeed. ‘Typical man. No tact. Just like his dad.’ She sighed and pushed my hand away. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ she said, sitting back into her chair. ‘Can’t do any more. I’m not feeling too good.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, returning to my previous seat. ‘Sorry. I hope it wasn’t anything that I …’
She didn’t reply to me. Instead she addressed the next instruction to her son. ‘Go fetch my pills please, love. They’re on the bedside table nearest the door.’
David got to his feet immediately and dashed out the kitchen.
Beryl was now the colour of ashes. Her make-up seemed only to be resting on top of her skin; beneath the foundation little muscles were flicking and flexing, as if an electric current was running through them.
‘Would you like a glass of water?’ I asked gently.
She rasped a reply I couldn’t understand. Then her eyes fixed on me. All the rigidity and animation seemed to leave her body at the same moment and she slumped back in the chair. For a second her neck went slack and rolled backwards.
I stood up, worried yet completely unsure of what to do. Something was happening to the poor woman but I couldn’t tell what. I simply stood there and watched with growing alarm as Beryl’s neck moved upwards and forwards, pulled by an invisible thread. Her head slowly followed. And what a strange sight that was – the luscious brown hair, obviously a wig, slipped off, revealing a thinning layer of feathery white tufts. When I saw her eyes I very nearly screamed. They had rolled round so that all that poked through the hooded lids were the bloodshot whites. And then the shaking started. Not a sideways motion but a juddering up and down, quick sharp micro-moves.
A horrible creak was coming from inside her mouth. Her jaw slackened and then fell open, making a grating noise, then slowly it appeared to unhinge and drop lower than I ever thought possible without splintering bone.
Despite Beryl’s agonised movements I could do nothing but stare. A terrible paralysis had crept over me. I watched her kindly face disappear into a barely recognisable combination of features in seizure.
Her hands began to scratch at the table and the whites of her eyes fixed on my face, as if something beyond them perceived me.
Beryl’s frame jerked backwards, the upper half of her body shaking uncontrollably.
A gurgling came up from her throat. I could see she was struggling to breathe.
‘Oh God,’ I said, coming to my senses at last, and rushed round to Beryl’s side. ‘What can I do? Beryl? Mrs Bennett, are you okay?’
And then I heard it, coming up through her windpipe: a kind of wheeze; a low-pitched primal scream. Something like, ‘Ashhhh bitten.’ I couldn’t be sure: the word was wrenched out of her, fuzzy with sibilance and choked with phlegm.
Beryl convulsed. Her hand flew to her neck. The body heaved. She coughed once, twice, then gagged. As her face surged forwards to the table, her lips opened wider yet.
I gasped with shock and repulsion as I observed a black moth fly out of her mouth.
‘Shit.’ I was jittering now, backing away from her.