HOME SWEET HOME | Robert Mammone
Hal idled his car down the road, the crunch of rubber on bitumen loud in the otherwise silent interior. The dash lights etched his face in shadow and sickly green. He looked uncertainly up at the mirror, then hurriedly away, concentrating on finding his house.
It occurred to him to wonder why he would need to remember where he lived, but the thought, skating around the confines of his skull, proved too troubling to ponder. The houses on either side of the road, lit pumpkin-orange by the sodium flare of the streetlights, or else swathed in crawling shadows, seemed evanescent, threatening to dissipate on the breeze tossing the trees about.
He felt a heat growing in his chest and dimly recognised it as panic. Gripping the steering wheel tighter, he saw, with a rush of gratitude that left tears in his eyes, his home. He coasted into the driveway, cut the engine and sat staring at the front door.
The cooling engine ticked, matching the beat of his calming heart. But quickly, a vague anxiety began to unfurl.
I don't want to go in, he thought to himself, watching a shadow pass across the front window. I don't want to go in.
But he did. The door cracked open and he stepped into the driveway. He closed the door, wincing as the sound echoed up and down the street. The trees seethed in the breeze and he hurried up the footpath, hunched against something he couldn't see, nor hear, but definitely knew was there.
His key grated in the lock and he struggled with the door. He thought he heard something behind him, a distant chuckling, but then the door opened and he rushed inside, slamming it closed.
"Hi honey, I'm home," he called. His voice fell like a stone into a well.
Feeling again that vague sense of unease, he shrugged out of his coat, hung it on a peg, then ventured down the hallway. Bursts of light from the silent television halted him in the doorway to the living room. With the sound down, he watched washed out cartoonish figures caper exaggeratedly across the screen, stopping only to leer at him. Grimacing, he turned away and moved on.
The deeper he ventured into the house, the deeper the hush became. The gloom thickened and the corridor seemed to telescope away. Feeling his chest tightening, Hal groped way forward. For one panicked moment, he thought the walls had receded, leaving him alone in a vast darkened chamber. Then he saw a thin tread of light glimmering faintly beneath a door. With a sob, he grabbed for the door handle, fighting the irrational urge to flee back into the night. The door opened with a click.
The incandescent glare of impossibly bright lights assaulted him. He blinked furiously to clear the shadowy afterimages. Out of the fog resolved great slabs of colour that defined the kitchen. Bright yellow laminate bench tops, violently green linoleum and the walls painted a faintly vicious strain of pink. And sitting at the dining table were his family. They looked frozen in place, eyes wide and pin sharp, mouths stretched into smiles, limbs set at odd, painful angles. Then, as if by unspoken command, his family sprang into life.
Barbara saw him first.
"Hal, dear, home at last." She bustled over; apron tied over a pastel dress that looked freshly ironed. Her eyes gleamed, and he thought there was an odd, almost manic relief in them. They exchanged kisses and she pulled out a chair for him.
‘Just in time as always,’ she said, fussing with some steaming pots on the stove. He watched her move from one to the other, tasting each in turn, before turning towards the pantry. Her eyes widened as she did so, and he saw them flicker uncertainly towards him. She hesitated, rested a shaking hand on the wall, then closed her eyes and turned back to the stove.
‘Hi Daddy.’ Hal blinked, and saw his daughter grinning at him. Her teeth gleamed, and her pale blue eyes looked adoringly at him. He leaned over and patted her cheek.
‘Hi Hannah. Have you been a good girl for your mom?’ He glanced up at Barbara who stood paused over the stove. He saw how her shoulders trembled.
‘Barbara?’ He half stood, his chair grating on the linoleum, breaking the spell. She turned, and before she had a chance to fix a smile on her face, Hal saw the downward curve of her mouth.
2 ‘Oh, she’s been a treasure,’ she said, her voice high and brittle. ‘I wouldn’t know what I’d do during the day by myself, without her.’ Her smile slipped a little, and she turned back to the stove. Hal knew he should say something but instead turned towards his son.
‘And what about you, Pete? How’s your schoolwork going?’
Pete flashed him a glare, and he saw Hannah grow still. Hal heard a distant groaning noise, like millstones grinding together, and he saw something like fear cross Pete’s face. The boy brightened visibly, though a trace of sullenness remained.
‘Just great, Pop,’ he said. ‘Swapped some baseball cards today, got a Ty Cobb for a Lou Gehrig. Wanna see?’
Barbara laughed shrilly. Hal saw her slap a hand to her mouth, her eyes bulging.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just Pete said the same thing yesterday. And the day before that.’ The pantry door rattled and Hal his temples pulse. Resolutely ignoring it, he shook his head.
‘Maybe later, kiddo. Seems like your Mom has cooked up a storm. Let’s eat, hey?’
He watched Barbara wipe her hands repeatedly on her apron, before she lurched around and began to serve. A steaming roast appeared as if by magic from the oven, and Hal took great relish in wielding the carving knife, slicing steaming hunks of meat from a juicy looking haunch of pork. By the time he settled in front of his plate, he was salivating.
‘Needs salt,’ Pete said, looking dubiously at his plate. Hal felt Barbara’s eyes on him.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said, and looked away. Hal glanced at the pantry and felt his stomach turn a little. He didn’t want to think why the shadows never left that corner of the kitchen.
Pete looked at his mother, his face screwed up. Hal felt something slip in his head, and started to respond when Pete cut in.
‘Yes it does.’ His face had grown red. ‘It always does. Salt and pepper and sugar and spice and flour and gravy and…and…’
The grinding drowned his voice out. Hal knew everyone else heard it, but no one said anything. He began to be afraid.
‘Pete, shut up,’ Hal said, sweat beading on his forehead. He thought again of sitting in the car, not knowing where he lived, and wished with all his heart that he hadn’t found it all.
‘Leave him be, Hal.’ Barbara, now, her head up, eyes wild. ‘You know I never use the pantry. And I can’t remember the last time you went near it, let alone opened it.’
‘I’m at work all day, Barbara,’ Hal snapped back at her. ‘Why the hell would I even want to go near it? It’s your job to keep the house in order.’
‘Job?’ Barbara laughed scornfully. ‘Tell me, Hal. What job do you do? Can you remember that?’
Hal looked at her, heard the pantry door rattle again. Without realising it, his unease had become outright fear. He glanced at the pantry; saw with a start that the door stood ajar. Darkness spilled through the gap.
‘Jesus. Jesus. See what you’ve done. You and your son. We’ve got it good here. And you have to stir things up.’
Barbara stood, knocking her chair onto the floor.
‘Good? Good? I don’t care anymore, Hal. I don’t care how good you think we’ve got it, or how wonderful our lives are. Do you know what happens the moment you leave this house? Do you?’ She leaned forward, ignoring the grinding noise, and the darkness spreading across the floor like spilled oil.
‘Nothing.’
Bewildered, Hal looked from his wife, to his son, to Hannah. A tear trickled down her cheek and her eyes refused to meet his.
‘Sit down,’ he said, ashamed to beg. Barbara stared at him with a kind of pity in her eyes, but stayed put.
Hal fell back in his chair, all the anger draining from him. Hannah had stopped weeping, but her red rimmed eyes shone.
‘Hannah? Angel, come on. Everything’s fine.’ Silently, she shook her head.
A chair scraped, and Hal saw Pete stand up and move around to the other side, to stand next to Barbara. She curled an arm protectively around him, and Hannah quickly joined her. The table separated them, but Hal felt like a massive chasm had opened up between them.
‘So that’s it?’ he said, trying to muster enough anger to give his words bite. But the effort left him drained, and he slumped back in his chair. The room grew silent. Looking at the pantry, Hal saw the door wavering back and forth, as if something inside breathed in, then out.
‘None of this makes sense,’ he whispered to himself, his mind returning to before he came home, his car coasting down the quiet street. The houses looking flat, devoid of any depth or life. The way his memories seemed like wisps of smoke, incapable of being marshalled with any coherency.
He stood abruptly. His chair skittered across the floor, hitting the bench with a loud crack. Barbara flinched. Hal felt an uneven smile spread across his face.
‘You’re all mad,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘I work an honest day, and this is my reward? My family turns on me, tries to convince me that I’m mad. I’ll show you, god damn it. I’ll show you.’
He spun around and marched unsteadily towards the pantry. He stepped into the darkness, felt it pull at him. Barbara cried out and he saw her move towards him, trying to cut him off. He shrugged her hand off his shoulder, lashed out with his own fist and felt a savage satisfaction when it connected.
Pausing at the door, he rested his hand on the handle. It felt warm, warmer than the room. He glanced back at Barbara, who had fallen to the ground, holding a hand to her face where a mark had already begun to blacken her face. Her eyes were wide, shimmering with terror. His children crouched beside her, still as a photograph.
‘I’ll show you,’ he yelled at them. ‘Your little game is over.’ He swung the door open, felt a warm, foetid wind wash over him, followed by the grinding noise. Something large squatted at the back of the pantry, towering over him. He looked up and up, impossibly so, and heard it chuckle, the sound deep and amused.
‘Begin,’ it whispered, and the word sounded in Hal’s head like a gong.
The street was empty, the houses looking like cut outs in the gloom. Hal counted them off, wondered why he needed to do that when he knew, surely he knew, that one of them, one of them, had to be his own…
Hal idled his car down the road, the crunch of rubber on bitumen loud in the otherwise silent interior. The dash lights etched his face in shadow and sickly green. He looked uncertainly up at the mirror, then hurriedly away, concentrating on finding his house.
It occurred to him to wonder why he would need to remember where he lived, but the thought, skating around the confines of his skull, proved too troubling to ponder. The houses on either side of the road, lit pumpkin-orange by the sodium flare of the streetlights, or else swathed in crawling shadows, seemed evanescent, threatening to dissipate on the breeze tossing the trees about.
He felt a heat growing in his chest and dimly recognised it as panic. Gripping the steering wheel tighter, he saw, with a rush of gratitude that left tears in his eyes, his home. He coasted into the driveway, cut the engine and sat staring at the front door.
The cooling engine ticked, matching the beat of his calming heart. But quickly, a vague anxiety began to unfurl.
I don't want to go in, he thought to himself, watching a shadow pass across the front window. I don't want to go in.
But he did. The door cracked open and he stepped into the driveway. He closed the door, wincing as the sound echoed up and down the street. The trees seethed in the breeze and he hurried up the footpath, hunched against something he couldn't see, nor hear, but definitely knew was there.
His key grated in the lock and he struggled with the door. He thought he heard something behind him, a distant chuckling, but then the door opened and he rushed inside, slamming it closed.
"Hi honey, I'm home," he called. His voice fell like a stone into a well.
Feeling again that vague sense of unease, he shrugged out of his coat, hung it on a peg, then ventured down the hallway. Bursts of light from the silent television halted him in the doorway to the living room. With the sound down, he watched washed out cartoonish figures caper exaggeratedly across the screen, stopping only to leer at him. Grimacing, he turned away and moved on.
The deeper he ventured into the house, the deeper the hush became. The gloom thickened and the corridor seemed to telescope away. Feeling his chest tightening, Hal groped way forward. For one panicked moment, he thought the walls had receded, leaving him alone in a vast darkened chamber. Then he saw a thin tread of light glimmering faintly beneath a door. With a sob, he grabbed for the door handle, fighting the irrational urge to flee back into the night. The door opened with a click.
The incandescent glare of impossibly bright lights assaulted him. He blinked furiously to clear the shadowy afterimages. Out of the fog resolved great slabs of colour that defined the kitchen. Bright yellow laminate bench tops, violently green linoleum and the walls painted a faintly vicious strain of pink. And sitting at the dining table were his family. They looked frozen in place, eyes wide and pin sharp, mouths stretched into smiles, limbs set at odd, painful angles. Then, as if by unspoken command, his family sprang into life.
Barbara saw him first.
"Hal, dear, home at last." She bustled over; apron tied over a pastel dress that looked freshly ironed. Her eyes gleamed, and he thought there was an odd, almost manic relief in them. They exchanged kisses and she pulled out a chair for him.
‘Just in time as always,’ she said, fussing with some steaming pots on the stove. He watched her move from one to the other, tasting each in turn, before turning towards the pantry. Her eyes widened as she did so, and he saw them flicker uncertainly towards him. She hesitated, rested a shaking hand on the wall, then closed her eyes and turned back to the stove.
‘Hi Daddy.’ Hal blinked, and saw his daughter grinning at him. Her teeth gleamed, and her pale blue eyes looked adoringly at him. He leaned over and patted her cheek.
‘Hi Hannah. Have you been a good girl for your mom?’ He glanced up at Barbara who stood paused over the stove. He saw how her shoulders trembled.
‘Barbara?’ He half stood, his chair grating on the linoleum, breaking the spell. She turned, and before she had a chance to fix a smile on her face, Hal saw the downward curve of her mouth.
2 ‘Oh, she’s been a treasure,’ she said, her voice high and brittle. ‘I wouldn’t know what I’d do during the day by myself, without her.’ Her smile slipped a little, and she turned back to the stove. Hal knew he should say something but instead turned towards his son.
‘And what about you, Pete? How’s your schoolwork going?’
Pete flashed him a glare, and he saw Hannah grow still. Hal heard a distant groaning noise, like millstones grinding together, and he saw something like fear cross Pete’s face. The boy brightened visibly, though a trace of sullenness remained.
‘Just great, Pop,’ he said. ‘Swapped some baseball cards today, got a Ty Cobb for a Lou Gehrig. Wanna see?’
Barbara laughed shrilly. Hal saw her slap a hand to her mouth, her eyes bulging.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just Pete said the same thing yesterday. And the day before that.’ The pantry door rattled and Hal his temples pulse. Resolutely ignoring it, he shook his head.
‘Maybe later, kiddo. Seems like your Mom has cooked up a storm. Let’s eat, hey?’
He watched Barbara wipe her hands repeatedly on her apron, before she lurched around and began to serve. A steaming roast appeared as if by magic from the oven, and Hal took great relish in wielding the carving knife, slicing steaming hunks of meat from a juicy looking haunch of pork. By the time he settled in front of his plate, he was salivating.
‘Needs salt,’ Pete said, looking dubiously at his plate. Hal felt Barbara’s eyes on him.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said, and looked away. Hal glanced at the pantry and felt his stomach turn a little. He didn’t want to think why the shadows never left that corner of the kitchen.
Pete looked at his mother, his face screwed up. Hal felt something slip in his head, and started to respond when Pete cut in.
‘Yes it does.’ His face had grown red. ‘It always does. Salt and pepper and sugar and spice and flour and gravy and…and…’
The grinding drowned his voice out. Hal knew everyone else heard it, but no one said anything. He began to be afraid.
‘Pete, shut up,’ Hal said, sweat beading on his forehead. He thought again of sitting in the car, not knowing where he lived, and wished with all his heart that he hadn’t found it all.
‘Leave him be, Hal.’ Barbara, now, her head up, eyes wild. ‘You know I never use the pantry. And I can’t remember the last time you went near it, let alone opened it.’
‘I’m at work all day, Barbara,’ Hal snapped back at her. ‘Why the hell would I even want to go near it? It’s your job to keep the house in order.’
‘Job?’ Barbara laughed scornfully. ‘Tell me, Hal. What job do you do? Can you remember that?’
Hal looked at her, heard the pantry door rattle again. Without realising it, his unease had become outright fear. He glanced at the pantry; saw with a start that the door stood ajar. Darkness spilled through the gap.
‘Jesus. Jesus. See what you’ve done. You and your son. We’ve got it good here. And you have to stir things up.’
Barbara stood, knocking her chair onto the floor.
‘Good? Good? I don’t care anymore, Hal. I don’t care how good you think we’ve got it, or how wonderful our lives are. Do you know what happens the moment you leave this house? Do you?’ She leaned forward, ignoring the grinding noise, and the darkness spreading across the floor like spilled oil.
‘Nothing.’
Bewildered, Hal looked from his wife, to his son, to Hannah. A tear trickled down her cheek and her eyes refused to meet his.
‘Sit down,’ he said, ashamed to beg. Barbara stared at him with a kind of pity in her eyes, but stayed put.
Hal fell back in his chair, all the anger draining from him. Hannah had stopped weeping, but her red rimmed eyes shone.
‘Hannah? Angel, come on. Everything’s fine.’ Silently, she shook her head.
A chair scraped, and Hal saw Pete stand up and move around to the other side, to stand next to Barbara. She curled an arm protectively around him, and Hannah quickly joined her. The table separated them, but Hal felt like a massive chasm had opened up between them.
‘So that’s it?’ he said, trying to muster enough anger to give his words bite. But the effort left him drained, and he slumped back in his chair. The room grew silent. Looking at the pantry, Hal saw the door wavering back and forth, as if something inside breathed in, then out.
‘None of this makes sense,’ he whispered to himself, his mind returning to before he came home, his car coasting down the quiet street. The houses looking flat, devoid of any depth or life. The way his memories seemed like wisps of smoke, incapable of being marshalled with any coherency.
He stood abruptly. His chair skittered across the floor, hitting the bench with a loud crack. Barbara flinched. Hal felt an uneven smile spread across his face.
‘You’re all mad,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘I work an honest day, and this is my reward? My family turns on me, tries to convince me that I’m mad. I’ll show you, god damn it. I’ll show you.’
He spun around and marched unsteadily towards the pantry. He stepped into the darkness, felt it pull at him. Barbara cried out and he saw her move towards him, trying to cut him off. He shrugged her hand off his shoulder, lashed out with his own fist and felt a savage satisfaction when it connected.
Pausing at the door, he rested his hand on the handle. It felt warm, warmer than the room. He glanced back at Barbara, who had fallen to the ground, holding a hand to her face where a mark had already begun to blacken her face. Her eyes were wide, shimmering with terror. His children crouched beside her, still as a photograph.
‘I’ll show you,’ he yelled at them. ‘Your little game is over.’ He swung the door open, felt a warm, foetid wind wash over him, followed by the grinding noise. Something large squatted at the back of the pantry, towering over him. He looked up and up, impossibly so, and heard it chuckle, the sound deep and amused.
‘Begin,’ it whispered, and the word sounded in Hal’s head like a gong.
The street was empty, the houses looking like cut outs in the gloom. Hal counted them off, wondered why he needed to do that when he knew, surely he knew, that one of them, one of them, had to be his own…