Kevin’s Room
by Stephen Owen
The Victorian house is a redbrick giant against the cold autumn sky, the smell of home cooking wafting from the premises. Long dark windows, a shiny black door and old-fashioned gas lamps that look like they haven’t worked in years. The front of the property has been paved to make space for parking, but the place is deserted this evening. Just me with my suitcase, trudging through a carpet of copper-colored leaves.
I rap the knocker and a lady in a flower-patterned pinafore opens the door. She’s about fifty, a tin of Brasso in one hand, a damp rag clenched in the other. Gray hair tied back, she studies me, beady eyes twinkling in the twilight.
I point to the window. “The sign says vacancy.”
She raises the rag, like a flag to surrender. “You want the room?”
“If it’s no trouble. I’ve been traveling all day. I need a place to sleep.”
“You best come in.” She turns and heads back into the house. “Cleaning will have to wait.”
I step inside, close the door behind me and the lady beckons down the musty corridor as if she thinks I might somehow get lost. She shows me to the lounge, a gloomy room slithering in shadow, a scraggly one-eyed cat curled up in front of a fire. I place my bag on the floor and unbutton my coat.
“Just for tonight,” I say.
“You can have Kevin’s room.”
“Who’s Kevin?”
“My boy.”
“Won’t he mind?”
“He’s dead.”
I remain silent, tighten my lips and stare at the fire. Vicious stabbing flames, the kind of fire savages dance around at the midnight hour, deep in the dark woods. I stay like this for about a minute before the lady speaks again.
“Left the place in a right old mess,” she says. “But don’t worry, it’s all cleaned up now. I’ve scrubbed and polished everything. Even vacuumed the rug. The bed’s made fresh too.”
“Did he die recently?”
“A year ago this very night,” she says.
“Oh.”
“You’re taller than he was.”
“I’m just over six foot.”
“And handsome too, much prettier. Can I call you pretty? I think some men don’t like being called that.” Hands reaching up, she slips my coat from my shoulders. “Let me take that.”
“Thanks.”
The lady hangs up my coat, then scurries around the room. She pulls a couple of wilted roses from a vase and throws them in the fire where they crackle and pop whilst she rearranges some books. She plumps up the cushions on the threadbare couch. “Would you like to sit down?”
I sink into the ancient furniture, comfortable in the warmth of the fire, and the lady tidies up some more. I’m tired from my traveling. I stifle a yawn, stretch my arms and rest my eyes. I’m half-dreaming that she has turned into a moth, and we are sitting in the woods watching the savages dance around the fire. I drowse in the heat as she bounces back and forth in the flames. A cloud drifts across the moon, and she flies away.
I awake to the sound of a chiming clock and a tray clattering on my lap. “Nine o’clock,” the lady says. “Kevin’s supper time. He always had something to eat at nine o’clock. I’ve brought you a slice of homemade pie. I hope you’re hungry.”
My stomach groans at the smell of food, I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I’m starving. I pick up my knife and fork, and the pastry crumbles beneath the blade, a steaming sauce oozing from within. Within moments my plate is clean. I dab my lips with the napkin.
“Kevin always wanted second helpings,” she says.
“Well, if you’re offering.” I reach for my plate.
“That’s how the silly boy got so fat.” The lady drops her smile and clasps her hands as if to pray. She averts her gaze for the first time, turns and stares into the fire.
“Not much chance of me putting on weight.” I pat my stomach to make her smile, but it doesn’t work.
“He started eating after his dad died,” she says. “It went on for years. In the end, he got so big he couldn’t even get out of bed. I suppose I could have had care workers to look after him and keep him clean, but it was my job. I was his mom. We didn’t need any help.”
“That’s terrible.”
“We had a party when Kevin was twenty-five,” she says. “He didn’t have any friends outside of his room. I dimmed the lights and brought the cake in, and sang ‘Happy Birthday.’
“Kevin took a deep breath to blow the candles out, then clutched at his chest. He looked at me as if I’d shoved a sword in his heart.”
The room is silent save the odd pop and spark from the fire. We gaze into the flames, the lady with her memories, me with my thoughts on the horrors that await me in Kevin’s Room. Stories like this are not common. Bed-ridden giants trapped by those who supposedly love them. Not just trapped, but positively doomed.
“I couldn’t get his body out of the room,” she says.
“What did you do?”
“I chopped him into little pieces and put him in polythene bags. Some of it I burned, and most of the squidgy stuff went out with the household trash. But the best cuts of Kevin, the bits that looked like real meat, I put in the freezer.”
I pick a piece of pie from my teeth and examine it by the firelight.
“He’s nearly all gone now,” she says.
Copyright © 2018 by Stephen Owen
