The librarian’s beard is growing. Not very quickly, but each time Ruthie blinks, or turns her head, then looks back, there are more whiskers. Once she actually sees them lengthening. She wonders what makes a woman with grey hair have a ginger beard. She wonders whether the woman, now wrinkled and surely too old to be employed, was a stunning redhead when young. Ruthie wonders if the woman still has pubic hair and if so, what colour is it?

Ruthie does not wonder at the speed of the growth or even why the woman is so calmly stroking the beard, twisting and curling the red bristles, at one point trying to stretch them into the corner of her mouth. Instead, Ruthie wonders how she has managed to build up a fine of £67 on a book she cannot remember borrowing and why, if the librarian is speaking the truth, none of the reminders — first in black, then bold capitals and finally in red — have ever dropped through her letter box.

And then, as she’s wondering this, Ruthie touches her own chin and feels a smooth, soft fur and a new, wispy fringe above her top lip, and realises that the librarian has turned into a wolf with the most knowing eyes, before Ruthie takes in a breath so deep that she wakes herself up and discovers, before she tells herself that this was all a dream, that the room is black.

This bedroom is never black. Ruthie cannot remember a time when she’s stretched out her hand and not seen its outline against the wall. She cannot remember a time when the saffron yellow of the streetlamp has not seeped through her curtains, or the early morning summer sun hasn’t streaked the wall. But now, at whatever time it is, on this Friday night or Saturday morning, with the alarm turned off and her hoping to sleep past her brain’s automatic wake up time of six o’clock, Ruthie is woken from her dream and finds herself in total darkness.

She lies in the double bed, still neatly curled up on the left, still avoiding his side, although now it is all hers and has been for months. She lies completely motionless, holding her breath and listening. There is no noise. No cars are driving on the dual carriageway which snakes along the housing estate behind the trees that are supposed to create a feeling of green and space, and maybe absorb some of the carbon monoxide. But now she can hear no engines. Ruthie knows there is no-one else in the house. How does she know? She just does. A hollow stillness tells her that the bed in the room next door is empty, in the same way that when her daughter, Martina, brings back a boy and is so quiet sneaking him in and they use their hands to stifle each other’s gasps and fast breathing, as well as other things, Ruthie just knows there are two of them in the single bed.

She has been thinking about buying a double, but that’s as far as it’s got. Thinking. Until she sees one in the sale, that’s as far as it will go. Maybe by that time, Martina will be bringing someone else other than Matt into the house. Maybe.

Maybe Matt has taken Martina to his house, but Ruthie knows that’s unlikely. Matt’s mother is not like Ruthie. She’s not willing to pretend that she doesn’t hear their silent steps and the way their bodies pleasure each other. Ruthie remembers all the tricks from her own teenage years. Her whispered urgency, telling Ken which step creaked and must be avoided. Was it worth the effort?

She blinks, trying to see the shape of the wardrobe, trying to focus on something. Anything. She knows that the streetlights have gone out, that there are no cars on the roads and that Martina is not home, and all these things tell her that something is wrong.

She thinks about her dream. Will the librarian’s beard have reached the parquet flooring? Will her own beard be a fur coat with her nipples as buttons?
None of these thoughts are as frightening as the dark silence. She closes her eyes and tries to dream herself back there, then opens them again. The whole room is black. This means that her alarm clock, instead of sending out a green glow, is also black. She is sure she didn’t switch it off completely when she cancelled the alarm, which means the power must be off. That explains the streetlights disappearing, but not the cars, which is even more worrying, because on a Friday night there are always taxis taking people home or to the airport for one of those cheap holiday flights that always go in the early hours, passengers checking in at some middle-of-the-night time after a taxi ride that in most cases will drive along the dual carriageway stretching past the housing estate where Ruthie lives.

There is not even the sound of an ambulance or a police siren or someone’s car alarm set off by a couple of drunks falling on it, dropping their chips all over the road and bringing out the neighbourhood cats, fighting and yowling over the scraps, especially if there’s fish. Usually Max, the dog that lives two doors down appears, adding a few growls if he’s not been fed as he tries to frighten off the cats although mostly he’s just left with the vinegar paper. Ruthie knows that when Max chews on the wet paper, the bitter taste makes his head shake, which surprises her as she didn’t think that dogs had such delicate palates, but then, she’s never owned one, never had that longing for a pet, although if she had one now, maybe the house wouldn’t feel quite so empty. But it would still be dark.

Ruthie stretches out her arm. The stretch is tentative even although she knows this room so well, having slept in it for the last eighteen years and the furniture never being changed. Not that she’s stuck in her ways, but the electrical points make it sensible to keep the bed this way and the wardrobe will only fit in the alcove to the right of the fire, because although it looks the same size as the one on the left, it’s at least three inches wider and that matters because Ruthie quite likes her old pine wardrobe which does hold most of her clothes - that is, if you don’t include the thick coats which would take up a third of the space, which she hangs in the entrance hall and is picturing now. Even although the street light on the front of the house always, always shines through the stained glass half-moon on the front door, she knows, is absolutely sure that now, tonight, the coats are in darkness.

When her arm begins to cool, Ruthie pulls it back under the duvet for a moment. She feels goosebumps along her arm and knows it’s not just the cold. She knows she won’t get back to sleep, that she must get out of bed, firstly because her bladder is starting to tingle and ache with fullness and secondly if she doesn’t go to the toilet, soon her legs will start to ache and not only will she be unable to sleep, she will have to rock herself to and fro to stop the burning.

Ruthie throws back the covers and steps onto the floor, her feet finding the blue slippers with the teddy bears. Martina bought them for her, as a joke, knowing her mother prefers to wear an old pair of thick socks instead, but also knowing that she would wear them, because they had been a birthday gift from her daughter.

Ruthie stands up and pads across the floor towards the door, which she knows will be slightly ajar, even although everything is in darkness so she can’t even see the gold circle of the handle which usually glows in the alarm clock’s light.

She pulls the door open and walks through, keeping her hand on the wall, guiding herself along, even although sometimes she walks to the toilet without opening her eyes. Tonight, because there is no light, everything is different.

It’s a relief to hear the noise of her own piss hitting the toilet. She knows it will be dark yellow, the warm smell a sign it has been maturing and ripening in her body overnight, not like the pale urine that flows at lunchtime.

Her hand reaches for the flush. Her fingers press the button. Water flows from the cistern, but it doesn’t start to refill. While she has been sleeping, the water has disappeared. Ruthie turns on the tap and a trickle dampens her hand. She turns it off and brushes her hand against a fold of her cotton nightdress. Then she heads along the corridor and feels her way towards the front door. It is so dark she cannot see the half-moon window, cannot make out anything. For a moment, her heart leaps. Maybe she is imagining this. Perhaps the alarm clock is faulty. If she clicks the light switch… but nothing happens. She switches it off again, reaches for the door handle, turns the key and pulls the door towards her.

There is a slight, black breeze, nothing more. Ruthie steps outside and stands still, trying to hear something, anything. The air has a bitter taste. She takes a step forward, then another. Her slippered foot stands on something soft that collapses under her weight. She hears a sound, the light crunching of something breaking. Slowly, Ruthie bends down and forces her fingers to touch it. A bird. Already dead, she’s sure of that, but still warm. She is wondering how it died when she hears a rasping noise coming from beside the gate.

As she stretches out her hand, Ruthie thinks she knows what it is. Max. Maybe she recognises some echo of his growl or bark in the heavy breathing. She can feel that he is on his side, which rises and falls in time with the wheezing. Gently, Ruthie reaches between his hot, slimy teeth and finds a ball of paper at the back of Max’s mouth. There is a whiff of vinegar. She rests her hand on the concrete path and touches cold chips. Where are the noisy drunks? Where are the cats? Ruthie can feel her eyes straining to see something, anything, but it is so black that there is nothing. She looks up to where the sky must be. There are no stars. There is no moon. There is no streak of cloud for her to focus on. She moves her head back down towards Max. Even with the paper removed, his breathing is still difficult.

Ruthie strokes his head and Max nuzzles her hand. For a moment, he is quiet and the silence returns. Ruthie is glad when she hears the uneven breathing begin again. A few moments later, silence. Still no cars, no lights, nothing. Just Ruthie and Max and a dead, squashed bird. The rows of houses around her are in darkness.

Ruthie wants there to be light. She wants noise and movement and people. She wants an open window with music coming through it, a late night party and the impatient beep from a waiting taxi. She wants a noisy drunk, the throb of the police helicopter overhead. And if she can’t have these, she wants Max.

There is only one thing for it. She moves her face close to the warm mouth and positions her lips, then breathes out. Her hand finds the softness of underbelly. She moves her fingers higher and presses down gently. Ruthie takes another breath and exhales, feeling the bristles brush against her chin in the dark.