The moon vanished behind a large cloud and Alice could barely see what she was doing. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The wind pushed the clouds away and the moon reappeared, lighting up Stanley’s face. Alice wondered what had happened to his eye. It was odd seeing him so dirty. Stanley had always been neat and smartly dressed. It was one of the things she liked about him.
Alice put the shovel on the spot where the shirt and trousers met and suddenly thought of the day Stanley had come home wearing that shirt, over ten years ago. She’d told him it made him look like a man in the grip of a midlife crisis, but Stanley hadn’t cared. He wore the shirt for years afterwards.
Alice closed her eyes and brought the shovel down with all her strength. The shovel didn't make any headway — the edge wasn't sharp enough. Alice started to panic. What now? She lifted the shovel up and examined it closely. Why not? She went into the house and returned with the whetstone she used to sharpen her kitchen knives.
Twenty minutes later, the shovel was ready. The sharpened edge glinted in the moonlight. Alice raised it up in the air, took a deep breath and brought it down with everything she had. There was a sickening crunch as the sharp edge of the shovel sliced through Stanley’s pelvis and wedged in the grass underneath. She managed to prise the shovel loose and moved it into position for another go.
She paused for a moment to give herself a breather and thought about life with Stanley Green.
It hadn’t always been bad. The first few years had been pretty good, in fact. Stanley was the perfect gentleman and he’d treated her like a princess. Then Alice thought about the first time she’d found out she was not the only princess in Stanley’s life and brought the shovel down so hard it nearly sliced his body in half.
Emily Bright, Alice thought, that was her name. A most inappropriate name. Legs that went on forever and a brain whose only purpose was to fill in the gap between her ears. Emily Bright had been the first. Alice had lost count of exactly how many others had followed.
She lifted the shovel high in the air and slammed it down with all her might. Stanley Green’s body separated into two parts, like an earthworm cut in half.
Alice wrapped the legs up first, put them in one of the refuse sacks and tied the opening with duct tape. She lifted the sack into the wheelbarrow and trundled it down towards her van. The road was deserted as she opened the back and bundled her husband’s legs inside. It made her feel sick, but she went through the same thing with the other half of Stanley.
Driving the few miles up to Merryhead, Alice realised she was shaking. She could barely keep hold of the steering wheel. She slowed down and stopped by the side of the road. All sorts of memories were flooding her brain. Not just Stanley. Not just Emily and all the other little idiots who’d followed her. Other things she’d rather forget. Other things she had forgotten, till now.
There was quite a lot she remembered, if she put her mind to it. She stopped the car for a moment and wound down the window. She breathed in the night air and closed her eyes for a moment.
Get a hold on yourself, she thought. So what if there are things you’d rather not have done? Sometimes you just have to do what’s necessary. It’s almost over, anyway. Everything can go back to normal soon. Or as normal as possible, anyway.
She carried on towards the top of the cliff and parked as close to the edge as she dared. She got out of the van. The wind was now howling over the cliff top. She shivered. She could hear the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks below. She was in luck — the tide was in. If she acted quickly enough, the tide would carry Stanley’s body parts far out to sea, never to be seen again. She opened up the van and looked around. Nothing and no one to be seen.
She emptied Stanley’s legs onto on the grass with a dull thump and rolled them over the edge. She heard a splash as they hit the water. She sent the refuse sack after them and watched as it floated up in the wind and disappeared from view. The body was harder, because she had tied the tape on the sack too tightly. She could not risk throwing the body over inside the sack — it might float. She needed to get it out. With a desperate wrench, she managed to tear the tape and Stanley’s body tumbled out. Alice closed her eyes and pushed it over the edge to be reunited with its legs. She almost screamed when the now empty refuse sack was picked up by the wind and carried out to sea.
As she drove back to Polgarrow, Alice’s heartbeat slowly returned to normal. It was all over. Everything was going to be all right. She could go home and forget about Stanley forever. It would not be too difficult — after all, in the forty years they had been married, they had only really spent a few good years together. Alice was looking forward to a huge glass of port and a good night’s sleep. Everything would be different in the morning. And if she did remember the other things too — well, she could deal with those in due course.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Harriet Taylor woke up from a dream that she instantly forgot. She had a throbbing headache. Her stomach started to contract and she shot up, threw the duvet to the floor and made it to the bathroom just in time. She vomited into the sink.
She retched until she was certain there was nothing left in her stomach. She rinsed her mouth, splashed some cold water on her face and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was shocked at what she saw. Her face was pale and her green eyes were bloodshot.
Harriet went downstairs and looked at the kettle. She was not sure if her stomach could even handle a cup of peppermint tea, but she decided to risk it and turned the kettle on. She spotted the empty wine bottle on the kitchen table and got flashbacks of the previous night. A whole bottle of white wine and two sleeping pills had ensured a good night’s sleep but the consequences were evident in the bathroom sink.
“Never again,” she said.
She felt terrible. Her headache was getting worse and her stomach was making strange gurgling noises. She sipped her tea and it calmed her stomach a little. What made me drink a bottle of wine after all this time? “Never again,” she repeated, gulping two painkillers with more tea.
She opened the back door and a cool breeze wafted in. She took a big gulp of air. The painkillers were starting to work and the peppermint tea had settled her stomach a bit. She scowled at the empty bottle of wine and threw it in the recycling. The wine had stood untouched in the fridge for months.
What made me open it last night?
Then she remembered. Yesterday would have been Danny’s birthday. Charming, two-timing Danny Taylor would have been thirty years old. Taylor had thought a lot about how life would have been if Danny hadn’t been killed in the accident. She wondered how much longer he would have taken her for a fool.
The truth was that the wine hadn’t been to drown her sorrows. It had been to celebrate the fact that he had died and spared her further humiliation. Danny’s death that night had hit her hard at the time, but, in fact, losing him had given her some semblance of a life again. She forced down the rest of the tea and went upstairs for a shower. A cold one, as cold as she could tolerate.
* * *
A few miles away, Alice Green woke with a smile on her face. She wasn’t sure why. Was it the result of a dream? She couldn’t remember. All she knew was that it was all over. Stanley was gone for good and she would never have to worry about him again. As she walked through to the kitchen in her nightdress, she noticed that the smile would not shift. It felt like a mask glued to her face.