“I’d had a lot to drink by then, so don’t listen to me. They were probably kissing hello or something. Her and a brunette. I have an overactive imagination in that department, you know. Lesbians. What can I say? They’re hot.”
I love how Frank compartmentalises everything; his intra-psychic synapses must be so neat. Life is about sport (mostly English football), beer, birds (hot or not) and guns (in the biological sense as well as the ones with real bullets). Life is simple for Frank, which is probably why he smiles and nods a lot. The music is turned up and the hillbillies start to sokkie.
“The thing with Eve is complicated.”
“Dude, she’s a woman. Enough said.”
I’m feeling warm and fuzzy. I’m going to tell Frank.
“Look, Frank, usually I wouldn’t tell anyone, it’s considered bad luck, but I’m in the mood and I don’t see the harm in you knowing.”
Frank sits up.
“What is it?”
“I’m going to murder Eve.”
Frank looks like a puppy that has just been kicked. He looks around anxiously to see if anyone had heard me.
“Dude, are you fucking mental?” he whispers, “Are you fucking off your tree? What if someone hears you? You can’t talk like that, man, even if you’re kidding. It’s like joking that you’ve got a bomb on the plane. It’s just not cricket.”
“First, I’m going to sneak sedative into her tea. It does its thing quickly and then is broken down completely, not leaving a trace. This is to relax her, make her feel really good.”
Frank shields his eyes and looks away as if pretending not to be in this conversation at all.
“Then, while she’s in the bath with her eyes closed, I’m going to slide a porcelain knife into her heart. She won’t even feel it. I’ll watch her bleed out then clean her up. Carry her like a bride to her car, and drive her into the river. At first I thought fire but now I think the river is far more romantic.”
Frank now looks like someone who has just made it to the toilet in time. His features melt into a dumb smile. He bangs his forehead on the table.
“It’s for your book,” he says in wonder.
“Of course it’s for my book, Frank. Jesus. You thought I meant that I was actually going to murder someone? Eve? Fucking Christ! She’s one of my best friends.”
“Only for a second,” he laughs, his face still showing relief.
“What kind of idiot would sit and describe exactly how he was going to kill someone in a public place like this?”
His wiring may be a bit shorter than I originally guessed.
“I don’t know.” He laughs in a high pitch. He may be a little hysterical. “I was wondering.”
“Jesus.”
He gulps down a good portion of his draught.
“So you’ve finally cracked an idea. Congratulations. Let’s have one more beer to celebrate, I’m buying. You can tell me all the gory details.”
Quote: Neil Gaiman
“You write. That’s the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die.”
13
MIND MAP
I spend the next day creating a mind map of the murder. I have time sequences built around Eve’s routines, drawings of her house plan, inside and out, a key taped to the address. I have pictures of her, too. There is a map of the river. I include the pink pills in their packet in my collage; it adds another dimension, like one of her mixed media artworks. I wonder what she would think of it.
The murder weapon is a work of beauty, if I do say so myself. It was a gift from my mother a few years ago, which, I guess, has a peculiar kind of irony. The good thing about it is there will be no record of purchase and I have never seen anything like it in this country. It practically doesn’t exist. Gifts from mom are always a surprise on two fronts. Firstly, because she tends to forget birthdays and Christmas and just sends things on an ad hoc basis. Secondly, the things she sends are puzzling. When I turned thirteen I unwrapped a second-hand bicycle pump. It sounds interesting and eccentric but there was never so much as a note included to help me understand the obscure presents. So I’ve always felt like I just didn’t get them.
The knife is porcelain, Japanese, with an intricate carved handle. Sharper even than those they demonstrate on the shopping channel, where they inexplicably slice open tins and garden hoses. So sharp that I almost lost a finger trying to make gazpacho one day and thus relegated it to a drawer in the kitchen I hardly ever open.
Francina had to drive me to the hospital that day. Me, trying to stem the flow of blood so as to not a) die and b) stain the champagne suede interior of my Jag, with Francina trying to work out the difference between the accelerator and the brake. We arrived and parked at the hospital in starts and jerks of the V8. Francina, flaunting the key ring to other bruised, beaten and bleeding patients, wouldn’t stop beaming for the hour we spent in the emergency waiting room (it was only then she confided she couldn’t drive). Eight stitches and a reattached index phalange later, I let her drive us home again.
I haven’t seen Francina since the party a week ago. She’s usually very good at calling me if she can’t make it to work, but I haven’t heard anything and Thursday was her second no-show. So I’m a little worried but I’m sure there’s a good reason. Like a fashion emergency. The house is still a war zone of sharp objects and party stains.
I’m quite glad to have the privacy anyway. My mind map takes up the entire kitchen table and the last thing I need is Francina in a tutu, mid-vacuum, popping bubble gum, trying to figure it out.
I have some small mementoes of Eve I don’t stick to the map. A picnic serviette marked with her pale lip-gloss, a tortoiseshell hairclip, a Polaroid of us at a fancy dress party. Despite my general good spirits there are fleeting moments of sadness that I don’t have Eve anymore. We were, at stages, incredibly close. At times I have felt that I would do anything for her. The thing that drew us together, I think, is that we’re both pretty much loners. Both had a nasty childhood, both find our salvation in our art.
Quote: Oscar Wilde
“Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
14
UNFORTUNATELY, CORPSES DON’T BRUISE
Sifiso picks up on the first ring.
“CONGRATULATIONS! I knew you could do it! When can I see it? The suits are going to be so RELIEVED!”
“Sifiso, I…”
“I TOLD them you still had it in you. To be honest, I had my BALLS on the line.”
Before I can stop it, the image of Sifiso’s black hairy balls is firmly imprinted in my front temporal lobe. In my head, I gag.
“So, I don’t have the actual manuscript yet…”
Silence on the other side.
“I’ve cracked something that I know will work. It’ll be my best yet.”
Still nothing.
“So I didn’t want you to worry. That’s why I called. Er… Hello?”
A sigh reaches me.
“Look, Harris, you must tell me if you need anything. ANYTHING. Whatever will help you FINISH this thing.”
“That’s kind.”
“It’s got nothing to do with being KIND.”
“Got any muses in your artillery? Preferably blonde with great tits?”