I’m only kidding. Ha ha.
“Sifiso, I’m only…”
The line goes dead.
So this is the plan I have finally decided on:
I break into the house before Eve gets home from work to do the prep work. I say ‘break in’ but really, we have each other’s house keys for mutual house-sitting so I’m just going to let myself in. In my mind I have come up with a cunning plan that involves stealing her keys for half an hour, having copies made and replacing them before she notices. I would do it for real except that she’s not speaking to me, so it would be complicated.
At 4pm I’ll park my Jag a street down at the local shops where there are lots of cars and walk the kilometre to her building with my backpack. Once inside I’ll pour the GHB powder into the kettle and wait for her to come home. After drinking her Oolong she’ll feel light, uninhibited and disorientated. Because it’s still early and she won’t want to go to bed, maybe she’ll decide to have a bath. If she doesn’t I’ll step out of her bedroom cupboard and run one for her, help her into it. By that stage she won’t think it’s unusual that I’m there. When she’s in I’ll kneel down at the side with her and hold her hand. Tell her she’s beautiful and I will always love her. Kiss her lightly on the forehead and the lips, like putting a child to bed. I need to be up close. And when she’s completely relaxed and has her eyes closed, I will unwrap the knife I have brought and stick it through her ribs and into her heart. Her eyes will flutter open, she’ll look at me, wanting to know what has happened, why she has this heaviness in her chest, why she feels her colour is fading. Then I’ll pull it out and she’ll close her eyes again and it will be over. She will bleed then. Bright red bathwater against the porcelain of her skin. The gentlest murder ever committed.
Or rather, not committed, as I have to keep reminding myself.
I’ll dry her with a soft towel and dress her in clean clothes, cutting them over her chest where she has this new slit in her body, so initially it’ll look like something from the car, like the steering column, has punctured her. I’ll lay her out on her perfectly made bed and wait until 3am when there’s little chance of running into anyone while I carry the body to her car. Enjoy the quiet drive to the river. Once we’re there I’ll put her on my lap while I drive as fast as I can over the bridge and slam into the water below. This is one thing I’ve done before so I know how to get out of it. I know how quickly the water rushes at you and holds you in, wanting you to stay. I know the pressure exerted on the car from the heavy water outside makes it almost impossible to open a door. Jams the windows. I must remember to not panic when I realise I can’t move, can’t get away, that I have to take off my safety belt.
Then I will touch Eve’s skin for the last time and swim away.
I’ll have a car waiting in the trees nearby, with dry clothes in the boot. Drive the hour back to the parking lot at the shops while listening to Depeche Mode and swap cars. Leave the keys with the café owner as organised with the car hire company, with my fake driver’s license (an international driving permit for only fifteen pounds from www.fakepermit.co.uk). I uploaded a jpeg of my ID photo and the card was in my letterbox within days. It’s convincing enough and comes with a very attractive hologram design. Apparently my credit card statement will read ‘Greeting Cards Galore (PTY) LTD.’, in the same way as when you’ve been to the strip club and your statement reads ‘T# Restaurant’ instead of Teazers (I’m not quite sure who this is supposed to fool).
Once I put my key in the front door of my house I think I’m home free. But that’s the thing. I mean if I really were to go through with it, there would be hitches and mistakes, all the better for the story.
Perhaps when I let myself into her apartment, she’s already there. Maybe her car is at the garage for an aircon re-gas, so I surmise that she’s not home but then end up walking bang into her, in the kitchen. I say I was going to surprise her and she looks around for champagne and roses. Instead, she finds ground-up sedative and a murder weapon wrapped in a fluffy towel.
Or else the GHB doesn’t work: the scumbags have sold me dyed aspirin or speed and, when I step out of the bedroom cupboard she gets the fright of her life and shoots me between the eyes with the 9mm Beretta I never knew she had. Then she’ll feel awful, so awful for shooting her friend in the head: she’ll cry and groan and throw herself over me. Dial for an ambulance, scream into the phone.
Until she discovers the contents of the backpack and then she’ll jump away from the bag and my prostrate body, as if from a wolf spider, cancel the emergency services, wait for me to bleed out, call the police. She’ll sit on the edge of her bed, blood-splattered, gun hanging from limp hand, and look at me with a lost expression. The confusion will lead to exhilaration when she realises she has just cheated death and her heart will pump away.
Or I could be carrying her to the car when I walk around a corner and straight into a drunk resident trying to get his key in the door. He’d look at the body and know she’s dead. He would recognise her pale face as the neighbour he’s always trying to screw. He’d smile and pretend that he can’t see shit because he’s so drunk, perhaps make a sleazy joke, but as soon as he steps into his apartment he’ll slam the door closed, triple lock it, and call the cops.
So I would have to kill him too, the drunken lamb. Punch him in the face, as he’s scrambling to get that stubborn key in the door, and then slit his throat. Take them both hurtling off the bridge. And then of course the multitudinous things that can go wrong in the car underwater are just too much to go into, so let’s not even begin. But when they find his throat slit they’ll know it’s murder, so the whole plan has to change anyway. The car will have to crash and explode to destroy the evidence.
Or I could dump him somewhere altogether different and make it look like he was just a drunk stumbling into trouble. I’d take his wallet and watch and leave his credit card for a travelling bum to find.
Or I could drag him into his apartment as soon as I’ve knocked him out and make it look like Eve killed him in self-defence. Put her fingerprints on a glass of wine. Rough her up a bit, tear her panties. Unfortunately corpses don’t bruise. Still, a bit hard to swallow.
So many scenarios to choose from, my writing hand is itching. Without even touching my Moleskine I dive straight onto my laptop. The phone rings a few times in the background but I block it out. I’m writing so fast that I can hear the sound of my fingers hitting the keys in a strange kind of disembodied way, as if my thoughts are just being deposited right onto the screen in front of me. Divine Dictation. I write for hours and hours without even realising it. The sun is setting and the last thing I had to eat was a rusk with this morning’s first flat white. I’m excited down to my lower intestines. My lungs are filling with air, my blood is rushing.
Christ, I love this feeling.
I feel like I could go all night but I don’t want my prose to tire. I force myself to shut down the machine and I order in chicken tikka for dinner. I’m not hungry but I want to feed my body so that this energy keeps coming.
When I turn in for the night I know that I won’t be able to sleep. I try to read Zadie Smith’s White Teeth but, much as I appreciate her writing, I can’t concentrate on the story. In the first chapter corduroyed Archie Jones is in the process of gassing himself in his Cavalier Musketeer Estate, with his medals in one hand and his marriage certificate in the other, ‘for he had decided to take his mistakes with him’. At the mere hint of death I’m losing focus all over the place. My mind bunnyhops. Eventually I give up sleep and sassy Ms. Smith, and start scribbling the ideas as they come to me. I write deep into the night, promising myself just one more hour every time the long hand meets twelve, eventually falling asleep when the hadedas start making a ruckus in the orange glow outside.