“No,” I say. No. “I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”
She is heavy, she is squeezing me. I feel dizzy. Flashes of light on my brain. Pictures in fast forward. I see my violently scribbled notes, the mind map, the knife in my study. I see myself sneaking into Eve’s apartment in black gloves and balaclava.
No.
I see Eve’s bloodless face, the savage red ribbon on her chest.
“No,” I say, “The police think I did it because I planned to do it. But it was only a plan. A concept. An experience, for a… story.”
“The police think you did it, because you did it.”
I try again to buck her but her strength is Amazonian.
“Just like you did it before.”
My spine turns to ice.
I retreat as far as I can into my mind. Into the space where I am allowed to hide things. A safe corner of denial. I want her to kill me. I would rather die than listen to this. I wish I could die. God, I wish I could just stop existing. I wish I had never existed.
“I didn’t do it before,” I murmur, more to myself than to her.
“Why do you think your mother left you?” she snarls.
I am slipping into a hungry pool of darkness. I try to think of something else, but the cold blackness is swallowing me whole: toes, ankles, calves. Knees, thighs…
“She left us because she couldn’t stand it any more. She couldn’t stand our… mortality.”
“After Emily.” she says. Anger shoots back into my body, makes me stronger, and we struggle.
“How did you know about Emily?” I shout into her. She is my secret. My haunting. “How did you know?”
I am filled with a sudden power and I am able to throw her off and stand up. She comes at me but I manage to swing her into the wall and she hits her head with a thunk. She is still for a second, then she stumbles for me again and we are two shadows wrestling in the dark. I kick her legs out from under her and as she falls, I pounce on top of her. Swift, stealthy, like a killer. Like I have done this before.
“It was an accident!” I shout into her. I don’t want to hear another word erupting from her mouth. My hands are around her throat and I am squeezing as hard as I can. She is making sounds I don’t want to hear, so I press harder. “It was an accident!” I shout over and over, shaking her, causing her head to bounce on the concrete floor, until at last, at last, at last she is quiet.
Quote: Virgil
“The descent into hell is easy.”
43
ROLLING AND WAILING
Now that she is quiet I can let go. Now we don’t have to fight. Now we can just go our separate ways and never look back.
“Now you are quiet,” I say, touching her cheek. It is cold. My knees are locked. How long have I been sitting over her like this? I must be heavy. It must be hurting her. I climb off, taking her hand.
“Get up now,” I say. “It’s time to go.”
I sway her gently. I shake her shoulder. It’s time to go home. God, how I want to go home.
I lift my hand to stroke her hair and as I do, I know she is dead.
When I come out of it I am still beside her, rocking and moaning. I remember this feeling from when I was eight. On the riverbank. Coming to, rolling and wailing, wondering where I had been in my head and not glad to be back. I look at her black outline. I need to get rid of her body. I stand up, switch on a lamp. Start looking around. I need to get rid of it but I don’t know how. No more bodies in rivers.
44
STILL SKIN
I find some flammable liquid in the studio. I am numb so I can’t tell what it is, but I know it will burn. I soak Denise’s clothes and then cover her body with them. Susannah’sclothes. Susannah’s body. Pour it in her hair. Empty it onto her. Drops bounce off her still skin.
There is a thought that keeps knocking, but I try to keep the door closed. It starts like this… if I am capable of murdering Denise… and then I shut it out. It comes back over and over again. If I am capable of murder… and with it comes flashbacks of Eve’s ivory face, Emily’s marble body. The thoughts slow me down until I am still and I put my head in my hands and bellow as loudly as I can to drown them out.
I find more bottles and douse the rest of the place. I paint the wall with it. The white paper flutters and turns translucent. After the studio is done I move into her bedroom and soak everything in there too. The taped-up cardboard boxes; the near-empty cupboards; the curtains; the pillows. I hear sirens in the distance. They know I am here: they have tracked me down. I start looking for a lighter, or matches. I attack the kitchen drawers, hauling everything out and dumping it on the floor. My fingerprints are everywhere. Nothing in the kitchen, nothing in the passage cupboard. Back in the studio I pillage the drawers. Blindly I loot and sack and strip until I see something I recognise. Not a lighter, but a sheet of cream-coloured paper. My body wants to keep searching for fire but this thing stops me. I pull it out, feel it between my fingers. My senses are coming back. It is thick, textured. I take it towards the lamplight. The top centre is embossed with decorative circle: a bit like a wheel.
45
HEADFIRST INTO BLACK DEW
I am lost, but then I hear the siren again and that wakes me up, tells me I am in this place with a job to do. I crumple up the letterhead and add it to what will be the bonfire. I almost give up on the lighter but then I think: incense and candlelit baths. I walk to the bathroom and find a box of matches in the first cupboard I open. There are only a few in the box but they will do. I reach around to make sure that I have my bag on my back. The fumes are making me unsteady on my feet. I hear the wailing of the police car as if it is in the next room. I pour the last of the fuel down the entrance hall and up to the front door. I stumble around, my fingers are thick. I drop the matches, pick them up again. There are bright lights blocking out my vision. I need to get to fresh air or I will pass out. I don’t even bother to turn the handle, I just kick it open. Once outside I take a few clear breaths to make the stars recede. I see parts of the floor, parts of bricks on the wall. I put an arm out to steady myself. The siren arrives downstairs. The car brakes with a scream and crunch and the siren quits half-shriek. Doors open and boots hit gravel. Terse words are exchanged. It will take them less than a minute to get up here. I peer through the stars into the matchbox. I grab one but drop it on the floor. Another one. Then I take two and hold them steady against the flint-side and as it sparks, the wind is knocked out of me and I am pitched forward, teeth-to-tiles. The matchbox skitters across the floor. I forget about breathing and start crawling towards the box, but Edgar gets there first and picks them up in a neat collect. He glances backwards at me, white grimace in black hood, and takes off. Next thing I know I am up on my feet and chasing him. He darts down the narrow emergency steps and I follow. As we descend I can hear the cops ricocheting off the main stairway, in the opposite direction. Despite the assault, despite the blurred vision and bubbling lungs, I keep on going. We hit the basement floor and run through the parking lot. Edgar bounces off a station wagon, bounds up some concrete planters, rushes through a garden and out of the pedestrian gate. He is fast and putting extra distance between us. He is hard to spot in his dark clothes, and he runs like a pro. Trust me to get the athlete stalker. We corner the block, hitting a straight road and he picks up speed. I can feel my legs disappearing under me. I am just about to stop running when he makes a sound: a yelp. He has tripped over something, some sweet thing, and sprawls headfirst into black dew.