Duet #3
I admire his courage, but I can’t let myself be deflected. ‘You have dust on your cuffs, and that annoys you. It’s your best shirt and you need it for the weekend.’
He nods. ‘The Gaumont. Saturday night.’
‘The girl, yes,’ I say, impatiently. We are doing well, but we have to stay in the house. I can’t let him get away from me. We have to go down into the cellar, him and me. Only then will the last pieces of the jigsaw fall into place.
‘So you managed, of course you did. Strong chap like you. On the up.’ I hesitate. ‘But she came back. Called out, didn’t she?’
‘Caught me by surprise.’
‘That’s right, so you slipped. Lost your footing.’
He flushes. ‘It was dark.’
‘Of course it was. Could have happened to anyone, in the dark.’
‘She shouldn’t have come back.’
‘That’s right.’
‘She scared me.’
‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘Her fault really. If she’d left well alone.’
‘Her fault.’
I can see beads of sweat on his forehead, a sickly yellow.
Skin sickly yellow. Or is that Turner? Lying on the floor of the cellar, like a dummy.
One of those mannequins in Reynolds department store on the front.
I pull the handkerchief from my pocket and wipe my face.
He does the same – great minds think alike – and he looks better for it.
I put my handkerchief away. ‘That’s when she saw him. Over your shoulder, looking over your shoulder.’
‘Screamed.’
‘No call for it,’ I say.
He’s nodding. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt her. Tried to explain.’
‘But she starts screaming, that’s the thing, says she’s going to call the police.’
‘I reach up, just wanted to talk to her. Got hold of her ankle.’
I shudder, remembering the saggy nylons like loose skin on her leg, the sponge-like flesh beneath. Her tumbling down the wooden steps, taking us both down with her. The box and the silver plate rattling down to the cellar floor. The weight of her lying on top of me. Not waking up.
‘Banged my head,’ he says. ‘Out for the count.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I say. ‘Bad luck she came home. She didn’t have to scream.’
‘She didn’t have to make such a fuss. I only wanted to explain.’
‘You’re telling me, you’re telling me,’ I say, ‘never a truer word spoken. I like that.’ I stop. Take a breath. Let my shoulders drop. ‘I like that.’
I start picking at a thread on the sleeve of my jacket, a heavy twill much too warm for our room.
There’s blood on the sleeve, that’s the thing.
All that money. All that money stashed away.
Thought it was under the mattress in Number Three.
He found me looking. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but Turner went for me.
Pushed him. Hit his head. Down he went. Taking him down to the cellar, knew he’d be safe there.
Mrs Nash never went down there, couldn’t manage the steps.
If she hadn’t have come back, she’d never have known.
‘Never a truer word spoken,’ I say.
There’s a noise at the door. The sound of the key being turned in the lock and the bolt being shot back. We are out of time.
The orderlies come in. Tweedledee and Tweedledum, we call them, on account of their size.
‘All right, Jim? Time for your medication.’
I let my eyes slip away, warning him not to say anything in front of them.
Not to admit to anything. It’s not murder if you don’t mean to kill someone.
Turner or Mrs Nash, not his fault. Checking he’s quiet now.
And he is. He’s sitting silent as the dead in the corner of the room, not saying a word.
I put my finger to my lips just in case.
They can’t see him. They don’t know he’s here.
‘Yes, I’m all right,’ I say.
‘Here you go then.’
I hold out my hand obediently. The quicker it’s done, the quicker they’ll go and we can get back to business.
Tweedledee drops two yellow pills into my palm.
Sickly yellow. I take the paper cup and swallow, drain the water and hand the cup back.
Tweedledum ticks something on his list, then they are wheeling the trolley out of the room again.
‘Someone be round with supper soon,’ he says.
I put my hands over my nose, keen for them to be gone so we can resume our conversation. I can’t believe they can’t smell it. The rotting fish, the seaweed. Just like before. I want them to go. We’re at the interesting part now. The reason we’re here.
‘See you tomorrow,’ says Tweedledee.
‘Tomorrow it is,’ I say.
I wait for the bolt again and the key again, then I turn round.
‘Thought they’d never go,’ I say. ‘Now, where were we?’
But he’s gone. I’m on my own. Pity. A pity.
I lie back on the bed. It doesn’t matter though.
We’ll talk again tomorrow. Start again. Get to the bottom of things tomorrow.
I must ask them to do something about the smell.
The rotting fish, the seaweed. Someone’s going to notice soon.
Someone’s bound to notice. I look around for the box, but that’s gone too.
He’s taken it. Perhaps he’s already taken it down to the cellar.
‘Tomorrow it is then,’ I murmur. ‘Never a truer word spoken. All right for some, all right for some.’