by Sarah Dunant
Too many questions. To get perspective she needed space. It was time to leave the house.
While she had been dancing with darkness the world had moved on. The High Street was tacky with Christmas cheer—the banner over the department store announced that there were now just six shopping days to go. It was a fact that the rest of the world was taking seriously. The weekday street was Saturday-full, people with heads down and checkbooks open, committed to spending money they didn’t have on people they didn’t like that much.
She had never enjoyed it as a season. Even when she was small she had mistrusted the magic, sniffing out death and deceit amid the aromas of fir-tree rosin and stock-cube gravy. Doing it for the children. Or, in her case, the child. No wonder everything had had to be so perfect. To be an only child born ten years into a marriage may have seemed like a miracle to them, but it was more of a burden on her. Would it have been different if they had had another? At least it would have taken the pressure of fulfilling the fantasies off her. She had had to go on “believing” in Father Christmas long after she knew the truth just to keep her parents happy, extend their illusions. It was such a relief to get away from it all. The best years with Tom had been about defying the occasion—taking last-minute planes to Morocco or Scandinavia, spending the day drunk in some hotel room or on a beach.
She thought of Malcolm, rolling joints during reruns of The Big Sleep. Was she interested? That depended on what her other suitor might be doing Christmas Eve. Maybe this year she should block up the chimneys. Or light a fire. At least this time around there would be an excuse for her alienation.
Inside the supermarket, things got worse. Like him, she had become a night creature, unused to bright lights or crowds. The place was vibrating with people and shopping carts, an army of crazed shoppers marching to an accompaniment of a choral version of “My Little Donkey,” which was seeping out through what seemed like gas vents in the ceiling. There was a feeling of muted panic to the scene, like the beginning of a horror movie. How amazing, she thought: I can handle an intruder in my bedroom but I can’t make it through Waitrose at Christmas.
She put her head down and concentrated on the list. She got through the fruits and vegetables without a problem, then started on the long-life stuff, tins and frozen foods.
She left the cart by the side of the freezer compartment and made a careful procession down the ready-to-eat section, picking her meals by country: lamb korma, Thai chicken, paella, Chinese sweet-and-sour prawns. If she shopped well now she wouldn’t need to go out again until the book was finished. It would be better food than Mirka was getting anyway. Maybe she could help by giving her a culinary imagination. Where men fantasize about sex she could play with images of cream sauce and ginger stir-fry. She returned to her cart and put them in—but something caught her eye. Surely this wasn’t her shopping cart. She had only fresh foods and a few staples; she hadn’t got to the tins yet. Yet there were four of them, thrown in on top of the potatoes. Cat food. Someone must have mistaken her cart for their own. Someone? She picked up one of the tins. A picture of a handsome, well-fed kitty stared out at her, its coloring like Millie’s. Like Millie’s. She felt her throat get smaller, as if a layer of fear had furred up her windpipe. She looked up.
He was at the end of the aisle, less than twenty feet away, no cart, no groceries, just standing there next to the cereal, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, watching her. He looked almost haunted.
She had never seen him in daylight, knew him more by feel than by sight. Yet she recognized him immediately, not so much from the body or the face—though the slash of mouth made her heart beat faster—but from the tension that he generated, the way it lit up the air like a laser beam cutting between them.
The paralysis was equal. She stood transfixed, gut twisting, heart pounding, the tin of cat food burning a hole in her hand, his eyes burning a hole into her brain.
Then he smiled, a tight, nervous little sneer that bared his teeth and seemed to speak as much of pain as pleasure. Hers or his? It broke the spell. The taste of him was like vomit in her mouth. She lifted up her hand, and before she knew what she was doing hurled the cat food tin at him. Its weight gave it an added velocity. It would have hurt if it had hit him. It missed by inches, instead doing serious damage to a shelf display of cereals on sale. The boxes scattered like bowling pins across the floor. An elderly woman who was walking past let out a shriek as they crashed all around her. At the top of the aisle more people turned. It didn’t wipe off the smile.
Her hand fumbled in the cart, connecting with a ketchup bottle, the replacement for his wall decorations, but she was already too late. By the time she had it in her hand he was gone. She sprinted to the end of the aisle only to see him hurtle past a woman with a small child, sending the kid crashing into a stacked display of biscuit boxes. The mother yelled as the kid exploded into tears. By the time she got past them he was halfway through the wide aisle checkout heading for the exit.
Now he had half the store watching as he tried to shove his way through the line. A man in overalls turned on him and shoved him back, the English sense of fair play enraged by the idea of someone trying to jump the line, but he was through and past him already, racing toward the automatic doors. She stood watching on the other side of the divide, the bottle still grasped in her hand, her breath coming in big, gushing gulps. Around her there was a soundtrack of outrage and excitement.
“You all right, love?”
“What did he do?”
“He snatched her purse.”
“I thought he had something in his hand. In broad daylight. What nerve.”
“Bloody hooligan.”
She didn’t hear it. What would I have done if I had caught him? she was thinking. How much damage could you wreak with a ketchup bottle?
The security officer, when he arrived, looked too young for the job. His sense of relief was palpable when she told him that it was nothing, that she had simply panicked when she felt the man brush against her but now that she had checked, her purse was secure.
“Good for you, my girl,” said a wizened old man as she walked self-consciously back to her cart. “These men have got to know they can’t shove you around. My daughter’s like you. Doesn’t take shit from anybody.” She was so distracted she wasn’t sure if he was referring to the man or the security officer.
She gazed down at the pile of provisions at the bottom of the cart. Where would he be now? Dancing his way across back-garden walls to try and poke his metal coat hanger into her cat flap? Which was preferable? Dying of fear or starvation? She took a few deep breaths and dug her list back out. Next time she went out she would wire the kitchen lock to the main cable. Give him the shock of his life.
Yet even as she thought it she saw his face in front of her, found herself trying to read the grim little smile, differentiate between nerves and triumph.
It took her almost half an hour to finish the shopping. At the smallest checkout line the woman in front of her had two stuffed carts. She stood behind, impatient and resigned at the same time, staring down at the bank of magazines designed to tempt you into last-minute purchases. She read a cover without thinking: “A Million Ways to Make Your Christmas a Joyous Occasion” over a picture of a little girl dressed to match the Christmas tree she was sitting next to. Could there really be people out there who spent their lives making table decorations?
Below the glossies the local paper boasted a different headline. She looked at it with only half her brain, registering the words and not the meaning. She must have read it three times before she actually took it in. When she did it knocked everything else off the rack:
Hammer Rapist Strikes Again
She picked up the paper but had to put it down again because her hand was shaking so much she couldn’t read the small print. But she got there eventually. Strange how, by most standards, it was not that shocking really, just an everyday tale of inner-city violence and unsolved crime.
Th
e streets of North London once again became unsafe for local women after a young woman was attacked early on Wednesday morning. The victim, who has not been named, was a student nurse returning home after a night shift at Whittington Hospital when the assault took place.
Her attacker, whom she later described as a white man of medium height and slim build, was wearing a mask and carrying a hammer. He pulled her into an alleyway off Holloway Road leading to Whittington Park where he sexually assaulted her. A police spokesman said it marked the eighth such attack in this area over the last seven months by the man whom the authorities have dubbed the Holloway Hammer.
This latest attack differs from earlier incidents, which took place in the victims’ homes. Police today cautioned all young women living in the area to make sure any doors and windows are securely locked, to take extra precautions when traveling home from Christmas parties, and, where possible, to walk with a friend or take a taxi. The victim’s condition is described as comfortable.
Comfortable. It was not the word that she would have used. Early morning Wednesday. Yesterday. No wonder there had been no sign of life. He had been too busy. The eighth attack in seven months. Or should that read the ninth? The only question was who would be the tenth? So much for the power of redemption.
seventeen
The station was down a side street next to the library—another vicious architectural mismatch of sixties brutalism and nineteenth-century civic pride. Presumably when the library had been built they wouldn’t have needed the police, or at least not a whole station full of them. This would have marked the edge of the city then, England’s green and pleasant land only a short bike ride away.
The date on the library foundation stone was 1875: before Jack the Ripper, London would have had a different—more Artful Dodger—kind of crime. Now the only pockets the boys wanted to pick were the ones inside girls’ bodies. But that still didn’t mean you should invite them in.
She stood by the railings, listening to herself trying to tell it.
“I was too scared to do anything else. He said he’d hurt me if I didn’t.” She might not have the bruises to show, but wrapped safely away in Safeway plastic she had the weapon to prove it. Of course they would believe her. It was, after all, the truth.
And yet not the whole truth. No. The whole truth was something wilder. Something even she didn’t want to understand. She saw again the tight little face, registered the electricity streaming through his body, felt it bury itself inside her. She already knew that there were some things that could not be told. It’s not over till the thin man smiles. And sometimes not even then.
So tell them what you can, she said to herself fiercely. Tell them and get at least some of the monkey off your back.
A blue Ford Fiesta screeched to an unnecessarily fast stop on the double yellow line across from the building, and two men in suits got out. Plainclothes. Aptly named. As they crossed the road one of them caught her eye—thirty-something, with a touch of flab to the face. Her only experience with the police was reporting two stolen bikes to claim the insurance and the young Mr. Plod from the other week. But these guys didn’t feel so benign.
“Three days, eh? What made you wait so long?”
“I only just read the report in the newspaper.”
“But you must have known he might try it again. Why didn’t you come to us straightaway?”
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know. Him. Myself.”
She saw him glance at his companion, then back at her. “I gather you called the police a couple of weeks ago, Miss Skvorecky. Some trouble with a stack of CDs, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Same man, do you think? He didn’t by any chance mention his taste in music, did he?”
The station doors slammed shut behind them. She stood there for a few minutes longer, then walked away.
In retrospect, she didn’t have much choice as to where to go next, though as far as she remembered she made no conscious decision, just found herself driving home that way. The vicarage door remained closed after the third ring. But this was the third week of December, the time all good dog collars would be caught up in annual jubilation.
She had made a nice job of the church. The main glass doors had two enormous holly wreaths attached, rich, shiny leaves and fat blood-red berries, with white stenciled snow above them reading: UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN. It looked good, she thought. Tasteful. The equivalent of a spiritual glossy. She peered through the window and saw the main altar with more holly and a stunning display of ferns and berries.
But it was not all such successful interior design. To the side, in an alcove that had obviously housed the Nativity, a figure (the reverend?) was on her hands and knees picking up something from the steps, while above her, like some newly apprenticed angel, a man in white overalls was precariously balanced on top of a ladder, arms up to the sky, desperately trying to scrub out a set of giant red letters scrawled on the wall. MARY SUCKS AND JESUS FUC . . . The plaster around the missing two letters was already a messy, lurid pink. From the look of the stain this was more than ketchup.
She pushed the door open quietly and walked in. They were so busy at their job they didn’t notice her.
“This is impossible, Catherine.” The angel was gasping for breath. “I can’t even reach them properly. It’ll take me hours.”
From the ground the reverend glanced up. “I’m not canceling the school service, Jim. And that’s that. If necessary we’ll go ahead with it still up there.”
“Why don’t you paint it over?” Elizabeth said as her footsteps on the wooden floor gave her presence away.
Up the ladder the angel flapped his wings frantically. “Hey, what are you doing here?” You don’t get to fly that way, she thought. “The church is closed. Didn’t you read the sign?”
“No. Some vandals must have ripped it up. Hello, Reverend Baker.”
“Hello, Elizabeth. How are you?”
The voice was good, but as she straightened up it was clear that the serene Catherine was no longer quite so at peace. There were tufts of that lively, crinkly hair sticking out at all angles, as if more than one morning service had been overlooked that day. Had she noticed? Maybe, among its many blessings, belief precluded vanity. She thought of her own face in the front hall mirror. It could be they had something in common after all. She shrugged. “I was just passing.”
The woman gave her a little smile as if to acknowledge the lie but let it go anyway. She looked up.
“What do you think, Jim? Would paint do the trick? It would certainly be a lot faster.”
“Hmmn. I still don’t think I could reach it all from here. How on earth did they get up this high?”
“How would it be if you used a roller? Or we could tie a brush to the end of a broom handle? There’s a couple in the vestry.”
“Hmmn,” he said again begrudgingly. “That might do it.”
Elizabeth bent down to help pick up some of the debris, now revealed as bright ceramic fragments of shepherds and wise kings lying amid scattered straw and ferns. “What time is the service?”
“One o’clock,” the reverend said quietly, and this time her voice definitely sounded a little tired.
She handed her the bottom half of the infant Jesus, plump little flesh-colored legs in a tasteful white diaper. “What will you do without the crib?”
She made a face. “I expect I’ll have to do something with the power of words.” It seemed for a moment that she might give in to self-pity, but instead she took a deep breath and straightened up, rubbing her hands down her skirt. “This is a waste of time. We’ll never be able to repair it by one. Listen, Jim, why don’t we try the paint? Go out and buy a can and a roller. There’s money in the petty-cash box.”
“You hope there is,” he said as he came thumping down the ladder. “What if they’ve taken that, too?”
“Oh, dear, I didn’t think of that.”
“Oh, it’s all right. I don’t think there was much there anyway. Not after we paid for the Christmas flowers. I’ve got enough on me.”
He stomped out of the church, flat feet echoing on parquet flooring. They both watched him go.
“So, Elizabeth,” she said, brushing back the unruly hair from her eyes. “What can I do for you?”
“Look, I’ll . . . come back another time. You’re obviously busy.”
“No. Not at all. They’ve already done enough damage to my day. I’m not going to let them wreck my parishioners’ time, too—” Parishioner. It sounded so comforting. Or stifling. It was hard to know which. “Only perhaps if you wouldn’t mind we could talk here in the church. I don’t feel entirely comfortable about leaving it empty right at the moment.”
“D’you think they’ll come back?”
“No. I just don’t like to feel the place uncared for,” she said, then gave an almost apologetic smile as if she realized how precious the remark must have sounded. But it was not the time to worry about other people’s embarrassment. They sat themselves in the second row of the pews, the reverend facing the Nativity damage. She sighed. “Apparently this kind of thing often happens at Christmas.”
“Vandalism?”
“Yes.”
“You mean it’s like suicide? More people feel alienated then?” she said, thinking of herself.
She shrugged. “Well, I suppose celebrating the birth of a child is so much about family and belonging. If you feel you don’t, the temptation must be to try to destroy it all.”
“That’s very charitable of you,” she said.