The Silence

by Daisy Pearce

  I wonder what comes next. I don’t think he wants to have sex with me; his fascination is less shallow than that, less carnal.

  ‘I need a dog.’

  He pulls a face. ‘No. No dogs. Didn’t Frisky bite you once in 1992?’

  Yes, he did. Had to be put down after that. A danger to the kids, they’d said. What I hadn’t told anyone is that I’d bitten him first. My mother always said I’d been an angry child, gnashing my teeth and grinding my jaw until my gums bled. The biting came later, not long after I’d put on the Katie Marigold costume for the first time and I’d bitten the wardrobe assistant on the arm. Her eyes had widened and the look of shock on her face had made me feel powerful and excited. She’d bled. That had excited me too. The purple marks of my teeth on her skin.

  ‘When I found out Frisky bit you I felt pretty angry. There was a picture of you and your mum in the Mirror and you had a bandage on your arm.’

  ‘Is that why you did it?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Poisoned them. The other dogs.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. I got three of them, right before they locked security down on the set. You wouldn’t believe how easy it was to walk in and out of there. I told them I was the tea boy, and they let me go anywhere. Even made me a pass. After the third time though they got a bit suspicious with all these dead animals piling up.’

  I’m remembering Alice telling me how she had found those photos on his hard drive. What was it she had said? They look like they were taken on set. Candid, she meant. A hidden camera.

  ‘So you know what I did? I hid rat poison in the locker of that cleaner. Rat poison and slug pellets. He cried when they arrested him. Told them he loved the show. I bet he bloody did. They found all those things he’d stolen in his dingy little hovel, didn’t they? Photos and props and stuff. He’d been stealing it and selling it to fans. He was wrong in the head. I did you a favour there. They never tracked me down, of course. I knew my limits, Katie.’

  ‘I’m not Katie.’

  ‘You never thanked me, you know. For all the things I sent you. All the things I made you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  I have to get out of this room, out onto the road. I’m worried about what the futon means, the little tray beside the hatch. I think he means to keep me up here, keep me prisoner. He lifts himself up, sitting with his legs dangling into the empty space beneath him.

  ‘I promised you something, didn’t I, if you were my good girl?’

  I nod. He holds out his hand. On his palm are my pills, more pills, four of them. Unmarked, unbranded. I could take them and drift away, forget everything. It was a wonderful feeling. I’d like it back.

  ‘Take them. I’ve got you some water. Are you hungry?’

  I shake my head and he tips the pills into my outstretched hand.

  ‘I’ve made you a sandwich. I’ll leave it up here for you, it’s nearly teatime. You can have it when you get hungry.’

  I can’t cry. I can’t protest. I nod, smiling weakly.

  ‘You know you were right,’ I manage. ‘This does feel good after all this time. Safe.’

  ‘Exactly. I knew you’d get it. I knew you’d understand.’

  I say his name as he begins to climb back down the ladder.

  ‘Marco, I just want one thing.’

  His features are clouded with a frown of suspicion. I’ve asked him wrong. I need to be careful. I am Katie Marigold now, and she wouldn’t talk that way. I try to keep my voice light.

  ‘Can I ask for something? Something little?’ Liddle, something liddle.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I want my mummy’s jar. The one with the pennies in. It’s all I have of her.’

  ‘You brought it all the way down here with you, that stupid jar? Honey, really?’

  ‘Really truly absol-ully.’ Another Marigoldism. The whole sickening family said it.

  Marco brightens, smiling again. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘On the windowsill by the sink.’ Where I could see it every morning when I woke up, filled the kettle. All I had of the woman who had forged my career from her flesh and sweat and sex.

  ‘I’ll get it for you if you take those pills. Do we have a deal?’

  ‘You bet!’

  ‘Okey-dokey.’

  I stare at the pills as he closes the hatch and carefully, carefully, slips the padlock closed. Marco is not taking any chances, but chances are all I have. Overhead, only a centimetre or so above my scalp, are the rafters of the house. I wonder if I can hide the pills up there, if I can convince him that I am swallowing them with a closed hand. With a sinking heart I realise Marco will not allow that. And if he finds out I’m trying to deceive him? I don’t know. I just don’t know. I think Ellie had the right idea, when she jumped. I wonder how she got down from here and then realise he wouldn’t have been using a padlock then. That would have come after, after she escaped. She was off her head in the last days, too spaced out to move, to speak out. I wonder what her breaking point was. Was she wearing one of these dresses, specially made to Marco’s specifications? Probably. Heavy, dense silk maybe, weighing her down in the water. If the fall hadn’t killed her first, the dress would have. It comes down to a choice, I realise. A choice. Do I want to live?

  Marco is back with the jar. He places it carefully on the edge of the hatch and I have to stop myself from grabbing it, from snatching it away. I kneel in front of him, and he passes me the water. All these will knock me out; my tolerance is low, and they are very strong. Do I want to live, I ask myself as Marco puts them carefully on my outstretched tongue one after the other. Do I want to live?

  ‘Drink it all, Katie,’ he tells me, and I do, and down they go. Now I have very little time before they wipe me out. I wonder if I will do it. My chances are not good. Still, I am careful not to shatter the illusion. I take his hand in my clammy, damp one.

  ‘Thank you for showing me this, Marco.’

  He breathes me in, holding his face close to mine. His face is so happy beneath all the blood. My hand moves slowly, finds the place where the jar is, lifts it carefully. All I have of her, airtight, untouched. I have to be careful, and I have to be quick. I let out all the breath I am holding, force my shoulders down. My fingers tighten around the jar, just a little. I move quickly, lifting my arm over my head. He sees, but too late, drawing his arm up protectively. The jar shatters with the impact, the full force of me. It slices into my soft palm, against Marco’s temple. He makes a nasty, strangled noise, knocked backwards where his head rocks against the baseboard with a sharp snap. The coins fall to the floor musically, bouncing and spinning, and all I have left in my hand is a jagged shard no more than four inches long. I slam it against him, cutting into his cheek, which wells blood thickly. Breathless, I slide my body down the hole, feel his fingers grasping for me, circling around my wrist, tugging. There is an awful pain in my shoulder as something gives, as I am jerked just short of the floor. I look up and see his bloodied, awful face leering down at me, his lips drawn back in a snarl. He has his hand around my thin wrist, squeezing it so the bones grind together painfully. I yelp, stabbing at him with the glittering blade, puncturing the soft web of flesh between his thumb and forefinger. Then he lets me go, and I stagger and fall, pitching forward towards the stairs. A thud behind me tells me he is already through, landing on his feet the way he always does, moving towards me as I gather these stupid skirts in both hands and run.

  He catches me at the top of the stairs. I hear his grunt of exertion as he lunges forward, feel the air shifting behind me. I’m okay, I’m doing all right, and then I have one of those sickening lurches that reminds me I have just taken four sedatives and the floor shifts and it slows me just a fraction, and then he is on me, pinning me down, a knee in my kidneys. I bite my tongue, see stars. His hand like a manacle, clutching my calf and the other plunging into my hair, grasping. He pulls my head back, grunting with satisfaction. I can feel the rage seething off him like
a heat.

  ‘Shouldn’t run,’ he is saying, and he lifts my head by the roots, slamming my face into the floor. I see stars. My scalp is full of needles. There is a sense of wetness and when I look down there is a steady trickle of blood, a crushing pressure in my sinuses. I swallow, try to roll over. He smothers me with his weight, pulling his face close to my ear. His breathing is harsh and ragged.

  ‘I didn’t want to do this, Katie. You should have kept taking the pills. I’m not even sure you’re worth all this trouble.’

  A sound, then. The clicking of a latch. So simple it startles us both. We look up.

  ‘There’s someone in the house,’ he mutters.

  I feel his weight lift away from me. I want to call out but I have no breath left, my words won’t come. Marco is smoothing down his shirt, fixing his hair. He looks troubled and I don’t blame him. There is a dead body downstairs and blood all over him. Again, that smell, that feeling of coldness to the bone.

  ‘It’s Ellie,’ I tell him, using the wall to help myself to stand. I have another dizzying rush to the head, the pills are starting to kick in. My nose feels plugged, my throat too. There is blood in my mouth. Marco does not turn round. He walks to the top of the stairs, peering down into the blue shadows.

  ‘She’s come back for you.’

  He puts his foot on the top stair, not looking back at me. The air has grown dense and cold and frightening and I am short of time. I draw myself up from the soles of my feet and run at him, hands outstretched, shoving him in the back.

  You ever pushed someone down the stairs? It’s harder than you think. First, they don’t tumble end over end. That’s for stunt men and cartoons. Second, you need a lot of force and although I take Marco by surprise I am weak and injured, and I think I have dislocated my shoulder in the fall. The shove I give him only makes him lose his balance for a moment, long enough to grapple for the banister, snatching at the air, teetering. He almost had it. Almost. I step closer to him. So hot, it is almost unbearable. A raging fury in the pit of him, where it is blackest. Behind him a figure is climbing the stairs. I see it and do not. Every time I try to focus my eye simply slips away like butter in a hot pan. A thin shape, long hair which she always wore down to hide the scar on the back of her neck, the one as big as a Cuban cigar. There is a film over Ellie’s eyes, gummy and translucent, and water running from her pale fingers, rivulets flowing like tributaries from the soles of her feet. Her mouth is open, and she snatches for him and down he goes.

  Toppling forward, his descent marked by a series of unhappy slapping sounds, the clatter as he connects with the banister, the crack which rings like a shot in the empty house. That is a bone, my horrified brain insists on telling me. That is one of Marco’s bones breaking. Maybe even his neck. Are you happy now?

  Then. Silence.

  I have to lean on the rail for support, swaying slightly. There is a darkness at the edge of my vision but worse than that the pills are making me care less. Not careless. I’m just losing interest, the way I had before. Suddenly this doesn’t seem so important. Easier just to sink. I try to fix on Frankie, the way the blood had pooled beneath him, his eyes rolled back. I am still holding that shard of glass and now as I make my way down the steps saying Marco’s name in a small voice I grind it into my palm, squeezing my fingers around it, letting the pain sharpen me. A gout of blood spatters onto the floor.

  I draw a thin breath, then another. It feels as though I will never be able to inflate my lungs. In the thick silence I wonder if I have killed him. I think of that sharp cracking sound again. From here I can see the tangle of his legs where he landed a good foot or two away from the last step. Listening. No one down here but Ellie and Carmel. No one down here but us dead folks.

  ‘Marco?’

  I begin to edge down the stairs.

  ‘Marco?’

  I can see him more clearly now, face down on the floor, legs sprawled beneath him. Only one arm is visible, the other pinned beneath his body at a terrible angle.

  I am halfway down and can feel a cold draught. The back door has been thrown open hard enough to knock a chunk of plaster from the wall. There are wet footprints leading to the foot of the stairs.

  I approach the body of the man who used to be my lover and crouch down next to his face. The ends of my hair brush against his cheek.

  ‘Marco?’ I whisper. There is no response. I cannot see the rise and fall of his chest.

  ‘Marco?’

  I put two fingers to his neck and almost scream when he groans and spits out a long web of bloody phlegm.

  ‘You bitch,’ he slurs, and plants the palms of his hands on the floor, trying to lever himself up. ‘Pushed me. You bitch.’

  ‘No, no, Marco, I—’

  ‘I think you’ve broken my ribs.’

  He lies still for a moment, breathing heavily into the crook of one arm. I stare about the room wildly. I tried to kill him. I’m going to prison.

  ‘Come here.’

  I lean in. The room lurches, expands like a bubble. Soon I will pass out, I think. My mouth is dry.

  Marco lifts his fingers to his mouth and says, ‘Look at all this blood.’

  He holds his fingers out to me.

  ‘Look at it. You did this. You did this to me. You’re going to hell, Katie Marigold.’

  His voice is flat, uncurious. I can feel the draught against my ankles, a cold drift of sea air. The smell too, salt and blood and the ocean, thickening.

  ‘Here.’ He holds his bloodied fingers up to my face. ‘Closer.’

  I do as he asks, closing my eyes. Now we are barely inches apart. I can see his bloodied fingers glistening. He strokes lines down my cheekbones with unbearable tenderness.

  ‘Warpaint.’

  Marco’s eyes have a hard, flat shine. He presses his fingers to his swollen, bleeding lips and smiles. There is no kindness in that smile, only a cold malice, an unsheathed blade.

  ‘Open your mouth.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Open your mouth.’

  ‘No, I don’t want—’

  He sighs. ‘Open your fucking mouth.’

  Sullenly I open my mouth a little way. He reaches forward, grips my lower jaw and forces it open until I hear the bones click. His fingers slide into my mouth. I can taste his blood on them, metallic. He smears them over my teeth, my gums, the roof of my mouth. Some horrors are nameless; I know that now. They lie still as sediment, and they wait. I close my eyes, my mouth is full of Marco’s blood, his fingers painting my lips. I think of Frankie. It was a good kiss. I want to remember it well.

  I jolt myself, squeezing my injured hand into a fist again. The pain flares like heat, as though my palm is full of smoking embers. My vision clears. I was nearly asleep. Marco is crawling to the fireplace, one arm across his stomach. He uses the mantelpiece to haul himself up. I watch horrified as he turns to face me. His skin is taut and shiny, his lips raw meat, his eyes sunken into puffy purple flesh like rotting plums.

  He beckons me. I shake my head. I say, ‘Please, Marco.’ He grins and there is nothing in it but a hate, black and rich and subterranean. I wonder how I could ever have believed he loved me. I’m going to die here. I can’t defend myself against this man. He will always have this power over me.

  He stoops and draws a poker from the fireplace as I walk towards him. It is brass and heavy and still I am walking as though through a swamp, slowly, just one foot in front of the other. The pills are sinking me and the headlines will read ‘Miserable Death of Tragic Child Star’.

  ‘You. You don’t deserve to win.’

  ‘Always a competition with you, isn’t it? Always about you. Daddy Marigold said the same in’ – he turns his head and spits blood onto the floor. We both regard it solemnly for a moment. The room gives another of those lurches and I stagger slightly. I have to stay focused. – ‘in the newspapers. Said you were a horrible child who was going to be a horrible adult. He’s dead now. But guess what? He was right.’
<
br />   ‘He was an actor. It was just a show. We all hated it by the end. All hated each other.’

  Marco is holding on to the mantelpiece so tightly his knuckles are white. His pallor is a ghostly grey, sweating. He looks very bad. I tighten my grip on the glass and a fresh wave of pain swells in my arm all the way to the elbow. My brain jolts. I stiffen.

  ‘That show killed your mother and now it’s going to kill you too. You should have just listened to me. Why couldn’t you listen? Why couldn’t you just take the pills?’

  I step closer towards him. I don’t know if he has enough strength in him to swing that poker but if he does he could kill me from here.

  ‘You’re shaking.’

  ‘I’m scared,’ I reply truthfully. ‘I’ve never been so scared. I think you’re going to kill me.’

  He does not reassure me that he will not. Instead, he nods as though he understands. His expression has calcified, it’s terrifying.

  ‘What was I saying?’

  ‘The pills,’ I whisper.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You need an ambulance, Marco.’

  ‘No, no. No. But we will need painkillers. A lot of painkillers. I’m going to bite you till you bleed. See how you like it.’

  He smiles, and it is hideous, and I want to run but my legs are leaden and so here I stand after all, despite everything. I am too late for Frankie. I am too late for me.

  ‘You planted the knife. That night you came down here with Jackie. You put it on the counter because you knew I’d pick it up, that I’d be frightened. You – you made me stab you – you were trying to make me look mad.’

  ‘Honey, I didn’t need to try too hard.’

  ‘That night in the taxi, back in London. I didn’t attack you. I fell asleep. You did it to yourself, and it was awful. And the car. Sadie, outside. You drove it off the road. You injured yourself, and you killed Frankie. Do you think this is normal, Marco? To hurt yourself like this over and over till your skin bruises and your bones break?’

  ‘I did it for you!’ he shouts suddenly, the tendons on his neck standing out like cords. ‘You’d forgotten who you were! You needed to be reminded!’