by Tanith Lee
CHAPTER 48
LATE IN THE SUMMER, MALCOLM AND Cherrylyn Lennox went cycling in hilly Covener Woods. It was very hot, but they had missed their cycling due to Malcolm's father's illness, from which, thankfully, he was now recovered. As Cherrylyn had remarked anyway, with the damage to the ozone layer, summers were always going to be this hot, and winters full of gales. They would have to get used to it.
They strained up the slopes, bony with roots, and free-wheeled down the other sides, sometimes laughing. Yellowed green, the crisp leaves shut off the worst of the sun. Birds were everywhere; they spotted jays, and even, they thought, an escaped canary.
"Let's stop in Witch Hollow, I'm starving," said Cherrylyn, as they came over the ridge, and saw, far off below, the railway line which ran over the countryside from London, city of muggers and pollution, like a spreading stain.
Cherrylyn, despite her bicycling, was a big hefty girl, but all her feeding had not covered over Malcolm's thinness. They were an ill-matched couple, who loved each other, and were very happy.
They rolled down into Witch Hollow, that they had named from the Coven of the Woods. Among the thick weave of the trees, they parked the cycles, got off, and
Malcolm began to unload the food. Large wholemeal sandwiches of vegetarian cheese and homemade pickle, walnut cake, bananas, and a bottle of apple juice guaranteed free of Alar.
"Just got to wee," said Cherrylyn, and giggled. She found most natural functions, except eating and sex, rather amusing.
She went off decorously into the waist-high bracken.
"That stuffs bad for you," said Malcolm. They had just heard that bracken was perhaps carcinogenic.
"I'll only be—" said Cherrylyn. And then she stopped.
Malcolm waited, then he shrugged, and went on putting out the sandwiches, cake and fruit, on the oilcloth.
Soon the bracken rustled, he looked around, and so was in time to see his wife emerge, her round face greenish white.
Though he was thin he was also strong, and he managed to catch her as she fainted.
When she came to, which was quite quickly, Cherrylyn was her usual sensible self, although her face was now the color of milk and she shook so hard she joggled him up and down.
"There's a dead body in the bracken, Malcolm. It's decomposed. Don't go and look."
"But I must," said Malcolm.
"Why? I've seen it. Honestly, love, you don't want to."
"Yes," Malcolm said. "No, all right, then."
"I'll be fine in a minute, and then we must cycle down to the village and get the police."
"Oh, hell," said Malcolm.
"I know," said Cherrylyn sympathetically, "but there's nothing else we can do."
"No."
After five minutes, Cherrylyn was able to stand up.
But she did not risk getting on her bicycle, so they wheeled them away through the wood.
The food they left abandoned on the grass, on the oilcloth, and presently the birds came gladly and ate it for them.
There had been no plan. The car took them to a great station of hard cement, where colorful shops in glass cubes offered chocolates and books, scarves and roses, and tables stood out on the concourse under bright umbrellas that were not needed, for in here, the rain did not fall.
A train was leaving for the north in sixteen minutes.
Stella and Ruth went into the booking hall and Stella bought two tickets for the first-class section.
Then they walked to the train and boarded it. Stella and Ruth, with only Stella's small bag.
The train moved. It moved away. Setting out into the rain and the wide skies beyond the city.
At first there were factories and little houses and churchyards and huge yards full of lorries.
Stella and Ruth, sitting facing each other on the an-timacassared seats, both looked at these.
Then, like the past, the edges of the city dimmed and went behind. The dark fields opened, lined by leafless, mourning trees.
Stella uncrossed her legs and the smart boots hissed.
"Shall we have a drink?"
Ruth turned. "Yes, that would be nice."
"You'd better understand," said Stella, "I've got a cast-iron head. I'm not going to lose my grip. It won't make any difference."
"No, I know that."
The man came from the buffet just after that, and Stella lavishly tipped him and told him what was wanted.
When he next appeared he brought a bottle of vodka, glasses, ice, and real lemons.
After he had gone again, Stella made the drinks.
They drank in silence for about an hour.
Stella could see Ruth was like her in the matter of being a sound drinker. She did not change.
And Stella thought for a second how she had got tiddly with her mother at Christmas, and how it had been infectious, that. And maybe this was too, this cold.
The landscape went by.
"Look," said Ruth suddenly, "there are cows."
As if she had never seen them. Perhaps she never had.
"We'll have something to eat later on," said Stella. "I don't know yet where we'll get out."
"We may just see somewhere," said Ruth, "that looks like the place."
We're on honeymoon, Stella thought.
We're at one.
Darkness began to come, the impersonal darkness of winter night. Although maybe it was spring.
"I want to tell you," Stella said, "about the man you killed."
She was not drunk. She could see and function exactly. Her hands were coordinated, her brain clear. But yes, the drink had made her want to speak. Or Ruth had. Confession.
But Ruth said, "I'm sorry, I'm not sure which man you mean."
"You've butchered several, haven't you?" Stella said. Ruth nodded. No pride, no complacency. No bravado. No regret. "Why did you do it?"
"It's what I do." Ruth's eyes dropped down under the makeupless pale lids. Her lashes were long and thick and black, like trimmings of her amazing hair. "But I got it wrong. And this man you mean—he was the last one, wasn't he? The one who came to the house."
"Yes," said Stella. Her voice was grit and it hurt her throat.
"I'm sorry," said Ruth, "I thought he was threatening them and that I had to stop him. But he wasn't. I was mistaken."
"That won't alter my mind."
"No, I'm not trying to alter your mind about me," said Ruth.
"No amount of pleading—"
"I won't plead," said Ruth. "I want you to do it."
"Why?" Stella said.
Ruth said nothing.
Stella refilled their glasses, replacing ice, throwing out the old lemon and adding fresh. Two-thirds of the bottle was gone.
When Ruth took her glass back, Stella noticed for the first time that she was left-handed.
"The man you killed had a nickname. It was Nobbi. Daft, isn't it. Like some sort of bad penis joke. Actually he was a wonderful lover. And anyway, I loved him."
"Yes," said Ruth. She raised her eyes. "Yes, tell me."
"I lost my mother you see—horrible euphemism. She died and my cat died—" Ruth made a tiny movement with her mouth. What they called a moue. "That can be traumatic."
."Yes," Ruth said, "my cat died, too. It was very old. It died in its sleep."
"Mine—yes, mine was like that."
Stella drank her vodka.
Ruth said, slowly, "And then you met the man."
"Yes, I met him and I was in love with him. I just looked at him and I was in love."
"Yes," Ruth said.
"He was married to somebody else, so we didn't have much time together. But what we had was delirious —yes, it was. And I used to think he'd leave her. Stupid, perhaps. Perhaps he wouldn't have. But I used to think we'd be together. And have cats and dogs. And—just be with each other."
"Yes," said Ruth.
"Maybe even I'd have had his child. It's not that I'm maternal. I just liked the thought of reproducing him. You see these bl
oody people, absolute rubbish, and they fill the earth with their rubbish, and they breed. But the best ones don't have children. Or not enough."
The train moved. Outside was the night. Now and then a dislocated light would gleam nickering in rain. It might be anything. A factory, a window, a beacon on a hill to tell of the coming of the Armada.
"And now there's no future," said Stella. "There's nothing."
"It will be so easy for me," Ruth said. "I've got nothing, either. And you'll put an end to that."
"Stop asking me to make you happy by doing you in," Stella said.
"I'm sorry," Ruth said again. "And I'm sorry about —Nobbi. I remember, he was short. He had a loud voice, but then he was quiet."
"Quiet forever," Stella said.
The waiter came.
"Can I help you, ladies?"
"We'd like something to eat now," Stella said. "Not the usual menu. Something light." The drink made her truthful. "Attractive."
"I will see to it," he said.
When he had gone, Ruth said, "I think he changed me. I think I can feel what you mean."
Stella thought she meant Nobbi.
They sat in silence again, and then the man came back with a tray laid with linen and silver. The plates were good china. There were leaves of green salad, endive and lettuce, yellow tomatoes and avocado, Brie and Camembert, and whorls of biscuits. In a glass bowl were seedless grapes and checkers of melon.
"That's so lovely," Stella said.
"My pleasure. Is there anything else?"
"No. Thank you."
They drank the last of the vodka and they ate all the cheeses and the delicate watery green pure food.
Ruth and Stella were hungry. They told each other so, and how much they liked what they had. They laughed. And were silent again.
The train began to slow. Outside, the darkness of the countryside.
They looked at each other.
Ruth said, "Shall we get out here?"
"Yes," Stella said. "That's best."
They went into the corridor.
When the train stopped with a long and dismal screeking, they undid the door and descended to the platform.
The electric lights burned, and, under these, skeletal hanging baskets were, without flowers.
Beyond the lighted station, on every side, teemed utter blackness.
There was no one at the ticket barrier, although it was lighted up. Beyond, a half-lit slope of gravel with a shed, itself unlit, labeled: Speedie Cars.
"What will you do?" said Ruth. "How will you get back?"
I'm going to kill her and she asks how I will get back.
"It doesn't matter. Don't worry, Ruth. Maybe there'll be a car. Or I can sleep in the wet woods."
Ruth nodded.
"You could take my coat. It would help to keep you warm."
"No, no, you keep it."
"But I won't need it," Ruth said.
Inside Stella the sword of pain clove sheer. But she did not swerve. That was her way.
As they walked, Ruth came close.
"Take my arm. I liked that."
"Must I do what you like?"
"Just this once."
Stella took Ruth's arm.
Below the station was a muddy road, and along this they went and into the great blackness of the night. The rain trembled.
There were no stars. But the sky had its own color reprieved from the lamps of the city. It was blue. Blue-black, or purple-black, like Stella's clothes.
There was a track, and they moved onto it. It pulled uphill, and the woods came down.
Wet woods, still but for the lilting patter of the rain.
"How many miles to Babylon," said Stella. "God, don't you remember funny things."
"I remember dragons," said Ruth.
Stella did not argue. Did not even query the statement in her mind.
Up in the woods was the depth of the night. Nothing in motion, but they two.
Ruth halted.
"Shall we do it here?"
"Is there anything—" Stella stumbled in her words, "anything you want to do—need to do—"
"Nothing."
"Are you ready?"
"Yes."
Stella undid her bag. Her fingers brushed the lion in the dark, and then she found the kitchen knife she had brought.
She could see Ruth now, her eyes accustomed to the dark. Ruth had undone her coat, and the white dress shone.
Stella stepped forward. She raised the knife, and braced herself. And Ruth smiled. Lost in the water of night like a note of music, a glimmer of day.
Stella struck with all her strength. Through the white dress, the white breast, down, deep down, carving to the heart of murder.
Black—it was red—gouted out about the blade, and Stella wrenched it back. It needed brute force.
Ruth was gone. She was down in the undergrowth of the wood, where the termites and the woodlice ran, down on the mulch of leaves, the sodden fern stems.
Stella peered after her, and saw her there.
Ruth was as still now as the night. The black blotch on her dress did not disfigure her, and only from the corner of her mouth one glowing jewel, like jet, had issued.
The downpour would wash her clean. All white. And tomorrow the sun might light on her. For now, the choir of shadow and water.
Stella placed the knife in the plastic carrier she had brought and settled it in her bag, careful not to soil the lion.
Then she turned and left Ruth there, under the trees:
The dead girl in the rain.