by Stella Duffy
She was jolted from her shock by a hammering on the back door. Saz jumped up and pulled all the boxes together, shoving them behind the sofa. She opened the door without thinking, half-expecting to see Jasmine standing there and not at all expecting to see Grant. He thrust a bunch of flowers into her hand and smiled. Not a charming smile like the ones she’d seen in San Francisco, but forced and angry. He jumped up the three steps until he was six inches from her face.
“We had a date remember? You didn’t make it, so I thought I ought to come to you.”
CHAPTER 37
When Max woke a while later he lay soft in Anita’s arms. She was smiling down at him and they were in the white room he had rented for them in Mexico. He could hear the trees outside, scraping branches against the cool whitewashed walls of their building, the building that was little more than an extended collection of huts strung together by trees and tiny gardens. He lay with his head in her lap and opened his eyes to look up at her, she was smiling down at him, white blonde hair falling over her face. He looked at her soft lips, they were speaking, she was talking to him but he couldn’t quite hear what she was saying. He moved a little away from her, to clear his ears, tell her he couldn’t hear, but he couldn’t. He tried to sit up with stiff legs and arms, his limbs distant for some reason, he lay down again, unable to move. It was all slow, terribly slow, yet with the rushing sound in his ears getting louder and louder. Then her face came into focus again and it wasn’t Anita, but like Anita, not quite Anita and not quite himself.
Max looked up into his daughter’s face, recognizing her just as she reached over for a cup and began pouring water down his mouth. He was so thirsty, so dry, his swollen throat could barely take the water in and she was still talking to him, talking at him, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. The water kept coming, pouring out of his mouth, down his face, into his ears, making her words even more muddied, he struggled for breath against the stream of water and began to choke. He choked, fighting to take in air, his lungs straining against his chest, he saw now she wasn’t pouring from a cup but a jug, a big metal jug of water which she kept on pouring, throwing cold water at him, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t take it in, and the sound was still roaring in his ears, still making no sense until she opened her mouth again, this time in a laugh, her mouth wide so he could see all her teeth and she held the jug back from his face, and the noise stopped.
It was quiet. He wasn’t in Mexico, this girl wasn’t Anita, she was his daughter and she hated him. She was telling him she hated him, spittle on her lips and fury in her eyes, yet she held his head in her hand, tenderly, like a lover, she bent her head to his, her lips to his, he thought she was going to kiss him, his face wet from the water, raw and chapped from the drying of his salt tears, she bent so close he felt her soft lips against his, dry and cracked. He opened his mouth, he had no idea what to say, how to speak, he had no words left and, just as he did so, she kissed him, kissed him soft on the lips then, drawing back and laughing at the shock in his eyes, she spat full in his face.
“What Daddy? Surprised? Is it so shocking to have your little girl kiss you? Is it?”
The tender touch on his head was rough now, she’d grabbed a handful of his hair, pulling at him, shaking his head.
“Answer me Max, surely these aren’t the manners of a good Bostonian? Your father would never approve, I know. He’d never be rude to a lady. Tell me, do I disgust you? Is it really possible that I could offend even you?”
Max shook his head, the words weren’t there, he didn’t know what she wanted him to say and he didn’t know how to speak any more anyway. He had no thoughts that made sense. He closed his eyes and she let his head bump hard on the floor. She emptied the rest of the water over his face, this time he didn’t choke, this time he tried to swallow as much as he could. She walked to the door and turned.
“A little longer perhaps? You’ve barely begun. As I’ve heard you say so often, the Process lasts as long as it lasts. I think we’ll both know when you’re done. Oh, and don’t worry about the water. I wouldn’t let you drown. That’s the last thing that’s going to kill you.”
Later, it really was Anita that came to him, and this time she did kiss him, kiss him long and hard and he felt ready for her, wanted her, wanted to fuck her like in the beginning, the best times, those new times when he’d completely given himself to her, the passion of sex he could never get back no matter how hard he tried, how many women he fucked. And he kissed her again and he was ready now and he opened his eyes to look into her face before he entered her and it was Michael, Michael waiting for him, Michael wanting him, wanting Max to make love to him, wanting Max to love him. But Michael was the wrong body, the man’s body and too young, too easily broken. Max wanted Anita’s strength, wanted to hold her and pierce her so she flowed into him, so he could be strong too. Not this boy, not this vulnerable, wanting child. And so Max held Michael in his arms, kissed him softly on the forehead and told him what to do, told him this way he would be free, talked and talked until Michael believed the story, talked until Max believed the story himself. Talked until the telling became the story. Max held the manchild, held him and kissed him and, terrified by the giving, left him alone, in the dark, to bleed himself to death. Max climbed into bed with Anita and rested against her strength as Michael curled himself, small whimpering puppy, in the chair at the foot of their bed.
And then he was older, wiser, stronger. Now he was strong too. Anita was gone and he had the strength of both of them. And the blood was the same with Deb, but this time he hadn’t trusted her to do it herself, hadn’t dared leave her in case her own strength asserted itself, freed her. This time he held her and she didn’t much struggle, she was tired, sleepy with the wine he’d been feeding her all night. He sat on the landing floor with her and, one hand around her mouth, he cut deep into her. True, vertical cut, fast and sure like the surgeon his father had wanted him to be. His fingerprints on his own blade and who to check? Who to care? The blood on his clothes purely from the discovery, the quilt there to protect him from the worst of it. His strength there to protect him from the worst of it.
And Anita and John, so involved, such a plan, an endeavour. A trial of purpose. And successful. When Anita had whispered her last breath to him, he’d kissed her strength out of her, taken it from her, made himself whole. Healed himself as every good physician should. Only he wasn’t whole, couldn’t have been whole, without his ghosts. He knew that, he’d invented that, created the Process that found them, confronted the ghosts, made them part of the Now so they could be owned and filed and then finally left for really dead not just nearly dead. And here they all were. Anita and John and Deb and that stupid Anna woman and Michael. Poor little bird-thin Michael. Max screamed out to him, vocal chords ripping in the effort to find words that would convey meaning, bring him back from where he was all sense and feeling and no boundaries. The shock of the pain in his throat cleared his vision a little and Max watched Anita bringing Michael forward and Max took him, sat up to hold him in his arms and rocked the sobbing boy to sleep, kissed his eyes gently, held him as he slept and so softly, so quietly kissed him, loved him. And the boy smiled and Max smiled and Anita touched them both, on the head, like a blessing.
Then they were all gone and Max lay awake. His throat was swollen from the lack of water and the tears, his dry lips were bleeding and his wrists and ankles were rubbed raw from their bindings. He lay in the white room, daylight flooding in from the skylight and he breathed deeply. Each breath bringing him back to himself, more to himself than he’d been in years. He knew what he’d been through and what he had to do. Max looked at the five people he had killed and put them away. He was exhausted but easy. He smiled to himself, a big open smile and winced as the smile tore another shred of the skin on his bloody lower lip.
A key turned in the door lock and she came in.
“Is that it? Are you finished?”
Max turned his head
stiffly and looked up at her. He spoke quietly in even, measured tones.
“Yes. I’m done. I think I’ve come back. I think it’s all over.”
“Good. Do you want to say anything?”
Max thought, then waited, then spoke.
“Yes. I’m grateful. Grateful to you. The enforced Process is not something I’d ever recommend,” he smiled at her, wincing again in pain as his speech cracked his lips and dribbled more blood into his mouth. “Not even for me. But … well, my past is confronted and put away now. I feel calm. I believe it worked. How long did I take?”
“Almost three days.”
“Christ! That’s incredible. Ah … I don’t really know what to say … thank you.”
She smiled, a genuine smile.
“You’re very welcome.”
“And now?”
“Now? Well, now it’s all done. Finished. Your Process is over Max. You are whole.”
“Will you let me go?”
She looked startled.
“What? Oh God no! I’m sorry. How silly of me, guess I’m not as good a Process leader as I thought I was. It’s my fault, I obviously didn’t make myself clear. I don’t mean this is finished. Not you and me, not all this stuff. Not that. I mean you’re finished.”
Max frowned, stiffly twisting his head up from the floor to see her better.
“But I don’t understand. I’ve completed the Process. I’ve acknowledged my culpability and I’m ready to go forward. What else is there?”
Jasmine reached around the side of the door and held up a can of petrol.
“Ever seen one of these before?”
CHAPTER 38
Saz looked at Grant.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Grant answered her, pushing her backwards into the flat.
“Hey Sarah, that’s not a very English greeting is it? Where’s the tea? The crumpets? The sympathy?”
Saz stumbled backwards, looking at him blankly.
“Huh?”
“I’ve come to help.”
“Help what?”
“You’re not very quick today are you Sarah? I know, jetlag can be a killer like that, still, it is all just a state of mind – you can talk yourself out of it if you want.”
“For God’s sake Grant, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I’m here to help you find Max. That is what you’re doing isn’t it?”
“How did you …?”
“Know he was gone? He’s the boss, it’s not difficult to notice when your head honcho goes missing.”
“No – I mean, me. How did you find me?”
“Oh, that? Well, when you didn’t turn up for our meeting I was initially a little put out by your lack of commitment, then I figured you must have had a problem – real or self-created – and called the hotel. They told me you’d checked out and so I did a little checking of my own. San Francisco desk clerks are notoriously easily bribed. I ‘obtained’ your London address, which wasn’t listed as this one by the way, this I got from your incredibly efficient British Post Office, and I also found out who booked you into the hotel. So, now we know you only told me half the story, perhaps you’d like to tell me how long you’ve been working for Jasmine?”
“You’d better come in Grant. Things have got a little out of hand.”
“Yeah. Looks like it.”
Saz took Grant through to the kitchen while she made them both coffee, stalling for time while she figured out what to do next. She told him what she’d found out about Max, warning him that he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. By the time she’d finished, Grant’s coffee was stone cold and his face was white, his huge brown eyes standing out in relief against the sharp, drawn cheekbones. She then took a deep breath before moving on to the next part of the story.
“The thing is, Grant, it’s gone further than that. I think Jasmine has kidnapped him or something. Have a look at this.”
Saz went into the lounge to get the boxes Jasmine had left her. She brought them back and showed them to him in order, then handed him the sixth box keeping a close eye on his face. Grant read the letter and then looked at the photo, it took him a few seconds to register that he was looking at a photo of Max, but when he did, his lower lip began to tremble and he started to cry. He threw the photo down and stood up, knocking the cold coffee over as he did so, pacing the tiny narrow kitchen and shaking.
“Jesus, bitch. Jesus fucking bitch, I’ll fucking kill her if she’s hurt him, damn her, I will fucking kill her. I mean it.”
Grant grabbed Saz who had reached into the sink for a cloth to mop up the coffee.
“Where is she? Where is this? Where the fuck is this?”
“I don’t know. Calm down. This won’t help. Stop it Grant, you’re hurting me.”
Grant was holding Saz by the upper arms, digging his fingers into her, she pushed out against him, her hands against his chest, both to calm him and to move him away and he slowly backed off. He crouched down against the wall breathing heavily, obviously going through a great deal of effort to regain control. After a few minutes he looked up again at Saz, calm now.
“I’m not sure you realize how important Max is. It’s not just me who thinks he matters. They’re about to approve the Process for Federal funding – in the States I mean, and whatever is the same thing here. The medical thing. It’s huge. This is going to change the mental health of both nations. Probably within our lifetimes. In centuries to come they’ll say he was bigger than Freud. If she hurts him…”
Saz rinsed the coffee-stained cloth out in the sink.
“Come on Grant, no one is indispensable. I’m sure your mother or father could take over, even you soon enough. And what if he did kill those people? Won’t the work be compromised then too? What if Jasmine’s right?”
Grant glared at Saz.
“I think you’re supposed to believe in innocent until proven guilty here too, aren’t you? Or is that just another of those American concepts you English think is too wacky and Californian to take seriously?”
Saz turned to face him.
“No. We believe in it too. It just seems to me you’re very ready to believe Jasmine is the only baddie here.”
Grant rubbed his hands over his face, seemed in an effort to control himself. He looked at Saz and smiled wearily.
“Not so. But she’s certainly the only kidnapper here. I believe in the work, maybe even more than I believe in Max, I’m just not willing to let it all go without a fight. If he’s guilty, then of course, he’ll pay. But for now, can we just try to find him? Please?”
Saz left Grant going through the boxes again while she went to call Carrie. She managed to give as little away as possible and not get overly involved in the discussion Carrie really wanted to have – the one about her latest sexual conquest, a five-foot-nothing red-headed Irish beauty with a delightfully Catholic sense of guilt and play. Having listened to a few of the more sensational details and “oohed” and “aahed” in most of the right places, Saz obtained Caron McKenna’s new address and then abruptly ended her conversation with Carrie so she could call a cab to take them there.
A little under an hour later, Saz had boarded up the bathroom window, triple-locked Molly’s flat and she and Grant were sitting opposite Caron in a converted warehouse flat in Soho. Caron was dressed in white silk and was pale to the point of translucence, very thin and quite drunk. Saz had politely refused her offer of a “slightly warm but very drinkable Sauvignon blanc”. Caron was explaining about her brief meeting with Jasmine while Saz asked the questions and Grant sat silent on the floor, his white knuckled hands clasped tight together.
“She said she needed to be alone with Max, so I gave her the keys to my old studio.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
“And what did she say she was going to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know – make him confess I suppose. I hope.”
“To what?”
“What’s everything?”
“All the killings of course. The deaths. Deb, Anna Johnson, the other woman – her mother.”
“Anita?”
Caron slopped some more wine into her glass and took a long mouthful.
“Mmm, her. Jasmine wants him to tell the truth.”
“Why didn’t you just go to the police with it?”
“To the police?”
Caron laughed at Saz.
“You are joking aren’t you? Even if they did listen to me it wouldn’t get very far. Max hasn’t chosen to treat half of the wives of the cabinet just for the money you know. He knows more juicy secrets than the Chief Whip. Anyway, even if they did decide to take me seriously, what would I tell them? ‘Excuse me, Mr Detective Inspector, but I think my husband has made my girlfriend kill herself. Almost ten years ago. I just forgot to tell you earlier’. Oh yes, that’ll go down wonderfully well with the tabloids. How do you think the newspapers get half of their sleazy stories? Do you think all those police papers are leaked by nosy cleaners who just happen to stumble on the right document?”
Caron paused for breath and took another gulp of wine, this time some stayed dribbling down her chin, she looked wildly up at Saz and Grant and added,
“I mean, do you really think my family want ‘society dyke’ slammed all over the front pages of every trashy tabloid in the country?”
Saz was just about to launch into one of her “well you should have come out in the first place” tirades when Grant stood up.
“OK, I’ve had enough. Your self-pity is boring me and we have much more important things to deal with. Where’s this studio?”
Caron looked up at him startled, he’d been so quiet she’d almost forgotten he was there.