Lonely Girl

by Lynne Vincent McCarthy

  The barman shifts his focus to Ana, who glances around for Tug, wanting someone familiar to anchor herself to, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Vodka, please.’

  He pours her a shot just as Tug appears from out back with two cases of beer in his arms. He pins Ana with a sharp eye but she’s not sure he recognises her until he not so subtly pushes the bowl of peanuts sitting on the bar out of her reach and pours her a large glass of water.

  Ana takes a big gulp of her drink, hoping to ease that crawling sensation she gets when surrounded by too many people. Like something insidious is creeping its way into her skin. It’s too much on top of what she’s just experienced in the basement. She feels like they can all see it on her. Or smell it. Her wrongness. Her depravity.

  She slips off the stool and pulls herself up a bit taller, somehow more able to keep herself from going under thanks to the extra height her mother’s heels give her. She likes the elevation, the sense of being slightly above it all, even though tiny knives have started to pierce the balls of her feet. Leaning against the stool makes it a bit more bearable. She glances around, thankful that at least there’s no sign of the big redhead.

  ‘It’s crowded tonight.’ It seems an appropriate thing to say and gets her a cursory nod in response from Tug but the man beside her makes a strange, unnerving sound. Ana angles herself away from him, even more sure that her first instinct about him being trouble is right.

  ‘Seems murder’s an excuse for a party …’ he says, speaking to nobody in particular. His voice is thick with the booze he’s already consumed but there’s something else beneath that. Something he’s holding down. Ana can feel it.

  ‘Sick fucking puppies,’ Tug replies, shaking his head in disgusted agreement. Ana follows his eyes to the dance floor. In the centre of the group, she spots a young woman dancing seductively, the only one amongst them not in fancy dress. As she looks more closely, Ana sees she’s wearing the stolen wig. Her back is to Ana and for a moment it’s like time travel, a glimpse of Rebecca still very much alive. Even though she knows it can’t be her there’s something about the woman and Ana’s eyes strain to see her face. Each time she turns someone blocks her view.

  ‘Do you know if they’ve identified him yet? The man she was seen here with?’ Ana blurts out. She can see straight away that Tug isn’t particularly receptive to her questions. She also sees the wary glance he throws at the man next to her who is now looking directly at her. Ana’s instincts tell her something isn’t right here but she keeps going anyway.

  ‘It’s just I saw the police were back out there earlier today, near where they found her. They were all over this white van dumped by the reserve –’

  ‘How about you go join your friends on the dance floor,’ Tug says, gazing at her from across the bar with complete disdain.

  Ana’s face burns so much she feels like she’s been slapped but her shock is intensified by what she now sees behind him. Luke stares back at her from the police identikit sketch taped to the wall. ‘DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?’ in large print above his face.

  Ana is overcome, not by the sketch, which she already saw in the newspaper, but by the energy of the man at her side, who she realises has been staring at it all this time. His attention has shifted now to the strange apparition of Rebecca on the dance floor, his face cracked open.

  ‘What the fuck is wrong with you people getting off on a woman’s death? Do you think it’s exciting or romantic? She was raped and strangled and dumped out there like some piece of garbage.’

  Ana realises that he’s aiming his fury at her as much as the young people on the dance floor.

  ‘Do you want to feel what she felt? Is that it?’

  Ana feels his fingers suddenly digging into the flesh of her arm.

  ‘Let it go, Mike, they’re just stupid kids.’

  Tug’s large and capable hands settle on the man’s shoulder, having stepped out from behind the bar to intervene. He needn’t have bothered. The energy has already drained out of the man. He lets go of Ana and looks around, his face utterly lost.

  Ana doesn’t need anyone to tell her who he is.

  It has to be Mike Marsden.

  His stool clatters to the floor behind him as he pushes past and stumbles for the exit.

  The bar has gone quiet, the hum of voices no longer present under the drone of the music.

  ‘You okay, luv?’

  Ana nods at Tug.

  ‘The poor guy has been in here every night since they found her.’

  Ana looks at the identikit again. The police know who he is now but Mike doesn’t know yet, he’s been sitting there watching and waiting for the man who took his wife away to show his face. Perhaps it’s all he feels he can do.

  Ana shifts her attention back to the dance floor, noticing with a jolt that the woman in the mannequin’s wig is Kristy. She’s staring right back at her, that infuriating smirk plastered on her face. Ana watches as she leans closer to a young vampire standing next to her, whispering something in his ear. The boy immediately laughs out loud. Without thinking Ana charges across and swipes the wig from Kristy’s head, pulling a long strand of her hair along with it.

  Kristy yelps, ‘Ouch, what the fuck’s wrong with you, Ana?!’ She clamps her hand down on her head, oblivious to the distress her party has provoked in a grieving man. Now every eye in the place is on Ana, or at least that’s the way it feels.

  ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Ana channels Tug’s disdain, aiming it not just at Kristy but the whole lot of them before she hobbles out, taking the wig with her. She doesn’t see that most of the regulars are well and truly with her, including Tug, who clearly didn’t think she had it in her.

  *

  The wind has come up since Ana’s been inside and the male mannequin has fallen facedown on the concrete whilst ‘Rebecca’ is still standing, held up by the crime tape. As Ana settles the wig safely back on her head the wind lifts her hair, animating her. The stare Ana gets isn’t any more forgiving but she at least feels a bit better for having restored her dignity.

  Ana looks around but can’t see Mike Marsden anywhere. She hopes that wherever he’s gone he isn’t driving.

  She slips off her shoes and is starting across the carpark when she’s stopped by the image of Luke’s face following her. A copy of the identikit poster has been tucked under the windscreen wiper of every car while Ana was inside.

  From behind her, back in the direction of the bar, Ana hears the unmistakable retch of vomiting. She looks around and spots Mike Marsden standing hunched and broken at the side of the building. Ana hangs back, one part of her not wanting to intrude on his grief, the other feeling guilty for having added to it. She pulls a half-drunk bottle of water from her bag as she cautiously approaches.

  Ana sees his whole body tense up when he feels her behind him.

  ‘You seriously need to fuck off.’

  She flinches at his tone but reaches out, offering him the bottle.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know …’

  He ignores the water but locks onto her face, staring at her as if seeing her for the first time. Ana is struck dumb, overwhelmed by the raw emotion. She has no idea what to do with such naked grief. She wants to run from it but she can’t leave him to bear it alone.

  ‘What they’re saying about her …’ he says. ‘It’s not true.’ He straightens up, trying to pull himself together, desperate to believe his own story, but when he sees the sympathy in Ana’s eyes he starts to cry, his body folding in on itself, held up only by the wall beside him.

  ‘She never wanted to live here. It was me. She only agreed because I wouldn’t let it go …’ His eyes drill intensely into Ana’s. He looks a bit mad.

  Driven mad.

  ‘You know what she said the last time I saw her?’

  Ana mutely shakes her head.

  ‘She said I may as well have buried her alive.’

  He hides his face, no longer able to stop the emotion pouring
out of him. Ana wants to ask him more about Rebecca – they said she was strangled but they never said she was raped – but she knows it’s not the time for any more intrusive questions. She inches closer and places a comforting hand on his shoulder, trying to ignore the bitter reek of vomit. She’s shocked when he leans into her, clutching at her desperately. Ana is uneasy with the physical contact but tries to hang in there, until his hands start to move. Now he’s the intrusive one.

  ‘Please …’ he begs, clutching tighter as Ana tries to pull away. The more she struggles the tighter his hold becomes until he has her trapped against the wall.

  Ana feels his hand, grasping for her through the fabric of her dress, fingers crudely mashing in a clumsy attempt to arouse. She pushes back, her clenched hand smashing into him.

  She feels a pang of regret when she sees him hit the ground, shrinking into a protective curl. Ana flees across the carpark, running from herself as much as him, aware of Luke’s eyes watching her from every windscreen. When she reaches her car she snatches the flyer from under the wiper and glances back to see Mike Marsden stagger out from the side of the building. She stops and watches him approach the plastic incarnation of his wife and kneel down at her feet. It looks like he’s talking to her. Or praying.

  In the seconds it takes Ana to locate her keys and unlock her car the scene has changed completely. Mike has shifted his attention to the male mannequin, lying on the ground next to him. He’s beating into it. Then he pulls the female mannequin down and starts beating into her as well.

  He doesn’t look up when she starts the car, not even when she drives past. He’s completely focused on the figure under him.

  The last thing Ana sees is his hands around her neck.

  It wasn’t always about sex. The first few times it was but the more they met the more they recognised something of themselves in each other. Marooned in the backwash of their own lives, it made them feel less alone to be there together.

  It wasn’t enough for either of them but she pretended it was enough for her.

  She wouldn’t even let him book them a room somewhere. That would have made it too easy and too real. Instead they had stolen hours, made more visceral and intense because of the brevity. The discomfort.

  Out in the bush.

  Up against the wall down the side of Rocky’s.

  In the back of his van.

  The back seat of her car would have been more comfortable but the baby’s car seat stopped her going there. She could have taken it out but she wouldn’t.

  The drugs too were her idea. He figured it was a way for her to be less accountable. Less herself. He didn’t need them but he went along with it for her. He could score almost anything she wanted at Rocky’s and she wanted to try it all.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Ana has lost count of how many times she’s checked the peephole since she got home but there’s not even a hint of movement from Luke. He remains a lump under the blankets, giving back nothing. The monitor on the kitchen bench also gives her nothing. Not even his breath.

  River too has long since abandoned her, having briefly emerged when he heard her come home before taking himself back to the bedroom to sleep. She tells herself she should follow his lead, take the window of opportunity while it’s there, but she’s so wound up she can’t even manage to sit still. Instead she’s been pacing the floorboards like a caged animal.

  The encounter with Mike Marsden has rocked her. His drunken attempt to force himself on her was unsettling enough but it’s the image of his hands around the mannequin’s neck that she keeps coming back to. She’s played it out over and over in her head until she can no longer distinguish between the real woman and her plastic counterpart. Between the husband and her lover.

  It’s the husband she sees in the back of that van now. Rebecca struggling under him. The eyes that lock onto Ana’s inject her with a whole new version of the story but still Ana remains frozen on the outside, watching the hands that choke Rebecca Marsden until she no longer moves.

  Mike Marsden’s hands, not Luke’s.

  What was it the service station attendant said?

  The guy looks shifty.

  But the husband is always the first suspect. The cops would have already checked him out.

  Maybe he’s smart. Much smarter than them. Smarter than Luke.

  Ana called it the minute she sat down at the bar next to him. Trouble.

  His wife was lying to him. Fucking someone else. Of course he’s troubled.

  Are you even sure it was her neck his hands were around?

  Maybe you saw what you wanted to see.

  She hasn’t yet factored Luke into the new scenario in her head but it is his van and it was him she came upon lurking in the dark that night, in the same spot where her body was found. It’s him she saw with Rebecca the day she died. Those facts are indisputable and the answer is in him whether obscured by genuine memory loss or by deceit.

  For her own sanity she needs to get him to talk and end this thing now but she can’t let herself go back down there again, not until she knows for sure he’s awake. She doesn’t trust herself to even open the door after what he brought out in her the last time.

  It was the slut shoes that did it. Fit a little too well.

  The identikit poster lies face up on the kitchen table. With it she has the ammunition she needs to prompt some sort of response from him now, at the very least an acknowledgment of his relationship to Rebecca.

  Even this rough sketch of him draws her in and she has to walk away from it, but it’s not so easy to escape her own feelings of culpability. If she can just meet the killer in him – look that man in the eyes – then what she’s done would be less shocking, wouldn’t it? Ana’s eyes fall on the plastic bag of pills sitting where she left them on the kitchen bench. The temptation to take one, to escape the clusterfuck inside her head, almost takes hold but in the end sense prevails. She needs to be alert when she faces him. Instead she opts for a shower.

  As soon as the heavy weight of the water starts to pound onto her head she feels herself calming down. She focuses on washing the unconscious Luke from her mind and from her body.

  He doesn’t exist, is merely a creation of her twisted desires.

  *

  It’s almost one am when Ana pulls on comfortable clothes and settles on her bed with a mug of hot milk and the monitor on the table beside her. Already she feels clearer, her earlier conviction that Mike Marsden murdered his wife having lost some of its power. Grief can do strange things to a person and it is, after all, only a few days since the life the guy thought he had exploded in his face.

  Ana focuses on the reassuring sound of River snoring on the floor beside her, letting it wash over her as she watches the clock. She registers it passing one am, then two am, and then three am.

  She must have slept for a bit after that because the next time she looks it’s almost six am. She’s confused for a moment because she thought she was somewhere else. Somewhere disturbing. She quickly scrambles inside the bedside table drawer for one of her notepads and hurries to write down the dream before it disappears.

  Lynch is here in the house. We’re at the kitchen table playing a game of Scrabble like we sometimes did when he still came to visit, only I’m the me I am now, not the girl I used to be. He gets up to drink a glass of water and then stands there over the sink looking out the window into the garden. You didn’t bury him deep enough, he says, and then offers to help me fix it when the game’s finished. As he concentrates on his next move I get up and look out the kitchen window. It’s bright outside. I can see a wild rabbit loping around the garden. It stops on a mound at the very back of the clearing, close to the tree line, sniffing delicately at a hand sticking up out of the dirt, like some strange exotic flower. Even from a distance I can see it’s his hand. Luke’s. Then Gran is standing behind me saying she wondered who was out there digging in the middle of the night. She asks me if that’s the man I brought home and then, as if it w
as completely normal, tells Lynch that I’ve never brought a man home before. I don’t remember burying him and I tell Lynch that. Give it time, he says.

  That’s it. That’s all of the dream she can recall.

  The monitor on the bedside table is silent, as it has been all through the night, but Ana is still with the dream and doesn’t even look at it. She gets up and walks down the hallway to the kitchen. She forces herself to make a cup of instant coffee and is halfway through eating a piece of toast with honey before she loses her battle with the urge to look out the kitchen window and check the garden.

  Outside, all she sees is the same stretch of overgrown lawn that’s been there since the mower broke down two years ago. She realises what most disturbed her about the dream was not that there was a body buried in the yard but that she thought Luke’s hand sprouting up from the earth looked beautiful.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Once again Ana faces the basement door.

  The identikit picture is now folded up for easy access in the back pocket of her jeans and she has a rolled-up newspaper gripped tightly in her hand. Rebecca’s open smiling face on the front page. She holds it like a truncheon, ready to hit him with her evidence. Shove it right in his face. If he doesn’t know it all already, if he hasn’t been faking this gap in his memory the whole time, congratulating himself on how smart he is, how gullible she is.

  He’s about to get a shock, she thinks, but the moment she peers through the peephole her new-found energy and conviction desert her.

  She quickly unlocks the padlock and throws open the door. It hits the wall with a bang, the sound cracking through her body, ricocheting into the dank air in front of her before being swallowed by the cavernous space below. Nothing stirs at the bottom of the stairs. Not only is he still out, he doesn’t appear to have moved at all since last night. Not a whisker. The lump beneath the blankets might as well be a rock.

  Of one thing Ana has absolutely no doubt. It’s been too long.

  Her attention shifts to his dinner tray, sitting where she left it just inside the chalk line. It looks like it’s all there, everything untouched. That doesn’t particularly surprise her, or necessarily mean anything, given the last meal she offered him was drugged, but if he had been awake during the night he would have at least gone for the chips and water, both sealed in their packaging. If not that, then the fruit.