by Shelley Day
‘Fish and chips.’ says Gareth. ‘Haven’t had my tea yet. Been working late.’
‘Smells like it. I didn’t know you was working down the brewery, lad,’ the old man chuckles. ‘Better get a move on, they stop frying at half past.’
Gareth hurries on down the stairs. The chip shop is closed when he gets there, but the lights are still on. He pushes at the door but it’s locked. Through the window he can see Carlos in his grubby apron wiping down the stainless steel fryers. Gareth uses his car keys to tap on the window. Carlos looks over and gestures with his hand.
‘Tutto finito,’ he mouths, shaking his head. He turns back and continues wiping. Gareth taps again, louder this time. Drying his hands on the towel that hangs over his shoulder, Carlos comes over to the door. He’s shaking his head and gesturing to indicate that work time, for him, is over. He turns the sign that says ‘Open’ to the side that says ‘Closed’ and pulls the blind down behind it.
Gareth will have to try the other chippy on Chillingham Road. That could still be open. He gets into the Zodiac again and speeds off, hardly checking what’s behind him. But there’s not much traffic at this time of night. With any luck, the Chilly Road place will still be open. Gareth gets there just in time. He gets his cod and chips with salt and vinegar and mushy peas and extra batter, and has opened the paper and started cramming chips into his mouth before he gets back to the car. He winds the window down a bit so it doesn’t get all steamed up and turns the radio on. ‘You’re the One That I Want’, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John singing in unison. Gareth hadn’t liked that song at all before this night, but somehow now he thinks it’s not so bad and he’s humming along with it through a mouthful of half-chewed fish supper. Every now and again, he wipes his greasy mouth on an old shammy leather he finds in the glove compartment. Then it’s Abba, ‘Take a Chance on Me’. He listens for a moment then turns the radio off. What the hell are all these pop songs on about? They’re all making him think of Stella Moon. What the fuck’s going on there? He’s got the killer on the brain. Gareth finishes his fish supper in silence.
Quite nice to come out in the old Zodiac instead of having it standing doing nothing. Gareth had picked that model even though it was well out of date by the time he got it. A Zodiac is the closest thing you can get in the UK to Dirty Harry Callahan’s Cadillac. With the eye of faith, they look very similar. And driving it makes Gareth feel good. A little trip in the Zodiac is preferable to sitting in his flat by himself, spending the entire evening reading about the weird world of Stella Moon. Talking of which, the boarding house she talks about is round here, somewhere in Chilly Road. She could still be there, given that she failed to turn up at the housing place this morning. Gareth could do a drive-by. No harm in that.
He screws up the fish and chip paper and throws it onto the floor on the passenger side. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and starts up the engine. He’s only a little drunk, he can take a chance and cruise along Chillingham Road. He’s not sure where the place actually is. Gareth peers at all the houses as he drives north. The length of the long, straight road – mostly terraced houses, a long parade of shops, St Gabriel’s church hall, more houses, only a few with lights on, though it’s hardly eleven. Gareth’s keeping his eyes peeled for one with boarded up windows, and he’s almost at the end, almost at the flyover, when he spots one that could be it. That must be it. At the last moment, he swings the Zodiac round into the side street and stops.
No harm in having a little shufty. Gareth gets out, locks up and looks around. There’s nobody about. A dark, clear night for a change, with a few stars, though you can never see that many – the city gives off too much light, not like Risca in the South Wales valleys, where Gareth comes from. It can be pitch black there, the heavens starry. Gareth leaves the Zodiac and walks along the main road, past the dentist on the corner and along in front of the boarding house. If he’s not mistaken, the front door looks like it’s standing open. What’s the harm in going in? There’ll be nobody about. He could just have a quick look, nothing more. Gareth hurries back to the Zodiac and gets his torch, flicks it on and off a few times to make sure it’s working and locks up again.
The front door of the house is indeed open, but the porch door just inside is locked. Gareth tries to see through the glass, and shines his torch through.
‘Oh my God,’ Gareth gasps. He can see a body, lying on the floor. He has to strain and twist to make it out, but oh, God, it’s Stella. The stupid little cow. What’s she gone and done?
Gareth rattles the handle on the porch door frantically. It’s not budging. It’s locked from the inside. He can see Stella lying there, still as death. Oh, God help her. Pressing his forehead against the glass, Gareth shines the torch down at an angle towards the lock on the inside and squints through, but he can’t see if there’s a key in there or not. He rattles at the door, very hard this time, but it’s firmly locked, possibly bolted as well, he can’t see. He kicks the door at the bottom, twice – futile, he knows. He bangs on the glass with the flats of his hands, shouts Stella’s name, banging at the same time, bang, bang, banging, kicking at the door. There’s no point trying to break the glass, there’s a metal mesh on the other side. But Gareth can see Stella lying there, not moving. Oh, God. It’s all Gareth’s fault. He shouldn’t have left her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Through the dimpled glass of the porch door, Stella vaguely registers a light – torchlight, flickering across her face. Frank. Frank. It must be Frank. He’s come back. He’s hammering on the glass. The light again. Stella opens her mouth to shout but her voice is gone or her will is gone and only a small mewing sound comes out. More banging. Kicking. He’s trying to kick the door in. He can’t get in.
Go away, Frank. Just go away, just go away.
Stella drifts in and out of consciousness. She’s so thirsty. So very thirsty. But she has no strength to get to where the water is.
Water, she hears water.
It’s the sea lashing up onto the Saddle Rock, the sea lashing against the cliffs, the sea smashing Muriel against the rocks.
They said she had no face left. Muriel washed up broken. Broken by the sea broken against the rocks.
Water gurgling out from the broken pipe in the scullery, dripping down the back step, drips like a torture. A magnified, thundering waterfall.
Stella’s head swimming with water, so much water, drowning.
Muriel drowning, bobbing in the water, face down.
‘Charles Darwin,’ says Marcia, standing at a blackboard, a long cane in her left hand that traces a wiggly chalk line round and round the garden. ‘Charles Darwin,’ she repeats, ‘had a path. A path he used for walking and thinking. Every day at 11am precisely, he’d get up from his desk. It’s the rhythm we’re interested in. The rhythm of walking, the steady plod, plod, plod. It helps the thoughts to find their place. Try it, Stella.’
Stella cannot walk. She cannot even stand up.
Picture a place – it has to be a good place. Imagine you’re walking. Feel the rhythm of your tread, feel it smooth and even, everything, smooth and even.
Marcia’s strong, black hand spreads butter onto crumpets. Stella watches her fingers flex, the miracle of Marcia’s fingers flexing.
The warmth of Marcia’s hand between her shoulder blades, the steadying flat of Marcia’s hand.
Walk, Stella. You can walk.
Stella is walking the dune path, soft sand underfoot, soft salty breeze coming in off the sea. Stella follows the soft sand path. It’s Marcia up ahead. It’s Marcia she’s following, not Muriel.
Marcia, wait, wait, wait for me.
Stella, sitting alone on the Saddle Rock, looking out across the smooth, silver sea.
In the little blue suitcase there’s a letter from Marcia. Addressed to Stella. She still hasn’t opened it. Marcia said not to open it. That was the very last thing she sa
id.
‘Don’t open the letter, Stella, not until you’ve written everything down in the blue silk book. I would like to know your story. I would like you to know your story. Then you open the letter. Have you got that?’
Stella is suddenly desperate to touch the suitcase. She wants the suitcase, she needs the reassurance of her hand on the soft worn leather. She feels around her but touches nothing but the wall. Her hand reaches out and touches nothing but the cold lino floor. Pressing both her hands to the floor, Stella tries to push herself up. She has to get the case. She has to get water.
Then there are legs in front of her, two strong legs, standing square in front of her, thick blue serge trousers and a big bunch of keys dangles from the leather belt. Then an arm, two arms, reaching down to her. Marcia. Stella stretches out to grasp the open hands, but they’re not there, there’s nothing there. Stella grasps at the air. There’s nothing there.
The banging goes on, the boom bang boom of the big bass drum, in a big brass band – the Salvation Army band – marching. Navy blue uniforms, stout black boots trampling all over her. She must get up and get away from here. Stella twists her body and tries to curl her body up, curl it up against the wall. There’s yelling and panic and yelling and someone screaming out her name.
‘Stella! Stella!’ Marcia, Marcia. The banging stops. The marching feet are splashing through water.
Marcia, help me.
Maybe Stella doesn’t want help. Maybe she wants to lie here and fade away in this hellhole where she belongs. She’s never really left this place, not really. Here is where she’ll stay until she fades away. No point in calling for Marcia. Marcia’s miles away. Another place, always was, always will be. Stella has been foolish. Worse than foolish to think anything else was possible.
In the letter it will say ‘sorry, Stella’ and that Marcia has her own life, her own job and her own home in London. Shall we just stay friends, though? I’d like that.
Why would Marcia want Stella or anyone like Stella hanging like a millstone?
And Marcia would be right.
Stella knows now she is someone who has killed not once, but twice. What does that make her, eh?
Marcia will wash her hands of her. Stella deserves it. Everything that happened between them was nothing. It meant nothing. It was meaningless. It was nothing
Everyone, washing their hands, holding them under the broken pipe, wringing their hands. Washing, washing, washing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gareth is sweating with desperation to get to Stella who is lying, apparently unconscious, on the hallway floor. He is suddenly more sober than sober, but wishes to God anyway he hadn’t had all that drink. He’ll have to get the police, get the ambulance, break the glass – do something – but he must be well over the limit, which could be extremely embarrassing. Then he remembers Stella saying how she’d climbed in at the back, that boards had been pulled off and the window smashed. He’ll try that. The glass won’t break, so it’s the only way. Gareth rushes round the back. For a moment he can’t imagine how he can scale a wall as high as that. But he’s got to – he’s got no choice. He has to get to her. He could already be too late. Dirty Harry Callahan, spurring him on.
The torchlight glints on the broken glass embedded along the top. God only knows what Stella’s done to herself. Or had done to her. That Frank Fanshaw? Gareth curses himself for letting Stella come back on her own.
There’s no way he can climb that wall, but Gareth has an idea. He brings the Zodiac round into the back lane and bumps it up the curb onto the narrow pavement as close to the wall as he can get it, so close he hears the front wing mirror scrape along the wall. No matter. Gareth is about to save someone’s life. He uses the car to stand on so he can heave himself up and over the wall. He catches his hand on the broken glass but doesn’t even look at it before he drops down on the other side, wipes his hands down his trousers and looks about in the yellowish light from the streetlamp. Stella said she’d got in through a window at the back. He runs through the lean-to and out the other side. There it is, the broken window, the boards off. Gareth climbs in.
What a stink. Vomit. Gareth shines the torch down. It’s all over the place. He’s treading in it and he’s treading on a load of other stuff as well: metal things, tools of some sort, scientific instruments. He shouts Stella’s name, but there’s no reply. Gareth stumbles over the debris, rushes along the passage, and there she is, collapsed on the floor.
Gareth grabs hold of Stella by the tops of her arms, pulls her upright, shakes her, shouts her name. Her head flops forwards. She’s still warm. Is she breathing? Sickly hair is dried up and stuck to her face. With an extended middle finger, his hand shaking, Gareth fumbles at her neck. She’s got a pulse. Thank the Lord, she’s got a pulse, she’s still alive. Thank God she’s alive. Gareth gets down on his knees beside her. Please, God, he’s got to her in time.
Stella is very drowsy. She seems to be trying to open her eyes, but they keep on closing. She must have taken something, or been given something.
‘It’s me,’ Gareth says. ‘It’s me, Gareth. Wake up, Stella. You have to wake up.’ He’s trying to hold her upright, gripping her tightly round the upper arms. ‘You have to stay awake, Stella.’ He shakes her lightly.
She can’t seem to open her eyes. Gareth shakes her again, gently.
‘It’s me, Gareth. Gareth Davies. From probation,’ he says. ‘Stella? Speak to me, Stella. If you can hear me, say something.’
Stella’s eyes flicker open, but Gareth is not sure they’ve focused.
‘Tell me what you’ve taken,’ he says, authority taking over, tiredness and drink leaving him.
Stella closes her eyes again. If she’s taken something he has to keep her awake, he has to find out what she’s taken and get her to a hospital. Gareth is suddenly more sober than he’s ever been in his life.
‘Stay awake, Stella,’ he says, ‘you’ve got to stay awake.’ Holding her upper arms tight, Gareth heaves her up and tries to prop her upright against the wall. Her limp body falls sideways.
‘No,’ Stella mumbles through lips parched and cracked. She shakes her head and lifts an arm as if to push him away, but there’s no strength in it. She flops back again. ‘No,’ she curls away from him and hunches up against the wall.
Gareth has to keep her awake. He checks her pulse again: it’s steady – fast, but steady – and she’s breathing. He should get an ambulance, but he would have to leave her to get to a phone and God knows where the nearest call box is. Gareth puts his arms under Stella’s armpits and tries again to haul her up into a sitting position. She’s a dead weight and stinks of sick. He can see now that she’s covered in the stuff. He pushes her back so she is almost sitting up against the wall. Now there’s sick all over Gareth’s hands. Stella’s head flops forward onto her chest. Her breathing’s shallow. Amphetamine?
‘Stella, answer me – what have you taken?’ Gareth is insistent, talking like’s she’s deaf. ‘Open your eyes and tell me. I’ve got to know what it was.’ He’d noticed a strong chemical smell when he came through the back kitchen, but it wasn’t a smell he was familiar with. He shines the beam of the torch around the floor but can’t see any sign of tablets or bottles or syringes or anything. He’s going to have to get an ambulance, and Christ knows what they’ll think when they get here and smell the drink on him.
Stella tries again to shake herself free, but hasn’t got the strength. ‘Let me alone,’ she mumbles, her head lolling.
‘For God’s sake,’ says Gareth, ‘I’m trying to help you. But you’ve got to help yourself. Stop being so pathetic.’
Stella remains inert. Gareth is surprised at the anger in his own voice.
‘Have you taken something? Stella! I need to know.’ Gareth looks around on the floor again, but there’s no sign. ‘Look,’ he says more gently, crouching down in front of Stella and ta
king her hand in his, ‘just tell me what it is you’ve taken and I’ll get you to the hospital. I’ll go and phone for an ambulance as soon as I know if it’s safe to leave you.’
Stella shakes her head. ‘I haven’t taken anything,’ she says, pulling her hand out of Gareth’s grasp. ‘Water. Get water.’
‘Well, you’re getting an ambulance whether you want one or not,’ says Gareth. ‘But you’ll be a lot better off if I can tell them what you’ve taken.’
‘Just get water.’
Gareth can hardly make out what she’s saying.
‘What’s that smell, then? You wouldn’t be in this state if you hadn’t taken something. Are you a druggie? Is that it?’ Gareth grabs hold of Stella’s wrist, yanks up her sleeve and examines the inside of one arm, then the other. No sign of drug use, but there are scars on the insides of both arms, old scars, healed, but Gareth sees them. She’s a cutter.
‘Get off!’ Stella wrenches her arm free and tugs her sleeves back down. ‘I’ve not taken anything. Either get water or fuck off.’
Gareth stands back. Then he sees Stella’s got blood on her, it looks like fresh blood, smeared all over her arms and her front, her neck and the side of her face. It takes Gareth a few moments to realise the blood is his. In those few moments he goes to hell and back. He looks at his hand where he caught it on the glass on the wall. It’s cut quite badly.
‘It’s me who needs the ambulance,’ he laughs and holds up his bleeding hand. Stella smiles weakly.
‘That’s better,’ says Gareth. ‘That’s more like it. Now, you sure you haven’t taken anything, hand on heart?’
Stella nods wearily. ‘Just get water.’
‘Well, if it’s not drugs, what’s happened to you then? You looked like you were at death’s door a few minutes ago.’