by Nina Bawden
We came out of the court and stood at the top of the stone steps that led down into the street. It was market day, and the road was full of traffic. I said, “But that doesn’t matter, you know. It’s the facts that matter … you mustn’t listen to what people say …”
She went on as if she had not heard me. “You see, I can’t understand what difference it makes whether they believe Rella’s evidence or not. If they do believe her, they’ll have to believe that Tom was with her until after the car had gone … so that he …”
She stopped and I finished the sentence for her. “So that he couldn’t have murdered Venetia. I agree with you. It would be so much easier for everyone if he had.”
She looked shocked, and said that she hadn’t meant that at all, and I think she thought she was speaking the truth.
I said, “We’d better get some lunch.”
She said, “I’m sure I don’t want anything. I’m sure I couldn’t. It seems so heartless somehow.”
We found a restaurant in a back street. The food wasn’t very good, but the place was dark and quiet and fairly empty. Brigid ate a little, not much, and we drank a lot of coffee.
She stubbed out a cigarette in her saucer and said in a low voice, “I didn’t know it would be so dreadful. Seeing Henry in court, I mean. He looks so helpless. I wish they’d arrested me instead. I wouldn’t mind what they did to me, so long as they didn’t make him suffer.”
Her round face was crimson. She looked like a fervent schoolgirl. “Don’t be a masochist,” I said, and when she gave me a hurt look, I said, to change the subject, “When is Sebastian coming?”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “I wish he wasn’t. It’s so frightening in the dock. He’s only a little boy.”
She looked as if she were going to cry. I said hastily, “Don’t worry. Children aren’t half as sensitive as adults imagine. He’ll be all right.”
We left the restaurant and went out into the street. It had grown suddenly dark; the air was heavy, and low with cloud. The wind was cold. It seemed somehow ominous. We walked back to the court. It was late when we got there and they had started the afternoon session. The steps and the long corridors were empty except for a few officials and a policeman. We went into the courtroom and back to our seats. No one was talking, and no one turned to look at us as we sat down.
I could see Henry clearly now. The light from the window behind him was no longer bright, and his face was lit by the staring aseptic-looking lamps that hung from the ceiling of the court. He looked almost old; his military straightness had deserted him. He was looking at the witness box, and so was everyone else in the court.
Rella was standing there, and counsel for the defence was talking to her. His voice was gentle, and low, but it sounded very clear because of the quiet in the court.
He said, “You say that you heard a car in the garage?”
She said “Yes” softly. Her eyes were fixed on the counsel.
“And then, a little later, you heard someone opening the doors of the garage?” She said “yes” again.
“How long was it, from the time when you first heard the car running in the garage to the time when you heard the gates being opened?”
“About a quarter of an hour.”
“Didn’t you think that was a little strange?”
She hesitated. “I don’t think so.”
Counsel said, “You are quite sure? Are you sure you didn’t think it was odd for someone to be going for a drive in the middle of the night?”
She said, “No,” in a low voice, and the counsel for the defence threw his head back and looked at her with an expression of surprise on his actor’s face.
“Indeed?” he said, and he managed to make the word sound so amused and disbelieving that a low ripple of laughter went round the court. Rella looked as if she were going to speak, but the counsel leant forward and said, in a different voice, a voice that silenced the laughter, “You are quite sure, on your oath, that you did not look out of the window when you heard the doors being opened? It would not, surely, be odd if you had looked out to see who was taking the car out of the garage in the middle of a bitter winter’s night?”
Rella said nothing. There was silence in the court, and, suddenly, there was a sweaty band tight round my forehead. Someone touched me, and I saw Brigid looking anxiously into my face.
She whispered something, but I couldn’t hear what it was. I saw her mouth moving and, very clearly, the patchiness of the lipstick she wore.
Then I heard Rella. She said, “No, I didn’t look out of the window.”
I felt very sick. I had forgotten why the question was so important. There was a queer, light feeling in my head. I looked down at my hands, and they seemed to be far away and not to belong to me. Just like Alice, I thought, and then I wanted to laugh.
Brigid said, “Paul, are you all right?” I shook my head, and motioned towards the exit. She nodded understandingly, and I got up and left her sitting in the court. The doors of the courtroom swung gently behind me, and a policeman asked me if I was all right.
I said, “No, I’m going to be sick.” He told me where to find the lavatories, and I went there as fast as I could.
When I came out I felt better, and I went back to the corridor that led to the courtroom. I sat down on one of the benches that ran along the walls, and looked at the swing doors. I knew I shouldn’t go through them again. Then they opened, and Walker came out. He glanced down the corridor and came towards me. His mouth drooped at the corners as if he was worried or tired, but his eyes were as bright as ever.
He said, “Good afternoon,” and I nodded at him. He didn’t say anything; he just looked at me, so I said, “It’s not going very well, is it?”
He shrugged his shoulders and said, “You never know how it’s going till it’s over,” and his voice was cheerful, but I knew, somehow, that he didn’t like the look of things. Which was odd, when you thought that he was the policeman and Henry the suspect.
I said, “Henry didn’t do it, you know.”
He looked at me oddly, and he said, “Someone killed her.” He spoke in a small, sad voice, and he looked thoughtfully at the floor.
I said, “That’s obvious,” and suddenly I wanted to laugh. I think he must have seen that, because he looked straight at me and said, “I think they will acquit Mr. Sykes. I hope very much that they do.”
I’m sure he shouldn’t have said that to me, but I knew he meant it, and it sobered me up. I said, “Then the hunt will be on again?”
He nodded, and immediately he looked embarrassed, as if he had realised that he had said too much. He nodded at me coolly, and went back to the court.
I sat on the bench, fighting my private nightmare. It often came when I was sick. It was a feeling of unreality, so sharp as to terrify, a feeling of being a shadow in a shadow world. What made it worse was knowing that reality was just within my reach, if only I could put out my hand to it. And I couldn’t.
I felt myself sweating, and then the courtroom doors opened and Rella came out. She walked towards me but she didn’t see me until I spoke to her. Then she looked at me, but she didn’t smile.
She said, “Paul, you look most dreadfully ill.” I tried to smile, but it was a pretty poor effort. I got up and she took my arm. We walked to the street, and the warmth of her arm through my coat seemed to be the only real thing in the world. We walked back to the hotel. At least, I suppose we walked. I didn’t remember much about it. I only know that in a little while we were sitting in the dreary lounge of my hotel, and that Rella was pouring tea.
I looked at her and knew what I wanted. I’m not quite sure what I said, but I think it was something like, “Rella, you are dear and lovely and I want you to marry me.”
She looked at me, and there was something in her eyes that I had not seen before. It wasn’t love, though that was there all right. It was pity.
She said, “Paul, dear, you know I can’t.”
For a moment, God fo
rgive me, I thought she was being feminine and coy. I tried to tell her all the things that were in my mind. It wasn’t easy, but I did my best. I told her that I loved her; that this was probably the first time I’d been able to love anyone. I tried to explain about Venetia, and that I was alone, now she was dead, and free. I would have told her about the nightmares, only I guessed that she knew all about them, and I didn’t want to whine.
She said, “Paul, I can’t marry you.” She looked cold. Her hands were shaking so that she could hardly hold her cup. I would have touched her, kissed her, only I knew it was no good.
I left her in the lounge, and went up to my room.
When I came down with my suitcase and paid the bill, she was gone. I took a taxi to the station and bought a ticket for the north.
Chapter Nineteen
I have just been out and bought an evening paper. Henry was acquitted this morning. The jury were only out for five minutes. There are two paragraphs about it, that is all. I suppose the case has lost news value because there has been no kill. It doesn’t say anything about Sebastian’s evidence, but there is a picture of him with Brigid and Henry. He is standing between them; the picture is very small and blurred, and they don’t look like people that I have known.
This is a quiet hotel. It has a faintly fusty smell, as if the windows were never opened. They serve high tea with smoked haddock every day at six o’clock. The manageress is a nice little fat woman who has a slightly royal air. She has been very kind to me; she brings me breakfast in bed and a cup of hot cocoa every night because she thinks I want building up. I hope she won’t be too upset; perhaps it will be good for trade.
I suppose I should never have let it come to this; certainly I should never have let Henry stand his trial. I don’t know why I didn’t stop it at the beginning instead of behaving like a child at the end of a party, longing for just one more minute, and then another, and another.
Well, the party is over now, for me, and I must make up my mind to it. I wish they would come for me and get it over; nothing could be so bad as the waiting has been. At first I walked for most of the day, till the light was gone, but yesterday we had a fall of spring snow and my shoes didn’t keep out the wet, so I stayed indoors. I could buy another pair, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem worth it.
If I could have slept the waiting wouldn’t have mattered so much, but when I go to bed I think about Walker, and if I do go to sleep I dream that he is watching me. I am sure that he knew about me from the beginning. It would explain so much. Perhaps that was why he wanted me to take Sebastian to Crewe and not Henry or Brigid. I wondered about that at the time. Maybe he hoped I’d do something incriminating—run for it, perhaps, like that poor little rat, Adlesburg. But I didn’t, and he has been watching me ever since, watching and hoping. He didn’t trouble me so much last night; Venetia was in my dreams instead, and somehow that isn’t so frightening. I don’t know why, it should be frightening. It should have made me think of vengeance and death. I wonder if she feels anything for me now, or if she is anywhere except in my mind. Or is she just worms and corruption? I used to think that that was all there was, but now I am not so sure. And I don’t mean that I have had a spiritual awakening. It is just that now that death is so near I feel that it cannot be final. Perhaps this is just ordinary, frail, human conceit. Perhaps it would be better for me if it were. I don’t know. For, Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord. Perhaps there will be some sort of special pleading for me. I loved her in my corrupt and human fashion. I loved her so much that I used to wish we had been the same sex, so that we could have been identical twins. For fraternal twins, we were astonishingly alike, but it was not enough for me. I wanted the cord that bound us to be stronger still …
She had me where she wanted me from the beginning. I don’t know what she felt for me; perhaps she loved me too. She liked me to be jealous, anyway. She never hid her affairs from me. She always told me about them with a smiling mouth and dancing eyes. I used to pretend that I didn’t mind, but she knew that I did. She liked to torment me, to put me in hell and keep me there. She told me about Adlesburg the night that I killed her. All the details. All the obscene details.
When I went to her room she was sitting at her dressing-table brushing her yellow hair. It lay loose on her shoulders, and as she brushed it she watched me in the mirror. I don’t remember if there was anything in her face to show she had just put poison in my brandy, nor do I know why she did it, unless she was afraid of me. I don’t think that can be the reason; she had never been afraid of anyone. Perhaps she was just tired of me; it can’t have been much fun for her, knowing that I would always turn up with my jealousy and possessiveness.
I told her that she was a rotten bitch, and she laughed at me. I got hold of her roughly, and knocked the powder bowl off the dressing-table with the sleeve of my coat. I kissed her then, and tangled her hair round her neck. She had a very slender neck. I thought of a poem I had learned at school, about a woman called Porphyria, and then I knew what I was going to do. There must have been something in my face, because she went white, and the laughter went out of her eyes. I said, why didn’t we go for a drive? I wanted time, not to think, for I knew what I must do, but time to look at her for a little longer and know that for a little while she was mine completely. I don’t know why she came, but she did. She was quiet, suddenly, and submissive.
We went down to the garage, and we went up into the room above it for a little time. Then we came down the wooden stairs and I shut the trap door and fastened the catch. It was a heavy door, too heavy for her to lift. It was usually left open, caught back by a clip on the wall. I got in the car and started the engine. Then I got out again and locked the car. I kissed her, and her mouth felt cold against mine. Then I pushed her away from me, against the wall. I got out of the garage quickly and shut the doors. I leant against them; I could hear her calling me, and the muffled sound of her hands against the heavy doors. Then the sounds stopped, and I waited. I don’t know how long I waited, but it seemed like years. Then I unfastened the doors and went in. She was half-conscious, and she was lying on the floor with her face against the bumper of the car. I lifted her up, and bundled her into the back, and drove the car out.
I carried her across the fields to the quarry. I don’t know when I had thought of putting her there. I seemed to act automatically, as if I was driven by a power outside myself. She didn’t seem to weigh anything, and I didn’t realise that it was snowing until I got back to the house and found that my clothes were wet. I remember that she was breathing when we got to the quarry. I didn’t look at her face before I pushed her over the edge. I remember that, afterwards, I prayed that she had been unconscious just then.
When I got back to the house I found I had no door-key. The drawing-room windows opened onto the drive; they were latched but not locked, and I got into the house that way. I thought I shut them after me, but I can’t have done; because later, when we came down, they were open and the snow was blowing in.
I suppose I could make out a case for myself if I tried. She was faithless and wicked and corrupt. She had never been anything else. It wasn’t anything to do with her losing a leg, either. She was evil, and without love, and only God, if there is one, knows why He made her so.
But I don’t want to be hypocritical, not now. I killed her from no high moral feeling. I killed her from anger and jealousy and a love that had gone crooked somewhere. I killed her, because only dead could she be mine completely. But I killed myself as well, just as surely as if I had jumped off a high cliff into the sea. Because I belonged to her. Without her, I am not complete, I am no more than a breathing shell. Her sin and corruptness was my sin and corruptness, and you can’t destroy part of a thing without destroying the whole.
There is one thing which, absurdly, worries me. If it had not been for the pitiful contraption she wore instead of a leg, I should not have killed her. An ordinary woman could have followed me to the garage doors too quickly for me to have s
hut them in her face. If she could have done that, if she could have fought for her life, I could never have killed her. When we were children, I had always helped her with her leg. I lifted her up the stairs for the first few weeks before she learned to negotiate them herself. I taught her to run again, and climb. It was the first time that I had taken advantage of her disability. I had to kill her, but I should have killed her some other way.
When I catch myself thinking like this, I know that I am going mad.
It is getting dark. The curtains are open still, and outside there is a dark sky, without stars. I wish they would come for me soon. I can do nothing now, except wait. I am not afraid any more, at least not of death. I am only afraid that they will not come.
THE END
Copyright
First published in 1953 by Collins
This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world
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ISBN 978-1-4472-3588-0 EPUB
ISBN 978-1-4472-3587-3 POD
Copyright © Nina Bawden, 1953
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author of this work has been asserted in accordance