Valentina

by S. E. Lynes

  “What are we going to do if she’s not at the cottage?” he said once I’d parked in the supermarket car park.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But you have to give her some space. She’s had a shock and she needs you to let her come around. Tell you what, we’ll have a nice dinner tonight and see where we are in the morning, all right? Curry, how does that suit you?”

  “Shall I come in with you?”

  “No, you stay here with Zachary. I only need a few things.”

  I kissed him on the cheek, left him like a cripple waiting in the car while I grabbed some food. I shopped quickly, but with care. A quick trip to the Ladies’ is easily enough time to dump one bottle of oil down the sink and fill it with another kind of oil entirely.

  “OK!” I said, throwing my goody bag onto the back seat. “One cheeky chicken madras to pick us up, maybe open a bottle, what do you say?”

  It was five o’clock by the time we drove up the darling bumpy lane to the exquisite country cottage that was all but mine. As soon as I hit the kitchen I opened the red. We drank quickly, reached for our glasses, for numbness. We sank the first bottle before dinner was even on the table. Once Mikey had put Zachary to bed, I lit two oil lamps, turned off the overhead light and opened another bottle.

  “Do you think I should call her?” His eyes were two sad pools of brown.

  “Not again.” I turned away, made great work of organising the cooking ingredients on the countertop. “Leave her be.”

  I couldn’t see him but I knew he was checking his phone for the fifteen-thousandth time that day. “What do you think she’ll be doing?”

  “I really have no idea.”

  “Do you think she’ll get in touch tomorrow?”

  “Michael, let it drop now.”

  “Maybe she’ll need a week or two. I need to know she’ll come back.” His voice had a nasal, whining tone to it. “She said she’d think about it. She said that. Did you hear her? Did you hear her say that?”

  Oh, for Christ’s sake, Michael, she’s gone. “Yes. She said that. I did hear her say that.”

  From the cutlery drawer I pulled out the carving knife.

  “Are you OK?” Mikey squeezed my shoulder.

  Get off me. “I’m fine.”

  “More wine?”

  “Great. Thanks.” I could feel the tannin in the cave of my mouth, my gums thick, as if after a dentist’s jab.

  The lamplight glanced on the carving blade. There, on the scratched steel surface, watchful eyes blurred to no more than a dark strip. I gasped, seeing for a second Shona’s eyes, staring back at me. And that was just it. Maybe she was gone. But she would always, always be here with us, watching, judging. This was the way it would be. Forever. If not spoken out loud, then shown in faraway looks and heard in heavy sighs. This was why I’d had to sit down and think straight and make my plan B (well, plan C, technically), because Shona and Isla would live between us every single day, like restless spirits, the doomed souls of the undead. They would be everywhere, a chill air at the chimney stack where a fire once burned, a photo fallen from a drawer, a particular flavour of ice cream transporting him back to his amour perdu. Every look he gave me, every time we made love, every time we enjoyed anything at all – all of it would be underpinned by her and what he believed we had done to her.

  On the handle of the knife, my hand tightened. Behind me I heard the slump of him sinking into his chair, a sniff. Oh dear God. I had married a whole man, for half the time. I had ended up with half a man, the whole time.

  What use, frankly, is that?

  Another bottle of red opened. A joint. Destination oblivion. The room began to spin a little but I needed the kind of courage only large quantities of opiates can provide. Somewhere in all of this, I made Indian chicken curry, extra hot, with the ingredients I had got. Michael joked about the latex gloves I’d bought.

  “I need them to keep the chilli off my hands.”

  “Hey, I’m getting a bit nervous, here. You’re not going to ask me to drop my trousers, are you?”

  The naffness of the joke made me nauseous. “Maybe later. No, seriously, chilli on your hands is a disaster in bed,” I positively chirruped. “You want fire in your loins, not your pecker, my love. Hey, can you twist off the top, baby?” I handed him the paste jar. “The booze has sapped my strength. Can you open the tinned tomatoes while you’re at it, thanks.” I laughed, merrily. “These gloves are making me clumsy.”

  I’m no cook but it wasn’t bad. Hot as hell. A little oily perhaps.

  Michael began to cough.

  “Too spicy for you?” I asked, eyebrow arched for innuendo.

  He pulled at his collar, took off his hoodie.

  “Can’t.” Cough. “Stop.” Cough. “Coughing.”

  “Really? Let’s get you upstairs. I’ll bring you some water.”

  He was coughing into his hand. I followed him up, sat him on the bed, ran to fetch some water from the bathroom. Cough cough cough.

  “Here.” I put my hand to his forehead, told him that his temperature was up, helped him out of his t-shirt. Perhaps it was the stress of the last twenty-four hours, I told him. He needed to calm down. He was coughing like an old asthmatic.

  “EpiPen,” he croaked.

  “Sure.” I threw up my hands and ran to get it. But, oh my, it wasn’t in the bathroom cabinet. I searched all over the cottage, really I did, with him rasping and gasping from the bedroom, staggering and swearing on the landing.

  “I checked the ingredients,” I called from my relentless search, pulling a paper bag out of the kitchen drawer. “There’s no way there were peanuts in the food.”

  I ran back upstairs, guided him into the bedroom. “Lie down.” I put the paper bag to his mouth.

  “Michael, lie down.”

  He wouldn’t, couldn’t lie down. He knocked the paper bag away, gasping, wheezing like a donkey. I tried to persuade him into the recovery position but there was no recovery, only the panic in his eyes, the violence in his limbs.

  “She’s poisoned me.” The veins in his neck bulged. “Shona’s poisoned me.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I replied. “She would never do that. She’s as good as gold.”

  “I can’t breathe. Georgie, I can’t breathe.”

  I ran downstairs and pretended to call an ambulance. From upstairs came bangs, thumps.

  “Shit.” I ran back upstairs – this was exhausting – put my hand to his hot, wet brow. “They’ll be here any second.” He batted my hand away, lurched, staggered, banged into the dressing table, collapsed on the bedroom floor. He thrashed around, hands thrust between his legs.

  I stood over him. I said nothing more. He bucked and flipped for dear life, hit his head against the dressing table leg. It was a ghastly sight but only when his limbs failed him, when he was gasping like a fish on the riverbank did I bend my lips to his ear.

  “We could have been happy, Michael,” I whispered. “You should have chosen me.”

  He bucked once more, and was still. After a second, he took the final, massive gulp. I looked away, put my hands over my ears and waited. When no more noise came, when all movement had stopped, I dragged him to a sitting position, hooked his arm around my neck. Michael is not an overweight man, in fact he is rather skinny but still, it was an absolute bastard getting him onto that bed. But I did it, collapsing on top of him as I laid him down, my cheek landing on his breathless mouth.

  I stood up, sweating, panting for breath, swearing over and over. Once I’d composed myself, I pulled off his trousers and socks, left on his pants before rearranging him into a peaceful sleeping position. Once I was satisfied, I laid the covers over his body. It was terribly difficult, especially after so much wine. I really was sweating like a pig.

  I checked him once more for signs of life. There were none: no breath, no pulse. I went downstairs, checked the kitchen for clues, filled the dishwasher and put it on. I left out the jar and the tins, everything he’d touched. I left out
the lamps, to show that our last evening together had been romantic, poured the rest of the plonk down the sink. It was a really boozy night we had, officer.

  Upstairs, I stripped off and got in next to him. He was still warm – like a hot water bottle that upon waking would be cold. What time should I wake up, I wondered. What would be the most normal reaction to have on discovering your husband stone cold beside you after an extreme anaphylactic shock?

  We had eaten dinner, I would tell them. We got a little drunk, very drunk actually. Yes, I will admit, with a look of contrition, we do smoke a little weed from time to time. We drank, we smoked, we ate. We were in the mood. He made his special curry. I can’t understand it, he’s usually so careful about these things. And then after dinner, he said he was tired, said he felt a bit ropey. I thought it was the drink or that he’d had too much to eat. He went upstairs. I stayed down to fill the dishwasher. When I got to bed, he was already asleep. He looked like he was out for the count. I kissed him and he was maybe a little hot – at this point I will start to cry – but I didn’t think, I didn’t think there was anything wrong. I was merely disappointed we weren’t going to – you know – make love.

  And then, and then, oh, this morning when I woke up ...

  And that, officer, is when I called 999.

  ***

  It’s one thing laying a wee fire in the grate. Quite another getting a whole house to go up. And that’s without the added complication of making it look like an accident. You can’t go using straw or kindling or anything like that. Firelighters, forget it. You have to think it through, back to the source, so that when the police trace the cause of the blaze it looks like an unfortunate domestic mishap: a candle falling over, say, or a badly made oil lamp. That’s what she went for. Use what you know, they say. And it’s like she said: if you don’t vent them properly, the pressure builds. And that can be very dangerous.

  ***

  TWENTY-NINE

  Around two, not wanting to make strange tyre tracks, I parked up on the hard tarmac road that ran across the lane. I couldn’t see a thing. Which meant the cottage was in darkness. Which meant they were asleep.

  Out by the van I put on the latex gloves I’d bought at the hardware store and prepared everything. The head torch – another hardware store purchase – made it easy to pour the kerosene into the jars without spilling it, to assemble the lamps and put them on the tray. I took out Zac’s baby bottle, filled it from the flask with the special milk cocktail Davie had warmed for me and set that on the tray too. My rucksack I grabbed from the back seat, took out Valentina’s running trainers and, after pulling on three pairs of Davie’s socks, put them on. They were still too big but it was too late now to do anything different.

  I switched off the torch and shuffled towards the mouth of the lane. Lined by trees, the lane was as black as oil. I kept to the edge, picked my way over the grassy bit, avoided potholes, soft ground. The too-big trainers were awkward. I tripped twice, almost lost my balance both times – almost spilt the damn fuel. I was losing precious time. It took nine minutes in total to reach the cottage – longer than I’d anticipated. Despite the cold, I could feel rivulets of sweat running from my armpits down the sides of my body. My jaw was trembling. My throat had all but closed up.

  I went first to the stable. I put the tray on the ground outside and pushed open the heavy wooden door. I had to do everything slowly, for silence, and that was hard on the nerves. Time waits for no man, as they say, and there was no reason why it would wait for me. Inside, I peered into the dark, looking for the travel cot. I reached my arms out but found nothing. Tentatively, I turned the head torch on. The travel cot was not there.

  “Fuck,” I whispered into the blackness, beating my head with my fists. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

  Nothing else for it and I could not waste any more time. I turned off the torch and felt my way out.

  Inch by inch I edged forward until my foot finally hit the picket fence. I felt for the posts with my hands and climbed over, then went on like a blind woman until I touched the cottage wall. I kept my shoulder to the wall and traced my way around to the back. I felt with my toe for the rubber mat, with my fingertips for the lock. I still had the key, obviously but my fingers were cold, my grip clumsy. I dropped the key – it fell into a crack between two paving stones. I dug it out with my pinkie finger, swearing under my breath and, finally, unlocked the back door. As I pulled it open I lifted it a centimetre so the hinges wouldn’t squeak, and stepped through. I was in the hidden part of the horseshoe of my kitchen. Above me, washing dangled its flaccid limbs from the pulley but the kitchen didn’t smell of laundry. It smelled – strongly – of curry. Mikey will have made that, I thought. Chicken saag balti was his speciality.

  Focus, Shona.

  I put the plastic baby bottle on the countertop and, with the stealth of a burglar, tiptoed inside. This was no longer my house. It had never been my house. I was, legally, trespassing. Further in, on the table, stood three bottles of wine. They’d really hit the sauce. Probably to block out their consciences. But no. They didn’t have those. They were not human. I almost touched the bottles but pulled back my hand. Two Cabernet Shiraz. One Merlot. Plonk and Indian curry. And was that a joint I could smell in the air? A boozy, spicy, romantic supper for two. Valentina’s voice came into my head:

  Which rig do you work on?

  Mikey’s:

  Oh, come on. Don’t even pretend to be interested.

  Focus.

  One of my oil lamps stood next to the bottles. Its oil reserve was low but the tiniest flame still waved from the end of the blackened wick. The sight should have stabbed me through the heart but, like the endless, jumbled replays that ran constantly through my mind, it was a distraction, nothing more. My heart could not be penetrated, not now. It was no more than a fossil, the petrified evidence of where life, or love, had once lived.

  A creak from upstairs. I froze. Someone was coming down. I had no time to get out. I backed up, dipped under the laundry and hid behind the pulley, knowing my legs were completely visible. One hand clamped over my mouth, I closed my eyes and channelled all my energy into keeping my breathing silent. In the hallway a child’s toy skittered across the tiles, a voice.

  “Ouch.”

  Her.

  Her naked feet. Her painted toenails. Mikey’s robe wrapped around her body. Her long red hair flowing down her back like molten lava. Water flushing into a glass. She was a metre away, maybe a little more. She was standing drinking water at the sink. Her back was to me now, yes, but she could turn around at any point.

  Silently, slowly, I reached out. My hand found the hard edge of the shelf. The hammer, where was it? The gulp, gulp of water down her white throat. There was a fish gutting knife somewhere here too. I ran my hand along the shelf. Tough rubber – the hammer handle under my fingertips. Valentina coughed, sniffed. My hand closed around the rubber handle. The flush of water again, a second glass. She was less than a metre away. She was taking another drink.

  I breathed in deeply and picked up the hammer.

  I took a step forward, felt the laundry caress the top of my head.

  I raised the hammer up.

  Glass in hand, she walked away, back towards the hallway, coughing. I did not move. A moment later, I heard her footsteps on the stairs, the creak of the top stair, the bedroom door open and shut.

  I collapsed forward, almost dropped the hammer on the stone tiles. I was weeping without tears, gasping without a sound.

  After five minutes, timed on my watch, I placed my clumsy, enlarged feet one after the other on the stone tiles. I felt like I was walking on the moon but I made it through the kitchen and into the lounge. The cot was collapsed and stored against the wall. I picked it up and carried it out, taking care not to bump the doorframes or walls. I retraced my slow space steps, to the stable. Once inside, I switched on the head torch and put up the travel cot. My hands were shaking – I couldn’t get it to click into an open position.
I had never had trouble with it before.

  “Click,” I hissed. “Fucking click.”

  Finally the sides locked, the base fell snug into the bottom. I wriggled the rucksack from my back, pulled out the fleece blankets and laid them over the base. I left the stable, turned off the torch and moved as quickly as I could back towards the cottage, checking the rucksack was on my back. Nothing could be left behind, no trace.

  The moon drifted out, a moment of light, enough to move freely by. Another five minutes had passed. Ten since I had almost plunged a hammer into her soft head. I scooped up the tray and carried it, waitress style.

  I found my way back along the cottage wall, to the back door and laid the tray on the mat outside. The kitchen was a mess, I saw now in the moonlight – containers everywhere, packets. I took the stairs two at a time. Took care not to step on the last, the creaky one. Our bedroom door was shut, thank God. Their. Their bedroom door. I leant towards it, listened as long as I dared but heard nothing. Mikey would normally snore like a pig after a curry and so much red wine. A flashing image came: her getting back into bed, sipping her water, rolling him onto his side to get him to shut up. The intimacy of that. The normality. I closed my eyes a moment, held onto the top of the bannister.

  Focus.

  Isla’s bedroom door was open. In her cot, Zac slept, splayed and massive as a toad. I heaved him up, tried to take the weight of him on my legs, tried not to groan with the effort. He half-woke, gave me a dozy smile, said “Do-dah.” I clapped my hand over his mouth and smiled back. I raised my eyebrows, widened my eyes playfully. He mirrored me like an idiot. Aunty Do-dah’s no threat. Aunty Do-dah looks after you all the time. This night-time caper is no more than a game.

  I stroked his hair and whispered with my mouth to his ear. “Hi Zacky.” I kissed his head, put my hand back over his mouth, carried him down, one stair at a time. By the time I got to the bottom, the sweat was prickling on my back.