‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You were meant to come for a weekend, to the house you’d fantasised about. What was it you said? ‘All decay and grandeur’?’
‘Yes, high ceilings, high ideals…’
‘The air rich with obscenities and the talk of art?’
‘Is that a quote?’
‘No. I was trying to help conjure up an atmosphere of decadence. And you were meant to be spending time with Elizabeth.’
‘It was never going to work out.’
‘No, perhaps not, but I’ve spoiled a weekend of lovemaking.’
‘It was never going to mean any more than that though.’
‘Why should it have done? What’s wrong with enjoying sex for its own sake. If it’s tender, and loving. Oh, ignore me. I can’t keep making pronouncements for you.’
‘But you seem to make sense.’
‘Do I? Surely if I knew any of the answers would I be such a mess? Don’t listen to anything I say. Or, yes, listen, and then act the opposite.’
‘I can help you.’
‘How? When I can’t help myself. No, you’d best leave. I give you my word, my most solemn promise, that I’ll see a doctor, and I won’t cut myself again.’
‘Ever?’
‘If that’s what you want. I promise.’
Lucian washed the blood off his hands and Miranda wandered out of the bathroom. He heard her walking down the stairs but did not think about what she might be doing, or where she was going. When he went to find a shirt he had to take an old, crumpled one out of his bag. It was damp from the other clothes he had stuffed in there, and none of them smelt too good. He was wondering how he would explain the state of some of them to his mother; he really would have to go home and get a change of clothes. As he was rummaging through them, wondering which could be aired and worn again he heard Miranda say something from somewhere below, but he could not work out from which part of the house the sound had come; it had quiet and perhaps not meant for his ears. Nevertheless there had been something wrong about it, and with reluctance he left his room and went to find her, buttoning up his shirt as he went.
It was cold down in the hallway. He could hear the wind at the back of the house and guessed that the French doors had to have been opened through in the studio. He hurried through wondering why she might have gone outside, and in the studio his guess was shown to be correct. He walked over to look outside and perhaps close them but he noticed that the painting on the easel had been moved. He had to walk around it before he could see that the picture had now taken on the most appalling aspect. The colours of decay had been heightened in blues and purples. There were also three dark red slashes of paint, like knife wounds, but these were across the entire picture, across the figure and the background, and were obviously just wanton vandalism.
He stepped back and his attention was drawn, by the door banging in the wind, to the cold garden outside. He went over and looked out but could not see Miranda. He knew that the end to everything that had been happening was coming closer, but he did not feel at all panicked or frightened. His veins pumped with adrenalin, but with a great calmness he went back inside and pulled on his wet shoes and found a coat for himself. Miranda’s was still hanging up so he took hers as well.
Outside he realised that he had no idea of where she had gone. He walked to the little terrace overlooking the town but there was no sign of her there. Looking down she had not thrown herself off the side, and he was looking around the garden when a movement in the distance caught his attention. Through the trees, down the road that served as the drive, he had seen something moving and knew it was her.
He ran now, but his strides were measured so that he did not get out of breath. He didn’t want to slip on the wet leaves and loose stones, and chose where to place his feet with care among the potholes. At the bottom Lucian could see that she had crossed the road and was walking past the garage back towards the town. She was only wearing her dress and even from a distance she looked bedraggled and strange with the dirty bandages hanging loosely about her arms.
Lucian crossed the road and jogged after her, getting closer although her stride was fast and purposeful. He couldn’t quite believe that the cars could keep passing her without anyone stopping to help; it had to be obvious that she was in distress. He was only a few yards behind her when she disappeared into an alley between two shops.
The busy road was suddenly far away. Their path led to a small court, noisome with the stench of the overflowing bins from the rear of the shops. He entered in time to see her awkwardly step over a broken wooden fence and start walking along the side of the river. When he was over it she was then but three feet from him, standing at the river bank.
She had her back to him as she looked down a muddy bank to the wide river. Lucian walked up to her carefully and she did not seem at all surprised to find that he was there. He took her cold hand in his and pressed it but received no response. And then he looked down to where she stared. He saw a strange shape in the mud, and then recognised the shape of a head. The hair was matted with mud and it wasn’t quite the shape it should have been
Lucian could only just restrain himself from retching. His balance went slightly awry, his legs felt weak and he held on to Miranda to steady himself. She looked at him, slightly reluctantly, and only then seemed to properly recognise him, and smiled weakly, as though comforted.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked, pointing stupidly to body.
‘Can’t you guess?’ she was genuinely surprised. Her skin was white with an unhealthy glow. Her eyes were dark shadowed and though she should have been frozen she did not shiver or appear to feel the cold.
‘Is it him? When . . . ?’
‘I followed him after he left the house, and I called him all sorts of stupid names. We ended up out there in the road and it was dark and cold and windy and raining. I remember that he looked around him, very carefully to make sure there was nobody about. The night had turned so horrible that there was never going to be anyone out there to see what happened.
‘So he hit me in the face,’ she said, and then paused, composing herself. ‘I fell over, but I was already so angry that I didn’t notice the pain. I carried on swearing at him, taunting him for hitting me, so he finally really did hit me hard. He hit me in the stomach with all of his strength and I thought I was going to die. I can still remember the feeling. I was sick. I remember it raining so hard, and being so fucking cold. I was crouching in the middle of the road and he was looking down at me, laughing.’
She paused again. ‘And then he dragged me down here, to the river. I don’t know what he intended to do. There was a brick on the ground and I picked it up. I was going to smash his skull in, but I knew that I’d have had to raise both of my hands over my head to do it. He’d have seen it coming. But at least it would’ve been more like manslaughter if I’d succeeded. I would’ve simply been reacting to his attack on me. But I was more calculating. And I was feeling so awful, and so weak. So I got up with it behind my back. I waited until I could breathe properly again, and then with both hands I pushed it in his face with all my weight behind it.
‘He put his hands up but not quick enough. He fell back and twisted, landing awkwardly, stupidly, hitting his face on the wall there. He rolled over it and went down into the river with a splash, and that was it. I threw the brick in after him and ran back up to the house.’
‘So it was an accident?’ Lucian asked.
‘No, I meant to kill the bastard,’ she looked up at him. ‘I suppose I only really succeeded because he hit his head and went over the wall, but it was my fault, and I wanted him dead.’
‘But if you hadn’t killed him, he’d probably have killed you?’ he asked.
“No, he’d have known when to stop. He would have dragged me back up to the house and dumped me on the doorstep, but I’d have been alive.’
Miranda now opened and closed her mouth, not to speak, but to cry, though she was forcing herself not. She was
looking around wildly as if remembering the incidents of that night and trying to relate them to what she could now see around her in daylight. ‘It was . . . low tide . . . then,’ she continued, distraught and distracted. He was unable to think of anything he could say.
She took a deep breath and forced an unrealistic smile.
‘I’ll have to start painting under your name now.’
‘Why?’ he asked lamely.
‘Because in your card game you won his talent from him. . . . He didn’t have any, of course.’
‘You’re saying that you’ve done all the painting for him?’ he did not believe her claim.
‘Of course. I’ve done it all. That is until he died.’
She looked back down at the body.
‘You see, I thought that the tide would take him away . . . or drag the mud deeper over him. I thought that it would bury him deeper. But the tide just seems to keep moving him around. . . .’
Contents
Bloody Baudelaire
Contents
Bloody Baudelaire Page 7