In Two Minds

by Gordon Parker

  The others all chose to ignore the question.

  Peter mused. ‘Pedestal. Nice concept. Looking back I can relate to that. But after two months she started chipping away in a hot or cold rage, anger such as I have never seen. I was her hero for a while, and then she saw me as the devil.’

  Peter raised his hand. ‘Look around the room. We’re all at least twenty years older than Bella. Father figures perhaps.’

  ‘Father figure?’ laughed Bruce. ‘No one’s ever seen me as a father figure. Not even my own kids.’

  Peter observed. ‘She was clearly operating to a script.’

  ‘But why the letter?’ queried Daniel.

  ‘If I’d recognised the writing, I would have suspected a letter bomb,’ said Mike angrily.

  Bruce laughed again. ‘Now that reminds me of the Darwin Awards story. About the bloke who posted a letter bomb without sufficient stamps and, when it was sent back to him, he opened his own letter without thinking. Maybe that’s how she disappeared.’

  Two of the men squirmed. Ted returned to the topic, offering his views. ‘When I found it too bloody draining to keep praising her, she would become petulant, which would lead to almighty rows. And then she would claim I was rejecting her and become really vicious. She threatened me with a kitchen knife once. And another time when we were driving home from a party, quite out of the blue she started criticising me for having talked to some other woman. There was nothing to it and I told her so. She just suddenly opened the car door and threw herself out. She could have easily been hurt when she hit the road or run over by a passing car.’

  Mike shook his head. ‘She was so vituperative.’

  ‘Perhaps retributive,’ observed Jameson so quietly that none of the others heard.

  Mike spoke, his forehead furrowing. ‘During an argument she actually swallowed a diamond necklace I gave her.’

  Ted laughed. ‘As we say about other crap in life. This too will pass!’

  Bruce guffawed. ‘You’re being a smartarse, Ted. But can I ask Mike, were you worried or did you just go through the motions?’ He laughed as he turned to the others. ‘Challenges the suggestion though that you can’t shine shit.’

  Daniel appeared keen to add his observations. ‘When we separated she stalked me.’ There were immediate nods from the others. ‘I’d get to the office and she’d be in the waiting room. When I’d go to my private toilet she’d be there. When I’d get home at night she would be waiting on the front balcony. And she’d harass me by phone. Call after call. Thirty texts a day. Once she threw rocks through the windscreens of three staff cars in the car park.’

  Mike added, ‘And I’d get letters from her with blood on them. She threatened to tell my wife some things. I got a lawyer and we signed a deed of release. Cost a lot of money but, I have to say, once the deed was signed, she didn’t break the conditions.’

  Peter spoke gravely. ‘She intruded into our whole family. Once she arrived at my kids’ school wearing one of my wife’s dresses and with a wig making her look just like my wife. Hung around the school gates. When the kids saw her they knew it wasn’t their mother, and ran screaming back into the classroom. I could have murdered her for that…’

  ‘Ah now we have a suspect,’ laughed Bruce.

  Peter proceeded. ‘I felt desperate. Not sure whether to call the police to get an AVO. I was trying to keep my family out of it. For better or worse I rang her. She had settled and actually apologised. Said it would never happen again. But I think my contacting her activated things. When I drove into our garage the next week, she was waiting there. I ignored her and walked into the house, locking the connecting door. The next morning I found all my tyres had been slashed.’

  Daniel spoke thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure whether all of this is explainable by a psychiatric diagnosis. I personally now think she is just simply evil.’

  Jameson observed quietly, ‘Evil is such a one-dimensional construct.’

  None of the others responded. But it was perhaps the stimulus for Mauricio to assert his chairmanship of the meeting.

  ‘Gentlemen. I think enough has been said to suggest that we have all been involved in a rather similar process and we’ve all paid a price. But, as I queried at the beginning, why were we seven – and the police – sent the sheets?’ His questions drew no response other than some shaking of heads. Mauricio nodded. ‘And what do we think has happened to her?’

  ‘She could have been murdered,’ suggested Bruce. ‘She could well have been going out with some really dangerous guy who decided to take her out.’

  Jameson spoke softly. ‘I hear her last affair was with a doctor from Killara or somewhere on the North Shore. North Shore people don’t tend to be so inclined.’

  Ted turned to Jameson. ‘Well, how about suicide? She’s overdosed in the past. Could have killed herself in some quiet spot. Might never be found.’

  ‘Doesn’t explain the blood in the apartment though,’ replied Mauricio.

  ‘Well,’ stated Bruce, ‘out of sight and out of mind. And perhaps out of our hair at last.’

  Jameson felt white-hot rage. He had not had contact with Bella since he had assisted her through the police interview but he was certain she was still alive and presumably desperately distressed following the latest breakup. He suspected she saw the seven of them as the ones who had meant a lot to her and that they might, in some way, come to her aid. She was calling out in pain and for help. And yet, he observed, none had shown any concern about her and, worse, some clearly wished her to be dead so as to no longer perturb their lives.

  They had met simply to determine whether they were at any risk and the extent to which they had objectified her had been distinctive, with each offering competing anecdotes. A group of men who were viewed as solid citizens, as respected in their fields and who were presumably loved and admired by their families and friends! Several with public reputations of being kind, considerate and even altruistic! And yet Bella evoked such misogynistic hatred from them. Why?

  Jameson mused further. None showed any recognition that their interactions with Bella might have consolidated the pattern of her life script. They viewed her anger towards them as evil, not the tragic consequence of her earlier life. And as she was evil, she could therefore be treated like a witch, her death taking her out of their lives. A Salem witch trial.

  Jameson sought to activate some concern if not sense of responsibility. ‘I don’t think we are getting messages from beyond the grave. I think she is still alive, and extremely distressed by her latest breakup. We must have meant something to her. I think the sheet is a call for help from us.’

  Bruce responded rather severely. ‘Well leave me out of any rescue party, guys.’

  Jameson tried to keep anger out of his voice. ‘So you would prefer her dead?’

  Mike and Daniel looked at each other, both seemingly unsettled. Daniel spoke for both of them.

  ‘I’m feeling somewhat uncomfortable about how this discussion is going.’

  Mauricio intervened rapidly. ‘I suggest, gentlemen, that we finish up. Thanks, Jameson, for hosting this meeting. Let’s all keep in contact. If any of us hears anything it’s probably best to phone me and I’ll phone the others rather than use email or texts.’

  After shaking Jameson’s hand, he attempted to engage in small talk as he escorted the others to the front door but they all appeared eager to leave without any further discussion.

  Jameson remained sitting on the balcony. Tears were running down his face. He thought back five years. The night he had called an escort agency and detailed his request over the phone. He had heard the receptionist call out, her hand only partially muffling her voice.

  ‘Bella, we’ve got a request for a gasper. Randwick. Want the job?’

  Bella had arrived an hour later. She was, as anticipated, quite beautiful in a gamin sort of way. She was stylish, and he was impressed by the dark satin dress she was wearing, offset with long gloves and a thin silver necklace. She sh
ook his hand and smiled warmly at him. A professional smile. And then he noted something. Her eyes glazed somewhat and he could feel her slipping away. It lasted a few seconds before she smiled again, but now the smile was more forced. He suggested they go straight to his bedroom. There, he repeated the request he had put to the service. Erotic asphyxiation. She simply nodded, detailed the price and then stated she would instruct him as they proceeded. She suggested he take off all his clothes and lie on his bed. He looked attentively as she slowly – ever so slowly – undressed, revealing a beautiful body while her gloved hands held a leather ligature. She then slid smoothly into bed next to him, shortly rolling over him, then kneeling – her breasts close to his face – and then placing the ligature around his neck, progressively tightening it. ‘I need to make it tight. If you want it tighter raise your right hand. If it’s too tight or you become concerned, wave your left hand.’

  She proceeded to encourage his erection, then straddling him, and he could only presume that his penis had entered her, as she was moving rhythmically up and down. She said nothing as her hands further tightened the ligature around his neck. Jameson was aware that he was gagging. He realised he was being smothered. While he couldn’t breathe he kept his left arm by his side. He raised his right hand. The ligature tightened further. He was quite unaware of any sexual sensation. All he was conscious of was that he was being strangled. He tried to raise his right hand again but was quite unable to do so. Both arms felt paralysed. He opened his eyes and looked directly at Bella. There was sweat above her lips and she looked at him with aversion, no, hatred, before her eyes glazed as she once again slipped away as if she had left her own body. She tightened the ligature further without his signal. He knew that she held his life in her hands. And that she had made a decision. That he was to die. The thought caused Jameson to smile inwardly despite an overwhelming need to breathe and then he moved to another state where breathing no longer appeared of any importance.

  He must have been unconscious for a minute as, when he surfaced, he registered Bella sitting in a chair next to the bed, partially dressed and returning the ligature to her handbag.

  Jameson pulled a sheet over his torso and smiled at her. ‘You were going to kill me, weren’t you?’

  She looked defensively and balefully at him. ‘Of course not. Just doing my job. Acting to your instructions.’

  Jameson chuckled throatily. ‘What if I were to tell you I wanted you to kill me?’

  Bella looked at him closely and with clear doubt. ‘I wouldn’t believe you.’

  Jameson nodded his head. ‘Can we chat?’

  ‘It will cost extra.’

  ‘Not an issue.’

  Jameson sat up in bed. He made no attempt to move closer to Bella. He spoke slowly and in staccato sentences, still catching his breath and occasionally gasping. ‘My wife died five years ago. I’ve never coped with her death. She was my soul mate. Our two children are overseas and I rarely hear from them. I was a workaholic barrister but I’m retired now and I haven’t handled retirement well. I haven’t found any activities that really interest me other than reading and I can only read so much each day. I have been out to dinner with several women. But no sexual activity. No such interest in them. I’m a loner and I’m lonely. A year ago I developed a medical problem that will kill me. Regrettably not fast. It will be a slow process and, in the last few months, the rubber will hit the road and I’ll be in a lot of pain. At some stage I’ll be placed in palliative care where most people abandon hope. But I’ve long abandoned hope.’

  Bella looked at Jameson without expression. So many men wanted to talk. For many it was more important than the sex. For most, the theme was that their wife did not understand them. Loneliness was a common theme, as if sexual physical connection was just the prelude to an emotional need to reconnect or at least lessen their alienating solitude.

  Jameson went on. ‘I’ve never been particularly sexual. Never been to a brothel, never been with a prostitute and was always faithful to my wife.’

  Bella smiled. She could not resist commenting. ‘So you wanted to go out with a bang? A bucket list thing?’

  Jameson was quiet for a little. ‘Not quite. I want to die but I’m too scared to kill myself. So –’

  Bella interrupted him. ‘So you thought you could use me. That’s pretty callous. Did you – do you – realise that? And the consequences for me?’ Bella generally attacked when on the defensive. And, since taking on the escort position, she had contemplated her capacity to commit the perfect murder. To be able to strangle someone and then, if questioned, to say she was only doing what she had been commissioned to do, but perhaps, officer, she had not got the compression quite right.

  It was as if Jameson read her mind. ‘I did think it through and judged that neither you nor anyone else would be at great risk. If someone dies during such a process it’s usually put down to an accident.’ He then smiled. ‘And, if there was any investigation by the police, you would simply remind them that there are no industry standards, no evidence-based protocols, and no occupational health and safety instructors in your line of work.’

  Bella leant forward and patted his arm. ‘If I ever need a barrister I’m going to call you out of retirement.’

  Jameson put his hand gently on top of hers. ‘So you’ve heard my story. I wanted you to kill me. But you haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘That you wanted to kill me –’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘I don’t think so. You tightened the ligature further without any signal from me.’

  ‘I did no such thing.’

  ‘Your eyes were glassy. It was as if you weren’t quite there.’

  ‘I often have brief trances. It’s a stress response.’

  Jameson failed to respond for a few seconds. He knew she had dissociated. The same look she had shown ever so briefly when they first met. He had worked in the Family Court for several years and read many reports of dissociative fugue states. And having once witnessed such an episode in the courtroom he could never forget it. He knew that such episodes usually reflected early and severe trauma. Something terrible had happened to her in childhood. And shortly after they had met she had gone into a fugue. Why? Not simply a stress response, as she was streetwise. It was a reaction to him. An older man. Someone he resembled must have done terrible things to Bella. Causing her at times to dissociate, to effectively rise out of her body so as to not feel anything, then and subsequently, when triggered by some resonant event. She had wanted to kill him when in the second fugue, but she may or may not have had conscious awareness of her action, let alone its causes.

  ‘It’s more than a symptom of anxiety, Bella. I would be most appreciative if you could lie next to me for a while.’

  ‘It’s all costing.’

  ‘No matter.’

  Bella slid back into bed again. Jameson raised himself on one elbow and looked into her inky black eyes. ‘You must have experienced some horrendous events in your childhood, Bella. Have you ever talked such things through?’

  ‘No. And I have no wish to do so. I have problems, sure, but the biggest problem is that I end up with jerks who make my life a problem.’

  ‘Bella. I suspect your father –’

  Bella turned to him, almost immediately enraged. ‘You have no right –’

  Jameson cut across her, showing the slightest of smiles. ‘Bella, raise your right arm if it was your father or your left arm if the perpetrator was someone else. Both arms if there were multiple –’

  Bella jumped out of bed. She turned back towards Jameson, her hands placed as if to throttle him, before throwing herself to the ground, curling into a foetal position, her body almost immobile, just the suggestion of rocking, both hands reaching up slightly before being tucked under her abdomen.

  Jameson rose and went over to her slowly, kneeling with some difficulty. He put his arms around her and held her as she gagged with tears
and made intermittent primitive howls for at least five minutes. She finally turned to Jameson and said softly, ‘I’ve never talked about it. I can’t and won’t talk about it. But please…please keep holding me.’ They lay on the floor for nearly an hour, Jameson cradling her gently, occasionally stroking her hair, and murmuring.

  She stood up, helped him to stand and walked him back to his bed. ‘I must go now, Jameson.’

  ‘Are you all right? I mean reasonable enough to drive?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘As you let yourself out there’s an envelope on the table near the door. It has five thousand dollars in it. Take whatever is your due. May things ease for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Jameson. You really are a sweetie.’

  He was struck by how composed she was as she gently kissed him on the cheek. How quickly her anguish had disappeared.

  The next morning, when Jameson went downstairs to breakfast he opened the envelope. It contained five thousand dollars. But a framed photo, one of him taken at his retirement dinner, was missing.

  While Jameson judged that he would never see Bella again, she rang him two weeks later and asked if she could stay with him that night. It was late, well after midnight but, intrigued, he agreed. On arriving she was clearly stressed. Physically agitated. But she had immediately hugged him. A friend’s hug. She asked if they could go to bed and emphasised that she simply wanted to sleep with him. He showed her around the house to orientate her and, when they went into the guestroom, she found a large teddy bear which had been left by one of his grandchildren. She picked it up and wrapped an arm around it. In his bedroom she asked if she could wear some of his pyjamas. In bed, she related a frisson that had occurred with her current boyfriend. Jameson offered reassuring comments but it was unlikely that she heard them as she rapidly fell asleep, her back spooned against him and her arms embracing the teddy bear.