The Sacrificial Man

by Ruth Dugdall

“Please,” he says, feeling every letter of the word in his throat, “I can’t speak with anyone else. I want to speak with you. I have something – something from Dave. And I think it’s you I’m meant to give it to.” He slides the memory stick from his pocket, holding it out like a gift. “I’m sure it is.”

  “What is it?”

  “Dave’s journal. Everything… it’s all there.” He feels the heat on his cheeks. He wants to say more. As her index finger touches the plastic, he blabs his planned monologue. “I didn’t know what Dave wanted me to do with it, even after I’d read it, but then I thought, shit, I can’t keep this to myself. It’s too big… ” He’s desperate, he knows that, hears his own voice an octave higher than normal as he rushes to explain how David sent it to him, posting it on the day he died, with no stamps on the envelope, in a rural post-box in Suffolk where the collection was only daily. From Suffolk to London, then via the collection office to Krishna’s desk. When it arrived David had been dead for sixteen days, the funeral already over. “And this,” he hands her a sheet of paper, “is the letter that came with it.”

  Krishna has kept the USB stick and letter for seven months, waiting for a sign, some indication of whom he should hand them to. With the same certainty that he believes in karma, he knows that Cate Austin is the one.

  Twenty-four

  “We know it happens behind closed doors, and we think euthanasia should be sanctioned in this country, as it is in Switzerland.”

  “And how did you come to be involved in the Hemlock Trust?”

  Roy paused, wiped the sweat from his lip. “My wife had a terminal brain tumour. We fought it for months. Chemotherapy, radiotherapy. She was exhausted. After the third cycle of treatment the doctors said there was nothing more they could do.”

  “So she took her own life?” the interviewer asked, sympathetically.

  “No,” said Roy, suddenly forceful. “She died a protracted and painful death. But after watching her die, I knew it was wrong. And I knew there was another way. That’s when I set up the Hemlock Trust.”

  Cate watched the man struggle to finish the interview, the tears for his dead wife budding behind his glasses, then pressed the off button on the TV remote control. She wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing, taking the memory stick from Krishna Dasi, but he had been so certain that she hadn’t felt able to say no. He was grieving for David, she could see that, his brown eyes full of concern as he handed it over. It’s important, he had said, I think there are some things in the diary that make the whole situation look different. He wouldn’t explain what he meant, he just said it was pretty heavy, that it freaked him out. Then he had looked at her and said, but I guess you’re used to stuff like this.

  She took the handwritten note from her bag, and smoothed it onto her lap, bringing it close to her face to read the small, cramped handwriting:

  June 16th

  Krish,

  I know you’ll look after this. It’s important. Sometimes things don’t work out as we planned, as you and I both know. After all, we deal in improbabilities. By the time you get this I’ll be long gone, but I want to travel light. Keep it safe.

  I hope to see you again, either here or in another life.

  Dave

  Cate felt uneasy, reading a dead man’s final letter. But it confirmed that he had chosen to die, and soon – by the time you get this I’ll be long gone. That travelling metaphor again, just as he’d used in his internet advert, talking of the journey of a lifetime. She hoped he got the death he wanted, though God knows it wasn’t what most people would choose. But maybe the diary would explain it. Alice hadn’t been able to tell her why David had wanted to die, and that was the question that bothered Cate most. She put the letter to one side.

  Cate slid the USB into place. There was just one file on the memory stick, entitled Robin & Smith. She double-clicked.

  This is my diary, the only one I’ve ever written so bear with me, okay? I’ll just write it in the only way I know how. Numbers are the only way I can make sense of things.

  One is a great number. There’s a history to one, a single digit that holds an infinite number of fractions, of parts. Some people love it because it is the start of things. To me, it’s great because it’s so definite. Anything less than one represents uncertainty. In statistics one is 100%. Anything less, say 95%, is 0.95. I collect ones, a list in my head, like I used to collect stamps, only that kind of collection doesn’t mean anything. Stamps just end up hidden in a cupboard under the stairs, only interacting with dust particles or passing mice. My new collection reflects events that will happen, real lives. I work with one. In fact, everything from nought to one, but one is my favourite. I try to live my life by it. It makes it easier. The number one is like a dependable shirt, comfortable and familiar.

  Only God is immortal, but it simply never enters the average bloke’s head that he could die on any given day. He gets up, has breakfast, kisses the wife and kids goodbye, drives to work, comes home, sleeps and starts all over again. He believes that waking up tomorrow and the day after is a given, a certainty of one. I guess human beings are designed that way.

  On the way to work one morning he passes an accident, an ambulance’s flashing lights, and remembers he’s mortal. ‘The certainty of life is not one. It’s a lot less, slow down!’ Sober thoughts flash up on the windscreen of his mind, all the possibilities of that journey, the motorbike that swerves before him, the car that brakes too suddenly to make the slip road. But he looks at the time, and the traffic jam, thinks about the next meeting and wonders why the incompetent woman in front can’t just move to the inside lane rather than insisting on driving at just seventy miles per hour in the fast lane, is she trying to make a point? The wipers in his mind wipe away the knowledge of death. Back to the certainty of one.

  Most people who die move from one to nought in a blink.

  One is the only number that can be both male and female. It can also represent God.

  Krish, you know our job is to make things safe, to help people take chances. After all, who’d buy a house if they couldn’t insure it against fire or flood? Who’d want to drive without insurance? It’s what we do. Work out how likely that flood, that fire, is and give a figure, an equation that allows you to protect yourself against it and give you peace of mind, if you have the money. I guess it’s always about money, though I don’t think of it in pounds and pence. I think in primes and decimal places, fractions and percentages. We work with actuarial risk, the risk factor that’s fixed, determined by a group; a woman will get cheaper car insurance on the basis of her group, not her individual skill. We all belong to groups: gender, race, age, class… and any probability can only apply to a group, never to an individual. So, there could be a 99% chance that you won’t crash that car, but today just might be the one.

  My own statistics, based on my group, white, male, educated, class A2, were good. Excellent, in fact. No money worries, a lower chance of divorce, of illness, of being the victim of crime. But as I said, who knows who that one in a hundred is. Or, in my case, one in several million.

  I didn’t know it could be that way, that one moment could divide your life in two like a split lip. Before that moment, that realisation that I was the oddity, the statistical improbability, life was predictable. It was how I liked it; maybe a bit routine, some would call it boring, but there’s a comfort in structure. But the doctor’s words cut through me, tearing my life apart, I saw that I’d been a fool, living in a fantasy world built on nothing but a quicksand of numbers. I’d been chosen to die, and the reason was beyond me. Like Jesus, I felt forsaken.

  Krish, let me tell you my story. I just need to know that someone, at least, gets the message.

  Mirrors are the worst. My vision splits between the glass and my image, confused over the focal distance. I know that this can only get worse, as my brain sends twisted messages to my roving retinas.

  I’m a marked man. But moving between being one of us, and one of them,
didn’t feel any different. I didn’t even know! How many others are there, the one in a million of us that haven’t yet discovered they are already one of them. One of the walking dead.

  In my case it’s my brain that is poisoned. Deep, hidden in the tissue. Are you reading this, full of pity for me? Well ask yourself one question, Krish: would you know if you had a ticking timebomb in your heart, your lungs? And if you did find out, who would you rather pressed the button? Fate? God? Or you?

  It’s my brain. And it’s my finger on that button.

  When I look in the mirror I think, is this it? Is the sum total of my life what I see every day? This desk, this computer, these clothes. Is this what I am? Is this all I am? Questions I wouldn’t have asked myself before. I’m not reflective in that way. The numbers, probabilities, eventualities are about someone else’s life. When I hold the calculator, work the percentage, I’m in control.

  This time I’m the statistic. And the control is somewhere else, in a message my brain is sending my body, turning my own cells against me like a conquering army, colonising as they move through, turning allies to enemies. Turning normal protein molecules into deadly ones. All I have is time. All I can do is wait for my body to fail, and my brain to forget. It’s no choice. It’s no life. No-one chooses to be a martyr.

  Cate stopped reading. So, David Jenkins had been ill after all. He said there was a time bomb in his head, he talked about the terminally ill, as being one of them. But she’d asked Alice about this, and she’d been adamant he was well. Neither Alice nor the police had any idea that he had a terminal illness. And what exactly was the illness?

  If he was ill why hadn’t he made it known, got it out in the open? It made more sense of his decision to die, lessened Alice’s culpability. He must have had a reason for keeping it from her. Surely Alice had some notion he was sick? She must have asked him why he wanted to die. She must find out, but carefully, so that Alice has no idea about Cate having the diary. So that Alice wouldn’t know Cate’s secret.

  She knew she had to hand the memory stick over to the police, but that could wait until she has seen Alice tomorrow.

  Twenty-five

  1981

  The suitcase was pale blue vinyl, with a picture of Winnie the Pooh on the front. It was a boxy shape, with a thick handle. Just a small case, yet Mummy was trying to put everything in it. Even Alice could see that nothing else would fit, yet still Mummy tried stuffing in another top, another book. “Mummy?” Alice asked, but her mother didn’t respond. She just carried on pulling things from the wardrobe, trying to cram them in the case. The wardrobe was nearly empty, like a wooden shell or a boat with space for hiding. Except it was the wrong way up for a boat and there was no water. Water was like the swimming pool and Alice liked to think of that, of her mother swimming through her legs like a mermaid. But they hadn’t been swimming for ages, not since Mr Wilding became Mummy’s friend.

  On the floor of the upturned boat were her armbands, flat and airless, and under them her turquoise swimsuit, the one with the flamingo on the front. She liked the picture of the pink bird, but wondered why it stood on only one leg. What if it toppled over? She grabbed the swimsuit, hid it behind her back, not that her mother noticed as she was trying to do up the zip on the case, make the teeth close together like a dog’s bite. Alice didn’t want the case to close. Wherever she was going there was only one case, and she didn’t want to go alone. She would not leave Mummy.

  Alice pushed the swimsuit to the back of the wardrobe, into the darkest corner, where her mother wouldn’t look. If she left it there, then she would have to come back. Mummy wouldn’t let her go without it. Would she?

  Mummy hugged her tight, really tight so she couldn’t breathe, and said, “What’s the point? Oh, what’s the point, Alice? There’s nowhere for us to go anyway.”

  Mummy lied. The next day she left Alice forever.

  Alice woke up and Mummy was gone.

  The night before, Alice had stayed up late. They drank hot chocolate, and Mummy painted Alice’s nails and her own, even their toenails! Alice could still smell the scent of the nail polish in the air, and she looked at her pretty pink nails, wondering where Mummy was.

  Their bedsit door was wide open. Mummy told her off if she didn’t shut it. She picked up Barbie and went to the door. She felt hungry so it must be time for breakfast. She was so cold she put her cardigan on over her nightshirt. Her special cardigan, the lilac one with the pearl button. The one Mummy knitted.

  She couldn’t find Mummy – she wasn’t in the bathroom. Alice tried Mr Wilding’s door. It was unlocked and the room was a mess. The table was broken and there was glass on the floor. The boxes had all gone, but there was other stuff on the floor, bits of rubbish. Then she saw a sandwich on a plate. She was hungry so she walked gingerly towards it. “Careful! Don’t step on the glass,” she said to Barbie. It was a cheese sandwich, and she offered some to Barbie, then took a bite herself. She saw a foot. She knew it was Mummy’s foot because of the sparkly pink toenails.

  “Mummy!” she was pleased, but also surprised because Mummy was sleeping on the floor by the side of the bed, next to the wall. And she was not wearing any clothes.

  Alice took off her special cardigan and carefully laid it over Mummy. It was too small to cover all of her, but Alice smoothed it over her arm and shoulder.

  Alice snuggled against her. Mummy was so warm, but she must be asleep because she didn’t move. Alice finished her sandwich, stroking Mummy’s hair with her free hand. “Wake up,” she said, but Mummy didn’t move. She was too tired. So Alice sang to her:

  ‘Hush, little baby, don’t say a word.’ Mummy’s going to buy you a mockingbird…

  Alice yawned. She was tired too. Safe, next to her Mummy. Snug. She closed her eyes and slept.

  Later, much later. They were found. Other people arrived.

  Alice was strapped into a car seat by a woman she didn’t know. Mummy was still in the house, still lying on the floor, but the woman carried on clicking Alice into place, giving her a tight smile. Next to her, on the seat, was her blue Winnie the Pooh suitcase and a black bag with the things that her mother couldn’t squeeze into the case. There were other people too, men in the green uniforms who came in the ambulance with its screaming siren. The woman opened the car door and got into the driver’s seat. As she did so, a man in green uniform ran from the house, to the car, and tapped on the window. “You’d best take this,” he said to the driver, poor kid, she’s only wearing a nightie.” The man handed her the lilac cardigan.

  The woman put a key in the ignition and Alice panicked, erupting into tears like a split heart, shouting, “Wait for Mummy! My Mummy!” The woman turned round, reached to pat the girl’s leg. Alice couldn’t move. She was strapped in. Just then she heard the front door to her home open, and a metal bed was lifted out. On it was a bundle of sheets. No, it was a ghost. And then Alice saw a foot and pretty pink polish on toes so white.

  But the woman was turning the key that started the engine, and the car was moving. Alice was still shouting, but Mummy couldn’t hear her, she was too far under the sheets.

  As the car pulled away the girl kept shouting. No-one answered.

  Alice had lain with her dead mother for nearly four hours until they were discovered.

  When the landlord found them, calling on a routine visit to collect rent, he saw the mother and daughter entwined on the floor of their neighbour’s bedsit. Matilde Mariani was naked, and her daughter was clinging to her like a baby monkey. He said that coaxing the child away from the corpse had been the hardest thing he ever had to do.

  The post mortem found a high level of narcotics in Matilde’s blood stream. They called it an accidental death. Mr Wilding was nowhere to be found.

  The social worker, who subsequently took Alice to her new home, concluded that she had not accepted her mother’s death. She said that after the initial outburst in the car Alice displayed an ‘irregular, detached demeanour,’ and speculate
d that she would require help to recover, including age-appropriate grief counselling if she was to come to terms with it.

  Help never came. Not for me.

  Twenty-six

  I’m home. Released. Bailed. All of these words. But mostly, I’m free. As I open my front door the neighbour’s cat appears, looking at me with widened eyes as if demanding where I’d been. I stand in the cold air, and the cat comes to me. He pulls away when I stroke his black fur, only relaxing after my hand has massaged his sharp spine several times. But it’s too cold to stay outside for long, and I have much to do inside.

  Like Goldilocks, I sit in each of the chairs, hurrying between them, unable to rest. I open my cupboards, touch the cold tins and crinkling bags of pasta. A feast after ten days of meals on a tray. I hardly know where to begin. I go to my bookshelves and touch the worn fabric spines, the smooth leather covers. I clean up the broken glass, the dead flowers. I’m like a child in a sweet shop, running from room to room. Oh, my bed! I’d forgotten how soft the mattress was. I open the drawer where I keep my most prized possession. My lilac cardigan, almost as old as I am. It’s still there, still soft under my fingers. What we forget in such a short time. Ah, a bath all to myself. No-one will come peering in to check that I haven’t scored my wrists with a razor. I won’t have to navigate a dayroom of drugged patients pretending to play Scrabble, or digest a meal without fresh vegetables.