The Water's Lovely

by Ruth Rendell

  “All of us are standing in the gutter,” Fowler remarked to her, “but some of us are looking at the stars.”

  Although Ismay knew Eva Simber was dead, it took her a while to absorb it into her mind as a fact. It was a long time since she had read a newspaper, but now she read two every day, a morning paper and an evening, not so much to discover the latest police moves as to see yet another photograph of Eva. It was as if these pictures and the sensational captions underneath them made her death real. This was the work surely of one of those strange half-crazy men whose description and faces seldom appeared in the newspapers until they came up for trial, itinerant men who had no occupation, no permanent relationships, were probably illiterate, had been in and out of prison. The West End Werewolf who had put his hands around women’s throats and run off laughing had now killed.

  Of course she thought of Andrew. How was he? What did he feel? Nothing much, she hoped. Conventional feelings of pity only, pity and a certain amount of horror, but no grief. Later she began asking herself what he would do now. She meant, will he come back to me, but it was a while longer before she let herself answer with a strong affirmative.

  Gradually, she began to hope he would return. If only for her shoulder to cry on. She told herself she was a fool to believe simultaneously that he would care very little about Eva’s dying and that his grief would be such as to need comfort. Both could hardly be true. Very soon she found herself back in the situation she had been in when he left her, believing it was Andrew every time the phone rang. She had a new mobile number now, replacing that of the one which had been stolen. Suppose he was trying to call her on her mobile and couldn’t get through. Suppose he was trying to text her. He might be trying now, at this moment.

  The temptation was to drop everything else and concentrate on her new relationship. Plainly, Barry was falling in love with her and his love must be encouraged in subtle ways. It wasn’t in Marion’s nature to confess, even to herself in the long watches of the night, that she might be a less than attractive woman, that she was aging, that the prospects of romantic happiness for her were receding daily. In her own expressed estimation she was exceptionally good-looking, clever, hardworking, accomplished at everything she turned her hand to, and possessed of a charming personality. Sometimes, complacently, she told herself she suffered from high self-esteem. Still, she recognized that a prize like Barry Fenix had to be worked for, studied for. Irene Litton might hardly seem to be in the running, but that was a shallow person’s assessment. Years older than herself, fat—well, fattish—ridiculous with her beads and her imaginary illnesses, she was nevertheless well-off, the owner of a fine house and on the spot.

  But she mustn’t neglect her other commitments. In spite of having been let down (as Marion saw it) over that business with the morphine that never was, she was still in Avice’s employment. More to the point, she was still in Avice’s will. Unlikely as it now was that Avice would die of poisoning, die she would. Eventually. She was eighty-four. Marion would go back to Pinner that night, make sloppy overtures to those rabbits, make Avice’s supper and do her shopping tomorrow. Then there was Fowler. Unusually for her, she had let him in when he rang her front-door bell. She needed someone to talk to, boast to, really. She might even let him stay the night.

  Where anyone else would have remarked to her brother “I’ve got a boyfriend” or, even, cryptically, “I’m seeing someone,” Marion said to Fowler, “I’m thinking of getting engaged.” In a way, it was true. She was thinking of it all the time.

  “It’s not the thing to say congratulations to the lady,” said Fowler. “You have to wish her well.” He came over and kissed her, a wet, bristly kiss that was just tolerable. The smell of him, compounded of sweat, cannabis, and cheeseburger, was not. “I haven’t done that since we were children. I often kissed you then. I expect you’ve forgotten.”

  “You were more fragrant then.”

  Fowler ignored this. “When is the happy day?”

  Marion saw that she had gone too far. “I didn’t say I was engaged. I said I’m thinking of it. He is considerably older than I am. Incidentally, he’s an expert on Oriental matters.”

  “Has he got any money?”

  “Lots and lots,” said Marion, “and a very nice big house in Hampstead. Well, West Hampstead.”

  “Pity. Still, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “Speak for yourself. And talking of beggars, how dare you break in here and steal my morphine?”

  “It was the bottle. It looked like cough mixture and that reminded me I’d got some cough linctus out of a bin and then—well, the rest is history.”

  They argued for a while, not acrimoniously. Fowler put an end to it by asking for a drink. Anything alcoholic. He wasn’t fussy. If he wanted a drink he’d have to have a shower first, Marion said. She’d wait here till he had cleaned himself up and then she’d give him a small whisky but not the single malt she had appropriated from Avice’s stock. He could stay the night if he liked. Just one night, mind.

  She heard the shower running and top-volume sounds from her CD and disc player he’d taken into the bathroom with him. She tapped on the door to tell him the neighbors would complain. He came out wearing her bathrobe. “What’ll you do with this flat when you’re married to your old bloke?”

  “He’s not old. He’s sixty-two.” Keep it for a bolt-hole, she didn’t say aloud, while she was waiting for the divorce (and the alimony) to be settled. In case he turns out to be a pervert or snores or something.

  “I could take care of it for you.” Clean, sweet-smelling Fowler gave her one of his winning little-boy looks.

  Marion held out her hand. “I’ll have my player, thanks very much. I hope you haven’t let steam get in it.”

  “If you have a baby, could I borrow it? Just for the morning?”

  Marion screamed.

  She would have preferred to tell him somewhere other than on his home ground. A restaurant or even a pub would have been better. When she had suggested it, he had said he supposed this was because it was such a long way to come. He’d come to her, only her crazy sister would be there and he had a feeling she didn’t want them to meet.

  Pamela hadn’t liked hearing Beatrix called crazy, though she was. She hadn’t pursued the subject either. What was the point? What was the point in trying to reconcile the things he said with her own standards? She wouldn’t need to, for this was the last meeting they would have. It was September now and she’d been seeing him since the beginning of July. But enough was enough. She had tried to make it work but had failed. Maybe he had tried too—in his way. She would tell him at once, not put it off. His lovemaking she’d miss, though not his going to sleep afterward and his leaving her to get to the bus stop in the dark and being rude about her family. And a host of other things.

  Since she had come to this decision she had worked out carefully what she would say to him. She had done her best to imagine his replies. He would argue, of course. He’d probably accuse her of ingratitude. And he’d constantly say he didn’t understand. What had he done? What had he omitted to do? He’d probably ask if there was someone else. People did ask that in this sort of situation. But ultimately he would have to accept. Pamela just hoped the ultimate, the inevitable, wouldn’t be too far off. You can always just leave, she told herself. All you have to do is say good-bye and go.

  It was ever the way. Things never work out how you’ve planned them. People are different in reality from the way you’ve seen them while making scenarios in your mind. For one thing, they’re less consistent. They surprise you all the time. He had laid the table, made a salad, ordered Indian takeaway, opened a bottle of red wine. “You see, I’m learning,” he said.

  She nodded, took the glass of wine he gave her. How much easier it would be to sit down at the table with him, make conversation, listen to yet another story about some family he’d heard of, living on the benefit and buying a car and going on holiday to Lanzarote. She nearly yielded to temp
tation. She drank some wine, set the glass down, said, “It isn’t working, is it, Ivan?”

  He was putting dressing he’d evidently made himself on the salad and he didn’t look up to answer her. “What isn’t working?”

  “Us,” she said. “Our relationship. It doesn’t work, it won’t. We’re too different. We’ve nothing in common. We don’t see things in the same way. Is there any point in going on with it?”

  He sat down opposite her. “Of course we’ve things in common. We both work with figures, don’t we? We’re the same sort of age. I don’t know what you mean, ‘We don’t see things in the same way.’ I’m a man and you’re a woman. We’re bound to be different. The bed part’s all right, isn’t it? I don’t notice you complaining about that.”

  “I’m not complaining, Ivan. I’m not complaining about anything. I’m simply telling you I don’t think this thing, relationship, affair, whatever it is, will ever work for us. Don’t you feel that yourself?”

  “I’ll tell you what I feel,” he said. “I feel you’re doing this for a bit of excitement. Liven things up. It’s too dull for you. It’s too static. Sitting down at a table with me, eating, having a drink, having a conversation, all that’s too boring for you. Time we had a row, that’s what you’re thinking, aren’t you? Or d’you want the bedroom first and the food later, is that it?” He was standing over her now. “You can have it, only why go to the bedroom? What’s wrong with the sofa? What’s wrong with the floor?”

  He was a big man. She felt she’d never fully realized that before. A big man with big hands and strong muscles. He took hold of her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. His face was close to hers now, their bodies pressed together. He made an iron hoop of his arms, locking his hands behind her back and tightening them. She struggled and he dug his fingers into her flesh.

  “Ivan, let me go,” she said. “You haven’t understood me. I shouldn’t have expected you to understand.”

  “I understand all right.”

  He picked her up. She might have been a child, he lifted her so easily. Only a monster would have flung a child down as hard as he flung her. She banged her head on the sofa arm and bounced up and down, the springs jangling. On the third coming down he grabbed her shoulders and pressed her into the cushions. She knew then. She knew what he meant to do. Lying on her, smothering her with his beard and his hot breath, he tugged at her underclothes, tearing silk and when he met resistance, pinned her down with his left hand, groped with his right.

  “No, Ivan.” It came out as a strangled groan. “No, Ivan, don’t. Stop, please, stop.”

  “Please don’t stop,” he shouted at her. “I won’t, I won’t, don’t you worry.”

  So this is what rape is, she thought. I will give in now. I will relax and let him go on so that he doesn’t injure me. I won’t struggle. Afterward he’ll say I agreed, but it doesn’t matter. How can sex you want be so different from sex you don’t want, yet with the same person? It hurts a bit but not much. It’s not that it hurts but that it’s such a violation. As if one were a house, used to being cherished and cared for, made as beautiful as can be, and then a burglar breaks in and plunders, destroys everything and shits on the carpet. A hysterical laugh bubbled from her mouth. She couldn’t stop and it maddened him. The things that happened maybe would never have happened if she hadn’t laughed.

  He tugged out of her and, pulling himself to his feet, struck her hard across the mouth. “Shut up, shut up. Stop that laughing. I’ll stop you if I have to kill you.”

  He dragged her out of the room, across the hall floor to the front door. Her hurt head hurt more as it thudded against the floorboards. He’s going to put me out of that door and let me go, she thought. Her jaw throbbed where he had hit her. I wonder if I can open my mouth, if I can speak. My bag is inside there, I’ve no money to get home with. A sudden shaft of pain stopped thought and made her whimper. He had to let her go to open the door. She got to her knees, then, holding her face, tried to stand but fell. He pulled her upright, pushed her out of the door. She swayed but kept on her feet until his hand, pushed hard into the small of her back, knocked her over to stumble and fall. It would have been better to have stayed like that, on all fours, and crawling weakly across the floor. But she struggled to get to her feet, to cling to the banister rail and scramble down the stairs. She felt his foot in the small of her back and she screamed. The scream was loud but not loud enough to fetch someone from the floor below. Pamela teetered on the edge of the staircase, lost her balance, and fell. She failed to grab the rail in time and she fell down, down, down the dark well, bouncing on the treads, plunging to the bottom.

  It happened very fast. The awful helplessness she felt, her inability to hang on to carpet or banister, was driven away by the pain, the stab of pain renewed on every tread of the stairs. Not an ache but a fiery burning that made her scream aloud when she hit the hall floor, her leg twisted and caught under her.

  The Indian takeaway man ringing the doorbell brought a new pain, the shrillness assaulting her ears, but it galvanized her into desperate sound and she shouted to him, “Help me, help me. Call an ambulance. Please help me.”

  Upstairs Ivan went into his flat and closed the door.

  Chapter Twenty

  The contents of that bag, and perhaps the bag itself, would make a nice engagement present for Marion. As soon as she was out of sight, passing through the ticket barrier at Finchley Road tube station, he had nipped back into the flat and taken the bag out of his backpack. There wasn’t much in it. Once he had made sure of no money or means of getting money and no mobile to sell, he had rather lost interest. That was before he knew of Marion’s matrimonial plans. Until he had taken that shower he hadn’t really known that she possessed a tape and CD player. This chap of hers liked Eastern stuff so he might appreciate the tape of Indian music called Rainy Season Ragas, which had been inside the inner pocket of the bag, along with the quite expensive-looking ballpoint pen and the stick of concealer, whatever that might be. Neither he nor she would have any use for the photograph of a dark man hugging a fair-haired girl, and this he had thrown away.

  Fowler wrapped his gifts in a picture of tigers in a rain forest, which was a page of the Sunday Times magazine, wrote With love from Fowler on the back of a heating engineer’s calling card, and helped himself generously to the single malt Marion hadn’t seen fit to give him. Settling down with his drink, he flicked through his sister’s address book. What a lot of wealthy friends she had! A Mr. Hussein in Perrin’s Grove, Hampstead; a Mrs. Litton in Chudleigh Hill a mile or two south of that; a Mr. and Mrs. Crosbie in Ealing. Surely there must be something there for him.

  “I haven’t told the police,” Pamela said. “I told the ambulance people I fell downstairs. They brought me here and I told everyone I’d been in a friend’s flat and I missed my footing at the top of the stairs. I think they wanted to know where the friend was in all this, but I just didn’t say any more.”

  “But why?” Ismay looked at her in bewilderment. “You’ve got a broken jaw, a compound fracture of your left leg, and three broken ribs, and you won’t say he did it? He ought to go to prison. I don’t understand you.”

  “I don’t suppose you do. He raped me, too. I didn’t tell you that. How could I tell them? A woman of my age meets a man through a crazy thing called romance walking. She can’t wait to get into bed with him and then she’s got the face to say he’s raped her. You think I could go into court and say all that? I could be cross-examined and asked about my sex life?”

  “When you put it like that, yes—well, I do sort of see. But I can’t bear to think of him getting away with it.”

  With difficulty, Pamela turned away her face. It was still swollen and purplish-blue with bruising. “How’s Bea? How are you managing without me?”

  Ismay shook her head. “All right, change the subject. Heather said she’s told you we’re fine. After all, I do live in the house. Sharon next door’s been coming in while I’m
at work. Heather and Ed take it in turns to stay overnight. And now they’ve said they’ll give up that flat of theirs—they’ve only taken it for two months—and move in with Mum. I think that’s marvelous of them. And you mustn’t worry about anything.”

  The orthopedic ward was full. On one side of Pamela was a very old woman who had had a hip replacement and on the other someone nearer her own age who was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. The television was on all day.

  “I don’t want to watch it, but there’s nothing else to do. Isn’t it odd the way when someone gets murdered like that girl Eva Something it’s all over the TV for days and in all the papers with a photo of the victim every day, and then it suddenly stops? If they don’t find someone for it, it sort of fades away and you never hear any more. Then, one day years later, someone refers to it as an unsolved crime.”

  “I thought they’d arrested that man they call the West End Werewolf,” said Ismay.

  “They let him go. He wasn’t the right one. I mean, he wasn’t the Werewolf and he wasn’t the killer either. Just ask me. I see every news and every police program. This is my supper coming. No, don’t go. I shan’t eat much. It’s just as awful as they say. Have you noticed in those hospital sitcoms on telly you never actually see any of the patients eating?”

  A tray was set down in front of Pamela on a folding table. On it was a small salad of bruised avocado, withered lettuce, and a piece of raw carrot with a small round pie and boiled potatoes to follow. Pamela asked Ismay to pour her some water from the jug and pass the glass.

  “When Edmund came in he told me he’d been afraid the police might want to talk to Heather because apparently she knew this Eva. You know how they want to talk to the victim’s friends. Not that Heather was a friend, but she did know her.”