The Girl Who Passed for Normal

by Hugh Fleetwood

  “No,” Barbara whispered. “No. You know I had no idea of — this.” She thought of the boys in the supermarkets, of Catherine flushed and trembling, of the glimpse she had caught of the egg cartons in the plastic bag on the driveway.

  Catherine suddenly ran past her, out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, and down the stairs. Barbara stayed there, staring at the facts. It came to her standing there in the eggshells, that this was her end. Her future had vanished. She would have a month of questions, of inquests and investigations—and then she would have nothing. She had thought that she had to save Catherine to save herself. Well, Catherine was lost now, and so was she. Finally the full horror of it hit her, and she swayed into the bedroom and sat down on the bed.

  Catherine returned dragging the branch of a tree, about four feet long, and thick. She said, “I hit her with this.”

  Barbara shook her head. It didn’t matter anymore.

  “I hit her when she got out of the car. It was dark. I don’t thin she saw me.”

  The girl was mad. “Why did you do it?” Barbara said. “How long have you been planning this?”

  “Oh, a long time. I knew you’d help me.” Catherine sat down on the bed beside her.

  The girl was mad. She’d thought that if she made up enough stories — David going to America, David sleeping with her mother, David being killed and buried in the wilderness, Barbara would help her. She had thought to turn Barbara against her mother, and get her to help her kill the woman; and, Barbara realized, she had been turned against the woman. She had, or at least part of her had, believed Catherine. But if she hadn’t believed Catherine, who should she have believed? Marcello? She had had to believe someone, for David had disappeared. Perhaps, by believing her, she had helped her.

  “Catherine,” she said, “I have not helped you and I won’t help you now. You’ve done a horrible, wicked thing, and now you must be punished for it. You can’t—” she shrugged her shoulders. It didn’t matter. She had failed to save herself.

  Catherine started to cry, and Barbara put her arm around her. She looked around the room at the empty closets, at the trunks, standing ready to be sent away, at the two small suitcases Mary Emerson had been going to take with her on the plane.

  Catherine cried, and the house was quiet. Now, more than the horror, the sadness of it all struck Barbara. It was all such a waste. All that possibility of flight, of salvation, of freedom; all lost. They had been so full, so ready for a new life. Mary was to have been released, like a huge bird, and her flight was to have been a sign for them all. But now Catherine had killed the bird, and there was no more possibility of anything. It was all such a waste, and so sad.

  Through her tears Catherine said, “You must have helped me.”

  Dully, Barbara said, “Catherine, I must go and call the police now.”

  Catherine trembled beside her. “No, please. Please.” She clung to Barbara.

  “I must, my love. You know I must.”

  Catherine clung to her, shaking, and Barbara felt the girl’s tears soaking through her blouse. They sat like that for two or three minutes, until Barbara slowly started to ease herself from the girl’s grasp. She had to call the police. She had to get this last chapter over. Catherine would have all the time in the world to cry. It didn’t matter. The world had come to an end.

  “If you call the police I’ll tell them you helped me.”

  A part of Barbara reacted. “That would be silly.”

  “I will. They’ll ask the taxi driver, and he’ll say we went shopping together.”

  “He’ll also say I sat in the taxi all the time you were shopping so I didn’t know what you were buying.”

  “I’ll tell them you made me do the shopping. I’ll tell them you made me and pretended you didn’t know what I was getting. They’ll believe me. They won’t believe you. Iva will tell them I never went shopping on my own.”

  “Catherine,” Barbara said, “You’re being very wicked now.”

  Catherine shook her head, her tears coming faster, her face red; when she spoke she sounded hysterical. “No. No. You knew I was going to do it. You helped me. You wanted me to do it. And I did it because I love you. You did help me, you did.”

  Barbara stared at the empty closets. She stared at the empty egg cartons, the plastic bags, and the cardboard boxes. She stared at the white fur bed cover, at the brown wall-to-wall carpet, at the brown-and-yellow silk curtains. She looked at the white empty closets and the beige egg cartons; and then at the pale fair girl sitting on the bed.

  “They’ll know I didn’t do it alone,” Catherine said. “They’ll know I couldn’t have planned it all on my own. They’ll know I couldn’t have pulled mother upstairs on my own.” She added, “She was terribly heavy.”

  Barbara went to the window. It was dark out, but she knew that below her was a rock garden, and beyond that the wilderness. She closed her eyes and thought of Howard, of the green Oxfordshire countryside in the summer. She thought of her mother sitting at home eating ginger biscuits and drinking tea and watching the television. She wondered what was on the television now. She thought of David, and wondered what time it was in America, but it depended where he was in America, on the East or West Coast. Still it would be day there, wherever it was, and people would be out in the streets, and could see each other. Even two miles away, in the center of Rome, though it was dark, people would be rushing about; the shops would be closing, but there would be lights and brightness and movement, and the rushing people would be carrying presents. She thought of the present Catherine had given her.

  She turned from the window; she wanted a cigarette. She walked quickly to the door of the bedroom, without looking at Catherine. She ran along the corridor to her room. She lit a cigarette, and lay down on her bed. She was alone. She was alone in her room in a villa on the Appia Antica, and in a bedroom down the corridor there was a mad girl sitting alone. And soon the police would come, and she, Barbara, would explain, like an efficient secretary, what had happened.

  She would explain away everything, until there was nothing left, just as she had done when she had learned that Howard was dying. She had cried at first, of course, but the tears hadn’t removed the tumor, so she had stopped crying and explained to herself what was happening. That had made things a little easier to bear, so she had sat by Howard’s bed and explained the whole world, including Howard and his tumor, away. She had explained to herself that nothing, really, meant anything, and she had emphasized the “really.” She had explained and explained; had desperately tried to keep afloat by explaining to herself that she, too, would sink and drown eventually. She had explained and explained; and she had survived, and Howard had died.

  She lay on her bed and smoked her cigarette and told herself that nothing, really, meant anything. She would survive. Even though the world had ended, she could always get another job. Perfect secretaries were always in demand. She was safe, even if she hadn’t quite made salvation this time.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to take the world inside her and explode. She wanted to die. But she knew that she wouldn’t scream, and wouldn’t die. Not yet. Before she screamed or died she had to telephone the police, get in touch with Luke Emerson and Catherine’s lawyers and Iva. Someone had to do something, and there was no point in having hysterics. For really, nothing — not even murder — meant anything. She would do what had to be done, and only when all the chaos was over, when all the pieces had been picked up and thrown away — only then, perhaps, would she scream and die. But even then she knew she wouldn’t. Because there would be nothing left to scream and die for. She would be alone. She would have survived the end of the world.

  She stood up. She had to telephone the police. She went out of her room, along the corridor. She looked into Mary Emerson’s room. Catherine was still sitting on the bed, staring at the bathroom door.

  Barbara went into the room and whispered, “Catherine.”

  The girl looked around, but didn’
t move her body or her arms, which hung by her sides as if they didn’t belong to her.

  “Catherine, I must call the police now. Come downstairs with me, please.”

  Catherine stood up and walked toward Barbara with her mouth open and her shoulders slumped. Barbara wanted to tell her to stand up straight, to close her mouth, to remember all the things they had learned together. But there was no point. It had all been a waste. It wouldn’t matter, when Catherine was shut up, how she looked. She wouldn’t have to pass for normal anymore. She would just be a mad girl who had murdered her mother.

  Catherine stuttered through her open mouth, “Please don’t tell the police. Please. I did it for you. I only did it because I love you.” Then she gave a sort of cry, and Barbara thought she was going to fall. But she just swayed and took Barbara’s hand and said, “Please save me, please.”

  Barbara closed her eyes. She felt herself swaying in time with Catherine. She thought of the home she had thought she would have. She thought of the possibilities of love and freedom and happiness that had been offered her. She thought of Marcello, so safe and strong. She thought of her mother, who had accepted the cruelty and unfairness of life. She thought of herself; the perfect secretary, being hired and fired — and of the lifelong struggle she would have, moving from one “position” to another.

  Swaying in time with Catherine, she thought of the whole normal world. She didn’t want it. She had lived in the normal world, and Howard had died, and David had left her. She wouldn’t accept it. She couldn’t. And if she called the police now she would be calling the normal world, the world of the exploited and unhappy, of the dead and disappeared. She didn’t want that world. She wanted the other world; the world of love and strength; the world of the exploiters; of those who at least had a chance. She wanted to be free and strong, and to love. She had given up her role as secretary. If she went back to it now there was only failure and poverty for her, and the derision of the strong. Failure and poverty; for secretaries didn’t earn much. She swayed. It was all such a waste.

  She sighed and said quietly, “What do you want me to do?”

  9

  They walked slowly down the stairs, and Catherine considered Barbara’s question. Her crying stopped.

  They stood in the hall, Barbara watching Catherine, and Catherine gazing at George, the myna, who was silent.

  Eventually Catherine said, “We must bury her in the garden.”

  Barbara shook her head. She was exhausted. She wanted to sleep, but knew she couldn’t. She had made a decision to fight, to keep trying to win the game with this particular hand, and until she had either won or lost she couldn’t relax. But already, in a way, she was glad she had made that decision. At least here there was a chance of excitement, whatever the outcome. The alternative that she’d been contemplating in her room was hopelessness.

  “We can’t,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  She couldn’t think why not, apart from the practical difficulties. “We’ll never be able to dig a hole deep enough,” she said, “It would take days.”

  They walked into the living room, and Barbara sat down. Catherine stood by the window looking at her, and rubbing her nose with her sleeve. She was standing straight. “Oh, we can do it,” she said. “We’ve got all the time in the world. We can work all night tonight and if it’s not ready we can go on in the morning. No one can see us.” She stopped, and nodded authoritatively.

  “But dogs dig up bodies. Or if it rains —” Barbara shook her head violently. No, this wasn’t excitement. This was madness. One didn’t bury bodies in gardens. She felt her lips pressing together, and was about to stand up, when she realized that equally one didn’t murder people at all. But Catherine had, and thereby made superfluous the notion of what one did or didn’t do. Nevertheless, as she leaned back again on the sofa, she said, “Look, Catherine, this is ridiculous. We can’t just bury her and forget her. People don’t just disappear. Someone will come looking for her. They’ll know she never left Rome, and eventually they’ll dig up the wilderness, and then —” She didn’t know what then. Whatever she did was going to be new from now on, therefore she could do as she pleased. So why not bury Mary Emerson? She would worry about people searching for her when they did. She wanted to laugh. Yes! Bury the bitch, and hope no dog dug her up. She giggled, and Catherine looked at her curiously.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But if she just disappears — oh, I don’t know.”

  It occurred to her that David had disappeared without anyone worrying. Perhaps that was because he was free to disappear. Mary Emerson certainly wasn’t — she would have been once she’d reached America, or at least once she’d left the house. But until then she wasn’t free, and people with responsibilities couldn’t disappear. The letters that had come for David since his disappearance had only been from friends announcing their imminent arrival in Rome; but if these friends did arrive — and they hadn’t up to yesterday — they simply wouldn’t find him. It would be as easy as that, and they certainly wouldn’t worry about him. But any letters that came for Mary Emerson couldn’t be ignored; they would be about money, about property. Barbara thought that it was strange; Mary Emerson couldn’t disappear, simply because, unlike David, she had the means to do so.

  “It’s a shame she didn’t die when she got to New York,” she said with a small smile.

  “If we bury her near the wall, and not too far away from the house, we can watch and make sure no one comes near,” Catherine said. “And then we can put cement in on top of her once she’s in the hole, and as the ground is wet the cement will get hard, and —”

  “How are we going to see out there?”

  “Your eyes get used to the darkness. We can use a torch if you like, but it’s better not to.”

  Barbara nodded. In five minutes Catherine had changed from a collapsed mad girl to something else. Now she knew just what she was doing, and seemed completely in control of both the situation and, Barbara felt, her.

  “You go and get her out of the bath and pull her downstairs,” Catherine said. “I’ll go and get the spades from the garage and take them out there. Then I’ll come and help you.”

  Barbara stood up obediently. It was so easy. She felt that, if only for a short time, all she had ever known, or experienced, had been lifted from her. All she had to do was bury a body.

  She went out into the hall and started to climb the stairs, wondering if the killing of her mother would also have some magnificent liberating effect on Catherine. Perhaps this trauma now might even cure her completely. But she didn’t think it was likely. It would be too neat, too satisfactory.

  When she saw Mary Emerson again she almost changed her mind, and went to call the police. She saw now that it would not be simple burying a body. It wouldn’t even be simple getting a body out of a bath full of eggs.

  She stood at the end of the bath and looked. Logically, she thought, she should drag the corpse out by its ankles. But she had vomited over the ankles, and didn’t want to touch them. She stood at the side of the bath, and closing her eyes, leaned over and made a grab at the brown woolen dress. She caught it, but it slipped from her hand. She started sweating, and was afraid she would vomit again. She made another grab, and again the body slipped away from her. It looked bigger than it had when it was Mary Emerson, and seemed to be getting bigger all the time.

  She grabbed, slipped, and started crying. Once she got the thing halfway out before it slipped very smoothly back. She kept her eyes closed as she grabbed, and grabbed again, and slipped again. She was crying, she was hysterical, she wondered why Catherine didn’t come to help her. Perhaps Catherine had given her this task as a test, which she had to pass before she could claim some part in, and some credit for, the murder itself.

  Finally it was lying on the floor, and Barbara felt she had broken her back, strained all her muscles, and got egg and vomit all over her. But it was out, and she pulled it by its neck out of the bathroom, across th
e bedroom, onto the landing; and when she reached the top of the stairs she shoved it down somehow, with her eyes closed, and with one hand on the wall, to steady herself and feel the way.

  When she had reached the bottom of the stairs she let go of the body and ran into the kitchen to wash her hands. There was a mirror above the sink, and she looked at herself in it. Her eyes were red and her lips were white. Her nose was running and her hair looked as though it had been out in a greasy shower. She stayed in the kitchen; she didn’t feel she was crying, but she saw that she was. Catherine came to find her. The girl stared as if she couldn’t understand why Barbara was crying, or couldn’t remember what had happened.

  “Hello,” she said, absently.

  Barbara wiped her eyes. “Please put something over her,” she said, “I don’t want to see her again.”

  Catherine left the kitchen, and Barbara heard her doing something out in the hall; after a minute she returned, and smiled.

  Barbara said, “Thank you.” She shivered.

  Catherine gazed at her, and then said cheerfully, “I think you broke her neck pulling her down the stairs. It’s at a funny angle. We must bury her before she gets all stiff, mustn’t we?”

  “Yes.” Barbara nodded. “We must.”

  Catherine had brought a piece of rope from the garage; she tied it to the corpse, which was wrapped in a blue bed cover. Barbara watched her from a distance. Then they started pulling the awful thing out of the front door, out across the gravel and the rock paths. Every time it jolted, or seemed to be stuck, and they had to pull harder, Barbara winced.

  Catherine said, quite calmly, and not even out of breath, “It’s all right, you know. She can’t feel it.”

  But Barbara could. She felt each tiny piece of gravel ripping her skin, tearing out tufts of hair, ripping her back, and though she didn’t look, she knew that the blue bed cover was trailing behind, not covering anything, staying with the corpse only because it was caught on something; a brooch, perhaps, or a pin in the red, slimy hair.