By the time they had reached the low hedge that divided the rock garden from the wilderness, Barbara was in agony. Her hands were cut by the rope, she had a disgusting taste in her mouth, and all the pains she had felt when she had pulled the body out of the bath renewed their attack on her. But it didn’t matter, she told herself. Because it was too late now. She was committed. She had made her decision in — how long? Two seconds? A decision that already had changed her whole life. How ridiculous it was. She pulled, and wondered. One second? More maybe. Six weeks? Nine months? A lifetime? It didn’t matter.
She pulled and pulled, and wasn’t conscious of where they were going. They were simply going out into the long grass, into the wilderness. The blue bed cover had been left behind, but the sight of the body no longer horrified her; it was no longer a body. It was a mere thing, that had to be pulled, agonizingly, through the long grass. Catherine had tied the rope around the thing, under its arms. It looked very efficiently tied. She wondered how long Catherine had been practicing tying knots; or what, even, the piece of rope had been doing in the garage in the first place. Perhaps Catherine had asked her mother to buy it for her, and made up some story of why she wanted it. Or perhaps she hadn’t had to make up any story. Perhaps her mother had known.
They pulled and pulled, two thin girls in a winter evening, and the thing they pulled had, not long before, been a human being, with a name, a brain, and dreams of freedom, and had known — Barbara repeated this to herself — how it would die. Not consciously, perhaps, but somewhere, surely, it had known. For Catherine — poor, demented Catherine — had been part of it. So it had bought the rope, sent Iva away early for the Christmas holidays, or at least postponed its own departure until after Iva had gone, and hired a suitable assistant for its mad daughter. That, of course, was why it had never left before; it had been waiting, searching, for Barbara, or for someone like her; and that was why, consciously, it hadn’t trusted her. Then, when all was ready, it had been prepared to take back into itself what it had mistakenly given out of itself; its failure, its mistake; its wrong, mad daughter.
Barbara shook her head. She must concentrate on what she was doing. She pulled.
She couldn’t resist, however, gasping to Catherine, “Why didn’t your mother trust me?”
Catherine stopped pulling, and smiled at her. “She said she wouldn’t trust anyone who came to stay with me. But she distrusted you in particular because you were so efficient. She said you were too good for me.” Catherine giggled, and Barbara saw that the girl still didn’t appear to be tired in any way. “She said she almost liked you, but she said she couldn’t really like anyone who came to stay. She said the only reason she could think of for someone like you coming would be for my money. That’s why she told that friend of yours with the moustache about my money, because she was sure he would tell you and, as soon as he did, you would say yes. And,” Catherine sounded delighted, “you did.”
Barbara wanted to drop the end of the rope she was holding, but she clutched onto it tighter and said, “Then why did she ask me to stay?”
“Because you were so efficient and good for me. She didn’t care about my money really. But she thought she’d better go away while she could, because she knew she’d have to come back to me eventually, to send you away. But you were the only person she could leave me with — you were the first person she’s ever been able to trust me with.”
Barbara smiled. She felt very sorry for Mary Emerson. The only person she’d ever been able to trust her daughter with was someone she didn’t trust. So perhaps it wasn’t too absurd, Barbara thought. The woman had suspected her of being after Catherine’s money; and then, just when she’d apparently been proved right, she realized what Barbara was really after. She had realized that it was Catherine herself that was at stake — and she had had enough of Catherine. She didn’t want to fight for her anymore. So she had prepared herself for the sacrifice.
“Are you all right?” Catherine said.
Barbara looked down at her thin hands. She had painted her nails to come here today. She shook her head violently. She must keep control. She must not think about the past, make things up, justify herself. She mustn’t think at all.
They pulled. Barbara thought about snakes and scorpions, but apart from the fact that she was sure that they hid somewhere in the winter, she was also sure that, even if they didn’t hide, they wouldn’t harm two thin girls out in the cold December night. They would know what she and Catherine were doing; and respect them for it. They would feel a sort of kinship.
Eventually Catherine said, “This is the place. I put the spades down here.”
Barbara let go of the rope. She felt quite normal suddenly, and was conscious above all of the fact that it was cold, and she only had a blouse on. She looked back toward the house, toward the warmth and the light. Beyond the house she could hear the traffic going down the road, and could see the headlights in the dark sky. She thought again of people going home to their families, to their dinners, to their beds. She wondered how many other people were burying bodies at this moment. One or two, she guessed. Somewhere.
She dug her heel into the ground. It seemed fairly soft; it had rained a lot that December.
Catherine handed her a spade.
“You were right. It’s quite light out there.”
“Don’t worry. No one can see us.”
Barbara nodded; she hadn’t thought of that.
“The first part is the most difficult,” Catherine said. “We must cut the turf all around mother with the spades. We have to dig about three inches in. Then when we have the right shape, we must move mother over and make lots of little squares. Then we must take up each little square and put it over there. Then we dig, and put mother in and put cement on top of her and then put the earth back and then the little squares of grass and afterward you shouldn’t be able to see too much.”
Barbara nodded. Catherine sounded as if she knew what they had to do, and if she didn’t — well, they would see as they went along.
By one o’clock the body was lying, face up, in a deep grave. Barbara was working in a sort of trance. Once, around ten, she had said to Catherine, “I can’t do any more.” But Catherine, thin and pale, had ignored her and continued working slowly, and after two minutes Barbara had gone back to help her.
They paused before starting the work of putting the cement and earth in. “I think we should bury her handbag with her,” Catherine said.
“Why?”
“Because if they find her handbag, they’ll know —”
“Yes,” said Barbara. “But they’re going to know anyway.”
Catherine said sulkily, “They might think she’s gone back to America. Like David,” she added quickly.
“I thought David —” Barbara stopped. It didn’t matter anymore where David was. He was gone forever, either to America or dead. If he was dead, then Mary Emerson had been punished for her crime. “They’ll know she hasn’t gone back to America,” she said. “They can check with the airline. They’ll know she wasn’t on the flight. And all her bags are here.”
Catherine looked into the December night sky. It was much darker now, and very quiet. They spoke more softly to each other.
“Then I’ll go,” the girl said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll go to America.”
Barbara shivered. What would she do now if Catherine simply left her here? She couldn’t follow her. She couldn’t stop her, not without the help of the police, and that was out of the question. No, it was impossible. She couldn’t be left alone. Not after all this. “What do you mean?” she said, “you can’t go.”
Catherine smiled. “Why not? I can go with mother’s ticket. Then they’ll think mother went, if they check up. I can take her bags, too, if you like.”
“But you can’t. What’ll you do in America?”
Catherine laughed, as if she had realized what Barbara was thinking. “Oh, I’ll come back, don’
t worry.” She added in a plaintive voice, “I’d have to, wouldn’t I?”
“Wait a moment.” Barbara closed her eyes and stood there, thinking, cold and thin in the night.
After a while she said, “If you could go there — I can’t, I don’t have a visa, and anyway they would check my name — then I could book you a flight back tomorrow evening. You’d be terribly tired, but — do you know what time the plane leaves tomorrow?”
“Wait,” Catherine said. “I’ll go and get her purse.” She ran off through the grass toward the house.
Barbara shivered, and wanted to laugh. It was exciting. She was tired beyond tiredness, but it didn’t matter. Mary Emerson’s death had made anything possible. It had made it possible for two thin girls to dig a hole four feet deep in a matter of five hours, and now it was going to make it possible for them to play absurd games, like flying off across the Atlantic, and back again. It was stupid and exciting. So many things could go wrong, above all Catherine. At the moment the girl seemed possessed; but eventually there must be a collapse. If she collapsed on the flight, and they looked at her passport to see her name —
“Two forty-five,” Catherine called, running back through the grass with the bag in one hand and the ticket in the other. “Her passport’s here, too.”
“Put it back in the bag,” Barbara said. She wondered whether the girl’s apparent ability to read would last; that is, if it was a new thing, and no something she had always secretly had and never wanted to use.
Barbara looked at the ticket. TWA. Mrs. Mary Emerson. She thought again for a moment, and then, the efficient secretary, said, “If I book you a flight back from New York to Rome under another name, how will that be? I’ll work on the time differences, and then you must wear a wedding ring, in case anyone notices you’re not a Mrs.”
Catherine giggled. “I’ll wear gloves.”
Barbara looked at the girl’s red, swollen, and blistered hands. “Yes, you’d better.”
“And my name is Mary, too, you know. I’m Catherine Ann Mary. So if they look I can always say I’m called Mary.”
“Coming back we’ll just have to risk it. I’ll book you on another airline.” She bent over and picked up her spade. “Come on. Can you put the cement in? And throw the handbag in now.”
Catherine threw, and the brown bag landed on the body’s face. Catherine giggled.
*
They worked until four in the morning. The sky was changing color. The squares of turf didn’t fit exactly, but well enough. The only real mess was where they had thrown out the earth while they were digging. Even when they had replaced as much of the earth as possible, a whole area of grass remained flat and muddy. It looked just as if someone had been burying a body, Barbara thought. But there was nothing to be done, except pray for rain, and hope no one went near the spot for a little while. They tried to cover it with grass they pulled up from around, but that made it look worse. So finally they left it, and they had finished.
The only thing that really bothered Barbara, from a technical point of view, was the cement; she was afraid it might prevent the grass on the surface from growing. But Catherine told her not to worry, that there was enough earth between to permit anything, except a tree, to grow.
They put the spades away, and took the empty cement bags into the house; Barbara said she would throw them away the next day. She washed herself perfunctorily, and put some antiseptic cream on Catherine’s and her hands. Then she made some bacon (she didn’t feel like eating eggs), toast, and coffee, and they sat in the kitchen and ate, both of them light-headed with weariness — or, at least, she supposed that was the explanation of Catherine’s gaiety.
After they had eaten she sent Catherine to have a bath, and sat and thought of their plan for that day. They had discussed it all the time they’d been filling in the grave, and all the time they’d been eating, but they hadn’t thought of anything that could go wrong, or even anything particularly complicated. In fact, apart from the inherent risk in Catherine it all seemed far too easy. They had decided that Catherine should take one of her mother’s bags — it might attract attention if she traveled without any luggage — and bring it back; then they would destroy it and its contents.
Catherine didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the journey; she seemed to have no doubts about her ability to go and come back within a period of twenty-four hours. But then she never seemed to have any doubts about her ability to do what she wanted. Barbara shuddered. She was cold and tired and in pain. She felt confident about their plan, she had only her body to think about, and her body told her to sleep. But she was too tired, or too excited by all that had happened.
She went up to her room and set an alarm for eleven, then got into bed — she was filthy, but she didn’t care — and thought that if, some weeks ago, she had reckoned she had come far, now she had traveled an immeasurable distance. And though at the moment she was physically destroyed, the actual distance she had come hadn’t tired her at all. She wondered if this was something Catherine had taught her. The foreign world that Catherine saw was flat, and therefore she could always travel in a straight line and arrive wherever she wanted without effort, whereas the inhabitants of that flat world had created a round world for themselves in order to make feasible their concepts of truth, reality, and eternity; and it limited them, wore them out, and destroyed them.
Barbara felt suddenly quite exhilarated. Oh, she knew that the world was round but —
*
They slept till eleven. Barbara got up and made some breakfast; cereal and bacon and toast and coffee. They used the same plates they had used earlier.
“If anything goes wrong in New York, call me collect,” Barbara said.
“I can’t speak on the telephone,” Catherine said.
Barbara glanced at her and wondered if this was the beginning of the collapse. “I’ll go and call Alitalia,” she said quickly.
She managed to book a seat on a flight from New York to Rome that left four hours after Catherine’s flight arrived. She asked if she could pay for this ticket in Rome, and was told that she could.
“I think we should take that brace off your teeth,” Barbara said to Catherine. “I’m sure you don’t need it anyway, and it might make you conspicuous.”
She took the brace off the girl and dressed her in a gray skirt and a gray sweater, a red coat and brown shoes. She put her passport in the coat pocket, and the ticket inside her passport. Catherine might lose a handbag.
She called a taxi, and they went to the airport. Mary Emerson had given her $500 to cover the period from her departure to the day of Catherine’s birthday, the 30th of December, when the first $1000 from the trustees would arrive. In the taxi Barbara said, “Do you realize, I arrived in Italy on your birthday last year. I didn’t know. I’ll have been here exactly a year on your birthday.”
“You were away for three months.”
“Yes, I was, wasn’t I. Oh, well, I’ll have been here exactly nine months on your birthday.” She remembered her idea of giving birth to Catherine, and she thought that if she believed in God or the stars, she would have seen some great significance in the coincidence of the dates. But it was just a coincidence. “You’re not nervous, are you?” she said.
Catherine shook her head. “No, not at all.”
Barbara paid for Catherine’s return ticket at the Alitalia counter at the airport, and gave the name as Catherine Smith.
As Catherine went through the passport control Barbara said, “And remember, whatever you do, don’t leave the airport in New York, don’t tell anyone your name, and I’ll meet you here tomorrow morning. All right?”
Catherine nodded and smiled. “Good-bye,” she said.
*
Barbara took a taxi back to the villa, and when she was alone, she started to worry that things might go wrong; started to feel, even, that things had gone wrong. She had been mad not to have called the police. She would have been all right. She would have been able
to stay in Rome — perhaps Marcello would have helped her find another job — and she would have met someone else like David. There must be other Davids in the world. She told herself that she shouldn’t have been so negative; she should have been calm, and realized that she had as much chance of happiness as anyone else if she led a normal life. But now she could never lead a normal life, ever again. She knew too much now, ever to do more than pass for normal.
She lit a cigarette. There was no point in thinking about it. Whatever had gone, or went wrong, at least she had acted on the side of life. And even if things did go wrong, at least no one could ever consider her as a secretary again. Her mother would disown her, of course, but she would be secretly pleased and proud of her daughter; and Marcello would envy her — for she had struck a blow against the bourgeoisie — though he would moralize about her actions, and say, with a smile, to his intellectual friends, that he was glad he had escaped her.
Meanwhile, there was a bathtub full of eggs upstairs that she had to get rid of, and she was sure that that wouldn’t be easy. She’d have to break them up, because egg yolks didn’t just slip away … she wanted to vomit again, thinking about it. Then she would have to clean the stairs, clean the bathroom and Mary’s bedroom. She would have to rake the gravel on the driveway, in case there were bits of Mary on the tiny stones. She would have to check that none of the woman’s rings or bracelets had fallen off. She had so much to do.
She drew in on the cigarette and thought how pleasant it would be to call the police — easy, and pleasant. She would tell them everything, and then they’d have to clean up. They could pick Catherine up in New York, and she’d never have to see the girl again. She would be taken care of, somewhere. And as for her — well, she’d be given a trial, and a small sentence. She’d be all right. And at least, that way, there’d be an end to it.
No. She was all right. She was safe and free. It was weakness to want things to be other than they were. And David would be proud of her if he knew. He would think she had struck a blow for anarchy, or something. No, it was better like this. She didn’t want the same chance of happiness as a normal person; she’d been normal all her life, and that had got her — she almost said to herself — “Nowhere.” But it wasn’t true. It had got her where she was now. She had come a long way, being normal.
The Girl Who Passed for Normal Page 15