The Girl Who Passed for Normal

by Hugh Fleetwood

  Barbara looked down at the gravel.

  “And you don’t have to worry about his coming back,” Catherine said, very clearly. “He never will. But you know that, of course, don’t you.”

  “Your mother told me he’d never come back.” Barbara lowered her voice and asked, “You didn’t really think she’d killed him, did you?”

  Catherine shook her head.

  It was a beautiful afternoon, and they sat in silence for some time. Finally Catherine said, with a tiny smile, “Of course, I didn’t think she killed him. I knew she hadn’t. You see, I did.”

  Barbara smiled. “Did you?” she said.

  Catherine nodded. “I did. I really did. You see, when Luke came and I saw he wasn’t going to take me back, then I didn’t care anymore. I knew what was going to happen. When it was my birthday they were all going to go away and leave me and there’d be no one left and you’d go off with David. So when David came in one afternoon — mother and Iva had gone out somewhere together — I was all alone in the house. David came and told me he had got a letter from you and you were coming back. So I knew if you wanted David to go away you couldn’t be coming back for him even if you’d go off with him without wanted to — David said you always liked everything to look normal — so you must really be coming back for me. But I thought David liked you and would want you to go away — and I knew I couldn’t have David myself, because they were with him all the time, mother and Luke — so I thought that I loved you and you really wanted me and so I went out into the wilderness with David. It was a beautiful day and I said let’s dig for treasure, so we went and got some spades and we went out into the wilderness — quite a long way out, beyond where mother’s buried — and I said we must be careful of the grass because mother will be angry if she knows I’ve been out here so we were very careful about taking the turf off — David showed me how — and then we dug and dug and made quite a big hole in an hour and then I picked up my spade and hit David over the head with it and I kept on hitting. There was lots of blood all over David’s hair and I think his neck was broken because it looked like mother’s when you pushed her down the stairs. And then I left him there and went inside and got his briefcase and threw it in the hole he’d dug and then I washed and when mother came home I said that David hadn’t come that afternoon and I went to bed early. When it was night I went out into the wilderness and I dug and dug and dug all night in the hole David and I had started and then I put him in the hole and I was afraid a dog would dig him up — the hole wasn’t quite as deep as the one we made for mother I don’t think — so I put some cement on top of him. Then I filled the hole in and I didn’t finish till it was light and I was afraid Iva would see because she gets up early. Then I went back to the house and washed and hid all my dirty clothes in the back of my wardrobe — I threw them away later — and then I went to sleep. And the next day David didn’t come of course and Mother said that it was strange and that David must have gone to England to get you. And then you came back and pretended to be all upset that David had gone but I knew you weren’t really and that you were only pretending. I knew mother was going away and I didn’t think she deserved to and anyway if she did go away and left you here she’d soon discover that you’d wanted to come and planned to come — and she’d have sent you away and — anyway, we killed her and you know all the rest. But it was all for you. It was all because you wanted it. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. I only did it because you wanted me to, and I love you, and I wanted someone who will be with me all my life even if I don’t get better — and you can’t go away now, can you, because you don’t have to pretend about David anymore and if you did I’d tell someone — I’d tell Iva that you killed David and mother — no one would think I’d done it. I’d say you killed David when you came back from England and then buried him here. Anyway, if you did want to go away I’d know — I always know what people want, and I’d probably —” She stopped, and smiled. “You don’t mind, do you? I did it all for you.”

  “But the apartment,” Barbara whispered. “When I got back it was all clean and neat and closed and packed up as if David knew he was going away.”

  Catherine said softly, “He did, I expect. We always do, don’t we?” She smiled. “Yes, I’m sure he knew. I don’t think he minded. It was such a beautiful day.”

  “And your mother —?” Barbara whispered. She looked at the girl, at poor Catherine who passed for normal, and wondered if she did, perhaps, know something about truth and reality — if only as one knows the strange foreign laws of a country one is touring. She wondered if what Catherine had said was the truth. She could, she supposed, have the wilderness dug up, to check. But then Mary Emerson’s body might be discovered, and anyway, it didn’t really matter. It was the truth, or it was just one more explanation of David’s disappearance; a symptom of the failure of her relationship with David; a sort of poetic truth.

  Catherine smiled and said, “But I do love you.”

  It was a beautiful afternoon. Barbara turned her head slowly toward the house, and saw Iva walking toward her. She smiled and Iva said she had just made tea, and would they like some.

  Barbara nodded and said, “Yes, please,” and Catherine nodded, too.

  Iva looked at them and smiled. She said, “It is a beautiful afternoon,” but she said it in English, as if she didn’t really understand.

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  All rights reserved

  © Hugh Fleetwood, 1973

  The right of Hugh Fleetwood to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–30482–0