Mr. Flood's Last Resort

by Jess Kidd

  Looking past the canvas to today’s scene, the window seat is empty now. But the curtains are still here and the cushions haven’t changed: braided black damask.

  I imagine the painting of it.

  Maggie, turned to the window but looking back into the room, her eyes a little glazed, daydreaming, or perhaps bored by the long minutes keeping still. And Cathal, dancing to and fro before the canvas, conducting light and line with his deft brushes.

  Along the opposite wall chairs are arranged as if spectators are expected. On one of them sits Gabriel, watching me.

  * * *

  HE LEANS forwards, elbows on knees. His dark blond hair raked on end by his fingers. He is pretending to be calm, casual. But I can see the veins that have risen in his temples and in his forearms and the sweat on his lip.

  And I can smell him. The bitter panic of the hours spent tracking me, of waiting for me.

  “Cathal’s dead,” I say.

  “I know. They phoned.” He sits back in his chair and nods towards Maggie’s portrait. “An uncanny likeness.”

  “Where’s the original?”

  “He did away with her, isn’t that what you thought all along?”

  “Cathal was no murderer, and besides, he loved her.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Maud,” he murmurs. “Why do you always take his side?”

  I hear a crash below. Gabriel goes to the door and closes it.

  “He’s here too? Your sidekick?”

  Something made of glass shatters extravagantly.

  I think of all the terrible priceless objects. “He’s destroying the place.”

  Gabriel lights his cigarette. “He’s looking for Mary’s will.”

  “Her will?”

  “Some years ago, Mammy and I fell out. She instructed that on Cathal’s death Bridlemere was to be sold and the proceeds given to Cedar House. All of this was hers, you see. Cathal had nothing.”

  A muffled thud from below.

  “Just before her death she drafted another will that left the house to me.” Gabriel takes a drag of his cigarette.

  “What made her change her mind?”

  Gabriel breathes out. “Who knows?”

  “And what about Maggie, was she in the will?”

  “No.” Gabriel walks over to the window. He looks out at the dark wilderness of the garden.

  “Tell me where she is, Gabriel.”

  He gestures with his cigarette. “In the well.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “Of course she’s bloody dead.”

  He retakes his seat. “She’d run away again. Only this time she reached London. She got into the house. It was awful.”

  “What happened?”

  He rubs his hand across his forehead. “Cathal was away; she waited until Mary went out and Stephen and I were alone.” He pauses. “She had a knife. She cut herself and then tried to cut me. We managed to get out into the garden but she chased us. We were petrified.”

  Downstairs there’s a scraping noise: the sound of someone moving heavy furniture.

  “We tried to hide in the icehouse but she found us. She slipped and fell.” He glances at me. “Just like you did. We ran out and tried to shut her in. But she kept on coming.”

  He takes another drag of his cigarette and exhales quickly. “Then I saw she’d hurt herself. So I ran back and I hit her. I thought I could knock her out, like they do in the films. But it’s different in real life.” He hesitates. “So we dragged her to the well.”

  “Christ.”

  “We just wanted her to stop.”

  Somewhere beyond Bridlemere life continues as normal. People make cups of tea, watch television, go to the pub, and don’t kill their siblings.

  “Did Mary know?”

  “I went running to her.” Gabriel drops his cigarette on the floor and steps on it. “I was young. I wept, terrified. She said she would help me fix it. That it was an accident.”

  We sit for a while in silence.

  “If Mary thought it was an accident, why didn’t she call someone?”

  Gabriel shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  “And Cathal,” I ask. “Did he know about any of this?”

  He lights another cigarette. Takes a few puffs. “If he did, I’d have been inside by now.”

  “But he had something on you? He spoke about an insurance policy.”

  “Mary had given him her revised will for safekeeping. Sealed in an envelope.” He looks at me. “But what really worried me was her confession.”

  A hammering noise sounds deep in the house. A blunt rhythmic thump, like a heartbeat.

  “Her confession?”

  “She told me that because she couldn’t speak her sins she had written a confession. It was to be her secret, hidden where no one, not even Cathal, could find it.” He takes a drag on his cigarette. “She refused to tell me where.”

  Downstairs there’s a rending noise, a crash, then silence.

  Gabriel runs his hands through his hair. “My mother was a liability.”

  I think of Stephen hopping down the garden path that day, clutching his manbag. “But you found it? The confession?”

  “Not yet, but then neither did Cathal.”

  “But he still had Mary’s will?”

  “Stephen and I leant on him for years but he wouldn’t give it to us. The old bastard knew I was desperate to get my hands on it. He thought it was the money I was after.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  Gabriel frowns. “How could I let this house change hands with my bloody sister down the well?”

  I look out of the window; darkness hides the Armageddon of cats and rubbish and overgrown foliage. I can only see my own face reflected back at me.

  The banging starts again.

  “Then you came along, Maud,” he says softly.

  “And you lied to me.”

  “You mistook me for someone else; I just went along with it. At first I did it to stop you from interfering, to keep you away from the house. I didn’t want you getting caught up in this.”

  I almost believe him.

  “But you wouldn’t drop it. Then it started to look as if the old man was opening up to you. So I took the risk that things might pan out the way I wanted them to.”

  “How would that be?”

  “With no one getting hurt.”

  I stare at him, incredulous. “You sent those thugs round to Renata’s, didn’t you?”

  “She phoned me and told me about the envelope. I didn’t know what the fuck was in it.” He shrugs. “I told them not to touch her. Just to find it and shake her up a bit.”

  I bite my tongue until the urge passes.

  “I panicked, Maud. You were getting too close, uncovering these messages. Then I started thinking that maybe the old bastard had found something out, that he was planting these clues to torment me.”

  The banging ceases and is replaced by drilling.

  “What is he even doing?”

  “Securing the house.”

  The drill whines then stops again.

  “Do you know what it’s like to really hate someone, Maud?”

  “Yes.”

  “She led me by the hand; she held me under.”

  I look at Maggie’s portrait; she smiles back at me, undaunted, shameless, unrepentant.

  “Will you tell, Maud?”

  “No.” My eyes meet his. “I won’t.”

  He smiles and nods. “I told Stephen you wouldn’t. I’ll come down with you, see you out.”

  I lead the way. When my fingers are on the door handle, he says it.

  “I’m so sorry, Maud. For everything.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Mammy treaded the grass like a sick dog, spiraling downwards to rock on her haunches, crying into her cigarette. Granny made tea. I put biscuits on a plate nicely. The lady guard spoke into her radio and the man guard looked out at the road that led to the bungalow.

  * * *

  THREE THINGS happe
ned the day after Deirdre disappeared. Old Noel crawled from his cottage where he had lain for Lord knows how long. Someone had broken his nose, three ribs, and his collarbone for him and cleared out his savings. The fella kept his face covered and drove in and out of the yard like the devil himself was chasing him. Old Noel, destroyed, never opened his kiosk again.

  The seabirds returned to Pearl Strand. At least I’m sure I heard them fly over, screaming and cursing, in that direction.

  Down in the caves the guards found treasure, right at the back of the mermaid’s larder. A bag: heart-shaped red leather, pink silk inside, gold stoppered, its strap a fine slim ribbon of a thing.

  CHAPTER 46

  I am on my back breathing bubbles; something collects at the back of my throat, something is pooling there.

  And all the time the acrid smell of bonfires.

  And a rushing sound, somewhere in the foundations of the house, like the sea is rolling in, flooding Bridlemere from the basement up.

  And then I realize: Bridlemere is burning.

  Get up, Drennan.

  says a ringside voice, the no-shit-and-nonsense voice of a trainer. My eyes open. Then I’m up on my knees like a prizefighter, spitting iron. The crowd grimaces. Why won’t she give in? Why won’t she lie still for the count?

  It’s a hard thing to see, a woman dragging herself along, smashed up, half her hair gone by the roots, bubbles of blood and snot. He’s nearly taken the top of her head off—see, another crack just appeared. No light in there, such as you’d find in the mind of a saint, just a bad walnut splitting open with a dull wet sound and then dark—

  God blast you. Get up, Drennan.

  See the smears of blood and hair along the skirting board, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. They tell a very violent story. In your own time, Maud, in your own words.

  This is how it went:

  First he grabbed me with his fingers knotted in my hair and pulled me towards him, as if he was going to kiss me, he was that close. Instead he banged my head against the wall, then again, then again.

  And his face—what about his expression? Let’s get to the nub of it, Maud. Didn’t that hurt most? Seeing the look in his eyes, the indifference and the rage? Maybe even hatred? Surely he’d have to hate you a little bit to want to knock the head off you then throw you down a well? It was the betrayal really, wasn’t it? Didn’t that hurt the most? After being with him. And this the man you—

  No: the assault hurt more.

  Jesus, Drennan, will you ever get up?

  * * *

  MY BAG has been kicked under Maggie’s portrait, contents spilled. I take the chisel and the keys and crawl towards the door, breathing shallow against the pain. I sit for a while with my head lifting, pounding. When I can think again I check the door with the palm of my hand: it’s cool. I try the handle: it’s unlocked. When I am ready I will take off my shirt and tie it around my face as tightly as I can bear.

  The lights go out.

  * * *

  I AM born into carbon darkness, half slithering, half falling down the stairs onto the next landing. Coughing despite the pain, retching despite the pain, eyes streaming. I have Cathal’s keys in one fist and the chisel in the other.

  The house sighs.

  Hot ash rises and falls in lethal drifts. Sparks spitting up the center of the staircase. Burning scraps rising, landing, pathfinders that will start new fires. Shotgun cracks and the fizzle of squibs and the crash of rubbish collapsing and then the flare of new firestorms of vivid flecks.

  They mark a pathway, petals of blazing red and ash white, a trail of blood and snowflakes. I close my eyes and look for her in my mind and find her. She’s up ahead, walking along the hallway, with burning hair and soot-blackened heels. She glances back at me, her face pale and her eyes beautiful and terrible—for damage lies at their shining core.

  And all at once I know where Mary Flood is leading me and why.

  * * *

  I REST my forehead against a locked door. Behind this door is a room of white with a window. Beyond that window is a balcony. I try the keys one after the other, fingers stiffening, clumsy. I count, one key, two keys. If this fails, I have the chisel. Three keys, four keys. The heat off the staircase is fierce now, turning the smoke orange. Five keys. I feel it on my face and my hands. My skin peels. My hair crackles and melts. The key turns in the lock. I’m in. Shut the door, quickly, quickly.

  Block the gap, Drennan.

  My hands find the silky stuff of the bedspread. I pull it, hanging on to the edge, until it gives way and falls with a slither on top of me. I push it with my feet against the bottom of the door.

  I get onto the bed, feeling along the wall. Behind the door high-pitched noises are racing along the corridor. It is only a Catherine wheel; it’s bonfire night at Bridlemere! Somewhere deep in the bowels of the house there is a corresponding scream, then a deep groaning slump that shakes the walls. Some great beast is turning, dying.

  The house is giving up.

  My fingertips search blindly along the wall until they find the edge of the frame.

  * * *

  BEFORE ME is a dressing table, damask curtains, cold glass, and the sweet, sweet rush of cold night air. Behind me is a superheated door, flames tonguing the keyhole, heat blistering the paint.

  * * *

  OUTSIDE THERE are lights and shouting; the garden is festive with firefighters. I have the best seat in the house. From here I watch a hundred cats run into the night. From here I see Larkin on the roof of the caravan, counting them to safety, each shadowy pelt. As the last cat leaves he turns, jumps down, and runs after.

  CHAPTER 47

  The ward slumbers in a predawn lull. The patients are asleep. I see their huddled shapes in the light from the empty nurses’ station. I hear their breathing and the creaking of their waterproof mattresses. We are like sickly ships sailing through the night, a cargo of drips and slippers, crosswords and catheters. The nurses are nowhere to be seen and neither are the police officers that were here earlier, all civility and radio crackles.

  From my bed I can see into the corridor and into the corridor comes an animal. It rounds the corner on light-stepping paws, claws clicking on the floor. It disappears for a while behind the nurses’ station to reappear standing in the doorway.

  I know better than to follow a fox in life.

  * * *

  THE STREETS of West London are quiet but for the sound of my slippers flapping on the pavement. The saints are waiting outside the house: all the usual suspects are here. St. Dymphna is cleaning her lamp on the hem of her robe. St. Valentine has his eyes closed and his fingers in his ears, St. Monica looks to be admonishing him. St. George and St. Rita stand side by side, looking up. They’re watching the birds turn overhead in the first pink rays of morning.

  * * *

  BRIDLEMERE IS untouched by flame; it’s as if the fire hasn’t happened. I move through the house flanked by saints. The dawn slants in through the windows illuminating the unwashed dishes in the sink, the tin of custard powder on the table, the jumble in the hallway outside Cathal’s lair.

  I push the door of his workroom open.

  Manolete still grimaces on the bench. St. Rita blesses herself as we pass by him. In the middle of the room stands a curtained booth. Above it is a sign, painted in dull gold letters:

  Madame Sabine

  Yesterday’s History Today

  I RUMMAGE in a jar on the shelf, find a coin, and put it in the slot at the front of the machine. The coin drops and the curtains judder open.

  Madame Sabine grinds into action. Raising her head with a jerk, addressing the room with her glittering painted stare. The saints begin to mutter and draw back into the corners. St. George pulls down his visor and St. Dymphna gathers her cape around herself. St. Valentine stops picking his teeth and St. Rita straightens her veil. St. Monica folds her arms with a thin-lipped grimace.

  The crystal ball has gone. In front of Madame Sabine is a book. Her han
ds click over it in a series of blessings, a brisk mechanical rite. The book opens.

  A wind picks up. Wood shavings skitter along the floor and cobwebs bounce in the cornices. Loose screws and paint pots start to circle the room. Cloaks and robes, veils and chain mail are whipped up and swirled. Halos flicker and dim. The saints stumble and look around themselves for shelter. And now, with the wind, comes a sudden loud clackety drone, not unlike a faulty extractor fan.

  St. Rita lets out a sob. She mouths something I can’t understand before her shape begins to change. She flattens into an arc, a monochrome flash that bridges the room in one sudden streak to pool on the book’s open pages. St. George follows, his body elongating to a silver dart that hits the book with an incandescent flash. St. Monica crumples like a crisp packet and rolls towards the booth. Then she is gone too, up into the book, with a tepid fizzle.

  St. Valentine races to the door in a bid to escape but he is dragged back. He starts running, but he’s going the wrong way on a moving treadmill. He’s losing ground. The book waits, open-mawed. St. Valentine shoots me a look of wall-eyed panic before his face folds and he is sucked in, disappearing with a sudden flare of cardinal red.

  In a lancing rift of light St. Raphael emerges from a cupboard, his heart-shaped face solemn and the arched shadows of his wings battered by crosswinds. He raises his eyes and bursts into a blizzard of sable feathers that are whipped and spun into a handsome tornado. The tornado crosses the room and revolves above the booth, a spinning velvet funnel. It pulses there, growing and retracting. Then it descends into the pages of the open book, dissolving with a dark sparkle.

  St. Dymphna watches it all from the corner of the room. Her veil blown back and her plait unfurling. She looks over at me and smiles. Then, taking up her lamp, she walks forwards, holding a still, strong-burning flame before her. And in a moment she too is gone.

  The book closes. The black cat at Madame Sabine’s elbow gives a metallic purr and the two fat taxidermy chaffinches shake their wings in a desultory fashion.