The Tell-Tale Heart

by Jill Dawson

  She almost replied, ‘I’m hardly a Yank. I’ve lived in Europe most of my life,’ but the cotton-wool in her cheek prevented it. Infuriating. Of course everyone knew who she was. Hadn’t he even greeted her, as she’d entered, by name? She glanced down at the headline, read its bouncy ‘Good morning! Yes, it’s time for a new newspaper . . .’ swallowed the protest and shook her head, as if in pain. At any rate, one oughtn’t to need to explain that one didn’t think of oneself as American, not really; more of a wandering European. She also picked up a packet of Limmits, orange flavour, as the idea of cookies ‘medically tested and approved’, cookies you could ‘eat to help you slim’ amused her. Perhaps the Smythson-Balby girl would be fat and she could offer her one. Once outside the little store she glanced up and down the street but there was only a man trundling an empty wheelbarrow and whistling; he tipped his cloth cap to her as if they were at a tea-dance. Her stuffed-cheek ruse did the trick and, with one hand cradling the aching jaw, she managed not to speak at all, only to point and wave.

  On the walk home she thought of the portrait she’d begun, from memory, of Sam. Fall colours–muted, soft–apricots and greens –building up to the blonde, the bedazzling blonde of Sam’s hair. It was naturalistic in style and she knew–suspected – Sam would despise that. Realism was something unfashionable these days. But no matter–soon she would be able to work on it again, with the live model.

  Just as she reached her own front door, there was Ronnie, leaning on his bike. She registered with mild annoyance the fresh white sports shirt, rolled-up sleeves, the bleached hairs on his forearms; the sense of glowing health and cheer that always emanated from Ronnie. Yesterday he had arrived at the same time, insisting he showed her the great elm at Nayland, which had escaped the plague. Today she was armed against such enthusiasms. She removed the soaked wad of cotton-wool from inside her cheek. ‘I don’t care to sightsee today. I’ve barely unpacked. She’ll be here any minute.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been snooping around and it seems it’s not just a piece for the Ipswich Star or whatever codswallop she told you. She’s a biographer.’

  Ronnie leaned his bike against the dead roses and crisped camellias still lingering at the back door of Bridge Cottage–several shrivelled leaves crumbled to the ground–and followed her into the kitchen. He glanced around the smoky, dark little room: red-tiled floor, low ceiling beams, some old flower-sprig curtains; a faintly fishy smell as if an aquarium bubbled there. On the table there were mugs still wrapped in their newspaper, a shoebox of packed cutlery. He found the kettle inside a cooking pot in one of the packing cases and filled it with water from a spluttering faucet. Taking matches from his back pocket, he lit the stove, began busying himself with unwrapping things for her with the proprietary ease of long familiarity, opening the packages from Mr Fremlin’s and spooning tea into the tea-pot.

  ‘I brought you more bits of painted boat and driftwood,’ Ronnie said. ‘I’ve popped it in the shed. My dear, there are some excellent pieces of Southwold pier in that little lot. They’ll make a splendid salty blue blaze.’

  ‘I don’t care to have you here when she arrives,’ she told him. ‘It will look funny. It will find its way into the article. “Miss Highsmith’s gentleman friend, renowned local poet . . .”’

  ‘I’ll slip out the back. She’ll think I was the grocer’s boy, delivering.’

  The kettle screamed at them and Ronnie poured water over the tea-leaves.

  ‘I’d better put something else on,’ she muttered, and went upstairs to change from the coat and pyjamas into Levi’s and a pressed white shirt.

  ‘Quit trying to help me,’ she said, buckling her braided lizardskin belt, when she reappeared.

  ‘So secretive! Don’t worry, I’m leaving. I’m sure our journalist–did you know she was the Right Honourable Virginia Smythson-Balby?–will assume that a single gentleman like me, living alone and writing all that nature poetry, must be a fairy, wouldn’t you say?’ ‘Fix me a Scotch before you go,’ she said, handing him the bottle.

  ‘And how did you find this charming place?’ asked Virginia Smythson-Balby, legs awkwardly crossed, mug of tea perching on the uppermost knee in its pantyhose. The living room was cold; Pat had not fixed the fire. It was dark too, and unfurnished apart from the sofa, a red leather chair that Pat sat on, the boxes, the Turkish rug, and a lamp at such a strange angle that it looked like someone with their head thrown back, laughing. Smythson-Balby–was she really titled or had Ronnie been teasing? –had arrived in such a breathless, over-excited state that Pat had feared the girl was about to have an asthma attack. She had been shaking, as she came in through the kitchen door, and looked horribly as if she had wanted to hug her. Fans! Ghastly. She had worn bright yellow patent knee-high boots, and when Pat suggested she took them off, they were unzipped and abandoned, like peeled banana skins. As the girl stood up, she seemed at last to compose herself.

  Good legs, Pat noted. Calves not too muscled, but wellformed. Lacrosse player, she reckoned, or whatever it was that English schoolgirls took seriously, these days. Smythson-Balby had given up on the pen and notebook for the moment. They lay menacingly beside her on the sofa.

  ‘Friend of mine,’ Pat replied carefully. ‘Ronnie. He knows this village. English quietude. Cottage was rather a good price at three thousand five hundred pounds.’ (Was that crass, she immediately thought. Would a girl of her type think it bad manners to talk about money?) She added quickly: ‘Ronnie said it would be, you know, good for working. I have two books to write: one a novel, one a sort of “how to” book. Matter of fact, three books as I always keep a cahier, a notebook, too . . .’

  And none of them going well, she might have added. The back door from the kitchen slammed shut and both women jumped.

  ‘Delivery boy,’ Pat said, swallowing the Scotch in her tea mug and trying to avoid fidgeting, in case the leather chair she was sitting in made a lewd noise.

  Smythson-Balby sipped her tea and suddenly grimaced, obviously finding the sludge of leaves at the bottom (Ronnie had not been able to find a tea-strainer among her boxes, though Pat did possess one). As she leaned forward her silky blouse fell open a little and she clutched distractedly at the neckline.

  ‘So, this will be your–tenth crime novel, is that correct? And you had been living in . . . New York and then travelling in Venice and Paris, Europe for many years, is that right, but wanted to set this one in England?’

  ‘Suspense novel. One of the books I’m writing here is called Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. Not crime. Not detective fiction. As I mentioned on the telephone, I don’t happen to like the term “crime fiction”. Dostoevsky wrote suspense stories–that is, stories where there is felt to be a threat of imminent violence or danger. I don’t feel ashamed of the category.’

  Smythson-Balby smiled, but she did not apologise.

  ‘Is the one you’re writing now your tenth novel, then, or the eleventh? I like to get these things right,’ the young woman said.

  ‘Tenth,’ Pat replied, but warily. What was behind the question? Was the girl smarter than she looked?

  ‘It seems safe to say–I hope you won’t be offended–that you’re better known in Europe, rather than your native America. Any thoughts on why your books might sell better in Europe, Miss Highsmith?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’

  Next she’ll be asking me where I get my ideas from.

  Smythson-Balby had her notebook open and was now reading from it.

  ‘A lady called Margaret Marshall called your work “unpleasant, unnatural and unsavoury”. She says that your criminals often get away with the crimes they commit and there is rather too much–too much relish on your part in describing their thoughts of murder, the deviant things your protagonists want to do. She even suggested in her last review that perhaps you admire your famous anti-hero rather too much . . . and the policemen in your novels, the forces of law and order, are always depicted as weak and toothless. Evil, she says, prevai
ls in the novels of Patricia Highsmith. What would you say to this, Miss Highsmith?’

  ‘I’m sure Miss Marshall is a fan of Miss Christie and Ngaio Marsh. Let her go ahead and read their novels.’

  Smythson-Balby looked at her keenly, as if expecting more.

  ‘I don’t happen to–I don’t care to read the implausible fantasies of simpering ladies where everyone in the parlour is equally capable of committing a deadly murder, whether an eighty-year-old duchess or a sweet-natured stable boy.’

  ‘ “Implausible fantasies of simpering ladies” . . .’ Smythson-Balby murmured as she wrote, using the squiggles of shorthand. To disguise what was really being written?

  ‘Not a fan, I take it? Of the Golden Age writers, I mean?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve sworn off them.’ Pat hoped this might deflect her, but no, Smythson-Balby was waiting for a full reply.

  Pat took a slug of whisky. ‘They’re nothing great. The only thing Agatha Christie did that interests me is go missing for a few days. Fake her own death. She obviously planned to punish Archie–her husband–since he was the one who would get turned in for it and he’d been playing around. But then she decides to duck out and get herself discovered in Harrogate. That’s the closest she’s come to conjuring up a real crime in her life.’

  There was a pause while Smythson-Balby wrote this down.

  ‘Matter of fact, I don’t happen to give two hoots for Miss Christie.’ Pat took another swig of the Scotch, longing to be able to shut up.

  She was aware of a quickened heartbeat and a strange feeling, as if someone was trying to peel away her skin, edging a little palette knife between her and the outside world. This always happened in interviews. Despite what the interviewer thought –she was invariably described afterwards as taciturn or difficult–she was unable to be anything other than bracingly truthful: to say whatever came into her head. She could feel the words as they surfaced and the simultaneous instruction: Jesus, don’t say that! But the necessary filter was not there and say it she would, as if in defiance of herself. A curious, tragic honesty and one she was sure no one appreciated. And, at any rate, the devil with Smythson-Balby! Imagine repeating that Margaret Marshall quote to her and expecting no reaction.

  ‘Do you happen to know how many murders actually occur in English villages?’ Pat found herself saying. ‘Wait–I had figures somewhere for ’sixty-three, let me look . . .’ She fiddled through her scribbled notes, under the craning gooseneck lamp.

  ‘Approximately three hundred. I’ve counted them, using newspaper reports . . .’ She sat back down and nodded towards another of her opened boxes beside the sofa, where the newspapers were stashed; the notes in her hand she had recovered from the top of the box. ‘Not that many, is it? And how many of the murderers were beautiful middle-class ladies, or old ladies using poison, or educated gentlemen killing for complex and puzzlingly well planned “motives”? Hey, guess what–not one!’

  She could feel herself growing a little swimmy with the whisky but she couldn’t cut it out. ‘Violence is not an act, it’s a feeling. Some people give in to it–others never feel it. Most of the murders committed here in England last year were as they are every year, everywhere–sordid, spontaneous, ugly. Often not planned at all. Hoodlums. Young bums. Punks, child molesters, creeps. And who do they kill? You think we’re all equally likely to be the victim of a murder? Think again. Murder comes from places of intense hatred and anger, not “cold-blooded calculation”. Cold-blooded! The favourite phrase of crime writers, who know nothing.’

  Smythson-Balby continued with her brisk smile.

  ‘Most victims are known to their killers. Most are wives, girlfriends, children or buddies. Not everyone is capable of murder, not at all. That’s a phoney idea. Capable of thinking of it, wanting to, of course. But doing it? That’s something else. The ultimate crime, a boundary very few people cross, and yet if you read Christie or Ngaio Marsh and the rest, you’d believe all were capable of it with impunity. That’s the lie being pulled. And I object to it.’

  ‘You speak as if murder were an accomplishment,’ Smythson-Balby said, with a bright stare.

  Pat took a breath. ‘A murderer is cursed with aloneness. Forever. Once he’s committed this–ultimate anti-social act, he’s condemned to a lifetime spent in terror of being found out. But perhaps he longs to tell all, to boast, because his crime took some kind of courage or daring–certainly a lack of care for convention. Not everyone is capable of murder because most people are not brave and are afraid of breaking society’s rules. What goes on in the mind of a man who has killed somebody? Matter of fact, I am interested in that.’

  She cursed herself again. Why couldn’t she hold her tongue? The Scotch was probably not helping but she craved a top-up just now and the mug was empty. She stood up to fetch her cigarettes from the kitchen table. Pausing before offering the packet to her, Pat noticed as she came back into the room how the girl gave off a powerful perfume, musky and nervous, and the smell of newly washed hair. Her hair was long, silky and the colour of horsechestnuts, snatched up into a ponytail high on her head, leaving her neck exposed, the backs of her ear-lobes presenting little tips of gold pierced earrings. Her blouse was rusty-red silk and must have shrunk, or been bought too small: there were spaces gaping between buttons that seemed to make the girl self-conscious. An extravagant bosom that aimed at her, like two juggernauts. The young woman accepted a cigarette from the packet, and Pat hesitated before going to light it for her. Instead she gave her the gold lighter, too, and sat back down in the leather armchair.

  After a quick pull on the cigarette the girl handed back the lighter and said, in a slightly smoky, warmer voice: ‘You said man just then. I’ve noticed the women don’t commit murders in your novels. Are women incapable of murder?’

  ‘They’re capable. Ha! But they have fewer opportunities. And they have–well, most of them do–the nuisance of their sensitivity to others. This ability to feel sorry for whoever would be on the receiving end. Empathy. Sensitivity. Imagination. Whatever. They can’t stay in their own feelings long enough to go through with it . . .’

  The young woman smoked thoughtfully, then wondered what to do with her ash. Pat leaped forward, sweeping some snails out of a saucer to offer it to her. She pocketed the snails. She knew Smythson-Balby had seen her do that, but tactfully pretended to be scribbling.

  ‘Miss Marshall says you don’t like women much. Your women characters might not commit the murders but they all come to a grisly end. I believe she called you a . . . misogynist.’

  ‘Ha! Miss Marshall is a women’s libber, then? A bra-less wonder. The men in my novels rarely fare better.’

  Smythson-Balby smiled then. A full mouth and a little gap at the front between the teeth. She finished her cigarette and screwed the end into the saucer.

  ‘May I ask you about your working habits? How about describing for me an average day?’

  The day was bleeding away, and all these hours talking about writing when she could be doing it. Pat drew on her cigarette, then sighed in a showy way and said nothing.

  ‘And what is it that you’re writing while you’re here?’

  ‘It’s bad luck to talk about the novel one is writing. Like opening the oven on a soufflé. Pouf. It’s gone.’

  ‘Just a hint?’ The frisky ponytail swung optimistically.

  ‘It’s about a woman who believes she’s being followed. A prowler of some sort. A voyeur. Perhaps a rejected lover. Someone from her past. She might be a little paranoid about it. Perhaps she’s imagining it . . . she can’t be sure. She receives letters from him, not threatening but meaningless, troubling. She’s afraid . . .’

  This wasn’t the novel she was working on. It was a lie. She trailed off, finished her cigarette, drained a tiny dreg of Scotch in her mug. At last the young visitor seemed to get her point, and suddenly sat up, alert, glancing at her watch.

  ‘Well, that’s terrifically helpful, thank you,’ Smythson-Balby said,
snapping the cap on her fountain pen. ‘I’ve enough to be going on with.’ She stood up.

  Ronnie’s comment suddenly came back to her. Was the damned girl a biographer, really, writing a longer piece for some other publication, not the short article for the local paper they’d agreed? There was a sizzle in the room. Smythson-Balby’s pupils were dilated and her cheeks a little flushed as she tugged at the rust-coloured blouse, re-tucking it into the waistband of her skirt. Either she was nervous, or excited, or it was something else; Pat couldn’t tell. She remembered the feeling yesterday, and it wasn’t the first time, either, of being watched. And although the girl was in front of her, and fooling around, pretending to be putting fountain-pen and notebook into a small, schoolgirl kind of satchel, Pat had exactly the same feeling again now.

  Christine Keeler, Pat thought suddenly. That’s who she looks like, or would do, if she were a darker brunette, naked, with booted legs astride a chair.

  ‘You don’t have a television set?’ the younger woman asked, nodding towards the empty wall beside Pat’s leather chair–faded rosebud wallpaper, yellow on blue, lightly stained by smoke. Pat had gone to fetch Smythson-Balby’s short fur coat from the chair in the kitchen.

  ‘I plan to rent one. In Ipswich.’

  The ponytail swung free of the fur collar of the coat: an expensive-looking black jacket that was rather conservative, a little too old for her, compared to the yellow boots and silky blouse. ‘Oh, perhaps I could offer you a lift? I have my car here and I noticed there wasn’t one parked outside . . .’

  It was just an excuse, Pat knew, for Smythson-Balby to question her further, to get more unguarded comments out of her while they pretended to be idly chatting, both staring straight ahead at a dead squirrel on the road or the wobbling ass of a village mailman passing on his bicycle. The scrutiny wasn’t yet over: she should refuse. But it had started to have possible compensations –she could use a ride, and Ronnie could never offer her one since he’d refused to learn to drive–and as she watched Smythson-Balby fasten her furry jacket around that pointed English bosom, she wondered at what point, if any, the younger woman might begin to suspect what the compensations were.