A Thousand Cuts

by Simon Lelic

  Walter had hold of her throat before she realised he was there. The bag dropped and the keys dropped and he had her against the wall. She saw his face in the light and then his silhouette and then his face again and she was thinking, that’s twice now, that’s twice I didn’t hear him coming. She could smell him. She could smell his hair, like hotel pillows beneath their cases; his breath, sour and needing water. She could smell oranges. His fingers across her mouth, they smelt of oranges, as though he had been peeling one while he had been waiting.

  ‘Something blunt. That’s what you said, isn’t it? Something blunt.’ He hissed. As he hissed he spat, he sprayed.

  Lucia struggled. She tried swinging an arm but found it pinned. She tried lifting a leg but could barely shift her foot. Walter was against her, his thighs trapping hers, his elbows across her shoulders, his weight keeping her down.

  ‘How’s this?’ he said and he was wriggling now, the hand on her throat slipping downwards. ‘How’s this for something blunt?’ He shoved her away and she fell, grazing the wall and rebounding from her car. She gagged. She tried to stand and turned her ankle. She tried again. She looked at Walter.

  He had his flies open. He had his dick in his hand.

  ‘How’s this?’ he said again and he moved closer. His crotch was level with Lucia’s eyes. ‘Is this the sort of thing you had in mind?’

  Lucia gagged again. She tried to shout but found herself croaking. ‘Get away from me. Get the fuck away from me.’ She raised one hand to her throat. She held out the other in front of her, fingers curled, nails at the ready.

  Walter stopped inches from Lucia’s hand. ‘Don’t get overexcited, ’ he said. ‘That’s as close as I’m going to let you get. I just want to show you what you’re missing. What you’re missing and what you’re lacking.’

  Lucia swiped but Walter was ready. ‘Whoa! Easy, tiger.’ He cackled. He inched forwards again. ‘Do you see, Lulu? Do you see what I’m telling you? What I’m showing you? You need one of these to do this job. You need two of these.’ He cupped it, thrust towards her with his hips.

  Lucia cringed. She withdrew her hand.

  ‘That’s your problem. That’s why you’re in the mess you’re in.’ He tucked away the thing he was holding. He bent at the waist and zipped his fly. ‘Let me give you some advice, Lulu. Grow some balls. Lose the lip and grow some balls. Because having one and not the other is going to get you into trouble.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Lucia wheezed. She was still on the floor, still crouched at Walter’s feet. ‘Is that all there is?’

  Walter grinned. He shrugged. ‘It may not look like much, darling. But it’s enough to stop me getting weepy about some immigrant kid-killing freak. And if you like—’ he reached for his fly again ‘—if you like I can show you just how big this pal of mine can get.’

  ‘Walter. Hey, Walter!’

  Walter turned and Lucia turned. It sounded like Harry but Lucia could see only Walter and concrete and car.

  ‘Everything okay? You lost something?’

  ‘Just helping Lucia here find her keys. She dropped them. Didn’t you, sweetheart?’ He looked down at her. He held out his hand. Lucia knocked it away. She reached past and used the car to steady herself as she stood.

  ‘Lucia’s there?’ Harry was closer now, a few cars away. Lucia did not look at him but she nodded. She held out her keys. Got them, she tried to say but the words did not get past her throat.

  ‘Well, that’s me for the day. You remember what I said, Lulu. You remember what I showed you.’ Walter stepped out from behind the car. He nodded at Harry as he passed him, dropped a palm on to his shoulder. ‘Nighty night, ladies.’

  Lucia fumbled with the door handle. She jabbed the key at the lock and scraped the paintwork. She tried again. Harry edged towards her.

  ‘Lucia? Is everything okay?’

  Still Lucia did not look at him. She held up her palm. She coughed. ‘Everything’s fine, Harry.’ All she could manage was a whisper.

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, you don’t sound—’

  ‘It’s fine.’ The key found the lock and Lucia tugged at the door. ‘Goodnight, Harry.’

  She slid inside.

  She wanted just to sit but she did not let herself. She tripped the ignition and fastened her seat belt. She did not cry.

  She put the car into reverse and released the handbrake. She turned in her seat and eased the vehicle backwards. She did not cry.

  When she was clear she applied the brake and shoved the gear lever into first. She released the clutch and eased away. She did not cry.

  Harry stood aside to let the car pass. He held up a hand but Lucia stared ahead. She passed the squad cars and slowed at the barrier and pulled out into the road. She did not cry.

  Fifty yards on she pulled the Volkswagen to the kerb and killed the engine. She closed her eyes and gripped the wheel and allowed her head to slump against it. She coughed. She swallowed. She did not, would not cry.

  And yet the tears came. In spite of herself, Lucia cried. And she cried.

  .

  What are these things always about, Inspector? Samuel taught history, right? So let’s look at history. In all of history, what has been the common motivation in any act of lunacy, of depravity, of desperation? What more than anything else has driven people to steal, to lie, to cheat? To lose their minds sometimes. To kill.

  Love, Inspector. Always love. Love of God, love of money, love of power, love of a woman. Of a man too but we’re women, we both know history is written by men so invariably it’s love of a woman. There’s hate of course but hate is just the flip-side of love. Hate is what happens when love turns rotten. Hate comes with betrayal.

  I can’t say I knew him well but I know the signs. And I know Maggie. She’s one of my best friends, in or outside of school. And because she’s one of my best friends, I can say what I’m going to say without malice. That’s what friends are for, don’t you think? To praise you when you deserve it but to be honest about it when you don’t. To support you, to be faithful to you but not to lie, not to tell you that you’re right when you know that actually you’re wrong.

  Maggie was wrong. What she did, what she’s done: it’s wrong. She should have told him. She shouldn’t have done it in the first place if you want my opinion but when she did she should have told him. She shouldn’t have left him to find out for himself. She shouldn’t have left him to find out how he did, when he did, in the way he did. But I suppose that was part of the plan. I’m not saying there was a plan, not a plan as such, because as much as she was fooling Samuel she was fooling herself. But underneath it all, there was a plan. Deep down, she knew what she wanted. Do you see?

  You don’t. You’re lost. I’ve lost you. Where did I lose you?

  No, no, no. Since then. Since they broke up.

  You mean you don’t know? You didn’t hear? She didn’t tell you, did she? I can’t believe she didn’t tell you. Although I can of course. Of course I can.

  I won’t start at the beginning because clearly you know the beginning. I’ll start at the end.

  They broke up. Samuel and Maggie. You know this. She told you this. It was a long time coming, them breaking up. She probably told you that as well. Samuel had problems, you see. Clearly he had problems but well before all of this happened it was obvious that he wasn’t coping. Which, by the way, is why Maggie found herself attracted to him. She’s a motherly one, Maggie. I don’t know if she’s ever been with a man she couldn’t mother. They’re kids usually. Not literally of course, I don’t mean literally, but mentally, they’re children. They need protecting. They need looking after. Which shows you how caring Maggie is as a person. Which explains why she’s always so generous as a friend. It’s a strength of hers definitely but also a frailty.

  So Samuel, he didn’t settle, he didn’t mix and he didn’t have any control over his students. I don’t know much about his private life but I think that’s partly because there was never very much to know. Ma
ggie, it seemed to me, was his private life. She became his private life. Before she asked him out, Maggie was terrified that he would say no. I told her, no way. Don’t be ridiculous. I said, he’s besotted with you, you can tell. He used to watch her. I used to watch him watching her. Me, I would have found it creepy. Or maybe I wouldn’t have. Maybe I’m just saying that because of what he’s done. Either way, there was no possibility that he would have turned her down. The only reason he might have done would have been because he was shy, scared, afraid of being with a woman. And at one point it occurred to me that maybe he would say no, precisely for that reason, but it was too late to say anything to Maggie by then and anyway he didn’t.

  You know all this. She asked him out and he said yes. They went together for a while, a few months, but Samuel had his problems and Maggie couldn’t help, that’s the gist of it. She tried and all the while she was trying she became more… more… what word should I use? I’m not sure she was in love with him. I hope for her sake that she wasn’t. But she was fond of him. More than that, she was attached to him. Attached like ... I don’t know, like an owner gets to their dog. No, that’s awful. What an awful analogy. Like a nurse, say. Like a nurse to a patient, like in The English Patient, you know, the film. All I’m trying to say is that even after they split up, Maggie was still involved. Emotionally. She had the sense to break it off with him because it was going nowhere, it was driving her insane, and as I said to her, she was wasting her life. So she broke up with him but not in the sense that really mattered.

  This was oh gosh. February. March maybe. The end of February. But that, really, was just the beginning. It was the beginning of a whole other phase.

  They broke up and Samuel said nothing. That’s what Maggie told me. Literally, he said nothing. Okay so maybe it wasn’t a shock but you still might expect a few words. If not of regret then of anger or desperation or misery perhaps, of despair. But Samuel curled up. You know, like spiders do, the way they wrap their legs around themselves whenever they feel threatened. Like that.

  And Maggie, she’s convinced it’s because he didn’t care, that he never cared, when of course it’s exactly the opposite. Samuel just went on being Samuel, cold, withdrawn, solitary, but his behaviour was so exactly like it had been before that it was obviously just an act. It was obvious to me anyway. Maggie, though, she couldn’t see it. And it hurt her. You know how humans are seventy per cent water? Seventy per cent, sixty per cent. Something like that. Maggie is seventy per cent emotion. She cares easily – she can’t watch the news, she tells me, because it’s worse for her than watching Casablanca – and she hurts just as readily too. So Samuel, after they split up, he’s treating Maggie like she’s just another colleague, like she’s me or Matilda or Veronica, which means he’s basically in denial about her existence. And Maggie can’t stand it, I mean she hides it in front of him, she hides it very well considering, but she’s questioning herself, she’s questioning her self-worth, she’s questioning how she looks, the sound of her voice, the size of her hips, she became obsessed with the size of her hips. We have our little chats, you see. During lunch usually, if neither one of us is on duty. And for several weeks that’s all we spoke about: her; Samuel; Samuel and her. I didn’t mind. I suppose maybe it was a bit much sometimes. Once or twice I swapped days with George or Vicky just to give myself a break but on the whole I didn’t mind.

  At first she blamed herself, like I say, then after a while she started to blame Samuel, which was progress, I thought, and closer to the truth of it, more to the point. He’s Asperger’s, she said. He must be. He can’t engage. He won’t commit to anything more emotionally demanding than a book. And I don’t suppose she’ll mind me telling you this but their sex life: it was stillborn. They did it once, she said, and she cried the whole of the next day. She didn’t come in to work. She stayed at home and stripped the bed and sat in the bath and ate Quality Street and in the evening she made herself throw up. I don’t know what Samuel did. Probably he just went on being Samuel. Probably he assumed it had gone okay. He was a man after all.

  So anyway, that’s why she did it. She wanted Samuel to show some passion, to show that he had feelings for her. Deep down, that’s what she wanted. She told me she was over him. She told me and I suppose I believed her. She had stopped talking about him. Or if she talked about him she also laughed about him. Our little chats went back to how they used to be. I stopped switching rotas. If I switched at all, it was to bring mine into line with Maggie’s. I genuinely thought she was over him. Clearly, though, she wasn’t. Clearly she wasn’t because how else could you possibly explain her decision to go to bed with TJ?

  Here’s how Samuel found out. This was May probably, late April, the end of April. Maggie had been going with TJ for about a week or so. Don’t ask me how it started. Basically Maggie was lonely and TJ was sweaty and they happened to run into each other when they were both in the mood for sex. End of story. Although it wasn’t. It should have been. It should have been just that one time. Guess where they did it by the way. I shouldn’t tell you this but guess.

  Yes but not just in the school. I’ll tell you where they did it. They did it in the boys’ changing rooms. Can you believe it? I mean, it’s disgusting really. It smells of adolescents in there, of mud and festering towels. But I shouldn’t have told you that. Promise me you’ll delete that bit. I should have made you stop the tape, shouldn’t I?

  What was I saying? Oh, I remember. Maggie and TJ. You remember what I was saying about Maggie, about Maggie and men who need mothering, who behave like children. Well, TJ is a case in point. And also there was this thing underneath, this urge to make Samuel jealous. So it should have ended when it started but it didn’t. If she had told me right away I would have said something. I would have asked her what on earth she was thinking. TJ is basically a body and a pair of shorts. There’s nothing going on upstairs. So one time you could maybe understand. You know, if you were really in the mood and there were no strings attached and you could be sure that no one else would ever find out. But he’s not a keeper. Not for someone like Maggie. Except she did keep him and she’s still with him, although now it’s because she realises what she’s done and she can’t bring herself to admit it, not even to herself, especially not to herself. She’ll be with him for another month, no more than that. Just long enough to hide from herself any association with what’s happened.

  Samuel found out the same time I did. As we all did. It must have been killing TJ, not telling Samuel. That’s the other thing, you see. You have to wonder about TJ’s motives too. I mean, Maggie is one of my best friends and she’s a wonderful person but she’s no Audrey Hepburn. If she could lose some of that weight she’s carrying on her hips, maybe shift a bit of that to up top. But I can hardly talk. I’d move it the other way if I could. So you have to wonder, that’s all I’m saying. Maggie has asked him to keep quiet, begged him probably, pleaded with him, and for a week or so he’s managed. For TJ, that’s quite some achievement. Particularly when you consider their history, his and Samuel’s. But it’s like dieting, isn’t it? You starve yourself for as long as you can manage but then someone brings in a tray of Krispy Kremes and there’s chocolate glaze and caramel glaze and hundreds and thousands and it’s still an hour to go until lunchtime and you’ve got a fresh cup of coffee and everyone else is having one so you’re going to indulge yourself, aren’t you?

  He slapped her bottom.

  In the staffroom, in front of everyone who was in there, which is me, Vicky, George, Janet I think, Matilda was there and Samuel of course. There may have been a few others. And everyone’s sitting around the table and we’re all talking, just chatting, I can’t really remember what we were talking about. Samuel’s not chatting but he’s following the conversation so when Maggie gets up and says, does anyone want a drink, and TJ reaches over and whacks her on the rump, Samuel sees it just like the rest of us.

  The sound of it. That’s what reverberates in my mind. He gave her a g
ood old whack did TJ and the sound was like he’d slapped her naked skin. So I remember the sound and I remember Maggie’s face. It was like she’d walked into a classroom and suddenly realised she was naked. Which we’ve all dreamt about, by the way. All of us teachers. We did a poll once and every single once of us said we’d had exactly the same dream. Except Samuel and the headmaster, who didn’t take part, and George, who probably had dreamt it but didn’t want to admit it, and Janet, although Janet once dreamt that she was naked in front of the headmaster, which for her amounts to the same thing.

  TJ’s face too. I remember TJ’s face. He looked like a kid who’d farted in assembly. Which also happens sometimes and some of them, they know it’s foul, but also they think it’s hilarious. And just like one of the kids would, TJ brings his fingertips to his lips. You can see he’s smiling though. It’s obvious to everyone that he’s smiling. And he looks at Maggie and Maggie glares at him and both of them turn to look at Samuel.

  Samuel’s face. I mean at first I’m staring at Maggie and probably I look as shocked as she does but then I realise what’s going on, what’s been going on, so like them I look at Samuel. And for once Samuel doesn’t look away. Normally, if you so much as caught his eye, that’s what he would have done. Instead, though, he’s sort of frozen, you know like computers sometimes get when you click on too many things at once, when you give them too much to think about, well he’s the human equivalent of that. His eyes sort of flick, left right, left right, left right, like he’s looking at Maggie, then at TJ, then at Maggie, then at TJ, then at Maggie.

  Maggie leaves. She’s out of the door. TJ gets up. He makes to follow her but he can’t resist another look at Samuel before he goes. I don’t watch a lot of western films, they’re not really my thing, but my husband does and I’ve seen those shots they always have, you know those close-ups. Samuel and TJ, their eyes drawn together, it reminded me a bit of that. Like at the end of the film, before the shoot-out, before the showdown, and the goodie’s there and the baddie’s there and the director, he takes you right in so you can see their eyes. It’s cheesy, in the films, but that’s what I was reminded of at the time.