The Catalyst

by Angela Jardine

  They stared at one another, Jimmy dark and threatening and Sunny trying to control her laughter but nervously resolute, wanting to be understood. There was no way he could know how she felt, no way she could force him to understand, she could only stand her ground and hope he would let her explain.

  Eventually he managed to control his anger and, as if reluctantly acknowledging her right to a say in her own life, wearily wound an arm around her waist and drew her gently to him.

  ‘Oh, you are such a fucking madam, Ms. Smith,’ he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. ‘You always have to be different, haven’t you?’

  ‘I’m not trying to be different, Jimmy ... honestly, I’m not,’ she said, finding she was tearful now the danger seemed to have passed. ‘It’s just that I know I would not make you a good wife.’

  She wanted to tell him that not only would she not make him a good wife but that marrying her might even bring him some sort of bad luck. After all she wasn’t completely convinced she hadn’t caused David’s death with her unspoken longing for freedom. She might just be some sort of Jonah in marriage bringing bad luck to any husband she had.

  ‘Can’t we just be lovers, Jimmy? Always?’ She threw in the sop of ‘always’; it was a fine distinction but somehow it seemed less definite than ‘forever’.

  ‘But I want you to belong to me ... I’ve never had anyone who belonged to me alone.’ He thought briefly of Jenny and swiftly amended it to, ‘There has never been anyone I’ve wanted ... loved ... enough to ask them to belong to me alone ... and I’ve always wanted to belong to someone myself.’

  This last statement was an outright lie and because he knew it was, he hid his uncharacteristic shamefacedness against her hair. He was realising he would say anything, do anything, to get her to marry him but time after time he was coming up against an iron will that lay well hidden beneath her placid exterior. Perhaps if he appeared to give in now she might reconsider later, when they had been together for a while longer.

  ‘Will you promise me you’ll think about it, Sunny … please?’

  He did not dare meet her eyes in case she read something in them that warned her off and made her leave right now. She thought about his words. She really needed to tell him she would never reconsider but it seemed just too hard-faced to keep on saying bluntly she could never marry him, never marry anyone. Perhaps there was some sort of compromise? Perhaps if they lived together it would be enough for him and he would cease to ask?

  ‘Well, what about if we have some sort of trial? If I move in with you and we could see how it goes? Why don’t we try that?’

  Her suggestion was only to distract him from persistence but it worked better than she could have hoped and if he thought she was relenting he would soon find out how wrong he was.

  ‘Yes! Let’s do that ... we’ll go and get all your stuff tomorrow!’ He held her away from him to read her face and she threw her head back and laughed at the boyish excitement in his face. It was also a laugh of relief.

  If Jimmy was aware he was being fobbed off he hid it well enough and the night passed in the renewed frenzy of the lovemaking he had envisaged all day. Outside the storm increased its furious rampage around the farm but the sound of the gale only added a feeling of comfort and security to their physical caresses.

  The next morning it was a particularly violent gust of wind that woke Sunny. It severely worried the roof timbers, making them creak and she listened for the crash of a tile on the yard below. Thankfully it didn't come. Propping herself up on one elbow she looked out at the sea and it told her everything she needed to know. From the safety and warmth of the bed she could see the energy of the waves and the muddled confusion of their foaming edges.

  The sky mirrored the sea in its greyness and the rain seemed to have set in for evermore. She decided that getting her things from the cottage would have to wait until the bad weather had passed, this was not a day to be leaving the farmhouse.

  Her body ached with the excessive use made of it the night before and she anticipated a lazy day reading in front the fire with nothing to do but cook a meal at some point. Jimmy snored gently beside her and she snuggled closer to him, not surprised he didn’t wake.

  His sexual stamina continually impressed her, after all they were neither of them at an age when vigorous, unlimited sex was de rigueur, or even expected. She could not help thinking again about the passion of the night before but also could not escape the thought that such an intensely physical love must surely be finite. And what then? Would he just discard her?

  His offer of marriage had not convinced her of his undying love even if she had been willing to take him up on it. Marriage could never guarantee fidelity or happiness, could never be anything other than some sort of social construct, could it? How could it be otherwise when dealing with human nature? Perhaps she was just being cynical, or was she was just being brutally honest?

  Even though she felt no rancour at the thought that monogamous human relationships might be impossible to maintain for many people, she still gave thanks she had never been on the receiving end of faithlessness but what if that all changed now? What if Jimmy...?

  She turned onto her side abruptly, away from him, using the physical movement to turn her back on such thoughts. She would just enjoy whatever came her way and deal with what came afterwards only when ... or if ... she needed to deal with it. Anyway she really didn’t have the energy to think about that just now.

  Jenny’s day had started early. Despite the heavy rain darkening the day, she had woken up with an almost insane feeling of utter joyfulness. She was going home today, home to Jimmy, back to the farm. She felt now she should never have left. What had she been thinking? How could she ever have let anything come between herself and Jimmy, especially something as superficial as one of Jimmy’s cheap conquests?

  She felt no pain now at the memory of why and how she had left the farm and her eagerness to return to Jimmy made her unable to be honest with herself about the true reason for her recovered equilibrium. She did not feel able to consider Jasper at all this morning as she gathered up her things and he sat at the kitchen table watching her preparations with a feeling of heavy-hearted foreboding.

  Her excitement was beginning to irk him and he allowed himself a few, brief feelings of self-pity before shaking them off and helping her put her few belongings into her car. He wondered why he should feel so hurt by her desperation to return to Jimmy and tried to persuade himself that returning to the man she loved was in her best interests.

  Only something told him it wasn’t, it just couldn’t be. He knew, with the certainty borne of being male, that Jimmy did not love her, probably never had and most likely never would now. The knowledge made him weary to his very bones but he strove to put these depressing feelings on one side.

  ‘I’ll ring you when I’m settled in, shall I? Later today maybe,’ she said cheerfully, giving him a swift hug before dashing through the blustery rain to her car. He was too slow to hold onto her and keep her with him but there was nothing more to be said. He had to let her go.

  He ruffled his hair in frustration, willing himself to keep silent. Something told him this wasn’t the end of it, there would be more pieces to pick up. He stood and watched as her battered old VW Beetle wound its way between the potholes of the farm track and halted at the main road.

  ‘Must tell her the right brake light is out,’ he thought inconsequentially as the car turned and disappeared. His body felt like lead as he turned and stumped back into the farmhouse.

  When Jimmy awoke he found he was looking straight into Sunny’s green eyes as they stared into his. They crinkled at the corners as she smiled at him. He licked her on the nose and she giggled, snuggling even tighter against him.

  ‘I miss you when you’re asleep,’ she said.

  ‘Then I’ll never sleep again...’ he answered with sober-faced idiocy, wondering if he could get away with a few morning moves. He smiled to himself at the pictures in
his head and put an exploratory hand on her left breast. She quivered and her responsiveness excited him. He pushed his growing hardness against her.

  ‘Right, time for a cup of tea, I think,’ she said, trying to extricate herself from his grasp. It was a game they played. She would tease him and then back off. So far she had never been able to get away from him.

  ‘Not so fast, me beauty,’ he said in his best piratical voice, tightening his grip and winding his legs around her. Her own puny strength was useless against him as she wriggled to free herself and she started to laugh helplessly as they became entangled in the sheets. Soon they were both laughing too hard to even locate the relevant bits of themselves in the now tightly wound bedding.

  ‘Jimmy ... I’ve got to go to the loo ... Jimmy ... please,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘You sure? You wouldn’t lie to ol' Jimmy now would you?’

  ‘No, no … honest ... I’ll come straight back,’ she lied, knowing he knew she was lying. She knew he was not seriously insisting they make love, it was just horseplay. They both knew they were too spent from the night before but even so he still made a show of reluctant concession as he released her and let her get out of bed.

  Quickly she slipped one of Jimmy’s tee-shirts over her head, raising her arms provocatively as she did so, aware that he was watching her. Then with a big smile, she blew him a kiss and sashayed from the room with an exaggerated wiggle.

  Jimmy grinned at her antics. God, but the woman was a tease, he thought as he lay there, one hand behind his head, the other moving down his body. His head was full of vivid scenes of their lovemaking and he closed his eyes, pushing his head back into the pillow and feeling himself starting to gasp. He didn’t hear the car pulling up outside the back door.

  ‘And just who the fucking hell are you?’ a female voice screamed.

  Chapter 18

  Blood! There was blood everywhere. How could she be covered in so much blood? It was on her clothes and on her hands, it was behind her eyelids when she closed them, its metallic smell lingered remorselessly in her nostrils. It was still there even as she tried to escape from it, wanting desperately not to see it, wanting to leave it behind.

  The euphoria, the feeling of immense power she had felt only moments ago had all but evaporated and now she was cold and beginning to feel very frightened. She had killed people. She had killed Jimmy ... and someone else. She couldn’t quite remember who now, someone she hadn’t seen before, someone she didn't know.

  Fleetingly, she had felt so strong, like some sort of Iron Age warrior queen at bay, dagger drawn, hair tangling wildly about her head as she screamed obscenities into the savage winds that swept up the cliff face from the sea far below. Momentarily she had been invincible, then looking down she had seen instead the reality, the blood, the long, kitchen knife in her hand and she had thrown it away and vomited violently.

  Bodies, falling towards each other as if to protect, becoming intertwined, tangled and tumbling, superimposed themselves on her vision and hid the landscape around her. She squeezed her eyelids shut as tight as she could, desperate now to blot out the sight. Her jumper was soaking up the rain like a sponge, holding its impartial iciness against her skin.

  Someone was sobbing but she did not connect the sound with herself as she looked around, dazed and bewildered by her surroundings until from the back of her mind, with some ancient reptilian cunning, came an instruction telling her to hide.

  Hesitantly at first she started to move and then it came to her, the hiding place. Now she knew where she must go and she started to run as fast as she could over the tussocks of coarse grass on the cliff top, scrambling frantically to get back to her car. She drove, silent and grim, the latent, primal fear of the hunted sharpening her ability to stay focussed despite the violence of the wind and driving rain, concentrating now only on finding refuge, on staying free.

  Even so, the pictures constantly intervened. However hard she tried she could not stop them flashing, vivid and bloody, in front of her eyes, making her want to scream. Only the innate instinct for self-preservation kept her moving forward but somewhere in the more civilised part of her brain she knew she would be expected to pay for the actions of this day.

  People would come looking for her, people who didn't understand what she had endured, and they would want to take responsibility for her actions. Even as she sped towards refuge the idea of atonement was already in her mind. She began to see it was right she should pay for killing Jimmy, one way or another reparation must be made, it was only just. Well, perhaps it was, she thought, but not right now.

  It was late afternoon when Jasper Carne raised his eyes from the screen of his laptop where he had been wasting time playing games and debating with himself whether he should venture out to one of the nearby pubs this evening. He knew he needed to start networking to promote his new business venture and the pub was always a good place to start making useful local contacts.

  He was bored now and restless and, if he was honest, he had been ever since Jenny left. What was worse, he was even beginning to wonder if all his future plans were now rather pointless, maybe even naive? This sudden inability to get on with the planning and development of his new business was annoying him and he felt frustrated by his inexplicable lack of drive.

  Why he should be like this just because Jenny was no longer around puzzled him. It wasn't even as if he had really incorporated her into his future plans ... or had he? Looking back he could see that perhaps he had sometimes assumed she would be there somewhere in his life. He had to admit to himself he had keenly felt her somewhat rapid defection this morning and had been expecting her to phone him as she had promised.

  As she hadn't contacted him so far he had assumed that she and Jimmy had had some sort of rapturous reunion. It was an unlikely scenario but even the remote possibility of it still made him cringe.

  Sighing, he threw himself down into an armchair and picking up the remote he turned on the television, expertly flicking through the channels to find the evening news. Glancing at the clock he saw he was just in time for the weekday local news programme that usually followed the national news.

  ‘Yes, Justin,’ a serious-faced presenter was saying as he stood hunched against the driving rain, ‘the news of this stabbing is really just breaking. The police have issued a statement saying that a man and a woman were found wounded earlier today at this farm behind me, just outside Porthcarn. They were taken to the County Hospital and as yet police have not released their names. At the moment we do not know how serious their injuries are. The police have cordoned off the area ready to resume their search for clues at first light tomorrow morning and they are appealing to anyone who may have been walking the cliff path nearby to contact them if they think they saw anything that may help with their enquiries.’

  The reporter signed off and turned to glance back at the farmhouse, busy with the bustle of policemen, in the fading light behind him. Jasper stared at the images of the farm on the screen as a chill started to rise in him and intuitively he knew this had something to do with Jenny.

  He did not really recognise the farm from this angle but something told him it surely must be Jimmy's. As he stared at the scene he became convinced this was the farm where he had dropped Jenny the day she had told Jimmy she was going away for some ‘thinking time’.

  He felt something inside him lurch as he realised Jenny might be the woman involved. Had Jimmy attacked her? Was that why she hadn't phoned? My God, she could be seriously hurt! He tried not to admit to himself that she might have attacked Jimmy but the thought still hovered in the back of his mind anyway. Leaping up, he grabbed his car keys and raced outside, leaving the farm door ajar and the television talking to itself.

  The young policeman standing in front of the door to the High Dependency Unit at the local hospital angled his ear down towards the man who poured out a barely coherent story about a woman friend who had been staying with him but who had left to return home. Home
, the man seemed to think, to the farm where the recent stabbing had taken place. He seemed concerned the wounded woman might be his friend.

  ‘I need to see her, is that possible?’ he said breathlessly. The policeman hesitated, making an instant assessment of the man in front of him. His job was to protect the victims in case of further attack and, even if he felt this was somewhat unlikely in this rural backwater, he was still determined nobody was going to get at them on his watch.

  One look at the distress on the ashen face of the man in front of him told him all he needed to know, this one was no crazed, knife-wielding maniac.

  ‘She is ... alive ... isn't she?’ Jasper found his throat seemed to have dried up with fear.

  ‘Yes, sir, she’s alive and her condition has stabilised but she's not conscious yet. Now, who did you say she is? And what is your relationship with her?’

  ‘Please, I really need to see her ... can you just let me...’ he said trying to edge round the policeman who restrained him, gently but implacably, by the arm. ‘Okay, her name is Jenny Lawrence and I am a close friend of hers. She has been staying with me ... please, you must let me see her!’ Jasper scrubbed at his short-cropped hair with irritable fingers.

  ‘I think you may be mistaken, sir. I.D taken from a handbag found at the scene would suggest she is someone else entirely.’

  The policeman frowned at him, clearly puzzled. Jasper stared back before a little flare of hope flickered into life in his mind. He swallowed, unable to think who else could be lying there under intensive care, suddenly beginning to doubt all those intuitive feelings of his. Was this a different farm? Could he have got it all wrong? No, he was sure he had identified the farm correctly, it was definitely Jimmy Fisher's. Was the injured woman the one who had caused all the upset between Jenny and Jimmy … the imaginative Rosie?

  ‘Well, maybe I can help with the identification then … or I can at least confirm it isn’t Jenny Lawrence.’