Murderes' Houses

by Jennie Melville

  ‘I know how he gets his sustenance, she says to me. A funny way of putting it, wasn’t it? Sustenance.’ She savoured the word on her tongue. ‘He eats blood, she says, and that’s how I’ll find him.’

  ‘Drinks,’ corrected Charmian absently, even while her mind violently rejected the whole image.

  ‘Eats,’ persisted the dead woman’s landlady. ‘That was the word she used,’ she exclaimed triumphantly.

  A blood-eating murderer with a taste for strangling, a man whose thoughts were probably turning more and more towards violence, and a man whom some women found – yes, she must use the word – irresistible.

  Velia was making a liver pâté for Sunday supper. She was covered in bits of liver up to the eyes, there was liver on the mincer, liver on her hands, liver on her cheeks, and minced liver clinging to an eyelash. It couldn’t be said she was a neat cook, nor was she enjoying making the pâté. ‘Messy muck,’ she muttered. ‘Probably won’t be eatable.’ She nudged the recipe into position before her eyes with her elbow, shouldered the melted butter out of the way, and got on with the mincing. There seemed an awful lot of liver, more really now than when she had started out. Perhaps it was magic liver, like the cream in the fairy story, and would grow and grow and grow, pushing her out of house and home. She gave a hysterical little giggle.

  And in addition to all her worries she had just remembered that Morgan didn’t really like twice-cooked liver, he liked it very, very lightly cooked, or almost raw. He said it sustained him that way, or something. Helped his bloodstream, although God knows, thought Velia, for whom the honeymoon feeling was rapidly wearing off, he didn’t look or act anaemic.

  Above the rumble of the mincer she heard a car arrive and stop and then the gate bang. From the kitchen window she could see Charmian coming up the path. She rinsed her hands and let her in.

  ‘Haven’t seen you since Tuesday,’ she said.

  ‘Beginning of the week, anyway,’ agreed Charmian. ‘Can I speak to you, Velia?’

  ‘You never do anything else.’ It was amazing how mildly she always spoke to Charmian. She by no means always felt mildly, or even kindly, towards her, but she invariably answered in soft tones. Hence Charmian’s picture of her as an innocently naïve, gentle creature needing protection. She could see Charmian’s eyes travelling round the kitchen taking everything in and she felt like shouting: Didn’t your mother teach you it was rude to stare? Charmian’s eyes rested on the cloth she had hastily flung over the liver pâté in preparation, but even Charmian with her X-ray eyes couldn’t see through a thick check square of cotton.

  ‘I really do have to speak to you,’ said Charmian, sitting down by the table, and staring up at Velia, who remained standing. ‘And about your lodger.’ She saw the look that appeared on Velia’s face, which was by no means expressive, but could express various things such as anger and resentment and fear. ‘And it really is necessary and important to me. I’m not just enquiring into your business, which I suppose is what you think.’

  ‘That is just about what I have thought,’ said Velia, with the nearest approach to insolence she could allow herself with Charmian.

  ‘We have every reason to believe that a dangerous, violent man has come into town, Velia, so you can see I have to check up on the men I hear about, that have just arrived. Your friend Morgan included.’ – Heading the list, she added to herself.

  Velia remained silent.

  ‘I only want to know a little more about him, so that I can check … And I want just to see him.’

  Velia still kept quiet. Words were tumbling there right on the edge of her tongue but she stilled them.

  ‘What do you know about him, Velia?’ Charmian was deliberately brisk and matter of fact. ‘Tell me again where he works, where he used to live and so on.’

  ‘He’s a salesman, like I told you. He works for a London firm.’ Velia was subdued.

  ‘Last time I asked you, you said he worked for a Deerham Hills firm: Associated Boxes on the London Road.’

  ‘The last time you asked,’ cried Velia. ‘That’s about the mark of it! It’s an inquisition. Well, I was wrong last time, perhaps I’m wrong this time, and perhaps you think that’s highly suspicious.’

  ‘I do rather,’ said Charmian. She stood up. ‘It’s cleared one thing in my mind, anyway. I must see this Morgan.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Velia jerked at the apron she was wearing, tearing it from her waist as if she scarcely noticed what she was doing.

  ‘Why not? He isn’t a sacred cow or something, is he?’ Charmian was irritated.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t see him. I don’t think he’d like it. He likes to be private.’

  ‘Heavens above, I only want to see him, a quiet little look, I won’t touch. I don’t want to hold his hand.’

  Velia made a curious sound, something between a laugh and a choke. ‘That you certainly wouldn’t do. He’d never let you touch his hand.’

  ‘Why not?’ Charmian stared at her. ‘ Why ever not? What can you mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Velia was heartily sorry she had spoken, the sentence had popped out before she could stop herself. She was given, as Morgan had discovered, to this little indiscretion.

  ‘What’s wrong with his hand?’ Charmian wouldn’t give up.

  Velia sighed. ‘Oh nothing … He has a tattoo of a lizard on the back of his hand. He hates people to see it.’

  Charmian gave her a long, careful look to see if she was telling the truth and being unable to tell, went back to where she had started.

  ‘I’d like to see him, just a look, Velia. You arrange it… Is he around now?’

  ‘He’s out,’ said Velia, hastily.

  Charmian walked towards the door. ‘It’s eleven-thirty now. Get him here. I don’t care how. By half-past-two. I’ll ring you.’

  Velia stood still and silent. Charmian put her hand, in a moment of feeling sorry for her, on her arm. Velia gave her a look, and jerked her arm away, as if she’d suggested poison or something.

  ‘Look,’ said Charmian, exasperated. ‘If I really want to I can get this house watched until I do see Morgan. I’m in earnest about this, Velia.’

  ‘All right,’ said Velia huskily.

  ‘Two-thirty then. I’ll ring.’

  When Charmian had gone, Velia sat down and covered her face with her hands.

  Upstairs a door opened and then closed.

  Velia’s house was not easily overlooked by her neighbour. This apparent isolation, together with its small rent, was one of the reasons she had chosen it. Nevertheless she had one alert-eyed neighbour who had, all this time, noticed a good deal more than Velia knew. She had seen Morgan move in – or come in, anyway. For since he brought nothing with him, not even a case, the sense in which he moved was debatable. She observed dispassionately that Morgan was not there much. He came and went a good deal, at odd hours. ‘That man’s like a cat,’ she thought, weighing up his comings and going. She was puzzled because he never brought a case of clothes with him, and would have thought him just a vision if she had not heard Velia, whom she did not like, call him her lodger. She had no means of guessing, of course, that he had clothes of his own already in Velia’s house.

  Now she observed that Velia had all the curtains drawn at the front of the house as if she wanted to shut out the world. Velia had started doing this when Morgan first appeared. ‘It’s almost as if someone was dead in there,’ thought the neighbour, with a little shiver. Even as she watched, a hand came out to lock a ground-floor window.

  When the telephone rang at two-thirty, Velia picked it up at the first ring.

  ‘He’s not here,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s no use you coming round.’

  ‘Till six.’ Charmian set another ultimatum. ‘You can do it, Velia. Just a look. I’ll give you till six.’

  When Charmian called at six o’clock, she went straight into the house as soon as Velia opened the door. But she was not inside for many minutes.

  She hurried out of
the house looking flushed. Velia stood on the doorstep and she cried out, ‘ The things you are saying to me are horrible, terrible. Go away. I don’t want to see you again.’

  Every word she said was heard and later testified to by her neighbour.

  On the next day, Monday, when Charmian called, the whole house was still and quiet. The windows were shut tight, the curtains drawn and the door locked fast. Charmian rang the bell, tried the door, and peered in through the windows.

  She was observed in all this by the same curious neighbour.

  Inside the house, Velia Ryman sat moping in her room. She felt a prisoner; in effect she was a prisoner. A set of circumstances had arisen, involving her and Morgan and Charmian, which made it wiser she should not see Charmian and essential that Morgan should not meet Charmian. The circumstances had been of Velia’s creating but this was no comfort.

  Velia was no philosopher. If there was trouble it did not help to know it was her own fault. On the contrary, she took it the harder, seeing it as just one more of the plans of Velia which had gone astray. There had been a plan to make money. For this plan to be successful it was essential that Morgan and Charmian did not meet here. In the end a confrontation between them was likely, even probable, but it had better not be soon. Now Charmian wanted to see Morgan. It was Velia’s own fault for making such a show of Morgan. She should never have had him in the house at all. She repeated the words: he should never have been in the house at all.

  She got up quickly and went to her clothes cupboard and threw it open. It was full of clothes. An amazing assortment of garments, dating back six or seven years, rested there. Or perhaps didn’t rest, they gave more the impression of fighting, since they were so varied and striking in character, and so – really it had to be said – so unpleasant in their discordance and the shifting mind they indicated – a nurse’s uniform, a kilt, a thick tweed suit, widow’s weeds, a skater’s skirt and boots. They might have been the clothes of seven women, except that they were all one size: Velia’s size.

  Velia looked at them with indifference, almost surprise, as if they were another woman’s clothes. In fact she had been another woman when she had worn them. They represented seven different roles, seven different lives she had created for herself. It wasn’t so much that she was a natural actress as that she had no real self and needed to invent one. This time it was Velia the little, little widow. She was not really a widow. She was always moving on; she had pretended to other husbands, other lives.

  Charmian didn’t, couldn’t, understand her, Velia reflected, having always had her own personality ready-made, like a shirt, at hand to put on.

  But perhaps it was a disadvantage to be like Charmian – because after all, there you were stuck with your ready-made garment. A shirt could be a strait-jacket.

  You had to weigh up stability against constriction. Constriction against continuity. Well, you couldn’t choose. There was no choice. Velia recognized it. She had fallen into the way of life she had, because of the sort of person she was.

  Her face as she studied her clothes was sharp, and hard. Charmian had never seen her with this face on, but then, they were, after all, new friends. Velia knew it would be infinitely better for her, situated as she was with Morgan, to be without friends, but people were necessary to her. People created her, or gave her the stimulus to create herself, suggested this and that aspect of her which she could develop. This was why she had wanted Morgan with her so much. It was getting harder and harder to be without someone. Without someone, anyone, it was quite possible she might disappear.

  She dragged out the clothes she wanted. She was packing. There was still time to escape.

  When she had finished she threw herself on the bed to rest. Her dressing-gown slipped from her shoulders. Velia had plump pink shoulders and curving round the shoulder-blades was a scattering of little tattooed lizards, crawling toward her neck. Tears of fatigue and fear and disappointment rolled from her eyes.

  This day she had cooked and packed and been extremely frightened. She had quarrelled with Charmian and had a scene with Morgan. And to crown it all, Morgan had refused the liver pâté, had taken one look at it and walked out of the kitchen. ‘All the goodness has gone,’ he had said.

  Well, he might have said goodness, but it could have been blood. Morgan was getting very odd these days.

  Chapter Five

  MORGAN came to Velia while she was still resting; she tried to rush to the door and lock it, but he was too quick for her. In any case, he was very strong and would probably have forced it. Quietly and firmly he would have forced it. A ritual rape. Velia shuddered; she knew where she was with Morgan now, and feared it. He was more formidable than even she had supposed.

  ‘You can’t go,’ he said at once. He was a thin, tall, wiry man with a brown skin. When she first knew him Velia had the idea that the peculiar, dark yellow of his skin was the result of some form of skin dye, a sun-tan lotion or something like it, but now she realised that it was natural, like the other oddity about him (of which one did not speak). Not that she would have mentioned the colour of his skin to him either, she would no more have said casually, what a sun-tan you have, than she would have asked him to help her with the washing-up. There were certain invisible barriers with Morgan. Velia knew him as well as any woman living, but she was intimate with him without being familiar. ‘You cannot go,’ he said again, lifting her hands from the case and opening it. ‘You know I’d never let you go.’

  ‘Safer,’ she muttered humbly.

  Morgan smiled, as if he saw exactly for whom she thought it safer, and why, and said gently, ‘Sit down, Velia, and let me explain to you.’

  The familiar sense of frustration, rage and physical attraction overcame Velia, as always in her contact with Morgan. ‘I’ll go to the police,’ she thought, still standing there stiffly. ‘I’ll tell them everything. It’s a way out.’

  ‘Sit down, Velia,’ urged Morgan, and drew her firmly to sit down on the bed beside him. ‘There’s no escape by running away. It’s your own life. You can’t escape from your own life.’

  ‘That’s not the way I see it,’ said Velia sullenly.

  ‘But you’ve always had a gift, Velia, for seeing only what you wanted to see … I came and lived with you against my better judgment, although we both agreed it might be dangerous and interfere with our projects. But I came, because you’re the only woman I really care for, Velia. All the other women, well, I suppose you could call them my occupation.’

  ‘They’re a good deal more than that,’ put in Velia.

  Morgan shook his head. ‘There’s nothing there for you to be jealous of, Velia.’

  ‘I’m not jealous,’ said Velia wearily, and indeed how could she say, no, I’m not jealous, I’m terrified of you, terrified of what you really get out of these women?

  ‘Now let me tell you, Velia, how it is, because I think my silly little Velia,’ and he stroked her hand, ‘has almost forgotten. You remember we agreed that the woman you had found down here was suitable for me to work upon … She appealed to me straight away.’ His voice became deeper, quieter, his expression intent. ‘There she was, a big woman, perhaps a little bit of a bully, some money, and you knew her.’ Velia gave a shudder. ‘It stimulated me.’

  ‘There’s no need to put it in words of one syllable,’ said Velia in a hard voice.

  ‘As soon as I heard of her I knew she was the one … Not too young, bossy, and in close proximity to you.’ He smiled. ‘Not jealous, honey? But anyway, for what it’s worth, I need you here, Velia. I have to have you.’ He smiled at her. ‘ I still need you to help me to carry out my project.’ Life work, thought Velia, before she could stop the horrid thought forming. ‘It may be, Velia, that by letting Charmian know too much about me, by boasting, Velia,’ and again he smiled, ‘you have endangered me, but I still need you.’

  It seemed very hot suddenly in Velia’s bedroom with all its doors and windows carefully closed. A little bead of sweat trickled
down from Morgan’s nose. ‘ He’s mad,’ thought Velia. ‘Not screamingly mad, but quietly, devotedly mad. He likes his madness, he’s fond of it.’ But she knew that she would have a job proving him mad in a court of law. She knew that the profit motive was a pretty solid one in his activities, and that this was the one the law would look into with most attention. Morgan had made money from these women and this made him sane.

  Although it was Sunday there were children playing in the street outside. Their laughter and shrill shouts of joy reminded her that by her own act she had put herself into another world from them. The room was oppressive; she felt imprisoned. A high scream of laughter from the world outside seemed to separate her for ever from it. It had been a slow journey, but a logical one, from what she had been as a girl, to the woman who was now in this room facing Morgan. She felt that until this moment, hearing the children’s voices, she had never known what she had grown into. She heard a baby crying, a completely humdrum ordinary sound, but the significance flooded her mind. ‘Morgan and I could give birth to monsters,’ she thought.

  ‘I shall go,’ she said, through stiff lips. ‘ I’ll scream if you try and stop me.’

  ‘I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down,’ responded Morgan. He sounded amused.

  The baby had stopped crying. It was now still inside the room and out. She let her eyes rest on her clothes, piled up in a heterogenous mess, and pass from them to Morgan, bright-eyed and smiling, to her own face reflected back at her in the mirror where she saw it was plainer than she had remembered. She felt the force of Morgan’s desires as she had never felt them before. Why we did give birth to a monster! she thought, wide-eyed.

  ‘It’s a house of straw,’ said Morgan. He did indeed look like a wolf now he had brought in the idea. He tried to be a smiling wolf. ‘ I need you, Velia … I’ve always needed help from a woman. Not always the same woman. There was one who used to call me Boy and wait to meet me outside the old Regal Cinema. You remember the Regal? She was an usherette there. It’s gone for Bingo now. She introduced me to a woman who brought me eight hundred pounds.’