by H K Thompson
But the frightened part of Stephen had reached out for Tess’s wrist, grasped it and held onto it in a parody of strength that he knew he no longer had. It was as if he were still playing the role and Tess, out of her risky compassion, was allowing him some experience of effectiveness. Such was her needy humanity that she wanted him to feel that he could affect events. She knew what it was like to be helpless, powerless and humiliated. She could not have borne to see that vulnerability in Stephen. In adopting this position, in believing in the rightness of humane values, she felt strengthened and surprised at her own virtue. She said:
“You’re a violent bastard and you don’t deserve my help. I’m glad I got the better of you and maybe the state you’re in now is a taste of your own medicine.”
Tess stood up suddenly and towered over Stephen. She was angry and felt self-righteous. She was struggling with something vengeful and she was shocked and thrilled. She felt much bigger, as if she had physically grown and Stephen had shrunk. He was in her power, she thought, this weak, dissolute man. She made the mistake of losing her wariness of him and forgetting her caution. He came back at her:
“You bitch,” he spat. “This is your fault. If you hadn’t barged in here I would be dead by now. It would all be over and I’d be out of here. You and that cow have to interfere.”
He tried to stand but his weakness overcame him and he collapsed again onto the chair. He gave the impression that he couldn’t really be bothered to resist the advance of Tess.
“Just go, get out of here. You can report back what you’ve seen to her. And to him too. That bastard, that fucking bastard.”
Tess was shocked by her brother’s revelation that he wanted to die. It came in the same breath as his reference to William Dawson. The sudden reference to her father in Stephen’s diatribe caught Tess unawares and she realised that she’d known nothing of the relationship between her father and Stephen. The relationship between Stephen and their mother was familiar to her in its convolutions and unhealthy symbiosis. But with their father there was a curious blank in Tess’s mind. She said:
“I didn’t know you were so angry with Dad. What did he do to make you so angry?” She asked her question almost as a child would, mystified and surprised.
“You know nothing about anything,” he spat with venom.
He was convulsed with fury at what he regarded as her stupidity and her ignorance. She knew nothing, he believed, about what had happened to him in the relationships he had with his mother and his father. Stephen believed that everything had been alright for Tess. He clung to a self-righteous martyrdom, shutting away the memories. All he knew of them were the compulsive actions they led to and his slow self-destruction.
“What made me so angry?” he said to her through gritted teeth. “I got nothing from them, except beatings and insults and criticism. You were always the favourite. You had everything. You always had your father to look after you. He never cared for me, only you.” He screamed at her with a squeaky, weak voice as if in a last desperate attempt to make her hear.
Tess gasped and stared at Stephen, amazed and bemused. She realised how deeply he was immersed in bitterness and how violent that bitterness could be, expressed in hateful accusations and judgements. He couldn’t see himself and how he’d been reduced through his hatred. She felt that any response from her would stoke his rage and she was grateful that he was weak. She dropped her guard and said to him:
“Stephen, that’s not how it was. I had it no better than you. So you thought you’d been given nothing by them and you thought that I’d had everything? You’re a fool to think that. It isn’t true. But because you thought it and believed it you’ve spent the rest of your life grabbing and thieving and believing you should have whatever you want. It was your entitlement. And look where you’ve ended up. It’s not just physically that you’re living in a hovel with only scraps and wreckage around you. It’s not just that. This is what the inside of you looks like. And for the record, I had nothing either. And I had to contend with your hate and spite and your bullying. You were a monster to me and I lived in fear of you. But now I can see you for what you are. Unrepentant wreckage who’ll never see his part in his own downfall. You’re pathetic and sad and dangerous.”
She knew as soon as she spoke that she had made a mistake, that she should have simply let him be with his accusations and beliefs, but somewhere she was incensed by the injustice of his charge. Her anger and her need to stand up against what she knew to be untrue were her Achilles’ heel. Stephen never missed an opportunity to attack an open target. And by now she‘d realised the imminent threat. She had to find a way out. She was beginning to feel a darkness gathering round her as she sat there facing him with only the table between them. There was something malignant and menacing permeating the space around her. She couldn’t describe it but she recognised the effect it was having on her. She was feeling edgy and there was a growing anxiety that began in her stomach and which, before long, was filling her whole body.
There was something poisonous about Stephen, an atmosphere that he gave off that was so disturbing to her that she was afraid that she’d be overwhelmed by it. She didn’t know how to deal with her growing and urgent unease. Without thinking and responding to a nameless impulse in her, she stood up and turned away from him, trying to blot him out of her mind and defend herself with the armour of her back. He took this gesture as a sign of rejection and with the sinking and threatening sensation of being cast off. His fury rose again and this time propelled him into an uncontrolled fit of vengeance. His weakness was overcome by an explosion of adrenaline that propelled itself through his body like the eruption of a volcano.
He leapt to his feet, up-ending the table, and grabbed Tess by the neck from behind and began to throttle her in the crook of his right arm. His grip was unrelenting and Tess knew clearly in a moment of acute lucidity that he was intent on her murder. Once again she was shocked by the intensity and speed of his action. She was wrong-footed and grabbed on the out-breath. She had no oxygen in her lungs and faced the real prospect of not being able to free herself in time. In a second of insight before she fought back she faced the imminent possibility of death, recovered her senses and kicked back with her foot with all her strength, finding Stephen’s shin. It made no impression on his all-consuming fury. Using her weight again she dropped onto her knees in an attempt to loosen his grip. The move made some impression as his grip loosened slightly. She took her chance. In this extreme situation she had to take any chance. She twisted to one side, releasing his pressure on her windpipe and reached for something, anything, with which she might be able to hit him.
He was on top of her, bearing down, her body forced to give under his weight. As she got closer to the stone floor she saw a heavy iron poker lying on the hearth, not quite within reach but her only hope. She used her weight to fall in the direction of the poker and pulled Stephen with her. It felt to her as if he were losing his power, that his scanty store of energy was beginning to dissipate. At that moment she decided that she would not succumb. She lunged with all her strength for the poker and grabbed its brass handle in her hand. Stephen felt her do this but was unable to counter their momentum. She fell to the floor with him after her, his balance lost, and as she did so his grip came away from her neck. She rolled across the floor and got to her feet, bent at the knees, ready for his recovery. He got to his feet and came at her with a ferocity that belied his fragility. She was faced with his onslaught and in a fraction of a second made up her mind to strike. She raised her arm that held the poker and brought it crashing down on the side of her brother’s skull. He stopped dead, suspended for a second, his arm half-raised uselessly in belated self-defence, his eyes open in shock and incredulity. Then he fell like a stone to the hard, cold floor and lay still. Blood oozed from the side of his head.
Tess was shaking. She gripped the poker with her cold hand until it ached. She didn’t know how long she stood over her brother’s body holding o
n to the weapon. She couldn’t take her eyes away from his lifeless shape, head turned to the side exposing the bloody wound. Slowly she regained her senses and dropped the poker with a clatter onto the floor. It lay there, still, its brass handle gleaming dully in the dim light. She straightened and began to breathe again, pulling in air through her nose, recovering from the melee of blood, emotion and hormones that had raced through her body in her defensive spasm. She had felt not only Stephen’s primal violence but her own as well. She’d felt the wish to kill, fleetingly but real and unmistakable, flash for a fraction of a second through her brain. She’d responded with a violent, powerful blow and now regretted her loss of control. She had killed her brother. The whole elaborate structure of her personality felt as if it were slowly collapsing. She was shaken to her core. She couldn’t accommodate the enormity of her action.
She subsided onto the chair in the deathly silence of the cottage and watched the blood from her brother’s wound seep down the side of his face and onto the flagstones. There was nothing to be done. She stood shakily on her feet and, steadying herself against the wall, she made her way out of the kitchen and along the hallway. The darkness seemed to close in on her. She found the door and wrenched it open just before a wave of horror and terror swept over her and she vomited onto the coarse grass. Weakened and dizzy she staggered up the track back to the Glasnant Road, stumbling and fumbling in the darkness. She had lost track of time and peered at her watch. She could see nothing. She found her car still parked in the gateway and fell inside.
She put the key in the ignition and turned on the interior light and looked at her watch again. It was late. She started the engine and reversed giddily into the road. She began her drive back to the hotel, cautiously at first and then, as she felt her senses returning, she drove faster until she passed the town boundary. Making her way down the back road to the hotel she pulled up into the car park. She rubbed her eyes, stepped out of the car and walked slowly to the entrance. She had no idea how she looked but she imagined herself to be dishevelled and bruised, even bloodied. She felt as if she must look different, unrecognisable from the person who had left the hotel yesterday.
She entered the lobby and Geoff said, on his way to the dining room:
“Had a good time with your friends?”
She thought she could tell from his look that she must appear altered. She said nothing and climbed the stairs feeling every step as hard labour and opened her door. She took off her coat and fell onto the bed. It was after eight o’clock when she woke. She was starving and shocked by the speed of her own recovery as she undressed and walked into the shower, scrutinising the red weal on her neck. By 8.30 she was in the dining room devouring three courses, amazed at her own apparent callous indifference to the events she had just been through. She drank a glass of wine encouraged by the thought that it would help her sleep. She had no such need. As soon as her head touched the pillow she fell into a deep and silent slumber.
Chapter 21
Tess paused and looked out of the window at the dismal day. She had reached a point in her story where she wanted to stop and reflect on the things she had said about the ill-fated journey to West Wales and her encounter with Stephen. She had felt a pang of guilt as she told Evelyn Doyle of her attack on Stephen and his death. Her guilt about what she had done had grown from the moment she had left the hotel that Saturday morning. The night she had returned to her room and had dinner and then slept a peaceful and untroubled sleep had been her last calm and tranquil night for what, unknown to her then, was to be a very long time. The lull before the storm. She looked from the window and the view of the garden back towards Evelyn.
Evelyn was shocked at Tess’s disclosure. She felt unsteady, as if she were slightly spinning. This was only the second time that a patient had admitted to killing and she hadn’t been ready for it. She kept her eyes on her patient.
“Evelyn, I killed my brother without any regret. That came later. All I can remember was getting into my car that morning I left the hotel and driving slowly home. I was playing Ferron on the tape player, over and over again, as if I was creating something familiar and comforting in my small world inside the car. I knew all the words of the songs by the time I got home. It was as if I was covering over what I’d done to try and hide it from myself. I knew I had to come to terms with it at some time, even then, before all this therapy. I knew that I’d have to face what I’d done but I didn’t know how I’d do it. When I got home I was in a terrible quandary. What was really bothering me was what I was going to say to my mother. I knew that I’d have to lie. I would never be able to tell her the truth, even after standing up to my brother and him nearly killing me. I still couldn’t tell her the truth.
I got home late in the afternoon. I’d stopped a couple of times on the way home, once on the mountain road again and then in one of the towns I went through. I was so out of it that I can’t tell you the name of it. I remember a grey monument and grey shops and houses, greyer in the rain. I went into a cafe and had something to eat and spoke to the woman behind the counter. But I couldn’t tell you what we said. I was in a daze. But every time I tried to switch my mind off, the image of Stephen with that awful injury on his head came back. And I kept remembering especially the thrill of hitting him and how it seemed to pay back, for a fleeting moment, every cruelty he’d ever inflicted on me. I kept getting lost and confused. Had I done what anyone would do trying to save their own life? But I couldn’t get that thrill out of my mind, when the metal hit his skull and I felt him stop, his power over me dissolved. It was the moment when I was free of him and then I came back to my mother and lying to her because I couldn’t be honest.” She was distressed.
After a few moments Evelyn said: “It seems to be that the worst thing for you was the thrill you got from hitting Stephen not the fact that you killed him. That was self-defence. The thrill has shocked and disturbed you.”
“That makes me a killer, Evelyn, a psychopath. Isn’t that the word?”
“A psychopath would have no remorse or guilt. You feel both now. I think the pleasure and the thrill was the revenge, anger, fury you harboured deep inside yourself and you felt that you had got your own back after all these years. You had literally got something of yourself back that Stephen had taken from you. Perhaps it was your self-respect.”
Tess looked at her thoughtfully. Such a novel interpretation held her interest.
“Perhaps,” she said, enigmatically.
Evelyn continued: “Killing your brother is a shocking and distressing thing for you to have done. Even though it was done in self-defence. It’s going to take time for you to come to terms with what you did and I hope we’ll be able to do some of that work here. Telling your mother about what you did is another matter. A mother can be the most formidable block to speaking the truth, especially if the relationship with her is like yours, one of mistrust and manipulation, of things never spoken. She is simply not safe enough to disclose the truth to. Honesty would be dangerous because your mother’s relationship to the truth is one of distortion and denial. It would be both confusing and painful for you to risk the truth and have it mutilated and for you to feel abandoned or rejected yet again, which is inevitably what would happen.”
“I can see what you mean,” Tess replied after some minutes. “But I’m not sure of any of it. It feels too raw and I get emotional when I talk about it.”
“Tess, we have to stop now. We have our next appointment in the diary. I’ll see you then.”
Tess stood and left. Evelyn walked to her desk and, standing in front of it, leant on her hands on the edge of it and dropped her head. She sighed and sat down, pulling her file towards her and opening it to a new sheet of lined paper. She picked up her biro and began writing. So that was what happened, she thought. Tess had killed her brother, she’d hit him in order to save her own life, in a situation where he would surely have killed her. She took her chance and had the courage to defend herself. And she had been hon
est enough to admit thrill as she did it. She was also faced with the quandary of her legal responsibilities. Should she inform Ann McKenzie of the disclosure? She would have to discuss that with Tess, but she felt sure that eventually Tess herself would want to make her own confession. She thought for a moment about her upcoming meeting with Ann McKenzie scheduled for the beginning of the following week and decided to let things lie, to let her own emotions about the disclosure settle. Then she would decide what to do.
*
Evelyn remained preoccupied by Tess’s admission long after the session was over. The ethical questions kept returning to her and she knew she must phone her supervisor to discuss her disquiet about the issues involved. She phoned Carl, her supervisor, in her lunch break and found, to her dismay, that he was on holiday. The message on his answering service gave the following Saturday as his return date. She wondered how she could not have known or remembered that he was away and not available. She considered phoning a colleague but by the time she had reached that decision it was time to begin her afternoon sessions and her phone call would have to wait until the evening. By the time evening came and she had arrived home, made the dinner and chatted with Paul at the table she felt too tired to phone anyone and collapsed in front of the television. It was not until she turned the light out to sleep that night that she realised that she was resisting talking to anyone about what had happened with Tess. This was not usually what Evelyn Doyle did.