Criss Cross

by Caron Allan

  Fri 20 July—8.00am

  I must admit to a certain amount of apprehension before I met up with Monica last night. Why do I always feel so much anxiety before the two of us meet? I mean, I felt this way even before I knew she was a brutal murderer.

  Though on reflection that was probably because I was planning a murder myself and I was afraid she would find me out. Hmm. I suppose that could explain it. But surely if it was just guilt I was feeling, it would have gone now the crisis is over and my hands are still lily-white? Anyway. Somehow my nerves are always taut before I meet up with her. But then once I’m there, I’m fine, and we have a great time. Strange.

  I’m writing this over breakfast and remembering how this time yesterday I was fretting about my evening ahead with Monica, and the fact that I had so much to squeeze in before I met her—yoga first, then hair, manicure, pedicure, waxing and massage—in fact barely a moment to myself all day, but I have to keep breaking off as Thomas keeps banging on and on about some meeting he is addressing, and saying how tired he is and how worried he is that he won’t be absolutely on the ball what with waking up several times during the night. He apparently kept hearing noises or something that disturbed him, I don’t know what, I must confess I wasn’t really listening. Coming back to yesterday, I had wondered if it would be best to cancel something, the massage for example. But then that would have given me almost an extra hour to kill between the end of my waxing and meeting Monica, and I hadn’t fancied wandering the streets just as all the school children are piling into the pubs. So in the end I’d decided I’d be better to keep all the appointments after all.

  Mrs H has just been in to clear the breakfast things. I looked up in surprise.

  ‘You’re in a bit early again Mrs Hopkins,’ I commented. She seemed a bit shifty again. Something is definitely up. She muttered something about needing to get on with something in the kitchen so she’d come in early to make a start.

  All very peculiar. Surely this isn’t just about that flaming cat? If I’d known it was going to mean my daily woman had to reorganise her schedule, I would have got rid of it. But who knows what goes on the minds of these people? Probably her house hasn’t got any electricity or something.

  Thomas gave me a peck on the cheek and grabbed his briefcase and I waved him off from the front door like the good little hausfrau I am. Poor lamb, he looks absolutely shattered.

  Anyway, to come back to last night—by the time I met Monica at Fat Nigel’s, I felt fabulously primped and pampered. She air-kissed me with loud mwah, mwahs and said I looked wonderful, which was lovely, and she waved at the waiter for drinks.

  I took a look at her and said, in a quiet voice obviously, but with some concern,

  ‘Monica, you look awful, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  And as soon as I said it, I was cross with myself, because too late I remembered what Thomas had told me about Huw, and how it was all very hush-hush. I felt myself blushing. She looked at me, saying nothing.

  ‘Oh Darling, I’m so sorry, how thoughtless of me!’ I said, all contrition.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ And the way she said it made me feel so uncomfortable. After all Thomas hadn’t been supposed to tell me.

  ‘Well, I…’

  She slumped down in a heap on her elbows.

  ‘Oh thank God! You have no idea how I’ve dreaded telling you. It’s such a relief not to have to keep carrying on this charade of cheerfulness and being normal. And trying to keep it all in like this. Oh Cress my life is over!’ And her voice tailed away into a whiny little screech as she covered her face with her hands for a moment.

  Dashing tears from her eyes she enveloped me in a tight brief hug and then out came the whole story of Huw’s betrayal with, horrific cliché, his secretary. There was precious little for me to say or do, apart from the odd ‘what a bastard’ now and again and to keep handing her clean tissues and vodka.

  It sounds awful, I know, but we actually had a really good time; we ate, we talked and then it was a mad dash to The Cube for the movie-marathon. (Do two films make a marathon? I think not!) (Not that I would have wanted to sit through all of them in one go, who would? My bum would have well and truly gone to sleep.)

  Monica had booked us excellent seats in the studio showing Dial M for Murder and Strangers on a Train. Not that she’d really needed to book, if you ask me, the place was half empty but still, it was nice of her.

  As the house lights went down, and as the room was caught in that brief, throbbing darkness before the film began, Monica murmured to me,

  ‘Pop quiz. What sport is featured in both these films?’

  I shook my head. Dial M I knew quite well, but I’d only seen Strangers once, years ago, and all I could remember about it was a night-time scene in a fairground. But in Dial M, I remembered the husband, Ray Milland’s character, had been a retired tennis player.

  ‘Tennis?’ I therefore guessed, my eyes glued to the screen. I felt Monica nod in response. ‘I don’t remember Strangers very well, is there anything to do with tennis in that?’

  ‘Wait and see,’ said Monica, and then it started and there was Grace Kelly, looking heartbreakingly beautiful at the breakfast table and Ray Milland, the debonaire husband with whom she exchanges an unsatisfyingly chaste kiss.

  Lost in the story, the fresh yet dated look of the film, taking it all in, I forgot about my popcorn, Monica, Mrs Hopkins, Thomas, Clarice, everything and everyone, until we reached that climactic moment when Grace turned her face away from her husband and towards her lover.

  I kept my eyes fixed on the screen until that scene. This has always been my favourite moment, the moment where the heroine and her lover and the Inspector are waiting tensely for the heroine’s husband to come back to the flat, just before he lets himself in with the key he had hidden for the would-be murderer, and that only he knows about and thereby exposes himself for the villain he truly is. (Spoiler alert! Lol!)

  And turning to Monica with a huge grin, I, and she, and all the rest of the rapt audience said those famous words with Grace:

  ‘Mark, I think I’m going to have that breakdown now!’ Then we all cheered and clapped and wolf-whistled, laughing at our own silliness.

  Glancing about the studio, I could see the absorbed faces, the glistening eyes of the other people, and Monica was smiling at the screen, and I felt warm and happy and wryly aware of the way the film had drawn us into its vanished world and all of us loving every second of it, suspending belief very, very willingly.

  Then the house lights came up for the intermission. I stretched and yawned luxuriously and turned to Monica. Her eyes were still spacey, unfocussed. She was still half lost in the film.

  ‘That was amazing, wasn’t it?’ I said, and she smiled and nodded but was still miles away. With a little shake she pulled herself together, and getting to her feet, ushered me out.

  ‘Let’s grab a choc-ice or something,’ she suggested, ‘we’ve got twenty minutes or so.’

  ‘Okay.’

  In the foyer there was quite a hubbub, as film-buffs from one of the other studios were also having their intermission, and everyone crowded in the direction of the bar.

  We found ourselves in a laughing, chattering queue with two other ladies from our screening, and they were enthusiastic in their praise of the film, drawing us quickly into their conversation.

  ‘I’m always a bit sad,’ the woman in a burnt orange silk jacket said, ‘that Ray Milland doesn’t get away with it. He’s such a polite, well-bred, cold murderer.’

  ‘Yes, I know!’ Monica chimed in, ‘you do almost want him to get away with it!’ We all laughed.

  ‘After all, his wife is having an affair, she deserves to die like the harlot she is!’ Orange Silk’s companion Black Velvet Headband said.

  ‘And murder is definitely cheaper than a messy divorce!’ I added with a laugh, then hearing myself say the D-word, I faltered, but Monica was laughing too, and did not seem the least bit upset by wha
t I’d said. We got our ice-creams and fizzy wine and made our way back to our seats, still chatting to the other two film-goers. We continued to enlarge upon the theme of how much easier it would be to kill someone than put oneself through the cost and emotional turmoil of a divorce.

  ‘Wish I’d thought of murder myself,’ said Orange Silk, ‘instead of letting the bastard get my dog and my car and worst of all, his bottle-blonde hussy got my new kitchen!’ We all laughed gaily at her heartbreak.

  ‘Especially as you can’t be hanged for it!’ Monica said, her eyes staring at me fixedly, still spacy.

  Orange Silk agreed vigorously, slurping her G and T. She added, ‘I mean, what’s ten or even twenty years in a cosy prison doing an Open University degree or an apprenticeship in floristry and talking about your feelings, compared to the mess and misery and financial chaos of a divorce?’

  ‘And that’s only if you get caught!’ I pointed out with a laugh, and she called back with a cackle,

  ‘Knowing my luck, I probably would!’

  We settled into our seats, wriggling to get comfortable, unwrapping our ice-creams and turning expectantly towards the screen as the house lights once more faded, and the chattering and laughter died away, and the opening credits of Strangers began to roll, accompanied by lots of shots of walking feet.

  ‘I wouldn’t…’ Monica said in my ear, under cover of the opening dialogue. She didn’t add a laugh. She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to, I knew exactly what she was saying. She wouldn’t get caught. My mouth dropping open, I turned to look at her but she was staring straight ahead. I could see the square movie screen small and shining in the depths of her eyes. It gave her a detached, alien look.

  And then I watched the film.

  When we came out I was vaguely surprised to find it was still light—though only just. I felt as if I had been miles away in time and space, but it seemed the world had gone on with its evening routine without me.

  My mind was buzzing with notions, crazy notions, thoughts and images whirling and persistent. Robert Walker’s face as he says ‘Criss cross,’ which came to be his catch-phrase to explain the way the two main characters were to carry out each other’s murder.

  We chatted and laughed with Orange Silk and Black Velvet Headband as we left the venue and walked slowly towards the taxi rank.

  I felt as though I were outside myself, watching the other Cressida talking, making conversation, walking along the road, when all the time, the real Cressida was here inside, watching scattered images of Clarice and of yet another Cressida: Clarice dead on her floor, blood in a little pool around her head, Cressida waiting in the foyer at Chapley’s, waiting for Monica who didn’t come. Cressida driving, getting out of her car, walking towards the house, pushing open the already open door at Highgates. Clarice dead on her floor, blood in a little pool around her head. The crow bloody and refusing to die. Cats in the baskets, going to the vets, eyes watching me through the little doors. Clarice’s peremptory voice on the phone, ‘Well really, Child.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ Monica asked, ‘you seem awfully far away.’

  We were in the taxi, driving through the streets and already it seemed darker than it had been when we had first left The Cube.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine, Mon.’

  ‘Wasn’t it a great evening? It’s been years since I had so much fun. Apart from the bit when I was crying buckets and pouring my heart out like a fourteen-year-old of course. Sorry about that, I feel such an idiot now, but it did me the world of good.’

  I laughed a little as she seemed to expect it, told her it was all okay, nothing to worry about and yet she seemed to still be looking for reassurance, for an answer, she watched my face carefully, but I didn’t really feel like laughing. I felt a strange tension hanging in the air around us.

  ‘Are you going home?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said in a questioning voice.

  ‘I just wondered—I mean, you’d be very welcome to stay with us for a while, if you wanted to, if you felt you couldn’t face him, or well—whatever, just ‘if’.’

  ‘Oh Cress, you are a sweetheart! But no, it’s fine. He’s hardly ever home anyway, he mainly stays with Her. In fact he’s been relatively considerate. I can’t help wondering if there will be a big wrangle at some point over the house and everything, I suppose that’s inevitable. We’ll probably have to sell the house and split the money. Such a shame, I love that house. It’s practically a part of me, or the other way round. We’ve been there fifteen years now. It’s the only real home I’ve ever known. I’ve never lived anywhere else that long, we moved around so much when I was growing up, what with my father being in the army.’ She sighed.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Monica, I really am. If there’s anything we can do, anything at all, you know you can…’

  ‘I know I can. Thanks Cress. I don’t know if it’s just the wine talking, but I feel a bit soppy. I want you to know how nice it is to have someone I can pour my heart out to and not feel an absolute idiot. It’s so nice to know there’s someone I don’t have to keep up the pretence with. Thanks, Sweetie-pie.’

  ‘Any time, yer daft cow!’ I said, trying to make it all light and fluffy again. ‘And I do mean any time.’ I added just to make absolutely sure.

  ‘I know,’ she said and patted my hand.

  And then we were pulling up outside her house, and the taxi door was opening and she was getting out. She passed me some money through the window.

  ‘My share of the fare,’ she said across my protests and blew a kiss at me before heading for her front door.

  I was deep in thought for the remainder of the journey home.

  Thomas was already asleep when I got into bed. In spite of the warm night I shivered and I snuggled in beside him, so glad he was there.

  I knew now what I had to do.

  Mon 23 July—11.30am

  Haven’t heard from Monica for a few days, not since we said goodnight on Thursday when the taxi dropped her off, so I thought I’d better give her a ring, make sure she’s all right.

  The conversation was a bit one-sided. She told me Huw had actually packed up some of his things in a couple of suitcases and moved out! She wasn’t teary though, as she had cried herself out this morning. But she seemed rather morose, didn’t really seem to have much to say, and when I tried to invite her over for drinks, or for dinner or just for morning coffee, she kept making excuses, excuses so thin a five-year-old could see through them.

  The only time she seemed to perk up was when I mentioned our trip to the Hitchcock ‘movie marathon’, and thanked her once again for suggesting it. Just for a moment she seemed to come to life—she talked about the films, the ladies we met and our nice chat with them about how much easier it was to kill someone than divorce them, and her voice held real warmth and enthusiasm, but then she sank back and was again distant, indifferent, colourless, her voice coming slowly down the line to me, saying Huw had just come in for some more stuff and she’d have to go. Then, just as she was about to ring off, she said in quick, frantic voice, ‘Cress! Thanks for ringing—you’re such a lifeline, it means so much to know you’re on my side. You’re all that’s keeping me going at the moment. Thank you, Sweetie.’ And then the line went dead, leaving me listening to emptiness.

  I sat thinking.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I just didn’t know quite how to do it.

  Same day: 10.30pm

  Standing by the window with my cup of tea this afternoon, looking out into the garden, half day-dreaming, I spied Tetley prowling in the shade of the shrubbery, and not far off, a young blackbird was pecking carelessly at a bread crust. It seemed likely there was going to be a repeat of the traumatic crow-killing melodrama again—different cat, different bird, same tediously messy outcome.

  I stood there day-dreaming for a few minutes, and then quite suddenly I had an idea. A brilliant audacious brainwave!

  Tues 24 July—4.15pm

  Thomas is ve
ry tired and irritable. He’s still not sleeping properly, and I think this whole Huw and Monica thing is upsetting him more than he’s willing to admit, men like to pretend to be so macho, don’t they? Poor Sweetie-pie, at least it’s only another three weeks or so until we go away for his shooting. That’ll pick him up no end.

  That film keeps preying on my mind. I feel that I’ve got to do something. Of course, there’s only one thing that I can do, just one course of action that will be of any use, but it seems so incredibly drastic, and I just don’t know if I can pull it off. I’ve got the germ of an idea, a massive, crazy, audacious idea, but this is really a job for a Professional, for someone who knows what they’re doing, not just an enthusiastic amateur. There are so many things that could go wrong, just thinking about it makes me want to run away and hide. But Monica has been so good to me, and she is so miserable, and after all, she is my best friend.

  What was it the woman at The Cube said? ‘At least they can’t hang you for it.’

  That’s not much of a consolation at this point.

  This is just crazy. It’s completely nuts. No, I can’t do this. I’ve got to put it out of my mind completely. Even to be giving it house-room in my mind, to even contemplate it is utterly ridiculous.

  Wed 25 July—9.20pm

  I can’t believe how Mrs H dotes on that stupid cat. There are about ten different types of cat food in my kitchen, and the smaller the tin, the higher the price, it seems. And, indeed, the higher the scent. And the little git eats off my finest Wedgwood.

  But it’s very odd. I just popped into the kitchen for a moment before breakfast this morning—It must have been about a quarter to eight—hideously early! I meant to leave a note for Mrs H about the vacuum cleaner, just to make sure Her Sid does indeed manage to sort it out permanently and just in case there had been any further problems and so on.