Criss Cross

by Caron Allan

  And then I went to take a sip.

  I think I’d read that anti-freeze doesn’t have any particular smell, though I’m not sure. But there was just something odd about the drink. I’d had a few drinks by then myself, so although I was not exactly sober I was hardly three sheets to the wind, but even so, it was as if the whole world slowed down as I lifted the glass to my lips, and over the rim, I could see her eyes, bright and shining and eager, watching me greedily, her lips a little too moist at the corners as if she was almost salivating, as the liquid tilted towards my mouth, and I just suddenly became convinced—as I say there was a very slight odd sweet smell, and this bluish tinge which could just have been from the glass, and then there was the way she was avidly watching me, her eyes shining, her lips disgustingly wet.

  So I just slammed it down on the table and leapt up and gabbled something about forgetting to tell Mrs H something about the china, and I grabbed my bag and raced for the door, Monica following me slowly and calmly with this strange, half-amused smile on her face as if she knew I knew and thought it was really funny, not put out at all, but it was as if it didn’t really matter, there was no rush. As if she knew she could just get me next time.

  So I just did a quick air-kiss and fled. And it was only once I actually got back home and was putting my jacket on the stairs that it occurred to me that Monica had not said one syllable from the moment she handed me the glass, nothing except that weird smile and her excited eyes and her wet lips glistening.

  That woman’s a total whack-job.

  Fri 5 April—10.25am

  I think it must have been the drink talking. This morning I can’t see why I was so freaked out last night. My imagination must have been working overtime. That or my guilty conscience. It’s because I know what I’m planning to do to her and deep down I’m afraid of her retaliating, probably in exactly the same way—after all she’s on the internet, she can do research, like anyone else. And after Thomas, there’s no doubt in my mind she’s got over her squeamish couldn’t-kill-a-crow-sensitivity. I could believe her capable of anything now.

  Or else the tension must just be getting to me. Moving is a very stressful experience—one of the worst stress-inducing events one experiences, apparently. That and changing jobs and losing a partner.

  Must think of another way of getting this dratted anti-freeze into that cow.

  Sat 6 April—10.05am

  Slept late this morning and was woken up by a terrific pounding on the front door, and I was halfway down the stairs screaming, ‘Don’t let them in!’ before I realised that 1) Junior was gawping up at me with great interest, because 2) I was only wearing my ultra-revealing baby-doll pyjamas, and, 3) Mrs H was already there, sliding back the chain and opening the front door

  I needn’t have panicked, it wasn’t the police, just some wretched hot-tub salesman Mrs H sent away with a flea in his ear. But it meshed so perfectly with what I had been dreaming only a few seconds earlier—the dream in which Monica had sent the police after me for trying to poison her—and so quite reasonably, and subconsciously, when I heard the pounding on the door, I absolutely shot out of bed in sheer terror thinking the game was up.

  Then I didn’t want to turn round and go back upstairs because of my little tiny baby-doll knicker-short thingies but I could hardly walk up the stairs backwards, so in the end I had to brazen it out and turn and go back up the stairs to my room, but I’m positive he stared at my bum—it felt as if hot little holes were being drilled into it by a lecherous ex-lag.

  I heard Mrs H say to him, ‘She really don’t like them door to door salesmen, does she?’

  ‘But how did she know who was there?’ he asked her a little too shrewdly for my liking. I could visualise her usual shrug as she said,

  ‘Well she must of, ay?’

  Fortunately, you can’t argue with logic like that.

  But as I rounded the top of the stairs I glanced down to see him still standing down below in the hall, looking up at me. Our eyes met briefly before I turned away with the distinct feeling that I’d been rumbled. As I reached my room, I heard the kitchen door softly thump closed behind him but I could still picture his eyes, missing nothing, and I knew that sharp ex-con brain of his was puzzling over the small incident.

  Got showered and dressed really, really quickly and then dashed to the shops to buy bigger pyjamas to ensure no more awkward incidents like this morning. Chose six pairs, all pink flannelette, with collars, sleeves and long trousers that I’ll have to turn up if I don’t want to trip over them and break my neck. No part of me will be visible apart from my head, fingertips and big toes. I just know I’m going to look like a five-year-old in her big sister’s pyjamas, but I don’t care, it will be worth it. That’ll teach him to ogle my bum!

  Same day: 8.20pm

  But what am I going to do about Monica? I keep thinking about what happened the night before last, and I can’t quite make up my mind. Did she really try to turn the tables on me or was it all my imagination? Did I just panic and lose my nerve? I can’t help remembering how cleverly she has manipulated me before—first making me think she had killed Clarice, and then, making me think she wanted me to kill Huw and that girlfriend of his, making me feel we had a kind of unspoken pact to help each other out with our little problems. She’s smart enough to know how to use my own brain against me, how to twist my thoughts, my emotions, how to push me into a course of action I would normally think twice about taking. Is she still messing with my head?

  I just don’t know. I thought I smelled something weird in my drink last night, and now in the sane light of daytime shopping, I feel like I over-reacted and could she really have been staring at me the way I thought she had? And now I can’t even remember if anti-freeze has an odour? I remember reading it had a sweetish taste, but nothing about smell. And I don’t want to go out to the garage and find it and have a bit of a sniff, because ten to one a Certain Someone would come in at that exact moment.

  Well, I mean. She was drunk, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she? I mean, we’d both been pretty much piling it away as usual, until she hauled out the herbal tea and outmanoeuvred me once again. So she probably was sort of staring at everything with a kind of glazed, happy look, or else she was so drunk she couldn’t focus properly and was staring at me oddly because she was having trouble getting a fix on me? I bet that’s it.

  I can’t believe it! I completely panicked and let my over-active imagination freak me out so that I didn’t go through with my plan. For God’s sake, Monica could have been dead by now! Why am I such a spineless moron? I could have got back from shopping just in time to receive the terrible news about the sudden and tragic death of my best friend!

  I’m such an idiot!

  Another lost opportunity!

  Now I’ve got to think of another time and place and scenario and everything. Shit! Shit! And thrice shit!

  Same day: 10.45pm

  What about a leaving party? I could invite all my friends. That will provide me with lots of witnesses! If we pack all the furniture and carpets and everything, hire plastic catering-ware and have a lovely buffet and some music, and, obviously, lots and lots of bubbly, and of course, colourful antifreeze-laced cocktails, it should be fun. Surely at a party in my own home there should be sufficient opportunities to a) provide an excruciating scene in which Monica comes off looking like a psycho and b) nip a spot of the good stuff into her Buck’s Fizz or—I know—her Pimms, because Pimms always tastes weird and then there’s the colour, and all the old tat you stick in it will mask any amount of anti-freeze or screenwash or whatever.

  Oh goody! Game on again.

  Sun 7 April—3.30pm

  Mrs H is not in a good mood now I’ve broken to her the news that I want to host a party in this house next week. You’d think I’d suggested burning babies at the stake judging by the horrified expression on her face. She’s banging about like anything in the kitchen, I’m upstairs in my bedroom with the door closed and I can still hear h
er ranting above Beyoncé! Even Tetley is giving her a wide berth.

  ‘A party, Mrs Powell? Here? Not before we move, Mrs Powell? Surely not?’

  I could hardly have it after we move, could I? Not that I said that to her of course, I’m not completely mental. I was a bit tart with her, which I’m sure I will live to regret slash pay for one way or another over the next few days. I simply said quite snottily,

  ‘Yes, Mrs Hopkins, here, in this house. It should be possible to arrange to hold a party here as we don’t move until next week, and I don’t need anything truly elaborate. I’m going to go and ring round my friends now to get an idea of numbers.’

  But I wish I hadn’t called her ‘Mrs Hopkins’ like that, she and Sid have been so good to me.

  Anyway, I told her how I wanted it to be done, gave her a rough guesstimate re number of guests and food and drink and so on, and went back to the sitting room to sort out my guest list and now, I’m happy to say, I’ve rung all sorts of people and although some can’t make it at such short notice, most of them can and said how delighted they’d be to come to my ‘leaving do’. I’m quite excited! It’s been ages since I had a party! Not since before Thomas…

  I’ve let Monica know, of course, and soothed the troubled waters with much oil not to mention soft soap, and she sounded pretty keen too, but whether that’s because she thinks she’ll get another stab at poisoning me before I can poison her, I’m not too sure. Anyway she went out of her way to be excited and happy and accommodating. She made too many suggestions of course, so that already the affair is going to be far more lavish than I’d originally intended, which won’t please Our Lill. But it doesn’t matter, Monica’s happiness will be short-lived. And I’ve roped her in to kind of co-host it with me, told her I want it to be a party to remember.

  ‘Oh Cressida,’ she said, ‘it will certainly be that!’ I could definitely hear the malice in her chuckle as she said it. She sounded exactly like an arch-villain. I could practically picture her rubbing her hands together in glee at the prospect, could imagine her going ‘mwah ha har!’

  Thurs 11 April—7.10pm

  The house is looking absolutely stunning, I can’t believe how much effort the Hopkins clan have put into making my party go with a swing! And even Junior has been fetching and carrying and getting up and down ladders hanging fairy lights everywhere and flirting outrageously with Monica whilst she swagged the place out with exotic flower-and-twig creations.

  I didn’t really make much in the way of introductions but of course she already knew who he was, and curiously, he seemed to know a good bit about her too, yet more proof that Mrs H has been keeping ‘everyone’ informed about my life, as if I had any doubts!

  So—an hour to go until the earliest of my guests arrive—there are always one or two who arrive inconsiderately early to any party, some people just don’t know how to behave! And at the other end of the scale there are those who don’t leave until well after the rest of one’s guests—that’s even more of a faux pas than being too early in my book. But of course, if one cut out all those sort of people from one’s guest list, well, the list would be a bit on the short side, wouldn’t it?

  I’m almost ready myself, so just thought I’d make a quick note of my thoughts etc.

  There’s lots of gorgeous-looking food, and plenty of drink, obviously, couldn’t manage without that! Junior is the self-appointed DJ for the evening, though in reality he’ll just be changing the CDs. Mrs H is going to ferry the food around and Sid is going to stay out of sight in the kitchen as he looks like a bouncer at a borstal, and that will be apt to spoil the mood. Don’t think we’ll need his special ‘talents’ this evening. At least, I hope it won’t be that kind of party!

  We’ve still got the sofas but apart from those and a couple of tables for the booze, the downstairs part of the house is completely empty. Eerily so, in fact. It reminds me of a corpse—all life extinct and of course it’s the life that makes a house into a home, layering it with warmth and familiarity and individuality, and the lack of it makes an empty, soulless house. But of course, that’s just perfect for a party!

  It’s a good thing there are oodles of people coming, because to be honest I’m finding it rather unsettling here now that almost everything has been packed. Still, it’s only for another two days, then I’ll be off to sunny Gloucestershire. The Hs go the day after tomorrow, to give them a day to start getting things straightened out a little bit before I join them at the new house on Sunday—their suggestion.

  I was going to remain here up to the last moment, because my bed will be one of the last things to go, but now I don’t know. If the house isn’t populated with other people, I’m not sure I can bear to be here. I still have vague concerns about Clarice haunting the place from sheer spite. And my memories of my life with Thomas are pretty much haunting me too. I constantly remember a snatch of conversation here, a look, a word there, and I find it—not comforting as people would always have you believe—but very much the reverse. And now that the move is imminent, the haunting seems worse. I keep wondering if I’m making a terrible mistake. My emotions are yoyoing back and forth till I don’t know where I am. Grief overwhelms me and I feel so empty and lost. So, on balance I think the place will give me the screaming meemies if I’m here alone with no furniture, even just for one night.

  Speaking of screaming meemies, Monica is acting as if nothing happened last week, (which after all, maybe nothing did? I just don’t know anymore) though at the same time I think she’s also avoiding me. She’s been busy, busy, busy. She hasn’t said very much to me all the time she’s been here, too busy ogling my housekeeper’s jailbird son or going just that little too far up a ladder and flashing her rather middle-aged thighs at him. When she has spoken to me she’s been all conventional small talk (odd considering her almost hysterical behaviour of a couple of weeks ago, and her former, clingy, can’t-bear-to-lose-me manner) and happy polite little smiles. But it’s making me wonder if I really did just imagine the whole thing with the drink? I think I’m too highly strung. I need to get away from here. And the build-up to tonight hasn’t done my nerves any good. I’m still not quite sure what to do about her. Perhaps I ought to just move away and let bygones be bygones? Just walk away?

  It’s not just a question of having the guts to go through with it. Really, I just haven’t the energy to carry on this vendetta against her any longer. This house move is quite the most exhausting thing I’ve had to do in my entire life. They do say, don’t they, the moving is the most stressful thing you can do apart from death and taxes. And I really am sick to death with people coming in and out and asking me endless questions and taking things away to pack. I feel like I’ve been gradually diminished by parts of me being taken away a little bit at a time and stuffed into boxes and sealed shut. The packing people have been excellent—even Mrs H has been pleased with them—but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s been very, very stressful. The whole thing’s become a nightmare. I shall be so relieved to flop into a chair at The Beeches and start the Recovery Period.

  So, yes, I haven’t got the same urgent desire to see Monica dead as I had, and now part of me is thinking, actually, why bother? I’m moving away, starting afresh, so why take my old misery with me like so much broken furniture?

  But then, alive, Monica may continue to be a thorn in my side, a pain in my bum, a millstone round my neck, I’ve just got this sneaking suspicion. At the end of the day, I may well find that Gloucestershire just isn’t far away enough.

  So.

  Still can’t decide about tonight.

  To poison or not to poison?

  Eeny meeny miny mo…

  Fri 12 April—10.45pm

  Last night, it all came flooding back to me once the party got started. It was the music to begin with. The last time I heard that song, I was dancing with Thomas.

  It was at a party last Easter in the home of one of his work colleagues. We never usually bothered to go, but for some reaso
n we’d both just thought, why not? We were just both in the mood for a party. The music was perfect, and we just came together in the middle of the floor, both very slightly tipsy, and I remember clinging to him and as we moved, I remember thinking how perfect we were for one another and how we had a lifetime of years of dances stretching out warmly before us. And the music and the candlelight, and the scent of him, and his arms around me and everything—it was all perfect.

  So at my party last night, memories seemed to surround me and as I drifted out of the way of the dancers to stand back in a corner, I just gave into the temptation (stupidly) to close my eyes for a few seconds and think back to that Easter evening, and I’m sure I got a whiff of his aftershave, could conjure up the feel of his jacket on my cheek, then I was trying to remember his voice and, like iced water suddenly splashed in the face, along came Monica screeching with laughter and very unsteady on her feet, slapping me on the back rather too heartily and making me spill lemonade all down my dress and the whole illusion was smashed to smithereens and suddenly it was all back again, all the old energy, the rage, the anger, the strength to take her scraggy neck between my hands and wring the fucking life out of it. I wanted to dig my fingernails into her flesh and see her bleed, hear her beg me with her last breath to forgive her and to be merciful.

  I was shaking with fury and so after a none-too-gentle slap on her back and a forced hoot of laughter, I turned away, nauseous and He was standing there, watching me with that—that odd, speculative look he has sometimes—Matt Hopkins.

  And there was no time to think about covering up my feelings, or disguising my behaviour, putting on my party face. I was convinced I was going to be sick, and he (quite gallantly, actually) must have guessed how I was feeling for he shoved me firmly out through the French doors and into the cool of the garden, where suddenly all was peaceful and coldly beautiful in the moonlight.