For a few seconds after Violetta stopped moving, a sense of relief overcame Marion. Sometimes when you hurt a living thing it could drain away a little of the hurt that was inside you—she had felt this way when she gave Mr. Weinberg’s dog the ham seasoned with rat poison, only a person was more than an animal, so they took away more of the hurt.
As she stood there gasping for breath, she realized Sonya was staring at her.
“I’m sorry,” Marion pleaded. “You know it wasn’t my fault, don’t you? I didn’t mean to hurt anyone—I just reacted—I mean—those cruel, horrible things that she said—I would never have done it on purpose. You know that, don’t you?”
There was terror in the girl’s eyes. No one had ever looked at Marion like that before. All her life she had been ignored, treated as a person of no consequence. Her parents took no interest in her; at school she was invisible; John treated her like a servant. Now, for the first time ever, she was important, she had power, she was the giver of life and death.
• • •
THE HORROR OF the cellar formed a dark stain that spread through Marion’s mind, tainting every thought and memory. She plunged her head beneath the surface of the bathwater, tears mingling with the gray suds. When she came up for air, a raw moan escaped her mouth.
“I can’t go back down there, not ever. I would rather go to hell.” Her voice echoed around the dripping bathroom.
“You could still save me.” Sonya’s voice, thin and scorching like an electrified wire, had worked deep into her brain.
“No, I can’t! You don’t understand. I can’t do it. I’m too afraid. I did all I was capable of.”
“Please. Please.”
“Go away!” she screamed. “I did my best, I really did, but I can’t help you. Don’t you see? My nerves just aren’t strong enough to deal with all of this. Now, why won’t you leave me in peace?”
Every single cell in her body opposed going back down there to face those sights and smells. She could call the police, of course, couldn’t she? Tell them to go and rescue Sonya, but if she did that, they would see everything. They would know what she had done to Violetta, and no one would ever understand why.
• • •
THE WATER HAD been cold for a long time before she got out of the bath. She dried herself with a large orange bath towel that had belonged to the family since she was a child and was, in places, thin as a bride’s veil.
The only thing she could find to dress the wounds on her neck was a box of tiny plasters. After sticking several of them to her neck and ear with tape, she got into bed.
She woke in the night to find her face stuck to the pillow with dried blood. The memory rose up inside her; all of them, the two dead girls and the baby, all fused into one squirming, purplish-black, glistening thing with Violetta’s sharp little teeth and nightmare mass of foul-smelling hair.
Brendan O’Brian’s words came back to her in full now:
“You are evil, the kind that comes from nothing, from neglect and loneliness. You are like mold that grows in damp dark places, black dirt gathered in corners, a fatal infection that begins with a speck of dirt in an unwashed wound.”
Yes, she said to herself. Somehow he knew.
CLEANING
For the next few days Marion could not bear the thought of going to see John in the hospital. Instead, she began cleaning the house. Starting with the piles of magazines in the hallway, she stuffed them all into big black bags, and then threw the bags out into the back garden. Then she began picking up other pieces of junk at random, tossing things away without even looking to see what they were. Each time she filled a bag she tied it up and dragged it outside. Soon there was a great heap of shiny black plastic. The things that were too heavy for her to lift, she pushed to one side of the dining room. After a while areas of floor began to reappear that she hadn’t seen for several years.
Scrubbing, tidying, dusting, staying busy was the only way she could keep the cellar out of her head. When the white-hot wire of Sonya’s pleading began to sear, Marion would repeat out loud again and again, “It couldn’t be avoided; what happened simply couldn’t be avoided,” until eventually the voice dimmed and faded away altogether. For the first time in her life she slept alone in the house, yet instead of feeling afraid, she was overcome with a sense of relief, as though an abscess, after troubling her for years, had at last been drained.
• • •
IT WAS OVER a week after John’s admission to hospital that she went back to visit him. She used one of Mother’s Hermès scarves to hide the wounds on her neck and took a bus to Northport General. Public transport was a novelty for Marion, and she had to check several times on the timetable to find out which was the right bus, then look carefully at the map so she wouldn’t miss her stop and end up lost somewhere miles from home.
The bus driver, a young Polish man, told her when to get off and where to get the bus back. When she asked him what the number of the return bus was, he said it was the same number but on the opposite side of the street. Though she felt stupid for not knowing, the driver was very polite and patient and didn’t treat her as though she was an idiot at all.
When she finally arrived at Northport General, she found John sitting up in bed. The tubes were gone from his nose, and he was reading the Daily Mail. It felt as though several years had passed since she last saw him. She thought he would be angry that she’d stayed away for so long, but instead his face was filled with relief, as though he had been terrified she would never come back.
“Marion, love, I didn’t know what had happened to you—is everything all right?”
As John reached out and grasped her hand, his pajamas gaped open and she saw bruises in his chest where the nurses had put needles into the mottled skin. A pretty, brown-haired nurse was attending to a young black man with an oxygen mask over his face in the next bed. Had the old woman who occupied it previously died? It seemed unlikely that she had suddenly got better, though perhaps they had moved her to another ward. Marion sat down in the chair by John’s bedside.
“How are you feeling?”
He attempted to prop himself up, then winced.
“The stitches hurt like murder every time I move—but apart from that, not too bad. They let me out of bed today. I managed to shower myself.”
An image of John naked with those women entered her head, and she shuddered.
“I brought you some things.”
From her shopping bag Marion took out pajamas, toiletries, and a bag of strawberry shoelaces.
“Didn’t you bring anything for me to read?” He chucked the Daily Mail onto the bedside table. “I’m sick of this rubbish about pop singers and soap actresses, no real news.”
“I didn’t think you’d be up to reading.”
“Maybe the next time you come you could bring me a Times or a Telegraph. And a good novel. I don’t fancy anything too heavy, but perhaps if you see a decent thriller in the bookshop. A bottle of cordial wouldn’t go amiss, something sharp like lime. I’ve got this awful taste in my mouth from the drugs. Make sure it’s Robinsons; you know I don’t like the supermarket’s own stuff.”
John opened the bag of sweets she had brought him, releasing the sickly sweet smell of artificial fruit.
“Well, I didn’t know they still made these.”
As he put a red lace into his mouth and sucked, his eyes brightened with pleasure.
“Mm, that takes me back. A Proustian rush, one might say,” he declared, not to his sister, but perhaps for the benefit of some invisible intellectual who might appreciate the remark.
“Oh, for God’s sake, John, don’t talk such rubbish. They’re only bloody sweets,” Marion snapped. Her brother looked shocked.
“What’s up with you? Can’t be your time of the month. I doubt you’ve had that for a good ten years.”
And then he gave a nasty little snigger. Though Marion was faintly disgusted by his remark, she felt no sting. Looking at him, lying there in the
hospital bed, she realized that his words had no more effect on her than those of a stranger. It was as if Marion’s love for her brother was a kind of sickness she had suffered from since birth. It had given her long bouts of pain and discomfort, mixed with short spells of relief that she mistook for joy. It seemed now that some powerful cure had cleansed her system of all feeling for him.
Before she left, he grasped her arm. It took all of her strength not to pull away as he whispered a message:
“Are they asking for me? I expect they’ll be worried, especially Sonya. She is such an anxious little thing.”
“Sonya told me to say that she hopes you get better soon,” Marion replied, surprised at the ease with which the lie flew from her lips.
Smiling with satisfaction, he let go of her arm.
Eventually, of course, she would explain what had happened, that she had done her best and really none of it was her fault. What happened simply couldn’t have been avoided.
• • •
AS MARION WAS riding the bus home, two young girls, all bouncy and giggling, got on board and took the seats in front of her. One of them was telling the other about a boy called Patrick. Patrick had got fired for pouring a drink over a rude customer in the restaurant where they both worked. The other girl, who kept laughing a lot about the story, reminded Marion of Sonya.
Poor little Sonya. Of course she felt worst of all about her. Just the thought of those scared eyes and her pitiful crying tore at Marion. Unlike Violetta, she felt she was a decent, thoughtful girl, someone whom Marion would have liked if she had met her under different circumstances.
Perhaps we could have been friends, thought Marion. Perhaps she could have told me things about her past, about her tragic childhood, and I could have comforted her. We could have moved into Aunt Agnes’s flat, just the two of us, like mother and daughter. She would have taken a job in a shop, maybe a florist’s or one of those gift places on the pier. I would cook dinner for her in the evenings, and we would eat together while she told me stories about silly things that had happened in the shop and we would laugh together. Then we would watch TV until she fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. The next morning I would make her a cup of coffee and toast before she went off to work.
But deep down, Marion knew that this would never have happened. Like Lydia, Sonya wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with her. Young pretty girls didn’t want to waste their time with lonely, middle-aged spinsters. They preferred to go to parties with girls their own age, and text each other about boys and clothes. Becoming like her was what they feared the most. Yes, the truth was that Sonya wouldn’t have wanted to be friends with someone like me, she thought. Not one bit. She wouldn’t have given me the time of day. I would be invisible to her, just like I am to those two, she thought, watching the girls as they got off the bus together, still laughing.
• • •
THE TURMOIL SHE had undergone had brought about an unexpected transformation in Marion. She first noticed the change while standing in front of the mirror in Mother’s bedroom one morning. Lifting off her nightgown, she forced herself to stare directly at her body. Previously, when Marion had, by accident, glimpsed her unclothed figure, she felt ashamed. Today there was instead a flicker of pleasure.
The thighs, though still full and rounded, were no longer huge mounds of chalk-white flesh. Her upper arms and calves were almost slim. Of course the bosom was rather slack, but with the right bra and underclothes, it would look fine. Her body felt entirely different, as though she had taken off a grotesque costume that she had been forced to wear for years. Now she felt lighter, cleaner, smoother, more feminine than she had ever felt before, perhaps someone that a man might want to protect, rather than a big sturdy lump that could fend for itself. Of course she wasn’t beautiful, or not even what anyone else was likely to find attractive, but there was an improvement.
In the month since John’s admission to hospital she had lost a significant amount of weight. She had been so busy cleaning and running to and from the hospital, there was barely time left to eat. And when she did prepare food for herself, she would catch a whiff of that awful sickly smell that now pervaded the house and be unable to swallow more than a mouthful or two.
She went over to Mother’s wardrobe, a structure so large, it almost seemed like a separate building, something old and important like a bank or town hall. Opening the doors, she peered into the darkness. Suspended in a dry cleaning bag was a black long-sleeved dress that Mother had worn years ago for a function at Dad’s Masonic lodge.
Breathing in the smell of old sweat and talcum powder, she put the dress over her head. The cut emphasized her newly formed waist and the curve of her hips. Then she found a pair of earrings made from a yellowish stone carved into large teardrops and clipped them to her ears. The woman she saw in the mirror looked like a stranger, someone who might attend dinner parties and flirt with other women’s husbands while drinking sherry.
The urge to dance overcame her, and she began to move before the mirror, swaying her hips and waving her arms in the air. She felt blissful and free.
“I will never let myself get fat again,” she said out loud. “Not ever.”
Suddenly she became dizzy. Sitting down on Mother’s bed, she pressed her hands against her throbbing temples. It was so hard to cope with the constantly shifting confusion of life. How could she feel a single second’s happiness when so many awful things had happened, after what she had done?
• • •
THE NEXT DAY she was walking down Northport High Street when she stopped outside a hairdresser’s shop called Shears. A huge pair of pink scissors decorated the window. Marion went inside. The walls were painted pale blue, and several potted plants had been placed between the workstations. A smell of flowers and the balmy breeze of hair dryers made her feel as though she had been transported to a tropical island.
The baby-faced receptionist gave Marion a dimpled smile.
“Heelloo there, can I help you?”
“Yes, I want—please—I want you to do something with—this.”
Marion pointed helplessly towards her riotous hair.
After she’d been waiting on one of the leather sofas for just five minutes, a tomboyish young woman called Ruby, with a tattoo down one arm and a pierced nose, came to attend to Marion. Despite her scary appearance, Ruby was softly spoken and treated Marion as though she was a very special and important person. First the terrible hair was washed in warm, fragrant suds. Then Ruby spent what seemed like hours shaping and cutting it. Products were applied that smelled of delicious fruit. Finally, the hair was blow-dried until it transformed into something quite soft and feminine that flattered Marion’s skin tone and the shape of her face in mysterious and wonderful ways. When Ruby had finished, Marion felt sad to leave and wished she could come in every day and enjoy the comforting attention of this pleasant young woman.
• • •
EVERY EVENING MARION took the number 86 bus to the hospital. She began to look forward to the journey, identifying landmarks along the route, like the funny-shaped mosque on Newport Road, a wedding-dress shop with the most beautiful gowns in the window, and Axendale Golf Club, where her father once was a member, though she didn’t think he had ever played. She was sorry not to see the young Polish man again, but she supposed the drivers changed shifts regularly.
Marion became used to finding her way around the sprawling hospital building. John’s ward was close to the canteen, and sometimes she ate her evening meal there. She ignored the large metal containers that were filled with things like lasagna, sausage, chips, and meat pies, all glowing temptingly under orange lights, and instead chose something from the “healthier options” display, like baked potato with tuna or salad.
• • •
JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS, John was moved to a general ward. The atmosphere was more relaxed here than the intensive care unit, and he got along well with the nurses. To them he was polite and obedient, a model pat
ient. The ward sister, a plump Asian lady in her forties, called him “a real old-fashioned gentleman.” There was a male nurse called Wayne with a high-pitched Scottish accent who made everyone laugh. Some of the things he came out with made Marion think he could be a proper comedian on the TV, and even John chuckled at his gags, though he normally couldn’t stand “queers.”
As nurses were pinning up Christmas decorations around the ward one day in mid-December, John pulled Marion close and whispered in her ear:
“Don’t forget to get a little present for each of the girls. Violetta can’t resist dark chocolate—get her a box of Terry’s All Gold. Alla loves ballet music, perhaps a CD of Swan Lake. And Sonya, anything to do with animals will make her happy.”
On Christmas Day he wore a paper crown while eating turkey dinner in his bed. A group of carol singers from the local Rotary Group came to perform for the patients, and when they sang “Away in a Manger,” Marion noticed John’s dull, gray eyes glitter with tears.
• • •
DAY AFTER DAY she filled black bin bags with clutter and rubbish. When she looked at the teddy bears on her bed, she was reminded of the white bear in the cellar, so she stuffed them all into bags and was surprised not to feel a scrap of emotion as she cast them onto the growing heap in the garden. She cleaned and cleaned, spending hours scrubbing the kitchen, dipping a toothbrush in bleach to remove mold from the bathroom tiles, vacuuming years of fluff from the hall and the bedrooms. Still, no matter what she did, nothing would get rid of that sweet, rotten smell coming from below. It reminded her of those strawberry shoelaces John liked so much, tinged with something vile.
• • •
“I’VE BROUGHT YOUR Scientific American and the Economist and some elderflower cordial,” Marion announced as she arrived at the hospital one January evening. John was sitting in bed eating tinned peaches and ice cream.
“The doctor came round today. She said I should be home by the weekend,” he said, licking ice cream from his lips.
“Is that right?” Marion felt a sudden chill in her middle.
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