Innocent Monsters

by Doherty, Barbara

  Jessica stared at him, disappointed. Behind her, standing in the doorway, Lisa was still staring at William and he waved at her, tried to wave her stare away.

  “Nice meeting you,” he heard himself saying.

  He forced himself to smile both at her and Jessica but his lips didn’t seem to move. She looked at him expectantly.

  “I need to be alone, Jessica. I’ll give you a call later sometimes. Please forgive me.”

  As he leaned over to kiss her she saw tears in his eyes. She tried to stop him, to catch his hand, but he was already out of reach, closing the door behind himself.

  “That’s it? He’s gone? What about the trip?”

  Lisa’s voice came from over her shoulder and just like that long gone day outside the cemetery, this simple woman seemed a convenient target, the ideal recipient for Jessica’s anger. She was there, her voice was irritating and it had to be her fault; after all if she had never turned up none of this would have happened.

  “Yes, he’s gone. Do you see anyone else here apart from you and me?” Jessica barked in exasperation. “Are you happy now?”

  “Happy? What are...”

  “Shut up, will you? Just shut up. Two seconds, is that too much to ask? My boyfriend just walked out of the door. I’ve got a packed bag and nowhere to go. Can you not just shut the fuck up and let me think about this without the commentary?”

  She wanted Lisa to say something back just so she could shout at her some more, blame her for everything, but true to form she didn’t. She just turned on her heels and left her standing there, disappeared into the bedroom and slammed the door. Jessica knew she needed to wait before going in, pull herself together, she needed to wait for the anger to subside.

  No doubt things would have turned out differently if she wasn’t here, but Lisa could not be blamed for William’s sadness, madness or whatever it was that had just driven him away. Not entirely.

  Inside the bedroom, Lisa was crouching over the bed with her back to the door, stuffing things back in the bag she had arrived carrying.

  “Lisa, what are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Stop. Just stop for a minute.”

  Lisa turned around, a resolution in her eyes Jessica couldn’t remember seeing in a long time. “Stop? What for? So you can treat me like shit a bit more? I get plenty of that back home, remember?”

  She was right. She had become Bobby. “Please don’t say that.”

  “Why not? Don’t like the sound of it, uh? Who’s the asshole now, Jessy? You were right, I should have called you before I came over, then you would have had the chance to tell me that you didn’t want me to come and spoil the atmosphere over here.”

  Jessica took a step out of the room, pondering the idea of just letting her go, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t bear the thought of being like Bobby in anybody’s eyes. This wasn’t who she was, who she should have been. It wasn’t what Kaitlyn would have done.

  “I can only tell you that I’m sorry. It’s not going to change anything, I know, but I’m sorry. It’s just that... It’s a bad time. I’d have to sit down and bore you with how I’ve been feeling during these past weeks to make you understand... I feel empty, everything is slipping out of focus.” She laughed at herself when what she really should have done was cry. “There is no atmosphere to spoil. There’s just me and him and nothing else. Absolutely nothing else.”

  It was his emptiness. It was an extension of the void Kaitlyn had left which had been filled by his sadness, his desperation and her own. She had absorbed it, accepted it without really understanding it.

  Lisa threw the t-shirt she was holding into the bag and zipped it up. “Empty? How can you talk about emptiness? Look at me Jessica, I don’t have a job, I still live in a shit hole and my husband is a...”

  “Scumbag.”

  “Yeah. And my husband is a scumbag. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

  Jessica offered half a smile. “It should do, but funny enough, it doesn’t. Not right now anyway... I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that. You always seem to be there when I need to let off steam.”

  “It’s not my fault he left.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Don’t go, not feeling like this.”

  She offered her opened arms and Lisa walked right in.

  THE DAY should have ended like that, Lisa with just enough understanding of how bad her friend felt to stop feeling unwanted and Jessica sorry enough to stop feeling bitter about her being around. After all they were supposed to be friends, in Kaitlyn’s memory if for no other reason.

  But the day wasn’t over.

  Jessica had just finished rinsing the last mug in the kitchen when she heard Lisa give out a shriek loud enough to make the whole building think someone had stabbed her in the back. Then she heard her rushing towards her, her feet slapping the floor.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you nuts?”

  “Jeeesus Jessy, I remembered.”

  “Remembered what?” They were face to face by the sink when someone knocked on the door and Lisa jumped out of her skin, let out another shriek. Surely the police was on its way by now. “Will you stop doing that? Calm down, will you?”

  “I can’t. You don’t understand, I...”

  “Let me just get the door. Wait a sec.”

  Jessica went to the front door half hoping it would be William —I’ve changed my mind, let’s go— but when she opened it she couldn’t believe what she saw. It was impossible, the day just couldn’t have gotten any worse. Bobby Stanson was standing a few feet away from her, a disgusting smirk on his lips, a four-day-old beard on his face. Fucking Bobby.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to take my wife. Got a problem with that?”

  For God’s sake. Jessica wasn’t sure if she wanted to punch him, laugh in his face or laugh at both of them and their ridiculous relationship.

  She threw both hands in the air. “Look, I don’t want to have anything to do with this, I’ve had enough. She’s in here. She’s all yours.” She just wanted it to turn dark outside, she wanted the day to end, she wanted to go to bed, fall asleep, wake up the next day and start again. “I’m sure you two can sort this out on your own. I’ll be in my room if anybody needs me.”

  “Jessy, wait! I need to speak to you.” Lisa walked over to the door then stood there, oscillating from foot to foot, as if torn between her friend and her husband, looking at Bobby and looking at Jessica and back at Bobby.

  “Let’s go home Liz, I can explain...”

  Then suddenly, just as Jessica thought she was about to go to him, Lisa slammed the door on her incredulous husband’s face.

  “What are you doing? He’s come to get you. I thought that’s what you wanted. Don’t you even want to speak to him?”

  “It’s William, Jessy. I remembered, I remembered where it was that I saw him.”

  Jessica felt her legs tingle. It was a sensation she knew very well, something she had carried on from the years spent with her father; her legs would shake whenever her father came back home late and drunk, it was as if this part of her knew there was going to be trouble, always felt something was going to happen.

  Behind the door Bobby started calling out his wife’s name, demanding for someone to open the fucking door.

  “What do you mean? I thought we settled this. You couldn’t have met him before.”

  Lisa shook her head, started talking really fast, as if she was afraid she would forget again if she didn’t spit the words out fast enough.

  “No. Not in Crocker Amazon. He came to see Kaitlyn when you were doing that show, remember? I was with her at that Hotel, what was it called? Can’t remember. Remember I was there with her?”

 
Jessica did remember. The Sarah Tyler show. It was the Windsor Hotel, Kaitlyn had rented a room for them there to celebrate, it would be a treat for all three of them. They had gone out for lunch all together the day after the interview, then shopping, then out for dinner, then for a drink. The last night the three of them had spent together.

  “Yes, I remember, but what does any of this have to do with William?”

  “It was him in the hall, he was the guy that Kaitlyn went downstairs to see, I wasn’t spying on her or anything, I just...” Lisa caught her breath. “It was him, I’m sure. Oh Jessy, you have to believe me.”

  “Wait a minute.” Jessica grabbed Lisa’s arm while outside Bobby started punching at the door, and she tried to block out the noise he was making, tried to tell her legs to stop shaking, stop fucking shaking. “What the hell are you talking about? Tell me again. Just start again, please.”

  And she did start again, slowly.

  17 October 2000

  JESSICA’S SMILE was still framed on the TV screen when the phone rang in the hotel room. Kaitlyn got off the floor and picked up the receiver by the bed as Sarah Tyler announced she would be at the same place at the same time the following week. Putting the receiver back after a brief exchange that Lisa couldn’t hear, she turned to her friend.

  “Lisa, I’m going down the lobby for a minute. There’s someone here to see me. Won’t be long.”

  Lisa looked up from the sofa. “Hey! Hold on a minute. Someone?”

  Kaitlyn grinned, a broad wicked grin from ear to ear. “Yes, someone. I know people, you know, I’ve got other friends.”

  “How many friends have you told you were staying here, exactly?”

  She chuckled. “A few. And stop it right now, you nosey bitch.”

  “It’s a man isn’t it? You’re not gonna dump me here on my own, are you?”

  “No way. We’re here to celebrate! I won’t be long.”

  Lisa straightened herself up on the sofa, held her hands together as if she was about to drop on her knees and start praying. “Why don’t we all go down for a drink together? Oh Kaitlyn, c’mon! Don’t be mean, I just want to have a look at him, I’m not gonna eat him, y’know? C’mon!”

  “We are definitely not at the drink-with-my-friends stage. Me and you can go down for a drink when I’m done. As I said, I won’t be long, ok?” She smiled at her friend and walked out of the door.

  So they were just having sex. Maybe they had been out a couple of times. Lisa knew Kaitlyn was what many people would disapprovingly call promiscuous. She had started experimenting and enjoying sex early, when most of her peers still spent most of their time worrying about grades. She was always the one who disappeared at parties, always the one boys wanted to dance with. Her glorious full lips had a fame of their own. She was popular.

  Even now, high school being nothing but a distant memory, men still chased her, wanted her. But Kaitlyn never boasted about it, it wasn’t what defined her as a person. She never really talked about her affairs unless she thought the relationship was really going somewhere. And Lisa respected that, but what harm could there be in having a look? She didn’t even have to go all the way down the lobby; she could just peek and never even tell anyone what he looked like. She just wanted to satiate her own curiosity.

  Lisa waited a couple of minutes then followed Kaitlyn outside. She walked to the middle of the corridor, just where the staircase to the reception opened and squatted on the floor, one eye staring at the bottom of the stairs, the other staring at the big rounded plant pot behind which she was trying to hide. From here she couldn’t see if Kaitlyn was still walking downstairs, but she could see the man waiting in front of the reception desk; a tall young man with long hash blond hair, probably blue eyes and a sad, almost nervous expression on his face. He looked tired and out of place, his stare lost outside the entrance. One of his hands was gripping the edge of the desk as if afraid he would fall face on the floor if he let go.

  She watched him for a few minutes trying to take in as many details as possible, then saw him turn his head, looking up towards the top of the stairs. It was almost impossible for him not to have seen her, unless the thoughts that seemed to sadden his face had also distracted his eyesight, but she crawled slowly from the plant pot to the wall behind her anyway, and once she was sure of being out of sight, she straightened up and went back to the room.

  24 January 2001

  AS LISA finished recounting, invisible heavy stones started to rain on Jessica. She could feel them landing, hurting and she cupped her hands around her skull to protect it while Lisa stood in front of her, trying to figure out what it was that she was doing. She stretched out her arm to touch her but Jessica moved away, squashed herself against the wall.

  “Jessy? Are you ok?” Jessica shook her head once, twice. “Jessy, are you all....”

  “What are you trying to say Lisa?” She said suddenly. “William has never met her. Why wouldn’t he tell me if he had? You must have him mixed up with someone else.” Bobby was still banging on the door, calling out. “And open the fucking door before someone calls the police!”

  “Jessica...”

  “Ok then, so what if he knew her, what if it was him? So fucking what?”

  “So fucking what? Like you said, why the hell wouldn’t he tell you he knew her? Think about it. Didn’t you say the police was looking into her death? Didn’t they think she was murdered?”

  Jessica leaned against the wall, stunned, unable to recover from what the words were insinuating.

  ...Murdered...

  Was Brown right after all? No. It couldn’t be. It was Roger he had questioned. Roger, not William.

  Not William.

  For what seemed like hours neither of them moved or spoke, then suddenly Jessica walked to the bedroom, came back out carrying Lisa’s bag. She threw it on the floor by her feet, nailed her index finger in her friend’s shoulder.

  “Fuck you,” she growled. “You have no idea how hard it is for me to try to move on from all this, to accept that she’s just gone. You have no fucking idea. You think you can say something like that and…”

  She’s right, said a voice inside her head, she’s right. Think. Think about it...

  “NO!” Jessica heard herself scream and saw Lisa moving a step away from her in confusion.

  There was a heavy hammering at the door, as it wasn’t just Bobby on the other side but a few angry men. Jessica finally opened it to find Bobby standing alone, red-faced and agitated, his fist floating in midair. Her hand was shaking around the doorknob and she was starting to feel light-headed.

  “What the fuck do you think it’s going on in here, you idiot? You think I’ve kidnapped her or something?” She shouted, out of control.

  “Who you callin’ an idiot?”

  “You. I am calling you an idiot, which is exactly what you are. I-di-ot.”

  Bobby leaped forward, apparently ready to hit her, but Lisa moved between the two of them, held her hands around his arm to stop him.

  “Jessy, please...” Lisa was crying. She was not sure why, but she was crying her eyes out.

  “Just go Lisa. Both of you. Leave me alone.”

  “I’m just trying to help. Maybe you should be careful instead of...”

  “You’re not helping! You’re just fucking with my head! You’re all trying to fuck with my head!” Someone peeked through one of the doors at the end of the hallway. “Now get the hell out of here. GO!”

  Jessica grabbed the bag off the floor and chucked it at Bobby’s feet, she pushed Lisa away towards her husband and slammed the door on them both. Bobby shouted something she couldn’t understand and kicked the door, but after a while she heard the sound of their footsteps recede down the steps and she walked over the windows in the sitting room, waiting to see them leave the building. Then s
he collapsed on the sofa trying to calm down, breathe, trying not to cry, trying to think clearly, to think of an explanation; because there had to be a logical explanation.

  William had never mentioned he knew her sister and that had to mean the person Lisa had seen at the Windsor Hotel was somebody else, because she trusted him, she trusted he would tell her the truth.

  Unless he had something to hide.

  And what if he had known her sister? What if he had decided not to tell her? What if he had been with her when... What if he...

  Think, think about it, think, think...

  No. She didn’t want to think, but the thought was there, in the back of her mind, through the late afternoon and through the evening as she laid motionless on the sofa, hour after hour, and she couldn’t ignore it. She wanted it to stop, but the thought tormented her even when she felt tired enough to sleep, until, with the first lights of the morning, it stopped.

  Or so she thought.

  JESSICA WAS in front of her bedroom door again, in her childhood home. She hadn’t dreamt about this place since the day she had left Crocker Amazon, as if leaving that house behind had meant leaving Kaitlyn’s ghost as well, as if leaving had restored some kind of order in her life.

  Now she was here again and again, behind the door she didn’t find beds but the goldenrod walls of the bathroom, the dripping tap. She had expected to see Kaitlyn but all she found was the dried up blood against the bath walls where her body should have been.

  Jessica was alone but she could sense someone was coming soon, someone wanted to hurt her. There was no time to run away, all she could do was look for a place to hide and strangely the cupboard’s door in the corner looked wide enough for her to walk through, like a door to a different room, the way it often happens in dreams where time and proportions shift like water in an odd shaped container. But when she tried to move Jessica found she couldn’t, her feet too heavy to lift.