‘Mrs. Boreman has decided the house needs more protection so, we've now got dogs patrolling the grounds. And we were told that, if we want to go out late, we've got to inform one of those two men, they are the dog handlers.’
‘I don't like it,’ said Mary, visibly upset. ‘I can’t even catch of breath of air. I don't care how much money she's paying me; I'm thinking of giving in my notice. We shouldn't be treated like this. If one of those dogs comes into this house, we could be torn to pieces.’
‘I doubt if they will be able to get in,’ said Pesker with a serious face.
‘You don't know dogs. I do,’ answered Mary, ‘I was attacked by a dog when I was walking past a bar on my way home from school. I did nothing to upset it, it jumped the fence and came after me. Thankfully, it was just my school dress which it tore, but he tried to drag me backward. I'm sure if there had been no one about, that dog would have killed me. The dog wasn't put down, the owner pleaded mercy saying that the dog had been teased by other children in the past. I think the owner was lying.’
‘I don't like the idea of dogs patrolling the grounds either,’ begun Pesker. ‘But things have changed, Mary.’
‘Dogs are still dogs. And you can't say she is thinking of us. There's something really bothering her. It's like what she's done in the past is now catching up with her.’ As Mary was clearing away the two men's plates, her hands were shaking.
‘When did the dogs arrive?’ I asked not liking the idea there were dogs either. Dogs to me symbolize weapons of warning. Trained to hurt someone badly whoever ventured into their territory.
‘They arrived this afternoon,’ Mary's voice was heightened by emotions. ‘Nothing was said to us. Two men walked into my kitchen and asked for something to eat. I didn't know anything about it. I thought they were from the military or something. And when I asked who they were, they told me they were the new security team. Who does she need protecting from, that’s what I wonder?’
Pesker shook his head, he looked bewildered.
‘You know what it will mean,’ Mary told Pesker. ‘That every time we want to go out, we will have to ask permission.’
‘I'm sure it won't be as bad as that,’ I was now becoming worried, recognizing the limitations which were imposed on me, when I already felt trapped.
‘You know you won't be able to take the baby out for your usual morning walk,’ said Mary with a sting.
In disbelief, I opened my mouth starting to understand the constraints on my position.
‘Well, we'll see how things go,’ said Pesker in a reassuring voice which even he didn’t believe.
That evening at dinner, I wanted to gauge Angel's attitude and manner. I am no psychiatrist or even pretend to be, but I had been doing a very in-depth study of Angel. From the person I first met, to the one who was now sitting opposite to me, there had been a lot of changes.
The disappearance of weight had made her face harden while the soft dimples which came with her smiles had disappeared. Those smiles which probably had never been genuine.
Watching me take my seat at the table, Angel’s eyes were strained to every detail I made. She too was taking her study of me.
I looked across the table and returned her smile. It was at this point I knew we were both playing a game. I guessed she didn't trust me anymore. That was fine with me. It would have been helpful if I knew where I had gone wrong to make her distrust me. But something must have alerted her. The one thing I worked out was that it was she who was setting down the rules. The first had been that though I was being paid, I did not receive any actual money; it was being accrued for my future.
Perhaps this was where I had gone wrong. Everyone receives money for their exertions, and I suppose, strangely, I had never complained. Perhaps, she had been waiting for me to ask for my money, although we had never talked about the pay I would get. My fear was that if I asked for money, she might determine I was too expensive and that she could do without my services. Perhaps I should have said something about it. Oh, I don't know, it's all guesswork. This entire episode was based on assumptions and dependencies.
Ironically, as time was going by, I was gaining a healthy respect for her so-called fear. And do you know what this fear is all about, or rather, what I am finding out about it myself and how it affects me? It is exciting. Exhilarating. There is an edge to fear which sharpens the wits. An icy chill tingling down the body calling you back to life over death. But were we evenly matched was the question? She had power and the money which went with it; this fact told on me with the feeling of inadequacy. The sort of thing which I had done to John, or thought I had. She may have many qualities that I have not, but it could be equally said that I too have talents she did not possess. Knowing she distrusted me gave me that sense of power.
How quickly habits are formed. Beside her on the table was a bucket containing chilled wine. Just seeing the metal container made me desire a drink. I watched intensely, feeling my eyes focusing on the bottle as she poured out two glasses. With a calculating eye, I watched her measuring them out. I had never been a greedy person, I've been too aware of my figure to keep it perfectly thin but now watching her pouring out the wine, I wondered if she were getting more than me. I believe she too knew I was watching her, measure for measure. Thus, the ritual had been established and passing a glass across to me, I accepted it. Now, our eyes locked into each other’s to take each other's form. It was like we were professional killers, licensed to play this dangerous game of secrecy.
Her weight loss had been dramatic. I didn't think it possible in such a short time to half oneself, but I could see she was determined. She had the iron of true grit. With a quick visual observation, I was able to calculate that she was nearly as slim as me. Such was her fortitude and obsessed ambition. I was impressed, and yet, it made me feel she was attempting to take over me, as though she wanted to be me. Should I feel pleased, complimented or, should I feel scared? It was freaky. And then, somehow my thoughts turned to John. John, who used to like to play his board games, pretending to kill little plastic figures or cardboard cutouts. But the last game he played was on me, and I never saw the dice heading my way. And yet, contrarily at this moment, I missed John.
Sipping her wine, she now never touched her food. It was as if the food of life had become poisonous to her. I nibbled aware that she was eyeing me, I was the opposition in this strange game we were playing.
‘I suppose you heard?’ she asked, watching me drink my wine.
‘If you mean about the dogs, yes I did.’
She smiled, pleased. ‘And do they bother you?’
‘I think any animal like that should be respected,’ I saw her watching every word I spoke coming from my mouth. I also noted that her diction had changed. I knew she was modeling herself on me. I could hear the clipped sound of her words, neatly nipped in the bud without any of the lengthy and lazy vowels. She was becoming my echo. ‘I'm afraid you might lose Mary, she's terrified of the dogs.’
‘She'll get used to them.’
‘Perhaps some people can, but she was attacked once and when something happens to you like that, you are prepared to do anything you can to get away from it.’ My turn to watch Angel sip her wine.
‘And are you one of these people, who are afraid?’
‘Shouldn't we all be afraid of that which we don't have any control over?’
She smiled as if she was pleased with my answer.
‘You know,’ Angel begun, ‘You and I are not so dissimilar. We both can be ruthless if we are pushed to it.’
I finished my wine and watched as she took up the bottle to refill my glass and waited as she hadn't finished what she wanted to say.
‘For what it’s worth, it would have been good to have met you some time ago. I think my life would have turned out a great deal different.’
Though I smiled at her thoughts, I crossed my heart in my mind and was glad our paths had not met any earlier. I now knew, having reviewed my past and present tha
t not only had I given up on the idea that she was stupid or had just been lucky, I realized that she had worked very hard to be where she was. She had used everything in her means to get to where she was including having a baby. I also knew she was not going to give up anything without a fight.
‘What do you plan to do with yourself once you leave here?’ Angel asked.
It was a question which took me by surprise. ‘I don't know, I hadn't looked that far ahead.’ What was her game now and why was she asking me something like that? I did have plans, but I was not going to disclose them to her. I was after the money; I mean real money. And sharing might not come into it, ‘And what about you, do you have plans for the future?’
‘Yes, I do,’ she sipped her wine, her cold eyes still on me.
‘And can I ask, what they are? Perhaps your plans will inspire me.’
‘Well, it's nothing big or important. In fact, pretty ordinary. I want to carry on living my life just as I am now without any problems or worries. Though this time, I shan't make the mistake of getting involved with men.’
And now I was confused. ‘But you're free now and isn't that what you've been doing,’ I looked about the room. ‘I mean, you seem to have everything you want.’
‘Yes, it does seem like that but not everything appears as it seems.’ Then, still holding her glass, she looked very assertively at me. ‘Life never runs quite as one plans, does it? So, sometimes, one has to take care of the problems from the past.’ And then she finished off her wine. ‘And that's what I'm doing now, taking care of the problems.’ She smiled and put her glass decisively down.
Was this a threat aimed at me? I had a feeling it might very well be, but then I was certain the only way I was a nuisance in her life was that I had become very nosy. But how could I be certain of whatever Angel was thinking about?
20
Angel was not at breakfast the following morning. She had of late always been there when I entered. I thought she would come in shortly. It wasn't significant who arrived first but after five minutes when she didn't appear, I assumed she had gone out. If I had known this before, I would have brought J.J down to eat his breakfast with me. I was aware he was leading a very solitary life now.
It was our habit, J.J and me, to go out for our morning walk. That was another question. I was going to ask Angel about her son needing a change of scene and a breath of fresh air. How was I to take him out when there were guard dogs running wild around the grounds?
‘No, she's still in her rooms,’ said Mary when I went to the kitchen to tell her I had finished with breakfast.
There was little on the breakfast table to clear away these days. Angel had instructed to only serve orange juice, tea, coffee and grapefruit instead of the grand morning meals she used to be served.
After Mary left the dining room with the breakfast things, I mulled over Angel's and my conversation from the previous night. Increasingly, whenever I spoke to her, I always left feeling uncomfortable.
Information came in odd ways, and usually it was by accident. By a stroke of pure luck, if one can call it that, Pesker, later that morning, had been working in the garage on his own car, when he saw through the garage window, Angel walking about. He was alerted by the gravel cracking over as she went across the path to the back of the house. He came in scratching his head. I was in the kitchen at the time getting something for J. J’s lunch. Pesker said he had been concerned about Angel. He thought she didn't realize the guard dogs would not distinguish her from anyone else. He had been worried she would be attacked but then one of the handlers appeared and she walked along with him. She had denim jeans on and a jacket which he had never seen on her before. He said in that instance it might have been me.
For my part, I didn't add anything else to this piece of news and just concluded that Angel was seeing to her estate.
But what was she up to?
The next time I saw her was at dinner at seven-thirty. I had just fed J.J and put him to bed. I never mention to Angel anymore if she wanted to see her child, I knew she had no interest in him, so I left it that. If he needs anything like clothes or something for his amusement, I relayed the information. He has everything he needs except a mother's love. But that's where I come in, I provide that.
Casually entering the dining room no different to what I normally do, I believe I had made Angel jump, she had been deep in reverie biting the inside of her mouth and seemingly miles away.
‘Did you have a good day?’ I asked taking my seat, and now poking my salad while I waited for the glass of wine to appear.
‘Not really, I had a migraine, so I stayed in bed trying to sleep it off.’
‘But I,’ for I was about to ask if she went to town to buy a new outfit for Hattie's funeral when she looked up at me; she had taken the wine out of the cooler.
‘But what,’ there was a frown and a query in her voice. She had the bottle of wine in her hands ready to fill the glasses.
In that split second, I had to make up my mind about the truth. Why would I let her know that Pesker had seen her; it did not seem a good idea to make her any the wiser.
‘I thought with you not being at breakfast, I assumed you might have gone out to buy yourself something for Hattie's funeral.’
‘Well, I can assure you I was at home all the time. I had a headache. I called down to Mary and told her not to bother me and that I wouldn't be at breakfast. Didn't she tell you that?’
‘I think she did mention something about that. I thought you might have changed your mind and gone out.’
‘I've been at home all day, and I've still got a headache.’
She was lying. The injury I had done to her, suggesting she had gone out made her very defensive, it was almost as if I had insulted her.
‘Have you taken anything for your headache?’
‘No, I don't believe in taking pills for anything. But it will go. I know it will go; it usually does.’
And now she was looking away and thinking again.
‘I've given my notice to Mrs. Boreman,’ Mary told me when I went to get J. J’s breakfast the following morning.
‘Oh, that's a shame,’ I replied as calmly as I could, Mary seemed to be in a heightened state of stress. I would miss her, and I wanted to commiserate with her. ‘I must admit these dogs do alarm me even though I try not to let it show.’
‘Didn't you hear the news?’ Mary was now becoming hysterical.
I shook my head, I hadn't heard the news, and now I was becoming very respectfully afraid.
‘The judge, Mrs. Boreman's judge friend was found dead, yesterday afternoon. He was found with his throat cut. He'd been stabbed in the back, and then his throat was cut. They think it was that escaped convict, Jacob Barba.’
‘Hush Mary,’ said Pesker coming in behind her, ‘Don't get yourself worked up.’
‘But he's dead. Don't you understand he's dead? The judge was only here the other night, banging on the door and now, Mrs. Boreman's got herself these guard dogs to patrol the grounds. Doesn't it tell you anything, she's scared too?’
‘It's just a coincidence,’ Pesker was doing his best to quieten Mary.
‘Just a coincidence? I don't think so. And I'm not staying around to find out. I don't want to be stabbed to death in my bed or, eaten alive by those dogs. You can stay if you want to, but not me.’
I must admit when Mary left to go to her room, what she said caused me alarm. Only the night before, I had heard Angel on the telephone telling Angus, her pet judge that she would meet him the following day. Had she left the house to kill the judge or had Jacob Barba murdered the judge? He might have found out about this judge. I knew his love for Angel or Janice was beyond obsessive.
Shocking for everyone to hear that Angus was murdered. I was attempting to work it out in my head justifying sensible reasons to keep away those disturbing suspicions building up in me. I should not make her into a monster when there was a perfectly feasible justification for her actions. Perhaps
she had just gone out for a walk to clear her head and returned to her room. Perhaps, hearing about Jacob escaping from prison and the murder, and since she had changed her life well, perhaps she just got scared and hence the protection. After all, Jacob Barba was jailed for murder as well as robbery. Quite honestly, I didn’t know what to think anymore except I didn't think Angel was capable of murder.
While Angel kept to her room, I went down to the kitchen and caught the latest news on the television with Pesker. It was only Pesker and me in the small staffroom off to the side of the kitchen. Mary had lost it and was even now upstairs packing her bags.
It was headlines news about the murder of the late Judge Angus Stove Madwort. He had been found in the early evening of last night at his chambers after failing to attend a function. He had been the honored guest. People became concerned when he didn’t appear. Jacob Barba was mentioned because he threatened the judge at his trial some five years earlier. From the witness stand, Jacob shouted out threatening to kill this judge, shouting out that he had been set up. And now, with Barba's recent escape, it was thought that Barba had taken his revenge. Who else would murder a judge? Judge Angus Stove Madwort had always been respected; he was thought to be very fair in his judgments.
His murder was now also been linked to the death of the coroner who completed the inquest on the bank clerk’s death.
I looked at Pesker. He was listening to the facts of the story quietly. I wished he would let me know what he was thinking. Then I returned my interest back to the conclusion. If only Pesker knew what Hattie and I had done. Whatever possessed me to go along with helping to get a known murderer out?
The police are looking into the case once more trying to discover if there had been injustices committed. And then the news moved on to Jacob Barba. Very quickly, the history of the case was covered with Jacob Barba’s criminal past. He had been a petty thief, who had spent several terms in prison. A recent psychological profile had been made because of his declining mental health, which had been deteriorating ever since he had been imprisoned. He was not assessed as being violent, except for that one incident of murder, he was your average adventurer. As a prisoner, it was reported that he kept very much to himself. He did not like prison, but he obeyed the rules of his incarceration. This part of the news ended by reminding the public that, should they encounter Jacob Barba, to avoid him but to get in touch with the police. He was dangerous
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