On the mantelpiece above the empty fireplace an alabaster court jester’s face in a bronze bust smiled menacingly at her, as if he were encouraging her to turn towards the sofa, to look at the dents in the plump cushions. It seemed to be smirking at her knowingly.
There she saw a notepad on a writing bureau, with writing on it, a large feminine scrawl, in black ink.
Hector and Daphne, cocktails, Aug 20th?
Cow. Going to parties whilst she … The handwriting was familiar. She had seen it before.
‘Is it a woman’s handwriting?’ said the distant voice. ‘Can you read me what it says?’
The voice faded. She went across the hall, down a dark passageway, to a kitchen with smart brown linoleum on the floor, bright yellow paintwork and an Aga set into a tiled surround. There were dirty plates on the table, and dirty dishes piled around the sink.
Slut, she thought, walking back down the passageway. Two places were laid on the large refectory table in the dining room for a meal that had been eaten and not cleared away. A half drunk bottle of claret, unstoppered, lay on the sideboard, two glasses, both with a small drop of wine left, were still on the table. The room smelled of cigar smoke. His cigars.
She climbed the steep staircase and stopped at the top, panting from the effort and fear, and listened. The house was silent. She looked up and down the dark landing, then turned to the right and went into the room at the far end.
There were two dressmaker’s dummies on pedestals, one bare, with the word Stockman stencilled to its midriff, the other with a partially sewn dress in shiny turquoise taffeta pinned to it. There were four bald shop window mannequins in there also, two of them naked, two of them dressed in stunning evening gowns, one in a strapless black sequinned gown and wearing black gloves, the other in shimmering black moiré silk. She was awed by their elegance, awed because she’d never seen anything like them outside of a shop window in one of the smart London streets.
Her heart sank. London. The name itself brought a feeling of gloom. London. Where she lived, in the grimy building. London. A prisoner.
She walked down the corridor, past a second flight of stairs and hesitated outside a closed door. She opened it slowly, and saw a bedroom with a huge unmade bed, the sheets tousled. There were strong smells of musky perfume, stale cigarette smoke and scented soap. A shiny black telephone sat on a bedside table, an ashtray full of lipsticky butts beside it.
Slut.
She opened the doors of a huge maple wardrobe. Luxurious dresses were hanging there, coats and furs. Finery. The magnificence. Something she could never have known how to buy.
She went to the dressing table and stared in the mirror, ashamed of her own dowdiness, her dumpiness, her pudgy skin, her tangled hair, her cheap muslin maternity smock.
A thick crystal bottle of perfume was on the dressing table. She touched it, ran her fingers over the contours of the glass, picked it up, feeling its weight, pulled out the glass topper, tipped some on to each wrist and rubbed it in. It stung her finger and she noticed a slight graze. Must have cut it on the knife, she thought, but did not care; the pain felt good. She dabbed some on her neck as well, behind her ears, and rubbed more on her chest. The smell engulfed her. She shook more out, then more still, wiped her face with it, shook it over her clothes, her hair, shook it out until it was empty.
She took the bottle through into the en suite bathroom, stood and listened. Still silence. She removed the toothbrushes from a glass on the washbasin, lowered her knickers and urinated into the glass. Then, carefully, over the washbasin, she filled the perfume bottle with the contents of the glass, restoppered it, wiped it with a face flannel and put it back on the dressing table.
She felt a little better, stronger.
As she went downstairs, a horse whinnied outside. She hurried over to the front door and looked out. Two horses were tethered outside the stables, still saddled. Her heart pounded. They had not been there when she had arrived. One whinnied again; Jemma.
She ran down the steps, over the drive, across the grass and the ornamental wooden bridge over the mill race and up the slope to the stables.
There was another sound now, above the roaring of water, something that was half shout, half moan, coming from the stables. Another moan, then a woman’s voice screaming out:
‘Oh yes! Your dagger! Give me your dagger!’
She stopped. The sun had gone down further and a dark shadow hung over the hollow. She felt a chill spreading through her body and with it a sickness in the pit of her stomach.
‘More! More! Oh God, more!’
For a moment she stood paralysed, unable to move. Then she began to run again.
‘Oh God, yes! Your dagger! Your wonderful dagger. More! More! Give more! Oh! Oh!’
She reached the door and pulled it open.
‘Dagger me! Dagger me! Dagger me.’
The woman’s voice screamed out, echoing through the straw, the smell of horses, of petrol, of musky perfume. She went inside, into a dim tack room, with a lawnmower and a jerrycan and several smaller tins of petrol and paraffin, sacks of feed, a stack of hay, riding tack hung on hooks on the brick wall, and a pile of logs with an axe and a saw leaning against the wall beside them.
Through the doorway ahead into the dark stalls, she could see what she thought at first were two logs, then as her eyes adjusted she realised it was a man’s legs sticking out from the end of a stall, his trousers and underpants down around his ankles, his shoes and socks still on his feet.
‘Oh, oh, oh, that’s so good!’
She felt something drain out of her. She began to quiver with rage, harder and faster, until everything was a blurr. She fumbled with the clasp of her handbag and slid her fingers along the blade of the knife.
No. She pulled her hand out and closed the bag. Talk. Just want to talk. That’s all.
‘OH YOUR DAGGER! OH! MORE DAGGER! MORE DAGGER!’
She walked through the doorway, past the first empty stall. She could see them clearly now, Dick’s naked hairy legs and his buttocks, thrusting out at her, his shirt halfway up his back, the woman’s slender white legs rising up either side of him, her knees bent, angulated, varnished toenails scrabbling against the loose straw, her head tossing wildly, her black hair flailing around, her fingernails buried into the base of his shoulders, Dick’s bottom pumping, thrusting, faster, faster.
‘OH! OH!’
She could see between his legs, the testicles flailing, the black bush, the red lips, the thrusting shaft. She looked at the woman’s face, her hard beautiful face, eyes closed, hair thrown back, saw her eyes open suddenly, stare straight into hers.
For an instant time stood still. Then the woman’s eyes flashed with a venom that startled her.
Dick suddenly sensed her presence as well and swivelled round, his hair tousled, his face, already flushed with exertion, turning puce with rage. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he shouted. ‘What the ’ell you doing here?’ He scrambled to his feet. ‘You git out of here, you! Bugger off, you! You cow! You ugly cow! You hear me?’ He staggered towards her, making no attempt to pull his trousers up, and slapped her hard across the face; then he slapped her again.
‘No! Please — please we must —’
He shoved her, sending her tripping back through the doorway into the store room. She fell backwards and her head smashed into something hard.
‘Go on, get out, you cow! Just bugger off, will you? Bugger off! Leave us alone!’
She stared up at him, dazed. ‘Talk,’ she mouthed but nothing came out. Talk. Just want to talk. That’s all. We must talk, look at me, look at my stomach, eight months, please, you have to help me. Please —
The woman came out of the stall, wearing nothing but her unbuttoned silk blouse. ‘If you ever come here again, I’ll have you flung into prison,’ she said.
She put her hand down to push herself up, and something gave. She felt a pain and heard the clatter of the lawnmower’s blades rotating and fell back into the machin
e.
The woman laughed.
She staggered to her feet and spat in the woman’s face, then in a sudden frenzy she threw herself at her and began pummelling her. The woman clawed at her with her nails and there was a searing pain as they tore through her flesh. Blood dripped from the woman’s fingers, then she felt herself being dragged backwards by her hair. She wrenched herself free, rolled across the floor, hit a can, grabbed it wildly and threw it. It hit the wall behind Dick, the cap flew off and it fell to the ground with petrol gurgling out.
‘You crazy cow!’ he shouted, kicking her in the ankle, then in the hip, as she curled up throwing her arms around her belly, desperately trying to protect the baby. His foot slammed into her ribs, her shoulder. She scrambled away and somehow regained her feet, then grabbed the saw beside her and swung it wildly at him. Its huge jagged teeth dug into his neck, sending blood spurting out and knocking him to the ground. She swung at the woman, smashing it into her face, slicing deep through her cheek, cracking her against the wall.
Dick clambered up. The woman was on the floor, screaming, one hand pressed against her cheek, the other reaching for the axe. The saw sliced into her arm, then into her stomach. She saw Dick coming and took the axe, hit him in the chest, then she swung again, aiming between his legs, and he doubled up, screaming, clutching his groin, blood spraying like a burst pipe. She swung the axe again, missed him, smashed into the electric socket on the brick wall behind. Sparks shot out, there was a fierce crackle, then a wumph like a gas fire igniting and a trail of flame raced across the floor and into the hay, which exploded in a ball of fire.
He fell backwards into it, screaming, kicking his legs. The woman tried to crawl away, but the fire caught her silk blouse, ignited it and suddenly the whole place became one solid sheet of flame.
The horses whinnied outside. She ran to the door. Jemma and the other horse were rearing, pulling at their tethers, trying to get away. She dodged their hooves, untethered them, the reins whiplashing in her hands as they galloped down the bank.
The noise behind her was deafening. She stumbled down the bank towards the house, across the gravel, up the steps and in through the front door.
Phone.
She ran into the drawing room, stared around, could not see one.
Phone. There was one; somewhere. She remembered, staggered up the staircase and down the corridor into the bedroom. It was on the bedside table. She grabbed the receiver and tapped the rest several times. Please. Please. Quick. Answer. Oh God, answer.
She could hear the roaring and the crackling of the fire outside. Tapped the rest again. Please. Emergency.
She caught sight of her reflection in the dressing table mirror. Her face was streaked with blood and black smears.
A woman’s voice said, ‘Operator.’
‘Fire! Elmwood Mill! Fire! Please come quickly.’
‘I’ll connect you with the fire brigade.’
Her vision was blurring. A figure came in through the door behind her. She smelled smoke; burning wood; burning straw. Charred flesh. She saw the eyes, just the eyes. Raw through the blackened skin.
There was a bang. The mirror exploded into spidery cracks. A large jagged shard fell away, landed at her feet.
She screamed.
‘Stay with it, Charley.’ A voice, dim, faint. ‘Try and stay with it.’
She turned. The woman stood with a rifle, struggling to open the breech. Patches of her hair had been burned away to stubble. Her face was black, blistering; her blouse was stuck in smouldering blotches to her blackened flesh. A single wail like a siren was coming from her mouth. Blood dripped from her arm.
She dropped the phone and backed away.
The woman was struggling, swaying, could barely stand. The bullet rattled in the open breech then fell with a thud to the floor.
She scrabbled on the dressing table behind her for a weapon, knocked a hairbrush to the floor, knocked over the perfume bottle, then saw the shard of glass at her feet. She picked it up and lunged forward, smashing into the rifle, knocking the woman over and falling with her.
The woman’s fingers gouged into her eyes, blinding her for a moment. The woman was stronger than she realised, seemed to get some new strength, tearing at her with her nails, spitting, pressed her hideous blotched, burned face down close against hers, and she smelled the foul stench almost as if it was coming from inside the woman’s lungs. The woman climbed on to her, pinning her down, twisted the shard out of her hand.
She struggled, tried to free herself, saw the red eyes, crazed, saw a glint of the shard in the woman’s charred hand. It flashed down and she felt an agonising pain deep in her groin.
‘Baby!’ she screamed. ‘My baby! My baby!’
The flash again. The glint.
‘Don’t. My baby! My baby!’
The charred arm came down. The pain was as if a red hot poker had melted its way through her stomach and was now twisting around inside her.
A thin strip of white appeared in the blackness of the woman’s face.
She was smiling.
The face blurred.
The pain blurred with it, then came searing back, and she rose up and let out a scream she thought would tear out the lining of her throat.
She passed out.
Chapter Thirty-One
The interior of the ambulance shook and rattled. The boom of the exhaust drummed around the steel walls and the fumes that seeped in pricked the noses of the crewman and the policeman who were struggling to keep her alive.
Bottles vibrated furiously in the metal racks, a leather strap swayed above her head, hitting the stanchion each time with a soft smack like a boxing glove. She slid forward as the ambulance braked sharply, then up against the side as it cornered, the tyres wailing beneath her with their own pain.
Four minutes. After a pregnant woman dies, four minutes is all you have to get the baby out before the baby dies too. That’s what the crewman was thinking. She knew because she could read his mind; she could read all their minds as she floated up near the roof of the ambulance, looking down at her body as if she were watching a play from a balcony. Everything seemed far away below and yet she could hear every word, feel every thought. Feel everything except the pain. There was no pain any more, up here, and that was good.
Don’t bring me back, she thought. Please don’t bring me back into the body. Save the baby, but let me go. No more pain.
The crewman held her pulse, stethoscope swinging from his neck. The policeman kept an oxygen mask pressed over her nose and mouth with one hand and a thick wad of dressing against her groin with the other. Strips of gauze lay across her chest, swollen abdomen and the top of her right leg, each with a spreading red stain, and rivulets of blood from the wound in her side ran into the bedding beneath her.
‘Getting weaker,’ the crewman said quietly. ‘She’s going on us.’
No pain, she thought. That was the best thing.
The policeman slackened the pressure for a brief instant and a fine spray of blood jetted on to his sleeve. He pressed hard again, startled.
The ambulanceman listened to her heart and placed another piece of gauze on a wound. ‘How come she’d been left so long in the house? It’s two hours ago we picked up the woman with the burns,’ he asked.
‘Didn’t realise there was anyone else in the house until I searched it,’ the policeman said. ‘The burnt woman was in too bad shape to say much — she was lying at the bottom of the stairs.’
A contraction ripped through her and her eyes opened momentarily, stared up at him blank, unseeing, like the eyes of fish on a slab.
The policeman managed a weak smile. ‘It’s all right, love, you’re going to be all right.’
‘She’s still fighting.’
Another contraction, then another, much fiercer, and water suddenly sluiced out between her legs. The ambulance lurched.
‘Pail. Put the pail under,’ the crewman said without taking his eyes from his watch. He leaned f
orward and put his head through the driver’s partition. ‘Contractions every three minutes and she’s broken her waters.’
‘I’m doing me best.’
He felt her pulse again and a surge of panic swept through him as he had to search several times to find anything at all. Her eyes were closed and her face was the colour of chalk. Going, he thought. She’s going on us. The pulse was scarcely stronger than the tick of a watch; no blood, Christ, she was almost drained dry of the damned stuff. The ambulance slowed, stopped. The back doors opened; a trolley was already waiting.
She watched as they slid her body out and on to the trolley, and stayed above them, floating as if she were in a warm pool, as they wheeled her through into the pale green admitting room of the hospital.
‘Stab wounds,’ the houseman said. ‘Some of them are very deep and she has heavy internal bleeding. She needs at least six pints.’
‘We’ve only got two O negative cross-matched,’ the sister said.
‘That’s all?’ He walked away from the trolley, across the room. The sister followed him. ‘She won’t make it,’ he said quietly. ‘Not on that. Contact London and get some down. An ambulance or the police might bring it. Get the two in as fast as you can, and put her on a five per cent dextrose drip right away.’
The door opened and a man came running in, white jacket over his squash shirt and shorts. He stared down at her pale clammy body, his eyes wide open, caring eyes trying to comprehend for one brief instant, staring at each of the bloody dressings in turn. He carefully lifted the one on her groin and more blood spurted out. He nodded for the nurse to hold it while be examined her vagina.
‘Breech presentation,’ he said calmly, as if he were reading from a notepad. ‘Baby’s premature, a tiny mite. Breech presentation with breech impact into the pelvis, cervix four fingers dilated.’ He put his foetal stethoscope to her uterus and listened. ‘The baby’s alive. Placenta posterior. The blade might not have penetrated, but we can’t chance it. We’ll do a full laporotomy immediately. She’s very short of blood — she’ll need at least six pints before the anaesthetic.’