The Beloveds

  The car rolled smoothly down the slope, and in the moment before it hit them, they turned, and I saw their shocked faces gleaming like pearls in the moonlight, and then came a thudding sound and a strangled cry, hers I think. I watched them fold into each other as though they were made of cardboard. As I turned to get a better view, the hood of my coat slipped down, and I knew with a blast of exhilaration that in the brief second before blacking out, Hubby had recognized me.

  I sat quietly in my car looking around the empty parking lot and up at the darkened windows of the houses that overlooked it. Nothing. No lights flicking on, no calling out from anywhere. Things seemed to be going my way for once.

  I started the engine, and with my foot shaking a little, but light on the accelerator, I drove forward, getting the car into just the right position, and then I reversed over them again, repeating the motion three times. I think that it was three times. Well, certainly no more than four.

  Then I cut the engine, opened my window, and listened for signs of life. It wouldn’t have surprised me to hear moaning, to hear them calling for help, but they were mute. In my wing mirror I glimpsed their bodies pleated into each other like a big, half open fan. I turned the car to face the entrance and drew alongside them; the entwined lovers lay still, her arm at the oddest angle, his head pushed into hers, blood seeping, no movement, not even the softest whimper.

  I thought about getting out of the car and checking them, feeling for a pulse, perhaps, making absolutely sure that they were lifeless. But there was blood. I might step in it, place myself at the scene. I told myself not to panic, although I was in no danger of that. My mind, which had been working on pure instinct, suddenly clicked into clear thinking. Of course they were dead; no one can survive being run over four times.

  I congratulated myself on already having a plan. Exiting the parking lot, I headed toward Bayswater.

  A rougher district would have been a better spot to abandon my vehicle, but concealed in my dark hood and walking at a good pace, I could leave Bayswater and be home in under half an hour. The shorter the walk, the less chance of being noticed, surely.

  I would report the car stolen after the couple was discovered. It would be too risky for me to be the one to find them. I wondered briefly who would. A neighbor? The postman?

  The police would think that whoever stole my car had run over my neighbors in a panic when they were caught out in its theft. They might even indulge the idea that it was the same person who had attempted to burgle the couple’s apartment, returned to create more mischief.

  I chose a road I had cruised before, lined with tall white houses. Some of the houses had wrought iron balconies, and I saw a nursery school for the children of the rich: bright red door, the little darlings’ artwork stuck on the windows. There were a few lights on here and there, I guessed more for security than that the residents were up and about behind the expensive drapes. I double-parked a good way down from the street lamp, beside a bulky silver Volvo.

  Farther up toward the main road I heard the tinny sound of a car door slamming. I kept calm and waited until whoever it was had time to get to where they were going. I took my keys out of the ignition and dropped them into my bag. It was a stroke of luck that my car was old, old enough to be “hot-wired,” an easy stealer. I doubled up some tissues and wiped the steering wheel and door handles clean of prints, the sort of thing a common thief might do. I didn’t want my prints to be the only ones on the car, better that there would be none. Then I got out and left the driver’s door open, as though the car had been abandoned in a hurry. Even in the dim light I could see a dark smearing of blood on the back bumper, and splatters of it on the paintwork. I think that I must have imagined that I could smell it, too.

  As I hurried away, the rain came on, a flurry of droplets that had slowed to a drizzle by the time I crossed the road alongside Hyde Park. My knee was still hurting, not as badly as earlier, just a dull sort of ache. I would put ice on it when I got back.

  It was late, but there were still cars and a few people about. So as not to draw attention to myself, I kept my head down and my pace steady. It was important to get this part right. If I were noticed anywhere near where I had left my car, I would be a suspect, perhaps the only suspect.

  It was quieter in my part of Mayfair. The restaurants were closed, their discreet clientele long since departed. On Green Street, a taxi sped by with its for hire light off, and behind the taxi a dark gray car crawled along the curb beside me for a bit, its driver asking through his opened window whether I fancied some company. I didn’t answer at first, didn’t look at him, but when he persisted I told him to fuck off or I would call the police.

  “Bloody women,” he shouted as he pulled away. “Fucking whores, the lot of you.”

  Safely back in my flat, I realized how tired I was. It was the kind of tired that empties you out, makes you tremble a little. I went to my window and opened the curtains, keeping my eyes raised. And there, outside, as ever, the black night, the world still turning, a giant poker wheel dispensing good fortune on the Beloveds. Not the downstairs Beloveds anymore, though. I had pitted my will against their luck, and won.

  If I were ever going to run, to get away from the scene, it should be now. But what would be the point? Even if someone had seen me earlier, what had he seen? A person, hood up, in a dim unlit area, stealing my car. If he had seen the couple being run over, then where were the police? I knew to trust my instincts. Everything around me was normal, as it should be: no commotion, no one banging on my door, the house silent. Perfectly, beautifully silent.

  I lowered my eyes to the scene of the incident. The couple had not been discovered. I could see in the shadows the outline of what looked like a discarded sack or two by the bins and knew that it was them.

  And suddenly, cutting through the night hush, came the violent whoop of a siren. I held my breath as the shriek faded into the distance. An ambulance perhaps, or the police on their way to some city ruckus. Nothing for me to worry about. I closed my curtains, made an ice pack for my knee, and poured myself a drink.

  25

  SHE WAS DEAD ON arrival, her head crushed beyond repair. He will be next, and soon. At least the police say that they don’t hold out much hope for him. If he ever wakes from his coma, it is likely he will be brain damaged.

  “It’s murder,” the male detective says. “The bastard wanted them dead.”

  “I don’t think I want to live here anymore,” I say to the policewoman in uniform, in my best Mayfair Lady voice.

  I notice some sort of coded look between her and the detective. I wonder if they have their suspicions, but I don’t think they do. It is probably more about sympathy for me than anything else.

  “I understand,” she says. “I wouldn’t want to myself. Do you have someone you can call on to stay with you?”

  “Not really,” I say. “But I will be all right. It is shocking, the kind of people that are out there, isn’t it?”

  She gives a nod and shrugs. “What a world, eh?”

  “Poor things. Who found them?” I ask.

  “An electrician,” she says. “He was pretty shaken up. Kept saying he only came to fix the parking lot lights.”

  “Oh yes,” I say. “I noticed they had been vandalized.”

  She stays for a while after the detective has left. “Shall I put the kettle on?” she asks, as though she is used to making herself at home, used to dealing with damaged people. She has a habit of sucking air through her teeth, which I find rather unpleasant.

  “Oh, yes of course, how kind,” I say. “It is me who should be offering you.”

  I have succeeded in charming her. I can tell she likes me, but I don’t trust her. She sneaks questions into her conversation in a dogged sort of way that tells me she is not one to accept things at face value.

  What do I know about the American upstairs? she asks. When is he returning? Would I go over my memories of the night it happened again? Perhaps I remember some lit
tle detail that would help. Did I ever argue with the poor young couple?

  I will not be caught out by her. I tell her that we were not always on good terms, and that they were quite a noisy young couple, but that we had settled our disagreements and become rather friendly of late.

  “I’m often asked downstairs for coffee, the odd meal,” I say. “Oh, I mean, w-was often asked,” I stutter.

  I say I liked her, young Angela, for that is her name, that she and her husband, Tom, were a charming pair when you got to know them, and that it felt good to have such people in the building. It was the first time I had said their names out loud. I hoped that I had managed to infuse the sound of them with familiarity. Angela and Tom. Poor Angela and Tom. Dear Angela and Tom.

  “Before they moved in,” I tell her, “it was often just me alone in the building.”

  “A bit scary,” she says.

  “Yes.” I swallow hard, take a deep breath as though I am about to cry. “And now look what has happened.”

  She is ready with the tissues. Suggests counseling: the fallback for every disaster, it seems. She can arrange it if I want. What faith people put in other people. It makes no sense at all.

  “Not an easy thing to get over,” she says sympathetically. “A terrible, terrible thing.”

  * * *

  AND NOW HERE SHE is at my door again. Hubby has gone, left this life. I can tell that she has been crying. Strange, since she didn’t know him. Very unprofessional.

  “He never regained consciousness,” she says. She raises her shoulders, opens her hands, her distress thick in the air. Her lips are quivering a little. She is unfathomable to me.

  “Inquiries go on, but so few leads. We are hopeful, but—” Her jaw is drawn tight, her big brown eyes widened as though in surprise. She can’t stop moving, distributing her weight from one foot to the other, as though she is steadying herself. It makes me feel a little queasy. I have trouble holding her gaze.

  I mimic her concerned face, reach for a tissue, would re-create her tears if I could. I picture the burned-up remains of Pipits and manage to moisten my eyes.

  “It is obviously a lad from the big estate where the car was found,” she tells me. “Nobody’s giving anything away, though. Snitches end up crippled or dead there.”

  “The big estate?” I ask.

  “Islington,” she says. “Sounds posh, I know, but it’s rough in parts. If it wasn’t for the murder, I would have said boy racer, although they usually go for something smarter. Sorry, but they do.”

  “Oh, that’s fine,” I say. “I’ve had that car for years. Seemed daft to change it when it was so reliable.”

  “Well, I expect that you will get it back soon.”

  “Not sure that I want it anymore.”

  I can hardly believe it. Some idiot actually did steal my car. Some creep up to no good in Bayswater saw the opportunity of an easy ride home and took it. I feel so lucky. An oasis of pleasure, water welling in what was previously a dry desert.

  The police are sticking with their original idea that some small-time criminal, slinking around Mayfair, wanted to get home in a hurry but was caught out by my law-abiding neighbors in his attempt to steal my car. Fearing discovery, he heartlessly did them in. Hah!

  Wrong area, wrong theory, but whoever he is, the little crook has done me a favor.

  “It’s odd that his fingerprints are not on record,” the policewoman says. “You would have thought someone who could murder like that would be on record for something. It’s strange that yours are not on the wheel, though. We think he must have cleaned it off once, and then gone back for some reason and neglected to wipe his off again. Maybe he left something in the car.”

  “I have no words, Officer,” I say, and head toward the bathroom. “Excuse me for a moment.”

  “My name’s Anita,” she says. “Call me Anita.”

  I lock the door behind me and hug the knowledge to myself. I give a little skipping dance around the bathroom. My body feels light; I am almost happy. I hadn’t realized how worried I had been. Hubby might have proved to be a medical miracle, sat up with mind intact and pointed his finger. Now he has been dismissed, rubbed out of the picture. And my car actually was stolen. I could hardly have hoped for more.

  My disagreeable passage through my life is over. It is the aftermath and I am free. I feel like throwing everything off, Mayfair Lady, life in this testing city I have tired of. I think about selling the apartment, selling Alice’s house, and starting out fresh.

  I hold the dear little leather box close to my chest and tell my plans to House. We agree that it is time to make Henry disappear, to claim our land. I have been thinking I might let Pipits’ earth sleep fallow, let the weeds reign. With the Bygones dismissed, it could lay undisturbed. As to their pretentious house, that creature will be allowed to decay, to be eaten up by Stash earth.

  Then, after, what? I wonder if I could live abroad. The South of France, perhaps, some warm little town with not too many tourists. I might marry again. Not someone old like Bert; I couldn’t bear all that sloppiness again. Old men are soft; they cry too easily. Someone nearer my own age would be better. Anything is possible now. It is the end. It is the beginning.

  26

  YOU MUST COME TO us,” Gloria said on the phone. “You shouldn’t be alone after such a terrible event.”

  It has surprised me that the so-called murder has been in the papers and on the television news, as though it is of national interest. News these days is absurd, not news at all: endless pictures of talentless girls preening in their naked selfies, celebrities on the red carpet telling us who designed their outfits, stories of welfare cheats and bigamous marriages. Everything must be reported, even accidents in private parking areas, it seems.

  “I’ll come soon,” I reassured Gloria. “No need for you to worry. I’m fine, just a bit upset, of course.”

  “Shall I come to you?” she offered.

  “You could, I suppose. Maybe bring Noah,” I said, before I remembered that if Anita called, she would expect Mayfair Lady, the alter ego my sister has never met.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t like that,” she laughed. “Honestly, Betty, Noah can wreck a room in seconds. The thought of him in your lovely flat gives me nightmares.”

  “Well, I’ll come to you, then, after all,” I said quickly, and then changed the subject. “So Henry is doing well?”

  “Ever expanding,” she crowed. Of course she was referring to his business, not his waistline.

  And she wasn’t just boasting, or playing the role of supportive wife. I saw one of Henry’s pieces in Liberty’s some months ago, a shallow translucent bowl in an enchanting shade of blue with streams of cream rippled through it. It was perfection—overpriced but really stunning. Something has happened to Henry’s talent; it has turned from minor to major. I think that I can take a bit of the credit for that. Henry needed to suffer a little, to dig deeper to discover what he is capable of doing.

  I’m not looking forward to seeing him, but I need to get out of the city for a bit, so needs must. I’ve noticed that a couple, married from the look of them, dressed in a budget version of country—tweeds, waxed jackets—have been to the dead couple’s former flat. I’d say they were Hubby’s relatives: the woman had the look of him, short and solid. I saw them enter and watched them leave a couple of hours later, with some suitcases. Shortly afterward, a moving van arrived and took away the furniture. There has been no sign of the landlord. Anita says he is out of the country, but they have been in touch. He is devastated, apparently.

  I have placed a bouquet outside Hubby and Wifey’s door. A card with it reads rest in peace, dear neighbors. I chose the flowers carefully, pure white blooms, roses and Madonna lilies, a buttery satin ribbon tied in a generous bow around crisp snowy tissue. Bert would have approved.

  Anita was inspired by my gesture to do the same. A bunch of mixed flowers with that plastic ribbon they use to decorate wedding cars. Hers rather spoiled the prist
ine charm of mine.

  * * *

  I HAVE INFORMED THE police, through Anita, that I will be away for a week or so. They seemed indifferent to my announcement. I am neither witness nor suspect, so no need to report to them anything of my comings and goings.

  “I’ll let you know if anything new crops up,” Anita says. “You go and enjoy yourself. Try to forget it for a bit. Nice for you to be with family.” I can tell she is surprised that I have any.

  I drive the rental car, with my little leather box strapped in the seat beside me, along the slower, prettier route, on the old road to Cold-Upton. Motorways are hideously boring, with mindless people flooring their cars and oldies causing accidents by going too slow. In any case, I want to see the last of the cherry blossom giving way to the laden boughs of hawthorn that is often referred to as May blossom. I’ve always felt it is the blossomiest of all the blossoms.

  The weather is warm, hotter than I have ever known it at this time of year. And I have timed it just right; the May blossom is out in the hedgerows, white snow, pink candyfloss. I remember once as a child picking swags of it for Mother. It was a dazzling present that I thought would impress her. I was excited to have thought of the gift and knew something like it would never have occurred to Gloria. But Mother was appalled at my offering. She wrinkled her nose, shook her head, and said that she couldn’t have it in the house.

  “Silly girl,” she scolded. “Don’t you know that it is unlucky to bring May inside?”

  Mother was full of such foolish notions: a hat on the bed brings bad luck, a bird in the house is a sign of death, an acorn on the window ledge keeps lightning out. I have no truck with such dippy superstitions myself. I was surprised that Mother, who, despite her failings, was smart, had put faith in them. Gloria is no better. I have seen her nod and say, “Morning, Captain” to a magpie, seen her caution Henry for walking under a ladder.