The Survivor

  It was not until she had made absolutely sure there was no chance of his recovery that she would call in the doctor again. She would say the attack had come suddenly, that her husband had been fine over the past couple of weeks although a little more tired than usual, and that he had just collapsed without any warning. She wouldn’t mind his being taken to hospital for she knew that even if they discovered the cause of his malady, there was no known antidote for paraquat. Whether there would be grounds for a post-mortem or not after his death, she wasn’t too sure. But then, she didn’t really care; she just wanted him to die. Painfully.

  Cyril Platt was younger than her – he thirty-six, she forty-three – but when they had married only five years before they had agreed that the difference in age did not matter at all to their relationship. And it hadn’t. It had been Cyril’s strange demands that had made the difference.

  She had seen Cyril for the first time gazing at a tiny and delicate figurine displayed in the window of her antique shop in Eton’s High Street. She had continued to look through a stack of various local newspapers she had sent to her each week, making a list of the various bazaars, jumble sales or village fêtes that were to take place during the following week. She knew, as did other antique dealers, that it was at events such as these that rare and valuable collectors’ items could be found and she spent a large part of her time travelling around the country to such functions. Competition in the trade was fierce and, since antiques had become fashionably popular, it was becoming even more so, especially in Eton where there were many similar shops. Since her father had died, leaving her to carry on the business, she had had time for little else but work.

  Occasionally, she glanced up from her task to see if the young man was still there and, for some reason other than business, hoped he would come into the shop. Too often people stared through the window, their eyes lovingly examining the objects displayed, and too often they wandered on to the next shop along without bothering to come in. Even if they did, there was never any guarantee they would buy: antique shops were similar to bookshops – there for browsing but not necessarily for buying. It had infuriated her when she was younger that people could spend so much time examining – even worshipping – these treasures, asking questions, fondling them, and then walk out of the shop as though they had been merely passing the time of day. But her father had taught her never to harass or even try to influence a potential customer, and never, under any circumstances, to bargain over an object. Their profession was too dignified for that sort of thing: they could leave that to the street traders.

  Her father had been a man to fear and respect. Even to this day she was not sure if she had ever loved him. Her two elder sisters had left home because of his tyrannical strictness. A deeply religious man, he had ruled their home with a rod of iron, a rod that had never tempered or softened even after their mother had died. He was from the Victorian era, an age he had loved because of its moral codes, its revulsion at the abnormal, its firmness of character, the dominance of the man as head of the household. It had driven her sisters away, one to Scotland, the other abroad somewhere (there had been no contact since), but she herself had relished his rule over them. She needed to be dominated just as he needed to dominate and, in that respect, they fulfilled each other’s needs admirably. His death had left her alone and afraid – yet strangely relieved.

  Perhaps it was because after the years of welcomed oppression she now felt her penance was done. Penance for what? She did not know, but her father had taught her every human was born with guilt, of a need for atonement, and this shaped their lives in some form or other. The true Christian repaid most of his debt during his own lifetime; the others repaid it after their deaths. She felt that she had repaid most of her debt during his lifetime. And now that he was gone, now that the arrogant, vigorously masculine dominance had been lifted from her life, she was acutely susceptible to the gentleness of someone like Cyril.

  Emily looked up sharply as the little bell above the door tinkled and he stepped into the shop. She smiled politely at him and he smiled politely back. She returned to her search through the local journals but her brain was busy collating the material it had gathered on his appearance. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Tall, but slightly built. Not very handsome, but pleasing to look at. His clothes looked a size too large for him, though comfortable because of it. His hands were tucked deeply into his jacket pockets. Married? (Why should she wonder?) She wasn’t experienced enough to judge.

  A shadow was cast over the newspapers, she heard him clear his throat, and, when she looked up, she found him smiling apologetically down at her. He asked her about the figurine and whether she had its matching statuette. Much to her embarrassment she replied she hadn’t known it was one of a set and asked if he himself could tell her more about the statuette. He could, and did, and very soon they were engaged in a lively and interesting conversation about antiques and their sources. Their association – for it was just an association at first – soon blossomed into a shy romance; she found in him the tenderness that had been lacking in her father, and he found in her the inner fortitude that was lacking in himself. Within three months they were married and their first three years were mildly happy with no extremes of either joy or misery.

  Lovemaking was a new experience to Emily and, disappointingly, an unwelcome one; she endured, but rarely enjoyed because the whole act somehow seemed to be a betrayal of her father’s teachings. No, not just that. A betrayal of her father.

  Unfortunately, as her passion had simmered passively and finally waned and died, Cyril’s appetite had intensified, almost as if her very passivity increased his excitement. As a stranger to sex, she could only guess that his demands were not quite normal but, after three years, when he seemed not to care so much whether she considered it normal or not, Emily knew there was something positively wrong. In the past, he had never seemed eager to consummate their lovemaking inside her, indeed, had seemed reluctant to do so. This had not unduly worried her for she felt no strong desire to have his sticky fluid filling her body, but the alternative was equally unpleasant and definitely more unsightly. He had pleaded with her to use her hands on him, almost crying when she wouldn’t, demanding she fulfil her duties as a wife. It was the word duty that always made her acquiesce to his wishes; obligation had been a familiar word to her throughout her life.

  And then he had wanted to use orifices other than the obvious for his climaxes. This had horrified and revolted her more than she could say, but strangely, his weakness had made him strong – if stubbornness could be called strength. She began to feel frightened of him: her father’s rages had been quiet but no less forbidding; Cyril’s were wild, emotional, and terrifying. Although he had never actually beaten her, the threat of violence was always there, his tantrums carrying him to the very edge of physical aggression. Emily had no alternative but to succumb. Raised in a devoutly religious atmosphere she now found it impossible to visit the church; how could she now she was a party to such perversion?

  And then, after three years of such torture, Cyril’s aberration took on an even worse aspect: he demanded that she beat him. Reluctantly, she had conformed but he had screamed that she was not trying – she was not hurting him. In fear, she had renewed her efforts and this time he had cried out in pain. And, oddly, his cry brought her pleasure. She had used the flat of her hand at first, but this was not enough – for her. Her eyes cast around for something that would give more pain, and they fixed upon a leather belt he had left (purposely?) by the side of the bed. She grabbed it and flayed him, rejoicing in his screams, venting the oppression of a lifetime on the thin, naked body that cowered away from her. The pity was that for all the agony – or perhaps because of it – he had enjoyed it, too, and when her anger had been spent, he begged for more. Disgust for herself, disgust for him, disgust for their life together, had swept through her, a sinking, grey misery enveloping and smothering her spirit. But now she was caught up
in the inextricable downward spiral of degradation. She lived the next two years in a state of abject wretchedness as his perversion inevitably grew worse. He developed a liking for being bound and locked up and then, perhaps worst of all, a penchant for wearing her clothes. Emily discovered this last trait of his when she went upstairs one day to the flat above the antique shop to make some tea for her afternoon break. She found Cyril in their bedroom admiring himself in the full-length wardrobe mirror. He was wearing her underwear, even her tights, and an obscene bulge pushed out against the thin material of her panties. He laughed at her shock (had he wanted her to discover him like this?) and she saw lipstick covered his ugly mocking lips.

  It would all have been very funny had it not been so pathetic. And real.

  Emily’s one small consolation throughout was that it had all been kept within the bounds of their marriage; but now, even that was changing. He had begun to go out on his own in the evenings, something he’d rarely done in the past. She soon found out, through the suspicious and secretly delighted reports of some of the few friends she still had, he was keeping the company of some very dubious young men in Windsor. As a slight relief, his demands on her became less frequent although his desire for anal sex increased. It was perfectly obvious, even to one of her sheltered upbringing, that he had finally formed homosexual relationships with other men. She now understood that this is what their own sexual relationship had been about: he had tried to hide the stigma of his weakness from himself, but had tried to achieve the results of it through their marriage. It was inevitable that the path he had chosen would eventually lead to the one he had tried to avoid. And most perverse of all, the fact she tried to keep from herself but finally had to admit, was that she now felt cheated, cuckolded.

  Had it really all been against her will? Perhaps so at the start – but later? Why hadn’t she left him or thrown him out when his deviations had become extreme? They were questions she found impossible to answer and the guilt weighed heavy on her conscience. The fact of her own normality, the fact she had desperately clung to through all those years, was now gone. Her soul had been bared and she found it as unclean as his. So not only did she have to contend with his unfaithfulness, but she had also to deal with the consequent self-revelations.

  It was too much for her.

  The breaking point came when Cyril brought his lover home, into her house. Emily had returned late from a trip to one of the market towns that she frequently visited in search of rare antique bargains – bargains that were becoming increasingly more difficult to find for everybody seemed to know the value of these old pieces nowadays. She had parked the van in the yard at the rear of the shop and let herself in through the back door. Climbing wearily the stairs to their flat, she heard laughter coming from the lounge. When she’d opened the door she had been confronted by the two of them, their mocking, unashamed faces grinning up at her as she stood in the doorway. Cyril’s arm was draped around the shoulders of the younger man next to him and, as she watched, he slowly turned to him and kissed his cheek. Revulsion welled up inside Emily, and she fled downstairs to the darkness of the shop. She sank to the floor and wept, praying to her father, asking his forgiveness for her five-year revolt against his teaching, her revolt against his authority.

  That had been four weeks ago, and that had been when she’d decided to kill Cyril.

  Strangely enough, the tragic air crash the following week had made it easier. If life was so valueless that it could be taken on such a grand scale, what did the taking of one sick and perverted life matter? It somehow made the murder a small thing.

  Emily already knew about the weedkiller and the lethal paraquat it contained, for her father had been a keen gardener and she knew it was relatively easy to obtain, even though it had a restricted sale. It was usually sold only to farmers and agriculturists who were obliged to sign a ‘poisons book’ at any store they bought it from. However, it was easy for Emily to convince the shop staff when she next visited a market town she was a genuine buyer, and she falsified her name and address in their special book. She walked out of the store with a quart bottle of the poison, enough to kill hundreds of people.

  She watched Cyril slowly die over the next few weeks with grim satisfaction, keeping the doses as small as possible in an attempt to keep the deadly process going for as long as possible. He had given her five years of torment, culminating in the terrible realization of her own guilt; she would give him as many weeks of physical torture as she could.

  The poison attacked his throat and stomach first, damaging his kidneys and liver, causing his lungs to fill with fluid, making breathing almost impossible. His hair began to fall out and gradually he began to lose his sight and the power of speech. Emily had a brief moment of anxiety when Cyril’s boyfriend had called in at the shop asking for him. She had told the young man that Cyril had gone away on a tour of the country in search of collectors’ curios, a normal enough venture. He had shrugged his shoulders in a petulant way; he wasn’t that interested anyway, and if Cyril couldn’t be bothered to let him know, well . . . He had flounced from the shop. Another time, she had heard a clatter from upstairs and had rushed up to find Cyril lying on the floor of the lounge beside the telephone. Fortunately, he had been too weak to make the call, but it indicated he knew full well what was happening, a fact that pleased her enormously.

  And today, she knew she would administer the final dose. The consequences of her action didn’t really matter too much to her; if she could get away with his murder, fine, if not – at least she had made him suffer for the humiliation he had caused her, and she herself was prepared to pay for her own sins over the last few years.

  Emily stirred the hot soup containing the Gramoxone; even though they both knew her intentions, the pretence had to be kept up. He would try to resist her feeding him, but she would force the soup down his throat with tiny spoonfuls that would not spill too much. He was too weak to fight her. Emily poured the soup from the saucepan into a bowl and placed the bowl on a tray. She added a cruet of salt and pepper to the tray and, as an afterthought, she broke up a bread roll and put it on a small plate beside the soup. She smiled at her own slyness, then lifted the tray and made for the bedroom. She had given up sleeping in the same room now and taken to spending the night on the sofa in the lounge; the smell in the bedroom had become unendurable for any length of time.

  She paused at the bedroom door and placed the tray on the floor before it; she had forgotten the tea-cloth and she would need it to wipe away the soup that would run down his cheeks and chin as he tried to avoid drinking. Returning from the kitchen with the cloth over her arm, she stooped down to pick up the tray again. It was then that Emily thought she heard whispering coming from the bedroom.

  She pressed her ear closer to the door. There was silence for a few moments then the voices started up again, low, indistinct. It couldn’t be: no one could have entered his room, it would have been impossible without her seeing them. But his voice had become barely audible over this past week. Then she heard a shuffling noise, like something, some object, being dragged towards the door. Had he somehow found the strength to move from the bed, a last desperate attempt to save himself? She reached for the door-handle and pushed the door inward with a rush.

  Cyril stood facing her, his pale, emaciated body grotesque in its nakedness. His eyes were enlarged, bulging from their sunken sockets, his cheekbones protruding through the tautly stretched skin, and the hollow cavities that once were cheeks emphasized the wide, grinning mouth. Yet it wasn’t a grin; his mouth only took on that shape because the tightened skin had drawn back the flesh to reveal the bared yellow teeth. The sparse tufts of hair remaining on his scalp completed the skull-like appearance. He had the face of the dead.

  Emily screamed as he raised a trembling arm towards her. Fear, hate – it was both, but hate dominated – welled up inside her. She ran forward, her arms flailing at the obscene thing that was her husband. They went down in a heap on the floor,
Emily still beating and screaming at him. Would she never find an escape from this creature, this perverted monster who had ruined her life? Would even his death be a punishment to her? Now she was sobbing as she beat down on his still form and her blows began to slow, had less force behind them, until finally, they stopped altogether.

  She crouched over him, her knees straddling his body, her arms on either side of his head supporting her weight, hair hanging down, lightly brushing against his face. She could see only the whites of his half-closed eyes and no breath came from his gaping, grinning mouth. Emily threw herself away from the stiffened body, its cold touch suddenly filling her with revulsion. She lay with her back against the wardrobe, the huge mirrored wardrobe he had so often paraded himself disgustingly in front of. Her breath came in heavy gasps, and faint sobs escaped from her lips. She looked at the body with utter loathing. He was dead. Thank God he was finally dead.

  He lay with his arms by his sides, his legs obscenely sprawled, and his half-closed sightless eyes looking up at the ceiling. She couldn’t understand how his skin had become so cold to the touch, nor how his limbs had stiffened so quickly. Perhaps the poison had caused their reactions prematurely, before the life had even left his body. But it didn’t matter; he was gone now – gone from her life for ever. And even if she was found out and had to pay the lawful penalty, prison was a purer punishment than the one she had been suffering all these years.