The Little Death

by Sarah Till

  ‘Yes. Gabriel saved my life. He came in just as David attacked me. He was trying to strangle me.’

  ‘Right. Look, you need to go to hospital, have some pictures taken of those injuries. We’ll be able to use them in court, to prevent bail. I have to ask you, Patti, will you press charges?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

  The room spins as finally it feels like it’s over.

  ‘How long has this been going on? Why didn’t you report it?’

  I think back to the first time it happened, and my meeting with a liaison officer from social services. There were no marks by the time I’d waited for an appointment to see her, no visible marks. But inside I was bubbling with fear. I told her that he was going to kill me, that he had threatened me, hit me, bit me. It felt good to finally get it out, have someone listen to me. A strange thing happened that day. She told me that it was just a figure of speech, that he really wasn’t going to kill me. Was I a little bit neurotic, after all, I had just lost a baby? She’s dawdled with her pen, hovering over the report sheet, not quite believing me, as I willed her to make it real, make it appear somewhere when later on, it all crashed down on me, there would be proof.

  Seeing is believing. I suddenly realised that it’s a bit like the behaviour of the moor. You can study the birds, the animals, the heather, even the soil, but you can never understand why it’s alive, how it lives, until you see the extra something putting all this together creates. Until then, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a collection of odds and ends of nature, but standing on the lip of the valley, looking into the vast heath, you get a sense of life. I vaguely wondered if that was why people in bad relationships have children, as if to bring their relationship to life? Was this what I was trying to do, trying to show David the alternative to his cruelty? If the social worker had written down my story, what I had told her that day, the molecules of her pen and paper would have merged with each other, and with the two of us, to form meaning, to give a solid reality to what was happening to me. Somewhere, in buff file, in a filing cabinet, someone would have known, and maybe triggered the chain reaction, the butterfly effect of stopping David.

  I knew then, when she didn’t write it down, when she dismissed me as neurotic and attention seeking, I knew somewhere inside that it wouldn’t stop. Why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you tell the police? Why? Why? It’s a vicious circle. I believed him when he said he would kill me. Now, in a strange way, I’m pleased I am right. I’m pleased that he is how I said he was, a cruel psychopath hiding behind the disguise of a mild-mannered music teacher. I stare at DC McGuiness.

  ‘I did report it. I can find the date in my diary. But no one believed me. No one came.’

  I go to the hospital and they check me over. There are no serious injuries, just one stitch to my upper ear. They take some photographs and a young nurse stands in. She looks at my hair.

  ‘Whoa. That knife must have been sharp. It’s made a straight cut. You’ve started a new fashion!’

  It’s inappropriate and she knows as soon as she’s said it, but I smile.

  ‘Have you got a pair of scissors? Can you just cut it straight across? I’ll go to the hairdressers and have it styled.’

  I watch in the mirror as she cuts off the rest of my hair to a level. It was still shoulder length, but somehow it makes me look older. I know that as soon as it’s wet it will be shorter still, and much curlier.

  ‘There. We’re finished. Actually, that really suits you. You look, well, different. Really pretty.’

  I thank her and it’s time to go. I get in the back of a police car and the drive back is silent. I’m still wired, and not ready for sleep. There are even more police vans there now, and two officers in white suits are stripping David’s car. I go inside and Sarah is still there.

  ‘Ah. Here she is.’ Her head goes to one side, counsellor mode. ‘How are you feeling, Patti?’

  I ignore her and turn to DI McGuiness.

  ‘OK. What’s next?’

  ‘Well, we need to cordon off the back of your house as a crime scene. You can still live here if you want to, but we’ll be around for a while. And if you’re up to it, I need to ask you some questions about Gabriel Smythe.’

  Gabriel. Beautiful Gabriel. It suddenly dawned on me that I would never see him again. It wasn’t so long ago we’d made love upstairs, that we’d baked bread together and he’d told me his stories about the earth turning and stars with memories.

  ‘Mmm. What do you want to know? I only met him a couple of weeks ago. I don’t really know that much about him.’

  ‘OK, So when did you first see him?’

  I know that I first saw him as a child, in my father, in my grandfather, the good points we pick out and build a picture of someone we could love. Then as a teenager, I saw him in the dreams of my lover, a faceless imagining of someone perfect, someone I wished for when I found so many men who would fuck me and leave. Someone kind, but at the same time real. Someone I could be friends with, not be jealous of, someone who I could trust. I saw him when I was with David, his nemesis, a man who would let me be free, someone vulnerable and able to admit to his own mistakes. I know Gabriel would never have baulked at me running through the heather, screaming and laughing. He would have joined me. I first saw him in my own reflection, in my empty eyes, in the bottom of my soul. I first saw him the day he looked at me and looked like trouble. And when he loved me, his eyes bursting with starlight.

  ‘A week last Monday.’

  ‘And do you have a photograph of him?’

  Polly’s in my mind now, her sketches of Jimmy, a desperate attempt to capture a moment in time that had passed, lost forever. Where was she? She would have relished this, the opportunity to tell her story.

  ‘No there wasn’t really any time to...’

  Life spins back onto its heels now, and Sarah springs into action, grabbing the limelight and hogging the attention. She steps forward, wrapped in a blanket now, obviously naked underneath.

  ‘Erm, I wonder if I can help. It’s just that Gabriel and I were, well, close. We shared a moment.’ The officers looked at each other. ‘I know it’s not very fair on Patti, as she was with him when, well, he passed over.’ She holds the blanket closed with one hand and makes an exaggerated ‘passing over’ wave behind her. Witchy mode. ‘The thing is, we filmed it. I like to watch myself back on film, to improve my techniques, and well it’s in my archive. You’re welcome to view it.’

  DI McGuiness sighs.

  ‘So you’ve filmed yourself sleeping with Mr Smythe?’

  ‘Yes. You seem shocked. I’m surprised that you’re not a little bit more open minded, Detective Inspector, after all you must have seen some things in your time. I did film us, yes, but I film lots of men. Of course, I don’t need a man, I’m a great believer in self-expression...’

  She fades off into the distance as I go upstairs and fetch the book. I open it at the right page and remove Polly’s picture of my house. It’s nice and flattened now, and I put it on one side, along with Polly’s story. There he is. He’s looking out at me, a small smile on his lips, his eyes bright. I don’t want to let him go, but then I remember that I can have him anytime I want to. I’ll never forget him. When I come downstairs, Sarah is telling the gathered audience about Japanese women and their views on self-love. I hand the picture to DI McGuiness.

  ‘There you are. Please take it. It’s a very good likeness.’

  Sarah tuts.

  ‘Well, I suppose it does resemble him but...’

  ‘Thank you Patti. Did you draw this?’

  I nod.

  ‘You must love him very much. I’m sorry. Very sorry.’

  I smile. I loved him a little. But I love the hope he gave me more.

  ‘Slightly more embarrassing, I kept a hair. When I thought he’d left, I picked it off the pillow, sort of desperate I know. It might help you, you know?’

  He summons the forensics people and they put the hair in a bag. DI Mc
Guiness melts into the gathering crowd in my house and I suddenly feel alone. I look out of the open window and Sarah is talking to the newsmen now, a camera on her.

  ‘Of course, I was very close to Gabriel. I’m pregnant with his child.’

  I shut the window to drown her out. My ear is throbbing and I need to sleep. It’s going to be difficult with all these people around, but no doubt they would leave soon, back to their families and children. I think of Polly and of her settling into an old people’s home. ‘We have to carry on, lovey. We have no choice.’

  Morning comes and I get up as usual. There’s a piece of yellow tape with ‘do not cross – crime scene’ around the back of the barn and the TV van is still outside, but apart from that, nothing is really different. I go outside and see to the apiary, check the nesting boxes, fill in my sheets. The moon is full now, dipping below the horizon as the earth turns and the sun appears around the other side. It’s warm, and I stand outside until the journalists try to talk to me. I’ve always wanted to say ‘no comment’, and I do. I constantly feel for my hair, but it falls on my shoulders instead of on my back, and I feel slightly overexposed. They rush away as they hear a car approach, but it just a Royal Mail Van. Crowding around the poor posty, they shout, ‘What was David Anderson really like?’ and ‘Did you know the abductor?’

  He eventually hands me some envelopes, mostly bills and bank statements, some for David, a reminder of what my life had been until now. I look out onto the moor and see the red grouse taking flight, and higher, a kestrel swooping down. Today would be a good day to run and scream and curse, but it would just attract attention, lots of people walking over the plane wreckage, and there were enough death tourists already. I stare at the last letter, a wide white envelope, and recognise Polly’s handwriting. It’s addressed to Gabriel, and I know I should really give it to the police, as part of the evidence. But hadn’t I taken his place? Wasn’t Polly mine now? She’d see all this in the papers and come back, wouldn’t she? I tear it open and begin to read.

  Thank You and Goodnight

  Dear Gabriel and Patricia

  I’m sorry this isn’t better news. I’m in the hospice now and they said it’s a matter of days. I tried to pack everything up but it’s a bit of a mess. I told Carrie, my home-help, that a cousin had turned up so she wouldn’t come back and throw it all out.

  The thing is, I’ve left the house to you two. My solicitor knows. You can do what you want with it, of course, but I didn’t have anyone else.

  I don’t know why but I feel like I want to give someone the benefit of my wisdom before I go wherever you go. But if you’re not interested, and I know some folk aren’t, then you can stop reading here.

  You see, I thought I’d made a lot of mistakes. I lay awake at night feeling guilty and trying to put things right in my head. I felt bad about my parents and Annie and Jack. And Colin. Poor bloody Colin. But it turns out the only mistake I made was not realising that if they didn’t like it, they could bugger off. Annie did. Colin didn’t. Me mam and dad were too drunk to know.

  What I’m trying to say is it’s not all down to me. Or you. It takes two to tango and no one is responsible for the other person. Colin stayed because he wanted to. Annie left because staying would have sent her mad. I stayed with Colin because it was a good thing. I know that now.

  And Jimmy, well, who knows. I still think he died, but lying here, on my way out, I have to admit that he could have not got on that plane. He could have been scared of marriage. He could have been sweet on that Irish girl or had someone else over there. Or just wanted a new start. I couldn’t accept any of it and that was my problem. It had to be me. All the time. It was like constantly swimming against the tide.

  But some good did come out of it and I hope some good comes for you two.

  I’ll probably be gone by the time you read this. Go and feed them starlings and I’ve left some other bits and bats to do if you would be so kind.

  Anyway, it’s goodbye from me now. It was lovely knowing you for a short time and I hope you can do something with the things I have left for you. I’ve popped my house key in this envelope and sent it recorded, that nice social worker posted it for me, and I’ve left the back door open just in case Jimmy does come back to find me. Just kidding. But you never know in this life, do you? We have to carry on.

  Love – and I mean that – Polly.

  PATTI

  The end of summer – the hibernation of the heath

  After the high drama of spring and summer, with the competition and balancing reaching a climax, the autumn brings the flames and the famine. When it’s nearly time for hibernation, nature prepares for the next season.

  The seeds from the heather are stored in the ground inactive until a certain day length coincides with an optimum temperature. The heather lies on the moor throughout the year in one form and another, and the moorland fires will eradicate most of the woody growth and scrub above ground. The seeds remain buried beneath the flames, safe in the peaty land until the next time for growth.

  Other plants are brought to the moors in the excretion of birds and on the coats of mammals. They are deposited around the moor in the natural habitats of the animals and, again, are activated in spring at the conjunction of heat and light, the natural rhythm cause by the turning of the earth.

  The moor is a dangerous place for its inhabitants, in terms of archeology, botany and entomology, ornithology and mammalogy. Yet, if the balance between earth, being and sky is maintained, a seed can form in even the most barren moorland.

  The end of summer, the time when the days become shorter and colder, signals death on the heath. A little death of hibernation, where the birds fly away from the cold and the animals sleep. For the worker bees in the hive there is death, but not for the queen, who sleeps in the waxy warmth until next year. The solitary bee will hibernate and emerge ready for a new season in the spring. It affects not only the insects and animals and birds, but also the vegetation and soils. The heather and scrub are fired, or die away, and the seeds are submerged in nature’s refrigerator, on ice until the spring signals new life. This is merely a little death, Le Petite Mort – for the seeds, a time to lie in serenity, waiting for the wheel to turn and the conditions to gel.

  The ground itself, often overlooked because of its attractive adornment, is a celebration of life; even beneath the heather and the scrub there is a cycle of life, a chemistry that evokes life and death itself, a natural thermostat for the vegetation, which in turn nourishes the living beings. The earth, the plants the creatures the sky, the sun and the moon; living unaided by human animals to this day yet contributing to human life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I pull the door to, closing in the smell of tobacco smoke.

  Almost two weeks ago, when I first turned the key in the Yale lock of Polly’s home. Yet been fractured, broken by life. David had been arrested detained in custody. The forensics people had opened the corn chute and found clothes and belongings from the missing people. Leanne, Gabriel and Samantha. DI McGuiness had told me that David was still blaming me, and I’d been to the station and given a full statement.

  ‘He’s saying that you were jealous, checking his phone and emails all the time. Always accusing him of having affairs. He said Gabriel appeared in his local pub one day and started chatting to him, all about how his girlfriend was cheating and he had nowhere to live. He offered him a room for a couple of weeks. His story is that you abducted your cousin and when Gabriel Smythe found out about it, you killed him. Then Samantha. He says you’re mad, and that he’s pleaded with you to see someone. He’s adamant it’s you who did this. But of course, that’s not what happened, is it?’

  I nod and smile at this point. What else can I do? It’s emerged that Gabriel was a private investigator. He had been hired by Uncle Trevor and Auntie Jean and had befriended David after seeing old CCTV footage of him and Leanne in a club. DI McGuiness’ lip had curled when he told me.

  ‘Private I
nvestigator. Mercenary. Do anything to get what they want, them sort. They don’t play by the rules.’

  So true. Gabriel hadn’t played by the rules. Especially not at first. I wished he had told me what he knew; maybe he was on the brink of telling me everything? It didn’t surprise me, really, I’d always known he hadn’t appeared just for me. It explained why he was so priapic when he first arrived; I suspect that only I saw the true Gabriel, gentle and caring, and this comforts me a little.

  The police were very nice, but as I spoke to them and went through the details of mine and David’s life together, I could sense the air turn sour. When I told them about Leanne and the first signs of the affair, all those years ago, their pencils dithered over their notebooks, and they looked at each other. I told them that I had found them together, and that I had called Uncle Trevor recently and he had told me that Leanne was missing, presumed dead. There were no words exchanged, but it was clear that their preferred line of questioning was ‘why didn’t you do something earlier?’ I told them that Gabriel had told Polly that he had something on David, but DI McGuiness said it was hearsay, and if I didn’t know where Polly was, and we couldn’t contact her, then it was inadmissible.

  I asked them what would happen next. They just shook their heads and left the air of implication hanging over me. It was as if I had been implicated by association, trapped by my own fear of David, my inability to do something about him and my situation. I knew it was sheer terror, begging silently for my own life, while others saw it as facilitating a murderer.

  Along with all the other unanswered questions, their eyes asked me, ‘Why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you tell someone?’